Читать книгу Murder of a Startled Lady - Charles Fulton Oursler - Страница 12

They set the box—dripping wet, worm-chewed, falling to pieces—in the middle of the library floor—a long, narrow box of the sort used to store bed blankets a box with a lid, handles at each end and four small feet, one of them missing. It looked as if it had been in the water a long time. The three of us stared at it, unmindful of anything else, until I became aware of a cluster of police faces at the door, and of Detective Sherman standing inside the room. Sherman himself was a sight to behold. The dapper and talkative little detective fellow was transformed almost beyond recognition. His glistening bowler hat was broken and battered out of shape; his face was covered with mud and sweat; his Broadway raiment was soggy and befouled and Dougherty hoarsely declared that he smelled like the bottom of an old scow. Sherman removed his wreck of a hat, saluted and sneezed.

"There they are, Mr. Commissioner—and not a pretty sight for this hour in the morning."

"Good work, though, Sherman," nodded Colt, towering over the box. "Arthur will take you inside, give you a bath, dry your clothing and give you a drink."

"There is one thing more, Mr. Commissioner. I found these in the box, too."

He took from his pocket a damp envelope which he passed to the commissioner. Colt took them out—a pair of imitation pearl button ear-rings that gleamed dully as they lay in his cupped palm. I heard Colt's swift intake of breath and saw the sparkle of hope in his eye.

"Thanks again, Sherman," he said heartily. "I'm glad you did not let these get away from you."

He returned the ear-rings to the envelope, passed it to me, and waved Sherman and the others away. In his dressing robe of purple silk, Colt knelt at the hearth-stone and lifted up the lampshade. District Attorney Dougherty watched with bulging eyes. I stood on the other side as Colt lifted the lid off and disclosed a scrap-heap of human bones. We looked at the bones and for a while we did not speak. In the dressing-room beyond Colt's library a table clock tinged out the hour of three.

Colt straightened up. In his left hand he held a long, slender thigh bone; in his right was a human skull. I looked at the skull attentively—small, delicately formed, probably a woman's skull, and quite hideous. But what beauty might once have been stretched over those gray-white walls! And would we ever find the answer to the skull's eye-open, mouth-open, teeth-exposed riddle? Eyes, ears, mouth—all the openings were small; the teeth clean; Colt was looking at the teeth now, seeking tell-tale traces of dental work, his best hope for an identification.

But Colt did not linger long over the small, white teeth that seemed to smile up at him in gentle mockery. Suddenly he turned the skull over and lifted it up, squinting into a deep hole in the frontal bone and listening. "Tony! Dougherty! Look here!"

The District Attorney blinked. With Colt in the last three years, Dougherty had looked upon death in a hundred horrible forms. But such scenes were for station houses, murder places, the morgue. This was different; fantastically so. This was Thatcher Colt's library, a warm friendly room, within whose walls this little white skull seemed especially disagreeable.

Colt jiggled the head in his hands and it rattled.

"What is it, Thatch? What's the matter with the thing?" asked Dougherty fretfully.

"Sounds like a piece of lead," Colt answered lightly. "Listen!"

Again he shook the skull violently, like a bartender with a cocktail shaker.

"A bullet rattling around inside, beyond a doubt. Let's look a little farther."

Into the open hole in the frontal bone—a hole not more than two inches wide—Colt thrust a narrow pair of shears taken from his desk. Using these as a forceps, he probed for the bullet and presently extracted it—a slug of lead as long as my first little finger joint; it was flattened, smashed.

"At a guess from the size of it, I would say a revolver bullet of .32 calibre," murmured the Commissioner, handing the slug—what the newspapers were soon to call "the lethal pellet"—to Dougherty. The District Attorney brooded over it as it lay in his fat, red palm; then, without a word he passed it to me. I put it also in an envelope, plainly marking it as to date, hour and how it was found; in the morning I would turn it over to the property clerk at Headquarters for safe-keeping until it was wanted.

