The Blue Door, page 25
“I’m sorry, Miss— Is it Courtneige?”
She nodded, apprehension in her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Miss Courtneige, but I’m afraid we are both in for a lot of trouble. Mr. de Gollyer was murdered last night, shortly after you left the shop, and your book was stolen.”
She too sank into a chair, and for a moment they stared into each other’s eyes in silence. At length, “Tell me,” she breathed; and suddenly a hot flush swept the paleness of her cheek so that it burned. “Do you mean,” she asked quickly, “that they think—that the police—?”
“Think you did it?” he finished. “No, thank the Lord, they don’t. They don’t know anything about you —yet—Miss Courtneige. But—they may later on. I don’t see how it can be kept from them. Listen!”
He told her the story from beginning to end, concluding with a recital of what he had learned at Bancroft’s.
“Of course,” he finished, “it was not you who sold the book to Bancroft.”
“No,” she agreed, “but who was it? What girl would want to murder that poor old man?”
He shrugged hopelessly. “You see the mess it is! You and I may not be the only persons who know that you were there. Suppose—just suppose—this other woman —this other girl—was hiding there all the time. She also might know, and to throw suspicion in another direction she might communicate anonymously with the police, telling them about your visit. You see how it would look! I have already lied about you—by suppressing the fact of your visit. Why, it’s even possible that someone passing the shop saw you the second time, or even the first. Oh, it’s hopeless!”
After a moment he asked: “Why did you need a hundred dollars in a hurry?”
She flushed again. “For clothes,” she replied frankly. “I don’t mean that I’m destitute; but I had been invited to a week-end party in Wisconsin, and I wanted a new outfit. I couldn’t afford it, I felt, but I was eager to go to the party. Then I thought of my book. If Mr. de Gollyer had sold it for me I should have bought my outfit to-morrow and taken the night train. I hadn’t a great deal of time left.”
“It’s too bad,” he observed perfunctorily, but she cut him short.
“I don’t mind about the book—now.” She hesitated a moment, then timidly asked: “Ought I to tell the police myself that I was there?”
“Yes,” he said, “I suppose you ought. My lie to them is going to make it troublesome, but your frankness may save you from annoyance. I will simply say that I was so certain you couldn’t have done it that I couldn’t bring myself to betray you. Anyway, I didn’t know who you were,” he added, a bit argumentatively.
“Oh, I don’t know what to do!” she cried.
An amused voice broke in suddenly, at the sound of which both sprang to their feet and whirled toward the doorway.
“I’ll tell you exactly what to do,” said the voice.
In the doorway leading from the hall to the living room stood a young man smiling an impudent smile.
“Woolfolk!” cried Allardyce.
“Right as rain,” smiled the newcomer easily. “Permit me, Miss Courtneige. Dane Woolfolk of the Globe.”
Miss Courtneige caught her breath. Then her anger burst over him. “How dare you enter this house without knocking?” she demanded.
He smiled again with superb insolence. “Well,” he drawled, “the door was half open anyway, and I thought it was an invitation for me to follow my friend Allardyce inside. Having heard most of what you have had to tell him, I am rather glad I did. But why be angry? You say you had nothing to do with the murder —at least, you suggest it by your attitude—so what is there for you to fear? I have arrived, it would seem, in very good time. You are both in doubt about the course to pursue, and here am I, a highly resourceful fellow, prepared to answer your doubts.”
Allardyce stepped forward angrily. “Shall I throw him out, Miss Courtneige?” he asked.
“No, don’t do that,” answered the reporter with another grin. “In the first place, you might not be able to do it; and in the second place, what good would it do either of you? I would simply step to a telephone, tell the Globe everything I know, then let the police know about this new and very valuable clue.”
“If I go to the police myself—at once—” began the girl, looking at Allardyce; but Allardyce shook his head.
“No, it wouldn’t do. He’s right. He’s got the drop on us, so to speak. All right, Mr. Woolfolk, we are in your hands. What do you propose?”
