by Ron Goulart
Morton shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t just know. Not lately, anyway. Why?”
“Nothing. I was just wondering. You pay so much money here that you ought to be able to see what the weather is occasionally.” He opened the window and looked out at the adjacent one. A good long distance.
“You didn’t hear anything next door?” he asked of the man at the desk.
Morton Marsden looked up and shook his head. “Not a thing. It must have been almost instantaneous.”
“Nobody came into this room?” persisted the insurance detective.
“Nobody. Did they, Miss Glidden?” Morton asked his secretary for corroboration.
“Not while I was here,” she said.
“Were you here all the time?” asked Durand. “I think so. I must have been. You see, I’m in and out—I have to look up those files in there a great deal.”
“Where would some one have come from?” asked the diamond seller. “That door to the hall is locked from the inside—you can get out but you can’t get in without a key. It’s that kind of a lock.”
“Nobody came through the window?” asked Durand.
Morton Marsden looked at him in amazement. “Trying to kid me?”
“No,” said Durand. “People do funny things, sometimes. I thought maybe some one might have been out for a walk, and decided to come back that way—you know what I mean?”
“You mean the crook could have come from my brother’s window to mine, here, and escaped that way?”
“Just a crazy idea,” said Durand. “But since nobody has seen anybody go out of a door, why, I thought—”
“Nonsense,” said Morton. “Wouldn’t I have seen anyone who came in that window—or wouldn’t Miss Glidden here have seen him? And besides, how could anyone get from that window to this? You’d have to be a fly, or something.”
“The world is full of pretty fly people, Mr. Marsden,” smiled Marty. “But I guess you’re right—you couldn’t help seeing anyone who came through that window.”
“I should say not. And besides, the window is closed. Miss Glidden has a sort of a cold and the draught here bothered her, so we’ve had it closed for a couple of days.”
* * * *
When Marty Durand reached the hall, downstairs, he spoke to the starter. The latter was particularly busy, as it was just one o’clock and the lunch-hour rush was on, both ways.
“Look at ’em,” the starter commanded, and Durand looked at the hurrying hundreds. “Could you remember anybody you seen in that mob?”
“It would be pretty hard,” agreed Durand, “unless he had something outstanding about him. How often do they clean the windows around here?”
“What’s the matter, looking for a job?” asked the starter.
Durand smiled. “Maybe. There are lots of windows in a building like this.”
“Too many,” said the starter. “Right!” he motioned to an elevator that closed its door and started up. “Express elevators on the left,” he told a questioner. “They clean them about all the time, I should say. They always have a crew around, somewhere or other.”
“Did they have one today?” persisted Durand.
“Always have them,” said the starter.
“Where are they now?”
The starter shrugged his shoulders. “I guess they’re through for the day now. They left about noon.…”
“Why, are they finished with the whole building?”
“Oh, they don’t do a whole building at a time,” said the starter. “They do a certain section of it, and then they go on to the next building. They got a kind of a system.”
“You mean the building next door?” asked Durand.
“I guess so. They come from the Acme Window Cleaning Company, and they do this whole block. I guess you’ll find some of them next door.”
Next door Durand located Vladimir Weniawski, who was clinging to a sill twelve stories above the street, leaning back on a beltstrap in which he appeared to have really absurd confidence.
Durand stood inside the room of the empty office and talked with Vladimir, who threw his cleaning rag over his shoulder and leaned nonchalantly and heavily against the belt-strap.
“Sure, we wuz next door,” said Vladimir.
“I mean, are you through there for the day? You didn’t do the whole building, did you?”
“Naw,” said Vladimir.
“Well, if you didn’t do the whole building,” said Durand, “how come—”
“We only wuz woikin’ below the twelft’ floor, today,” said Vladimir. “Tomorrow we woiks from the twenty-fift to de toiteent’, see. Say, whaddya want to know about, anyway?”
“I’m making an investigation,” said Durand. He showed his badge with a quick, lapel-turning motion.
