The police were sure that they knew the murderer. The one problem was to find him.
Seth Wilkinson’s manservant had undergone a grueling quiz, and his account had remained the same. Ten minutes after Chatham had left Wilkinson’s apartment, the man had found the body of his master.
Only Chatham had entered the apartment that night. No one else could have come or gone, without the servant observing him.
The hallman of the Grampian Apartments corroborated this testimony.
He had noticed the nervousness exhibited by Horace Chatham. He told how the clubman had stumbled when he entered the cab. He had felt sure then that something was wrong.
When Wilkinson’s servant had spread the alarm, a short while later, the hallman had recalled the incidents of Chatham’s departure.
The police had discovered the motive for the murder. The note signed by Horace Chatham was sufficient evidence that some business transaction had led to the killing.
In the reconstruction of the crime, the scene in Seth Wilkinson’s study was fully visualized; and the terse tabloid writers made good use of it.
Chatham, they believed, had given Wilkinson his note for thirty thousand dollars. Perhaps it was to pay a gambling debt, for both men were inveterate gamesters. Whatever the purpose of the transaction, it must have led to a sudden quarrel; and in the fraction of a minute, Horace Chatham had killed his friend.
While the police had lost all traces of Chatham after the cab driver had deposited him at the Grand Central Station, they had been quite fortunate in discovering his actions prior to the time of the murder.