Chapter III: A Search for Clues

By running a board partition down the centre of the room nearest the hall, Doctor Westbrook had by the simplest means given himself a place of reception; one where his patients could wait while he was engaged in the room overlooking Court Street, there being still another for his drugs and medicines.

There was not much wasted space in the laboratory. Against the walls stood cases filled with bottles of many sizes and colors, and other cases displaying glittering, sinister instruments; in one corner stood a carboy of distilled water, and by the window, opening into the light-well, stood the table where the Doctor compounded such prescriptions as he did not send to a regular apothecary.

The light-well opened like a chasm between the Field and Nettleton buildings; its bottom, on a level with the second-story floors, was of heavy semi-opaque glass, so that such rays of light as were not diverted into the windows on the one hand or the other found a way to the shop space on the ground floor. At present an arc lamp beneath this skylight suffused a soft and mellow radiance throughout the entire light-well.

Mr. Converse let himself down to a narrow ledge bordering the skylight, and with an injunction to the young man to wait, made his way around it to a window diagonally opposite, which the latter recognized as belonging to the offices of Petty & Carlton, attorneys, in the Field Building. Here the Captain drew himself up with remarkable agility, and disappeared through the window. All the windows letting into the light-well were open, the watcher was noticing, when his attention was attracted by Mr. Converse's sharp whisper.

"Stand where you are a few minutes, Mr. Lynden," said he. "I want to experiment a bit, and I shall call on you for a report presently."

He lowered himself to the ledge again, passed over to Nettleton Building side, and to the hall window of the latter. There he stooped and scrutinized the ledge intently, and next the window-sill; after which, with a little spring, he raised himself to the window, and crawled through it into the hall.

A sudden quiet fell,--a quiet unbroken by any sound. Standing there alone in the gloom, one undoubtedly would have been impressed by the blank, staring windows that were like wide and lidless eyes; and as he looked, Lynden seemed to become sensible of a feeling of dread at the awfulness of the crime which had been committed so near at hand, for he shuddered visibly, as if the windows had some purpose in staring,--as if they were in reality eyes that still retained some expression of their horror at a deed witnessed but a moment since.

Noting the alacrity with which Converse let his heavy frame in and out of windows, a spectator might fancy it an easy matter for one lurking in the light-well to do likewise, at the ripe moment strike a swift blow, and then leap back again.

But whatever the current of Lynden's meditations, it was abruptly diverted. He fell to listening intently. The door between the hall and the reception-room was being slowly and cautiously opened; still slowly and with an apparent effort to occasion no betraying noise, some one advanced on tiptoe into the room. The young man faced deliberately about until he could see the door in the partition, and waited. Toward it the almost silent footfalls were moving; presently there appeared at the aperture the expressionless face of Mr. Converse, who, when he perceived Lynden's startled attitude, gave utterance to a low chuckle.

"I was not endeavoring to frighten you, Mr. Lynden," said he; "I was simply trying a little experiment. When did you first hear me?"

"I heard the door open, and next, you tiptoeing across the room. I did not know what to think." He was pale and trembling.

"Not another sound? No footsteps in the hall? Nothing of that kind?"

Lynden shook his head. "No; the first thing I heard was the door opening," he repeated.

"Well," continued the Captain, reflectively, pursing his mouth, and lifting his right eyebrow at the young man, "I don't believe anybody could have made less noise than I did in there"--he nodded his head toward the partition--"nor more than I made in the hall. And you heard nothing until the door began to open--h-m-m!" He looked around the laboratory,--at the shelves of bottles, at the partition not reaching quite to the ceiling; he stepped to the window, and, leaning out, contemplated the hall window. "It's confoundedly queer," he concluded.

"What is?"

"Why, the way noises act here. You know, that man--Mr. Ferdinand Howe--was standing at this window, and heard nothing in the hall. I almost believe, if the deceased had been shot instead of stabbed he would not have heard it..... But let us have a look at the other side of the hall.... Let me see," he went on, in a meditative way, "Room 4; that must be Mr. Nettleton's private office; as my friend Mr. Follett would say,--his 'lair.' He has no use for lawyers." He pushed open the door directly opposite the Doctor's suite.

The room was large and had three windows opening into the light-well. Through these windows sufficient light from the arc lamp beneath the skylight found its way to cause the furnishings to loom shadowy and ghost-like in a sort of feeble twilight, and to make it easy to find an incandescent lamp, which Mr. Converse turned on, illuminating the apartment with a brighter and more cheerful radiance. He surveyed the room, and looked at Lynden.

