In response to the faint summons, there was the sound of a chair scraping over tiling. A light was turned on, and then a gnome-like figure shambled out of the shadows and peered through the dirty glass of the front door.
Hardly more than five feet tall, the man had the head, shoulders and torso of a giant. His muscular arms hung down almost to his knees and black bristles covered the backs of his huge, gray hands. His face was gray, darkened by black beard stubble.
He drew from his pocket a large bunch of keys and grudgingly opened the door.
Darwin and Farnsworth pushed their way into the ornate but dingy lobby.
“Whatta you want?” demanded the gnome.
“Are you the watchman?” asked Darwin.
“I’m Henry Starr, the night superintendent.”
“On which floor is Horace G. Thompson’s office?” asked Farnsworth.
Starr gazed at him with blank, black eyes.
Farnsworth repeated his query.
“Top,” answered Starr after some hesitation.
“Take us up there.”
Again Starr stared as if not comprehending.
“Something wrong with your hear-in’?” demanded Darwin. “Get busy.”
“No use goin’ up there.”
“Why not?”
“Nobody up there.”
“We’ll see for ourselves.”
“You won’t; I know my job.”
“We know our job too.”
With that avowal, Darwin pushed Starr aside.
Starr’s hand darted to his hip pocket.
Darwin caught his arm and a short-barrelled thirty-two caliber revolver clattered on the stone floor.
Farnsworth picked up the weapon and thrust it into his pocket. As he did so, he drew out his gold badge and held it so Starr could see it.
“Thought it was a stick-up,” Starr mumbled. “Can’t be too careful now days. You’re law, so it’s all right for you to go up to the sixth. But it won’t do you no good. There ain’t nobody but me in this whole buildin’.”
He shambled to the elevator, and Farnsworth and Darwin followed.
When they were inside, though he closed the door, Starr did not start the car.
“Why the delay?” asked Darwin.
“I want my gun; I got a license to carry it.”
“We’ll go into that later, Starr,” said Farnsworth. “Take us to the sixth floor.”
Starr pushed the lever forward. The car started slowly to ascend, creaking and complaining. At the sixth floor, it stopped automatically.
Farnsworth and Darwin stepped out.
“Come along,” said Darwin to Starr.
“I won’t,” retorted the superintendent stubbornly. “You may be law, but my place’s down in the lobby.”
Farnsworth’s keen gray eyes met Starr’s sullen black eyes. Muttering, Starr left the car.
As they walked away from the square of light, there was a sudden scurrying in the darkness ahead.
“What’s that?” asked Darwin.
“Rats,” answered Starr. “We got plenty of rats. They’re under foot all the time.”
“Turn on the lights,” ordered Farnsworth.
Starr took his large bunch of keys from his pocket and sorted them until he found one which he thrust into a switch.
A long, narrow corridor, very dirty and disorderly, was revealed, the floor looking as if it were entirely vacant, as on the doors was no lettering.
“Follow this hall to the end and turn to the left and you’ll find Mr. Thompson’s office at the end,” mumbled Starr. “Hurry up. I gotta git back downstairs, that’s where I belong.”
“You lead the way,” ordered Farnsworth.
“Me?” asked Starr.
“Yes, you,” answered Darwin.
Starr, followed by Darwin and Farnsworth, walked down the corridor. The dead air seemed clogged with something rank and heavy.
“Here you are,” announced Starr.
No light came through the frosted glass door which bore the name, “Horace G. Thompson,” and no sound came from within the office.
“Told you nobody was here,” mumbled Starr. “Hope you’re satisfied now.”
Farnsworth tried the door.
“Unlock it,” he snapped.
“Can’t.”
“You have a pass key.”
“Not for Mr. Thompson’s office. It’s got a special lock.”
A rat scurried down the corridor and Starr’s heavy body jerked.
“Give me your keys — all of them,” ordered Farnsworth.
Starr extracted the bunch from his pocket.
One by one, the inspector tried them. He turned toward Starr.
“Search him,” he said to Darwin.
Starr’s thick lips snarled back until black toothless gums were exposed.
Darwin went through the superintendent’s clothing swiftly and expertly. From the watch pocket of Starr’s trousers he took a key, which he handed to Farnsworth. The inspector unlocked the door, threw it open. Drawing his flash light, he sent a white beam traveling along the wall, until he had found the switch. Then he snapped on the lights.
Thompson’s office was large. It extended all the way across the end of the building. Being at the rear, no street noises could be heard. The shades of the six large windows were pulled to the sills. A heavy green carpet muffled their footfalls.
Entirely in keeping with the size of the office was the furniture, all of mahogany.
In the center of the room, right under the high powered ceiling lights, stood a long, glass-topped table about which a dozen chairs were arranged in an orderly manner. At the end wall, nearest the door, was a deeply upholstered couch, and at the farther wall, a desk. Large and heavily constructed, it was not the flat-topped desk of the modern business executive; it had a roll top, which was pulled down.
Chapter III
Yellow Hair
“When was anybody in here last?” asked Farnsworth.
Starr raised his head, but did not answer at once.
“Not for a long time,” he said at last.
“How long?”
“I don’t know — mebbe a coupla months.”
“Where’s Thompson?”
Starr’s eyes dropped.
“Where’s Thompson?” insisted Farnsworth.
“He’s outta town.”
“But you know where he is.”
“I don’t. Nobody knows where Mr. Thompson is when he ain’t in this office. He don’t go ’round tellin’ the help his business. You can see for yourself he ain’t in here. I gotta git—”
“Are you sure nobody has been in here to-day?”
“I told you wunst nobody’d been in here for a long time.”
Farnsworth drew a finger tip along the glass top of the table and held it before Starr’s eyes.
“The night woman’s cleaned that!” exclaimed Starr.
“But she didn’t clean anything else,” declared Farnsworth, glancing at the dust-covered furniture.
“Them women skimp their work. You can’t thrust ’em much. Don’t blame ’em much. They only git two dollars a night. No use’n workin’ your fingers to the bone for two dollars a night.”
“But you said nobody had been in here for possibly two months.”
“I didn’t think ’bout the night woman. The night woman slipped right outta my mind.”
“Isn’t the night woman supposed to keep the corridor clean?”
An expression of utter stupidity came into Starr’s face.
“That’s so,” he mumbled. “That’s so. I’ll speak to her ’bout the hall on the sixth. Looks like a pig pen. She never touched the hall on the sixth!”
“What time did she quit?”
“Ten o’clock. They all git through at ten o’clock, and none of ’em stay a minute later.”
Farnsworth walked toward the desk, and Starr eyed it earnestly.