The Man in Lower Ten

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  CHAPTER IV. NUMBERS SEVEN AND NINE

  Afterwards, when I tried to recall our discovery of the body in lowerten, I found that my most vivid impression was not that made by therevelation of the opened curtain. I had an instantaneous picture of aslender blue-gowned girl who seemed to sense my words rather than hearthem, of two small hands that clutched desperately at the seat besidethem. The girl in the aisle stood, bent toward us, perplexity and alarmfighting in her face.

  With twitching hands the porter attempted to draw the curtains together.Then in a paralysis of shock, he collapsed on the edge of my berth andsat there swaying. In my excitement I shook him.

  "For Heaven's sake, keep your nerve, man," I said bruskly. "You'll haveevery woman in the car in hysterics. And if you do, you'll wish youcould change places with the man in there." He rolled his eyes.

  A man near, who had been reading last night's paper, dropped it quicklyand tiptoed toward us. He peered between the partly open curtains,closed them quietly and went back, ostentatiously solemn, to his seat.The very crackle with which he opened his paper added to the burstingcuriosity of the car. For the passengers knew that something was amiss:I was conscious of a sudden tension.

  With the curtains closed the porter was more himself; he wiped his lipswith a handkerchief and stood erect.

  "It's my last trip in this car," he remarked heavily. "There's somethingwrong with that berth. Last trip the woman in it took an overdose ofsome sleeping stuff, and we found her, jes' like that, dead! And itain't more'n three months now since there was twins born in that veryspot. No, sir, it ain't natural."

  At that moment a thin man with prominent eyes and a spare grayish goateecreaked up the aisle and paused beside me.

  "Porter sick?" he inquired, taking in with a professional eye theporter's horror-struck face, my own excitement and the slightly gapingcurtains of lower ten. He reached for the darky's pulse and pulled outan old-fashioned gold watch.

  "Hm! Only fifty! What's the matter? Had a shock?" he asked shrewdly.

  "Yes," I answered for the porter. "We've both had one. If you are adoctor, I wish you would look at the man in the berth across, lower ten.I'm afraid it's too late, but I'm not experienced in such matters."

  Together we opened the curtains, and the doctor, bending down, gave acomprehensive glance that took in the rolling head, the relaxed jaw, theugly stain on the sheet. The examination needed only a moment. Deathwas written in the clear white of the nostrils, the colorless lips, thesmoothing away of the sinister lines of the night before. With its newdignity the face was not unhandsome: the gray hair was still plentiful,the features strong and well cut.

  The doctor straightened himself and turned to me. "Dead for some time,"he said, running a professional finger over the stains. "These are dryand darkened, you see, and rigor mortis is well established. A friend ofyours?"

  "I don't know him at all," I replied. "Never saw him but once before."

  "Then you don't know if he is traveling alone?"

  "No, he was not--that is, I don't know anything about him," I correctedmyself. It was my first blunder: the doctor glanced up at me quickly andthen turned his attention again to the body. Like a flash there had cometo me the vision of the woman with the bronze hair and the tragic face,whom I had surprised in the vestibule between the cars, somewhere inthe small hours of the morning. I had acted on my first impulse--themasculine one of shielding a woman.

  The doctor had unfastened the coat of the striped pajamas and exposedthe dead man's chest. On the left side was a small punctured wound ofinsignificant size.

  "Very neatly done," the doctor said with appreciation. "Couldn't havedone it better myself. Right through the intercostal space: no time evento grunt."

  "Isn't the heart around there somewhere?" I asked. The medical manturned toward me and smiled austerely.

  "That's where it belongs, just under that puncture, when it isn'tgadding around in a man's throat or his boots."

  I had a new respect for the doctor, for any one indeed who couldcrack even a feeble joke under such circumstances, or who could run animpersonal finger over that wound and those stains. Odd how a healthy,normal man holds the medical profession in half contemptuous regarduntil he gets sick, or an emergency like this arises, and then turnsmeekly to the man who knows the ins and outs of his mortal tenement,takes his pills or his patronage, ties to him like a rudderless ship ina gale.

  "Suicide, is it, doctor?" I asked.

  He stood erect, after drawing the bed-clothing over the face, and,taking off his glasses, he wiped them slowly.

  "No, it is not suicide," he announced decisively. "It is murder."

  Of course, I had expected that, but the word itself brought a shiver. Iwas just a bit dizzy. Curious faces through the car were turned towardus, and I could hear the porter behind me breathing audibly. A stoutwoman in negligee came down the aisle and querulously confronted theporter. She wore a pink dressing-jacket and carried portions of herclothing.

