Dr. Worth was already busied with restoratives. “Certainly,” he said. “Miss Murrow and I will be outside, if you want to call us.”
“Cassidy,” Lieutenant Valcour said, “wait outside in the hall, and you, Hansen, go downstairs and telephone for an ambulance. Let me know as soon as it gets here.”
And in a moment Lieutenant Valcour found himself alone in the room with Endicott, with Hollander, and with those curious mists that hinted at unnamed dreads.
The restoratives were effective, and Hollander opened his eyes upon a stranger who was sitting on a chair beside the mahogany chest. He wondered idly who the stranger was. The drug which Dr. Worth had given him made him feel rather alert and smart. Any sense of pain was completely deadened. His eyes travelled leisurely about the room and hesitated at a sheet-covered object on the bed. That would be his friend called Endicott. His lids closed sharply as a reaction to some wound that was not physical.
Lieutenant Valcour stared thoughtfully down at Hollander’s pale face.
“What did you do with Endicott’s hat?” he said.
Hollander opened his eyes again in bewilderment. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “And who are you, anyhow?”
“I’m Lieutenant Valcour, Mr. Hollander. We’ve talked together over the telephone. The hat I’m referring to is the one that Endicott must have been wearing, or carrying in his hand, or that was some place near him when you attacked him shortly after seven this evening.”
“I didn’t attack him, Lieutenant.” Hollander’s lips were peaked-looking and didn’t move very much when he talked. “I wasn’t in this house until a little after one-thirty this morning—after you had called me up.”
“Which did you think Mrs. Endicott would really do, Mr. Hollander?”
Hollander tried painfully to concentrate. He felt the need of being very careful of his footing: they were on dangerous ground.
“Do?”
“Yes—when she told you during tea at the Ritz that she had about reached the end and was either going to kill Mr. Endicott or commit suicide. Or didn’t you really believe either?”
It seemed impossible that Hollander’s face could grow any paler.
“You’re crazy, Lieutenant.”
“All sorts of people tell me so lots of times, Mr. Hollander. Did you have to wear Endicott’s hat when you went out because you had lost your own?”
Hollander sighed fretfully. “You must think I’m awfully dumb,” he said.
“Oh, not at all—well, in a few things, yes. Your choice of friends, for example. And I don’t mean the Endicotts.”
“Whom do you mean, Lieutenant?”
“That dark-eyed child, for one—Mr. Smith. But perhaps you don’t know that his name is not Smith. I imagine that when you left him in the apartment he was still either Jack Perry or Larry Nevins. He shows great versatility, really, in his adoption of names. I was just a little surprised and disappointed at his present selection of Smith.”
“You’ve been to my apartment, Lieutenant?”
“Yes. I had quite an enlightening talk with the present Mr. Smith. Where did you leave Endicott’s hat?”
Hollander, after one peevish glare, shut his eyes.
“I can tell you pretty well what happened, you see, except for that,” Lieutenant Valcour went on. “You did believe Mrs. Endicott this afternoon when she told you her intention. That much is fact. And now for a little fiction: either at the Ritz, or just as you were handing her into her car, you stole her purse.”
Hollander’s eyes snapped open and glared viciously.
“Because,” Lieutenant Valcour continued, “you wanted her keys—the keys to this house. You were a little hazy as to just what it was you intended to do, but you did know that you were going to kill Endicott, and that you were going to do it before his wife either committed suicide or killed him herself. You went to your apartment and got the stiletto. Then you came back here, let yourself in with Mrs. Endicott’s keys, came up to this floor and into this room. You may have been in several of the other rooms first: I don’t know. Nor do I know just what you were searching for while you waited in here, either. Mrs. Endicott herself will tell me all about that later. At any rate, you were going through Endicott’s clothes in that cupboard when you heard him coming. You closed the cupboard door. You were naturally nervous and upset—everyone is when contemplating or committing a crime. You were afraid there would be some slip, so you disguised yourself with dust smeared on your face. Then, either because you made some noise or else because he wanted to get something Endicott opened the cupboard door and saw you. You must have had the stiletto all ready in your hand and have looked pretty horrible altogether, because the shock of seeing you stopped his heart and he crumpled to the floor.”
Hollander’s eyes began to look feverish.
“His falling like that startled you,” went on Lieutenant Valcour. “You felt his heart, and in pulling open his overcoat so that you could get your hand inside you ripped off the top button. What did you do with it?”
Hollander grinned faintly. “Swallowed it,” he said.
Lieutenant Valcour flushed a little. “You probably put it in your pocket. You were satisfied that Endicott was dead—miraculously dead—and that you hadn’t had to stab him. But he was dead, and you experienced the natural panic of all murderers. I don’t mean that you went wild, or anything. But your mind didn’t function correctly. You may have been quite calm, but it wasn’t a calmness based on intelligence. You dragged Endicott into the cupboard and closed the door. You washed the dirt from your hands and face in the bathroom, combed and brushed your hair, wiped the silver clean, and then printed that curious note which Mrs. Endicott found, and which contained no significance other than to direct suspicion to some outside agency in order to shield her from becoming a suspect herself. But why did you take Endicott’s hat, and where did you put it?”
“You’re talking bunk, Lieutenant.”
“On the contrary, Mr. Hollander, those were
