Behind That Curtain (29 page)

Durand shrugged his shoulders wearily. “Why, that doesn't matter. You meant it kindly, I know. For a moment, in spite of all that has happened, I did allow myself to hope—I did think that it might
really be Eve. Silly of me—I should have learned my lesson long ago. Well, there is nothing more to be said.” He moved toward the door. “If that is all, Captain—”

“Yes, that's all. I'm sorry, Major.”

Durand bowed. “I'm sorry, too. No doubt I shall see you again. Good-by.”

Near the door, as he went out, he passed the girl who called herself Grace Lane. She had been standing there drooping with fatigue; now she took a step nearer the desk. Her face was pale, her eyes dull with the strain of a long, hard day. “What are you going to do with me?” she asked.

“Wait a minute,” growled Flannery.

Miss Morrow rose, and placed a chair for the other woman. She was rewarded by a grateful look.

“I just remembered Beetham,” said Flannery. Again he scowled at Chan. “I've tipped off my hand to him—for nothing. I can thank you for that, too.”

“My guilty feeling grows by jumps and bounds,” sighed Charlie.

“It ought to,” the Captain replied. He went to the inner door and called loudly: “Pat!” Pat appeared at once, followed by the Colonel. For an instant Beetham stood staring curiously about the room.

“But where,” he remarked, “is the touching reunion? I don't see Durand. No more do I see his wife.”

Flannery's face grew even redder than usual. “There's been a mistake,” he admitted.

“There have been a number of mistakes, I fancy,” said Beetham carelessly. “A dangerous habit, that of making mistakes, Captain. You should seek to overcome it.”

“When I want your advice, I'll ask for it,” responded the harassed Flannery. “You can go along. But I still regard you as an important witness in this case, and I warn you not to strike out for any more deserts until I give you the word.”

“I shall remember what you say,” Beetham nodded, and went out.

“What are you going to do with me?” Grace Lane persisted.

“Well, I guess you've had a pretty rough deal,” Flannery said. “I apologize to you. You see, I got foolish and listened to a Chinaman, and that's how I came to make a mistake about your identity. I brought you back on a charge of stealing a uniform, but probably Mr. Kirk won't want to go ahead with that.”

“I should say not,” cried Barry Kirk. He turned to the woman. “I hope you won't think it was my idea. You can have a bale of my uniforms, if you like.”

“You're very kind,” she answered.

“Not at all. What is more, your old position is yours if you want it. You know, I'm eager to beautify the Kirk Building, and I lost ground when you left.”

She smiled, without replying. “I may go then?” she said, rising.

“Sure,” agreed Flannery. “Run along.”

Miss Morrow looked at her keenly. “Where are you going?”

“I don't know. I—”

“I do,” said the deputy district attorney. “You're going home with me. I've got an apartment—there's loads of room. You shall stay with me for this one night, at least.”

“You—you are really too good to me,” replied Grace Lane, and her voice broke slightly.

“Nonsense. We've all been far too unkind to you. Come along.”

The two women went out. Flannery sank down behind his desk. “Now I'm going at this thing in my own way for a change,” he announced. “This has been an awful upset, but I had it coming to me. Listening to a Chinaman! If Grace Lane isn't Eve Durand, who is? What do you say, Inspector Duff?”

“I might also warn you,” smiled Duff, “against the dangers of listening to an Englishman.”

“Oh, but you're from Scotland Yard. I got respect for your opinion. Let's see—Eve Durand is about somewhere—I'm sure of that. Sir Frederic was the kind of man who knows what he's talking about. There's that Lila Barr. She fits the description pretty well. There's Gloria Garland. An assumed name—Australia—might be. There's Eileen Enderby. Rust stains on her dress that night. But I didn't see them. May have been there—probably not. Another guess on Sergeant Chan's part, perhaps.”

“There is also,” added Charlie, “Mrs. Tupper-Brock. I offer the hint with reluctance.”

“And well you may,” sneered Flannery. “No—if you fancy Mrs. Tupper-Brock, then right there she's out with me. Which of these women—I'll have to start all over again.”

