The Twenty-Six Clues/Chapter 9

WAS a fine time to springing a fiancé on the old man!" commented Dennis Riordan, as the glowing embers from his pipe sizzled on the still wet pavement. "This is his unlucky week for fair; a murdered body found in his museum, and a man with a name like a dime novel tacked on to the family. How did he take it?"

"Dazed, like," McCarty responded. "He shook hands, but his mind was not on it, and whilst I was trying to make a getaway without being noticed, the young lady came out of her happy trance and saw there was something wrong. 'What is it, Uncle Cal?' she asked in a kind of a frightened whisper.

"'Come into the library, both of you,' Norwood said. 'McCarty'

"'I'm going, sir,' I told him. 'I'll look in on you later.' And I beat it, the young man staring after me in a vacant sort of a way and well he might! From the reception he got he must have thought he was in a bughouse family."

It was late afternoon and a pale, watery sun had struggled through the clouds. McCarty had been unable longer to resist the lure of friendly confab and he and Dennis stood just within the door of Engine House 023 while he took a last regretful pull at his cigar stump and then flung it into the gutter. As they turned to climb the stairs to Dennis' quarters above, the latter exclaimed:

"By the powers! Is it tramping across country you've been, on a day like this? Your boots are an inch thick with mud!"

"Are they so?" inquired McCarty with dignity. "I must have got it in the Norwood yard this noon when I was fooling around with the ladder."

"The ladder? And what were you doing with it?"

"Carrying a load of loose brick up to the museum window," responded the other, adding in immense satisfaction, "I figured my own weight and I added the bricks by guess, in what our friend Terhune would have called a scientific experiment, and the ladder all but broke under it, just as I thought it would."

Dennis nodded comprehendingly.

"If you'd asked me, I could have told you without your risking your neck and your new suit that that ladder never bore the weight of two people at once, and one of them dead, last night," he observed. "In spite of Terhune's theory and the lock of black hair caught on the window frame, Mrs. Jarvis' body was never brought in that way."

"I'm not so sure," McCarty retorted enigmatically. "But there's a lot of things in this case that contradict each other flat, and it's what them that's most concerned haven't done and said, more than what we've got out of them, that makes it such a puzzle. Do you mind the way I used to work backward, now and again when I was on the force? That's the way I'd tackle this case, now, if I had the handling of it."

"It looks to me as if they'd said altogether too much," Dennis demurred. "A pack of lies, I'd call most of it. Why is this girl Margot sticking to it that the dressing-room was in order at eight o'clock when at twelve we found it looking as if the German army had been through it?"

"For a simple reason that hasn't struck the Inspector nor yet Terhune; she may be telling the God's truth," returned McCarty dryly. "There's a lot can happen between eight and twelve."

"For the love of Pete!" Dennis' eyes bulged. "Do you mean that the poor lady wasn't killed at all when we thought? That maybe it all happened whilst we were sitting there in the dining-room at Mr. Norwood's, talking so grand and scientific about crime, and that poor thing being laid out under the very roof"

"Hold yourself, Denny," interrupted his companion. "I didn't say that. 'Twas the state of the dressing-room I was remarking on. Mrs. Jarvis, dead or alive, might have been gone from it and it still be in order at eight o'clock. The attempt at robbery, or the upsetting of the room to make it look like robbery, could have taken place any time between then and half-past ten, when the cook and the butler came home."

"You think somebody put up a game? That there was no robbery at all?" Dennis' tone was awestruck.

"I don't know what to think about it," McCarty replied frankly. "There were the two girls, one upstairs in bed, the other sewing in the basement; that is, if you can believe them. It's not likely that one or the other would hear nothing, though 'tis a solidly built old house, with the walls a foot thick. Of the two of them, the one upstairs stood the best chance of hearing what went on, being nearest, but whatever they know, they're keeping quiet."

"Mac, what were you getting at when you said that Mrs. Jarvis might have been gone from that room dead or alive? You don't mean she walked out of it? That she wasn't killed there, but maybe over in the other house, after all?"

