Markham moved restlessly.
“Several men from your department, Sergeant, were supposed to be keeping an eye on the Drukker and Dillard houses. Did you talk to any of them this morning?”
“I didn’t have time, sir; and, anyway, I figured it was only an accident. But I told the boys to hang around until I got back.”
“What did the Medical Examiner have to say?”
“Only that it looked like an accident; and that Drukker had been dead about ten hours. . . .”
Vance interpolated a question.
“Did he mention a fractured skull in addition to the broken neck?”
“Well, sir, he didn’t exactly say the skull was fractured, but he did state that Drukker had landed on the back of his head.” Heath nodded understandingly. “I guess it’ll prove to be a fracture all right—same like Robin and Sprigg.”
“Undoubtedly. The technique of our murderer seems to be simple and efficacious. He strikes his victims on the vault, either stunning them or killing them outright, and then proceeds to cast them in the rôles he has chosen for them in his puppet-plays. Drukker was no doubt leaning over the wall, perfectly exposed for such an attack. It was misty, and the setting was somewhat obscured. Then came the blow on the head, a slight heave, and Drukker fell noiselessly over the parapet—the third sacrificial offering on the altar of old Mother Goose.”
“What gets me,” declared Heath with surly anger, “is why Guilfoyle,[25] the fellow I set to watch the rear of the Drukker house, didn’t report the fact that Drukker was out all night. He returned to the Bureau at eight o’clock, and I missed him.—Don’t you think, sir, it might be a good idea to find out what he knows before we go up-town?”