CHAPTER SIX“HARRY NICHOLS”
CHAPTER SIX
“HARRY NICHOLS”
Detective Triggy Drew flushed slightly beneath his olive skin. He bowed, with his keen eyes fixed upon the little, ivory-handled revolver clutched so tightly in Loris Stockbridge’s right hand. He bowed for a second time. His eyes lifted and his brows arched as he said distinctly:
“Miss Stockbridge, something very serious has happened to your father. It happened in this library. It happened this morning. Won’t you please go back upstairs to your rooms until I call for you. At present I am in charge of matters.”
“Matters? What do you mean?”
The girl swayed slightly. She glanced down at the revolver as if she were unaware that it was in her hand. Drew advanced a step in her direction. He feared a woman and a gun more than anything else in the world. Both were liable to form a dangerous combination.
“Something happened,” he repeated. “I’m very sorry for you, Miss Stockbridge.”
“Happened!” she exclaimed. “Happened to him? You don’t mean that letter—that telephone call—do you?”
Loris’ splendid, dusky eyes, within the depths of which high lights shone, wandered over the polished table. They fastened upon the envelope from the cemetery company. They fixed where the letter lay with one corner beneath the center piece. They lifted in thought. They swung toward the waiting detective who had placed himself between her and the body of her father. She divined this movement with quick intuition. She stepped to one side and bent downward with a graceful movement of her hips. She gasped and pointed a left hand finger, which wavered and went up to her hair as her palm pressed against the side of her head. She started sobbing—short, throaty sobs of poignant distress.
“Please don’t,” whispered Drew holding out a guarding arm. “Please don’t, Miss Stockbridge. Your father is beyond this earth. You should not have come down here.”
“Dead?”
The word came from the depths of a soul. “Dead?” she repeated with her taper fingers spreading across her face.
“Yes, Miss,” said Drew with a catch in his voice. “Yes, he is quite dead. He was slain in this room by a revolver shot which struck behindand under his left ear. No one was in the library when he locked himself in, save himself. No one was here when we broke the door down. And, save his servants and you, no one was in this house. He was––”
“Murdered!” Loris’ voice had lifted to one wild shriek of final conviction and grief. She swayed. Her knees bent beneath her skirt and bulged outwardly. She sank into a slow faint at the detective’s feet. She pillowed her head upon the rug. A silence followed.
Drew stooped, after a glance at the servants in the doorway, thrust his body as a barrier, and reached along Loris’ white arm until his hand closed over the barrel of the little revolver. He untwisted her cold fingers, and palmed the weapon under a shielding cuff. He rose, saying to Delaney, who had hurried forward:
“I’ll take charge of this.”
“Sure, Chief. Plant it. She didn’t have it.”
“She had it all right, but—we’ll suspend judgment. You and the butler carry her upstairs. Go easy. Her bedroom is on the third floor, I think. That’s the reason she didn’t come down sooner. Perhaps, well, I say, she didn’t hear us breaking down the door. We are her agents in this matter, now. Remember that, and say nothing to anybody. I’ll do the talking.”
Drew dropped his hand into his side pocket. It came out without the revolver but with a handkerchief between his fingers. He mopped his brow gracefully, then replaced the handkerchief. The motion was a natural one.
He followed Delaney and the butler with their soft burden as far as the first steps of the stairway. He turned and strode back to the doorway leading into the library. He faced about in this. He eyed the servants, who lowered their heads beneath his accusing scrutiny. Focusing his gaze to a searching squint he tried to single out a culprit from their midst. There seemed to be none. Each face was terror-lined and drawn. Each seemed to want to avoid his direct glance. None of all of them faced him with boldness or assurance. It was as he expected things to be. There was no evidence shown in the case that the servants of the Stockbridge régime had ever threatened the master. They were old, tried and trusted. They had the faults of their kind. These faults only served to strengthen Drew’s opinion that the murderer of the magnate had struck from the outside, without benefit of inside information. The letter and the telephone call were foreign. A note, pinned upon the millionaire’s pillow, would have been more effective. Nothing had been tried like that. This proved to Drew thathe could eliminate the servants, for the time being.
“Which one of you is the valet?” he asked with final resolve.
“I am, sir!”
Drew ran his eyes over an aged man in white vest and tight-fitting clothes which were studded here and there with gold-plated buttons. The fit of the stockings—the neatness of the low patent-leather shoes—the smartness and aloofness of the individual, caused the detective to smile slightly. The man was better dressed than his master.
“Your native country is Germany?” said Drew.
“It was, sir.”
“No, it is yet. You can’t change that part of it. When did you come to the United States?”
“Fourteen—fifteen years ago, sir. The master brought me from England where I was employed by the Right Honorable Arthur Sandhurst, sir.”
“You are now a naturalized American?”
“Going on thirteen years, sir.”
“Come down to my office about noon to-morrow. I want to speak to you then. I haven’t time now. Be sure you bring that magpie with you.” Drew turned and jerked his thumb towardthe front of the library. “Do you understand?”
“I do, sir!”
“That’s all!” exclaimed the detective. “One of you may stand by the door until Mr. Delaney returns. The rest may go downstairs. Remember, no talking to anybody but accredited police officers, who will soon be here.”
“I’ll stand guard!” announced the second-man with a pompous voice. “Nobody’ll get by me, sir. I’ll ’ave them know I’m right ’ere, sir.”
Drew backed through the curtains as the second-man was speaking. He dropped them behind him and started another search, which was done in solitude and in silence. He went over everything in the library with the trained eyes of an operative who had learned his profession in many schools. He left deduction and surmise for a later hour. He was after cold facts which might lead to an answer to the riddle. He held, with some slight scorn, the theory of the armchair detective and the puzzle worked out by retrospection. His experience had been, that only through hard work could he expect to find his answer. He had been credited with visiting six hundred laundries in search of a certain mark. He had a note book filled with his failures to find the man he was after. The men he had found caused him no concern whatsoever.They had gone to prison and closed their accounts with him.
He applied hard work over the minutes to the case at hand. He went over the body of the aged millionaire. He took scrapings of the blood stains on the floor. He scratched up some few atoms of dried whisky. He examined the bottle. He searched each square inch under and about the body. He went through Stockbridge’s pockets and beneath his vest. He tried everything in the way of getting facts which might bear on the case. A tape measure furnished certain distances which were recorded upon the back of an envelope. His data was complete, insofar as he had time to go. He desired to spend at least twelve hours in the library. This could not be. The case would be taken from his hands within minutes. Already there was a stir in the front part of the house. The bell had been ringing for some time. Delaney and the butler had hastened forward to answer it.
