_ CHAPTER VIII
"Hello! What's that?"
Startled out of his Gargantuan slumber by the revolver's loud report, Howard sat up with a jump and rubbed his eyes. On the other side of the screen, concealed from his observation, there was a heavy crash of a body falling with a chair--then all was quiet.
Scared, not knowing where he was, Howard jumped to his feet. For a moment he stood still, trying to collect his senses. It was too dark to discern anything plainly, but he could dimly make out outlines of aesthetic furniture and bibelots. Ah, he remembered now! He was in Underwood's apartment.
Rubbing his eyes, he tried to recall how he came there, and slowly his befuddled brain began to work. He remembered that he needed $2,000, and that he had called on Robert Underwood to try and borrow the money. Yes, he recalled that perfectly well. Then he and Underwood got drinking and talking, and he had fallen asleep. He thought he had heard a woman's voice--a voice he knew. Perhaps that was only a dream. He must have been asleep some time, because the lights were out and, seemingly, everybody had gone to bed. He wondered what the noise which startled him could have been. Suddenly he heard a groan. He listened intently, but all was still. The silence was uncanny.
Now thoroughly frightened, Howard cautiously groped his way about, trying to find the electric button. He had no idea what time it was. It must be very late. What an ass he was to drink so much! He wondered what Annie would say when he didn't return. He was a hound to let her sit up and worry like that. Well, this would be a lesson to him--it was the last time he'd ever touch a drop. Of course, he had promised her the same thing a hundred times before, but this time he meant it. His drinking was always getting him into some fool scrape or other.
He was gradually working his way along the room, when suddenly he stumbled over something on the floor. It was a man lying prostrate. Stooping, he recognized the figure.
"Why--it's Underwood!" he exclaimed.
At first he believed his classmate was asleep, yet considered it strange that he should have selected so uncomfortable a place. Then it occurred to him that he might be ill. Shaking him by the shoulder, he cried:
"Hey, Underwood, what's the matter?"
No response came from the prostrate figure. Howard stooped lower, to see better, and accidentally touching Underwood's face, found it clammy and wet. He held his hand up in the moonlight and saw that it was covered with blood. Horror-stricken, he cried:
"My God! He's bleeding--he's hurt!"
What had happened? An accident--or worse? Quickly he felt the man's pulse. It had ceased to beat. Underwood was dead.
For a moment Howard was too much overcome by his discovery to know what to think or do. What dreadful tragedy could have happened? Carefully groping along the mantelpiece, he at last found the electric button and turned on the light. There, stretched out on the floor, lay Underwood, with a bullet hole in his left temple, from which blood had flowed freely down on his full-dress shirt. It was a ghastly sight. The man's white, set face, covered with a crimson stream, made a repulsive spectacle. On the floor near the body was a highly polished revolver, still smoking.
Howard's first supposition was that burglars had entered the place and that Underwood had been killed while defending his property. He remembered now that in his drunken sleep he had heard voices in angry altercation. Yet why hadn't he called for assistance? Perhaps he had and he hadn't heard him.
He looked at the clock, and was surprised to find it was not yet midnight. He believed it was at least five o'clock in the morning. It was evident that Underwood had never gone to bed. The shooting had occurred either while the angry dispute was going on or after the unknown visitor had departed. The barrel of the revolver was still warm, showing that it could only have been discharged a few moments before. Suddenly it flashed upon him that Underwood might have committed suicide.
But it was useless to stand there theorizing. Something must be done. He must alarm the hotel people or call the police. He felt himself turn hot and cold by turn as he realized the serious predicament in which he himself was placed. If he aroused the hotel people they would find him here alone with a dead man. Suspicion would at once be directed at him, and it might be very difficult for him to establish his innocence. Who would believe that he could have fallen asleep in a bed while a man killed himself in the same room? It sounded preposterous. The wisest course for him would be to get away before anybody came.
Quickly he picked up his hat and made for the door. Just as he was about to lay his hand on the handle there was the click of a latchkey. Thus headed off, and not knowing what to do, he halted in painful suspense. The door opened and a man entered.
He looked as surprised to see Howard as the latter was to see him. He was clean-shaven and neatly dressed, yet did not look the gentleman. His appearance was rather that of a servant. All these details flashed before Howard's mind before he blurted out:
"Who the devil are you?"
