THE FOUR CLEWS
As Constable Griggs, proud as a pouter pigeon, departed with his
prisoner, Doctor Bushnell replaced the sheet over the face of the dead
woman, but not until he had looked again at the beautiful features,
shaking his head, as if he could not understand the anomaly of
countenance and character.
"A--a woman of the underworld! It's just a little hard to believe that
a woman with that face----"
"On the fringe of the underworld, I think I said," corrected Wiggly
Price. "Her associations were criminal, but I hardly imagine that she
had led a vicious life, for that _would_ show." He paused for a moment.
"Sarbella told me something about her that I hadn't known before--that
it was her husband who came to Andrea Sarbella and told him the truth
about her. I was just wondering if--if she had gone to the trouble of
divorcing him. It's a difficult thing, getting a divorce in New York
State."
Doctor Bushnell looked grave. "Sarbella was right; she was a vampire.
She tricked Gilmore, fooled him with her pretty face, as she fooled the
other one--young Sarbella. I am apprehensive of the effect that this
is going to have on Kirklan; already he is on the verge of a nervous
breakdown, and when he learns the truth--well, I hope it can be
withheld from him until he has had a chance to pull together." He made
a move to depart, but Wiggly stopped him with a gesture.
"Just a moment, doctor. You're satisfied that Sarbella did the
shooting?"
The physician seemed surprised by the question.
"Certainly," he answered promptly. "There were but five persons in the
house; two of them downstairs, three upstairs, when the fatal shot
was fired. You don't mean to tell me that you have any doubts----" He
broke off, disturbed by the recollection of Joan's evasiveness and
perturbation.
"I'm not saying Sarbella isn't the guilty man," answered Wiggly; "but I
do say that it would be next to impossible to have a jury convict him
on such evidence."
"But he was the only person in the house who could have any possible
motive for the crime," argued Doctor Bushnell. "Revenge, young man--a
trait that is strong with the Latins, particularly the Italian. You
don't for a moment entertain a notion that Mrs. Gilmore, the gentlest
soul I have ever known, or Miss Sheridan----"
"I admit the motive," interrupted Wiggly; "I admit the opportunity, and
I admit that, on the face of things so far, he is the guilty man. But
where is the proof--the proof that will convict him before a jury?
"The proof of guilt is somewhere--somewhere in this house; it may be
right in this room. I have been a newspaper reporter for ten years, and
a lot of my assignments have been crime stories. I did headquarters for
nearly five years; experience tells me that there are clews, definite
and convincing clews, that will convict. There are always clews."
"Yes, so I have gathered; but the room here--there is no evidence of a
struggle--nothing visible----"
"The same things, doctor, are not visible to all eyes; seeing a clew
is one thing, and observing it is quite another thing. A newspaper
reporter gets to be a sort of detective, sometimes he's a darn good
detective, and, if you have no objection, I'll look around a bit and
see what I can find to clinch the case against Sarbella."
Doctor Bushnell hesitated. "Kirklan Gilmore gave orders that no
newspaper men were to be admitted," he said; "still you have rendered
valuable assistance, and----"
"And," added Wiggly with a faint smile, "I've already got my story.
Even if you pitch me out, it won't stop my paper from printing the
facts that I have gathered."
"Yes, that's true," nodded the physician, "and personally I've a
profound respect for a good newspaper reporter. Gilmore naturally
shrinks from the thought of having this thing blazoned across the front
page; but, if he understood the situation, I feel sure that he would
give you every chance to fix the guilt where it belongs. He seemed
to resent the suggestion I made, that Sarbella was the most obvious
suspect, but he did not know the past which linked the lives of his
wife and his friend.
"The constable is little better than helpless in a case like this;
his job is catching automobile speeders, and a murder is outside of
his experience. It was nothing short of luck for Ham Griggs that you
happened in and gave him the right tack. I intended urging Gilmore to
employ a private detective, but if you can make any progress--well, I
shan't stop you."
"That's mighty decent of you, Doctor Bushnell, and, before I start in
Sherlocking, I'd like to ask you a question or two about the wound. The
bullet pierced her heart?"
"No, it did not; I followed the course of the bullet with a probe, and
it missed the heart by a fraction of an inch."
"Good Lord, you don't mean it! Then death was caused----"
"From the best I can determine, a punctured artery."
"In other words, she bled to death; isn't that what you mean, doctor?"
"Yes."
"Would she have bled to death so quickly?"
