The Almost Perfect Murder Part 20

"What did it say?"

"It said: 'The story is going around that Dr. Portal did for Dr. McComb. You had better look into it.' ... How did you become interested in the case, if I may ask?"

"Between ourselves," said Mme. Storey, "Dr. Portal has consulted me."

"You mean he has engaged you to solve this mystery?"

"Yes."

"Well, that was a bold move!"

"If he is guilty it would be. But surely you do not think that he..."

"I have no opinion," said Inspector Rumsey, spreading out his hands. "All my investigation has shown is that he might have done it."

"But, good heavens!" cried Mme. Storey, sitting upright, "why should he have done it?"

"Professional jealousy," suggested the Inspector. "Dr. McComb, a much younger man, had been making great strides lately. His name was continually in the newspapers."

"But Dr. Portal is not the man to care about that," said Mme. Storey. "Look you, for fifteen years he's been at the head of the Terwilliger Inst.i.tute and one of the most conspicuous citizens of New York. Yet one almost never meets him at public functions. And in all those years I have never seen a published photograph of him. I did not know him to-night until he introduced himself. Is that the record of a man who is keen about newspaper publicity?"

Inspector Rumsey did not answer.

"It is sacrilege to think a man like that in connection with a sordid murder!" Mme. Storey went on earnestly. "I should say if there is one disinterested man in this world of money-grubbers that man was Felix Portal!"

"Even so," said the Inspector with quiet obstinacy, "everybody knows that the higher the flights a man is capable of, the lower he may fall. The whole history of crime testifies to it."

"You have several children, haven't you?" said Mme. Storey, suddenly taking a new line. "What are their ages?"

"The youngest is three and the oldest eleven," said the Inspector with a smile.

"All within the danger limits for infantile paralysis," she murmured.

"Don't speak of it!" he said with a painful gesture. "It's a nightmare!"

"They say we are headed straight for an epidemic."

"It's horrible!" cried the Inspector. "A man is so helpless! When I see it coming I wish I could send them all up on a mountain top where they could be cut off from everybody!"

"That's what Dr. Portal is working on now," said Mme. Storey quietly; "working to save your children, all the children. He had almost attained success when this..."

Inspector Rumsey fairly groaned in his distress. "I've got to do my duty. I had hoped that he would never hear this story. Never discover that he was being watched."

"Well, he knows it now," she said gravely, "and his work is at a standstill.... You say he might have done it," she presently went on, "but he says he was at the Natural History Museum all evening where hundreds of people saw him."

"That is true and not true," said the Inspector. "He made a speech of welcome at nine o'clock and of course everybody in the building saw and heard him. But after he stepped down from the platform at nine-twenty, I am unable to find anybody who saw him until supper was served at eleven."

"That is no proof that he wasn't there."

"No, but unfortunately I have learned that a taxicab was called to the museum at nine-thirty, and that a man was driven from there to the corner of Avenue A and Seventy-Fourth Street, which, as you know, is just around the corner from the Inst.i.tute. Well, if he could taxi over there he could taxi back, of course, in plenty of time for supper."

"Did this pa.s.senger resemble Dr. Portal?" Mme. Storey asked anxiously.

"Ah, there we are up against it again. The driver of that taxi has left his job, and I have not been able to find him."

"Pretty slim evidence," suggested Mme. Storey.

"Surely," he agreed. "But in the face of it, how can I give up watching Dr. Portal."

"Well, now the situation is somewhat altered," she said. "Dr. Portal has engaged me to solve this mystery. That's pretty strong evidence of his good faith in the matter. If I a.s.sure you that I mean to devote my whole time to the case, are you willing to call off your dogs? You and I will still be working together, of course."

"Sure," cried the Inspector heartily. "And darn glad of the excuse to let up on the doctor!"

They shook hands on it.

"Now tell me all you know about the case," said Mme. Storey, lighting a fresh cigarette.

