occupy at any time. Now, the garden of 39B Sutton Place runs down to the river; Queens-borough Bridge is immediately below!”
* * *
“You need not watch me so anxiously. Sir Denis,” said Mrs. Mendel Hammett. “I am a crippled and weak- bodied old woman but not a weak-minded old woman. May I trouble you to light my cigarette.”
She lay stretched on a couch in a sitting-room whose furnishings indicated the world traveller. The bright hazel eyes shadowed by heavy brows were those of a young girl; her skin retained its freshness: so that snow- white, curling hair suggested the period of powder and patches.
“You are a wonderful woman, Mrs. Mendel Hammett.”
“I belong to a tough race,” she replied, puffing at her cigarette; “and in the company of my late husband I have been in some tough places. So Jim is dead? Well, if I can help you find out who killed him, count on me.”
“In the first place,” said Smith, speaking very gently, “I gathered from Miss Dinsford, your secretary, that James Longton was not expected; that he arrived about six o’clock this evening and stated that he wished to use his apartments.”
“He did, sir,” the vibrant voice replied. “He had come by air from Havana and he said it was important that no one should know that he was here.”
“He went up to his rooms,” Smith continued, “particularly requesting that he should not be disturbed—”
“He said he was going to take a bath and lie down until dinner time, as he was tired out.”
“Quite so. That is most important. Since then, I believe, you had not seen him?”
“I had not.”
“Did he bring much baggage?”
“One light suitcase and a large portfolio.”
“ho took them up?”
“He took them up himself.”
“Then no one else entered his apartments?”
“No one. They were always kept ready for use. Later, a maid would have turned down the bed and prepared the room—”
Momentarily, the bright eyes clouded; Mrs. Mendel Hammett knocked ash from her cigarette.
“People used to find a marked resemblance between Jim and Kennard Wood. I never saw it, myself, although they were cousins on Jim’s mother’s side.”
“I had certainly noted it,” murmured Smith. “And, now that this catastrophe has occurred, I must look to the Colonel’s safety. Before I go up to examine these apartments, Mrs. Mendel Hammett, may I ask if James Longton told you anything of Kennard Wood’s whereabouts?”
“He told me that they had planned to arrive together; that they had an important conference with you and some Washington people at the Regal Athenian in the morning. They were on the point of leaving Havana by special government plane when Kennard Wood was overtaken by a messenger from the United States Minister—”
“So Longton came alone?”
“He came alone. Kennard Wood was to follow as soon as possible, and Jim intended to ring up his hotel directly he—awoke. For some reason they were travelling in great secrecy.”
“I know the reason!” said Smith grimly. “If you will be good enough to excuse us. Come on, Kerrigan.”
A grey-haired coloured manservant led the way upstairs, knocked upon, and then unlocked, a door. He switched on the light inside.
“Mr. James’s apartment, sir,” he murmured.
One analytical stare Smith directed upon the man’s face, and then: “You may go,” he said.
We entered James Longton’s rooms. The first of these was a sitting-room, furnished in a manner that betrayed the hand of a woman. Some of the pictures, however, were obvious autobiographical, and there were college groups and a collection of pipes on the desk.
Nayland Smith, standing Just inside the door, which he had closed, began sniffing.
“Do you notice any unusual small, Kerrigan?”
At that I also directed my attention to the atmosphere of the place, and: “Yes,” I replied, “there is faint, but very unpleasant smell. I am trying to place it.”
“I have placed it!” said Smith. “I have come across it before. Now for the bedroom—”
He opened a door, found the switch, and led the way into a small but adequately-equipped bedroom. Beyond, on the right, I saw a curtained recess in which presumably there was a bath. The place had a Spartan quality which may have reflected the character of the dead man; so that, noting a handsome Chinese casket on a table beside a bed—an item which seemed out of place—I was about to examine it, when: “Don’t touch it!” snapped Smith. “Touch nothing. I am walking in the dark, and taking no chances. The unusual smell is more marked here?”
Startled by his abrupt order I turned from the box.
“Yes; it certainly seems to be. You have seen that the bed is much disarranged?”
“I have seen something else.”
He crossed to the draped recess, went in, and came out again.
“Longton undressed in the bathroom,” he said; “his clothes are there. He had a bath and then lay down. It is clear that he was tired out His suitcase you see there on a chair, unopened. He just got into bed as he was and fell into a deep sleep. Now, you note a chill in the air?”
“Yes.”
“Unless I am on a wrong track we shall find a window open.”
He crossed and jerked the draperies aside. I saw moonlight glittering on water.
“Wide open!” he exclaimed; “a balcony outside.”
And as he stood there peering out and flashing a torch, in a moment of perhaps psychic clarity I saw him against a different background. I saw the bloody horror of Poland, the sullen sorrow of Czecho-Slovakia, the abasement of France, that grand defiance of Greece which I had known; and I saw guns blazing around a once peaceful English countryside. An enemy pounded at the gates of civilization; but Nayland Smith was here: therefore, here, and not in Europe, the real danger must lie.
Smith turned and stared at the disordered bed.
“Observe anything unusual?” he snapped.
“It is all terribly untidy.”
“Really, Kerrigan, as a star reporter you disappoint me. A hostess of Mrs. Mendel Hammett’s calibre does not expect a guest to lie on a blanket. The under sheet is missing!”
“Good God! You’re right!”
He stared at me for a moment.
“They used it to lower his body to the garden,” he said slowly. “I can see the rope marks on the balcony rail! There is an old, strong clematis growing up the wall below. One of Fu Manchu’s thugs climbed it whilst Longton was in the bath: he may or may not have forced open the window. He returned, later, bundled up the body, and lowered it to an assistant waiting in the garden. Miss Dinsford showed me over the ground-floor rooms: unlikely that anyone would hear; these fellows work as silently as stoats.”
“But what killed him?” I cried. “There may be some clues here—”
I had turned to the disordered bed, when: “Stand back, Kerrigan!” Smith said sharply. “Touch nothing. Leave the search to me.”
Arrested by his words, I stood there whilst he stripped the bed, opened the Chinese box (which contained nothing more lethal than cigarettes), explored every bookcase, cabinet, nook, and cranny in the room. He was as painstaking in the other rooms; and from amongst Longton’s possessions he selected the key of the suitcase, opened the case, examined its contents. And all the time he was sniffing—sniffing like a hound on a half-lost scent.
“The smell is fading?” he jerked. “You note this? I can spare no more time. But the room must be sealed: it is imperative. You have no doubt remarked that the large portfolio mentioned by Mrs. Mendel Hammett has disappeared.”
CHAPTER XIV
