Framed at the Benefactors Club/Chapter 4

E was awakened—he did not know how much later—by a pleasant, laughing voice at his elbow.

“Hello, old man!”

Ogilvie sat up and yawned and looked at Gadsby, a tall, lean man with a square, angular jaw, thin, sensitive lips that subtended a quixotic nose, and dreamy brown eyes.

“Quite comfortable?” asked Gadsby with a smile.

“Like a bug in a rug, Bob. And”—he paused a little—“quite safe!”

He had given the last word the emphasis of a suddenly lowered voice, and Gadsby frowned perplexedly.

“What do you mean—quite safe?” he inquired.

“Aren't you the police commissioner?” came Ogilvie's counter-question.

“I have that distinction. What about it?”

“Well, I hardly imagine the police will look for me here in your private residence. Nor will they look for the car—which, incidentally, I swiped—in your immaculate garage.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Nothing much. Only—well, your flat-footed minions are after me, hot on my trail.”

“What have you done?”

“I was just a plain idiotic fool.”

“That's nothing new,” Gadsby returned ungraciously. “What else have you done?”

“Nothing—I told you, didn't I? But the police have an idea that I committed”

“What—for the love of Mike?”

“Murder!”

“Good heavens!”

“And that isn't all, Bob. They've a couple of bakers' dozens of witnesses, all cocked and primed to swear to it!”

Ogilvie lit a cigar while the police commissioner collapsed weakly into a chair.

{[dhr]} Robert W. Gadsby was that curiously paradoxical and curiously effective combination: a materialistic idealist. He was both a doer and a dreamer; both a politician and an honest man; both a reformer and a sane man who saw people and conditions as they were, without the lying help of rosy-tinted, psychic spectacles.

Of fine old New York stock and immense wealth, and with a slightly provincial civic pride which had its roots in the days when New York was New Amsterdam, when people imported their liquor from Holland, when wild turkeys flopped their drab wings between Broadway and the Bronx, and when the Gadsby's had their country estate in the eventual neighborhood of Sixth Avenue and Twenty-ninth Street, he had gone in for local politics on leaving college as a simple matter of duty, because, as he put it, he was an American, a New Yorker, and a rich man. He had run for various offices, had been elected repeatedly, and when, at the last city election, the swing of the pendulum swept his party into the seats of the mighty, he had been given his choice of several appointments. Unhesitatingly, believing detection and prevention of crime to be the backbone of good city government, he had chosen the office of commissioner of police.

He was making good. Even his political opponents, in their newspapers, found it increasingly difficult to concoct and correlate statistics misleading enough to prove that crime had increased during his administration. Nobody could accuse him of corruption and graft, for he was a millionaire; nobody could ridicule him as an unpractical visionary and congenital reformer, for Scotland Yard had sent over experts to study some of his methods and innovations; nobody could suspect him of too great political ambition, for a higher office than this would have been his for the asking.

He and Blaine Ogilvie were old friends—the sort who do not see each other with mathematical regularity, but who can continue a conversation, even after an absence of half a year, just about at the point where they had broken it off.

Gadsby looked at his friend. “Of course you are only joking?” he asked.

“I wish I were,” came Ogilvie's reply.

“B-but”

“I'm telling you the plain, unvarnished, rock-bottom truth, Bob!”

“Really?”

“Abso-tively!”

“Great Cæsar!” Gadsby walked up and down excitedly. “Let's hear the whole story—every detail—omit nothing.”

And Ogilvie told him. “What do you make of it?” he wound up.

“That you're in a pretty mess!”

“I am aware of that myself. What else do you make of it?”

Gadsby shook his head. “I don't know,” he said slowly, dully, “I don't know!” He slurred, stopped, went on: “Of course you've come here to give yourself up, I suppose?”

“Don't you go supposing things that aren't so, Bob, and you'll save yourself many a disappointment.”

“Why—I don't understand!”

“If I had wanted to surrender, I wouldn't have made that rather sensational get-away, would I?”