“The Central Office bunch!” announced the operative, parting the curtains and staring in at Drew. “Here they are, Chief!”
The detective stepped briskly out of the room and glided through the foyer hall to the front door. Here Delaney joined him, as steps were heard coming up from the servants’ quarters as well as outside. It was as if a raid were in progress.
“Brass band methods!” said Drew. “You get out, Delaney, and go to our taxi. Stay there! I want to speak to Fosdick.”
The door opened. A burly form blotted out the light from the Avenue and stamped in, shaking the snow from his overcoat. It was Fosdick—Chief of Detectives.
“Hello,” he said cuttingly. “Hello, Drew! What’s this you’ve been giving me over the ’phone?”
The detective drew Fosdick aside and allowed five Central Office men to stream into the hallway.
“Go and see,” he suggested into the detective’s ear. “Go and see. I’ve left everything just as I found it. The body is still there. The servants have been kept in the house. Question them. I’m off, now. ’Phone me not later than eight this morning. I’ll be at my office. I’m acting in a private capacity. I’m protecting Loris Stockbridge—the sole heir!”
“Protecting!” exclaimed Fosdick. “What d’ye mean?”
Drew dropped his hand to his pocket and crammed down the little ivory-handled revolver. “Well,” he smiled broadly. “You know what I mean. She’s alone in this world—save for her friends. The old man called me in the case. I’m still in the case—remember that!”
Fosdick gulped hard. “All right,” he said,turning and peeling off his coat. “I’ll soon get to the bottom of this! Case looks easy to me. It’s suicide! That’s all it ever could be!”
Drew found his hat and coat where the butler had hung them. He went out through the front door without answering Fosdick. He crossed the Avenue on a diagonal which brought him to the waiting taxi where Delaney stood muffled to the chin. The two men climbed upon the running-board. The driver started up with a jerk, from his frozen position in the snow. They rounded the block and stopped in front of the drug-store where Loris had met the officer.
The Central Office man who had taken O’Toole’s place had little to report. O’Toole had vanished toward the south. When last seen he was close on the heels of the man in olive-drab.
“Come on, Delaney,” said Drew at this information. “We’ll walk over to Fifth Avenue and then downtown. The driver can pick up our men in the alley. I want to clear my head of this muddle. A walk will do it!”
Delaney fell in behind his chief. They turned the corner. They struck through a side street and westward. They saw ahead of them the white expanse of untrodden snow, and beyond this the faint blue barricade of the Palisades.
The hour was after three. The crisp underfooting brought wine to their cheeks. The gripof winter air cleared both men’s heads like a draught of ether. They stepped out. Their shoulders went back. Their thoughts passed from the case at the mansion to other things. The night had been filled with a thousand disappointments. Greatest of these was the stabbing memory that they both had been picked by the multimillionaire to protect him and save him from his enemies. They had failed in this trust. Their patron lay dead, and somewhere a whispering voice chuckled over a victory.
“Fifth Avenue!” announced Drew as they reached the corner. “Now, downtown, Delaney,” he added cheerily. “Old Kris Kringle has nothing on us to-night. I believe we’re the only ones out.”
The operative caught his chief’s humor, and glanced into his face with a smile. “Whew!” he breathed. “Whew!” he repeated from the depths of his lungs. “I’m glad, Triggy, to get from that damn house and that damn magpie and that––”
“So am I!” said Drew, thrusting out his hand and linking his elbow into the cove of Delaney’s arm. “So am I. Fine night for the poor firm of Drew and Company.”
Delaney glanced around and over his left shoulder. He blinked with frosty lids as he saw the towering façades of Stockbridge’s mansion; its turrets and towers spiraled in the wintersky. He drew in his lips and compressed them. He puffed them out as he turned.
“I’m deducting,” he said, “that there’s more at the bottom of this thing than we think. Put it down for me that the Germans are mixed up in it.”
Drew walked on for a block before he answered. He gripped the operative’s arm by closing his own as he said:
“Quit deducting! It’s fatal! Get your facts! Get all of them. The answer will come then, without an effort. It will be the right answer or none at all.”
“Just the same, Chief––”
“The trouble with you,” broke in Drew severely, “the trouble is, that you are forcing a conclusion to meet your own suspicions. The Germans, with the exception of a small clique, are behaving very well in this country at the present time. In other words, the most of them are good Americans and sane.”
“That walley-sham?”
“He is not even under consideration! Did you notice him?”
“Sure, Chief!”
“Anything strike you as peculiar?”
“N—o.”
“There were tears in his eyes—the only ones shed in that house for Stockbridge—outside of the daughter.”
Delaney gulped. “I didn’t see them,” he said frankly.
“No! Well, I did—and when he wasn’t expecting me to see them. A woman is never wholly lost who can blush, or a man who can shed tears.”
“Sounds like good deduction,” admitted the operative. “But then, Chief, there are a lot of fine actors in this world. I think there has been some in this case.”
“This case, Delaney,” Drew said, “is like many others which appear at first impossible of solving. All things can be solved by first principles. Give me all the facts and I’ll give you the answer to any riddle. The answer will come! Don’t try to write your plot until you have words to form your story. Don’t make the mistake of forcing an answer to father a wish. In other words, Delaney, best of friends, we haven’t all the facts we are going to get in this case and therefore it is idle to attempt to deduce who shot Stockbridge!”
“Or how he was shot, Chief?”
“It’s almost the same thing. Both answers will come with hard work and plenty of it. We must keep along the main stem. Truth is a tree with many branches. It rises from the roots named cause, and reaches the top called effect. It springs from motive up to crime in one straight stem. We must trim away the branchesand the false-work, and then we can see the trunk.”
“There’s one I’d like to trim right now,” said Delaney, pausing in his snow-caked stride.
“Which one?” asked Drew.
“That noise in the library like a cat getting its tail twisted.”
“I can explain that!”
“It’s been driving me to drink, Chief.”
“The telephone company, Delaney, have a device they call a howler. They cut this device in on the wire when a receiver is left off the hook. It is simply a high-frequency current generated for the purpose of vibrating the receiver’s diaphragm until somebody hears the noise and puts the receiver back on the hook.”
