The Black Eagle Mystery Part 14

The old man got up, shaking himself like a big, drowsy animal and came forward into the lamplight.

"Nevertheless, gentlemen," he said quietly, "I'm convinced that it _was_ Johnston Barker."

They all gaped at him. I think for the first moment they thought he had some information they hadn't heard and waited open-mouthed for him to give it to them. But he stood there, smiling a little, his eyes moving from one to the other, sort of quizzical as if their surprise tickled him.

"Now, father," said Mr. George, "what's the sense of saying that when we know that Barker was on the floor above, unable to get out without being seen?"

"I know, George, I know," said his father mildly. "I'm perfectly willing to admit it. But in that room-on the floor above-there had been a quarrel between the two men. Since the disappearance of Barker there's been a good deal of speculation as to the nature of that quarrel. That is, the public has speculated; _I_ have felt sure. After the disappearance that quarrel, as far as I could see, had only one interpretation-the lawyer had discovered the perfidy of his a.s.sociate and threatened exposure. And we all know that the only silent man is a dead man."

"That's all very well," said O'Mally, "but it doesn't get round the fact that Barker couldn't possibly have been there to instigate a murder, or help in murder or commit a murder himself."

"Quite true," said the old man, "as far as we know at present, but you see we know very little. We can speak with more authority when we've made a second examination of the Whitehall offices and a first one of the Harland suite. That's up to you, O'Mally, as soon as you can manage it. There's another important matter but I can't see my way clear to getting it just yet-Ford's own explanation of his movements that evening. I'm curious to hear what he has to say. But that'll have to wait till--"

He paused and Mr. George cut in:

"We land him in jail which I hope will be soon."

"Presently, presently," said his father, turning to the fire. "And now, gentlemen, I think we'll end this little seance. Just look out, George, and see if the limousine's there for Molly."

It was, and they all drifted out, talking as they went, making the date and arranging the plan for the examination of the two offices.

I'd said good-bye to the old man and was following them into the hall, when he caught me by the arm and drawing me back from the door said very low:

"You'll be on duty at the Black Eagle Building for a few days more. Try and get Troop again and ask him what time Miss Whitehall left that night. Don't say a word of what he tells you to anyone, but as soon as you get it let me know."

CHAPTER VIII

MOLLY TELLS THE STORY

For the next few days my moling was stopped-Troop was down with grippe and a subst.i.tute in his place. There was nothing to do but sit in my little hole by the elevators, pa.s.sing the time with a novel and the tray cloth I was embroidering. At night, when Himself and I'd meet up, I'd hear from him how O'Mally was getting on in _his_ tunnel. Babbitts kept in close touch with him, for he had the promise of being along when they made the inspection of the offices.

It took some days to arrange for that and while O'Mally was laying his wires for a midnight search, his men were tracking back over Tony Ford's trail. It didn't take them long and there was nothing much brought to light when you considered the kind of a man Tony Ford must be.

For the last three years he'd held clerkships in New York and Albany and once, for six months in Detroit. From some he'd resigned, from others been fired, not for anything bad, but because he was slack and lazy, though bright enough. The only thing they turned up that was shady was over two years before in Syracuse, when he'd been in a small real estate business with a partner and was said to have absconded with some of the funds. n.o.body knew much of this and the man he'd been in with couldn't be found. The detectives said it was so vague they didn't put much reliance in it, thought maybe it might be spite work.

Anyway, it wasn't the record of a desperado, and they'd have been sort of baffled to fit his past actions with his present, if it hadn't been for one thing that, according to their experience, was very significant.

In the last two months he'd spent a lot more money than his salary. As Miss Whitehall's managing clerk he had been paid sixty-five dollars a week, and he had been living at the rate of a man who has hundreds. It wasn't in his place-that was simple enough-a back room in a lodging house-but he'd been a spender in the white lights of Broadway. At expensive restaurants and lobster palaces he'd become a familiar figure, the gambling houses knew him, and he'd ridden round in motors like a capitalist.

"By the swath he's been cutting," said Babbitts, "you'd suppose he had an income in five figures."

"O Soapy," I said horrified. "They don't think he was _paid_ for it?"

Himself looked solemn at me and nodded:

"That's exactly what they _do_ think, Morningdew. He was paid and evidently paid high. Whoever the 'Other Man' was he could afford to be extravagant in his accomplice. Their idea is that Ford was engaged for his superior strength, and demanded a big retainer in advance."

"What a terrible man," I murmured and thought of him standing in the doorway smiling at me like b.u.t.ter wouldn't melt in his mouth. "He's a regular gunman."

"Worse than a gunman, for he's educated," said Babbitts. "Gee, wasn't it a lucky thing Iola got out of that place!"

The morning after that conversation I bid Babbitts good-bye as if he was going to the South Pole, for that was the night they'd selected to examine the two offices. Three of them were in it, O'Mally, Babbitts, and one of O'Mally's men, a chap called Stevens. Himself would turn up for breakfast if he could, but if there was anything pressing at the paper or more developed than they expected, I wasn't to look for him till the evening of the next day.

