The Mystery & Suspense Novella

by Fletcher Flora

  Ten minutes later they heard a quick step in the hall outside and Hatch opened the door. Detective Mallory entered and looked from one to another inquiringly.

  “That’s your prisoner, Mr. Mallory,” said the scientist, coldly. “I charge him with the murder of Miss Regnier, whom you were so confident committed suicide; I charge him with five attempts on the life of Weldon Henley, four times by gas poisoning, in which Miss Regnier was his accomplice, and once by shooting. He is the man who shot Mr. Henley.”

  The Thinking Machine arose and walked over to the prostrate man, handing the revolver to Hatch. He glared down at Jean fiercely.

  “Will you tell me how you did it or shall I?” he demanded.

  His answer was a sullen, defiant glare. He turned and picked up the square mirror which the valet had produced previously.

  “That’s where the screw was, isn’t it?” he asked, as he indicated a small hole in the frame of the mirror. Jean stared at it and his head sank forward hopelessly. “And this is the bath robe you wore, isn’t it?” he demanded again, and from the suit case he pulled out the garment with the scarlet stripe.

  “I guess you got me all right,” was the sullen reply.

  “It might be better for you if you told the story then?” suggested The Thinking Machine.

  “You know so much about it, tell it yourself.”

  “Very well,” was the calm rejoinder. “I will. If I make any mistake you will correct me.”

  For a long time no one spoke. The Thinking Machine had dropped back into a chair and was staring through his thick glasses at the ceiling; his finger tips were pressed tightly together. At last he began:

  “There are certain trivial gaps which only the imagination can supply until the matter is gone into more fully. I should have supplied these myself, but the arrest of this man, Jean, was precipitated by the attempted hurried departure of Mr. Cabell for the South tonight, and I did not have time to go into the case to the fullest extent.

  “Thus, we begin with the fact that there were several clever attempts to murder Mr. Henley. This was by putting out the gas which he habitually left burning in his room. It happened four times in all; thus proving that it was an attempt to kill him. If it had been only once it might have been accident, even twice it might have been accident, but the same accident does not happen four times at the same time of night.

  “Mr. Henley finally grew to regard the strange extinguishing of the gas as an effort to kill him, and carefully locked and barred his door and windows each night. He believed that some one came into his apartments and put out the light, leaving the gas flow. This, of course, was not true. Yet the gas was put out. How? My first idea, a natural one, was that it was turned off for an instant at the meter, when the light would go out, then turned on again. This, I convinced myself, was not true. Therefore still the question—how?

  “It is a fact—I don’t know how widely known it is—but it is a fact that every gas light in this house might be extinguished at the same time from this room without leaving it. How? Simply by removing the gas jet tip and blowing into the gas pipe. It would not leave a jet in the building burning. It is due to the fact that the lung power is greater than the pressure of the gas in the pipes, and forces it out.

  “Thus we have the method employed to extinguish the light in Mr. Henley’s rooms, and all the barred and locked doors and windows would not stop it. At the same time it threatened the life of every other person in the house—that is, every other person who used gas. It was probably for this reason that the attempt was always made late at night, I should say three or four o’clock. That’s when it was done, isn’t it?” he asked suddenly of the valet.

  Staring at The Thinking Machine in open-mouthed astonishment the valet nodded his acquiescence before he was fully aware of it.

  “Yes, that’s right,” The Thinking Machine resumed complacently. “This was easily found out—comparatively. The next question was how was a watch kept on Mr. Henley? It would have done no good to extinguish the gas before he was asleep, or to have turned it on when he was not in his rooms. It might have led to a speedy discovery of just how the thing was done.

  “There’s a spring lock on the door of Mr. Henley’s apartment. Therefore it would have been impossible for anyone to peep through the keyhole. There are no cracks through which one might see. How was this watch kept? How was the plotter to satisfy himself positively of the time when Mr. Henley was asleep? How was it the gas was put out at no time of the score or more nights Mr. Henley himself kept watch? Obviously he was watched through a window.

