The Man in Lower Ten Read online

  CHAPTER XI. THE NAME WAS SULLIVAN

  I had my arm done up temporarily in Baltimore and took the next trainhome. I was pretty far gone when I stumbled out of a cab almost into thescandalized arms of Mrs. Klopton. In fifteen minutes I was in bed, withthat good woman piling on blankets and blistering me in unprotectedplaces with hot-water bottles. And in an hour I had a whiff ofchloroform and Doctor Williams had set the broken bone.

  I dropped asleep then, waking in the late twilight to a realization thatI was at home again, without the papers that meant conviction forAndy Bronson, with a charge of murder hanging over my head, and withsomething more than an impression of the girl my best friend was in lovewith, a girl moreover who was almost as great an enigma as the crimeitself.

  "And I'm no hand at guessing riddles," I groaned half aloud. Mrs.Klopton came over promptly and put a cold cloth on my forehead.

  "Euphemia," she said to some one outside the door, "telephone the doctorthat he is still rambling, but that he has switched from green ribbonsto riddles."

  "There's nothing the matter with me, Mrs. Klopton," I rebelled. "I wasonly thinking out loud. Confound that cloth: it's trickling all overme!" I gave it a fling, and heard it land with a soggy thud on thefloor.

  "Thinking out loud is delirium," Mrs. Klopton said imperturbably. "Afresh cloth, Euphemia."

  This time she held it on with a firm pressure that I was too weak toresist. I expostulated feebly that I was drowning, which she also laidto my mental exaltation, and then I finally dropped into a damp sleep.It was probably midnight when I roused again. I had been dreaming of thewreck, and it was inexpressibly comforting to feel the stability of mybed, and to realize the equal stability of Mrs. Klopton, who sat, fullyattired, by the night light, reading Science and Health.

  "Does that book say anything about opening the windows on a hot night?"I suggested, when I had got my bearings.

  She put it down immediately and came over to me. If there is one timewhen Mrs. Klopton is chastened--and it is the only time--it is whenshe reads Science and Health. "I don't like to open the shutters, Mr.Lawrence," she explained. "Not since the night you went away."

  But, pressed further, she refused to explain. "The doctor said you werenot to be excited," she persisted. "Here's your beef tea."

  "Not a drop until you tell me," I said firmly. "Besides, you know verywell there's nothing the matter with me. This arm of mine is only afalse belief." I sat up gingerly. "Now--why don't you open that window?"

  Mrs. Klopton succumbed. "Because there are queer goings-on in that housenext door," she said. "If you will take the beef tea, Mr. Lawrence, Iwill tell you."

  The queer goings-on, however, proved to be slightly disappointing. Itseemed that after I left on Friday night, a light was seen flittingfitfully through the empty house next door. Euphemia had seen it firstand called Mrs. Klopton. Together they had watched it breathlessly untilit disappeared on the lower floor.

  "You should have been a writer of ghost stories," I said, giving mypillows a thump. "And so it was fitting flitfully!"

  "That's what it was doing," she reiterated. "Fitting flitfully--I meanflitting fitfully--how you do throw me out, Mr. Lawrence! And what'smore, it came again!"

  "Oh, come now, Mrs. Klopton," I objected, "ghosts are like lightning;they never strike twice in the same night. That is only worth half a cupof beef tea."

  "You may ask Euphemia," she retorted with dignity. "Not more than anhour after, there was a light there again. We saw it through thechinks of the shutters. Only--this time it began at the lower floor andclimbed!"

  "You oughtn't to tell ghost stories at night," came McKnight's voicefrom the doorway. "Really, Mrs. Klopton, I'm amazed at you. You oldduffer! I've got you to thank for the worst day of my life."

  Mrs. Klopton gulped. Then realizing that the "old duffer" was meant forme, she took her empty cup and went out muttering.

  "The Pirate's crazy about me, isn't she?" McKnight said to the closingdoor. Then he swung around and held out his hand.

  "By Jove," he said, "I've been laying you out all day, lilies on thedoor-bell, black gloves, everything. If you had had the sense of amosquito in a snow-storm, you would have telephoned me."

  "I never even thought of it." I was filled with remorse. "Upon my word,Rich, I hadn't an idea beyond getting away from that place. If you hadseen what I saw--"

  McKnight stopped me. "Seen it! Why, you lunatic, I've been digging foryou all day in the ruins! I've lunched and dined on horrors. Give mesomething to rinse them down, Lollie."

  He had fished the key of the cellarette from its hiding-place in my shoebag and was mixing himself what he called a Bernard Shaw--a foundationof brandy and soda, with a little of everything else in sight to give itsnap. Now that I saw him clearly, he looked weary and grimy. I hated totell him what I knew he was waiting to hear, but there was no use wadingin by inches. I ducked and got it over.

  "The notes are gone, Rich," I said, as quietly as I could. In spite ofhimself his face fell.

  "I--of course I expected it," he said. "But--Mrs. Klopton said over thetelephone that you had brought home a grip and I hoped--well, Lord knowswe ought not to complain. You're here, damaged, but here." He lifted hisglass. "Happy days, old man!"

  "If you will give me that black bottle and a teaspoon, I'll drink thatin arnica, or whatever the stuff is; Rich,--the notes were gone beforethe wreck!"