“I feel humble and contrite,” said Chan. “In spite of which, suggestions keep crowding to my tongue. Have you heard old Chinese saying, Captain—‘It is always darkest underneath the lamp'?”

“I'm fed up on Chinese sayings,” replied the Captain.

“The one I have named means what? That just above our heads the light is blazing. Such is the fact, Captain Flannery. Take my advice, and worry no more about Eve Durand.”

“Why not?” asked Flannery, in spite of himself.

“Because you are poised on extreme verge of the great triumph of your life. In a few hours at the most your head will be ringing with your own praises.”

“How's that?”

“In a few hours you will arrest the murderer of Sir Frederic Bruce,” Chan told him calmly.

“Say—how do you get that way?” queried Flannery.

“There is one condition. It may be hard one for you,” Chan continued. “For your own sake, I beseech you to comply with same.”

“One condition? What's that?”

“You must listen once more—and for the last time—to what you call a Chinaman.”

Flannery stirred uneasily. A hot denial rose to his lips, but something in the little man's confident manner disturbed him.

“Listen to you again, eh? As though I'd do that.”

Inspector Duff stood up, and relighted his pipe. “If it is true that you respect my opinion, Captain—then, quoting our friend, I would make humble suggestion. Do as he asks.”

Flannery did not reply for a moment. “Well,” he said finally, “what have you got up your sleeve now? Another hunch?”

Chan shook his head. “A certainty. I am stupid man from small island, and I am often wrong. This time I am quite correct. Follow me—and I prove it.”

“I wish I knew what you're talking about,” Flannery said.

“An arrest—in a few hours—if you will stoop so far as to do what I require,” Chan told him. “In Scotland Yard, which Inspector Duff honors by his association, there is in every case of murder what they call essential clue. There was essential clue in this case.”

“The slippers?” asked Flannery.

“No,” Charlie replied. “The slippers were valuable, but not essential. The essential clue was placed on scene by hand now dead. Hand of a man clever far beyond his fellows—how sad that such a man has passed. When Sir Frederic saw death looking him boldly in the face, he reached to a bookcase and took down—what? The essential clue, which fell from his dying hand to lie at his side on the dusty floor. The year-book of the Cosmopolitan Club.”

A moment of silence followed. There was a ring of conviction in the detective's voice.

“Well—what do you want?” inquired Flannery.

“I want that you must come to the Cosmopolitan Club in one-half hour. Inspector Duff will of course accompany. You must then
display unaccustomed patience and wait like man of stone. Exactly how long I can not predict now. But in due time I will point out to you the killer of Sir Frederic—and I will produce proof of what I say.”

Flannery rose. “Well, it's your last chance. You make a monkey of me again and I'll deport you as an undesirable alien. At the Cosmopolitan Club in half an hour. We'll be there.”

“Undesirable alien will greet you at the door,” smiled Charlie, “hoping to become desirable at any moment. Mr. Kirk—will you be so good as to join my company?” He and Barry Kirk went out.

“Well, Charlie, you're certainly in bad with the Captain,” said Kirk as they stood in the street waiting for a taxi.

Chan nodded. “Will be in even worse presently,” he replied.

Kirk stared at him. “How's that?”

“I shall point him the way to success. He will claim all credit, but sight of me will make him uncomfortable. No man loves the person who has guided his faltering footsteps to high-up rung of the ladder.”

They entered a taxi. “The Cosmopolitan Club,” Chan ordered. He turned to Kirk. “And now I must bow low in dust with many humble apologies to you. I have grieviously betrayed a trust.”

“How so?” asked Kirk surprised.

Chan took a letter from his pocket. It was somewhat worn and the handwriting on the envelope was a trifle blurred. “The other morning you wrote letters in office, giving same to me to mail. I made gesture toward mail chute, but I extracted this missive.”

“Great Scott!” cried Kirk. “Hasn't that been mailed?”

“It has not. What could be more disgusting? My gracious host, at whose hands I have received every kindness. I have besmirched his confidence.”

“But you had a reason?” suggested Kirk.

“A very good reason, which time will ascertain. Am I stepping over the bounds when I seek to dig up your forgiveness?”

“Not at all,” Kirk smiled.