Meanwhile, Thatcher Colt set the skull on his William and Mary mantelpiece, where it stared off with a gentle sneer, as if mocking the rows of medico-legal books lining the opposite wall. Colt turned his back on the head; he was busying himself now in drawing from the interior of the box, piece by piece, a dreary assortment of human fragments, more than two hundred in all, jumbled together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

Having counted them, Colt calmly set about to reassemble the pieces in their proper order against the chaste pattern of the hardwood floor. He worked with precision; he was an expert anatomist.

"Fibula!" he muttered, laying a lower leg bone carefully in place. "And this is a tibia and probably goes over here. Now what else have we? Here's a humerus and an ulna. And these little pieces are parts of fingers and toes and ribs. And this clavicle goes right up here."

It was a grisly job. Yes, I might as well admit it, I was quite affected. In fact, never before and certainly never since have I felt such a touch of nature to make me kin to District Attorney Merle K. Dougherty. I watched Colt as if he were some one I had never known, or even seen before. He seemed to me then—he, my friend, my chief—he seemed to be like some fabulous and unhuman person, as he occupied himself so intently fitting those bones together; matching thigh bone to hip bone, knee joint and ankles and shin-bones, and heels, piecing them together with a shrewd and slightly cheerful air. I knew my feeling of recoil was unworthy, silly. Better than any one else, I knew that Thatcher Colt was only doing his job, and if I were worth my salt, I would not be ogling or recoiling, but helping. For these were Colt's first steps toward the solution of a shocking mystery. Nevertheless I could not look upon those two hundred fragments as merely anatomical specimens. To me they were the broken pieces of some one I had heard speak. Of course that was sheer nonsense. Yet, try as I had to remain untouched by the mediumistic mumbo-jumbo, the thing had got to me; I could still hear the rich, sweet voice in the darkness saying, "I am Madeline—he cut me into pieces——"

I wondered how long ago it had been, and what the place had been like, when these bones were last inside a warm and lighted room.

No matter what the explanation, I felt certain that these were the pieces of Madeline and of no one else. Had not the spirit voice named the precise spot on the whole earth where her remains would be found? It certainly had! More—it had said the bullet was still in her head. No more now, though; it was in an envelope now, in my pocket, over my heart. I felt jumpy and sought for a cigarette; I found one in Colt's favourite humidor, made of agallochum, the fragrant wood of the laurel family; the aloes wood of the Bible, and I felt there was something religious and therefore comforting about that. I wondered that Colt—under the surface, a highly imaginative and sensitive person—could seem so indifferent. He told me afterward that he worked in such complete detachment that the very feel of the white wet bones scarcely registered upon his skin.

At last the skull was taken down from the mantel and laid on the floor and the job was done. There it lay—that thing that had once been a moving hoping, dreaming unit but was now not even a skeleton—only the separate, disunited pieces of a skeleton. Put together at our feet, it sprawled, a dull jest on all the dignity of mankind.

"Well, there she is!" rumbled Dougherty.

"Who is she?" murmured Thatcher Colt, as he knelt again and began to make measurements with a ruled tape. "Could it really be a person named Madeline, do you suppose?"

"Dental work will soon settle that," said Dougherty confidently. "You trace the dentist, he traces his records—in twenty-four hours you will have her life story complete."

Colt looked up from squinting at his tape, and his expression was wry.

"No such luck this time, Dougherty. It begins to look to me as if we have on our hands—or at our feet, better—that old sea-serpent fable called the perfect crime."

"I thought you said there never was any such thing."

"There never was—before," answered Colt. He rose to his feet, went to the back of the room and at a basin washed his hands in an antiseptic solution. "And I hope it hasn't happened now. But look at those teeth, Dougherty—close up."

"I can see them well enough from here. Hmm—yes—pretty ones."

"Pretty? They're perfect. As far as I can see no dentist has ever touched them."

"Then you can't——"

"Bright lad—correct! I can't."

"What else have you got to go on?"

