The box from japan, p.46
The Box from Japan, page 46
“What about those two assailants?” asked Halsey curiously.
“Am I telling you—or are you telling me?” asked Baxter dryly.
“You’re telling me, I guess. Well, let’s move on to the Dactyloscopic Department. And the pestle handle.”
“Let’s. Well, negative, as to finger prints, the whole place—everything except the pestle handle. They made an unroll and—”
“What the devil is an unroll, Artemus?”
“Well, in addition to photographing every individual finger print on it, they photograph it also in longitudinal sections all the way around—put them together—”
“I get you. Like a Mercator’s projection?”
“Yes. Well, the unroll shows that two hands held that pestle within the last few hours today. Since the noon hour, more or less, to be exact, thanks to the examining copper’s notes on file in the Chronological Division which state that Proctor was seen by no less a person than your honorable self to scrub up both mortar and pestle shortly prior to 12:30 and deposit them right where the mortar itself was subsequently found overturned. The mortar, incidentally, was wholly negative as to finger prints. Not a smidgeon of a one on it! Proctor, it seems, did a very thorough job with his soap, brush and hot water. And the complete negativity of that mortar establishes fairly clearly that it got tipped over by an elbow, or forearm, rather than a hand. All right. So much for that. Both implements—mortar and pestle—thanks to the scrubfest, were clean as a whistle of all adhering matter, other than some blue stuff that ran onto the latter subsequently from an overturned test tube. And which pestle was, as I say, not merely positive—but doubly positive. Two hands gripped it today, within a few minutes of each other, probably, but at different instants. There are two very fresh sets of four flattened finger prints each—for the thumb in both cases, due to the moderate diameter of that particular pestle, overlay the index finger in the normal gripping position and did not leave an impression; the two sets are displaced, with respect to each other, about one centimeter vertically, and some 32 degrees, measuring circularly around the handle. The two sets—”
“May,” put in Carr Halsey dryly, “have been made by the left hand and the right hand of the same individual.”
“No,” said Baxter, knocking off the ashes of his cigar. “For both are right-handed sets, you see! The web of flesh connecting the thumb to the index finger of every person’s hand, Halse, always winds itself into a characteristic ring, in the clenching position. In fact, the alignment alone, of such a set of finger prints, practically identifies each finger. But with that ring present, the alignment is unmistakable. That’s one of the first lessons you get in one of those fancy $100 mail-order courses in dactyloscopy—which I happen to know without ever even having subscribed myself. I saw the actual unroll in this case—Professor de Crime de Dactyloscopy St. John pointed all this out to me. Moreover, Halse, each set of impressions on that pestle handle comprises two different types of finger prints. Sinjohn would have elaborated on that all night, if I’d have stayed to hear his lecture. But I stayed long enough to see, for a certainty, that they were certainly two different varieties of prints. One set’s sort of—well—spatulate, the other tapering, you might say.” Baxter paused. “Incidentally, Halse, as further determined by both the alignments and the positions of the thumbweb rings, each man’s hand held the pestle in a position to strike down a victim—not in the normal pounding position for use in a mortar—but in the slugging position. And to complete your unasked questions, the Swede janitor, the elevator boy, a wandering window-washer who has the contract for washing all the windows in Bush Bourse and several other small buildings around that corner, the engineer—even the agent of the building—all were—well dactyloscopically eliminated, just as you yourself have been.”
“What’s the theory of the Crime Laboratory as to the motive of the crime?” queried Halsey curiously.
Baxter smiled: “The College de Crime never issues theories. For which dispensation it is no doubt thankful. It issues merely findings. Theories are for police and folks like us. The theory of the detective bureau is that a Mr. Clifford X. Hemingway is placed in a damn sinister light, masquerading as he is under a false name of S—what?—for that’s as far as can be gotten at present. Naturally, they expect Mr. Hemingway eventually, under the persuasion of the emotator or lie detector, aided by some fists and some rubber hose, to complete the story.”
“What’s their theory as to why that writing was smudged out? Partly out anyway. Do they figure that Proctor’s assailants waited partway down that top stairway, and one or both came back and gave it a foot massage?”
Baxter gave a ludicrous smile. “Their theory will make you feel rather sheepish, Halse. A notation on the case, under ‘Evidence,’ reads: ‘Dying accusation partly destroyed by first discoverer of victim’s corpse, C. Halsey, walking around body too closely and shuffling feet against writing.’”
“For—for weeping at an Irishman’s wake!” bit out Halsey. “Of all the—the canards, Artemus. Sure—I did walk around that body, plenty, looking and studying. But I’m telling you that as sure as—as we’ve a cat named Ulysses in this house, I didn’t smudge out one line of that pencil writing. So they’ve credited it to me, eh? Sorer than the devil at me, I suppose?”
“No, not at all. They’re very philosophical. To the Sherlocks at the bureau, it’s just one of the normal hazards of all murder cases. They’re glad, at least, that it was smudged out in the precise way that it was—for if the accusation, whatever its exact wording was, had been left, and the name—or names—obliterated instead, they would have erroneously figured that the murderers themselves pulled a fast one. As it is, it’s all on you. Well, that’s all. All hotels, roominghouses, boarding houses, Y.M.C.A.’s, even flop-houses, are being canvassed by local squad cars tonight for information or leads as to any lodger—or ex-lodger—named Clifford X. Hemingway, and every squad car has a duplicate of Hemingway’s photo to show proprietors, landladies or desk clerks, as the case may be.”
“Then the Star’s picture came from police headquarters, eh?”
“Not necessarily, Halse. If it was the Star’s beat, then the Sherlocks at the bureau would naturally have the picture themselves, by telephoto, ten minutes after the Star flopped out on the newsstands with its 10th edition.”
“Well do you know at all, Artemus, where the Star got that photo of Hemingway?”
“No, I do not. I got one from Duffy himself; he gave it to me voluntarily for the Sun. It appears to be a copy of a copy. It was a nice clear print, and I shot it over immediately to the paper by an A.D.T. boy. Of course I asked Duffy how a pic popperd up in the case so soon, but all he would grunt was that a fortuitous tip of some sort had come in by a roundabout course to investigate the names of this year’s Wisconsin-U graduating class; that a fellow named Something-or-Other Hemingway had been in it.”
“I see. Kind of far-fetched in a way, and yet not far-fetched at all if a certain theory of my uncle’s is right. He figures it was a short-circuit between the radio-broadcasting division of the Star and its editorial end. Something I’ll be explaining to you in a minute. Connected with my uncle.”
“I see. Well, Sherlockdom wired the chief of police at Wisconsin for full dope on Clifford X. —but there ain’t any! He was a sort of mystery student—muscled into the ‘U’ originally by entrance exams instead of credits from some other collitch—never fraternized to any extent—never got any mail at his boardinghouse, or if he did, got it at the Post Office general delivery and tore it up. That ‘X’ in his name is devilishly appropriate, I would be inclined to say.”
“It is, for a certainty. Well, do you know the name of the man who posted that reward?”
“No. Duffy said it was a retired State Street merchant.”
“How do we stand over there right now on getting to Hemingway the minute they lay hold of him? That is, Artemus, if—they do!”
“Well—I didn’t get a chance to see Duffy but the fraction of a minute. And I wouldn’t have seen him then if he hadn’t come out of his adytum sanctorum for a minute to pass out Hemingway photos to the boys and the radio station men. Duffy, you know, Halse, is considerably busy with this gang war that’s brewing. No? Didn’t you hear of it? Well Club-foot Tatrelli is said to be ‘on the spot,’ and the Mala Organization is out in full force. Tatrelli is vanished from his North Side haunts, and Mala has stuck in a new North Side beer lieutenant, Big George the Greek. So, as I say, I got to see Duffy only a few seconds. I said ‘Hello, Cap, am I fixed O.K. with you on that Hemingway matter—the matter concerning my friend? He was a bit grouchy. But he always is anyway, seems to me. He growled something like ‘Said you were, didn’t I? Can’t you fellows ever be satisfied?’ and popped into one of his side offices on the Tatrelli case.” Baxter paused. “Oh, Halse, he is definitely obligated to me. I caused two hundred and fifty smackers to flow into his mitt a while back. I don’t see where in hell’s bells he’d double-cross me.”
