Stern had dinner and looked up an address he had forgotten. It was sometime after nine o’clock when he parked his coupé in front of the neat little two-story-and-basement house where Nellie Cosimo lived. He sat for a moment looking up at the red brick façade. The place, though well-kept, was obviously very old, one of the few survivors of the time when this neighborhood had been a residential area. A white-lettered sign just below the parlor-floor windows said, “French Hand Laundry,” but the windows themselves were dark and bare. Light trickling through the blinds of the second floor, however, announced that the upper part of the house was tenanted.
Stern scanned the dark doorways of the buildings to right and left. He spotted a man in one of them and got out of the car and went over.
“Hello, Scanlon. Is Miss Cosimo at home?”
“Huh?” Scanlon was startled. He peered into Stern’s face. “Oh, it’s you, Counselor; I didn’t recognize you. You mean the old dame over there? Sure, she’s home. Come in this afternoon and hasn’t budged since.”
“You alone on this detail?”
“Naw. Brumbaugh is parked in the back yard.” He indicated a narrow, iron-gated passageway alongside the brick house. “She couldn’t get out that way unless she climbed a couple of fences.”
“Murderers have been known to climb fences,” said Stern cryptically.
“Murderers? You mean this old battle-ax croaked them guys?” Stern smiled. “I don’t know. I’m going to pay her a visit and maybe I’ll find out.”
“Jeez.” Scanlon looked down at the little D. A. “You better watch your step with that dame, Counselor. Maybe I better go widja.”
“Thanks. I don’t think that’ll be necessary. If Nellie makes any passes at me, murderous or otherwise, I’ll holler like hell. Then you can come a-running.”
Scanlon bobbed his head seriously. “I’ll do that, Mr. Stern.” Stern had hope for quite a bit from this interview with the woman who had been Murdock’s confidential secretary for fifteen years. Despite the fact that a man sent by Nicholson to interview her had gotten less than nothing, the assistant D. A. believed that Nellie knew a great deal more than she was telling and that if she could be flushed from cover she would lead them to significant evidence or even, possibly, to the murderer himself.
The moment he faced Miss Cosimo, however, he recognized that he had underestimated her. Nellie was scared, but she was not scared enough—at least not yet. Viewed through the crack of the door on the second-floor landing, her face appeared feverish and congested, but when she grudgingly unhooked the chain and admitted him to the small, low-ceilinged room he sensed wary, alert strength and defiance in every inch of her big-boned frame.
The room was evidently a combination of living and sleeping quarters. The studio couch, to which Miss Cosimo retired after closing the door, was covered with some black, shiny material that, to Stern’s unpracticed eye, looked like satin and flanked at side and end by modernistic equivalents of the old-fashioned whatnot. There was a large, reasonably comfortable-looking chair for which Stern headed and two straight-backed chairs upholstered in faded brocade. A low coffee table between the big chair and the couch and bookcases on either side of the door in the rear wall completed the furnishings. Doors and windows were tightly shut, and a gas radiator in front of the bricked-up fireplace gave off waves of smelly, stagnant heat. Stern found it almost impossible to breathe in the congested atmosphere, and his forehead was soon beaded with perspiration.
Nellie Cosimo noticed his discomfiture and seemed to enjoy it. “I suppose this room would be too warm for most people,” she said in a flat take-it-or-leave-it tone, “but it suits me. I’ve got a cold and I can’t stand drafts. I’m sorry if you’re uncomfortable.” She propped pillows on the studio couch and sat down, drawing the quilted house coat closer together about her. “What can I do for you, Mr. District Attorney?”
“Just a couple of points I thought you might help us clear up,” said Stern. “You probably knew more about Murdock’s business dealings than anyone else. Did he have any enemies or did he quarrel with anyone lately?”
Miss Cosimo sniffed. “Don’t you people ever get tired asking the same questions?”
“It’s the first time I’ve asked it.”
“Well, I’ll give you the same answer I gave the others. Mr. Murdock had no enemies except those every businessman has—the Communists.”
Stern ignored the comment. The woman had worked for East-coast for fifteen years, and Murdock’s conviction that any man who joined a union was a dangerous Red had become firmly implanted in his secretary’s mind. By now she was a little cracked on the subject.
“Yes,” Stern said. “We’ve about narrowed it down to one of the union leaders. But we’re stuck—we’ve got nothing to go on. Perhaps you could help us—tell us of some threat or something that would give us a lead.”
