The Casual Murderer and Other Stories E-Book

Hulbert Footner

• Herausgeber: Librorium Editions
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

I was crossing Union Square on my way to the office thinking about nothing at all, when I received one of those curious psychical shocks that the sight of an unknown face will sometimes give one. This was a young man sitting on a bench with his long legs stretched before him, and his hands thrust deep into his overcoat pockets. He was out of luck—well, all the benchers in November are out of luck; this one bore it with a difference. His chin was not sunk on his breast, but held level, and his gentian-blue eyes were staring straight before him with an expression of complete despair.
My impulse was to speak to him. I suppressed it, of course, and kept on. How quickly one learns to suppress ones natural impulses in town! But this one was not going to be so easily suppressed. It set up a painful agitation in my breast. Coward! Coward! a still small voice whispered to me. How about the Good Samaritan? Here is a fellow-creature suffering some wound infinitely more dreadful than wounds of the flesh, and you pass by on the other side!

Leseprobe

THE

CASUAL MURDERER

AND OTHER STORIES

HULBERT FOOTNER

1932

© 2023 Librorium Editions

ISBN : 9782383839736

THE CASUAL MURDERER

1

I was crossing Union Square on my way to the office thinking about nothing at all, when I received one of those curious psychical shocks that the sight of an unknown face will sometimes give one. This was a young man sitting on a bench with his long legs stretched before him, and his hands thrust deep into his overcoat pockets. He was out of luck—well, all the benchers in November are out of luck; this one bore it with a difference. His chin was not sunk on his breast, but held level, and his gentian-blue eyes were staring straight before him with an expression of complete despair.

My impulse was to speak to him. I suppressed it, of course, and kept on. How quickly one learns to suppress ones natural impulses in town! But this one was not going to be so easily suppressed. It set up a painful agitation in my breast. Coward! Coward! a still small voice whispered to me. How about the Good Samaritan? Here is a fellow-creature suffering some wound infinitely more dreadful than wounds of the flesh, and you pass by on the other side!

Before I got to the Seventeenth street corner I was forced to turn around and go back again. A new terror attacked me. What was I to say to a strange man? I was so flustered I walked right past him again. Shame! the voice whispered to me; you’re nearly thirty years old and red-haired and your own mistress! What is there to be afraid off? Don’t think about what you’re going to say; but say the natural thing that springs to your lips.

So I turned around, and marched up to him and said:

“What is the matter?”

He raised the blue eyes to my face, hard with scorn; his tight lips writhed with pain and rage. “That’s my affair,” he said.

Well! I flew. My face was crimson, I expect. Never again! Never again! Never again! I said to myself. The worldly sense which teaches us to restrain our impulses is right!

But before I got back to the Seventeenth Street corner I heard rapid steps coming after me—I would have died sooner than look around; and the resonant, pain-sharp voice at my ear saying quickly:

“I’m sorry. What must you think of me? I didn’t want to hurt you. The fact is I’m nearly out of my mind, and I lashed out blindly . . .”

I could look at him then. The blue eyes had become human and appealing, and of course, I was instantly melted.

“I understand,” I said. “It was quite natural. I was too abrupt. That was because I was embarrassed.”

“No,” he insisted. “I am a fool. If there was ever anybody who needed a friend in this city it is I and yet I . . . Why, at the moment you spoke to me, I was thinking what a God-forsaken, soulless city this is, and yet when you offered me a kindness . . .”

We were then abreast of the last bench in the Square. “Let us sit down a moment,” I said.

We did so.

“I suppose you live here,” he said with a painful eagerness; “Do you know the city well?”

“Pretty well,” I said.

“Then tell me, how do you set about finding a person who has disappeared?”

“The police?” I suggested.

An inexpressibly painful smile twisted his lips. “Yes, I’ve been to police headquarters,” he said. “They advised me to go home and forget about it.”

“If you cared to tell me the circumstances . . .” I suggested.

“Yes, indeed,” he said—he was humble enough now; “if you’ll only listen. How thankful I am to have somebody to talk to! I should have gone clean out of my senses otherwise!”

