The finger-print experts made a careful examination of the room, but failed to find any marks except Skeel’s own. A thorough search through the murdered man’s effects occupied several hours; but nothing was discovered that gave any hint of the murderer’s identity. A .38 Colt automatic, fully loaded, was found under one of the pillows on the bed; and eleven hundred dollars, in bills of large denomination, was taken from a hollow brass curtain-rod. Also, under a loose board in the hall, the missing steel chisel, with the fissure in the blade, was found. But these items were of no value in solving the mystery of Skeel’s death; and at four o’clock in the afternoon the room was closed with an emergency padlock and put under guard.
Markham and Vance and I had remained several hours after our discovery of the body. Markham had taken immediate charge of the case, and had conducted the interrogation of the tenants. Vance had watched the routine activities of the police with unwonted intentness, and had even taken part in the search. He had seemed particularly interested in Skeel’s evening clothes, and had examined them garment by garment. Heath had looked at him from time to time, but there had been neither contempt nor amusement in the Sergeant’s glances.
At half past two Markham departed, after informing Heath that he would be at the Stuyvesant Club during the remainder of the day; and Vance and I went with him. We had a belated luncheon in the empty grill.
“This Skeel episode rather knocks the foundation from under everything,” Markham said dispiritedly, as our coffee was served.
“Oh, no—not that,” Vance answered. “Rather, let us say that it has added a new column to the edifice of my giddy theory.”
“Your theory—yes. It’s about all that’s left to go on.” Markham sighed. “It has certainly received substantiation this morning. . . . Remarkable how you called the turn when Skeel failed to show up.”
Again Vance contradicted him.
“You overestimate my little flutter in forensics, Markham dear. You see, I assumed that the lady’s strangler knew of Skeel’s offer to you. That offer was probably a threat of some kind on Skeel’s part; otherwise he wouldn’t have set the appointment a day ahead. He no doubt hoped the victim of his threat would become amenable in the meantime. And that money hidden in the curtain-rod leads me to think he was blackmailing the Canary’s murderer, and had been refused a further donation just before he phoned you yesterday. That would account, too, for his having kept his guilty knowledge to himself all this time.”
“You may be right. But now we’re worse off than ever, for we haven’t even Skeel to guide us.”
“At least we’ve forced our elusive culprit to commit a second crime to cover up his first, don’t y’ know. And when we have learned what the Canary’s various amorists were doing last night between ten and twelve, we may have something suggestive on which to work.—By the bye, when may we expect this thrillin’ information?”