“Oh, you’re one a dem sloot’s, aincha?” said Vladimir.
“Yes, I’m a sleuth,” said Durand. “I want to know how many of you were working on the Diamond Building today, and what the names were.”
“Dey wuz seven a’ us,” said Vladimir. “We always woiks in teams a’ seven.” He counted them off on his fingers. “Skinny Grouse, Emil Valdos, Frank Petrucelli, Sam Kennedy, Fatty Morelli, Buck Lanigan an’, lemme see, oh yes, Yellow Leedom.”
Durand was writing the names down on the back of an envelope as Vladimir talked.
“And which one of them is you?”
“Me? I’m Vladimir Weniawski.”
“Are you the foreman?” asked Durand.
“Naw. We ain’t got no foreman. We just starts out frum de office an’ cleans windows, see?”
“I see,” said Durand. “But that makes eight names you’ve given me.”
Vladimir stared at him uncertainly. “Does it? Dat’s funny. We always woiks seven in a team. Dat’s a rule a’ de office.”
“Then how do you account for eight of you being there?” asked Marty.
Vladimir shrugged his shoulders. “Soich me. Dey wuz all there, dough. I remember seein’ dem all when we quit to eat, see? We wuz goin’ out togedder.”
* * * *
At the office of the Acme Window Cleaning Company a few minutes later Durand spoke to the manager, after telling him what he was looking for. It appeared that there were only seven on the job. Then how account for the fact that Durand had eight names?
“Let’s see your names,” demanded the manager. Durand showed his list.
“There are eight, all right,” said the manager. “I wonder what Buck Lanigan was doing there?” he mused.
“So do I,” added Durand.
“He gave up his job yesterday,” said the manager. “A funny bird. You never could depend much on him, anyway.”
Durand mused for a minute. “Maybe it was just force of habit,” he offered hopefully. “You know, you get into the habit of cleaning windows, and you have to sort of shake it off gradually, like dope, or something.”
The manager stared at him.
“Can you give me his address?” Durand asked.
Upon investigation, some short time later, Durand found that the address of Buck Lanigan was a boarding-house, and that he had checked out early that morning. The landlady did not know where he had gone, but he had paid his board and she had made no embarrassing inquiries.…
Back, later, at the office of Marsden & Marsden, Durand asked to see the partners together. They received him in Sol’s office. He closed the door carefully behind him as he entered.
“Well?” asked Sol. “You got some good news for us, maybe?”
“That depends,” said Durand, “upon what you call good news.” He dropped into a chair, though he had not been invited, and lighted a cigarette.
“What I would call good news,” said Morton, with a sleek smile, “would be news that you have found out who took the diamonds.”
“Then I guess I can help you,” said Durand. “That is, if you really want to know. Do you?”
“Sure. Sure, we want to know,” said Sol, his eyes going to his brother’s in a quick glance,
and back again to Durand.
“Certainly,” said Morton. “A hundred thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds.”
“Then I’ll tell you,” said Durand. “But first, I think I ought to advise you not to press any claim for the insurance. You know what I mean?”
The brothers were on their feet in an instant, and the face of Sol went a pasty gray.
“Are you trying to insinuate—” began Morton, his cheeks very red.
“I’m not insinuating anything, gentlemen,” said Durand calmly. “I’m telling you. I happen to know that both of you were in on this, that’s all.” He gazed at them quietly.
“That’s a criminal insinuation,” shouted Sol. “You’re talking now to the firm of Marsden & Marsden, and—”
“Don’t shout, Marsden & Marsden,” interrupted Durand. “I can hear you perfectly.”
“Don’t think you can come here and insult us!” spluttered Sol.
* * * *
There was much more of the same, and through it Durand sat still, puffing at his cigarette. Finally they lapsed into silence, one after the other, held by his immutable calm, feeling that this man knew much more than he had told.
