John Baer - The Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 5, No. 5 — August 1922)

As for Mrs. Bixby, it appeared that she had left the quiet hotel, where she had remained since the trial, nearly a month before her husband had made his escape. And the trail was too old to follow. She had dropped out of sight as completely as though the earth had opened up and swallowed her.

For two hours I sat at the big library table and went over the case from every angle. There were a number of things that puzzled me more than I was willing to admit. In the first place who and what had killed Michael Lannagan?

I had proved to my own satisfaction and to that of Peck that the second man had not been absent from the house an instant from the time that he, like the rest of us, went into seclusion. Eight trained detectives — each an ex-policeman — men with years of service behind them — were ready to swear that no one had entered the mansion. These men had taken turns in watching the place and grounds in shifts of two hours on and two hours off during the entire time since we had been in a state of siege. On the other hand I realized that Bixby had money and that money will buy almost anything. Yet I was not ready to condemn these men on mere conjecture.

Then, too, there was the matter of the special delivery letter. Who was in such close touch with the money-master that they were able to find out to the minute when he had been driven into seclusion? Outside of our own party only his closest friends knew of our plans. And had it been a mere coincidence that the telephone call from the pay station at the Pennsylvania depot had come in just after the arrival of the coroner?

Was there someone in the house who was signaling the happenings inside to our enemies on the outside?

Was one of our own number the murderer? Would he, when the time came, strike down Peck as he had struck down Lannagan?

I reached for the list of those who made up our party and checked it over in the hope that through it I might arrive at the truth. In addition to Peck, his niece and myself, there was Doctor Maxwell, an old friend — a man immensely wealthy in his own name and who had been the millionaire’s private physician for thirty years. All of the servants had been in the old man’s employ for periods ranging from over a quarter of a century of service on the part of Mrs. Langtry, the housekeeper, to ten years on the part of Lannagan, the murdered second man. Peck had hired them all and vouched for them. The detectives, as I have stated, were all men with years of service behind them.

No, on the face of it, it seemed like an impossibility. Yet there was the murder of Lannagan to prove the falsity of my reasoning.

It was shortly after noon when Peck and I, smoking in the library, were brought to our feet by a shriek for help from the servants’ quarters at the rear of the house. Drawing my revolver and shoving the millionaire, who would have taken the lead, behind me, I rushed in the direction from which the sound came.

Fred Deets, who acted as chauffeur and valet for Peck was lying on his back in the middle of the kitchen in convulsions. Beside him stood Mrs. Mulcahey, the cook, from whose voluminous lungs the shouts for help were emanating. Coincident with my arrival came the others with the exception of the two men stationed at the doors. They, like the veterans they were, remained at their posts.

In response to my orders Jenkins summoned Doctor Maxwell, who was asleep in his room. Inside of a minute the physician, his emergency kit in his hand, made his appearance.

He shook his head as he bent over the stricken man and felt his pulse. For a second there was silence. Then the physician straightened up with a shrug of his shoulders.

“He’s dying!” he said quietly, while Mrs. Mulcahey let out a wail of despair.

I turned to the physician. “Do you think—”

“Same as Lannagan!” he answered. “See for yourself how the poor fellow’s starting to bloat. After nearly half a century of medical experience it’s the first case I ever failed to diagnose — or at least make a fairly good guess at.”

He stopped suddenly. A shudder over the body of the man on the floor. Then his jaw dropped.

Fred Deets was dead!

I turned to Mrs. Mulcahey.

“Tell me just what happened!” I commanded.

“Sure, and that’s th’ worst of it,” she sobbed. “There was nothin’ happened at all. He was sittin’ here as happy as you please talkin’ to Teta when—”

“Teta? Who’s Teta?” I demanded.

“The cat,” Peck answered grimly. “Deets was one of Teta’s warmest friends. The little animal is decidedly emphatic in his likes and dislikes, but poor Fred was one of his favorites.”

I nodded. Then to Mrs. Mulcahey: “Go ahead with your story!”

“Well, sor, as I was savin’ he was sitting there talkin’ to Teta when all of a sudden I heard him give a little gasp. Me back was turned to him at the time. I looked around quickly — just in time to see him slide from th’ chair with th’ froth comin’ out of his mouth. I yelled for help and you seen th’ rest.”

Mrs. Mulcahey had been with Peck for eighteen years, my records showed. That she was not the murderer was a certainty. Yet Deets had been killed under her very eyes. I questioned her for nearly half an hour, in the hope that she might recall having seen some other member of the household in or near the kitchen at or about the time Deets was stricken down. But she was emphatic. She and she alone had been with the dead chauffeur.

There was nothing to do but send for the coroner again.

Meanwhile the body had been removed to an upstairs room where Doctor Maxwell made an examination. He called as I passed through the hall. As I entered the room he pointed to the naked body of the murdered chauffeur.

Close to the knee of the right leg the skin was blacker than elsewhere.

And in the center of the dark spot was a tiny puncture similar to the ones we had found on Lannagan’s leg!

A detective occasionally gets “hunches.” If he is a good one he plays them to the limit. I, as I have stated before, believe — and I trust that the reader will not accuse me of egotism — that I am among the top notchers despite the poor opinion he has received of me through my rambling account of the murders in the Peck mansion. Just now I got a “hunch.” I decided to play it.

Hardly taking time to thank my friend, the physician, for his courtesy, I hurried downstaids to the library where Peck was busy reading, the big cat curled up in a ball on the chair opposite.

The millionaire looked up in astonishment at my catapultic entrance.

“Mr. Peck!” I burst forth, “I want to borrow Teta!”

The millionaire elevated his brows.

“You what?” he demanded.

“I want to borrow Teta — the cat, here. I’ve an idea that he’d make a first class detective. I’ll promise you that I’ll not injure him in the least, but I am firm in the conviction that he can lead us to the murderers of Lannagan and Deets — the men who are trying to get at you and, possibly, at Miss Gladys through you.”

As I spoke the big cat arched his back and got onto his feet with a yawn, exercising his digits by drawing and withdrawing his claws in the padding of the chair half a dozen times. The action decided the old man. He looked up at me with a suspicion of a twinkle in his eyes.

“The little cuss is a scrapper as I told you,” he chuckled. “Look at the way he girds up his loins for action at the mere mention of taking a part in the scrap. Take him and welcome — but don’t let him get hurt.”

With a curt nod of thanks, I picked up the cat and carried him upstairs to my own room. For the next half hour the little animal and myself were busily engaged among the retorts and tubes which Doctor Maxwell had brought from his laboratory for experimental purposes during his enforced detention and which I borrowed for my own uses. When I had completed my task I turned to the furred beauty with a smile of satisfaction: