XXIV
FIVE INCHES OF DEATH
"Quinn," I said one evening when the veteran of the United States Secret Service appeared to be in one of his story-spinning moods, "you've told me of cases that have to do with smuggling and spies, robberies and fingerprints and frauds, but you've never mentioned the one crime that is most common in the annals of police courts and detective bureaus."
"Murder?" inquired Quinn, his eyes shifting to the far wall of his library-den.
"Precisely. Haven't government detectives ever been instrumental in solving a murder mystery?"
"Yes, they've been mixed up in quite a few of them. There was the little matter of the Hallowell case – where the crime and the criminal were connected by a shoelace – and the incident of 'The Red Circle.' But murder, as such, does not properly belong in the province of the government detective. Only when it is accompanied by some breach of the federal laws does it come under the jurisdiction of the men from Washington. Like the Montgomery murder mystery, for example."
"Oh yes, the one connected with the postmark that's framed on your wall over there!" I exclaimed. "I'd forgotten about that. Hal Preston handled it, didn't he – the same man responsible for running down 'The Trail of the White Mice'?"
"That's the one," said Quinn, and I was glad to see him settle luxuriously back in his old armchair – for that meant that he was preparing to recall the details of an adventure connected with a member of one of the government detective services.
If it hadn't been for the fact that Preston was in California at the time, working on the case of a company that was using the mails for illegal purposes, it is extremely doubtful if the mystery would ever have been solved [Quinn continued]; certainly not in time to prevent the escape of the criminal.
But Hal's investigations took him well up into the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevadas, and one morning he awoke to find the whole town in which he was stopping ablaze with a discussion of the "Montgomery mystery," as they called it.
It appeared from the details which Preston picked up in the lobby of his hotel that Marshall Montgomery had settled down in that section of the country some three years before, but that he had surrounded himself with an air of aloofness and detachment which had made him none too popular. Men who had called to see him on matters of business had left smarting under the sting of an ill-concealed snub, while it was as much as a book agent's life was worth to try to gain entrance to the house.
"It wasn't that he was stingy or close-fisted," explained one of the men who had known Montgomery. "He bought more Liberty Bonds than anyone else in town – but he bought them through his bank. Mailed the order in, just as he did with his contributions to the Red Cross and the other charitable organizations. Wouldn't see one of the people who went out to his place. In fact, they couldn't get past the six or eight bulldogs that guard the house."
"And yet," said Preston, "I understand that in spite of his precautions he was killed last night?"
"Nobody knows just when he was killed," replied the native, "or how. That's the big question. When his servant, a Filipino whom he brought with him, went to wake him up this morning he found Montgomery's door locked. That in itself was nothing unusual – for every door and window in the place was securely barred before nine o'clock in the evening. But when Tino, the servant, had rapped several times without receiving any reply, he figured something must be wrong. So he got a stepladder, propped it up against the side of the house, and looked in through the window. What he saw caused him to send in a hurry call for the police."
"Well," snapped Preston, "what did he see?"
"Montgomery, stretched out on the floor near the door, stone dead – with a pool of blood that had formed from a wound in his hand!"
"In his hand?" Preston echoed. "Had he bled to death?"
"Apparently not – but that's where the queer angle to the case comes in. The door was locked from the inside – not only locked, but bolted, so there was no possibility of anyone having entered the room. The windows were tightly guarded by a patented burglar-proof device which permitted them to be open about three inches from the bottom, but prevented their being raised from the outside."
"Was there a chimney or any other possible entrance to the room?"
"None at all. Three windows and a door. Montgomery's body was sprawled out on the rug near the doorway – a revolver in his right hand, a bullet hole through the palm of his left. The first supposition, of course, was that he had accidentally shot himself and had bled to death. But there wasn't enough blood for that. Just a few drops on the table and a small pool near the body. They're going to hold an autopsy later in the day and – "
It was at that moment that the Post-office operative became conscious that some one was calling his name, and, turning, he beckoned to the bell-boy who was paging him.
