A STRANGE DEATH
EARLY evening found Detective Joe Cardona in Silas Harshaw’s apartment at the Redan Hotel. There, the detective anxiously awaited the arrival of Commissioner Ralph Weston.
The death of the old inventor was the very type of mystery that the commissioner had been awaiting.
Harshaw’s suite occupied one entire side of the building. It was on the top floor of the old hotel.
Cardona stood at the entrance of the apartment, beside the door which had been smashed from its hinges.
Within the apartment was Detective Sergeant Mayhew, who was taking orders from Cardona.
A clinking sound announced the ascending of the elevator. The slow-moving car was on its way to the tenth floor. When it arrived, two men stepped out.
One was Commissioner Weston. The other was a tall, stoop-shouldered man, whose shrewd eyes peered through gold-rimmed spectacles. The man’s high forehead and overhanging brow indicated him a scholar.
Cardona divined that this was Professor Roger Biscayne. The introduction proved him to be correct.
Cardona was about to lead the way into the apartment when the commissioner stopped him.
“Let us go over this, step by step,” he suggested. “So far, neither Professor Biscayne nor myself know what has happened here.
“We have been discussing Silas Harshaw on the way to this place, and I find that Professor Biscayne knew the old man. Therefore, he may be able to give us some unexpected assistance.”
“Very well,” said Cardona. “This afternoon, Doctor George Fredericks, Harshaw’s physician, called at the hotel and asked if the old man was in his apartment.
“Harshaw had no telephone in the place. He wanted to be alone and undisturbed. A boy came up and tapped at the door. There was no response.
“Doctor Fredericks expressed anxiety. He stated that he feared something had happened to the old man.
“A policeman was summoned. It was necessary to smash the door off its hinges, as it was double-bolted on the inside. There is the wreckage.”
Cardona led the way into a plainly furnished living room and indicated another door at the rear of the room. Like the first, this door was broken also.
“No one was in here,” declared Cardona, “nor was any one in the room that Harshaw used as a laboratory” — he pointed to the other side of the living room — “so they broke into the old man’s study. There, they found his body.”
The three men walked into the study. The doorway formed an entrance at one corner. The study was a long room, with a single window at the far end.
The window was open; but it was covered with an iron grating. It had a projecting sill, beneath which was a radiator. In front of the window lay the body of Silas Harshaw, sprawled face upward.
As the men approached, they saw a bloody wound in the old man’s chest.
A SINGLE bullet had ended the life of Silas Harshaw. Here, in this locked and secluded room, he had been shot to death. Cardona pointed to a door at the side of the room.
“That’s the bedroom,” he said. “It only has one door, opening off this room. It has two windows, both with gratings. Nothing in there. That’s the layout, commissioner.
“Old Harshaw very seldom let visitors in here. He usually met them in the outer room.”
Commissioner Weston turned to Professor Biscayne.
“Tell Cardona what you know about the place,” he said.
“I am familiar with this room,” declared Biscayne. “I visited Silas Harshaw here, perhaps a half dozen times, in the course of the last six months.
“I suppose that you have learned a great deal about him already; let me give you the information which I possess. Then you can check with what you have discovered.
“Silas Harshaw was working on an invention — a remote-control machine. He was very secretive about his plans, and he had very little success in interesting people in them.
“He wrote to me and asked me to visit him, which I did, about six months ago. The old man took me to his laboratory and brought me in here. He showed me just enough of his work to arouse my interest.
“Then it developed that he wanted me to influence my cousin, Arthur Wilhelm, to invest money in the experiments.”
“Arthur Wilhelm, the soap manufacturer?” inquired Cardona.
“Yes,” replied Biscayne. “Arthur is very wealthy. He agreed to let Silas Harshaw have three thousand dollars as a preliminary fund. Harshaw went to work, and I came here occasionally to see how he was progressing. My last visit was two days ago.
“I came here late in the afternoon. Harshaw’s servant, a man named Homer, let me in. Harshaw met me and brought me into this room.
