“That looks to me like the .38 that was in the tool-chest,” he remarked.
“Undoubtedly,” nodded Vance, taking out his cigarette-case.
Heath rose and, going to the chest, inspected the contents of its drawer. “I guess that’s it, all right. We’ll get Miss Dillard to identify it after the doc has been here.”
At this moment Arnesson, clothed in a brilliant red-and-yellow dressing-gown, burst excitedly into the room.
“By all the witches!” he exclaimed. “Pyne just told me the news.” He came to the table and stared at Pardee’s body. “Suicide, eh? . . . But why didn’t he choose his own home for the performance? Damned inconsiderate of him to muss up some one else’s house this way. Just like a chess player.” He lifted his eyes to Markham. “Hope this won’t involve us in more unpleasantness. We’ve had enough notoriety. Distracts the mind. When’ll you be able to take the beggar’s remains away? Don’t want Belle to see him.”
“The body will be removed as soon as the Medical Examiner has seen it,” Markham told him in a tone of frosty rebuke. “And there will be no necessity to bring Miss Dillard here.”
“Good.” Arnesson still stood staring at the dead man. Slowly a look of cynical wistfulness came over his face. “Poor devil! Life was too much for him. Hypersensitive—no psychic stamina. Took things too seriously. Brooded over his fate ever since his gambit went up in smoke. Couldn’t find any other diversion. The black bishop haunted him; probably tipped his mind from its axis. By Gad! Wouldn’t be surprised if the idea drove him to self-destruction. Might have imagined he was a chess bishop—trying to get back at the world in the guise of his nemesis.”
“Clever idea,” returned Vance. “By the by, there was a house of cards on the table when we first saw the body.”
“Ha! I wondered what the cards were doing there. Thought he might have sought solace in solitaire during his last moments. . . . A card house, eh? Sounds foolish. Do you know the answer?”
“Not all of it. ‘The house that Jack built’ might explain something.”