  “No one could climb out on the window ledge and look into Mr. Henley’s apartments. No one could see into that apartment from the street—that is, could see whether Mr. Henley was asleep or even in bed. They could see the light. Watch was kept with the aid offered by the flagpole, supplemented with a mirror—this mirror. A screw was driven into the frame—it has been removed now—it was swung on the flagpole rope and pulled out to the end of the pole, facing the building. To a man standing in the hall window of the third floor it offered precisely the angle necessary to reflect the interior of Mr. Henley’s suite, possibly even showed him in bed through a narrow opening in the curtain. There is no shade on the windows of that suite; heavy curtains instead. Is that right?”

  Again the prisoner was surprised into a mute acquiescence.

  “I saw the possibility of these things, and I saw, too, that at three or four o’clock in the morning it would be perfectly possible for a person to move about the upper halls of this house without being seen. If he wore a heavy bath robe, with a hood, say, no one would recognize him even if he were seen, and besides the garb would not cause suspicion. This bath robe has a hood.

  “Now, in working the mirror back and forth on the flagpole at night a tiny scarlet thread was pulled out of the robe and clung to the rope. I found this thread; later Mr. Hatch found an identical thread in these apartments. Both came from that bath robe. Plain logic shows that the person who blew down the gas pipes worked the mirror trick; the person who worked the mirror trick left the thread; the thread comes back to the bath robe—that bath robe there,” he pointed dramatically. “Thus the person who desired Henley’s death was in these apartments, or had easy access to them.”

  He paused a moment and there was a tense silence. A great light was coming to Hatch, slowly but surely. The brain that had followed all this was unlimited in possibilities.

  “Even before we traced the origin of the crime to this room,” went on the scientist, quietly now, “attention had been attracted here, particularly to you, Mr. Cabell. It was through the love affair, of which Miss Lipscomb was the centre. Mr. Hatch learned that you and Henley had been rivals for her hand. It was that, even before this scarlet thread was found, which indicated that you might have some knowledge of the affair, directly or indirectly.

  “You are not a malicious or revengeful man, Mr. Cabell. But you are hot-tempered—extremely so. You demonstrated that just now, when, angry and not understanding, but feeling that your honour was at stake, you shot a hole in the floor.”

  “What?” asked Detective Mallory.

  “A little accident,” explained The Thinking Machine quickly. “Not being a malicious or revengeful man, you are not the man to deliberately go ahead and make elaborate plans for the murder of Henley. In a moment of passion you might have killed him—but never deliberately as the result of premeditation. Besides you were out of town. Who was then in these apartments? Who had access to these apartments? Who might have used your bath robe? Your valet, possibly Miss Austin. Which? Now, let’s see how we reached this conclusion which led to the valet.

  “Miss Regnier was found dead. It was not suicide. How did I know? Because she had been reading with the gas light at its full. If she had been reading by the gas light, how was it then that it went out and suffocated her before she could arise and shut it off? Obvio
usly she must have fallen asleep over her book and left the light burning.

  “If she was in this plot to kill Henley, why did she light the jet in her room? There might have been some slight defect in the electric bulb in her room which she had just discovered. Therefore she lighted the gas, intending to extinguish it—turn it off entirely—later. But she fell asleep. Therefore when the valet here blew into the pipe, intending to kill Mr. Henley, he unwittingly killed the woman he loved—Miss Regnier. It was perfectly possible, meanwhile, that she did not know of the attempt to be made that particular night, although she had participated in the others, knowing that Henley had night after night sat up to watch the light in his rooms.

  “The facts, as I knew them, showed no connection between Miss Regnier and this man at that time—nor any connection between Miss Regnier and Henley. It might have been that the person who blew the gas out of the pipe from these rooms knew nothing whatever of Miss Regnier, just as he didn’t know who else he might have killed in the building.

