It was a large room that looked as if it belonged in a Victorian English manor house. Floor to ceiling bookshelves covered two walls; damask drapery partially concealed a third, revealing at least one window; and a huge brick fireplace, with a rectangular brick hearth in front of it, comprised the fourth wall. There was a maroon carpet, two large Victorian chairs, a matching sofa, a polished-wood reading table with six leather-backed chairs, and ornate reading lamps and ceiling fixtures.
The dead man lay prone on the carpeting at a right angle to the fireplace hearth, just in front of it. One arm was out-flung over his head, and there was a dark stain of blood spreading out from under his chest. He had been in his sixties. He wore a wine-colored dressing gown, slippers, a pair of striped pajamas.
A thin, fifty-ish man, white-haired, long-faced, wearing a black suit but no tie, had been sitting on the sofa. He stood up as Di Lucca and Corcoran entered, and came stiffly toward them.
“Mr. Prentiss?” Di Lucca asked him.
“Yes, sir.” Prentiss had a soft, sepulchral voice. “It was I who called you. I am — I was Mr. Warren’s butler.”
Di Lucca introduced himself and Corcoran, and then went to where the body lay and knelt down beside it. It was difficult to tell from the dead man’s prone position, but it appeared that he had been shot in the chest — shot because that was what Prentiss had told him on the phone. There was nothing else to see just yet.
He straightened again. “Anybody touch or move the body?”
“No, sir,” Prentiss answered.
“You were the one who found him. Is that right?”
“I was, yes.”
Di Lucca looked at Corcoran, and saw with mild satisfaction that the rookie had his note pad out, pencil poised over it. He said, “Can you tell us what happened here, Mr. Prentiss?”
“I’ll try, sir. I’m still somewhat in a state of shock.” Prentiss was silent for a moment, then he went on, “I get up at six-thirty every morning. This morning I was dressing when I heard the report of the gun shots, so it must have been six-forty or thereabouts. I rushed out of my room on the second floor, came downstairs, and looked first in the parlor. I saw and heard nothing. Then I came to the library, and Mr. Warren was moaning behind the closed doors. I tried the doors, but they were locked. I was quite distraught, and I... well, I struck the doors several times with my shoulder until finally they burst open.”
Di Lucca asked, “And Mr. Warren was lying where he is now, in front of the fireplace?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Was he still alive when you reached him?”
“Barely alive,” Prentiss said. “I started to turn him over, to see how badly he was injured, but then he spoke and I—”
“Spoke? He said something before he died?”
“Yes, sir. He said — well, it doesn’t seem to make much sense but I distinctly heard the words: ‘Pick up sticks’.”
“ ‘Pick up sticks’?”
“I am quite positive those were his exact words, sir.”
“Do you have any idea what he meant?”
“I’ve thought about it carefully, sir, and I can’t imagine what significance the words could have.”
Di Lucca glanced at Corcoran, who was no longer writing on his notepad; his face was eager and intensely thoughtful, and Di Lucca knew his imagination had begun working on ‘pick up sticks’. He sighed inaudibly and said to Prentiss, “Did Mr. Warren say anything else?”
“No, sir. He died then. There was nothing I could do.”
“What happened next?”
“There was quite a bit of confusion. Miss Hughes and Mr. Charon and Mr. Finney had arrived by then — they are the other members of the household — and everyone seemed to be speaking at once. I looked around the room, but I did not find the weapon which had killed Mr. Warren. I also examined the windows, thinking that perhaps a burglar was responsible, but they were and are unbroken and securely locked. Then I telephoned—”
“Locked?” Corcoran interrupted. “Locked from the inside?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And didn’t you say all of the library doors were locked too?”
“Yes, sir, they were.”
“Then Simon Warren was killed in a locked room!”
“I am afraid it would seem so,” Prentiss said.
Corcoran’s eyes were wide. “A locked room! A dying message!” He looked at Di Lucca. “Lord, Rennie!”
Yeah, Di Lucca thought. He said to Prentiss. “Was Mr. Warren in the habit of getting up as early as you do?”
“He was not. He usually arose at nine.”
“Well, do you have any idea what he was doing here in the library so early?”
“No, sir. It’s quite odd.”
“What do you think happened here this morning?”
Prentiss’ lips pursed. “I would imagine, sir, that since the room was locked, and since no one could have entered or left the premises who does not belong here, either Miss Hughes or Mr. Finney or Mr. Charon did it. That one of them, the guilty one, was not in bed at the time of the shooting.”
“Would you say they all had reason to kill Simon Warren?”
“I would,” Prentiss said firmly. “The same reason: money.”
“Money?”
“Quite so. You see, Mr. Warren was something less than generous with his considerable assets.”
“You mean he was tight?” Corcoran asked.
Prentiss looked at him distastefully. “Yes, if you prefer.”
Di Lucca asked, “Where did the Warren money come from?”
“Antiques,” Prentiss answered. “Until his retirement two years ago, Mr. Warren was quite a well-known dealer in antiques.”
“I see. And you say there was some friction over money between Mr. Warren and the others who live here?”
“To put it mildly, sir. Miss Hughes, Mr. Warren’s secretary, complained constantly that he paid very little salary and she has something of a penchant for fine clothes and expensive adornments. Mr. Finney is what was once termed a playboy, also with quite expensive tastes and little allowance with which to indulge them. Mr. Charon, unfortunately, is addicted to horse racing. Each of them wanted or needed money, and I’m quite sure, sir, that each of them was mentioned prominently in Mr. Warren’s will.”
“Are you also included in the will, Mr. Prentiss?”
“I believe so, sir,” Prentiss said with dignity. “However, money has never been a particular consideration in my life — and with myself, at least, Mr. Warren was not ungenerous.”
“Uh-huh. Well, do you know of any threats the others might have made against Mr. Warren’s life?”
“Not in so many words, no, sir. At least not in my presence.”
“Did anything happen last night — an argument, like that?”
“Not to my knowledge. It was quite a normal evening.”
“Are there any guns in the house?”
“I believe Mr. Warren had one, sir, but I do not know where it is.”
“Do any of the others own a gun?”
“As far as I’m aware, no, sir.”
Prentiss had nothing else to tell them of import, and Di Lucca asked him to wait in the parlor with the others.
When he and Di Lucca were alone, Corcoran said, “What do you make of all of it, Rennie? How do you figure the old man was murdered in a locked room? And what could ‘pick up sticks’ mean?”
“Now how would I know?” Di Lucca asked. “We only been here ten minutes.”
“But a locked room, a cryptic message from a dying man, probably naming his killer...”
“Procedure, Corcoran,” Di Lucca reminded him. “We’re cops, remember. We got a procedure to follow.”
“Sure, Rennie, but—”
“Come on, let’s go over the room a little.”
Di Lucca went first to the entrance doors and looked again at the bar-lock arrangement. The doors had obviously been fastened from the inside when Prentiss broke them open, and as far as he could see there was no way the bar could have been put in place from anywhere except the inside. Besides that, there was the time element; Prentiss had gotten to the library no more than a couple of minutes after the shooting.