"That is hard to say--evidently very quickly. Both Gilmore and the
butler are positive that she was dead when they reached the room here.
They rushed upstairs immediately after hearing her scream and the shot."
"And that was a matter of less than minutes--seconds," mused Wiggly
Price. "The bullet must have pierced the aorta, or one of its main
branches."
"So it would seem, and I see that you know the anatomical terms."
"Some of them; a reporter has to know a little about everything. I was
just wondering if perhaps she wasn't still alive when her husband and
the butler reached the room."
"Bates thought he saw the last breath leave her body, but I wouldn't
accept that with absolute finality. He is, of course, not a medical
man, and he might have easily imagined it."
Wiggly Price's eyes searched the room with a slowly moving gaze, his
animated ears twitching faintly. He seemed to be studying the rug,
which was of a neutral shade; any discolorment, such as a bloodstain,
would have stood out glaringly, and there was none.
"I've been thinking," he said, "that she might have been placed on the
couch there--after she was shot. Yet, with all the profuse bleeding, if
she had fallen to the floor there would be some signs of it. I wonder
if you noticed whether she was shot while reclining on the lounge, or
if the bullet was fired while she was standing?"
The doctor looked bewildered. "Great Heavens, man, how could you expect
me to know that?" he exclaimed with a hint of asperity, suspecting that
the reporter was trying to "show off." But he was mistaken about that.
"I feel that we may be able to determine that, if we take another look
at the dead woman's clothing," Wiggly told him. "There's the law of
gravity you know."
"Gravity? What's the law of gravity got to do with it?" Puzzled, the
physician lifted the sheet to permit the reporter's examination. The
latter leaned forward for a moment and took note, also, that the silk
robe was powder burned--in fact, that the explosion had been so close
as to scorch the undergarments as well.
Wiggly Price pointed to the meandering line of dried crimson which
dyed the expensive dressing gown almost to the fur-edged hem of the
garment. "Blood, like water," he said, "must obey the law of gravity
and flow downward; she had to be standing on her feet for the crimson
stream to seep down, almost level with her ankles. She was placed on
the lounge by whoever shot her; that is evident. Gad, but she was
a beautiful woman, wasn't she? It's no wonder that men lost their
heads over her. You know, doctor, I've always felt sorry for a truly
beautiful woman; so many of them end up in misery. But that's neither
here nor there. The wound is in the side, isn't it?"
Doctor Bushnell nodded slowly. "I understand now what you're getting
at. Yes, I can see that she must have been shot while standing on
her feet, and either she staggered back to the couch herself, or was
supported to the couch by the slayer. The wound--under the armpit?"
"The weapon must have been pressed close to her body judging from the
evidence of burned powder. I see that the robe was set on fire, which
burned quite a hole before it smoldered out. Doctor, wouldn't you say
that it was a most unusual place for an intentionally mortal wound? Her
arm would have to have been raised away from her body."
The doctor agreed with a tight-lipped "Yes."
"Of course," went on the newspaper man, "she might have turned
suddenly, squirmed in the slayer's grip--I am taking it for granted
that he was close enough to have seized her--but that's only
speculation. What became of the gun?"
"Ham Griggs took it with him. It was an automatic, a large-caliber .44,
I think."
"Finger prints?"
"The butt plates had a corrugated surface."
"I see; in that case there would have been no finger prints on the gun.
Probably wouldn't have been, since the slayer deliberately left the gun
behind. Only a very stupid person would have neglected to wipe away
finger prints had there been any. Hello, what's this!"
Wiggly's foot had crunched against a bit of porcelain, and he leaned
forward swiftly, picking it up; it was a rough-surfaced piece of
pottery, black in color and, as much as he could judge from the
fragment, had belonged to some convex object of which it was a
shattered part.
"A broken piece of something--but what?" he murmured, holding it up for
the doctor's inspection.
"I'm sure I couldn't say," answered Doctor Bushnell, who was not
greatly interested. He considered it a waste of time to speculate over
such an insignificant trifle, when there was murder evidence to be
looked for.
"The Hitchcock murder last summer--remember that, doctor? It was solved
by nothing more noticeable than a black pin, a mourning pin, and the
widow of a man whom Hitchcock had ruined, confessed when she was faced
with that pin. This is larger than a pin, doctor, but, to be frank, I
doubt there's much value to it." He was near a small mahogany table by
the room's north wall; the light was not very good, the chamber being
lighted only by wall fixtures, and the incandescent rays were softened
by parchment shades; but his eyes pierced the shadows and saw, on the
floor beside the table, several other pieces like the one which he held
in his hand.
