WHO KNEW?

“WHERE'S that taxi?" Titheredge demanded of Peters in the hall. The latter stood near the vestibule talking with two workmen, who, in overalls and with their tool-kits slung over their arms, turned lowering faces toward him.

"Taxi, sir?" Peters started in surprise and then opening the door he peered out. "Just drawing up at the curb, sir. Now then, you two, move one side there and let the gentleman pass."

"Who are these men?" Titheredge paused.

Peters hesitated for a moment and seemed to turn a shade more pale.

"They say they were sent for to do a bit of carpentering, sir, but I tell them there must have been some mistake; they've got the wrong address I imagine, sir,"

"Nothin' doin'!" The burlier of the two men stepped forward determinedly. "Someone telephoned to the boss yesterday to send a couple of us up here at half-past seven sharp this morning to hang a big picture; said it would have to be spiked to the wall. We're paid for our time."

The attorney turned and looked searchingly at the cowering butler before addressing the truculent workman.

"There's no mistake; but the work can't be done now. ​What's it worth to you to go away and come back just after the noon hour to do the job?"

The two consulted together and sulkily named their price. As the attorney paid them, he asked:

"Who is your boss? Where is his shop?"

"Bill Kenny, sir." The generous tip which Titheredge had added to the sum demanded had evidently had a mollifying effect. "His place is over on Eighth Avenue, near Fiftieth. Thank you, sir. We'll be back right after noon."

They touched their caps and started down the hall toward the servants' staircase which led to the tradesman's entrance, and the attorney turned to speak to Peters; but that wily individual had disappeared, and after a moment Titheredge opened the door and started thoughtfully down the steps. He had caught the butler in two deliberate lies within the space of an hour, but he gave the matter little thought. All the way downtown to Police Headquarters his mind was busied with one problem. Who had telephoned from that house to the shop on the previous day? Who had known that the picture was going to fall?

The Police Commissioner had not yet reached his office, but a brief interview with his secretary put one of the smaller examination rooms at his disposal, where the attorney was joined shortly by a brisk, smiling young man whose clean-cut features and almost boyishness of manner gave no hint of the police department. His forehead was broad, with just the hint of a scar above one eyebrow; and the merry blue eyes themselves as well as the high cheekbones beneath betokened his ancestry as much as his name proclaimed it.

​"Good morning, Mr. Titheredge. Did you want to see me?"

"I do, Sergeant; you are the only man who can help me out. Moreover, I know that the case I've got for you—if it is a case at all—will be one after your own heart."

They shook hands; and as the attorney seated himself Sergeant Barry Odell asked with a canny twinkle in his eye:

"A matter for the Homicide Bureau and you're not sure whether it is a case or not? No trace of the body, then?"

"The bodies were there all right," Titheredge responded grimly. "But there was no thought of foul play until last night. You see, I have a client in whose family two deaths have occurred within the past month, but they were thought to have been the result of accident; separate accidents of a widely different nature. Now we have reason to believe that they were brought about in some mysterious manner by an unknown person who seems determined to kill off the entire family. These people have been friends of mine for years as well as clients, and as far as I know they haven't an enemy in the world. We haven't a sign of proof and no clue except some pieces of clipped wire. Could I go to any other man in the department but you with such a story and not be a laughing-stock?"

Odell smiled, but his face grew serious as he replied:

"I don't know, sir, but I've been wondering myself why we hadn't seen Mr. Lorne down here before this."

"You!" Titheredge's imperturbability deserted him, and he stared. "What on earth do you know about it?"

"Only what I've read in the papers, but when I saw about that young fellow cutting his throat by accident and just in the place where it would do the most good—or ​harm—and that he was a son of the lady who'd died not a month before from a needle-thrust in her hand I thought there was something mighty queer about it all." Odell shrugged. "However, nothing came to the Bureau about it, and it's not up to us to go out looking for trouble. Tell me about it from the beginning, Mr, Titheredge."

"There's little to tell about the two cases if you remember the newspaper accounts, and I would rather have you get the details from the members of the family themselves; but I'll tell you a little about them before we start." The attorney settled forward in his chair. "Mrs. Lorne was the widow of Halsey Chalmers, the rich broker, when she married Richard Lorne five years ago. She had five children all practically grown up except the youngest boy, a hunchback. Her spinster sister. Miss Effie Meade, two or three years her senior, had always lived with her since her first marriage, and that composed the family up to a month ago. Then Mrs. Lorne died; and last week her oldest son Julian was taken off, as you know.

