The Dragon’s Teeth (17 page)

“I'm a fool,” snarled the Inspector.

“Pop, you're a prince!”

Beau strolled back into the sitting room, which was cleared except for the Inspector's squad. He sauntered over to Kerrie and whispered into her ear: “I've got to go now, kid, for a little while. Remember what I said. Don't talk. Not a word. Not even to—my old man.”

“What?” Her eyes were swimming in tears. “I mean …”

Beau swallowed. She looked so helpless he felt like jumping through the window. He had to do something! Get into that room from which the shots had come. After that … improvise. Keep going. It was toughest on her.

“I'll be back soon.”

He kissed her and went out.

With him went the
Do Not Disturb
placard which had been hanging by its chain on the inside of the sitting-room door. He thrust it casually into his pocket.

Outside, a group of hotel employees and police looked at him curiously. Detective Flint, at the door, said it was all right. He went to the elevator and rang the
Down
bell. An elevator stopped. He got in and said: “Sixteenth.”

He got out on the sixteenth floor and bounded up the steps of the emergency stairway to the seventeenth floor again. The exit gave on a different corridor. He stole out. Clear sailing.

He made his way on tiptoe to Room 1726. Around the corner he could hear the group before 1724 talking excitedly.

Beau set his ear to the door of 1726. Then he slipped the
Do Not Disturb
sign over the knob and tried the door noiselessly. It gave. He pushed the door in quickly and softly, stepped inside, and closed the door again, careful to make no sound.

When the door was shut he turned the catch sidewise, locking the door from the inside.

Only then did he heave a sigh and turn round.

He crouched.

Some one was smoking a cigaret in the darkness of the room.

The murderer!

He rasped: “Don't move. I've got you covered!”

“Really?” drawled Mr. Queen from behind the glowing tip of the cigaret. “Bluffer.”

XIII.
Mr. Queen and Mr. Queen in Room 1726

“Nerves,” said Mr. Queen. “From which I gather you've been having a rough time of it.”

“Damn you,” said Beau. “How'd
you
get in?”

“As you see, in one piece. Oh, you don't. Then let's have some light. We both seem to need a lot of that.” Mr. Queen groped, found the light-switch, and snapped it on.

They blinked at each other, and then about the room.

“Don't worry,” said Mr. Queen, noting the object of his partner's scrutiny. “I shut the window at once, and of course the blind was drawn when I got here.”

“Prints?”

“I'm wearing gloves. As for you, don't touch anything. When we're through, there's still the law.”

“You'd never know it,” grunted Beau. “Maybe with the light on, though—it's only a few feet across the angle of the court to the window of the sitting room there—”

“No danger,” said Mr. Queen cheerfully. “This room is reserved, did you know that?”

Beau stared.

“Oh, you didn't. Well, it is.”

“How d'ye know?”

“I asked.”

“You mean you just walked into the hotel—”

“Certainly. Always carry a badge or two. Detective What-You-Call-It, of H.Q.—at your service. I got in all right, and even made a few ‘official' inquiries at the desk. Beat all around the mulberry bush to find out what I wanted to know without tipping my hand. At any rate, some one reserved Room 1726—”

“Man or woman?”

“No information. Reserved this room at about a quarter to nine this evening.”

“A quarter to nine? Why, Kerrie and I only checked in around half-past eight!”

Mr. Queen frowned. “That's fast work. Followed you, do you suppose?”

“I don't see how it's possible. El, there's been a leak!”

“Who knew you were coming to the
Villanoy?”

“Only Margo. You know how I pretended to cook up that scheme with her. She fell for it, but insisted on knowing just where I was going, because she wanted to make sure I didn't doublecross her. She even made me promise I wouldn't spend the night with Kerrie—jealous as hell. Only Margo knew—so she's the one who talked.”

“To whom?”

“To the same one she gave Kerrie's gun to! How was the reservation made?”

“By wire, in an obviously false name—L. L. Howard. Of course, ‘Howard' didn't show up to claim the room—officially. Simply made sure the room would be unoccupied by reserving it, then let himself in with a skeleton key, I suppose, the way I did. How's Kerrie?”