“It’s a howler, all right, Chief!”
“Oftentimes a book or magazine gets under a receiver and lifts it up an inch or more. This attracts the attention of the central operator who thinks somebody is trying to get a number. When the situation is clear to her that the receiver is off the hook, or that the circuit is closed without anybody being at the receiver end, she notifies the wire-captain or chief-operator. It was either one or the other who put the howler on after Stockbridge was shot and the ’phone had fallen to the floor. Is that satisfactory? Does that explain the noise we heard in the library before we broke down the door?”
“I see now, Chief. I thought all along it was spirits like the rest of the job. Outside of spirits, what is the answer to the things that happened in that house? I know it. I deduct it, Chief. The old man was expecting somebody all of the time. He let this somebody into the library when the butler wasn’t looking. Maybe it was a woman, for all we know. Maybe a German spy. Maybe anybody. This somebody got in an argument with him over spoils on some deal, and shot him dead. That’s my idea, Chief!”
“You’ve missed your profession, Delaney. You’ve disgraced the firm! How did the library door get locked on the inside? How did that happen? Did Stockbridge, shot through the brain, rise and do it? It was mighty well locked—you remember!”
“I never thought of that,” admitted the operative. “Then it looks, Chief, as if it was a case of suicide.”
“Fosdick said the same thing without having many facts. How could a right-handed man shoot himself behind the left ear? How could he do a thing like that and then get rid of the weapon without leaving a trace of it? How—oh, well, get facts and you won’t ask such questions!”
“Then it was done by an outsider?” blurted Delaney, staring through the wind-blown snowwhich came off the housetops. “It was done by the fellow who ’phoned and wrote that letter, or had the letter written? I don’t see how he could do it!”
Drew smiled at Delaney’s candor. “Neither do I,” he said simply. “But we’ve crossed Forty-second Street and we’re on the trail by everyday, up-to-date methods which never fail if they are continued long enough and men work hard enough. We’ll start with Harry Nichols—the man in olive-drab! I’ve his address!”
CHAPTER SEVEN“THE SPOT OF BLACK”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“THE SPOT OF BLACK”
Delaney stepped behind his chief and followed in single file as the detective swung from the Avenue at Thirty-ninth Street and turned toward the east on the up-town side of the thoroughfare.
The snow had ceased falling from out the leaden sky. A roar came to them of the awakening city which was stirring in its last sleep. A tug whistled hoarsely somewhere on the East River. Its blare and signal echoed down the towering canyon. An answering rattle sounded from the Elevated. A milk wagon churned by. A deep-seagoing hansom-cab, of the vintage of ten years before, struggled along Madison Avenue as the two detectives paused on the corner and sought a pathway through the snow to the opposite side.
“Some night,” said the operative, pulling down his derby hat and facing Drew. “A hell of a night to be out. Good thing we walked, though. My head is clearing.”
“It needed clearing,” said the detective.“Some of your deductions were impossible. Whom do you suppose we’re going to meet here?”
“How should I know, Chief?”
“Guess!”
“Harry Nichols.”
“Who else?”
“Search me, Chief.”
“Who’s that over across the street in the shelter of the stoop? See! He sees us! You ought to know who that is!”
“He looks familiar,” admitted Delaney.
“It’s O’Toole!”
“That’s right, Chief. It is! He tailed the lad in the fur benny from the drug-store and came here. The lad in the drug-store was Harry Nichols. The thing works out all right.”
“Get over to the other side of the street and tell O’Toole that he can go home and get some sleep. Tell him to be at the office not later than eight o’clock—this morning. Get what information you can from him. This brownstone house with the sign out is our address. I’ll wait on the stoop.”
Delaney was over in three minutes. “All right,” he said cheerfully. “O’Toole says that Nichols left the drug-store and walked south. Trail led to Fred’s Old English Chop House where Nichols drank a split of mineral water and had a chop with a potato. He ’phoned twicebefore leaving. O’Toole don’t know where to. The booth was soundproof and all the lad did was to drop coins. He left a piece of paper in the booth. O’Toole got it. Here it is, Chief.”
Drew slanted a torn portion of envelope and studied its surface. He deciphered a scrawling handwriting into the words, “Loris, Loris, Gramercy Hill, Attorney Denman of Cedar Street, will consult with him in morning.... Drew’s Detective Agency ... look out.”
“Umph!” said Drew, pocketing the scrap of paper with a thoughtful frown. “That last may be a warning. Again it could be a mere notation. What else did O’Toole find, Delaney?”
“That’s all, except that he put the boy to bed here at about one o’clock. There’s a ’phone in Nichols’ apartment. O’Toole sneaked up the stairs and heard it ringing. He had to come down for fear of queering things. He said that’s all, chief.”
The detective turned and entered the storm-door. He struck a match and, shielding it with his hands, searched the names over the mailboxes. A neat card, set in well-polished bronze, indicated, “Harry E. Nichols, Apartment Three.”
“He keeps this place all of the time,” said Drew, jabbing at the button. “He’s down on furlough or Government business. Nice place, this,” he added as the inner door-lock clickedand he thrust his foot forward. “Looks like about two hundred a month. This is exclusively bachelor!”
“Them bachelor apartments,” said Delaney with candor as he glided into the hallway. “Them places like this ain’t what they seem. There’s some big parties pulled off in them. I remembers––”
“Sisst!” warned Drew, clutching the operative’s arm. “Easy,” he whispered. “Come on. Somebody is waiting upstairs for us. See his head in the light by the banister. Same chap, ain’t it?”
“Can’t see, Chief. Might be!”
“Nice house,” commented Drew as his feet sank in a deep-blue hall carpet. “Good ornaments and fixtures throughout the place. Nice house! Just about what I’d expected. Here we are. I’ll do the talking.”
A blond pompadour, under which was a pair of wide gray eyes that blinked at them, greeted the two detectives as they turned the last landing. A thick-lipped mouth, in which was considerable strength and determination, opened and revealed a double row of strong, young teeth that would have delighted an Army recruiting sergeant.
“Well, what do you gentlemen want at this hour of the morning?”
Drew squared his shoulders and pressed Delaney back a foot or more.
“Harry Nichols?” he asked brusquely.
“Yes, I’m Harry Nichols.”
“Miss Stockbridge’s friend?”
