If the glass wasn’t there, it wasn’t there and there was no use worrying over it. Once more Sam extinguished the lights and went into his own room to prepare for bed. Yet what was the use of going to bed if he couldn’t sleep? He never felt less like it in his life, with his mind going over and over the known facts in this tragedy. He was a step in advance of the police. He at least knew where Connie was slain, but that told him nothing more, the varying suspicions that flitted through his mind all seeming equally preposterous.
He marched up and down his room without attempting to undress.
The thing for him to do was to follow the prescription he had suggested to Ed, and even luminal took half an hour to get in its good work. He went into the bathroom and searched the shelves of his neatly arranged medicine closet. There was the bottle. He took out the cork and tilted it on his palm. Nothing came. It was empty. Really, Sing was going too far. Sam was a methodical bachelor; had he taken the last tablets he would have bought another supply at once. Now that he hadn’t the drug, he wanted it more than ever.
His first impulse was to ring for Sing and tell him that, since he had used all the luminal without permission, he must go for more, no matter what the hour, yet that would take time. Sing would have to dress, and already it was past four o’clock.
No, the quickest thing was for him to go himself. The drug store at First Avenue was open all night. In irritable haste he went to the elevator, pushing his arms into his overcoat sleeves as he summoned it.
Thady was standing inside the hall door, out of the storm, very wide awake and eager for some one to exchange theories with him.
“Aw, Mr. Mellon, who ever done the like of that to a lady?” the old Irishman began.
Sam cut him short.
“I can’t stop to go into that now, Thady. I’m badly in need of rest. I’m going to the drug store to get something to make me sleep.”
“Perhaps, then, when ye come back, ye’ll be tellin’ me what I’m to do with the umbrella?” Thady suggested, with dignity. He was a privileged character and not used to being treated cavalierly.
“What umbrella?” Sam paused in buttoning his overcoat to the chin.
“That one in the corner there.” Thady nodded toward it. “ ‘Twas your friend left it with me, and then he never come down again at all.”
Sam did not doubt the old doorman’s accuracy. If Thady said he hadn’t, Harvey had never gone out. What did that indicate? Had Thorne learned of the announcement in the papers and, following Consuela to his apartment, killed her rather than see her the wife of another man, and was he still hiding in the building? If so, where? Could he by any chance be the person disguised as a nun who had escaped by way of Jane Toole’s room? That seemed unlikely, for if he had committed the crime, why, knowing Connie to be dead, would he go to the ball? Unable to make the pieces of the puzzle fit, Sam was once more well-nigh overwhelmed with anxiety for a friend.
He chided himself for being slow-witted. What he ought to do at the moment was so plain.
“Did Mr. Thomas forget his umbrella, Thady?” he asked. “Well, that just proves that a pretty girl will make a man forget anything. I’ll take it when I come in. I’ll be seeing him tomorrow at his office. It’s small wonder you didn’t recognize Harry when he went out with Miss Carey. He put on his costume in my place and I’d not have known him myself.”
“So that was the way of it,” said Thady, with a sigh of relief. “And Mr. Thomas was the gentleman’s name. There’s an H and a T on the name plate. I was wonderin’ had I ought to mention the matter to the poliss. I kind o’ hated to take it up wit’ ‘em. They can make a man a heap of trouble.”
“Right you are,” said Sam, genially. “Keep your own secrets and don’t you ever trust a policeman, Thady. I’m one and I know. They’re dangerous. Once get in their bad books and they’ll be blaming you for everything wrong that happens in all New York.”
“God save us I” ejaculated Thady. “Is it you is tellin’ me that? But you ain’t a real cop.” He sputtered with relief as he opened the door and let Sam out into the storm.
“I’ll be right back. Don’t go to sleep.” It was a joke of the house to insist that Thady slept all night.
As good as his word, Sam returned in short order, shook himself, stamped the snow from his feet, and accepted the umbrella from Thady. This, because of his suspicious disposition, Detective McCurdy missed entirely, although, had he remained at his post across the street, he would have witnessed it through the glass doors of the apartment house, and it might have presented certain questions to his inquiring mind.
When Sam came out his heart had leaped with joy that he was to be the officer to prevent the Commissioner’s flight from justice. He had even a vision of himself, shoulders well back, military in bearing, a becoming expression of modesty on his handsome face (at least sundry ladies had told him it was handsome, and who was he to dispute their judgment?), receiving a medal or some other suitable reward for efficiency and devotion to duty. He followed Mr. Mellon to the drug store, already mentally framing his report, where he at once changed his suspicion to suicide. Going in the moment Sam’s back was turned to flash his shield and demand what the last customer had bought, he was grievously disappointed to find it was a harmless article. He had pictured himself breaking down Sam’s door and telephoning Inspector Dolan the sad news that his solution of the mystery, which the Inspector had so derided, had been proved correct.
