He ran up the stairs to the floor above, and before a minute had passed was down again.
“Nobody went out that way, mister,” he informed Hawley, broad in his deference. “Not over the roof. The trap’s locked on the under side. And, in case you might think that somebody jumped out one of the back windows — they’re all locked, too.” He passed down the hall and opened a door at its rear. “No; nobody hidin’, either. Nobody in the closets, nobody under the beds.”
He vanished into the dark room, and lights presently flashed on to reveal him trying windows.
“All locked here, too, Hawley,” he reported. “But I aim to satisfy. S’pose you want me to try downstairs? And the basement and the cellar?” He turned his grin on Easier. “How about you? Want me to keep on huntin’?”
He started toward the entrance hall, beckoning Hawley to follow with the sweating and speechless contractor. Hawley, from the front hall, saw him trying windows again — heard him puttering below afterward.
When he returned he said nothing, but crinkles of malicious mirth were about his twinkling small eyes as he looked at Hawley and at Easier and picked up the telephone.
“Sergeant Brill talking,” he announced when he had been connected with headquarters. “Just walked into something out here on Planton Street — No. 31. You hear me, captain? It’s Oscar Hammett’s house, and he’s been murdered. Yes; that’s what I’ve said. Sure, send the homicide squad — but, hell! I’ve got their man!”
He winked at Hawley as he hung up the receiver.
“Don’t that sound,” he wanted to know, “as though you might be seein’ me in church?”
Then, not expecting a reply, he wheeled on Easier.
“It’s all settled,” said he, “but the warrant. The whole back of the house is locked tighter than a drum — locked from the inside. That’s proof nobody went out the back way, and there’s plenty witnesses besides me to swear that nobody left by the front. There was just you and Hammett in the house when he was bumped. And say, Mr. Easier: am I wrong, or ain’t your first name Bradley?”
II
Ten minutes later, when a Police Department car sounded its siren in front of No. 31 Planton Street, busy Sergeant Brill had a dozen witnesses corralled in Oscar Hammett’s disordered “front parlor.” Hawley and Easier were there, too.
Hawley opened the front door to a gray mustached man in a square-blocked derby who brushed swiftly past him at sight of Brill in the hall beyond. Four men of the homicide squad, close at the gray man’s back, likewise piled in.
Saluting, Brill addressed the leader.
“The case is all cooked for you, Inspector Gregory,” he said. “Ready to serve up on a silver platter. Hammett’s upstairs. Want to see him first?”
Before the inspector had answered, a voice hailed him from the thronged parlor — and Hawley recognized the voice as Easier’s, tremulous with relief.
“Hello, Tom! Glad to see you! That’s no lie!”
Gregory straightened and stared.
“Brad Easier! What’re you doing in this?”
Glaring at Brill, Easier jerked a thumb in his direction.
“Ask him,” he said savagely. “He thinks that he’s got me arrested.”
The inspector glanced sharply at Brill, who nodded.
“He was here alone with Hammett,” he said succinctly. “And Hammett’s dead. Shot through the head, inspector. Yes; I’d call it an arrest!”
Gregory frowned.
“You don’t often make mistakes, sergeant,” he said, “but you’re all wrong here. Mr. Easier and I have been friends for years. I wouldn’t believe he’d shot anybody until he told me so himself.” He walked to the contractor and put out his hand. “How about it, Brad? What happened?”
Easier mopped his face with a jaunty handkerchief.
“Your man,” he said, nodding curtly toward Brill, “makes a lot out of the fact that Hammett shouted my name. Well, it’s the truth. He did. But I don’t see how anybody could hang me for that.”
Brill bared his teeth in an unpleasant grin.
“Maybe you don’t — now,” he remarked. “Go ahead, Easier. Tell Inspector Gregory the same story you told me. He’s your friend, ain’t he? Let’s see how it sets with him!”
The inspector nodded encouragement.
“Let’s hear it, Brad,” he said. “You were here visiting Hammett, were you? First time in a blue moon, wasn’t it?”
“In ten years,” Easier told him. “In exactly ten years. Hammett called me up this afternoon — reminded me it was just that long since we broke up the old partnership. He wanted me to come here to-night. Said he had something to talk over with me. We made an appointment for nine o’clock.”
“Check!” put in Sergeant Brill. “Anyway, inspector, it was just about nine when Easier got here. I was siftin’ on a stoop over the way, and I noticed him ringin’ the bell outside. He’s got a shape to remember, ain’t he?”
Gregory’s gray eyes lingered for an instant on Brill, and the gleam in them was not wholly approving.
“I’m listening to you, Brad,” he said. “Must have been a surprise to hear from Oscar Hammett.”
“It was,” admitted Easier. “But it’s a funny world. After all I’ve seen—” His eyes lifted to the ceiling. “Well, I came to call, anyhow. Even your Siberian wolfhound here agrees to that.
“I came to call; and, far as I know, Hammett was alone in the house. He let me in himself. I didn’t see anybody else, or hear anybody. I and Hammett set down together in this very room where we’re standing. He was nervous — I can say that much. And he had liquor in him.”
“He would have,” commented the inspector. “I’ve kept some track of him. What did he want with you, Brad?”
Easier hesitated.
“Why... why, that’d be pretty hard to answer.”
“Yeah!” came a sotto voce echo from Brill. “Pretty hard is right!”
“I mean,” Easier went on hurriedly, “that I never got it clear. While we sat down here, he just talked about how long it was since we’d seen each other, and all that. I played along with him, waiting for him to come to the point.
“But he never got there. Maybe ten minutes after he let me in, or maybe fifteen, he got up and asked me if I minded being alone for a couple of minutes? He wasn’t worried about anything then, because he turned around after he was out of the door and grinned at me.
“He went upstairs, and I heard him moving right overhead, in the front room.”
“Sure it was him?” demanded Gregory hopefully.
Easier blinked.
“I never thought about it being anybody else.”
“We’ll come back to that,” observed Gregory with a quick nod. “And you sat tight down here, did you, Brad?”
“Until Hammett yelled, I did. That lifted me out of the chair like it had been dynamite under me. I couldn’t hear just what it was that he was shouting, but I could make out my name clear enough.”
He paused to mop at his sweaty face again, and Sergeant Brill dryly addressed the company at large:
“So could a lot of other people!”
Easier passed the interruption.
“He was yelling my name,” he repeated. “And his voice was enough to send a shiver through you. It was like — like a man being murdered. I ran into the hall, and just as I started upstairs there was a shot and something fell. I kept on going.