I went down to my work and had a dull time for Troop was still sick and there was nothing to do but now and then jack in for a call and sew on my tray cloth. No Babbitts that night and no Babbitts for breakfast, and me piling down town for another eight hours in that dreary room with Troop not yet back and not a soul to speak to.

If, when I came home that evening, I'd found Babbitts still away I believe I'd have forgotten I was a lady sleuth and started a general alarm for him. But thank goodness, I didn't need to. For there he was on the Davenport with his muddy boots on the best plush cushion, sound asleep.

I didn't intend to wake him, but creeping round to our room, looking at him as I crept, I ran into the Victrola with a crash, and up he sat, wide awake, thanking me sarcastic for having roused him in such a delicate, tactful manner.

In a minute I was sitting on the edge of the Davenport-you'll know how I felt when I tell you I forgot his feet on the cushion-squeezed up against him and staring into his face:

"Quick-go ahead! Did you find anything?"

"We did, Morningdew."

"Did you get any nearer who the other man is?"

"We got next. The chief was right. It's Johnston Barker!"

"_Barker!_ But, Soapy--"

He raised a finger and pointed in my face:

"Don't begin with any buts till you know. Now if you'll be quiet and listen like a nice little girl, you'll see."

This is what he told me as I sat pressed up against him, every now and then giving myself a hitch to keep from sliding off, too eager listening to rise up and get a chair.

They gained access to both offices without any trouble, O'Mally flashing his badge at the nightman, whom he'd already seen and fixed with a story that he was after important papers for the Copper Pool men. They tried the Harland offices first, a cursory inspection showing nothing. It wasn't till O'Mally himself got busy in the rear room that they began to move forward. A mark on the window sill was what started him. It was a circular sc.r.a.pe about as big round as a b.u.t.ter plate and was made, he said, by the heel of a man's boot.

Then he turned his attention to the window casing, the ledge and the outside frame. He used a small pocket searchlight, also matches, dropping them as they burned down and examining every inch of the surface. The first thing he lit upon was the cleat to which the awning rope is fastened in summer. It is always screwed securely down to the woodwork, and has to be strong and firm to hold the awnings in heavy winds, especially at that height. The cleat outside the window was loosened, and between its base and the wood were a few torn threads of rope that had caught in the head of the upper screw. These threads, carefully untangled and preserved, were from a new rope, clean and yellow, not the gray wind and weather-worn shreds that would have been left from the summer. Below the cleat were scratches, some long and deep, some wide, zigzag sc.r.a.pes. By the color of these he said they had been recently made.

From there they descended to the Whitehall suite. Here O'Mally wasted little time on the front rooms but went direct to the rear office and began on the window. Babbitts and Stevens were ordered to search the floors and walls, which was easy as the furniture was gone and the place was bare except for the radiator and the washstand. I may as well put here that their investigations produced nothing.

But O'Mally's did. He went to work just as he had on the floor above.

This cleat was secure, but on the sill were more scratches, several long deep ones, and on the stone ledge that same round, circular mark. But what he found there that was the vital thing was a b.u.t.ton. It was lodged in a corner made by one of the small wooden rims that go up the window casing parallel with the window. Anyone could have overlooked it, hardly visible in this little angle where it might have been sent by the cleaner's duster as she flicked about the sill and the ledge. It was a metal b.u.t.ton of the kind used on men's clothes to fasten their braces to, and it bore round it in raised letters the name of a fashionable tailor.

By the time they had done all this it was coming on for morning. They slipped out of the building and went to an all-night restaurant near-by to wait for daylight when O'Mally had decided to make an inspection of the roof of the church. He and Babbitts would do this, while Stevens, as soon as the day was far enough advanced, was commissioned to go to the tailor whose name was on the b.u.t.ton, and find out when and for whom he had made any suits having that b.u.t.ton upon them.

Meantime the day had broken into morning. With a caution to Babbitts to stay where he was O'Mally sauntered off to see about fixing things for getting on the roof of the church. Babbitts was left wondering whether they were going to be plumbers or tin workers or members of the congregation admiring the sacred edifice. But when O'Mally came back he'd got a new one on Soapy, for he'd depicted them to the s.e.xton as an architect and builder from the West who were so struck by the dome they wanted to get up on the roof and study its proportions.

Fortunately it was a black, heavy day, the kind when the lights shine out in dark offices and people come to the windows and yank up the shades. If anyone did notice them they'd have looked like a couple of men searching for a leak, especially as they were busy in one spot-the s.p.a.ce below the two windows marked by the burnt ends of the matches O'Mally had dropped.

And here, with the scattered matches all around it, caught in a ledge just above the gutter, they made the greatest find of all-a scarf pin.

It was a star sapphire set in a twist of gold and platinum. An hour after they had it in their possession it was identified by George and Mr. Whitney as one they had seen on Johnston Barker the morning of January fifteenth.