The man looked astounded at the question and eyed his interlocutor closely, as if in doubt as to his identity. In a cockney accent he said loftily:
"I am Ferris, Mr. Underwood's man, sir." Suspiciously, he added: "Are you a friend of Mr. Underwood's, sir?"
He might well ask the question, for Howard's disheveled appearance and ghastly face, still distorted by terror, was anything but reassuring. Taken by surprise, Howard did not know what to say, and like most people questioned at a disadvantage, he answered foolishly:
"Matter? No. What makes you think anything is the matter?"
Brushing past the man, he added: "It's late. I'm going."
"Stop a minute!" cried the man-servant. There was something in Howard's manner that he did not like. Passing quickly into the sitting room, he called out: "Stop a minute!" But Howard did not stop. Terror gave him wings and, without waiting for the elevator, he was already half way down the first staircase when he heard shouts behind him.
"Murder! Stop thief! Stop that man! Stop that man!"
There was a rush of feet and hum of voices, which made Howard run all the faster. He leaped down four steps at a time in his anxiety to get away. But it was no easy matter descending so many flights of stairs. It took him several minutes to reach the main floor.
By this time the whole hotel was aroused. Telephone calls had quickly warned the attendants, who had promptly sent for the police. By the time Howard reached the main entrance he was intercepted by a mob too numerous to resist.
Things certainly looked black for him. As he sat, white and trembling, under guard in a corner of the entrance hall, waiting for the arrival of the police, the valet breathlessly gave the sensational particulars to the rapidly growing crowd of curious onlookers. He had taken his usual Sunday out and on returning home at midnight, as was his custom, he had let himself in with his latchkey. To his astonishment he had found this man, the prisoner, about to leave the premises. His manner and remarks were so peculiar that they at once aroused his suspicion. He hurried into the apartment and found his master lying dead on the floor in a pool of blood. In his hurry the assassin had dropped his revolver, which was lying near the corpse. As far as he could see, nothing had been taken from the apartment. Evidently the man was disturbed at his work and, when suddenly surprised, had made the bluff that he was calling on Mr. Underwood. They had got the right man, that was certain. He was caught red-handed, and in proof of what he said, the valet pointed to Howard's right hand, which was still covered with blood.
"How terrible!" exclaimed a woman bystander, averting her face. "So young, too!"
"It's all a mistake, I tell you. It's all a mistake," cried Howard, almost panic-stricken. "I'm a friend of Mr. Underwood's."
"Nice friend!" sneered an onlooker.
"Tell that to the police," laughed another.
"Or to the marines!" cried a third.
"It's the chair for his'n!" opined a fourth.
By this time the main entrance hall was crowded with people, tenants and passers-by attracted by the unwonted commotion. A scandal in high life is always caviare to the sensation seeker. Everybody excitedly inquired of his neighbor:
"What is it? What's the matter?"
Presently the rattle of wheels was heard and a heavy vehicle, driven furiously, drew up at the sidewalk with a jerk. It was the police patrol wagon, and in it were the captain of the precinct and a half dozen policemen and detectives. The crowd pushed forward to get a better view of the burly representatives of the law as, full of authority, they elbowed their way unceremoniously through the throng. Pointing to the leader, a big man in plain clothes, with a square, determined jaw and a bulldog face, they whispered one to another:
"That's Captain Clinton, chief of the precinct. He's a terror. It'll go hard with any prisoner he gets in his clutches!"
Followed by his uniformed myrmidons, the police official pushed his way to the corner where sat Howard, dazed and trembling, and still guarded by the valet and elevator boys.
"What's the matter here?" demanded the captain gruffly, and looking from Ferris to the white-faced Howard. The valet eagerly told his story:
"I came home at midnight, sir, and found my master, Mr. Robert Underwood, lying dead in the apartment, shot through the head." Pointing to Howard, he added: "This man was in the apartment trying to get away. You see his hand is still covered with blood."
Captain Clinton chuckled, and expanding his mighty chest to its fullest, licked his chops with satisfaction. This was the opportunity he had been looking for--a sensational murder in a big apartment hotel, right in the very heart of his precinct! Nothing could be more to his liking. It was a rich man's murder, the best kind to attract attention to himself. The sensational newspapers would be full of the case. They would print columns of stuff every day, together with his portrait. That was just the kind of publicity he needed now that he was wire-pulling for an inspectorship. They had caught the man "with the goods"--that was very clear. He promised himself to attend to the rest. Conviction was what he was after. He'd see that no tricky lawyer got the best of him. Concealing, as well as he could, his satisfaction, he drew himself up and, with blustering show of authority, immediately took command of the situation. Turning to a police sergeant at his side, he said:
"Maloney, this fellow may have had an accomplice. Take four officers and watch every exit from the hotel. Arrest anybody attempting to leave the building. Put two officers to watch the fire escapes. Send one man on the roof. Go!"