His name was Edward Swanley. He was the public librarian of Ancaster, a small town up-state. He had one assistant in the library, a girl Aline Elder. They had fallen in love among the book-shelves, and were engaged to be married. He, Swanley, had gone to Ancaster from college to take the job, but Aline had lived there all her life. Her father and mother were dead and she lived with a large family of cousins. He described her as an old-fashioned sort of girl; that is to say, simple, unaffected and good. She was very pretty. It was clear that he loved her better than his life.

“If I don’t find her,” he said simply, “well . . . that is the end, for me.”

Six days before Aline had said that she must go to New York for a day’s shopping. The announcement, while unexpected, was not an unnatural one, because all the women in Ancaster allowed themselves a day in New York once or twice a year. But they usually went in parties, or at least in couples, whereas Aline departed alone. Swanley couldn’t accompany her, because they couldn’t both leave the library at the same time. She left Ancaster at noon on the following day, Wednesday, meaning to spend the night in New York, and the whole of Thursday, getting home on the last train Thursday night.

Swanley had met the train, and she was not on it. He was surprised but not greatly put about, expecting a telegram in the morning. There was no telegram, and he began to get anxious. He telegraphed to Aline at her hotel, and got no reply. Later in the day his landlady came to him, saying that she felt it her duty to inform him what they were saying about town, and that was that Aline had received a letter from New York the day before she went, in a man’s handwriting. It had come from an assistant in the post office.

Swanley was enraged, but to doubt Aline was the last thing that occurred to him. Why, her simplicity and goodness of heart were proverbial in Ancaster; her life had been as open as the day; Swanley felt that he knew her heart better than his own. He visited the post office, but the terrified girl stuck to her story; Aline Elder had received a letter with the New York post-mark and addressed in a man’s hand, the day before she went away. The envelope had no lettering on it, but there was a little picture raised in the paper of the flap.

After a night of torment, Swanley set off for town on Saturday morning. He went to a certain woman’s hotel, where Aline had said she would stop, and was informed that she had not been there. He then told his story to the police. When the Inspector was told of the letter Aline had received, he smiled sympathetically at Swanley, and advised him to go back to Ancaster and forget her. That brought the unfortunate young man to the end of his resources. Since then he had been wandering blindly about the streets. It was Monday morning when I found him.

Now I had no right to speak for my busy, famous mistress, but I knew her kind heart, and I took a chance. “Did you ever hear of Madame Rosika Storey?” I asked Swanley.

He shook his head.

“Everybody in New York knows her,” I said. “She’s a famous psychologist. I’m her secretary, Bella Brickley.”

“What do you mean by psychologist?” he asked.

“Her profession is solving human problems,” I said. “She works through her knowledge of the human heart.”

“Crimes?” he said.

“Crimes and other problems. When there is more time I will tell you of the wonderful things she has done. Come along with me now, and talk to her.”

“I have no money,” he said dejectedly.

“Never mind that,” I said. “She will listen to you. If you succeed in interesting her, the money will not matter.”

“Ah,” he said, “she will just think like everybody else that Aline has gone with some man.”

“Madame Storey never thinks like everybody else,” I said. “She is unique.”

2

Our offices face Gramercy Park, that delightful and still aristocratic little back-water of the town. We are on the second floor of a magnificent old residence which has been sub-divided. My room, the outer office, was I suppose, originally a library or music-room. Through it you enter Mme. Storey’s own room, which was the drawing-room. We have a third room to the rear of that, which we call the middle room, and which Mme. Storey uses as a dressing-room, or for any miscellaneous purposes that may be required.

Swanley had accompanied me, but it was clear he had no great hopes of Mme. Storey. Having told me his story, he had relapsed into himself. While we waited for my mistress, he sat in my room stony with despair.

The door from the hall opened, and Mme. Storey came in. Swanley looked at her in astonishment, and involuntarily rose to his feet. Have I mentioned that he was very tall and well-proportioned? His expression of amazement was almost comical. What he had expected to see I don’t know; some beetle-browed, bespectacled old wise-woman, I suppose. Certainly not this glorious apparition of loveliness. She was wearing a little red hat, I remember—she is the one woman in a thousand who is pretty enough to wear a red hat; and a coat of chipmunk fur with its delicate black stripes; great fluffy collar and cuffs of fox. She had walked down, for her cheeks were as red as her hat, her dark eyes sparkling, and her lips parted to reveal gleaming teeth.