He watched the woman’s eyes harden and grow suspicious. She took a handkerchief from the pocket of the house coat and blew her nose loudly. She was thinking what to say. If she decided he was stupid she might invent a story or even make an accusation.
Finally she made up her mind. “If I had any idea who killed Mr. Murdock don’t you think I’d have told the police? I want to see the man caught as much as they do—more, probably.”
Stern changed his tactics. “Frankly, Miss Cosimo, I doubt that you do,” he said softly. “You see, we have a theory about this case. We believe Murdock had a spy in the union and that the spy is the man who killed him. I think that you, Miss Cosimo, know who that spy is.”
The woman had surprising self-control, but just for an instant it slipped, and the furious look she gave him reminded Stern of his favorite black panther at the zoo. Then it was gone, and she did a very creditable job of outraged surprise.
“Ridiculous. You’re accusing me of knowing who the murderer is and protecting him. May I ask why, in heaven’s name, I should do that?”
“Because you’re afraid,” said Stern more casually than he felt. “You’re scared stiff.”
Nellie Cosimo was seized with a sudden fit of coughing. She held her handkerchief to her face and glared at Stern over it. A long minute passed before she caught her breath. “Afraid? If I were afraid of the man my best protection would be to turn him over to the police.”
“Right. But then you couldn’t keep the ten thousand dollars.”
This time Stern was near to being attacked, and he knew it. There was a mad streak in the woman—more pronounced because of long years of repression—and if she ever broke...How long would it take Scanlon to get through the door and up the stairs? Too long to do any good, probably. But, although white spots appeared on either side of Nellie Cosimo’s jaw and cords stood out in her neck, making it suddenly very gaunt and old, she only sat up straight and did not move from the couch. Her voice, when she spoke, was harsh and choked.
“I don’t know what you expect to gain by these accusations,” she said. “But I do know I don’t have to listen to them. Get out of here and don’t come back.”
Stern went. There was nothing else to do. The woman was still sitting on the edge of the couch, glowering, when he closed the door, but before he reached the stairs he heard the clink of the chain being slid into place. She was scared, all right. He paused to take out his handkerchief and wipe his face. Had he achieved his purpose? Well, the next hour or two would probably tell. As he went out the street door a sudden idea occurred to him, and he snapped back the spring lock so that the door could be opened from the outside.
Scanlon still stood in the building entrance down the block.
“Well, I see you’re all in one piece, Counselor,” he said. “Have any luck?”
Stern ignored the question. “When does your relief show up?” he asked.
“I came on at eight. I guess I’m good for the night.”
“That’s fine,” said Stern callously. “Do you think the woman knows she’s being tailed?”
“She may guess. If you mean has she spotted us—she ain’t.”
“Okay. Now listen. She may come out in the next few minutes. If she does, tail her and don’t let her out of your sight. Better tell your partner to be on his toes too.”
“Right.”
“If she doesn’t go out she may telephone. If anybody goes in you go right in behind him and sit on the lid till I get back. If nothing happens keep covered. Got it?”
“Yes sir,” said Scanlon. He repeated the instructions. “And if we have to tail anybody we report in to headquarters every half-hour or as close as we can make it. That’s routine anyway.”
“Around,” said Whitey.
Jackson stared moodily into his drink.
“How would you two like to join me in a little breaking and entering?” asked Stern.
“You mean second-story work?”
“No, basement. It doesn’t make any difference; they’re both against the law.”
“You’re taking an awful chance,” grinned Whitey. “We’re murder suspects.”
“That’s all right. I’ll have you where I can keep an eye on you.”
“Why don’t you get the cops?” asked Jackson. “They’re expert burglars.”
“Tut, tut.” Stern nibbled a pretzel. “What I want you to do is really against the law. Besides, there’s nothing in it for you but glory and a chance to catch your stool pigeon.”
“I don’t get you at all,” said Jackson. “How do you know one of us——”
“I don’t, really.” Stern’s eyes were wide and guileless. “But then, how do you know it isn’t a trap?”
“That’s a dare,” said Whitey. “We never take dares, do we, Jack? Where is this crib you want cracked?”
“Let him crack his own cribs,” growled Jackson stubbornly. “We’re going to show some sense for once and stay out of this thing.”
Stern stood up. “I’m sorry,” he said coldly to Jackson. “I just thought you might want to help.”
