The Sheridan Road Mystery. Thorne Mabel
in his pocket.
"You bet; and I put into it every damned thing I know," asserted Tierney. "And that's mighty little," he added. "This is the most mysterious case I ever saw."
There was a pause while Morgan drew a pipe from his pocket and filled and lighted it. Then settling back in his chair, he looked at Tierney. "Got any theories?" he asked.
"No," replied Tierney. "I haven't any theories—but I've got a couple of suspicions."
"Well?"
"One," continued Tierney, "is this flat across the hall. Murphy—that's the man on the beat who heard the shot and investigated—Murphy noticed that in spite of all the racket we made breaking down the door last night, no one in that flat showed any interest. I tried to get in touch with them this morning. Nothing doing. Either they weren't home, or wouldn't answer the bell."
"That looks bad," commented Morgan. "You mentioned in your report that you talked with the janitor. Did he drop anything about them that you didn't think worth while putting in the report?"
"The janitor simply told me that a man and his daughter lived in the flat, and that he thought the man was away a good deal; so he supposed he must be a traveling man. They have always seemed to be quiet people. He has never even seen them have any company." "That's suspicious, too," declared Morgan. "Normal people usually have SOME company. Is that all?"
Tierney nodded.
"Now," prompted Morgan, "you said you had another suspicion."
"You bet!" exclaimed Tierney, straightening up in his chair. "That guy, Marsh—underneath here."
"'Great minds'," laughed Morgan. "I sort of focused on that man myself after reading your report just now."
"Well, here's the way I look at it," explained Tierney. "When ordinary folks hear fighting and shooting in the middle of the night, they generally stick their heads under the covers and lie close. They don't put on bath robes and run out on the street to be the first to give a report. Then the janitor tells me that he's seen this man around a lot in the daytime—'no visible means of support,' you might say. Both Murphy and I remember that Marsh referred to his wife. The janitor says he's pretty sure that he never saw any woman around the flat. And when I asked Marsh this morning to let me talk to his wife, he said she was not in."
"You probably noticed in my report that it was this Marsh who showed us the bloodstain under the chair. You know, we came out of the kitchen and caught that guy in the act of pulling a chair over the spot. He said he was replacing the chair where he found it. I've been wondering whether he wasn't actually covering up the spot himself. When we caught him in the act, maybe he just decided to bluff it out."
"The Department didn't make any mistake when they shifted you into the Detective Bureau, Tierney," said Morgan, laughing. "Has the Chief assigned you to any other case for my day off?"
"No," replied Tierney. "When the Chief told me to come back and meet you here I figured he wanted me to stick to this case with you."
"So I thought," agreed Morgan. "But I want to be left alone here for awhile. You scout around and see if you can find out something more about this tenant across the hall. Do you know his name?"
"Clark Atwood, it says on the mail box downstairs."
"All right, Tierney. See what you can look up in this neighborhood. I'll get in touch with you later. By the way, you had better leave that key with me."
Tierney handed over the key to the padlock, and with a cheery "So long," started off.
Morgan, left to himself, began a careful inspection of the apartment. Although assured that the apartment had been unoccupied, his first act was to discover, if possible, any signs of recent habitation. Convinced by the blood spot that the principal part of whatever had happened had taken place in the front room, he decided to leave that room until the last. Running all the shades to the top of the windows as he passed from the front to the rear of the apartment, Morgan made the place as light as possible. He began his examination with the kitchen. The fastenings on the windows were closed, and the undisturbed condition of the dust indicated that they had not been touched for a long period. A careful inspection of the glass and woodwork showed no finger marks or any attempt to open the catches. The bolt on the back door was unfastened, but as the report stated that the police had found this bolt in place, it was obvious that it had simply been left open by the police. Morgan carefully scrutinized the condition of the bolt. After pushing it back into place the difference in brightness of the protected and unprotected parts convinced him that the bolt had been closed for some time.
He also noted that the key was missing from the lock. However, this fact had been referred to in the report, and it could make little difference if the bolt itself had been fastened. As a matter of fact, during his search of the pantry, he discovered the key on top of the ice box. A layer of dust indicated that the key had not been touched for a long time. His thorough investigation of the pantry revealed no evidence of recent use. The ice box was dry as a bone, with the musty smell of long disuse. A touch of the finger on various dishes and pieces of glassware showed that these also were covered with a film of dust.
Before leaving the kitchen, Morgan glanced into the sink, to ascertain if, as often happens, the murderer had washed his hands there. There was a reddish stain about the outlet, but as Morgan found this covered with dust he surmised that a long time had elapsed since any water had been run in the sink. This stain was presumably the rust which usually gathers in a long unused sink or basin.
The small maid's room off the kitchen had certainly not been in use. Only the bare mattress was on the bed, and Morgan noticed that as his own feet left imprints in the dust on the floor, it was not likely that anyone else could have been in the room without leaving similar traces.
Next he thoroughly searched the dining room. As this room usually seems to be the favorite gathering point, both for the occupants of a house and unbidden prowlers, Morgan's keen eyes examined every detail of the floor and furnishings, including the drawers of the sideboard. He immediately noticed that two of the chairs were standing close to the table, while two others were moved slightly back from the table as if people had been sitting in them. On the floor under one of these chairs he found a few spots of cigarette ashes. To Morgan's quick mind this carried a mental picture. Of course, the police who had been in the apartment the night before might have accidentally or intentionally moved the chairs, but he was quite sure that under the circumstances not one of them would have sat down to smoke a cigarette. At some time quite recently, therefore, somebody, probably two persons, had sat at this dining room table while conversing, or waiting for something.
This was further confirmed when Morgan, bending his knees and lowering his body so as to bring his eyes on a level with the table, studied the top in the reflected light. He saw that the dust on the table top had been disturbed in front of the two chairs. Furthermore, he discovered that the person who had not been smoking had evidently rested a pair of clasped and sweaty hands on the table top, as two parallel, greasy marks, made by the sides of the hands, showed quite plainly. To Morgan, clasped and sweaty hands indicated a possible state of nervousness. Either this had been the victim or the chief plotter.
The dining room revealed nothing further to Morgan, but he felt that he had made some progress in establishing the fact that at least two people had quite recently been in this supposedly unoccupied apartment.
Passing through the entrance hall, Morgan then examined the main bedroom, which opened off of it. The bed had been dismantled, as in the maid's room. An examination of the clothes closet, and the drawers of the dresser and a chiffonier, showed that the room was commonly occupied by a man and a woman. Everything quite obviously belonged to the regular tenant. Morgan could find nothing of a suspicious nature, although he had particularly looked for correspondence which might in some indefinite way connect this tenant with the happenings of the night before.
The bathroom was visited next. Outside of the usual toilet articles and harmless medical "first aids" in the cabinet, the room was bare.
The final step was a close examination of the front room. Here