The House Opposite: A Mystery. Elizabeth Kent

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СКАЧАТЬ and it was several minutes before I could make out that somebody had been killed, and that my services were required immediately.

      Hastily completing my dressing, and snatching up my instrument case, I was ready to follow him in a few moments. What was my astonishment and horror when he led me to the Rosemere!

      For a moment my heart stood still. My thoughts flew back to last night. So this was the explanation of that scream, and I had remained silent! Dolt, imbecile that I was! I felt positively guilty.

      The large entrance hall through which I hurried was crowded with excited people, and, as I flew up in the elevator, I tried to prepare myself for the sight of a fair-haired girl weltering in her blood. On the landing at which we stopped were several workmen, huddled together in a small knot, with white, scared faces. One of the two doors which now confronted me stood open, and I was surprised to notice that it led, not to either of the apartments I had watched the night before, but to one of those on the farther side of the building. Yet here, evidently, was the corpse.

      Passing through the small hall, filled with rolls of paper and pots of paints, I entered a room immediately on my right. Here several men stood together, gazing down at some object on the floor; but at my approach they moved aside and disclosed—not a golden-haired woman, as I had feared, but the body of a large man stretched out in a corner.

      I was so astonished that I could not help giving vent to an exclamation of surprise.

      “Do you know the gentleman?” inquired a man, whom I afterwards discovered to be the foreman of the workmen, with quick suspicion.

      “No, indeed,” I answered, as I knelt down beside the body.

      A policeman stepped forward.

      “Please, sir, don’t disturb the corpse; the Coroner and the gen’l’man from headquarters must see him just as he is.”

      I nodded assent. One glance was sufficient to show me that life had been extinct for some time. The eyes were half open, staring stupidly before them. The mouth had fallen apart, disclosing even, white teeth. As he lay there on his back, with arms spread out, and his hands unclenched, his whole attitude suggested nothing so much as a drunken stupor. He appeared to be twenty-five or thirty years old. No wound or mark of violence was visible. He wore a short, pointed beard, and was dressed in a white linen shirt, a pair of evening trousers, a black satin tie, silk socks, and patent-leather pumps. By his side lay a Tuxedo coat and a low waistcoat. All his clothes were of fine texture, but somewhat the worse for wear. On the other hand, the pearl studs in his shirt-bosom were very handsome, and on his gold sleeve-links a crest was engraved.

      As I said before, a glance had been enough to tell me that the man was dead; but I was astonished to discover, on examining him more closely, that he had been dead at least twenty-four hours; mortification had already set in.

      As I arose to my feet, I noticed a small, red-haired man, in the most comical deshabille, regarding me with breathless anxiety.

      “Well, Doc, what is it?”

      “Of course, I can give no definite opinion without making a further examination,” I said, “but I am inclined to believe that our friend succumbed to alcoholism or apoplexy; he has been dead twenty-four hours, and probably somewhat longer.”

      “There, now,” exclaimed the foreman; “I knew he hadn’t died last night; no, nor yistidy, neither.”

      “But it can’t be, I tell you!” almost shrieked the little Irishman. “Where could he have come from? Oh, Lord,” he wailed, “to think that sich a thing should have happened in this building! We only take the most iligant people; yes, sir, and now they’ll lave shure, see if they don’t. It’ll give the house a bad name; and me as worked so hard to keep it genteel.”

      A commotion on the landing announced the arrival of a stout, florid individual, who turned out to be the Coroner, and a quiet, middle-aged man in plain clothes, whom I inferred, from the respect with which he was treated, to be no other than the “gen’l’man” from headquarters. After looking at the corpse for some moments, the Coroner turned to us and demanded:

      “Who is this man?”

      The little Irishman stepped forward. “We don’t none of us know, sor.”

      “How came he here then?”

      “The Lord only knows!”

      “What do you mean?”

      “Well, sor, it’s this way. This apartment is being re-fixed, and five men were working here till six o’clock yistidy evening, and when they left they locks the door, and it has a Yale lock; and they brought me the key and I locks it away at once; and this morning at seven they come while I was still half asleep, having slept bad on account of the heat, and I gets up and opens the safe myself and takes out the key and gives it to this gintleman,” pointing to the foreman; “and he come up here, and a few minutes afterwards I hear a great hue and cry and the workmen and elevaytor-boy come ashrieking that a body’s murthered upstairs. How the fellow got in here, unless the Divil brought him, I can’t think; and now here’s the doctor that says he’s been dead twenty-four hours!”

      At my mention the Coroner turned towards me with a slight bow. “You are a doctor?”

      “Yes, I am Dr. Charles Fortescue, of Madison Avenue. My office is exactly opposite; I was summoned this morning to see the corpse; I find that the man has been dead at least twenty-four hours. I have not yet made an examination of the body, as I did not wish to disturb it till you”—with a bow which included his companion—“had seen it; but I am inclined to think he died of alcoholism or apoplexy.”

      “Let me make you acquainted with Mr. Merritt, Dr. Fortescue,” said the Coroner, waving his hand in the direction of the gentleman referred to. I was surprised to learn that this insignificant-looking person was really the famous detective.

      “Now, gentlemen,” said Mr. Merritt, “I must request you all to leave the room while Dr. Fortescue and I take a look round.”

      As soon as we were alone, the detective knelt down and proceeded to examine the body with astonishing quickness and dexterity. Nothing escaped him; even the darns in the socks appeared worthy of his interest. When he had finished, he beckoned me to approach, and together we turned the body over. As I had discovered no sign of violence, I was about to tell him that, unless the autopsy disclosed poison, the man had certainly died from natural causes, when Mr. Merritt pointed to a small drop of blood at the side of his shirt front immediately above the heart, which had escaped my observation. In the middle of this tiny spot a puncture was visible.

      We now partially disrobed the corpse, and I was stupified to find that the deceased had indeed been assassinated, and by an instrument no larger than a knitting-needle. In the meantime, the detective had been carefully inspecting the clothing. There were no marks on anything except those with which laundries insist on disfiguring our linen. In the waistcoat pocket he found six dollars in bills and seventy-five cents in change; also a knife; but no watch, card, or letter.

      Mr. Merritt now whipped out a magnifying glass and searched everything anew; but if he discovered any clue he kept the knowledge of it discreetly to himself. After going over every inch of the floor and examining the window he peered out.

      “So you live there, Doctor,” he remarked, with a glance opposite.

      “No,” I replied, “my house is further north; my office faces the other set of apartments.”

      Being curious to see if we were СКАЧАТЬ