Beard had purchased five bottles of whisky only. Two of these were still in his room. Three and two make five. H. W. Bunt, therefore, must have visited the room of J. Wesley Beard sometime between the time the whisky was bought from the bellboy and the time the doctor was called that morning-
Descending to the rotunda, Maguire chewed upon this fact for half an hour. At the end of that time he was approached by the quartette from the Central Office. Sergeant Detectives Flynn and Schultz looked glum.
“Any luck?” Shamus inquired.
Flynn was noncommittal, but by dint of judicious questioning Maguire gathered that they had discovered seven distinct sets of finger prints. That, to say the least, was discouraging.
“What in hell did you expect?” Shamus said bluntly. “Those bottles must have been handled plenty before they got as far as Beard’s room. This is a hotel, you understand.”
“A big help you are,” Flynn said wearily.
“What did you find on the drinking glass?”
“Two sets. One of them, we figure, belonged to Beard. The second set is different from any of the others. Maybe that will help us. Anyways we’re goin’ down to the morgue to fingerprint Beard.”
“I’ll save you the trouble,” offered Shamus promptly. “You can verify Beard’s prints by the ones on his registration card. Come on into the office and have a look at it.”
The Central Office men accepted the offer with alacrity and the fingerprint men made quick work of bringing to light the several sets of prints with which the card was smudged. Comparison of these with the two sets taken from the glass showed beyond doubt which were those of the suicide.
As they emerged from the office Flynn and Schultz looked a shade more cheerful.
“Whoever put that second set on the glass,” Flynn gloated, “made a good job of it. We got the thumb and four fingers of the right hand. The guy that left them is the guy that murdered Beard.”
Shamus thought so himself, but said nothing. He lit a cigar and gazed doubtfully through a cloud of blue smoke.
“We’ll let you know if anything turns up,” Flynn promised by way of good-by. “And in the meantime, don’t let no one go into that room.”
VI
Pangs of hunger were notifying Shamus Maguire that he had lunched lightly and that the welcome hour of dinner was not far off. Slowly his thoughts turned from crime to rare steaks. And then, abruptly, the pleasant visions fled.
From the wide portals of an elevator stepped Mr. H. W. Bunt of room eleven hundred and twenty. Mr. Bunt was pale and wan and his facial muscles twitched spasmodically. But to Shamus these things were of scant moment. For in his right hand Mr. Bunt carried a small hand bag.
Thus it was that when Bunt stepped out of the hotel onto the street Shamus was not far behind. Unhesitatingly Bunt plunged into the evening crowds and Maguire, giving him a brief start, plunged after.
Bunt walked briskly for a block and a half, after which he halted at a bus stop. Shamus came up and mingled unnoticed in the throng. When Bunt boarded a bus Shamus did so, too. Bunt clambered up the stairs to the top deck while Maguire eased himself into a seat below, close to the door.
From where he sat Shamus had an unobstructed view of the stairway. For nearly three-quarters of an hour his eyes never left it. The bus was well into the outskirts of the city and nearly empty of passengers before Bunt at last appeared.
Descending the steps rapidly he leaped to the sidewalk as the bus lost momentum. Without looking either to the right or left he strode off down an ill-lighted side street.
As the bus jerked into motion again Maguire started up from his seat and lurched out onto the platform. The machine was by now moving at a good clip, but Shamus jumped. As his heels hit the pavement he grunted. Then, catching his breath, he swung round in pursuit.
Bunt had disappeared. When Shamus reached the corner, however, he caught sight of his quarry, half a block away. Banking on the darkness for concealment, he put on a burst of speed which brought him within fifty feet of the other.
Five more minutes’ walking brought the pair to a bridge over a narrow, swiftly running river. Halfway over, Bunt halted suddenly and leaned on the rail. For a moment Maguire believed the man had stopped to confront him. He was already on the bridge and it was too late now to turn away.
So he kept on. But after all, Bunt paid no attention to him. The man stood gazing over the railing, his back to the sidewalk. He did not move as Maguire passed.
At the other end of the bridge Shamus crossed the road and took the opportunity to steal a hasty glance backwards. Bunt had left his place at the rail and was heading back the way he had come. And he no longer carried the small hand bag.
It took ten minutes scouting about the neighborhood to locate a taxicab. Maguire rode back to the hotel in comfort, deeply engrossed in several problems. At the hotel door he paid off the cab in a hurry and went into the building on the jump.
Taking the elevator to the eleventh floor he let himself into room eleven-twenty and switched on the lights. The odds were that Bunt would return by bus, in which event Maguire had a good twenty minutes to spare. Nevertheless he worked fast and took no chances. A slip now might ruin everything.
To begin with he secured from the bathroom a clean towel and a piece of soap. Dampening the towel, he went out to the telephone and proceeded to rub the receiver free of any fingerprints that happened to be on it.
Next, rubbing a bit of soap on the damp towel, he applied to the receiver a light, unnoticeable coating of grease. That done, he switched off the lights, retired to the corridor, locked the door, disposed of the towel in the linen room and went downstairs, where he proceeded to satisfy an appetite that was by now ravenous.
After that, stuffed but satisfied, he took his way leisurely to the office of the credit manager where, without comment, he was handed a half page report from a credit agency.
He read it eagerly, then grunted with disappointment.
“I might get something more later,” the credit manager said. “As things stand, though, there doesn’t seem to be any record of him previous to two years ago.”
Bunt, according to the report, maintained a home in Syracuse and had done so for two years past. He was seldom in it, however, spending most of his time traveling about the country buying and selling antiques. His credit, never stretched, was excellent.
VII
Pocketing the report Maguire went out into the rotunda and crossed to the room phones.
“Eleven-twenty,” he told the operator.
The connection was made almost at once and a cranky voice demanded to know who was calling.
“Mr. Mulrooney,” said Shamus calmly. “I’d like to speak to Mr. Mulrooney.”
“There’s no Mr. Mulrooney here,” the cranky voice stated.
“Is this room twelve hundred and twenty?”
“No, it isn’t,” said the voice angrily. Maguire heard the receiver crash at the other end and the connection was broken. As he hung up Shamus was grinning to himself faintly.
Without loss of time, then, Maguire descended to the bowels of the building where, in a room close to a humming dynamo, he discovered a taciturn young man seated on an upturned box. He talked to this young man earnestly and inaudibly.
When Shamus had finished the young man nodded understanding and got up from his box. From a shelf he took a desk telephone wrapped about with wire and from the floor a small case of instruments.
“And be sure you don’t touch the receiver or let nothin’ rub against it,” Shamus instructed finally.