"Mr. Preston? Gentleman over there'd like to speak to you." Then the boy added in a whisper, "Chief o' police."
Excusing himself, Preston crossed the lobby to where a large and official-looking man was standing, well out of hearing distance of the guests who passed.
"Is this Mr. Preston of the Postal Inspection Service?" inquired the head of the local police force, adding, after the government operative had nodded. "I am the chief of police here."
"Glad to meet you, Chief," was Preston's response. "I haven't had the pleasure of making your acquaintance, though of course I know you by sight." (He neglected to add how recently this knowledge had been acquired.) "What can I do for you?"
"Have you heard about the murder of Montgomery Marshall?"
"Only the few details that I picked up in the lobby just now. But a case of that kind is entirely out of my line, you know."
"Ordinarily it would be," agreed the other, "but here's something that I think puts a different complexion on things," and he extended a bloodstained scrap of paper for Preston to examine.
"That was found under the dead man's hand," the chief continued. "As you will note, it originally formed part of the wrapping of a special-delivery parcel which reached Montgomery about eight o'clock last night – just before the house was locked up, in fact. Tino, the Filipino servant, signed for it and took it in, placing it upon the table in the room in which his master was found this morning. The scrap of paper you are holding is just enough to show the postmark 'Sacramento' – but it's quite evident that the package had something to do with the murder."
"Which is the reason that you want me to look into it, eh?"
"That's the idea. I knew that you were in town, and the very fact that this box came through the mails makes it necessary for the Post-office Department to take cognizance of what otherwise would be a job for the police force alone. Am I right?"
"Perfectly," replied Preston. "Provided you have reason to believe that there was some connection between the special-delivery package and the crime itself. What was in the box?"
"Not a thing!"
"What?"
"Not a thing!" repeated the chief. "Perfectly empty – at least when we found it. The lid was lying on the table, the rest of the box on the floor. The major portion of the wrapping paper had been caught under a heavy paper weight and it appears that Montgomery, in falling, caught at the table to save himself and probably ripped away the scrap of paper I have just given you."
"But I thought his body was found near the door?"
"It was, but that isn't far from the table, which is jammed against the wall in front of one of the windows. Come on up to the house with me and we'll go over the whole thing."
Glad of the excuse to look into a crime which appeared to be inexplicable, Preston accompanied the chief to the frame dwelling on the outskirts of town where Montgomery Marshall, hermit, had spent the last three years of his life.
The house was set well back from the road, with but a single gateway in a six-foot wall of solid masonry, around the top of which ran several strands of barbed wire.
"Montgomery erected the wall himself," explained the chief. "Had it put up before he ever moved into the house, and then, in addition, kept a bunch of the fiercest dogs I ever knew."
"All of which goes to prove that he feared an attack," Preston muttered. "In spite of his precautions, however, they got him! The question now is: Who are 'they' and how did they operate?"
The room in which the body had been found only added to the air of mystery which surrounded the entire problem.
In spite of what he had been told Preston had secretly expected to find some kind of an opening through which a man could have entered. But there was none. The windows, as the Postal operative took care to test for himself, were tightly locked, though open a few inches from the bottom. The bolt on the door very evidently had been shattered by the entrance of the police, and the dark-brown stain on the rug near the door showed plainly where the body had been found.
"When we broke in," explained the chief, "Montgomery was stretched out there, facing the door. The doctor said that he had been dead about twelve hours, but that it was impossible for the wound in his hand to have caused his death."
"How about a poisoned bullet, fired through the opening in the window?"
"Not a chance! The only wound on the body was the one through the palm of his hand. The bullet had struck on the outside of the fleshy part near the wrist and had plowed its way through the bone, coming out near the base of the index finger at the back. And it was a bullet from his own revolver! We found it embedded in the top of the table there." And the chief pointed to a deep scar in the mahogany and to the marks made by the knives of the police when they had dug the bullet out.
