“In all my experience in this Department,” said Dolan, helping himself to one of Sam’s Corona Coronas and leaning back in his chair, “I never came across a case with so few clues. Even the weapon with which Mrs. Thorne was killed was her own. Her maid said the lady had had it as long as she’d been with her, and that’s five years or more. Ever since her divorce, in fact.”
“I could have told you that,” Sam volunteered. “About the dagger, I mean. I gave it to Mrs. Thorne ten years ago. It was the sort of bizarre ornament that appealed to her. I had the edge rounded and for a while she wore it thrust through a coil of hair on top of her head. I used to think it was dangerous, but she said so were hatpins, which were universal at that date, and nobody worried about them. I hadn’t seen it for ages. In fact, I’d forgotten all about it till I recognized it last night.”
“So you saw it last night? Where?” Dolan asked, sharp suspicion in his keen stare; and Sam was aware of the pitfall he had prepared for himself.
“In the elevator,” he answered, with apparent frankness. “I told you I made the first tests to determine if she were alive before I called for doctors. I’m new at this sort of thing, Inspector. I think I was afraid of a panic among the guests, ‘way up there, eleven stories above the street. So when Ed Harris assured me that the hilt over her heart was part of her costume, I looked to find some other cause of death, and immediately I came across the dagger. I thought of fingerprints, so I never touched it...It was only too plain that nothing could be done for poor Mrs. Thorne...Did you find fingerprints?” he ended, with sudden curiosity. No recorded criminal had done this, he was sure, hut fingerprints might make identification certain if an amateur murderer were captured.
“With that crust of little diamonds on the hilt, tiny little chips, they are, all irregular, there couldn’t be a useful fingerprint. If the murderer had picked the weapon with that in mind, he couldn’t have made a better choice. No, this thing isn’t that easy. You and me are up a tree together, Commissioner. Only I’ve got to warn you I’m sitting prettier’n you are. McCurdy hasn’t suspected me yet, but he’s got handcuffs oiled all ready for you the first slip you make.”
Dolan laughed, a fat and facile laugh. He didn’t think Sam had anything to do with the crime. No Police-Commissioner committed murder except in some fool story-book that there ought to be a law against. Even once or twice when Commissioner Mellon had said something that sounded funny he had kept a tight hold on that fact.
“Now,” said Sam, who had picked up the paper and read frowningly the paragraph Hugh Oliver had released for publication, “in view of this”—he tapped it with his forefinger—“I don’t know who will take charge of the funeral arrangements. I think it probable that duty will devolve on my niece and Miss Alix Ruland.”
“The actress?” Dolan was interested. “I saw her once in that play called ‘Other Men’s Wives.’ She was great.”
“Yes, she’s a talented actress and a sweet soul. I rather think she’s as intimate a friend as Mrs. Thorne had. At all events, if I can’t help you in any way, I think I’d better go up and see her. If no one else has the matter in hand, we will have to make the arrangements.”
“The funeral must be entirely private,” Dolan warned. “Otherwise you’ve no idea what a flock of cranks’ll push in. Just out of curiosity. You ain’t too young to remember when Valentino died...Well, so long.
You’ve only got to let me know if you want me.
Sam heaved a sigh of relief when the door closed on Dolan’s broad back. He not only could now go to see Alix without directing suspicion toward her; he had an excellent reason for going.
He took up the telephone and called the Gotham, asking to be put through to Miss Ruland’s suite. Her maid answered the call to say that Miss Ruland was out. No, she did not know when she would be in.
“This is Mr. Mellon speaking,” Sam said. “Miss Ruland left no message for me?” There was a momentary hesitation.
“No,” the woman said, “she left no message. Only, Mr. Mellon, I don’t think she would mind if I told you where she’s gone. A-may, Mrs. Thorne’s maid, called her, all panicky. She meant to do right, only she didn’t know what to do, and not a soul had come near her to give her any orders.”
“So Miss Ruland went there. That was kind,” Sam said. “I’ll arrange that she has help.”
He hung up. His first thought was to send Louise to assist Alix. He reconsidered that. After all, a man was needed, and his position would enable him to have the place guarded from intrusion, if necessary. When he had seen Alix he could call Louise to help her. For various reasons it would be well for her to be associated with friendly services to Consuela Thorne.
He left home on foot and, mindful of Dolan’s hint about McCurdy’s interest in his movements, let two taxis pass to jump hurriedly into the third that hailed him, telling the man to drive to Connie’s address in West Fifty-Fifth Street, just off Fifth Avenue.
To his annoyance, he found a little crowd, composed largely of newspaper men, collected around the low doorstep.
These greeted him as a boon from heaven.
Here at last was some one who must know something and in whose power it was to obtain their admission to premises from which they had been excluded.
The Commissioner stopped and looked them over with an eye in which they searched in vain for any sign of softening.
“The knights of the press!” he exclaimed. “Do you take yourselves off voluntarily or do I call in a few large men with shiny buttons to assist the dispersal?”
“Aw now, C’missioner, have a heart!” one ingenuous cub burst forth. “Here’s the grandest front-page sensation since Cain killed Abel, and Micky Flinn got a beat on it for that lousy Transcript.”
