Dutch Shoe Mystery (21 page)

He moved out of New York City to Port Chester, New York. And through his step-father’s influence and wide acquaintanceship he was able under cover to go into business as an insurance solicitor. He sobered. The awful experience had shocked him into an abrupt realization of his folly, he said. But it was too late. His career was beyond redemption or atonement. …

“Oh, I didn’t blame any of them,” he said bitterly, in the silence of the District Attorney’s office. “The old lady acted according to her lights, and so did my step-father. His profession is the world to him. He could have saved me, I guess, through his personal influence with Mrs. Doorn. But then he has a stern code and besides he realized that I needed a sharp lesson if I was ever to make anything of myself. …”

Dr. Janney had never upbraided his wayward step-son despite the infinite hurt he must have suffered during the collapse of his plans and hopes. Covertly he aided the young man in establishing a new business and a new life. He promised without equivocation that if Thomas led a sober industrious existence there would be no difference in their future relations. The young man would still be the Janney heir; there was and would be no one else.

“It was decent of him,” muttered the ex-surgeon, “damned decent. He couldn’t have acted whiter if I were his real son. …”

He stopped, crumpled his hat-brim nervously between his long powerful fingers—the fingers of a surgeon.

Sampson cleared his throat. “Of course, this puts a different complexion on the affair, Mr.—Mr. Swanson. I see now why Dr. Janney refused to put us on your track. The old scandal. …”

“Yes,” drearily. “It would have destroyed five years of honest living—ruined my business and held me up publicly as a renegade surgeon who had criminally failed in his trust and could not be relied upon in other things, either. …” They had both suffered poignantly, he went on, from the notoriety the incident had aroused in the Hospital during those hectic days. If Dr. Janney had given the police the means of finding Swanson, the old story must inevitably have come out. They were both horribly afraid of that.

“But now,” said Swanson, “now that I see dad so terribly involved, I can’t let personal considerations stand in the way. … I hope I’ve cleared Dr. Janney of suspicion, gentlemen. It’s all been a ghastly tragedy of errors.

“You see, my only purpose in visiting him Monday morning was to secure a small loan—twenty-five dollars—business had been a little slow and I needed the money to tide me over a few days. Dad—he was generous, as usual—he gave me a check for fifty. I cashed it as soon as I’d left the Hospital.”

He looked about him. There was an unspoken plea in his eyes. The Inspector was gloomily examining the worn brown surface of his snuff-box. The Police Commissioner had unobtrusively left his chair and slipped out of the room: the expected bomb-shell had proved a dud, and there was no further reason for his presence.

Swanson’s voice, as he continued, grew less assured. Were they satisfied? he asked timidly. If they were he would appreciate if they withheld his true identity from the press. He was entirely at their command. If his testimony were required he would be only too happy to present it on the witness-stand, although the less publicity he got the better off he would be, since it was always possible that a reporter would dig up his past history and publish the reeking facts of the old dead scandal.

“You needn’t worry on that score, Mr. Swanson.” The District Attorney seemed troubled. “Your story to-day of course clears your step-father. We can’t arrest him in the face of such a perfect alibi. So it will never reach a public hearing—eh, Q.?”

“Not now, anyway.” The Inspector sneezed over a pinch of snuff. “Mr. Swanson, have you seen Dr. Janney since Monday morning?”

The ex-surgeon hesitated, scowled, looked up with a frank expression. “No sense in denying it now,” he said. “I
have
seen dad since Monday morning. He came out to Port Chester secretly Monday night. I didn’t want to mention it, but … He was worried about the search being made for me. He wanted me to leave town, go West or something. But when he told me how angry the police were about his silence—well, I naturally couldn’t go and leave him holding the bag. After all, neither of us had anything to conceal as far as the murder was concerned. And flight would be construed as an admission of guilt. So I refused, and he went home. And this morning—well, I had to come into the City early, and there was that newspaper story staring me in the face. …”

“Does Dr. Janney know you’ve come to us with your story?” asked the Inspector.

“Oh, no!”

“Mr. Swanson.” The old man stared at the ex-surgeon. “Can you give me any explanation of this crime?”

