And Ogilvie did. For, smeared across the front page of the Morning Sentinel in screaming, extravagant three-inch type, he read:
SENSATIONAL CRIME!
Stranger Kills Well-known Philanthropist Guest at Benefactors Club. Assassin Makes His Get-away.
“Assassin will have another cup of the police commissioner’s excellent coffee,” said Blaine Ogilvie, and suited the action to his words.
The newspaper account related that No. 17 Braddon Street was a little restaurant, dating back to pre-Revolutionary days, which closed its doors to the general public at ten P.M. After ten, the article went on, it served as a nightly meeting place for an organization which called itself the “Benefactors Club,” which was composed of business and professional men, who met there to discuss art, politics, science, literature, religion, and other live topics.
The report gave a list of the club members. They had simple, prosy names and simple, prosy addresses: from Thomas W. Robinson of 22456 West Seventy-eighth Street to Doctor Jerome McNulty of 44589 Riverside Drive, from J. J. Mulrooney of 15826 East One Hundred and Eighty-third Street to Donald Kayser, somewhere on the French Boulevard—altogether, on the face of it, an apex of Gotham’s civic virtues, a very epitome of all the upper West Side’s, the Bronx’s, and Chelsea’s stout, burgess respectability.
It appeared that occasional late visitors, unfamiliar with the early closing hour of the restaurant proper, were usually turned away by the boy at the door or by the proprietor, who presided behind the cashier’s desk and who was also a member of the club—the man with the spade-shaped red beard and the bulbous nose, Ogilvie added mentally as he read—but that last night a stranger had made his appearance around half past ten, evidently a well-to-do man about town, judging from his superb, sable-lined ulster.
Here followed an excellent description of Blaine Ogilvie.
This stranger had explained that he had lost his way, that he was tired and cold and hungry, and finally he had been allowed to come in and had been served with food and cigars.
Shortly afterward one of the club members, a certain Doctor Hillyer O. McGrath, of 11921 West Eleventh Street, had driven up in his automobile, accompanied by a friend not a member of the organization, Mr. Monro Clafflin, the well-known retired merchant and philanthropist. A few minutes later, the report continued, without giving either reason or warning—in fact, without saying a word—the stranger had pulled out a revolver, fired point-blank at Mr. Clafflin, killing him instantly, and had made his get-away in Doctor McGrath’s car, after a sensational fight.
Here followed a fairly accurate description of Ogilvie’s battle and escape. It seemed that he had thrown the revolver away, and that it had afterward been picked up by Mr. Montross D. Clapperton, the president of the Benefactors Club, who—the hunchback, came Ogilvie’s silent comment—had run out a few minutes before the stranger’s get-away, to fetch the police. Several of the club members had received minor injuries. Mr. Cornelius van Alstyne had been hit by a chair; Mr. Leopold Fischer had a black eye, besides having his clothes torn; while Captain Jeremiah Blount, Mr. Holister Welkin, and Mr. Audley R. Chester—addresses given in each case—had been wounded by a carving knife which the assassin had picked up.
Ogilvie smiled when he considered that here, doubtless, he had a list of the different men whom he had observed and scrutinized shortly after he had entered No. 17; and he smiled again when he read, in the last paragraph of the article, that the police so far had not discovered either the name or the whereabouts of the assassin, but that, given the accurate description, they expected no trouble in putting their hands on him within the next twenty-four hours—“thanks to the marvelously up-to-date and efficient methods of our police commissioner, Mr. Robert W. Gadsby.”
* * * *
“Bob,” Ogilvie said to the latter, after he had shaved and bathed and dressed, pointing at the last line, “the newspapers are handing you a bouquet.”
“They’ll hand me a brick bat,” said the other, “when they learn—”
“Please! No more ‘duty’ stuff! We had all that out last night. Now—for the real murderer.”
“How are you going to discover him?”
“By looking for the motives.”
“And how are you going to find his motives?”
