A SEARCH FOR CLUES
By running a board partition down the centre of the room nearest the
hall, Doctor Westbrook had by the simplest means given himself a
place of reception; one where his patients could wait while he was
engaged in the room overlooking Court Street, there being still
another for his drugs and medicines.
There was not much wasted space in the laboratory. Against the walls
stood cases filled with bottles of many sizes and colors, and other
cases displaying glittering, sinister instruments; in one corner
stood a carboy of distilled water, and by the window, opening into
the light-well, stood the table where the Doctor compounded such
prescriptions as he did not send to a regular apothecary.
The light-well opened like a chasm between the Field and Nettleton
buildings; its bottom, on a level with the second-story floors, was
of heavy semi-opaque glass, so that such rays of light as were not
diverted into the windows on the one hand or the other found a way to
the shop space on the ground floor. At present an arc lamp beneath
this skylight suffused a soft and mellow radiance throughout the
entire light-well.
Mr. Converse let himself down to a narrow ledge bordering the
skylight, and with an injunction to the young man to wait, made his
way around it to a window diagonally opposite, which the latter
recognized as belonging to the offices of Petty & Carlton, attorneys,
in the Field Building. Here the Captain drew himself up with
remarkable agility, and disappeared through the window. All the
windows letting into the light-well were open, the watcher was
noticing, when his attention was attracted by Mr. Converse's sharp
whisper.
"Stand where you are a few minutes, Mr. Lynden," said he. "I want to
experiment a bit, and I shall call on you for a report presently."
He lowered himself to the ledge again, passed over to Nettleton
Building side, and to the hall window of the latter. There he
stooped and scrutinized the ledge intently, and next the window-sill;
after which, with a little spring, he raised himself to the window,
and crawled through it into the hall.
A sudden quiet fell,--a quiet unbroken by any sound. Standing there
alone in the gloom, one undoubtedly would have been impressed by the
blank, staring windows that were like wide and lidless eyes; and as
he looked, Lynden seemed to become sensible of a feeling of dread at
the awfulness of the crime which had been committed so near at hand,
for he shuddered visibly, as if the windows had some purpose in
staring,--as if they were in reality eyes that still retained some
expression of their horror at a deed witnessed but a moment since.
Noting the alacrity with which Converse let his heavy frame in and
out of windows, a spectator might fancy it an easy matter for one
lurking in the light-well to do likewise, at the ripe moment strike a
swift blow, and then leap back again.
But whatever the current of Lynden's meditations, it was abruptly
diverted. He fell to listening intently. The door between the hall
and the reception-room was being slowly and cautiously opened; still
slowly and with an apparent effort to occasion no betraying noise,
some one advanced on tiptoe into the room. The young man faced
deliberately about until he could see the door in the partition, and
waited. Toward it the almost silent footfalls were moving; presently
there appeared at the aperture the expressionless face of Mr.
Converse, who, when he perceived Lynden's startled attitude, gave
utterance to a low chuckle.
"I was not endeavoring to frighten you, Mr. Lynden," said he; "I was
simply trying a little experiment. When did you first hear me?"
"I heard the door open, and next, you tiptoeing across the room. I
did not know what to think." He was pale and trembling.
"Not another sound? No footsteps in the hall? Nothing of that kind?"
Lynden shook his head. "No; the first thing I heard was the door
opening," he repeated.
"Well," continued the Captain, reflectively, pursing his mouth, and
lifting his right eyebrow at the young man, "I don't believe anybody
could have made less noise than I did in there"--he nodded his head
toward the partition--"nor more than I made in the hall. And you
heard nothing until the door began to open--h-m-m!" He looked around
the laboratory,--at the shelves of bottles, at the partition not
reaching quite to the ceiling; he stepped to the window, and, leaning
out, contemplated the hall window. "It's confoundedly queer," he
concluded.
"What is?"
"Why, the way noises act here. You know, that man--Mr. Ferdinand
Howe--was standing at this window, and heard nothing in the hall. I
almost believe, if the deceased had been shot instead of stabbed he
would not have heard it..... But let us have a look at the other
side of the hall.... Let me see," he went on, in a meditative way,
"Room 4; that must be Mr. Nettleton's private office; as my friend
Mr. Follett would say,--his 'lair.' He has no use for lawyers." He
pushed open the door directly opposite the Doctor's suite.
The room was large and had three windows opening into the light-well.
Through these windows sufficient light from the arc lamp beneath the
skylight found its way to cause the furnishings to loom shadowy and
ghost-like in a sort of feeble twilight, and to make it easy to find
an incandescent lamp, which Mr. Converse turned on, illuminating the
apartment with a brighter and more cheerful radiance. He surveyed
the room, and looked at Lynden.