  He wheeled and stared at me, the bottle in his hand. "Lost, strayed orstolen?" he queried with forced lightness.

  "Stolen, although I believe the theft was incidental to something else."

  Mrs. Klopton came in at that moment, with an eggnog in her hand. Sheglanced at the clock, and, without addressing any one in particular, sheintimated that it was time for self-respecting folks to be at home inbed. McKnight, who could never resist a fling at her back, spoke to mein a stage whisper.

  "Is she talking still? or again?" he asked, just before the door closed.There was a second's indecision with the knob, then, judging discretionthe better part, Mrs. Klopton went away.

  "Now, then," McKnight said, settling himself in a chair beside thebed, "spit it out. Not the wreck--I know all I want about that. But thetheft. I can tell you beforehand that it was a woman."

  I had crawled painfully out of bed, and was in the act of pouring theegg-nog down the pipe of the washstand. I paused, with the glass in theair.

  "A woman!" I repeated, startled. "What makes you think that?"

  "You don't know the first principles of a good detective yarn," he saidscornfully. "Of course, it was the woman in the empty house next door.You said it was brass pipes, you will remember. Well--on with the dance:let joy be unconfined."

  So I told the story; I had told it so many times that day that I did itautomatically. And I told about the girl with the bronze hair, and mysuspicions. But I did not mention Alison West. McKnight listened to theend without interruption. When I had finished he drew a long breath.

  "Well!" he said. "That's something of a mess, isn't it? If you can onlyprove your mild and child-like disposition, they couldn't hold you forthe murder--which is a regular ten-twent-thirt crime, anyhow. But thenotes--that's different. They are not burned, anyhow. Your man wasn't onthe train--therefore, he wasn't in the wreck. If he didn't know whathe was taking, as you seem to think, he probably reads the papers, andunless he is a fathead, he's awake by this time to what he's got. He'lltry to sell them to Bronson, probably."

  "Or to us," I put in.

  We said nothing for a few minutes. McKnight smoked a cigarette andstared at a photograph of Candida over the mantel. Candida is the bestpony for a heavy mount in seven states.

  "I didn't go to Richmond," he observed finally. The remark followed myown thoughts so closely that I started. "Miss West is not home yet fromSeal Harbor."

  Receiving no response, he lapsed again into thoughtful silence. Mrs.Klopton came in just as the clock struck one, and made preparation forthe night by putting a large gaudy comfortable into an
arm-chair in thedressing-room, with a smaller, stiff-backed chair for her feet. She waswonderfully attired in a dressing-gown that was reminiscent, in parts,of all the ones she had given me for a half dozen Christmases, and shehad a purple veil wrapped around her head, to hide Heaven knows whatdeficiency. She examined the empty egg-nog glass, inquired what theevening paper had said about the weather, and then stalked into thedressing-room, and prepared, with much ostentatious creaking, to sit upall night.

  We fell silent again, while McKnight traced a rough outline of theberths on the white table-cover, and puzzled it out slowly. It wassomething like this: ____________________________________ | 12 | 10 | 8 | |____________|___________|___________| |_______________AISLE________________| | 11 | 9 | 7 | |____________|___________|___________|

  "You think he changed the tags on seven and nine, so that when you wentback to bed you thought you were crawling into nine, when it was reallyseven, eh?"

  "Probably-yes."

  "Then toward morning, when everybody was asleep, your theory is that hechanged the numbers again and left the train."

  "I can't think of anything else," I replied wearily.

  "Jove, what a game of bridge that fellow would play! It was likefinessing an eight-spot and winning out. They would scarcely havedoubted your story had the tags been reversed in the morning. Hecertainly left you in a bad way. Not a jury in the country would standout against the stains, the stiletto, and the murdered man's pocket-bookin your possession."

  "Then you think Sullivan did it?" I asked.

  "Of course," said McKnight confidently. "Unless you did it in yoursleep. Look at the stains on his pillow, and the dirk stuck into it. Anddidn't he have the man Harrington's pocket-book?"

  "But why did he go off without the money?" I persisted. "And where doesthe bronze-haired girl come in?"

  "Search me," McKnight retorted flippantly. "Inflammation of theimagination on your part."

  "Then there is the piece of telegram. It said lower ten, car seven. It'sextremely likely that she had it. That telegram was about me, Richey."

  "I'm getting a headache," he said, putting out his cigarette against thesole of his shoe. "All I'm certain of just now is that if there hadn'tbeen a wreck, by this time you'd be sitting in an eight by ten cell, andfeeling like the rhyme for it."

  "But listen to this," I contended, as he picked up his hat, "this fellowSullivan is a fugitive, and he's a lot more likely to make advances toBronson than to us. We could have the case continued, release Bronson onbail and set a watch on him."

  "Not my watch," McKnight protested. "It's a family heirloom."

  "You'd better go home," I said firmly. "Go home and go to bed. You'resleepy. You can have Sullivan's red necktie to dream over if you thinkit will help any."

  Mrs. Klopton's voice came drowsily from the next room, punctuated by ayawn. "Oh, I forgot to tell you," she called, with the suspicious lispwhich characterizes her at night, "somebody called up about noon, Mr.Lawrence. It was long distance, and he said he would call again. Thename was"--she yawned--"Sullivan."