Читать книгу The Gray Phantom's Return - Herman Landon - Страница 4

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Just then a youngish man with a slouching gait and a dead cigar between his teeth pushed through the little knot of spectators at the entrance and leveled a mildly inquisitive glance at Pinto and the housekeeper.

The patrolman, after introducing the new arrival as Lieutenant Culligore of the detective bureau, told briefly what he had discovered.

Culligore doffed his dripping raincoat and banged his soggy slouch hat against the counter. His dull face and sluggish manners gave the impression that he was never quite awake, but now and then a furtive little gleam in his cinnamon-colored eyes betrayed a saving sense of humor. He seemed unimpressed until Pinto reached that point in his story where the dying man had told the name of his assailant. Then Culligore curled up his lip against the tip of his nose, as was his habit when interested in something, and motioned the patrolman to follow him into the inner room.

There was an indefinable air about the chamber that vaguely suggested the abode of one whose life is hidden from the world. The ragged carpet and the ancient wall paper were of neutral tones, and the atmosphere was stale and oppressive, as if seldom freshened by sun or wind. Lieutenant Culligore’s drowsily blinking eyes traveled over the scene, yet he appeared to see nothing. The safe in a corner seemed rather too large for the modest requirements of a tobacconist. Near by stood an ink-stained writing desk and a chair. The clothing on the narrow iron cot looked as though the occupant, suddenly disturbed in his sleep, had sprung from it in a hurry.

In the center of the room lay a curiously twisted figure, garbed in pajamas of pink flannel. Over the heart was a dull stain, and the right arm lay across the chest in a manner hinting that the dead man had used his last ounce of strength to ward off a blow. One of the legs was drawn up almost to the abdomen, and the eyes were fixed on the ceiling in a glassy stare.

“Well, Pinto?” Culligore looked as though he expected the patrolman to do the necessary thinking.

“The corpse told me the Gray Phantom did it,” said Pinto in a tone of finality. “Don’t you think we’d better start a general alarm, sir?”

“Corpses are sometimes mistaken, Pinto.” The lieutenant fumbled for a match and slowly kindled his cigar. “I’ll bet a pair of pink socks that the Phantom had nothing to do with this. The Phantom always fought clean. I’d hate like blue blazes to think that he pulled off this job.”

Pinto scowled a little, as if he couldn’t quite understand why Culligore should reject an easy solution of the mystery when it came to him ready-made.

“By the way,” and Culligore fixed an indolent eye on the electric fixture above the desk, “was the light on or off when you broke in?”

“It was off, sir. I turned it on myself.”

Culligore thought for a moment. “Well, that doesn’t mean much. The murderer might have switched it off before he made his get-away, or the room might have been dark all the time. I’d give a good smoke to know whether the murder was done in the light or the dark.”

Pinto’s eyes widened inquiringly.

“You see, Pinto, if the light was on we can take it for granted Gage saw the murderer’s face. If the room was dark, then he was just guessing when he told you it was the Phantom. It would have been a natural guess, too, for he would be very apt to suppose that the murderer was the man who had sent him the threatening letter. Since we can’t know whether Gage was stabbed in the light or the dark, we’d better forget what he told you and take a fresh start.” His eyes flitted about the room, and a flicker of interest appeared in their depths. “How do you suppose the murderer got out, Pinto?”

The patrolman looked significantly at the single window in the room. Culligore took a spiral tape measure from the little black box he always carried when at work on a homicide case and measured the width of the narrow sash.

“Too small,” he declared. “You’d have to yank in your belt several notches before you could crawl through a window of this size, Pinto. Anyhow, it’s latched from the inside.”

A look of perplexity in his reddish face, Pinto turned to the door. He looked a bit dazed as he noticed the damage he had wrought in forcing it. One of the panels was cracked in the center, and the slot in which the bolt had rested had been torn out of the frame.

“You see, Pinto.” There was a grin on Culligore’s lips. “The murderer couldn’t have got out of the window, because it’s much too small, and he couldn’t have walked out through the door, because it was bolted from the inside. There’s no transom, so he could not have adjusted the bolt from the other side. Nobody has yet figured out a way of passing through a door or window and leaving it bolted on the inside.”

Pinto stared at the door, at the window, and finally at Culligore. The problem seemed beyond him. Then he took his baton and, tapping as he went, explored every square foot of floor and walls, but no hollow sounds betrayed the presence of a hidden opening. He shook his head in a flabbergasted way.

“It’s possible, of course,” suggested the lieutenant, “that the murderer was still in the room when you broke in. He might have made his get-away in the dark while you were hunting for the light switch.”

