Part 49 (1/2)

”Have you heard about the murder of Montgomery Marshall?”

”Only the few details that I picked up in the lobby just now. But a case of that kind is entirely out of my line, you know.”

”Ordinarily it would be,” agreed the other, ”but here's something that I think puts a different complexion on things,” and he extended a bloodstained sc.r.a.p of paper for Preston to examine.

”That was found under the dead man's hand,” the chief continued. ”As you will note, it originally formed part of the wrapping of a special-delivery parcel which reached Montgomery about eight o'clock last night--just before the house was locked up, in fact. Tino, the Filipino servant, signed for it and took it in, placing it upon the table in the room in which his master was found this morning. The sc.r.a.p of paper you are holding is just enough to show the postmark 'Sacramento'--but it's quite evident that the package had something to do with the murder.”

”Which is the reason that you want me to look into it, eh?”

”That's the idea. I knew that you were in town, and the very fact that this box came through the mails makes it necessary for the Post-office Department to take cognizance of what otherwise would be a job for the police force alone. Am I right?”

”Perfectly,” replied Preston. ”Provided you have reason to believe that there was some connection between the special-delivery package and the crime itself. What was in the box?”

”Not a thing!”

”What?”

”Not a thing!” repeated the chief. ”Perfectly empty--at least when we found it. The lid was lying on the table, the rest of the box on the floor. The major portion of the wrapping paper had been caught under a heavy paper weight and it appears that Montgomery, in falling, caught at the table to save himself and probably ripped away the sc.r.a.p of paper I have just given you.”

”But I thought his body was found near the door?”

”It was, but that isn't far from the table, which is jammed against the wall in front of one of the windows. Come on up to the house with me and we'll go over the whole thing.”

Glad of the excuse to look into a crime which appeared to be inexplicable, Preston accompanied the chief to the frame dwelling on the outskirts of town where Montgomery Marshall, hermit, had spent the last three years of his life.

The house was set well back from the road, with but a single gateway in a six-foot wall of solid masonry, around the top of which ran several strands of barbed wire.

”Montgomery erected the wall himself,” explained the chief. ”Had it put up before he ever moved into the house, and then, in addition, kept a bunch of the fiercest dogs I ever knew.”

”All of which goes to prove that he feared an attack,” Preston muttered.

”In spite of his precautions, however, they got him! The question now is: Who are 'they' and how did they operate?”

The room in which the body had been found only added to the air of mystery which surrounded the entire problem.

In spite of what he had been told Preston had secretly expected to find some kind of an opening through which a man could have entered. But there was none. The windows, as the Postal operative took care to test for himself, were tightly locked, though open a few inches from the bottom. The bolt on the door very evidently had been shattered by the entrance of the police, and the dark-brown stain on the rug near the door showed plainly where the body had been found.

”When we broke in,” explained the chief, ”Montgomery was stretched out there, facing the door. The doctor said that he had been dead about twelve hours, but that it was impossible for the wound in his hand to have caused his death.”

”How about a poisoned bullet, fired through the opening in the window?”

”Not a chance! The only wound on the body was the one through the palm of his hand. The bullet had struck on the outside of the fleshy part near the wrist and had plowed its way through the bone, coming out near the base of the index finger at the back. And it was a bullet from his own revolver! We found it embedded in the top of the table there.” And the chief pointed to a deep scar in the mahogany and to the marks made by the knives of the police when they had dug the bullet out.

”But how do you know it wasn't a bullet of the same caliber, fired from outside the window?” persisted Preston.

For answer the chief produced Montgomery's revolver, with five cartridges still in the chambers.

”If you'll note,” he said, ”each of these cartridges is scored or seamed. That's an old trick--makes the lead expand when it hits and tears an ugly hole, just like a 'dum-dum.' The bullet we dug out of the table was not only a forty-five, as these are, but it had been altered in precisely the same manner. So, unless you are inclined to the coincidence that the murderer used a poisoned bullet of the same size and make and character as those in Montgomery's gun, you've got to discard that theory.”

”Does look like pulling the long arm of coincidence out of its socket,”

Preston agreed. ”So I guess we'll have to forget it. Where's the box you were talking about?”