Whitey caught his sleeve. “Wait a minute. I’m game.”
Stern did not look at him. “Well?” he asked quietly.
“Come on, Jack,” urged Whitey. “What have we got to lose?” Jackson looked at Stern. Finally he nodded. “All right. What do you want us to do?”
Stern told him. “We have to wait a while till she’s asleep,” he said. “I don’t want her to catch us at it.”
“What are we looking for?” asked Jackson.
Stern shook his head. “I honestly don’t know. Maybe nothing. Maybe something that will come close to solving this case.”
“Why the basement? Why not the whole house? Why don’t you get a search warrant, instead of going at it this way?”
“Because if I got a search warrant and found nothing that would be the end of it,” said Stern. “If this doesn’t work nobody’ll be the wiser, and there’s still a chance that somebody’ll make a break. That’s the only way we’ll ever solve this case. Anyway, whatever evidence is in that house will be in the basement. Cosimo’s too scared to keep anything connecting her with the murder in her apartment.”
Stern ordered a beer, and they talked for another half-hour, then he looked at his watch. It was ten-thirty.
“Come on. Let’s go take a look.”
When they rounded the corner into the dark, deserted little street Stern motioned the other two back into the shadows and went forward alone. No light filtered through the second-story Venetian blinds, and Scanlon informed him that Miss Cosimo had apparently gone to bed a few minutes after he left. There had been no signs of a visitor. “Not this night or any other night,” complained Scanlon. “This is the deadest detail I ever had.”
“What about the laundry people?” asked Stern, gazing up at the building. “Do they ever come around at night?”
“There ain’t any laundry people,” said Scanlon. “That’s just a sign. Fellow told me the laundry folded about a month ago.”
“Well, well”—Stern rubbed his chin—“I wondered about that.” Scanlon looked mildly mystified, but Stern changed the subject. “Lend me your torch,” he requested brusquely, and when Scanlon complied: “Now, here’s what I want you to do. Go get your pal and take a walk. Have yourselves a beer or a cup of coffee and come back in about twenty minutes. I’ll stand guard while you’re gone.”
“That’s mighty nice of you, Counselor,” demurred Scanlon, “but we got orders. You know that.”
“Of course I know. It’s all right. I’ll take the responsibility.”
“I don’t know.” The big man scratched his head. “I don’t think we ought.”
“You don’t want to be a party to a crime, would you?”
“No,” said Scanlon.
“All right, then. Scram.”
Scanlon moved toward the iron gate reluctantly. “The captain ever finds this out,” he muttered, “he’ll have our badges—the both of us.”
“See that you don’t talk then,” said Stern. “And convince that partner of yours. I don’t want to have to waste time on him.”
He waited until the two detectives emerged and, walking with reluctance and protest in every stride, disappeared down the block. Then he signaled to Whitey and Jackson and, after cautioning them against unnecessary noise, preceded them up the steps and into the house. A bolted door under the stairs, halfway down the hall, led to the basement. Stern flashed Scanlon’s torch into the dark stair well, found a switch, and snapped it. Light sprang up in the room below, revealing a cement floor and white walls and a porcelain laundry trough covered with dust. Stern motioned the others onto the unpainted riserless steps and closed the door gently behind him.
The basement partitions had been ripped out, leaving a long, rectangular room with door and windows front and rear. The front windows looked out on a small court that was three feet below street level. The place contained a few pieces of discarded laundry apparatus and odds and ends of broken furniture and packing cases.
“What the hell do you expect to find in this hole?” whispered Whitey.
Stern shook his head. He led the way through the piles of debris to a cleared space in the rear where two planks on rough trestles against the windows formed a sort of workbench. A hand vise was clamped to one end of the planks, and several pieces of iron piping littered the bench top.
Stern looked perplexed. “What do you make of this?” he asked.
“Huh,” said Whitey. “Looks like the old dame was practicing plumbing in her spare time. What’s that got to do with the price of eggs?”
Jackson said seriously, “I still don’t know what we’re looking for.”
Stern examined the iron piping carefully and shrugged his shoulders. Then he played his light down into the shadows under the bench and said, “Ah!” a quick exclamation full of suppressed excitement. “Here’s your answer, Jack. I didn’t think it would be so easy.”
He reached down and dragged out a battered, ancient typewriter frame from which the carriage, type, and keys were missing. He set his find on the bench top and regarded it with blank, myopic eyes.
