Читать книгу The Casual Murderer and other stories - Footner Hulbert - Страница 6

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Late that afternoon we received a report from Sampson. He had interviewed the conductor of the railway train. The man remembered Aline Elder very well, having been particularly struck by the girl’s charm. She had not addressed any questions to him. He could only testify that she had gone through to New York on his train. He had noticed her in conversation with a woman passenger. He frequently saw this woman on his train and had a bowing acquaintance with her; didn’t know her name. He promised to let Sampson know the next time he saw her.

On the following day we had another report from the conductor, via Sampson. The woman’s name was Mrs. Brownell. She was the travelling representative of a New York concern that operated a chain of stores in Hudson River towns. She remembered Aline Elder. Their conversation, she reported, was entirely insignificant; just the sort of thing chance travellers might say to each other. With one exception. The girl, learning that she was a New York business woman, had asked Mrs. Brownell if she had ever heard of a lawyer named Schuyler Orr. Mrs. Brownell had never heard of him, and the talk went no further along that line. But the odd name had stuck in Mrs. Brownell’s memory.

Hearing this, Mme. Storey called for a telephone book. There was the name: Orr, Schuyler, lawyer; 140 Nassau Street.

“I think this is important enough to warrant a call,” said Mme. Storey. “Call a taxi-cab. You come, too. This is your case.”

Locking up the office, we set out.

140 Nassau Street is an immense office building. Mr. Schuyler Orr occupied a one-man office on an upper floor with a glorious panorama of the East River and its bridges. There was nobody in the office but a smallish, untidy girl who looked as if she had been weeping. She was rather overpowered by the spectacle of Mme. Storey.

“Mr. Orr,” said my mistress, “I see he is out. When will he be in?”

The question started the tears flowing again. “I don’t know, ma’am,” the girl said between sniffs. “I ain’t seen-m in more’n a week. He never told me he was going away. I don’t know where he is.”

“Have you communicated with his family?”

“He ain’t got no family. I been to his house. He ain’t been seen around there. I ain’t been paid for last week at all. I don’t know if I got a job or not.”

“Cheer up!” said Mme. Storey. “Let’s find him. When did you see him last?”

“A week ago Monday.”

“He worked here that day?”

“Yes’m. He went away early to play golf.”

“Where does he play golf?”

“The Ahkanasi Club, near Peguannock.”

Further questioning elicited the fact that Mr. Orr frequently remained away from the office for a day or two at a time, but that he had heretofore always kept his stenographer informed of his movements. He lived at 147 East 18th Street, where he had a small flat. He kept no servant. He ate his meals at the Thespian’s Club on Gramercy Park. The girl didn’t know who his most intimate friends were. He had a cousin, a Mr. Francis Orr, who, several times during the past week had inquired for him over the telephone, and had asked to be notified as soon as any word was received. Mr. Francis Orr’s office was in John Street, not a great way off.

Mme. Storey had the girl telephone to Mr. Francis Orr to ask him if he would come to his cousin’s office to meet Madame Rosika Storey.

She remarked to me sotto voce: “We have two to find now. This case is like one of those nests of Japanese boxes. Whenever you open a box, there is a smaller one inside.”

The girl reported that Mr. Orr would be right over, and Mme. Storey, taking the telephone, called up Canby, an operative who happened to be in Mount Vernon that afternoon. She ordered Canby to hire a car and proceed as quickly as possible to the Ahkanasi Club. If he could get there before dark he would catch the members before they dispersed after their games. He was to find out, if possible, who had played with Mr. Schuyler Orr on Monday, eight days before. He was to interview these persons, and obtain an exact account of the game, and was to trace, so far as possible, Mr. Orr’s movements after the game.

Mme. Storey asked the little stenographer if Mr. Orr had ever given her a letter to Miss Aline Elder, Ancaster, N.Y. The girl shook her head. She was sure of it.

“I suppose there are copies of all his letters,” said Mme. Storey. “Will you please look among them. He may have written it himself.”

From the filing cabinet the girl brought us the folder which contained all the E’s. There was no Elder among them.

Mr. Francis Orr arrived; a good-looking well-dressed young business man, with a correct and artificial manner that bespoke a shallow nature. He evidently knew who Mme. Storey was, for he was all agog at finding her there. But his first thought was of himself.

Scowling, he said: “I hope my cousin hasn’t ...”

“I hope not,” said Mme. Storey dryly. “His name came incidentally into a case in which I am interested. Whatever the situation may be, I think he ought to be looked for. I am a little surprised that no one has started looking for him before.”

“It’s true I’m his cousin,” the young man said, on the defensive, “but I don’t know him very well. You know how it is with families. Our ways ran in different directions.”

“Well, let’s start now,” said Mme. Storey. “His desk ought to be searched. That’s properly your job.”

I need only say that this search produced nothing that was of any service to us.

The three of us then set off for Mr. Schuyler Orr’s flat.

The young man was very uncomfortable. His conventional nature revolted at the idea of being dragged into anything unpleasant. “What do you suspect?” he asked in the cab.

“There may be nothing in it. There is just a possibility that your cousin may have got involved with a man whom I regard as highly dangerous.” Further than that she refused to be drawn.

She questioned Orr about his cousin’s circumstances.

“There’s really very little to tell,” he said. “A bachelor thirty-seven years old with a small law practice; just enough to keep him from being a complete idler. He was always talking about getting to work seriously, but he never made any real effort to increase his practice. He was well-connected—the Orrs are an old New York family, you know; and he had a private income just sufficient to keep him in a small way. He was a dry stick; if he ever had a love affair, I didn’t know of it. He didn’t even have any intimate friends; didn’t seem to require it. But plenty of club acquaintances. Bridge and golf were his only real interests. To tell you the truth, he was a bit of a bore; always so stiff and proper. If he really has got himself mixed up in anything queer, he’s the very last man in town you’d suspect it of.”

