The «Canary» Murder Case / Смерть Канарейки. Книга для чтения на английском языке

“You actually saw him go out?” There was a note of disappointment in Markham’s voice.

“Sure, I saw him go out. He stopped just inside the front door and lit a cigarette. Then he opened the door and turned toward Broadway.”

“‘One by one the rosy petals fall,’” came Vance’s indolent voice. “A most amusin’ situation!”

Markham was loath to relinquish his hope in the criminal possibilities of this one caller who had come and gone at half past nine.

“What was this man like?” he asked. “Can you describe him?”

Spively sat up straight, and when he answered, it was with an enthusiasm that showed he had taken special note of the visitor.

“He was good-looking, not so old—maybe thirty. And he had on a full-dress suit and patent-leather pumps, and a pleated silk shirt—”

“What, what?” demanded Vance, in simulated unbelief, leaning over the back of the davenport. “A silk shirt with evening dress! Most extr’ordin’ry!”

“Oh, a lot of the best dressers are wearing them,” Spively explained, with condescending pride. “It’s all the fashion for dancing.”

“You don’t say—really!” Vance appeared dumb-founded. “I must look into this. … And, by the bye, when this Beau Brummel of the silk shirt paused by the front door, did he take his cigarette from a long flat silver case carried in his lower waistcoat pocket?”

The youth looked at Vance in admiring astonishment.

“How did you know?” he exclaimed.

“Simple deduction,” Vance explained, resuming his recumbent posture. “Large metal cigarette-cases carried in the waistcoat pocket somehow go with silk shirts for evening wear.”

Markham, clearly annoyed at the interruption, cut in sharply with a demand for the operator to proceed with his description.

“He wore his hair smoothed down,” Spively continued, “and you could see it was kind of long; but it was cut in the latest style. And he had a small waxed moustache; and there was a big carnation in the lapel of his coat, and he had on chamois gloves. …”

“My word!” murmured Vance. “A gigolo!”

Markham, with the incubus of the night clubs riding him heavily, frowned and took a deep breath. Vance’s observation evidently had launched him on an unpleasant train of thought.

“Was this man short or tall?” he asked next.

“He wasn’t so tall—about my height,” Spively explained. “And he was sort of thin.”

There was an easily recognizable undercurrent of admiration in his tone, and I felt that this youthful telephone operator had seen in Miss Odell’s caller a certain physical and sartorial ideal. This palpable admiration, coupled with the somewhat outrе[34 - outrе (фр.) – зд. экстравагантный] clothes affected by the youth, permitted us to read between the lines of his remarks a fairly accurate description of the man who had unsuccessfully rung the dead girl’s bell at half past nine the night before.

When Spively had been dismissed, Markham rose and strode about the room, his head enveloped in a cloud of cigar smoke, while Heath sat stolidly watching him, his brows knit.

Vance stood up and stretched himself.

“The absorbin’ problem, it would seem, remains in statu quo[35 - in statu quo (лат.) —в прежнем положении],” he remarked airily. “How, oh how, did the fair Margaret’s executioner get in?”

“You know, Mr. Markham,” rumbled Heath sententiously, “I’ve been thinking that the fellow may have come here earlier in the afternoon—say, before that side door was locked. Odell herself may have let him in and hidden him when the other man came to take her to dinner.”

“It looks that way,” Markham admitted. “Bring the maid in here again, and we’ll see what we can find out.”

When the woman had been brought in, Markham questioned her as to her actions during the afternoon, and learned that she had gone out at about four to do some shopping, and had returned about half past five.

“Did Miss Odell have any visitor with her when you got back?”

“No, sir,” was the prompt answer. “She was alone.”

“Did she mention that any one had called?”

“No, sir.”

“Now,” continued Markham, “could any one have been hidden in this apartment when you went home at seven?”

The maid was frankly astonished, and even a little horrified.

“Where could any one hide?” she asked, looking round the apartment.

“There are several possible places,” Markham suggested: “in the bathroom, in one of the clothes-closets, under the bed, behind the window draperies. …”

The woman shook her head decisively. “No one could have been hidden,” she declared. “I was in the bathroom half a dozen times, and I got Miss Odell’s gown out of the clothes-closet in the bedroom. As soon as it began to get dark I drew all the window-shades myself. And as for the bed, it’s built almost down to the floor; no one could squeeze under it.” (I glanced closely at the bed, and realized that this statement was quite true.)

“What about the clothes-closet in this room?” Markham put the question hopefully, but again the maid shook her head.

“Nobody was in there. That’s where I keep my own hat and coat, and I took them out myself when I was getting ready to go. I even put away one of Miss Odell’s old dresses in that closet before I left.”

“And you are absolutely certain,” reiterated Markham, “that no one could have been hidden anywhere in these rooms at the time you went home?”

“Absolutely, sir.”

“Do you happen to remember if the key of this clothes-closet was on the inside or the outside of the lock when you opened the door to get your hat?”

The woman paused, and looked thoughtfully at the closet door.

“It was on the outside, where it always was,” she announced, after several moments’ reflection. “I remember because it caught in the chiffon of the old dress I put away.”

Markham frowned and then resumed his questioning.

“You say you don’t know the name of Miss Odell’s dinner companion last night. Can you tell us the names of any men she was in the habit of going out with?”

“Miss Odell never mentioned any names to me,” the woman said. “She was very careful about it, too—secretive, you might say. You see, I’m only here in the daytime, and the gentlemen she knew generally came in the evening.”

“And you never heard her speak of any one of whom she was frightened—any one she had reason to fear?”

“No, sir—although there was one man she was trying to get rid of. He was a bad character—I wouldn’t have trusted him anywhere—and I told Miss Odell she’d better look out for him. But she’d known him a long time, I guess, and had been pretty soft on him once.”

“How do you happen to know this?”

“One day, about a week ago,” the maid explained, “I came in after lunch, and he was with her in the other room. They didn’t hear me, because the porti?res were drawn. He was demanding money, and when she tried to put him off, he began threatening her. And she said something that showed she’d given him money before. I made a noise, and then they stopped arguing; and pretty soon he went out.”

“What did this man look like?” Markham’s interest was reviving.