The porcelain mask A detective story
upstairs they did not know, only that to their ears had come the
ominous sound of three pistol shots, and that neither Constable Griggs
nor Sergeant Tish had come down.
"What's happened to the two officers?" cried Doctor Bushnell.
"Perhaps----" Before he could finish the sentence, Tish appeared at the
head of the inclosed stairway, his right arm dangling limply, a trickle
of blood seeping down beneath the edge of his coat sleeve, twisting
into a fantastic crimson design about his wrist and the back of his
hand.
"What's happened up there?" shouted the physician. "Heavens, man,
you're wounded! Griggs----"
Tish had retrieved the automatic and held it in his left hand rather
awkwardly, but determined to use it if he could.
"The constable is knocked cold," he said, as he came down the steps.
"You'd better look after him, doctor. Haskins has----"
Wiggly Price had rushed to the head of the other stairs, from where
he could see Don Haskins sprawled upon the first landing, gasping for
breath and mopping the foam from his mouth with the back of his hand.
The revolver had slid several steps down and was safely out of the
man's reach.
"Here he is, sergeant!" shouted the newspaper man. "He nicked you, but
you got him worse than that."
Again Doctor Bushnell struggled with indecision. Three men wounded!
Which of them should have first call upon his professional services?
Don Haskins' choking wail, coming from down the front stairs, decided
him.
"I'm dyin'!" he croaked. "I say I'm dyin'." And with the next breath
he muttered a vicious curse upon "the cops." But, before the doctor
could move out of his tracks, Joan Sheridan had again come flying from
the east wing of the house and clutched his arm. At the moment of her
appearance she saw Tish.
"Those shots--what do they mean?" she panted. "What--what has happened
now?"
"We have caught the murderer," answered Doctor Bushnell, gently
pushing her away. "The crook who killed Kirklan's wife was in hiding
on the third floor." Another groan came from Haskins. "There was some
shooting; the man's desperately wounded. I am going to see now. Go back
to your room, Joan; you've had enough horror."
But the girl crept to the top of the stairs after him and stared down
with a shudder.
"I--I can't understand!" she whispered. "They say that man killed her.
I--I can't understand!" she whispered. "They say that man killed her.
I can't understand!"
Had Wiggly Price been privileged to hear those whispered words of
Joan's it would have added fresh fuel to his smoldering suspicion that
she knew more about the death of Helen Gilmore than she was willing
to tell. The newspaper man had hurried down the stairs and, elbowing
the butler out of the way, bent over Haskins. A moment later Doctor
Bushnell had joined him, Tish close behind. The doctor shook his head
gravely, as he saw the bloodstained saliva about Haskins' lips.
"Internal hemorrhage," he murmured. "I don't think there's much chance
for him."
As if to verify this diagnosis, Haskins gave a gasping cough, and the
crimson foam became a trickle.
"Ain'tcha gonna call a priest?" he murmured. "I'm dyin', I tell
you--dyin'."
"Keep him alive, doc, until I get a full confession out of him," urged
Sergeant Tish. "Haskins, come through; make a clean breast of----"
"No questions for a moment," broke in the physician. "Let him be quiet
until I see what can be done for him. No matter what he's done, he's
entitled to the best a doctor can give him. It's barely possible that
an immediate operation----"
Don Haskins made a half-sobbing, half-growling protest.
"Nix on the--operation stuff. It wouldn't do me no good--anyhow; I tell
you that I'm bleedin' to death--inside of me."
Doctor Bushnell jerked his head toward Wiggly.
"Help me with him," he ordered. "We'll have to get him somewhere, so
that I can see what can be done for him." And to the butler: "Bates, up
the stairs quick--get my bag. It's on the floor in the hall--near the
other stairs. And, Bates, where can we take this man?"
"There are but two guest rooms, sir; one Mr. Sarbella occupied, and the
other--the body has been placed there."
"Then it will have to be Sarbella's room," declared the doctor. "Help
me up with him, Mr. Price. Careful, Haskins; the more exertion the more
the bleeding and the slimmer your chances."
Sergeant Tish's bullet-punctured shoulder, now that the numbness of the
thudding impact was passing, throbbed with an excruciating agony, but
he clamped his teeth together, having no intention of making a demand
upon Doctor Bushnell's professional services until a statement was had
from the possibly dying prisoner. He could offer no assistance, but he
followed back up the stairs, as Bushnell and the newspaper reporter
supported Haskins to the second floor and along the hall to the guest
room which had been Sarbella's.
Joan Sheridan tarried indecisively another moment or so and then
she returned to her own room, her mind in no way cleared of the
bewilderment. She longed for explanations, but knew this was no time to
ask questions.
In the guest room Haskins was placed upon the bed where, as his first
act in an effort to save the mans' life, Doctor Bushnell quickly
prepared an internal astringent, a drug calculated to check the inward
bleeding. Then he examined the wound with the aid of a probe; Haskins'
slowing pulse warned the physician that life was ebbing, and that
there was no hope.
"The nearest hospital is fifteen miles away, and the trip would be
fatal," he said. "And I have never specialized in surgery. I have tried
to check the internal blood flow, but there is nothing else I can do.
All that I can suggest is to call Doctor Hollis, who is a surgeon. If
the man is still alive when Hollis gets here----"
"It--it ain't no use," gasped Don Haskins. "I'm gonna croak, and I know
I'm gonna croak."
