“It’s the kid, all right,” he groaned.
Detective Edward Corbin lay face down across a table, his head pillowed in his arm. He was dead. His shirt was red, soggy red. Neale made a swift examination.
“Hasn’t been fifteen minutes ago,” he announced. His voice was husky, his eyes suddenly damp. “Get some men up here — post ’em.”
The sergeant departed. Neale locked the door behind him. After that he inspected the room and its furniture, but touched nothing. He covered the whole of the floor, probed the corners, stopped for some time at the open window and looked out upon the fire escape. He turned away presently and stared at the potted plant with its gay, yellow blooms.
At length he was beside the dead man again and saw the knife that was clutched in his fingers; saw, when he had pushed the stiff arm to one side, the deep scratches in the top of the table: He was studying the crude, shaky letters — printed letters — when the door rattled and Wallace’s voice was heard. Neale unlocked the door to admit the sergeant.
“Look at this,” he said, and led Wallace to the table.
The sergeant peered at the scratches, spelled out the three words and swore deep in his throat. The three words were plain. Brant got me.
Only the crude “N” was scratched as the illiterate often write it, with the cross bar reversed.
“Brant!” he exploded. “What do you know about that?”
“Good boy, Eddie,” Neale murmured. “Knew he was done for — left this behind.”
“I’ll have that skunk in an hour,” Wallace asserted grimly.
The inspector nodded. “If you don’t, I will.”
“It’ll be easy. He won’t stay under cover — never suspect what we’ve got on him. Think it was Brant who phoned you?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.”
A patrolman came along the hall and stopped in the doorway.
“The sergeant just told me what’s happened,” he said. “I was talking with Eddie down at the corner about half an hour ago.”
“Where were you after that?” Neale asked.
“Haven’t been more’n a block away from here since then.”
“See any familiar faces in the neighborhood?”
“Only Brant.”
“Huh,” Neale said. “Coming from this direction?”
“I couldn’t swear to that. Think it was him?”
“Might have been. Where’s he hang out?”
“Down at Moony’s — corner of Third. Him and the rest of his crowd. I hope you put a bomb under the lot of ’em, inspector,” the officer ran on fervently. “Of all the rotten, loafing gorillas—”
“Who’re the others besides Brant?”
“Well, there’s Halsey and Dillon and Evans.”
“I know ’em all but Evans,” Neale said. He looked across at the sergeant. “That’s the bunch Eddie’s been after.”
He ordered the patrolman to close the door, post himself at the head of the stairs. For some time after that he stood looking down at the evidence scratched upon the table. He bent over, finally, and ran an exploring finger along the scratches that formed the three words.
Wallace watched him speculatively. “What now?” he asked. “Find something?”
“Two somethings,” Neale admitted. “Look here. Maybe you’ve noticed that these words are printed, not written, and that all the letters are capitals.”
“I’m not blind,” the sergeant answered.
“And you noticed the ‘N’ in Brant’s name is reversed?” the inspector asked.
“I do now, since you’ve called my attention to it,” Wallace replied. “The letter was started with a down stroke instead of an up one. See it often in home-made signs.”
“Correct,” said Neale. “You can be observing at times. Now look at the card on that pot of flowers. Eddie must have printed it. It says: ‘To Nora From Eddie.’ All caps, too. But the ‘N’ isn’t reversed.”
“Which means what?” Wallace returned. “Say, he wasn’t worrying about the correctness of his lettering when he cut that message. You wouldn’t either, with a hole—”
“Eddie didn’t carve the message,” Neale broke in. “He was used to printing. Most of his reports were that way. First of all, no matter how much of a hurry he was in, he never would have made that blunder; and second— Just run your finger over the scratches.”
The sergeant did so. When he reached the last word of the message he scowled, lifted his finger and bent lower. “There’s something here. I felt it... I can see it.”
III
“You can do both,” agreed Neale.
He took a knife from his pocket, opened the smaller blade and with it carefully pried an object from the deep scratch. Together the men scrutinized the shiny, pointed bit of steel, perhaps an eighth of an inch long, that had been dug from the down stroke of the letter “E.”
“It’s the point of a knife blade!” Wallace cried.
“Nothing else. Now take a squint at the blade Eddie was presumed to have used.”
“It’s whole!”
“Sure it is. Tells you something, doesn’t it? Eddie never left this message. It’s a plant — a piece of bait. He probably did get hold of the knife, intending to carve something for us to find — passed out before he succeeded. The bird that croaked him must have come back to make sure his victim was dead — saw the knife in Eddie’s hand, realized what he had been up to — and got himself a brilliant idea.”
“I’m a son of a gun,” murmured Wallace. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Maybe?” snorted Neale. “Of course I’m right. The blade that cut this message left a snapped-off point in the last letter. Eddie’s blade isn’t damaged. There’s only one answer and you’ve heard it.”
“The brilliant idea was to frame Brant, eh?”
“What else? Brant wouldn’t have carved his own moniker, would he? That seems to let him out.” Neale took up the bit of steel and deposited it carefully in his vest pocket.
“We’ve got to find the wielder of the damaged blade — fit this tip to it. Then we’ve got the killer. And it’ll be some one who hoped to sink Brant.”
“That eliminates all of Brant’s mob,” Wallace said.
“Does no such thing. I’ll wager the culprit’s a playmate. He set out to close Eddie’s mouth, did so, and saw a chance to pin the job on some one he had a grudge against. Merely another instance of killing two birds with one stone.”
“Yeah, it’s been done,” the sergeant agreed. “There’s always a heap of friction in the best of mobs. You think Eddie knew who drilled him?”
“I’ll say he did,” Neale declared. “It looks like he got hold of the knife and started to leave some sort of a message for us to find. What would be more important than the name of his slayer?”
“Nothing,” conceded Wallace.
“The guilty man must have been in a hurry, probably doesn’t know what evidence he left behind. Chances are we’ll find the knife he used on him.”
“That’ll be lovely,” the sergeant said. “Damned if we won’t frisk every mug in this territory. And God help the rat who’s carrying a knife with a busted blade!” he added grimly.
Others came into the room now to take charge, to make the usual examinations and reports, but neither Neale nor the sergeant were interested in the dull routine. The halls began to fill with a morbid, buzzing crowd. Questions were asked of those who occupied the adjoining apartments. Nothing new was learned. None recalled hearing a shot, or of seeing any one leave Corbin’s room.
“The killer used a muffler on his rod,” Neale said, as he and Wallace descended to the street and climbed into their car. “I saw some marks on the window sill that might indicate he came up by the fire escape. Maybe left by the same route. Evidently figured things out in detail.”