“It proves we’re on the right track but it’s sort of academic,” he said. “Not much good as evidence. Our friend, the enemy, was just a little bit too smart for us.”
Jackson said, “If that’s the typewriter and we can prove it——”
“Uh-huh.” Stern was examining the enameled surface of the frame under the light of the torch. “Everything else down here is dusty, but this thing’s wiped clean. And the roller and type are gone. We can’t prove a damned thing with this.”
“Maybe the parts are around here somewhere.” Whitey began looking in a pile of rubbish in the corner.
“Fat chance. We can look around but we won’t find anything. Those parts are in the bottom of the river by now.”
“But why all the bother? Why didn’t she dump the whole thing in the drink?”
“She?” Jackson looked at Whitey with raised brows.
“Sure,” said Whitey. “The old dame upstairs. This is her joint, ain’t it?”
Stern smiled. “Whoever did this was afraid of being spotted, carrying a typewriter. Dismantling it and disposing of the parts was a bright stunt. Even if there were fingerprints on this frame now they wouldn’t prove anything. Come on, let’s see what else we can find.”
But a hurried search of the rest of the basement revealed nothing of the slightest significance. The tools in the wall cabinet which they forced open had either been handled with gloves or carefully wiped before being put away, and even the iron piping on the bench bore no evidence of having been touched by human hands. Nowhere in the basement was there the slightest trace of the missing typewriter parts. After a few minutes Stern gave up.
“We’re just wasting time,” he said. “Those detectives will be back any minute now. I think we’d better get out of here.”
The ground floor was quiet, and no sound came from Nellie Cosimo’s apartment on the floor above. Stern rebolted the door to the basement stairs and led the way to the front of the house. Just as he was about to step out he drew back suddenly, treading sharply on Jackson’s toes.
Jackson swore. “What now?” he asked.
“Someone just came up out of the area way,” whispered Stern.
“He’s crossing the street. I think he was trying to watch us through the window.”
“That’s our baby,” said Whitey excitedly. “Let’s nail him.”
“Take it easy,” hissed Stern. “I want to find out who it is first.” He eased the door open a crack, and they watched a shadowy figure moving along the face of the buildings across the street. When the figure reached the corner it was silhouetted briefly in the light of an arc lamp.
“Holy smoke,” said Whitey. “A derby hat.”
“This is a brand-new angle,” said Stern, “but maybe it makes sense. I want to talk to that guy.”
When they reached the corner the slightly stooped figure in the long black coat was halfway down the block, walking at a normal gait and not looking back, as though with no fear of being followed. They caught up with the man just as he reached the next corner.
“Just a minute, Powers,” called Stern. “I want to talk to you.” The butler turned, his face showing polite surprise but nothing more, and waited for them to come up.
“Oh, it’s you, sir,” he said, recognizing Stern. “I was startled for a moment. I hardly expected to be accosted by name in this locality.”
“I’ll bet you didn’t.” Stern grinned at the man. “What are you doing down on the water front? I thought you were in jail?”
“I was being held as a material witness, I believe they call it,” said Powers with heavy dignity. “I was released this afternoon.” He peered down his nose at Stern’s companions. “Are these gentlemen from the police, sir?”
“They’re friends of mine,” Stern said shortly. “You didn’t answer my question. What are you doing here?”
“Why—just walking, sir. I’m at leisure, you might say.”
“I don’t like this monkey,” said Whitey.
Powers looked at him. “Nor I you, if I may say so, sir.”
“Why you big grease ball——”
“Cut it out, Whitey,” said Jackson.
Stern said: “Let’s take a little walk. You don’t mind, do you, Powers?”
The former butler looked uncomfortable. “I—I don’t understand—but, of course, if you say so, sir.”
“Right.” Stern took Powers’ arm and led him back around the corner into the street from which they had just come. Whitey and Jackson followed. When they reached Nellie Cosimo’s house Stern stopped.
“Know who lives here, Powers?”
“Why I—no sir, I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“Think hard. It’s an old friend of yours.”
Powers started to speak, then evidently changed his mind. “You’re acting very strangely, Mr. Stern, very strangely indeed. I see no reason why I should answer your questions. May I ask what this is all about?”
Scanlon and his partner came round the corner and approached the group.
“Any trouble, Mr. Stern?” Scanlon asked.
