THE THREE CLEWS
IT was the next afternoon when Professor Roger Biscayne entered the office of Police Commissioner Weston. Accompanying the spectacled psychologist was a droopy-faced man of about fifty years of age.
The man was bald-headed, save for a fringe of gray above his ears; and he was dressed in a light-brown suit, cut in a youthful style that ill became his elderly appearance.
“Well, well!” exclaimed the commissioner cordially. “You’ve brought Mr. Wilhelm with you as you promised, eh?”
“Yes,” said Biscayne. “My cousin was anxious to join us here. He has been quite concerned over the death of Silas Harshaw.”
“Terrible tragedy, commissioner,” Wilhelm was saying, as he shook hands. “Terrible, sir, terrible. Think of the man — murdered!
“Of course, Roger has told you that I was financing his work. A genius, that man — but a bit eccentric. Too bad he’s gone. Too bad! Couldn’t find anything about his invention, could you, Roger?”
It was evident that Arthur Wilhelm mourned the loss of the remote-control machine as well as the death of Silas Harshaw.
The few thousands that the millionaire soap manufacturer had invested was a paltry sum to him, but he had counted upon them producing many times their value.
“No news, Arthur,” declared Biscayne. “But when Detective Cardona arrives, we may hear something. You say he has obtained results, commissioner?”
“So he has stated,” replied Weston. “He has been investigating all day, and will be here, soon.”
“A detective, eh?” queried Wilhelm, resting back in his chair. “There isn’t a one can come up to Roger here, commissioner.
“That’s what he should have gone into — detective work — instead of wasting his time with a lot of highbrows. How about it, Roger?”
“Maybe you’re right, Arthur,” said Biscayne, with a smile. “I’ve been doing a bit of detective work lately, though, and I can’t say I’ve accomplished much.”
“You need more practice, Roger,” bantered Wilhelm. “Any time you want to start an agency, I’ll give you a few thousand for a beginning.”
“I understand you were out of town, Mr. Wilhelm,” said the commissioner.
“Yes,” replied the bald-headed man. “Took a trip to California. Had to get back by this morning, for a directors’ meeting.
“Well, New York is the place! Especially with Cousin Roger around. We’ve been good pals, he and I. Closest in the world even though he has gone highbrow!” He laughed.
A secretary entered to announce Doctor Fredericks. The stout physician entered and shook hands with Weston and Biscayne. He was introduced to Wilhelm.
“Something new in reference to Silas Harshaw?” was his question.
“We think so,” declared Weston. “Detective Cardona reports results. He wants to get back to the start — to go over all the original details. He requested me to send for you.”
“Good!” said the physician. “I hope that I can be of assistance.”
Cardona was announced, and a minute later the detective joined the group. His face showed eagerness as he sat down opposite the commissioner.
He looked quizzically at Arthur Wilhelm, and expressed pleasure when he learned the man’s identity.
“Fine!” he exclaimed. “We’ll have to get back to the Harshaw murder. Any one who knew the old man will be valuable.
“I’ve been checking up on the others to-day, and I’ve got a thread toward each of them. Don’t expect too much, commissioner — we’re just at the beginning.
“But I think that with Professor Biscayne on the job, we’re going to gain results.
Cardona picked up a brief case that he had brought with him. He removed a sheaf of notes and referred to different pages.
“I shall go back,” he said. Without realizing it, Cardona was echoing The Shadow. “Throckmorton kept a diary. Not one — a lot of them.
“I found some of the books this morning. Right in the first one I picked up, I found a clew.”
“Where did you find the diary?” queried Biscayne.
“In the closet of the room where he was when the gas got him,” said Cardona. “Here’s the book” — he produced it from the brief case — “and here’s the dope. Throckmorton knew Harshaw!”
“What!” Biscayne was peering at the written page. “Look at this, commissioner!
“Throckmorton visited Harshaw two years ago — refused to give money to the old man. You remember, I said that Harshaw talked vaguely about enemies?
“Maybe Throckmorton was one of them. Maybe he knew too much about the old man’s ideas.
“Cardona, have you found any connection between Harshaw and the others?”
“No,” said the detective.
“Well,” declared Biscayne, “they didn’t keep diaries! I remember, now, something that young Richard Sutton said.
“His father was bothered by speculators continually — by people with unsound ideas.
“There’s a link, there. Positively! Between Harshaw and Thomas Sutton!”
