At pains not to stir across the threshold, with quick glances P.
Sybarite reviewed scrupulously the scene of November's crime.
Eventually his nod indicated a contemptuous conclusion: that it should
not prove difficult to convict November on the evidence afforded by
the condition of the apartment alone. A most superficial inspection
ought to convince anybody, even one prone to precipitate conclusions,
that Bayard Shaynon had never died by his own hand.
If November, in depositing the instrument of his crime close to the
hand of its victim, had meant to mislead, to create an inference of
_felo de se_, he had ordered all his other actions with a carelessness
arguing one of three things: cynical indifference to the actual
outcome of his false clue; sublime faith in the stupidity of the
police; or a stupidity of his own as crass as that said to be
characteristic of the average criminal in all ages.
The rooms, in short, had been most thoroughly if hastily ransacked--in
search, P. Sybarite didn't for an instant doubt, of evidence as to the
relations between Shaynon and Mrs. Inche calculated to prove
incriminating at an inquest; though the little man entertained even
less doubt that lust for loot had likewise been a potent motive
influencing November.
He found proof enough of this in the turned-out pockets of the
murdered man; in the abstraction from the bosom of his shirt of pearl
studs which P. Sybarite had noticed there within the hour; in the
abraded knuckles of a finger from which a conspicuous solitaire
diamond in massive antique setting was missing; in a pigskin
bill-fold, empty, ripped, turned inside out, and thrown upon the floor
not far from the corpse.
Then, too, in one corner stood a fine old mahogany desk of quaint
design and many drawers and pigeonholes, one and all sacked, their
contents turned out to litter the floor. In another corner, a curio
cabinet had fared as ill. Even bookcases had not been overlooked, and
stood with open doors and disordered shelves.
Not, however, with any notion of concerning himself with the
assassin's apprehension and punishment did P. Sybarite waste that
moment of hasty survey. His eyes were only keen and eager to descry
the yellow Western Union message; and when he had looked everywhere
else, his glance dropped to his feet and found it there--a torn and
crumpled envelope with its enclosure flattened out and apart from it.
This last he snatched up, but the envelope he didn't touch, having
been quick to remark the print upon it of a dirty thumb whose
counterpart decorated the face of the message as well.
"And a hundred more of 'em, probably," P. Sybarite surmised as to the
number of finger marks left by November: "enough to hang him ten times
over ... which I hope and pray they don't before I finish with him!"
As for the dead man, he read his epitaph in a phrase, accompanied by a
meaning nod toward the disfigured and insentient head.
"It was coming to you--and you got it," said P. Sybarite callously,
with never a qualm of shame for the apathy with which he contemplated
this second tragedy in the house of Shaynon.
Too much, too long, had he suffered at its hands....
With a shrug, he turned back to the hall door, listened an instant,
gently opened it--with his handkerchief wrapped round the polished
brass door-knob to guard against clues calculated to involve himself,
whether as imputed principal or casual witness after the fact. For he
felt no desire to report the crime to the police: let them find it out
at their leisure, investigate and take what action they would; P.
Sybarite had lost no love for the force that night, and meant to use
it only at a pinch--as when, perchance, its services might promise to
elicit the information presumably possessed by Red November in regard
to the fate of Marian Blessington....
The public hall was empty, dim with the light of a single electric
bulb, and still as the chamber of death that lay behind.
Never a shadow moved more silently or more swiftly than P. Sybarite,
when he had closed the door, up the steps to Peter Kenny's rooms.
Hardly a conceivable sound could be more circumspect than that which
his knuckles drummed on the panels of Peter's door. And Peter earned a
heartfelt, instant, and ungrudged blessing by opening without delay.
"Well?" he asked, when P. Sybarite--with a gesture enforcing temporary
silence--had himself shut the door without making a sound. "Good Lord,
man! You look as if you'd seen a ghost."
On the verge of agitated speech P. Sybarite checked to shake an
aggrieved head.
"Bromides are grand for the nerves," he observed cuttingly, "but
you're too young to need 'em--and I want none now.... Listen to me."
Briefly he told his story.
"Well, but the telegram?" Peter insisted. "Does it help--tell you
anything? It's maddening--to think Marian may be in the power of that
bloodthirsty--!"
"There you go again!" P. Sybarite complained--"and not two minutes ago
I warned you about that habit. Wait: I've had time only to run an eye
through this: let me get the sense of it."
Peter peering over his shoulder, the two conned the message in
silence:
BAYARD SHAYNON
Monastery Apts., W. 43rd, N.Y.C.
Your wire received all preparations made send patient in charge as
indicated at convenience legal formalities can wait as you suggest.