“Not a bit. Mr. Powers, here, was just about to tell us why he was playing Peeping Tom at Miss Cosimo’s basement windows.”
“Oh, he was, was he?” Scanlon seized Powers’ arm in a hard grip while his partner, Brumbaugh, closed in on the other side. “Come on, Buddy,” said Brumbaugh. “Unbutton your lip.”
“I think you’d better tell us all about it, Powers,” said Stern gently.
“Perhaps you’re right, sir,” admitted Powers, glancing from the massive Scanlon to the even more massive Brumbaugh. “It was just that I didn’t think it prudent to become involved—not that I have done anything wrong, you understand, or have anything to hide——”
“Skip it,” snapped Stern. “You knew this was Miss Cosimo’s house?”
“Yes sir.”
“What did you come here for?”
“I meant to visit Miss Cosimo.”
“What for?”
“Why, really, sir—just a friendly call, you might say.”
“I might say but I’d rather you said.” Stern came close to the big man. “Do you usually start friendly calls by looking in windows?”
“Oh, that, sir. You see, there was someone else looking in the window, and my curiosity was aroused.”
“Someone else?”
“Yes sir. Perhaps I’d better tell you exactly what happened. I came by with the intention of visiting Miss Cosimo as I said but when I saw her apartment was dark I was about to turn back. Just then I noticed a man crouching on the sidewalk here in front of the basement windows and I saw that there was a light in the basement and this man was trying to look in. It aroused my curiosity, sir, and when the man went away I crossed the street to see what he had been looking at. The light in the basement went out, however, before I could see what had attracted the man’s attention, and I decided that whatever it was it was none of my affair. That’s all there was to it, sir, really.”
“That story sounds like the malarky to me,” said Scanlon. “There’s something screwy about this guy, Counselor.”
“Shall we lock him up?” asked Brumbaugh. “Or would you want we should do a little work on him?”
Scanlon approved of the latter suggestion. “It’d be a pleasure, Counselor—the way he talks. Like he had a snout full of hot mush.”
“Behave yourselves, boys,” ordered Stern. “I believe what Mr. Powers has told us is essentially the truth, although not all of it, perhaps. However, let’s get it straight.” He adjusted his glasses and looked at Powers. “Where were you when you first noticed this man?”
“Across the street, sir. Some distance down the block.”
“Come on. Show us.”
Powers led them to a position deep in shadow and well up from Nellie Cosimo’s house. Seen from this distance, a man crouching in front of the house would be hardly more than a blacker shadow.
“Okay,” said Stern. “Now what did the guy look like? I mean was he tall or short, fat or thin?”
“At first I couldn’t tell, sir, but when he rose and moved away I gathered the impression that he was slightly on the tallish side and somewhat thin. It was difficult to tell positively.”
“How long was he there—that is, between the time you saw him and the time he left?”
“I watched him for about five minutes, I should say. Then he rose and walked away.”
“Fast or slow?”
“A fairly rapid pace. I would say he was a youngish man.”
“I don’t suppose you would recognize him if you saw him again?”
“I hardly think I could,” said Powers slowly, as though trying to revisualize the scene. “He had his back turned to me the whole time but just as he rose he looked over his shoulder, and I saw his face. It was too far for me to see features though, sir. Just a sort of white blur.”
Several additional questions failed to elicit any further information, and Stern, his brows creased in a puzzled frown, turned to Scanlon. “Call the precinct and have them send down and get Mr. Powers. I think he’ll be much safer in jail for the night.”
“Safer?” The butler’s face turned slightly gray. “I trust you did not mean that literally, sir.”
“That’s what you think,” said Stern.
The apartment was neat and very quiet, the night noises of the city rising in a subdued hum that was restful and soothing. The living room with its books and pictures and the fencing mask and crossed épées on the wall was like a refuge from murders and man hunts. He smiled faintly as he closed the door and heard the click of the latch.
Tall ivory and ebony chess pieces set out on an inlaid board gleamed under the light of the desk lamp. They were East Indian in design, elaborately carved figurines of Oriental potentates, knights on prancing horses, and elephants in gaudy trappings with turbaned mahouts perched on their broad necks. The set had belonged to his father and was one of Stern’s most prized possessions.
