“Yeh?”
“Yeah.”
Lieutenant Valcour and young Cassidy were alone.
“Tell me, Cassidy, how are the servants taking all this, if you bumped into any of them?”
“Sure, I only saw the girl at the front door, Lieutenant. She’s a sorry piece, and was shivering worse than one of them new and indecent dances.”
“Did she say anything?”
“She did not, beyond telling us to follow her upstairs. She took us to that door across the hallway first, and some lady said you was in here.”
“How did that lady’s voice sound to you, Cassidy?”
“Smooth, sir.”
“Not nervous?”
“Devil a bit.”
“What are you looking for, Cassidy?”
“The corpse, sir.”
“It’s in that cupboard.”
“Is it now?” said Cassidy, casually removing himself as far from the cupboard door as he could. “It ain’t one of them Western hammer murders, is it?”
“I don’t know what kind of a homicide it is, Cassidy. There are no marks on him that I can see.”
“Will it be poison, then?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, let’s hope it’s one or the other. I hate them mystery cases where the deceased got his go-by from a Chinese blow gun, or some imported snake from Timbuktu, or parts adjacent.”
“When did you ever work on such a case, Cassidy?”
“Sure, Lieutenant, you can read about them every week in the magazines. There’s one that’s in its fourth part now where some louse of foreign extraction kills a dumb cluck of a Wall Street magnet with a package of paper matches, the tips of which was so fixed that they exploded when struck, instead of acting decent like, and shot dabs of poison into the skin of his fingers. Can you imagine it? Just say the word and I’ll bring it around to the station house and you can read it for yourself.”
“Thanks, Cassidy.”
“It’ll be no trouble at all, Lieutenant.”
An important knock on the door disclosed a stranger. Lieutenant Valcour addressed him, correctly, as Dr. Worth.
Dr. Sanforth Worth did not merely imagine that he cut a distinguished figure; he was sure of it. A certain grayness clung impressively about the temples of an intellectual brow, and he was probably one of the few physicians left in New York who had both the audacity and ability to wear a Vandyke. He was dressed in evening clothes and had not bothered to remove his overcoat or to give up his hat.
“Dr. Worth? I am Lieutenant Valcour, of the police. Mr. Endicott is in here.”
Dr. Worth bowed gravely, and with a sparklingly manicured hand stroked his Vandyke once. “I have been afraid of something like this for quite a while, Lieutenant,” he said. His voice, in company with everything else about him, sounded expensive.
Lieutenant Valcour raised his eyebrows. “It begins to seem, Doctor, as if everybody except Mr. Endicott himself anticipated his murder.”
“Murder?”
It was Dr. Worth’s eyebrows’ turn. They raised. They fell. They became, in conjunction with pursed lips, judicious. He removed his overcoat and placed it, with his hat, upon a chair.
“I believe you will find, Lieutenant, that it is just his heart. His—Dear God in heaven, man, what have you left him slumped down like this for?”
“You mustn’t touch him, Doctor, unless you think he isn’t dead.”
Dr. Worth stiffened perceptibly. “Fancy that,” he said. “Well, one would infer that he is dead, all right. Just the same, Lieutenant, is there any legal objection to opening his coat and shirt bosom? I dare say I could slit them, if you preferred. You see, it might be advisable to test for any trace of heart action with the stethoscope.”
“I had no intention of offending you, Doctor. Go right ahead and do anything you think is absolutely essential to establish life or death.”
Dr. Worth melted conservatively. “You see, sir, I know his heart. He had a nervous breakdown two years ago which left its action impaired.” He loosened Endicott’s overcoat and the black pearl studs set in a semisoft shirt bosom. He listened for a moment, and then removed the stethoscope. “No trace,” he said. “He’s dead. Shall I button up the shirt front and the coat again?”
“It isn’t necessary, Doctor.”
The hall door opened abruptly. The homicide chief and the medical examiner came in, followed by a squad of detectives. Lieutenant Valcour was well acquainted with both officials. He introduced them to Dr. Worth and placed at their disposal such information as he had gained while waiting for them to arrive.
The department’s experts automatically began to function at once. A photographer was already arranging his apparatus to make pictures of the body from as many angles as its position in the cupboard would permit. A fingerprint man went about his duties along the lines laid down by established routine. The medical examiner and Dr. Worth gravitated naturally together and plunged into a discussion of Endicott’s medical history.
The homicide chief, a well-built, alert-looking man of fifty, by the name of Andrews, drew Lieutenant Valcour a little to one side.
“What do you really make of it, Valcour?” he said.
“Oh, it’s undoubtedly murder, Chief, but I doubt whether there’ll even be an indictment unless we get a lucky break, establish a definite motive, and get a confession.”
“I feel that way about it, too. Any signs of an entry having been forced?”
“I haven’t looked. I’ve been in here all the time, and my men just came.”
“Well, Stevens and Larraby are making the rounds now. They’ll let us know. If the autopsy doesn’t show poison or some wound it’ll be a nuisance. If it’s a straight heart attack, as Dr. Worth claims, we might just as well drop it. Can you imagine getting up before a jury that’s been shown a picture by the defense of a big husky like Endicott and saying, ‘This man was scared to his death?’ Suppose a woman was the defendant. They’d laugh the case out of court.”
“Maybe it won’t be as bad as all that, Chief. While you’re busy in here I’ll wander around and try to scare up something. Would you mind sending for me when the medical examiner reaches some decision as to the manner of death?”
“Sure thing, Valcour. I’ll
