The porcelain mask A detective story
what the meter reads an' let me skim back to the big town."
Wiggly paid the charge, which was twenty-seven dollars, gave a
three-dollar tip, and let him go. Griggs entered the village's public
building and led the way down into the basement, where Sarbella was
lodged. At the sound of their footsteps, ringing on the concrete floor,
the prisoner left off his nervous pacing of the cell's narrow confines
and came to the steel door of the cage. His attitude was weary,
dejected.
"Mebbe you're ready to speak up, huh?" grunted Ham Griggs, facing him
from the other side of the bars.
"I have nothing to add," Victor Sarbella answered; "you already have
the only statement I care to make," he paused briefly and then added,
"for the present."
"Silence ain't goin' to do you no good, for I aim to keep you right
where you are until you get ready to start talkin'," blustered the
constable. "We know you killed her; we've dug up some more evidence on
you--little matter of a cigarette that you dropped on the floor of that
room out to Greenacres."
"Cigarette?" muttered Sarbella.
"May I have your cigarette case for a moment, Mr. Sarbella?" requested
Wiggly.
The prisoner hesitated, gave the newspaper man a wary glance, and,
evidently realizing that they would take it away from him by force,
if he refused, slid his hand into his pocket, producing a silver case
inlaid with gold stripes. He shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't know what it's all about, but you're welcome; please do not
destroy the smokes. I've only two left."
Wiggly Price took the elaborate case, which Sarbella passed through
the bars, and snapped it open. One glance was sufficient to verify
his logical doubts that the butt of the cheap cigarette which Doctor
Bushnell had discovered on the floor of the tragedy chamber had not
been the artist's. The two cigarettes before him were of an expensive
imported brand, straw-tipped and monogrammed with the man's initials.
The constable was looking over his shoulder, as Wiggly extracted from
his vest pocket the flattened bit of evidence upon which both Doctor
Bushnell and Ham Griggs had expressed so much faith. He unfolded the
strip of paper that enwrapped it.
"They are not the same," he announced. "I didn't expect them to be.
The question now is--to whom did this belong? It looks very much like
another man--a man with cheap tastes in tobacco--was in that room last
night!"
Victor Sarbella pressed his body tensely against the bars, but not so
much as a syllable passed his lips. Perhaps there was a look of relief
in his face.
CHAPTER XIX
ENTER SERGEANT TISH
The constable and Wiggly had left the basement, and Griggs was almost
apoplectic with anger. He glared at the reporter with indignant disgust
and, as they entered the room used for the sessions of the borough
council, flopped down in a chair.
"Now if you ain't made a fine mess of things! An' I give you credit for
havin' some sense! I might have got a confession outta him except for
your meddlin'. Dog-gone you, anyhow! He'll think now that he's got a
chance to get out of it after you tellin' him that there must have been
another man in the room where the woman was killed."
"You've got to admit that it isn't Sarbella's cigarette butt," defended
Wiggly.
"If I'd have known you was goin' to pull a stunt like that, I'd never
have let you in to see him," raged Ham Griggs. "Next time I'll have
better gumption than to let some fool reporter gum the cards for
me--you just bet I will."
"Let's talk it over," Wiggly urged placatingly. "Let's use a little
simple logic. You admit, don't you, that this isn't Sarbella's brand?"
"I don't admit nothin' of the sort," raged the constable. "Chances are
that he dropped that cheap cigarette on the floor as a blind, tryin' to
leave a false scent to fool us."
Wiggly shook his head. "That won't hold water, constable; you forget
that the murderer tried to make it appear suicide. And, as I tried
to impress on Doctor Bushnell, can you imagine a man set on murder
slipping in on his victim--smoking a cigarette?"
But Ham Griggs was in no mood for logic; he considered that he had
solved the case in arresting Sarbella, and he wanted it to stay solved.
A re-opening of the facts led him into water over his head, and he
foresaw himself floundering helplessly beyond his depth.
"Sarbella done it!" he shouted. "He killed the Gilmore woman; he shot
her to get even. He shot her--with this gun." Dramatically he dragged
forth the automatic pistol and waved it almost wildly. "And you've
gone and messed things up by lettin' him think he had a chance to get
off--darn your hide!"
The outburst was checked by the opening of the door which led into the
council room from the outside entrance, and there entered a short,
rotund man who wore his hat perched upon a bandaged head.
"Where's the chief of police?" was the stranger's greeting.
"I'm the constable; it amounts to the same thing in Ardmore," Griggs
answered shortly, "but I ain't got no time to be bothered."
The corpulent little visitor moved back the edge of his coat, revealing
a badge of the New York police department.
"I'm Detective Sergeant Tish--New York headquarters," he announced.
"Your name Griggs? You telephoned last night to the Consolidated
Taxicab Company that you'd picked up an abandoned taxi on one of the
roads near Ardmore?"
"Yes, I did," grunted Constable Griggs, "but I ain't got no time to
bother about taxicabs now. I've got a murder on my hands."
"And I want to get my hands on a murderer," shot back Sergeant John
Henry Tish. "That taxicab was stolen by----"
"Don't give a hoot if it was!" shouted the constable. "The taxi's at
Presley's garage. Go get it, if you want it." He even forgot that he
had expected to receive a ten-dollar gift from the taxicab company.
Sergeant Tish, however, was not to be put off so easily. He projected
his short, portly form closer and occupied a chair beside the council
table, with the air of having something to say and being determined to
say it. He wasted no time.
"Listen!" he commanded, wagging a pudgy forefinger with a forceful
gesture. "This is just as important to me as your case is to you. See
this?" He tapped his bandaged head. "The man I'm after did this to me,
and I'm going to get him. He knocked me cold--after I had the nippers
on him, see? I've got to get him.
"There may be some time when you'll want a favor from the New York
department. I want a little information--and a little courtesy. I'm no
windbag, and I won't keep you long."
"All right," grunted Constable Griggs. "What is it you want?"
"Thanks," said Sergeant Tish. "First, where was it that you picked up
the machine?"
"Out on the Hudson Road, 'bout half a mile from the village proper. I
called Presley's garage an' had 'em drive the bus into their shop--and
that's all I can tell you about it, every blessed thing. I notified
the taxicab company."
"Sure, I know that, and they flashed it right to headquarters.
There was a general alarm out for that taxi. So it was run into the
garage--under its own power, huh? That means Haskins didn't ditch the
car because something went wrong with the engine. That may help some.
Pretty swell folks live out on the Hudson Road, eh?"
Griggs nodded. "Most of 'em is rich," he agreed; "either rich or pretty
well fixed."
"Sounds like it might be a warm trail," said Sergeant Tish, puffing out
his plump cheeks. "Y'see--well, I'll have to give you the inside for
you to understand just what the situation is."
Despite his first impatience, Constable Griggs became interested and
offered no protest.
"This bird I'm after," pursued Tish, "is named Don Haskins. He's got
a record as long as an income-tax report. Done a couple of short
stretches at Sing Sing, one out West--Illinois--and has been in the
line-up down at headquarters and in the Tombs. It would take an expert
accountant to keep the count. He used to be a slick crook, nifty
dresser and free spender, but he'd started slippin'. They all do.
Clever--and hard-boiled."
Here Tish told the constable of his encounter with Haskins.
"Humph!" grunted Constable Griggs. "I see. And you're looking for your
man in these parts. Sorry I ain't got the time to help, but----"
"Just a minute," broke in Sergeant Tish. "I ain't quite through yet.
I'm right at the nub of it. Eighth Avenue Annie, I guess, wanted to
cover up; anyhow, she runs out on the street yellin' bloody murder,
and a couple of uniform men rushes in to find me laid out, dead to the
world. But they brings me around, and then--oh, the grillin' we did
give old Annie! We still got her locked up on a technical charge.
"Before we got through with her, she comes through with a lot of dope
she didn't want to cough up. She hadda admit that Haskins had paid her
big for his hide-out, and that he was gettin' ready to make the big
jump out of town; that he had a rich sister, a real swell, who made him
a visit and give him some dough. She was goin' to come back with more.
"Now, that's the funny part of it; one of the boys down at headquarters
knows Don Haskins from the first time he went to Elmira Reformatory,
and he says that Haskins did have a sister, but that she died eight or
nine years ago, and that she didn't fit the description which Annie
give us. No matter about that, it's a cinch that some swell jane did
bring him the money. Annie says she was the class.
"Now, I was just wondering, gents--Haskins leaves the swiped taxi out
on Hudson Road. The engine was O. K. That's proof that he left it there
because he wanted to, and not because the car stopped on him. Where was
he headin' for? Mebbe this swell who calls herself his sister lives
around here. Now, you've got the whole works. I want somebody to help
me check up. See?"
Ham Griggs' cap was on the desk which belonged officially to the
borough council's president, his honor, Mayor Ripley. The cap
accidentally--not from any design--covered the automatic pistol which
had killed Helen Gilmore.
"As I told you," reiterated the constable, "I'm too busy this mornin'
to do anything for you. Mebbe this afternoon, when I've got a
confession outta the prisoner I got downstairs, I'll have more time."
He reached for his uniform cap with a gesture of unshakable finality.
Sergeant Tish suddenly strained forward, his eyes bulging from out of
his plump round face, staring in open-mouthed and bewildered amazement
at the .44 on the desk.
"Where did you get that gun?" he gasped, lunging out of the chair and
making a dive for it, getting his hands on it before Griggs could stop
him. "Where did you get my gun?"
Ham Griggs snorted derisively. "Your gun? This here ain't your gun. It
belongs to that prisoner I got downstairs, and he shot a woman with it
last night. That's the murder case I'm workin' on."
Tish's face was a strange study of emotion. "It's my gun!" he shouted.
"Here's a little place chipped off one of the butt plates. Sure it's my
gun. Police department issue--you can tell that by the serial number.
Sure, it's my gun--the one Don Haskins took off of me yesterday when he
knocked me out. And you say that a woman was shot with it--murdered?
You say that you took it off a prisoner, and that you've got him here?
You mean that you've got Haskins locked up?"
The questions all jerked out with no pause, leaving him breathless,
his fat cheeks quivering. Constable Griggs was speechless, and Wiggly
Price's ears seemed determined to work themselves loose from his head.
"You're dead sure, sergeant, that it is your gun?" Wiggly demanded
tensely. "It--it's very important that there should be no mistake about
this."