The gray eyes widened perceptibly. The lids dropped in heavy calculation. “Who are you?” the young man asked point-blankly. “I don’t believe I ever had the pleasure of meeting either of you gentlemen.” Nichols glanced into Delaney’s leaning face which was just over his chief’s shoulder.
“No, you haven’t,” said Drew softening his tone. “We’ve never met, but we may see considerable of each other. Here’s my card!”
Nichols took the card, tilted it to the light from the open door, then dropped it into the right-hand side pocket of his lounging robe beneath which blue pajamas showed.
“Come in!” he said without committing himself. “Come in, and take off your hats. I’ve only two rooms and a bath, here.”
Drew stepped upon heavy rugs and crossed the chamber to a chair. He turned this, removed his hat, and sat down with his legs thrust outward. His eyes roamed the place in slow calculation. Dark, old masters, which were probably good in their day, stared down at him. A little globe, petticoated in soft silk, gave a yellow light to the walls and floor. It broughtout Nichols’ features in sharp, actinic shadows. Drew continued his searching glance. A bed, with tossed coverlet and sheets, loomed from an inner room. A table, upon which was an officer’s cap and gloves, stood between two doors that were closed. One of these doors, Drew concluded, was the bathroom entrance, the other might have been a closet. His eyes fastened finally upon a telephone upon a dark-wood stand. He lifted his chin.
“Montgomery Stockbridge is dead!” he snapped, darting at Harry Nichols the keen scrutiny of a man salvoing a surprise.
Nichols glanced at the ’phone. “I know that!” he said with rising color. “I’m aware of that fact, Mr. Drew.”
“When did you first learn of it?”
“See here! I have your card. I know who you are. I was almost expecting you, or another detective. But,”—Nichols’ voice raised to a determined key—“but, sir, I am not talking to anybody about what you just told me. How do I know who you represent—the police or the law or the––”
“You have talked with Miss Stockbridge. She told you in the drug-store that I was in the house. She has told you that I was called in by her father. She undoubtedly ’phoned you, after she recovered from her faint. You have the details of the dastardly murder—if everthere was one! I represent her. I represent her friends. I have no other interest in this case!”
Harry Nichols drew out the card and studied it. He glanced at Delaney. “Who is this man?” he asked.
“My right bower. He’s with me—and you and Miss Loris. We’re together in this. The police now have the case. What I want is to protect you and her from the police. What will they do when they learn from the servants—which they will—that Miss Stockbridge hadthisgun in her hand when she entered the library?”
Drew extended his palm. In the hollow of it lay the little ivory-handled revolver which he had taken from Loris.
“What are they going to do when they learn about this?” he asked with shrewd reasoning. “Particularly, Mr. Nichols, when the caliber of this revolver is probably the same caliber of the bullet which entered, and is still in, Mr. Stockbridge’s brain.”
The gray eyes narrowed. The lips compressed until they were white. They seemed drawn with pain. A faint hiss of surprise sounded in the room. Harry Nichols turned and strode to an ornate mantel-piece upon which was a single cabinet photo. He lifted it impulsively. He stared at the picture of Loris Stockbridge as if in it lay inspiration, and resolve.He set the photo down and wheeled upon Drew. His eyes blazed.
“If you have no connection in this case, save as an adviser,” he said clearly and from his heart, “why are you trying to trap me or her? Are all detectives alike? Would they rather see a man in jail than free?”
Drew closed his fingers over the little revolver. He glanced upward at Delaney’s towering bulk which was near the doorway leading to the outer hall. This door was the only way out of the apartment. The detective gave no signal to the operative. His fingers uncoiled and revealed a thumb pressing upon the silver-plated barrel from which the leaden noses of six bullets showed as he turned it.
“You are wrong,” he said with simple naïveté. “You wrong me in this matter. The affair at Stockbridge’s will sooner or later bring you in contact with the Police Department’s Detective Bureau. Fosdick, the district attorney, the coroner, may want to interview you. The servants, the newspapers, idle tongues will connect your name with that of Loris Stockbridge. This connection, taking in the fact that she had a revolver of the same caliber as was used to slay her father, may cause trouble. I want––”
“How do you know it’s the same revolver—the same caliber?”
There was a stubborn defense in the young man’s tones which somewhat pleased the detective. It promised loyalty.
“It may not be the same revolver,” Drew said softly. “It may be that the murder was not committed with a revolver. A rifle, held close to a man’s brain, would make the same kind of mark and burns. I do know this, however, that the opening in Mr. Stockbridge’s head is the same size as my lead pencil—which I have measured and found to be under a quarter-inch. It would seem then that twenty-two caliber might fit the wound. I know of no other caliber very close to it.”
“An army rifle,” suggested Delaney from the doorway.
“It is larger,” said Nichols with a quick frown. “The modified Lee-Enfields, which we are now using, have a greater bore than the British or German rifles. They are about .30 caliber.”
“Whatever the case,” Drew said, “we must get to our first question. I’m trying to find the truth and protect Miss Stockbridge from the police in case she is suspected. Whose revolver is this? Who does it belong to? How came she to have it so soon after meeting you in the corner drug-store? Did she request it? Perhaps you will clear these points and allow me to go ahead.”
“Before I answer your questions, Mr. Drew, before I say anything at all, I would rather have a talk with Miss Loris. You see, we are too good friends to act apart. I’ll answer for her. She is innocent! She is too good, too pure to have anything to do with it. She never shot the old—Mr. Stockbridge.”
“He threw you out of the house on one occasion.”
Harry Nichols clenched his fists. “I’ll do the same to you!” he exclaimed. “This is my apartment. What right have you got coming here and accusing Loris? I don’t care who you are!”
“Good!” said the detective, rising and stepping forward. “You said just what I wanted you to say. And you said it like a man who can wear an American uniform. Shake hands!”
Harry Nichols did not exactly brighten under the professional flattery. He held out his fingers, however. Drew clasped his hand after transferring the revolver to his left palm. He twirled it as he stepped backward. “Clean,” he said. “It don’t seem to have been used for some time. But then, who knows? A gun can be wiped and polished,—even in the barrel,—in a very few minutes.”
Drew glanced at Nichols with a silent question in his eyes. Delaney had already sized Nichols up as a very clever young man. Hewas not far wrong, as he learned when the detective’s spoken question was shot through determined lips.
