The Broken Bookcase
At my cry of astonishment Carter and Ranville had turned in surprise.
I simply pointed to the forehead of the murdered man, and they bent
forward for a closer look. I saw a startled expression sweep over the
Englishman's face, and he slowly shook his head. It was Carter who
broke the silence, speaking to no one in particular.
“Do you think that was made by the murderer?”
“There is not the slightest doubt of it,” was Ranville's quick retort.
“That man has not been dead over two hours, and the cut itself is not
any older.”
I cast a hurried glance at the grewsome lines of the red cross and
gave a little shiver as I asked:
“But what under heavens can it mean; why should there be a mutilation
of that kind?”
Carter simply shook his head, and it was the Scotland Yard Inspector
who replied:
“We do not know, of course. I have seen a good many murdered people in
my time, but as a rule the murderer had never marked his victim. Once
in a while you will run into a murder which was committed by a
woman—committed in a fit of frenzy. Sometimes in such a case they mark
up their victims. But of course we know nothing of this crime. What
the motive was we do not know. How he was killed is rather easy to
understand—a long thin knife or dagger.”
The body lay upon the floor near the desk, but about two feet behind
it. The position was such that any one coming into the building by the
front door would have been unable to see it. Save for the crimson spot
upon the shirt and the faint cross upon the forehead, there were no
signs of violence.
But the position in which the body lay was rather odd. The man lay
flat upon his back, the staring eyes fixed upon the ceiling. But both
arms were outstretched as far as they could reach. It was this that
puzzled me. I knew it was impossible that the man could have fallen in
the position in which he was. Some one must have arranged the body
after the crime—but why?
Behind the desk was the chair in which the scientist must have sat
while at work. Near it, on the left, was another chair, back of the
typewriting stand. And on the other side of the desk, very close to
it, was a third chair. The surface of the desk was covered with papers
and pamphlets. A small heap of manuscript was piled in an orderly
manner in the very center. But of any weapon there was not a sign.
I was just starting to comment upon this when I observed that Ranville
was carefully studying the position of the chairs. In a moment he went
around the desk, studying the place where a chair stood. Then he
turned to us.
“I have an idea I can reconstruct the murder. See the three chairs?
There is no trouble about the two on your side of the desk; one was
where Warren sat when at work, the other was for his secretary. But
this chair on my side of the desk tells us a good deal.”
I cast an inquiring gaze at the chair, a tall antique piece of
furniture, while Ranville continued:
“In a room as large as this you will not as a rule find a chair pulled
up to a desk, across from which a man is working. But if some one
comes in, the natural thing is to bring a chair near the desk, to be
as close to the man you are talking to as you can. Now there are other
chairs in the room across the desk from where Warren sat; but they are
all rather far away. All but that one, and I am pretty sure the
murderer sat there.”
When he mentioned it, I noticed for the first time that there were a
number of other chairs across from us. Some were near the wall, and
one in front of the safe; but the chair he was speaking of stood but
two feet from the desk. Seeing we did not speak, he went on:
“What happened, I think, was this. The murderer sat in this chair
talking to Warren. I have an idea it was some one he knew. Though I do
not know his habits, yet I doubt if Warren would spend much time while
at work with any one he did not know. The papers said he was rushing
his book. Maybe there were some words passed, maybe not. But then,
suddenly, Warren was killed.”
“Why suddenly?” came Carter's dry question.
“Warren seems to have been a man of strong physical development. There
is no evidence of any struggle. In a fight I judge he could have held
his own with any one. So if there was no struggle, it follows he was
killed suddenly. I judge whoever sat in that chair must have
risen—perhaps said he was going—strolled to Warren's side and suddenly
stabbed him.”
I again turned my eyes to the figure upon the floor, and again the
outstretched arms puzzled me.
“But he never fell to the floor in that position,” I said.
“He never did,” was the reply. “The body was arranged in that
position, and the cut on his forehead was made after he was dead.”
“But why?” asked Carter.
“God knows!” was the retort. “But then, Carter, this is not our show
anyway.”
Carter gave a sudden start, saying slowly: “You are right. I will call
up our chief of police. He will get a mighty big shock, for there has
not been a murder in this town in years. And then”—he paused—“then I'd
better call the housekeeper and break the news to her.”
There was a telephone in the building near the door. After several
attempts Carter got the housekeeper and told her that she had better
come to the summer house. Then he held a short conversation with the
police station, after which he returned to our side.
“While we are waiting for the police, we had better look this place
over,” he said.
As I have mentioned, the building was an odd one with eight sides and
only one story. There was a window at each side, placed rather high,
and the space between the windows was filled with bookcases. All these
cases had glass doors, some of which were open, while others we found
locked. The books in the cases were mostly upon science and
anthropology—the library of a professional scientist. It was not until
we reached the further side of the room that we found anything out of
the way. But there we found one of the bookcases with the glass in the
locked door smashed into hundreds of pieces—pieces which lay upon the
rug at our feet.