"I suppose," said he, "the door has not been locked this evening?"

The young man merely shook his head. For some reason since passing to this side of the hall, he had become strangely taciturn, though he watched the Captain's every movement eagerly, and cast many furtive glances toward the denser shadows.

Converse, knelt and examined the floor closely on either side of the door. Lynden's nerves were at such a tension that he actually started at a whispered ejaculation from the Captain as he picked up a tiny hairpin,--the kind a woman would have specified as "invisible."

So, then, there had been some one behind this door--and that one a woman!

Why should this circumstance affect Lynden so strangely? for it would seem that, in the undisturbed stillness of these deserted chambers, there was a potent, disquieting influence which kept him in a _qui vive_ of nervous expectancy,--an invisible something in the atmosphere of the place filling him with an apprehensive dread. It was really remarkable that his observant companion did not notice his agitation; and still it was difficult to imagine how he could, for he was crossing the floor in a crouching attitude, apparently directing his entire attention to the floor with a concentration that permitted no individual thread of the heavy carpet to escape his earnest scrutiny.

Mr. Nettleton was a lawyer, and he occupied two rooms, both of which opened directly into the hall. The two men were now in the one that the lawyer used as his consultation room, and the course being pursued by Mr. Converse would soon take him to the connecting door between the two offices. Arriving at that point, he stood erect and paused a moment, plunged in thought. He said nothing, and seemingly had become oblivious of his companion's attendance.

Just to the left of the connecting door, and in the general office, stood the desk occupied during business hours by Clay Fairchild. Above this desk was another incandescent light, which the Captain lighted, after which he took up whatever trail he had been following so closely, at the exact point where he had left it, continuing, in a stooping posture, to the hall door of the general office. From the point where he had picked up the hairpin, immediately within the entrance to Room 4, he had pursued a course away from the hall, through the connecting door to Room 5, and back again toward the hall to the hall entrance of the latter room,--the whole forming, roughly, an arc, the chord of which was the hall.

At the door of Room 5 he stood upright once more, and the young man became aware all at once that he was being eyed quizzically.

"Look!" the Captain whispered. Stooping again, he pointed to the heavy ply of the moquette carpet.

For a moment Lynden could descry nothing unusual; his heart was thumping in a manner for which he could assign no reason; but when the Captain traced an outline with his thumbnail, he could see quite distinctly the imprint of a small, partial footprint, such as a woman's French heel might make.

"That appears at just two other places," Converse continued; "at the entrance to Room 4, where I found the hairpin, and just inside this room; and there, beyond that desk, near the connecting door. They were made by a woman who stood a while at the first door, and who then, I believe,--though I can't be positive,--tiptoed to the connecting door, where she paused again for a while. She either tiptoed between those points, or stood for a time; the marks wouldn't have remained had she walked directly through the two rooms."

Lynden stared at the tiny impression--so faint that nobody else would ever have remarked it--and seemingly sought to frame a reply that he could voice naturally.

"Wonderful! Wonderful!" was all he said, but in tones so low that they were scarcely louder than Mr. Converse's whisper.

The latter now turned to the rest of the room. Swiftly, but apparently permitting not the least article to escape his observation, he made the circuit of the apartment, and finally paused at Clay Fairchild's desk. Almost instantly his eyes singled out one from among the mass of papers which littered it. This he carefully folded, and placed, with the article he had picked up on the stairway, which Lynden had been unable to see, in the capacious pocketbook. He seemed reluctant to leave this desk; after he had turned away he paused and cast another look at it, sniffing as one striving to locate the source of a faint odor. Lynden paused too; he glanced hurriedly from right to left, his brow lined, his expression troubled and perplexed.

At length they returned to Mr. Nettleton's private office, which was subjected to as close and thorough an examination as had been the room just quitted. Only one thing seemed especially to hold Converse's attention, and that was the space beneath the lawyer's desk. Here he got down to his hands and knees, and struck no less than five matches in an effort to obtain a better light. Whether the dusty space told him anything Lynden could not determine.

They passed back into the hall again. Converse walked directly to the entrance of Suite 2, immediately adjoining Doctor Westbrook's offices, on the side nearest the stairway. A small card pasted on the ground glass of this door bore the words "To Let." Converse ignited another match, in the added light of which he examined the door-knob. His companion observed him touch it with the tip of a finger, and shake his head, as if something incomprehensible had all at once presented itself.

"Does the janitor sleep in the building?" the Captain inquired after a moment; when the young man nodded affirmatively, he added: "Can you get the keys of this floor for me? It will save some time and trouble, and I want to finish before the reporters come."