"But how do you know it wasn't a bullet of the same caliber, fired from outside the window?" persisted Preston.
For answer the chief produced Montgomery's revolver, with five cartridges still in the chambers.
"If you'll note," he said, "each of these cartridges is scored or seamed. That's an old trick – makes the lead expand when it hits and tears an ugly hole, just like a 'dum-dum.' The bullet we dug out of the table was not only a forty-five, as these are, but it had been altered in precisely the same manner. So, unless you are inclined to the coincidence that the murderer used a poisoned bullet of the same size and make and character as those in Montgomery's gun, you've got to discard that theory."
"Does look like pulling the long arm of coincidence out of its socket," Preston agreed. "So I guess we'll have to forget it. Where's the box you were talking about?"
"The lid is on the table, just as we found it. The lower portion of the box is on the floor, where the dead man apparently knocked it when he fell. Except for the removal of the body, nothing in the room has been touched."
Stooping, Preston picked up the box and then proceeded to study it in connection with the lid and the torn piece of wrapping paper upon the table. It was after he had examined the creases in the paper, fitting them carefully around the box itself, that he inquired: "Do you notice anything funny about the package, Chief?"
"Only that there's a hole at one end of it, just about big enough to put a lead pencil through."
"Yes, and that same hole appears in the wrapping paper," announced Preston. "Couple that with the fact that the box was empty when you found it and I think we will have – "
"What?" demanded the chief, as Preston paused.
"The solution to the whole affair," was the reply. "Or, at least, as much of it as refers to the manner in which Montgomery met his death. By the way, what do you know about the dead man?"
"Very little. He came here some three years ago, bought this place, paying cash for it; had the wall built, and then settled down. Never appeared to do any work, but was never short of money. Has a balance of well over fifty thousand dollars in the bank right now. Beyond the fact that he kept entirely to himself and refused to allow anyone but Tino, his servant, to enter the gate, he really had few eccentricities. Some folks say that he was a miser, but there are a dozen families here that wouldn't have had any Christmas dinner last year if it hadn't been for him – while his contribution to the Red Cross equaled that of anyone in town."
"Apart from his wanting to be alone, then, he was pretty close to being human?"
"That's it, exactly – and most of us have some peculiarity. If we didn't have we'd be even more unusual."
"What about Tino, the servant?" queried Preston.
"I don't think there's any lead there," the chief replied. "I hammered away at him for an hour this morning. He doesn't speak English any too well, but I gathered that Montgomery picked him up in the Philippines just before he came over here. The boy was frightened half out of his senses when I told him that his master had been killed. You've got to remember, though, that if Tino had wanted to do it he had a thousand opportunities in the open. Besides, what we've got to find out first is how Montgomery met his death?"
"Does the Filipino know anything about his master's past?" asked Preston, ignoring the chief's last remark.
"He says not. Montgomery was on his way back to the States from Africa or some place – stopped off in the islands – spent a couple of months there – hired Tino and sailed for San Francisco."
"Africa – " mused the Postal operative. Then, taking another track, he inquired whether the chief had found out if Montgomery was in the habit of getting much mail, especially from foreign points.
"Saunders, the postmaster, says he didn't average a letter a month – and those he did get looked like advertisements. They remembered this special-delivery package last night because it was the first time that the man who brought it out had ever come to the house. He rang the bell at the gate, he says, turned the box over to Tino, and went along."
"Any comment about the package?"
"Only that it was very light and contained something that wabbled around. I asked him because I figured at the time that the revolver might have been in it. But the Filipino has identified that as Montgomery's own gun. Says he'd had it as long as he'd known him."
"Then all we know about this mysterious box," summarized Preston, "is that it was mailed from Sacramento, that it wasn't heavy, that it had a hole about a quarter-inch wide at one end, and that it contained something that – what was the word the special-delivery man used – 'wabbled'?"
