The signatures were identical down to the last detail. Though he was no handwriting expert, Shamus could see at a glance that there was nothing phony about that letter. It had been indited by J. Wesley Beard of Coats-town, California and no other.
Maguire had expected something different and for a moment he was disappointed. Mumbling angrily to himself he approached the information desk.
“Who’s got eleven-twenty?”
“H. W. Bunt, Syracuse, New York.”
Maguire turned away and lumbered across to the office of the credit manager.
“What do you know about this guy Beard?”
“Beard?” The credit man’s face turned sour. “I thought I knew all about him, but it looks as if I was wrong. He’s hung it onto us for two hundred and sixty-five dollars. Room, meals and service.”
Shamus shook his head and clucked sympathetically.
“Who is he?”
“A bank president, no less,” said the credit manager bitterly. “Not a big bank, but a solid bank, you understand. The Coatstown National of Coatstown, California. Beard’s been coming here for two years, off and on, without once letting us in for any trouble.”
“And what do you know about H. W. Bunt in eleven-twenty?”
“Bunt? Not a thing. Why?”
“I’d like to get a line on him. He comes from Syracuse.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” the credit manager promised. He wrote down the name and initials. “See me tonight if I’m around.”
IV
Sergeant Detectives Flynn and Schultz, two of the brighter stars from among the young men attached to the Central Office, were obviously bored. Investigating suicides, they felt, was beneath them.
“What,” demanded Flynn loftily of Maguire, “about this guy Beard?”
“He’s dead,” answered Shamus solemnly.
“And we don’t want no wise cracks,” said Sergeant Detective Schultz.
“He was found,” began Shamus, removing a small notebook from his pocket and consulting it ostentatiously, “at eight-forty this morning by Miss Hettie Jones. Miss Jones is a chambermaid. Beard was in the clothes closet of his room, hanging against the wall from a rope. The rope was around his neck. It is believed that he hung himself.”
Schultz swore.
“What’s the trouble?” asked Shamus. “Ain’t that what you want?”
“The department,” explained Flynn patiently, “sent us over to get the lowdown.”
Maguire looked up quickly.
“The department! And why would the department be botherin’ about a measly suicide?”
“The Chief of Police of a burg called Coatstown out on the coast wired us for particulars. Some bank this guy was connected with is short two hundred thousand dollars.”
“Hey!” Maguire was unable to conceal his astonishment. “Two hundred thousand.”
“Two hundred thousand,” repeated Flynn slowly. Both Central Office men regarded Maguire suspiciously. “What’s the trouble?”
“Nothing, nothing,” said Shamus hastily. “I figured that egg was on the up and up, that’s all.”
Thereafter, for the space of ten minutes, he answered without quibble the questions Flynn and Schultz fired at him. This was unusual, for Shamus ordinarily resented interference by the police in the affairs of the hotel. The Hotel Paragon, he held, was his territory and when outside talent was introduced it got nothing but hindrance from the house detective.
“Oke,” said Flynn at last. “If you’d cooperate this way all the time you’d save a lot of trouble all around.”
“Wait a minute,” said Shamus unexpectedly, as the Central Office men began to move away. They halted.
“Beard,” went on Maguire, “didn’t knock himself off.”
“What?”
Shamus explained briefly the circumstance of the chair and the impossibility of its having been kicked away from underneath him by the deceased Beard. Their surprise was due not so much to the information as to the fact that Shamus was freely parting with it.
“Repeat that,” requested Flynn grimly, recovering himself.
Shamus obliged.
“Wait here a minute,” Flynn called, heading towards the telephones. He returned five minutes later, his eyes sparkling with excitement.
“You ain’t stringing us?” he demanded.
“Don’t be foolish.”
“Okay then. We got hold of something big here, Shamus, and if you want to play along with us we’ll see you get credit in the right spot.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Maguire cynically. “Thanks, pal. I always knew your heart was in the right place.”
“You don’t have to be like that,” declared Flynn huffily. “Now take us up to the room.”
“Did you tell them to send over a finger print outfit?”
Flynn nodded and the three started for the eleventh floor. The body of the late Mr. Beard had been removed to the morgue, but the room was otherwise undisturbed. Flynn and Schultz went to work like a pair of bloodhounds.
Seating himself in a corner to be out of the way, Maguire watched them.
“There’s been drinkin’ goin’ on here,” announced Schultz importantly, after ten minutes of clumsy poking into corners.
“You don’t say,” contributed Maguire.
“These bottles here—”
“You leave them bottles alone,” called Flynn angrily from the other side of the room. “We might find prints on them. And the glasses too.”
“I wasn’t going to touch them,” Schultz declared sulkily. Flynn scowled and sat down to rest.
“Find anything?” asked Shamus brightly.
“I found plenty, but I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ just yet.” And after a moment’s thought: “What kind of a guy was this here Beard, anyhow?”
“Cagy,” Maguire answered. “Been in the hotel half a dozen times in the last two years, but nobody knew much about him. Ate all his meals in his room, but never let the waiter in to serve him. He used to take his tray at the door and put it outside himself when he was through. Didn’t like to go to the dining room on account of being so short sighted, I guess. Never spoke to the help any more than he had to.”
“Now why,” mused Flynn, “would a guy act like that?”
Before anybody had time to answer, a knock on the door heralded the arrival of a couple of fingerprint men from the Central Office. Having no interest in the routine he knew would follow, Maguire made an excuse and departed.
V
Alone in the corridor, Shamus glanced at his watch and made a silent computation. According to the doctor, the man in eleven-twenty had been put safely to sleep for five hours at least. That left ample time for Maguire’s needs, and he set off purposefully down the hall.
In room eleven-twenty he found Mr. H. W. Bunt in deep and noiseless sleep. From the open doorway Shamus looked and listened, then stepped inside.
With the speed and efficiency of long experience he set about searching the room. What he wanted was the fifth whisky bottle. The unfortunate J. Wesley Beard had bought five bottles and there were but two in his room. On a table beside somnolent Mr. Bunt were two more. Where was the fifth?
A cursory look around that morning in the presence of the doctor had failed to reveal it. But under Maguire’s expert methods it was not long in coming to light.
He found it in a small hand bag that stood on the floor by the window. Besides the unopened bottle of whisky the bag contained one suit of frowzy and very threadbare clothes, a battered felt hat, one pair of socks, one pair of cracked shoes, down at the heel, one white shirt with an attached collar and one necktie.
Making a mental note of these things Shamus closed the bag and retreated. The bottle of whisky had confirmed his very grave suspicions.