Swanson shook his head. “It’s a complete puzzle to me. I didn’t know the old woman too well, anyway. I was a kid when she was helping dad so much, and in my adolescence I was away at school. But it certainly wasn’t dad. I—”

“I see, I see.” The Inspector picked up one of the telephone instruments on Sampson’s desk. “Well, just as a matter of form, young man, I’m going to check up on you. Hold still a moment.” He called the number of the Dutch Memorial Hospital. “Hello! Let me speak to Dr. Janney.”

“The operator speaking. I—who is this, please?”

“Inspector Queen—headquarters. Hurry.”

“Oh! Just a moment, please.” The Inspector heard a confusion of clicks, and then a deep male voice said, familiarly, “Hello, dad.”

“Ellery! How the devil—Were you—Where are you?”

“In Janney’s office.”

“How’d you get there?”

“Just dropped in a while ago. Three minutes ago, to be exact. Came down to see Johnnie Minchen. Dad, I’ve got—”

“Haul up!” growled the old man. “You let me talk. Here’s news. Swanson walked in this morning. We just got his story. Very interesting, Ellery—I’ll tell you the details, give you a transcript of his testimony when I see you—he’s Dr. Janney’s son. …”

“What!”

“Just what I’m telling you. Where’s Dr. Janney? Are you going to stand there all day and—let me speak with Janney a moment, son!”

Deep silence from Ellery. “Well!” exclaimed the Inspector.

Ellery said slowly, “You can’t very well speak with Janney, dad.”

“Why? Where is he? Isn’t he there?”

“I was trying to explain when you stopped me before. … He’s here, very much here,” said Ellery grimly, “but the reason he can’t talk to you is—well, he’s dead.”

“DEAD?”

“Or somewhere in the fourth dimension. …” Ellery’s tone was one of profound depression, despite the flippancy of his words. “It’s 10:35 now—let’s see—I got here about 10:30. … Dad, he was murdered thirty minutes ago!”

A
BIGAIL DOORN, DR. FRANCIS
Janney. …

Two murders now instead of one.

Inspector Queen was sunk in a black slough of reflection as the heavy police car, commandeered outside the District Attorney’s office, dashed uptown to the Dutch Memorial Hospital. … Janney murdered! It was incredible. … On the other hand, this second one might be easier to solve—might lead to a solution of the first, in fact. … Or maybe the two killings had nothing to do with each other. … But then it’s impossible, anyway, for a murder to have been committed in a building full of police and detectives without some trace, some clew, some witness, some. … District Attorney Sampson and a thoroughly unnerved Swanson huddled to left and right of the old man.

The Police Commissioner, who had been hastily informed of the new development, was following closely in an official automobile. He was biting his fingernails in desperation—fuming with rage and worry. …

The rushing cavalcade ground to a stop with a squeal of brakes. The cars disgorged their impatient occupants, who ran up the stone steps to the front entrance of the Hospital. The Commissioner panted to the Inspector: “As much as your job and mine are worth, Queen, if this thing isn’t settled. Now. To-day. God … what a mess!”

A policeman opened the big door.

If the Hospital had been upset after the murder of Abigail Doorn it was now, after the murder of Dr. Janney, completely disrupted. All professional activity seemed to have come to a standstill. No white-garbed nurse, no doctor was in evidence. Even Isaac Cobb, the doorman, was missing from his post. But plainclothesmen and bluecoats overran the corridors; the floor in the vicinity of the entrance especially was alive with them.

The elevator-door gaped wide; it was unattended. The Waiting Room was shut tight. The office-doors were also closed; behind them, segregated by the police, was the numbed office force.

And a buzzing sound of detectives surrounded the dosed door upon which was lettered:
DR. FRANCIS JANNEY.

The throng melted away as the Inspector, the Police Commissioner, Sergeant Velie and Sampson strode through. The Inspector entered the dead man’s quiet office. Swanson followed with lagging steps, his face pale and working. Velie shut the door softly behind him.

In the bare expanse of that room there was only one object for which their eyes instantly sought And there it was—the figure of Dr. Janney sprawled in the careless attitude of death over his littered desk. … The surgeon had been seated in his swivel-chair when death overtook him; now the upper part of his body lay loosely on the desk-top, grey head resting on a crooked left arm, right arm stretched on the glass, a pen still clutched between the fingers.