It required a full hour for the Inspector to relate all the work he and his men had done. I shall not weary you with the recital, for there was little of it that proved to be of any service to us. Nothing in Dr. McComb's past life, nor in Dr. Portal's either, threw any light on the crime. In an a.s.sociation of five years they had never been known to quarrel, or even to have a serious difference of any kind. The only thing in the way of complete harmony was Dr. McComb's ambition--and that was mostly Mrs. McComb's.

As a matter of fact Mme. Storey had to begin from the beginning. It was a single word dropped by Inspector Rumsey which gave her her lead. In one of the gossiping stories patiently run down by the police, a young interne of the Inst.i.tute had used the phrase: "As it was told to me, Dr. Portal hired a gunman to put McComb out of the way." This yarn was traced back to Mrs. McComb; but when the police questioned her she denied having said it. In fact she denied ever having charged that Dr. Portal was responsible for her husband's death. This was manifestly a falsehood. It was no doubt the Terwilligers who, with the best intentions, had shut the woman up. Mrs. McComb was the kind of woman who would be very much in awe of multi-millionaires.

"At any rate," said Mme. Storey, "'gunman' is our line."

"I have not neglected that line," said the Inspector. "The possible hired killers are pretty well known to us. Well, every man of that sort has been able to account for his actions on the night of November 8th."

"But there are always new killers coming up," suggested Mme. Storey.

"Sure," said the Inspector gloomily, "there are always youngsters who are crazy for a chance to qualify in that cla.s.s. It is looked upon as the head of the criminal profession."

"Then we will a.s.sume," she said, "that this was a first killing by a man who had already served an apprenticeship in lesser crimes."

"But it was Dr. Portal who was said to have hired the gunman," said the Inspector, frowning.

"Well, maybe he did," said Mme. Storey airily. "In any case it provides us with a starting point."

III.

Before we went to bed that night we made an appointment with Dr. Portal to come to his laboratory next day. What she had learned made it necessary for her to have another talk with him, Mme. Storey told him. After that she did not expect to trouble him again until she had arrested her man. She insisted that there was no need for secrecy now, and in fact she advised him to tell his a.s.sociates that he had engaged her to clear him from the absurd scandal that had clouded his name. "Let the matter be dragged out into the open," she said.

The great Terwilliger Inst.i.tute, as everybody knows, stands in its own fine park on the bank of the East River. I should very much have liked to have gone over the whole place, but there was no time for that. We confined our attention to the bacteriological laboratory, which was for the time being entirely devoted to the researches of Dr. Portal and his a.s.sistants. The ground floor was given up to an immense general laboratory with apparatus of every description; the second floor was divided into special laboratories and offices, while the third floor housed the monkeys and other animals used in their work. I did not go up there.

The three of us were in his private room, an office rather than a laboratory, bare and speckless as a hospital ward. Mme. Storey said lightly: "Among the different versions of the story which have been going the rounds, there was one to the effect that you hired a gunman to do the deed."

"How absurd!" said the doctor, half-amused, half-angry. "How on earth would I set about to hire a gunman?"

"Have you never known a man of that sort?" asked Mme. Storey carelessly.

Dr. Portal suddenly checked himself. "Why ... why, yes I did," he said blankly. "How strange! It happened just a little while before the tragedy.... It never occurred to me there might be a connection between the two.... Why, there couldn't have been!"

"Nevertheless, tell me about it," said Mme. Storey.

Dr. Portal looked out of the window. His gaze became still more remote as he called up the past scene. "When you have been concentrating on a difficult problem for many hours--or days," he began slowly, "there comes a moment when the brain seems to slip its cogs, and you become conscious of a great weariness. It is a sort of warning signal, I suppose, and I always heed it at once. Generally I take a little walk in the grounds. Sometimes just a few minutes' relaxation is enough to restore me."

"I expect this habit of yours is well known," suggested Mme. Storey.

