In his study of the terrain, Harry gained a first-class impression of what must have happened on that eventful night. He rode by the Laidlow house in his car, after dark, and visualized the scene.
The path that the burglar would logically have followed lay straight across the lawn and through the hedge, Harry thought. Old Ezekiel Bingham must have witnessed the man’s entire flight across the dark grass; but even had he possessed youthful agility, he would have been unable to stop the fugitive.
During one of his trips to the village, Harry encountered the elderly lawyer. He was in the bank, cashing a check. The teller spoke to Bingham by name.
Strolling to the door, Harry saw the lawyer enter a large sedan and drive toward his home. Bingham evidently had no chauffeur. He had been driving by the Laidlow house alone on the night of the murder.
Harry smiled as he observed the slow course of the lawyer’s car. He passed it in his coupe as he rode back to Holmwood Arms; then, on sudden thought, he kept on the road toward the Laidlow home and parked in front of the nearest house before the millionaire’s residence.
He watched Bingham’s sedan roll slowly by; one could tell that the driver was probably a man of years. He noted the meager speed of the car as it neared the Laidlow estate. If Bingham always traveled at that snail’s pace there was no wonder that the old man had stopped quickly when he heard the shots.
Back at the inn, Harry did some serious thinking. How far was he getting with his investigation? Not far, he must admit. Nearly ten days had elapsed since his arrival at the Long Island town, and he had merely gained a view of places and people that he had already known about.
He had not even seen Burgess, Laidlow’s secretary. He had noted one or two persons on the Laidlow grounds, but had not viewed any of them closely. Harry had picked up various remarks regarding the murder, but most of them seemed unimportant, although he remembered them.
Burgess, he learned, was still living at the house of the murdered millionaire. Mrs. Laidlow was at home, but neither she nor her two sons were to be seen They were going away shortly; already packing for a trip to Florida, and it was understood that Burgess was going with them.
The secretary had proven his worth by his valiant effort to apprehend the man who had murdered his employer. He belonged definitely to the Laidlow family, and it was obvious that the wife of the dead millionaire would rely upon Burgess to identify the murderer - if the criminal should be captured.
With both Burgess and Bingham as material witnesses, there was an excellent chance that the murderer would be recognized when - and if - arrested.
During his second week at Holmwood Arms, Vincent began to study the guests at the hotel. There must be some possible clew to the murderer in the town of Holmwood - that is, if The Shadow actually expected clews. But otherwise he would not have ordered Vincent there.
Since he was to look for clews, and had not yet discovered any, Harry figured the best course would be to work around the inn for a while. For if a clew lay there, it would be positive negligence to overlook it while it was so close at hand.
When this idea first occurred to Harry, his original thought was to watch the guests who seemed most reticent to talk. He looked for suspicious characters, for persons who kept to themselves and who did not make friends.
There were several guests of this type, but Harry soon realized that his plan was wrong. Any man who might be bold enough to stay so close to the scene of a murder with which he had some connection would seek to avoid suspicion.
Harry tried to picture himself in the place of the imaginary man. How would he behave? In a friendly way, of course. Very much in the way Vincent was now acting - playing the part of a man who had some occupation which did not require all of his time or effort.
As he spent only a few hours of the day at his typewriter, Harry had an excellent opportunity to become acquainted with other guests. There were five men at the hotel whose occupations seemed sketchy. He chatted with them frequently, and gradually eliminated them until he came to Elbert Joyce - a man about forty years of age, a talkative fellow who knew many subjects and loved to swing his conversation from one theme to another.
Joyce claimed to be a salesman. He had left one concern and was awaiting another job on the road - a job which had been promised positively. In the meantime he was taking things easy - why shouldn’t he? He made plenty of money, so he said, and knew how to salt some away.
“I never worry about money,” he told Harry. “I always have it; I always can get it.”
Joyce was affable and entertaining. He seemed always occupied with some trivial matter.
Harry came upon him in the lounge room in the afternoon. Joyce was working on a cross-word puzzle in a newspaper. Vincent laughed.
“Thought that stuff was out of date, Joyce,” he said.
“What’s out of date?”
“Cross-word puzzles.”
“Not for an active mind, Vincent.”
“Don’t you grow tired of them?”
“Occasionally. But I usually do one a day.”
Joyce ran his pencil among the squares, completed the last few blocks with amazing rapidity, and turned to another part of the paper.
“I do these, too,” he remarked, pointing to a jumble of letters.
“What are they?”
“Cryptograms. One letter substituted for another. Sort of a code. An old idea - but popular again. Poe used a cryptogram in his story, ‘The Gold Bug.’”
Joyce’s pencil was at work. In the spaces below the jumbled letters he began to decipher the complex code.
“You work quickly,” observed Harry.
“Most cryptograms are easy,” answered Joyce. “Certain letters must obviously be vowels. E, for instance, is normally a frequent letter. Double letters give a clew also.”
He was continuing while he spoke and he completed the short cryptogram with apparent ease. Harry marveled at the man’s ability; and at the same time felt apprehensive. He recalled the simple code that he had received from Fellows, and which he had committed to memory. How long would it take a chap like Joyce to decipher such a code? Half an hour, perhaps. Vincent realized that he must be careful if he received a letter.
Joyce tossed the paper aside, and yawned.
“How about a ride?” suggested Harry.
“Where to?”
“Just around the country. It’s a nice day. My car is outside.”
“I’ll go with you, Vincent.”
They rolled slowly up the avenue past the Laidlow home.
“There’s a puzzle for you,” remarked Harry, waving his hand toward the house of the murdered millionaire.
“How so?” asked Joyce.
“The Laidlow murder,” Vincent supplied. “That’s where it happened.”
“So that’s the house! I recall reading of the murder some time ago. What came of it?”
“Still unsolved.”
They were passing the next house.
“That’s where Bingham lives,” said Harry.
“Who’s he?”
“A lawyer who saw the burglar escaping.”
Joyce gazed indifferently at the old attorney’s house.
“Thought you might be interested,” observed Vincent. “There’s a real problem. I should think it would intrigue you.”
“I seldom read about murders.”
“This was a very big one.”
“Perhaps. They’re all alike to me. Let the police worry about them. That’s their business.”
The conversation shifted. Harry headed the car toward the Sound, and they rode along beside the broad sheet of glistening water, watching the distant steamers that looked like tiny toys.
Elbert Joyce talked constantly; yet his words were emptiness. He compared Long Island Sound with the Great Lakes; he spoke of sales trips he had made to Detroit; he discussed yacht racing and told of a winter he had spent in Havana.