"Yes, sir," replied the sergeant, as he turned away to execute the orders.
Captain Clinton gave two strides forward, and catching Howard by the collar, jerked him to his feet.
"Now, young feller, you come with me! We'll go upstairs and have a look at the dead man."
Howard was at no time an athlete, and now, contrasted with the burly policeman, a colossus in strength, he seemed like a puny boy. His cringing, frightened attitude, as he looked up in the captain's bulldog face, was pathetic. The crowd of bystanders could hardly contain their eagerness to take in every detail of the dramatic situation. The prisoner was sober by this time, and thoroughly alarmed.
"What do you want me for?" he cried. "I haven't done anything. The man's dead, but I didn't kill him."
"Shut your mouth!" growled the captain.
Dragging Howard after him, he made his way to the elevator. Throwing his prisoner into the cage, he turned to give orders to his subordinate.
"Maloney, you come up with me and bring Officer Delaney." Addressing the other men, he said: "You other fellers look after things down here. Don't let any of these people come upstairs," Then, turning to the elevator boy, he gave the command: "Up with her."
The elevator, with its passengers, shot upward, stopped with a jerk at the fourteenth floor, and the captain, once more laying a brutal hand on Howard, pushed him out into the corridor.
If it could be said of Captain Clinton that he had any system at all, it was to be as brutal as possible with everybody unlucky enough to fall into his hands. Instead of regarding his prisoners as innocent until found guilty, as they are justly entitled to be regarded under the law, he took the direct opposite stand. He considered all his prisoners as guilty as hell until they had succeeded in proving themselves innocent. Even then he had his doubts. When a jury brought in a verdict of acquittal, he shook his head and growled. He had the greatest contempt for a jury that would acquit and the warmest regard for a jury which convicted. He bullied and maltreated his prisoners because he firmly believed in undermining their moral and physical resistance. When by depriving them of sleep and food, by choking them, clubbing them and frightening them he had reduced them to a state of nervous terror, to the border of physical collapse, he knew by experience that they would no longer be in condition to withstand his merciless cross-examinations. Demoralized, unstrung, they would blurt out the truth and so convict themselves. The ends of justice would thus be served.
Captain Clinton prided himself on the thorough manner in which he conducted these examinations of persons under arrest. It was a laborious ordeal, but always successful. He owed his present position on the force to the skill with which he brow-beat his prisoners into "confessions." With his "third degree" seances he arrived at results better and more quickly than in any other way. All his convictions had been secured by them. The press and meddling busy-bodies called his system barbarous, a revival of the old-time torture chamber. What did he care what the people said as long as he convicted his man? Wasn't that what he was paid for? He was there to find the murderer, and he was going to do it.
He pushed his way into the apartment, followed closely by Maloney and the other policemen, who dragged along the unhappy Howard. The dead man still lay where he had fallen. Captain Clinton stooped down, but made no attempt to touch the corpse, merely satisfying himself that Underwood was dead. Then, after a casual survey of the room, he said to his sergeant:
"We won't touch a thing, Maloney, till the coroner arrives. He'll be here any minute, and he'll give the order for the undertaker. You can call up headquarters so the newspaper boys get the story."
While the sergeant went to the telephone to carry out these orders, Captain Clinton turned to look at Howard, who had collapsed, white and trembling, into a chair.
"What do you want with me?" cried Howard appealingly. "I assure you I've had nothing to do with this. My wife's expecting me home. Can't I go?"
"Shut up!" thundered the captain.
His arms folded, his eyes sternly fixed upon him, Captain Clinton stood confronting the unfortunate youth, staring at him without saying a word. The persistence of his stare made Howard squirm. It was decidedly unpleasant. He did not mind the detention so much as this man's overbearing, bullying manner. He knew he was innocent, therefore he had nothing to fear. But why was this police captain staring at him so? Whichever way he sat, whichever way his eyes turned, he saw this bulldog-faced policeman staring silently at him. Unknown to him, Captain Clinton had already begun the dreaded police ordeal known as the "third degree." _