The Twenty-Six Clues/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV
The Twenty-sixth of May
INSPECTOR Druet was seated at his desk at Headquarters, scowling over a voluminous sheaf of reports when ex-Roundsman McCarty put in an appearance at the close of the day. To an observant eye, the latter's extreme affability of manner woul4 have savored of blandishment, but the official was too engrossed in his own perplexities to heed.
"I thought I'd just drop around and see how things were coming," McCarty announced, appropriating a chair by the desk and producing two opulently banded cigars from his pocket. "Try one of these, sir. You'll not find it bad."
"Since when are you smoking perfectos, Mac?" inquired the Inspector with a shrewd smile at his former subordinate.
"Since I've been hobnobbing with society." McCarty regarded the glowing tip of his own cigar somewhat dubiously. "They've a cool, sweet pull to them but they've not the body that I'm used to. However, I've no doubt Mr. Norwood's a judge and if Billings can educate himself up to them, I can."
"Norwood!" the Inspector snorted. "His meddling is one of the worst nuisances we have got to contend with in this case! Has he been regaling you with one of his pet theories?"
"No, sir, though you'd hardly blame a man that's had the body of one of his best friends dumped down on his doorstep, as you might say, for wanting to take a hand in finding out who's responsible for it," McCarty paused and added slyly: "especially if he and his relations are being trailed whenever they poke their noses out of doors."
"We've drawn a blank there so far, I'll admit." Inspector Druet thrust the sheaf of reports which he had been fingering into a pigeonhole. "Not that I expect to learn anything incriminating from that quarter, but I'm taking no chances on overlooking a possible clue. Jarvis is the man I'm after, Mac; I have no direct evidence as yet, but I am having his record looked up and to-day I requested from him a detailed accounting of his wife's estate. If I'm not mistaken, he won't find that an easy thing to produce."
"You mean that he's taken her money?" McCarty asked.
"I can't call it that, since she gave him power of attorney; turned the whole thing over to him, in fact, although last spring she did get about twenty thousand back on the plea of war charities, he says. But I have discovered that during the past two years he had lost heavily in stocks; been on the wrong side of the market almost continually and his broker's books show that he has made desperate efforts to recoup lately. This proposed trip to France was in my estimation only a stall to keep his wife in ignorance of the true state of their finances as long as possible. He didn't dare refuse to turn over the twenty thousand to her, of course, for fear of arousing her suspicions, but that money which she has been paying out to blackmailers, comparatively small as the amount was, considering her original fortune, might have been a life-saver for him."
"And what do you think of the blackmail part of the business?"
"One of the boys started for New Orleans on Saturday night, and I have two female operatives working now among Mrs. Jarvis' friends and associates," the Inspector responded significantly. "Whatever the affair was which she went to such lengths to keep under cover, I am satisfied that it had nothing to do with the murder. I'm with our friend Terhune there, but the rest of his theory is all rubbish. I mean to have a talk to-morrow with Miss Norwood; she may know something as she was the dead woman's closest friend."
"She's got money, hasn't she?" asked McCarty irrelevantly. "The old man—her uncle—said something to-day about her inheritance."
"Yes. We got a line on both families. Calvin Norwood's brother married the daughter of old Wexley, the steel rail magnate, and Miss Norwood is quite an heiress. But what took you there to-day, Mac?" Inspector Druet bent a quizzical eye upon his visitor. "Have you got anything up your sleeve? I knew you couldn't keep out of the case if your life depended on it! You wouldn't bother with Norwood, though, if you didn't think there was some clue to be found in that house which we had overlooked."
McCarty smiled broadly.
"Not in this case, sir, but in some that are long past," he replied with a show of candor. "You know it was to show us through his museum that Mr. Norwood got Mr. Terhune to bring Denny and me there to dinner the other night and almost the first thing we came on was that body under the blanket and it was all off. I wanted to see what he has in his collection, though, and hear the story of it and this afternoon I got him to give me what you might call a private view. Some of the stuff he's got there is mighty interesting; I'd like to get the dope on one or two of those old cases, even if they are dead ones. That Hoyos matter, for instance. I don't suppose, now, you could let me have a peep at the records? It's ten years past, and well I know you've enough and to spare on your hands with this murder and all but I was on the force then, you mind, sir, and it kind of brings it all back to me."