"I don't mind telling you, Sergeant, that I had some quick work then to keep a suspicion of suicide out of the press; for Julian had been pretty wild and had caused his stepfather and me a lot of trouble about money matters—squaring up for scrapes he had got into, and that sort of thing. His own father, Halsey Chalmers, had left an independent fortune to each of the children; but he had tied it up until the boys became twenty-five and the girls twenty-three. I was one of the executors of his estate and co-guardian with their mother. When she married Richard Lorne we put the inheritances into his hands for reinvestment, and he has almost doubled them. I know because we ​always had an accounting every few months. When Julian became twenty-five, three years ago, he was glad enough to leave the principal in his stepfather's hands, for the interest was enough to content him; but lately he had gone far beyond it and—er—requested that the principal be turned over to him. This request was made just after his mother's death."

"Usual reason?" asked Odell.

Titheredge nodded.

"A woman. Naturally, neither his stepfather nor I wished to see his fortune dissipated, and we reasoned with him. We even went to the length of hinting that we would take legal steps to keep the control of the money out of his hands. Sheer bluff, of course, for he was perfectly normal mentally, with no settled vices, and we shouldn't have had a leg to stand on. But he took it seriously and threatened in an outburst of temper to kill himself rather than be kept in leading-strings. There was nothing to it, of course; but you know when the papers get hold of a thing—"

He paused, and the detective asked:

"Did any of the family suggest that it might have been suicide?"

"No. None of them knew of that absurd threat except Lorne, and the idea has never entered his mind. He and I have been busy settling Julian's estate; the terms of his own father's will decree that it be divided equally between the living children, since he died unmarried.

"That is how I happened to be there last night, when I learned from Lorne that not only he but all four of the children have felt a sort of superstitious fear ever since Julian's death that there was something more than coin​cidence in the two tragedies, or accidents, or whatever you choose to call them.

"No one had mentioned it; but I gather that the cripple, Randall, made some sort of outburst about it at the dinner-table last evening, and that sort of brought the matter to a head in Lorne's mind. Anyway, when I arrived a little later for a conference with him he told me of his suspicion that those so-called accidents might have been devilishly planned.

"He couldn't suggest anyone who might be guilty, nor a motive, and I laughed at him; but while we were talking something occurred that seems to put solid fact behind his wild theory."

He told of the fall of the picture and Gene's escape, and the young sergeant listened with the keenest attention.

"You are sure about those wires being hacked apart?" he inquired when the attorney had finished. "The portrait has been hanging there for years, you say? Couldn't they have worn through?"

"Impossible. The strands hadn't parted from age; their tips were bright where they had been severed. I want you to come up and have a look at them for yourself; but first let me tell you of a further affair this morning, which to my mind leaves no doubt that someone, either inside the house or with a confederate there, is trying deliberately to exterminate the whole family! That sounds ridiculous, I know, in these days and right here in the heart of the city; but I have seen what I believe to be the evidence of it with my own eyes."

He proceeded to describe the events of the night and ​early morning; and the detective's merry twinkle vanished in a vacant, narrow-lidded stare of concentration.

'You did not hear the footsteps?"

"No. I was so stubbornly confident that no further attempt would be made on any of the family for a few days at least that I thought poor Lorne was the victim of his own nervous apprehension." Titheredge's usually dry tones were filled with contrition. "I only wish then that we had gone out and investigated, but I was afraid that we would awaken the rest of the family and there would be another scene.

"I did hear the gnawing, grating sound very distinctly, and I was perfectly sincere when I told Lorne that I thought it must be caused by rats or mice in the walls. Lorne said that he could have sworn it sounded louder than any rat, but I paid no attention. Now, looking back, I realize that it might well have been a saw cutting through the solid oak of the top step of the stairs."

"You haven't had a chance to examine it yet yourself, Mr. Titheredge?"

"No, but it won't be touched until we get back there—". The attorney halted as a sudden memory gripped him. "By George, I'm not so sure of that, after all! We had better hurry."

Sergeant Odell rose. As they made their way from the building he gave more than one keen side-long glance at his companion.

It was not until they were speeding uptown in the taxi, however, that Titheredge mentioned the thought which had come to him.

