“I get it,” rumbled Velie. “This Sloane guy comes in for his cut no matter what happens, just as long as that new will isn’t found. Khalkis’s next of kin is his sister, Mrs. Sloane, I reckon . . . Pretty smart!”
Edmund Crewe, who had been slipping in and out of the library like a wraith, hurled the blueprints on the desk and approached the three men. “Well, Eddie?” demanded Velie.
“No can find. No panels or secret closets. No interstices in the walls left by improper mating of two rooms. Ceilings and floors solid―they made “em that way in the old days.”
“Damn!” said Pepper.
“No, sirree,” continued the architectural expert. “If the will isn’t on any one person in this house, you take it from me that it isn’t in the house at all.”
“But it must be!” said Pepper with exasperation.
“Well, it isn’t, younker.” Crewe marched out of the room and they heard the bang of the front door a moment later.
The three men said nothing, eloquently. Velie without explanation thundered out of the study, to return some minutes later harder-jawed than ever. A sour helplessness radiated from his mammoth bulk. “Pepper,” he said dourly, “I give up. Just went over that court and graveyard myself. Nothing doing. Must’ve been destroyed. How do you stand?”
“I have an idea,” said Pepper, “but that’s all. I’ll have to talk it over with the Chief first.”
Velie thrust his fists into his pockets, surveying the battleground. “Well,” he grumbled, “I’m washed up. Listen, folks.” They had been listening; but all vitality had been drained out of them by the cloying wait, and they stared at Velie with doggy eyes. “When I leave this house, I’m closing up this room and those two others beyond. Understand? Nobody is to come in here. Nobody is to touch Khalkis’s room either, or Demetrios Khalkis’s―leave everything exactly as it is. And one more thing. You can come and go in and out of the house as you please, but you’ll be searched every single time, so don’t anybody try any funny stuff. That’s all.”
“I say.” Some one had spoken in a cavernous voice. Velie turned slowly. Dr. Wardes was coming forward―a man of middle height, bearded like one of the old prophets, but with a physique almost simian. His very bright brown eyes, set closely together, regarded Sergeant Velie almost with humour.
“What do you want?” Velie bristled, wide-legged, on the rug.
The physician smiled. “Your orders will not put any of the regular residents of this house to great inconvenience, don’t you know, Sergeant, but they will affect me most unpleasantly. You see, I’ve been merely a guest here. Must I intrude on the hospitality of this very sad establishment indefinitely?”
“Say, who are you anyway?” Velie moved a ponderous step forward.
“My name is Wardes, and I am a citizen of Great Britain and a humble subject of His Majesty the King,” replied the bearded man, twinkling. “I’m a medico―eye specialist. I’ve been having Mr. Khalkis under observation for some weeks.”
Velie grunted. Pepper moved to his side and whispered. Velie nodded, and Pepper said: “Naturally, Dr. Wardes, we don’t want to embarrass you or your hosts. Yon are perfectly free to leave. Of course,” he continued smiling, “you won’t object to a last formality―a thorough search of your person and luggage on going away?”
“Object? Certainly not, sir.” Dr. Wardes played with his shaggy brown beard. “On the other hand―”
“Oh, do stay, Doctor!” shrilled Mrs. Sloane. “Don’t leave us in this dreadful time. You’ve been so kind . . . “
“Yes, do, Doctor.” This was a new voice, and it proceeded from the deep chest of a large handsome woman―a dark bold beauty. The physician bowed and murmured something inaudible, and Velie said nastily, “And who are you, Madame?”
“Mrs. Vreeland.” Her eyes sparked warning; her voice had coarsened, and Joan, perched on the edge of Khalkis’s desk in woeful resignation, swallowed a smile bravely; her blue eyes went appraisingly to Dr. Wardes’ powerful shoulder-blades. “Mrs. Vreeland. I live here. My husband is―was―Mr. Khalkis’s travelling representative.”
“I don’t get you. What do you mean―travelling representative? Where is your husband, Madame?”
The woman flushed darkly. “I don’t like your tone! You have no right to speak to me in such a disrespectful tone!”
“Can it, sister. Answer my question.” Velie’s eyes grew cold, and when Velie’s eyes grew cold they grew very cold indeed.
The little mutter of anger sputtered away. “He’s―he’s in Canada somewhere. On a scouting trip.”
“We tried to locate him,” said Gilbert Sloane unexpectedly. His pomaded black hair, small mathematical moustache, pounced watery eyes gave him an incongruously dissipated appearance. “We tried to locate him―the last we heard, he was operating from Quebec as a base, on the trail of some old hooked rugs he’d heard about. We haven’t heard from him yet, though we left word at his last hotel. Perhaps he’ll see the news of Georg’s death in the papers.”
“And perhaps he won’t,” said Velie shortly. “Okay. Dr. Wardes, you staying?”
“Since I am requested to do so―yes. I shall be very happy to.” Dr. Wardes moved back and contrived to stand near Mrs. Vreeland’s stately shape.
Velie looked at him darkly, motioned to Pepper and they walked out into the corridor. Woodruff almost trod on their heels, he followed so quickly. Everyone shuffled out of the library and Pepper shut the door carefully behind him. Velie said to Woodruff, “What’s on your mind now, Woodruff?”
They had turned to face him near the foyer door. The lawyer said in a sharp tone, “Look here. Pepper saw fit to accuse me of an error of judgement a while ago. I’m not taking any chances. I want you to search me too, Sergeant. Yourself. I wasn’t tackled in there, you know.”
“Now, don’t take it that way, Mr. Woodruff,” said Pepper in a soothing voice. “I’m sure it isn’t―”
“I think it’s a damned good idea,” said Velie unpleasantly. Without ceremony he gave Woodruff such a pounding, scraping and pinching as Woodruff, to judge from his expression, had hardly anticipated. And Velie went very carefully indeed through all the papers the lawyer had in his pockets. Finally, he surrendered his victim. “You’re clean, Woodruff. Come along, Pepper.”
Outside the house they found Flint, the brawny young plain-clothesman, bantering with the dwindled group of reporters, a handful clinging tenaciously to the sidewalk gate. Velie promised Flint a relief for himself and Johnson in the rear, and for the matron he had left inside, and doggedly ploughed through the gate. Like a cloud of gnats the reporters swarmed about him and Pepper.
“What’s the angle, Sarge?”
“What’s up?”
“Give us a break, you mug!”
“Come on, Velie, don’t be a thick flattie all your life.”
“How much was your cut for keeping quiet?”
Velie shook their hands off his big shoulders; and he and Pepper took refuge in a police car waiting at the kerb.
“How’m I gonna tell the Inspector?” groaned Velie, as the car lurched forward. “He’ll crown me for this.”
“Which Inspector?”
“Richard Queen.” The sergeant stared morosely at the back of the chauffeur’s crimson neck. “Well, we did what we could. Left the house under a kind of siege. And I’ll send one of the boys over to look at the safe for fingerprints.”
“Much good that’ll do.” Pepper’s brightness had dissipated; he sat gnawing a fingernail. “The D.A.H probably give me hell, too. I think I’ll stick pretty close to the Khalkis house. Drop in to-morrow to see wbax’s doing, I will. And if those palookas in the house want to make trouble about our restricting their movements that way―”