"Yes, Haskins, it looks that way," nodded Doctor Bushnell; "if you've
got any statement to make you'd better make it now. Anyhow I'll
telephone Doctor Hollis and then look after Ham Griggs. Unconscious,
didn't you say, Sergeant Tish? Lord, the house has suddenly become a
hospital! What about your own injury?"
Tish shook his head. "I can wait--until Haskins has talked," he said.
"You'd better look after the constable first, anyhow. It may be worse
than it seemed to me."
Don Haskins was breathing heavily, his eyes closed, his hands clenched.
As the doctor left the room, Tish leaned forward, but became dizzily
faint and had to seek the support of a chair.
"You might as well talk, Haskins," he said. "What made you shoot
Gilmore's wife?"
The prisoner's lips twisted. "You're gonna give me the rap for that?"
he muttered weakly. "Tryin' to hang two croaks onto me--and I never did
either one of 'em." His eyes opened slowly. "Dago Mike--did he tell the
cops that I did for the watchman--that loft job in the Bronx?"
Tish nodded. "Yes, that's what he told the inspector," he answered.
"It's a lie," said Haskins, but without any great emotion of
indignation; perhaps, being so sure that he was dying, he did not
care, or it might have been that he did not have the strength left for
vehemence. Still, again, it was possible that it sounded so flat and
colorless, this denial, because it lacked the ring of truth. "Dago Mike
done it. I knowed he'd squeal; he always was a dirty rat. I was a fool
to go into a job with that--that scum. Yeah, Dago Mike was the one that
did the watchman."
Tish winced with a fresh throb of pain from his shoulder. "Why did you
shoot Gilmore's wife?" he repeated.
Haskins turned his head, let his mouth twist into a harsh smile, and,
lifting his hand slowly, wiped his lips with the back of his hand.
There was again a little blood.
"Gilmore's wife?" he retorted in a hoarse whisper. "She was--my wife!"
Wiggly Price started forward with an exclamation of amazement, and his
ears danced with excitement.
"W-what?" he gasped. "Y-your wife? You mean that? Great heavens, Tish,
I believe he's telling the truth!"
The New York detective gestured for silence with his uninjured arm.
"Shut up!" he commanded tersely.
"Yeah, that's--that's what she was--my wife," went on Don Haskins in a
whisper, which, as he continued to talk, was at times hardly audible.
"She done bigamy when she married--Gilmore. She--she never got no
divorce--from me.
"I'm gonna talk, see. What I'm tellin' you is strictly on the level. I
know I'm goin'--fast; there ain't no use for me to--cover up. Curse the
skirts! If it wasn't--for her----" His voice trailed off in a choking
excitement, his eyes closed momentarily, and the two eagerly listening
men were afraid that it was all over with him, but Haskins looked at
them again.
"I--I guess she thought she'd shook me--after I busted up a mash she
had on a guy named Sarbella; but I kept cases on her--got a line on her
when I come back from Chi--parole from a long stretch at Joliet.
"Then I gets into that Bronx job jam, and I needs dough--bad. And
quick. So I send for--for her, and she----" He had to stop again to
wipe his mouth free of that trickle of blood which oozed upward from
his punctured stomach.
"And she came to Eighth Avenue Annie's," supplied Tish. "She gave you
some money. We know that much; go on, Haskins."
"She was comin' back--to-day--with a thousand iron men," proceeded the
prisoner's weakening whisper. "Then Annie tipped off the cops. Curse
the old hag! I dunno why Annie----"
"She did not," grunted Sergeant Tish; "I saw her buying some duds and
trailed her. Annie didn't double cross you."
"When I lays you out--and beats it," went on Haskins, "I--I guess
you know part of it, how I swipes a taxi an' blows out here?" Tish
nodded. "I sneaks around the house an' spots--Helen's window, does a
porch-climber stunt to the roof, gets into her room, an'----"
"And shot her--with my gun," prompted the detective. But, if Haskins
was the murderer, he did not fall into this trap of suggestion.
"I'm givin' it to you--straight," his whisper went on. "I didn't croak
her; I--I grabbed her, and she--got the gat--outta my pocket, but
I didn't know that--then. We hears a door slam, an' we thinks it's
Gilmore--in the--next room. She sneaks me into the hall and tells me to
hide--third floor. Says she'll get me some dough and get me--away."
The man's words were so faint and came from his lips in such a jerky
tumble that both Tish and Wiggly Price had to lean close in order to
hear the rest of his story.
"When I gets up there--third floor, I knows it was her--took--the gun.
I--I guess she was afraid I was gonna--use it--on her. She knowed she'd
done me dirt. Curse her--she made a bum--outta me.
"I--I wants that gun, see! After a while I sneaks back down to--second
floor--to make her--gimme the gat. As I gets to--to the foot of the
stairs I hears a scream. It comes from--from her room. Then--then
there's--a shot."
Both Tish and Wiggly looked skeptical at this, but neither of them
spoke; both sensed that Don Haskins had something to add. They were
right; he had. After another moment of silence, Haskins' lips moved
again.
"The--the door--was open; the--the light was burnin'--inside, an' I
seen--the one who did the job--comin' out--of the room."
Sergeant Tish snorted derisively.
"Haskins," he flung out, "you're lying! Are you going to face your
Maker with that lie on your conscience? That stuff's the bunk. You
killed her, and you might as well come through."
"Wait a minute, sergeant," whispered Wiggly; "ask him whom he saw
coming out of the room. There's a chance that he may be telling us the
truth!"
Tish hesitated a moment, stirred in his chair, winced with the pain of
the movement, and then accepted the suggestion.