"Sergeant, as I was leaving the house this morning to ​run down here I came upon two workmen arguing with the butler in the hall. They said that someone had telephoned to the shop yesterday to have them come and rehang a large picture. Yesterday, mind you, and the portrait only fell last night! If you can find out who telephoned from the house—"

"Did they say that the call had come from the house itself, Mr. Titheredge?" the detective interposed quietly.

"Well, no; now that I think of it they didn't say from where it was sent, but I inferred—"

"I think we'll go to the shop first." Again the detective interrupted him. "That is, if you know what shop sent them out?"

"Yes. It is Kenny's, on Eighth Avenue." The attorney gave the address to the chauffeur. "If a similar order has been given concerning the broken stair and carried out before we get there, we'll just rip it apart again."

"Mr. Titheredge." The detective had evidently been following a train of thought of his own. "You said that Mr. Lorne wanted to 'phone to Headquarters last night but you dissuaded him?"

"Yes, Even before the portrait fell he said that he felt like going to the authorities. He had nothing but his vague, superstitious fears to back up his story, which then seemed fantastic to me beyond belief. But after that attempt on Gene's life I had all I could do to compel him to wait until I could get in touch with you."

"And where did this discussion take place?"

"Right there in the library in front of the fallen picture."

"With the door open, so that anyone who chose to listen could hear all that was said?"

​"Why, yes." The attorney looked somewhat taken aback. "What are you driving at, Sergeant?"

"The necessity for the stairs being rendered almost fatally dangerous in the night. It was a risk, you know, with you two talking in that room right at hand."

"But I don't see"—Titheredge stammered. "I thought it was done to cause the death of the first member of the family who attempted to descend, regardless of which one it might be."

Odell shook his head, and his tone was very grave.

"Had anyone been listening in the hall outside the library last night and heard your decision to take your story to the police this morning, they would naturally suppose that you would rise earlier than the rest of the family, and that you and Mr. Lorne would descend the stairs together; wouldn't they?"

"Good heavens!" the attorney exclaimed. "That never occurred to me. It was a mad, desperate attempt, then, to kill us in order to prevent our notifying you!"

"Not necessarily to kill you, but to injure you and delay our receipt of your message at least until the portrait had been rehung and the only bit of real evidence which you seem to possess—the cut wires—removed." Odell laughed. "Of course, I may be dead wrong, and it isn't my usual method to form conclusions before I've even gone over the ground, and then expatiate on them; but that's the way it looks to me now. Is this your shop?"

The taxi had stopped before a store the signboard of which read: "William Kenny, Carpentering, Plastering and Interior Decorating." It appeared to be a small place of an inferior sort.

​"Odd that anyone interested in the rehanging of that portrait should not have called on some picture dealer for the service," Odell remarked to the attorney as they left the cab and crossed the sidewalk. "It doesn't seem as though a place of this kind could supply men fitted for the job."

"Not if the one who telephoned was ignorant of such things," Titheredge responded.

Again the detective favored him with a swift side glance, but vouchsafed no further comment.

William Kenny proved to be a tall, gaunt man who gesticulated loose-jointedly as he talked; and he appeared quite willing to talk at any length.

"About that picter-hangin' business." He rubbed one outstanding ear reflectively. "I did think it was funny when my men come back awhile ago an' told me as how the butler over there had tried to tell them there was a mistake; there wasn't, because I got the call myself over the 'phone yesterday."

"At what time?" asked Odell.

"Oh, 'long about three, some'eres. I didn't take partic'ler notice." Kenny rested one long arm upon the counter and regarded his inquisitors shrewdly. "Say, nothin' wrong about that business, was they?"

"Not a thing in the world, except that conflicting orders were given, and we cannot understand it," Odell replied in hasty reassurance. "Just what was the order that was placed with you?"

"To have two men sent over to the Meade house on Madison Avenue at seven-thirty sharp this morning to hang a heavy picture; they was to bring along iron staples and the strongest grade of steel wire. Now, we don't handle ​much of that kind of work, but I wasn't goin' to lose a chance at that swell trade, so I said 'all right; an' that's all there is to it."

"So you'd never done any work for them before?"

"Nope. Dunno how they come to call me in the first place, but I ain't kickin' at that."

"Was the voice that talked to you over the telephone a man's or a woman's?" Odell inquired casually with a glance toward the door as if preparing to depart.

