“Did you speak to anyone?”
“Yes: Mr. Chalmers. He came out. We talked for a few minutes, and then he left.”
“What did you do next?”
“I went upstairs. I’d remembered some Roman medals the museum had recently acquired. I had never seen them. They are in a room on the second floor, at the front. When I got there I became much interested in them. A few of the pieces I’d never heard of before, and I desired to examine them under a glass. I decided to ask Custis to have the case opened for me, but when I looked at my watch I saw that was out of the question, because it was already past the museum’s closing time.”
“The closing bell rings at five. Didn’t you hear it?”
“No, oddly enough, I did not. I must have been so engrossed with the medals, the sound didn’t register on my mind.”
“When you looked at your watch and saw how late it was, did you come downstairs at once?”
“Immediately. I spoke to the watchman and said I was sorry to give him any trouble.”
“While you were on the second floor, did you see anyone else?”
“No; no one was there, probably because it was so late in the day.”
“You did not go toward the back of the building?”
“No.”
“You did not see Gregory, the young man who had sat sketching in the lower corridor, while you were upstairs?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you see Mr. Custis at all while you were in the building?”
“Yes, sir. He passed me while I was examining the armor, going down the corridor toward the street door.”
“You did not see him return?”
“No, sir.” There was a pause; Marsh looked at his nails and shut and opened his hands; he seemed uncertain; his eyes went here and there but avoided the looks of any who had been listening to him. Then he seemed to become suddenly resolved. “I saw Custis again before I left, though,” he said. “It was rather a peculiar thing, and I thought I’d say nothing about it. For trivial matters like this are sometimes remembered long after more important ones are forgotten; and a man holding a responsible position like Custis is often injured by them, if they spread.”
Again there was a silence; then Inspector Lynch said:
“Haven’t you been told what has happened here tonight?”
“No. But I’ve judged it was a robbery or something of the kind, seeing the police are here.”
“It’s rather more serious than that,” said Lynch. “Custis has been murdered.”
Marsh sat down in a chair; his face had gone a dirty white; he held both hands to his chest and coughed.
“Custis! Murdered?” he gasped.
“He was found near the foot of the stairs,” said Lynch. “On the floor—stabbed.”
“Near the foot of the stairs! Stabbed!” Marsh sat helplessly staring about. “Murdered!”
“You say you saw him again before you left,” said Lynch. “Where did you see him?”
“He was standing in the main picture gallery. I saw him there when I reached the lower floor.”
“Who was with him?”
“He was alone.”
Duddington saw the flash of intelligence between the two policemen, and again the quick hands of Lynch searched through the sheets of paper on his desk. And he selected the one headed “Slade.”
“The night watchman has stated the doors opening from the lower corridor into the exhibition rooms were closed before you came down. He closed them himself”
“No doubt, sir. But the door leading to the main gallery stood open—it is a sliding door, as you may have noticed, sir; it had been pulled back perhaps a matter of two feet. This was unusual; and because of that I stopped and looked in.”
“What did you see?”
“I saw Mr. Custis.”
“What was he doing?”
“He stood near the door and was laughing to himself. Indeed, I might say it was more than just laughing: it was mockery. He seemed to be gloating over someone. It’s a queer kind of an idea, sir, I know. But that’s how it struck me.”
Duddington, as he stood listening, felt as though a light were moving about in his mind; it was a small light, and dim, and it flitted about, opening up dark places. Suddenly, as he followed it with his inner eye, he caught his breath sharply and stirred. Then, as Lynch went on with his questioning, the fat young man turned and went into the outer office; he passed through the door opening into the main gallery. He was gone but a few minutes, and when he came back there was a new look in his eyes; he drew in a breath deep with satisfaction.
X
AFTER finishing with Marsh, Inspector Lynch had the offices cleared; then he sat down at Custis’s desk and lighted a cigar.
“I’ve been listening,” said Duddington Pell Chalmers, “and I’ve been watching; but I’m not sure if you’ve made any headway or no.”
“I suppose not,” said the inspector. “But what you see going on is the regular grinding of the police mill. We begin at what we take to be the beginning and go plodding through it: incident by incident; person by person; question by question. We get a great quantity of material, a huddle of facts; and somewhere inside that is the truth.”
“And then you sift it out?” said Duddington.
“If we are lucky, we do,” smiled Lynch, drawing at his cigar. “In this case we have rather a large number of leads; a number of things have happened which might be of large importance; a number of people are moving on the outskirts of the matter, anyone of whom might be the person we are looking for. First, let’s take Slade. He was alone here with Custis, as far as we’ve learned, for some time. He was Custis’s nephew; he has a record with the police; he is a sullen-mannered, primitive type, the sort that is easily diverted into sudden, criminal acts. He was not well disposed toward Custis; they did not get on together; and at last Custis, after weeks or months of fault-finding, discharged him; Slade was to quit the institution at the end of the week. That, in itself, is a good lead.
