“Do you mind, Mr. Mallory, if we take a look at his study?”
“Not at all, sergeant. Just follow me.”
IV
The secretary led the way into the room Brady had described, and Riordan’s first glance was at the day-calendar upon Mr. Staples’s desk. Its topmost sheet bore the current date, the fifteenth. Riordan sat down in the big armchair that Staples had used when he was there, and looked slowly about the room. Mallory stood watching him for awhile, and then dropped into a chair on the opposite side of the desk. After a lengthy and slow survey of everything in sight from his seat, Riordan looked at Mallory.
“You spoke some time ago,” he said, “of Mr. Staples’s great regard for Bishop Gale, and of his questioning you about the impression he made upon the bishop. What was the last inquiry of that nature that you remember, Mr. Mallory?”
“I really can’t recall,” the secretary answered at once.
“Well, try and recall it,” Riordan’s voice for the first time had lost its pleasant quality, and bordered upon the harsh. The secretary flushed slightly.
There was silence in the room for several minutes. Suddenly Sergeant Riordan broke it, snapping out:
“This desk calendar, when did you tear the leaves off and bring it up to date? When Captain Brady was here it showed Saturday, the fifth. Now it shows the fifteenth.”
“I... I... I don’t remember when I changed it.”
“What’d you change it for?”
Mallory pulled himself together. “I must have changed it this morning, when I was in here. I always try to keep everything ready, just as if Mr. Staples were here — it helps to pass away the time.”
“You didn’t change it before, when Brady was here. But you changed the others. What was the idea?”
“Why... why, there was a notation on it. I thought that ought to be left, that everything ought to be left just as it was when he disappeared.”
“You told Captain Brady that you didn’t know there was anything written on it till he called your attention to it.”
Mallory bit his lip. “It was such a trivial detail,” he said, almost stammering, “that I can’t really remember. I don’t see why both of you—”
“What was the last thing about the bishop that he worried about?” cut in Riordan.
“The gar — really, I don’t know.”
Sergeant Riordan leaned back again and looked about the room once more. Presently he closed his eyes, and sat as if he had dozed off. The minutes passed and he made no move. Mallory, watching him, began to fidget in his chair.
Riordan’s eyes popped open and bored into the secretary’s.
“Now, Mr. Mallory,” he said, his voice gentle again, “I’ve given you time to think it over and make up your mind. What was the last thing about the bishop that you recall Mr. Staples was worried about? You started to say it.”
“The gardener, sergeant. The bishop’s gardener had left him very suddenly, and he wrote Mr. Staples asking him to recommend another, and to loan him one of his until the new man arrived. We sent Jonas over. He was there for almost two weeks before Mr. Staples got the man he wanted.”
“When did he get the man, the new man?”
“Friday, I think it was, the day before he disappeared. He called the bishop up about it. After that he seemed quite worried, and kept saying he hoped the new gardener would please the bishop. Asked me several times if I thought he would. I answered that I was sure he would. ‘How do you know,’ he asked me, ‘you’ve never seen him?’ I answered that I was sure any man he selected would be satisfactory.”
“What was the new gardener’s name? Where did he come from?”
“I don’t know, sergeant. Mr. Staples never told me. I think the man came from quite a little distance away, it took him nearly two weeks to get here.”
“He might have been a local man and given his former employer two weeks’ notice, mightn’t he?”
“I think he was from quite a way off, sergeant. I got that impression.”
“You got the letter the bishop wrote asking him to recommend a gardener? Got it on file?”
“Yes, sergeant. Mr. Staples wanted all the bishop’s letters kept.”
“Thank you. Did Mr. Staples write in reply, and have you a copy of that reply?”
“He telephoned, sergeant. Mr. Staples wrote very few letters. He dictated very few. Mainly he used the telephone in communicating with people in the city. With most of those outside, to whom it was necessary that he write, he told me what he wanted said, and I wrote for him. We had an accepted form: ‘Mr. Staples is very busy, and in reply to your kind letter, requests me to inform you—’ whatever it might be.”
“Oh, I see. And you don’t remember when you changed this desk calendar?”
“It must have been this morning, sergeant.”
“Did you tear off all the sheets since the one of the fifth, or did you change it yesterday, too?”
“I changed it yesterday and the day before. In fact, I think I have changed it every day since I was — was released from — released by Captain Brady.”
Riordan made no comment, and after waiting for a moment Mallory replaced the letter from the bishop in the files. When he turned back Riordan was standing.
“You got any money?” he asked.
“A little, sergeant.”
“Who’s paying your salary, since Mr. Staples went away?”
“There hasn’t been any due. Mr. Staples paid me the first of the month. There won’t be any due till next month. Mr. Keefe, however, the attorney, said he would look out for me in that respect.”
“That’s nice. Well, Mallory, that will be all for to-day. Thank you for answering my questions.”
The secretary accompanied Riordan to the door. As he opened the portal he said:
“Have you found out anything yet, sergeant?”
“Who? Me? Lord no, I just came on the case. You’re the first man I’ve seen. Good day.”
He entered the police car and was driven to the Ocean Terminal. Summerfield, who knew him well, showed him to the mysterious room over Pier B, and he examined its restored tin wall covering with much interest, especially the plain print of a hobnailed boot almost in its center. Then he looked closely at the dark red spots on the walls, plainly marked by the lead pencil rings Captain Brady had drawn, and by the marks of scrapings where some of the stain had been removed for investigation.
“Horrible, isn’t it?” commented Summerfield.
“I’ll say it’s horrible,” was the reply, as Riordan turned and retraced his steps to the waiting police car, and climbed in.
“You know where my house is,” he said to the driver. “Well, chase out there, and be prepared to wait awhile, too.”
When Sergeant Riordan returned to the detective bureau late in the afternoon he found Captain Brady in conversation with the senior member of the law firm of Keefe, Sanderson & Keefe. His chief introduced him, and told him that Mr. Keefe had called to discuss the wording of an advertisement he intended to place in the papers in reply to the one just printed in the Chronicle, and of which he had been made aware before its publication. They asked the sergeant’s views.
“It doesn’t make much difference what you say,” he replied to the inquiry. “What the person who wrote that first ad wants to find out is whether you’ll do business. Any answer will tell him that. Then he or she will begin to boost the price on you.”
“How much do you think will be asked for Mr. Staples’s body, sergeant?” asked Mr. Keefe.