Mr. Woolfolk rubbed his hands gleefully. “This,” he replied. “I want a story—a good one—to-day. You two are the story. Now, I don’t mind saying that I believe neither of you had anything to do with the murder of old De Golyer. But for one day—to-day—I want it to appear that I have a warm clue, dug up exclusively by the Evening Globe. I will print one story about you, telling merely the facts, and letting the police and the public draw their own conclusions. I’ll tell about Miss Courtneige’s two visits to the antique shop, about Mr. Allardyce’s gallant falsehood to protect the young lady, and about the disappearance of the book. Nothing libelous in that. For one day, it will appear that the Globe has run down the murderer. To-morrow I shall tell the Bancroft side of it. Miss Courtneige will be seen by Bancroft, who will say positively that it was not she who sold him the book. Obviously, then, it was not she who murdered De Gollyer, and a nation-wide search begins, conducted by the Globe, for the young woman who impersonated Miss Courtneige in the Bancroft bookshop. The murderer, or murderess, will be run down and all will be well. I am, in other words, offering you all the facilities of the Evening Globe—a great newspaper—in clearing yourselves, in return for a story, the printing of which will place you for one day under suspicion. What do you say?”
A hot retort was on the lips of Allardyce, but the upraised hand of his companion stayed it.
“And if we refuse?” asked Miss Courtneige.
Woolfolk shrugged. “Well, I’ll telephone the office, at once, everything that I have heard pass between you, this morning, and the police can dig up Bancroft for themselves.”
The girl turned to Allardyce with an appraising glance at his tall frame. “Can you throw him out, Mr. Allardyce?” she asked.
“Oh, yes, indeed,” said Allardyce.
“Then please do!”
4.
Come what would, thought Allardyce, as once again he made his way toward the bereft antique shop, he had gained something fine from the bloody tangle. If he had lost one friend, certainly he had gained another. Her first name, he had learned, was not Sally but Stella, and she was—well, she was wonderful!
Even now she was on her way in a taxicab to the North Halsted Street police station to tell her story. It had seemed the only thing to do. To wait until Woolfolk had broadcast it would have been madness. No doubt he, Allardyce, would now be arrested on suspicion—but what if he were? A man might lie to protect a girl without being a murderer, surely.
Would he be allowed to enter the shop? he wondered. Doubtless the uniformed policeman was still in charge. And if a clue to the murderer of Old Thing existed anywhere it was in the shop. The detectives had been lax enough; he had watched them. It was absurdly perfunctory, the way they poked about. Obviously, it was to them an unimportant murder.
Well, he owed it to Old Thing to make this effort. He owed it to Stella Courtneige, who might, after all, be held suspect, in spite of her blue and disturbing eyes. By George, he owed it to himself. There was no telling! One Charles Allardyce himself might be languishing behind iron bars by evening.
Inside the shop door, upon a rickety chair, sat the policeman who had been left in charge. He looked forlorn and unhappy. An expression of interest crossed his face as Allardyce approached the door.
“So it’s you,” he observed, as the bell tinkled and tinkled again at the entrance of the investigator.
“It’s me, again,” said Allardyce ungrammatically. “I want to look around a bit, if you don’t mind. De Gollyer was a friend of mine, you know, and I’d like to get an idea whether anything is missing.”
“Got permission?” asked the bluecoat.
“Slater told me to try out any ideas I had. This is one of them.” It was almost true. The detective had not intended, however, that De Gollyer’s friend should reënter the shop upon a hunt for clues.
The policeman shrugged. “Hop to it, buddy,” he said; “but if you can tell whether anything’s missing from this place, you’re a wonder.”
Allardyce glanced down at the spot where Old Thing had fallen. The stain on the pine board made him shudder, and suddenly he was thinking again of the stain upon the title page of the volume in the down-town bookshop. Could it have been blood?
