Harvard Has a Homicide Page 10

  “What’s on your mind?” asked Jupiter, regaining consciousness.

  “Nothing; I’m just lonely,” she said sadly. “All alone with the ghosts of all these beautiful paintings around me — not to mention Miss Slade, a wraith if ever I saw one. And that’s why I called you. But first, what was the meaning of your sprint down the stairs after you left me?”

  “Oh, that! A tame goose chase, I’m afraid. What about the mystery woman?”

  “Don’t think you’re the only sleuth in these parts, my boy. Listen to this. Just after you and the charming Sergeant had departed, I spied Slade coming out of Singer’s office bearing papers. She headed downstairs, and just for the hell of it I decided to trail along under the pretext of answering a call. Well, I came upon her dumping the bundle in that great bucket of waste papers they keep in the basement. She’d just tossed the pile in, and in her hand was a thing that looked like a newspaper clipping, and when she saw me she tore it in small pieces into the bucket. I went by her, nodding in my own attractive manner, and entered the jerry. When I came out she had gone. So-o-o-o, I proceeded to dig around until I found the pile she’d thrown in first. They were just lecture notes, which she’d throw away ordinarily. Then I tried to find the pieces of the newspaper clipping. Well, you know what it’s like trying to find a lot of tiny bits of paper in a basket like that, and also you’d be surprised to find some of the things that do get thrown into waste-paper baskets around here — but never mind. What I did find was a piece giving the date of the paper. It said, ‘New York, March 3, (AP)’ which proves nothing, but I kept it.”

  “Well, if it isn’t Mary Roberts Rinehart, herself!” laughed Jupiter. “Are you sure there wasn’t another one saying, ‘The person who killed Singer was . . . ’?”

  “Shut up, you mug. Why would she tear it up in small pieces if it wasn’t important?”

  “I’m ashamed of you. You’ve known Miss Slade for a long time and you don’t realize she has a dual personality. She is obsessed with a sense of the dramatic.”

  “Oh, excuse me,” she said elaborately. “Of course I’d forgotten that the only way to solve crimes these days is by psychology. I’ll throw it away immediately and watch the movements of her hands. Oh, Lord, here she comes now. Good-bye.”

  Jupiter hung up and smiled. The spirit of amateur detection was really getting a firm grip in the community.

  “I may be getting senile,” he told himself, “but I fail to see how a ten-day-old newspaper clipping can have anything to do with our troubles.”

  He fell back on the sofa and lit a cigarette, waiting for the Sergeant.

  CHAPTER XII

  HE didn’t have to wait long. Rankin materialized in the fire door, looking worn.

  “Cheer up, Inspector,” smiled Jupiter, “it’s just the after-lunch letdown — it gets us all. No luck with the advocate?”

  “Not much. I was hoping he would give me something to go on. I was disappointed. Come on in here — I want someone to talk to.”

  Jupiter rolled off the couch. “Your unfailing instinct has led you to the right person. I wonder how many times my friends have come to me and said, ‘Jones, old man, there’s something I’ve got to tell you; no one else would understand.’”

  In Singer’s room Rankin sat down at the desk in the chair in which Singer had died.

  Jupiter stared at him. “Oh, I know what we’re going to do — we’re going to reenact the crime. Please, teacher, can I be the murderer?”

  Rankin looked at him gloomily. “Aren’t you ever serious?”

  “Certainly I am, but you look like one of the darker moments in Crime and Punishment. I’d hoped my lively banter would help you recapture that devil-may-care spirit I knew of old. Have you forgotten so soon, Inspector, those mad, carefree student days in Paris when we wandered bareheaded through the streets with a song on our lips and a girl on our arm?”

  Rankin smiled. “Please shut up; I’m trying to think.”

  He had a sheet of paper before him and was making some notes. Jupiter looked over his shoulder.

  “Aha!” grinned Jupiter. “I thought it was about time for that. You know, I’ve yet to read a detective story where there wasn’t a time-table or a list of alibis tucked in somewhere. Where do we begin?”

  “If you must know, we begin with you,” growled Rankin.

  “Me?” asked Jupiter incredulously.

  “Yes, you. You were the first person I checked.”