“Nichols,” said Drew, “did you lend Miss Stockbridge this revolver? Is it yours? I shall have to turn it over to the police sooner or later. They will trace it by the number.”
“Is it fully loaded?”
Drew turned the barrel with his broad thumb. He clicked the mechanism. He broke it and held it out.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, it’s fully loaded. This is still a merry whirl for six!”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive, Nichols!”
The soldier’s face cleared like a lake from a storm. He beamed upon Drew. He smiled for a second time. He pointed toward the chair which the detective had quitted. “Sit down,” he said, “and make yourself at home. This is a temperance dugout, but I’ve got some real good soft stuff—grape juice or club soda. Which will you have?”
“I’ll take a cigar,” said Delaney.
Drew allowed a smile to creep over his lips. He waited as Harry Nichols dipped into a kitchenette, then came back with three glasses of soda and a huge black Havana.
“Smoke up,” he said good-naturedly to Delaney.“Light up and take a chair. It’s daybreak, isn’t it?”
“Yes, time we’re going,” said Drew, setting his empty glass upon the offered tray. “We’ll go in a minute. Now, as I told you and as you can see, this revolver is fully loaded. It looks clean. I suppose you lent it to Miss Stockbridge without any empty cartridges. These are the ordinary lead kind which can be secured at any hardware store. You’ve got some here, perhaps.”
“None here. They’re all up at Plattsburg. We do some target shooting at times. These little revolvers don’t make much noise. You can use them most anywhere.”
“That’s satisfactory,” said Drew, watching the glow of Delaney’s cigar. “That’s all right. Now, when she ’phoned for the gun or you suggested that she better have one with her, what did she say about the cemetery letter or the threat over the wire? Did she fear anything else? Was that her sole reason for having a revolver with her?”
“You cannot expect me to answer for Miss Stockbridge, Mr. Drew. She is available. You can talk to her. You represent her. I shall not say anything concerning her. She is sacred. The revolver was not discharged. It is the same as when I gave it to her in the drug-store.Therefore, I’ll trouble you for it. It’s mine. I admit that.”
Drew rose from the chair. His left hand went out. His fingers clasped Harry Nichols’ shoulder with a fatherly pressure.
“I’m going now,” he said. “I’ll leave the gun with you. If the police want it, give it to them. Perhaps they will never hear of it. I doubt if more than one or two servants saw it in Miss Loris’ hand when she came into the library. They may not tell Fosdick. He’ll try to rough-shod over them. He may arrest the entire household—including Loris. That’s his way. It’s effective, but it’s not my way. Now is there anything that you want to say to me which will clear your mind of this affair?”
Nichols glanced from Drew’s clean-cut face. His eyes rested upon the telephone. “I’m going to call her up presently,” he said. “I’ll talk with her. I’ll tell her that you were here—that you left the little revolver—that you stand ready to swear it was clean and fully loaded. Then, when I hear what she has to say about everything, I shall call you up. Is that satisfactory, Mr. Drew?”
The detective turned the revolver in his palm and pressed it forward. “Take it,” said he, “and keep it under cover. I’m off with Mr. Delaney. Thanks for the club soda.”
“And the cigar,” added the big operative as he opened the door.
Drew hesitated on the landing. He turned and went back. Nichols stood by the banisters. The soft light from inside clear-cut the officer’s figure like a statue.
“You can do me a favor,” said the detective in a whisper. “A damn nice little favor.”
“What is it?”
“Have you an extra photo of the girl-in-the-case. One that’s laying around somewhere. I don’t mean the one on the mantel.”
“What do you want it for?”
“For myself. I admire that young lady.”
Harry Nichols disappeared through the doorway. He returned within a minute with a cabinet-size photo upon the front of which was written, “From Loris, January ’18,” in the vertical chirography much practiced by social buds.
“Thanks,” said Drew unbuttoning his overcoat and thrusting the photo within his breast. “I shall keep and cherish this, as one of my most sacred possessions. Congratulations, young man!”
The detective’s words rang sincere. Nichols flushed. He stammered an answer as Drew hurried down the carpeted steps and joined Delaney at the storm-door.
“Chief,” said the operative as they reached the sidewalk and turned toward Madison Avenue.“Chief, why didn’t you pump that lad about Stockbridge. You didn’t ask him a thing about the old man.”
“Unethical to a client,” reproved Drew linking arm with the operative. “Come on! We must hurry! I’ve an idea—which is a very strange thing for a New York detective to have—that Harry Nichols, if he stays in town on furlough, will represent Loris in all matters. I don’t know where she could find a better counselor. He’s a clam! He told us nothing!”
“Wise boy, Chief! Only fools and women talk to detectives.”
“Umph!” said Drew at this sally. “Umph! Well, come on. It’s quit snowing. It’s daybreak over there in the east and I think the clouds will clear before it gets much later. You––”
“Say, Chief!” exclaimed Delaney clutching the detective’s shoulder and wheeling him around. “Say, stand right there a minute. Right in that light. What’s that on your chin? Right under the tip of your left ear. Turn around a little more!”
Drew raised his left hand and rubbed it across his face. He pinched the lobe of his ear between his thumb and index finger. He whistled with frosty amazement as he eyed his nail and thumb.
“What to blazes!” he said. “What’s that?”
“Turn around! Right under this arc light. Say, Chief, how did you get that spot of black on your neck? You’ve smeared it all over your collar.”
“I don’t know. What’s it look like?”
“Soot!”
“Soot?”
“Sure, Chief. Lampblack or soot!”
Drew arched his dark brows as he rubbed his finger-tips together. He held them up to the stronger light. He turned and glanced back through the silent walls of the street down which they had walked. He took one step toward the east.
“Hold on!” said Delaney. “Where are you going?”
“Going back!”
“Why, Chief!”
“Smell that stuff! Smell it!” Drew thrust his fingers under Delaney’s wrinkled nose. “Smell it, good and strong!” he snapped bitterly. “What is it?”
“By God, Chief, it’s powder, I smell! Gunpowder, it is!”
“Umph! I must have gotten it from that gat!”
“You couldn’t, Chief. That gun was polished up like a whistle. Besides, how would the spot come to be under your left ear?”
Drew furrowed his brow. He swung in thesnow with new decision. “Come on!” he said. “We’ll think this over! I didn’t see any soot on that gat. I don’t know where I got it either. Could it have been there for some time?”
“Sure, Chief. I just happened to notice it. Light’s bright.” Delaney nodded toward the arc.
