The needle had come to the end of the record. There was a slight click, and the automatic device shut off the motor. The almost terrifying silence that followed was broken by a sardonic chuckle from Vance.
“Well, old dear,” he remarked languidly, as he strolled back into the living-room, “so much for your irrefutable facts!”
There came a loud knocking on the door, and the officer on duty outside looked in with a startled face.
“It’s all right,” Markham informed him in a husky voice. “I’ll call you when I want you.”
Vance lay down on the davenport and took out another cigarette. Having lighted it, he stretched his arms far over his head and extended his legs, like a man in whom a powerful physical tension had suddenly relaxed.
“ ’Pon my soul, Markham, we’ve all been babes in the woods,” he drawled. “An incontrovertible alibi—my word! If the law supposes that, as Mr. Bumble said, the law is a ass, a idiot.—Oh, Sammy, Sammy, vy worn’t there a alleybi! . . . Markham, I blush to admit it, but it’s you and I who’ve been the unutterable asses.”
Markham had been standing by the instrument like a man dazed, his eyes riveted hypnotically on the telltale record. Slowly he came into the room and threw himself wearily into a chair.
“Those precious facts of yours!” continued Vance. “Stripped of their carefully disguised appearance, what are they?—Spotswoode prepared a phonograph record—a simple enough task. Every one makes ’em nowadays——”
“Yes. He told me he had a workshop at his home on Long Island where he tinkered a bit.”
“He really didn’t need it, y’ know. But it facilitated things, no doubt. The voice on the record is merely his own in falsetto—better for the purpose than a woman’s, for it’s stronger and more penetrating. As for the label, he simply soaked it off of an ordin’ry record, and pasted it on his own. He brought the lady several new records that night, and concealed this one among them. After the theatre he enacted his gruesome little drama and then carefully set the stage so that the police would think it was a typical burglar’s performance. When this had been done, he placed the record on the machine, set it going, and calmly walked out. He had placed the prayer-rug and bronze bowl on the cabinet of the machine to give the impression that the phonograph was rarely used. And the precaution worked, for no one thought of looking into it. Why should they? . . . Then he asked Jessup to call a taxicab—everything quite natural, y’ see. While he was waiting for the car the needle reached the recorded screams. They were heard plainly: it was night, and the sounds carried distinctly. Moreover, being filtered through a wooden door, their phonographic timbre was well disguised. And, if you’ll note, the enclosed horn is directed toward the door, not three feet away.”