The Inspector's gaze narrowed in suspicion, but McCarty met it with an air of such childlike wistfulness that he laughed good-naturedly and pressed a button in his desk.
"Sure you can see them; I'll have Yost look up the files. You are not fooling me for a minute, though, Mac! It isn't the Hoyos case, or any other old crime which Norwood may have docketed in his museum that is interesting you. I've had both of those households watched, you know, and I got a report on where Etta Barney, the Jarvis' housemaid, spent Saturday evening. I had an idea myself that she might have known who broke into Mrs. Jarvis' dressing-room, but I couldn't make her come across. Did you manage to wheedle anything from her?"
"No, sir," responded McCarty frankly. "If she did hear a noise and suspect who it was she would hardly be telling me when she knew I was in with you. Is Margot still sticking to her story that the dressing-room was all in order at eight o'clock that night?"
The entrance of Yost in response to Inspector Druet's summons prevented an immediate reply from the latter, but after his instructions were given and the door had closed he swung about in his chair.
"I can't make that girl out. There is every indication to make me believe she is on the level and yet the facts as we know them show that her statement must be a lie. Mrs. Jarvis was murdered before six o'clock and her body spirited across to the other house; that is the plain truth of the matter, in spite of Terhune's elaborate theory. Margot could have only one reason for trying to fix the time when the dressing-room was ransacked at a later hour, and that is loyalty to the husband of the dead woman. If she knew or suspected that it was he who returned to the house during her absence upon her errand and guessed what took place then she may be trying to make us believe that the dressing-room had not been entered until evening because she knew that her employer's alibi after eight o'clock that night could not be assailed. I don't know whether self-interest or a desire to shield the memory of the woman who had been good to her prompted that loyalty, but she can't be shaken in her story at this stage of the game. I tell you, Mac, we've the hardest proposition ahead of us that the department has ever tackled, but if I can once get the goods on Oliver Jarvis I can force him to come through."
McCarty shook his head.
"In spite of that glove, and the fact that he can't or won't account for the time between his visit to his lawyer and to the consulate, sir, I can't see your case against him," he remarked. "What if he did lose his wife's money? If she cared for him she'd stick just the same, and anyway, he'd have no need to go to the length of killing her when she found it out. Why should he have sneaked into his wife's dressing-room in the afternoon like that? He could have gone in any time at night while she was asleep and none the wiser, if there was anything there he wanted. How did she come to be dressed as the body was when we found it, if the maid had left her in a wrapper and slippers?"
"Oh, I know the difficulties I'm up against, but I'm going to prove my case, for all that!" the Inspector retorted. "Of course, I'll have to wait until I get a full, detailed report on their joint finances, but I have a suspicion that Jarvis has gone through more money than his speculations in the stock market will explain and although I haven't found out where it went yet, there could be more than one reason why it would be, vital to his happiness that his wife should not discover the use to which it had been put."
"He was in love with her," observed McCarty. "I'd bet anything I had on that. There was no other woman in the case and that's the only thing the wife would perhaps have not forgiven, sir."
"As a wife, but there are other kinds of disgrace, that she might have repudiated him for." The Inspector paused. "I won't go into that until I have something definite to work on, but Jarvis' mother was a von Rohne, of the family of Berlin bankers, and if you take a look at some of the records of the Department of Justice, Mac, you'll find that the German taint in the blood of more than one supposedly solid American family is working for treason. Understand, I have no proof, but if it develops that Jarvis was actually giving financial aid here to some underground work of his mother's people, he might well be afraid of his wife's knowledge. Remember, he was unaware of any secret in her own life; he thought her above reproach in every way and knew her to be intensely patriotic. That is only one supposition of mine, but other motives would cover that point.
"As to his going to his wife's dressing-room at that hour instead of at night, it may be possible that he could not wait. He may not have placed her jewels in the safe deposit vault a few days earlier as he claimed, but have taken them then to realize money on, and she came upon him in the act. He may have had desperate need of that money before night. I know this sounds as if I were trying to build up the wildest sort of evidence to support my theory, but every slight clue in our possession points to him and we cannot afford to overlook any possibility."
McCarty's manner showed that he was still unconvinced.
"Why did she get up an put on that plain, dark dress and how did the blue silk veil or scarf or whatever it was happen to be so handy to strangle her with?" he asked. "If you ask me, sir, it lookes suspicious; her giving the servants the afternoon off and getting her own maid out of the way on an errand and making that excuse about the headache and all."
