Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 1, September 17, 1927
- Автор: Valentine, Corley H. W.
- Год: 1927
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 1, September 17, 1927». Краткое содержание книги:
“My plan was that, after he had seen you, he would return to me, I should examine him from time to time, and of course if any malady revealed itself, I would treat it instantly. That letter! Did he show it to you?”
“No,” Ruggles replied, with as keen disappointment as I had ever seen him show. “When he spoke of it, I asked him, of course, to let me see it, but he refused point-blank. Then he lost consciousness and I got Dr. Whittimore, who immediately had him taken to the hospital in an ambulance. I did not know at that time of your position in the household, Dr. Spaulding.”
“Perfectly all right,” the family doctor said. “You did exactly the right thing! But about that letter: we’ve got to get hold of that.”
“Yes,” Ruggles said, “and we may be said to have a right to open it now.” He rose to his feet, “Let me use your phone for a moment, will you?” In an instant, Ruggles had Whittimore at the hospital, and was saying, “Whittimore, this is Ruggles. Of course all Mr. Grew’s personal effects have been saved? Yes, that’s what I felt sure of.
“Say, Whittimore, I wish you’d seal up that letter in a big envelope and keep it for me. I’ll be right down after it, Crane or I or perhaps Dr. Spaulding, Grew’s family doctor. What? Not there?” There was a pause, then Ruggles said, “Whittimore, it’s impossible that that could have got lost. Look again, like a good man.”
There was another pause, this time long. Then Ruggles said over the telephone, “Well, there’s no good in crying over spilt milk. Must have been lost — got out of his pocket, maybe, while your men were carrying him down the steps and into the ambulance; and the wind there was blowing then would have carried it anywhere — we’ll never see it again. All right. Get along without it. Good night, Whittimore.”
Chapter IV
The First Sign
Ruggles hung up, then turned to Spaulding and me, saying:
“You heard what I said. Letter’s gone. Got to do without it.”
Spaulding said nothing, just stared at Ruggles, cupping his heavy chin with his muscular hand. Then he said shortly, “We’ve got to find that letter!”
“Of course, on the face of it. But, from a practical standpoint, how about it? The time lost in hunting for it, I mean! No, I prefer, all things considered, to get along without it. That’s why I’m here, doctor: to see Miss Grew and find whether her father said anything to her—”
“She’s too ill to be seen now,” Dr. Spaulding said; “but, in a couple of hours, say at half past nine, that’s about an hour and a half. Come back here then. Now wait: half past nine — she ought to be in bed and asleep then. Come at half past eight — that’s about an hour from now; and, if her condition warrants it—”
The family doctor seemed to have fallen into the habit of not finishing his sentences. He looked off, straight ahead, in the distance and began again, “I’m sure she won’t have heard anything about the letter: her father regards her as a child, though she’s no longer one, and wouldn’t have bothered her with—” Again his voice trailed off.
“Do you know anything about the letter?” Ruggles asked abruptly.
“Only what you have told me and what he told me — what I have said to you.”
“All right,” Ruggles said. “Now, look at this angle of it: it is a fact that Grew died of Amazon fever and it is equally true that Amazon fever could have been given him only through germs of the disease.
“He was sure he had been given the germs of a disease. The disease proved to be Amazon fever. Who could have given him Amazon fever germs?”
“Who, indeed?” asked Dr. Spaulding.
“Do you know whether or not Grew had any active enemy?”
“As a detective, whom Grew consulted,” Dr. Spaulding said thoughtfully, “you probably have the right — I might even say it was your duty to ask me that question. But, as his friend and his family doctor, I am not sure that I have a right to answer it.”
“Very well,” Ruggles said, “is that all you care to say?”
“No,” Spaulding said, choosing his words very carefully, “if I were a detective, handling this case, I should take into consideration the ages of the respective members of the Grew family and their friends and acquaintances — I should go through that list with my imagination alive and my eyes open—”
“Look here,” Ruggles broke in, “why don’t you speak out?”
“Because,” Spaulding said, looking Ruggles squarely in the eye, “what I would say would be only conjecture, and I don’t want any man hanged through a chain of circumstantial evidence I might unconsciously have started.
“It’s just that, if I were you, in addition to what I said a moment ago, I would find the man who recently brought Amazon fever germs into this country.”
“Why did he go to South Africa?” Ruggles said.
“He didn’t,” said Dr. Spaulding.
“I mean Mr. Grew.”
“Of course,” said the family doctor. He lighted a cigarette and puffed out thick clouds of smoke without inhaling. “About Grew—” he said, behind the smoke cloud, “I don’t know why he went to Africa, except that he was fond of traveling. Oh, pardon me!” He took out his cigarette case and held it out to Ruggles.
“Thanks,” Ruggles said, taking the cigarette Spaulding handed him. “Oh, sorry! Thank you!” The cigarette had fallen from his fingers and Dr. Spaulding picked it up from the floor and gave it back to Ruggles.
My companion took out his holder, struck a match, and, after inserting the cigarette, puffed it gratefully, saying, after a moment: “These are extremely good. What make are they?”
“Some I have my tobacconist put up for me. I shall be glad to send you some. The blend was recommended to me, by the way, by a young man whom, for excellent reasons, Richard Grew forbade coming to his house.
“Grew had met him traveling somewhere. However unsavory his reputation was from a Puritan’s standpoint, he smoked excellent cigarettes; and he was very clever, too — sent to almost every part of the world as a bacteriologist.”
“An interesting experience, that must be,” Ruggles said idly. “Does he live in New York?”
“Part of the time.”
“I may have met him without knowing his history. What is his name?”
“If you are trying to save me the trouble of getting my tobacconist to put up some of these cigarettes for you,” Dr. Spaulding said with perfect composure and a slight, shrewd smile, “you may save yourself your anxiety: I shall be only too happy to arrange your receipt of the cigarettes myself. As a matter of fact, you would find this young man not a desirable acquaintance — I might say even a dangerous one: he is a civilized savage who will stop at nothing to attain his ends.”
“Stop at nothing,” Ruggles said quietly. “Would not stop at deliberate murder, you think?”
“No,” Spaulding said evenly, “not even at deliberate murder. I say this unwillingly, but I believe it is the truth. I think of him with anxiety, Mr. Ruggles, for the reason that only recently I have made a mortal enemy of him.”
Spaulding slowly turned his wrist so that he could see the small, jewel-set watch on it. “You will return at half past eight?” he asked.
“Yes,” Ruggles said. “And let me acknowledge your assistance in this case, Dr. Spaulding.”
The family doctor bowed, but said nothing, and went down the front steps to the street in silence.