“Well, there’s just one thing. Not much use, probably, only it seems to me we should determine where the body lay from the hour of the murder up to the time it was sent on to the penthouse.” No sooner had Sam made this suggestion than he repented of it. A memory came to him of a cocktail glass nearly full and probably touched at the edge with lipstick, standing under the bench in his vestibule. How was he to explain that? He had entirely forgotten it when doing his careful washing up.
“I was going to see to that before we pulled out o’ here,” Dolan assured him with dignity. “McCurdy and Knudsen, you take a look in each vestibule and come back here and report whether you find anything or not.”
The men went out and Dolan turned confidentially to Sam with a swift descent to the level of humanity. “An’ you don’t read the evening papers? Now I like to see the pitschers in mine.”
Sam smiled. The big man was of a sudden, almost child-like.
“What’s your idea, Inspector, would there be any use of our offering a reward for evidence of value in detecting the murderer?” Ed asked. “My firm would chip in.”
Bristling, the Inspector was himself again. “Devil a bit of use,” he returned, angrily. “If there’s evidence to be had, the police will find it. An offer like that’d only bring a lot of cranks and amachures to hamper us. Our difficulty here is this damn fancy dress party. Everybody masked and dressed out o’ nature and slipping in and out of the building at will. See how easy we picked up all we wanted to know about you, Commissioner, because you looked like a plain man. But I’ve cracked harder cases ‘n this, and I don’t give up easy.”
“I’m sure of that,” Sam said, his heart in his mouth as he saw the Department’s two emissaries return, “and I’m counting on it. This is a puzzle we’ve got to solve.”
“We didn’t need to go far,” McCurdy announced, in triumph. “The poor lady was waiting in the vestibule next below here. There’s a smear of blood there. Not much, but enough.”
“In Miss Livingston’s vestibule?” Sam cried, as if astounded. “Certainly of all the people in the house she’s the least likely to hare any knowledge of this case.”
“Them’s the kind that’s always guiltiest,” Knudsen contributed, sententiously, and Dolan nodded agreement.
“At all events, we’ll interview this here now society dame,” he said.
“Not tonight,” Sam interposed, promptly. “She’s an old lady. She won’t run away, and it’s now around four o’clock. We can’t rout her out of bed at this hour when it’s more than doubtful if she knew the use that was being made of her vestibule. Post a guard there if you wish. Photograph the spot. Let no one enter or leave the apartment, front or rear, and the first thing in the morning I’ll go with you to interview her.”
“After all, ‘tis only as if a pared was left at the wrong address and later called for and taken to its destination,” McCurdy said, shrewdly. “It seems to me some one meant the poor lady to get to that party.”
“Waiting till morning can do no great hurt,” Dolan finally conceded, albeit unwillingly, and he and his subordinates took themselves off, each with a final cigar from Sam’s humidor.
Sam turned to Ed, who returned his gaze dully. He had been suddenly sobered by his discovery of Connie’s body. Now he began to feel the after-effects of too much liquor and too much excitement.
“The thing for you to do is to go home,” Sam said. “I’d keep you here, but you’ll need civilized clothes in the morning. Don’t wake Louise if you can help it. If you do, you’ll talk for hours. Take a couple of luminal tablets and try to get a little sleep. You’ve got to show up at the office tomorrow and you’ll need all the nerve you can summon to answer the questions you’ll be pelted with.” He helped his nephew into his overcoat and escorted him to the vestibule. “Good night, old man,” he ended.
When the elevator (which neither man could open without a vision of that glittering figure crumpled in the corner) had come and gone, Sam bent to retrieve the tell-tale cocktail glass. Fate had been kinder to him than he deserved, in view of his carelessness...Search as he might, he could not find it and at last was forced to conclude that it was not there. Could he have washed it and forgotten it? He knew that he had not. Was it then in the possession of the police? Inspector Dolan’s was a face that had hidden many secrets.
