How Many Cards?/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII
THE SHADOW ON THE STAIRS
DENNIS RIORDAN, dragging a chair after him, emerged from the engine house of Company 023 and settled himself in the mild, balmy sunshine. Down the vista of the street lined by tall flats the trees of the park, their tops just burgeoning into feathery green, formed a delicate touch of color in the monotonous, faded brick and stone and the fireman's gray eyes rested upon them ruminatively as he reached for his pipe. Then his gaze shifted with lively expectancy and the hand groping for his pocket paused midway, for a familiar figure turned the corner and strode toward him.
"What's up, Mac?'" he asked when the figure had approached within hearing distance. "I thought you were going down to Homevale to-day to evict that tenant of yours that's driving the neighbors crazy with his cornet practice. You look as though you'd been making a night of it!"
"I have." With the privilege of a constant visitor McCarty reached a long arm across the threshold, and, procuring another chair, placed it with its back tilted against the wall beside his friend. "When are you off duty the day?"
"Not till six." Dennis eyed the other with anxious solicitude. "How much did you lose?"
"Didn't I give up card-playing for Lent?" McCarty demanded reproachfully.
"You did, but well I know what that means as long as you can find a quiet little crap game to horn in on, or any one to flip the coins with you! 'Tis a crying shame, property or no, for a man in the prime of life to have nothing to do but gallivant around town looking for trouble and many's the time I've cursed your uncle, God rest his soul, for leaving you the money that made you resign from the force!"
His manner was almost maternal and McCarty chuckled dryly.
"'Tis not always I have to be looking for trouble, Denny; sometimes it falls on me, like that girl from the window of the Glamorgan a couple of years ago."
There was that in his tone which made Dennis' chair come down on all four legs with a clatter on the sidewalk.
"What!" he exclaimed with avidity. "Is there something big on down at headquarters that the inspector has been after asking you to lend a hand on? There's been nothing in the papers barring hold-ups that would make Dick Turpin blush like an amateur—!"
"If there was you'd never know it; after you've satisfied yourself that the championship is still safe for democracy and the Giants aren't developing sleeping sickness the news of the day is finished for you," McCarty observed with fine scorn. "As for my resignation from the force I'll have you know that it's been temporarily handed back to me and that fellow out at Homevale can toot away till he's black in the face for all I care! I'm back on the job again."
"What is it, Mac?" Dennis' tone was sepulchral from suppressed excitement. "Why didn't you let me know? I was off last night—"
"I didn't know it myself till I nabbed a young second-story worker coming out of the window of one of those grand houses across the park quicker than ever he went in and learned what he'd found there. 'Twas the body of the owner, him they used to call 'Million-a-month' Creveling along Broadway, with a bullet in his heart and a .44 beside him."
McCarty detailed his nocturnal experience and Dennis listened with bated breath to the point where, while the search of the upper rooms by his crony and Inspector Druet was progressing, the shadow had appeared behind them on the staircase. Then he could contain himself no longer.
"Holy mother!" he ejaculated. "Was it a ghost or the murderer himself, do you think, Mac?"
"Whoever it was, 'twas no ghost, Denny, as you'll see later," McCarty averred. "The drawers of the desk in the housekeeper's room' were locked and when I lifted the end and shook it I could hear something heavy, like books, sliding around inside; I noticed too that the locks themselves were rusty. Mind that. There were no keys in the room though we looked everywhere, so the inspector and I beat it down to the study once more where Clancy was waiting with the dicks from borough headquarters. They all said they hadn't been back upstairs again and the inspector kidded me about hearing things but I couldn't get the thought of that shadow out of my mind and as soon as I could I slipped away and up to Creveling's room once more; the sound that I thought I'd heard when we were on the upper floor seemed to come from there.
"Everything looked just the same as when we had left it but when I went over to have a second look at the little drawer with the spring lock in the desk there were new marks on it overlaying those our fingers had made; whoever had followed us wore gloves, as you could see plain from the oil the desk had been rubbed up with. Ghosts don't wear gloves, Denny."
"Then who—?"