  Jupiter feigned pain. “Honestly, Inspector, I don’t think that’s quite cricket. Two-faced, I call it. Worming your way into my confidence with a disarming smile, while all the time you were drawing the noose tighter and tighter around my neck. Well, I give myself up. I’m going to plead the Unwritten Law.”

  “Shut up. The next person is Fitzgerald.” Jupiter was not through. The idea of the Sergeant actually checking his alibi was too good to be true.

  He went on, “You underestimate me, Inspector. I’m not quite so prosaic as that. If I had killed Singer I would have left the body naked and mangled on some lonely, wind-swept moor with a note pinned to his chest reading, ‘The Phantom has struck. This is the first. Let others beware!’ ” Rankin disregarded him. “Fitzgerald left here at about six-five and stopped in at the Square for a glass of beer. I talked with the bartender and he remembers him, but he can’t remember how long he stayed. He says he thinks he had two beers. Fitzgerald got back to the hotel at ten minutes of seven, I know that. Now, say he got to the Square at six-ten and left the joint at six-thirty — time enough for two drinks — then it took him twenty minutes to get from there to the Continental. How does that sound?”

  “It sounds like a good argument for the W. C. T. U.,” said Jupiter. “Fairchild leaves here and has cocktails, Fitzgerald has two beers, and, as you must know by this time, I was doing a little drinking myself at about that time.”

  “What I mean is the time element. Fitzgerald said he left the bar at six-forty, but that seems a long time for two beers. How long do you think it would take to walk from the Square to the Continental?”

  “Ten minutes.”

  “Yes. Well, I guess that that lets Fitzgerald out, although he could have come back here and then taken a taxi to the hotel.”

  “Hell, everyone that left here couldn’t have come back. We’ve had one already. Have you got any motive for Fitzgerald to come back?”

  “None at all, but I have to leave the possibility open. Of course if Singer was dead at twenty minutes of seven, as I think he must have been, it wouldn’t leave Fitzgerald much time. No, I think he’s all right.”

  The Sergeant looked at his paper and frowned. “We know Fairchild’s story, and the more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to believe it. That leaves Mrs. Fairchild.”

  “More or less holding the satchel,” said Jupiter seriously.

  “Yes. And except for one point I’d think she did it. As it is, I don’t think so.”

  Rankin got up from the desk and wandered across the room to the sofa at the other end. Jupiter watched him closely without any idea of what he was thinking.

  “I confess I don’t know what goes on, Inspector,” said Jupiter.

  “I may be wrong myself, but it’s a point I thought of last night as soon as I came into the room. Look, Singer died instantly — I know that from the examiner. Does that suggest anything?

  “Let’s not play guessing games, Inspector. I’m not up to it.”

  “Well, if he died instantly he must have been at his desk when he was stabbed. Unless, of course, someone put him there later, and there’s no reason to think that. Now if he had been expecting Mrs. Fairchild to call on him, as we know he was, what would he do when she came in?”

  “I’m impressed, Inspector. You answer the questions.”

  “He’d get up, naturally, and he would offer her a chair, — probably the sofa, and then he would sit down beside her. Do you see my point? Why would he sit at his desk way over at the other end of the room for an in
terview with a woman he was in love with?”

  “I see that all right, and it’s a good point,” mused Jupiter. “But why did it occur to you last night when you knew nothing about Mrs. Fairchild?”

  Rankin waved his hand. “I didn’t connect it with her, of course, but I figured immediately that a man must have killed him, because he would be unlikely to talk to a woman seated at his desk.”

  “Right; it would be unlikely, but not impossible.”

  “No, not impossible. But there’s a cigarette butt with lipstick on it still in this ash tray by the sofa.” He held up the stub.

  “Good work,” laughed Jupiter. “Now we have cigarette butts coming in. It’s practically perfect.”

  He was relieved that the Sergeant had admitted that he didn’t think Mrs. Fairchild had done it. Then a horrible thought struck him like a whack on the head. He had picked up the pocketbook at the edge of the desk! That knocked hell out of Rankin’s theory that she had never come near the desk!

  Rankin talked on while Jupiter tried to keep his face from giving him away.