"I suppose," said he, "the door has not been locked this evening?"
The young man merely shook his head. For some reason since passing
to this side of the hall, he had become strangely taciturn, though he
watched the Captain's every movement eagerly, and cast many furtive
glances toward the denser shadows.
Converse, knelt and examined the floor closely on either side of the
door. Lynden's nerves were at such a tension that he actually
started at a whispered ejaculation from the Captain as he picked up a
tiny hairpin,--the kind a woman would have specified as "invisible."
So, then, there had been some one behind this door--and that one a
woman!
Why should this circumstance affect Lynden so strangely? for it would
seem that, in the undisturbed stillness of these deserted chambers,
there was a potent, disquieting influence which kept him in a _qui
vive_ of nervous expectancy,--an invisible something in the
atmosphere of the place filling him with an apprehensive dread. It
was really remarkable that his observant companion did not notice his
agitation; and still it was difficult to imagine how he could, for he
was crossing the floor in a crouching attitude, apparently directing
his entire attention to the floor with a concentration that permitted
no individual thread of the heavy carpet to escape his earnest
scrutiny.
Mr. Nettleton was a lawyer, and he occupied two rooms, both of which
opened directly into the hall. The two men were now in the one that
the lawyer used as his consultation room, and the course being
pursued by Mr. Converse would soon take him to the connecting door
between the two offices. Arriving at that point, he stood erect and
paused a moment, plunged in thought. He said nothing, and seemingly
had become oblivious of his companion's attendance.
Just to the left of the connecting door, and in the general office,
stood the desk occupied during business hours by Clay Fairchild.
Above this desk was another incandescent light, which the Captain
lighted, after which he took up whatever trail he had been following
so closely, at the exact point where he had left it, continuing, in a
stooping posture, to the hall door of the general office. From the
point where he had picked up the hairpin, immediately within the
entrance to Room 4, he had pursued a course away from the hall,
through the connecting door to Room 5, and back again toward the hall
to the hall entrance of the latter room,--the whole forming, roughly,
an arc, the chord of which was the hall.
At the door of Room 5 he stood upright once more, and the young man
became aware all at once that he was being eyed quizzically.
"Look!" the Captain whispered. Stooping again, he pointed to the
heavy ply of the moquette carpet.
For a moment Lynden could descry nothing unusual; his heart was
thumping in a manner for which he could assign no reason; but when
the Captain traced an outline with his thumbnail, he could see quite
distinctly the imprint of a small, partial footprint, such as a
woman's French heel might make.
"That appears at just two other places," Converse continued; "at the
entrance to Room 4, where I found the hairpin, and just inside this
room; and there, beyond that desk, near the connecting door. They
were made by a woman who stood a while at the first door, and who
then, I believe,--though I can't be positive,--tiptoed to the
connecting door, where she paused again for a while. She either
tiptoed between those points, or stood for a time; the marks wouldn't
have remained had she walked directly through the two rooms."
Lynden stared at the tiny impression--so faint that nobody else would
ever have remarked it--and seemingly sought to frame a reply that he
could voice naturally.
"Wonderful! Wonderful!" was all he said, but in tones so low that
they were scarcely louder than Mr. Converse's whisper.
The latter now turned to the rest of the room. Swiftly, but
apparently permitting not the least article to escape his
observation, he made the circuit of the apartment, and finally paused
at Clay Fairchild's desk. Almost instantly his eyes singled out one
from among the mass of papers which littered it. This he carefully
folded, and placed, with the article he had picked up on the
stairway, which Lynden had been unable to see, in the capacious
pocketbook. He seemed reluctant to leave this desk; after he had
turned away he paused and cast another look at it, sniffing as one
striving to locate the source of a faint odor. Lynden paused too; he
glanced hurriedly from right to left, his brow lined, his expression
troubled and perplexed.
At length they returned to Mr. Nettleton's private office, which was
subjected to as close and thorough an examination as had been the
room just quitted. Only one thing seemed especially to hold
Converse's attention, and that was the space beneath the lawyer's
desk. Here he got down to his hands and knees, and struck no less
than five matches in an effort to obtain a better light. Whether the
dusty space told him anything Lynden could not determine.
They passed back into the hall again. Converse walked directly to
the entrance of Suite 2, immediately adjoining Doctor Westbrook's
offices, on the side nearest the stairway. A small card pasted on
the ground glass of this door bore the words "To Let." Converse
ignited another match, in the added light of which he examined the
door-knob. His companion observed him touch it with the tip of a
finger, and shake his head, as if something incomprehensible had all
at once presented itself.
"Does the janitor sleep in the building?" the Captain inquired after
a moment; when the young man nodded affirmatively, he added: "Can you
get the keys of this floor for me? It will save some time and
trouble, and I want to finish before the reporters come."