“Are you finished, Marsden & Marsden?” asked Durand. They said nothing. “Good. If you want proof—and I don’t blame you, although I think this passion for accuracy is a very dangerous thing—I might say that we have the word—or rather, I should say, words—of Signor Buck Lanigan, who was once a window cleaner and is now, it seems, a diamond merchant with a stock of one hundred thousand dollars in unset stones. Do you get me or do I have to tell you in simpler language?”
“Lanigan has confessed?” came in small tones from Morton.
Durand nodded. “We have all the dope,” he said.
The partners collapsed into their seats, Sol mopping his brow, on which a clammy sweat had broken out, with a large white handkerchief. His face pale, Morton sat still in his seat.
Then Sol turned to his partner excitedly.
“You see, you fool? I told you it would never work! Trusting a window cleaner—”
“You were willing enough to try it,” came back Morton. “You’re just as guilty as I am.” He turned to Durand. “You people have nothing on us. We haven’t made any claim for insurance yet—and we have a right to cause our own property to disappear, if we want to.”
“Maybe,” said Durand. “That isn’t up to me. It’s up to the company. I don’t think you’ll claim any insurance, though. At least, I certainly shouldn’t advise it. In fact, I believe I’d give me a signed note, if I were you, stating that the company is not responsible for the insurance of the diamonds, and that you propose to make no claim.”
“Why should we do that?” asked Morton quickly.
“Because there is such a thing as an action for conspiracy to defraud, and unless the company has such a signed note, they are apt to press the action.”
“And if we give it to you, would they drop—”
“It would assist them in a decision not to do anything more about it,” said Durand.
A quick glance passed between the partners, and Morton drew a sheet of paper to him and wrote rapidly. He signed it, and gave it to Sol, who also signed it. Weakly, Sol passed the paper to Durand, who looked it over carefully and put it in his wallet.
“That ends our responsibility in the case,” he said, “and that’s about all we’re interested in.” He rose.
“Say,” said Morton. “How’d you get on to this?”
“Obvious enough,” said Durand. “You see, it was certain that the crook had come into your office through the door, and had not come out. So he must have gone out by the only other possibility, the window, impossible as that may have seemed. So I examined the window carefully and found some disturbance in the dust on the sill.
“Now, that window is so high above the streets that it brought the thought of a window cleaner to my mind. It’s a funny thing, but you hardly think of window cleaners as people—that is, you’re apt to say no one has been around even though a man has just been cleaning your windows—get what I mean?
“And I’ve often seen them stepping from window to window, so when I came to your office—” he turned to Morton—“I looked at the window and I found it closed. And then when I ran my finger down the dirty window, I saw that the inside was dirty, but the outside was clean.”
“I don’t see what that proved.”
“It proved that when the window cleaner with whom you had arranged to steal the jewels, got to your office he found your secretary was there. So, doing a quick bit of thinking, he started to clean the window. Then you sent her from the room—as I found out; she was really quite indignant because the letter you sent her to find in the files didn’t exist—and the window cleaner came in quickly and made his exit through the hall.
“He went down the stairs, timed it exactly so that he could get out of the building with the rest of the crew, and so forth. The only dumb thing he did was to throw up his job the day before, so when I got the names of the men on the crew Buck Lanigan was one of them. Pretty trusting though, aren’t you? How’d you know you’d ever get your jewelry back?”
“Well, you got him, ain’tcha?” put in Sol. “We’ll get it back—”
Durand shook his head. “We haven’t got him. I had to invent that part. No one knows where he is. He disappeared this morning.”
“Well, what about our hundred thousand dollars in diamonds?” screamed Sol.
“That’s your problem,” said Durand, rising. “Of course, you could appeal to the police.… But somehow, I have an idea you won’t want to bother our busy police department with such trivialities, will you, Marsden & Marsden?”
