Whispering Wires Part 10

Delaney scratched his head. "I'd say, Chief, it was smokeless powder.

It don't smell like the ordinary kind."

"I saw smoke when I came in!"

"That smokeless stuff smokes. It ain't altogether what they call it.

Remember the shootin'-gallery at Headquarters? There's smoke there when the police are practicing with them steel-jacketed bullets."

"You're right," said Drew. "Keep on looking about. I'm getting on.

Stockbridge was shot at very close range behind and under the left ear.

The weapon used was a small-caliber revolver. The bullet is undoubtedly lodged in the lower brain. Powder stains are in his hair. The opening is clotted shut. He fell forward. In falling he knocked over the little table with its load of ash-trays, match-boxes, telephone, cigar b.u.t.ts and the whisky bottle and the gla.s.s. He's been dead some time."

"I 'e'rd no shot!" cried the butler from the doorway.

Drew wheeled. "You wouldn't," he said sharply. "Delaney," he added, "say, Delaney, get out your note book and pencil. I want to put down everything we can think of before I send for the coroner. We'll take a complete record. This thing is diabolical. You see nothing?"

"Nothing," echoed Delaney as he slammed a book-case door shut, dusted his fingers and reached in his pocket. "There's n.o.body planted in this room--that's a fact, Chief. That's what gets me. How was the murder done?"

"Speculation is useless--now! Get ready for notes."

"I'm ready, Chief."

The detective strode across the library rugs and snapped on the wall switch by jabbing at a mother-of-pearl b.u.t.ton. Each time he jabbed, more lights came on. The room flooded with soft glowing from concealed globes. This glow brought out the full details of the palatial interior. Drew chewed at his mustache thoughtfully. He measured the walls with his eyes. He glided swiftly toward the windows. He thrust aside the heavy curtains of one and glanced upward.

"Closed and locked," he said to Delaney. "Put that down. There's snow on the sill which has drifted through the outer slats. Put that down.

No sign of footprints. Put that down. Now, the upper part!"

He climbed up on the ornate radiator box. His fingers went over the catch. "Locked here!" he said, glancing down. "Locked and the same as it was. Make a note of that!"

He sprang down and examined the other window. He went over the sill and the catch with absorbed intentness. His teeth bit against his upper lip. He shook his head as he turned.

"No chance for a bullet to have been fired through these windows!" he declared positively. "No chance at all. This end of the library is sealed as far as we are concerned. Now, we'll consider the only other opening--the door!"

"Double locks, Delaney," he called over his shoulder as he crossed the room and pressed the butler back into the hall. "Double locks of the superior order. Gold k.n.o.bs and key-holes. The holes are not in line.

The chamfering is clean, except where you struck it once or twice with the ax. No sign of outside tampering or jimmy work. I'd say we've covered this door. Any suggestions?"

Delaney tried both the inner lock and the bolt which was actuated with a gold b.u.t.terfly-wing of heavy construction. He studied the flat key.

It was gold-plated. He dropped to his knees and went over the entire lower chamfering with his broad finger.

He said, "No suggestions, Chief. This was locked twice, until we broke a hole through with an ax. I don't see----"

"Make a note of everything!" ordered Drew with a sharp glance at the waiting servants. "Make a full record of what we have found--including your exact interpretation of the magpie's words. What were they?"

"Ah, Sing!"

"I think the same. Let's look the bird over. Perhaps it will repeat."

The two detectives strode to the bird-cage. "I'm going to send for Fosd.i.c.k and the coroner," said Drew hastily. "We've got to hurry. What do you make of this bird? Could it have had anything to do with the murder?"

The magpie protested against this accusation. Its feathers ruffled. Its claws clamped over the perch. Its tail extended upward and seemed to dart with indignation.

"Ah, Sid!" exclaimed Drew close up to the gilded bars. "Ah, Sid. Ah, Sid!" he repeated as the bird sprang to the bottom of the cage and set this jumping up and down at the end of the spring.

"No go," said Delaney. "This black parrot don't like our looks."

Drew fingered the cage. He tested the spring. He stooped and glanced underneath. He tapped the belfry. It was of inlaid wood. It rang solid.