By the time he had resumed his watch Sam and his new bit of evidence were safe on the eighth floor.
The umbrella had no special individuality. Numbers like it were on sale in every department store. The band on the Malacca crook handle had no more than the initials on it, and Sam realized that it might have been much worse. It had been a flash of inspiration that had suggested to him that it might be marked. Indeed, there was room to have engraved Harvey’s full name, in which case his lie would have needed amendment. He owned an umbrella that was almost identical. He must carry it with him in the morning, no matter what the weather, and this one must be concealed. He thought at first of pushing it back in his closet behind his suits, but it was one of Sing’s duties to press his clothes. It might be discovered inopportunely. No, the best thing to do was to hide it where he could vow it had never been hidden at all. With this in mind, he stood it among a mixed collection of umbrellas and canes in the coat-closet. People were always giving a bachelor umbrellas and canes that he could not use.
And then at last he went to bed. Unutterably weary, he quite forgot the luminal which he had been at such pains to procure, and slept dreamlessly without it, to wake at half past seven, when, according to routine, Sing brought him a cup of coffee. This and his first cigarette preceded his bath and shave. Sam was apt to linger over this luxury. Today he wasted no time. He felt rested and his mind was clear. He wanted to be ready for Inspector Dolan when he came. And he decided that while Sing deserved to be hauled over the coals, he would postpone that reckoning until he had fewer pressing matters engaging his attention.
“I’ll have my breakfast at eight, Sing,” he said’ as he accepted the coffee-cup. And promptly at eight he sat down at the table in the dining-room.
“Was it a good lecture?” he asked.
“Very educative, sir. Very informing,” Sing answered, placing half a grapefruit before him and going out to the kitchen.
“And that,” thought Sam, “is amusing. I wonder where the little liar really went? Why does he feel that he must keep up a bluff with me? Well, it’s none of my business, but why lie gratuitously? If he had anything to gain by it, it would be understandable.”
It had been his intention to read at once all the printed details of Connie’s tragedy. It was mere chance that the paper beside his plate displayed prominently in a box the following item:
AUDIENCE AT THE TOWN HALL
DISAPPOINTED
Distinguished Economist Caught In Blizzard
Pennsylvania Train Seven Hours Late
His breakfast eaten, Sam was in his living-room when Inspector Dolan arrived unattended.
“I thought the two of us was all that was needed to make this trip into high society,” he grinned. “I doubt if the old dame knows aught about the case.”
“I feel sure she doesn’t,” Sam rejoined. “It’s my idea that it would be polite if I sent her a note asking her to receive us for a few minutes, but I didn’t wish to do that without your approval.”
“Is it necessary?” Dolan asked. “Won’t it kind of put her on her guard?”
“If she has anything to hide she’s on her guard already,” Sam pointed out. “It isn’t necessary, only polite and likely to put Miss Livingston in a better frame of mind to tell us anything she knows, provided she knows anything.”
“Let’s see what you’d say?” Dolan suggested, grudgingly.
Sam went over to his desk and wrote:
My dear Miss Livingston:—
Would it be convenient for you to receive me and Police Inspector Dolan for a few moments? We will not trespass unduly on your valuable time.
Very truly yours,
Samuel B. Mellon,
Commissioner.
“I can’t see any sense in that,” Dolan reread it. “Nor can I see much harm it can do.”
Sam sealed it in the envelope he had addressed, and rang for Sing.
“Take that to the floor below and await an answer,” he told the Chinese.
In less than five minutes Sing returned with a verbal reply.
“Miss Livingston says she will see you at any time, but will appreciate it if you will make an early visit, as she has a number of important appointments later in the day.” Sam got to his feet. “Shall we go at once?”
“Sure,” replied Dolan.
Shortly they were ushered into Miss Livingston’s reception room by a highly respectable, uniformed waitress, and Dolan stared around him curiously.
This apartment had not deviated from the architect’s plan and, furnished with Victorian elegance, the richly brocaded chairs, sofa, and heavy draperies joined with the grand piano, oil-paintings in wide gold frames, and an Aubusson carpet to make it look over-crowded and small in comparison with the spacious effect achieved on the floor above.
They seated themselves, hut the lady did not keep them waiting long. She entered, a rather dumpy woman with a figure corseted after the style of the nineteenth century, and Sam at once grasped the fact that her background, her dignity, and her age were all parts of her stock in trade. He rose to meet her, and Dolan, following his example, lumbered to his feet.
