“There wasn’t much to find out. Some kids in the park found the body about seven o’clock this morning—lots of kids around, it being Saturday; and the local men hopped over and called a police surgeon. The doc said Drukker musta fallen off the wall about ten o’clock last night—killed instantly. The wall at that spot—right opposite 76th Street—is all of thirty feet above the playground. The top of it runs along the bridle path; and it’s a wonder more people haven’t broke their necks there. Kids are all the time walking along the stone ledge.”
“Has Mrs. Drukker been notified?”
“No. I told ’em I’d attend to it. But I thought I’d come here first and see what you wanted done about it.”
Markham leaned back dejectedly.
“I don’t see that there’s much of anything we can do.”
“It might be well,” suggested Vance, “to inform Arnesson. He’ll probably be the one who’ll have to look after things. . . . My word, Markham! I’m beginning to think that this case is a nightmare, after all. Drukker was our principal hope, and at the very moment when there’s a chance of our forcing him to speak, he tumbles off of a wall——” Abruptly he stopped. “Off of a wall! . . .” As he repeated these words he leapt to his feet. “A hunchback falls off of a wall! . . . A hunchback! . . .”
We stared at him as if he had gone out of his mind; and I admit that the look on his face sent a chill over me. His eyes were fixed, like those of a man gazing at a malignant ghost. Slowly he turned to Markham, and said in a voice that I hardly recognized:
“It’s another mad melodrama—another Mother-Goose rhyme. . . . ‘Humpty Dumpty’ this time!”
The astonished silence that followed was broken by a strained harsh laugh from the Sergeant.
“That’s stretching things, ain’t it, Mr. Vance?”