“I’m through laughing. We have to get this devil who’s making a shambles of Miami. Let’s say I’m ready to listen and play your way. Have you heard the Cuban’s story?”
Stan shook his head. “I think I know it—but let’s have it.”
“Here it is.” LeRoy pulled the folder toward him and took out a sheet. “He let you into the Sunset and you questioned him about Munroe’s typewriter. He told you we had taken it—that’s true at any rate—we have it here. You went upstairs and said you didn’t want to be disturbed. Your arrival had disturbed him from a nap—”
“I think that’s the truth, too. Go on.”
“And he laid down on the couch in Munroe’s office and dozed. He woke up thinking he heard footsteps going up the stairs, went to the foot and called to you, but received no answer. He went upstairs, calling your name. There were two tables piled up under the trapdoor leading into the attic. He decided he must be mistaken about the footsteps. Thinking you would want ice water—he went to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door and bango—he got a crack on the head from person or persons unknown. So much for Juan Andres.”
“Or not so much.” Stan clasped both hands around one knee. “He’s served ninety days on Welfare Island, Vince,—bootlegging, he says. My own opinion is that the Spanish Inquisition couldn’t make him tell anything he didn’t want to. Now I’ll tell you why I was shot at.”
“That Spanish Inquisition stuff goes for you too,” LeRoy grumbled.
“You have two anlaces in your collection now—”
“Two what?”
“Anlaces. They were a popular broad dagger about the reign of Edward IV.—1470 A. D. Only I don’t think they were weighted like the ones you have on hand. Have you tried to trace them?”
“We’ve sent a description and a picture to every circus, theatrical supply house, and cutlery company in the country. I hope two is all we’ll ever see.”
“If they’re part of a knife thrower’s act they come twelve to a set.”
“And you’re doing your best to collect a third one. What did you find on the roof?”
“A loose tile—with a screw hole under it, Vince, and marks on the top of the end porch screen which showed that hinges had been removed and the holes filled with green putty. Do you get it?”
“You’re sticking to the idea that the man crawling on the porch threw that knife into Fowler.”
“I’m positive that he could have, now. Let’s see what was necessary to pull off the job—”
LeRoy drew himself close to the desk and reached for pad and pencil. “I’ll list it for reference.”
“First—he had to know Fowler would be at the Club on Saturday night. The preparations to kill Fowler took time.”
“They might have worked equally well any night Fowler was there.”
“That’s true,” Stan agreed. “But question it. It may bring out other facts. Second—he had to get Fowler into the poker room, and be assured that he was going to stay there a reasonable length of time.”
“We don’t know how that was done.”
“No. Not without guessing. But we do know Caprilli’s poker party was called off so the room could be used. Third—the screen at the end of the porch, and the screen in the window at the end of the hall had to be opened long enough for the knife to be thrown. Here’s what I found: apparently the screen porch is screwed into place on the inside. That’s not true. The screws which originally held it in place are still in their holes—but they have been sawed off short, and don’t penetrate into the wood of the porch. Actually the screen is now fastened with two large screws on the outside.”
“God above,” LeRoy said fretfully, “you’re building up something, that would take hours of work. Do you know you’re implicating Munroe and his servant?”
“They’re already implicated. We have no proof that they knew anything about what was done to those screens. Juan doesn’t get to the club before ten in the morning. There is a long stretch of daylight between six in the morning and ten—”
“And what was done to the screens?”
“The one on the porch was counterweighted,” Stan announced solemnly. “It was hinged at the top on the outside so it would swing out. Then a strong fishline was attached to its bottom edge with a screw-eye, and run up over the roof through a pulley and down on the other side of the house. Weights were put on the other end of the line to balance the screen. When it was pushed out stayed there until it was pulled closed. The hinges, pulleys, and so forth were removed with a ladder from the outside between the time Fowler was killed and the time you arrived in the morning.”
The Captain looked thoughtfully at the pad containing his notes. “How did he get the screen open in the hall window? If he walked down the hall by the door of the poker room it would have been a cinch to throw his knife from there.”
“That puzzled me, too. But it’s simple, Vince. A line from the bottom of the hall screen was attached to the line running over the roof. When the porch screen was pushed open and the counterweight went down, it pulled the hall screen open with it. That’s why I don’t think Toby was mixed up in this mess.”
“I see. Toby is always in and out of the card room. This bird was taking no chance of meeting him in the hall.”
“No chance of meeting anybody in the hall. The man we want is fiendishly clever, Vince—and God what brass. On the porch—crawl past the window—push open the screens—throw the knife—pull the screen shut, the hall one drops back into place itself,—and back to his quiet bridge game. It’s driving me nuts to have it in the bag up to that point—and then prove conclusively that I’m wrong.”
“Wrong?”