Chapter VII
If the glass wasn’t there, it wasn’t there and there was no use worrying over it. Once more Sam extinguished the lights and went into his own room to prepare for bed. Yet what was the use of going to bed if he couldn’t sleep? He never felt less like it in his life, with his mind going over and over the known facts in this tragedy. He was a step in advance of the police. He at least knew where Connie was slain, but that told him nothing more, the varying suspicions that flitted through his mind all seeming equally preposterous.
He marched up and down his room without attempting to undress.
The thing for him to do was to follow the prescription he had suggested to Ed, and even luminal took half an hour to get in its good work. He went into the bathroom and searched the shelves of his neatly arranged medicine closet. There was the bottle. He took out the cork and tilted it on his palm. Nothing came. It was empty. Really, Sing was going too far. Sam was a methodical bachelor; had he taken the last tablets he would have bought another supply at once. Now that he hadn’t the drug, he wanted it more than ever.
His first impulse was to ring for Sing and tell him that, since he had used all the luminal without permission, he must go for more, no matter what the hour, yet that would take time. Sing would have to dress, and already it was past four o’clock.
No, the quickest thing was for him to go himself. The drug store at First Avenue was open all night. In irritable haste he went to the elevator, pushing his arms into his overcoat sleeves as he summoned it.
Thady was standing inside the hall door, out of the storm, very wide awake and eager for some one to exchange theories with him.
“Aw, Mr. Mellon, who ever done the like of that to a lady?” the old Irishman began.
Sam cut him short.
“I can’t stop to go into that now, Thady. I’m badly in need of rest. I’m going to the drug store to get something to make me sleep.”
“Perhaps, then, when ye come back, ye’ll be tellin’ me what I’m to do with the umbrella?” Thady suggested, with dignity. He was a privileged character and not used to being treated cavalierly.
“What umbrella?” Sam paused in buttoning his overcoat to the chin.
“That one in the corner there.” Thady nodded toward it. “ ‘Twas your friend left it with me, and then he never come down again at all.”
Sam did not doubt the old doorman’s accuracy. If Thady said he hadn’t, Harvey had never gone out. What did that indicate? Had Thorne learned of the announcement in the papers and, following Consuela to his apartment, killed her rather than see her the wife of another man, and was he still hiding in the building? If so, where? Could he by any chance be the person disguised as a nun who had escaped by way of Jane Toole’s room? That seemed unlikely, for if he had committed the crime, why, knowing Connie to be dead, would he go to the ball? Unable to make the pieces of the puzzle fit, Sam was once more well-nigh overwhelmed with anxiety for a friend.
He chided himself for being slow-witted. What he ought to do at the moment was so plain.
“Did Mr. Thomas forget his umbrella, Thady?” he asked. “Well, that just proves that a pretty girl will make a man forget anything. I’ll take it when I come in. I’ll be seeing him tomorrow at his office. It’s small wonder you didn’t recognize Harry when he went out with Miss Carey. He put on his costume in my place and I’d not have known him myself.”
“So that was the way of it,” said Thady, with a sigh of relief. “And Mr. Thomas was the gentleman’s name. There’s an H and a T on the name plate. I was wonderin’ had I ought to mention the matter to the poliss. I kind o’ hated to take it up wit’ ‘em. They can make a
man a heap of trouble.”
“Right you are,” said Sam, genially. “Keep your own secrets and don’t you ever trust a policeman, Thady. I’m one and I know. They’re dangerous. Once get in their bad books and they’ll be blaming you for everything wrong that happens in all New York.”
“God save us I” ejaculated Thady. “Is it you is tellin’ me that? But you ain’t a real cop.” He sputtered with relief as he opened the door and let Sam out into the storm.
“I’ll be right back. Don’t go to sleep.” It was a joke of the house to insist that Thady slept all night.
As good as his word, Sam returned in short order, shook himself, stamped the snow from his feet, and accepted the umbrella from Thady. This, because of his suspicious disposition, Detective McCurdy missed entirely, although, had he remained at his post across the street, he would have witnessed it through the glass doors of the apartment house, and it might have presented certain questions to his inquiring mind.