“By investigation and elimination. First of all, here’s a list of names and addresses I culled from the morning paper. These are the people I specially noticed last night. Have your department look them up. See who they are, what they do, their reputation, and all that sort of thing, you know.”
“Yes,” said the police commissioner as he tucked the list of names away. “What else?”
“Get a general survey of the other members of the club. You’ll find their names and addresses in the Morning Sentinel. Here—”
“What about Martyn Spencer?” asked Gadsby.
“I haven’t much hope there. But get a line on him, whatever you can. See if you can make head or tail of any of the fantastic tales that used to be afloat about him.”
“All right. I’ll try.”
“And—oh, yes—find out about Clafflin, the murdered man, you know, and that Doctor McGrath, who brought him, and—”
“Pardon me, old man,” came the police commissioner’s ironic interjection, “what are you going to do? I had an idea you were going to play detective.”
“I can’t leave the house—at least not yet—can I, you chump? I am going to do my bit at long distance. I am going to correlate and eliminate and dovetail. Let’s have a look at Spencer’s ulster now. I told you—didn’t I?—how the girl felt the fur and said something about my having the check—‘the right check’—and how she looked over at the red-bearded man as if to appeal to him.”
“Are you sure she didn’t give you a check?”
“I am positive, Bob.”
The police commissioner took out his cigar case. “Care for a smoke?” he asked.
“Thanks. I will.”
Ogilvie took the cigar and groped in his left coat pocket for a match. Then he gave a little, startled exclamation.
“Hello! What’s that?” He drew his hand from his pocket.
“Well? Found the check after all?” inquired Gadsby.
“No. I found this!”
Ogilvie opened his hand. It held a ragged bit of gray, herringbone tweed, evidently, judging from the buttonhole, torn from a man’s coat lapel.
“The gray suit—the fellow with the round, babyish face who looked like a typical business man—what’s his name?” Ogilvie consulted the morning paper. “Oh, yes—Leopold Fischer—had his eye blackened and his suit torn—”
“What are you saying, Blaine?”
“I remember. I reached back of me in that rough-and-tumble fight. I felt something rip and give. Must have dropped it into my pocket without thinking. Here it is—and—oh—look, Bob!”
And he turned over the torn shred of tweed and pointed at a small, round metal disk which was fastened to it.
“Bob,” he said, “the investigation begins right here.”
And he bent closely over the little metal disk, while the other entered the next room to telephone to headquarters.
CHAPTER V.
PLAIN FOOLS OR IDEALISTS.
The disk was round and flat, a third of an inch in diameter, with a narrow, well-beveled edge, and no marks of any sort on it except a number—17—deeply engraved in the center. Ogilvie was still examining it when Gadsby returned from the next room, where he had had a lengthy telephone conversation with headquarters.
“I have sent some of my very best men out on the case,” he said. “Detective Sergeant Miller is going to get a line on Martyn Spencer. O’Neale will investigate the murdered man and his connection with Doctor McGrath. And Campbell and Wimpflinger and a couple of others are going to see what they can find out about the different club members.”
“That’s bully.”
“What do you make of that disk?”
“Oh
, nothing much. I guess it’s the badge of the Benefactors Club.”
“Sounds fairly reasonable.”
“There’s only one thing about it that’s puzzling me,” continued Ogilvie.
“What?”
“Here!” Ogilvie gave the round bit of metal to the other. “See for yourself, then we’ll compare notes. In the meantime I’ll take a look at friend Spencer’s luxurious ulster.”
While the police commissioner examined the club badge, Ogilvie took the sable coat from the rack in the outer hall and scrutinized it narrowly.
Presently he got up and put on the coat.
Gadsby looked up. “Not dreaming of going out, are you?” he asked, alarmed.
“Heavens—no! I’m just going to reconstruct the scene in No. I7 when I entered. Look here a moment, will you?”
“Certainly.”
“That’s the way I came in. I took off my coat and gave it to the boy—like this. The boy gave it to the girl—this way. Watching?”
“Yes, yes. Go on.”
