table. He was holding his investigation down to outside facts, and
bringing them to bear upon the crux of the matter. In this way, he
believed, he would secure better results. He did not want to be blinded
by an impossibility at the beginning. His first glance at Stockbridge
sufficed to assure him that the lethal instrument which had felled the
magnate was not in evidence. The bright light from a score of globes
would reveal any such object as a revolver or rifle. No one of the
servants had seen anything. They still were peering into the room like
men and women who had lost all they owned. Stockbridge, despite his
temper and sins, had been a good master to those who served him without
questioning.
Drew glared at his watch for a second time, in preoccupation. He strode
to the library door and beckoned a hooked finger toward the butler who
towered over the other servants.
"You!" he exclaimed. "You didn't obey orders. You didn't stay where you
were told to stay! Why did you leave this door at all?"
"S' 'elp me, sir, I didn't, Mr. Drew. If I did it wasn't farther than
the foyer or the downstairs steps. I took very careful pains to call
the second-man, sir, when I went after you."
Drew's eyes smoldered with inner fire. "I told you," he repeated, "I
told you to stay by this door and not leave it--even for a minute. You
went after the second-man, by your own admission. You went to the foyer
hall. You went to the staircase leading down to the lower part of the
house. In other words, you didn't watch the door, and you lost your
master through your own foolishness!"
"But, sir, nobody could 'ave gotten through the door. Hit was locked
and bolted on the hinside, sir! I 'e'rd Mr. Stockbridge do that when
you left 'im! I did, sir!"
"We may have been mistaken when we thought we heard that! Perhaps he
just fumbled with the locks, and left it unlocked." Drew eyed the
servant's red face with a keen-lidded glance. He waited.
"That cawn't be right, sir," said the butler, after thought and a wild
glance about. "'Ow can that be right? I tried the door when the
telephone loidy called me hup! I tried hit twice. James tried hit! 'E
fixes hall the locks in the 'ouse, sir. 'E says it was most excellently
secured, sir."
"How about that?" asked Drew, turning to the second-man. "What of that,
James?"
"'E's right. I'm a little of everythin' about the 'ouse. I tends the
door and I watches the lights and locks, sir. I was born in Brixton,
sir, where the old man kept a lock-shop, sir. That's twenty years, and
more ago, sir. Beggin' your pardon, sir."
Drew swung upon the butler. The second-man was the living picture of
truth. His dereliction, if any, might consist in sly tapping of the
wine-cellar. His nose attested to this habit, in a brilliant rosette.
"You're partly to blame!" Drew told the butler. "There's nobody in this
room who could have committed the murder. There was nobody here when we
left Mr. Stockbridge. There is no way for anybody to get in, save
through this door. The same applies in getting out--escaping. If you
were awake and always here, and if you were honest," he added, "I could
presume that the master was slain by--well, let us say, unnatural
causes. Such things do not exist. This is a material age. Nothing as
much as a pin-head or point was ever moved save through a natural
cause. No bullet could be fired into a man's brain without a hand which
planned or pulled the trigger."
The butler stared at Drew with blank expression. He gulped. His eyes
dropped. "I'm thinking," he said, "that the whole blym occurrence his
unnatural. I never left that door until they told me the telephone
company's loidy wanted me on the wire. It was then I left it."
"Ah!" said Drew. "We're getting there. Then, if you are speaking truth,
and I won't help you if you are not, we have reached a point in the
case which will bear considerable thought. It is evident that
Stockbridge was murdered by a pistol shot, at or about the time the
table and contents were spilled over. In other words, the shot which
bowled him over brought down with it the telephone transmitter and
receiver. That is the thing which fixes, within minutes--perhaps
seconds--the time of the murder. The telephone girl will have a record
which will help us considerable. Many criminals have been caught--and
convicted by the time element. There is no alibi against truth! A man
can't be in two places at the same time!"
Drew turned toward the door. He hesitated and wheeled.
"You heard nothing fall in this room?" he asked sharply.
"I did not, sir."
"No shot?"
"I cawn't say that I did, sir."
"No telephone bell ringing? Ringing at any time after I left the
house?"
"Not downstairs, sir."
"You did!"
"'Ow, sir?"
"Didn't you tell me the telephone company rang up and wanted you to put
the receiver on the hook in the library?"
"I didn't 'ear it ring. James brought the word, sir."
"Then, what happened upstairs?"
"'Ow do you know, sir? 'Ow'd you know it rang up there!"
"By elimination! It rang then, in Loris' room? You said 'nothing
downstairs' in such a way I presume it rang upstairs."
The butler stroked his chin. It was blue and close-shaved. The purple
of his cheeks and neck had deepened. He glanced about the hallway. His
eyes wandered toward the grand stairway which, coiled upward to the
second story. "I'm 'iding nothing, sir," he said. "Miss Loris often is
called up at night. She's very popular, sir. I 'e'rd 'er telephone
ringing once or twice while I was standing by this door, waiting for
the master to come out--which 'e never did."
Drew hesitated. He plucked out his watch and glanced at the dial. He
turned swiftly. "Stay right there," he said as he parted the portieres
and faced Delaney who wore the puzzled expression of a man baffled and
entirely at sea.
