The Dark Angel Page 9

  THE NEXT DAY WAS a busy one for me. The customary gluttony attendant on the Christmas season produced its usual results, and I nearly suffered writer’s cramp penning prescriptions for bismuth salicylate and magnesium calcinate. I was dog-tired by dinner time and ready for bed at nine.

  How long I lay in the quiet slumber of exhaustion I do not know, but that I sat bolt-upright in my bed, all vestiges of sleep departed, I well remember. I had not dreamed, I know that; yet through the muffling curtains of sleep I had distinctly heard a voice which called me by name to rise and dress and go somewhere, although the destination was not plain. Now that I was awake, the summons still persisted, though it was no longer an actual, oral order, but rather a voice heard “inside my head” as one is conscious of the phrasing of a thought or of that subjective sound of ringing bells in the ears which follows an overdose of quinine.

  “What?” I asked, as though an actual voice addressed me.

  “Eh, you have heard it, too?” de Grandin’s query came from the darkened hall. “Then it is an actuality!”

  “What d’ye mean?” I asked, snapping on the bedside light and blinking at him.

  “A moment hence,” he replied, “I woke from sleep with the strong impression that some one—a woman, by the voice—called me and urgently requested that I proceed forthwith to 195 Leight Street. Is there, perhaps, such an address?”

  “Oh, yes,” I answered. “There’s such a number, and it’s a pretty shabby neighborhood, too; but—”

  “And did you wake in similar circumstances?” he interrupted.

  “Yes, I did,” I admitted, “but—”

  “Then there are no buts, my friend. Come, let us go.”

  “Go? Where?”

  “Where in Satan’s name but to that Leight Street address,” he returned. “Come, make haste; we must hurry.”

  Grumbling, I heaved myself from the bed and began to don my clothes, the little Frenchman’s admonitions to speed ringing in my ears.

  Leight Street, as I had told him, was a shabby neighborhood. Once, years ago, it had been fashionable; now it was like an old duchess in poverty. Drab, dismal rows of shabby old houses faced it north and south, their broken windows and weather-scarred, almost paintless, doors like rheumy eyes and broken teeth in old and hopeless faces. Damp, bleak winds blew through the narrow thoroughfare from the bay, bearing a freight of dust and tattered newspapers and the heavy, unwholesome smell of coarse and poorly cooked food—the cheap boarding-house smell, redolent of human misery and degradation as the fetor from a jail or madhouse. Before the old, decrepit houses stood low, rust-bitten iron fences enclosing little yards once used as gardens, but barren of any vegetation save the hardiest of weeds for many years. Somehow, they reminded me of the little fences one sometimes sees about old, neglected graves in country churchyards. Of all the melancholy houses in the melancholy, shabby-genteel street, 195 seemed most wretched. A small, fly-specked sign displayed behind the cracked panes of its French windows advised the passerby that lodgers were accommodated there, and a flickering gas flame burned anemically in the shelter of a cracked red-glass globe in the shabby hall behind the shabby vestibule.

  We halted before the decrepit gate while de Grandin viewed the place reflectively. “Of all the crazy, crack-brained things—” I began indignantly, but he cut me short with a quick gesture.

  “A light burns yonder,” he whispered; “let us investigate.” Fearing the rusty hinges of the gate might give warning of our entrance, we stepped across the yard’s iron fence and tiptoed toward the tall windows which lighted the English basement. Shades were lowered behind the panes, but a wrinkle in the linen made a tiny opening at one side through which one might look into the room by applying his eye to the glass.

  Protesting, I followed him, paused at the tiny areaway before the window and looked round guiltily while he bent forward shamelessly to spy into the house.

  “Ah?” I heard him murmur. “A-a-ah? See, look, observe, Friend Trowbridge. What is it we have here?”