“Never mind,” said Beau miserably. “Let's go.”

“You're sure she didn't bop Margo herself?”

“I told you what she told me! Don't badger me. If we find evidence that some one was in this room, it's a confirmation of her story, isn't it?”

“It won't mean much legally. Not a terribly inspiring room, is it?”

It was an ordinary single room-and-bath, with a bed, a dresser, two chairs, and a writing-table. The bed was prepared for the night, its spread neatly folded at the foot, and blankets turned down at one corner; but the pillows were plump and unwrinkled and the blankets smooth.

“Those ashes—” began Beau, pointing to the rug.

“Mine,” said Mr. Queen. “Also that butt in the tray on the desk. The other trays are clean, I see. Well, let's begin with the bathroom. Look, but don't touch.”

They went to work in silence. The bathroom was speckless—fresh towels laid out, clean bath-mat, paper-wrapped soap, shower-curtain, wash-rag. Nothing in the medicine chest. Nothing in the hamper. The washbowl was dry.

“That's one,” said Mr. Queen, and they went back into the bedroom.

“Closet's as clean as the bathroom,” announced Beau. “Not a sign. How you doin'?”

Mr. Queen crawled out from under the bed, “Remarkably efficient cleaning women in this hotel! Beau, start at the door and work towards the window. I'll start at the window and work towards the door.”

“What on?”

“The rug.”

They crept towards each other in a weaving route—from one side of the room to the other. When they met in the middle of the room they glanced at each other and then rose.

“This,” remarked Mr. Queen, looking about, “is going to be tough.”

He went through the writing-desk and the dresser, not because he hoped but because he was thorough.

“That's that,” he said. “Beau, what have we missed?”

“The window? Shade?”

“I went over them while you were in the closet. The only evidence that might be there is fingerprints, and while I can't be sure, I've a feeling friend ‘Howard' wore gloves.”

“But there must be something,” scowled Beau. “This guy was in here at least an hour, maybe more. You just can't occupy a room for that length of time without leaving some trace of yourself.”

“‘Howard' seems to have done it, though.”

“Well, let's go. It's a washout.” Beau turned disconsolately to the door.

“Wait, Beau. My fault!” Mr. Queen whirled.

“What's your fault?”

“I overlooked something on this side of the room.”

“What?”

“The radiator.”

Beau joined him at the window. The cold steam-radiator stood directly beneath the sill.

Mr. Queen stooped over the coils, trying to peer between them. Then he lay down on the rug, twisting so that he might see clearly the narrow patch of rug just beneath the coils.

He stiffened. “Here's something!”

“Hallelujah! Fish it out, Brother Queen!”

Mr. Queen reached in and, after a moment, delicately, between gloved thumb and gloved forefinger, drew out a longish slender object which tapered to a point.

It was black and made of a hard rubber composition. An automatic pencil.

THE gold clip was loose.

“Simple enough to reconstruct what happened,” observed Mr. Queen after examination. “Whoever fired those shots at Margo Cole had to shoot through this window. So he was standing at the window—perhaps for a long time, watching from behind the drawn shade in the dark. At some point during that vigil, he stooped; and, the clip being loose, the pencil dropped from his pocket.

“By a miracle it missed both the sill and the radiator, falling through the space between them to the rug without making a sound. And it rolled several inches under the radiator. He had no reason to use a pencil, consequently he left without discovering his loss. Very considerate of him.”

“That's all true the way you say it,” argued Beau. “But suppose it was dropped by some one who occupied this room yesterday, or last week, or last year?”

“Improbable. The room was prepared for occupancy late this evening, after the wired reservation. We know that, because the bed's made up for the night. That means a maid cleaned up in here later than 8.45 tonight. And a maid who left not a speck of dust under a bed would scarcely have overlooked a pencil under a radiator. No, Beau, this pencil was dropped by ‘Howard,' whoever
he
is.”

“Not much of a clue,” growled Beau. “Just a plain, ordinary, garden variety of automatic pencil. He might just as well have dropped nothing.”