"I went over the same ground from room to room that I'd been through with the inspector only a few minutes before but I didn't find anything else till I came to the housekeeper's room again," McCarty continued, unheeding the interruption. "The locks on the desk there were shiny and dripping with fresh oil and when I lifted it, it was lighter and nothing slid around inside. Somebody had slipped up behind us and opened the drawers of both of the desks, taking out whatever was inside; somebody who knew how to work that spring lock. I didn't find hide nor hair of him, though, and I'd upset and broke a bottle of perfumery in Mrs. Creveling's room, bad luck to it! When I got back down to the study Clancy sniffed it on me and I doubt that I've lost the smell of it yet!"
He went on, telling of the arrival of George Alexander, the valet, Hill, his own discovery of the bloodstained card thrust under the tapestry on the table and the return of Mrs. Creveling and finally the cook and butler.
"And all you've got to go on," Dennis summed up for him, "is the bit of amber mouth piece the other man had smoked with, the lone card and the marks of gloved fingers on the desk upstairs."
"Not quite. I'm asking myself a lot of questions, Denny, for there's more in a look sometimes or a chance word than in all the finger-prints in the world. For instance, what's there between that valet and Mrs. Creveling's uncle, George Alexander? They tried their best to slip away for a little confab together, but I kept my eye on them; there's something they both know and each of them was afraid that the other would let it out. Why did that valet Hill say he had just 'returned' and correct it to 'arrived'? If he had nothing to conceal either on his own account or on Creveling's why did I have to drag out of him the little I learned? Why wouldn't he tell where he'd been all night? When the inspector asked him if he knew Creveling was coming to his house last evening 'twas on the tip of his tongue to deny it when he remembered that he'd taken the things from the caterer's men himself for the supper and they'd say so if they were questioned. It's plain, of course, that Creveling got rid of all the servants for the night so that none of them should see who his company was but I've an idea that Hill knows, all the same."
"You don't think—" Dennis chose his words with evident care. "You don't think maybe it was a—a lady he had to supper and she shot him after in a fit of jealousy?"
"With a .44 that has a kick to it like an army mule?" McCarty snorted. "Inspector Druet asked Hill if Creveling ever entertained ladies in his home during his wife's absence and the valet said no, that they were strictly stag suppers, and he didn't seem any too anxious to give the names of any of the gentlemen who'd been present. He said they just ate and drank and smoked and chinned with never a little game to while away the hours; that Creveling hadn't touched a card in years."
"Then how did that Nine of Diamonds come to be there on the table?" demanded Dennis.
There was a pause and then McCarty replied slowly:
"T don't know, unless some way it was a part of the grim game that was played out to a finish between the two of them in the study after supper."
"A game of life and death, with Creveling losing the odd trick." Dennis nodded. "If you did not find the rest of the pack lying around, maybe the one card was brought by the man that killed him as a sign or a reminder.—Oh, you needn't be looking at me like that, Mac! Stranger things than that are going on behind those white marble fronts for all you know! But what was that high blank wall built for at the back?"
"That's one of the questions I've been asking myself, like I told you." McCarty cocked his ear at a newsboy's shrill call down the street and shook his head. "No. It'll be too early for the papers to get hold of it yet.—It's funny how they were all so sure, even his wife, that Creveling had been murdered, and him with the pistol lying beside him. It was only when Mrs. Creveling spoke of calling in Terhune that her uncle backslid and pretended that he thought it might have been suicide after all."
"Terhune!" Dennis exclaimed. "For the love of the saints, is he in on this, too?'"
"With both feet, and I misdoubt a couple of his little scientific recording machines up his sleeve," McCarty chuckled. "'Twould have done you more good than a drop of the best to have seen his face when I came back after talking to the cook and butler and found him in the hall!"
"So 'twas Mrs. Creveling called him in and her uncle didn't want him." Dennis was slowly digesting the facts. "Do you think this Alexander and the valet were in cahoots? It looks as though the both of them were trying to shield somebody, all right."