The pieces were set in position for a problem which Stern had been composing for the past week. He left them just as they were when he went to the office in the morning and returned at night to find them undisturbed. All day he never thought of them but when he saw them again he would find that subconsciously the problem had developed and grown since he left them sitting there. When the position was finally complete it would be printed in an obscure little magazine under the pseudonym, Rajah, known and respected wherever chess was played. But few, if any, of the thousands who puzzled over its perplexing subtleties would guess that it was the work of a promising young political appointee. Young lawyers with futures were supposed to have better things to do with their spare time.
Still smiling faintly, Stern paused with poised hand above the chessboard. He stood there in a sort of pre-occupied contemplation that had in it none of the fierce concentration of the traditional chess addict. It was as though he were idly admiring the pieces in a shopwindow or—not seeing them at all—was lost in a dream created by their symbolism and the dynamic movements they represented—charge and countercharge, the tactics of attack and defense—a mimic battle like some childhood tale out of the Arabian Nights. Then the poised hand dropped, moved the white queen one square, and eliminated a pawn from the board. The problem—compact and balanced as a delicate machine—was completed.
Stern went through the swinging door into the kitchen, got himself a glass of milk, and returned through the living room to the bedroom, turning out lights as he went. He undressed slowly, still with that dull, somnambulistic expression that was a combination of physical weariness and a conscious effort to relax taut nerves, drank the milk, yawning prodigiously as he put the glass down, switched off the light, and got into bed.
But once in bed he found that he could not sleep. The thing that had been gnawing at the back of his mind suddenly became clear, and he found that he was filled with a sense of something left undone—something overlooked that might result in serious trouble. For the life of him he couldn’t think what it was. He reviewed the events of the day without result until he came to the incidents surrounding the meeting with Powers. That was it. There was something there—but what? It was not Powers himself or his story that was the source of the annoyance; true, Powers was an added complication—a suspect tucked neatly away on the shelf and all but eliminated, who had unexpectedly reappeared with a story that obscured more facts than it revealed—but Stern was sure that he knew most of the facts Powers had sought to hide. Powers was a prudent fellow with an eye for the main chance, as he would probably put it, and he had guessed, even before Stern, what had happened to the money from Murdock’s safe. At the first opportunity he had headed straight for Cosimo, intent on a bit of exceedingly circumspect blackmail—at least that was what Stern thought he had done. That made two blackmailers, a thief, and a stool pigeon, besides a murderer, in this nasty business. Stern winced in the darkness at the thought.
Of course it was possible that his tenuous calculations were far from the mark and that Powers’ intentions had been even more sinister—or not sinister at all—but Stern refused to consider either of these possibilities. He had settled on two, possibly three suspects, and, if one of them wasn’t the murderer, then it was no use worrying about one thing done or left undone, since everything he had done that day was wrong.
No, it was neither Powers nor his story that was the crux of the matter—what then? What had he overlooked? Then all at once he knew. Cosimo’s house had been left unguarded—only for a minute or two, when he and Jackson and Whitey had gone in pursuit of Powers—but those few minutes would have been enough for someone to enter if they had been watching. And someone had been watching just before. There it was—the thing he had overlooked—he had forgotten to make sure that the front door of Cosimo’s house was locked. Worse, he had neglected to check up before he turned the responsibility for guarding the house back to Scanlon and Brumbaugh. If anything happened in that little brick house tonight—anything at all—it would be his fault.
And then Stern did a thing that was to haunt him for many months to come. Having discovered his oversight, he turned over and went to sleep and did nothing to rectify it—or what he knew from experience would amount to nothing. Instead of getting out of bed and dragging himself back to that little house on the dark, lonely street, he called a drowsy desk sergeant at the precinct and asked him to make a checkup. The result was delay and another tragedy that might possibly have been averted had he gone himself—at once.
After all, the thing was excusable. Stern had been driving himself hard and had had little sleep in forty-eight hours. Once recognized, the mere matter of an unlatched door that had been left unguarded for, at most, three or four minutes seemed little enough reason for dragging oneself from a warm bed. And even if something had happened in those few unguarded minutes (What could have happened to get so excited about?) it was, in all probability, too late to do anything about it now. Why be a fool about an unlatched door that led only to an empty hall and was guarded by a large and competent detective? Oh, surely, the thing was excusable enough, but Stern never excused himself. Had he not stifled that slight, uneasy feeling—had he gotten out of bed and gone to see for himself—a life might have been saved. Never mind excuses and mistaken details. That was the simple truth, and he had to face it.