She gave Swanley a comprehensive glance, and I began to be assured that I had made no mistake in bringing him to her. With her insight she must see at once that he was neither a trifler nor a fool. She bowed to him slightly, smiled at me, and went into her room. Swanley stood looking after her with his mouth open.

“But why . . . why didn’t you tell me . . .?” he stammered.

“I did tell you she was unique,” I said, and went after Mme. Storey.

“Who is he, Bella?” she asked.

“I picked him up in Union Square,” I said breathlessly. “He’s in trouble. Oh, I know you have a hundred important things to do this morning; but give him ten minutes. Let him talk for himself. He’s terribly eloquent.”

“Bring him in,” she said.

There is a whole row of casement windows along the front of Mme. Storey’s room. (For the house has been modernised). She sits with her back to them, at an immense and beautiful Italian table, black with age. The long room stretches before her into the shadows; and all her beautiful things are revealed to her in the horizontal light from the windows at her back. Priceless things, yet the effect of the room on the whole is simple, because there is not too much in it.

Swanley sat partly to the right of her desk facing her, and I at my little desk over in the corner. He repeated his story as I have already given it to you.

When he came to the end Mme. Storey said at once: “Well, I agree with you, there can be no question of a vulgar love affair here.”

The young man betrayed his first sign of weakness. He hung his head; his face broke up. “Oh, Madame! Oh, Madame!” he murmured brokenly. “Thank you! . . . I hardly expected . . . Nobody else . . .” He was unable to go on.

Mme. Storey made haste to help him over the difficult place. “Oh, people don’t change their natures over night,” she said briskly. “You have described Miss Elder so that I see her quite clearly. . . . Now, let’s see what we have to start on. The letter. We may assume that there was a letter. Nothing discreditable in that. But Miss Elder was hardly the person to have responded to a summons out of the blue, so to speak. There must have been something in her life to prepare her to receive such a letter, or she wouldn’t have gone.”

“Why didn’t she tell me?” groaned the poor young fellow.

“I don’t know,” said Mme. Storey. “The psychology text-books attempt to classify human motives, but there are mixed motives that defy classification. We’ll find out before we’re through. . . . What was there in her life . . .”

“Nothing! Nothing!” he cried. “I have told you all.”

“That can hardly be true,” said Mme. Storey. “Let’s go into it. Take her parents, for instance; you said they were both dead. How long?”

“The mother, only two years,” he said. “I knew her. I was strongly attached to her. She was the librarian at Ancaster and I went there as assistant. When she died they promoted me to be librarian, and gave me Aline as assistant.”

“What sort of woman was Mrs. Elder?”

“She had a noble nature, Madame. She was universally respected and loved. Her people have been known in Ancaster since the village was settled.”

“And the father?”

“He did not belong to Ancaster. He died when Aline was a baby. I know very little about him, but I know all that Aline knew. Aline told me that the mention of her father’s name was the only thing that could make her mother’s face harden. Once when Aline was a child, she put it up to her mother frankly: ‘Tell me about my father.’ All her mother would say was that he had treated them both very badly, and the best thing they could do was to put him out of their minds.”

“He was not buried in Ancaster,” said Mme. Storey. “You would have known, I suppose, if his grave was there.”

“It was not there, Madame. He died in Chicago, where the Elders lived during their brief married life. Aline was born in Chicago. After her husband died, Mrs. Elder returned to her native village with the baby.”

“Ha!” said Mme. Storey. “I suspect that Elder did not die at all.”

The young man’s eyes opened wide. “What reason have you to suppose that?” he asked.

“A woman like Mrs. Elder does not cherish rancour beyond the grave,” said Mme. Storey. “Particularly not in speaking to a child. It was likely the knowledge that he was alive and misbehaving himself that kept her bitter. Why the very form of the words she used—if you have correctly repeated them, ‘put him out of our minds’ suggests that he was still a person to be reckoned with.”