The Inspector nodded.
"I think you are right there, Mac," he agreed. "If it was her husband she found ransacking her dressing-room, the surprise must have been mutual. You remember Margot's story of her mistress' sudden collapse on Wednesday night after her dinner guests had gone? I think that in some way we haven't discovered yet imperative word reached her from the blackmailers, hinting at some drastic steps to be taken before she sailed for France and perhaps making an appointment for Friday afternoon which she did not dare to ignore. She arranged that no one should know of her errand and was preparing for it when the interruption came."
"And what's your own idea, sir, as to how the murderer got her body to the museum and why he went to all that trouble for nothing?" McCarty demanded bluntly. "Wouldn't he know that when the state of the dressing-room was seen 'twould be supposed the murder was committed there? If 'twas Mr. Jarvis himself, what did he take his old automobile gloves along with him for, much less drape one over the ladder to advertise the fact that he'd been there?"
"Well, this is what happened, as I figure it out now." The Inspector relighted his cigar and settled forward in his chair. "When he had killed her, his first thought was naturally to save himself and divert suspicion from the actual scene of the crime. It isn't easy to hide a human body, but he thought of old Norwood's museum, which sometimes wasn't entered for days at a time. It was too dark for anyone in the rear of the adjoining and opposite houses to see the outlines of a person passing through the yards and he chanced it. He carried the body to the Norwood yard, hid it under a bush, entered the museum by means of the ladder, opened the door and coming down the stairs and out through the passageway, carried the body back up that way to the museum. That glove is a nice bit of detail, but I think I know the answer to it. Jarvis knew what a shark Norwood is on fingerprint evidence and he took the gloves along to prevent leaving any traces when he forced the catch of the window. Something—perhaps hearing the blind secretary moving about—must have frightened him away before he could remove the ladder and retrieve the glove which he'd dropped."
McCarty brought his hand down on the arm of his chair with a resounding thwack.
"You've hit it, sir!" he exclaimed. "It's been in my mind from the first that the one who climbed the ladder to the museum brought the glove to keep from leaving finger marks behind, but in their hurry I thought they only snatched up one glove instead of the pair, and then got excited and dropped it. If 'twas Jarvis, as you say, why did he take a chance on Mr. Norwood, perhaps, coming in and catching him in the museum with the body?"
"He probably knew that Norwood had gone to Professor Parlowe's, just as he might have learned from his wife during lunch that all their own servants would be out for the afternoon." The Inspector's mollified tone betrayed his gratification at McCarty's belated approval. "I don't think, however, that he knew of Norwood's little dinner party that night or that he meant to exhibit his museum to two such celebrated sleuths as you and Terhune, to say nothing of Riordan; I think Jarvis banked on the hope that the body would not be discovered until the following day, and that after he had established an alibi against any possible future questioning he could get home and put that dressing-room in order before Margot or any of the other servants entered it. That would leave him with a clear slate. I don't deny that he is in very apparent grief now, but remorse would account for it, whether he was in love with his wife or not. He killed her all right, Mac; there's no doubt in my mind as to that."
"Here is the old Hoyos report, sir." Yost appeared in the doorway. "I brought the minutes of the inquest, too, and a copy of the statements made by the crew on the yacht."
"Give them to Mac," the Inspector laughed. "Everything is so tame now, that he has to go back ten years in the history of the department to dig up a little excitement. The cases we've got on hand are too trifling for his consideration since he's become a man of means and his own boss!"
Yost grinned and McCarty chuckled in perfect good nature at the thrust.
"I'm a has-been," he announced. "And like the most of them I'm harking back to the days of my usefulness. Not that I was in on the Hoyos case, but I'd like to know more about it than I remember."
"What kind of a souvenir of the affair has old Norwood got hold of?" the Inspector asked. "If it was of any importance he should have turned it in at the inquest. We never took him seriously, but he may put something over on us some day, for all that."
"He has nothing, sir," McCarty responded, truthfully enough. "He was just talking about it and got me curious to read up the details."
"Well, stay here and amuse yourself with it as long as you like." The Inspector rose. "I've got to get up to the District Attorney's office. I wish you would hang around old Norwood all you can, and if you get any real dope on the Jarvis case let me know."