  “But I had her death and the manner of it. I had eliminated you, Mr. Cabell. Therefore there remained Miss Austin and the valet. Miss Austin was eccentric—insane, if you will. Would she have any motive for killing Henley? I could imagine none. Love? Probably not. Money? They had nothing in common on that ground. What? Nothing that I could see. Therefore, for the moment, I passed Miss Austin by, after asking you, Mr. Cabell, if you were Miss Austin.

  “What remained? The valet. Motive? Several possible ones, one or two probable. He is French, or says he is. Miss Regnier is French. Therefore I had arrived at the conclusion that they knew each other as people of the same nationality will in a house of this sort. And remember, I had passed by Mr. Cabell and Miss Austin, so the valet was the only one left; he could use the bath robe.

  “Well, the motive. Frankly that was the only difficult point in the entire problem—difficult because there were so many possibilities. And each possibility that suggested itself suggested also a woman. Jealousy? There must be a woman. Hate? Probably a woman. Attempted extortion? With the aid of a woman. No other motive which would lead to so elaborate a plot of murder would come forward. Who was the woman? Miss Regnier.

  “Did Miss Regnier know Henley? Mr. Hatch had reason to believe he knew her because of his actions when informed of her death. Knew her how? People of such relatively different planes of life can know each other—or do know each other—only on one plane. Henley is a typical young man, fast, I dare say, and liberal. Perhaps, then, there had been a liaison. When I saw this possibility I had my motives—all of them—jealousy, hate and possibly attempted extortion as well.

  “What was more possible than Mr. Henley and Miss Regnier had been acquainted? All liaisons are secret ones. Suppose she had been cast off because of the engagement to a young woman of Henley’s own level? Suppose she had confided in the valet here? Do you see? Motives enough for any crime, however diabolical. The attempts on Henley’s life possibly followed an attempted extortion of money. The shot which wounded Henley was fired by this man, Jean. Why? Because the woman who had cause to hate Henley was dead. Then the man? He was alive and vindictive. Henley knew who shot him, and knew why, but he’ll never say it publicly. He can’t afford to. It would ruin him. I think probably that’s all. Do you want to add anything?” he asked of the valet.

  “No,” was the fierce reply. “I’m sorry I didn’t kill him, that’s all. It was all about as you said, though God knows how you found it out,” he added, desperately.

  “Are you a Frenchman?”

  “I was born in New York, but lived in France for eleven years. I first knew Louise there.”

  Silence fell upon the little group. Then Hatch asked a question:

  “You told me, Professor, that there would be no other attempt to kill Henley by extinguishing the gas. How did you know that?”

  “Because one person—the wrong person—had been killed that way,” was the reply. “For this reason it was hardly likely that another attempt of that sort would be made. You had no intention of killing Louise Regnier, had you, Jean?”

  “No, God help me, no.”

  “It was all done in these apartments,” The Thinking Machine added, turning to Cabell, “at the gas jet from which I took the tip. It had been only loosely replaced and the metal was tarnished where the lips had dampened it.”

  “It must take great lung power to do a thing like that,” remarked Detective Mallory.

  “You would be amazed to know how easily it is done,” said the scientist. “Try it some time.”

  The Thinking Machine arose and picked up his hat; Hatch did the same. Then the reporter turned to Cabell.

  “Would you mind telling me why you were so anxious to get away tonight?” he asked.

  “Well, no,” Cabell explained, and there was a rush of red to his face. “It’s because I received a telegram from Virginia—Miss Lipscomb, in fact. Some of Henley’s past had come to her knowledge and the telegram told me that the engagement was broken. On top of this came the information that Henley had been shot and—I was considerably agitated.”

  The Thinking Machine and Hatch were walking along the street.

  “What did you write in the note you sent to Cabell that made him start to unpack?” asked the reporter curiously.

  “There are some things that it wouldn’t be well for everyone to know,” was the enigmatic response. “Perhaps it would be just as well for you to overlook this little omission.”

  “Of course, of course,” replied the reporter, wonderingly.

  TALISMAN OF DOOM, by James W. Marvin

  Originally published in Spicy Adventure Stories, April 1935.