Behind the broken glass were seven book shelves with books packed
tightly together. They were mostly bound in a uniform red morocco,
small volumes, not very thick nor very tall. Only in the third shelf
was there a gap, and there several books seemed to be missing.
And the books themselves turned out to be a rather curious collection,
yet when one remembered Warren's profession, perhaps they were not so
out of place as I first thought. The word “erotic” describes them
best, though several went beyond that. Why a scientist should wish to
have upon his shelf “The Perfumed Garden,” “The Ananga Ranga,”
“Aretino” and others one could understand. But there were certain
other things in the case which seemed out of place.
Side by side with the classics of the underworld of literature stood
the witty and immoral romances of the eighteenth century of France.
But there were a few modern books, decidedly pornographic in type,
which flanked the more classical ones. An odd collection at the best,
worth a good deal of money, it is true. But the oddest thing to
explain was why some one had broken the glass to get at the contents
of the case.
The Englishman gave a low whistle, and I saw his eyebrows raise.
Reaching in his hand, it came forth with a volume. It stood on the
shelf which had the empty space, the one where, if the broken gap told
the truth, several books were missing. He turned the leaves slowly,
shrugged his shoulders at several of the engravings, and then without
a word handed the book to me. It was the first volume of De Sade's
“Justine,” the first edition with the illustrations. I remembered once
hearing Bartley say that it was the worst book ever written and very
difficult to secure. In turn, without speaking, I handed the thin
volume to Carter just as Ranville expressed what was in his mind.
“That's not only a pretty rare book, but it is also a rather rotten
one. It looks very much as if some one smashed the glass in this case
to get at the books. What they took I cannot tell, though it might be
the other volumes of that ‘Justine.’ I cannot understand why any
murderer should want the books. Besides, it's the French edition, and
not every chap reads French, you know.”
We agreed to this, and placed the book back in the case. Then climbing
a narrow winding stairs, we went up to the gallery. It ran around the
entire length of the room—a narrow gallery, built evidently to give
more space for books. The walls were lined with books, thousands of
them, of every kind. But there were no doors or glass before the cases
in the gallery.
Nothing had been disturbed so far as we could see. I glanced over the
rail to the floor below, giving a shudder as my eyes fell upon the
still figure by the desk—the figure with the outstretched arms.
Leaving the gallery, we tried the rear door, finding as we expected
that it was locked. As both doors had a spring lock, it would have
been only necessary for the murderer to close them when he went out.
But why the windows were down, and also locked, puzzled us. It had
been a warm day, and it hardly seemed possible that Warren had worked
in a room without any fresh air. We were commenting on this when there
came a voice from the front door, and two men stepped into the room.
One was a very short man with a vivid red face, and I could tell by
his blue uniform that it was the chief of police. He was very warm, as
if he had been hurrying, and there was a questioning look in the
glance he gave us. He had a rather kindly face, though it was not an
over-intelligent one, and I decided that he did not fancy the task
before him. The young man with him he introduced as the coroner, a
young man named Hasty.
The chief held a short conversation with Carter and then went over to
the desk. He came to a sudden halt by the body, and I saw the look of
dismay which swept over his face. Even the doctor seemed shocked, but
went about his examination at once. When he had finished, he rose to
answer the eager questions of the chief.
He informed us the man had been dead several hours, and that he had
been stabbed. The blow had evidently reached the heart, and the
scientist must have died at once. The faint cross on the forehead he
could not explain, but he agreed that it had been made after death.
“But,” came the heavy voice of the chief, “why should any one wish to
kill Warren? There are very few people in the town that know him.
Though this is his birthplace, he has been away so long that he has
hardly any friends here. He never cared to bother much with people.”
He paused to throw a curious look around the room.
“If he was stabbed, where is the weapon?”
We assured him that we had seen no signs of a weapon, though we had
looked the building over. Carter said he agreed with the chief
regarding Warren's acquaintance in the town. There was no doubt he was
their most distinguished citizen, but he had been away so many years
that few knew him. But why he had been murdered, or by whom, there was
not the slightest kind of a clew.
The police chief listened, his face growing very long as Carter went
on. Like most police chiefs in small places, his work was the usual
small town routine. Confronted with a murder, and one as mysterious as
now before him, he did not know what to do. And as he gave a glance at
the body on the floor, I knew that he was much perplexed.
