“ ‘Dude’ Skeel, eh?” The Sergeant’s tone was vibrant with suppressed excitement. “Say, Mr. Markham, that gets us somewhere. Skeel’s an ex-convict and an artist in his line.”
He opened the folder and took out an oblong card and a sheet of blue paper containing eight or ten lines of typewriting. He studied the card, gave a satisfied grunt, and handed it to Markham. Vance and I stepped up and looked at it. At the top was the familiar rogues’-gallery photograph showing the full face and profile of a regular-featured youth with thick hair and a square chin. His eyes were wide-set and pale, and he wore a small, evenly trimmed moustache with waxed, needlepoint ends. Below the double photograph was a brief tabulated description of its sitter, giving his name, aliases, residence, and Bertillon measurements, and designating the character of his illegal profession. Underneath were ten little squares arranged in two rows, each containing a fingerprint impression made in black ink—the upper row being the impressions of the right hand, the lower row those of the left.
“So that’s the arbiter elegantiarum who introduced the silk shirt for full-dress wear! My word!” Vance regarded the identification card satirically. “I wish he’d start a craze for gaiters with dinner-jackets—these New York theatres are frightfully drafty in winter.”
Heath put the card back in the folder, and glanced over the typewritten paper that had accompanied it.
“He’s our man, and no mistake, Mr. Markham. Listen to this: ‘Tony (Dude) Skeel. Two years Elmira Reformatory, 1902 to 1904. One year in the Baltimore County jail for petit larceny, 1906. Three years in San Quentin for assault and robbery, 1908 to 1911. Arrested Chicago for housebreaking, 1912; case dismissed. Arrested and tried for burglary in Albany, 1913; no conviction. Served two years and eight months in Sing Sing for housebreaking and burglary, 1914 to 1916.’ ” He folded the paper and put it, with the card, into his breast-pocket. “Sweet little record.”
“That dope what you wanted?” asked the imperturbable Bellamy.
“I’ll say!” Heath was almost jovial.
Bellamy lingered expectantly with one eye on the District Attorney; and Markham, as if suddenly remembering something, took out a box of cigars and held it out.
“Much obliged, sir,” said Bellamy, helping himself to two Mi Favoritas; and putting them into his waistcoat pocket with great care, he went out.
“I’ll use your phone now, if you don’t mind, Mr. Markham,” said Heath.
He called the Homicide Bureau.
“Look up Tony Skeel—Dude Skeel—pronto, and bring him in as soon as you find him,” were his orders to Snitkin. “Get his address from the files, and take Burke and Emery with you. If he’s hopped it, send out a general alarm and have him picked up—some of the boys’ll have a line on him. Lock him up without booking him, see? … And, listen. Search his room for burglar tools: he probably won’t have any laying around, but I specially want a one-and-three-eighths-inch chisel with a nick in the blade. … I’ll be at Headquarters in half an hour.”
He hung up the receiver and rubbed his hands together.
“Now we’re sailing,” he rejoiced.
Vance had gone to the window, and stood staring down on the “Bridge of Sighs,” his hands thrust deep into his pockets. Slowly he turned, and fixed Heath with a contemplative eye.
“It simply won’t do, don’t y’ know,” he asserted. “Your friend, the Dude, may have ripped open that bally box, but his head isn’t the right shape for the rest of last evening’s performance.”
Heath was contemptuous.
“Not being a phrenologist, I’m going by the shape of his fingerprints.”
“A woeful error in the technic of criminal approach, sergente mio,” replied Vance dulcetly. “The question of culpability in this case isn’t so simple as you imagine. It’s deuced complicated. And this glass of fashion and mould of form whose portrait you’re carryin’ next to your heart has merely added to its intricacy.”
X
A Forced Interview
(Tuesday, September 11; 8 p.m.)
Markham dined at the Stuyvesant Club, as was his custom, and at his invitation Vance and I remained with him. He no doubt figured that our presence at the dinner-table would act as a bulwark against the intrusion of casual acquaintances; for he was in no mood for the pleasantries of the curious. Rain had begun to fall late in the afternoon, and when dinner was over it had turned into a steady downpour which threatened to last well into the night. Dinner over, the three of us sought a secluded corner of the lounge-room, and settled ourselves for a protracted smoke.
We had been there less than a quarter of an hour when a slightly rotund man, with a heavy, florid face and thin gray hair, strolled up to us with a stealthy, self-assured gait, and wished Markham a jovial good evening. Though I had not met the newcomer I knew him to be Charles Cleaver.
“Got your note at the desk saying you wanted to see me.” He spoke with a voice curiously gentle for a man of his size; but, for all its gentleness, there was in it a timbre of calculation and coldness.
Markham rose and, after shaking hands, introduced him to Vance and me—though, it seemed, Vance had known him slightly for some time. He took the chair Markham indicated, and, producing a Corona Corona, he carefully cut the end with a gold clipper attached to his heavy watch-chain, rolled the cigar between his lips to dampen it, and lighted it in closely cupped hands.
“I’m sorry to trouble you, Mr. Cleaver,” began Markham, “but, as you probably have read, a young woman by the name of Margaret Odell was murdered last night in her apartment in 71st Street. …”
He paused. He seemed to be considering just how he could best broach a subject so obviously delicate; and perhaps he hoped that Cleaver
