Chapter XI: Behind the Locked Door

The moon was shining through a silver-gray mist, giving the row of buildings a shadowy appearance. A fresh fragrance drifted out from the park, on the scarcely perceptible breeze. A milk cart rattled down the block; otherwise the street was deserted.

Cole peered sharply into the dark basement entrance. He suspected the hunchback had entered the doctor’s house that way. Down the steps he went and tried the knob, but the door was locked. The two windows on each side were protected by iron bars. He hesitated for a moment, and then he mounted the steps to the main entrance and rang the bell. There seemed to be nothing else he could do, and the shifty-tongued doctor interested him strangely. Latham’s evasions would be entertaining, if nothing else.

He waited patiently, for he had many things to consider. Just what trend the forthcoming interview was to take he did not know. That the hunchback should have taken refuge in the physician’s house was significant, especially since there were good reasons for supposing that Latham was responsible for the wrecking of Reeves’ mind. That he had also instigated the murder of the maniac seemed only a reasonable sequence of the first supposition. In this connection Professor Carmody’s visit to the doctor’s house yesterday was a highly interesting circumstance. Perhaps the two rogues had planned the murder then.

Cole rang again. At the same time he brushed all hasty inferences and surmises from his mind. He came back to the point that, as far as hard facts were concerned, he knew next to nothing. He did not even have a good reason for placing the hunchback under arrest. If he turned the fellow over to the police he would probably be only laughed at for his trouble. The hunchback would brazen out of it, and Cole would not have a leg to stand on. As for Doctor Latham——

He rang again more emphatically this time. Then he listened to the queer noises which the reverberations stirred up within the dark house. As for Doctor Latham, Cole could hope to do no more than draw the doctor out by deftly aimed questions. It was scarcely to be expected that such a slippery individual as Dickson Latham would betray himself, yet something might come of the interview. The doctor might get careless, or Cole might succeed in confusing him.

Once more he reached for the button, but just then a step sounded in the hall. The door came open. It was the doctor himself who admitted his early caller. It was dark where they stood, and Cole could see little else than a black beard and a long dressing gown, but he fancied there were signs of repressed irritation about the doctor, as he recognized his visitor.

“Ah, it’s you, Mr. Stone. Please step in.”

The voice was affable enough. Cole followed him through the hall, the reception room, and into the physician’s office. When they faced each other across the desk, Latham seemed to have recovered his usual ease of manners. “Nerves again, Mr. Stone?” he asked pleasantly.

“No; only a slight headache,” said Cole.

“And you wish me to prescribe something?”

“Yes, but it isn’t drugs I want. I came here hoping you would cure my headache by removing the cause. I have an acute case of flabbergastation.”

Doctor Latham’s bearded lips parted in a thin flash of very white teeth. Cole thought there was something Machiavellian about the smile. The physician reached out an arm and passed a box of cigars across the desk. A startled gleam flashed into Cole’s eyes. The movement of the doctor’s arm had wrinkled the sleeve of the dressing gown and exposed a narrow rim of the cuff of his pajama jacket. The cuff was pale blue, and just above the rim was a stain.

“I can recommend these perfectos,” said Latham genially.

Cole, easily hiding his surprise, accepted one. The doctor struck a match, and the stain became visible once more, as he helped Cole to a light. It was a fresh blot of a dark tinge, probably not more than an hour old.

“What is it that flabbergasts you, Mr. Stone?” inquired the physician, after each man had pulled appreciatively at his cigar. The question was accompanied with a slight and seemingly casual glance at a door in the rear of the office.

The glance had not escaped Cole. He picked his words carefully. “Fifteen or twenty minutes ago,” he began, “a man entered your house.”

“Yes?” asked the physician in a toneless voice.

“A hunchback,” Cole went on, guessing that the doctor had carefully hidden the fellow, while Cole had been kept waiting outside the door. “He entered your basement, unless I’m mistaken. Odd time for a call, doctor.”

“A physician, as you undoubtedly know, receives callers at all hours. Nothing unusual in that.”

“But you will admit that this fellow’s mode of entrance was rather irregular? A physician’s patients do not usually sneak in the basement way.”

