Chapter 12

Inspector Loasby came into Lee's apartment with a heavy, downcast air, and dropped on a sofa. Lee made haste to mix him a highball.

"Fetch another bottle of Scotch, Jermyn," he said cheerfully.

Loasby said with a groan, "I have three hundred men on the case, Mr. Mappin, besides the help of the uniformed force. Since one o'clock the town has been combed from the Battery to Kingsbridge and we have not turned up a single clue as to that ----'s whereabouts. Some other woman is hiding him now, I suppose. He seems to hypnotize them!"

"Women love to aid a fugitive," said Lee. "It's something we have to reckon with."

"If it should ever get out how close I was to Al today and how he slipped through my fingers, it would break me, Mr. Mappin," mourned Loasby. "You must help me!"

"But you said there were no clues."

"Can't you dope out something?"

"I'm not a magician, Inspector. He's a clever fellow. He will probably do the last thing we would expect him to do."

"You might be able to get something out of Charlotte."

"Excuse me. I'm not going to try to induce a wife to betray her husband...Look, Inspector, to drop Al Yohe for a minute or two, I'm a little anxious about old Hawkins in Philadelphia." Lee hastily sketched the scene with Eliza Young earlier in the evening. "It is on the cards that they might try to get the old fellow in order to save Yohe. Are you in touch with the man who is watching Hawkins?"

"Sure, I've got two men spotting him; Besson and O'Mara. I can communicate with them any time."

"I suggest you call them up now."

Loasby called a number in Philadelphia. In a moment or two, he got the small hotel in the suburb of Frankford that served his two men as headquarters. Besson was asleep upstairs, he was told, and O'Mara was out on the job. He held the wire while they sent up to waken Besson. When he got his man, Loasby said:

"Besson, I've had a tip that the people who are trying to clear Al Yohe may try to rub out old Hawkins to keep him from testifying. In addition to watching Hawkins, therefore, your job and O'Mara's is to protect the old man from possible danger. He should be on his guard against strangers."

After listening to Besson's answer, Loasby repeated it to Lee. "Besson says that will be easy because he has scraped acquaintance with the old man, who now looks on him as his friend."

Lee said: "Why don't you suggest that Besson or O'Mara or both of them should take a room at Mrs. Quimby's if there's a vacancy."

Loasby did so. "I want you to get in touch with O'Mara now," he added. "Find out what the situation is tonight and report back to me." He gave Besson the number of Lee's telephone.

Lee made up the fire and they resumed their discussion of Al Yohe's possible whereabouts.

"At the moment I can't suggest anything but routine measures," said Lee. "You must go deeper into the question of who were Al's closest associates. When he was left out in the air today, he would have to go direct to somebody he could trust."

"I have it in hand," grumbled Loasby. "Trouble is more than half the people in cafe society claim to be Al's intimate friends."

After twenty minutes had passed, the telephone rang. This was detective officer O'Mara who, as soon as Besson relieved him, had sought out the nearest telephone to report. Loasby held the receiver away from his ear so that Lee could hear what he said.

"About six o'clock this evening, old Hawkins came out of the house and proceeded to a little restaurant on Frankford Avenue. He met a young fellow at the door. Hawkins seemed surprised when the young fellow spoke. They went in and had dinner together. When they came out they were real friendly."

"Describe the young man," said Loasby.

"About twenty-five years old, Chief. Five foot eleven in height, weight 170, slender and well built. Wore a gray suit, a tan topcoat and a gray fedora. His clothes looked new but cheap material. Black hair, fresh color, blue eyes. Wore glasses with thick lenses that gave him a funny squint."

"Sounds as if it might be our Al with his hair dyed," murmured Lee dryly.

"Was it Al Yohe?" Loasby sharply demanded. "Why, no, Chief," came the startled answer. "Have you ever seen Al Yohe?"

"No, but I studied his photographs plenty. This couldn't a been him, Chief." Nevertheless, the voice did not sound altogether positive.

"Go on," said Loasby.

