The Greatest Works of S. S. Van Dine (Illustrated Edition). S.S. Van Dine

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СКАЧАТЬ wait.—And, Sergeant! You’d better bring Burke or Snitkin along. They won’t be needed here—nobody’ll be needed here any more to-day.”

      Heath looked inquiringly to Markham for counsel; his bewilderment had thrown him into a state of mute indecision. Markham nodded his approval of Vance’s suggestions, and, without a word, slipped into his raincoat. A few minutes later the four of us, accompanied by Snitkin, had entered Vance’s car and were lurching up-town. Swacker had been sent home; the office had been locked up; and Burke and Emery had departed for the Homicide Bureau to await further instructions.

      Skeel lived in 35th Street, near the East River, in a dingy, but once pretentious, house which formerly had been the residence of some old family of the better class. It now had an air of dilapidation and decay; there was rubbish in the areaway; and a large sign announcing rooms for rent was posted in one of the ground-floor windows.

      As we drew up before it Heath sprang to the street and looked sharply about him. Presently he espied an unkempt man slouching in the doorway of a grocery-store diagonally opposite, and beckoned to him. The man shambled over furtively.

      “It’s all right, Guilfoyle,” the Sergeant told him. “We’re paying the Dude a social visit.—What’s the trouble? Why didn’t you report?”

      Guilfoyle looked surprised.

      “I was told to phone in when he left the house, sir. But he ain’t left yet. Mallory tailed him home last night round ten o’clock, and I relieved Mallory at nine this morning. The Dude’s still inside.”

      “Of course he’s still inside, Sergeant,” said Vance, a bit impatiently.

      “Where’s his room situated, Guilfoyle?” asked Heath.

      “Second floor, at the back.”

      “Right. We’re going in.—Stand by.”

      “Look out for him,” admonished Guilfoyle. “He’s got a gat.”

      Heath took the lead up the worn steps which led from the pavement to the little vestibule. Without ringing, he roughly grasped the door-knob and shook it. The door was unlocked, and we stepped into the stuffy lower hallway.

      A bedraggled woman of about forty, in a disreputable dressing-gown, and with hair hanging in strings over her shoulders, emerged suddenly from a rear door and came toward us unsteadily, her bleary eyes focused on us with menacing resentment.

      “Say!” she burst out, in a rasping voice. “What do youse mean by bustin’ in like this on a respectable lady?” And she launched forth upon a stream of profane epithets.

      Heath, who was nearest her, placed his large hand over her face, and gave her a gentle but firm shove backward.

      “You keep outa this, Cleopatra!” he advised her, and began to ascend the stairs.

      The second-floor hallway was dimly lighted by a small flickering gas-jet, and at the rear we could distinguish the outlines of a single door set in the middle of the wall.

      “That’ll be Mr. Skeel’s abode,” observed Heath.

      He walked up to it and, dropping one hand in his right coat-pocket, turned the knob. But the door was locked. He then knocked violently upon it, and placing his ear to the jamb, listened. Snitkin stood directly behind him, his hand also in his pocket. The rest of us remained a little in the rear.

      Heath had knocked a second time when Vance’s voice spoke up from the semidarkness.

      “I say, Sergeant, you’re wasting time with all that formality.”

      “I guess you’re right,” came the answer after a moment of what seemed unbearable silence.

      Heath bent down and looked at the lock. Then he took some instrument from his pocket and inserted it into the keyhole.

      “You’re right,” he repeated. “The key’s gone.”

      He stepped back and, balancing on his toes like a sprinter, sent his shoulders crashing against the panel directly over the knob. But the lock held.

      “Come on, Snitkin,” he ordered.

      The two detectives hurled themselves against the door. At the third onslaught there was a splintering of wood and a tearing of the lock’s bolt through the moulding. The door swung drunkenly inward.

      The room was in almost complete darkness. We all hesitated on the threshold, while Snitkin crossed warily to one of the windows and sent the shade clattering up. The yellow-gray light filtered in, and the objects of the room at once took definable form. A large, old-fashioned bed projected from the wall on the right.

      “Look!” cried Snitkin, pointing; and something in his voice sent a shiver over me.

      We pressed forward. On the foot of the bed, at the side toward the door, sprawled the crumpled body of Skeel. Like the Canary, he had been strangled. His head hung back over the foot-board, his face a hideous distortion. His arms were outstretched and one leg trailed over the edge of the mattress, resting on the floor.

      “Thuggee,” murmured Vance. “Lindquist mentioned it.—Curious!”

      Heath stood staring fixedly at the body, his shoulders hunched. His normal ruddiness of complexion was gone, and he seemed like a man hypnotized.

      “Mother o’ God!” he breathed, awe-stricken. And, with an involuntary motion, he crossed himself.

      Markham was shaken also. He set his jaw rigidly.

      “You’re right, Vance.” His voice was strained and unnatural. “Something sinister and terrible has been going on here. . . . There’s a fiend loose in this town—a werewolf.”

      “I wouldn’t say that, old man.” Vance regarded the murdered Skeel critically. “No, I wouldn’t say that. Not a werewolf. Just a desperate human being. A man of extremes, perhaps—but quite rational, and logical—oh, how deuced logical!”

      CHAPTER XXIV

       AN ARREST

       Table of Contents

      (Sunday, p. m., Monday, a. m.; September 16-17)

      The investigation into Skeel’s death was pushed with great vigor by the authorities. Doctor Doremus, the Medical Examiner, arrived promptly and declared that the crime had taken place between ten o’clock and midnight. Immediately Vance insisted that all the men who were known to have been intimately acquainted with the Odell girl—Mannix, Lindquist, Cleaver, and Spotswoode—be interviewed at once and made to explain where they were during these two hours. Markham agreed without hesitation, and gave the order to Heath, who at once put four of his men on the task.

      Mallory, the detective who had shadowed Skeel the previous night, was questioned regarding possible visitors; but inasmuch as the house where Skeel lived accommodated over twenty roomers, who were constantly coming and going at all hours, no information could be gained through that channel. All that Mallory could say definitely was that Skeel had returned home at about ten СКАЧАТЬ