"Couldn't tell; it might have been either." Kenny straightened himself. "It was gruff-like, and rasping, but not real deep. Say," he added with a touch of anxiety, "that order ain't canceled, is it? The boys was to go back just after the noon hour and do the job."

"Oh, no. Send them along and it will be all right." The detective turned toward the door; and Titheredge, who had taken no part in the questioning, followed, marveling that the other had left the most important point untouched upon.

With his hand on the doorknob, however, Odell turned once more.

"Oh, by the way, that call came directly from the Meade house, didn't it?"

"Dunno!" Kenny looked his surprise. "It was a city call, all right, you could tell that from the way the voice come over the wire, but it might have been from anywhere's around town."

"Well, it sure is funny about those conflicting orders." The detective shook his head in a puzzled manner. "Too bad you can't fix the time the call came in to you any closer, Mr. Kenny."

"Hold on! Maybe I can." The head of the establish​ment paused in what was evidently for him a vast mental effort. "It was about three—no, it was after; it was just twenty-five minutes past! I remember because I'd sent Dooley over to kalsomine some ceilings on Forty-fourth Street, an' he'd ought to've been back here by two-thirty at most. I'm payin' the boys by the time; an' he must have loafed on his job, for he never got back until twenty-five past three. I'd just started in to bawl him out when the 'phone rang."

"Well, thank you, Mr. Kenny. We've told the other people who claim to have been sent for that there was nothing doing; you had the job. Good morning."

In the taxi once more cutting across town Barry Odell remarked:

"The residence of Mr. Lorne and his stepchildren is known as the Meade house, then. It must have belonged to his wife's people."

"Yes, for generations. She and this spinster sister who has survived her each owned a half interest in it. When she married Halsey Chalmers he built a house for her up on Fifth Avenue; but after his death she sold it, and she and her family, including Miss Meade of course, came back to live in the old home. Richard Lorne could never persuade her to leave it." Titheredge paused and added: "It isn't one of these ornate, miniature palaces they are building nowadays, you know; just a solid, substantial old brownstone mansion, and rather a landmark in its way."

"You spoke of this Eugene who had the narrow escape last night, and of the youngest son who was a hunchback, and the girls," Odell observed. "The daughters are both grown up?"

​"Christine, who was named after her mother, is twenty-two, and Nan is just twenty."

"Any love affairs?"

The attorney hesitated.

"I believe there is a sort of bread-and-butter flirtation going on between Nan and a good-looking boy whose people have the house on the avenue next door. The Meade house is on the corner. Tad Traymore—his father is old Thaddeus Traymore of the Palladium Trust Company—is just out of the university and starting to read law, so there isn't much chance of the affair assuming the status of an engagement now."

"And the other daughter?"

A full minute passed before Titheredge replied.

"That is another source of worry to Lorne. She has recently become quite infatuated with a man much older than herself named Drew. His antecedents are irreproachable and he is still received in the best society, but his past—well, it hasn't been one that would render him suitable as a husband for a girl like Christine."

"Not Farley Drew who was named in the Gael divorce case?" The detective's tone had sharpened slightly.

Titheredge nodded.

"That's the chap. His people left him fairly well off; but he squandered all he had long ago, and it is Christine's money that he is after, of course, although she is a beautiful girl. Drew is not the sort of man to be attracted by unsophistication."

"I'll tell the world that!" Odell commented with emphasis. "He may be received by the best society, but he'll be received by us, too, down at Headquarters if he doesn't watch ​his step. We haven't got anything on him yet, you understand, Mr. Titheredge, but he's been under suspicion in more than one shady transaction. Always travels around with men much younger than himself, doesn't he?"

The attorney's lips set in a stiff line.

"Mere boys with wealth, gilded youth, who want to see life, and he shows them a certain side of it while their money lasts."

The detective whistled softly.

"I thought as much," he said. "So that's how he gained an introduction into Mr. Lorne's household?"

"Yes. I'm giving you a lot of inside information, Sergeant, which perhaps in justice to my clients I should not disclose; but in a case like this where I cannot tell what may be of use to you I think it best to put you in possession of whatever facts I know concerning every member of the family."

"It is just saving time and trouble for me, Mr. Titheredge, for I would find out for myself anyway," Odell assured him. "Which of the boys was it who brought Drew to the house; Julian or Eugene?"

There was another pause longer than before and then the attorney replied slowly:

"It was Eugene."