"Ah!" he exclaimed. "Here's the answer to it, doctor. It's a vase, a
black pottery vase; yes, here's the neck of it."
"That might be evidence of a struggle," suggested Doctor Bushnell.
"The vase might have been knocked off the edge of the table, don't
you think, when the woman tried to escape Sarbella's vengeance? She
probably knew, the minute he got into the room, that his intention was
to kill her."
Price's ears wiggled briefly, as he considered the matter of the broken
vase, and with a dismissing gesture tossed down the broken bit which he
held in his fingers.
"You may be right," he agreed, "it doesn't seem important enough
to bother about, but----" His voice broke off sharply, as he stared
toward the window directly in front of him; he had noticed the sagging
curtain, where it had been ripped some two and a half hours earlier,
when Don Haskins had made his surprise entrance into Helen's room. But,
of course, Wiggly had no way of being aware of the fleeing crook's
existence.
"Take a look at this, Doctor Bushnell," said the reporter; "this torn
curtain. Funny we didn't notice that before; it's mighty near jerked
off the rod."
"And what do you make of that?"
Wiggly's eyes were meditatively half closed, and his ears as well as
his mind were active.
"I'd say one of three things," he answered slowly. "Either the murderer
barred Mrs. Gilmore's flight through the door, and she was trying to
get out the window--which somehow I don't take much stock in--or the
murderer himself came in through the window, or, thirdly, that he
got out through the window. In the last two cases it doesn't seem
reasonable that he would have taken the time to shut the window behind
him. It seems to me that the best thing to do is just store this away
for future reference. It doesn't seem to mean much in itself."
"No, it doesn't," grunted the physician. "It might not have been torn
to-night."
Wiggly glanced about the neat, precisely kept room. "She was particular
about the orderliness of things," he said. "I don't believe she would
have left a torn window curtain unrepaired for long. No, the curtain
was torn to-night; but, as I said, we'll just store that away for
future reference."
And then Doctor Bushnell made a discovery of his own, a half-burned
cigarette that had been mashed down into the heavy nap of the rug, some
eight feet from the chaise longue and even a farther distance from the
door. He gave a brief exclamation, as he pointed to his find.
"Sarbella is a cigarette smoker; if this is his brand----"
Wiggly Price picked up the cigarette, which evidently had been
flattened out beneath the pressure of a shoe.
"It's a little hard to believe, doctor, that a man with premeditated
murder in his mind, would walk into his victim's room smoking a
cigarette," he said quickly. "For that matter, it might be the murdered
woman's cigarette--so many women do smoke 'em these modern days." He
examined the flattened thing which, as it happened, bore the name of
the brand. "Cheap--ten cents a pack. Hardly a woman's cigarette, I'd
say. Perhaps Gilmore himself dropped it."
"Not Gilmore; I happen to know that he doesn't smoke anything except
an occasional after-dinner cigar; but I do recall very clearly that
Sarbella was smoking a cigarette downstairs. If he smokes that kind,
it's clinching proof that he is the guilty man!" The doctor was
becoming quite excited over this clew. "Since Gilmore doesn't smoke
them, who else could have dropped it on the rug? Answer me that!"
Wiggly took a piece of copy paper from his pocket, carefully wrapped
the cigarette butt in it, and tucked this important, or unimportant,
bit of evidence in his vest pocket.
"As you say, doctor, if it's Sarbella's brand of cigarette it means
something--but it's rather difficult to imagine a chap like Sarbella
smoking this cheap fag; just about as hard as it is to imagine him
walking into this room, a gun in one hand and a cigarette in another,
ready to avenge his dead brother. However, when I get to the jail, I'll
see the constable and check up on this. I'll have a look at Sarbella's
cigarette case."
Although, as he had just said, it hardly looked like the sort of
cigarette a woman might be expected to smoke, he was thorough enough to
look about the room, and he even went to the dressing table in search
of any proof that Helen Gilmore herself had been addicted to a little
puffing now and then. But there was no telltale flickings of ashes, not
so much as an ash receiver.
Wiggly compressed his lips.
"You know, doctor," he said slowly, "this cigarette thing bothers me
a little--quite a little, too. She isn't a smoker unless she does it
on the sly and----Oh, confound it, it just isn't reasonable that this
is Sarbella's cigarette butt. I've got a hunch that this business runs
deeper than we think."