"No doubt. No doubt," he said. "There are certain individuals of the neighbourhood with whom I have become quite well acquainted through meeting them in the grounds. When I came here years ago the grounds were closed to the public, but I persuaded my patrons to open them. It is a crowded neighbourhood and there are too few parks. Moreover, I like to walk about and watch the people, and talk to them. But I have not always the courage to open a conversation. You will think it very silly, I am sure, at my age to be so diffident. I am glad when anybody speaks to me."

"I can understand that," murmured Mme. Storey.

He glanced at her gratefully. "I lead too solitary a life, having no family," he went on. "I get up in the morning and go to work. Most days I work until it is time to go home and go to bed again. I have myself pretty well disciplined--but not completely disciplined. There is something in me that sometimes rebels against this dryness, something that longs for colour and drama in life. I tell you this in order to explain what happened."

Mme. Storey nodded.

"One sunny afternoon," he went on; "it was just a few days before the catastrophe here; let me see, the following day was a Sat.u.r.day; that would be two Sat.u.r.days before the tragedy, October 30th; I was sitting on a bench in the grounds throwing bread crumbs to the sparrows when a young fellow came along and sat down on the other end of the bench. I was immediately and strongly attracted to him...."

"Why?" asked Mme. Storey.

"Well ... I suppose it was the attraction of opposites. He was the exact ant.i.thesis of what I had been as a young fellow. He existed purely on the physical plane, one would say. A superb physical specimen; comely, vigorous and alert. He was very well dressed in a somewhat flashy style. I was surprised at his interest in me, for such a one naturally has little use for an old fogey of a scientist. From his handsome dark eyes and smooth, firm, dusky skin I put him down as an Italian, and as a matter of fact he told me later that his name was t.i.to Tolentino...."

"A mellifluous moniker," put in Mme. Storey with a dry smile; "probably a.s.sumed for the occasion."

"No doubt," said Dr. Portal. "Indeed, when we became better acquainted he confessed that he went under many names. An amazing tale."

"Don't skip any of it," warned Mme. Storey.

"He was a mere lad," the doctor went on, "not more than nineteen I should say, but he had an uncanny air of experience and a.s.surance. I am rather alarmed in the presence of hard-boiled youths, but on this occasion I wasn't required to make any overtures, for he immediately started talking to me. With his uncanny sharpness he perceived that I was diffident, and laid himself out to put me at my ease, just as if he had been the elderly man of the world and I the gawky stripling."

Mme. Storey and I smiled at the picture this called up--the great scientist and the gunman! "What did he talk about?" asked my employer.

"It was about the sparrows at first. How they must have recognised that I had a good nature since they came right to my feet. Then he went on to tell me about himself; how he was the sole support of his widowed mother and small brothers and sisters; how he worked in a printing shop all night, slept in the mornings and came out in the afternoons for a breath of air. All this was delivered in a snuffling, self-righteous kind of voice. I suppose he thought this was the proper way to recommend himself to me; but it only made me uncomfortable--it was so false, so out of character with the flashy clothes and the hard, handsome, predatory eyes that searched me through and through while he snuffled."

"He knew who you were?" suggested Mme. Storey.

"Yes; it did not occur to me then, but he must have known. From the first, I remember, he addressed me as 'Doctor'; he knew I was the head of this inst.i.tution."

"Go on, please."

"In the end he perceived, I suppose, that I didn't believe a word of his self-righteous story. With that unnatural penetration of his he saw that the way to win me was by confessing his sins. At any rate he suddenly changed his tone. 'Aah, that's all baloney,' he said with a laugh. 'The truth is, I'm a bad egg, doctor. I shook my folks long ago. I play a lone hand. Never did an honest day's work in me life!' My heart warmed to him when he said this. It cleared the air. We got along famously after that."

Dr. Portal paused with his attractive smile, so shy and wise. He may have been innocent of the ways of the world, but he was n.o.body's fool. Always ready to smile at himself.