“The girl—” Ogilvie puzzled, then continued: “Wait! I remember! Yes. First she fingered the coat as if she liked the feel of it. And afterward—afterward, Bob—she made that funny remark about my having the check—‘the right check’—and exchanged looks with the red-bearded man.”
“Well, I fail to see—”
“Question is,” said Ogilvie, “did she feel something which caused her to make that remark? Let me see if I can recall the scene. She took the coat with both hands—this way. No, no—wait—the other way! Her right hand like this—while her left hand slipped beneath the fur collar—here—watch—this way!” He suited the action to the words. “Now, what did she feel? Or what did she find?”
He turned up the fur collar, looked close for several seconds, and smiled.
“Bob,” he said, “let’s have that badge for a moment.”
“Found a clue?”
“I think so.”
The police commissioner came nearer. “Another such badge?” he inquired.
“No, but the marks of one. Look here! See where the fur has been rubbed off? Now watch!” He put the disk over the place he had indicated. “The disk fits it exactly—isn’t that so?”
“Right. And—”
“It’s quite clear. There was a badge fastened here when the girl took the coat. And—by jingo—Spencer knew it when he forced the coat on me!”
“Where is the disk now?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea. The girl took it, or I lost it. ‘The right check’—the disk she meant! And it was this disk, combined with the signal code of knocks at the door, which gave me the right to enter, or perhaps—” he slurred, then went on, instinctively lowering his voice—“the duty to enter?”
“What do you mean by that?” came the other’s puzzled query.
“Just that.”
“But—”
“Listen!” said Ogilvie. “Wasn’t Spencer afraid of No. 17?”
“Doubtless.”
“Would he have been afraid unless it had been his duty to go there? If it had only been his right—why, man—he needn’t have gone! That’s clear, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“And, furthermore, didn’t he slip me twenty thousand dollars of the realm to go in his place? Weren’t they expecting—”
“Not Spencer!” interrupted Gadsby. “Otherwise they wouldn’t have framed you up, since they didn’t know you—had no reason to—”
“Well, they were expecting somebody—somebody who was going to get it in the neck, for some reason or other. That’s the knot we’ll have to solve.”
Ogilvie was silent for a few moments. He walked up and down, thinking deeply, presently turning to answer Gadsby’s question what the puzzling thing was which he had noticed about the badge.
“Just this!” he replied. “What metal is it made of?”
The police commissioner looked at it again. “I don’t know,” he admitted finally.
“Nor do I. Of course I am not an expert metallurgist. But I know enough to tell that it’s neither gold nor silver—”
“It isn’t platinum, either.”
“And it isn’t steel or bronze or any other metal I am familiar with. Bob, please send Tompkins over to some jeweler on the Avenue and have him examine the thing.”
“We’ve an expert assayist at headquarters—one of my innovations,” said the police commissioner rather proudly. “He’ll give us a report by tonight.”
“Bully!”
* * * *
The day crawled on leadenly. Gadsby left to attend to his duties at headquarters, and Ogilvie fell a prey to certain violent reactions from his cheerful, jesting mood. He became nervous, fidgety, even afraid, as he stared out into the street, well hidden by the window curtains.
Day died, with a white, purple-nicked pall of snow, pierced by the crimson and gold lights reflected on innumerable window-panes, and the dull, lemon glow of the street lamps, and melting, farther out, into a drab cosmos where the brown, moist haze from the Hudson drifted up, twisting and turning to the call of the river wind.
Night was coming. Night—thought Ogilvie, with just a trace of bitter self-pity—night, over on Broadway, with food and light phrases, with the festive hooting of motor horns and gaiety and laughter and the tuning-up of the orchestras and the clapping of white-gloved hands! And here he was—suspected of murder—in hiding.
“Mr. Ogilvie! Please, sir!” Tompkins interrupted the other’s gray reveries.
“Yes?”
“I telephoned to Miss Dillon, sir. I met her and talked to her.”
“Oh—good!” Ogilvie smiled as he regained his poise. “What particular lie did you tell her?”