"Not much," agreed Colt ruefully, as he lowered his body on his toes and began to examine some holes in the back and two sides of the box. "But something. First, we have the box itself. It's pretty far gone, but maybe we can find out who manufactured it. If so, we next trace the retail stores in this part of the world that sell this particular line of boxes. Then the sales-slips of those stores for the names of purchasers. That will tell us something if ever we get that far. Also we shall take a look at what else is in the box——"

He had lifted a bundle of wet cloth, a part of a girl's dress, a faded and rotting rag. It had once been green; the water had soaked away most of its colour and eaten it into such fragments that there was hardly one sliver whole enough to be tied to another. Colt examined the material with the closest attention—he sat down at his desk, focused a lamp on the garment and drew from a top drawer his favourite magnifying glass. He gave a little chuckle of satisfaction; put the remains of the dress aside and turned to another discoloured remnant, a piece of what had once been a man's scarf. Carefully, he handled the faded, discoloured piece of silk and woollen material fringed around the edges; it, too, was about to fall to pieces.

"We shall try to trace the scarf and what is left of the dress; under the glass in the laboratory, the weave, the texture, the material will all be isolated, checked with clothing factories and traced. Furthermore, I am going to have this material duplicated in the same size and style of dress, if that is possible, because I have a notion that if what I hope to do is successful, a duplicate dress will come in handy.

"Then I have a faint hope of another clue. The dress may have been sent to a dry cleaner. If so, it will have an indelible laundry mark and will be possible to trace——"

Dougherty managed a grunt of pleasure.

"Then it's not a perfect crime?"

"Not if these clues pay out. Anyway, I shall not wait for them. I shall go on to other methods."

"You mean—the mediums!" exploded Dougherty triumphantly. "The Lynns. They gave us the tip—they knew—they had guilty knowledge—there is where the solution lies, all right!"

"Perhaps, Dougherty."

"Only perhaps?"

"Only a dubious perhaps."

"Now, Thatch, why do you take a cantankerous attitude like that to a perfectly reasonable theory?"

Colt was drying his hands, his movements like a ceremony of purification.

"Think a minute more, Dougherty. Suppose you had killed this girl."

"I?"

"Yes. And suppose you were also a fake spirit medium. Would you let any message get through you—spirits or no spirits—that would put yourself in the chair? For what?"

"Well, I admit that doesn't sound sensible—but on the other hand—you can't ignore the fact that they did predict precisely——"

"Right. We have to follow up the medium angle."

"Well, what will be your next step, Thatch?"

Before replying to Dougherty, Colt filled his pipe, lighted it, sat down in his arm-chair and stared with some impatience at the bones.

"It's as plain as plain can be. Look at them—the bones of a petite woman, quite young, I should judge—not more than twenty-five at the outside, nearer twenty in my unexpert opinion. She probably weighed a little over a hundred pounds—there was a very slight curvature of her spine which makes her height a little uncertain—she was about five feet, four inches tall. She was probably from a good station in life. The hole in her skull was caused by a bullet and she died around May first."

"The time the medium said."

"Just about," assented Colt imperturbably.

Dougherty sank back in his chair and shook his head.

"I'm not going to flatter your vanity, Thatch, by asking you how you figured out those deductions," he declared. "Or any of the details. It only makes me annoyed that I don't see those things for myself. But after all, it's your job, that kind of thing, not mine. Mind if I light a cigar?"

"Go right ahead. It was really very simple—the condition of the bones. No adipocere—corpse-fat, you know—it takes time for bones to get in this condition. They are as clean as if a ghoul had been at them!"

"Yes! Yes!" agreed the District Attorney throatily. His face was getting a little purple. "And now, Thatch—now that you've given us this perfect demonstration—can't we pack up those bones and send them to hell out of here?"

Summoned by some undetected signal of Colt, Arthur arrived with a fresh bottle of cognac. The black man, at the sight of the outstretched bones, set down the bottle with a trembling clatter and, eyes popping, bolted from the room. The liquor rejoiced all our hearts. In deep silence we drank again, as if by general consent with our backs respectfully to the poor puzzle on the floor.

