“I may stop at the morgue,” replied Griffith. “I’d like to see the body. But I won’t be there long.”
“All right,” said Harrison.
He left, followed by the policeman, who had been a silent observer of the proceedings.
Left to himself, Detective Griffith walked about the room; then returned to the table. He studied both the notes, and the sheet of paper.
Then he put them back in the envelope, and picked up the money. It consisted of three twenty-dollar bills, and two tens. The tens were old, and worn. The twenty-dollar bills were crisp.
“Not important!” grunted Griffith. “Valuable. Worth twenty dollars apiece?” — he held one of the crisp bills to the light — “not worth twenty cents each! Phony mazuma. On Jarnow, the murdered man. Passed on him? Planted on him? Or—” Griffith shrugged his shoulders significantly.
The detective studied both the door, and the window. Then he sat at the table, where Windsor had been. Suddenly he stood up, and bumped his head against the hanging study lamp.
He stepped back, and pointed an imaginary pistol toward the spot where Jarnow had been seated. He repeated the experiment, avoiding the lamp.
“So Windsor was here,” observed Griffith. “He stood up, and shot downward. Funny, wasn’t it? The light was right in front of his eyes — green shade and all!”
The detective pulled a notebook from his pocket, and began to mark details. He arranged events on a schedule, and studied the times that intervened. When he had finished, he talked aloud — though softly — in order to make each finding clear.
“After Henry Windsor entered,” he said, “Frank Jarnow locks the door but does not lock the window. That might be all right — still—” he paused doubtfully.
“Then,” he added, “Windsor shoots Jarnow from an almost impossible position. Funny that Jarnow let him do it. When they crashed the door, they took the gun away from Windsor.
“What was Windsor’s motive, anyway? He certainly didn’t plan well. He had about five minutes to get away; but he didn’t go — not even through that window. Sober enough to shoot Jarnow; too drunk to put up a fight, or to escape. Doesn’t sound right, does it?”
The detective made another survey of the room; then drew some diagrams, and made penciled notations. He went out into the hallway, and stood by the wrecked door. He looked back down the stairs.
“Suppose,” he said softly, “that I am an unknown person in this job. I can come in the front door unnoticed. Up to here; then unlock the door — any skeleton key would do, and the regular key was in Jarnow’s pocket — then sneak into the room.”
He edged through the doorway, and a smile of satisfaction came upon his face as he noticed the position of the table in front of him. Again he raised his hand, and pointed his forefinger downward.
“From here,” he said, half aloud, “it’s a perfect shot! Then—” he stepped toward the table, and snapped the button on the hanging lamp — “out goes the light; and out I go — through the window, which remains unlocked.”
Griffith sat at the table, and laughed.
“The gun?” he said, as though asking himself the question. “Wipe the handle; then plant it right in Windsor’s hand.
“That slip of paper? Either Windsor or Jarnow had it. Our man snatched it, and a piece tore off. No time to hunt for it.”
The detective again reviewed his progress of crime reconstruction, and he seemed more satisfied than before. He went to the window, and peered below.
There might be evidence there, he thought, but at the moment, he had a more important idea.
Picking up the envelope, Griffith took another look at the twenty-dollar bills. The presence of what might be counterfeit currency added a new angle of interest.
Whom did it involve; Henry Windsor, or Frank Jarnow?
The question puzzled Detective Griffith as he walked down the stairs. He went to the back of the house, and made a few observations, both up the wall, and on the ground.
Then he returned to the room, and examined the window sill. He had seen no marks there before; now he observed what appeared to be a slight smudge. He shook his head.
“Looks like a handkerchief or something was laid there,” he said. “There’s a clever man in this somewhere. Enough sense to avoid finger prints during the getaway.
“There’s a man in this — a man you’re going to meet some time, Harvey Griffith, and let’s hope it’s soon.”
Satisfied with his accumulated evidence, the star detective walked from the rooming house, and moved leisurely along the street. He smiled as he thought of Harrison.
It would have been foolish to have mentioned a single clue, except, of course, the piece of paper, which Harrison should have found. Griffith knew from experience that it was best to gather all possible evidence before mentioning any of it.
“There’s ‘ifs’ to it,” he acknowledged. “But if the bills are phony; if the other man came in; if—”
He remembered the slip of paper, and drew out his notebook. He marked down an item: to check the writing of the letters “o” and “r” with any available copy of Henry Windsor’s handwriting.
“If these clues hold together,” observed Griffith. “It’s going to mean a lot to Henry Windsor. They’ve got the goods on him so far, and he’s an easy goat. It may be lucky for him that I begin where Harrison leaves off.”
So thinking, the detective continued his easy pace. These clues could wait a little while, locked in his brain, and recorded in his notebook.
For as yet, Harvey Griffith had not seen the body of the murdered man. After that had been inspected, he would be ready for action.
“Yes,” concluded the detective, “I have a hunch that this visit to the morgue will lead me to the murderer.”
CHAPTER III
IN THE MORGUE
The city morgue was located in an old brick building that stood on a side street. It had been erected many years before, in the days when windows were few; and the architect had apparently sought to make the structure as forbidding as possible.
Detective Harvey Griffith stepped into gloom the moment that he left the street. He entered a long, echoing hall, that was illuminated by two small electric lights.
Visitors to the morgue had often remarked upon the depression that seemed to grip them when they entered the portals of the ugly building, but Griffith had been there too often to sense this natural repulsion.
There was a door at the right of the hall; it was open, and it showed the dingy office, where an attendant sat at a dilapidated desk. The man glanced upward and waved his hand in recognition.
“Hello, Mike,” greeted Griffith. “I’ve come to take a look at the body.”
“You’ll find it downstairs,” replied the man at the desk. “It’s on truck number six. You won’t have any trouble finding it.”
“Many people been in to see it?”
“Not yet. It was identified at the house. Couple of reporters came in. Expect there’ll be more later on; probably some female ones.”
“Yeah. They send the sob sisters out on these cases now. Gruesome details have a new touch when women write about them.”
“You don’t want to talk to any newspaper people, do you?”
“Send them down if they come in. They won’t bother me, and they won’t learn anything. It’s not my case anyway. Harrison is on it.”
Mike laughed.
“Well,” he said, “they’ve got to play up this murder with a lot of bunk. There’s no mystery about it.”
“No mystery?” murmured Griffith to himself, as he walked to the end of the hall. “We’ll see about that.”