INVESTIGATION
Leaving the Detective Bureau, Morgan stopped in a restaurant on
Randolph Street for a quick lunch. From there he walked over to
State Street and took the motor bus for the scene of the singular
event which it was now his duty to investigate. A half-hour later he
dropped off the bus at Lawrence Avenue and Sheridan Road. A few
steps brought him to the Hillcrest apartments, where he found
Tierney waiting on the front steps for him.
"The Chief telephoned me that you would probably be here about this
time," said Tierney, after acknowledging Morgan's greeting. "I was
on the job last night, and did a little investigating this morning,
so the Chief thought you might want to talk things over with me."
Morgan nodded. "All right, let's go up. Can we get into the flat?"
"Sure," answered Tierney. "We put a temporary padlock on this
morning, and I have the key."
Without further words the two men climbed the stairs to the
apartment on the third floor. Tierney unlocked the padlock and they
went in. Inside the entrance hall of the apartment, Tierney turned
to Morgan.
"I suppose the Chief has put the case entirely in your hands, so
it's up to you what you want to do first."
"We had better go into the front room here," answered Morgan, "and
let me get a line on things. About all I know so far is that
somebody THINKS a murder has been committed."
"You can't make much out of things as they are, that's a fact,"
assented Tierney, as they moved into the front room. He dropped into
an easy chair close at hand, and pushed his cap back on his head,
while Morgan went to one of the front windows and ran the shade to
the top. Seating himself where he could get the full benefit of the
light from the window, he drew out the typewritten report and read
it over carefully.
"This is your report, isn't it, Tierney?" he inquired, folding up
the sheets again and replacing them in his pocket.
"You bet; and I put into it every damned thing I know," asserted
Tierney. "And that's mighty little," he added. "This is the most
mysterious case I ever saw."
There was a pause while Morgan drew a pipe from his pocket and
filled and lighted it. Then settling back in his chair, he looked at
Tierney. "Got any theories?" he asked.
"No," replied Tierney. "I haven't any theories--but I've got a
couple of suspicions."
"Well?"
"One," continued Tierney, "is this flat across the hall. Murphy--that's
the man on the beat who heard the shot and investigated--Murphy
noticed that in spite of all the racket we made breaking down
the door last night, no one in that flat showed any interest. I
tried to get in touch with them this morning. Nothing doing. Either
they weren't home, or wouldn't answer the bell."
"That looks bad," commented Morgan. "You mentioned in your report
that you talked with the janitor. Did he drop anything about them
that you didn't think worth while putting in the report?"
"The janitor simply told me that a man and his daughter lived in the
flat, and that he thought the man was away a good deal; so he
supposed he must be a traveling man. They have always seemed to be
quiet people. He has never even seen them have any company."
"That's suspicious, too," declared Morgan. "Normal people usually
have SOME company. Is that all?"
Tierney nodded.
"Now," prompted Morgan, "you said you had another suspicion."
"You bet!" exclaimed Tierney, straightening up in his chair. "That
guy, Marsh--underneath here."
"'Great minds'," laughed Morgan. "I sort of focused on that man
myself after reading your report just now."
"Well, here's the way I look at it," explained Tierney. "When
ordinary folks hear fighting and shooting in the middle of the
night, they generally stick their heads under the covers and lie
close. They don't put on bath robes and run out on the street to be
the first to give a report. Then the janitor tells me that he's seen
this man around a lot in the daytime--'no visible means of support,'
you might say. Both Murphy and I remember that Marsh referred to his
wife. The janitor says he's pretty sure that he never saw any woman
around the flat. And when I asked Marsh this morning to let me talk
to his wife, he said she was not in."
"You probably noticed in my report that it was this Marsh who showed
us the bloodstain under the chair. You know, we came out of the
kitchen and caught that guy in the act of pulling a chair over the
spot. He said he was replacing the chair where he found it. I've
been wondering whether he wasn't actually covering up the spot
himself. When we caught him in the act, maybe he just decided to
bluff it out."
"The Department didn't make any mistake when they shifted you into
the Detective Bureau, Tierney," said Morgan, laughing. "Has the
Chief assigned you to any other case for my day off?"
"No," replied Tierney. "When the Chief told me to come back and meet
you here I figured he wanted me to stick to this case with you."
"So I thought," agreed Morgan. "But I want to be left alone here for
awhile. You scout around and see if you can find out something more
about this tenant across the hall. Do you know his name?"
"Clark Atwood, it says on the mail box downstairs."
"All right, Tierney. See what you can look up in this neighborhood.
I'll get in touch with you later. By the way, you had better leave
that key with me."
Tierney handed over the key to the padlock, and with a cheery "So
long," started off.