"After dinner they come back and went in Mrs. Quimby's together and the light went on in old Hawkins' room, third floor, front hall. The young man stayed a couple of hours. At nine o'clock the light went out in Hawkins' room and a minute later the young man come out of the house and turned in the direction of Frankford Avenue. I followed him long enough to see him go up the steps of the Elevated and then I returned to my post."

Lee's face had turned as grim as stone. "The light went out before the young man left the house!" he murmured. "Instruct O'Mara to return to Mrs. Quimby's immediately and investigate." Loasby gave the order and hung up.

Thoroughly alarmed now, there was nothing to do but wait for a further report. Loasby poured himself a stiff drink; Lee paced the long room with his hands behind him. Both men became aware simultaneously of the loud ticking of the ormolu clock on the mantel. A tug whistled in the river below like the blast of doom, and they both started. Utter silence followed.

In the end they heard Jermyn's voice in the distant pantry as he answered the call. Loasby snatched up the instrument without waiting for the bell.

"Hello? Hello?"

He held the receiver away from his ear and Lee heard O'Mara's lugubrious voice saying: "You didn't warn us soon enough, Chief. A terrible thing has happened. Old Hawkins is dead. Poison in his whisky. Bottle and glass are standing on his bureau, also the rest of the poison. No label on the bottle. There's been an attempt to make it look like suicide. A scrawling pencil note on the bureau as if he was already dying when he wrote it. It says:

I can't stand it any longer. I have drunk poison. It was me who killed Jules...

"He started to write Gartrey but didn't get any further than G-a. The paper was under his forehead as if he had fallen forward on it while writing. The pencil was placed as if it had just fallen from his hand. But the killer slipped badly when he put out the light because the old fellow couldn't have been writing in the dark, of course. He has been dead a couple of hours."

"Is the lodging house aroused?" asked Loasby.

"Oh, my God, yes, and people gathering in the street already."

"Is Besson with you?"

"I have sent for him, Chief."

"I'll come right down. I'll get a plane. Notify the Philadelphia police. Don't let them disturb anything until I have had a look at it."

"Okay, Chief."

Loasby hung up. The two men looked at each other. "My God, I am cursed with fools!" Loasby cried bitterly. "At nine o'clock both those men should have been on the job. Then one of them could have followed the killer!"

Lee, lost in a grim study, was not interested in what might have been.

"A stupid crime!" cried Loasby, thumping the table. "Nobody will profit by it."

"As it has turned out, yes," said Lee. "Under other circumstances it might not have had such a stupid look. I don't see how Hawkins could have taken up so readily with a man he didn't know. We must look into that. Notice that the killer avoided going to Mrs. Quimby's to ask for Hawkins. When the two of them returned to Mrs. Quimby's, Hawkins opened the door with his key and the chances are that nobody in the house saw the killer, either coming or going. Note that he was clever enough to break off the suicide note before he came to the signature. If he had not put out the light, and if O'Mara had not happened to be watching from across the street, it would have been accepted as a suicide."

"This is some more of the work of that brute, Al Yohe!" cried Loasby.

Lee shook his head. "Impossible!"

"Why couldn't it have been?"

"You forget that Al Yohe admitted to me he was in the Gartrey apartment at the moment Jules Gartrey was shot. In fact, his story bore out that of Hawkins in every particular. What good would it do him to put the old man out of the way?"

Loasby stared at Lee with widening eyes. "Then...then, it must have been done at the order of that love-crazed woman! The most prominent woman in New York. My God, Mr. Mappin, this will blow off the roof of the town!"

Lee shrugged. "She's just a woman like any other!"

"We could never in the world convict her!"

Lee's lips were pressed out in a thin line. "I promise you I will, if she's guilty!"

"Will you come down to Philly with me?"

"No. There's nothing for me there. I'll go over the findings with you when you return."

Loasby hastened away.

Lee continued to pace the living room. "Poor old man!" he murmured. "His only crime was that he told the truth!"