Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 75, No. 4, April 15, 1933
- Автор: Day Stanley, Dunn J. Allan
- Год: 1933
- Язык: английский
- Год: Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 75, No. 4, April 15, 1933». Краткое содержание книги:
“I’m not satisfied,” Flash answered. “What about this fellow Muroc? What about the rest of them? There’s not one person under suspicion who has a clean bill of health. Cheseldine admits he was alone. Miss Minetta admits she was alone.” He said to the butler, “Where were you when Mr. Africa was murdered?”
“In the cellar, sir, trying to fix the lights. But I’m sure nothing is wrong with the meter. If you’ll pardon me, I too, think the cook is lying. She is the worst liar I ever knew.”
“Yes,” said Blossom Vickus belligerently. “And mebby Ah’ll wring yo’ neck!”
Flash said to the chambermaid, “Where were you?”
“In my room on the third floor, sir, reading my Bible.”
“And me,” the cook said grimly, “Ah was standin’ in dat doorway, jes’ lak Ah said.”
“Discounting that,” Flash said, “not one person in this household, with the exception of Miss Hopper, has any kind of alibi. I want to know about this man Muroc. I want to know what was the nature of his business with Mr. Africa.”
“And I’m not talking,” said the mystery man.
“Miss Minetta?” Flash said.
“I know nothing about him, except that he has been here several times before,” the spinster said in her glacial voice. “He’s been here every two weeks since my brother returned from China with this woman.”
Flash said grimly, “All right! Sheriff, I want you to lock this man up on a charge of first degree homicide!”
Sheriff Hegg shook his head.
“We haven’t anything on him.”
“Then arrest him on suspicion.”
Once again, Flash encountered a stone wall. “Sorry, Dan, but it don’t seem to me that circumstances warrant it. And, after all, I’m running this show.”
“Very well,” Flash said crisply. “Don’t arrest anybody, but don’t let anybody leave this house. I’m not satisfied that you’re on the right track. I want to check up a few things. Did you bring any men along?”
“Yep. Six. They’re scattered around now, outside the house.”
“Give them orders to permit no one to leave this house.”
Lotus Africa said in her low, beautiful voice, “May I go to my room now?”
While the sheriff hesitated, Flash said, “Certainly!” And then saw another flicker of intelligence pass between Muroc and Sheriff Hegg.
“I want to have a private talk with you, Muroc,” said the sheriff.
The two men left the room. Cheseldine, with a shrug, went into the hall and up the stairs.
Once again in the privacy of the music room, Sheriff Hegg said to Muroc: “You’re on a spot. And there’s only one thing to do. You’ve got to slip out. If Horton asks questions, I’ll cover you. I’ll insist that you’re of no importance to the case.”
“No,” Muroc said. “I’ve got something to do here.”
“What is it?”
“Don’t let it worry you. Just grind your axes and I’ll grind mine.”
The sheriff looked suspicious and alarmed. “But the coroner may make things uncomfortable for you!”
“Then you’ll give me an alibi.”
“You’re forgetting that old trouble in Springfield a year ago. It may pop up somehow if you get in the limelight! We can’t take the risk, Muroc. No. You’ve got to go.”
There was a hard look in the shoe-button eyes. “Get this straight, Hegg. I’ll go when I’m ready. Tonight, I won’t be interfered with. Now run along and peddle your vegetables.”
Flash had left Minetta and her blond niece and returned to the study by way of the sitting room door. He closed that door and he closed the hall door. He went to the casement windows and looked out into the night. In the distance he heard the faint rumbling of thunder, then silence fell again.
The question tormented him: For what purpose had Benjamin Africa been killed?
Flash sat down on the edge of the desk and arranged his thoughts. He was absolutely convinced that the Eurasian girl was innocent, and he was convinced that she was destined to be the victim of forces beyond his control. He was angrily puzzled by Muroc, he was puzzled by Cheseldine, by Miss Minetta, and the blond girl.
He had seen glances pass between Minetta and the blond girl. There were, he was aware, numerous mysterious undercurrents in this dark and sinister house. But he could only guess at what was going on.
Why was Sheriff Hegg behaving so mysteriously with the mysterious Harry Muroc? Somewhere here there was a mystery. Deliberately Sheriff Hegg seemed to be shielding Muroc from questioning. He had refused to arrest him. What mysterious link joined the sheriff and the mystery man in evening clothes?
Sitting on the edge of the desk, Flash looked at the dead man’s mottled face, his staring, glassy eyes. Once again, he wondered about that soot he had found under the old man’s fingernails. He shook himself, shivering a little. His gaze fell to the blue blotter, to the little irregularly round ink spot near the bronze clip in the corner.
Flash gave a surprised grunt. The ink spot had changed its shape! No longer irregularly round, it was now oval.
He got up and walked around the desk to examine it. And he was astonished to discover that it was not an ink spot at all. It was a ball of some solid substance casting a shadow!
It was about the size of a pea. Flash carefully picked it up, and examined it in the light of the candles. It was of a black or a very dark brown substance. To his fingertips, it felt slightly sticky — the tackiness of varnish which has not quite set. He brought it close to his nostrils and sniffed.
It had an odor, and for some inexplicable reason, this odor sent a shiver through him. It was an odor that he had never before smelled. He took from his pocket the envelope on which Harry Muroc had written the number, dropped the little black ball inside, and quickly let himself out of the room.
At a half-run, he started down the hall for the front door. The sitting room, he observed, as he passed, was now occupied only by Miss Minetta and Bernice Hopper. Their heads were close together. They were whispering, and the spinster was making small, quick, decisive gestures with a clenched fist.
But he did not pause. He had suspected that they shared some mystery, and this merely confirmed his suspicions. He ran on to the door, not even pausing for his coat and hat. He opened the front door.
He started across the veranda, intending to secure his roadster which he had left parked under the pines across the turning circle.
His eyes, growing accustomed to the dark, discerned a dark figure hovering near the radiator of his roadster.
Flash leaped noiselessly down the steps, and started across the crushed stone, trying to make no sound. But it was impossible to prevent the stones from making a crunching sound.
He saw the dark figure flit away under the trees. Next he heard it stumble, then the impact of its sudden fall to the ground. He raced across the circle to the edge of the trees and listened.
He heard the neighing of a horse in a pasture. He heard, far away, the thin, somewhat mournful whistle of a train rocketing through the night. But there was no sound, no whisper of sound, from under the trees.
Flash jumped into the roadster, switched on the lights, and backed the car around so that the headlights flooded the area under the trees. But whoever had been loitering there in the darkness had completely vanished.
A spark of bright color, a bright red, on a low shrub suddenly attracted him. It was approximately the spot where the mysterious loiterer had stumbled and fallen.
He got out of the car again and went to the bush. The bright red spark proved to be a shred of flame-red silk. It had presumably been torn from some garment worn by the fugitive.
It made him feel a little ill. This shred of silk matched the red gown the Eurasian girl was wearing. She had said she was going to her room. Was she attempting to escape?