“Very true, but please come to the point, Mr. Stone. You must grant that I have a right to receive visitors any way I choose, even through the chimney, if it pleases my fancy. You tell me that a hunchback entered my house by the basement door. I neither deny nor affirm it, but, without wishing to seem rude, may I ask what it is to you?”

“Suppose the fellow were a criminal?”

“I never inquire into the moral character of my patients. Their physical welfare is all that concerns me.”

“But suppose this individual had committed a murder? You would not care to harbor a murderer in your house, would you?”

A slight flicker of uneasiness showed in the doctor’s eyes. “A murderer? Aren’t you carrying your suppositions rather too far, Mr. Stone?”

Again he cast a sidelong glance at the inner door. Cole sensed a hidden significance in the doctor’s attention to that door. It puzzled him almost as much as did the stain on the cuff. He thought quickly, estimating how much he stood to gain or lose by a direct attack.

“I’m not supposing,” he declared bluntly. “I know there is a murderer in your house.”

“Oh!” The doctor’s tone was tense and very low. “Whom did he murder?”

“Malcolm Reeves.”

“Mal—Malcolm Reeves?” In an instant the physician had kicked back his chair and was on his feet. With the cigar tightly clamped between his bearded lips he stared hard at Cole. His eyes were bright as metal, but there was a glint of grave concern in their depths. In that moment Cole would have been ready to swear that Latham’s consternation was genuine.

“Is Reeves dead?” asked the doctor hoarsely.

Cole gave him a level glance. “He was murdered less than two hours ago, and the murderer is in your house.”

The physician stared for a moment longer. An indistinct mutter came from his lips. Cole wondered whether his face was not pale under the glossy black beard. Despite his bewilderment and his feeling that the doctor’s emotions were sincere, he glowed inwardly with satisfaction. At last Latham’s superb composure had been shattered; now he must pursue his advantage before the doctor could rally his mental forces and ply him with unanswerable questions.

“Doctor Latham,” he asked quickly, “do you deny that there is a hunchbacked fellow in the house?”

The doctor sat down again. “I don’t feel called upon either to deny or affirm it,” he declared.

Cole leaned forward across the desk. “How did that stain get on your cuff, doctor?”

The physician’s arm was stretched out flat on the table, and Cole pointed to the soiled cuff. Latham looked down; for an instant, as he saw the blot, his eyes widened in astonishment.

“Oh, that!” He shrugged his shoulders. “I had a simple surgical case a while ago. It wasn’t serious enough to take to a hospital, so I performed it in my own office.”

“I didn’t know physicians ever performed operations in their pajamas. No accounting for eccentricities, though. Will you do me a favor, doctor?”

“That depends. What is it?”

Cole pointed carelessly to the door at which the doctor had been covertly glancing from time to time.

“I would like to see what is behind that door, if you don’t mind,” he remarked languidly.

Again a gleam of uneasiness crept into the doctor’s eyes. He regarded Cole intently, as if trying to ferret out the reason for the request. Cole, a thin smile on his lips, was puffing leisurely at his cigar.

“Why?” demanded the doctor.

“Just a fancy. You have no objection, I hope?”

The doctor drew himself up. He sat stiffly erect in his chair. A mask seemed to fall from his face. Dropping all pretense of geniality, his features took on a threatening look. “I don’t care to humor your fancy, Mr. Stone,” he declared coldly.

With excessive care Cole ashed his cigar. Then he got up and, with a slow, but firm, tread, walked toward the door in the rear. His fingers closed around the knob.

“Stop!” cried the doctor sharply.

Cole turned and gave him an amused glance.

“You are a detective, I suppose?” said Latham.

“In a way,” admitted Cole modestly.

“Have you a search warrant?”

Cole shook his head.

“Then I must regard you as a trespasser. Mr. Stone, the moment you open that door you will be a dead man.”

He reached into a pocket of his dressing gown. In the next instant a small pistol glittered banefully in his hand. He raised it till Cole could gaze straight into the muzzle. His eyes, as he looked ominously at him, emitted the same cold, metallic gleam as the barrel of the weapon.

Cole gave him a long, searching look, and he was a keen judge of faces. At the end of the inspection he shrugged. “Doctor Latham,” he said evenly, “you haven’t the nerve to kill me.” He turned the knob and walked in.