“But take the case made out under the name of young Gregory. He is grandson to the founder of the museum. The old man died leaving him not a dollar of his immense fortune. The will placed Custis, whom young Gregory detested, in practical charge of everything. Around about five o’clock today this young man was sketching, among some other things, a peculiar sort of knife. While he was so doing Custis and he had an altercation. It has been shown Custis was in the habit of making bitter remarks to him of one kind or another whenever he had the opportunity. This afternoon Gregory, exasperated, threatened Custis; he went so far as to pick up the knife he was sketching to give point to the threat. Further still, he followed Custis into the office outside there, the knife in his hand, to continue the altercation. Later, he says, he went to the second floor; he remained in the building for some time, indeed, until everyone except the working force had gone. Then he, too, left. The knife he’d threatened Custis with was the knife that put an end to the old man’s life.”
“I’ll admit,” said Duddington, “there are some things in both cases, as you present them, that are extremely interesting from a police point of view. But the authorities would never go before a grand jury with this evidence and ask that Slade or Billy Gregory be indicted.”
“Why, I am not sure of that” Lynch said. “Our present district attorney is a rather venturesome official. He likes to take cases that have some element of chance, and battle them through, trusting to luck to resolve the doubtful parts after the indictment is secured. And, don’t be misled,” the inspector knocked the ash from his cigar, “the case against young Gregory could be presented quite powerfully. It needs a little more work, I know, but bear in mind, we’ve been on the case only a little more than an hour.” He nodded, and Duddington noted how sharp and jutting the man’s chin was and how tight his mouth. “If the next hour produces half as much again,” he said, “we’ll send this young fellow up for trial as sure as you sit there.”
Duddington regarded
the man attentively.
“I say,” he said, “Billy isn’t alone, you know. Don’t forget you’ve scored a few points against Slade.”
“I have that well in mind,” said the inspector. “But he does not require the same immediate attention as Gregory. If Slade should turn out to be our man—and, mind you, that wouldn’t at all surprise me—the matter’ll be sure to show as a common sort of affair, and we’ll have very little trouble picking up the facts. But the Gregory side of it will make fine fighting; it is rich in potentialities.”
Duddington stirred and blew out his cheeks; he sat up very straight in his chair.
“Well, if you’re speaking of richness,” he said, “what about Sheerness? If I were a policeman his angle of the case would give me a real feeling of satisfaction. That’d be a case that’d get the front pages of the newspapers and hold them for a month.”
Inspector Lynch nodded through a haze of cigar smoke; his face was placid, but his eyes were quick with interest.
“Sheerness is at this moment within the crime’s radius,” he said. “But he’s extremely unlikely as a subject.”
“Well, it may be,” said Duddington, “you haven’t shown your appreciation of him as a possibility, as you have of Billy Gregory. Not that I want to see Sheerness in any sort of trouble, mind you,” with a gesture. “No. But I don’t like to see one man made a goat of.”
“Sheerness,” said the inspector, “left the museum before closing time. Custis was seen alive by five people, yourself among them, after he’d gone. And then he had not the same feeling of bitterness toward Custis that young Gregory had.”
“Now, wait,” said Duddington, lifting a hand. “Wait. The first of those things I’ll grant you. Sheerness did leave the museum before Custis was killed. That can’t be denied. But about not having a feeling of bitterness toward Custis. Don’t be too sure of that! If you hunt around you can find a good two dozen witnesses who’d testify that Sheerness hated Custis as bitterly as any man was ever hated before.”
“That’s interesting,” said Lynch. “Very.”
“Mind you,” said Duddington, “while I can’t stand Sheerness, I have no desire, as I just now said, to pin suspicion upon him. I’m going into this with you simply to show you Billy Gregory is not alone in the matter of motive.” He mopped his face; the office was hot, and the air stirred faintly. There were the sounds of voices and footsteps in the street as people, all unconscious of the tragedy lately enacted in the museum, passed by. “Sheerness,” said Duddington, “made the beginnings of his fortune in electric street railways. Then he became interested in steel, in motor cars, and railroads. At forty-five he was one of the wealthy men of the country. He wasn’t a college man. He’d been brought up in a small New Jersey town; his father was a hardware dealer, and he’d been sent to high school. From there he’d gone directly into business. Now, at forty-five, an enormous power in finance, with a New York mansion on Park Avenue, a place on Long Island, another somewhere in Florida, a fourth in the English county of Surrey, and still another on the Riviera, Sheerness had some time to look around him. And he saw a number of things he’d never noticed before. It wasn’t enough to have money. Too many people had it. To really attract the attention of the world, he found, a man must engage himself in something unique. So he began collecting objects of art.”
Lynch nodded.
“Yes, I know about that. But that is hardly unique, is it? It seems to me most men of his kind go in for it.”
“Sheerness was different. In his purchases he was a colossus. He wasn’t satisfied to try and attract the world’s notice; he meant to compel it, as he’d compelled every commercial thing he’d ever gone after. He turned the art auction rooms of Europe and America into absolute whirlpools; he lifted values to unheard of heights; the whole business of buying and selling paintings of name and quality became a feverish dream. And—now, mark this—it was Custis who’d planned this magnificent display of vulgarity; he was Sheerness’s hired man, his was the knowledge that operated the amazing machine. But you’ve heard something of Custis’s ways and disposition tonight; anyone of even small observation would know that a mocking, derisive little imp like that could never go far at the heels of a semi-Jehovah like Sheerness. And he didn’t. At the end of two years they parted; Sheerness silent and contemptuous; Custis in a shriek of jeering laughter. Then Custis gave the benefit of his really great learning and judgment to old John Gregory.
