Persons Unknown

  CHAPTER III

  SOMETHING ELSE IS FOUND

  "Get-away, eh!" said McGarrigle, grimly.

  The superintendent, shaken and wide-eyed, responded only "The bolt!"

  They glanced round them, non-plused.

  The large living-room upon which they had entered was richly furnished,but it had no screens nor hidden corners, and, on that summer night, thewindows were undraped. The doorway in which they stood faced the greatwindow which took up nearly all the frontage of the room. The dooropened against the left wall. Just beyond the door, along that leftwall, stood the piano; beyond that a couch; between the head of thecouch and the front window the wall was cut, up to the molding, by oneof those high, narrow doors which, in a modern apartment house, indicatethe welcome, though inopportune, closet. This door was the single objectof suspicion; then, an overturned chair caught their attention. It laybetween the great library-table which, standing horizontally, almosthalved the room, and the narrow strip of paneling of wall to the rightof the main door in which the superintendent had pressed the button forthe lights. In the right wall, opening on the entrance-court, directlyopposite the piano, but also with its blind drawn, was another window ofordinary size.

  "The bedroom," said the superintendent, moistening his lips, "'s on thecourt, there." Then they observed, to their right, the bedroom's archhung with heavy portieres. And the sight of these portieres carriedwith it a cold thrill. But--"There ain't anybody in there!" Clancypersisted.

  McGarrigle walked over to the door in the wall and tried it. It waslocked and there was no key in the lock. "What's this?"

  "A closet."

  "Open it, engineer. Clancy, you stand by him."

  He went up to the portieres, opened them with some caution and peeredin. Faced only by an empty room he jerked at the portieres to throw themback; they were very heavy and the humidity made their rings stick tothe pole so that Deutch, running to his assistance, held one aside forhim, while with his other hand he himself fumbled to spring on thebedroom light. Herrick was hard upon McGarrigle's heels, but, a lookround revealing nothing, he was struck by a sudden fancy and, recrossingthe living-room, raised the shade. No, the little balcony was whollyempty. The great window had been made in three sections, and the middlesection was really a pair of doors that opened outward on this balcony.Clancy commented upon the foolishness of their not opening in as hewatched Herrick step through them into the calm night that offered noexplanation of that bolted emptiness. Herrick stepped to the end of thebalcony and craned round toward the entrance-court. From the now lightedbedroom window there was no access to any other. He glimpsedMcGarrigle's head stuck forth from the bathroom for the sameobservation. And it somehow surprised him that a trolley car shouldstill bang indifferently past the corner; that, just opposite, thatautomobile should still chug away, as if nothing had happened. Then heheard a cry from the superintendent, followed by the policeman's oath.Herrick ran into the bedroom and stopped short. On the floor at the footof the bed lay the body of a young man in dinner clothes. He had beenshot through the heart.