“But, Blaine”

“Well?”

“You are suspected of murder. There are witnesses—didn't you tell me?”

“A whole mob of them—they're all hand in glove—I see that now. What's that got to do with”

“I must arrest you. There is my sworn duty.”

“Forget your sworn duty, man! Didn't I hear you give a long spiel during the last campaign that the unwritten duty is fully as important as the written?” Ogilvie smiled. “I voted for your chosen party. Come on! Make good on your election promises!”

“But—my duty”

“There you go again! You're becoming tiresome. You've duty on the brain. It's your duty—since you insist on arguing about it—to catch the guilty man, not a poor innocent sucker like myself.”

“You're under suspicion until you've proved your innocence, Blaine.”

“I know. Three cheers for the logic of jurisprudence! But, don't you see, old man, that I can't remove the suspicion until”

“Well?”

“Until you've found and convicted the guilty party—the real murderer.”

“Exactly! That's where I come in. I will”

“You can't, Bob. First of all, why should the police trouble? Haven't they a number of witnesses to swear to my guilt? Do you want any more direct evidence? Why should the police trouble to look farther afield since they've got me?”

“I'll make them! I am the boss!”

“A fat lot of good that will do you and me. Don't you see? There are no other witnesses except those who will testify against me.”

“You had no revolver!”

“They'll swear that I had one. I tell you the whole gang will stick together.”

“But why?”

“I don't know why, but I do know they will. The whole thing was a most ingenious trap. Everybody played a part in it—even the girl at the hat rack and the waiter—everybody except myself and”

“Who?”

“The murdered man! They got him there under some pretense. Bob, if you arrest me the district attorney's office will try me, and I won't have a chance in the world. It's a cinch that I'll decorate the electric chair.”

There was a pause. Ogilvie poured himself another drink and tossed it down neat.

“Bob,” he continued, “you're up against something brand-new. You will have to let me go—a man accused of murder, guilty by every last particle of direct evidence. You'll have to let the accused go, so that he can play detective and find the real murderer.”

“What about Martyn Spencer?”

“I don't know yet. Haven't had time to think. But he must have known why he sent me there. Didn't he give me the twenty thousand dollars? And—that crowd didn't seem to know Spencer personally—otherwise why did they frame me up? No! Whatever his reasons, I don't think that Spencer will say much. Of course, I'll try and make him come through. But I haven't much hope. He's a business man, and he made a bargain with me—paid me—and—well, I lost.”

“I'll put my own detective force on the job.”

“What clews can they find? I am more liable to find them than they.”

“Why, Blaine?”

“Because I am rather vitally interested in the affair.”

“But I must arrest you. I'll do anything else I can. I'll hold up the case”

“You can't for any length of time. The opposition papers will make it hot for you. They'll discover that you and I are friends. They'll influence public opinion. They'll force your hand. They'll make the district attorney try me and convict me in record time. And, if your detectives should find the real murderer—why, by that time I'll be buried in a prison cemetery. Bob, you'll have to forget your sworn duty for once.”

Ogilvie turned and walked to the end of the room. Gadsby sat down, and his troubled face betrayed his preoccupation. Finally he looked up. “I'll do it,” he said in a low, clear voice.

“Bully for you!”

“On one condition.”

“Name it!”

“Any time I want you, you must come in and surrender.”

Ogilvie laughed. “No need for that, old man!”

“Why not?”

“Because you'll have me under your personal surveillance all the time.”

“How so?”

“You have a spare bedroom, haven't you?”

“You—you mean”

“Right!” continued Ogilvie with calm effrontery. “You're going to have a guest—oh”—he laughed—“a paying guest—for I still have Spencer's twenty thousand dollars”

“But—listen”

“Your house is the only safe place for me. The police won't hunt for me here. Tompkins has known me since I was a kid in knickers—he worked for your father, didn't he?—sort of inherited him, British accent and 'yes, sir,' and 'thank you, sir,' and all. I've already slipped him a word of warning—all you'll have to do is to swear him to secrecy. As to your other servants”

“Only one—Tompkins' wife. That part's all right—but” Gadsby shook his head. “It's very unusual,” he commented weakly.

