“Desmond, there’s some tall explaining coming from you,” Mahoney began savagely. “Headquarters has put it all over us on this case, and is giving us the merry laugh. What have you done? Nothing! What has this big stiff, Marty O’Donohue, done? Everything! Located the murderer, pinched, arraigned and indicted him, all in jig time. I wonder at your nerve in coming back here at all. A detective who falls down as bad as you have done ought to jump into the river.”
“Just a minute, Cap!” interrupted the happy detective. “O’Donohue thinks he put something over on me. That false alarm at the hotel, Spencer, tipped him off, I guess. I’ll attend to Spencer later. O’Donohue doesn’t know he’s alive. Never did know. And the joke of it is that, in this case, he’s pinched the wrong man.
“Anybody with common sense would know that this poor boob, Henderson, is telling a straight story. He claims that after dinner Tuesday night he went to his room, snoozed on his bed until late, then got up, went to the bathroom, found the woman’s body, got scared and beat it. That was the theory I had all along, Cap, that Henderson was just the innocent goat. And why did I feel that way? Because, right off the bat, I suspected the victim’s husband. The story he told me when I first hit the hotel sounded fishy, mighty fishy. He claimed be had been in the writing-room on the mezzanine floor for several hours — his wife was taking a nap and he didn’t want to annoy her. That’s his story. But, if Mrs. Johnson was taking a nap, why did she have on her hat when the body was found? Did you ever hear of a woman lying down and going to sleep with her hat on — unless, of course, she was drunk?”
The captain’s rage had departed. He was giving close attention to the story being told him, and his interest was growing all the time.
“Your dope sounds good,” he admitted, “but still,” he frowned, “this Henderson bird has been indicted. Don’t forget that.”
“Just listen a little more, Cap,” pleaded Desmond. “I’m giving you this case in order. Nailing Johnson’s first lie, I naturally looked for others. On the desk at which he sat were a number of addressed and sealed letters. There were so many that it would look as if the man had been writing for hours and hours. Well, I took a peek at the top letter and read the address. It was J. M. Devereau, 95 West 46th Street. Does that suggest anything to you, Cap?”
The captain shook his head; then, as a thought struck him, he knitted his brows. Looking at Desmond, he grinned.
“I get you,” he said. “The last number east of Sixth Avenue is 79 West 46th Street. That address is phony. Good work!”
“Knew it would strike you,” the detective went on cheerily. “You can see, as I did, that this fellow Johnson was just pretending to write letters, planning in that way to establish his alibi. I didn’t let on, of course, but saw to it that Johnson gave those notes to a bellboy to mail. Then I got them away from the kid, steamed them open, and found, as I suspected, that the sheets inside were blank.
“Of course, even then, I hadn’t any clear case — just suspicions; but my side partner and I have kept a close shadow on him ever since. This afternoon Johnson came down to the desk with a big valise, told the clerk he was going to visit his lawyer, but to keep his rooms, as he would be back. We trailed our man out to the Bronx and pinched him when he got near the Sound. What do you think we found in his grip? A floor rug, just sopping with blood stains. And it came from the Monolith Hotel. Better than that, from Johnson’s own room. The murderer is now resting in one of our best little cells, and we have all night to chat with him, for we don’t need to take him to court until the morning.”
“Did he confess?” asked the captain with interest.
“Not fully,” was the reluctant reply. “His story is that he went into the room and found his wife dead upon the rug. Like Henderson, he lost his nerve. Strikes me both of those birds have skeletons in their mental closets. Anyway, Johnson didn’t dare to raise the alarm. He remembered that the room back of their suite was one that could be thrown in with his if desired. In fact, the clerk had tried to make him take them both when he registered. The doors between the two bathrooms have locks on both sides, and on Henderson’s side the lock had not been thrown on. Johnson discovered this, opened up the connecting door, dragged the body into Henderson’s bathroom, locked his own side of the door, and then went downstairs to establish his alibi.
“These hotel people never like to talk, but I got some good stuff out of one of the clerks. It seems Johnson and the woman had a row during the last afternoon she was alive, and jawed so much that other guests complained, and it was necessary to give them a quiet calldown. Don’t know the nature of their spat, but in the evening the woman dined alone and went out in the street by herself, returning shortly after nine. Couldn’t get any line on Johnson’s movements, but it is safe to assume that he was hiding up in their rooms all the time, waiting for her to come in so he could kill her. Neither of the elevator boys remembers taking him up or down to the writing-room on the mezzanine floor. Yes, his yarn is fishy; no one will ever believe it, but it was probably the best he could think up on short notice. When we’ve put him over the bumps I think he’ll come across all right.”
III
The above conversation took place early on the Wednesday evening. Before noon the following day Inspector of Detectives James Dineen went to the Criminal Court Building in response to an urgent call from the District Attorney. He found that official in a most unhappy mood.
“Say, Inspector, this Hotel Monolith mystery is getting all balled up,” he complained with bitterness. “Captain Mahoney, of the Forty-seventh Street Station, has pinched another man and seems to have built up a fine case against him. What do you think about it?”
The Inspector grinned.
“It’s got me winging, too,” he admitted. “And what makes things worse is that I have just put a third bird in a cell, and I’d bet a lot of money that he is the guilty man.”
“What! Another!” gasped the District Attorney.
“Correct!” replied Dineen. “Ever heard of the Beaumont Detective Agency, a snide concern run by one Buckingham Beaumont, real name Isidore Polinsky? Well, Beaumont blew into Headquarters at daybreak with a yarn that sounded good. The wife of one J. H. Brotherton, of Toledo, Ohio, ran away some weeks ago, and Izzy was hired to locate her. Found the dame and her paramour at the Monolith, registered as Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. Yep, Johnson’s really an alias. Guy in real life is James Willoughby, a rich loafer of Toledo. When Beaumont ran them down he notified Brotherton by wire, and he took the first train east. The surprising thing is that he immediately paid off the detectives, saying he would attend to the rest himself. Wouldn’t listen to arguments that he would need corroborative evidence if he meant to sue for a divorce. Beaumont is a wise guy, though, and he had Brotherton shadowed. At ten-ten the night of the murder the wronged husband was seen to slip quietly into the Monolith. Presumption is that he stole up to the room and killed his erring wife.