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:
I read the note again, and this time got the last paragraph: M. G., of course, was Margaret Grew; and C. S. meant Dr. Spaulding It meant that Ruggles, in his uncanny way, had solved the puzzle already: instead of a murderer, Dr. Spaulding was innocent and so needed to be helped, in fact to be protected, rather than to be watched and dreaded.
I went into the first drug store I could find and called up the Grew home, asking, in a disguised voice, if Dr. Spaulding were there and being told by the maid, of course, that he was, I asked to speak to him.
The maid left the wire then came back saying that Dr. Spaulding was engaged and would call me later if I would leave my name and my telephone number.
There was no way, then, but to say that I was an old friend of the doctor and would keep him only a moment, but that I wanted to have him dine with me at my hotel tomorrow. I said that I wanted to surprise him, and for that reason would not give my name to him.
“What’s this nonsense?” Dr. Spaulding’s voice broke in so abruptly that it seemed to me he must have been listening on a branch telephone, and so harshly, too, that it almost surprised me into replying in my natural speaking voice. “Who are you, and what do you want?”
I wanted to get away from that voice, which snarled at me now most disagreeably.
“Who are you?” Spaulding demanded again. “I’m waiting.”
I remembered then what Ruggles had said: I must keep Spaulding on the telephone so that Ruggles could have a word in private with Margaret Grew. So I said, in the disguised voice I had adopted:
“Don’t you recognize my voice? I’m waiting!”
The hook came down with a crash.
“Did you get your party?” asked the operator.
“Yes,” I said. Then I hung up and went out to the sidewalk. My brain was in a whirl. I had given Ruggles his chance with the girl. That was all right. But Spaulding’s rasping, furious voice came back to me prophetic of ill, full of savage hate, and in every way menacing.
I wondered if, after all, he had recognized my voice; and again that uneasy, disquieting suspicion came over me: had he been listening on a branch instrument? I had not altered my voice so much when speaking to the maid.
All the world loves a lover; and I had felt, as I finished rereading Ruggles’s note, that it meant that Spaulding and Margaret Grew were in love with each other — Ruggles had written as much when he said, in the note, that we must “act quickly enough to save M. G. and C. S.”
To me that had meant that some unknown person, unknown as far as I was concerned, was threatening them. But, if Ruggles had meant that, why had he needed to have a word in private with Margaret Grew?
I walked a few blocks, turning this over in my mind and reaching no conclusion. Then, remembering that Ruggles, in the hearing of Spaulding, had told me to “take the note to Captain Shannon at police headquarters,” I went into the next shop that had a public telephone booth and got Shannon on the wire, saying:
“Shannon, this is Crane, Ruggles’s assistant. Remember, old man, if any one telephones you and asks if I called you up, just say I have!”
“Sure,” Shannon replied. “An’ say, Crane, I got that straight the first time.”
“What?”
“Sure. You give me the same message five minutes ago.”
“No, I didn’t,” I said, “but it’s all right.”
“Well, it was your voice, all right,” Shannon said. “I’ll be—”
“I feel the same way,” I interrupted him, then I hung up. Spaulding had done that, I knew — Spaulding or some person who, secreted in the next room, had overheard what Ruggles had said to me.
Chapter VII
Inside an Hour
When I got to our apartment I found Ruggles there.
“Of course,” he said, when I had told him, “it doesn’t prove anything, as you say; but it is something to keep in mind. One thing is sure, though: Spaulding has completely given himself away — he is wildly, insanely in love with Margaret Grew. The Malays, you remember, call love ‘the madness,’ and I am inclined to agree with them.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that, while many men will do many things for money, many men will do anything for love, and Spaulding evidently is one of them. He is infatuated with her, perfectly desperate.”
“Why desperate?”
“Because she hates the sight of him.”
“Then why does she take orders from him? You saw how she waited for him to give her the cue for what he wanted her to say.”
“That was because she is deathly afraid of him.”
“For herself?”
“No, for the man she loves.”
“How do you know that?”
“She told me so, while Spaulding was talking with you on the phone. He is Cyril Stanhope, the bacteriologist. You see how the thing is rounding out — how the net about Spaulding is closing in?”
“No, I don’t see that yet.”
“You will see it inside of an hour. She is afraid of two things: that Spaulding, who she is sure killed her father, will kill young Stanhope, her lover; or, if not that, that Spaulding will be able to bring about the conviction of Stanhope for the murder of her father.”
“Say, Ruggles,” I broke out, “you go too fast for me. What, if any reason, had Spaulding for killing Richard Grew?”
“Reason enough,” Ruggles replied. “Grew had told Spaulding that he could never marry Margaret; to protect Stanhope, whom he really liked, Grew pretended to believe the evil repute Spaulding had fastened on Stanhope, and thus Grew forbade Stanhope to come to the house or have any communication with Margaret.
“But, the girl says, Spaulding surprised her and Stanhope and Mr. Grew together, and, though Spaulding showed no sign of ill feeling at the time, Margaret is sure that he killed her father and now will kill Stanhope — that or have him convicted of the murder of her father.”
“But that is impossible,” I cried.
“It may prove less impossible than you think,” Ruggles said. “I have warned her to be most careful of what she says, but she has admitted to me that, for some strange reason, young Stanhope was wildly jealous of Dr. Spaulding and had quarreled with her father because the latter had permitted Spaulding to come to the house.”
“That’s not so good,” I said.
“And, what is a great deal worse,” Ruggles said, “is the fact that Stanhope, as a bacteriologist, recently has brought Amazon fever germs back from South America and now has them in his laboratory at his rooms. However, she is sure that Stanhope is innocent.”
“Where are you going?” I asked, as Ruggles put on his hat.
“I’m going out and shan’t be back before half an hour or more. Stay here, will you, so I can get you on the phone if I want to.”
“One thing,” I said; “why did you tell Spaulding that the letter Grew received, with the germs on it, was missing?”
“I wanted to see if he wouldn’t show some signs of relief, Dan; but he didn’t show any. Just the same, I believe he’s guilty of Grew’s murder and tried to murder you and me. And I’m pretty sure that, inside an hour or more, we’ll have seen him prove the truth of this. I’ll give you a ring in a little while.”
Ruggles went out, putting his automatic in his right hand coat pocket.
It was nine fifteen in the evening then. At ten he called me up on the telephone and said that he had arrested Cyril Stanhope, the bacteriologist, for the murder of Richard Grew.