Page:Argosy All-story Weekly v123 n03 (1920-07-24).djvu/16

298 dead man and was evidently about to continue his remarks when the inspector demanded:—

"Have any of you boys been up-stairs since we left you on the second floor?"

"No, sir." It was Clancy who answered. "There was nothing to take us up there, and plenty to look over down here, though it is little enough that we found out!"

"You see, Mac?" The inspector turned with a grin to McCarty. "I told you that you were hearing things when you thought there was a sound from below while we were on the servants' floor! Look here, Clancy, you've been on this beat nearly six months; you ought, to know about how many there were in the household."

"I think I do, sir, and I can't get it through my head where they've all gone to," responded the officer. "To my knowledge there were ten of them, not counting the housekeeper; the cook was the butler's wife, and besides there was a footman, valet and houseman, then the kitchenmaid, housemaid, parlormaid and laundress, and the lady's maid, of course. The valet I almost never saw, but it comes to me now that the cook and the butler are the only ones I've noticed around the premises for some time."

"What do you mean by 'some time'?" barked the inspector.

"Weeks, anyway, sir; maybe a month." Clancy shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. "Not since a few days after the last big entertainment the Crevelings gave."

"When was that? What sort of an entertainment?"

"How should I know, sir?" the officer replied to the last question. Twas a dinner or dance or something; awnings and a red carpet spread out to the curb and an orchestra playing till all hours, and a string of motor cars reaching around into both side streets. Except when they give some big society shindy like that, the house is the quietest on the block, as I was remarking to McCarty only to-night—but where is he?"

Clancy had turned for superfluous corroboration to the spot where the exroundsman had stood behind his chief, to find that he had vanished.

"I thought that I heard the front door close just now, sir," Pete observed.

"You're getting jumpy, like Mac," the inspector laughed. "You couldn't drive him out of the house now that he's on the old trail again; wait till you boys retire and then open the papers some fine morning and find a fresh murder mystery staring you in the face and the force being raked over the coals for not pinching the man who did it, before the first edition reached the press! There isn't one of the three of you who wouldn't want to be back in harness with a chance to clasp his hand on the shoulder of the murderer! Mac's only poking around on his own account, but, Clancy, this looks bad for you; a prominent citizen shot to death in his own house on your beat with an army .44 that could be heard a mile off, and it took a cheap crook to discover the crime!"

Clancy turned a rich crimson.

"Everything was quiet and the house dark when I went my rounds up to near midnight, sir," he said with dignity. "We'd received no notification of the family being away or any special watch being necessary. Besides, there's a private watchman employed on this block, the same as on the others up and down the avenue. It did come to me as strange that I didn't run into him, but I thought no more about it. There's many a night I don't see him."

"You say that the house was dark up to nearly twelve o'clock," repeated Inspector Druet. "When did you notice first that it was lighted?"

"At about a quarter before; I rang in at the box on the next corner ten minutes afterward, more or less." Clancy's tone was cautious. "The faint little stream of light coming from the window here on the first floor meant nothing to me, for I'd often seen it till near dawn, and lots of the ground-floor windows are left open the night long in all the residences on my beat this mild spring weather. I passed regular, and not once did I hear the sound of a shot or anything else, for that matter, but the motor cars going up and down the avenue."

"What was the first you knew of this affair, then?"