“Now,” resumed Markham, putting an added stress on his words, “I want to know who else called on Miss Odell between the time she went out to dinner and ten o’clock when you left the switchboard.”
Spively was puzzled by the question, and his thin arched eyebrows lifted and contracted.
“I—don’t understand,” he stammered. “How could anyone call on Miss Odell when she was out?”
“Someone evidently did,” said Markham. “And he got into her apartment, and was there when she returned at eleven.”
The youth’s eyes opened wide, and his lips fell apart.
“My God, sir!” he exclaimed. “So that’s how they murdered her!—laid in wait for her! …” He stopped abruptly, suddenly realizing his own proximity to the mysterious chain of events that had led up to the crime. “But nobody got into her apartment while I was on duty,” he blurted, with frightened emphasis. “Nobody! I never left the board from the time she went out until quitting time.”
“Couldn’t anyone have come in the side door?”
“What! Was it unlocked?” Spively’s tone was startled. “It never is unlocked at night. The janitor bolts it when he leaves at six.”
“And you didn’t unbolt it last night for any purpose? Think!”
“No, sir, I didn’t!” He shook his head earnestly.
“And you are positive that no one got into the apartment through the front door after Miss Odell left?”
“Positive! I tell you I didn’t leave the board the whole time, and nobody could’ve got by me without my knowing it. There was only one person that called and asked for her—”
“Oh! So someone did call!” snapped Markham. “When was it? And what happened?—Jog your memory before you answer.”
“It wasn’t anything important,” the youth assured him, genuinely frightened. “Just a fella who came in and rang her bell and went right out again.”
“Never mind whether it was important or not.” Markham’s tone was cold and peremptory. “What time did he call?”
“About half past nine.”
“And who was he?”
“A young fella I’ve seen come here several times to see Miss Odell. I don’t know his name.”
“Tell me exactly what took place,” pursued Markham.
Again Spively swallowed hard and wetted his lips.
“It was like this,” he began, with effort. “The fella came in and started walking down the hall, and I said to him: ‘Miss Odell isn’t in.’ But he kept on going, and said: ‘Oh, well, I’ll ring the bell anyway to make sure.’ A telephone call came through just then, and I let him go on. He rang the bell and knocked on the door, but of course there wasn’t any answer; and pretty soon he came on back and said: ‘I guess you were right.’ Then he tossed me half a dollar, and went out.”
“You actually saw him go out?” There was a note of disappointment in Markham’s voice.
“Sure, I saw him go out. He stopped just inside the front door and lit a cigarette. Then he opened the door and turned toward Broadway.”
“ ‘One by one the rosy petals fall,’ ” came Vance’s indolent voice. “A most amusin’ situation!”
Markham was loath to relinquish his hope in the criminal possibilities of this one caller who had come and gone at half past nine.
“What was this man like?” he asked. “Can you describe him?”
Spively sat up straight, and when he answered, it was with an enthusiasm that showed he had taken special note of the visitor.
“He was good-looking, not so old—maybe thirty. And he had on a full-dress suit and patent-leather pumps, and a pleated silk shirt—”
“What, what?” demanded Vance, in simulated unbelief, leaning over the back of the davenport. “A silk shirt with evening dress! Most extr’ordin’ry!”
“Oh, a lot of the best dressers are wearing them,” Spively explained, with condescending pride. “It’s all the fashion for dancing.”
“You don’t say—really!” Vance appeared dumbfounded. “I must look into this. … And, by the by, when this Beau Brummel of the silk shirt paused by the front door, did he take his cigarette from a long flat silver case carried in his lower waistcoat pocket?”
The youth looked at Vance in admiring astonishment.
“How did you know?” he exclaimed.
“Simple deduction,” Vance explained, resuming his recumbent posture. “Large metal cigarette-cases carried in the waistcoat pocket somehow go with silk shirts for evening wear.”
Markham, clearly annoyed at the interruption, cut in sharply with a demand for the operator to proceed with his description.
“He wore his hair smoothed down,” Spively continued, “and you could see it was kind of long; but it was cut in the latest style. And he had a small waxed moustache; and there was a big carnation in the lapel of his coat, and he had on chamois gloves. …”
“My word!” murmured Vance. “A gigolo!”
Markham, with the incubus of the night clubs riding him heavily, frowned and took a deep breath. Vance’s observation evidently had launched him on an unpleasant train of thought.
“Was this man short or tall?” he asked next.
“He wasn’t so tall—about my height,” Spively explained. “And he was sort of thin.”
There was an easily recognizable undercurrent of admiration in his tone, and I felt that this youthful telephone operator had seen in Miss Odell’s caller a certain physical and sartorial ideal. This palpable admiration, coupled with the somewhat outré clothes affected by the youth, permitted us to read between the lines of his remarks a fairly accurate description of the man who had unsuccessfully rung the dead girl’s bell at half past nine the night before.
When Spively had been dismissed, Markham rose and strode about the room, his head enveloped in a cloud of cigar smoke, while Heath sat stolidly watching him, his brows knit.
Vance stood up and stretched himself.
“The absorbin’ problem, it would seem, remains in statu quo,” he remarked airily. “How, oh how, did the fair Margaret’s executioner get in?”
“You know, Mr. Markham,” rumbled Heath sententiously, “I’ve been thinking that the fellow may have come here earlier in the afternoon—say, before that side
