“To see Mount, yes, sir. But you must go to the police this afternoon, at once.”
“This afternoon!” The lawyer glanced in helpless consternation at the book in his hand. “Now, Dan, there’s no use rushing things. I’ll go tomorrow. Anyway, what right has this Mount to upset my whole office like this?”
“He’s your client, sir. This is April sixteenth, and the trial is set for the eighteenth of May. There’s no time to be lost.”
“Yes, hang it all, he’s my client,” the lawyer agreed. “So much the worse for him, but I suppose I ought to do the best I can. All right, I’ll go this afternoon.”
“Right away, sir.”
“Yes. You want answers to all these questions, do you?”
“Yes, sir. And tomorrow, besides seeing Mount, you must go to the office where he says he worked, and other places. I’ll see about the drugstore myself. There’ll be a lot to do.”
“There sure will, if we follow your orders.” Mr. Leg was beginning to recover his good humor.
“Yes, sir. I’m going up to the flat now, and I—” the youth hesitated — “I may need some money for janitors and people like that. They talk better when you give them something.”
“Dan, you’re a cynic.” Mr. Leg pulled out his wallet. “How much?”
“I think fifty dollars, sir.”
“Here’s a hundred.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Fifteen minutes later, having waited to see his employer safely started for police headquarters, Dan took his hat from the closet. On his way to the door he stopped beside the stenographer’s desk, where that proud damsel was seated at work on her dainty embroidery.
“Maybe pretty soon you’ll think I’m not just a boy anymore, Miss Venner.”
The lady looked up.
“Oh! I suppose you think you’re going to do something great.”
“You bet I am.” Enthusiasm and confidence shone from Dan’s eyes. “You’ll see. And then, when I want to tell you — er — tell you—”
“Well, tell me what?” Miss Venner smiled with sweet maliciousness.
But Dan appeared to have no finish for his sentence. Suddenly he bent over and imprinted a loud kiss on the dainty piece of embroidery, and then, his face burning red, he made for the door.
Chapter IV
A Slip of Paper
It was nearly four o’clock when Dan arrived at the apartment house on One Hundred and Fifty-seventh Street, the address of which he had obtained from Mr. Leg. He first stood across the street and ran his eye over the exterior. It was a five-story stone building, the oldest and smallest in the block, with fire escapes in front. Dan picked out the three east windows on the third floor as those of the flat in which Elaine Mount had met her death.
He crossed the street and rang the janitor’s bell. After a minute’s delay there appeared in the areaway below a hard-looking customer with a black mustache.
“What do you want?” he demanded gruffly, looking up at the boy on the stoop.
Dan smiled down at him.
“Are you the janitor?”
“Yes.”
Dan descended to the areaway.
“I’m from Mr. Leg’s office, the lawyer for the man held for the murder committed here. I want to look through the flat. Is there a policeman in charge?”
“In charge of what?”
“The flat.”
“No.”
“Is it sealed up?”
“No. They took the seal off day before yesterday. But I don’t know who you are, young fellow.”
“That’s all right. I have a letter here from Mr. Leg. See.” As Dan pulled the letter from his pocket a five-dollar bill came with it. The letter was soon returned, but the bill found its way to the janitor’s grimy palm.
“I’d like to go through the flat, if you don’t mind,” Dan repeated.
“All right,” the other agreed more amiably. “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t, seeing as it’s for rent.”
He turned and led the way through the dark hall and up the stairs. Dan observed as they passed that the corridor on the ground floor was quite narrow and deserted, there being neither telephone switchboard nor elevator. This was evidently one of the old houses erected on the Heights between 1890 and 1900, with its entire lack of twentieth-century middle-class show.
“Here you are,” said the janitor, stopping at the door on the right two flights up. He selected a key from a bunch, unlocked the door and passed within, with Dan at his heels.
With one foot across the threshold, Dan stopped short in amazed consternation. What he saw was a flat bare of furniture, with discolored wall paper and dirty floors; in short, that dreariest and dismalest of all sights on earth, a vacant and empty apartment.
“But... but—” the youth stammered in dismay. “But there’s nothing here.”
“Nope. All empty,” returned the janitor placidly.
“But how — do the police know of this?”
“Sure. I told you they was here day before yesterday and took the seal off. They said we could take the stuff out. One of the cops told me they had the man that did it, so there wasn’t any use keeping it locked up any longer.”
“Where’s the furniture and things?”
“In storage. Hauled away yesterday.”
For a minute Dan gazed at the dismantled flat in dismayed silence. If there had been anything here which would have been of value to his untrained eye it was now too late.
“Spilt milk,” he finally observed aloud. “No use crying.” He turned again to the janitor.
“Who got the stuff ready?”
“I did.”
“Did you take away anything, did you leave papers and everything in the desks and drawers, if there were any?”
“Sure I did.” The janitor appeared to be a little nettled at this slight aspersion on his integrity. “I didn’t take nothing. Of course there was a lot of papers and trash and stuff I cleaned out.”
“Did you throw it away?”
“Yes. It ain’t gone yet, though; it’s still down in the basement.”
“Do you mind if I take a look at it?”
So they returned downstairs, and there, in a dark corner of the basement the janitor pointed out a dirty old bag filled with papers and all sorts of trash. With a feeling that he was making a silly fool of himself, Dan dragged the bag out into the fight and dumped its contents on the cement floor. Then he began to pick the articles up one by one, examine them, and replace them in the bag.
There was a little bit of everything: magazines and newspapers, a broken inkwell, stubs of lead pencils, writing paper, banana skins, combings of hair, bills from butchers and delicatessen shops.
There was a lot of it, and he pawed through the stuff for an hour before he came across anything that appeared to him worthy of attention. This was a small piece of white paper, rectangular in shape. In one corner was an imprint of the seal of the County of New York, and across the middle of the sheet was written in ink:
Dan carried the paper to the window and examined it attentively, and ended by sticking it in his pocket.
“I’m crazy, I suppose,” he murmured to himself. “It’s all right to have an idea, but there’s no sense in expecting — However, we’ll see.”
In another thirty minutes he had finished with the heap of trash, having found nothing else of interest. He found the janitor in the front room of the basement, smoking a pipe and reading a newspaper. On a table before him was a bucket of beer. Already Mr. Leg’s five-dollar bill was cheering humanity.
“Through?” asked the janitor, glancing up with a grin that was supposed to be amiable. “Find anything?”
Dan shook his head. “No. And now, mister — I didn’t get your name—”