"Corpses don't dress themselves," retorted McCarty. "If you remember, Denny, when we found the body in the museum, it was dressed in a dark purple silk, and the scarf that had choked the breath out of her was blue. Margot told us about getting Mrs. Jarvis undressed and into that wrapper thing before she left her in the afternoon and we all saw it there in the bedroom later. Is it likely that Mrs. Jarvis laying down with a sick headache and hearing a burglar fumbling around in the next room would have waited to dress herself again before investigating, or would the burglar after he'd killed her have gone to the trouble? There's another thing, too. What was Margot doing in the back-yard late at night when we surprised her?"

"Getting the air, she said," observed Dennis. "She was worrying about Mrs. Jarvis"

"Then why wasn't she waiting for her by the front door, if she expected her to come home that way from the dinner party?" demanded the other. "Why was she skulking in the yard unless she knew or suspected that her mistress had gone over to the other house?"

"Then she's in on the whole deal, the blackmail and all?" Dennis cried. "What has it all to do with Norwood and his house?"

"That's what we've got to find out. It's my opinion that when the girl discovered her mistress gone, she looked to see what clothes were missing so as to tell what she had worn. Well she knew Mrs. Jarvis would not go out to dinner in that plain little dress and as she was nowhere in the house, Margot must have figured that the only place she could have gone with no coat or hat was through the little door in the fence to the Norwoods."

"But why?" Dennis shook his head dubiously. "Why should she lie to the maid and sneak over there like a thief when she'd been used to running in and out at all hours with never a question?"

McCarty shrugged.

"Ask me another," he invited. "Why did she get rid of all her own servants for the afternoon except the one that was sick, and even invent an errand for Margot? Why was she so anxious that Mr. Norwood should go to his friend Professor Parlowe at that particular time? I'd not be surprised to hear it was she suggested to him to let his own butler off to see his brother, that's in the hospital."

Dennis rose from the side of his cot upon which he had perched himself and his voice shook with suppressed excitement.

"The secretary; that Frenchman! She didn't try to get him out of the way!" he exclaimed. "Mac, do you think they had a date over there at Norwood's? He couldn't have killed her! It would have taken more nerve than he's got, blind as he is, for him to have walked in that room with us after, and stood around waiting for us to discover the body! Though at that, if you remember, he didn't want to go with us, only old Norwood insisted and told him to his face that he'd not been like himself all evening! Do you suppose"

"I don't suppose anything," McCarty observed. "I'm trying to get at the facts. If she did go over to the Norwood house for any private reason the secretary may have had nothing to do with it and him being blind may never even have known she was there."

"Then she went to meet someone else, that's a cinch," Dennis grasped at another straw. "I thought last night that nobody but a crazy loon would murder a woman and then cart her body from one house to the next for no earthly reason before making his own getaway. But look here, Mac; if she was murdered in the Norwood house, who was it got in her dressing-room later? Maybe she was killed for something the murderer thought she would have on her and not finding it, he took a desp'rate chance and went over and burgled her house!"

"And what would he be after?" McCarty asked in withering scorn. "That stale Christmas cake or the macaroni-paste letters? Would the fellow be thinking that she carried them around with her, that he decoyed her to the Norwood house and murdered her for them?"

"Maybe 'twas for something else, entirely; something that he did find, after, in her dressing-room," suggested Dennis, brightly. "What does the Inspector and Mr. Terhune say about it?"

"I've had no speech with either of them, barring a little note that I found at my rooms this afternoon, asking me to call at Mr. Terhune's to-night." McCarty paused, and added carelessly, "I'll have to send my regrets, I'm thinking; I've got another date, with a lady."

For a full minute Dennis stared at his friend, then shook his head lugubriously.

"Well, they say there's none like the old ones," he observed cryptically. "I'm surprised at you, though, Mac. To begin sparking and holding hands at your time of life"

"I'm holding no hands!" interrupted McCarty in haste. "'Tis only the movies I'm taking her to; by the grace of God it's too late in the year, or I'd be let in for a trip to Coney."

Native delicacy struggled with curiosity for a moment and then Dennis asked:

"And who is your lady friend, if it's not too private a matter?"

McCarty grinned.

"It's Miss Etta Barney."