“The housekeeper would have seen him,” Pinto pointed out. “She was standing just outside. And there was a crowd at the entrance. Say,” and a startled look crossed his face, “do you suppose Gage killed himself?”

“That would be an easy solution, all right. But, if he did, what was his idea in telling you that the Phantom had done it? And I don’t see any knife around. Gage wouldn’t have had the strength to pull it out of the wound, and, even if he had, how did he dispose of it? No, Pinto, Gage was murdered, and—hang it all!—it’s beginning to look as though the Phantom did it.”

“But you just said——”

“All I’m saying now is that it’s beginning to look as if the Phantom had had a hand in it. Things aren’t always what they seem, you know. I’m not taking much stock in what Gage told you just before he died. There are other reasons. One of them is the size of that window. Another is the fact that the door was bolted on the inside. Together they show that the man who committed this murder accomplished something of a miracle in getting out of the room. The Phantom is the only man I know who can do that sort of thing.”

He grinned sheepishly, as if conscious of having said something that sounded extravagant.

“Stunts like that are the Phantom’s long suit,” he went on. “He likes to throw dust in the eyes of the police and keep everybody guessing. But he was always a gentlemanly rascal, and it takes something besides a bolted door and a window latched on the inside to make me believe he has gotten down to dirty work. Wish the medical examiner would hurry up.”

He took a cover from the cot and threw it over the upper part of the body. A chance glance toward the door made him pause. Just across the threshold, with hands clasped across her breast and eyes fixed rigidly on the lifeless heap on the floor, stood the housekeeper. She awoke with a start from her reverie as she felt the lieutenant’s steady gaze on her face, and she shrank back a step. With a puckering of the brows, Culligore turned away. His eyes fell on the safe.

A pull at the knob told him it was locked. He took a magnifying lens from his kit and carefully examined the surface. Then, with a shake of the head signifying he had found no finger prints, he crooked his index finger at the housekeeper. She advanced reluctantly, and Culligore studied her with a sidelong glance.

“You needn’t talk unless you want to,” he said gently. “The department isn’t offering you any immunity. We’ve known for some time that Gage was running a fence, though we never got the goods on him.”

The woman, standing in a crouching attitude and studiously avoiding Culligore’s gaze, swept a tress of moist gray hair from her forehead.

“We’ve also suspected that you have been in cahoots with him,” continued the lieutenant in casual tones. “Oh, don’t get scared. We won’t go into that just now. All I want is that we understand each other.”

The woman raised her head and looked straight at Officer Pinto, and there was a hint of dread in her eyes as their glances met. A puzzled frown crossed Culligore’s face as he noticed the strange exchange of glances; then he pointed to the safe.

“Know how to open it?”

The housekeeper shook her head. “Mr. Gage kept only cheap junk in it, anyhow. All he used it for was a blind.”

“A blind?”

“He had to keep a lot of valuables in the house all the time, and he was always afraid of burglars. He kept a lot of phony stuff in the safe, thinking if burglars found it they might be fooled and not look any further.”

“Ah! Not a bad idea. Where did he keep the real stuff?”

The woman hesitated for a moment; then, with a quick gesture, she pointed to the old writing desk.

“Gage was a shrewd one,” observed the lieutenant. “With a safe in the room, nobody would think of looking for valuables in a broken-down desk. Now,” drawing a little closer to the woman and trying to catch her shifty eyes, “I wish you would tell us who killed him. I think you know.”

A tremor passed over the woman’s ashen face, and she fixed Pinto with a look that caused the lieutenant to lift his brows in perplexity. Finally, she pointed a finger at the patrolman.

“You heard what he said, didn’t you? Mr. Gage told him the Gray Phantom did it. Isn’t that enough?”

Culligore regarded her narrowly, as if sensing an attempt at evasion in what she had just said. Then he nodded and seemed to be searching his memory.

“Let me see—Gage and the Phantom had some kind of row a few years back?”

The housekeeper’s “Yes” was scarcely audible.

“What was it about?”

Her lips curled in scorn. “That’s what I could never understand. They were quarreling like two overgrown boys over a piece of green rock. Imitation jade was what Mr. Gage called it. I never got the story straight, but it seems the Phantom had been carrying it around as a kind of keepsake for years. He lost it finally, and somehow it got into Mr. Gage’s hands. The Phantom wanted it back, but Mr. Gage was just stubborn enough to hang on to it. They had an awful rumpus, and I think the Phantom threatened to get Mr. Gage some day.”

“All that fuss about a piece of phony jade? The Phantom must have had some particular reason for wanting it back. What was it shaped like?”

“It was a funny kind of cross, with eight tips to it.”