Doctor Bushnell gave an impatient gesture. "Stuff! You're trying
to manufacture a mystery; the papers like mysteries so that they
can spread the story out over days and days. You're afraid that the
solution is going to be too easy, too tame."
"Tame?" exploded Wiggly Price. "I can imagine nothing more dramatic
than Sarbella being the guilty man--beautiful vamp, handsome, talented
young foreigner, related to nobility, a suicide, a brother's vendetta,
an unexpected meeting, arranged by Fate, at the home of a friend who is
a popular novelist, and then--revenge!
"Good Lord, I hope you don't call a yarn like that tame! Scoggins, my
city editor, will weep with joy if it pans out that way--and probably
give me a raise in salary, although it's his burning desire to fire me.
But I'm making the guess that the cigarette butt that we've picked up
out of the rug didn't belong to Victor Sarbella." He paused, looking
about the room again. "Electric lights are so tricky to the eyes;
it's so easy to overlook something, some little thing that might be
tremendously important. It still lacks some time of being daylight, and
I'm anxious to scoot over to the jail and check up on this cigarette
clew--make sure whether or not it's Sarbella's. Are you going to remain
here for a little while, doctor?"
Doctor Bushnell glanced at his watch.
"Yes," he answered; "at least until the undertaker arrives--probably
later. It's my official duty to remain, I suppose."
"Your official duty?"
"As it happens, I am a deputy coroner."
Wiggly showed his surprise. "You hadn't mentioned that; I hardly think
that even the constable realized it. Of course you understand, doctor,
that, in a case like this, your authority exceeds that of any other
official. You are the commanding officer, so to speak."
Doctor Bushnell nodded. "In a way my position is somewhat embarrassing.
I have been the Gilmore family physician for a good many years."
"I was wondering if I should be able to get inside the house again,"
said the reporter; "but, if you are the----"
"Deputy coroner," corrected the physician. "Doctor Whitestone, the
coroner, is vacationing at Saranac Lake."
"Anyhow, doctor, you are in charge, and all I need is your permission."
"Probably it can be arranged," Doctor Bushnell said after a moment
of hesitation. "Of course it will be rather difficult to admit one
reporter and bar the others, and there will be a regiment of them
swooping down on us; but you have rendered valuable assistance that
makes it very hard for me to refuse you. You will let me know, just as
soon as you have clinched the matter, whether the cigarette butt was
dropped by Sarbella." He was taking the door key from his pocket and
was starting to leave the room.
"Certainly," answered Wiggly, moving to follow. "I came out from the
office in a taxi, and it's waiting downstairs. I shall come back
immediately after I have----" His voice trailed off, as he squinted at
the floor, where the chaise longue with its tragic burden cast a shadow
over the rug. Swiftly he bent forward and picked up something.
Doctor Bushnell stared; it was nothing more startling than a hairpin,
and he was rather impatient that the newspaper man should subject it to
such an apparently interesting scrutiny.
"As I said," murmured Wiggly, "artificial light is tricky. Either one
of us should have noticed this before."
"It's nothing but a common, ordinary hairpin," grunted the physician;
"there's nothing in that--probably fell out of her hair."
Price's forehead was wrinkled into a frown, and his ears were wiggling
again.
"It dropped from some one's hair," he muttered. "Her hair? I wonder if
it did?"
"Don't be ridiculous," snapped Doctor Bushnell.
"Look at it!" the other commanded tersely. "What color is that hairpin?"
"Black, of course," the doctor said impatiently.
"Exactly--black! The dead woman's hair is blond. Step over to her
dressing table, and perhaps you'll be puzzled, too. See, she uses
bronze hairpins, doctor. Any woman with hair the color of hers, would.
A black hairpin! I wonder if this is a clew, a real clew?"
"Rot!" retorted the physician. "Any one might have dropped it; the
maid----"
"Where is the maid?"
"Bates said that she went to Yonkers."
"And has the maid black hair?"
Doctor Bushnell considered for a moment, trying to remember. "Dark
hair," he nodded; "perhaps not black. I couldn't say as to the
identical shade."
"The other Mrs. Gilmore?"
"Quite gray."
"And the other--what is her name?"
The doctor frowned indignantly. "Such a suspicion is too ridiculous,
too absurd!" he protested. Yet with a vaguely uneasy feeling he
remembered Joan Sheridan's strange behavior, her anguished protest of
Victor Sarbella's innocence--and Joan's hair was black, jet black!