“YOU’RE right,” replied Cardona solemnly. “Dead right, professor. We didn’t find it out, because the son didn’t know.
“I’m putting that point down” — he made a notation — “and you’ll see that it fits in later. Because I’ve got another line on Sutton.”
“What’s that?”
“His check book — the stubs — here. I went over it with his son to-day. We placed every check except one. Just a small amount — ten dollars. Look here!”
“Med,” read Biscayne, in a puzzled tone. “What does it mean?”
“I don’t know,” said Cardona, “but I do know this. Here are all of Thomas Sutton’s canceled checks, which we found in another drawer. That one check wasn’t cashed!”
“That’s significant,” nodded Biscayne. “Small though it is, it shows a transaction that was not completed. I’d like to see that canceled check — to know whose name is on it.”
“So would I,” agreed Cardona.
“M-e-d,” said Biscayne, looking at the stub. “An abbreviation — not initials. It might mean ‘medium’ — ‘medal’ — ‘medicine’ — that’s probably it. Medicine.
“That doesn’t help us much, Cardona. Probably Sutton ordered some medicine from a druggist, and gave him the check.”
“Then why hasn’t the check ever been cashed?” demanded the detective. “That’s what makes it important!”
“Perhaps the druggist can answer,” said Biscayne dryly. “Maybe the check was mislaid. Sutton may have forgotten to give it out.
“Many things can happen to a check. If you think it’s a live clew, Cardona, inquiry is the only method.
“What about Sutton’s druggist — or his physician?”
“I asked his son about the physician,” declared Cardona. “He said the old man was often fussy about his health. Tried first one doctor; then another. Never satisfied.
“It was his practice to pay cash for everything; he issued checks only when he was short of ready change.
“Perhaps you have treated Mr. Sutton, doctor,” said Biscayne, turning to Fredericks, with a smile.
“I don’t recall him as a patient,” said Fredericks seriously. “From what Detective Cardona has said, I don’t regret the fact. Changeable patients are always a bane to a physician.”
Cardona laid the check book aside. He began to feel that he had made a wide mistake; that he was placing himself open for ridicule. Yet he was still convinced that the clew was there.
The diary had been dog-eared at the proper page. So had the stub, with the notation, “Med.” Both clews had come from The Shadow. Cardona felt that one must be as significant as the other.
He noted that the expression of interest was fading from Commissioner Weston’s eyes. Anxious to regain confidence, the detective turned to his next statement.
“About Louis Glenn,” he said, “I have found a clew there. I have had the evidence all along; but both you and I passed it up, professor. Look at these cigarette boxes.”
Cardona placed the two pasteboard boxes on the desk. Biscayne picked them up and noticed the attached labels: one with the word, “Tuxedo”; the other marked, “Business Suit.”
“What do you make of these?” Biscayne asked.
“To-day,” Cardona resumed, “I talked to Glenn’s valet. I found out that Louis Glenn was very careless about leaving things in his pockets.
“He never removed an article from a suit when he took it off. He paid no attention to his clothes. Placing them on a hanger, seeing that they were kept in press — that was the valet’s job.
“I talked with two men who were with Glenn, at the Merrimac Club, before the dinner.
“They state that he came in with them, changed suits in his room and went directly to dinner. One remembers that he reached in his pocket for a cigarette, on the way downstairs.
“That means that this box of cigarettes — the one that is marked, ‘Tuxedo’ — was in Glenn’s pocket when he put on the suit.
“Glenn was poisoned, by a poison that worked powerfully and swiftly, once it started to act.
“Suppose that the box of cigarettes was planted there. One cigarette, only, dipped in poison, and that cigarette replaced somewhere on the bottom row.
“Glenn, I understand, smoked not more than ten cigarettes in the course of an evening. The taxi driver seems to remember Glenn lighting a cigarette in the cab.
“Maybe he lit more than one. At any rate, he picked the poisoned one. He smoked it, tossed the butt from the window; and then the stuff acted.
“He was dead before he reached his apartment.”
BISCAYNE was on his feet.
“Jove!” he exclaimed. “I think you’ve struck it, Cardona! That’s piecing it together. We looked for poison in those cigarettes, and there wasn’t any!
“A cigarette butt — lying on a New York street! Who could discover that? Excellent, Cardona, excellent!”
Then the professor became less enthusiastic. “It will be an impossible job to trace it, Cardona!”
