Whispering Wires Part 11

"You did!"

"'Ow, sir?"

"Didn't you tell me the telephone company rang up and wanted you to put the receiver on the hook in the library?"

"I didn't 'ear it ring. James brought the word, sir."

"Then, what happened upstairs?"

"'Ow do you know, sir? 'Ow'd you know it rang up there!"

"By elimination! It rang then, in Loris' room? You said 'nothing downstairs' in such a way I presume it rang upstairs."

The butler stroked his chin. It was blue and close-shaved. The purple of his cheeks and neck had deepened. He glanced about the hallway. His eyes wandered toward the grand stairway which, coiled upward to the second story. "I'm 'iding nothing, sir," he said. "Miss Loris often is called up at night. She's very popular, sir. I 'e'rd 'er telephone ringing once or twice while I was standing by this door, waiting for the master to come out--which 'e never did."

Drew hesitated. He plucked out his watch and glanced at the dial. He turned swiftly. "Stay right there," he said as he parted the portieres and faced Delaney who wore the puzzled expression of a man baffled and entirely at sea.

"What did you find?" he snapped to the operative.

"Not a thing, Chief." Delaney mopped his brow with his sleeve. "Nothing at all!" he added. "Everything regular. Modern--very modern house!

Thick, new, fireproof, soundproof, million-dollar building. No trapdoors or panels. No loose boards. No hole in the ceiling. No nothing to hang a ghost on. The gunman who shot Stockbridge went right up in blue smoke, Chief. I quit!"

Drew glided around the table and kneeled by the magnate's body. His swift, light-fingered touch went through the trousers and vest. The pockets he turned inside out. The watch attracted his attention. Its dial had been cracked by the fall. A splinter of gla.s.s pressed against the minute hand. He rose with a low cry. He pressed the repeater and listened to the time chimes. He counted the strokes. He had a test in a million. Had the watch been tampered with by the murderer, the chimes would have proved a lie. It was possible to set the hands to any position. It would be difficult to change both the hands and the repeater.

"Delaney!" he said with his dark eyes glowing, "we've got the exact time of the murder. As I told the butler--it is very important. Both, chimes and hands, show that Stockbridge was shot at four minutes and eighteen seconds past midnight--this morning! This is a fine watch. It cost several thousand dollars. Robbery was not the motive. An ordinary crook, and they're all ordinary--with few exceptions--would have taken this timepiece."

"That's all right," said Delaney with a quick frown. "That's fine, Chief, but--but how did that exceptional--crook get into this room? How did he get out? That's what I want to know!"

Drew combed his fingers through his black hair. He described a complete circle about the library, with his eyes taking in everything, before he faced Delaney.

"I don't know!" he said frankly. "I don't want to think of it, either.

We'll turn the case over to other men for the time. Let them do some thinking. I believe we have secured everything we want."

The detective dropped his glance to the telephone receiver upon the floor at Stockbridge's elbow. He stooped, grasped the silk-insulated cord, and fished it up.

"I'll try to get Central," he said. "This has been off a long while.

She may have sent the trouble-man again."

Drew worked the hook of the 'phone up and down. He was answered after a short wait. The girl's surprised voice at hearing life at the end of a dead set of wires was drowned in the detective's request to get him, "Spring 3100--quickly!"

"h.e.l.lo! h.e.l.lo!" said Drew as he got the connection. "h.e.l.lo! Is this Spring 3100? It is? Who's talking? ... Jones? This you, Jones? ... Say, Jones, plug me in on the Fifth Deputy Commissioner's private house wire!... Sir? ... I don't care! ... This is Drew talking.... Drew! ...

D--r--e--w! ... That's right ... Drew, of Drew's Agency!"

The Detective turned. He eyed Delaney who was searching the floor about the millionaire's upturned shoes. He tapped the receiver against the transmitter's silver-plated edge. His eyes lifted. His lips hardened as the diaphragm of the receiver vibrated harshly.

"h.e.l.lo!" he answered tersely. "h.e.l.lo! This you, Commissioner? Is this Fosd.i.c.k? ... This is Drew talking. Yes! ... Drew.... Yes! I say, Fosd.i.c.k, there's been a murder committed at Stockbridge's.... You know--the munitions magnate! ... The millionaire! ... Morphy's old partner."

Drew waited a moment. He dropped his eyes upon the body below him.

