And Sidney Zoom, suddenly hard-eyed, nodded curtly.
“I am,” he admitted, “and I shall now have to ask that you retire to your rooms, gentlemen.”
They retired, muttering.
Zoom stretched himself in an easy chair, picked up his book, lit a cigarette, and smoked as placidly as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
When an hour had passed, he took his microscope, a few glass slides and some matches, and started on a tour of the house.
He first came to the bedroom of Phil Buntler. He tapped on the door, heard a swift rustle of motion from the room, the creaking of a bed, and then slippered feet on the floor.
Buntler’s eyes stared at Zoom.
“You again, eh? You seem determined we shan’t sleep!”
Zoom nodded. “I’m sorry. But this is important. I’ll have the murderer by morning. In the meantime I’m afraid I’ll have to inconvenience you for a few moments.”
He stalked into the room and sat down, depositing the microscope on the table.
“Would you mind removing your slippers and getting back into bed?” he asked.
Buntler kicked his slippers off and returned to the covers.
“I confess,” he said sarcastically, “that I am unable to follow your reasoning.”
Zoom nodded casually.
“I had hardly expected that you would be able to,” he commented, and picked up a pair of shoes as well as the slippers.
He took out a long-bladed knife and started scraping both shoes and slippers, digging carefully into every corner and crease of leather and sole, letting the scrapings drop on a plate of glass. When he had collected them, he scooped them onto a small glass slide and put them under the microscope.
Buntler watched him with interest.
“Humph,” said Zoom at length, puzzled.
“What is it?” asked Buntler, interested.
“Something funny on your shoes,” remarked Zoom.
Buntler’s bare feet hit the floor. “Mind if I look?” he asked.
Zoom drew back from the microscope.
Buntler peered through the lenses. “Little grains of dirt, and... oh, yes — you mean those flat translucent flakes?”
“Yes.”
“Hmmmm,” muttered Buntler to himself.
At length he raised his head and shrugged his shoulders.
“What’s it all about?” he asked.
Zoom pulled the slide from the microscope and struck a match. He held the glass slide over the flame of the match for several seconds. Then he took a handkerchief and wiped the black from the places where the flame had touched, and thrust the slide under the microscope again.
He peered at it, then chuckled.
“Look,” he said.
Buntler looked.
“It’s melted,” he observed. “Evidently a colored paraffin or wax.”
Zoom nodded, took a vial from his pocket and in it deposited the contents of the slide.
“Please remain in your room,” he said, and stalked into the hall.
He went at once to the room of Oscar Rabb and knocked at the door.
Rabb was not in bed, but was seated in a rocking chair. Zoom heard him get up, heard the click of the bolt. The door opened a crack.
Rabb was staring, white-faced, a magazine in his hand.
“You again!” he said.
“Yes,” said Zoom, and entered the room.
Once more he took out his knife, scraped off the soles of slippers and shoes, put the scrapings together upon the glass slide. Once more he called for the occupant of the room to peer through the microscope lenses at the strange flakes of translucent material which were mixed in with the dirt particles.
Rabb was as puzzled over their nature as Buntler had been until Zoom applied the flame of the match and invited Rabb to again look through the lenses.
“Humph!” said Rabb, “looks like some wax from a candle!”
Zoom nodded, dumped the scrapings into a glass vial, picked up the microscope and cautioned Rabb to remain in his room.
He next entered Wetler’s room and went through the same procedure.
Wetler had been lying on the bed. At Zoom’s first knock there had been a gentle snore audible through the panels of the door. It had taken three knocks to get Wetler up.
Wetler surveyed the flakes which Zoom found in the scrapings and shrugged his shoulders. After the flakes were heated he examined them again.
“They’ve melted!” he exclaimed, when he had his eyes glued to the microscope.
“Yes,” said Zoom, “they’ve melted.”
Wetler muttered a puzzled exclamation. His forehead was creased in thought.
“What,” he asked, “could they possibly be?”
Sidney Zoom dumped the scrapings into a numbered glass vial.
“I don’t know. I’ll have to make further tests,” he said. “Please remain in your room.”
And he went into the corridor, walked down the stairs, and tapped on the door of Hashinto Shinahara’s room.
The Japanese servant was at the door in a single spring, as lithe as a cat. He flung open the door, stood in the entrance half crouched, his eyes narrowed to gleaming slits, his hands curved like talons.
Sidney Zoom explained his errand.
The face of the Japanese wreathed itself in smiles. “Come in, come in,” he said.
Sidney Zoom made the same tests, secured the same flake-like substances, let the servant see them both before and after he had applied the match.
But Hashinto Shinahara volunteered no statement of any sort. He sucked in his breath once, the sound plainly audible as the air hissed past his teeth. But he continued to smile with his lips. His eyes were utterly inscrutable.
Sidney Zoom deposited the scrapings in a glass vial, screwed on the cap, and ordered the Japanese to remain in his room.
Then he padded down the corridor to the telephone.
It was precisely two o’clock, and he had left instructions for Lieutenant Sylvester to await a call from him at precisely two o’clock.
Zoom made no effort to lower his voice. “I’m on the trail of something hot in that Stanwood case, Lieutenant,” he said.
There was a moment of silence, then a question rasped over the wire.
Zoom answered it at length.
“In the first place,” he said, “the basic theory of the department has been wrong. The theory has been that the niece left the will out in plain sight because she was anxious it be discovered, since it gave her half of the property.
“As a matter of fact, since the niece was the only kin, she would have taken it all if it hadn’t been for the will. Therefore, it would have been to her interests to have destroyed the will.
“There’s another thing that must be remembered. The body of Harrison Stanwood was found in a car by a yachtsman who was one of the few intimate friends Stanwood had. That car was parked where the yachtsman was bound to notice it when he returned from his cruise. And the state of the tide governed the time of his return, so that one who knew the habits of yachtsmen could have come pretty close to determining just when Bowditch would have been passing the sedan.
“Now notice that the body was lying in a position to make it readily identified. That the knife was in the right side. That, when Bowditch went to telephone the police, the body was removed. That, when the body was discovered, there was a slit in the coat on the right side, as though a knife had been plunged in there, but there was no corresponding mark on the corpse.
“Notice, also, that the girl was locked up while the body was removed. It was physically impossible for her to have moved that body. She was in jail. Notice, also, that the doors of the sedan were locked and that the dome light was on, and that the body was placed in such a position the rays of the dome light fell upon the face.
“Those things are the determining circumstances in the solution I have worked out. But a certain discovery I have made has clinched the case.