Part 12 (2/2)

”h.e.l.lo,” he said cuttingly. ”h.e.l.lo, Drew! What's this you've been giving me over the 'phone?”

The detective drew Fosd.i.c.k aside and allowed five Central Office men to stream into the hallway.

”Go and see,” he suggested into the detective's ear. ”Go and see. I've left everything just as I found it. The body is still there. The servants have been kept in the house. Question them. I'm off, now.

'Phone me not later than eight this morning. I'll be at my office. I'm acting in a private capacity. I'm protecting Loris Stockbridge--the sole heir!”

”Protecting!” exclaimed Fosd.i.c.k. ”What d'ye mean?”

Drew dropped his hand to his pocket and crammed down the little ivory-handled revolver. ”Well,” he smiled broadly. ”You know what I mean. She's alone in this world--save for her friends. The old man called me in the case. I'm still in the case--remember that!”

Fosd.i.c.k gulped hard. ”All right,” he said, turning and peeling off his coat. ”I'll soon get to the bottom of this! Case looks easy to me. It's suicide! That's all it ever could be!”

Drew found his hat and coat where the butler had hung them. He went out through the front door without answering Fosd.i.c.k. He crossed the Avenue on a diagonal which brought him to the waiting taxi where Delaney stood m.u.f.fled to the chin. The two men climbed upon the running-board. The driver started up with a jerk, from his frozen position in the snow.

They rounded the block and stopped in front of the drug-store where Loris had met the officer.

The Central Office man who had taken O'Toole's place had little to report. O'Toole had vanished toward the south. When last seen he was close on the heels of the man in olive-drab.

”Come on, Delaney,” said Drew at this information. ”We'll walk over to Fifth Avenue and then downtown. The driver can pick up our men in the alley. I want to clear my head of this muddle. A walk will do it!”

Delaney fell in behind his chief. They turned the corner. They struck through a side street and westward. They saw ahead of them the white expanse of untrodden snow, and beyond this the faint blue barricade of the Palisades.

The hour was after three. The crisp underfooting brought wine to their cheeks. The grip of winter air cleared both men's heads like a draught of ether. They stepped out. Their shoulders went back. Their thoughts pa.s.sed from the case at the mansion to other things. The night had been filled with a thousand disappointments. Greatest of these was the stabbing memory that they both had been picked by the multimillionaire to protect him and save him from his enemies. They had failed in this trust. Their patron lay dead, and somewhere a whispering voice chuckled over a victory.

”Fifth Avenue!” announced Drew as they reached the corner. ”Now, downtown, Delaney,” he added cheerily. ”Old Kris Kringle has nothing on us to-night. I believe we're the only ones out.”

The operative caught his chief's humor, and glanced into his face with a smile. ”Whew!” he breathed. ”Whew!” he repeated from the depths of his lungs. ”I'm glad, Triggy, to get from that d.a.m.n house and that d.a.m.n magpie and that----”

”So am I!” said Drew, thrusting out his hand and linking his elbow into the cove of Delaney's arm. ”So am I. Fine night for the poor firm of Drew and Company.”

Delaney glanced around and over his left shoulder. He blinked with frosty lids as he saw the towering facades of Stockbridge's mansion; its turrets and towers spiraled in the winter sky. He drew in his lips and compressed them. He puffed them out as he turned.

”I'm deducting,” he said, ”that there's more at the bottom of this thing than we think. Put it down for me that the Germans are mixed up in it.”

Drew walked on for a block before he answered. He gripped the operative's arm by closing his own as he said:

”Quit deducting! It's fatal! Get your facts! Get all of them. The answer will come then, without an effort. It will be the right answer or none at all.”

”Just the same, Chief----”

”The trouble with you,” broke in Drew severely, ”the trouble is, that you are forcing a conclusion to meet your own suspicions. The Germans, with the exception of a small clique, are behaving very well in this country at the present time. In other words, the most of them are good Americans and sane.”

”That walley-sham?”

”He is not even under consideration! Did you notice him?”

”Sure, Chief!”

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