“Did you get a good look at my face in Stockbridge’s?”
“Can’t say that I did, Chief. I was too busy with that howler thing and that magpie and that murder, to see anything. You might of got it there without me noticing it. It wasn’t there in the taxicab. I’ll swear to that.”
Drew passed his fingers across his nostrils like a man sampling perfume. He repeated the motion. He scraped some of the powder from his nails with a pocket knife and dropped the sample into the crease of an envelope which he carefully folded and crammed into his pocket.
“I’ll have that analyzed,” he said, as they turned toward Fifth Avenue. “Another trifle in a chain of circumstance. Think it over, Delaney. It resembles and smells like powder which has been burnt. You hurry along home. Be at the office no later than nine. I’ll keep on down Fifth Avenue to the Flatiron Building. I want to walk and clear my head. I’ll get some coffee, pie and rolls, at an all-night restaurant. I’ll take time for a shave, shine and shampoo.Perhaps I’ll jump into a Turkish bath to finish up and get ready for work.”
“You’re not going to bed at all?”
“Not until I find out who murdered Stockbridge!”
“Or how he was murdered?” said Delaney, with a puzzled frown as he turned to go.
“If I get the murderer, I’ll find out how he did it!” snapped Drew, with a parting glance.
CHAPTER EIGHT“TANGLED WIRES”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“TANGLED WIRES”
It was five minutes before nine when Delaney reached the ornate entrance to the skyscraper wherein were the offices of Drew’s Agency.
He wandered into the express elevator, yawned a “eighteen, out” signal to the elevator pilot and stepped from the cage with the general air of a man who had spent a hard night without getting anywhere in particular.
Stopping in the operatives’ room for a few minutes, he picked up scraps of news concerning the case at Stockbridge’s. There was a report, moreover, that an extra was expected by ten o’clock. The air of desertion about the suite told Delaney plainer than words that most of the operatives were upon the case. The entire corps, with few exceptions, had been working hard while he slept. The telephone-girl and the assistant-manager, Harrigan, wound up each of his questions by a nod or a jerk of the thumb toward the inner office where Drew was sitting like a spider in a web which was being spun about the case at hand.
Delaney yawned, braced himself with a drink of ice water drawn from an inverted-bottle, and stepped toward Drew’s door. He knocked with tired knuckles. He pressed forward as he heard a hearty: “Come in!”
The operative eyed his Chief with sovereign amazement. Drew looked as fresh as a daisy. There was a pink tinge upon his olive cheeks. These cheeks had been close shaven. Oil glistened from the detective’s black hair. His mustache was trimmed and level with his upper lip. His eyes, as he swung and fastened a clear glance upon Delaney, were almost too bright. They were like the hectic fires of an inner furnace.
Delaney searched about the room. He lifted one foot and then the other with a tired motion. He leaned against a filing-case like a heavy dray horse which had come to a final stop. He yawned behind his big, red hand.
“How d’ye do it, Chief?” he asked with a second yawn. “I’m dead on my feet. All the sleep I got was about thirty minutes. I haven’t woke up yet. I met myself going to work this morning.”
Drew laughed quickly and motioned toward a leather chair. “Sit down!” he suggested. “Sit right down, Delaney. Take it easy for a few minutes. You seem tired.”
“It beats me how you can do it!” declaredthe operative, sprawling across the chair and crossing his weary legs.
“One or two hours’ sleep is never any good. Better keep awake. You remind me of the last rose of Sharon!”
“I feel like a house-man in an all-night poker game. What’s the use! I’m going over to some bank and get a job as a night watchman, if this keeps up. I can sleep my head off, there.”
Drew swung in his chair and eyed the papers on his desk. He swiveled as Delaney inquired:
“What’s the news in the Stockbridge case? I’ve been asking Marie and Harrigan. They don’t seem to know anything except that everybody is out—already.” Delaney extended his huge mouth to a cavernous yawn. He fished up his great, silver watch. “What’s the news, Chief? Any assignments for me?”
“News? There’s very little news, Delaney. No good news, yet! I’ve been busy as a Chinaman on a contract, though. I can’t let that matter get cold. It’s now or never in this case!”
“What does our friend Fosdick say?”
“He’s all at sea! I’ve talked with him twice.” Drew glanced at the ’phone. “He says the murder was a second Rue Morgue. He can’t see any light at all!”
“He’s come around to our deduction?”
“There’s no deduction in it!”
“He says it’s murder?”
“Cold, curdling, cunning, crafty murder, Delaney. The coroner said it would have been impossible for a man to shoot himself in the manner Stockbridge was shot. They’re right—both of them—and we’re right. I’ll stake my badge on it! Particularly in view of the two threats. Why, I was there when he was called up and given twelve hours on this earth.”
Delaney glanced out the window. “Snowing again,” he said, “I wonder if there are any footprints in that back yard or alley. Wouldn’t that be a clue, Chief?”
“To what?”
“Well, you told me that the trouble-man said a tall lad climbed the fence near the junction-box and beat it for Fifth Avenue. Maybe that lad left footprints behind.”
“They’re snowed over now!”
“But if he made them, couldn’t we find them underneath?”
Drew’s eyes narrowed. He leaned in his chair with a searching glance at Delaney. “How long did you sleep?” he asked sharply.
“About thirty minutes, Chief. Mary and the kids woke me up and I couldn’t get settled again. I did some thinking.”
“You must ’ave! That idea about the footprints is a mighty good one. There was first a thaw, then a freeze, then a snow fall whichpreserved everything. If we wait till spring there might be a set of prints underneath the other sets. Two of our operatives were there. The trouble-man was there. He scraped the connections. If we find a fourth set of prints, that’s our man!”
“The tall lad?”
“Yes, Delaney. We can build a box about the fence and start a thaw of our own. I’ll think it over!”
“I’ll go up and do it, Chief. I can make plaster-casts of all the prints. There’s a French system I heard of once. I can find out from Farot over at Headquarters.”
“Keep it under cover for a while,” decided Drew, sitting down and drawing a sheath of papers to the edge of the desk. “Keep it quiet,” he added. “I’ll think it over.”
Delaney rubbed his chin. He watched Drew rapidly thumb over the data. “Say, Chief,” he yawned. “I see another light.”
