Vincent Starrett: The Blue Door

“Yes, sir!” was the emphatic reply.

“Hovey’s a good copper,” said Lavender, as we turned back to the house. “He has no more brains than the law allows, but he’ll do what he’s told, without questions; and that’s something. But can you imagine the nerve of that boatman? He takes the bold, safe course of playing his own game under our very noses. I ought to have checked up on him before. Hovey says he thought I knew him, and I suppose that subconsciously I thought Coolbrith knew him. And yet the fact that he acted as ferryman every time we needed one ought to have occurred to me as significant. Gilly, I wonder if I’m getting old?”

I laughed, but my curiosity was burning. “Tell me, Jimmie,” I began, “is it possible—?”

“That’s what I said a little while ago,” he interrupted. “Of course, it’s possible, and I’ve been an idiot not to realize it before. He isn’t Howard. Howard was young, according to Mrs. Mumford. But he could be Kinner. Have you ever noticed, Gilly, what the average crook does when he has occasion to change his name?”

“Kinner is something like Connor,” I replied doubtfully, “if that’s what you mean.”

“Exactly! A simple change in the vowel sound. And that’s just what criminals do, when they lack imagination. They change their names to ones something like their own. Why? So they won’t forget the new names! I’ve traced crooks all over this country, and I know what I’m talking about. It is a very unusual criminal indeed who, when his name is Carpenter, changes it to Volland. The unimaginative man would change Carpenter into Carter, or Johnson into Jackson, or Walters into Waters. I once had to trail a man named Gregory S. Jennings, and the best names he could evolve, when he had occasion to register at hotels, were George S. Jones and Gordon S. Jennison; yet he was a criminal well above the average in intelligence. I trailed G. S. J. across eight states, and finally caught up with him in Texas. He was immensely surprised when I laid my hand on his shoulder.”

“Clever!” I commented.

“Clever, the deuce!” retorted Jimmie Lavender. “It’s a matter of observation and intelligence. Connor, a man of no particular intellect, has occasion to change his name, and so he becomes Kinner; obviously because he is desperately afraid he will forget the new name unless it is something like the old.”

“Then if Kinner is Conner,” I said, “and Conner is Kinner, the case ought to be about over!”

Jimmy Lavender nodded thoughtfully.

“Yes,” he agreed, “unless I’m all wrong, and this is one of the exceptions to my rule, the case is about over. It’s funny, isn’t it, Gilly? One minute we are groping in the dark, wondering which way to turn, and the next minute a clear light shines suddenly out of the murk, and all the tangles begin to resolve themselves.”

We entered the house, and had been inside barely half an hour when a courier arrived in haste from Hovey, to say that Connor was approaching the island with some visitors. Lavender was highly pleased.

“Hovey’s a better man than I gave him credit for,” he observed. “He sends his messenger as soon as our man approaches the island, instead of waiting for him to try to land. That’s good work!”

We departed hastily for the anchorage, and reached it in time to see a motorboat of fairish size nosing up against the dock. In the stern sat the boatman who had brought us to the island, his face wreathed in smiles.

“What a nerve!” murmured Lavender, with admiration. “We actually rode with him in that boat, and so did Coolbrith on his first trip!”

He strode out onto the pier.

“Hello, Connor,” he called easily. “I want to cross to the mainland. Have you room for me?”

“Plenty room,” grinned the boatman. “The sergeant says I can’t land my passengers, so I’m going right back. Hop right in, sir!”

There were three passengers in the motorboat, two men and a flapperish young woman. Their eyes were turned upon the house of tragedy with an eager horror that was almost ecstasy. The detective eyed them sharply, then nodded.

“Can’t do it this minute,” he replied. “I see you have room for a trunk there, and there’s an old one at the house that I’m taking back. Come up and give us a lift with it, will you? It’s pretty heavy.”

At the word “trunk” Connor’s eyes seemed to widen, but he gave no other sign of emotion, although his movements were rapid.

“Sure thing!” he agreed, stepping briskly onto the pier.

“Come on then,” said Lavender. “Nobody else must land, Sergeant,” he added to the policeman, and led the way to the house with rapid steps. Connor followed closely at his heels, and I brought up the rear, resolved that the husky boatman, if he tried a break, would never reach his boat again.

In this order we entered the house and proceeded at once to an upper room in which Lavender actually had seen an old trunk.

“There it is,” indicated the detective in businesslike tones. “Grab hold!” And Connor, with hands that trembled, seized an end of the trunk and lifted, while at the same moment I seized and lifted the other end. The trunk was certainly heavy.

“It does weigh a bit, don’t it?” grunted the boatman. “All right, Mr. Gilruth, I’ll take the back.”

“Just a minute,” said the detective suddenly, “we’d better have a look at it first. Set your end down, Kinner; easy now!”

There had been no change in the level of his voice as he uttered the significant name, but my heart gave a swift leap and I braced myself for trouble. Then an instant of terrific silence seemed to settle upon the room, and the following instant Connor’s end of the trunk slipped from his grasp and descended to the floor with a crash. I had to release my own end quickly, and leap nimbly aside to escape injury.

“What’s the matter, Kinner?” asked Lavender in surprise.

“It—slipped,” muttered the boatman huskily. He bent hurriedly over the trunk to hide the working of his features. “Now I’ve got it.”

“It’s all right, Kinner. No, let it alone. I just wanted to try an experiment, that’s all. So you think the trunk’s heavy, do you? Well, it’s unlocked, too! Just lift up the lid and see what’s in it.”

The boatman stood motionless, save for the trembling of his hands. His eyes, furtive and frightened, turned from one to the other of us. He was trying desperately to recover his calm. At length he spoke defiantly.

“My name’s not Kinner,” he said. “It’s Connor.”

“Open the trunk, Kinner!” repeated Lavender coldly.

The fearful eyes swung back to the big container, and now there was perspiration on the man’s brow. Suddenly I knew what he thought the trunk contained, and I almost pitied him.

“No!” he gasped. “I don’t—want to!”

“Open it!” commanded the icy voice of the detective, for the third time.

The eyes of the harassed man now were filled with horror, and twice he stooped as if to throw back the lid, and twice he drew away shuddering.

“I can’t!” he whispered, at last. “I won’t!” And quickly, with all the fury of despair, he hurled his great frame at the open doorway in which I stood half over the threshold.

The shock was terrific, but somehow I withstood it, and instinctively I threw my arms about my assailant and lunged forward toward the bed. For an instant we grappled there in the doorway, then in the little hall. Wrestling frantically for the advantage, we spun round and round on the narrow landing, with the long pit of the stairway yawning beside and beneath us. Connor’s breathing was hoarse and hot in my ear. Then, as we stumbled on the floor runner and pitched toward the abyss, Lavender’s arms encircled us both in an embrace of iron, and all three of us fell into a corner of the landing and remained awkwardly upright supported by the intersecting walls. At the same moment, from below stairs, came the sounds of running feet and voices calling.