  CHAPTER I

  Down out of the grey dawn, like roaring evangels of death, the nine Fokkers plunged in three tight triangles, straight at the three American Spads on sunrise patrol. Hidden a moment before in the scudding clouds, the Germans now appeared with the suddenness of black ghosts.

  A flame-red stream of tracers belched abruptly from the twin guns of the Boche flight-leader’s ship. Brad Langdon, American airman, tensed as hot lead whipped past the fuselage of his Spad. Automatically he kicked his rudder and jerked back his stick, sending the roaring Spad upward in a tight spiral stall. A stream of slugs smashed into his instrument-panel. He crouched and reached for the trips of his own guns. Eyes narrowed behind his goggles, hair bristling under his leather flying-helmet, he slammed the Spad into a swift, banking turn. The sleek black bulk of a Fokker loomed ahead of him, square across his cross-sights. He squeezed his trips viciously.

  Flaming death rattled from Brad Langdon’s guns as a leaden hail crashed against the side of the Fokker. The German pilot half-rose in his cockpit, clutching at his throat in abrupt agony. He stared glassily across the intervening nothingness at Brad Langdon. Then a burst of flame leaped from his fuel-tanks and he was engulfed in a roaring inferno. The Fokker nosed downward and went screaming to earth in a billowing black cloud of smoke.

  Struts singing a demon’s paean of victory, Brad Langdon’s ship twisted side-wise in a tremendous leaping zoom. He leveled off and stared over the side. Then his lips became a grim, bitter line. He cursed savagely.

  Of the two Spads that had been with him on dawn patrol, one was down in flames, a charred blot against the brown earth far below. The other wabbled crazily in the distance—with eight black Fokkers in hellish pursuit. Brad Langdon drew a sharp, agonized breath.

  “God!” he whispered. “It—it’s Rocky!”

  He jammed his throttle full open. The Spad jerked forward and downward like a live, screaming thing. Brad Langdon’s hands were steady as he reached for his gun-trips; but his heart was hammering strangely within his constricted throat. For the wabbling American ship so closely hounded by the eight Fokkers was the plane piloted by Brad Langdon’s kid brother! Brad recognized the fluttering, pennant-like object that whipped in the other Spad’s s
lip-stream, attached to an outer strut. It was Rocky Langdon’s talisman—a girl’s brassiere that Rocky had brought triumphantly back to the tarmac with him from his last leave of absence in Paris.

  White-lipped, Brad Langdon coaxed the last ultimate revolution out of his roaring motor as he plummeted downward to his brother’s aid. A sickness welled up in his stomach. The Fokkers were on Rocky’s tail now. Over the howling of his struts and the song of his full-throated motor, Brad Langdon could hear a sudden burst of concentrated fire from the Germans’ Spandaus.

  Brad stared ahead, and his lips formed a soundless prayer. His brother’s ship leaped crazily, side-slipped—and plunged over like a wounded bird. Something catapulted out of the cockpit—something that fell through the air, hurtled earthward, with arms weaving frantically. For a brief instant Brad Langdon closed his eyes, that he might not see the soul-sickening sight of his brother’s body crashing against the hard ground…

  Then, with a wild cry in his throat, Brad Langdon lashed his ship straight into the maelstrom of tight-packed Fokkers. “You murderers—you cowardly murderers!” he screamed insanely. His fingers tightened on his gun-trips. His twin Vickers spat out a sudden torrent of flaming lead.

  But the Boche would not give him satisfaction. They slipped away from him like wraiths, diving, zooming, turning and twisting. Nor did they make an effort to return his fire. Instead, they streaked for the German lines like sinister black comets. And then, abruptly, sanity returned to Brad Langdon. It was fruitless to pursue them. They outnumbered him eight to one. His motor was missing on two cylinders. And there was nothing he could do—now—for his brother Rocky…

  Wearily, dully, he banked his Spad and nosed it back toward the Allied lines. He tried to get used to the idea that Rocky was gone—that he would never see the kid’s good-natured, grinning, impudent face again; never hear his brother’s cheery “Happy landing, Brad!”