The Greatest Murder Mysteries of S. S. Van Dine - 12 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). S.S. Van Dine
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It was very indistinct; and it sounded a little hoarse. It wasn’t any one’s voice I was familiar with; but I’d be inclined to say it was the same one that answered me over the phone.”
“Could you make out anything that was said?”
Cleaver frowned and looked past Markham through the open window.
“I know what the words sounded like,” he said slowly. “I didn’t think anything of them at the time. But after reading the papers the next day, those words came back to me——”
“What were the words?” Markham cut in impatiently.
“Well, as near as I could make out, they were: ‘Oh, my God! Oh, my God!’—repeated two or three times.”
This statement seemed to bring a sense of horror into the dreary old office—a horror all the more potent because of the casual, phlegmatic way in which Cleaver repeated that cry of anguish. After a brief pause Markham asked:
“When you heard this man’s voice, what did you do?”
“I walked softly back down the rear hall and went out again through the side door. Then I went home.”
A short silence ensued. Cleaver’s testimony had been in the nature of a surprise; but it fitted perfectly with Mannix’s statement.
Presently Vance lifted himself out of the depths of his chair.
“I say, Mr. Cleaver, what were you doing between twenty minutes to twelve—when you phoned Miss Odell—and five minutes to twelve—when you entered the side door of her apartment-house?”
“I was riding up-town in the Subway from 23d Street,” came the answer after a short pause.
“Strange—very strange.” Vance inspected the tip of his cigarette. “You couldn’t possibly have phoned any one during that fifteen minutes?”
I suddenly remembered Alys La Fosse’s statement that Cleaver had telephoned to her on Monday night at ten minutes to twelve. Vance, by his question, had, without revealing his own knowledge, created a state of uncertainty in the other’s mind. Afraid to commit himself too emphatically, Cleaver resorted to an evasion.
“It’s possible, is it not, that I could have phoned some one after leaving the Subway at 72d Street and before I walked the block to Miss Odell’s house?”
“Oh, quite,” murmured Vance. “Still, looking at it mathematically, if you phoned Miss Odell at twenty minutes to twelve, and then entered the Subway, rode to 72d Street, walked a block to 71st, went into the building, listened at her door, and departed at five minutes to twelve—making the total time consumed only fifteen minutes—you’d scarcely have sufficient leeway to stop en route and phone to any one. However, I sha’n’t press the point. But I’d really like to know what you did between eleven o’clock and twenty minutes to twelve, when you phoned to Miss Odell.”
“To tell you the truth, I was upset that night. I knew Miss Odell was out with another man—she’d broken an appointment with me—and I walked the streets for an hour or more, fuming and fretting.”
“Walked the streets?” Vance frowned.
“So I said.” Cleaver spoke with animus. Then, turning, he gave Markham a long calculating look. “You remember I once suggested to you that you might learn something from a Doctor Lindquist. . . . Did you ever get after him?”
Before Markham could answer, Vance broke in.
“Ah! That’s it!—Doctor Lindquist! Well, well—of course! . . . So, Mr. Cleaver, you were walking the streets? The streets, mind you! Precisely!—You state the fact, and I echo the word ‘streets.’ And you—apparently out of a clear sky—ask about Doctor Lindquist. Why Doctor Lindquist? No one has mentioned him. But that word ‘streets’—that’s the connection. The streets and Doctor Lindquist are one—same as Paris and springtime are one. Neat, very neat. . . . And now I’ve got another piece to the puzzle.”
Markham and Heath looked at him as if he had suddenly gone mad. He calmly selected a Régie from his case and proceeded to light it. Then he smiled beguilingly at Cleaver.
“The time has come, my dear sir, for you to tell us when and where you met Doctor Lindquist while roaming the streets Monday night. If you don’t, ’pon my word, I’ll come pretty close to doing it for you.”
A full minute passed before Cleaver spoke; and during that time his cold staring eyes never moved from the District Attorney’s face.
“I’ve already told most of the story; so here’s the rest.” He gave a soft mirthless laugh. “I went to Miss Odell’s house a little before half past eleven—thought she might be home by that time. There I ran into Doctor Lindquist standing in the entrance to the alleyway. He spoke to me, and told me some one was with Miss Odell in her apartment. Then I walked round the corner to the Ansonia Hotel. After ten minutes or so I telephoned Miss Odell, and, as I said, a man answered. I waited another ten minutes and phoned a friend of Miss Odell’s, hoping to arrange a party; but failing, I walked back to the house. The doctor had disappeared, and I went down the alleyway and in the side door. After listening a minute, as I told you, and hearing a man’s voice, I came away and went home. . . . That’s everything.”
At that moment Swaeker came in and whispered something to Heath. The Sergeant rose with alacrity and followed the secretary out of the room. Almost at once he returned, bearing a bulging Manila folder. Handing it to Markham, he said something in a low voice inaudible to the rest of us. Markham appeared both astonished and displeased. Waving the Sergeant back to his seat, he turned to Cleaver.
“I’ll have to ask you to wait in the reception-room for a few minutes. Another urgent matter has just arisen.”
Cleaver went out without a word, and Markham opened the folder.
“I don’t like this sort of thing, Sergeant. I told you so yesterday when you suggested it.”
“I understand, sir.” Heath, I felt, was not as contrite as his tone indicated. “But if those letters and things are all right, and Cleaver hasn’t been lying to us about ’em, I’ll have my man put ’em back so’s no one’ll ever know they were taken. And if they do make Cleaver out a liar, then we’ve got a good excuse for grabbing ’em.”
Markham did not argue the point. With a gesture of distaste he began running through the letters, looking particularly at the dates. Two photographs he put back after a cursory glance; and one piece of paper, which appeared to contain a pen-and-ink sketch of some kind, he tore up with disgust and threw into the waste-basket. Three letters, I noticed, he placed to one side. After five minutes’ inspection of the others, he returned them to the folder. Then he nodded to Heath.
“Bring Cleaver back.” He rose and, turning, gazed out of the window.
As soon as Cleaver was again seated before the desk Markham said, without looking round:
“You told me it was last June that you bought your letters back from Miss Odell. Do you recall the date?”
“Not exactly,” said Cleaver easily. “It was early in the month, though—during the first week, I think.”
Markham now spun about and pointed to the three letters he had segregated.
“How, then, do you happen to have in your possession compromising letters which you wrote to Miss Odell from the Adirondacks late in July?”
Cleaver’s self-control was perfect. After a moment’s stoical silence, he merely said in a mild, quiet voice:
“You of course came by those letters legally.”
Markham was stung, but he was also exasperated by the other’s persistent deceptions.
“I regret to confess,” he said, “that they were taken from your apartment—though, I assure you, it was against my instructions. But since they have come unexpectedly into my possession, the wisest thing