Episode of the Wandering Knife

by Rinehart, Mary Roberts;

  “And that’s all?” Brent inquired. “There was no other luggage?”

  “That’s all I seen, mister.”

  He gave the man a dollar and went to the dining room. Ken and Joy were still at the table. They had found an inconspicuous one in a corner, and were quite openly holding hands.

  “Just a question or two and I’ll let you go,” he said. “Either of you been to any masquerade parties lately where you had to dress up, and so on?” The speech was to them both, but it was Townsend he watched. And it was he who replied.

  “Not since college,” he said. “And that wasn’t a party. It was a play. What’s the idea, Inspector?”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Seven or eight years ago. There’s been a war since, I seem to remember.”

  Joy, when queried, had never been to anything of the sort. Brent had an idea that parties of any sort had played a small part in her life. He smiled at her and got up.

  “Just thought I’d inquire,” he said. “You may be asked that later on. It’s all right. Don’t worry.” He got stiffly to his feet. Damn a man’s knees. First his feet go, then his knees. Maybe Emma was right, and he ought to go to church oftener. Keep them exercised. He glanced down at the young couple.

  “Just stick around,” he told them. “If the waiter gets upset wait on the mezzanine. I’ll be back. I may be a little while.”

  Ken had risen when he did.

  “Does this mean …?” But Brent shook his head.

  “Listen,” he said, “I don’t know what the hell it means. Not for sure. But I’ve got an angle and I’m following it up.”

  He glanced at his watch after he left them. His two hours were up and he hoped to God someone had brought the Commissioner his lunch. Or at least coffee and a doughnut. He could not hope for anything more.

  He needed a wash and a brush-up, but there was no time for either. As he got into his car he felt the stubble on his face, and that his collar was soaked with perspiration, and as he felt the familiar wheel under his hands he realized that he would not have it very long. He felt a real affection for it. There was a bullet hole in one of the doors, where he had almost lost his life a year or so ago, and the glass had been replaced more than once. He would miss it, he thought. It had been a part of him for several years.

  He grunted, and before he drove off he unlocked the glove compartment and took out his police positive. He examined it and put it back again. He did not like carrying a gun, and this time he did not think he would need it. Still it was best to be sure it was around.

  After that he drove to the theatrical district, and to a certain part of it. The traffic was heavy there, however, and after a time he parked the car by a fire hydrant and saved time by making his rounds on foot.

  However, his feet were agonizing and he had visited a half dozen places before he found what he was looking for. He took out the bottle he had found in the garden and showed it to the man in charge. The label was gone, but the druggist recognized it at once.

  “Sure,” he said. “Handled it for years. Not much doing this time of year though. Not the season.”

  “Sold any the last day or two?”

  “Sold one yesterday, as a matter of fact,” he acknowledged. “Just remembered. Girl bought it. Kinda funny, too. Most of our customers for it are men.”

  He could not describe the girl, however. It had been raining, and she had sort of a waterproof hood effect over her head.

  “Think she had a fellow with her,” he said. “He didn’t come in, though. Just hung around outside. Maybe it was for him.”

  Unfortunately he had not noticed the man, except that he was tall, and Brent could get no more out of it. His evidence, he realized, could fit Joy Ingalls and even young Townsend. And as a result he was depressed as he went back to his car. There was a young traffic man standing beside it, near one of the back fenders, with a pad in his hand.

  “Just in case you don’t know much about our fair city,” he said acidly, “this hydrant is intended for the sole use of the neighborhood dogs and incidentally the fire department.”

  “Smart, aren’t you?” Brent said. “Well, brother, if you want to stay in that uniform you’d better look at the bumper of this car. You’ll find a little shield on it which says P.D. And it doesn’t mean pretty damn funny either.”

  He left the traffic man looking about to faint and drove away. He was tired to the point of exhaustion; his time was up long ago. And he had a strong conviction that even coffee and doughnuts—if he had got them—would not take the place with the Commissioner of his usual substantial meal.

