“And did he say he’d attend to it?”
“Yeah. He told me yesterday he’d take care of it right away.”
“Uh huh. Now let’s go out to your hall door, Bill,” said Oaks familiarly.
He got up and led the way to the door, opened it. Followed by Nevvin and Mallory, he stepped into the hall. A few feet across the hall was the door of number ten.
“Inspector,” Oakes said to Mallory, “your idea is that poor old Jerry Sutter came out of number ten there, and plugged Spinner from the doorway.”
“Yeah,” said Mallory. “It’s about the right distance.”
“On the other hand,” Oakes pointed out, “it’s just the same distance from the door of number eleven, where Bill here lives, as it is from number ten. That is, the same distance to the chair where Spinner was sitting.”
“Yeah,” agreed Mallory dubiously.
Bill Nevvin swore vigorously.
“What’s the idea?” he shouted. “You two guys are trying to railroad me—”
“Aw, shut up, Bill,” Oakes soothed him. “It don’t make no difference, anyway.”
“Why not?” queried Mallory.
“Because,” said Oakes, “Spinner wasn’t shot from this direction at all.”
Mallory gazed at him in bewilderment.
“He wasn’t, huh?”
“Naw. The way I got it figured, Spinner was shot from the other direction, through the open window.”
“Through the window?” repeated Bill Nevvin, somewhat mollified. “But this is the second floor, not—”
“Uh huh,” said Oakes. “But he was shot from the roof of your garage, Bill.”
V
Nevvin spluttered angrily again. But Mallory was keeping a cold and watchful eye on him now.
“Wait a minute,” Oakes said suddenly. And he turned and walked toward Mallory’s man, Carter, who was resting on the top step of the stairway. Oakes spoke to him in an undertone, and Carter, with a pleased grin, got up and went downstairs.
Oakes rejoined the two men.
“Now there’s the chair he was sitting in. Let’s take a look at it,” he suggested, and they approached the chair.
Oakes bent close, and presently chuckled.
“Here’s luck,” he said enthusiastically.
“What’s luck?” grouched Mallory, who looked as if he really didn’t believe in luck.
“Well,” said Oakes, “the thing that had you fooled was that the chair was facing down the hall, so that old Spinner’s back was toward the window. And Spinner was shot in the forehead. Now if he was shot from the roof of the garage, he must have been facing the window at the time.”
“Sure,” said Mallory.
“And in that case,” Oakes went on, “the killer must have swung the chair around after he fired.”
“That’s hooey,” put in Nevvin. “He couldn’t reach across the roof. It’s all of fifteen feet from the roof to the chair.”
Oakes beamed at him.
“Bill,” he said, “you ought to ask Mallory for a job on the force — you’ve got a cop’s mentality. But the killer could reach across with one of those loose roof boards, couldn’t he?”
Mallory nodded. Bill Nevvin was silent.
“And there are scratches showing,” Oakes went on, “in the varnish on the arm of the chair. At the end of the arm, where the killer would naturally have pushed against it with the board.”
Mallory inspected the scratches Oakes indicated with a stubby forefinger. Then he looked out of the window, and wagged his head as he apparently noted that a man standing on the garage roof would have fired about on a level with old John Spinner’s head.
Suddenly, as if an unexpected thought had struck him, Oakes joined him at the window, bent down and examined the window sill.
“The paint on the window sill is scratched, too,” he remarked.
“Yeah,” said Mallory. “But I still claim that old Jerry Sutter could have—”
“Sure he could have,” interrupted Oakes. “But he’s a grand old man, and even if he did it I’d still be for him. Now let’s get hold of young Spinner and go downstairs.”
As they turned and made for the stairway, Frank Spinner came up.
“Just looking for you,” Oakes told him. “We need you to tell us where things are around here.”
“Certainly,” said the young man, and went back downstairs with them.
At the door of number seven Oakes stopped.
“Here’s where Jerry Sutter lives with his daughter Mary,” he remarked. “It is also where the revolver was found.”
“I know that,” said Mallory.
“Uh huh.” He advanced a few steps. “And here is a door leading down into the basement, inspector. You’ll observe it’s just inside the door leading out to the garages.”
“Yeah,” said Mallory sarcastically. “These apartment houses do have basements.”
Oakes grinned, and turned to Frank Spinner.
“By the way,” he said. “I suppose there’s a stepladder down in the basement?”
“Of course,” said the young man.
“Get it for us, will you?” asked Oakes. “We’ll need it to look at the garage roof.”
Frank Spinner trotted down the steps to the basement, and quickly returned with a stepladder. Oakes thanked him, and they all moved out to the walk between the house and the garages.
Young Spinner leaned the stepladder against the back of the house.
Oakes pointed down at the dirt walk close to the garage.
“Four indentations in the dirt there, inspector,” he noted. “Made not long ago. Look like they were made by the legs of the ladder—”
Oakes stopped abruptly as the rear door opened again. A young lady in short dress, smiling impishly, came out.
“Hello, Mamie,” said Oakes. “What you got?”
She handed him a typewritten slip of paper. Oakes glanced at it and stuffed it into his pocket.
“All right, Mamie,” he said. “You can stick around, if you want to.”
Evidently Mamie wanted to.
“Now,” Oakes went on, “my idea is that the killer got the stepladder out of the basement, used it to climb on to the roof, and when he got up there, he plugged old man Spinner from there.”
“Hooey!” commented bootlegger Bill Nevvin.
“Shut up!” Mallory told Nevvin.
“Then,” Oakes continued, disregarding interruptions, “he could easy climb down again, put the ladder back in the basement, stop at number seven and ditch the revolver in Jerry Sutter’s apartment, and beat it.”
“Of course he could,” agreed young Frank Spinner. “But could it be proved?”
“Sure,” snarled Bill Nevvin. “Go ahead and prove it.”
“Well,” said Oakes. “There’s one thing that might help us.”
“What’s that?” asked Mallory.
“The fact,” explained Oakes, “that the old man died laughing!”
The others were silent for a little while. It was apparent that they couldn’t quite see the significance of the laughing death.
“I suppose,” Frank Spinner said presently, “that you’re trying to prove that it was Bill who—”
“Naw,” cut in Oakes. “Not Bill. It was old man Spinner’s son, Frank, that plugged him.”
VI
Young Frank Spinner sucked in his breath and stared at Oakes. Then he laughed nervously.
“Ridiculous!” he said.
“Yeah?” Oakes grinned good-naturedly. “Well, the way I got it figured, the reason you bumped your old man—”
Again the rear door opened. It was Mallory’s man, Carter, this time. Carter winked at Oakes slowly. The wink seemed to hold some special meaning for Oakes.
“Glad you got here, Carter,” Oakes said. “Got a little job for you. Want you to climb the stepladder here on to the garage roof and see what you can find. Guess you know what to look for.”