  Reluctantly I glued my eye to the chink between the blind and window-frame and looked into the room. The contrast between the drab, down-at-the-heel exterior of the house and the apartment into which I gazed almost took my breath. A bright fire blazed behind polished brass fire-dogs in the open fireplace, an Oriental rug of good quality was on the floor, the furniture was substantial and expensive, well-rubbed mahogany, tastefully upholstered, a fine Winthrop desk, a table spread with spotless linen and glistening with silver and cut glass; most incongruous of all, a silver girandole with a bouquet of fresh-cut flowers. Half facing us, but with his odd, sad eyes steadfastly fixed on Muriel Breakstone, sat the queer, old-young man we had noticed in the supper club the evening before. As he came into my line of vision he was in the act of pouring some colorless liquid into a small phial. His lips moved, though no sound came to us. Muriel, her pale, clear-cut face a shade paler than usual, faced him; her eyes were wide with fear, but the man’s long, deeply wrinkled countenance betrayed no more emotion than if it had been graven out of stone. I turned to Jules de Grandin with a question, but the words died stillborn on my tongue, for:

  “Here, here, now, what are youse two guys up to?” demanded a truculent voice as the street-lamp’s rays glistened on the polished shield and buttons of a policeman.

  The little Frenchman leaped back from the window as though its glass had suddenly become white-hot, then turned to the patrolman. “Monsieur,” he began, but paused with a quick smile of recognition. “Ah, is it truly you, my friend?” he asked, advancing with extended hand.

  “Why, it’s Doctor de Grandin!” Officer Hornsby exclaimed with an answering grin. “I didn’t recognize ye, sir. What’s doin’? Can I help ye? Detective Sergeant Costello told me th’ other night that if ye ever called on me for help, ’twas just th’ same as if he done it hisself.”

  The Frenchman chuckled. “It is well to be so highly thought of by the force,” he answered, then: “Advance, my friend, but cautiously, for we must not advertise our presence. Look through the gap in yonder curtain and tell me who it is you see. That man, you know him, perhaps?”

  “Holy Mike, I’ll say I know him!” Patrolman Hornsby ejaculated, backing away from the window and fumbling for his gun. “That’s ‘Poker Face Louis,’ th’ quickest-shootin’ racketeer in th’ game. He’s been hidin’ out these last three weeks, ’count of a little shootin’ bee he had with some state troopers. Wanted for murder, an’ a few other things, that bird is. Well, well, so this is his hideout, eh? You just wait here, sir, while I go get a couple o’ more boys to help me run this baby in. Some one’s goin’ to get hurt before we finish th’ job, but—”

  “Why go for help? I am here,” de Grandin answered. “Let us take him here and now, my friend. Think of the admiration you will receive for such a feat.”

  “We-el,” obviously, Officer Hornsby wavered between desire for praise and the likelihood of coming out of the encounter with a bullet in him, “a’right, sir; I’m game if you are.”

  “But we saw that man last night in a supper club,” I protested. “Surely, if he’s been wanted by the police, he wouldn’t dare—”

  “You don’t know ‘Poker Face,’ Doctor Trowbridge, sir,” Hornsby interrupted. “Puttin’ stockings on a eel is a cinch compared with tryin’ to arrest him. Of course you seen him in a club. He’s got half th’ waiters in town on his payroll, an’ they slip ’im through th’ back doors—an’ out th’ same way—th’ moment anything that looks like a policeman comes in sight. All ready, sir?” he asked de Grandin.

  “In a moment,” the other answered, stepped back to the boundary of the yard and pried a piece of paving-stone from the loose earth beneath the iron fence. A moment later he heaved it through a window letting out of the front parlor which occupied the building’s first floor, and as the glass fell crashing before his missile, leaped forward with Officer Hornsby, straight at the shaded window of the room where “Poker Face Louis” and Muriel Brea
kstone sat.

  Cap pulled down, overcoat collar up about his neck to fend off flying glass, Hornsby crashed through the window like a tank through barbed wire, Jules de Grandin at his elbow. “Poker Face” leaped from his seat with the agility of a startled cat and, thrust one hand into his dinner jacket, but before he could snatch his weapon from his shoulder holster, de Grandin’s deadly little automatic pistol was thrust against his temple. “Hands up—and keep them there, if you please, petit porc,” the Frenchman ordered sharply. “Me, I do not greatly admire that face of yours; it would require small inducement for me to change its appearance with a bullet. Examine him, Friend Hornsby; unless I miss my guess, he wears an arsenal on him.”

