“I wish I knew what you’re talking about,” Flannery said.
“An arrest—in a few hours—if you will stoop so far as to do what I require,” Chan told him. “In Scotland Yard, which Inspector Duff honors by his association, there is in every case of murder what they call essential clue. There was essential clue in this case.”
“The slippers?” asked Flannery.
“No,” Charlie replied. “The slippers were valuable, but not essential. The essential clue was placed on scene by hand now dead. Hand of a man clever far beyond his fellows—how sad that such a man has passed. When Sir Frederic saw death looking him boldly in the face, he reached to a bookcase and took down—what? The essential clue, which fell from his dying hand to lie at his side on the dusty floor. The yearbook of the Cosmopolitan Club.”
A moment of silence followed. There was a ring of conviction in the detective’s voice.
“Well—what do you want?” inquired Flannery.
“I want that you must come to the Cosmopolitan Club in one-half hour. Inspector Duff will of course accompany. You must then display unaccustomed patience and wait like man of stone. Exactly how long I can not predict now. But in due time I will point out to you the killer of Sir Frederic—and I will produce proof of what I say.”
Flannery rose. “Well, it’s your last chance. You make a monkey of me again and I’ll deport you as an undesirable alien. At the Cosmopolitan Club in half an hour. We’ll be there.”
“Undesirable alien will greet you at the door,” smiled Charlie, “hoping to become desirable at any moment. Mr. Kirk—will you be so good as to join my company?” He and Barry Kirk went out.
“Well, Charlie, you’re certainly in bad with the Captain,” said Kirk, as they stood in the street waiting for a taxi.
Chan nodded. “Will be in even worse presently,” he replied.
Kirk stared at him. “How’s that?”
“I shall point him the way to success. He will claim all credit, but sight of me will make him uncomfortable. No man loves the person who has guided his faltering footsteps to high-up rung of the ladder.”
They entered a taxi. “The Cosmopolitan Club,” Chan ordered. He turned to Kirk. “And now I must bow low in dust with many humble apologies to you. I have grieviously betrayed a trust.”
“How so?” asked Kirk, surprised.
Chan took a letter from his pocket. It was somewhat worn and the handwriting on the envelope was a trifle blurred. “The other morning you wrote letters in office, giving same to me to mail. I made gesture toward mail chute, but I extracted this missive.”
“Great Scott!” cried Kirk. “Hasn’t that been mailed?”
“It has not. What could be more disgusting? My gracious host, at whose hands I have received every kindness. I have besmirched his confidence.”
“But you had a reason?” suggested Kirk.
“A very good reason, which time will uncurtain. Am I stepping over the bounds when I seek to dig up your forgiveness?”
“Not at all,” Kirk smiled.
“You are most affable man it has yet been my fate to encounter.” The taxi had reached Union Square. Chan called to the driver to halt. “I alight here to correct my crime,” he explained. “The long-delayed letter now goes to its destination by special, fleet-footed messenger.”
“I say—you don’t mean—” Kirk cried in amazement.
“What I mean comes gradually into the light,” Chan told him. He got out of the taxi. “Be so kind as to await my coming at the club door. The guardian angel beyond the threshold is jealous as to who has honor of entering Cosmopolitan Club. It has been just as well for my purpose, but please make sure that I am not left rejected outside the portal.”
“I’ll watch for you,” Kirk promised.
He rode on to the club, his head whirling with new speculations and questions. No—no—this couldn’t be. But Charlie had an air—
Shortly after he had reached the building Charlie appeared, and Kirk steered him past the gold-laced door man. Presently Flannery and Duff arrived. The Captain’s manner suggested that he was acting against his better judgment.
“I suppose this is another wild-goose chase,” he fretted.
“One during which the goose is apprehended, I think,” Chan assured him. “But there will be need of Oriental calm. Have you good supply? We may loiter here until midnight hour.”
“That’s pleasant,” Flannery replied. “Well, I’ll wait a while. But this is your last chance—remember.”
“Also your great chance,” Chan shrugged. “You must likewise remember. We do wrong to hang here in spotlight of publicity. Mr. Kirk, I have made selection of nook where we may crouch unobserved, but always observing. I refer to little room behind office, opening at the side on checkroom.”
“All right—I know where you mean,” Kirk told him. He spoke to the manager, and the four of them were ushered into a little back room, unused at the moment and in semidarkness. Chairs were brought, and all save Charlie sat down. The little detective bustled about. He arranged that his three companions should have an unobstructed view of the checkroom, where his friend of the morning, old Peter Lee, sat behind his barrier engrossed in a bright pink newspaper.
“Only one moment,” said Chan. He went out through the door which led behind the counter of the checkroom. For a brief time he talked in low tones with Lee. Then the three men sitting in the dusk saw him give a quick look toward the club lobby, and dodge abruptly into his hiding-place beside them.
Colonel John Beetham, debonair as usual, appeared at the counter and checked his hat and coat. Kirk, Flannery and Duff leaned forward eagerly and watched him as he accepted the brass check and turned away. But Chan made no move.
Time passed. Other members came into the club for dinner and checked their belongings, unconscious of the prying eyes in the little room. Flannery began to stir restlessly on his uncomfortable chair.
“What the devil is all this?” he demanded.
“Patience,”