“So Micky was the Sister of Charity who took to the fire escape?” No flash of consciousness greeting this sally, Sam, his eyes flickering from face to face, was forced to conclude either that it was not Micky who had fled by the back way or that these men were ignorant of how the news had reached the street. “Never mind that now. It’s immaterial. What you all want is to get in here, isn’t it? Well, lads, you’re wasting your time. There will be no pandering to morbid curiosity in this case. Those are my orders and I mean to see that they stick.” He turned his back as an audacious youth leveled a camera, and was admitted by a policeman stationed within, who had recognized him through the wrought-iron grille that protected the glass door.
“Good work!” Sam thought.
He might have known that Dolan would not neglect Connie’s residence as a possible source of information.
The place was an unpretentious selection for Mrs. Harvey Thorne, in view of the income Harvey allowed her. Two old-style houses had been combined, the tall front stoops removed, the interiors divided in various ways to create a number of small apartments. There was no elevator. Consuela had defended her choice by saying it was only a place to sleep. In fact, she preferred being entertained to entertaining and found it convenient to plead lack of facilities for returning social favors. On the second floor, she had a reception-room, bedroom, and bath, entirely modern in design and decoration; a kitchenette with a breakfast alcove, and a single room with bath, adequate for a child or a maid. Aim£e occupied this and opened the door of the apartment to Sam with every evidence of relief, ignoring the policeman who stood guard in the hall without.
As he anticipated, Alix was there before him.
Perhaps the things that most appealed to him in Alix Ruland were the, twinkle in her eyes, that showed instant response to any humorous situation, and her ever-read y sympathy.
The humor was quenched now and it was a sad and serious girl who greeted him. Five years younger, taller than Connie and almost as slender, Alix Ruland was before all else graceful. Hers was not the cultivated grace of a dancer, but the exact coordination of every part of a perfectly proportioned body. It was only after her grace had been noted that her face was studied, and then the conclusion usually was that her charm lay in the play of her expression rather than in her features. Her eyes were dark, not especially large, but well set and long-lashed; her hair, dark brown and waved, whether by nature or art it was impossible to tell. Her mouth, generous in its curves, was only lightly touched with lip-stick. Of her nose she was wont to remark, sadly, “The less said of it the better.” No one save herself found any fault with it. It remains to be said that for a woman of her age she had attained a remarkable position in her profession.
She met Sam in silence with outstretched hand. Then, when they had seated themselves, she went directly to the point.
“Aimée has something to tell you, Sam. Something she has been in doubt whether or not to tell the police.”
“But I am the police,” Sam pointed out, with entire seriousness.
Alix shook her head in its small brown hat that went so well with her tweeds and crossfox furs.
“Not the police she’s afraid of, Sam. You’re not the kind to make a mountain out of a molehill. And this probably is only a molehill. Tell him, Aimée.”
“It is a strange woman, m’sieur, who has come again and again demanding madame.”
“A strange woman? Do you mean a stranger to Mrs. Thorne, Aimée?”
“That, too, perhaps.” Aimée nodded energetically. “Also I mean she was strange. Unlike anyone I had ever seen—and very bold, m’sieur.”
“They often are,” Sam agreed. “It’s likely she had something to sell.”
“Non, non, non!” Aimée was very positive in her rejection of this suggestion. “It is true she had not an air of fashion, but she had distinction. You will understand, mademoiselle, when I say I found it difficult to refuse her when she commanded me to admit her. She was not used to being disobeyed, and I was glad each time she came when the door was safely closed between us. There was something to fear about her.”
“Would you ever have thought this had it not been for what happened last night?” Sam inquired, his native shrewdness to the fore.
“M’sieur, I thought of it and spoke of it often to madame. I even begged that at least she tell you of the visits. She only laughed.”
“Was this a large woman?” Sam was trying to find a reason for a fear that evidently was not assumed.
“Little like a sparrow—and brown. And weak, too. Once when she pressed against the door I closed it easily.”
“When did you first see her?”
“Two months ago—a little more—when madame returned from the Hot Springs. She came, a card in her hand like any visitor; only, after I said madame was out she would not leave the card.”
“And then?”
“She came again and yet again, and of late she has come still more frequently.”
“Did Mrs. Thorne never receive her?”
“Never. The first few times she was really out. Then she gave me orders not to admit a little lady in black silk.”
“Had you described her?” Sam asked sharply.
“I might have. Her attire was unusual. Only you know madame was not greatly interested in other people. She was not a patient listener. Yet this lady seemed to amuse her. She would say, when she came in, ‘Comment ça va, Aimée? Did your bête noir call today?”
“About her clothes, Aimée. You speak as if they were remarkable.” Alix made this suggestion.
“They were—different. Not modish, mademoiselle, though expensive. Black silk—always black silk. Such things, to be made as hers were made, must be the work of skilled needlewomen. Special orders. The shops, as mademoiselle knows, they follow the style. It is always the dernier cri with them.”