"Yes!" he continued into the transmitter. "Yes, Fosd.i.c.k. I hear better, now. Yes--Stockbridge is dead! ... He's stone dead! He was shot down in cold blood! ... Yes! ... Shot in the brain.... Yes! Send your best operatives.... Yes! ... Send a fingerprint man and photographer. You'll need 'em! ... Yes! ... Yes! ... Shot with a small-bore revolver, I guess! ... Wound behind ear looks like it! What? ... No! ... Room was bolted.... He was inside.... Butler on guard.... Windows closed and locked! ... No! ... No! ... No! ... It wasn't suicide. He was threatened twice, this time!... By letter and telephone call....

What? ... What? ... No! ... He didn't shoot himself! ... There's no gun.

It's on the left side--close up! ... Hair is singed ... flesh is powder spotted.... Burned? ... Yes.... You'll be right up?... Yes! ... I'll be waiting! ... Come! ... come----"

Drew lowered the receiver and clicked it upon the hook of the telephone which stood on the hardwood floor. He slowly turned toward the open doorway of the library. The servants had drawn back and out of sight.

Delaney leaned forward with both hands on his bent knees. A girl's voice had sounded in the mansion. It came closer. The portieres parted with a silken sweep. Drew braced himself against the larger table. His hand went back to his hip. It dropped to his side. He stared across the flood of light with line-drawn eyelids.

Loris Stockbridge, gowned in lace chiffon and cloaked with ermine and sable, glided across the rugs and stood framed beneath the soft, rose-light of the central dome. Her dusk-black eyes burned and blazed like flame through tinder smoke as she confronted the detective.

Clasped in the fingers of her jewelless right hand was a tiny, ivory-handled revolver.

"What are all these people doing here?" she asked hysterically.

CHAPTER SIX

"HARRY NICHOLS"

Detective Triggy Drew flushed slightly beneath his olive skin. He bowed, with his keen eyes fixed upon the little, ivory-handled revolver clutched so tightly in Loris Stockbridge's right hand. He bowed for a second time. His eyes lifted and his brows arched as he said distinctly:

"Miss Stockbridge, something very serious has happened to your father.

It happened in this library. It happened this morning. Won't you please go back upstairs to your rooms until I call for you. At present I am in charge of matters."

"Matters? What do you mean?"

The girl swayed slightly. She glanced down at the revolver as if she were unaware that it was in her hand. Drew advanced a step in her direction. He feared a woman and a gun more than anything else in the world. Both were liable to form a dangerous combination.

"Something happened," he repeated. "I'm very sorry for you, Miss Stockbridge."

"Happened!" she exclaimed. "Happened to him? You don't mean that letter--that telephone call--do you?"

Loris' splendid, dusky eyes, within the depths of which high lights shone, wandered over the polished table. They fastened upon the envelope from the cemetery company. They fixed where the letter lay with one corner beneath the center piece. They lifted in thought. They swung toward the waiting detective who had placed himself between her and the body of her father. She divined this movement with quick intuition. She stepped to one side and bent downward with a graceful movement of her hips. She gasped and pointed a left hand finger, which wavered and went up to her hair as her palm pressed against the side of her head. She started sobbing--short, throaty sobs of poignant distress.

"Please don't," whispered Drew holding out a guarding arm. "Please don't, Miss Stockbridge. Your father is beyond this earth. You should not have come down here."

"Dead?"

The word came from the depths of a soul. "Dead?" she repeated with her taper fingers spreading across her face.

"Yes, Miss," said Drew with a catch in his voice. "Yes, he is quite dead. He was slain in this room by a revolver shot which struck behind and under his left ear. No one was in the library when he locked himself in, save himself. No one was here when we broke the door down.

And, save his servants and you, no one was in this house. He was----"

"Murdered!" Loris' voice had lifted to one wild shriek of final conviction and grief. She swayed. Her knees bent beneath her skirt and bulged outwardly. She sank into a slow faint at the detective's feet.

She pillowed her head upon the rug. A silence followed.

Drew stooped, after a glance at the servants in the doorway, thrust his body as a barrier, and reached along Loris' white arm until his hand closed over the barrel of the little revolver. He untwisted her cold fingers, and palmed the weapon under a shielding cuff. He rose, saying to Delaney, who had hurried forward: