Lanagan, Amateur Detective

by Edward H. Hurlbut

A confession had been made to the younger sister when La Pattini sought an opportunity of pleading once again alone with Monteagle, who had finally repudiated her. The sister had admitted her to the office after Monteagle left for the afternoon, knowing he was to return in the evening. She concealed herself in the closet.

Before she entered the office her plan had been formed. Either Monteagle would marry her or he should die. At that time she had no thought of escaping. She had heard the telephone ringing repeatedly; heard the elevator boy enter the room just too late to get the party calling.

Finally Monteagle had arrived and she had discovered herself. What happened was quickly over. The quarrel was of few words, and he had struck her with his fist. She stabbed him to the heart, and then with a vindictiveness that she could not now understand and shuddered at recalling had marred his features with the knife. Her first thought had been to give herself up. Then she wondered why she should do that. The brief words of their quarrel had not been heard; the janitor she could hear on the floor above. After all, she had done no more than kill a snake.

The thought of the rope came to her. She knew about it, because once when she was in the office as Monteagle worked late she had expressed anxiety at being seen coming from the building with him, and he had showed her the rope and jokingly offered to let her down from the window, which opened upon a divisional alley in the rear of the Sutton building.

The rope was of great length. Seeking for a place to tie it, she naturally turned to the radiator. The thought occurred to her with a flash her means of escape from the room might never be known if the rope was long enough to run under the radiator, letting both ends to the ground. She could then draw it down after she reached the ground by pulling on one end and letting it run under the radiator like a pulley. She tried the length, the light from the windows of the elevator shaft, opening into the areaway, giving sufficient brightness.

“As part of the preparation for the future on the stage that Mr. Monteagle was to help me get,” she said, dispassionately, “I have taken gymnasium work to build up my system. You can see it was no extraordinary thing for me to let myself down by the double rope, pulling the window shut after I climbed out. I left it open enough so that the rope could run free when I pulled it after me. I threw the rope in a street garbage tin. I was at the theatre, remarkable as it may seem, in time for my act at ten o’clock, although I missed the first show. I have been in a daze since; I was in a trance after I did the stabbing. I have known I must be found out. I am glad that it is all over. I have made no attempt to escape. I am absolutely indifferent to my fate.”

The sister, recovered from her swoon, was weeping softly, her head bowed in the other’s lap.

“Tell me,” said Lanagan curiously to her, “why did you telephone to Monteagle?”

She gasped, and it appeared for the moment that she was about to swoon again. Finally she faltered, while her own sister looked at her strangely:

“I—was afraid sister meant him harm—I didn’t think of it until I got home—and then something about her face came back to me—I wanted to warn Mr. Monteagle not to arouse her—I finally succeeded in getting him at his club before he left for his office and—he only laughed—”