Gantvoort picked out the watch and its attachments, the keys, the fountain pen, the memoranda book, the handkerchiefs, the letters and other papers, and the older wallet.
"These were Father's," he told us. "I've never seen any of the others before. I don't know, of course, how much money he had with him tonight, so I can't say how much of this is his."
"You're sure none of the rest of this stuff was his?" O'Gar asked.
"I don't think so, but I'm not sure. Whipple could tell you." He turned to me. "He's the man who let you in tonight. He looked after Father, and he'd know positively whether any of these other things belonged to him or not."
One of the police detectives went to the telephone to tell Whipple to come down immediately.
I resumed the questioning.
"Is anything that your father usually carried with him missing? Anything of value?"
"Not that I know of. All the things that he might have been expected to have with him seem to be here."
"At what time tonight did he leave the house?"
"Before seven-thirty. Possibly as early as seven."
"Know where he was going?"
"He didn't tell me, but I supposed he was going f* call on Miss Dexter."
The faces of the police detectives brightened, and their eyes grew sharp. I suppose mine did, too. There are many, many murders with never a woman in them anywhere; but seldom a very conspicuous killing.
"Who's this Miss Dexter?" O'Gar took up the inquiry.
"She's, well—" Charles Gantvoort hesitated. "Well, Father was on very friendly terms with her and her brother. He usually called on them—on her several evenings a week. In fact, I suspected that he intended marrying her."
"Who and what is she?"
"Father became acquainted with them six or seven months ago. I've met them several times, but don't know them very well. Miss Dexter—Creda is her given name—is about twenty-three years old, I should judge, and her brother Madden is four or five years older. He is in New York now, or on his way there, to transact some business for Father."
"Did your father tell you he was going to marry her?" O'Gar hammered away at the woman angle.
"No; but it was pretty obvious that he was very much—ah—infatuated. We had some words over it a few days ago—last week. Not a quarrel, you understand, but words. From the way he talked I feared that he meant to marry her."
"What do you mean 'feared'?" O'Gar snapped at that word.
Charles Gantvoort's pale face flushed a little, and he cleared his throat embarrassedly.
"I don't want to put the Dexters in a bad light to you. I don't think—I'm sure they had nothing to do with father's—with this. But I didn't care especially for them—didn't like them. I thought they were—well—fortune hunters, perhaps. Father wasn't fabulously wealthy, but he had considerable means. And, while he wasn't feeble, still he was past fifty-seven, old enough for me to feel that Creda Dexter was more interested in his money than in him."
"How about your father's will?"
"The last one of which I have any knowledge—drawn up two or three years ago—left everything to my wife and me, jointly. Father's attorney, Mr. Murray Abernathy, could tell you if there was a later will, but I hardly think there was."
"Your father had retired from business, hadn't he?"
"Yes; he turned his import and export business over to me about a year ago. He had quite a few investments scattered around, but he wasn't actively engaged in the management of any concern."
O'Gar tilted his village constable hat back and scratched his bullet head reflectively for a moment. Then he looked at me.
"Anything else you want to ask?"
"Yes. Mr. Gantvoort, do you know or did you ever hear your father or anyone else speak of an Emil Bonfils?"
"No."
"Did your father ever tell you that he had received a threatening letter? Or that he had been shot at on the street?"
"No."
"Was your father in Paris in 1902?"
"Very likely. He used to go abroad every year up until the time of his retirement from business."
O'Gar and I took Gantvoort around to the morgue to see his father, then. The dead man wasn't pleasant to look at, even to O'Gar and me, who hadn't known him except by sight. I remembered bun as a small wiry man, always smartly tailored, and with a brisk springiness that was far younger than his years.
He lay now with the top of his head beaten into a red and pulpy mess.
We left Gantvoort at the morgue and set out afoot for the Hall of Justice.
"What's this deep stuff you're pulling about Emil Bonfils and Paris in 1902?" the detective-sergeant asked as soon as we were out in the street.
"This: the dead man phoned the Agency this afternoon and said he had received a threatening letter from an Emil Bonfils with whom he had had trouble in Paris in 1902. He also said that Bonfils had shot at him the previous evening, in the street. He wanted somebody to come around and see him about it tonight. And he said that under no circumstances were the police to be let in on it—that he'd rather have Bonfils get him than have the trouble made public. That's all he would say over the phone; and that's how I happened to be on hand when Charles Gantvoort was notified of his father's death."
O'Gar stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and whistled softly.
"That's something!" he exclaimed. "Wait till we get back to headquarters—I'll show you something."
Whipple was waiting in the assembly room when we arrived at headquarters. His face at first glance was as smooth and mask-like as when he had admitted me to the house on Russian Hill earlier in the evening. But beneath his perfect servant's manner he was twitching and trembling.
We took him into the little office where we had questioned Charles Gantvoort.
Whipple verified all that the dead man's son had told us. He was positive that neither the typewriter, the jewel case, the two cartridges, or the newer wallet had belonged to Gantvoort.
We couldn't get him to put his opinion of the Dexters in words, but that he disapproved of them was easily seen. Miss Dexter, he said, had called up on the telephone three times this night at about eight o'clock, at nine, and at nine-thirty. She had asked for Mr. Leopold Gantvoort each time, but she had left no message. Whipple was of the opinion that she was expecting Gantvoort, and he had not arrived.
He knew nothing, he said, of Emil Bonfils or of any threatening letters. Gantvoort had been out the previous night from eight until midnight. Whipple had not seen him closely enough when he came home to say whether he seemed excited or not. Gantvoort usually carried about a hundred dollars in his pockets.
"Is there anything that you know of that Gantvoort had on his person tonight which isn't among these things on the desk?" O'Gar asked.
"No, sir. Everything seems to be here—watch and chain, money, memorandum book, wallet, keys, handkerchiefs, fountain pen—everything that I know of."
"Did Charles Gantvoort go out tonight?"
"No, sir. He and Mrs. Gantvoort were at home all evening."
"Positive?"
Whipple thought a moment.
"Yes, sir, I'm fairly certain. But I know Mrs. Gantvoort wasn't out. To tell the truth, I didn't see Mr. Charles from about eight o'clock until he came downstairs with this gentleman" —pointing to me—"at eleven. But I'm fairly certain he was home all evening. I think Mrs. Gantvoort said he was."
Then O'Gar put another question—one that puzzled me at the time.
"What kind of collar buttons did Mr. Gantvoort wear?"
"You mean Mr. Leopold?"
"Yes."
"Plain gold ones, made all in one piece. They had a London jeweler's mark on them."