Certainly not De Gollyer’s blood. How possibly could a single drop have fallen in the mathematical center of a page, when all else around had been imbued with Old Thing’s life stream? There had been no sign of it upon the volume’s cover; no sign on any other page. And again he would have sworn that the spot upon the title page had not existed the night before.
He recalled the appearance of the circular stain. Almost a perfect circle in its deeper hue, but splashed and somewhat lighter at its edges. Almost as if— By George, almost as if it had been blotted! Suppose it had been….
A swift picture of what might have happened after the murder came to him, born of his imagination. Suppose—just suppose—the murderess herself to have been slightly wounded in the scuffle, or touched by some of De Gollyer’s blood.
The book safely in her possession, wherever and however she had got it from the antique dealer, what would be her first thought? The big room was beyond all question in darkness, except for such light as might have filtered in from the street. How could she be sure that she had the right book?
Obviously, she would carry it to a light and look at the title page. And then, bending over it, suppose a drop of blood—?
Allardyce walked swiftly to the rear of the shop, where Old Thing’s desk sat in its obscure corner. Even in daylight it was dark in that corner. He switched on the electric desk lamp, while the policeman at the front screwed about in his chair to see what was going on.
The papers on the desk had been jumbled and tossed chaotically by the desultory detectives, but none had fallen to the floor. Allardyce lifted and piled and piled and lifted. At length he found what he was looking for.
It was a yellow blotter and the stain upon it was very faint, but it was there. The stain that corresponded to that on the title page of the book of poems.
“What is it, buddy?” asked the fat man at the front. “Found something?”
“I’ve found a blotter,” said Allardyce. “Take a look at it. I want you to know that I found it here—on Mr. de Gollyer’s desk. See it? Well, there’s a blood stain on it. There!”
“Hm-m!” mused the fat man. “It might be blood.” He added after a thoughtful instant: “What of it?”
“Nothing yet; but I was looking for it. That’s the point—I was looking for it. I’m taking it to Slater, see?”
“Take it along, take it along,” said the policeman wearily.
But what, after all, he asked himself in the street, had he proved? Merely that the murderer (or murderess) had spilled a drop of her blood upon a book? Was all human blood alike, he wondered, or was the blood of every individual distinctive and different? It was a point upon which his detective reading had not informed him.
Well, there was one other thing. He would have a talk with this realtor, Haines, who had found the body. His reading had informed him that the reek of perfumes was potent and powerful. Haines had been the first inside the shop. The murder had been committed by a girl. Might it not be that some lingering odor might have associated itself with Haines’s entrance? Reminded of it, might not Haines recall the very odor? It was of such trifling clues as odors and bloodstains on yellow blotters that solutions were often builded.
At the door of the real-estate office next door he saw consciously for the first time that the name in gold upon the glass was not Haines but Dalgeish. He stared. What error was this? Possibly, however, Haines was merely one of the juniors. At any rate, this was certainly the place, for, glancing through the half-open door, he saw the very man he wanted.
Haines was seated at a desk, writing. His head was bent, but at the sound of the opening door he raised it. Yes, it was the very man, thought Allardyce. He recalled his face now, perfectly—a long face, a bit thin, a bit sallow, the eyelids slightly drooping, as if heavy with sleep. He recalled even the bit of court plaster that the man was wearing on his rather high cheek bone, although no single detail had stood out during the morning.
Good God! The bit of court plaster!
The idea struck Allardyce so suddenly and with such force that he stopped short in his tracks.
Was it possible? Oh, it was madness! A girl had committed the crime. A man might wear a bit of court plaster without being a murderer, just as a man might tell a falsehood without being a murderer. But a terrible conviction was growing in Allardyce’s mind.
Haines, the man who had found the body of De Gollyer, stood beside him.
“Oh,” he said, suddenly recognizing the individual who had entered. “You are—?”
“Mr. Allardyce, yes—you saw me this morning. I’m sorry to bother you, but—I was a friend of Old—of Mr. de Gollyer, you know, and I’d like—Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”
The real-estate man hesitated. “I’m fairly busy,” he answered, “but in this particular case, why I guess I can take some time off. What was it you wanted to know?”