Seated on plain varnished chairs at the left side of the office were Ellery, Pete Harper, Dr. Minchen and James Paradise, the Hospital superintendent. Of the four, only Ellery and Harper faced the dead man; Minchen and Paradise both were half-turned toward the door, and both were visibly trembling.

Dr. Samuel Prouty, Assistant Medical Examiner, was standing near the desk. His black bag lay closed on the floor; he was putting on his overcoat and whistling a cheerless tune.

No one uttered a word of greeting or comment. It was as if, to a man, they found nothing adequate verbally to express their astonishment, their surprise, their horror in the face of this unexpected, inexplicable catastrophe. Swanson leaned weakly against the door; after one quick fascinated look in the direction of the carved cold figure in the corner he kept his head sedulously averted. The Inspector, the Commissioner and Sampson stood shoulder to shoulder and stared about the death-room.

It was square. There was one door, by which they had entered; there was one window. The door led from the South Corridor and was obliquely across from the main entrance. The window, at the rear left of the room, was wide, overlooking a long open-air inner court. To the left of the door stood a small stenographer’s desk, with a typewriter upon it. On the left wall were the four chairs on which Ellery and his companions sat. The dead man’s big desk was at the right-hand farther corner, set at an angle and facing outward to the front left corner. Except for the swivel-chair in which Janney’s body rested there was nothing behind the desk. The right-hand wall served as a background for one large leather chair and a heavily filled bookcase.

And except for four steel-engraved portraits of bewhiskered surgeons on the walls and an imitation-marble linoleum on the floor, the room held nothing else. …

“Well, Doc, what’s the verdict?” demanded the Commissioner harshly.

Dr. Prouty fumbled with a dead cigar. “It’s the same story, Commissioner. Murder by strangulation!”

Ellery bent over, resting his elbow on his knee and grasping his jaw with searching fingers. His eyes were abstracted, almost pained.

“Wire, like in the last one?” asked the Inspector.

“Yep. You can see for yourself.”

Queen stepped slowly toward the desk, accompanied by Sampson and the Commissioner. Gazing down at the grey head of the dead man they saw a dark thick clot. Both the Inspector and the Commissioner looked up quickly.

“He was hit on the head before he was strangled,” volunteered Dr. Prouty. “By some heavy blunt instrument—it’s hard to say what. There’s a contusion back there, directly over the cerebellar region.”

“Put him to sleep so he wouldn’t cry out when he was choked,” muttered the Inspector. “That tap is at the back of the head, Doc. How do you figure he was sitting when he was hit? Couldn’t have been taking a nap or something, could he, so that the blow might have been struck while the assailant stood in front of the desk? Because if he was sitting up it looks as if whoever hit him stood behind him.”

Ellery’s eyes glittered, but he said nothing.

“You’ve got it, Inspector.” Prouty’s lips writhed comically about his cold cigar. “Whoever hit him did stand behind the desk. You see, he wasn’t lying forward this way when we found him. He was sitting
back
in the chair—here, let me show you. …” He stepped back and wriggled between the corner of the desk and the wall, to get behind the desk. Gently, but with complete unconcern, he lifted the dead man by the shoulders until the body perched upright in the swivel-chair, head slumped forward on the chest.

“That’s the way he was, wasn’t it?” demanded Prouty. “Hey, Mr. Queen?”

Ellery started, smiled mechanically. “Oh! Oh, yes. Quite.”

“Here. You can see the wire now.” Prouty lifted the head carefully. About the neck was a thin bloody line. The wire was so deeply imbedded in the dead flesh as to be almost invisible. Behind the neck the two ends of the wire were twisted into one strand, exactly as in the case of Abigail Doorn.

The Inspector straightened. “This is the way it goes, then. He was sitting here, somebody came in, got behind him, hit him over the head and then strangled him. Right?”

“That’s it.” Prouty shrugged, picked up the bag. “One thing I’ll take my oath on. That smack on the head couldn’t have been delivered from anywhere except behind the desk. … Well, I’ll be off. Photographers have been here already, Inspector, and so have the fingerprint boys. Loads of prints all over the place, especially on this glass-top, I understand, but I guess most of ’em come from the fingers of Janney and that steno or assistant of his.”

The Assistant Medical Examiner jammed his hat on his head, took a fresh grip with his teeth on the battered cigar, and stumped out of the office.