With which not altogether perfect assurance, Baxter lapsed into expectant silence.
“Well, old chap,” he said, “I’m done. Do you really think you can add anything worth while to what I’ve spieled?”
Halsey smiled ruefully.
“You’ll be surprised!” was all he said.
CHAPTER XXXV
Artemus Baxter Hears a Fact or Two
Halsey did not speak for a moment. Instead, he got up out of his chair and took a few turns up and down the floor, hands behind his back, marshaling his thoughts for another meticulously painstaking recountal of a long and intricate tangle of events. At last he dropped back into his chair. “All right, old man. Here’s something that hairs on pestles and stopped cuckoo clocks and ultra-violet rays won’t give. It’s stuff that little Johnny Jump-up-first-on-the-job got—and had partly, at that, in the bargain.”
Whereupon he began with the beginning of that day, from the time he started to his uncle’s and entered that express company auction, to the later visit of the Jap, and on up past the bewildering sequence of the day’s events. As he talked, the newspaperman leaned forward in his Morris chair, farther and farther; his cigar went out in his tense interest. And Halsey left out nothing. Everything, clear up to his discovery of Proctor’s body amid the wreckage of his test tubes and the spilled Mazoru-Ikeuna, as well as his finding of both heel indentation and brass medal where the latter had been flung under the wire-wound chair, he detailed. He even took his story on further—to his visit to the Turkish bath and the high spots of the discussion between himself and Roger Halsey, in particular the manner is which it had been so easy for outsiders to follow him early that day. At last he was done. He took from his coat pocket the piece of hard white electric-furnace lining, and tossed it over to the other.
“There it is,” he said briefly. “And she’s in the room adjoining. They do say she’ll come out O.K., though.”
Baxter, lump of hard refractory paste in hand, made but one comment: “Some story for fair, Halse.” He examined the heel indentation in the piece of plaster-like substance. “Well, this shows glaringly conclusively, doesn’t it, that some outfit—some outfit either with that Jap, or on his tail, connected your 810½ Tower Court and Proctor’s laboratory together very neatly. This is the damning link all right. Wonder who she’s playing with, poor kid?”
“She’s playing with the wrong bunch, it seems,” said Halsey dryly, “for the big fellow with the brown goatee didn’t pull his blow much when he knocked her out.”
“’Twould have been a ludicrous thing in a way, eh, Halse, if the big fellow had been playing the game for the same outfit who was using her, and had merely unknowingly handed a little confederate of his own the count of ten! Halse, when she passed you back that card with the Mazoru-Ikeuna label drawn out on its uppermost side, did you catch any kind of look in her bewitchingly wondrous orbs? I say bewitchingly wondrous, because you dilated at some length on the charm of those—er—purple-velvet eyes.”
“Did I? Do tell! Well, answering your query, I must say that she seemed to take me in really critically for the first time. The impression it gives me right now in retrospect, is that her gaze was the gaze of one who was sent here knowing only that there was a bottle of some sort of Jap liquid in this house, but that she wasn’t given—or didn’t have—the identity of the lodger who had it; and that she knew at that moment, for the first time, that I would be the one she’d have to direct her efforts at.”
“Not like the big boy with the goatee who saw the afternoon run glinting down through the top of that folding door crack over there, and thence through the top of the liquid, and knew exactly which room he was to make for, eh?”
“No. Say, Artemus, what’s the last news on that gray Cyclops car? Did it really manage to slip through that mesh of squad cars and traffic coppers? Why—the info for catching it was on the police radio before he could have gotten a half-mile away in any direction.”