“The old man was at that time about seventy. He’d been an apothecary, and in the 1870’s had begun preparing and advertising patent medicines; his gains from this had been huge. An instinctive collector all his life, he’d gathered up everything unusual he could lay hands upon. What Billy told you tonight about the influence of Custis on the old man is true. I feel sure the museum was Custis’s idea; I’m quite confident he persuaded Mr. Gregory, for the reason Billy gave you—to increase his own power and authority and to provide himself with a wider field for his operations. Art politics was his delight.
“With the money backing of old Gregory, Custis began pestering Sheerness in all his art dealings; he harried his flanks, he was constantly threatening him, he forced him to raise his already huge prices; more than once he tricked the great man into some awkwardness that exposed him to the laughter of the knowing ones. Through it all Sheerness kept silent; but no one who knew him doubted what he felt. He loathed the jeering imp; he’d gladly have ground him under his feet.
“But it was not until John Gregory’s death, not until this museum had been opened to the public and was functioning as a settled institution with Custis in control, that Custis struck Sheerness the blow that caused the breakdown of the great man’s silence; then, for a single instant, so I’m told, Sheerness showed the fury he’d been holding in check. Even people who knew him well were amazed. This was at the time Custis, assisted to some extent by Marsh, the man you have here tonight, and, to a less extent, by MacQuarrie, whom you also have here, threw dust in Sheerness’s eyes, and took the Hals painting from him when he thought he had it safely in his hands.
“I know what you’re going to say: that he didn’t keep his anger very long. You are thinking this giving of gifts is not the attitude of a person who hates another. If Sheerness hated Custis enough to want to take his life, you’ll say, would he do what you’ve been told he’s done for this museum? Of course, it would seem not. But, at the same time—and don’t forget this—Sheerness is a deep-digging, predatory beast; he has nerves of steel wire and a face like stone. And he has cunning! The financial history of this country for the past twenty-five years is tracked back and forward by the signs of his raids, some of which have cost a dozen lives; every page is marred by the pitfalls he’s dug for his enemies to fall into. Do you suppose, Inspector, because this man’s interests have changed, his methods also have? Depend upon it, he brings the same ferocity into the art game that characterized him in the money market.”
“You think, then,” said Lynch, and his steady eyes were fixed upon Duddington, “that this seeming generosity in the matter of gifts was an approach?” “I’ve always thought so,” said Duddington. “And—how do I know it was not an approach to what has taken place here tonight?”
“I’ve been in the police business a good many years,” said the inspector, “and I’ve seen some odd things; but, if what you’re hinting at is true, why, all I can say is, I’ve lived to see something new. Think of a man paving his way toward a murder by a long series of costly gifts!”
“Understand,” said Duddington, “I’m charging Sheerness with nothing; because I have no proof against him—not the slightest. What I’m really trying to do is to show you there was, at least, one other person, whom you had not specially mentioned, who had a motive for murder equally as plain as Billy Gregory’s. And a man who, I really believe, would not hesitate a moment if he thought murder necessary to his satisfaction.”
“We’ll grant the motive, for the sake of argument,” said Lynch; “but w
hat of opportunity? I think you must look in Gregory’s direction when it comes to that.”
“I know,” said Duddington. “That has great weight. But if I were a police inspector it wouldn’t close a case for me. It would only make me look much further—and much deeper—than I had been looking. I’d settle myself for a battle. Awhile ago you seemed to indicate you preferred the idea of Billy Gregory as the criminal, over Slade, because Billy’s potentialities were more attractive. Very well. But here are the possibilities of Sheerness towering over those of Billy like a mountain peak. If you could clutch and throw a man like Sheerness, Inspector, your name would be graven on tablets of brass. What? As long as the tribe of policemen functioned in the world, you’d be remembered.”
Lynch smiled; he looked at Duddington with a good deal of approval.
“You don’t go back on your friends,” he said. “Well, that’s the kind of thing I like to see.”
“How can I? How could anybody who knows Billy go back on him in a thing like this? I’m sure he’s innocent.”
“Well, it may be,” said the inspector. “But at this stage of a thing one can never be sure. However, I’ll say this,” and he looked at Duddington with a quick movement of the eyes, “the case against Gregory at this moment is so good, if I could set down in my notes one more salient thing, I’d feel quite justified in arresting him.”
The door opened, and Moore came in.
“Excuse me,” said the precinct man, “I’d like to have a little look at a sheet you’ve got here, Inspector.”
He sorted through the pages of notes, and Duddington saw him pause when he came to the one dealing with Slade. He read it through and then sat down, the paper in his hand, wearing a look of satisfaction.
“I hadn’t been in the business long before I hit on one thing,” he said. “And that is, a party that’s once been in trouble with the police never comes quite clean. If you don’t see a thing clear and plain and don’t ask him a direct question about it, he’ll let you go by and say nothing.”
The Museum Murder Page 8