McCarty promised and as the Inspector departed, settled himself to a perusal of the closely typed sheets which Yost had placed upon the desk before him.
The first which came to his hand was a personal description of the dead yachtsman.
"Leonidas Hoyos, aged approximately thirty, nationality unknown but believed to be of Greek-Hungarian extraction," he read: "Medium height, smooth shaven, black hair, fair complexion, gray eyes, full red lips, straight nose, rounded, slightly receding chin. Flashy clothes, expensive jewelry. No scars or other identifying marks."
There was at first glance nothing to arrest his attention in that, yet McCarty read it carefully several times over before laying it aside. The next document was a report of the official investigation into Hoyos' antecedents. Nothing could be learned of him prior to the summer of 1906 when he had presented himself at a prominent brokerage house in Wall Street as a prospective client, with credentials and letters from equally noted concerns on the Bourse and London Exchange. He maintained luxurious bachelor apartments on Madison Avenue, kept two cars and a retinue of servants and during the following winter succeeded in gaining admittance to membership in one or two of the clubs noted more for their sporting tendencies than their exclusiveness. He plunged heavily in Wall Street, netted huge profits and early in the spring of 1907 purchased from the Carmichael estate a steam yacht which he rechristened The 'Muette.'
Then followed records, attested to by the captain, stewards, stewardess and members of the crew of several coastwise trips in which men about town and women known to the festive bright-light district had figured conspicuously and champagne and gambling for high stakes had been the order of the day. In May The Muette had anchored in the Hudson a few miles north of the city and its owner had given only occasional dinner parties on board.
The report ended abruptly with a list of Hoyos' financial holdings; stocks, bonds, securities and deposits in various banks. McCarty glanced over them casually, noted the total and then took up the minutes of the Coroner's inquest. It was a voluminous record and he turned first to the verdict; accidental death. That, he remembered, had ended the case officially as far as the public was concerned, but he had not forgotten the storm it aroused in the press, nor rumors in the department that the investigation was not to be immediately shelved.
He skipped the verbatim testimony of the witnesses and had settled back in his chair to read the final summary when the opening sentence made him start forward in astonishment with round eyes and quickened breath.
On the twenty-sixth of the month, in the late afternoon, Hoyos had come aboard, ordered dinner for two and sent the dingey back to the wharf to meet his guest. At eight o'clock a woman arrived, heavily veiled, and was ushered to the saloon where Hoyos awaited her. The steward withdrew and no one witnessed their meeting nor could anyone subsequently furnish a description of the woman, for Hoyos, took extraordinary precautions against having her seen from the moment of her arrival. He countermanded the order for an elaborate dinner which he had given, directed that a single course with several bottles of champagne be placed in the dining-saloon, and then dismissed the stewards for the night.
Sounds were heard later of a bitter quarrel, with the woman weeping and Hoyos fairly shouting in rage. The noises ceased, however, and quiet ensued until close on to midnight when two pistol shots were heard, followed by two heavy splashes in the water.
Investigation showed that the saloon was empty, the man and woman had both disappeared and an open window with blood upon the sill and Hoyos' own pistol lying on the floor nearby were the only indications of what had occurred. The authorities were notified and an investigation was instituted but there was no trace of either Hoyos or the woman until about three weeks later, on the fourteenth of June when a police boat patrolling the lower bay picked up a man's body which was identified by means of the clothing and initialed jewelry as that of Leonidas Hoyos. The body itself was greatly mutilated, presumably by contact with passing river craft, and an autopsy was unable to determine the presence of a bullet wound but the conditions of the lungs did not indicate death by drowning. The woman's body was not recovered.
For long after he had finished, McCarty sat staring at the papers clutched in his hand, while two sentences formed of macaroni paste letters danced before his mental vision. "Does lady forget date of next Saturday night?" and "1000 under bush 26 each month small price safety."
The twenty-sixth of each month! And it was on the twenty-sixth of May, ten years before, that the mysterious tragedy of The 'Muette' had occurred. The wife of Oliver Jarvis had been a mere child then, in far away New Orleans. What connection had there been between her and the unhappy woman who had been Hoyos' guest, or Hoyos himself? Was it only a strange and unlooked-for coincidence, or had he indeed stumbled upon a real clue? Was he alone upon the right path which should lead through the maze of evasions and contradictions to the truth?