“I think it more likely that he simply happened to arrive at the hotel a few minutes after they had come in. Ansley was probably alone in the room when Cudner opened the unlocked door and came in — Develyn being in the bathroom getting the glasses.
“Ansley was about your size and age, and close enough in appearance to fit a rough description of you. Cudner went for him, and then Develyn, hearing the scuffle, dropped the bottle and glasses, rushed out, and got his.
“Cudner, being the sort he was, would figure that two murders were not worse than one, and he wouldn’t want to leave any witnesses around.
“And that is probably how Ingraham got into it. He was passing on his way from his room to the elevator and perhaps heard the racket and investigated. And Cudner put a gun in his face and made him stow the two bodies in the clothespress. And then he stuck his knife in Ingraham’s back and slammed the door on him. That’s about the—”
An indignant nurse descended on me from behind and ordered me out of the room, accusing me of getting her patient excited.
Orrett stopped me as I turned to go.
“Keep your eye on the New York dispatches,” he said, “and maybe you’ll get the rest of the story. It’s not over yet. Nobody has anything on me out here. That shooting in Pigatti’s was self-defense so far as I’m concerned. And as soon as I’m on my feet again and can get back East there’s going to be a master-mind holding a lot of lead. That’s a promise!”
I believed him.
The Tenth Clew
(Also published as “The Tenth Clue”)
Originally appeared in The Black Mask, 1 January 1924
I
“Do you know... Emil Bonfils?”
“Mr. Leopold Gantvoort is not at home,” the servant who opened the door said, “but his son, Mr. Charles, is — if you wish to see him.”
“No. I had an appointment with Mr. Leopold Gantvoort for nine or a little after. It’s just nine now. No doubt he’ll be back soon. I’ll wait.”
“Very well, sir.”
He stepped aside for me to enter the house, took my overcoat and hat, guided me to a room on the second floor — Gantvoort’s library — and left me. I picked up a magazine from the stack on the table, pulled an ash tray over beside me, and made myself comfortable.
An hour passed. I stopped reading and began to grow impatient. Another hour passed — and I was fidgeting.
A clock somewhere below had begun to strike eleven when a young man of twenty-five or — six, tall and slender, with remarkably white skin and very dark hair and eyes, came into the room.
“My father hasn’t returned yet,” he said. “It’s too bad that you should have been kept waiting all this time. Isn’t there anything I could do for you? I am Charles Gantvoort.”
“No, thank you.” I got up from my chair, accepting the courteous dismissal. “I’ll get in touch with him tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, and we moved toward the door together.
As we reached the hall an extension telephone in one corner of the room we were leaving buzzed softly, and I halted in the doorway while Charles Gantvoort went over to answer it.
His back was toward me as he spoke into the instrument.
“Yes. Yes. Yes!” — sharply — “What? Yes” — very weakly — “Yes.”
He turned slowly around and faced me with a face that was gray and tortured, with wide shocked eyes and gaping mouth — the telephone still in his hand.
“Father,” he gasped, “is dead — killed!”
“Where? How?”
“I don’t know. That was the police. They want me to come down at once.”
He straightened his shoulders with an effort, pulling himself together, put down the telephone, and his face fell into less strained lines.
“You will pardon my—”
“Mr. Gantvoort,” I interrupted his apology, “I am connected with the Continental Detective Agency. Your father called up this afternoon and asked that a detective be sent to see him tonight. He said his life had been threatened. He hadn’t definitely engaged us, however, so unless you—”
“Certainly! You are employed! If the police haven’t already caught the murderer I want you to do everything possible to catch him.”
“All right! Let’s get down to headquarters.”
Neither of us spoke during the ride to the Hall of Justice. Gantvoort bent over the wheel of his car, sending it through the streets at a terrific speed. There were several questions that needed answers, but all his attention was required for his driving if he was to maintain the pace at which he was driving without piling us into something. So I didn’t disturb him, but hung on and kept quiet.
Half a dozen police detectives were waiting for us when we reached the detective bureau. O’Gar — a bullet-headed detective-sergeant who dresses like the village constable in a movie, wide-brimmed black hat and all, but who isn’t to be put out of the reckoning on that account — was in charge of the investigation. He and I had worked on two or three jobs together before, and hit it off excellently.
He led us into one of the small offices below the assembly room. Spread out on the flat top of a desk there were a dozen or more objects.
“I want you to look these things over carefully,” the detective-sergeant told Gantvoort, “and pick out the ones that belonged to your father.”
“But where is he?”
“Do this first,” O’Gar insisted, “and then you can see him.”
I looked at the things on the table while Charles Gantvoort made his selections. An empty jewel case; a memoranda book; three letters in slit envelopes that were addressed to the dead man; some other papers; a bunch of keys; a fountain pen; two white linen handkerchiefs; two pistol cartridges; a gold watch, with a gold knife and a gold pencil attached to it by a gold-and-platinum chain; two black leather wallets, one of them very new and the other worn; some money, both paper and silver; and a small portable typewriter, bent and twisted, and matted with hair and blood. Some of the other things were smeared with blood and some were clean.
Gantvoort picked out the watch and its attachments, the keys, the fountain pen, the memoranda book, the handkerchiefs, the letters and other papers, and the older wallet.
“These were father’s,” he told us. “I’ve never seen any of the others before. I don’t know, of course, how much money he had with him tonight, so I can’t say how much of this is his.”
“You’re sure none of the rest of this stuff was his?” O’Gar asked.
“I don’t think so, but I’m not sure. Whipple could tell you.” He turned to me. “He’s the man who let you in tonight. He looked after father, and he’d know positively whether any of these other things belonged to him or not.”
One of the police detectives went to the telephone to tell Whipple to come down immediately.
I resumed the questioning.
“Is anything that your father usually carried with him missing? Anything of value?”
“Not that I know of. All of the things that he might have been expected to have with him seem to be here.”
“At what time tonight did he leave the house?”
“Before seven-thirty. Possibly as early as seven.”
“Know where he was going?”
“He didn’t tell me, but I supposed he was going to call on Miss Dexter.”
The faces of the police detectives brightened, and their eyes grew sharp. I suppose mine did, too. There are many, many murders with never a woman in them anywhere; but seldom a very conspicuous killing.