“It depends upon what luck Heath’s men have. To-night some time, if everything goes well.”
It was, in fact, about half past eight when Heath telephoned the reports. But here again Markham seemed to have drawn a blank. A less satisfactory account could scarcely be imagined. Doctor Lindquist had suffered a “nervous stroke” the preceding afternoon, and had been taken to the Episcopal Hospital. He was still there under the care of two eminent physicians whose word it was impossible to doubt; and it would be a week at least before he would be able to resume his work. This report was the only definite one of the four, and it completely exonerated the doctor from any participation in the previous night’s crime.
By a curious coincidence neither Mannix, nor Cleaver, nor Spotswoode could furnish a satisfactory alibi. All three of them, according to their statements, had remained at home the night before. The weather had been inclement; and though Mannix and Spotswoode admitted to having been out earlier in the evening, they stated that they had returned home before ten o’clock. Mannix lived in an apartment-hotel, and, as it was Saturday night, the lobby was crowded, so that no one would have been likely to see him come in. Cleaver lived in a small private apartment-house without a door-man or hallboys to observe his movements. Spotswoode was staying at the Stuyvesant Club, and since his rooms were on the third floor, he rarely used the elevator. Moreover, there had been a political reception and dance at the club the previous night, and he might have walked in and out at random a dozen times without being noticed.
“Not what you’d call illuminatin’,” said Vance, when Markham had given him this information.
“It eliminates Lindquist, at any rate.”
“Quite. And, automatically, it eliminates him as an object of suspicion in the Canary’s death also; for these two crimes are part of a whole—integers of the same problem. They complement each other. The latter was conceived in relation to the first—was, in fact, a logical outgrowth of it.”
Markham nodded.
“That’s reasonable enough. Anyway, I’ve passed the combative stage. I think I’ll drift for a while on the stream of your theory and see what happens.”
“What irks me is the disquietin’ feeling that positively nothing will happen unless we force the issue. The lad who manœuvred those two obits had real bean in him.”
As he spoke Spotswoode entered the room and looked about as if searching for some one. Catching sight of Markham, he came briskly forward, with a look of inquisitive perplexity.