“What?” shot Drew over his shoulder. “S—o? Wait a moment before you give it to me—you reminded me of something. Where was the spot of powder on my face? The rubber in the Turkish bath said it was right here.” The detective turned and touched his forefinger below the lobe of his left ear. “Right there,” he added.
“That’s where it was, Chief. Just where yougot your finger. It was on the cord. Seems to me that it was circular in shape. Like a half-moon.”
Drew raised his black brows in reflective thought. He opened a small drawer with a sudden dart of his arm. He poised a mirror so that the light from the window brought out his left ear and neck. He dropped the mirror to the desk. “Delaney,” he said, “that’s exactly the spot where Stockbridge was shot!”
The operative felt a cold chill dart up and down his tired spine. He came to life with an oath, and a slap of his huge palm upon his knee.
“Chief, you’re right!” he exclaimed, leaning forward. “You’re right! That spot of black was just where the old man was hit. Now, what d’ye make of that?”
Drew drummed his fingers on the edge of the polished desk. He tapped his toes on the floor. He coughed and picked up the mirror for a second and longer glance at his face and neck. He tossed the mirror to the desk and swiveled slowly.
“What do I think of it?” he repeated, with flashing eyes. “I think there are features to this case I don’t like!”
“Could it have been an accident, Chief? You might of got a bit of soot from the gun and then scratched your neck. Maybe that HarryNichols put one over on us. The gun might have been fired, reloaded, and we never noticed it. Looks bad for Nichols and the girl.”
Drew closed his eyelids tightly. His brow furrowed in deep thought. “No,” he said finally. “I don’t think the soot or powder came from the pearl-handled revolver. I don’t think so! It would seem to me, Delaney, that intuition is stronger than evidence. That girl and that boy rang true. That valet is above suspicion. The servants are to be trusted. Stockbridge trusted them and he was noted for his shrewdness in picking men. The only mistake he ever made was Morphy. That individual was out to do the old man. He was a biter, bitten! I think we’ll eliminate, for the time, Loris, Harry, the servants and German influences in the matter at hand. What was your idea?” Drew rubbed his neck beneath his ear, as he turned to his papers.
“I’ve forgotten it, Chief. That spot drove it all out. No, wait—say! I’ve been thinking—this morning laying there and listening to the kids getting ready for school—that the powder we smelled in the library wasn’t ordinary powder. I know a firecracker, or a regular Chinese smell when I get near one. That wasn’t the kind I got. It was like something else. It was powder—all right—but––”
Drew lifted a sheet of paper. “I coveredthat,” he said. “Analysis made by Higgens, this morning, shows traces of smokeless-powder in Stockbridge’s hair and about the bullet hole. There’s a difference. Now, I’m going further than that. I’m going to have those scrapings I got from my neck looked at. If they are the same as the powder that was used to slay Stockbridge, we are getting on.”
“There’s lots of smokeless, Chief.”
“That’s the trouble—that’s what we are right up against. Let’s leave the footprints and the powder for a few minutes. Both are important. They’ll wait. See here!”
Drew raised a sheath of papers from his desk, turned with the chair, and started thumbing over the data he had accumulated.
“See here,” he repeated absently. “First branch of the tree of Truth in this case is a stubborn one. It requires considerable work on our part to get to the end of it. I’ve sent out six operatives to scout the telephone calls and get me some light on them. I’ve kept some notes on what they have ’phoned in to me. The telephone company, the wire-chief at Gramercy Hill, and an official I know, have been enlisted in getting to the bottom of these calls. They have made progress. But, Delaney, of all the devilish inventions of man, a telephone is the most subtle. It’s a wonder to me we have found anything. It’s the crook’s one best tool.With it he can play safe, and we can’t catch him!”
“What have you found, Chief?”
Drew held up a paper. “The first call, Delaney,” he said, “was the one to the cemetery company’s superintendent, notifying him to excavate a grave in the Stockbridges’ family plot. Subtle suggestion, that, in the light of what followed.”
“It was,” said Delaney.
“This call has received all of the attention it deserved. It’s the first of the series, and was perhaps made before the crook had time to cover himself completely. It has been traced to a slot booth in the Pennsylvania Railroad Station in the Woman’s Waiting Room.”
“Woman’s?”
“Yes, Delaney. That is no criterion that a woman did the calling-up. The girl there in charge of the pay-booths states that more men than women use the ’phones in that part of the station.”
“Just our luck!”
“The toll collected on this call must have been thirty-five cents, including the war-tax. The superintendent says that the voice over the wire was thin and tired. He says he thought it was Dr. Conroy. He never gave the matter second consideration. Conroy, however, has a voice like a bull. We checked that up.”
“Does the superintendent know Conroy?”
“No! Except by name!”
“Then, Chief, I don’t see any use trying that lead. It begins and ends in air.”
“It most certainly does! We’ll cross it out. The next call for our investigation––”
“Which was?” asked Delaney, waking up.
“Which was the one notifying Stockbridge that he had about reached his span of life on this earth. I was there in that library when the call came in. Again, from the millionaire’s description, this time, we have the thin, whispering voice on the wire. The man was probably the same. He mentioned the cemetery letter which would establish that fact.”
“I’m following you, Chief. Go on!”
Drew picked out a second sheet of paper from his pile. “We went after this call at the time, or soon after the time it was sent in,” he said, tapping the sheet with his fingers. “I called the office here and had Harrigan get in touch with George Westlake, third vice-president of the telephone company. Westlake got busy.”
Delaney eyed his unpolished shoes with a sage wink.
“Westlake turned things over,” continued the detective. “He made a most thorough investigation. We have his word that there is no record of this call! The wire-chief at Gramercy Hill Exchange declares that it never wentthrough the switchboard. That the connection had been made on the outside.”
“From the air?”
“Looks that way. They tried everything and questioned everybody. No one talked with Stockbridge through the switchboard at Gramercy Hill, at or near that hour. Therefore, we must conclude, that, insomuch as I know somebodydidtalk with him at that hour, the connection was made, either in the junction-box in the alley or behind the switchboard at Gramercy Hill Exchange.”
“How about underground, Chief?”
“Impossible! That is—almost impossible. The cables are in conduit and sheathed with lead. It would be a poor place to tap in on a line. I’m going to presume that the man who tapped in knew his business. The junction-box in the alley is under suspicion. I think it was done there, in this manner.” Drew paused and picked up a third sheet of hurriedly-written notes.
