“So I see,” muttered Culligore with a glance at the man on the cot. Fairspeckle’s face bore a dazed look and he seemed to understand nothing of what was being said, but his staring eyes held an expression of terror.
“I would like to know,” murmured Starr, fixing his pale eyes on the lieutenant’s inscrutable face, “how and when you learned that I was Mr. Shei. I was under the impression that you suspected Fairspeckle.”
“I meant you should be,” said Culligore with a dry chuckle. “I knew somebody was listening behind the marble ledge the day I had that talk with The Gray Phantom upstairs, and I guessed it was either you or one of your men. I pretended to believe that Fairspeckle was Mr. Shei, and I encouraged The Phantom in thinking the same thing, but all the while I was talking for the benefit of the fellow behind the marble slab. I had a pretty good suspicion as to who Mr. Shei was, and I wanted to throw him off his guard. Once a man gets careless it isn’t hard to catch him.”
Starr grinned appreciatively. “I’ll admit that you are far shrewder than you look, Culligore, but I am not so sure that I have been guilty of carelessness. That remains to be seen. What I am curious to know is when you first began to suspect that I was Mr. Shei. You see, I have nothing to fear from you, so I frankly admit the fact. But I would like to know by what sort of reasoning you were led to suspect me.”
“There wasn’t any course of reasoning,” said Culligore, maintaining a steady grip on his pistol. “It was only a flash here and there. The first flash came when I saw the note Virginia Darrow sent you the night she died. I guessed then that she had learned in some way that you were Mr. Shei, and she wanted to tease you with it. A little later, when you were handed that bump on the nose, I didn’t know exactly what to think. Then it came to me that, if you really were Mr. Shei, you would have yourself assaulted along with the others to turn suspicion away from you. It was a clever move, Mr. Starr, but it didn’t fool me for long. Well, a number of other things happened that strengthened my suspicion, but I wasn’t really sure until I walked into this room to-night.”
Starr scowled a little. “You are a bit disappointing, Culligore. I had hoped you would give me an example of fine-spun deductive reasoning of the kind that always drips from the lips of story-book detectives. Just one more thing before we close this pleasant interview. How do you account for Mr. Fairspeckle?”
“Oh, that part was fairly easy. Fairspeckle is a queer sort, but he never did any real harm. He’s been troubled with insomnia, and when a man can’t sleep, he’s likely to do any foolish thing, from writing poetry on a park bench to murdering his mother-in-law. The deeper the mystery, the simpler the explanation. That has been my experience, and it has held true in Fairspeckle’s case. I’m not dead sure of my facts, but I can make a pretty close guess. The night Mr. Shei’s notices were posted, Fairspeckle had been roaming the town as he always did when he couldn’t sleep. He saw one of the notices in Times Square and, being one of the seven richest men in town, he didn’t like the idea a bit. Then The Gray Phantom came strolling along, and Fairspeckle recognized him. Like many others, he jumped at the conclusion that The Phantom was Mr. Shei, and right away he began to study out a way of beating Mr. Shei’s game.
“By some hook or crook he got The Phantom into his apartment, and there he tried to drug him. He had two objects in view. One of them was to keep The Phantom under cover for a time so he wouldn’t be able to go on with his scheme, and the other was to get even with certain enemies of his by throwing an almighty scare into them. While the real Mr. Shei, as he supposed, was a prisoner in his apartment, he meant to carry the scheme just a step or two farther—just far enough to put fear into his old enemies. It just so happened that five of those enemies were among the seven richest men in town. Well, Fairspeckle got a typewriter and went to work and typed a new set of notices, supplementing the ones that had already been posted. I hope he had a good laugh while he was typing the seven names, for that’s all the good his scheme did him. A few hours later he was kidnaped. That was another fairly clever move, Starr.”
Starr seemed to enjoy the compliment. “Thanks, Culligore,” he murmured. “I knew you would appreciate that little touch. After overhearing the conversation between you and The Phantom, in which I thought you made it plain that both of you suspected Fairspeckle, I saw a still more effective way to divert suspicion from myself. Since you already suspected Fairspeckle, as I thought at the time, it occurred to me to let the suspicion take firmer root by having Fairspeckle disappear. A man who vanishes mysteriously is always an object of suspicion.”
Culligore nodded absently. Only half his mind had been on Starr’s speech. Now, still holding the automatic firmly leveled, he came a step closer to the other man.