Dennis greeted the announcement blankly but in the pause that ensued a light broke over him.

"Etta!" he exclaimed. "The Jarvis' housemaid! Well I knew you'd something up your sleeve, but a fine couple you'll be, and her with her face out like a balloon"

"Barring, its natural shape, her face is all right," announced McCarty. "'Twas so covered with bandages last night that you couldn't tell whether it was swollen or not but to-day you'd never believe there'd been a thing the matter with her. 'Tis the quickest toothache cure that ever I see."

"You're thinking maybe she faked it?" Dennis chuckled. "What would you with your blarney be finding out that the inspector couldn't?"

"There's more ways than one of killing a pig!" retorted McCarty inelegantly. "He tried bullying her and got nothing but a flare-up of temper for his pains. Of course, she may know nothing but I thought it was worth a chance, so after I left Mr. Norwood's this morning I walked around the block to the Jarvis house and rang the basement bell. Etta answered the door and she was suspicious and fighting mad at first but I kidded her along; told her what a brute the Inspector was and not to mind him, that I had no connection with the force and that I'd liked her spirit, and the way she stood up to him and—aw, well, the upshot of it is, she's going to the movies with me to-night."

"And a dance she'll lead you, my bold Don John!" predicted his companion. "If she knows anything, it'll take more than a Saturday night movie to get it out of her!"

"I'll find out, if it means keeping steady company!" McCarty declared. "After I'd made the date with her I went and got some lunch and then strolled back to the Norwood house. The Inspector had left for headquarters but young Mr. Jarvis was on hand and Terhune, too. Miss Joan had taken to her bed sick with the shock of hearing of her friend's death, but the fiancé, Vivaseur, was still there and 'twas wonderful the way they'd all cottoned to him, even Terhune; he'd made a regular hit with him; seemed to know all about his past cases and Terhune was purring like a pet cat."

"What sort of a fellow is this Vivaseur?" asked Dennis.

"He's British, but you'd not hold it against him in spite of his blonde little dab of a mustache; a fine figure of a man, though older than I thought when first I saw him; with a florid kind of a color to him and not as slim as a youngster. He's got the manners of a gentleman, however, and a way with women as you could see with half an eye."

"Why is he here philandering, instead of doing his bit?" Dennis demanded coldly.

"He's done it; got a scar right across his forehead from shrapnel and some kind of a hurt inside that put him out of the fighting game for good, he says." McCarty paused and added: "I've not got the number yet of that secretary, Captain Marchal. Of course, the murder was a shock to him in his condition but he's not taking it naturally. He acts like he was waiting every minute for something to drop. He jumped when I came on him in the museum this morning and whenever Mr. Vivaseur spoke to him later on in the library he edged off. If there's anything on his mind"

"Hey, Denny!" The voice of Mike, fellow member of the engine company, sounded from below. "Is Mac up there with you?"

"He is that!" Dennis responded.

"Well, tell him to come down. He's wanted by the police!"

A chuckle accompanied the sally, but McCarty wasted no time in descending, with Dennis at his heels. In the doorway, chatting with the lieutenant, stood Inspector Druet.

"I thought I should find you here, Mac," the latter remarked. "How are you, Riordan? Have you two been busy solving last night's little affair?"

He spoke in bantering good humor, but McCarty noted the lines of worry and fatigue in his former superior's face and advanced quickly to him.

"I was wishful to have a talk with you, sir. Would you like to step around to my rooms?"

The Inspector nodded and turned to Dennis.

"I've just arranged with the lieutenant here to let you off for to-morrow evening," he announced. "Mr. Terhune has planned a little experiment at his rooms and he wants you to be present with the rest."

"I'll be no party to it, sir!" Dennis declared in some alarm. "I'm a fireman, not a dummy for him to try out his scientific stunts on. What's on my mind is my own business and has nothing to do with what happened last night; I'll not have him dragging it out of me with his little recording machines!"

"Don't mind him, sir. He'll come, right enough," McCarty assured the Inspector as they left the firehouse. "He's as wild as the rest of us to get at the truth of the case. Not that I'm wanting to butt in, but it's got me going worse than the Rowntree affair last year."