As Carter and the chief started a low conversation, Ranville and I
went to the desk. No one had looked at the papers on its surface, and
as we started to glance through them, we found just about what we had
expected. The greater part of them were notes, and as I read a
sentence or two, I could see that they dealt with Warren's two years'
stay in the heart of China. Many of them had crude drawings of bones
and fossils. But the handwriting was rather bad, and I did not bother
to read more than a few lines.
There were a number of books upon the desk, but they were mostly
scientific works of reference. One red-covered volume turned out to be
a popular mystery story, and beside it stood one of the adventure
story magazines. A number of typewritten sheets, evidently corrected
work of his secretary were near the edge of the desk, the pages filled
with corrections in red ink. But there was nothing of importance, only
the natural data of a scientist who was writing an account of his last
expedition.
Just as I was about to turn away from the desk, my eyes fell upon a
piece of paper which was peering out from under the typewritten
manuscript. I pulled it forth to see what it might be. It was part of
a typewritten letter dated the day before, but with no address or
signature. There could not have been a signature, for the lower half
of the letter was missing. The sheet was torn across as if some one
had wished to destroy the signature. It read:
“Tuesday.
“Mr. Henry Warren,
“My dear Professor,
“I will call upon you to-morrow around five o'clock. I feel sure you
can spare me a few moments. If I can only make you see how great a
thing you can do for humanity, I am sure you will take my viewpoint.
The consequences of the step you are taking are so momentous that
unless—”
And there the letter ended, for the rest of the sheet had been torn
off.
It was a curious sort of a letter, and seemed to contain a warning of
some sort. It was written upon a typewriter whose ribbon was far from
clean. Not only did it contain a warning, but it seemed to me there
was a threat in the words. But more important than anything else was
the statement that the writer would call upon Warren. As it had been
written the day before, Warren must have seen the person only an hour
before he died.
Without a word I handed the letter to Ranville and watched his face as
he read. When he came to the end, I saw his eyebrows raise a little,
and he turned to me.
“This looks important, Pelt. Any signs of the missing portion of the
sheet?”
I shook my head, and we both turned to the desk. We went through every
paper, lifting them from each other, and even turning the pages of the
books. But we found nothing. Then we turned our attention to the
wastebasket, turning the contents upon a small rug. But the basket
contained only the discarded notes which had been thrown aside and a
few matches. The missing half of the letter we did not find.
As we paused, I noticed that the chief and Carter were before the
bookcase—the bookcase with the broken glass. Ranville placed the
letter in his pocket and said: “What do you make of it?”
I told him what I thought, that it contained both a warning and a
threat, and then said that it looked as if the missing part had been
taken in order to destroy the signature.
“True enough,” came the drawling answer. “But why did they not take
the entire letter? Why destroy half of it and leave the other? If the
whole note had been taken we would never have known anything about it.
To take but half seems a very illogical thing to do.”
Hearing our voices, Carter and the chief came to the desk and asked
what we had found. Ranville handed him the letter, and after they had
both looked at it the chief held it a long while in his hand. His face
was a study, and he slowly shook his head. He might have spoken if
Carter had not said:
“The chief agrees with me that the murder of Professor Warren is going
to make a great deal of comment. He will have the inquest to-morrow,
and hopes before then to have something to go on. As it stands now all
we know is that Warren was murdered, but nothing else. The—”
There came a commotion at the door, and we turned, only to see the
housekeeper rush into the building. Her face was red as if she had
been running, but why she had taken so long to come to the library
after Carter called up I could not tell. For a second she leaned
against the door as if out of breath, and then gave a quick glance
around the room. In her eyes was terror, and the glance at length
rested upon Carter. With one step in his direction, she gasped in a
trembling voice so low that we could barely hear her:
“Mr. Warren—is—is he dead?”
Carter nodded, and again the woman's eyes swept the room. This time
they went slowly as if seeking for something, and as if afraid of what
she might find. Suddenly she stiffened into attention as her glance
fell upon the foot of the dead man, which could be seen around the
desk. Then slowly, a step at a time, she crossed the floor to a place
beyond the desk. There she stood, silently looking down at the still
figure of her employer. The red had faded from her cheeks, and her
face was a dull white. Slowly she turned, her eyes asking the question
before her lips spoke:
“Was he murdered?” came the quivering voice.
“Yes,” some one said.
For a moment she did not speak. Again her eyes came back to the silent
figure. For an instant as her lips moved I thought she would speak,
but she gave a shudder and shut them tightly. But the flush had come
back to her face, and when she turned toward us, I could see the veins
in her forehead throb. And then suddenly, in a shrill voice which rang
through the room, she shrieked: “I knew it, I knew it. It's that
secretary. I knew that girl would—”
But the sentence was not completed. As the shrill voice rose higher
and higher, her hands began to beat the air; the voice died away in
her throat as if suddenly cut off. Then with a little gasp she
staggered a second and fell fainting to the floor.