When Sam came out his heart had leaped with joy that he was to be the officer to prevent the Commissioner’s flight from justice. He had even a vision of himself, shoulders well back, military in bearing, a becoming expression of modesty on his handsome face (at least sundry ladies had told him it was handsome, and who was he to dispute their judgment?), receiving a medal or some other suitable reward for efficiency and devotion to duty. He followed Mr. Mellon to the drug store, already mentally framing his report, where he at once changed his suspicion to suicide. Going in the moment Sam’s back was turned to flash his shield and demand what the last customer had bought, he was grievously disappointed to find it was a harmless article. He had pictured himself breaking down Sam’s door and telephoning Inspector Dolan the sad news that his solution of the mystery, which the Inspector had so derided, had been proved correct.
By the time he had resumed his watch Sam and his new bit of evidence were safe on the eighth floor.
The umbrella had no special individuality. Numbers like it were on sale in every department store. The band on the Malacca crook handle had no more than the initials on it, and Sam realized that it might have been much worse. It had been a flash of inspiration that had suggested to him that it might be marked. Indeed, there was room to have engraved Harvey’s full name, in which case his lie would have needed amendment. He owned an umbrella that was almost identical. He must carry it with him in the morning, no matter what the weather, and this one must be concealed. He thought at first of pushing it back in his closet behind his suits, but it was one of Sing’s duties to press his clothes. It might be discovered inopportunely. No, the best thing to do was to hide it where he could vow it had never been hidden at all. With this in mind, he stood it among a mixed collection of umbrellas and canes in the coat-closet. People were always giving a bachelor umbrellas and canes that he could not use.
And then at last he went to bed. Unutterably weary, he quite forgot the luminal which he had been at such pains to procure, and slept dreamlessly without it, to wake at half past seven, when, according to routine, Sing brought him a cup of coffee. This and his first cigarette preceded his bath and shave. Sam was apt to linger over this luxury. Today he wasted no time. He felt rested and his mind was clear. He wanted to be ready for Inspector Dolan when he came. And he decided that while Sing deserved to be hauled over the coals, he would postpone that reckoning until he had fewer pressing matters engaging his attention.
“I’ll have my breakfast at eight, Sing,” he said’ as he accepted the coffee-cup. And promptly at eight he sat down at the table in the dining-room.
“Was it a good lecture?” he asked.
“Very educative, sir. Very informing,” Sing answered, placing half a grapefruit before him and going out to the kitchen.
“And that,” thought Sam, “is amusing. I wonder where the little liar really went? Why does he feel that he must keep up a bluff with me? Well, it’s none of my business, but why lie gratuitously? If he had anything to gain by it, it would be understandable.”
It had been his intention to read at once all the printed details of Connie’s tragedy. It was mere chance that the paper beside his plate displayed prominently in a box the following item:
AUDIENCE AT THE TOWN HALL
DISAPPOINTED
Distinguished Economist Caught In Blizzard
Pennsylvania Train Seven Hours Late
His breakfast eaten, Sam was in his living-room when Inspector Dolan arrived unattended.
“I thought the two of us was all that was needed to make this trip into high society,” he grinned. “I doubt if the old dame knows aught about the case.”
“I feel sure she doesn’t,” Sam rejoined. “It’s my idea that it would be polite if I sent her a note asking her to receive us for a few minutes, but I didn’t wish to do that without your approval.”
“Is it necessary?” Dolan asked. “Won’t it kind of put her on her guard?”
“If she has anything to hide she’s on her guard already,” Sam pointed out. “It isn’t necessary, only polite and likely to put Miss Livingston in a better frame of mind to tell us anything she knows, provided she knows anything.”
“Let’s see what you’d say?” Dolan suggested, grudgingly.
Sam went over to his desk and wrote:
My dear Miss Livingston:—
Would it be convenient for you to receive me and Police Inspector Dolan for a few moments? We will not trespass unduly on your valuable time.