"That's the word. I remember because I asked him if he didn't mean 'rattled,' and he said, 'No, wabbled, sort o' dull-like.'"
"At any rate, that clears up one angle of the case. The box was not empty when it was delivered! Granting that the Filipino was telling the truth, it was not empty when he placed it on the table in this room! That means that it was not empty when Marshall Montgomery, after locking and bolting his door, took off the wrapping paper and lifted the lid! You've searched the room thoroughly, of course?"
"Every inch of it. We didn't leave a – "
But the chief suddenly halted, his sentence unfinished. To the ears of both men there had come a sound, faint but distinct. The sound of the rattling of paper somewhere in the room.
Involuntarily Preston whirled and scrutinized the corner from which the sound appeared to have come. The chief's hand had slipped to his hip pocket, but after a moment of silence he withdrew it and a slightly shamefaced look spread over his face.
"Sounded like a ghost, didn't it?" he asked.
"Ghosts don't rattle papers," snapped Preston. "At least self-respecting ones don't, and the other kind haven't any right to run around loose. So suppose we try to trap this one."
"Trap it? How?"
"Like you'd trap a mouse – only with a different kind of bait. Is there any milk in the house?"
"Possibly – I don't know."
"Go down to the refrigerator and find out, will you? I'll stay here until you return. And bring a saucer with you."
A few moments later, when the chief returned, bearing a bottle of milk and a saucer, he found Preston still standing beside the table, his eyes fixed upon a corner of the room from which the sound of rattling paper had come.
"Now all we need is a box," said the Postal operative. "I saw one out in the hall that will suit our purposes excellently."
Securing the box, he cut three long and narrow strips from the sides, notched them and fitted them together in a rough replica of the figure 4, with the lower point of the upright stick resting on the floor beside the saucer of milk and the wooden box poised precariously at the junction of the upright and the slanting stick.
"A figure-four trap, eh?" queried the chief. "What do you expect to catch?"
"A mixture of a ghost and the figure of Justice," was Preston's enigmatic reply. "Come on – we'll lock the door and return later to see if the trap has sprung. Meanwhile, I'll send some wires to Sacramento, San Francisco, and other points throughout the state."
The telegram, of which he gave a copy to the local chief of police, "in order to save the expense of sending it," read:
Wire immediately if you know anything of recent arrival from Africa – probably American or English – who landed within past three days. Wanted in connection with Montgomery murder.
The message to San Francisco ended with the phrase "Watch outgoing boats closely," and that to Sacramento "Was in your city yesterday."
Hardly an hour later the phone rang and a voice from police headquarters in Sacramento asked to speak to "Postal Inspector Preston."
"Just got your wire," said the voice, "and I think we've got your man. Picked him up on the street last night, unconscious. Hospital people say he's suffering from poisoning of some kind and don't expect him to live. Keeps raving about diamonds and some one he calls 'Marsh.' Papers on him show he came into San Francisco two days ago on the Manu. Won't tell his name, but has mentioned Cape Town several times."
"Right!" cried Preston. "Watch him carefully until I get there. I'll make the first train out."
That afternoon Preston, accompanied by two chiefs of police, made his way into a little room off the public ward in the hospital in Sacramento. In bed, his face drawn and haggard until the skin seemed like parchment stretched tightly over his cheekbones, lay a man at the point of death – a man who was only kept alive, according to the physicians, by some almost superhuman effort of the will.
"It's certain that he's been poisoned," said the doctor in charge of the case, "but he won't tell us how. Just lies there and glares and demands a copy of the latest newspaper. Every now and then he drifts off into delirium, but just when we think he's on the point of death he recovers."
Motioning to the others to keep in the background, Preston made his way to the bedside of the dying man. Then, bending forward, he said, very clearly and distinctly: "Marshall Montgomery is dead!"