THE MURDER OF SILAS CORD, by Harold F. Sorensen
After the emotions and tumult aroused by the murder of Silas Cord had subsided, there remained the mystery. No one knew the murderer; none was more anxious than Cord’s secretary, Harry Bligh, to discover him. Any suspect of so determined a detective as Lieutenant Ware would have wanted to gain the truth to save himself. But Bligh was haunted by a fear far worse than that of execution for the murder of his employer.
The trouble began when Bligh learned that Mr. Cord was threatened with blackmail. Cord would not tell more than that, Bligh defiantly called in the law. But when the police arrived at the fine old house, Cord told them the entire matter was Bligh’s mistake, there was no blackmailer.
Murder came the night of the second day thereafter.
The police credited the blackmail story then. Only they could not discover any reason why Cord might have been blackmailed. If ever a man had prospered and lived long without doing wrong or incurring hatred, it was Silas Cord. His life was confined to his home, his interests to his nephew and two wards who lived with him.
Harry Bligh was unquestionably the hardest hit. In hopes of gleaning some clue, his mind dwelt continually on that last day that Silas Cord had lived.
It was September, the weather characteristically erratic. Cord’s last day was coldish; alternately bright and dark as the sun escaped, then again to be engulfed by clouds, at which overcast times the wind blew furtively, whipping the leaves about the extensive grounds surrounding the house. They were in the study, Cord in the big chair, the tartan plaid rug over his knees, Bligh working at the desk.
“Harry,” Cord called quietly. And when Bligh looked up, Cord went on, “I want you to go downtown for me.”
“Yes, sir.”
Silas Cord smiled and winked his eyes behind his glasses. He had a round, creamy-skinned face with a rosy tint, fine, silver hair; a small mouth and large, blue, jovial eyes. A short rotund man, he was in the aggregate harmless and even angelic appearing. His air was that of impeccable benignness which confidence men strive to simulate. Bligh had never known any man to look so honest and not be a crook.
Bligh had rescued Cord from a bandit-minded tramp one morning in the park. Silas Cord offered Bligh a job. Bligh laughed; he had rescued Cord because of t
he disparity in his size and that of his attacker, and despite his appraisal of Cord’s character.
Bligh wanted a job. A migrant orphan, he had no relatives. Wherever he went, he sought work, and though he got it often, he never obtained the lasting sort of job. But while he worked, he attended school and studied. At thirty he was tall, hardy, strong. He’d had enough fights so that he didn’t care for any that had no sensible basis. His face was long and somewhat wide, with startlingly gray eyes under straight black brows.
To humor the old fellow, Bligh went home with him.
Whereupon Bligh received the surprise of his life. He learned that Silas Cord really owned this fine old house with its lawns and groves on the city’s far outskirts. Silas Cord had long been the city’s outstanding realtor, so that even now, retired as he was, Cord was a wealthy man.
Bligh took the job with grateful humility. In a few months he was a good stenographer, displayed a good head for figures and a fine spirit for imposing discipline on Mr. Cord’s household.
On this September day, Bligh had thought they would work on Mr. Cord’s book, which was to be about real estate values in relation to taxes. There was nothing unusual in it when Cord sat with the rug over his knees while Bligh worked at the desk, and Cord said he wanted Bligh to go to the city. Bligh leaned his elbows on the desk and waited for the silverhaired, rotund little man to tell him what errand he was to do.
“I wish you to stay in the city all evening.” Cord smiled gently. “I’m having everyone go. I want to be here alone.”
Bligh shuddered. A cloud obscured the sun at that moment, throwing the room into gloom. Bligh dropped his pen and spread his strong brown hand flat on the desk.
“The blackmailer! He’s coming here tonight for money. I won’t have it. You can fire me, but—”
“Harry,” Cord broke in, “you must not tell the police.”
“I have to!” Bligh retorted. “You’re starting something that will never end. You’ve got to fight, not submit—”
“You mustn’t.” Cord’s round, rosy face was a trifle stiff. “For your sake. You were a hobo. It doesn’t matter that you were always seeking work. The police do not like your background.”