Morgan, left to himself, began a careful inspection of the
apartment. Although assured that the apartment had been unoccupied,
his first act was to discover, if possible, any signs of recent
habitation. Convinced by the blood spot that the principal part of
whatever had happened had taken place in the front room, he decided
to leave that room until the last. Running all the shades to the top
of the windows as he passed from the front to the rear of the
apartment, Morgan made the place as light as possible. He began his
examination with the kitchen. The fastenings on the windows were
closed, and the undisturbed condition of the dust indicated that
they had not been touched for a long period. A careful inspection of
the glass and woodwork showed no finger marks or any attempt to open
the catches. The bolt on the back door was unfastened, but as the
report stated that the police had found this bolt in place, it was
obvious that it had simply been left open by the police. Morgan
carefully scrutinized the condition of the bolt. After pushing it
back into place the difference in brightness of the protected and
unprotected parts convinced him that the bolt had been closed for
some time.
He also noted that the key was missing from the lock. However, this
fact had been referred to in the report, and it could make little
difference if the bolt itself had been fastened. As a matter of
fact, during his search of the pantry, he discovered the key on top
of the ice box. A layer of dust indicated that the key had not been
touched for a long time. His thorough investigation of the pantry
revealed no evidence of recent use. The ice box was dry as a bone,
with the musty smell of long disuse. A touch of the finger on
various dishes and pieces of glassware showed that these also were
covered with a film of dust.
Before leaving the kitchen, Morgan glanced into the sink, to
ascertain if, as often happens, the murderer had washed his hands
there. There was a reddish stain about the outlet, but as Morgan
found this covered with dust he surmised that a long time had
elapsed since any water had been run in the sink. This stain was
presumably the rust which usually gathers in a long unused sink or
basin.
The small maid's room off the kitchen had certainly not been in use.
Only the bare mattress was on the bed, and Morgan noticed that as
his own feet left imprints in the dust on the floor, it was not
likely that anyone else could have been in the room without leaving
similar traces.
Next he thoroughly searched the dining room. As this room usually
seems to be the favorite gathering point, both for the occupants of
a house and unbidden prowlers, Morgan's keen eyes examined every
detail of the floor and furnishings, including the drawers of the
sideboard. He immediately noticed that two of the chairs were
standing close to the table, while two others were moved slightly
back from the table as if people had been sitting in them. On the
floor under one of these chairs he found a few spots of cigarette
ashes. To Morgan's quick mind this carried a mental picture. Of
course, the police who had been in the apartment the night before
might have accidentally or intentionally moved the chairs, but he
was quite sure that under the circumstances not one of them would
have sat down to smoke a cigarette. At some time quite recently,
therefore, somebody, probably two persons, had sat at this dining
room table while conversing, or waiting for something.
This was further confirmed when Morgan, bending his knees and
lowering his body so as to bring his eyes on a level with the table,
studied the top in the reflected light. He saw that the dust on the
table top had been disturbed in front of the two chairs.
Furthermore, he discovered that the person who had not been smoking
had evidently rested a pair of clasped and sweaty hands on the table
top, as two parallel, greasy marks, made by the sides of the hands,
showed quite plainly. To Morgan, clasped and sweaty hands indicated
a possible state of nervousness. Either this had been the victim or
the chief plotter.
The dining room revealed nothing further to Morgan, but he felt that
he had made some progress in establishing the fact that at least two
people had quite recently been in this supposedly unoccupied
apartment.
Passing through the entrance hall, Morgan then examined the main
bedroom, which opened off of it. The bed had been dismantled, as in
the maid's room. An examination of the clothes closet, and the
drawers of the dresser and a chiffonier, showed that the room was
commonly occupied by a man and a woman. Everything quite obviously
belonged to the regular tenant. Morgan could find nothing of a
suspicious nature, although he had particularly looked for
correspondence which might in some indefinite way connect this
tenant with the happenings of the night before.
The bathroom was visited next. Outside of the usual toilet articles
and harmless medical "first aids" in the cabinet, the room was bare.
The final step was a close examination of the front room. Here the
blood spot stood out dark and forbidding in the light of the
afternoon sun. Beyond the fact that the shot had taken effect, it
told nothing. Morgan stood in thought with his eyes resting upon the
brick fireplace. Suddenly the descending sun threw its rays farther
into the room and rested on a bright spot at the side of the
fireplace. It looked odd to Morgan and he approached it. What he
found was a flattened bullet, which had been held in place by
slightly embedding itself in the rough surface of the brick. As
evidence it had small value outside of confirming the fact that a
shot had been actually fired in this apartment.
Finding nothing else with a bearing on the case, Morgan started to
leave. At the doorway to the entrance hall, he stopped and turned to
take one last look around the room in the hope that something might
suggest itself. As he stood making this last survey, his eye caught
a faint point of light under a cabinet in a corner. Instantly he
returned to the room, and stooping down, ran his hand under the
cabinet. His fingers seized on a small object, which proved to be a
gold cuff button. As he turned it over in his hand he found the
initial "M" deeply engraved in the heavy gold.
Remembering that he had learned from the report in his pocket that
the name of the tenant of this apartment was Ames, this discovery
immediately assumed great importance, so Morgan carefully placed the
cuff button in a vest pocket.
Encouraged by his find, Morgan made another careful examination of
the room. The flattened bullet and the cuff button, revealed by
friendly rays of sunlight, seemed to be all that he could find.