CHAPTER XXXIII

The certain man in the City of New York, who was influential both politically and financially and who was, as well, a man of family, sat in the chair with difficulty. He wanted to get up and rush to the desk. He wanted to snatch the folded letter from the police commissioner’s manicured fingers.

“It’s it, isn’t it?” he said.

The commissioner idly tapped the desk top with the letter. “Yes,” he said, “it’s it.”

The man felt better. He rested more easily in the chair. Then he stiffened nervously again. “Photographic copies,” he said. “Did Valcour look for photographic copies?”

“He’s staying on up there. This is all he sent. If there had been any photographic copies there he’d have found them and sent them down by now.”

“What’s he still sticking up there for?” the man said.

“She was murdered.”

The man’s pudgy hands closed convulsively. “That’s a help.” He began to sweat a little. “Who did it?”

“Some local light up there. She’d been blackmailing him—” the commissioner paused an instant before adding—“too.”

The man was out of the chair. He was leaning across the desk and his breathing wasn’t very steady. “Murder. That means publicity.” His slightly pig-like eyes were filled with fright. “I’ve seen nothing in the papers.”

“It’s been in the papers.”

“You’re crazy. I’ve read the papers.” The man’s pudgy hand gave an ineffective thump on the desk top. “I always read the papers.”

The commissioner let the folded letter drop onto the desk. He pushed it across the surface. “Here’s your letter,” he said. He took a small clipping from his wallet and pushed it over, too. “And here’s what was in the papers.” The man snatched the letter, looked at it, started tearing it into bits. “Got to burn it,” he said. “Here—shove that ash tray over—give us a match.”

The commissioner permitted disgust to settle for an instant on his face. “You can burn it more easily if you don’t tear it up,” he said.

The man’s fingers succeeded in striking a match. Smoke from burning paper filtered ceilingward. He crushed with his finger tips the hot charred bits.

“Don’t you want to read the ‘publicity’?” the commissioner said.

The man picked up the little clipping. He read it:

WOMAN KILLED IN UPSTATE VILLAGE

Roger’s Landing, N. Y., Feb. 11 (XP)—Mrs. W. Sturm was stabbed last night in her home situated just outside the village of Roger’s Landing. The wound proved fatal. It is said the attack was made by her physician, a Dr. Harlan, during a moment of temporary insanity. The Sturm family are said to be socially prominent locally.

The man flipped the clipping back onto the desk. He felt much better—well back into the forties again. “Pretty soft,” he said.

“Yes,” the commissioner said. “For you.”