"What did you find?" he snapped to the operative.
"Not a thing, Chief." Delaney mopped his brow with his sleeve. "Nothing
at all!" he added. "Everything regular. Modern--very modern house!
Thick, new, fireproof, soundproof, million-dollar building. No
trapdoors or panels. No loose boards. No hole in the ceiling. No
nothing to hang a ghost on. The gunman who shot Stockbridge went right
up in blue smoke, Chief. I quit!"
Drew glided around the table and kneeled by the magnate's body. His
swift, light-fingered touch went through the trousers and vest. The
pockets he turned inside out. The watch attracted his attention. Its
dial had been cracked by the fall. A splinter of glass pressed against
the minute hand. He rose with a low cry. He pressed the repeater and
listened to the time chimes. He counted the strokes. He had a test in a
million. Had the watch been tampered with by the murderer, the chimes
would have proved a lie. It was possible to set the hands to any
position. It would be difficult to change both the hands and the
repeater.
"Delaney!" he said with his dark eyes glowing, "we've got the exact
time of the murder. As I told the butler--it is very important. Both,
chimes and hands, show that Stockbridge was shot at four minutes and
eighteen seconds past midnight--this morning! This is a fine watch. It
cost several thousand dollars. Robbery was not the motive. An ordinary
crook, and they're all ordinary--with few exceptions--would have taken
this timepiece."
"That's all right," said Delaney with a quick frown. "That's fine,
Chief, but--but how did that exceptional--crook get into this room? How
did he get out? That's what I want to know!"
Drew combed his fingers through his black hair. He described a complete
circle about the library, with his eyes taking in everything, before he
faced Delaney.
"I don't know!" he said frankly. "I don't want to think of it, either.
We'll turn the case over to other men for the time. Let them do some
thinking. I believe we have secured everything we want."
The detective dropped his glance to the telephone receiver upon the
floor at Stockbridge's elbow. He stooped, grasped the silk-insulated
cord, and fished it up.
"I'll try to get Central," he said. "This has been off a long while.
She may have sent the trouble-man again."
Drew worked the hook of the 'phone up and down. He was answered after a
short wait. The girl's surprised voice at hearing life at the end of a
dead set of wires was drowned in the detective's request to get him,
"Spring 3100--quickly!"
"Hello! Hello!" said Drew as he got the connection. "Hello! Is this
Spring 3100? It is? Who's talking? ... Jones? This you, Jones? ... Say,
Jones, plug me in on the Fifth Deputy Commissioner's private house
wire!... Sir? ... I don't care! ... This is Drew talking.... Drew! ...
D--r--e--w! ... That's right ... Drew, of Drew's Agency!"
The Detective turned. He eyed Delaney who was searching the floor about
the millionaire's upturned shoes. He tapped the receiver against the
transmitter's silver-plated edge. His eyes lifted. His lips hardened as
the diaphragm of the receiver vibrated harshly.
"Hello!" he answered tersely. "Hello! This you, Commissioner? Is this
Fosdick? ... This is Drew talking. Yes! ... Drew.... Yes! I say,
Fosdick, there's been a murder committed at Stockbridge's.... You
know--the munitions magnate! ... The millionaire! ... Morphy's old
partner."
Drew waited a moment. He dropped his eyes upon the body below him.
"Yes!" he continued into the transmitter. "Yes, Fosdick. I hear better,
now. Yes--Stockbridge is dead! ... He's stone dead! He was shot down in
cold blood! ... Yes! ... Shot in the brain.... Yes! Send your best
operatives.... Yes! ... Send a fingerprint man and photographer. You'll
need 'em! ... Yes! ... Yes! ... Shot with a small-bore revolver, I
guess! ... Wound behind ear looks like it! What? ... No! ... Room was
bolted.... He was inside.... Butler on guard.... Windows closed and
locked! ... No! ... No! ... No! ... It wasn't suicide. He was
threatened twice, this time!... By letter and telephone call....
What? ... What? ... No! ... He didn't shoot himself! ... There's no gun.
It's on the left side--close up! ... Hair is singed ... flesh is powder
spotted.... Burned? ... Yes.... You'll be right up?... Yes! ... I'll be
waiting! ... Come! ... come----"
Drew lowered the receiver and clicked it upon the hook of the telephone
which stood on the hardwood floor. He slowly turned toward the open
doorway of the library. The servants had drawn back and out of sight.
Delaney leaned forward with both hands on his bent knees. A girl's
voice had sounded in the mansion. It came closer. The portieres parted
with a silken sweep. Drew braced himself against the larger table. His
hand went back to his hip. It dropped to his side. He stared across the
flood of light with line-drawn eyelids.
Loris Stockbridge, gowned in lace chiffon and cloaked with ermine and
sable, glided across the rugs and stood framed beneath the soft,
rose-light of the central dome. Her dusk-black eyes burned and blazed
like flame through tinder smoke as she confronted the detective.
Clasped in the fingers of her jewelless right hand was a tiny,
ivory-handled revolver.
"What are all these people doing here?" she asked hysterically.
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 behind
and 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 regime 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 that he 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 toward the 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 grip of 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 facades of Stockbridge's mansion;
its turrets and towers spiraled in the winter sky. 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."