"Certainly. His room is in the third story."

Converse watched him until he disappeared around the corner toward the stairway, and straightway did something very strange. With the silence and speed of a cat he made his way back to Fairchild's desk. Over this he bent and smelt the papers which lay there. But that would not do. Hastily he tried the top right-hand drawer. It was unlocked--as were all the other drawers--and opened easily. That for which he was searching was not there, either. He turned rapidly to another drawer, and another, and another, until every drawer in the desk had been opened and closed again, its contents having been hastily but thoroughly gone over; and still the object of this hurried search was not found. Quickly he glanced from side to side. To the left of the desk was a waste-paper basket, which had not been recently emptied, and over this he inhaled deeply, as one would drink in the fragrance of a rose. He thrust a hand among the debris of papers, and in a moment drew forth a dainty lace handkerchief, to which clung the unmistakable odor of stephanotis. Again the capacious pocket-book; and when Lynden returned with the keys the Captain was contemplating the door-knob of Suite 2 with unabated interest.

Lynden sniffed as the other ran over the key-tags in a search for No. 2.

"What is that perfume?" he demanded sharply.

"Ah, do you like that, now?" rejoined Converse, with the first display of enthusiasm he had yet shown. "That is an odor I am very partial to, and hope to have more of--if I can find where this came from."

The young man moistened his lips, and his eyes turned away from the other's steady look.

Converse now had the door to No. 2 open, but he did not enter this room. It needed only the match he now struck to disclose layer upon layer of dust, the undisturbed accumulation of months.

"Now, then," said he, as he closed and locked the door again, "back to the light-well for a minute or two, and I am through."

He let himself out of the hall window, and made another circuit of the ledge around the skylight. The light-well was more or less a catch-all for the windows opening into it; it therefore contained many scraps of paper, every one of which he glanced at before casting it aside. Only one thing here seemed to interest him,--something he picked up far out on the skylight and scrutinized. Lynden was afforded another glimpse of the pocket-book.

"What is it?" he asked.

"A cigarette butt," was the reply; "interesting only because it is the second one of the same kind I have found to-night."

Presently, when he announced that he had finished, Lynden said it had fallen to them to turn out the lights and lock the doors, as the negro janitor was too frightened to venture into the second story that night. This was soon accomplished, and the two had turned to depart, when both abruptly stopped. A light had flashed forth through the ground glass of Room 6.

"What room is that?" asked Converse; for the door was bare of significance excepting for the single figure "6," now standing out boldly against the light behind.

"The record and abstract room of the Guaranty Trust Company," was the reply. "He must have come in while you were in the light-well."

"He? Who?" Converse queried bluntly.

Both were standing as they had paused when the light first surprised them, and Lynden turned to his interlocutor with some surprise at the quickening eagerness of his tone, but he answered merely:

"Slade,--William Slade; he prepares the company's abstracts of title, you know."

Converse's manner became completely impersonal again. "Can you find some excuse for knocking?" he asked. "Would you mind doing so? I should like to have a glimpse of him."

"Not at all; if I can make him hear. He's quite deaf."

Lynden, after knocking once perfunctorily, did not wait for a summons to enter. He immediately threw the door wide open, crying, without much show of deference:

"Hello, Mr. Slade! You work late to-night."

A little, dingy, dreary figure of a man, perched on a high stool, and bending over a huge canvas-bound volume, slowly raised his head, and gazed at his unceremonious callers with the vacant look that one sees in the eyes of deaf people who have not heard distinctly. His smooth-shaven face was like leather, shot and crisscrossed with a network of fine wrinkles. Almost on the tip of his nose he was balancing a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles, and the eyes which now looked over them were remarkably bright and sparkling, like a mouse's, conveying to the casual glance an alertness which they did not actually possess.

"Howard Lynden, close the door," was the odd creature's greeting, in a voice hoarse and rasping. The sharp little eyes shifted to the Captain, and back to Lynden again. There was no cordiality in either his tone or manner.

The young man took a step forward, laid his hand upon the tall desk at which the little man was seated, raised his voice and asked, "Did you know there had been a murder committed on this floor this evening?"

"Murder?" querulously, and with no show of interest. "Murder?"

"Yes; murder. The man died in Doctor Westbrook's office--stabbed."

Without displaying the least curiosity at so unexpected, so sensational an announcement, Mr. Slade slowly wagged his head, saying only, "I heard nothing of it." He dipped his pen into the ink-well, with an air of dismissing his callers and the subject alike.

