“Corpses are sometimes mistaken, Pinto.” The lieutenant fumbled for a match and slowly kindled his cigar. “I’ll bet a pair of pink socks that the Phantom had nothing to do with this. The Phantom always fought clean. I’d hate like blue blazes to think that he pulled off this job.”
Pinto scowled a little, as if he couldn’t quite understand why Culligore should reject an easy solution of the mystery when it came to him ready-made.
“By the way,” and Culligore fixed an indolent eye on the electric fixture above the desk, “was the light on or off when you broke in?”
“It was off, sir. I turned it on myself.”
Culligore thought for a moment. “Well, that doesn’t mean much. The murderer might have switched it off before he made his get-away, or the room might have been dark all the time. I’d give a good smoke to know whether the murder was done in the light or the dark.”
Pinto’s eyes widened inquiringly.
“You see, Pinto, if the light was on we can take it for granted Gage saw the murderer’s face. If the room was dark, then he was just guessing when he told you it was the Phantom. It would have been a natural guess, too, for he would be very apt to suppose that the murderer was the man who had sent him the threatening letter. Since we can’t know whether Gage was stabbed in the light or the dark, we’d better forget what he told you and take a fresh start.” His eyes flitted about the room, and a flicker of interest appeared in their depths. “How do you suppose the murderer got out, Pinto?”
The patrolman looked significantly at the single window in the room. Culligore took a spiral tape measure from the little black box he always carried when at work on a homicide case and measured the width of the narrow sash.
“Too small,” he declared. “You’d have to yank in your belt several notches before you could crawl through a window of this size, Pinto. Anyhow, it’s latched from the inside.”
A look of perplexity in his reddish face, Pinto turned to the door. He looked a bit dazed as he noticed the damage he had wrought in forcing it. One of the panels was cracked in the center, and the slot in which the bolt had rested had been torn out of the frame.