LITMIR.BIZ

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Sergeant was silent for a while. Experience had taught him not to underestimate Vance’s observations; and, I must confess, as I looked at the lamp lying on its side on the end of the library-table, well removed from any of the other disordered objects in the room, Vance’s argument seemed to possess considerable force. I tried hard to fit it into a hasty reconstruction of the crime, but was utterly unable to do so.

      “Anything else that don’t seem to fit into the picture?” Heath at length asked.

      Vance pointed with his cigarette toward the clothes-closet in the living-room. This closet was alongside of the foyer, in the corner near the Boule cabinet, directly opposite to the end of the davenport.

      “You might let your mind dally a moment with the condition of that clothes-press,” suggested Vance carelessly. “You will note that, though the door’s ajar, the contents have not been touched. And it’s about the only area in the apartment that hasn’t been disturbed.”

      Heath walked over and looked into the closet.

      “Well, anyway, I’ll admit that’s queer,” he finally conceded.

      Vance had followed him indolently, and stood gazing over his shoulder.

      “And my word!” he exclaimed suddenly. “The key’s on the inside of the lock. Fancy that, now! One can’t lock a closet door with the key on the inside—can one, Sergeant?”

      “The key may not mean anything,” Heath observed hopefully. “Maybe the door was never locked. Anyhow, we’ll find out about that pretty soon. I’m holding the maid outside, and I’m going to have her on the carpet as soon as the Captain finishes his job here.”

      He turned to Dubois, who, having completed his search for finger-prints in the bedroom, was now inspecting the piano.

      “Any luck yet?”

      The Captain shook his head.

      “Gloves,” he answered succinctly.

      “Same here,” supplemented Bellamy gruffly, on his knees before the escritoire.

      Vance, with a sardonic smile, turned and walked to the window, where he stood looking out and smoking placidly, as if his entire interest in the case had evaporated.

      At this moment the door from the main hall opened, and a short thin little man, with gray hair and a scraggly gray beard, stepped inside and stood blinking against the vivid sunlight.

      “Good morning, Professor,” Heath greeted the newcomer. “Glad to see you. I’ve got something nifty, right in your line.”

      Deputy-Inspector Conrad Brenner was one of that small army of obscure, but highly capable, experts who are connected with the New York Police Department, and who are constantly being consulted on abstruse technical problems, but whose names and achievements rarely get into the public prints. His specialty was locks and burglars’ tools; and I doubt if, even among those exhaustively pains-taking criminologists of the University of Lausanne, there was a more accurate reader of the evidential signs left by the implements of house-breakers. In appearance and bearing he was like a withered little college professor.[24] His black, unpressed suit was old-fashioned in cut; and he wore a very high stiff collar, like a fin-de-siècle[25] clergyman, with a narrow black string tie. His gold-rimmed spectacles were so thick-lensed that the pupils of his eyes gave the impression of acute belladonna poisoning.

      When Heath had spoken to him, he merely stood staring with a sort of detached expectancy; he seemed utterly unaware that there was any one else in the room. The Sergeant, evidently familiar with the little man’s idiosyncrasies of manner, did not wait for a response, but started at once for the bedroom.

      “This way, please, Professor,” he directed cajolingly, going to the dressing-table and picking up the jewel-case. “Take a squint at this, and tell me what you see.”

      Inspector Brenner followed Heath, without looking to right or left, and, taking the jewel-case, went silently to the window and began to examine it. Vance, whose interest seemed suddenly to be reawakened, came forward and stood watching him.

      For fully five minutes the little expert inspected the case, holding it within a few inches of his myopic eyes. Then he lifted his glance to Heath and winked several times rapidly.

      “Two instruments were used in opening this case.” His voice was small and high-pitched, but there was in it an undeniable quality of authority. “One bent the lid and made several fractures on the baked enamel. The other was, I should say, a steel chisel of some kind, and was used to break the lock. The first instrument, which was blunt, was employed amateurishly, at the wrong angle of leverage; and the effort resulted only in twisting the overhang of the lid. But the steel chisel was inserted with a knowledge of the correct point of oscillation, where a minimum of leverage would produce the counteracting stress necessary to displace the lock-bolts.”

      “A professional job?” suggested Heath.

      “Highly so,” answered the Inspector, again blinking. “That is to say, the forcing of the lock was professional. And I would even go so far as to advance the opinion that the instrument used was one especially constructed for such illegal purposes.”

      “Could this have done the job?” Heath held out the poker.

      The other looked at it closely, and turned it over several times.

      “It might have been the instrument that bent the cover, but it was not the one used for prying open the lock. This poker is cast iron and would have snapped under any great pressure; whereas this box is of cold rolled eighteen-gauge steel plate, with an inset cylinder pin-tumbler lock taking a paracentric key. The leverage force necessary to distort the flange sufficiently to lift the lid could have been made only by a steel chisel.”

      “Well, that’s that.” Heath seemed well satisfied with Inspector Brenner’s conclusion. “I’ll send the box down to you, Professor, and you can let me know what else you find out.”

      “I’ll take it along, if you have no objection.” And the little man tucked it under his arm and shuffled out without another word.

      Heath grinned at Markham. “Queer bird. He ain’t happy unless he’s measuring jimmy marks on doors and windows and things. He couldn’t wait till I sent him the box. He’ll hold it lovingly on his lap all the way down in the subway, like a mother with a baby.”

      Vance was still standing near the dressing-table, gazing perplexedly into space.

      “Markham,” he said, “the condition of that jewel-case is positively astounding. It’s unreasonable, illogical—insane. It complicates the situation most damnably. That steel box simply couldn’t have been chiselled open by a professional burglar … and yet, don’t y’ know, it actually was.”

      Before Markham could reply, a satisfied grunt from Captain Dubois attracted our attention.

      “I’ve got something for you, Sergeant,” he announced.

      We moved expectantly into the living-room. Dubois was bending over the end of the library-table almost directly behind the place where Margaret Odell’s body had been found. He took out an insufflator, which was like a very small hand-bellows, and blew a fine light-yellow powder evenly over about a square foot of the polished rosewood surface of the table-top. Then he gently blew away the surplus powder, and there appeared the impression of a human hand distinctly registered in saffron. The bulb of the thumb and each fleshy hummock between the joints of the fingers and around the palm stood out like tiny circular islands. All the papillary ridges were clearly discernible. The photographer then hooked his camera to a peculiar adjustable tripod and, carefully focusing his lens, took two flash-light pictures of the hand-mark.

      “This ought to do.” Dubois was pleased with his find. “It’s the right hand—a clear print—and the guy who made it was standing right behind the dame. … And it’s the newest print in the place.”

      “What about this box?” Heath pointed to the black document-box on

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