“Why, of course!” said Swanley.

“Did Aline share her mother’s feelings towards the father?” asked Mme. Storey.

“Not exactly, Madame. Much as she loved her mother, the mere fact that everything had been kept from her, inclined Aline to think that her mother might have been a little unjust.”

“Naturally. Well, there we have the beginning of a clue already.”

“You think that letter was from Aline’s father!” he said excitedly.

“Oh, not so fast!” said Mme. Storey. “I said a beginning.”

“Wait!” cried Swanley. “Here is something. Aline had a little photograph of her father. After her mother’s death she had it framed, and hung it on the wall of her room. I visited her room on Friday; to see if there was any clue. The picture was gone; my attention was called to it by the faded spot on the wallpaper.”

“Well, let us say that her visit to New York had something to do with her father. That’s that. . . . Now, the fact that she never turned up at her hotel, and has never sent you a line suggests that she has met with an accident of some sort.”

The young man turned pale.

“Do not lose heart!” said Mme. Storey. “All accidents are not fatal. . . . One feels somehow, that she has an enemy.”

“How could she?”

“That is for us to find out. Suppose there is somebody who wishes her ill; who was plotting against her; that person would be likely to spy on her first. Now, Ancaster is a small place; any stranger whose business could not be accounted for would be conspicuous there. Has there been any such person there lately?”

The young man looked blank, and at first he slowly shook his head. Then a recollection arrested him. “There has been somebody,” he said, “just lately, too, but no one would ever suppose . . .”

“What are the particulars?” asked Mme. Storey.

“This man turned up late Monday night. Touring in a big car; handsome imported car.”

“Alone?” asked Mme. Storey.

“Well, he had his chauffeur. He put up at the local hotel, and stayed on. Said he was attracted by the beauty of the village.”

“In November!” remarked Mme. Storey.

“Well, nobody thought anything about that. An agreeable sort of man; willing to talk to anybody.”

“What name did he give?”

“I never heard. He was always referred to as the rich man, or the city man.”

“What did he look like?”

“Quite the fine gentleman; elegant clothes. A man nearing fifty—well-preserved. Striking-looking face; high cheek bones; prominent nose; jetty black eyes. You’d remember him by his nose.” Swanley made a mark in the air over his own straight nose. “What do you call that shaped nose?”

“Aquiline?” suggested Mme. Storey.

“Yes; or Roman. He had a Roman nose.”

“It did not occur to you that there might be some connection between this man’s coming, and Aline’s going?”

“Why, no; how could there be? He came late Monday night. Aline left Wednesday. But he stayed on. In fact, he was on the train with me on Saturday.”

“Ha!” said Mme. Storey. “And did it not seem strange to you, that he should leave the luxurious car and undertake a tedious railway journey?”

“I was not thinking about him,” said Swanley painfully. “What about it?”

“Well, he might, for instance, have been following you. You were Aline’s natural protector. You started off to look for her.”

Swanley stared at her in amazement.

Mme. Storey half turned in her chair, and thoughtfully looked out of the window. “An elegant gentleman of near fifty,” she murmured; “high cheek bones; jetty black eyes; Roman nose. . . . Keep back from the window, but look across the street. Is that, by any chance, he who is now passing in front of the Park railings?”

“Good God! yes!” gasped Swanley.

“He has passed by twice since you have been here,” said Mme. Storey quietly.

3

When every possible detail had been elicited from young Swanley, and he had been sent away in a little less desperate frame of mind, with strict injunctions from Mme. Storey to take food and rest, she said to me with a glint in her eye:

“Bella, I fancy we’re going to have a call from the gentleman with the Roman nose.”

“What makes you think so?” I asked.

“A certain look in his eye the last time he glanced up at our windows.”

“Well, if he’s a crook he’d be venturing into the lioness’ den,” I said.

“Thanks,” she drawled.

“What possible excuse could he give for coming here?”

“I don’t know. We’ll see. He had an original eye.”