"How can I convey to you the extraordinary effect his story had on me?" he presently went on. "It laid a spell on my imagination. It was the first time in my life that I had ever come into contact with lawlessness, and all the starved lawlessness in my own nature leaped to meet it. Already at nineteen this lad had quaffed life to the dregs, whereas at fifty-nine I had not even tasted it! I felt a kind of shame for my wasted opportunities."

Mme. Storey did not miss the irony in this. They laughed together.

"Of course it was only a mood," he said; "the result of too many suppressions. If I had a son I would say to him: 'Don't be too good when you're young, or the devil will get you later!'"

"I suppose women played a considerable part in his story," she suggested.

Dr. Portal held up his hands expressively. "Amazing! Amazing!" he murmured. "An incredible point of view! Such a complete absence of inhibitions! Such coolness and matter-of-factness! Apparently when Tolentino saw anything that pleased him he just reached out and took it, as one might help oneself to a peach from a dish! Of course he had been very much favoured by nature for this pursuit. Such a handsome little blackguard! The things he told me took my breath away. Girls everywhere; all kinds of girls; even girls of position, society girls. He used to pick them up at afternoon tea dances. 'They like a fella to be bad,' he said with his sly grin." The doctor shook his head mournfully.

"What was the upshot of this remarkable conversation?" asked Mme. Storey.

"The upshot was," said Dr. Portal, "that I came to myself with a start to find that the sun was going down and that I was thoroughly chilled. When I got up to leave, my new friend suggested that we ought to meet again, and I eagerly agreed. I was still under his spell. He said as long as I was interested in that side of life, he'd like to take me around town and show me some places, and we agreed to meet at six the next evening at the Queensboro Bridge entrance. I chose a distant point because I was none too anxious to have my a.s.sociates at the Inst.i.tute see the kind of company I was mixing with. He promised to have a car."

"Good heavens!" cried Mme. Storey, "after all you had been told were you not afraid to trust yourself in his hands?"

Dr. Portal looked at her in surprise. "Why, no," he said. "The idea of danger to myself never crossed my mind. Who would want to injure me?"

Mme. Storey smiled at him somewhat grimly. "And you went?"

"Certainly, I went," he said, "and had one of the most interesting evenings I have ever spent ... though I got a little tight," he added deprecatingly.

"Well, I expect that was good for you," said Mme. Storey.

"Yes," he agreed innocently. "I tackled my work with fresh energy next day."

"Well, tell us all about it."

"Unfortunately my sense of direction is poor, and I cannot describe just where he took me," said Dr. Portal. "One turned innumerable corners and pulled up in front of one door after another. I never knew where we were."

"What kind of car was it?" asked Mme. Storey.

"A little sedan, quite new, but I didn't notice of what make."

"Oh, well, it hardly signifies. It was undoubtedly stolen for the occasion and abandoned at the end of the evening. Go on, doctor."

"First we drove far down town into the crowded East side. We went into a bas.e.m.e.nt restaurant there. It had no lights nor sign outside, but it was quite a large place and well filled. There was a little s.p.a.ce for dancing in the middle. We ate our dinner there, and t.i.to pointed out all the celebrities of the place. There was a woman--I forget her name--who had been tried for the murder of her husband so many times, the jury disagreeing on each occasion, that finally the District Attorney had become discouraged, and she was allowed to go free, though everybody knew she had done it. Then there was Monk Eyster, the famous gang leader, and many other notorious criminals whose names were strange to me. It was a thrilling experience for me."

"Did these people appear to know your companion?" asked Mme. Storey.

"No. n.o.body spoke to us."

"Naturally, he wouldn't have dared take you to any place where he was known. Go on."

"Afterwards we went to a sort of club on the second storey of a building. There were only men in this place. It was the headquarters of the stick-up fraternity, t.i.to said, and while we knocked the b.a.l.l.s around a pool table, he told me who the different men were, and described their hair-raising exploits. Everyone was wanted by the police."

Mme. Storey smiled at him indulgently. "Did anybody speak to your friend here?"

"No."