  Certainly it was no time to see him. He drove around uncertainly, thinking of Emma and what he would tell her. One thing he was sure—she wouldn’t get her chickens, although why any one wanted to keep them puzzled him. You couldn’t talk to a hen, or take her for a walk. Or even watch her bury a bottle. Which last brought him back to his problem again. Somehow, the night before, Harry Ingalls had got out of the Davis House and strangled his aunt. He knew it, but he could not prove it. And he had lost time. If he had only paid any real attention to Carver that morning it would have helped, but he had been busy with his feet and the smear on his trouser leg.

  “Gray-haired guy,” Carver had said. “Wore a goatee, too. Only a fellow with a weak chin wears a thing like that.”

  Fool that he was, it was not until he had found the bottle of spirit gum that he had remembered and knew what it might mean: that someone, preferably Harry Ingalls, had built up a beard to cover something, probably a receding chin, put on a gray wig and almost certainly got away with murder.

  His mind went back to the untidy room at the Davis House. They couldn’t have burned the stuff there. It would have smelled to high heaven. But he was confident it had been Harry at the Belmont. Harry, whose bits of glued beard had come off in the hotel bed as it had on his aunt’s carpet. Harry, who, afraid of losing his disguise, had carried the bottle of spirit gum in his pocket and lost it. And Harry, who, completely unnerved by what he had done, had been unable to eat his breakfast and in a fit of desperation had put it in the tank.

  He must have been in a bad way to do the idiotic thing he had done. But at least it had given him time to dispose of the bag and its contents, and to take his shattered nerves back to Maud, who had no nerves whatever. Where had he made the shift? he wondered. There were thousands of places: men’s rooms anywhere, comfort stations, even a back alley. But perhaps he had kept the bag. In that case …

  He did not go to the Davis House at once. He stopped at the Belmont to go to the mezzanine and discover Joy sitting alone and Townsend pacing the floor impatiently. He sat down beside the girl to notice that she was quietly crying. He reached over and took her hand.

  “I’m sorry, my dear,” he told her. “These things happen, and after all death comes to all of us, sooner or later.”

  “Not like that,” she said brokenly. “And Ken thinks I did it. Not intentionally, but that’s what he thinks. Ask him if you don’t believe me.”

  He glanced at Ken. That young gentleman was carefully avoiding him. He stood at the edge of the balcony, gazing at the crowd below, and his tall body looked sagged, as though the youthful exuberance had gone out of it.

  “What do you mean, not intentionally?” he asked.

  “He asked me if I ever walked in my sleep,” she said. “I used to, when I was a child. I told him that, and he’s been queer and sort of upset ever since. You see, the house being locked and all that—”

  “I’ll talk to him,” Brent told her. “I don’t think you did, and I’m the one who matters.”

  He got the name of the family lawyer from her before he walked over to Townsend and touched him on the shoulder.

  “You young fool,” he said. “What’s the idea of scaring the girl into a fit? She didn’t do it, in her sleep or any other way.”

  The younger man brightened.

  “Oh, God,” he said. “Am I glad to hear that! I’ve b
een going slowly crazy. She’s such a gentle little thing, but the way her mother treated her …”

  “Forget it,” Brent told him briefly. “Go over there and get down on your knees and apologize. And stick around a little longer. I want to know where you are.”

  Down on the main floor, however, he had a shock. The reporter, Clarke, was standing there, staring up at the gallery. He grinned when he saw Brent.

  “I don’t get it,” he said. “That’s no place to hide the girl. I suppose you know there’s an alarm out for her. And Headquarters is a madhouse. The Commissioner—”

  “Listen, Clarke,” Brent said. “Give me an hour or two, won’t you? She’s staying there, so you won’t miss anything.”

  “So you’re on to something,” Clarke said shrewdly. “Well, so long as I’m in on it I can walk. What have you been doing with yourself? Rolling in the gutter?”

  But Brent was in a hurry. He started off, then turned.