Allardyce had by this time recovered his wits.
“Frankly,” he explained, “I’m playing detective— with the permission of the police, of course—and I have a queer idea. I’m wondering if, when you entered the unlocked shop this morning, you were aware of any peculiar aroma or perfume?”
Romancing quickly, he explained his idea in more detail and waited almost respectfully for the man’s answer.
But Haines had noticed nothing of the sort, and said so rather brusquely.
“Then I sha’n’t bother you,” said Allardyce, “for it appears that I’m wrong. You see, a woman did this thing, and—”
“The deuce!” cried Haines. “I hadn’t heard that.”
“Very few have heard it yet,” said Allardyce, “and I must ask you to keep it a secret, if you don’t mind; but that’s the fact.”
“Of course. I won’t say a word. But who—if I may ask—is the woman? Or is that a secret, too?”
“It’s so deep a secret,” said Allardyce, “that—but no, I can say nothing about it. Please don’t ask me. And thanks very much.”
He left the shop hurriedly and almost ran to his small hotel, a few blocks distant, leaving the real-estate clerk staring up the street after him.
Once safely locked in his own room, the amateur detective rummaged frantically in a drawer until he had unearthed a long darning needle; then, standing before his miniature bookcase, he slowly drew forth a slender volume of Poe’s Poems. It was not a rare edition, but in size and format it was not unlike the copy that had belonged to Stella Courtneige.
For a moment or two he practised opening the book to its title page and bending over it, as if to verify a date. Then, with an anticipatory grimace, he strode to the small mirror over his basin and plunged the bodkin into his cheek at the point where the bone was most prominent. For an instant he stood and watched the slow drop gather on the wound. When it was of sufficient size, as he judged, he again seized the volume and opened quickly to the title, bending over the book as before. An instant later the drop had fallen to the white page.
Allardyce waited another moment, then carefully blotted the spot on the page that he had marred. After that he stood back to admire his demonstration. He had not exactly reproduced the stain in Bancroft’s book, but he had approximated it with surprising accuracy.
He pasted a bit of court plaster over his tiny wound and smiled at the effect in the glass. What a start he might give Haines by striding in on him, just that way, and slapping the volume of Poe down under his nose, its stained title page exposed to his guilty eyes!
But who was the woman?
Then his telephone bell rang sharply, and the voice of the clerk at the desk, when he had answered, rang like a death knell in his ears. “Two men are on their way up to see you, Mr. Allardyce. They told me not to announce them.”
Slater and Considine! There could be no doubt about it. He was about to be arrested as—as what? Murderer, accessory, witness, or simple liar?
He hung up the receiver without speaking and strode to the door. He flung it open. Slater and Considine were advancing up the hall.
“I thought it might be you,” said Allardyce grimly.
They entered the room and he closed the door behind them.
“Am I under arrest?”
“Well, why not?” countered the detective called Slater.
Allardyce shrugged. “It’s all right with me. Only I didn’t do it.”
“Nobody thinks you did,” observed Slater.
“Then why am I under arrest? For failing to tell you about that girl?”
The detective smiled. “You’re not exactly under arrest,” explained Slater. “The fact is, we were sent over to give you hell for concealing important information, and then to ask you what else you had up your sleeve. The captain thinks you know more about this De Gollyer than you’ve told anybody yet.”
“Where is Miss Courtneige?” asked Allardyce bluntly.
“She is off to the Loop, with one of our fellows. She’s being taken to Bancroft’s. Of course, if he says she isn’t the girl who sold him the book there’ll be no difficulty for her. Nobody thinks she did it, either.”
Allardyce was relieved. “But, honor bright, I haven’t an idea who killed the old man,” he insisted. “The fact is, I’ve been working on the case myself.”
“Umph!” grunted Considine. “Well,” added Slater, “we’re to take you to the captain, anyway.”
