The Red Seal, Natalie Sumner Lincoln [books for men to read .TXT] 📗

Harry Kent inserted his key in his office door with more vigor than good judgment, and spent some seconds in re-adjusting it in the lock. Once inside the office he put up the latch and closed the door. A glance around the empty office showed him that Sylvester had obeyed his telephone instructions and gone out to luncheon.

Kent noted with satisfaction as he put his hat and cane in the coat closet that he had over two hours before Mrs. Brewster’s expected arrival; ample time in which to consider in quietude the events of the past few days, and plan for his interview with the pretty widow. He had spent the time between Rochester’s sudden reappearance and a hastily swallowed lunch at a downtown caf , in arranging bail for Rochester. Ferguson had proved obdurate and had persisted in taking the lawyer to Police Headquarters.

Dr. Stone had accompanied the trio, and his testimony, supported by two chemists, regarding the time required for aconitine poison to act, had gone far to weaken the detective’s case against Rochester.

Rochester, to Kent’s unbounded astonishment, had appeared indifferent to the whole proceedings; and to his partner’s urgent inquiries as to where he had spent the past four days, and why he had disappeared, he had returned one invariable answer.

“I’ll explain in good time, Harry,” and it was not until they were leaving Police Headquarters that his apathy vanished.

“When are you to see Mrs. Brewster?” he asked.

“She will be at our office at four o’clock. Say, Phil” - but Rochester, shaking off his detaining hand, darted across the street and sprang into a passing taxi bearing the sign, “For Hire,” and that was the last Kent had seen of his elusive partner.

Kent dropped into his chair and glanced askance at the mail piled in neat array on his desk; he was not in a frame of mind to handle routine office business. Other clients would have to wait until later in the day. A memorandum pad, bearing a message in Sylvester’s precise penmanship attracted his wandering attention and he picked it up.

“Mr. Kent:” he read. “Colonel McIntyre called just after I talked with you on the ‘phone; he waited in your office for half an hour, then left, stating he would come back. Miss Barbara McIntyre called immediately afterwards, but would not wait more than five minutes. Mr. Clymer came as she was going out and left a note on your desk. I will return soon. “SYLVESTER.”

Kent laid down the pad and picked up a twisted three-cornered note bearing his name in pencil. Unfolding it, he scanned the hurriedly written lines:

“Dear Kent - McIntyre telephoned there were new developments in the Turnbull affair. Will be back later.“Yours - “B. A. CLYMER.”

Kent judged from the use of his initials that Clymer was stirred out of his ordinary calm, nothing else explained his failure to sign his full name, and he wondered what confidences McIntyre had made to the bank president.

Tossing down the note, Kent lighted his pipe, tilted back in his swivel chair, and reviewed the facts which implicated Rochester in Jimmie Turnbull’s murder. Rochester’s quarrels with Jimmie, his persistent assertion that his friend had died from angina pectoris, his unexplained disappearance on Tuesday night, the fake telegram from Cleveland stating he was there, the withdrawal of his bank deposits, the forged checks, his mysterious visits to his own apartment, when considered together, presented a chain of circumstantial evidence connecting him with the crime. But in the light of Dr. Stone’s testimony, the poison “could not have been administered in the glass of water Rochester had given Jimmie in the police court.

Four hours at least had to elapse before the fatal dose of aconitine could take effect - four hours! Kent told them off on his fingers; it placed the crime in the McIntyre house. Which one of its inmates administered the poison to Jimmie and how had it been done? What motive had prompted the cashier’s murder?

It was preposterous to think that either of the twins was guilty of the crime. Helen’s devotion to Jimmie, her insistence upon an autopsy being held indicated her innocence. She had stated at the inquest that she had not known the burglar’s identity; Kent paused as the thought occurred to him - the twins had swapped identities on the witness stand, and therefore Helen had not been called upon to answer that question! To the best of his recollection she had only been asked if she had recognized Jimmie in the court room and not at her home. But Helen it was who had summoned Officer O’Ryan on discovering the burglar and had him arrested. She surely would never have done so had she guessed his identity.

As for Barbara McIntyre - Kent’s heart beat faster at thought of the girl he loved so well. Circumstantial evidence had seemed for a time to involve her in the crime. Grimes’ outrageous insinuation that he had been assaulted on account of confiding to her that the box of aconitine pills had been left on the hall table where any one could get them, was the outcome of his battered condition. When physical strength returned, the butler would forget his hallucinations. The handkerchief with its embroidered letter “B,” used by Jimmie to inhale the fumes from his amyl nitrite capsules, was finally traced to its rightful owner - Mrs. Brewster.

And Mrs. Brewster was due in his office within a very short time. Kent’s square jaw became more pronounced; she should not leave until she had either confessed her connection with Turnbull’s death, or established her innocence. Surely it would be easy for Mrs. Brewster to do so, but - aconitine had been prescribed for her; she was familiar with the poison, she had it at hand, she went to the police court, and kept her trip a secret, and she had laughed when Jimmie was carried dying from the court room. But what motive could have inspired her to murder Jimmie? Was he an old lover - Kent, unable to keep quiet any longer, rose and paced up and down the office, stopping a moment to glance out of the window. As he passed the safe he saw the door was ajar. Kent paused abruptly. Who had opened the safe?

Crossing to the outer office he looked around; no one was there. It flashed into Kent’s mind that he had seen Rochester’s light top coat and walking stick in the coat closet as he hung up his hat on his arrival, and he again opened the closet door. The coat and stick were still there; so Rochester had come to the office immediately after leaving him, and carelessly left the safe open! Kent smiled in spite of his vexation; the act was typical of his eccentric partner.

Going back to his own office Kent opened the safe and glanced inside. The pigeon holes and compartments appeared untouched, except the door of one small compartment on Rochester’s side. An envelope was wedged in such a manner that the small door would not shut and that had prevented the closing of the outer safe door.

Kent, preparatory to shutting the safe, drew out the envelope intending to place it in another pigeon-hole where there was more room. As he turned the envelope over he was thunderstruck to recognize it as the one which Helen McIntyre had placed in the safe on Wednesday morning. He had last seen the envelope lying on the table in the smoking porch of the Club de Vingt, from whence it had mysteriously disappeared, and now it was back again in Rochester’s safe!

Had it ever been missing from the safe? The question forced itself on Kent as he returned to his chair, envelope in hand, and sat down before his desk. He had accepted Detective Ferguson’s statement that he had removed the envelope from the safe, and therefore had never looked in the compartment where Helen had put it to verify its disappearance.

Ferguson had removed it, Kent concluded as he examined the envelope with more care; it was the identical one, unaddressed, with the same red seal holding down the flap. The same red seal, but with a difference - a corner was missing.

Kent stared at the seal for a moment in doubt, then his fingers sought his vest pocket and fumbled about