  “Another thing that occurred to me is that if she had come here with the idea of killing him, she would have brought a gun or something to do it with. Even if she had known about that knife on Singer’s desk I doubt if she would have used it. Do you remember my saying when I first learned that the knife belonged to Singer that the person who did it must have done it in a fit of rage and not by premeditation?”

  “Yes,” said Jupiter weakly.

  “Then, even if she had got mad enough to kill him, she wouldn’t have seen the knife on the desk when she was sitting over here. I’m forced to admit that she didn’t do it.”

  Jupiter sighed. Hell, if Rankin thought she didn’t do it, and he thought she didn’t do it, and Mr. Fairchild thought she didn’t do it, why should he try to change the Sergeant’s mind?

  “Where does that leave us?” asked Jupiter.

  “It leaves us to consider the Sampsons,” said Rankin definitely.

  “What about them?” asked Jupiter. He was still in a slight daze from the shock he’d just had.

  “I’ll tell you in a minute, but first there are some other points that need going over. Singer’s lawyer said that there were no relations close enough to matter. That is, no one who might have a financial interest in his death. As a matter of fact, he left no will, and his insurance money was made out to the Fogg Museum. It came to ten thousand dollars. Now here’s the most interesting thing I learned from his lawyer. He said that Singer had told him that he was considering retiring at the end of this year.”

  Jupiter was surprised. “Really? I hadn’t even heard a rumor about it.”

  “No one seems to have heard about it. He must have been keeping it secret.”

  “Singer was going to retire?” mused Jupiter. “That means he must have had a certain amount of cash lying around. I thought he was almost dependent on his salary.”

  “I asked the lawyer about that and he told me he thought Singer had just about enough to live on. You know, he goes abroad almost every summer, and he seems to have planned to live there permanently. He told the lawyer that he was sick of teaching and wanted to devote the rest of his life to research and writing.”

  “Well, well, he seems to have retired a little prematurely.”

  Jupiter lit a cigarette with the vague feeling that he was smoking too much. He had, by experience, established the fact that when a cigarette tastes wonderful in the morning it’s going to taste terrible in the evening. Knowing this, however, seldom made him cut down. A question arose in his mind.

  “I just wondered, Inspector, why Miss Slade telephoned when she did last night. I suppose you’ve asked her that?”

  Rankin looked puzzled. “Why do you ask that?”

  Jupiter shrugged. “I don’t know. It just popped into my head.”

  “I thought of that and asked her. She said she wanted to find out something about her work. Is there any reason why she shouldn’t telephone?”

  “None that I know of,” conceded Jupiter. “Now what about the Sampsons? Did you ask her about the letter?”

  “No. I had to be very tactful to find out even if she’d been home last evening. According to the servants in the house she never went out at all from three o’clock on yesterday. I talked with her for a few minutes, but said nothing about the letter. Hell, Jones, I can’t go up to the wife of the Master of this House and ask her if she was in love with Singer!”

  The Sergeant shook his head and sat down on the couch. Jupiter felt sorry for him. It was certainly a tough spot for a detective.

  “Keep your chin up, Inspector. After all, Singer was only killed last night. You can’t expect to have the murderer tied up and ready for delivery right away. What about Sampson himself? Do you think he knew what was going on?”

  “I wish I knew,” sighed Rankin.

  They sat and smoked in silence. Less than twenty hours ago Singer had been murdered in this room, and in that short time Jupiter had learned more about his private life and the lives of people he knew than he had learned in four years of actual contact with the man. It seemed incredible. He thought that if Sylvester had read Julius Cæsar he might come out with the old favorite, “The good is oft interred with their bones,” although he had found little on the credit side of Singer’s character. That started him thinking about Shakespeare and how little there was that he hadn’t said about life and things in general. Why the hell should he be thinking about Shakespeare at a time like this?

  Rankin brought him back to earth.

  “I wish I’d been the first one to ask Hadley questions. You know, you may have put him on his guard before he talked to me.”

  “Don’t worry about Hadley,” said Jupiter firmly. “He hasn’t got a guard.”

  “There seems to be a rumor around that Hadley didn’t get along with Singer very well.”

  “There are always rumors. You’ll find them about any two professors in the same department. I’ll bet my last dollar against an old worn-out handkerchief that he knows nothing about it.” The Sergeant got up and stretched.

