Part 8 (2/2)
He lay on the floor, about ten feet inside the door of his sitting-room, lay on his side and there was an awful crimson lake that had spread from his throat, which had been incised from ear to ear.
Savage was on his knees beside the victim for a brief time.
”Couple of hours ago,” he remarked. ”That would mean it was done to him very shortly after he escaped from the Farrar apartment. Whoever did it might have been waiting here for him-or followed him here.”
Mayfair said, ”Some of his stuff is interesting.”
Savage frowned. ”Eh?”
”Take a look at the writing desk there, the letters and bills-” Mayfair broke off, stared at me. ”The bathroom's yonder, Henry.”
”I have a nervous stomach,” I blurted, and made a dash for the place he was pointing.
THEY had their heads together when I came back, and they ended whatever they had been saying.
Letters, some first-of-the-month bills, were spread out on a modest writing desk. There were many racing forms and dope sheets.
”What have you found out?””Polite-boy's name was Davis. Hugo Davis,” Mayfair replied. ”Seems to have made his living sharp-shooting. Race player.” He indicated some small slips, the nature of which mystified me. ”Numbers slips. The guy was a pusher for a policy racket, part of his time. Summing him up, I'd say he was a small-time plug-ugly.”
”I surmised as much.”
”And,” added Mayfair, ”Dido Alstrong paid the bills for this apartment.”
”What!”
The homely chemist's enormous forefinger probed the duns. ”You can see for yourself. Rent receipts made out to Dido Alstrong.”
”But can this be Dido Alstrong's apartment?”
Mayfair shook his head. ”Nope. The cops have found that. Alstrong lives in a hotel on Madison Avenue.
He's not there. He hasn't been home since this morning. The cops are sitting around there with their arms open for him.”
”But what crime can they charge Dido Alstrong with?”
”Search me. Maybe with having a friend who got a carving job on his throat.”
”Then,” I exclaimed, ”this fellow must really have been Dido Alstrong's friend!”
”Could be. What's amazing about it?”
”It just occurred to me that, earlier today when he informed me he had been asked by Dido Alstrong to receive the package from me, he might have been telling the truth.”
Mayfair wasn't interested in this. ”Well, he's through telling the truth or anything else,” he said.
Savage continued to examine the rooms. Presently he stated, ”The place has been searched. Thoroughly, too.” He indicated certain letters. ”And with a sort of purpose, too. These letters have no envelopes.”
”I got a habit of throwing envelopes in the wastebasket, if there ain't an address on 'em I want,” said Mayfair. ”Maybe I ain't the only one with the habit.”
”But all the New York letters have envelopes.”
”Huh?”
”The letters without,” said Savage, ”are apparently from Hugo Davis's home town.” He read some of the letters. ”Two are from his mother, evidently. I gather he wasn't a very good son. The others are from a girl named Anne, whom I judge Hugo Davis had led to believe he would marry her.”
”That doesn't tell much,” Mayfair said.
”No, except that Anne mentions that she works in a branch of the Farrar Products Company plant in the small town where she lives. Hugo Davis got her the job through his friend Dido Alstrong-reading between the lines, I'd say he got her the job to keep her from coming to New York and bothering him.”
”Hey,” said Mayfair, ”that should give us a line on the town.””We'll ask Farrar about it.” Savage said.
Chapter IX.
MR. FARRAR received us politely. This seemed, in view of the hour, considerate of him. Also he was considerably upset, for he met us clad in a bathrobe and his hair was disheveled.
”Oh, come in,” he said. ”I've been trying to sleep, but with no luck. This thing has me upset.”
We entered. Farrar led the way into a room which we had not seen earlier, a large library which was filled with volumes of literature and fiction-more fiction than literature, in fact, for I think of only the cla.s.sics as literature. However, there was a small section devoted to the container business; mostly bound trade volumes, and a few works on the preservation of food, and the chemistry of various forms of decomposition and spoilage. It was, I was saddened to note, not a very comprehensive library. But then I imagined Mr. Farrar was primarily an executive.
Farrar was manifestly nervous. One felt sorry for the man. The way he'd explained it to us, he'd really been involved in this unwillingly, and without his knowledge.
Savage said, ”We're investigating Dido Alstrong more thoroughly, Mr. Farrar. . . . I wonder if we could speak to your daughter on the matter?”
Farrar did not approve of this.
”I fail to see the point to it,” he replied. ”You gentlemen were with Lila a good part of the day-and I must say that the a.s.sociation wasn't soothing to her nerves.”
”She was upset?”
”Very.”
”She did not,” Savage remarked, ”seem so agitated when we left her here.”
Farrar frowned. ”It was after your telephone call that she really went to pieces.”
Savage stared at the manufacturer of food-packaging containers.
”My telephone call?” he asked. ”When was that?”
”Why, about five o'clock.” Farrar's lean, sensitive face suddenly showed puzzlement. ”You're not saying you didn't call her? You did, didn't you?”
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