“He was constantly investing in gold mines, oil wells, and new inventions of doubtful value. The last of these failed recently, and he had nothing left except this house and his retirement income.”
“Insurance?” asked Cardona.
“It was all in endowments,” said Richard. “They all matured, and the money went into the enterprises that I have mentioned.
“Father was generous. He made gifts to myself and my brothers. While he was no longer wealthy, his pension was more than sufficient for his present needs. Father was quite satisfied with life.”
“Did he have any enemies?”
“I AM positive that he had none. Of course” — Richard became reminiscent — “he dealt with unscrupulous speculators and fanatical inventors.
“He did have a few run-ins with people over money matters. But those occurred a long while ago — nothing within the past year; and they all concerned money that he had considered spending.
“Since he exhausted his resources, there were no occurrences of that nature.”
“Do you recall any definite incidents?”
“Not to a marked degree. I remember that a man visited father about two years ago, and they had a heated argument in the little living room upstairs. I heard the discussion through the doorway.
“The man wanted money for something, and claimed that father was trying to learn too much before he gave financial support. I do not know the nature of the matter.”
“What persons came here recently?”
“Only a few friends and acquaintances. How many, I do not know. They generally came on evenings when I was out.
“Father mentioned that he had occasional visitors, but he never brought up names.”
“I wonder,” said Cardona, “if any one was here last night. Let’s look around the place.”
At Richard Sutton’s suggestion, they went upstairs to the little living room. They found a check book in Thomas Sutton’s desk. The stubs, marked with initials and abbreviations, referred to small amounts.
There were a few letters and other items of correspondence. These offered no real clew.
HERE was a case that seemed totally devoid of pertinent facts. The only person who could have come under suspicion was Richard Sutton. He knew that the door of the downstairs closet would close and latch of its own accord.
Richard Sutton appeared to be an upright young man. His statements had been direct, and were given without hesitation. They were the kind of statements that could be checked in detail.
The son of Thomas Sutton must be innocent, Cardona felt, although the methodical detective intended to obtain statements from the other sons whom Richard had mentioned.
The task at hand was to search for anything that might show that some one had been here last night, or any evidence to the effect that Thomas Sutton had been influenced to enter the death trap.
The peaceful nature of the old man’s demise clearly indicated the possibilities of the master hand that had engineered the deaths of Silas Harshaw and Louis Glenn.
But this crime — if crime it was — seemed more perplexing than either of the other two.
Peering under the desk, Cardona spied a wastebasket and brought it forth. He saw a few papers in it. They proved to be printed circulars.
The detective shook his head as he looked at Roger Biscayne. Then he replaced the wastebasket.
As he did so, Cardona spied something on the floor beneath the desk. In another moment, the detective had stooped, and was exhibiting two crumpled objects — one an envelope, the other a sheet of paper.
Unfolding the paper, Cardona spread it upon the desk. With Biscayne peering over his shoulder, Cardona pointed quickly to the characters that appeared upon the crumpled sheet.
There were words there — typed in letters identical with those that had appeared in the death messages:
DEAR SUTTON:
YOU WILL FIND YOUR GOLD-HEADED CANE ON THE SHELF OF THE CLOSET UNDER YOUR FRONT STAIRS. DANA.
Eagerly, Cardona swung toward Richard Sutton, who was standing at the other side of the room.
“Did your father have a gold-headed cane?” questioned the detective.
“Yes,” said Richard, in surprise. “He lost it a few months ago. He prized it very highly; it was a gift from a very dear friend.”
“Who is Dana?” asked Cardona.
“Roy Dana is an old friend of my father’s,” answered Richard. “One of my father’s best friends, in fact. He is a retired attorney, who lives in New Jersey.
“I called him before you came, to tell him of my father’s death. I learned that he went to Florida, two days ago.”
CARDONA was looking at the envelope. He noted that it was different from those which had contained the death messages.
The address was not typed. It was written in a rather shaky scrawl. But the postmark indicated the same office as the other letters.
“It was mailed two nights ago,” said Cardona to Biscayne.
“In between the death messages,” responded the professor.
“Yes,” said the detective. “The post office paid no attention to it, because it was not addressed to police headquarters.
“It may have come in yesterday morning’s delivery — perhaps not until yesterday afternoon.”
“That is more likely,” said Biscayne.
Richard Sutton had approached to look at the letter.
“If that came yesterday,” he said, “I doubt that my father would have opened it until last night.”
“Why?”
“Because he made it a practice to look in the mail box when he came home in the evening. I never use this address — I get all my mail at the club. What does the letter say?”
Cardona showed the message to Richard.
“Dana never sent that,” said the young man emphatically. “But I don’t think the fact would have registered itself with my father.
“Any statement of where the cane might be, would have caused him to act without question. That lost cane had become an obsession with him.”
“Why don’t you think Dana sent it?” asked Cardona.
Richard rummaged in the desk and brought out a greeting card that Cardona had tossed aside as unimportant.
It was addressed to Thomas Sutton, and was signed “Roy.”
“There is Dana’s handwriting,” stated Richard. “Firm — not shaky. I always admired the old man’s penmanship.”
Cardona nodded in agreement. He looked at Biscayne, then at Commissioner Weston, who was standing by with anxious eyes.
Then the detective stood erect and faced Richard Sutton.
“Sutton,” he said, “your father was murdered! Yes, murdered — not by any one who entered here, but by the man who sent this message.
“It led Thomas Sutton to the closet; it caused him to enter there with only one thought — to look on that shelf at the back. The door closed upon the unfortunate victim just as effectively as if some one had stood there to push it shut!
“Perhaps you have read of two deaths in the newspapers — Silas Harshaw and Louis Glenn.
“We have been notified of a third death. It has occurred. The murderer chose your father as victim.
“I have already given information to the newspapers. I am going to tell them that your father, too, was murdered.
“We cannot afford to neglect a single chance. Outside of the death messages, this letter is all that we have.
“But it is different. The others were received after death had struck. This one came before death.” The detective tapped the note with his forefinger. “This is the weapon which killed Thomas Sutton!”
Cardona turned to meet the commending eyes of Commissioner Ralph Weston. Professor Roger Biscayne was nodding his full approval of Cardona’s explanation.