little chin-chin with your family.”
“Anything you say.” Kirk’s tone was spiritless. “Although I assure you,
Inspector, there can’t be any connection between this and any one in my?It’s impossible.”
“Impossible, Mr. Kirk? That’s a strong word. Which reminds me. We’ll defer that visit a couple of minutes.” The Inspector raised his voice. “Pig-gott!” One of the detectives bounded forward. “Get a sheet or something from one of the chambermaids and cover up the stiff. Everything but his face.”
The detective disappeared.
Kirk whitened. “You’re not going to?”
“Why not?” said the Inspector with a disarming smile. “Murder’s a hard business, Mr. Kirk, and investigating it’s even harder. It’s the one business where you come to grips with the real facts of life. And death. Not like collecting stamps or diamonds at all . . . . Ah, Piggy. Good boy. Artistic now; just the pan. Good! Thomas, get everybody from the Kirk apartment in here.”
* * *
They came in slowly, a silent nervous group. The least perturbed among them seemed Dr. Kirk. The fierce old man was fully dressed now; his white shirtfront glittered angrily from the wheel-chair being pushed by a subdued Miss Diversey. His gauntness was amazing; he was like a bony shell filled with fury.
“What’s this mumbo-jumbo about a murder?” he was roaring, waving his long skinny arms. “Positively indecent. Donald! Why do you permit us to be dragged into this?”
“Don’t make a row, father,” said Kirk wearily. “These gentlemen are the police.”
Dr. Kirk’s white mustache lifted in a snarl. “Police! As if any one with two eyes and ears couldn’t tell. Ears particularly. You can always tell a policeman by his indefatigable mangling of the simplest past participles.” He turned on the Inspector a pair of iceberg eyes. “You’re in charge here?”
“I am,” snapped the Inspector. Under his breath he muttered: “And I’ll mangle
“Rumpus? Rumpus? Obscene word! Who’s raising a rumpus, may I ask?” growled Dr. Kirk. “What do you want of us? Quickly, please.”
“Father,” said Marcella Kirk with a frown. She seemed shaken by her experience; her oval face was brilliantly pale.
“Be quiet, Marcella. Well, sir?”
Ellery, Kirk, and Detective Piggott were standing side by side, like a trio of tightly ranked soldiers, before the office-door, concealing the dead man. The fingerprint men, the photographers, had vanished. Except for Sergeant Velie, Detective Piggott and one other officer the men from headquarters who had thronged the room were gone, most of them dispatched by the Sergeant on various investigatory errands. In the corridor outside, in charge of two uniformed men, stood a group of people?Nye, Brummer, Mrs. Shane, a few others?surrounded by clamoring newspapermen.
Sergeant Velie shut the door in their faces.
The Inspector looked his audience over carefully. Marcella Kirk stood beside her father’s wheel-chair with a restraining hand on his shoulder. Miss Diversey drooped behind. The black-gowned little woman, Miss Temple, was eying Donald Kirk with the queerest attention; he seemed unconscious of her scrutiny and stared directly before him. Glenn Macgowan, grimacing with distaste, lounged beside Marcella. And, by herself, in the shimmering tight gown, her eyes quite fathomless, stood Irene Llewes; and she, too, was studying Donald Kirk’s face. Behind them all were the valet-butler Hubbell and Osborne, who was trying hard not to look at Miss Diversey.
The Inspector took out his worn snuff-box and thrust a pinch up each slender nostril. He sneezed three times, amiably, and put the box away. “Now, ladies and gentlemen,” he began in a genial tone, “a murder’s been committed in this room. The body is lying behind Mr. Kirk, Mr. Queen, and Detective Piggott.” Their eyes wavered and shrank. “Dr. Kirk, you indicated a moment ago that you wanted no fuss. Nor do we. I’m inviting the man or woman who killed that poor little chap to step forward.”
Some one gasped, and Ellery from his vantage-point searched their faces swiftly. But they all looked petrified. Dr. Kirk, his hair standing on end, half-rose in his chair and gasped: “Do you mean?are you insinuating that some one here?Why, this is infamous!”
“Sure is,” smiled the Inspector. “That’s the hell of murders, Dr. Kirk. Well?”
Their shocked eyes fell.
The Inspector sighed. “All right, then. Step aside, boys.” Silently Kirk, Ellery, and Piggott obeyed.
For an instant they glared with fascinated horror at the serene dead face smiling up at them. Then they began to stir. Marcella Kirk swallowed convulsively and swayed, looking ill. Macgowan placed his big brown hand on her bare arm, and she stiffened. Miss Temple shivered suddenly and turned her head away; she did not look at Donald Kirk any longer. Only Irene Llewes seemed unmoved; except for her pallor she might have been staring at a fallen waxworks figure.
“All right, Piggott, cover him up,” said the Inspector briskly. The detective stooped and the weird smiling face vanished. “Well, ladies and gentlemen, has any one anything to tell me?” No one replied. “Dr. Kirk!” snapped the old gentleman. The septuagenarian’s head came up with a jerk. “Who is this man?”
Dr. Kirk made a face. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“Miss Kirk?”
Marcella gulped. “N-nor I. It’s ghastly!”
“Miss Llewes?”
The woman shrugged her magnificent shoulders. “Nor I.”
“Mr. Macgowan?”
“I’m sorry, Inspector. I’ve never seen that face before.”
“By the way, Mr. Macgowan, some one told me you’re a collector of postage stamps yourself; eh?”
Macgowan looked interested. “Quite so. Why?”
“Have you ever seen this man around the stamp places? Think hard; it may come back to you.”
“Never. But what has that?”
The Inspector waved his delicate fingers. “You, there,” he said sharply. “The buttling man. What’s your name?”
Hubbell was startled. His pasty face became the color of wet sand. “H-Hubbell, sir.”
“How long have you worked for Mr. Kirk?”
“Not v-very long, sir.”
Donald Kirk sighed. “He’s been in my employ a little over a year.”
“Please. Hubbell, did you ever see this dead man before?”
“No, sir! No, sir!”
“You’re positive?”
“Oh, yes, sir!”
“Hmm. I’ve got the statements of the rest.” The Inspector nursed his chin thoughtfully. “I suppose you all realize what my position is. Here I have a murdered man on my hands who’s apparently a total stranger to the lot of you. Yet he came up here and asked for Mr. Kirk, who says he doesn’t know him from Adam. Now somebody knew he was in this room and killed him here. The door there to the corridor wasn’t locked and anybody could have walked in here, found him, and done the job. The person who did it may even have known he was coming here, and planned the whole thing ahead of time. But murders like this aren’t usually committed against strangers. There’s a connection between this man and his murderer . . . . I hope you see what I’m driving at.”
“Now look here, Inspector,” said Glenn Macgowan suddenly in his deep voice. “It seems to me you’re taking our possible part in this affair too seriously.”
“And how is that, Mr. Macgowan?” murmured Ellery.
“Why, anybody had access to this room by way of the emergency stairs and this empty corridor. The murderer may be any one of the seven million people in New York! Why one of us?”
“Hmm,” said Ellery. “That’s always a staggering possibility, of course. On the other hand, has it occurred to you, if we’re to take Mr. Kirk’s word for it that he never saw the man before, that the murderer?one