Into the eyes of the other man there sprang a look of concentrated hatred that was almost tangible – a glare that turned, a moment later, into supreme relief.
"Thank God!" he muttered. "Now I'm ready to die!"
"Tell me," said Preston, quietly – "tell me what made you do it."
"He did!" gasped the man on the bed. "He and his damned brutality. When I knew him his name was Marsh. We dug for diamonds together in South Africa – found them, too – enough to make us both rich for life. But our water was running low – barely enough for one of us. He, the skunk, hit me over the head and left me to die – taking the water and the stones with him."
He paused a moment, his breath rattling in his throat, and then continued:
"It took me five years to find him – but you say he's dead? You're not lying?"
Preston shook his head slowly and the man on the bed settled back and closed his eyes, content.
"Ask him," insisted the chief of police, "how he killed Montgomery?"
In a whisper that was barely audible came the words: "Sheep-stinger. Got me first." Then his jaws clicked and there was the unmistakable gurgle which meant that the end had come.
"Didn't he say 'sheep-stinger'?" asked the chief of police, after the doctor had stated that the patient had slipped away from the hands of the law.
"That's what it sounded like to me," replied Preston. "But suppose we go back to Montgomery's room and see what our ghost trap has caught. I told you I expected to land a figure of Justice – and if ever a man deserved to be killed it appears to have been this same Montgomery Marshall, or Marsh, as this man knew him."
The instant they entered the room it was apparent that the trap had sprung, the heavy box falling forward and completely covering the saucer of milk and whatever had disturbed the carefully balanced sticks.
Warning the chief to be careful, Preston secured a poker from an adjoining room, covered the box with his automatic, and then carefully lifted the box, using the poker as a lever.
A second later he brought the head of the poker down on something that writhed and twisted and then lay still, blending in with the pattern of the carpet in such a manner as to be almost invisible.
"A snake!" cried the chief. "But such a tiny one! Do you mean to say that its bite is sufficiently poisonous to kill a man?"
"Not only one, but two," Preston declared, "as you've seen for yourself. See that black mark, like an inverted V, upon the head? That's characteristic of the cobra family, and this specimen – common to the veldts of South Africa where he is known as the 'sheep stinger' – is first cousin to the big king cobras. Montgomery's former partner evidently brought him over from Africa with this idea in mind. But when he was packing him in the box – the airhole in the end of it gave me the first inkling, by the way – he got careless and the snake bit him. Only medical attention saved his life until this afternoon, else he'd have passed along before Montgomery. I think that closes the case, Chief, and in spite of the fact that the mails were used for a distinctly illegal purpose, I believe your department ought to handle the matter – not mine."
"But the trap – the milk? How'd you happen to hit on that?"
"When you told me what the special-delivery man said about the contents of the package 'wabbling' I figured that the box must have contained a snake," explained the Postal operative. "An animal would have made some noise, while a snake, if well fed, will lie silent for hours at a time. The constant motion, however, would have made it irritable – so that it struck the moment Montgomery removed the lid of the box. That explains the wound in his hand. He knew his danger and deliberately fired, hoping to cauterize the wound and drive out the poison. It was too quick for him, though, or possibly the shock stunned him so that he fell.
"Then, in spite of the fact that your men claimed to have searched the room thoroughly, that noise in the corner warned me that whatever killed Montgomery was still here. Going on the theory that the majority of snakes are fond of milk, I rigged up the trap. And there you are!"
"Yes," concluded Quinn, "the majority of the cases handled by government detectives have to do with counterfeiting or smuggling or other crimes against the federal law – offenses which ought to be exciting but which are generally dull and prosaic. Every now and then, though, they stumble across a real honest-to-goodness thrill, a story that's worth the telling.
"I've got to be away for the next couple of months or so, but drop around when I get back and I'll see if I can't recall some more of the problems that have been solved by one of the greatest, though least known, detective agencies on the face of the earth."