Charlie Chan - Charlie Chan Carries On Part 28

"Vivian told us a few minutes ago," Kennaway added, "that it was something Ross said at the Minchin dinner. We've been over that speech of Ross's a dozen times. There wasn't much to it, as I recall. He was interrupted before he'd fairly got started -"

"But not before he had spoken a most incriminating word," Chan put in. "I will repeat for you the sentence in which it occurred. I have memorized it. Listen carefully. *As for that unfortunate night in London, when poor Hugh Morris Drake lay dead in that stuffy room in Broome's Hotel -* "

"Stuffy!" cried Pamela Potter.

"Stuffy," repeated Charlie. "You are now bright girl I thought you. Consider. Was the room in which your honorable grandfather was discovered lifeless on bed a stuffy room? Remember testimony of Martin, the floor waiter which you heard at inquest, and which I read in Inspector Duff's notes. *I unlocked the door of the room and went in,' Martin said. *One window was closed, the curtain was down all the way. The other was open, and the curtain was up, too. The light entered from there.' adding word of my own I would remark, so also did plenty good fresh air."

"Of course," cried the girl. "I should have remembered. When I was in that room, talking with Mr. Duff, the window was still open, and a street orchestra was playing There's a Long, Long Trail A-Winding outside. The music came up to us quite loudly."

"Ah, yes - but it was not in same room that grandfather was slain," Chan reminded her. "It was in room next door. And when Ross mentioned matter at dinner, his memory played him sorry trick. His thoughts returned, not to room in which grandfather was finally discovered, but to that other room in which he died. You read Walter Honywood's letter to his wife?"

"Yes, I did."

"Recall how he said to her: *I entered and looked about me. Drake's clothes were on a chair, his earphone on a table; all the doors and windows were closed.' You observe, Miss Pamela - that was the stuffy room. The room where your grandfather perished."

"Of course it was," the girl answered. "Poor grandfather had asthma, and he thought the London night air was bad for it. So he refused to have any windows open where he slept. Oh - I have been stupid."

"You were otherwise engaged," smiled Charlie. "I was not. Three men knew that Hugh Morris Drake slept that night in a stuffy room. One, Mr. Drake himself - and he was dead. Two, Mr. Honywood, who went in and found the body - and he too was dead. Three, the man who stole in there in the night and strangled him - the murderer. In simpler words - Mr. Ross."

"Good work!" cried Kennaway.

"But finished now," added Chan. "The Emperor s.h.i.+ Hw.a.n.g-ti, who built the Great Wall of China, once said: *He who squanders to-day talking of yesterday's triumph, will have nothing to boast of tomorrow.' "

The car had drawn up before the door of a hotel in Union Square, and when the young people had alighted, Charlie followed. He took the girl's hand in his.

"I see plenty glad look in your eyes this morning," he said. "May it remain, is vigorous wish from me. Remember, fortune calls at the smiling gate."

He shook hands with Kennaway, picked up his bag, and disappeared quickly around the corner.

THE END.