"I don't understand the attitude of the whole lot of them." McCarty shook his head once more. "From the minute Mrs. Creveling put her foot in the house there seemed to be a kind of a silent battle going on between her and her uncle; you could feel it in the air. He was trying to run the whole affair to suit himself and she defying him and getting her own way too, in the end.—Say, Denny, there was a fire in the neighborhood last night, wasn't there?"
Dennis stared.
"Sure, what night isn't there, with the people packed in flats like sardines in a box!—But what are you getting at, Mac?"
"When was the fire and where?"
"Along about two, on the next block," Dennis replied. "An upset kerosene stove started it in a dressmaker's place on the ground floor where she was working late and it spread to the basement before we could get it under control, but it didn't get upstairs though the tenants were pretty well smoked out. How did you know about it?"
"That's where the butler's sister, Mrs. Carroll, lives; where he and his wife spent the night." McCarty drew a cigar from his pocket and chewed the end ruminatively. "They're queer birds. The cook would have talked, I'm thinking, but her husband shut her up, though at that I caught them in one lie.—Before Sarah got sight of me standing behind Hill she said tg him that she wished Mr. Creveling would have his parties somewhere else and leave them in peace, but when I told them Creveling had been shot the butler denied that either of them knew he expected any one last night. In the next breath after Sarah learned that Mrs. Creveling had already come home she bewailed that the rooms were not in order and she had all the lobster and stuff from the caterer's to clean up. How did she know there'd been lobster for supper if she hadn't heard the order given? Of course, all this has nothing to do with the murder itself, but knowing so much it wouldn't surprise me if they knew or at least suspected who Creveling's guest was, the night."
"Then what are they all shielding him for? Blackmail?" Dennis' gray eyes snapped with interest. "From what you've told me of them, Mac, 'twould hardly be loyalty would keep them quiet; you'd think they each of them had a fish to fry, by the looks of it!"
McCarty darted a quick glance at his companion.
"True for you, Denny, and I'm wondering if maybe this fellow Hill isn't trying deliberately to draw our fire by refusing to tell where he spent the night, meaning to collect privately from somebody for creating the diversion. Rollins and Sarah are easy to handle but that valet is away above his job and he's been with Creveling since his bachelor days, probably knows more about him than any one else in the world. If we could only find the way to make him talk—"
"What about Mrs. Creveling?" interrupted Dennis suddenly. "From what you say, she took the news as cool as a cucumber. Now I don't pretend to know anything about the workings of a woman's mind, not being a damned fool, but it don't seem natural like for her not to scream nor faint nor raise some sort of a ruction."
"I don't know." McCarty held a match to his cigar and then flipped it into the gutter. "She's a determined woman and a strong one and she's got her own suspicions, all right, but she knows she can't prove anything by herself; that's why she called in the biggest man in his line she ever heard of—Terhune. She'll waste no time keening the dead till she's caught the one that killed him, that is if there's any grief in her heart."
"If there isn't why should she be so anxious to get revenge on the murderer?" asked Dennis.
"Well, if there's one thing that's stronger than grief it's hate, Denny, and I'm thinking Mrs. Creveling for all her gentle ways would be a good hater. We got more than a hint from her uncle's testimony that there might have been a commercial angle to that marriage and every one but him is willing to admit that Creveling was no saint, neither before nor after, though her friends don't think she's been on to his philandering."
"'Her friends'?" Dennis repeated.
"Sure. I had a little talk with one of them just now at the Belterre Hotel, the husband of the lady she's been staying with down on Long Island."
He described his interview with Douglas Waverly and the corroboration of his alibi over the telephone by Samuel Venner, and Dennis whistled.
"So that's the kind of a bird Creveling's been traveling with, is it? Fat and flashy and going to con. men's parties on the side! That crowd can't be the real thing in spite of their money, Mac, take it from me. What show was it you said the girls at the supper came from?"
"The 'Bye-bye Baby' company." McCarty glanced again at his companion. "Why? Is it show girls that's interesting you now, at your time of life?"
The sarcasm passed unnoticed over Dennis" hard head.
"It is not," he responded equably. "And as to my time of life I'll have you remember I'm younger than you by a year!"