Tompkins hesitated for a few moments. Then he spoke up straight: “Beg pardon, sir, but I told her the truth.”
At first Ogilvie felt enraged. “What the mischief—” Then quite suddenly he smiled and shook the butler’s wrinkled hand.
“Tompkins,” he said, “you’re an A Number One peach, and—take it from me—you do know women. Miss Dillon’s the sort of girl one just naturally has to tell the truth to. You were right and I was wrong. How did she take it?”
“Well, sir, she took it very bravely. But then, of course, she had had a sort of a warning—”
“Warning! What do you mean?”
And, urged on by the impatient Ogilvie, the stoical old Englishman told him how he had telephoned to Miss Dillon, how suddenly he had decided not to trust his message to the telephone wires, but had made an appointment with her. He had met her in front of the public library. “Yes, sir,” he added with a little smile, “I felt quite like I used to forty years ago; asked her to wear a red rose so I’d recognize her.” Then he had related to her what had happened to her fiancé. She, on her side, had given him also some rather startling news to communicate to Ogilvie. For late last night—she was living alone in a tiny flat—a messenger had brought her an envelope. She had found in it a check for a hundred thousand dollars, drawn on the Drovers’ National Bank, and made out by Martyn Spencer, with a note which she had given to Tompkins to bring to Ogilvie. The latter read:
DEAR LITTLE MARIE:
I haven’t seen you since you were a small girl in short skirts and I quite a big boy, just out of college, up at Grandmother Ryerson’s old farm in Vermont. But I haven’t exactly forgotten you. I have made a lot of money these last few years, and so—please—accept the enclosed check with all my very best cousinly wishes. Don’t be a silly little proud fool and refuse it. After all, we are cousins, and you may need the money; or, if not you, then the man you are engaged to marry, Blaine Ogilvie. And criminal lawyers are expensive. Don’t call me up or write to me, as I am leaving the country tonight, and not even my office force has the faintest notion where I am bound for.
Yours very cordially,
Martyn S.
The news of Spencer’s having left the country was confirmed a few moments later by the police commissioner, w
ho came in filled to the brim with the different reports he had received from his picked detectives, as well as from his expert assayist.
All the reports, according to the police commissioner’s system, were in writing, and Detective Sergeant Miller’s was explicit:
Martyn Spencer left last night for an unknown destination. I don’t know yet whether by train, boat, or automobile. I questioned some of his employees, the help of the Hotel Stentorian, where he has taken a suite by the year, rent paid in advance, his valet, and the elevator starter in his office building. They are all new people whom he has hired since his return to New York, a few months back. They have orders to carry on the work which he has mapped out for them, mostly the selling of various parcels of real estate in the Bronx, and which will take them easily twelve months. Mr. Anthony Hicks, his private secretary, has been given power of attorney over whatever local business Martyn Spencer has in New York, with orders to transmit all money realized to the credit of Martyn Spencer with the branch of the British Linen Bank in Glasgow, Scotland. He has also been entrusted with a large sum banked with the Drovers’ National Bank to pay the salaries of the office force and of Spencer’s valet for the next eighteen months, as well as for overhead expenses and incidentals. I have started inquiries as to Spencer’s former life and shall make a further report tomorrow.
“Found out quite a lot, didn’t he?” complimented Blaine Ogilvie.
“Right,” agreed the other. “Miller has a persuasive way and X-ray eyes. Oh—wait—” turning over the typewritten sheet. “Here’s a postscript;” and he read:
I have furthermore found out that the Bronx real estate which Martyn Spencer has given orders to sell was only acquired by him during the last few months, after his return to America.
The police commissioner shook his head, “I don’t see what good that particular bit of information will do us,” he commented.
“Don’t you?” asked Ogilvie softly.
“Do you?”
“You bet!” came the other’s reply. “In fact, I think that, taken in conjunction with the other business details, it’s the most interesting and illuminating part of the whole report. I believe it constitutes that mysterious and romantic thing which you fellows of the police call a clue.”
The Achmed Abdullah Megapack Page 18