“I think it was pretty clumsy work,” I said. “His exhibiting himself openly before our windows like that.”

“Perhaps he doesn’t care whether we’re on to him or not,” she dryly suggested. “. . . An extraordinary quality in his glance!” she mused. “I think this case is going to be interesting.”

You will observe that the question of Mme. Storey’s taking this case had never been raised. The honesty and the despair of the young man had won her, and she went ahead with it as a matter of course.

On the telephone she got in touch with Sampson, a man who has done good work for us. “Sampson,” she said, “I am asked to find a young woman who has disappeared. Her name is Aline Elder, of Ancaster, New York. At noon last Wednesday she boarded a train for New York at Ancaster, and she has not been seen by her friends since. That train arrives at Grand Central about three. I wish you’d get in touch with the conductor of it, and find out if he remembers her. She may have asked the conductor a question; or he may have seen her in talk with somebody on the train.

“Take down her description: an unusually pretty girl, twenty-two years old; height, five feet four; weight about 125; a soft round face with a healthy pallor; large brown eyes with unusually long lashes; chestnut brown hair. She wore a dress of blue Georgette, and a brown coat of three-quarters length, trimmed with a collar of nutria fur; a block felt hat formed of several pieces drawn up to a little felt bow on the crown. She is a girl of especial sweetness and gentleness of character, and this is evident in her expression. Her face customarily wears a half-smile.”

Mme. Storey also telephoned to an agency that makes a speciality of tracing missing persons. She took other measures to find the girl which I need not go into, since nothing resulted from them.

A while later I was working in my own room when the door from the hall was softly opened, and upon looking up, I seemed to receive a little current of electricity up and down my spine. It was the man with the Roman nose. A very elegant figure indeed; more Continental in effect than American. I have already described his physical characteristics; how can I convey to you the extraordinary glance of his piercing black eyes—eyes set just a little too close to the imposing bridge of his nose; insolent, quizzical and cruel. I can only say that every time he looked at me a shudder seized my vitals.

His voice was all suavity. “Madame Storey,” he said; “I wonder if she will be good enough to see me?”

“What name, please?”

“George Rawlings.”

I went in to my mistress. Before I had time to open my mouth she said with a delightful smile:

“So he’s come!”

I repeated the name he had given.

“Well, we mustn’t appear to be too anxious to see him,” said Mme. Storey. “Say this to him: ‘Mme. Storey is very busy. Since she has not the pleasure of Mr. Rawlings’ acquaintance, she begs that he will outline the nature of his business to her secretary.’”

I went out and delivered my message.

“Might I beg a scrap of paper?” he asked, with that over-courteous air of his, in which there was something subtly insulting.

I handed him a pad and he wrote upon it with a gold pencil:

“Could you use $100,000 in your business?”

When I showed this to Mme. Storey a note of astonished laughter escaped her. “Well, he has a cheek!” she said. “Still, we may let him assume that he has aroused our curiosity. Show him in, Bella.”

Within the door of Mme. Storey’s room Rawlings bowed with his heels together; wholly at his ease; pre-eminently the man of the world.

Mme. Storey had put on a slightly affronted air. She glanced with distaste at the pad on her desk. “I don’t know what this means,” she said, “but I am curious enough to ask. If it is just a trick, I must warn you that I am a busy woman, and have no time to spend in mere talk.”

“It means exactly what it says,” said Rawlings; suave, deferential, but not servile.

“Why should I need $100,000 in my business?” asked Mme. Storey. “My plant and fixtures are all in my head.”

“Do not cases sometimes come to your attention,” he said, “interesting cases, that you are nevertheless obliged to refuse because there is no one to pay you for your work?”

“Yes, occasionally,” said Mme. Storey. “I have to make my living.”

“I ask to be allowed to pay you for such cases,” he said bowing; “when the cause is worthy, and the client has no money.”

“Well!” said Mme. Storey. “This is an astonishing offer. You must let me catch my breath. . . . Sit down.”

He sat in the chair that Edward Swanley had occupied earlier. I had gone inconspicuously to my desk in the corner. He glanced at me, and Mme. Storey observing it, said carelessly:

“Miss Brickley is present at all interviews.”

