“We made it,” the sheriff said and there was a catch in his voice.
“Do you think your own car can make it?” Quade asked.
The sheriff shook his head. “No, not a chance in the world. That bridge is going out of its own accord inside of a half hour.”
“Then perhaps you’d better not walk back after it. I’ll drive you to where you’re going.”
The sheriff nodded. “Thanks. It’s the Olcott place. ’Bout a quarter mile ahead, then a driveway to the left.”
There was a stone arch over the driveway leading into the Olcott place. That told Quade that he was entering the grounds of a rich man’s estate.
The house, two hundred yards from the highway, was built on a hilltop. It was ablaze with lights and had, Quade estimated, at least twenty rooms. A smaller house nearby was evidently the servants’ quarters.
Quade braked the coupe to a stop before the big house. The raincoated officers climbed out.
“Thanks a lot, mister,” the sheriff said. “If you ever get arrested in Spurling I’ll see that you get treated better than usual.”
Quade said, “That’s very generous of you. But how the devil am I going to get away from here? You said this was an island?”
“Yeah, I’d forgot.” The sheriff frowned. “There’s another bridge a quarter-mile beyond, but I’ve a notion that it’s gone out already. It was lower than the one we crossed.”
“Fine,” said Quade. “I was just looking for an excuse not to drive any more tonight. And I’ve always wanted to spend a day or two on a swell estate like this.”
“You forget why we’re here,” said the sheriff. “A murder—”
“Dead ones don’t scare me,” Quade replied. “Only live ones. I don’t imagine Mr. Murderer hung around here to wait for the cops. Let’s go inside.”
Someone inside the big house must have heard the car stop for before the three men reached the front door it was thrown wide open. A butler in livery peered out. He asked:
“Are you the police?”
“We are,” said the sheriff. “And we had one sweet time getting here.”
Quade and the officers entered the house and began taking off their dripping coats. The butler took them.
A white-haired man came out of the living room on the right.
“Sheriff Starkey!” he exclaimed. “I’m glad you made it. I — well, you know why we sent for you.”
“Yes, Mr. Olcott. You said your brother was killed.”
The man called Olcott shook his head. “It — it was frightful. Allison went to call him for dinner and there — there he was.”
“Lead the way, Mr. Olcott,” the sheriff said.
The white-haired man grimaced and turned to a staircase. The sheriff, the deputy and Quade followed.
A wide corridor split the second floor. On the side where the staircase was, five doors opened onto the corridor; on the unbroken side, six doors. All the doors except the last one to the left of the stairs were open. Ferdinand Olcott led the way to the closed door.
The sheriff pushed open the door. The light was on in the bedroom.
“Ah,” said the sheriff. The deputy cleared his throat hoarsely.
The dead man was about fifty; in life he had been an athletic, heavy-set man. His hair was iron-gray and his face tanned as if he had lived in the open.
There was much blood on the bed. Quade felt his insides tighten and wished that he had stayed in the city, back there fifty miles or so.
The sheriff drew a breath and approached the bed. He examined the body, then said, “It’s just a little hole. He must have bled to death.”
“No,” said Quade. “He died almost instantly. The blade went through the spinal cord at the back of his neck. If he hadn’t died instantly, he would have screamed.”
The sheriff looked sharply at Quade. “Maybe he did scream; what makes you think he didn’t?”
“Mr. Olcott said the butler came to call him for dinner. If he’d screamed, someone in the house would have heard him.”
“Mmm.” The sheriff looked suspiciously at Oliver Quade. “What about the knife hitting his spinal cord? How’d you figure that? Are you a doctor?”
“No, not at all. I’m Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia.”
Sheriff Starkey’s eyes widened. “The Human what?”
“Human Encyclopedia.”
“I don’t get you. Why should you be a Human Encyclopedia?”
“Well, because I sell encyclopedias.”
“You’re a book agent? I’ll be damned.”
Mr. Olcott, standing just inside the door, said anxiously: “He — he was killed? It’s not suicide?”
The sheriff looked at the paper-knife lying on the floor, near the foot of the bed, then at the edge of the sheet where the killer had wiped off the blade.
“It couldn’t have been suicide,” he said. “The blade was obviously wiped off and a man killing himself wouldn’t do that.”
“He was your brother?” Quade asked, turning to Olcott.
Olcott nodded. “Yes, but I hadn’t seen him in six years until he came to visit here last week.”
The sheriff looked disapprovingly at Quade. Then he said to the old man, “Then you don’t know very much about your brother?”
“As much as anyone, I guess. He wrote me often. He owns a tremendously large cattle ranch down in the Argentine.”
Quade saw the sheriff’s eyes light up and knew the question of inheritance had popped into his mind. But the sheriff didn’t ask it. Instead he examined his finger nails.
“I’d like to use your phone now, Mr. Olcott,” he said.
“Of course. Downstairs.”
“Yes. I’m through here, for the time being.”
The upper corridor was strangely devoid of servants. The dead man in the end bedroom had frightened them downstairs, Quade reasoned.
He and the lawmen and Ferdinand Olcott descended to the entrance hall. There the sheriff picked up a phone from a stand. He jiggled the hook, then replaced the receiver on it.
“It’s dead. I’ve been expecting that.” He looked at his deputy. Higginbotham was a big man, standing over six feet, and weighing close to two hundred pounds. He was a young fellow, not over twenty-five. His forehead wrinkled as soon as the sheriff looked at him.
“Lou,” the sheriff said. “You’d better go and see if either of the bridges are still in. With the telephone wire down…” He left the sentence unfinished.
The deputy coughed awkwardly. “You mean I should walk?”
The sheriff looked at Quade, then at Olcott. He said, “Isn’t your chauffeur here, Mr. Olcott?”
“Yes, of course, he’s in the kitchen with the rest of the servants. I’ll have him get out one of the small cars and drive your man.”
Allison, the butler, came out of a door. “Allison,” said Mr. Olcott, “tell Charles to take this deputy where he wants to go. In the smallest car.”
The butler and the deputy went through a door at the end of the hall. Olcott turned to the sheriff then. “I suppose you will want to talk to the family — and the guests?”
“Yes, of course.”
Ferdinand Olcott led the way into a living room that ran the width of the house, more than forty feet. There were seven or eight people in it. Quade wondered that none had been curious enough to come out into the hallway when he and the police officers had arrived.
There was one woman. She was young, beautiful; a rather tall, blonde girl with a boyish figure and classic features. Oliver Quade liked her intelligent expression. She was Martha Olcott, the daughter of the house.
The men interested Quade most. His sharp eyes studied them carefully. Movie-goers would instantly have picked the swarthy man as the villain of the play. He was of middle height, slightly stout, used pomade on his hair, and had a pointed, waxed mustache. This was Arturo Nogales and he was, Ferdinand Olcott explained, the dead man’s business manager.