  He did. Under Hornsby’s expert search a revolver, two automatic pistols and a murderous, double-edged stiletto were removed from the prisoner’s clothes.

  “Why, you damned, dirty little Frog, you—” the captive began, but:

  “Softly, my friend, there is a lady present, and your language is not suited to her ears,” de Grandin admonished as Hornsby locked handcuffs on the prisoner’s wrists. “Madame,” he turned toward Muriel’s chair, “I much regret our so unceremonious intrusion, but—mon Dieu, she is gone!”

  Taking advantage of our preoccupation with her companion, Muriel Breakstone had vanished.

  “After her, Friend Trowbridge!” he cried. “Hasten, rush; fly! We must overtake her before she reaches home—we must!”

  “What’s it all about?” I panted as we reached my car and set out in pursuit of the vanished woman. “If—”

  “If we are too late I shall never cease reproaching myself,” he interrupted. “Can not you see it all? Madame Breakstone is enamored of this criminal. It is not the first time that gently brought-up women have succumbed to such fascinations. No. She is tired of her good, respectable husband, and thinks only of getting rid of him. Ha, and that one with the unchanging face, he is not averse to helping her. That liquor we saw him give her undoubtlessly was poison; could you not read fear of murder in her face as she received the bottle from him? But that will not deter her. No. Like a pantheress she is, cruel and passionate as a she-cat. Unquestionably she will administer the drug to Monsieur Idris, unless we can arrive in time to warn him, and—Dieu de Dieu, is Satan in league with them?”

  The warning clang-clang of a locomotive bell sounded as he spoke, and I clapped my brakes down sharply, stopping us within two feet of the lowered crossing-gate as a seventy-car freight train rumbled past. De Grandin beat his knuckles on the windshield, pulled at his mustache till I thought he would tear hair and skin away in one tremendous tug, and swore venomously in mingled French and English while the train crawled past. When the gates were finally raised we had lost the better part of fifteen minutes, and to make matters worse a broken bottle tossed in the street by some one who had patronized a neighboring bootlegger with more generosity than wisdom cut our front tire to ribbons as I put on speed.

  Taxicabs were non-existent in that poverty-stricken neighborhood, and no service station was available for half a mile. We limped along on a flopping, ruined tire, finally found a place where a new one could be had, but lost three-quarters of an hour in the search.

  “It is hardly worth while hurrying now,” de Grandin told me with a fatalistic shrug as we resumed our way. “However, we might as well continue; Monsieur Martin the coroner, will be pleased to have us sign some sort of statement, I suppose.”

  Lights blazed in Breakstone’s house, when we drew up before the door, and servants followed each other about in futile, hysterical circles.

  “Oh, thank Gawd, you’ve come, sir!” the butler greeted us. “I telephoned you immediately it happened, but they told me you were out, and Doctor Chapman was out, too, so—”

  “Ha, it has occurred, then?” de Grandin cut in sharply. “Where is he?”

  The servant gazed at him in awe-struck wonder, but swallowed his amazement as he turned to lead us to the library.

  Idris Breakstone lay supine on the leather couch, one hand trailing to the floor, the other folded peacefully across his breast. A single look confirmed our fears. No need to tell us! Death’s trade mark can not be counterfeited, and physicians recognize it all too well. His eyes were partly closed and brilliant with a set, fixed, glassy stare, his lips were slightly parted, and light flecks of whitish foam were at the corners of his mouth.

  The Frenchman turned from the body almost indifferently, took up the empty glass upon the table, and held it to his nose, sniffing lightly once or twice, then passed it to me with a shrug. Faint, but still perceptible the odor of peach-kernels hung about the goblets rim, “Hydrocyanic acid,” he pronounced. “Less than one grain is fatal, and death is almost instantaneous. They were stupid, those two, for all their fancied cleverness. A child could not be deceived by this, and—”

  “But see here,” I remonstrated. “You’re set on the theory of murder, I know, but, there’s a slim chance this might be suicide, de Grandin. We know Idris was—well, talking strangely, to say the least, last night, and we know he was a broken spirited, disillusioned man. He might have done this thing himself. Plain justice demands we take that into consideration. It’s true we saw that queer-faced man give Muriel something in a bottle, but we didn’t hear what they said and we don’t really know it was poison, so—”

  “Précisément,” he nodded grimly. “You have right, my friend. We do not yet know it was poison he gave her, or that she administered it, so we shall interview Madame Breakstone and hear the truth from her lovely, guilty lips. Come; we are not men dealing with a woman, now, but agents of justice with a criminal.” He strode to the door, flung it open and beckoned to the butler. “Your mistress,” he ordered curtly. “Take us to her.”