“Very!” agreed Ogilvie. “Here am I, accused of murder, guilty by every last bit of direct evidence—playing my own detective and hiding in the private residence of the head of the police department. It's the most unusual thing I have ever run across.” He rose. “We'll talk it over to-morrow. I'm too tired to-night, what with all this excitement and that potent Bourbon of yours. Where did you get it, Bob? I thought the country was dry!”

He poured himself a liberal good-night cap, and fifteen minutes later was comfortably stretched out in one of the police commissioner's best four-poster beds, dressed in a pair of the police commissioner's silk pajamas, and reading the police commissioner's favorite volume of French poetry. Half an hour later he was fast asleep.

Tompkins awakened him with an appetizing breakfast tray, a newspaper, and an embarrassed cough.

Ogilvie sat up in bed and laughed. “Don't look like a conspirator, Tompkins,” he said.

“But—oh, sir”

“Mr, Gadsby told you, I take it?”

“Yes, sir,” came the despondent reply.

“All right., Forget it. I'm as innocent as a new-born lamb.”

“Oh—thank you, sir!”

“Two pieces of sugar—that's right—a little more cream.” Ogilvie sipped his coffee. “Want to do me a favor, Tompkins?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Call up Miss Marie Dillon—Spring 43789—and tell her” He was puzzled. “What are you going to tell her?”

“Leave it to me, sir,” replied Tompkins, a wintry smile lighting up his features. “I've been married thirty-nine years.”

“Gosh! And I never knew you had a sense of humor!”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Don't thank me—thank your Creator. And now, the newspaper, please!”

“Here you are, sir. You'll find the headline quite interesting, sir.”

And Ogilvie did. For, smeared across the front page of the Morning Sentinel in screaming, extravagant three-inch type, he read:

“Assassin will have another cup of the police commissioner's excellent coffee,” said Blaine Ogilvie, and suited the action to his words,

The newspaper account related that No. 17 Braddon Street was a little restaurant, dating back to pre-Revolutionary days, which closed its doors to the general public at ten p.m After ten, the article went on, it served as a nightly meeting place for an “Organization which called itself the “Benefactors Club,” which was composed of business and professional men, who met there to discuss art, politics, science, literature, religion, and other live topics.

The report gave a list of the club members. They had simple, prosy names and simple, prosy addresses: from Thomas W. Robinson, 22456 West Seventy-eighth Street to Doctor Jerome McNulty, 44589 Riverside Drive, from J. J. Mulrooney, 15826 East One Hundred and Eighty-third Street to Donald Kayser, somewhere on the French Boulevard—altogether, on the face of it, an apex of Gotham's civic virtues, a very epitome of all the upper West Side's, the Bronx's, and Chelsea's stout, burgess respectability.

It appeared that occasional late visitors, unfamiliar with the early closing hour of the restaurant proper, were usually turned away by the boy at the door or by the proprietor, who presided behind the cashier's desk and who was also a member of the club—the man with the spade-shaped red beard and the bulbous nose, Ogilvie added mentally as he read—but that last night a stranger had made his appearance around half past ten, evidently a well-to-do man about town, judging from his superb, sable-lined ulster.

Here followed an excellent description of Blaine Ogilvie.

This stranger had explained that he had lost his way, that he was tired and cold and hungry, and finally he had been allowed to come in and had been served with food and cigars.

Shortly afterward one of the club members, a certain Doctor Hillyer O. McGrath, of 11921 West Eleventh Street, had driven up in his automobile, accompanied by a friend not a member of the organization, Mr. Monro Clafflin, the well-known retired merchant and philanthropist. A few minutes later, the report continued, without giving either reason or warning—in fact, without saying a word—the stranger had pulled out a revolver, fired point-blank at Mr. Clafflin, killing him instantly, and had made his get-away in Doctor McGrath's car, after a sensational fight.