“You are most affable man it has yet been my fate to encounter.” The taxi had reached Union Square. Chan called to the driver to halt. “I alight here to correct my crime,” he explained. “The long-delayed letter now goes to its destination by special, fleet-footed messenger.”

“I say—you don't mean—” Kirk cried in amazement.

“What I mean comes gradually into the light,” Chan told him. He got out of the taxi. “Be so kind as to await my coming at the club door. The guardian angel beyond the threshold is jealous as to who has honor of entering Cosmopolitan Club. It has been just as well for my purpose, but please make sure that I am not left rejected outside the portal.”

“I'll watch for you,” Kirk promised.

He rode on to the club, his head whirling with new speculations and questions. No—no—this couldn't be. But Charlie had an air—

Shortly after he had reached the building Charlie appeared, and Kirk steered him past the gold-laced door man. Presently Flannery and Duff arrived. The Captain's manner suggested that he was acting against his better judgment.

“I suppose this is another wild-goose chase,” he fretted.

“One during which the goose is apprehended, I think,” Chan assured him. “But there will be need of Oriental calm. Have you good supply? We may loiter here until midnight hour.”

“That's pleasant,” Flannery replied. “Well, I'll wait a while. But this is your last chance—remember.”

“Also your great chance,” Chan shrugged. “You must likewise remember. We do wrong to hang here in spotlight of publicity. Mr. Kirk, I have made selection of nook where we may crouch unobserved, but always observing. I refer to little room behind office, opening at the side on check-room.”

“All right—I know where you mean,” Kirk told him. He spoke
to the manager, and the four of them were ushered into a little back room, unused at the moment and in semi-darkness. Chairs were brought, and all save Charlie sat down. The little detective bustled about. He arranged that his three companions should have an unobstructed view of the check-room, where his friend of the morning, old Peter Lee, sat behind his barrier engrossed in a bright pink newspaper.

“Only one moment,” said Chan. He went out through the door which led behind the counter of the check-room. For a brief time he talked in low tones with Lee. Then the three men sitting in the dusk saw him give a quick look toward the club lobby, and dodge abruptly into his hiding-place beside them.

Colonel John Beetham, debonair as usual, appeared at the counter and checked his hat and coat. Kirk, Flannery and Duff leaned forward eagerly and watched him as he accepted the brass check and turned away. But Chan made no move.

Time passed. Other members came into the club for dinner and checked their belongings, unconscious of the prying eyes in the little room. Flannery began to stir restlessly on his uncomfortable chair.

“What the devil is all this?” he demanded.

“Patience,” Charlie admonished. “As the Chinese say, ‘In time the grass becomes milk.'”

“Yeah—but I'd rather hunt up a cow,” Flannery growled.

“Patient waiting,” Chan went on, “is first requisite of good detective. Is that not correct, Inspector Duff?”

“Sometimes it seems the only requisite,” Duff agreed. “I fancy I may smoke here?”

“Oh, of course,” Kirk told him. He sighed with relief and took out his pipe.

The minutes dragged on. They heard the shuffle of feet on the tiled floor of the lobby, the voices of members calling greetings, making dinner dates. Flannery was like a fly on a hot griddle.

“If you're making a fool of me again—” he began.

His recent humiliation had been recalled to his mind by the sight of Major Eric Durand, checking his Burberry and his felt hat with Peter Lee. The Major's manner was one of deep depression.

“Poor devil,” said Flannery softly. “We handed him a hard jolt to-day. It wasn't necessary, either.” His accusing eyes sought Chan. The detective was huddled up on his chair like some fat, oblivious Buddha.

A half-hour passed. Flannery was in constant touch with the figures on the face of his watch. “Missing my dinner,” he complained “And this chair—it's like a barrel top.”

“There was no time to procure a velvet couch,” Chan suggested gently. “Compose yourself, I beg. The happy man is the calm man. We have only begun to vigil.”

At the end of another half-hour, Flannery was fuming. “Give us a tip,” he demanded. “What are we waiting for? I'll know, or by heaven, I'll get out of here so quick—”

“Please,” whispered Charlie. “We are waiting for the murderer of Sir Frederic Bruce. Is that not enough?”