“Professor,” said the detective, “we’re up against some crook who has a big brain.
“I’ve picked up three clews that I think are good. You’ve put the O.K. on two of them. But they are just straws — that’s all.
“Now, I’ll tell you where we’re going to get the real evidence.”
“Where?”
“Back at first base. In Silas Harshaw’s apartment. That’s where the answer is. We’ll find it” — Cardona was paraphrasing The Shadow — “we’ll find it if we search.
“Look for the trail at the inventor’s apartment. That’s why I wanted this talk to-day. We’ve got to go through Harshaw’s with a fine-tooth comb.”
“I think so,” said Biscayne. “I begin to see your logic.
“Harshaw’s servant has disappeared. A cracksman was killed in the place. Burglary seemed to be the motive. But — are we entirely sure?”
“We are not!” replied Cardona emphatically. “Maybe Homer Briggs was in the racket. Maybe some evidence was left there.
“A man got away out of the place, but he didn’t have much of a chance to take anything with him. I’m going through every nook in the joint; and I want you to be with me.”
“Excellent,” said Biscayne. “By the way, Cardona, what has developed in the search for Briggs?”
“There was a big gang fight two nights ago,” said Cardona. “A bunch of gorillas mixed; some were killed.
“There’s one bird in the morgue I saw to-day. Looks something like Homer Briggs, according to the description of bellhops from the Redan Hotel.
“They’re pretty sure about it, but that makes it all the worse. If Briggs is dead, he can’t talk.
“As for this St. Louis bird — Max Parker, the yegg — he was a stranger in New York, and we can’t seem to get a thing on him.”
“Coming back to Harshaw,” said Biscayne, “when do you propose to begin this search?”
“Tonight,” replied Cardona promptly. “I want to go there with the idea of finding something. Take the study first.
“If we don’t get results there, we’ll go through the rest of the place. You’ve got to be with me, professor. You helped the first time.
“I’d like you to be with us, too, Doctor Fredericks. We’re liable to uncover something that will give us a line on the old man. You knew him as well as anybody.”
“Probably,” said Fredericks. “I knew he was a very sick man. I had to tell him so, to make him realize how careful he must be. I shall be glad to be present.”
“Certainly,” added Biscayne enthusiastically. “Be with us by all means, doctor!
“You have aroused me, Cardona. I realize that we have been neglecting the real opportunity.”
“What time do you propose to begin?” asked Commissioner Weston, speaking to Cardona.
“Before ten o’clock,” said the detective. “We’ll all be there if another death note is dropped in the mail chute. Remember — it’s tonight!”
“I REMEMBER what you said yesterday,” remarked Commissioner Weston glumly. “You stated that you would frustrate another death, if one was scheduled to occur.”
“Things will be different tonight,” declared Cardona, with a confident air. “Death will not take place!”
“I hope not,” said the commissioner.
“Ten o’clock, then?” questioned Biscayne.
“Make it before that,” said Cardona. “I’ll be at the hotel at eight. I’m anxious to get started.
“I’ll wait a while for you, but there’s no time to be lost.”
“Professor Biscayne and I shall be there immediately after dinner,” declared the commissioner.
Biscayne turned to his cousin, Wilhelm.
“Sorry you won’t be with us, Arthur,” he said. “You might be interested in seeing Harshaw’s place.
“You financed it a bit, you know, although the old man always wanted more money.”
“I have to be at home,” said Wilhelm. “But give me a ring if you uncover anything. This sounds interesting to me.”
“Tonight, then,” announced Cardona, rising. “We’re going back to first base. Right where the trouble started.
“I’ve got a hunch that we’ll hit something big. One real break — and we’ll win!”
“The old man knew a lot,” said Biscayne thoughtfully. “He had his secrets, and he retained them. I’m thinking now — recalling his queer talk of enemies.
“I agree with you, Cardona, that a good find will clear every cloud that has formed.
“Harshaw’s enemies — and Harshaw’s plans,” continued Biscayne, in a low voice. “In his head. I can hear the old man talking now. Did he ever speak that way to you, Fredericks?”
“Not often,” replied the physician. “Our discussions usually concerned his physical condition.
“But I believe that the proper suggestion might arouse some recollection in my mind. I shall be there this evening, professor.”
“Yes,” said Biscayne, “tonight is most important. We shall do our utmost to end this chain of murders.”