"Eleven months," McCarty protested. "But what about the show?"
"Nothing, only Terry Burns's daughter is in it; Beatrice, the little one. He was telling me only the other day that there was no holding her back. She calls herself 'Trixie' now and threw over Eddie Kirby that's well fixed in the ice business for what she speaks about as a 'career.' Terry's as fine a fellow as ever promoted a fight in Harlem and I'd hate to think of little Bea at a party like the one Venner gave."
"I mind Terry and the family, though 'tis years since I've seen any of them," McCarty observed meditatively. "If 'twas a daughter of mine—!"
"'Tis no daughter of either of us, thanks be!'" Dennis ejaculated devoutly. "So you got nothing out of this Waverly except that there was another woman in the case with Creveling?"
"That, and a flash at his cigarette case." McCarty rose. "I'll be getting on down town now; I want to go home and clean up and see a couple of people before I report to the inspector."
"I'm off duty at six," Dennis announced wistfully. "If so be you want me—?"
"I'll give you a ring," McCarty promised. "Terhune and Inspector Druet and me being in this already we might as well make a quartette of it, like old times. Have you got a dress suit?"
Dennis eyed him askance.
"I have not, and never another will I hire after the one I rented for Molly's wedding! It might have been the stuff they used to clean it with, but then again it mightn't, and I'm taking no more chances—!"
"Never mind; I've none myself," McCarty said hurriedly. "You'll hear from me before six."
He strode off toward the modest bachelor quarters which he occupied over the antique shop of Monsieur Girard but upon reaching his own corner he halted abruptly. A newspaper was spread on the step leading up to the apartment entrance and upon it an exceedingly long-legged young man was seated twirling his hat on the head of the cane between his hunched-up knees. His red head glowed brazenly in the sun and he looked up with a boyish grin as McCarty advanced reluctantly.
"Hello there, Mac! I thought you'd show up for a shave and a clean collar now that you're moving in society. If I had your luck in falling over news I'd be city editor by now. What's the good word in the Creveling case?"
"There's none," McCarty retorted promptly as Jimmie Ballard, most ubiquitous of reporters, prepared uninvited to ascend with him to his rooms. "Creveling was found dead with the gun beside him; that's the long and short of it. You'd better be seeing the inspector—"
"Not a chance in the world and you know it!" Jimmie laughed. "Come now, Mac, be a sport! We've got the obituary salted down at the shop, of course, but I've got to have a double column for the first edition of the afternoon rag. Usual stall at the house; Mrs. Creveling prostrated, couldn't see any one and had nothing to say for publication. All I know is that you and Officer Clancy nabbed a burglar creeping out of the house and investigating found Creveling's body. Of course, you're retired from the force, you've nothing to do with the investigation and you're only a private citizen drawn by your own curiosity into the case?"
"You've got me right, my lad." McCarty threw the butt of his cigar out into the middle of the street and turned to insert his latchkey into the door.
"Well then, you old fraud!" Jimmie made his point gleefully. "There's no reason why you can't give me your private opinion. Do you think that young crook shot Creveling?"
McCarty sighed and then his eyes twinkled with sudden inspiration.
"There's no getting away from you, Jimmie! Come on up if you want to; it's no good denying that I'm interested in the case for all I'm a back number and my curiosity that you were talking about is still working. You started in as a society reporter, didn't you?"
"Uh-huh," Jimmie admitted with a grimace as they mounted the stairs. "I'd rather do the sob sister stuff any day.—But what about that gangster you caught crawling out of the window?"
"Is he a gangster?" McCarty asked cautiously.
"Surest thing you know; one of the Lexington Avenue Blackjacks, though he's only a kid. What little nerve he had is gone and he's bleating down at headquarters now that it was the first job he ever tackled and he only did it to prove to the rest of the gang that he was as good as any of them. He declares he found Creveling dead on the floor and that you can swear to it. How about it, Mac?"
