reached in with a trembling hand, and snapped back the lock. Farragut was beside him, whitefaced, as he bolted through. And a cry came from the inspector’s lips.
“Good God – she’s gone!”
It was true. Mrs. Tyler, willful society beauty, was nowhere in the kitchen. But the window was open, and the night air that came through it carried a warning of death.
Van was the first to reach it. He thrust his head out. There was a courtyard outside the kitchen, its bottom ten stories down the clifflike face of the big apartment building. And, as he peered below into the shadows, he saw a huddled shape.
He turned away, feeling sickened. “Come,”was all he said.
They plunged down the hall to the elevator, took it to the basement, and hurried outside.
Mrs. Tyler lay as she had fallen, her upturned face still coldly beautiful, but her skull fractured. She was stone dead. Van’s eyes dropped from her face. He tensed suddenly, knelt down beside her, and the inspector gasped in amazement. For there was a cord of black rawhide about her white throat, drawn tight, cutting into the flesh. A piece of it, nearly fifty feet long, lay in a snaky coil beside her. Van lifted his head.
“The roof!” he barked. “Send men up there. Some one dropped a noose over her neck, snared her when she leaned out the window. After she was unconscious he pulled her through, let go of the line, and she fell.”
The inspector shot a harsh question at Van before he turned to give orders to his men. “What in hell was she leaning out of the window for? I don’t understand it!”
For answer Van’s hand reached inside the dead woman’s dress for that mysterious note. He found the paper without delay, unfolded it, and ran his eyes over the paper’s contents.
CHAPTER XI
MRS. TYLER’S death lure was a love letter from a man who signed himself “Henry” and who asked the society beauty to send him a line.
“I’m damned if I get it,” barked Farragut. “I don’t see what this has to do with murder.”
“No?” Van’s voice was sardonic. “It has everything to do with it, Inspector! It was because of this note that she locked herself in the kitchen. The stubborn fool!” He added that bitterly. “She played right into the killer’s hands. He must have known of her intrigue. He planned things with diabolical shrewdness this time. Why in Heaven’s name didn’t she show me the note when I asked her to?”
“What are you talking about, Phantom?”
“This note,” said Van. “I tell you it was murder bait – the lure used by the killer.”
“I still don’t get it! He asks her to write to him. Why the devil didn’t she? Why did she want to stick her head out the kitchen window?”
“When she did that she had
Back in the kitchen again, Van went to the fateful window, reached out, and felt along the ledge, then beckoned Farragut to his side.
“Just as I thought,” he said, pointing to a small open box on the outside sill, and a string leading away from the window. “Apparently Henry has an apartment directly across the court. He and Mrs. Tyler exchanged notes via this pulley device.”
“So that’s why she raised the window?”
“Exactly! If she’d showed me the letter Marie handed her, taken me into her confidence, I would have understood the situation and explained to her that it was obviously a trap.” Van drove one fist into his palm fiercely. “That’s the damnable part of it! You can see how shrewdly the murderer’s mind worked! He knew the one thing that Mrs. Tyler would not confide to the police was the fact that she was carrying on an intrigue. He knew that the note was not only sure, but perfectly safe bait.”
“You mean this man across the court was working in league with that devil up on the roof?” Farragut growled. “He wrote the note so she’d lean out the window and give the other guy his chance to strangle her.” The policeman shook his head.
“No,” said Van, “I don’t mean that. The killer knew we’d find that note on her – after it was too late to save her. If the man called Henry were guilty of helping in her murder he wouldn’t leave written evidence for the police to find. Henry’s innocent of everything except making love so clumsily that a third party discovered it. This note is a clever forgery. The timing of it was too perfect to be real. I tell you, Inspector, the man we’re up against not only knows the Caulder family, but he makes his moves with all the brilliance of a master at chess. We may trap a few of his pawns, but his gambit still has us guessing.”
They left the window.
“Wait till I see whether the boys have found anything on the roof,” Farragut snapped, “then I want to tell you something I’ve got on my mind, Phantom.”
He hurried away. Van began pacing hands shoved deep in pockets face set grimly. He had a sense of keen disappointment, of failure, in the matter of Mrs. Tyler. He was angry with himself that he hadn’t forced her to show him the note. But after all, the woman was old enough to be her own mistress. The murderer must have taken that, too, into consideration. The leering face of Satan himself seemed to lurk behind the identity of the Chief.
Farragut returned, and said that his men hadn’t been able to find anything.
“The strangler must have crossed over to the roof of another apartment building and got down that way. I didn’t figure men should be posted three stories up on the roof. How did I know Mrs. Tyler was going to open a window and stick her head out?”
“You didn’t,” said Van grimly. “She practically committed suicide when she disobeyed your instructions.”
Farragut nodded. “I did my best to protect her. She just wouldn’t let me. And now, Phantom, let’s see if we can’t get some things doped out straight. What happened tonight here proves to me what I’ve thought all along – one of the Caulder heirs is behind these murders! Not only that – I’ve got a theory who the guy is!” The inspector spoke with harsh conviction. He was obviously excited.
Van looked interested. “Good!” he said. “Let’s hear it.”
Farragut drew a black cigar from his pocket and bit off the end savagely. “It sounds screwy, I’ll admit. But this is a screwy case, and it must have a screwy answer. I’ve given the whole thing a lot of thought. The cops have a saying ‘once a killer, always a killer’ – and the man I suspect made his first kill ten years ago.”
“You mean Judd Moxley?” said Van quickly.
“Right! It wasn’t premeditated murder I know. I’ve gone over all the court records. He killed a pal in a fight after an all-night drinking session. But it showed the killer instinct. Now he’s had almost ten years in jail to think things over. He’s still a killer, but a crafty one this time.”
VAN nodded. “Sounds logical, Inspector, but how about the little matter of his being in jail? I’ve reason to believe, as I’ve told you, that the man they call the Chief is the real brains behind this thing. And I’m practically certain that the Chief has visited, or intends to visit, at least one of his gang’s hideouts.”
“Now we come to the screwy part of it,” said the inspector, looking wise. “I’ve been doing some investigating too, I’ve had a man nosing around up in the State pen. He’s uncovered something. There’s a wealthy prisoner, a banker who got too gay with other people’s dough, in a cell right next to Moxley’s. This banker’s still got plenty of kale. I’ve learned he tried to bribe one of the night guards to let him out for a few hours so he could visit his chorus girl sweetie. Of course he didn’t make it – the warden got wise. But how do we know another man mightn’t have succeeded where he failed? Far-fetched as it seems, how do we know Moxley hasn’t been getting in and out?”
Van knitted his brows. “You may have something there. It checks up with the fact that the Chief seems to make his visits late at night. Let’s say, for the moment, that Moxley’s guilty. Have you figured a motive?”
Farragut nodded. “I’ve got a certified copy of the Caulder will right from the probate court. That gives plenty of motive. Here -” Farragut took a legal paper in a blue folder from his pocket, opened it, and pointed to one page. “Erasmus Caulder died in nineteen twenty-seven. Esmond Caulder was appointed administrator to take care of the
