Читать книгу The Bat Flies Low - Arthur Henry Ward - Страница 11

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Dr. Muller came downstairs. He descended very slowly, or so it seemed to the two men in the Venetian lobby. Captain Rorke, upright, his hands behind him, looked very slim against a tapestry background. Lincoln Hayes, in an armchair near one of the tall silver candelabra, glanced upward and backward over his shoulder. Rorke was biting his lower lip, but Hayes’ face was expressionless.

At the foot of the stairs Dr. Muller paused. He was dark and still young, wearing black-rimmed spectacles. He had a very fine forehead, and that entire absence of humor which sometimes goes with scientific enthusiasm. Lincoln Hayes had marked him for a coming man. Dr. Muller looked from face to face.

“Well?” said Hayes.

Captain Rorke ceased biting his lip. He took a cigarette from a box on a ledge near by and lighted it.

“Adderley is still at work,” Dr. Muller replied: his tones were gloomy. “He is brilliant, but ...”

Dr. Eldon Adderley was certainly brilliant. He was perhaps the most famous consultant in New York City, and Muller—an indication that Muller really was a clever man—had called him in immediately.

“I suppose you mean,” said Rorke in an overcasual voice, “that in your opinion the case is hopeless?”

Dr. Muller turned to the speaker; his expression was deeply sympathetic. He gravely inclined his head.

“If any man in the world can restore her to life,” he replied, “that man is with her now.”

He turned and slowly went upstairs again.

Mysterious horror hung like a cloud over the Hayes home. The distinctive note of a police car proclaimed itself in the street. Lurgan, the butler, appeared from an arched Moorish doorway and crossed. There was a moment of complete silence. Rorke puffed at his cigarette; Lincoln Hayes sat motionless. Lurgan reëntered.

“Mr. Maguire,” he announced, “and another ... gentleman.”

There was an almost imperceptible pause before the last word. District Attorney Maguire came in: a big man buttoned up in a big check overcoat, a soft hat held in his hand. His profuse silvery hair, brushed straight back from a square brow, oddly emphasized the blackness of his thick, shaggy eyebrows. The remainder of his face was a hundred per cent jaw.

His companion, who wore a blue overcoat, was smallish, thick-set, and bullet-headed. He had wrinkled, leathery features and quickly moving dark eyes which might have reminded one of those of a weasel. He held a hard black hat and had an unlighted cigar clenched in the left corner of his thin mouth.

“Ah, Maguire!” Hayes stood up. “Sorry to dig you out. Felt I wanted to see you.”

Lurgan took the check overcoat and the hat from District Attorney Maguire and turned to the other; but:

“Thanks. I’ll stay the way I am,” he drawled.

Lurgan disappeared.

“This is Captain Rorke, whom I don’t think you’ve met, Maguire.”

Maguire, who wore a check tweed suit of a pattern even more violent than that of his overcoat, shook hands with Rorke, then, turning:

“Detective Sergeant Hawley of the Homicide Bureau,” he said, in a rich actor’s voice. “I’m sorry there’s trouble, Hayes. What’s happened?”

Detective Sergeant Hawley, hat in hand, and cigar protruding from thin lips, stood on the exact spot which he had reached at the moment of entry, his eyes darting left and right.

“Attempted murder,” Hayes answered dryly. “At least—maybe successful. We don’t know yet. Sit down, gentlemen.”

Lurgan reappeared as if in response to a telepathic message.

“A highball for you, sir, I believe,” he said, addressing Maguire. “And for you, sir?” turning to the detective.

“Nothing. I’m thinking.”

Captain Rorke knocked ash from his cigarette end.

“What were you thinking, sergeant?” he asked.

“I was thinking there’s a curious smell around here.”

“What kind of smell?” growled Maguire, sniffing deeply.

“I couldn’t just give it a name, but it kind of reminds me of the sea.”

“Quite right,” said Rorke quietly. “I had already noted it.”

“That so?” said Hayes. “I note it now it’s been mentioned, but hadn’t noted it before.”

There was a dreadful tension present. Observers less experienced than District Attorney Maguire and Detective Sergeant Hawley, could not have failed to become aware of it. Hayes and Rorke seemed both to be listening for something and from time to time glanced in the direction of the staircase.

“Now,” boomed Maguire, as Lurgan withdrew. “Let’s have the facts, Hayes.”