Baxter opened his breast pocket and took from it a small clipping which had been tarn from an evening paper. Its pink tint indeed proclaimed it to have been part of an Evening Brevities, one of the tabloid sheets. “Here’s the final outcome,” he said. “Seven o’clock edition. The Scandal Horn itself! I remembered your asking me to get that specific information from police radio earlier today—so I recognized the story the minute I lamped it tonight.”
Halsey took the clipping. It was brief, as was to be expected in Evening Brevities. It was headed simply:
GRAY GHOST CAR ELUDES PERFECT POLICE RING
and the only real worth-while information, apparently, held in its two hundred words was that neither had the owner of the car been arrested in his machine, nor had the deserted machine itself been picked up anywhere. In fact, the paragraph stated that a Mrs. Mehitable Loris, owner of a rooming-house at Number 1008½ Tower Court, had been knocked down by a sneak thief, described fully by an Adolf Turtzenganger, a Tower Square mendicant, who saw the man execute the bit of violence and speed away in his waiting Cyclops car.
Halsey smiled in spite of himself. But at length his smile faded. “Well, that’s the end of that then,” he commented grumpily. “If they’d have gotten that bird we might have had—”
“—the man who killed Proctor?” said Baxter.
“Or else the man who handed Hemingway the pestle,” amended Halsey laconically. “Gad, Artemus, wouldn’t your Sherlockdom down there be wild if they knew the dazzling connections that exist between this apparent landlady-slugging job and this Bush Bourse murder?”
“What I find myself wondering,” remarked Baxter dreamily, ignoring the question, “is whether Proctor might have been murdered for the contents of that blue test tube instead of just to prevent his analyzing it?”
“Well, it went down in the crash, luckily,” Halsey rejoined succinctly, “and distributed itself into the circumambient atmosphere. The aqueous or solvent part of it, anyway. The only thing I can see that might make that Mazoru-Ikeuna valuable is about a half-pound of radium in each liquid ounce.”
Baxter smiled: “Sherlockdom were wondering if he had any radioactive stuff on his premises that thieves might want to steal. But the radioactometer, brought along by Herr-Professor Hockstader with his ultra-violet lamp shows no radio-active stuff in the entire chemical laboratory. No radium. Had there been any in the fat test-tubeful you say you gave Proctor, it would still be in the blue residue left. Yes, the stain. Hockstader stood his machine, I recall, right over part of that blue deposit on the soapstone shelf. Its flicker-vanes never even sighed. And the machine will show radium, you know anywhere within 40 feet of itself.”
“Then that’s out.”
“Yes. Indubitably.” Baxter paused, a frown between his eyes. “Since the Jap had in his possession the name of your much-required Hemingway—his card, in fact—it seems to confirm the probability that the Jap himself, rather than some other individual or clique, is back of Proctor’s murder—may have been actually in on it; if not, then that he provided sonic further helper, white or yellow, to go along with Hemingway. But that hip fellow with the goatee! Damn! They all move in and out like checkers—but always toward Mazoru-lkeuna, in amounts large or small. There’s a devilishly obscure tangle of motives, facts and people around that stuff, Halse, and this heel indentation, connecting Proctor’s lab and your domicile here, plus Hemingway’s name at Proctor’s dead fingers and on this Honorable Meester Sumiko’s card here that you’ve been carrying casually about in your pockets, show only that Proctor’s death was a more or less inevitable result of that tangle—but throw nary light on who are radii, and who are cross-ties, in that web.” He was silent again. “So Proctor, as you told your uncle, was a clever verbal poker player when it came to getting at the bottom of any yarn told him?”
“The cleverest ever, Artemus. If some individual or even some outfit sent up that Hemingway white man to bunk Proctor a little on the matter of the blue liquid—Wen would have gotten facts out of him like a dip extracts wallets at a Labor Day parade. Most naïve he could be—but clever as hell all the while. Proctor should have been a prosecuting attorney. He’d have made a reputation just extracting facts out of lying witnesses for the opposition. Instead, however, he devoted his career to extracting information as to the constituency of unknown chemical compounds, and so forth.”