He bowed.

“What conditions do you attach to your offer?” asked Mme. Storey.

“None, Madame—or, I should say, only one minor condition.”

“And that is?”

“That I be kept informed of the progress of any case I may be paying for. In other words allowed to share in the interest of the work.”

“What sum do you propose devoting to it?” asked Mme. Storey dryly. “You say $100,000. Do you mean the interest on that sum annually?”

“No! No!” he said, waving his hands. “I put that down because I had to put something. If I had named a larger sum you might have thought I was crazy, and sent for the doorman. No, I place no limits on the expenditures, except of course, the limits of my income, which fluctuates at present between $500,000 and $600,000 a year.”

There was a silence. Mme. Storey lit a cigarette, and regarded him quizzically through the smoke.

“You may be mad, you know,” she said.

He shrugged in the Continental style. “They say money talks. Try it. You have only to mention a sum, and it will be delivered here within an hour in cash.”

“Why in cash?” asked Mme. Storey raising her eyebrows. “Why not through the regular channels?”

“Because I do not want anybody to know about it,” he said smoothly; “not my bankers; not my attorneys. I am no philanthropist. I detest the word. I am merely a man without any family, without any definite interest, and with a great deal more money than I can spend. My dear lady, you do not know it, but I have followed your career almost from the beginning with the keenest interest. I know all about the Ashcomb Poor case, the strange case of Teresa de Guion, and the tragic Starr murder. I suspect that there are still stranger cases going on, that do not get into the newspapers.”

“There are,” said Mme. Storey.

“Well, I will be quite frank with you—how foolish for me to seek to be otherwise with a woman like you! I am trying to buy my way into your confidence to a limited extent. It would give me the greatest pleasure if I might be in on some interesting and extraordinary case from its very inception, and follow it step by step through the medium of your extraordinary insight, to its triumphant conclusion. Then too, I am only human, I suppose; I might be doing a little good with my money, if we came to the assistance of some poor soul who was up against a devilish combination of circumstances, and lacked the wherewithal to extricate himself. You see it is very simple.”

“Oh, very!” said Mme. Storey.

“But it would spoil all my pleasure if anybody on my side knew what I was doing.”

“Then you decline to identify yourself to me to furnish references.”

“I must, my dear lady.”

“Your name may not be George Rawlings at all.”

“It may not be,” he said smiling.

“You may not have come by this money honestly.”

“I may not,” he said without turning a hair. “What do you care?”

“I don’t care particularly,” said Mme. Storey. “But I must have time to think it over, you understand.”

He immediately arose. “I quite understand. May I come to see you again?”

“Any time,” said Mme. Storey carelessly. “Such a munificent offer deserves consideration.”

“Thank you,” he said bowing. “You will find that I shall not trespass on your good nature. Should any occasion arise, my telephone number is Plaza 5771. Good-morning, Madame Storey. Good-morning, Miss Brickley.”

I saw him through the outer door. When I returned, Mme. Storey, helping herself to a fresh cigarette, said airily:

“Grand flow of language, Bella!”

“The cheek of it!” I said with some heat; “trying to buy us!”

“Oh, he didn’t seriously expect to buy us,” said Mme. Storey. “His object in coming here was more subtle. He wanted to find out if I had interested myself in Aline Elder, and confound him! he did find out. Observe his cleverness. With his damned offer he put me in a position where there was no line I could take that might put him off.”

“Unless you had taken his money,” I suggested.

“I ought to have taken his money,” she said ruefully, “but I couldn’t quite bring myself to it. . . . On the other hand, Bella, the offer might have been bona fide.”

“Never!” I said. “Not with that face!”

“Well, I don’t think so myself,” said Mme. Storey, “but one must keep an open mind.”

“At any rate,” I said, “he’ll never trouble us again.”

“Oh, but he will!” said Mme. Storey. “He enjoyed hearing himself talk. He’ll give us more of it.”

“What do you suppose his real game is?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” said Mme. Storey. “But before I’m through with him, I will know!”

4

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.”