The apartment house was one of those flimsy affairs of brick and terra-cotta that were run up in such numbers twenty years ago. It had not much the look of a gentleman’s residence; however, anything below Twenty-Third Street is in such demand, that such places command disproportionately high rents.

There was a negro elevator boy on duty, who told us that Mr. Schuyler Orr had come home on Monday, a week ago, about seven in the evening. He had dressed and gone out again to dinner at his club. He went off duty at eight o’clock, so he had not seen Mr. Orr come in after dinner. He had not seen Mr. Orr since. But as Mr. Orr often went out of town for a few days at a time, there was nothing strange in that.

Pressed by further questions from Mme. Storey, the boy recollected an incident. When he returned to the ground floor after having delivered Mr. Orr at his door, he said he found a man waiting in the lobby. He described this man as being “dark-complected,” neatly dressed, and about forty years old. He spoke with an English accent, and his upper lip was blue from shaving. The man asked him who it was he had taken up in the elevator, and the boy told him Mr. Orr’s name. “Oh,” said the man; “I thought I recognised an old friend; but I was mistaken,” and went away. The boy had not considered the incident of sufficient importance to mention it to Mr. Orr.

The superintendent was sent for. In such a building, “superintendent” is merely an euphemism for janitor. He appeared in jumper and overalls. Mme. Storey set forth the situation briefly, and expressed a wish to have the door of Mr. Orr’s apartment forced. The superintendent demurred, scratching his head, but finally consented. We were all carried up in the elevator. It was a top floor rear. There were four apartments on a floor.

“This is it,” said the superintendent.

At the door Mme. Storey sniffed, and her face became very grave. “Gas,” she said.

The faint, stale odour reached my nostrils. Very faint.

The superintendent’s eyes goggled. “We must have a policeman,” he said.

Francis Orr was instantly seized with panic. “Oh, my God!” he said. “This is nonsense! There can’t be anything the matter. In a house like this the gas always leaks.”

“The man is right,” said Mme. Storey. “We must have a policeman.”

We stood there in silence on the landing while the policeman was fetched. I was filled with a sick apprehension of what was before us. Mme. Storey seemed quite unperturbed. You would think from the exquisite finish of her that her experience of life was limited to dances and teas, but I knew that no sight, however dreadful, could make her quail.

The policeman arrived, and the door was forced. Inside, the smell of gas was much stronger, but not at all overpowering. The policeman went into the nearest room, a bedroom, and flung up the window. There was a short hall with doors opening from it; first the bedroom; then a bathroom; then a closed door. The hall ended in the dining-room and one could look through into a living-room. That was all. It had the look of a man’s place, comfortable, but not in any way elegant. There was no disorder.

The policeman opened the closed door. The smell was very strong, but stale; inert. A narrow kitchen; dresser; stationary wash-tubs; sink. On the other side a deal table and a gas stove with the oven door open. In the narrow space between, lay the body of a man sprawling on his back. The policeman broke the silence.

“Suicide,” he said, matter-of-fact. “It’s a slot meter, so the gas soon stopped flowing.”

“Oh, my God!” muttered Francis Orr, sick with disgust. “To think that this should have happened in our family!”

It was a sordid sight. The poor wretch, robbed of his correct bearing, had nothing left. He was no longer a “gentleman,” he was just clay. He was neither young, nor comely, nor well-formed. His relaxed face had fallen into the lines of weakness and vacuity, and stiffened so. His thin, blonde hair had become disarranged, revealing grotesque bald spots. He had been dead more than a week.

I turned away, and waited just inside the entrance door of the flat. There was nothing in particular for me to do. I could hear everything that was said.

Mme. Storey made a brief examination of the body, and went into the living-room for a moment. When she came back she said, in her cool voice:

“Not suicide, officer, but murder.”

“How do you know, ma’am?” the surprised voice answered.

“The body was dragged in here from the dining-room. More dust has fallen within the week, but you can still see the marks in the uncarpeted hall. And the dust is ground into his back. When he was dragged over the door-sill, one of his pumps came off, and was hurriedly shoved on his foot again. The edge is turned under at the heel. Nobody could wear a shoe like that without its hurting.”

“That’s the truth, ma’am!”

“He has money in his pockets, and his watch,” Mme. Storey went on. “So the motive was otherwise than robbery. The crystal of his watch is broken, and the hands stopped at seven minutes past eleven. That is the hour he was attacked on Monday night, one must suppose.”

“Killed here!” the superintendent exclaimed.

“Oh, my God!” groaned Francis Orr.

“There is a bump on the top of his head,” said Mme. Storey, “and a bruise on his forehead. I take it he was stunned by a blow from some blunt instrument, and fell forward on his face. That would account for the broken crystal. This happened just within the dining-room door. It is most likely that he had just let in a visitor, and was leading the way into the living-room.”

“But his skull isn’t broken, ma’am,” said the policeman. “That blow wouldn’t have killed him.”

“Certainly not,” said Mme. Storey. “He was turned over on his back, and suffocated with a cushion off the couch in there. He came to in the process, and struggled. You can see where the cover of the cushion has been torn by teeth.”

“Who are you, ma’am, anyhow?” the amazed voice demanded.

“Rosika Storey,” said my mistress.

“Oh-h!” breathed the voice. “That accounts for it, then ... Would you shake hands with me, ma’am.”

“Surely.”

“I am proud of this chance, ma’am. I’ll never forget this day.”