“Ah! But there’s a reason for most of the other things having been disturbed—like the drawers and pigeonholes and closets and vases. They all indicate a search; they’re consistent with a raid for loot. But that lamp, now, d’ ye see, doesn’t fit into the picture. It’s a false note. It was standing on the opposite end of the table to where the murder was committed, at least five feet away; and it couldn’t possibly have been knocked over in the struggle.… No, it won’t do. It’s got no business being upset, any more than that pretty mirror over the gate-legged table has any business being broken. That’s why it’s queer.”
“What about those chairs and the little table?” asked Heath, pointing to two small gilded chairs which had been overturned, and a fragile tip-table that lay on its side near the piano.
“Oh, they fit into the ensemble,” returned Vance. “They’re all light pieces of furniture which could easily have been knocked over, or thrown aside, by the hasty gentleman who rifled these rooms.”
“The lamp might’ve been knocked over in the same way,” argued Heath. Vance shook his head. “Not tenable, Sergeant. It has a solid bronze base and isn’t at all top-heavy; and, being set well back on the table, it wasn’t in anyone’s way.… That lamp was upset deliberately.”
The sergeant was silent for a while. Experience had taught him not to underestimate Vance’s observations; and, I must confess, as I looked at the lamp lying on its side on the end of the library table, well removed from any of the other disordered objects in the room, Vance’s argument seemed to possess considerable force. I tried hard to fit it into a hasty reconstruction of the crime but was utterly unable to do so.
“Anything else that don’t seem to fit into the picture?” Heath at length asked.
Vance pointed with his cigarette toward the clothes closet in the living room. This closet was alongside of the foyer, in the corner near the Boule cabinet, directly opposite to the end of the davenport.
“You might let your mind dally a moment with the condition of that clothes press,” suggested Vance carelessly. “You will note that, though the door’s ajar, the contents have not been touched. And it’s about the only area in the apartment that hasn’t been disturbed.”
Heath walked over and looked into the closet.
“Well, anyway, I’ll admit that’s queer,” he finally conceded.
Vance had followed him indolently and stood gazing over his shoulder.
“And my word!” he exclaimed suddenly. “The key’s on the inside of the lock. Fancy that, now! One can’t lock a closet door with the key on the inside—can one, Sergeant?”
“The key may not mean anything,” Heath observed hopefully. “Maybe the door was never locked. Anyhow, we’ll find out about that pretty soon. I’m holding the maid outside, and I’m going to have her on the carpet as soon as the captain finishes his job here.”
He turned to Dubois, who, having completed his search for fingerprints in the bedroom, was now inspecting the piano.
“Any luck yet?”
The captain shook his head.
“Gloves,” he answered succinctly.
“Same here,” supplemented Bellamy gruffly, on his knees before the escritoire.
Vance, with a sardonic smile, turned and walked to the window, where he stood looking out and smoking placidly, as if his entire interest in the case had evaporated.
At this moment the door from the main hall opened, and a short, thin little man, with gray hair and a scraggly gray beard, stepped inside and stood blinking against the vivid sunlight.
“Good morning, Professor,” Heath greeted the newcomer. “Glad to see you. I’ve got something nifty, right in your line.”
Deputy Inspector Conrad Brenner was one of that small army of obscure, but highly capable, experts who are connected with the New York Police Department, and who are constantly being consulted on abstruse technical problems, but whose names and achievements rarely get into the public prints. His specialty was locks and burglars’ tools; and I doubt if, even among those exhaustively painstaking criminologists of the University of Lausanne, there was a more accurate reader of the evidential signs left by the implements of housebreakers. In appearance and bearing he was like a withered little college professor.30 His black, unpressed suit was old-fashioned in cut; and he wore a very high stiff collar, like a fin-de-siècle clergyman, with a narrow black string tie. His gold-rimmed spectacles were so thick-lensed that the pupils of his eyes gave the impression of acute belladonna poisoning.
When Heath had spoken to him, he merely stood staring with a sort of detached expectancy; he seemed utterly unaware that there was anyone else in the room. The sergeant, evidently familiar with the little man’s idiosyncrasies of manner, did not wait for a response, but started at once for the bedroom.
“This way, please, Professor,” he directed cajolingly, going to the dressing table and picking up the jewel case. “Take a squint at this and tell me what you see.”
Inspector Brenner followed Heath, without looking to right or left, and, taking the jewel case, went silently to the window and began to examine it. Vance, whose interest seemed suddenly to be reawakened, came forward and stood watching him.
For fully five minutes the little expert inspected the case, holding it within a few inches of his myopic eyes. Then he lifted his glance to Heath and winked several times rapidly.
“Two instruments were used in opening this case.” His voice was small and high-pitched, but there was in it an undeniable quality of authority. “One bent the lid and made several fractures on the baked enamel. The other was, I should say, a steel chisel of some kind, and was used to break the lock. The first instrument, which was blunt, was employed amateurishly, at the wrong angle of leverage; and the effort resulted only in twisting the overhang of the lid. But the steel chisel was inserted with a knowledge of the correct point of oscillation, where a minimum of leverage would produce the counteracting stress necessary to displace the lockbolts.”
“A professional job?” suggested Heath.
“Highly so,” answered the inspector, again blinking. “That is to say, the forcing of the lock was professional. And I would even go so far as to advance the opinion that the instrument used was one especially constructed for such illegal purposes.”
“Could this have done the job?” Heath held out the poker.
The other looked at it closely and turned it over several times. “It might have been the instrument that bent the cover, but it was not the one used for prying open the lock. This poker is cast iron and would have snapped under any great pressure; whereas this box is of cold rolled eighteen-gauge steel plate, with an inset cylinder pin-tumbler lock taking a paracentric key. The leverage force necessary to distort the flange sufficiently to lift the lid could have been made only by a steel chisel.”
“Well, that’s that.” Heath seemed well satisfied with Inspector Brenner’s conclusion. “I’ll send the box down to you, Professor, and you can let me know what else you find out.”
“I’ll take it along, if you have no objection.” And the little man tucked it under his arm and shuffled
