Читать книгу The Casual Murderer and other stories - Footner Hulbert - Страница 7

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On our way back to the office an hour later, Mme. Storey had the cab stop at the club-house of the Thespians on Gramercy Park, only half a dozen doors from us. Francis Orr having left us, still calling on Heaven to explain why it had thus afflicted the Orrs, she sent in our chauffeur to ask the doorman to come to her. He was a delightful old club servant of a type rare nowadays. Through him she got in touch with Mr. Henry Stanford, the famous actor, an officer of the club. They introduced themselves to each other amidst mutual felicitations and Mme. Storey said:

“I am sorry to have to tell you that your member, Mr. Schuyler Orr, has been found dead in his flat.”

“Orr! Poor fellow! How shocking!” murmured the other. “I didn’t know him.”

“Apparently he was murdered on his return from the club on Monday night of last week. I am very anxious to find any one who may have talked with him in the club that night.”

Mr. Stanford promised to make immediate inquiries.

“My office is only six doors from here,” said Mme. Storey. “It is past office hours, but I will wait there until I hear from you.”

At the office we found that Canby had returned from Mamaroneck. He reported that on Monday afternoon of the previous week, at the Ahkanasi Club, Mr. Schuyler Orr had played a round of golf with Major Ingoldsby. Canby had interviewed Major Ingoldsby, who preserved a lively recollection of that particular round. It had been like any other round until Orr lost his ball in a patch of woods at the easterly side of the course. He searched for it a few minutes, but came back without it. The incident seemed to put him strangely out of temper. Thereafter he was quite unable to keep his mind on the game, and finally with the most cursory of apologies, he left the Major on the course to finish alone.

The Major was still indignant over it. When he got back to the club-house he said he found Orr sitting gloomily before the fire. They did not speak. Later the Major, Orr, and the other members rode together in the club bus to the Mamaroneck station where they took the 5.50 for town. Orr, quite contrary to his usual custom, sat alone in the smoker, and spoke to no one. No one had seen him after the train had arrived at Grand Central.

We knew though, that he had gone straight home.

After Canby we had Mr. Jennings Morrissey, one of the editors on the staff of the Adelphi, and a member of the Thespians, a very delightful fellow, and obviously pleased to the death at the opportunity of meeting Mme. Storey.

“Poor Schuyler Orr!” he said. “What a horrible affair! I was not exactly a friend of his, but as it happens I had a brief chat with him on Monday night of last week. In fact, we left the club together. Stanford said you would like me to come and tell you about it.”

“If you’ll be so good,” said Mme. Storey. She offered him a cigarette.

“None of Orr’s regular pals are in the club house now,” Mr. Morrissey went on. “If they don’t dine there, they’ll turn up later. They may be able to tell you more than me, but I doubt it. For Orr was not on what you’d call intimate terms with anybody. A pleasant enough fellow, but not exactly expansive.

“He was one of the four men who played bridge every night in the small card-room upstairs. On the night in question—the last night Orr was seen at the club, they sent down to the lounge for another player, as Orr wanted to retire from the game. This would be a little before ten. Orr came downstairs and passed through the lounge, where I was sitting, reading, and I noticed he looked a little queer. ‘Off your game?’ I said.

“He jumped when I spoke to him, and gave me a queer, excited sort of smile. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘so it seems.’ He went on into the writing-room which is in a sort of alcove off the lounge, and up a few steps. I could see him from where I sat. Ordinarily, he was such a dry, self-contained, formal sort of fellow that it aroused my curiosity to see him disturbed. But when I say disturbed, I don’t mean that he was in trouble; on the contrary he seemed to be filled with some sort of fearful but pleasurable excitement.

“He wrote a letter. It gave him a lot of trouble, because he tore up several sheets. By the time he got it done to his satisfaction it was getting on for eleven, and I was preparing to move. So we started out together. He had the letter in his hand. When I was getting my things on at the coat room, he went down to the office, which is a few steps lower, and got a stamp. He came back, and dropped his letter in the box right there in the club entry. After he had put it in, he stood staring at the box in a way you couldn’t help noticing. When he turned around and caught me looking at him, he said with an excited laugh:

“ ‘That letter means a lot to me, Morrissey.’

“ ‘That so?’ said I, grinning.

“ ‘Oh, it’s not what you’re thinking,’ he said. ‘Not a love affair. That sort of thing would never get me going. My God! something bigger than that. Success in my profession, Morrissey, and a pot of money beside, a whole pot of money!’

“ ‘Legal business,’ said I.

“ ‘Amazing! Amazing!’ he said, looking quite wild. “ ‘Something that has just dropped into my lap, Morrissey. In the most astounding way. It’s like a story. But you’d never dare print such a story in your magazine. Of course, I keep telling myself it may be all moonshine; mere raving. Still, you read of such things in the newspapers. But the magnitude of it! It’s enough to sweep a man off his feet. Oh, well, I’ll know in a few days.’ All this in jerky, breathless sentences.

“The boy came with his coat, so I wished him good luck of his windfall, and went on home. This was quarter to eleven, because it was ten minutes to, when I passed the Metropolitan tower.”

“He was killed at seven minutes past,” said Mme. Storey.

“Good Heavens! then I was perhaps the last man to speak to him alive!”

“Except his murderer,” said Mme. Storey.

Such was the gist of Mr. Morrissey’s information. He was quite willing to go on and enlarge upon it to any extent, so long, in fact, as the beautiful Mme. Storey would listen. We got rid of him by leaving the office ourselves. At the street door he bowed, and returned to his club.

Mme. Storey and I paused at the Fourth Avenue corner, while we waited for a taxi to carry her uptown.

“That letter he wrote,” I said, “do you think ...?”

“I am certain that is the letter received by Aline Elder on Tuesday. Have you ever received a letter on the stationery of the Thespians?”

I shook my head.

“Well, it has the device of the club embossed without colour on the flap of the envelope. That would be ‘the little picture raised in the paper.’ It was posted inside the club, you notice. He would no doubt have been prevented from posting it outside. The case begins to take shape, Bella.”

“But if Orr was murdered merely for writing to the girl, how about the girl herself?” I said aghast. “Poor Swanley!”

“That is why I am trying to keep the girl’s name out of the Orr case,” said Mme. Storey gravely.

“You have a theory?” I said eagerly.

“A sort of one.”

I did not like to ask her point blank what it was, but I suppose I looked my question.

She said: “It’s only a guess so far, Bella; and you know I never speak of my guesses. As a theory it has several large holes in it. For instance: if it is the correct theory, I don’t understand why he should have waited until now to strike at the girl.”

“Who?” I said involuntarily.

The cab had driven up to the curb. With her foot on the step, she looked at me and with her forefinger made the sign of a hook over her own straight nose.

I shivered.