"I can't send them away immediately," apologised Colt, "because the medical examiner is on the way here to look at them, together with the photographers and fingerprint men——"

"You are going right through the department routine?"

"Without delay. The boys will be here any minute. Meanwhile there is plenty to be thought about. Those holes, for example—why are they bored in the box? The box was once lined with cedar; the moths could get in through holes like that—no, they were bored in after the box was bought—and for what purpose? There's something mephitic about such holes where no holes should be; something foul and damnable."

He vaulted from his chair at the sound of voices and the tramp of feet; the party from headquarters had arrived. First to enter the library was Doctor J. L. Multooler, assistant medical examiner; following him came the camera man, the fingerprint man, a representative of the Bureau of Missing Persons, detectives from the Borough Homicide Squad, the Inspector commanding all the detectives in the Borough of Manhattan and the Captain of the local precinct.

Colt gave them a brief statement of what had happened. In crisp orders, he arranged for the tracing of the box, the scarf, and the dead girl's dress.

"Shall I send the rag and bone and hank of hair down to the morgue when we are finished with it?" asked Multooler, a good-humoured sawbones if there ever was one.

"No, doctor," said Colt emphatically. "I want the bones left here!"

"Mind telling a mere medical examiner what you are going to do with them?"

Thatcher Colt grinned.

"That's my secret for now—but I'll take full responsibility. Go ahead, boys. I'm going inside to change."

As Dougherty ambled after Colt into the bedroom at the rear of the house, he asked:

"Thatch, what are you going to change?"

"My clothes."

"At this hour?"

"Certainly."

"What for?"

"I have work to do."

"On this case?"

"Certainly!"

Dougherty sat down disconsolately on the side of Colt's bed. He could never go home to his own bed if there was a chance that he would miss anything. And the big man was exhausted.

"Can't we all wait until morning, Thatch?"

"No, I'm afraid not——" Colt's voice came spluttering from under the shower, while Arthur was laying out a tweed suit.

"I don't see what you can do now!"

Colt was rubbing himself with a towel.

"You know better than that," he remonstrated. "There is plenty I can do."

"Check all reports of missing girls—get the newspapers to play it up and all that—but that can wait."

"I can't wait," insisted Colt, getting into underwear. "Tony, let me have my private telephone list from the desk, please—I want to get hold of a man named Fitch—Imro Acheson Fitch is his full name. He is the man who can help us identify this girl——"

"Wait, Thatch!"

Dougherty's voice was suddenly solemn and indignant.

"Is that the Fitch who worked on the Harvey case last year?"

"Sure. In his own weird line, he's a genius."

"He won't do, Thatch. Don't have anything to do with him. He's in bad with Tammany Hall——"

"Really?"

"And he's in bad with O'Toole, too."

"You mean the Brooklyn political leader?"

"You know perfectly well that I do. O'Toole had Fitch canned—as a loyal party man, Thatch, and a public office holder, don't have anything to do with Imro Acheson Fitch. Besides, everybody knows that for that sort of thing Captain Williams, one of your own force, or used to be, is the greatest expert in the world."

"Sorry, Dougherty. But for this job, Fitch is just our man. You are right about Captain Williams. But Fitch did me a good turn once and I owe him this chance. Coming?"

"No—I can't encourage a man that's in bad down town—not when it's not really necessary, I can't."

"Sorry then, Dougherty—good night. You can sleep here if you don't want to go all the way home. Coming, Tony——?"

Five minutes later Thatcher Colt walked down his front stairs, suitcase in hand. In the suitcase were more than two hundred pieces of a murdered girl.

"Who is this Imro Acheson Fitch that the District Attorney got so excited about?" I asked as we came to the front door. "I never heard of him."

Colt smiled a little sombrely.

"Never heard of Fitch?" he parried. "I am surprised at that. Fitch is a modern sorcerer. He can put that dead girl's face back on her skull so that we can see what she looked like in life. I call Fitch the crime sculptor. Let's go!"

He opened the door.