It was plain that Aimée had a respect for the little woman like a sparrow who dared to dress as she pleased at great expense; for now she further elaborated the theme, addressing herself to Alix; while Sam, recognizing that deep was calling to deep, preserved his silence.
“And her hats. You would need to see them to believe.”
“Big?” Alix had a vision of waving ostrich plumes.
“Non, non, but little, mademoiselle, set right on the top of the head without coquetry; and, as if that were not enough, tied under the chin, so, and so.” The maid graphically imitated the tying of a bow. “Ma foi, she would not need to fear a gust on the top of the Empire State Building.” Aimée paused, perhaps for lack of breath.
“How old was this lady?”
The woman was patently puzzled by this question of Sam’s, and he amended it.
“I mean was she of an age to be a rival of Mrs. Thorne’s?”
The Frenchwoman’s face cleared. “Impossible. She could have been madame’s mother. Not that I think she was. Her hair was black without a thread of gray. Her skin was sallow as an Italian’s. There were deep lines here and here.” Her gesture sketched wrinkles from nose to mouth. “Also, beside the eyes were many, like cracks in glass. She was clearly past the years of romance.”
“You say Mrs. Thorne gave orders not to admit her. Do you think she knew who it was?”
Aimée pondered this for some time without replying. She was an intelligent Frenchwoman, herself beyond the age of coquetry, as she might have phrased it, and even before the recent fatality she had been greatly concerned about the strange little visitor.
“I do not believe they were acquainted, if that is what you mean,” she declared at last. “Yet I am sure madame knew who the other was. Knew and held her in a certain contempt, as if they were at odds and she was sure of winning the game, whatever it was.”
“I wonder,” Alix said, ruminatively, “why the visitor never wrote?”
At her words a flood of crimson spread over the serving-woman’s face. She had a certain sturdy pride in her own integrity.
“Mademoiselle, she did write—just once. She left the note with me and I handed it to madame without a word. She opened it, then she laughed aloud and tore it in four pieces. These she threw in her waste-basket. You shall see. For I, who do not spy upon my employers, I confess I was inquisitive. I put them together—so!” From her apron pocket she drew a double sheet of paper, torn, as she had described it, in four pieces, and spread these on the table with a dramatic gesture.
It was expensive paper, heavy, of a deep lavender color, and diffused a curious scent. Alix held a piece dose to her nose and sniffed.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” said Alice. That is an odor familiar to my childhood. I can’t give a name to it. I’ll remember sooner or later.
Gently Sam took the torn fragment from her slender fingers and added it to the others on the table.
In a handwriting that was spidery and of a past elegance, the words were clear.
You would be better advised to see me.
There was neither salutation nor valedictory. No hint of friendliness or of threat, yet the sentence held a curiously chilling menace to the three who read it.
Sam was the first to tear his eyes away from the thin and flowing lines in that handwriting of another era.
“Is that all you know of the matter, Aimed”
“Not quite, m’sieur. I have acknowledged that I was curious. One day I was returning from doing our little shopping; fruit for madame’s breakfast, cream, a sweetbread for her lunch next day; when I saw the little lady in black on the opposite pavement. I had no doubt she had rung our doorbell without response. She was what madame would have called ‘scuttling.’ Moving on the street as if pursued. I turned and followed.” The woman hesitated.
“Go on,” Alix spoke with gentle insistence. “You had not told me this, Aimée.”
“Nothing really came of it,” Aimée owned. “Simply I was more sure than ever of the lady’s position. On Sixth Avenue a large, shining car was standing, a footman ready at the door; he flung it open, she hopped in with the quick movement of a timid bird. In an instant the man took his place and the car started. Started so fast that it flashed into my mind that its engine must have been running, after the fashion of the gangsters in the Aims.”
“Did you take its number?”
Aimée shook her head.
“That is not a thing a woman observes, m’sieur. I occupied myself in thinking how clever I had been to discern that this strange little person was a lady of position. For the car was very handsome and very valuable, that I am sure.”
“The footman was uniformed, of course.”
“He was, m’sieur. But it is not as in the old days when a family might be known by its livery. The car was a dark green, almost black, and the cloth of the man’s coat was, as was proper, an exact match.”
“How do you happen to speak such excellent English, Aimée?” Sam asked, abruptly. The woman smiled.
“I have never seen France. I was born in London and went to school there. It was meant that I should be a governess to young children. French was talked in my home. My father was chef in a restaurant. Having no serious talent for cooking and not caring for children, I came here—you will laugh, m’sieur—because I read a book about explorations and wanted to see with my own eyes the red Indians of New York!”
Alix still had her mind on the problem of the little woman in black.
“Tonka bean!” she exclaimed, triumphantly.
“I have one in my great-great-grandfather’s snuff-box, and even in grandmamma’s day Southern ladies carried them in their pockets and laid them among their handkerchiefs. Now I wonder—“ She stopped abruptly and changed the subject. “Tell me, Aimée, when the automobile drove away, what did you do?”
“Me?” Aimée was surprised. “I came home with my shoppings. Just in time to admit M’sieur Oliver, who, in fact, was awaiting me on the doorstep.”