"Well, there was no silencer on the gun we saw lying beside the body and the one I found on the crook when I frisked him was loaded to the full," McCarty replied slowly, weighing each word. "I saw the fellow just ahead of me on the Avenue skulking to the house and getting through the window and I waited outside for him, but I didn't hear any shot. Come till I shave, I've little time to spare, for I've got to catch the eleven-thirty train to Homevale, to evict one of my tenants."
Jimmie grinned again at the palpable mendacity but followed and perched himself on the foot of the bed where he could view the bathroom through the opened door.
"You're a busy little landlord, aren't you?" he jeered good-naturedly. "Did you see anything while you waited under the window?'"
"Nothing but the legs of my young friend Bodansky coming out faster than ever he went in and I didn't have long to wait, either; not more than three minutes." McCarty paused to draw the razor along the line of his square jaw and then turned. "That obituary you've got set up will be good reading if it goes back to the days when Creveling was known as 'Million-a-month' along Broadway."
"I was a cub then but I remember him and the crowd he trailed with," Jimmie remarked. "Didn't see much of him at society crushes until his engagement to Miss Alexander was rumored."
"She's a fine looking woman." McCarty turned again to his task. "Are they a grand family, the Alexanders?"
"Good blood in them; old stock but it's run to seed. The money went, too, during the past generation or so and old George Alexander helped it along with a lot of fool speculations. He must have been very nearly at the end of his rope when Creveling married his niece and put him on his feet again."
"What do you know about the set they've been going with?" McCarty spoke with studied carelessness. "The Waverlys, and Fords, and a man named Nicholas Cutter and this Mrs. Baillie Kip, of East Sixty-third Street? I can't recall all the names I heard mentioned in connection with them."
"You heard an earful," Jimmie assured him. "They're a pretty swift bunch but all well connected and there's never been any actual scandal about any of them. The Douglas Waverlys are all right financially though he's a rotter and like Creveling his wife comes of a far better family than he. If by the Fords you mean Lonsdale Ford and his wife, they're climbers; never heard of until a few years ago when he bought a seat on the Exchange. It is a mystery how they managed to get into that set, especially on a footing with Nicholas Cutter, for he's a dyed-in-the-wool aristocrat."
"What does he do for a living?" McCarty asked.
"Nothing, though he is an honorary director of half a dozen banking institutions. His father left him millions but he doesn't seem to care much for society beyond a small circle of intimate friends, and he never entertains on a large scale though he could have the smartest people in town about him if he liked." Jimmie stood up and thrust his hands in his pockets. "See here, Mac, I'm no walking Blue Book! You've seen Mrs. Creveling; what did she say? How did she act? Had she been notified of her husband's death before she arrived?"
"Wait a bit," McCarty admonished. "You haven't told me about this Mrs. Kip yet. Who is she?"
Jimmie shrugged.
"Nobody knows. Widow of a Western mining man, I've heard. She blew into town about six or seven years ago, rented a big house and went in for charity; the old shortcut to social position, you know. It didn't work in her case and after vainly knocking at the portals for two or three seasons she dropped out of sight only to reappear last autumn in the Crevelings' set, but the Lord knows how she got there.—Now come across, Mac; give me the straight dope. You talked with old Alexander, or at least you must have been there when Inspector Druet questioned him, for the report says that he was the first of the family to appear on the scene after the discovery of the body."
McCarty complied and with certain mental reservations gave his young friend a sketchy account of what had taken place, omitting all reference to the mysterious telephone messages which had summoned George Alexander and Mrs. Creveling, as well as his own discoveries and conclusions. It satisfied Jimmie Ballard, however, and he crowed exultantly.
"Oh, boy! That'll be some scoop if I get down to the shop in time! Thanks, Mac, I'll do as much for you some day."
At the door McCarty halted him.
"One second, Jimmie. Every gang has a leader and I misdoubt but it's the same in society as down on the docks. Who was the head of the Creveling crowd? Himself?"
Jimmie Ballard shook his head.
"No. Usually a woman is the center of any social clique and Mrs. Creveling has been mentioned more often and more prominently than any of her immediate friends, but that is because of the position her family have held for so long. I think the real leader of their crowd is Nicholas Cutter."