“Well, now, I don't, know,” murmured Mr. Queen. “Doesn't anything about this pencil strike you as familiar?”

Beau stared at it. “Not guilty.”

“You've never seen one like it before?”

“I've seen thousands like it before,” retorted Beau. “That's just the trouble.”

“No, no, not a pencil. Don't you recall another writing implement of hard black rubber composition, with a gold clip?”

“Cole's fountain-pen?” Beau laughed shortly. “That's quite a deduction. Are you trying to tell me that, just because Cole's pen was hard black rubber stuff and had a gold clip, this pencil was part of Cole's pen-and-pencil set?”

“I'm trying to tell you exactly that,” said Mr. Queen, “but not for the reason you give, although the similarity of construction and appearance are striking. Where are your eyes?”

He held the pencil up. Beau looked it over without touching it—from its leaded point, where Ellery was gripping it, up its body to the eraser-cap.

And just below the cap he saw something that made him exclaim. The hard rubber was considerably scratched and dented in a sort of arced pattern; some of the nicks were deep.

“Those nicks look like the ones in Cole's pen.… But that's impossible!”

“Disregarding philosophical considerations,” said Mr. Queen with a certain excitement, “I think we may prove or disprove the theory by completely material means.”

He laid the pencil carefully down on the rug between them and produced his wallet. From an inner pocket of the wallet he extracted a series of tiny squares of film.

“The microphotographs of the nicks in Cole's pen I asked you to take,” he explained.

“But I thought they were in the office.”

“Too valuable to be left lying about. I've been carrying them in my wallet ever since.” Mr. Queen compared the photographs with the pencil on the rug. Then he handed the films to Beau.

When Beau looked up there was an expression of incredulity in his eyes. “The same!”

“Yes, the marks on this pencil and the marks on Cole's pen were created by the same agency. Consequently this pencil
is
a companion of Cole's pen.”

“Cole's pencil,” mumbled Beau.
“Cole's!'

“Without a doubt.”

Beau got to his feet. Mr. Queen squatted on his hams Buddha-like, musing over the photographs and the pencil.

“But it can't be,” Beau said.

“There's the evidence.”

“But—Cole's been dead for nearly three months! Unless the pencil's been lying here—”

“I explained before,” replied Mr. Queen with a trace of impatience, “why that's probably not so. But if you insist on confirmation, run your hand over the rug and patch of flooring under the radiator and between the radiator and wall. You'll find it completely free of dust. Indicating that the rug and floor have been cleaned very recently. No, this pencil was dropped tonight by the person who shot Margo Cole.”

“By Cole, I suppose?” Beau laughed shortly. “You'll be asking me to believe in the boogey man next!”

“There are other possibilities,” murmured Mr. Queen. “But if you insist on being argumentative—why not by Cole?”

“What?” cried Beau.

“Well, why not?” Mr. Queen stared at his partner impassively.
“What proof have we that Cole is dead?”

Beau looked groggy. “It's beyond me. Cole not dead?”

“I'm not asserting a fact, I'm posing a question. We have only one person's word for the alleged fact that Cole died—Edmund De Carlos's. Captain Angus, the crew—every one who could possibly substantiate De Carlos's story is gone. No body was produced—‘buried at sea,' wasn't the report?”

“But …”

“Is the reason Cole hired us three months ago beginning to emerge? Has Cole been hanging around all this time under the cloak of the perfect disguise—death and burial?”

“It's true,” muttered Beau, “that we wouldn't know him even if he were alive—no, that's not true. We did see him. In our office. So that doesn't wash. Then that would mean he's hiding out somewhere. But why?”

“I can think of at least two reasons,” replied Mr. Queen, “either of which is perfectly sensible and makes the theory very attractive—very.”

“You mean you think Cole's behind the whole business—the attacks on Kerrie, the murder of Margo? Then why did he hire us in the first place? Or, if he's alive, where do the heirs fit in? Heirs can't inherit from a living man; if they do, if that's what he planned …” Beau shouted: “I'm going nuts!”