“He said that he was going out for an hour, and asked me to remain here. He gave me a manuscript that he had written on remote control. I read it during his absence. It was crudely scrawled, in longhand, and was very vague in its details.
“After Harshaw returned, he asked me if I could obtain more money from Arthur Wilhelm. I said that I would find out; but I offered no assurance.
“I left at seven o’clock, and Homer went with me. The servant told me that he had been discharged, and that he was not coming back. He did not know why Harshaw had dismissed him. I could have told him, but I refrained from doing so.”
“Why was that?” asked Cardona.
“First,” explained Biscayne, “I think Harshaw must have mistrusted the man. I don’t think he ever left Homer here alone. He insisted that I bolt the door while I was inside here, two days ago.
“Second, Harshaw was planning to take a trip to Florida, for his health. He told me that in confidence. Naturally, he would not need the servant while he was gone. He did not want people to know of his absence.”
“Do you think,” questioned Cardona, “that Harshaw was afraid some one might try to get in here and steal his plans?”
“Yes,” replied Biscayne, “I do. He told me once that he had a model of his remote-control machine, and that he had put it where no one could possibly find it. He also spoke vaguely of enemies.
“He said — I can recall his exact words — that he kept their names in his head, and that was where he kept his plans, also. He said that they would like to steal his model, but that he had planned to prevent them.
“He mentioned those enemies two nights ago, and his remarks might have been construed as threats against those unknown persons. But he was so vague and eccentric in all his statements that it was difficult to get his exact meaning.”
“Do you really think that he had enemies?” Cardona asked.
Biscayne replied with a broad smile:
“Perhaps they were actual only in his own head — as he himself said. Harshaw was an interesting but complex study in psychology, and my contact with him was too occasional to enable me to fathom him.”
CARDONA drew a report sheet from his pocket and referred to notations which he had made.
“We have covered just about everything that you have told me, professor,” said the detective. “We have tried to trace Harshaw’s servant. The man’s name is Homer Briggs. We have been unable to locate him.
“We learned at the desk that you and Homer left here two nights ago. About an hour afterward, Harshaw came downstairs and made a telephone call. He went back to his apartment.
“He was not seen after that. The police surgeon who examined the body believes that Harshaw was shot some time before midnight — the same night.”
“Within the last forty-eight hours,” observed Weston.
“Yes,” said Cardona. “I am expecting Doctor Fredericks, now. He is coming in from Long Island. Perhaps he can give us more information.”
The police commissioner was walking about the study, examining the place with curiosity. Cardona began to point out certain objects, and Biscayne intervened to explain a few points of Silas Harshaw’s eccentricities.
“The old man was a great student of chess,” he said, indicating a small table with an inlaid board and expensive chessmen.
“I don’t think he played a great deal, but I know that he spent much time over problems. That is a sign of a mind that is both self-centered and unusual — perhaps an eccentric one.
“He was an expert mechanic, and he was constantly forgetting his important work to toy with other devices. You will find an odd assortment of peculiar contrivances in the room he used for both workshop and laboratory.
“He devoted a great deal of time to chemical experiments. One other oddity was a passing interest he had in crude modeling and sculpture. Here is an indication of it.”
Biscayne pointed to a table in the front corner of the room. Along with other crudely fashioned subjects was a bust of somewhat less than life-size.
It bore a striking resemblance to the dead man by the window. It was evidently an attempt at a likeness of Silas Harshaw, made by the old man himself. All the modelings were formed of hard clay, as Weston discovered by inspection.
The commissioner turned around to speak to Biscayne, and noted that the professor and Cardona had gone to look at the dead man.
Before Weston could join them, Detective Mayhew entered, accompanied by a stout, middle-aged man.
The newcomer was Doctor George Fredericks. He had already seen Harshaw’s body that afternoon, but had been forced to leave when the police surgeon arrived.
Fredericks had been at a Long Island hospital until an hour ago. He had hurried back to the city.