“A junction-box,” he said, “is merely a small switchboard where the conduit ends and the house connections begin. It would have been easy for an expert to disconnect the two leads which led into Stockbridge’s library, ring up with a low tension magneto, and then cut in with a testing set and a battery current and do the talking. That is what the trouble-mantold us might have been done. He found no signs of tampering. He saw a tall man escaping down the alley. It would seem, Delaney, that this tall man is the one we’re after. Perhaps, as you said, he left footprints. But footprints, like fingerprints, are not much use until you get the man who made them.”
“What d’ye deduct in this second call—Chief?”
“That we’ve run squarely up against a blind wall. We’ll drop it for a time and go to the third call.”
“When was that?”
“Stockbridge was murdered at four minutes and eighteen seconds past twelve, by his own watch, Delaney. It was a very good watch! Now allowing for a movement of the hands on account of the fall, how are we to account for a telephone call sent into Gramercy Hill 9763—the library ’phone—at exactly five minutes past twelve from a slot-telephone booth at the east end of the Grand Central Railroad Station on Forty-second Street?”
“How did you get that, Chief?”
Drew chuckled and wheeled in his chair. “I got it,” he said, “by simple arithmetic plus the vice-president’s pull. Here’s how it was found, Delaney. Easy as two and two. You remember the howler?”
“I’ll never forget it, Chief! Not as long as I live!”
“The howler established considerable in this case. The chief operator remembers putting it on. She remembers the time. She looked back, after being jogged by George Westlake, and found that some one had called up Stockbridge a few minutes after twelve. It was probably this call to the old man that caused him to be near enough to the telephone to knock it over when he was shot. The operator did not hear the shot, but she remembers a thin, piping voice asking for Gramercy Hill 9763.”
“The same guy, every time!” declared the operative, mopping his brow with his sleeve. “I’d like to have that fellow for five minutes, Chief!”
“We’ll get him! We’ve got the time established twice. Stockbridge’s watch fixes the murder at twelve-four-eighteen. The telephone call at five minutes past twelve, and the howler put on soon afterward, checks up. The old man was alive during the telephone call from the Grand Central, and dead when the howler was put on for the first time. Do you see that?”
Delaney frowned. “I see it and I don’t,” he said. “I’m all balled up, Chief. What with the magpie and the howler and a man shot in a locked room and the spot of soot on your neck—I’m all twisted into a knot. I think I’ll go out and get a drink!”
“No, Delaney, don’t,” said Drew. “You’ll need your head in this case. We’re squarely up against class of the highest order. Since Sheeney Mike and the gas-tube over the transom in Chinatown, I don’t know of a more baffling set of clews. All these calls—which seem so important in the case—lead to a whispering voice of low pitch and timber. Perhaps the police records will show such a man who is at large—very much at large.”
Delaney furrowed his brows and screwed his face into a painful knot. “I’m trying to go back, Chief, to the Morphy case and them crooked witnesses he had. They all had loud voices—like wolves!”
“Yes—I remember them. But then, Delaney, a man can change his voice. That whole pack will bear watching.”
“You’ve eliminated some things that were worrying, Chief. But there’s some I don’t see yet. It’s impossible for a man to get shot like that old millionaire was. We went over that room and that house. We frisked good and plenty. There was nothing suspicious. The walls were thick. The floor was hardwood. The ceiling was some kind of patent plaster, that’s like stone. I got two looks at the door, and you tried the windows. Now what’s theanswer, chief? I’ll say you are never going to clear this case up. I don’t think you can. It’s going to be one of them unsolved mysteries. If you do figure something out it ain’t going to be proved to my satisfaction. The thing couldn’t be done the way it was done!”
“That’s definite,” smiled Drew, tapping the desk with the tips of his well-polished finger nails. “You’re talking in a circle. I’ll solve the case, or I won’t sleep!”
“It’s impossible!”
Drew sorted his papers and bent over them. He turned the swivel chair by a pressure of his knee. His eyes narrowed as he studied Delaney’s lugubrious face which was sadly in need of a shave.
“Impossible,” he repeated softly. “There’s no such word, Delaney. It’s a fool’s excuse. Now I don’t want you to be a fool. Don’t make the mistake of allowing a seeming impossibility to dull your efforts. There’s always a way around everything which looks high and impassable. They used to go round the Horn. Now they cut through the Isthmus. They used to think men were supernatural. Now they know that nothing works without a law. I admit that I don’t know how Stockbridge came to his end. I don’t want to dwell upon it, either. But this we do know, by these papers, that he was well-hated, threatened and markedfor death by an individual or clique of individuals. That is all we know, and all we ever need to know, in order to proceed on the basis that a material agency struck out his life with a material substance—such as lead propelled by smokeless powder.”
“Whew!” exclaimed Delaney, rising.
“As for the library wherein he was slain,” continued Drew. “As for it, we must revert to simple geometry. Matter occupies space. A material act was committed by a material body which got past all our precautions and struck the magnate down. What is there in this world, which is at one and the same time, material and yet capable of penetrating through a door or wall without a trace? Give me that answer, and we’ll get results. What is it?”
“Damned if I know! I’m all balled up! You talk like a college professor. You mean something that is and something that isn’t. Good morning!”
Delaney reached for the door knob with a gesture of disdain. Drew wheeled and stared at him. “Wait a minute,” he said softly.
The operative turned and dropped his hands to his side.
“You remember the magpie?” asked Drew.
Delaney nodded.
“Well, sit down and wait. It’ll be here within five minutes. The valet ’phoned he was bringingit in a taxi. That was just before you came in.”
“Taxi!” snorted the big operative, stretching himself on the leather chair. “Them valets have got it soft. Last night was the first ride I’ve had in one for months, and––”
Delaney’s voice trailed to an end. He turned in the chair and saw Harrigan’s red face and auburn hair come slowly through the aperture made by opening the door.
“Well?” snapped Drew.
“There’s a funny lookin’ guy out here, chief,” said the assistant-manager. “He wants to see you in person. He’s got knee-britches and a bunch of brass-buttons on his monkey-jacket. Says he’s a valet.”
“Has he got anything with him?” asked Drew.
“He has, Chief! He’s got a gilded cage with the damnedest looking bird in it I ever saw. It ain’t a parrot and it ain’t a crow. It’s a blue-jay or something like that!”
“Show him in!” Drew said. “Show him in. You can wait, Delaney!”