Miss Livingston bowed formally, but did not offer her hand, regarding her visitors with a marked lack of enthusiasm through a single Oxford that she held to her right eye. Without the least effect of graciousness, she motioned them to resume their seats and established herself in a straight-back chair, in which she was reminiscent of Queen Victoria on her throne.
“I presume you have come about this deplorable affair of last night,” she said coldly, without preamble, in a rather harsh voice, much inflected.
“Yes,” Sam told her. “It is our duty to interrogate every possible source of information, though Inspector Dolan and I have no expectation that you can have anything of value to tell.”
“I have not,” Miss Livingston agreed. “I was amazed when I read this morning that the young woman was dead. I simply took it for granted that she was intoxicated.”
“Then you saw her?” Inspector Dolan snapped out his question before Sam recovered his breath.
“Certainly I saw her.” Miss Livingston brought her single eye-glass into play. “I put her on the elevator. She was not a person I knew socially and from her costume it was obvious that she was to he a guest at a party going on in the penthouse on the twelfth floor. To place her where she would find friends to care for her in her inebriated condition appeared the reasonable thing to do.”
“It didn’t occur to you to take her in and care for her here?” Again it was the Inspector who spoke and again he was transfixed by the piercing eye behind that single eyeglass.
“It did not. I told you that I did not know the young woman and, regarding her condition as—undignified, shall we say?—I had no desire to do anything that might lead to an acquaintance.”
“Had you no suspicion that she was—injured?” Sam inquired, in a low tone.
Miss Livingston looked at him more kindly and volunteered an explanation.
“The smell of liquor was quite strong.” (As well it might be, considering how much had spilled, due to Sam’s shaking hand.) “I thought her a beautiful if deplorable figure. She wore a little black mask and I presume was heavily made up. There was no pallor. Nothing to make one suspect anything other than what I did suspect.”
“Mrs. Thorne was never intoxicated in her life.” A hint of indignation in Sam’s defense of Consuela caused Miss Livingston to harden.
“There was no way for me to know that,” she asserted. “I explained before that I was not acquainted with her.”
Sam rose. Nothing was to be gained by prolonging this interview.
“I judge that is all, Inspector?”
“Just one question,” said Dolan. “How did you happen to discover the body, Miss Livingston? Were you coming home?”
“No.” Miss Livingston almost smiled. “It was the night of a weekly bridge party that was called off because of the storm. No, I didn’t go out. Before I go to bed it is my habit to open the door from the foyer to make sure that the light in the vestibule is not left burning all night. Little economies now are the order of the day. Under the circumstances, it hardly seemed sensible to leave Mrs.—“ She paused, questioningly.
“Mrs. Thorne?” Sam supplied the name. “Mrs. Thorne alone there. Consequently I took the action that I considered wise.” Her tone said clearly that she did not expect anyone to have the temerity to dispute her wisdom.
“Thank you,” said Sam. “I think you have made your position abundantly plain.” For the life of him he could not help resenting her attitude toward Connie, although he acknowledged the logic of it. “I really think your name needn’t be mentioned. Need it, Inspector? What Miss Livingston has told us has cleared up a point that was important only because it was obscure.”
Miss Livingston raised her fine eyebrows, “it hardly matters,” she declared. “My position is unassailable. No mere accident can affect me.”
So poor Connie, for all her importance in the headlines, had become a “mere accident.” Miss Livingston rang for the servant to open the door for them, and they left in silence.
Once in the elevator, Dolan exploded. “The damn’ old cockatoo! I don’t suppose she killed the poor girl, but that’s not sayin’ I don’t think she’s equal to it.”
“And now what next?” Sam asked. Already his early energy was sapped. He was beginning to feel weary and the day had hardly begun.
“What about the poor lady’s funeral?” Dolan inquired, unexpectedly.
“In all the years I’ve known her, I never heard of any relatives. I presume Hugh Oliver, her fiancé, will want to arrange it. You have the address of her apartment and I suppose the body can be moved there today?”
“Soon as the Medical Examiner gives permission,” Dolan replied. “An’ it was a true word you spoke when you said you didn’t read the papers. Not even the morning ones, I’d add.”
His tone was portentous enough to startle Sam.
“What have I missed?” he demanded.
“This here now Hugh Oliver sent in a statement for publication early last night to all the newspaper offices. It said they must have misunderstood Mrs. Thorne, and to save her embarrassment he wished it understood that no engagement between them existed. He was going into theatrical production and might star her, but there was no possibility of any other relation.”
“The low cad!” cried Sam, remembering Connie’s glowing happiness of the evening before. That dagger was not the only stab aimed at her defenseless back.
Dolan nodded approval. “That’s what I thought myself,” he said.