"No use," he said. "This is all, all right. Let's get to the other matters before the clews get cold. Look everywhere for a possible trapdoor or a secret panel. Test the walls. Move the book-cases. Turn the pictures. Lift up the rugs. Then put everything back like you found it. Fosd.i.c.k will be on the job with both feet and the Homicide Squad, before we know it. We haven't much time." Drew glanced at his watch as Delaney started by moving out one of the book-cases.

The detective ignored the body which lay upon the floor near the little table. He was holding his investigation down to outside facts, and bringing them to bear upon the crux of the matter. In this way, he believed, he would secure better results. He did not want to be blinded by an impossibility at the beginning. His first glance at Stockbridge sufficed to a.s.sure him that the lethal instrument which had felled the magnate was not in evidence. The bright light from a score of globes would reveal any such object as a revolver or rifle. No one of the servants had seen anything. They still were peering into the room like men and women who had lost all they owned. Stockbridge, despite his temper and sins, had been a good master to those who served him without questioning.

Drew glared at his watch for a second time, in preoccupation. He strode to the library door and beckoned a hooked finger toward the butler who towered over the other servants.

"You!" he exclaimed. "You didn't obey orders. You didn't stay where you were told to stay! Why did you leave this door at all?"

"S' 'elp me, sir, I didn't, Mr. Drew. If I did it wasn't farther than the foyer or the downstairs steps. I took very careful pains to call the second-man, sir, when I went after you."

Drew's eyes smoldered with inner fire. "I told you," he repeated, "I told you to stay by this door and not leave it--even for a minute. You went after the second-man, by your own admission. You went to the foyer hall. You went to the staircase leading down to the lower part of the house. In other words, you didn't watch the door, and you lost your master through your own foolishness!"

"But, sir, n.o.body could 'ave gotten through the door. Hit was locked and bolted on the hinside, sir! I 'e'rd Mr. Stockbridge do that when you left 'im! I did, sir!"

"We may have been mistaken when we thought we heard that! Perhaps he just fumbled with the locks, and left it unlocked." Drew eyed the servant's red face with a keen-lidded glance. He waited.

"That cawn't be right, sir," said the butler, after thought and a wild glance about. "'Ow can that be right? I tried the door when the telephone loidy called me hup! I tried hit twice. James tried hit! 'E fixes hall the locks in the 'ouse, sir. 'E says it was most excellently secured, sir."

"How about that?" asked Drew, turning to the second-man. "What of that, James?"

"'E's right. I'm a little of everythin' about the 'ouse. I tends the door and I watches the lights and locks, sir. I was born in Brixton, sir, where the old man kept a lock-shop, sir. That's twenty years, and more ago, sir. Beggin' your pardon, sir."

Drew swung upon the butler. The second-man was the living picture of truth. His dereliction, if any, might consist in sly tapping of the wine-cellar. His nose attested to this habit, in a brilliant rosette.

"You're partly to blame!" Drew told the butler. "There's n.o.body in this room who could have committed the murder. There was n.o.body here when we left Mr. Stockbridge. There is no way for anybody to get in, save through this door. The same applies in getting out--escaping. If you were awake and always here, and if you were honest," he added, "I could presume that the master was slain by--well, let us say, unnatural causes. Such things do not exist. This is a material age. Nothing as much as a pin-head or point was ever moved save through a natural cause. No bullet could be fired into a man's brain without a hand which planned or pulled the trigger."

The butler stared at Drew with blank expression. He gulped. His eyes dropped. "I'm thinking," he said, "that the whole blym occurrence his unnatural. I never left that door until they told me the telephone company's loidy wanted me on the wire. It was then I left it."

"Ah!" said Drew. "We're getting there. Then, if you are speaking truth, and I won't help you if you are not, we have reached a point in the case which will bear considerable thought. It is evident that Stockbridge was murdered by a pistol shot, at or about the time the table and contents were spilled over. In other words, the shot which bowled him over brought down with it the telephone transmitter and receiver. That is the thing which fixes, within minutes--perhaps seconds--the time of the murder. The telephone girl will have a record which will help us considerable. Many criminals have been caught--and convicted by the time element. There is no alibi against truth! A man can't be in two places at the same time!"

Drew turned toward the door. He hesitated and wheeled.

"You heard nothing fall in this room?" he asked sharply.

"I did not, sir."

"No shot?"

"I cawn't say that I did, sir."

"No telephone bell ringing? Ringing at any time after I left the house?"

"Not downstairs, sir."