  “If you’re a friend of mine,” he said, “you’ll see that someone sends the Commissioner his lunch. It might help some.”

  Clarke grinned again.

  “Last time I saw him he was hurling doughnuts out the window,” he said. “All right. I’m all for you. But you’d better make it snappy. He’s watching the clock.”

  Brent caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror before he left the hotel. He was dirty and unshaven, and his trousers were a disgrace. Moreover he found himself limping, as though he had picked up a blister somewhere. He had no time to worry about his appearance, however. He might know who had killed Mrs. Ingalls, but he knew he still had no case. It had been skillfully and carefully planned, and carried out.

  He even had a motive, when during a brief visit to the Ingallses’ lawyer he prodded that unwilling gentleman to the admission that Harry profited by the will to the extent of fifty thousand dollars. But without the bag or its contents he was lost. Under ordinary circumstances he could have alerted a hundred men or more to the search. The circumstances however were not ordinary, as he discovered when he called his office at Headquarters from a booth in the hotel. To his surprise it was Joe who answered the phone.

  “What are you doing there?” Brent inquired sharply.

  “You’re asking me?” Joe said. “They’ve pulled me in and it looks as though I’m in for it, letting that girl escape. Where the hell are you hiding her, anyhow? The whole force is after her.”

  “Who pulled you in, Joe?”

  “Maguire’s got the case now. He did it.”

  So that was it. He was not only off the case. He would probably be broken, and retired as a lieutenant. It was the hell of a slap at a man who had only been doing the best he knew how. Brent hung up and stood still, mopping his dirty face with a dirtier handkerchief. He was not through however. With an air of dogged determination he got into his car and drove to the Davis House.

  There, however, bad luck pursued him. A hard-faced clerk told him the Ingallses were out—probably paying a funeral call on Joy—and refused to let him examine their rooms.

  “Got a search warrant?” he demanded.

  “No. I can get one, of course.”

  He produced his badge, and the clerk looked up from it coldly.

  “Radio says you’re off the case,” he said. “Guess that settles it, mister.”

  After some argument, however, he got permission to speak to the nurse on the sixth floor, but he felt slightly sick and not a little dizzy as he left the elevator. Here, though, he had a bit of good fortune. The day nurse was once more standing at the window, smoking and looking out. She jumped when he touched her on the shoulder, and turning gave him a black look.

  “What’s the idea, scaring me to death? Oh, it’s you again. Police, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I wanted to see the people next door. But they seem to be out.”

  “Yes, thank heaven. That radio of theirs has been going all day. What did they do? Kill the old woman?”

  “I’m checking up on them. May be something, may be nothing. I don’t suppose you saw either of them this morning when you came on duty?”

  “I saw him about nine o’clock. He’d been out for a paper.”

  “Didn’t carry a small bag, did he?”

  “A bag? No. Just the paper. Why?”

  The picture was complete now. Harry Ingalls had not gone out for a paper. He was coming home, to Maud and fifty thousand dollars. And he had not brought anything back with him to incriminate him. Somewhere between the Belmont and this hotel he had got rid of his disguise.

  Well, this was it. He had to have help and have it fast. There was no use telephoning. He had to tell his story and hope to God the Commissioner would listen to it. He left her staring after him, and went down to the car. He drove crazily to Headquarters and took the elevator upstairs. The operator eyed him queerly, and he was aware not only that the news was all over the building, but that he himself looked as though he had been rolling in the gutter. There was no time even to wash, however. He pulled up tired shoulders and entered the Commissioner’s office. That gentleman immediately let out a yelp that could be heard for a considerable distance, and then out of shear fury was silent. Brent was rocking on his feet, but his voice was steady.

  “I’m reporting on the Ingalls case,” he said.

  “You’re reporting! You damn fool, you’ve been off that case for the last two hours. I told you I’d break you, and I will. Never before,” roared the Commissioner recovering his voice, “have I had one of my top men behave in this manner on a job like this. What in God’s name were you doing? Sleeping. And where’s that girl? Where have you hidden her?”

