The Substitute Prisoner Part 8

The secretary made no effort to combat the coroner's resolve. He simply bowed his head meekly, ready to submit. Britz, however, who had caught every fleeting emotion that pa.s.sed across the witness's countenance, was not prepared to see Beard silenced through intimidation.

"Coroner," he said, "suppose you adjourn the inquest for the present? I want to take Mr. Beard with me to Mr. Whitmore's home. He may be of service there."

"Very well," reluctantly agreed the coroner. "Take him!"

CHAPTER VI

Had Herbert Whitmore, in a spirit of diabolical fun, resolved to present the New York police with a baffling murder mystery, he could not have carried out the design more effectively than in the manner of his taking off. Not a clue to the perpetrator of the crime or the manner of its accomplishment, was found in the merchant's home. There were not wanting signs of hasty destruction, but the obliteration of all possible leads had been complete.

Two hours were consumed in the search of the house, and all the while Beard looked on silently, offering neither help nor hindrance. Britz, pursuing the search with the help of Greig, put an occasional question to the secretary, but the almost invariable reply was a non-committal shrug of the shoulders.

"Since you won't tell us anything about Mr. Whitmore, kindly inform me where _you_ spent the morning?" demanded Britz.

"Up to ten o'clock I was in this house," the secretary replied. "Then I visited the office of the Garfield Safe Deposit Company. I remained in the vaults, a.s.sorting Mr. Whitmore's papers until three o'clock. From there I came directly to the iron works."

"In other words, you have a complete alibi with which to meet a charge of murder?"

"Between the time that Mr. Whitmore entered his office and the time he was found dead, I was at the vault, continuously within sight of two guards," declared Beard.

The butler and the other servants were entirely empty of helpful knowledge concerning the crime. All of them united in declaring that Mr.

Whitmore had left the house six weeks ago, that no one had seen him leave and he had not been back. Mr. Beard had taken charge of his affairs, in fact he had come to the house to live. None of them had seen Mr. Whitmore since the night of his disappearance, nor had they received any word from him. While they had not accepted unequivocally Mr. Beard's a.s.surance that their employer was on a business trip, nevertheless they had no other knowledge concerning their master's whereabouts and therefore did not openly question Beard's a.s.sertions.

"Mr. Beard," said Britz, when he had finished questioning the servants, "I shall not arrest you for the present. But you will hold yourself in readiness to appear at Police Headquarters whenever I may want you."

"I shall not leave the city," promised Beard.

"Very well. Now kindly leave the house," requested Britz.

The secretary left reluctantly, as if unwilling to permit the detectives to be alone with the servants. But he offered no resistance as Britz escorted him to the door and closed it behind him. Relieved of Beard's presence, the detective summoned the butler.

"Who visited Mr. Whitmore on the night he disappeared?" Britz said sharply.

"A lady," answered the butler.

"Who was she?"

"I don't know. I had never seen her before."

"Did you see Mr. Whitmore after her departure?"

"Yes, sir, in the library."

"Did he say anything?"

"He asked me about a letter I had mailed."

"Did you observe the address on the letter?"

"Yes, sir. It was addressed to Mrs. George Collins, at Delmore Park."

"Was the lady whom you admitted that night Mrs. Collins?"

"I don't believe so. I don't know Mrs. Collins, but it couldn't have been she, for Mr. Whitmore did not seem to know the visitor."

"Thank you," said Britz, extending his card. "If Mr. Beard should discharge the servants, please call me up at Police Headquarters."

"Yes, sir," promised the butler.

Britz donned his hat and coat.

"Come on, Greig," he called to his a.s.sistant. "We're going to Delmore Park."

Outside, they found the newsboys shrieking the crime. The afternoon papers had worked themselves into typographic frenzy over it. Britz guessed that the coroner had primed the reporters with all the facts which had been ascertained at the office, and the reporters, exercising a lively fancy, had created a mystery that was calculated to absorb newspaper readers for many days. As Britz perused the news sheets on the way to the Grand Central Station, he noted with a smile that the reporters shared with the coroner and the employes of the iron works, the same mystification as to how the a.s.sa.s.sin managed to reach his victim without revealing himself to the clerks in the office.

"It is inexplicable to me how the murderer got in and out of the private office," one of the newspapers quoted the head clerk. "He must have worn the fabled invisible cloak," was the only explanation he could offer.

"It's uncanny," another clerk was quoted. "I sat at the third desk from Mr. Whitmore's door all morning and I'm ready to swear no one entered or left that office. He could not have committed suicide, for I would have heard the shot. He came down this morning, after an absence of six weeks, pleasant and amiable as usual. We all loved him, all of us at one time or another experienced his kindness. Any intimation that we are s.h.i.+elding the murderer is absurd. Had we seen him, he never would have left the office alive."

Dropping the paper, Britz sought in his pocket for the leather card case in which he had deposited the needle earlier in the afternoon. After scrutinizing it carefully, he replaced it in the case with an air of satisfaction.

"Greig," he said, moving his head slightly to one side, so as to face his a.s.sistant, "what do you make of the case?"

"Just this, Lieutenant!" He paused as if in deep reflection. "We've got to decide whether those clerks are telling the truth. If we accept their statement that they saw no one enter Whitmore's office and heard no shot--"

"I have already accepted their statement as the truth," interrupted Britz.

"The possibility of suicide is eliminated, of course," pursued Greig.

"The pistol we found is brand new and has never been fired. Certainly Whitmore didn't shoot himself and then swallow the gun. And since the clerks are sure that no one entered or left the office, why, the only explanation I can give is that some supernatural agency was employed to bring about Whitmore's death."

Britz bestowed on his a.s.sistant a tolerant smile.

"Then I suppose we might as well charge the crime up to the spirits and drop the case!" he said ironically. "No, Greig, we're not going on a still hunt for murderous, disembodied shades. We're going after living people--and we're not going very far. What puzzles you and the clerks--how anyone managed to get to him and fire the shot--is so simple that I'm surprised you're worrying over it. I have already solved that."

Greig stared at his superior in undisguised amazement.

"Why--er--how was it done?" he stammered.

In reply, Britz produced the needle which he had found at the feet of the murdered man.

"Examine this and see if it doesn't solve the puzzle," he said.

Greig looked a long while at the long, thin, glistening instrument.

"There's blood half-way down from the point," he commented audibly. "But I don't see what it explains."