“Tell us what you knew about Silas Harshaw, doctor,” said Cardona.
“He was a sick man,” said Fredericks solemnly. “His heart was bad; his blood pressure was high. He was in poor condition, generally. I advised him to take a trip South; to stay away from his laboratory and forget his experiments for a while.
“He called me up, two nights ago, to say that he was leaving the next day. I told him to call at my office for a prescription.”
“That explains the eight-o’clock phone call,” interposed Cardona.
“Yes,” said the physician, “I had told him to call me at eight. I was not at my office, yesterday. It was not until this afternoon that I learned Harshaw had not come for his prescription.
“Immediately, I feared that something had happened to him. He would not have gone without first coming to my office. That is why I came here and insisted that a search be made of this place.
“I expected to find him sick and helpless. Instead, we found him dead — murdered!”
Biscayne was examining the body. Now, apparently oblivious to those about him, he walked across the room to the door. He looked at Harshaw’s desk, midway between the door and the window.
While the others were watching him, he came back slowly and spoke to Weston.
“It looks to me, commissioner,” said Biscayne, “as though some one had been waiting outside that door. When Harshaw opened it, the assassin shot him. Then the murderer dragged his body over here and opened the window, to make it look as though he was killed there.”
“How did the killer escape?” queried Weston.
“That remains to be discovered,” declared Biscayne.
JOE CARDONA smiled. He went to the body and made an examination of his own. He stared closely at the dead man’s right hand. He looked at the radiator beneath the window ledge.
He clambered on the sill, and his flashlight gleamed about the bottom of the iron grating. He dropped back into the room.
“I disagree with you, professor,” he said pleasantly. “Silas Harshaw was killed right at this spot!
“If you care to look at the window ledge, you will see the evidence. There are two marks there that must have been made by sharp hooks.
“Then, perhaps, it would be wise to note the finger nails of the dead man’s right hand. You will find a silver glint upon two of them.
“I shall tell you how I believe Silas Harshaw was killed. Some one tried to enter this room by hooking a ladder from the window of the room below. Silas Harshaw heard the noise.
“He opened the window to listen. He crouched behind the sill, then drew himself upward by gripping the radiator. The other man was at the window. He shot Harshaw through the grating, then made his get-away.”
Commissioner Weston nodded as he turned to Biscayne. Professor Biscayne also nodded. In spite of himself, the professor was forced to admit that Cardona’s theory was too plausible to reject. The detective smiled.
His theory was supported by facts — facts which Roger Biscayne had not observed. Biscayne had known something of Harshaw; Cardona had known nothing. Yet the detective had scored in the first test.
“Let’s go down and take a look at the room below,” suggested Cardona, eager to press his advantage.
They went along, leaving Detective Sergeant Mayhew in charge. They found the door of the room unlocked. It proved to be an ordinary hotel room, unoccupied.
Cardona raised the window and peered upward. While he was thus engaged, some one knocked at the door. A bell boy entered in response to Cardona’s order.
“Detective Cardona?” he queried. “There’s a phone call for you at the desk. I was upstairs looking for you. The man up there told me you were here.”
Cardona picked up a telephone from a table in the corner of the room, and asked for the call.
It was from headquarters.
“Yes… yes…” the others heard him exclaim. “Right away, inspector. Right away… We can come back here later.”
He hung up the receiver and turned to the group.
“A man named Louis Glenn,” he said. “Stockbroker. Died coming home in a taxicab. Only six blocks from here. I’m going over there to see what happened!”
“We’ll go along,” responded Weston. “Come, Biscayne. You, also, Doctor Fredericks. You might be needed.”
There was something in Cardona’s tone that had prompted Weston to this quick decision. The commissioner was beside the detective as they passed through the lobby. He spoke to Cardona in a low voice.
“Do you think there’s a connection?” he asked. “Two deaths — Harshaw and Glenn—”
“Remember the note,” replied Cardona cryptically. “Harshaw was the first. Glenn may have been the second!”