He took up the pad, tore off the leaf containing the scores, and thrust the pad at Dillon. “Print your own name and the names of the others,” he directed.
Dillon frowned at the singular request. “What the—” he began.
“Print ’em!” Neale repeated.
With a shrug, Dillon took a pencil from his pocket and followed instructions. He put down the four names. Every “N” he printed was reversed. Wallace, who apparently had not seen Halsey’s copy, shot a triumphant look at the inspector, but Neale ignored it.
He reached down, tore off the leaf, thrust the pad at Evans.
“You try it,” he ordered.
Evans grinned, took Dillon’s pencil. His printing was smaller, neater than his companions. But the “N’s” were not reversed.
“What’s the racket?” Halsey inquired. “You starting a school of penmanship, Porky?”
Neale’s jaw tightened. The reversed letter meant nothing now. Already he had found two examples. No doubt he could find plenty more if he cared to make the test. The lead was worthless.
“Maybe you’d like to have us sing for you,” jeered Evans.
The inspector turned his back and strode to the window. He stood there a long time, his hands clenched, his heart in the depths, aware that the men around the table were watching him derisively. He was licked. The confidence he had entertained a few minutes before, the feeling that he was on a hot trail, deserted him. Rage and chagrin were mirrored on his gaunt face.
He might arrest the suspects, grill them, but the chances of wringing anything from the men seemed remote. They were cool, arrogant, assured that Neale was faltering. He was still convinced that Corbin’s slayer was in the room.
The message containing Brant’s name, the knowledge that the murdered detective had been investigating the activities of these men, the significant information dropped by the patrolman, all pointed that way. But how was he to pin the crime on the guilty man? The knife with a broken blade was his sole bit of evidence, and that evidence was still to be found.
Neale had hoped, in charging Evans with the crime, to provoke some unguarded comment from the guilty man. But that ruse had failed. The criminal, if present, had been too cagy. He had kept a straight face and a curb on his tongue. And now the inspector must withdraw his charge, admit his trickery.
It was possible, he reflected, that if Brant had been Corbin’s stool, the man might be persuaded to squeal. But would Brant know anything? It seemed unlikely that the criminal, having deliberately framed the informer because of his suspected dealings with Corbin, would have confessed to the murder.
Still something might be gleaned from Brant once he learned that his name, not Evans’s, had been found cut in the table. That message alone, provided Neale withheld his own discoveries, would convict the man. Although the inspector did not propose to see the innocent suffer, he could hold that threat over Brant’s head, perhaps learn a few relevant facts. In the present emergency, any straw was worth grasping.
V
Neale turned from the window and was on the point of ordering Wallace to take the men to headquarters when his eyes fell upon an object under the table. It was a knife! He crossed the floor, stooped and picked it up.
The knife was a handsome one, expensive. Its ornate handle was inlaid with bands of white and yellow metal — platinum and gold, Neale judged. His heart skipped a beat when he saw, even before opening the blades, that the point of the larger one was missing.
“Who does this belong to?” he inquired casually.
No one answered him. The four men about the table contemplated the find with passive faces, indifferent eyes. Only Sergeant Wallace, in the background, registered an immediate interest.
“Must belong to one of you,” Neale insisted. “One of you must have dropped it.”
“I’ve got mine,” Brant stated.
“I never carry one,” said Halsey.
Both Dillon and Evans shook their heads when the knife was extended toward them; both favored their inquisitor with thin, mocking smiles that Neale accepted as challenges.
“Somebody must have lost it here before we came in,” Evans remarked.
With professed indifference, although his mind was seething, Neale stepped to the window again, as if to inspect his find in a better light. With his back to the audience, he opened the larger blade. From his vest pocket he extracted the bit of steel that he had pried from Corbin’s table. The broken point fitted the end of the blade perfectly.
Neale’s fingers shook a little as he restored the evidence to his pocket. The murderer was in the room! No doubt of it now. This gold and platinum knife had carved the baited message. Its owner must have noticed the damaged blade, realized where the point of it had been left, tossed the knife away before risking its being found in his possession. How long before, Neale did not attempt to estimate. It was of no consequence now.
The guilty man had been quick to sense his peril, and his companions, whether they had been taken into his confidence or not, were as quick to shield him. Undoubtedly all of them had identified the knife the moment it had been displayed. Any one of them could have named its owner.
Neale turned to meet four pairs of leveled eyes, four inscrutable countenaces.
“Sure none of you lost this?” he asked once more.
“Why all the fuss about a knife?” Halsey countered with a shrug. “Go ahead and keep the thing for a souvenir.”
“Better hand it to Moony,” Dillon advised. “Maybe the owner’ll show up and claim it. Maybe,” he added with a smirk, “you’ll collect a bit of reward.”
As if acting upon that suggestion, Neale unlocked the door and stepped outside. He saw the bald, paunchy proprietor close at hand, beckoned. In the same glance he saw the plump, over-dressed blonde sitting in a chair against the wall, recognized her as the girl who had knocked on the door some time before.
Neale, toying with a sudden inspiration, closed his hand over the knife as Moony approached.
“What’s the trouble?” the proprietor asked.
The inspector’s question was far remote from his thoughts. “How long have the boys back there been on the premises?”
“All afternoon,” Moony assured him promptly. “All of them. Why?”
“I just wanted to know,” Neale said.
He turned and reentered the room. His countenance was glum and funereal. “Hustle these punks out of here, sergeant,” he ordered wearily. “Load ’em in my car. I’ll have a session with ’em later.”
The men exchanged amused glances, and without protest or argument permitted Wallace to herd them from the room. They moved leisurely and chatted among themselves, betraying no alarm over the prospective grilling that awaited them. To the few hangers-on present, there was nothing unusual in their departure.
Neale purposely hung back. He saw Dillon wink at Moony; saw Moony nod and head toward the phone. That signal, interpreted, foretold the prompt arrival of a rescuing lawyer at headquarters, a time-honored procedure, too often successful.
It threatened to succeed in the present emergency, Neale reasoned, unless his final maneuver...
The blonde got out of her chair, ran up to grab Halsey’s arm.
“Listen, Bert,” she pleaded. “I been waitin’ to see you. You—”
“Beat it!” Halsey growled, and flung off her hand.
The girl fell back and looked after the man, her hands clenched, her face white with rising fury. Neale, watching the performance, glided beside her.
Turning, she glared at the inspector, started to move away, but stopped abruptly at sight of the knife he twirled in his fingers.