“A Maltese cross, maybe.” Lieutenant Culligore whistled softly. “The Phantom’s a queer cuss. Likely as not he thought more of that piece of imitation jade than most people would of a thousand dollars. What I don’t see is why Gage wouldn’t give it up. Unless,” he added with a shrewd grin, “he knew how badly the Phantom wanted it and hoped to make him cough up some real dough for it. Wasn’t that it?”

A shrug was the housekeeper’s only response.

“And the Phantom, of course, balked at the idea of paying good money for his own property. But it seems Gage would have given it up when he saw that it was putting his life in danger. I suppose, though, he thought the Phantom was only bluffing. He didn’t believe anybody would commit a murder over a thing that could be bought for a few cents.”

Again the housekeeper shot Pinto a queer glance. “If you don’t want me any more, I think I’ll——”

“Just a moment,” interrupted Culligore. “I want you to show me the letter Gage got yesterday.”

With a sullen gesture she stepped to the desk, fumbled for a few moments among the drawers, then drew forth a letter and handed it to the lieutenant. Culligore examined the envelope and the superscription under the light, then pulled out the enclosure.

“‘The Gray Phantom neither forgives nor forgets,’” he read aloud. “Short and to the point. Now let’s have a look at the Maltese cross. But wait—here’s the medical examiner. You’re late, doc.”

“Car broke down.” The examiner, a thickset, bearded, crisp-mannered individual, put a few questions to Culligore and Pinto, then uncovered the body, explored the region of the wound with an expert touch, and finally jotted down a few notes in a red-covered book. As he rose from his kneeling position, the lieutenant gave him a signal out of the corner of his eye, and the two men left the room together.

“Just one question, doc.” Culligore spoke in low tones, as if anxious that Pinto and the housekeeper should not hear. “About that wound. How long did Gage live after he was stabbed?”

“Not very long.”

“Long enough to tell Pinto the name of the man who stabbed him?”

The examiner looked startled. “Yes, in all probability. Say, you don’t suspect that cop in there of——”

“Not after what you’ve told me.” Culligore wheeled on his heels and re-entered the inner room. His upper lip brushed the tip of his nose, signifying he had learned something interesting. Pinto was replacing the cover over the body, while the housekeeper, standing a few paces away, was regarding him with a fixed, inscrutable look.

“Now let’s see the Maltese cross,” directed the lieutenant.

The woman jerked herself up. Her eyes held a defiant gleam, but it died away quickly. With evident reluctance she approached the desk and pointed.

“There’s a hidden drawer back there in the corner,” she announced. “I don’t know how to open it. You’ll have to find that out for yourself.”

Culligore, after looking in vain for a concealed spring, took a small tool from his kit. To locate the drawer without the woman’s help would have been a difficult task, for it was ingeniously hidden in an apparently solid portion of the desk. With a few deft twists and jerks he forced it open and poured out the contents, consisting of a great number of small objects wrapped in tissue paper. Each of the little wads contained a diamond. Unwrapping one after another, Culligore gathered them in a glittering heap on the desk. The stones varied in size and brilliancy. Occasionally he raised one of them to the light and inspected it keenly, satisfying himself of its genuineness.

“Some eye-teasers!” he muttered. “But where’s the Maltese cross?”

The housekeeper’s face went blank. She stared at the diamonds, then at the empty drawer.

“It was there day before yesterday,” she declared. “Mr. Gage showed it to me.”

There was an odd tension in the lieutenant’s manner. “Did the Phantom know about the secret drawer and how to open it?”

The woman, one hand clutching the edge of the desk, seemed to ponder. “I don’t know. He might have. The Phantom called on Mr. Gage several times after they started quarreling. But——”

“Well, it doesn’t matter.” There was a strain of suppressed disappointment in Culligore’s tones, and his face hinted that an illusion was slipping away from him. “It looks as though the thing was settled. The Gray Phantom is the only man I know who would pass up some fifty thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds after taking the trouble to steal a gewgaw worth about two bits.”

With dragging gait he left the room, stepped behind the counter outside, and spoke into the telephone. In a few moments now the alarm would go out and a thousand eyes would be searching for the Gray Phantom. Culligore, tarrying for a little after he had hung up the receiver, looked as though he were in a mood to quarrel with his duty and with the facts staring him in the face. Then he shrugged, as if to banish regrets of which he was half ashamed, and his face bore a look of dogged determination when he stepped back into the bedroom.

“We’ll get him,” he announced with grim assurance. “Inside fifteen minutes there’ll be a net thrown around this old town so tight a mouse couldn’t wriggle through.”

He picked up his hat and kit, and just then his eyes fell on the housekeeper’s face. In vain he exercised his wits to interpret the sly gaze with which she was fixing Patrolman Pinto.

Did it mean fear, suspicion, horror, hate, or all four?