"Certainly. His room is in the third story."
Converse watched him until he disappeared around the corner toward
the stairway, and straightway did something very strange. With the
silence and speed of a cat he made his way back to Fairchild's desk.
Over this he bent and smelt the papers which lay there. But that
would not do. Hastily he tried the top right-hand drawer. It was
unlocked--as were all the other drawers--and opened easily. That for
which he was searching was not there, either. He turned rapidly to
another drawer, and another, and another, until every drawer in the
desk had been opened and closed again, its contents having been
hastily but thoroughly gone over; and still the object of this
hurried search was not found. Quickly he glanced from side to side.
To the left of the desk was a waste-paper basket, which had not been
recently emptied, and over this he inhaled deeply, as one would drink
in the fragrance of a rose. He thrust a hand among the debris of
papers, and in a moment drew forth a dainty lace handkerchief, to
which clung the unmistakable odor of stephanotis. Again the
capacious pocket-book; and when Lynden returned with the keys the
Captain was contemplating the door-knob of Suite 2 with unabated
interest.
Lynden sniffed as the other ran over the key-tags in a search for No.
2.
"What is that perfume?" he demanded sharply.
"Ah, do you like that, now?" rejoined Converse, with the first
display of enthusiasm he had yet shown. "That is an odor I am very
partial to, and hope to have more of--if I can find where this came
from."
The young man moistened his lips, and his eyes turned away from the
other's steady look.
Converse now had the door to No. 2 open, but he did not enter this
room. It needed only the match he now struck to disclose layer upon
layer of dust, the undisturbed accumulation of months.
"Now, then," said he, as he closed and locked the door again, "back
to the light-well for a minute or two, and I am through."
He let himself out of the hall window, and made another circuit of
the ledge around the skylight. The light-well was more or less a
catch-all for the windows opening into it; it therefore contained
many scraps of paper, every one of which he glanced at before casting
it aside. Only one thing here seemed to interest him,--something he
picked up far out on the skylight and scrutinized. Lynden was
afforded another glimpse of the pocket-book.
"What is it?" he asked.
"A cigarette butt," was the reply; "interesting only because it is
the second one of the same kind I have found to-night."
Presently, when he announced that he had finished, Lynden said it had
fallen to them to turn out the lights and lock the doors, as the
negro janitor was too frightened to venture into the second story
that night. This was soon accomplished, and the two had turned to
depart, when both abruptly stopped. A light had flashed forth
through the ground glass of Room 6.
"What room is that?" asked Converse; for the door was bare of
significance excepting for the single figure "6," now standing out
boldly against the light behind.
"The record and abstract room of the Guaranty Trust Company," was the
reply. "He must have come in while you were in the light-well."
"He? Who?" Converse queried bluntly.
Both were standing as they had paused when the light first surprised
them, and Lynden turned to his interlocutor with some surprise at the
quickening eagerness of his tone, but he answered merely:
"Slade,--William Slade; he prepares the company's abstracts of title,
you know."
Converse's manner became completely impersonal again. "Can you find
some excuse for knocking?" he asked. "Would you mind doing so? I
should like to have a glimpse of him."
"Not at all; if I can make him hear. He's quite deaf."
Lynden, after knocking once perfunctorily, did not wait for a summons
to enter. He immediately threw the door wide open, crying, without
much show of deference:
"Hello, Mr. Slade! You work late to-night."
A little, dingy, dreary figure of a man, perched on a high stool, and
bending over a huge canvas-bound volume, slowly raised his head, and
gazed at his unceremonious callers with the vacant look that one sees
in the eyes of deaf people who have not heard distinctly. His
smooth-shaven face was like leather, shot and crisscrossed with a
network of fine wrinkles. Almost on the tip of his nose he was
balancing a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles, and the eyes which now
looked over them were remarkably bright and sparkling, like a
mouse's, conveying to the casual glance an alertness which they did
not actually possess.
"Howard Lynden, close the door," was the odd creature's greeting, in
a voice hoarse and rasping. The sharp little eyes shifted to the
Captain, and back to Lynden again. There was no cordiality in either
his tone or manner.
The young man took a step forward, laid his hand upon the tall desk
at which the little man was seated, raised his voice and asked, "Did
you know there had been a murder committed on this floor this
evening?"
"Murder?" querulously, and with no show of interest. "Murder?"
"Yes; murder. The man died in Doctor Westbrook's office--stabbed."
Without displaying the least curiosity at so unexpected, so
sensational an announcement, Mr. Slade slowly wagged his head, saying
only, "I heard nothing of it." He dipped his pen into the ink-well,
with an air of dismissing his callers and the subject alike.