  “Come here a minute. I want to show you something.”

  He walked into Singer’s bathroom. Jupiter followed him.

  “Keep it clean, Inspector,” he murmured.

  “This is an idea I got last night after you showed me that fire door. I wasn’t going to say anything about it until I was absolutely sure I was right. I’m still not perfectly sure, but I’m going to tell you, anyway. At first I thought of it in connection with Hadley, but after I found that letter I changed my mind. Look here. As you know, this fire door connects Singer’s and Hadley’s toilets, the way all the rooms in this building are connected.”

  Jupiter nodded. The implication was beyond him.

  The Sergeant continued. He was getting more excited. This, thought Jupiter, is going to be his big brain wave.

  “Hadley and Sampson were together in Hadley’s room from four until twenty minutes of seven, when we know they went out together. Is that clear?”

  “Clear,” nodded Jupiter.

  “We know Singer was killed between six-fifteen and six-fifty at the latest, probably by six-forty. Correct?”

  “Correct.” The Sergeant has a fine feeling for the theatre, he thought.

  “We have no motive for Hadley killing Singer and you’re convinced he had nothing to do with it?”

  “Those were my words,” said Jupiter.

  “All right, open the fire door.”

  Rankin handed him his knife and Jupiter started to jimmy the lock.

  “I suppose it will be O. K. if we find Hadley with his pants down when we open the door?” asked Jupiter.

  “He’s not in his room. I made sure of that.”

  He finished his operations.

  “Allow me,” said Jupiter, swinging the door open for the Sergeant to go in.

  They both entered. Rankin closed the door after him.

  “Look at that.”
He pointed to the fire lock. The glass and red cardboard were missing.

  Jupiter was not astonished. “You’ll find that on practically every fire door in the building. It was probably done years ago.”

  “But it wasn’t,” said the Sergeant seriously. “It was done last night.”

  “How do you know?” Now Jupiter was astonished.

  “I talked with the chambermaid who cleans this room. She swears it was all right yesterday morning. Mr. Swayle, the janitor, checks them twice a year. He said the last time he looked it was O. K.”

  Jupiter whistled. “Have you talked with Hadley about it?”

  “No, I’m waiting for a check on it, but I don’t think he knows anything about it.”

  “This is all very mysterious and exciting, but just what does it prove?”

  The Sergeant opened the door again and they walked back through Singer’s toilet to the living room. Rankin sat down at the desk.

  “If it proves what I think it does, Singer’s murder was one of the simplest yet most premeditated murders I’ve ever seen,” said the policeman, lighting a cigarette.

  “Do I get twenty questions, or are you going to tell me about it?”

  “I’ll tell you about it as long as you promise not to spread it around. I can’t have anything leak out until I’m convinced I’m right.” Rankin settled back in his chair. “You know just as much as I do about this case so far, now that you’ve seen that lock. I’m surprised you don’t see what I’m driving at.”

  “Don’t gloat, Inspector; I realize my limitations.”

  “All right, here it is.” He was making marks on the paper in front of him. “Suppose Professor Sampson knew about an affair his wife was having with Singer and decided to kill him. He wants an alibi, so he decides to make Hadley his alibi. He goes to Hadley’s room and stays with him from four o’clock on. Presumably he knows Singer’s appointments for the afternoon, but that doesn’t matter. Just before half past six he asks Hadley if it’s all right if he uses his toilet to wash up. He goes into the toilet, closing the door behind him, turns on the water in the bowl, then breaks that fire lock and goes into Singer’s room. Of course Singer is surprised to see him coming in through his bathroom, but Sampson explains it by saying he found the door open and just dropped in to ask him to go to dinner. That puts Singer at his ease. Sampson goes up to him, picks up the knife that he knows is on the desk, and stabs him through the heart. He runs back into Hadley’s toilet, closing the fire door behind him. He washes his hands, turns off the water, and goes back into Hadley’s room. The whole thing takes him three or four minutes at the outside. He stalls around in Hadley’s room for ten minutes, then says something about going to dinner. He may be counting on Hadley to remember his dinner engagement with Singer so that he’ll be present when the body is found. I don’t know about that, but anyway he has Hadley as his alibi that he was there with him all the time.”