"Has it?" Inspector Druet darted a keen, sidewise glance at him. "What do you think of it, Mac, anyway?"

"That there's more than one holding out on you, sir," replied McCarty frankly. "Though who it was got in the Jarvis house, nor how the poor creature's body came to be on the operating table in Mr. Norwood's museum instead of the skeleton is more than I can figure out."

"You don't subscribe to Mr. Terhune's theory, then?"

"Well, there's difficulties in the way of it, sir." McCarty remembered his mud-bespattered legs and gave his overcoat a surreptitious tweak in the back. "You've the glove that Denny found on the ladder?"

"Yes." The Inspector paused abruptly and then added, "It was you who notified Oliver Jarvis over the telephone of his wife's death, wasn't it?"

"It was. That is, I didn't say what had happened. When I got him at his club I just told him Mr. Norwood wanted to see him right away."

"How did he take it?" asked the other, as they halted on the doorstep while McCarty produced his keys. "Was he alarmed?"

"No, but surprised, like, as anybody might have been," the ex-Roundsman threw open the door. "There, sir! First flight up and mind the gas bracket in the wall; I've scraped my own head on it many's the time."

Inspector Druet obeyed instructions and presently they were seated in McCarty's shabby, comfortable front room with an open box of cigars between them and live coals sputtering cheerily in the grate.

"How long had Jarvis been at the house when I got there?" the inspector reverted to his subject once more.

"Only a few minutes, sir. Mr. Norwood himself met him at the door and he said he'd come as quick as a taxi could bring him and asked what was the matter. His voice sounded concerned, like, but not alarmed; not as if he was afraid of some trouble come to himself. Mr. Norwood told him an accident had happened to his wife and then broke down and sent him on into the museum. 'Twas Mr. Terhune told him finally."

"Did it appear to affect him very profoundly?"

"'Affect him'?" McCarty repeated, regarding the other in puzzled surprise. "You saw him yourself a minute after, sir. He went stark crazy when he looked at her face and turned on Mr. Norwood. We had to pry him loose! He accused the poor old gentleman of having killed her, but the next minute he came to his senses and apologized, and than he broke down himself and fell on his knees by the table; that was when you came in."

There was an unspoken question in McCarty's attitude as though he could not grasp the significance of the Inspector's trend, but the latter did not leave him for long in doubt.

"Mac," he said, "is Oliver Jarvis one of those whom you think is holding out on me?"

"Mr. Jarvis? No, sir! Wasn't it himself that found the Christmas cake and those letters made of macaroni paste? He could have destroyed them and no one the wiser except Margot, and she would never have breathed a word of them if she hadn't seen it was all up. Instead of hiding or getting rid of them, he's as anxious as anyone to find out the meaning of it all. No, I'd hardly think Mr. Jarvis was keeping anything back."

Inspector Druet smiled, then his face grew thoughtful and almost stern.

"If neither of the two maids admitted to the Jarvis house the person who ransacked the dressing-room he must have got in himself, and he didn't force an entrance, because there are no marks; he let himself in with a key. Who would be likely to have a key to that house?"

McCarty drew a deep breath.

"You don't mean that 'twas Jarvis himself" he began.

"I know I can trust you, Mac. I don't want this mentioned to anyone until I have completed my investigation along this line. If you remember, when Jarvis described his movements of yesterday, he said that he had an appointment with his attorneys immediately after lunch, and had gone from there to the French consulate, where he was detained until past seven. As a matter of fact he did not reach his attorney's office until three, left at four-thirty and did not show up at the French consulate until after six. So much for his alibi."

"But why should he" McCarty floundered helplessly. "There's no sense to it, sir! His own wife"

"Nevertheless, he makes no attempt to account for that hour and a half." The Inspector shrugged, and then leaned forward. "I'll tell you something else, Mac. You asked me just now about the glove that Riordan found on the ladder outside the museum window. Here it is; and here's the mate to it!"

Before McCarty's amazed eyes he drew from his pocket a pair of oil-stained brown gloves and threw them on the table. Then he added:

"I found the second one this afternoon, among Oliver Jarvis' motoring togs, in his own room!"