  “She’s not hidden. She’s on the mezzanine of the Belmont Hotel. She didn’t do it, Commissioner. I know who did, only now I need help and need it right off.”

  “You don’t need a thing, unless it’s a bath.”

  “If you’ll just listen—”

  “I’ll listen to Maguire. It’s his case.”

  For the first time Brent saw a man standing by a window When he turned he saw that it was the district attorney.

  “Why not let him tell his story?” he said, eyeing Brent. “Maybe he’s got something.”

  “I’ve got it all,” Brent told him, “if I can find a black bag somewhere between the Belmont and the Davis House. It’s got some false hair in it, a gray wig, and some loose hair, to build up a beard. Or it may be empty, but the bag itself will help.”

  He steadied himself against the desk. “That bag will solve the case, Commissioner,” he said doggedly. “We need it. We’ve got to have it. And soon. It may be in a locker room at the railroad station, or checked there. It may be in a trash or garbage can, or in some areaway or alley. All I know is that it’s somewhere between the Belmont Hotel and the Davis House. And I’d like some prints of a room at the Belmont. It’s locked Man’s name was Somers, registered from Cincinnati.”

  Then, because his feet would not hold him any longer—or indeed his body—he sat down abruptly.

  The Commissioner inspected him. After all, he had been in the service for almost forty years. And he did not look as though he had been asleep. He looked more like a man at the end of his string and desperate.

  “All right, let’s have it,” he said. “And it better be good.”

  He told his story to both men, producing the hairs from the murdered woman’s carpet and from the room at the Belmont Hotel, the fact that Harry Ingalls had often stayed in the house and so must have had a key to it, that he inherited under the will, and last of all the bottle the dog buried in the garden.

  “It was a nice plan,” he said. “Ingalls and his wife ate at the Belmont and went to the theater. She stayed there, but he didn’t. He went somewhere, put on the wig, built up the hair on his face with the spirit gum out of that bottle. And registered at the Belmont as Somers. He probably wiped out his prints in the room there, but it won’t hurt to try for them.”

  The district attorney looked puzzled.

  “What
put you on to him?” he asked.

  Brent put his head back. The chair felt wonderful.

  “Well, it was two things,” he said tiredly. “The dog burying the bottle was one. People don’t generally have spirit gum around, and Harry Ingalls must have had it in his pocket when he went there last night. He couldn’t take a chance on a struggle and that goatee of his coming loose. It probably rolled under the bed, and the dog found it there. Anyhow it was his. I located the place where he bought it.”

  “And the other thing?”

  He smiled faintly. “Well, that’s funny too,” he said. “It was because Ingalls was too scared to eat his breakfast this morning at the Belmont. He was afraid to leave it, so he hid it in the toilet tank in his bathroom. I happened on that by accident,” he added modestly.

  “That’s the hell of a place to hide a breakfast!” said the district attorney.

  “Well, maybe you never tried it,” Brent said. “But you can’t flush two large rolls and a slice of ham down a toilet, and you can’t very well throw them out the window. That’s where Harry Ingalls outsmarted himself. He didn’t want the waiter to know he was too scared to eat, so he hid them in the tank.” He yawned. “The wife’s in it too. She bought the gum. He waited outside.”

  He glanced at the Commissioner. Why, the old buzzard was actually looking excited. He braced himself and went on.

  “Ingalls was still Somers when he checked out of the Belmont this morning. All the luggage he had was the bag. He got rid of the hair and the bag somewhere, bought a morning paper and went back to the Davis House, as if he’d just gone out.”

  But that was as far as he went. He leaned back and closed his eyes. He was very tired, and his feet hurt like hell. He unfastened one shoe and slid it loosely off his heel. That was better. And after all he had done his work. The rest was up to the other men. Let them go around dumping garbage pails. He was through with that. As from a great distance he heard the Commissioner yelling into the intercom, and uniformed men hurrying in and out of the room.