  "Porter," she began, in the voice of the lady who had "dangled," "isthere a rule of this company that will allow a woman to occupy thedressing-room for one hour and curl her hair with an alcohol lamp whilerespectable people haven't a place where they can hook their--"

  She stopped suddenly and stared into lower ten. Her shining pink cheeksgrew pasty, her jaw fell. I remember trying to think of something tosay, and of saying nothing at all. Then--she had buried her eyes in thenondescript garments that hung from her arm and tottered back the wayshe had come. Slowly a little knot of men gathered around us, silentfor the most part. The doctor was making a search of the berth when theconductor elbowed his way through, followed by the inquisitive man, whohad evidently summoned him. I had lost sight, for a time, of the girl inblue.

  "Do it himself?" the conductor queried, after a businesslike glance atthe body.

  "No, he didn't," the doctor asserted. "There's no weapon here, and thewindow is closed. He couldn't have thrown it out, and he didn't swallowit. What on earth are you looking for, man?"

  Some one was on the floor at our feet, face down, head peering under theberth. Now he got up without apology, revealing the man who had summonedthe conductor. He was dusty, alert, cheerful, and he dragged up with himthe dead man's suit-case. The sight of it brought back to me at once myown predicament.

  "I don't know whether there's any connection or not, conductor," I said,"but I am a victim, too, in less degree; I've been robbed of everythingI possess, except a red and yellow bath-robe. I happened to be wearingthe bath-robe, which was probably the reason the thief overlooked it."

  There was a fresh murmur in the crowd. Some body laughed nervously. Theconductor was irritated.

  "I can't bother with that now," he snarled. "The railroad company isresponsible for transportation, not for clothes, jewelry and morals. Ifpeople want to be stabbed and robbed in the company's cars, it's theiraffair. Why didn't you sleep in your clothes? I do."

  I took an angry step forward. Then somebody touched my arm, and Iunclenched my fist. I could understand the conductor's position, andbeside, in the law, I had been guilty myself of contributory negligence.

  "I'm not trying to make you responsible," I protested as amiably as Icould, "and I believe the clothes the thief left are as good as my own.They are certainly newer. But my valise contained valuable papers and itis to your interest as well as mine to find the man who stole it."

  "Why, of course," the conductor said shrewdly. "Find the man whoskipped out with this gentleman's clothes, and you've probably got themurderer."

  "I went to bed in lower nine," I said, my mind full again of my lostpapers, "and I wakened in number seven. I was up in the night prowlingaround, as I was unable to sleep, and I must have gone back to the wrongberth. Anyhow, until the porter wakened me this morning I knew nothingof my mistake. In the interval the thief--murderer, too, perhaps--musthave come back, discovered my error, and taken advantage of it tofurther his escape."

  The inquisitive man looked at me from
between narrowed eyelids,ferret-like.

  "Did any one on the train suspect you of having valuable papers?" heinquired. The crowd was listening intently.

  "No one," I answered promptly and positively. The doctor wasinvestigating the murdered man's effects. The pockets of his trouserscontained the usual miscellany of keys and small change, while in hiship pocket was found a small pearl-handled revolver of the type womenusually keep around. A gold watch with a Masonic charm had slid downbetween the mattress and the window, while a showy diamond stud wasstill fastened in the bosom of his shirt. Taken as a whole, the personalbelongings were those of a man of some means, but without any particulardegree of breeding. The doctor heaped them together.

  "Either robbery was not the motive," he reflected, "or the thiefoverlooked these things in his hurry."

  The latter hypothesis seemed the more tenable, when, after a thoroughsearch, we found no pocketbook and less than a dollar in small change.

  The suit-case gave no clue. It contained one empty leather-covered flaskand a pint bottle, also empty, a change of linen and some collars withthe laundry mark, S. H. In the leather tag on the handle was a cardwith the name Simon Harrington, Pittsburg. The conductor sat down on myunmade berth, across, and made an entry of the name and address. Then,on an old envelope, he wrote a few words and gave it to the porter, whodisappeared.

  "I guess that's all I can do," he said. "I've had enough trouble thistrip to last for a year. They don't need a conductor on these trains anymore; what they ought to have is a sheriff and a posse."

  The porter from the next car came in and whispered to him. The conductorrose unhappily.

  "Next car's caught the disease," he grumbled. "Doctor, a woman backthere has got mumps or bubonic plague, or something. Will you comeback?"

  The strange porter stood aside.

  "Lady about the middle of the car," he said, "in black, sir, withqueer-looking hair--sort of copper color, I think, sir."