"I saw your light, and just dropped in to learn if you knew of it," Lynden concluded, as he followed the Captain toward the hall. Lowering his voice, and addressing the latter, "Is there anything else?" he inquired; at once the wrinkled, meagre visage and twinkling eyes became suspicious and alert.

"What is that?" demanded Slade, with obvious mistrust.

"Nothing," the young man returned shortly. "Good-night."

Mr. Slade's parchment-like countenance again bent over the big volume, and his pen flew industriously. It was startling, when the door had nearly closed, to have the rasping voice come after them with the suddenness of an explosion.

"Howard Lynden!" it cried. That gentleman, surprised, thrust his head back into the room.

With pen poised in hand, with spectacles still balanced near the tip of his thin nose, the ill-favored mask of Slade's countenance was again confronting the detective and his companion.

"What time was that murder?" asked the abstracter.

"At five o'clock," Lynden rejoined, he and the Captain again advancing into the room.

"And the murdered man?"

"General Westbrook's friend, Señor de Sanchez."

The little eyes turned once more quickly to the Captain and back to Lynden as he asked the next question:

"Ah! And who was--the--murderer?" He spoke deliberately, his harsh voice lowering itself strangely.

"That the police would very much like to know."

Again the little eyes shifted to Mr. Converse.

"An officer?" inquired Slade.

The Captain nodded. Slade's brusque manner returned; dropping his eyes to his work once more, he said, with an air of finality:

"I am sorry, gentlemen, I can tell you nothing. This is my first intelligence that a crime had been committed. Good-night. Howard Lynden, close the door tightly after you."

When the two were once more in the hall the Captain said, "Mr. Slade developed a mighty sudden interest."

"Yes," returned his companion; "a queer bird--irascible, and touchy about his deafness. His father was an overseer, you know," as though this fully accounted for Mr. Slade's undesirable qualities. "But his curiosity got the better of him that time; he couldn't let us go without finding out more."

"He and I would have some difficulty in getting along together without a sign language," remarked Mr. Converse, dryly.

The two were near the foot of the stairs, but they were not destined to leave the building without another interruption. A man came precipitately, though noiselessly, in at the entrance, who, when he observed they were descending, stopped short and awaited their approach at the foot of the stairs. He was one of the two men who had followed them from headquarters, and he now, after touching his hat respectfully to Mr. Converse, looked askance at Lynden. The Captain, with a nod of apology to the young man, drew the newcomer to one side.

"Well, Adams?" said he.

"We found Mr. Fairchild's all right," the man whispered; "but Mr. Fairchild was not there. He has not returned from the office, and his sister and mother are very anxious. The mother is something of an invalid--didn't see her at all. Talked with the sister, who seemed, anyhow, to be the head. Pretended to want a notary and quizzed her, but she could tell me nothing. I don't believe horses could draw anything from her if she didn't want to tell. Captain Converse, sir, she had an eye that looked right into me all the time I was talking, and I know she thought I was lying when I said I wanted a notary." The man showed two rows of glistening white teeth in an unpleasant grin. "I did want a notary, but she didn't know I was so particular about which one. But I don't believe she knows where he is. I left Barton to watch the house, and I came on to report."

"Very good."

"And what shall I do now?"

"Keep your eye on this man here with me until I can send you relief; I shall keep Barton watching the house."

The manner of the man called Adams was both stealthy and ingratiating; his visage seemed unable to rid itself of a perpetual smile, which, taken with a pair of crafty, shifting eyes, gave him a sinister appearance. During the entire time he and Mr. Converse were talking, he kept looking past the latter at Lynden; and that this surreptitious espionage was extremely unpleasant was made manifest by the young man's growing uneasiness.

Still smiling, shooting a last rapid glance at Lynden, he departed as abruptly and noiselessly as he had come.

Converse turned to his companion, fixing him with a steely eye; and what he said seemed unaccountably to agitate the young man.

"I wish to remind you that you are a very important witness in this affair. I shall venture a hint and a word of advice: if you are not more circumspect on the witness-stand than you have been to-night, you will have a mighty bad hour; if you are contemplating a trip from the city, why--change your mind." With a curt "Good-night," he left Lynden speechless in the doorway of the Nettleton Building.

Lynden remained motionless many minutes. When he at last produced a cigarette from his pocket, the cupped hands holding the lighted match trembled so he had difficulty in igniting it. Abruptly he started away in a direction opposite that taken by the huge figure of the Captain.

Behind him moved a shadow so stealthily, its outlines so dim, that it was scarcely to be distinguished from the surrounding night.