Very truly yours,
Samuel B. Mellon,
Commissioner.
“I can’t see any sense in that,” Dolan reread it. “Nor can I see much harm it can do.”
Sam sealed it in the envelope he had addressed, and rang for Sing.
“Take that to the floor below and await an answer,” he told the Chinese.
In less than five minutes Sing returned with a verbal reply.
“Miss Livingston says she will see you at any time, but will appreciate it if you will make an early visit, as she has a number of important appointments later in the day.” Sam got to his feet. “Shall we go at once?”
“Sure,” replied Dolan.
Shortly they were ushered into Miss Livingston’s reception room by a highly respectable, uniformed waitress, and Dolan stared around him curiously.
This apartment had not deviated from the architect’s plan and, furnished with Victorian elegance, the richly brocaded chairs, sofa, and heavy draperies joined with the grand piano, oil-paintings in wide gold frames, and an Aubusson carpet to make it look over-crowded and small in comparison with the spacious effect achieved on the floor above.
They seated themselves, hut the lady did not keep them waiting long. She entered, a rather dumpy woman with a figure corseted after the style of the nineteenth century, and Sam at once grasped the fact that her background, her dignity, and her age were all parts of her stock in trade. He rose to meet her, and Dolan, following his example, lumbered to his feet.
Miss Livingston bowed formally, but did not offer her hand, regarding her visitors with a marked lack of enthusiasm through a single Oxford that she held to her right eye. Without the least effect of graciousness, she motioned them to resume their seats and established herself in a straight-back chair, in which she was reminiscent of Queen Victoria on her throne.
“I presume you have come about this deplorable affair of last night,” she said coldly, without preamble, in a rather harsh voice, much inflected.
“Yes,” Sam told her. “It is our duty to interrogate every possible source of information, though Inspector Dolan and I have no expectation that you can have anything of value to tell.”
“I have not,” Miss Livingston agreed. “I was amazed when I read this morning that the young woman was dead. I simply took it for granted that she was intoxicated.”
“Then you saw her?” Inspector Dolan snapped out his question before Sam recovered his breath.
“Certainly I saw her.” Miss Livingston brought her single eye-glass into play
. “I put her on the elevator. She was not a person I knew socially and from her costume it was obvious that she was to he a guest at a party going on in the penthouse on the twelfth floor. To place her where she would find friends to care for her in her inebriated condition appeared the reasonable thing to do.”
“It didn’t occur to you to take her in and care for her here?” Again it was the Inspector who spoke and again he was transfixed by the piercing eye behind that single eyeglass.
“It did not. I told you that I did not know the young woman and, regarding her condition as—undignified, shall we say?—I had no desire to do anything that might lead to an acquaintance.”
“Had you no suspicion that she was—injured?” Sam inquired, in a low tone.
Miss Livingston looked at him more kindly and volunteered an explanation.
“The smell of liquor was quite strong.” (As well it might be, considering how much had spilled, due to Sam’s shaking hand.) “I thought her a beautiful if deplorable figure. She wore a little black mask and I presume was heavily made up. There was no pallor. Nothing to make one suspect anything other than what I did suspect.”
“Mrs. Thorne was never intoxicated in her life.” A hint of indignation in Sam’s defense of Consuela caused Miss Livingston to harden.
“There was no way for me to know that,” she asserted. “I explained before that I was not acquainted with her.”
Sam rose. Nothing was to be gained by prolonging this interview.
“I judge that is all, Inspector?”
“Just one question,” said Dolan. “How did you happen to discover the body, Miss Livingston? Were you coming home?”
“No.” Miss Livingston almost smiled. “It was the night of a weekly bridge party that was called off because of the storm. No, I didn’t go out. Before I go to bed it is my habit to open the door from the foyer to make sure that the light in the vestibule is not left burning all night. Little economies now are the order of the day. Under the circumstances, it hardly seemed sensible to leave Mrs.—“ She paused, questioningly.
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