Fleming gripped the other’s arm convulsively.
“Not—not — the girl?” he whispered.
“Calm yourself,” replied Dreer. “It was a man—an elderly man—”
Fleming sighed his relief, then laughed at the absurdity of his interest in her.
“I’m a romantic, susceptible, bred-in-the-bone fool,” he told himself as he followed Dreer up the steps.
In the narrow, low-ceilinged entry — illuminated by a single gas jet, flaring weirdly—they found a policeman on guard: a Swede, one Hjalmar Yensen, with whom even Knibbs was acquainted.
“Good evening, Yensen,” said the murder squad man. “What’s been going on here?”
“Ay don’ know. Somebody kill himself, Ay gass.”
“You were sent from headquarters merely to see that no one left the house, eh?”
“Yeh. Ay ask skal Ay pinch somebody, an’ dey say, ‘Hal, no; leave dat to Master Dreer.’ ”
“Very good,” nodded the weazened little fellow, his green spectacles bobbing eagerly, for he was always eager when approaching a case that promised difficulties. “Who’s upstairs?”
“Yust a cop a doctor.”
“And the residents—the people of the house?”
“Yeh. Ay forgot dem.”
Dreer waited for no more, but clattered up the uncarpeted stairs with Fleming Metcalf Knibbs at his heels.
A light in the front room drew them. They hurried past a bluecoat at the door and stood for a moment on the threshold, taking in the scene.
The body, covered by a sheet, lay near a small table in a corner of the room. In addition to the table were only two other articles of furniture: one a bedstead on which reposed the gaunt figure of a man of perhaps fifty, the other a chair; and seated on the chair, her eyes partially closed, was Fleming’s half-asleep girl!
Knibbs drew in his breath sharply. The girl did not look up. She was apparently unaware of their entrance.
The physician approached.
“I am Doctor Collier,” he said. “You are from headquarters, I take it?”
Simeon bobbed his green glasses again, peering up at the tall M. D. with his little, near-sighted eyes. “Dreer’s my name,” he remarked. “There’s a suicide here, I understand, doctor. What do you know of it?”
“Merely this: that the officer on the beat heard a cry and ran in here to find this man—” he indicated the white-sheathed form on the floor — “with a knife in his heart. I was summoned, pronounced the fellow dead, and now your men are detaining me, in spite of the fact that I have a practice waiting.”
“One more question. About the man on the bed: what’s his affliction?”
“Paralysis.”
“Can’t move about?”
“Impossible. Only his neck and arms are free.”
“May I have your card?”
“Certainly.” The physician extracted one from his vest pocket, extending it under the old fellow’s nose.
“Thank you. Haggerty, show the doctor out.” Dreer swung on his heel, went to the bed and sat on its edge. “Tell me,” he requested of the paralytic, “what happened here.”
The invalid passed a hand over his deeply set, black eyes, as though to clear his vision. Then he removed it and waved it weakly toward the corner.
“This man, John Ulrich,” he began, “is my cousin. Like my daughter and myself, he has seen much misfortune. He came in tonight broken-spirited and stood at the foot of my bed and told me he was going to end it all. I tried to reason with him, but he wouldn’t listen. On the table lay a knife—one John had brought with him from the East Indies when he stoked on a British steamer. He walked over and picked it up. Frightened, I cried out at the top of my lungs, but that merely frenzied him, and he drove the blade to its hilt in his breast. You know the rest.”
“And your daughter?”
“She was here at the time. Weren’t you, Lola?”
The girl nodded. It was no more than a tired little inclination of her pretty head. Knibbs could not help pitying her.
The questions continued. “What is your name?”
“Bastian De Brunner.”
“How long have you lived here?”
“Less than a month.”
“And previously?”
“Australia.”
“M-mm,” mumbled Dreer. Then he arose quickly, went to the corner and threw the sheet aside.