"I saw your light, and just dropped in to learn if you knew of it,"
Lynden concluded, as he followed the Captain toward the hall.
Lowering his voice, and addressing the latter, "Is there anything
else?" he inquired; at once the wrinkled, meagre visage and twinkling
eyes became suspicious and alert.
"What is that?" demanded Slade, with obvious mistrust.
"Nothing," the young man returned shortly. "Good-night."
Mr. Slade's parchment-like countenance again bent over the big
volume, and his pen flew industriously. It was startling, when the
door had nearly closed, to have the rasping voice come after them
with the suddenness of an explosion.
"Howard Lynden!" it cried. That gentleman, surprised, thrust his
head back into the room.
With pen poised in hand, with spectacles still balanced near the tip
of his thin nose, the ill-favored mask of Slade's countenance was
again confronting the detective and his companion.
"What time was that murder?" asked the abstracter.
"At five o'clock," Lynden rejoined, he and the Captain again
advancing into the room.
"And the murdered man?"
"General Westbrook's friend, Señor de Sanchez."
The little eyes turned once more quickly to the Captain and back to
Lynden as he asked the next question:
"Ah! And who was--the--murderer?" He spoke deliberately, his harsh
voice lowering itself strangely.
"That the police would very much like to know."
Again the little eyes shifted to Mr. Converse.
"An officer?" inquired Slade.
The Captain nodded. Slade's brusque manner returned; dropping his
eyes to his work once more, he said, with an air of finality:
"I am sorry, gentlemen, I can tell you nothing. This is my first
intelligence that a crime had been committed. Good-night. Howard
Lynden, close the door tightly after you."
When the two were once more in the hall the Captain said, "Mr. Slade
developed a mighty sudden interest."
"Yes," returned his companion; "a queer bird--irascible, and touchy
about his deafness. His father was an overseer, you know," as though
this fully accounted for Mr. Slade's undesirable qualities. "But his
curiosity got the better of him that time; he couldn't let us go
without finding out more."
"He and I would have some difficulty in getting along together
without a sign language," remarked Mr. Converse, dryly.
The two were near the foot of the stairs, but they were not destined
to leave the building without another interruption. A man came
precipitately, though noiselessly, in at the entrance, who, when he
observed they were descending, stopped short and awaited their
approach at the foot of the stairs. He was one of the two men who
had followed them from headquarters, and he now, after touching his
hat respectfully to Mr. Converse, looked askance at Lynden. The
Captain, with a nod of apology to the young man, drew the newcomer to
one side.
"Well, Adams?" said he.
"We found Mr. Fairchild's all right," the man whispered; "but Mr.
Fairchild was not there. He has not returned from the office, and
his sister and mother are very anxious. The mother is something of
an invalid--didn't see her at all. Talked with the sister, who
seemed, anyhow, to be the head. Pretended to want a notary and
quizzed her, but she could tell me nothing. I don't believe horses
could draw anything from her if she didn't want to tell. Captain
Converse, sir, she had an eye that looked right into me all the time
I was talking, and I know she thought I was lying when I said I
wanted a notary." The man showed two rows of glistening white teeth
in an unpleasant grin. "I did want a notary, but she didn't know I
was so particular about which one. But I don't believe she knows
where he is. I left Barton to watch the house, and I came on to
report."
"Very good."
"And what shall I do now?"
"Keep your eye on this man here with me until I can send you relief;
I shall keep Barton watching the house."
The manner of the man called Adams was both stealthy and
ingratiating; his visage seemed unable to rid itself of a perpetual
smile, which, taken with a pair of crafty, shifting eyes, gave him a
sinister appearance. During the entire time he and Mr. Converse were
talking, he kept looking past the latter at Lynden; and that this
surreptitious espionage was extremely unpleasant was made manifest by
the young man's growing uneasiness.
Still smiling, shooting a last rapid glance at Lynden, he departed as
abruptly and noiselessly as he had come.
Converse turned to his companion, fixing him with a steely eye; and
what he said seemed unaccountably to agitate the young man.
"I wish to remind you that you are a very important witness in this
affair. I shall venture a hint and a word of advice: if you are not
more circumspect on the witness-stand than you have been to-night,
you will have a mighty bad hour; if you are contemplating a trip from
the city, why--change your mind." With a curt "Good-night," he left
Lynden speechless in the doorway of the Nettleton Building.
Lynden remained motionless many minutes. When he at last produced a
cigarette from his pocket, the cupped hands holding the lighted match
trembled so he had difficulty in igniting it. Abruptly he started
away in a direction opposite that taken by the huge figure of the
Captain.
Behind him moved a shadow so stealthily, its outlines so dim, that it
was scarcely to be distinguished from the surrounding night.