Here followed a fairly accurate description of Ogilvie's battle and escape. It seemed that he had thrown the revolver away, and that it had afterward been picked up by Mr. Montress D. Clapperton, the president of the Benefactors Club, who—the hunchback, came Ogilvie's silent comment—had run out, a few minutes before the stranger's get-away, to fetch the police. Several of the club members had received minor injuries. Mr. Cornelius van Alstyne had been hit by a chair; Mr. Leopold Fischer had a black eye, besides having his clothes torn; while Captain Jeremiah Blount, Mr. Holister Welkin, and Mr, Audley R. Chester—addresses given in each case—had been wounded by a carving knife which the assassin had picked up.

Ogilvie smiled when he considered that here, doubtless, he had a list of the different men whom he had observed and scrutinized shortly after he had entered No. 17; and he smiled again when he read, in the last paragraph of the article, that the police so far had not discovered either the name or the whereabouts of the assassin, but that, given the accurate description, they expected no trouble in putting their hands on him within the next twenty-four hours—“thanks to the marvelously up-to-date and efficient methods of our police commissioner, Mr. Robert W. Gadsby.”

“Bob,” Ogilvie said to the latter, after he had shaved and bathed and dressed, pointing at the last line, “the newspapers are handing you a bouquet.”

“They'll hand me a brickbat,” said the other, “when they learn”

“Please! No more 'duty' stuff! We had all that out last night. Now—for the real murderer.”

“How are you going to discover him?”

“By looking for the motives.”

“And how are you going to find his motives?”

“By investigation and elimination. First of all, here's a list of names and addresses I culled from the morning paper. These are the people I specially noticed last night. Have your department look them up. See who they are, what they do, their reputation, and all that sort of thing, you know.”

“Yes,” said the police commissioner as he tucked the list of names away. “What else?”

“Get a general survey of the other members of the club. You'll find their names and addresses in the Morning Sentinel. Here”

“What about Martyn Spencer?” asked Gadsby.

“I haven't much hope there. But get a line on him, whatever you can. See if you can make head or tail of any of the fantastic tales that used to be afloat about him.”

“All right. I'll try.”

“And—oh, yes—find out about Clafflin, the murdered man, you know, and that Doctor McGrath, who brought him and”

“Pardon me, old man,” came the police commissioner's ironic interjection, “what are you going to do? I had an idea you were going to play detective.”

“I can't leave the house—at least not yet—can I, you chump? I am going to do my bit at long distance. I am going to correlate and eliminate and dovetail. Let's have a look at Spencer's ulster now. I told you—didn't I?—how the girl felt the fur and said something about my having the check—'the right check'—and how she looked over at the red-bearded man as if to appeal to him.”

“Are you sure she didn't give you a check?”

“I am positive, Bob.”

The police commissioner took out his cigar case. “Care for a smoke?” he asked.

“Thanks. I will.”

Ogilvie took the cigar and groped in his left coat pocket for a match. Then he gave a little, startled exclamation.

“Hello! What's that?” He drew his hand from his pocket.

“Well? Found the check after all?” inquired Gadsby.

“No. I found this!”

Ogilvie opened his hand. It held a ragged bit of gray, herring-bone tweed, evidently, judging from the buttonhole, torn from a man's coat lapel.

“The gray suit—the fellow with the round, babyish face who looked like a typical business man—what's his name?” Ogilvie consulted the morning paper. “Oh, yes—Leopold Fischer—had his eye blackened and his suit torn”

“What are you saying, Blaine?”

“I remember. I reached back of me in that rough-and-tumble fight. I felt something rip and give. Must have dropped it into my pocket without thinking. Here it is—and—oh—look, Bob!”

And he turned over the torn shred of tweed and pointed at a small, round metal disk which was fastened to it.

“Bob,” he said, “the investigation begins right here.”

And he bent closely over the little metal disk, while the other entered the next room to telephone to headquarters.