“Cohalan,” said Velie, ‘tackle the basement.” Cohalan sucked sadly at his cigar, which had gone out, and trudged downstairs.
“Well, Sergeant,” said Pepper as the two men leaned, puffing, against a bare attic wall, “it looks as if we’ll have to do the dirty work at that. Damn it, I didn’t want to have to search those people.”
“After this muck,” said Velie, looking down at his dusty fingers, ‘that’ll be a real pleasure.”
They went downstairs. Flint and Johnson joined them. “Any luck, boys?” growled Velie.
Johnson, a small drab-looking creature with dirty-grey hair, stroked his nose and said, “Nothing doin”. To make it worse, we got hold of a wench―maid or somethin”―in a house on the other side of the court. Said she was watch in” the funeral through a back window, and she’s been snoop-in” there ever since. Well, Sarge, this jane says that with the exception of two men―Mr. Pepper and Cohalan, I guess―nobody’s come out of the back of this house since the funeral party returned from the graveyard. Nobody’s come out of the back of any house on the court.”
“How about the graveyard itself?”
“No luck there either,” said Flint. “Gang of newspaper leg-men’ve been hanging around outside the iron fence on the Fifty-fourth Street side of the graveyard. They say there hasn’t been a damn” soul in the graveyard since the funeral.”
“Well, Cohalan?”
Cohalan had succeeded in relighting his cigar, and he wore a happier expression. He shook his moon-face vigorously. Velie muttered, “Well, I don’t see what there is to laugh about, you dumb ox,” and strode into the centre of the room. He raised his head and, quite like a parade-sergeant, roared,” Tention!”
They sat up, brightening, some of the weariness fleeing their faces. Alan Cheney crouched in a corner, head between his hands, rocking himself gently. Mrs. Sloane had long since dabbed away the last decorous tear; even Reverend Elder wore an expectant expression. Joan Brett stared at Sergeant Velie with anxious eyes.
“Now get this,” said Velie in a hard voice. “I don’t want to step on anybody’s toes, y”understand, but there’s a job to be done and I’m going to do it. I’m going to have everyone in this house searched―down to the skin, if necessary. That will that was stolen can be in only one place―on the person of somebody right here. If you’re wise, youll take it like sports. Cohalan, Flint, Johnson―tackle the men. Matron,” he turned to the brawny police-woman, “you take the ladies into the drawing-room, close the doors and get busy. And don’t forget! If you don’t find it on one of “em, tackle the housekeeper and her room upstairs.”
The study erupted in little conversations, assorted comments, half-hearted protests. Woodruff twiddled his thumbs before the desk and eyes Nacio Suiza benevolently; Suiza thereupon grinned and offered himself to Cohalan as the first victim. The women straggled out of the room; and Velie snatched one of the telephones. “Police Headquarters . . . Gimme Johnny . . . Johnny? Get Edmund Crewe down to Eleven East Fifty-fourth right away. Rush job. Snap into it.” He leaned against the desk and watched frostily, Pepper and Woodruff by his side, as the three detectives took the men one by one and explored each male body with a thoroughness and impersonality that was shameless. Velie moved suddenly; Reverend Elder, quite uncomplaining, was due to be the next victim. “Reverend . . . Here, Flint, none o” that! I’ll waive a search in your case, Reverend.”
“You will do nothing of the kind, Sergeant,” replied the minister. “According to your lights I am as much a possibility as any of the others.” He smiled as he saw the indecision on Velie’s hard face. “Very well. I’ll search myself, Sergeant, in your presence.” Velie’s scruple at laying irreverent hands on the cloth did not prevent him from watching with keen eyes as the pastor turned out all his pockets, loosened his clothes and forced Flint to pass his hands over his body.
The matron trudged back with a laconic grunt of negation. The women―Mrs. Sloane, Mrs. Morse, Mrs. Vreeland, and Joan―were all flushed; they avoided the eyes of the men. “The fat dame upstairs―housekeeper?―she’s okay too,” said the matron.
There was silence. Velie and Pepper faced each other gloomily; Velie, confronted by an impossibility, was growing angry and Pepper, behind his bright inquisitive eyes, was thinking hard. “There’s something screwy somewhere,” said Velie in an ugly voice. “You’re dead sure, matron?”
The woman merely sniffed.
Pepper grasped Velie’s coat-lapel. “Look here, Sergeant,” he said softly. “There’s something vitally wrong here, as you say, but we can’t butt our heads against a stone wall. It’s possible that there’s a secret closet or something in the house that we didn’t find. Crewe, your architectural expert, will certainly locate it if it exists. After all, we’ve done the best we can, all we can. And we can’t keep these people here forever, especially those who don’t live in the house . . . .”
Velie scuffed the rug viciously. “Hell, the Inspector’ll murder me for this.”
Things happened swiftly. He stepped back, and Pepper politely suggested that the outsiders were free to leave, while those who lived in the house were not to quit the premises without official permission and without being searched thoroughly each time. Velie crooked his finger at the matron and Flint, who was a muscular young man, and led the way out into the hall and to the foyer, where he grimly took his stand by the front door. Mrs. Morse uttered a little squeal of terror as she shuffled toward him. “Search this lady again, matron,” growled Velie . . . . The Reverend Elder he favoured with a bleak smile; but Honeywell the sexton he examined himself. Meanwhile Flint was again searching Undertaker Sturgess, his two assistants, and a bored Nacio Suiza.
As in all former searches, the result was empty air.
Velie stamped back to the library after the outsiders left, stationing Flint on guard outside the house, where he could watch both the front door and the front basement door below the stone steps. Johnson he dispatched to the back door at the top of a flight of wooden steps leading down into the court; Cohalan he sent to the rear door level with the court, which led out of the rear of the basement.
Pepper was engaged in earnest conversation with Joan Brett. Cheney, a much chastened young man, rumpled his hair and scowled at Pepper’s back. Velie swung a horny finger at Woodruff.
Chapter 4. Gossip
Edmund Crewe was so perfectly the picture of the absent-minded professor that Joan Brett only with difficulty repressed an alarming impulse to laugh aloud in his horsy lugubrious face, pinched nose and lustreless eyes. Mr. Crewe, however, began to speak, and the impulse died aborning.
“Owner of the house?” His voice was like a wireless spark, pungent and crackling.
“He’s the guy that kicked off,” said Velie.
“Perhaps,” said Joan, a little abashed, “I can be of service.”
“How old’s the house?”