The body of John Ulrich was fully six feet tall and solidly constructed. His face, though somewhat distorted, revealed plain, rather commonplace features under a shaggy beard. His shirt was darkly stained where the knife had penetrated. The weapon itself, however, had been removed, and lay on the table.
It was, from all the evidence, a plain case of suicide, motive poverty. Yet doubt might be readily cast on the motive. For had not this girl, Lola, returned earlier in the evening with upward of a thousand dollars in loot taken forcibly from Fleming Metcalf Knibbs? Was it likely, with this wealth in her possession, that she would allow a member of the family to kill himself because of dire need? No, it wasn’t likely. Still—
Simeon Dreer went to Knibbs and whispered: “Talk to her while I engage her father. Ask her if she remembers you. Hint about the robbery and watch her face.”
Fleming approached the girl, took her hand and drew her to one of the small windows overlooking the street. By the light of a corner arc lamp they could see, directly below, the half-rotted wooden steps on which she had slipped.
Knibbs pressed her hand gently. She looked at him. “Do you remember me?” he murmured.
“What?” Her tone was as listless as before.
“Do you remember having met me before?”
She gave a little negative shake of her sepia-crowned head. And then, trailing after, a long-drawn “No-o-o.”
Knibbs waxed a bit impatient. This feminine Jesse James was either consummately clever or genuinely half-asleep. Her features hadn’t yielded the slightest sign of recognition. He decided to be more explicit.
“You know,” he said, “I was robbed this evening by—of all persons—a pretty young lady — robbed of a watch and scarf pin and three hundred dollars in currency.”
“Were you?” she sighed.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you really?”
“Yes.”
“Then, perhaps—” he lowered his voice still more — “perhaps you can tell me where they are.”
She smiled very much as a child smiles in its sleep.
“How absurd,” she said. “I am not a clairvoyant.”
Fleming figuratively threw up his hands at the hopelessness of learning anything from her. She was maddening. Without further questioning he strode to the door. The detective, observing this, met him in the hall.
“Well, young Knibbs?” he queried, hopefully.
“She’s the image of original innocence—or original sin—God knows which. Doesn’t know a blasted thing about my hold-up; never met me; and all that. Oh, what’s the use?”
“A phrase not in my vocabulary,” replied Dreer. “Do you want me to arrest her?”
“Heavens, no! Send a girl—particularly as pretty a girl as she—to jail? I’d rather lose a few thousand more than do that.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Get my trinkets back.”
Dreer became speculative.
“She may have carried this thing out on her own initiative, without the knowledge or consent of her parent, in which instance it’s hardly likely she would bring the loot home with her,” he muttered. “She’s been to a ‘fence,’ no doubt. However, I’ll have Yensen search the house and report to me tomorrow. There’s nothing we can do now, except perhaps make undertaking arrangements. This other affair is plainly suicide.”
They filed down the stairway, pausing at its foot for another chat with Hjalmar Yensen.
“My boy,” said Simeon Dreer to the big, raw-boned Swede, “I know you are a careful, conscientious officer. I know you are thorough. And I have a little job here that requires thoroughness more than anything else. It’s only a side-light on the suicide, but it may succeed in recovering some stolen personal property, and there’s always a reward attached to that sort of thing, you know. Now, Yensen, I want you to search this shack from cellar to garret for a diamond scarf pin shaped in a question mark, a Gruen watch, and an alligator wallet containing three hundred dollars in bills and a motor-car license made out to Fleming Metcalf Knibbs. Do your best to uncover these or anything else of interest, Incidentally, you might call in the matron from the Twenty-second District Station and have the girl searched, preferably without the knowledge of her father. When you are quite through, you and Haggerty may leave. Tell De Brunner we hold his household blameless; that the evidence of suicide is satisfactory to the department, and he will not be intruded upon again, though, of course, the final judgment is in the coroner’s hands. Meanwhile, we shall summon an undertaker. Good-bye.”