  “Ye-es sir. She’s upstairs, sir. I thought you’d like to see her as soon as you were through with the master. Will you come this way, sir?”

  “Assuredly,” the Frenchman agreed, and fell into step beside the servant. “No noise,” he warned in a threatening whisper “If you advise her of our coming—”

  “Sir?” the other interrupted with a shocked expression.

  “Exactly, precisely, quite so; I have said it,” de Grandin, returned sharply. “Your hearing is of the best, my friend. Proceed.”

  THE SOUND OF A woman sobbing softly came to us as we approached Muriel’s bedroom door. “Tiens, Madame, tears will avail you nothing,” the Frenchman muttered. “Justice knows neither sex nor gallantry; neither does Jules de Grandin in such a case as this.” He rapped sharply on the white-enameled panels, then, as the door swung back:

  “Grand Dieu—what is this?” he asked in blank amazement.

  Upon the bed lay Muriel Breakstone, a coverlet drawn over her, leaving only her quiet face exposed. A maid, red-eyed with weeping, rose from her chair and motioned us toward the still form. “You’re the doctors?” she queried between sobs. “It’s awful, gentlemen. I was down th’ hall by Master Bobby’s door when I heard Mrs. Breakstone come running upstairs and into her room as if some one was after her. She screamed once, and I came as quickly as I could, but when I got here she was—oh, I was so scared, I didn’t know what to do—I couldn’t even scream, for a minute! I got her to the bed and drew the cover over her, then got her smelling-salts, but—”

  “Précisément, it was useless; I perceive,” de Grandin interrupted. “You did your best, Mademoiselle, and as your nerves have had a shock, I suggest you go below stairs and give yourself a cup of tea. You will find it restful.” He motioned toward the door, and as the trembling girl crept out he turned down the coverlet and stared intently in the dead woman’s face.

  “And what do you make of this, Friend Trowbridge?” he asked, tapping Muriel’s throat with the tip of a well-manicured forefinger. Upon the right side of the smooth, white neck was already forming an elongated patch of discoloration, while the left side showed four long, parallel, reddish lines reaching toward the back from a point midway between the tip and angle of the jaw. />
  “Why—er—” I began, but he waved me to silence, took my hand in his and pressed my first two fingers against the neck in the receding angle below the chin. Only soft flesh opposed the pressure.

  “You see?” he remarked. “The right horn of the hyoid bone is fractured. It is often so in cases of strangulation—throttling by the hand. Yes; of course; I have seen it more than once in the Paris morgue.

  “B-but who did it—who could have done it?” I stammered. “D’ye suppose Idris could have been seized with a fit of homicidal madness, strangled Muriel, then, returning to sanity and realizing what he’d done, committed suici—”

  “Zut!” he exclaimed impatiently. “Your question slanders the helpless dead, my friend. That poor one downstairs was murdered, foully murdered. As to who performed the deed for this one—one wonders.” But from the expression on his face I knew he had arrived at a decision.

  He was strangely silent on the homeward drive, nor would he respond to any of my attempts at conversation.

  THEY BURIED IDRIS AND Muriel Breakstone on New Year’s Eve. The coroner’s jury returned a verdict of suicide while of unsound mind in Idris’ case, and of murder by throttling at the hands of some person or persons unknown in the case of Muriel. At de Grandin’s request Coroner Martin, in his private and unofficial capacity of funeral director, saw that the little, plain-gold ring with “Forever” engraved on its inner surface was slipped on the third finger of Idris’ hand before the body was placed in the casket. The tall, gray-haired mortician and the little Frenchman were fast friends, and though the coroner asked no questions, he nodded sympathetically when de Grandin gave him the ring and asked that he see it was put on the body.