the name of the night nurse at your sanitarium?”
Doctor Lindquist looked up quickly.
“My night nurse? Why—what has she to do with it? She was very busy Monday night. I can’t understand.… Well, if you want her name I have no objection. It’s Finckle—Miss Amelia Finckle.”
Vance wrote down the name and, rising, carried the slip of paper to Heath.
“Sergeant, bring Miss Finckle here tomorrow morning at eleven,” he said, with a slight lowering of one eyelid.
“I sure will, sir. Good idea.” His manner boded no good for Miss Finckle.
A cloud of apprehension spread over Doctor Lindquist’s face.
“Forgive me if I say that I am insensible to the sanity of your cavalier methods.” His tone betrayed only contempt. “May I hope that for the present your inquisition is ended?”
“I think that will be all, Doctor,” returned Markham politely. “May I have a taxicab called for you?”
“Your consideration overwhelms me. But my car is below.” And Doctor Lindquist haughtily withdrew.
Markham immediately summoned Swacker and sent him for Tracy. The detective came at once, polishing his pince-nez and bowing affably. One would have taken him for an actor rather than a detective, but his ability in matters requiring delicate handling was a byword in the department.
“I want you to fetch Mr. Louis Mannix again,” Markham told him. “Bring him here at once; I’m waiting to see him.”
Tracy bowed genially and, adjusting his glasses, departed on his errand.
“And now,” said Markham, fixing Vance with a reproachful look, “I want to know what your idea was in putting Lindquist on his guard about the night nurse. Your brain isn’t at par this afternoon. Do you think I didn’t have the nurse in mind? And now you’ve warned him. He’ll have until eleven tomorrow morning to coach her in her answers. Really, Vance, I can’t conceive of anything better calculated to defeat us in our attempt to substantiate the man’s alibi.”
“I did put a little fright into him, didn’t I?” Vance grinned complacently. “Whenever your antagonist begins talking exaggeratedly about the insanity of your notions, he’s already deuced hot under the collar. But, Markham old thing, don’t burst into tears over my mental shortcomings. If you and I both thought of the nurse, don’t you suppose the wily doctor also thought of her? If this Miss Finckle were the type that could be suborned, he would have enlisted her perjurious service two days ago, and she would have been mentioned, along with the comatose Mrs. Breedon, as a witness to his presence at the sanitarium Monday night. The fact that he avoided all reference to the nurse shows that she’s not to be wheedled into swearing falsely.… No, Markham. I deliberately put him on his guard. Now he’ll have to do something before we question Miss Finckle. And I’m vain enough to think I know what it’ll be.”
“Let me get this right,” put in Heath. “Am I, or am I not, to round up the Finckle woman tomorrow morning?”
“There’ll be no need,” said Vance. “We are doomed, I fear, not to gaze upon this Florence Nightingale. A meeting between us is about the last thing the doctor would desire.”
“That may be true,” admitted Markham. “But don’t forget that he may have been up to something Monday night wholly unconnected with the murder, that he simply doesn’t want known.”
“Quite—quite. And yet, nearly everyone who knew the Canary seems to have selected Monday night for the indulgence of sub rosa peccadilloes. It’s a bit thick, what? Skeel tries to make us believe he was immersed in Khun Khan. Cleaver was—if you take his word for it—touring the countryside in Jersey’s lake district. Lindquist wants us to picture him as comforting the afflicted. And Mannix, I happen to know, has gone to some trouble to build up an alibi in case we get nosey. All of ’em, in fact, were doing something they don’t want us to know about. Now, what was it? And why did they, of one accord, select the night of the murder for mysterious affairs which they don’t dare mention, even to clear themselves of suspicion? Was there an invasion of efreets in the city that night? Was there a curse on the world, driving men to dark bawdy deeds? Was there Black Magic abroad? I think not.”
“I’m laying my money on Skeel,” declared Heath stubbornly. “I know a professional job when I see it. And you can’t get away from those fingerprints and the Professor’s report on the chisel.”
Markham was sorely perplexed. His belief in Skeel’s guilt had, I knew, been undermined in some measure by Vance’s theory that the crime was the carefully premeditated act of a shrewd and educated man. But now he seemed to swing irresolutely back to Heath’s point of view.
“I’ll admit,” he said, “that Lindquist and Cleaver and Mannix don’t inspire one with a belief in their innocence. But since they’re all tarred with the same stick, the force of suspicion against them is somewhat dispersed. After all, Skeel is the only logical aspirant for the role of strangler. He’s the only one with a visible motive; and he’s the only one against whom there’s any evidence.”
Vance sighed wearily. “Yes, yes. Fingerprints—chisel marks. You’re such a trustin’ soul, Markham. Skeel’s fingerprints are found in the apartment; therefore, Skeel strangled the lady. So beastly simple. Why bother further? A chose jugée—an adjudicated case. Send Skeel to the chair, and that’s that!… It’s effective, y’ know, but is it art?”
“In your critical enthusiasm you understate our case against Skeel,” Markham reminded him testily.
“Oh, I’ll grant that your case against him is ingenious. It’s so deuced ingenious I just haven’t the heart to reject it. But most popular truth is mere ingenuity—that’s why it’s so wrong-headed. Your theory would appeal strongly to the popular mind. And yet, y’ know, Markham, it isn’t true.”
The practical Heath was unmoved. He sat stolidly, scowling at the table. I doubt if he had even heard the exchange of opinions between Markham and Vance.
“You know, Mr. Markham,” he said, like one unconsciously voicing an obscure line of thought, “if we could show how Skeel got in and out of Odell’s apartment, we’d have a better case against him. I can’t figure it out—it’s got me stopped. So, I’ve been thinking we oughta get an architect to go over those rooms. The house is an oldtimer—God knows when it was originally built—and there may be some way of getting into it that we haven’t discovered yet.”
“’Pon my soul!” Vance stared at him in satirical wonderment. “You’re becoming downright romantic! Secret passageways, hidden doors, stairways between the walls. So that’s it, is it? Oh, my word!… Sergeant, beware of the cinema. It has ruined many a good man. Try grand opera for a while—it’s more borin’ but less corruptin’.”
“That’s all right, Mr. Vance.” Apparently Heath himself did not relish the architectural idea particularly. “But as long as we don’t know how Skeel got in, it’s just as well to make sure of a few ways he didn’t get in.”
“I agree with you, Sergeant,” said Markham. “I’ll get an architect on the job at once.” He rang for Swacker and gave the necessary instructions.
Vance extended his legs and yawned.
“All we need now is a Favorite of the Harem, a few blackamoors with palm-leaf fans, and some pizzicato music.”
“You will joke, Mr. Vance.” Heath lit a fresh cigar. “But even if the architect don’t find anything wrong with the apartment, Skeel’s liable to give his hand away ’most any time.”
“I’m pinnin’ my childish faith on Mannix,” said Vance. “I don’t know why I should; but he’s not a nice man, and he’s suppressing something. Markham, don’t you dare let him go until he tells you where he was Monday night. And don’t forget to hint mysteriously about the fur model.”
CHAPTER 20
A