“Private business,” answered the young man simply.
After ten minutes a wagon load of police arrived, together with the detective sent from headquarters, who had joined them at the foot of the driveway. The detective was a young man who had made himself quite a name locally — Frank Reilly, who had begun as traffic officer and was now one of the most capable sleuths in the department.
A systematic search was begun immediately. The squad began in the cellar and went through the whole big house to the attic — without finding any trace of an intruder. But they made another discovery — a negative one which seemed amazing under the circumstances.
“Sergeant,” Forrest declared, as he returned downstairs, his face puzzled, “do you know what? There isn’t a window or a door been broke open in this place! No, sir. We tested the lock on every door and window. Even in the cellar. Every single one is closed and fastened except the one we broke in through, and they’re all extra heavy fastenings. And all the doors is bolted besides being locked.”
“Humph. Looks like Mr. Stewart was afraid of some one, eh?”
“Sure — but don’t you see what I’m coming to, sarge? How did the murderer get at him to plug him? You seen yourself that he didn’t finish forcing the window, and there was no bullet hole in the glass.”
“Eh? Why, that’s right! How did he? Here — let’s make sure of that.”
Several of the party followed him to the dining room, while he carefully examined each of the windows. A whistle of amazement escaped him.
“Upon my soul, Forrest’s right!” he mused aloud. “How the devil did the fellow get at him?”
“Well, sir, now let’s see,” said Inspector Frank Reilly, peering around with his merry, bright blue eyes. “There’s no doubt that the poor man was slain in his room, I guess?”
“Yeah — but how was he?” White demanded.
“Well, that’s what I’ll be tryin’ to find out for you, sergeant. First of all, now, are we sure it was him that called headquarters, or was it maybe some one imitatin’ him?”
“That don’t answer the question how he was shot in a locked and bolted house.”
“No,” the detective admitted. He took off his hat and laid it on the table.
“You’ve sent for the medical examiner?” Sergeant White asked.
“McQueen is away,” Forrest answered. “They’re sending Porter over.”
“There’s a hole in the wall,” Frank Reilly observed.
“Eh? Where?”
He pointed to the floor at one end of the room, where work had been begun opening a chimney for the purpose of building a fireplace.
The sergeant dropped to his hands and knees and muttered contemptuously.
“A hole, yeah — but a man could hardly put his arm through it, let alone coming in and out. Maybe he let himself down the chimney and fired through that hole, eh, Frank?”
The Irishman’s face turned crimson at the gibe. “W-well… I was only thinkin’.”
The doorbell interrupted them. Operatives Thompson and Somers, from the National Detective Agency, had arrived. Sergeant White did not like Somers.
“To see Mr. Stewart, eh? Sure — come on in and see him.”
He himself went outdoors. It had occurred to him that he might find footprints in the snow, made by the man who had evidently tried to force the window.
But Sergeant White was too late for this. Although the snow had stopped, it had fallen heavily for thirty minutes since the crime had been discovered; and the only clew which White found was the jimmy, lying half covered not far from the window.
“Humph,” said Sergeant White heavily, as he took possession of it.
Chapter V
With Motive Unknown
Inspector Harry Gray was called into the case early Friday morning. Gray was a short, wiry, energetic man of forty-five, the most experienced and most sagacious detective on the force — one who disdained “bullying” methods — a policeman of the old school, of a type fast disappearing.
At six o’clock, while a cold dawn was breaking, he was on his way to Stewart’s residence in his coupe. No more snow had fallen since the flurry of the early evening; and the temperature had dropped twenty degrees during the night. These facts held a special significance for Gray, from which he hoped to obtain results at daybreak.
“Footprints and wheel tracks—” was the idea he had expressed upon setting out from headquarters.
He had driven about half of the distance to the Arborway when he observed a man standing at the curb, evidently waiting for the first street car. The man’s form seemed familiar, although his face was nearly hidden by the turned-up collar of his ulster.
He was over six feet in height, with broad, heavy shoulders and a slouch hat pulled down to protect his face from the intense cold. The inspector stopped, made sure of his identity, and laughed a greeting.
“Where in the world are you going so early, Steele?”
The other came forward to the window. “Good morning, Harry! Are you going out toward the Arborway?”
“The Arborway?” exclaimed Gray, looking at him in surprise and flinging open the door. “Sure — that’s exactly where I’m going? What — are you on this Stewart case?”
“I believe we are, for a short time,” the director of the private agency said. “You see, Stewart called our office last evening and had two of my men sent out. By the time that they arrived—”
“Oh, yes,” declared the inspector, slipping his machine back into high gear, “I heard that two private dicks came last night, but I didn’t know they were yours. Mind telling me what Stewart wanted of them?”
“He said that he was in danger.”
“M-mm. The same thing he told us. Your men didn’t stay last night, did they?”
Steele shook his head. “They decided there was nothing they could do. But I think we owe Stewart eight hours’ work, in any case.”
“I get you. Where’s your car this morning?”
“The radiator is frozen.”
“Oh! Too bad! Might mean a new jacket, hmm? Bad business, letting radiators freeze. Still, no one could guess the thermometer was going to drop so far.”
“By the way,” his friend inquired, “have you made any overtures to the superintendent about—”
“Not yet, Steele. I want to catch him in just the right humor. But I… I’ll tell you frankly — I’m tempted to do it, whether he wants to make me chief of detectives or not. I’m mightily tempted to do it.”
Steele had been urging Gray to accept a position as manager of his office in Chicago, to fill a vacancy left by the resignation of Arthur Williams.
“Have you any one else in view?”
“One,” the private investigator admitted. “An exceptionally bright young man named Dexter, from New Hampshire. But he has an agency of his own there.”
“Well,” Gray observed, as they turned a sharp corner and skidded in the light snow, “this Stewart affair is certainly a queer one. We can’t find out how the murderer got into the house. Everything was shut tight and fastened. We want to know how on earth the fellow got in. Or was he inside already — and, if so, how did he get out and leave everything locked behind him?”
“Thompson says there are no clews at all.”
“Well, he’s certainly wrong about that, Steele. Sergeant White wouldn’t tell him, I guess. There are altogether too many clews. And they implicate — well, it’s such a big order that the commissioner refuses to allow any action at present.”
“Would you give me an outline of what you know?”
“I surely will. In the first place, Stewart called headquarters, evidently in great fright, just as he called your office. Captain Needham called eighteen, and they rushed Sergeant White out to his house with two men.