Flint said, “What’s Mrs. Wolff’s condition? I’ve got to see her.”
“She’s sleeping. You can’t question her now. I gave her a sedative.”
“You tell her about her husband?”
“No. I didn’t think she could take it just then. After she’s slept—”
“We’d better get it over. You can wake her, can’t you?”
Haggard frowned. “Yes. But I don’t think—”
“It won’t wait. If you don’t wake her, I will.”
Flint’s curt manner only put Haggard’s back up. The latter gave the lieutenant an obstinate look, and seemed about to tell him where to head in. But the immediate clash was averted when a short, harassed-looking little man hurried in with a fistful of fingerprint cards and took Flint’s attention.
“About time you had something to report, isn’t it, Tucker?” the lieutenant asked.
The man nodded. “I was just coming with it. Got a couple of things that look interesting.” He hesitated, glancing uncertainly at the rest of us. But Flint’s impatience overflowed.
“Okay. Let’s have ’em.”
Tucker was definitely no press agent. The things he described as merely interesting needed the circus vocabulary of a Dexter Fellows to do them justice. “I picked up a nice clear print on the rail at the head of the front stairs,” he said. “All four fingers and a partial thumb. I’ve checked against prints of everyone in the joint. No soap. We need more samples.”
“Including me?” I asked. I knew definitely that I hadn’t touched that stair rail.
“Including you. I copped your prints while you were sleeping.”
“What about the boatkeeper?” Flint asked. “Did you get his?”
“Yeah, his too.”
Flint looked at Merlini. “Well, that’s that. Or are you going to tell me that spooks can leave fingerprints just like anybody else?”
The lieutenant stuck his neck all the way out on that one, and the ax fell promptly.
“It is not,” Merlini answered, “an uncommon psychic phenomenon. The famous ‘Margery,’ who was investigated in ’24 by the Scientific American committee, obtained thumbprints in wax of her deceased brother and spirit control, Walter. Or so she claimed. Later, they turned out to look an awful lot like the prints of a still living dentist who had attended some of her earlier sittings. On the other hand, Franek Kluski obtained wax molds of spirit hands, complete with friction ridges, and with the fingers so interlocked that dematerialization would seem to be the only possible manner in which the hands could have been withdrawn, leaving the molds intact. Galt, if you ask him, will probably cite that case as one of the unexplained and thus genuine proofs of—”
The quick readiness of Merlini’s reply caught Flint a bit oft balance. Regaining it finally, he cut in, “Don’t worry, I won’t ask.” He turned back to Tucker. “Anything else?”
The fingerprint man nodded. “Plenty. A flock of prints that match the ones on the stair rail. Dozen or so altogether. A couple on the window in Mrs. Wolff’s room, three or four on those pictures that fell off the walls last week, a couple on the pieces of that smashed flower vase, and the rest—”
He hesitated, aware that Flint wasn’t going to like what came next.
“And the rest,” he finished, “are all in the study.”
Under the circumstances, Flint controlled himself remarkably well. All he did was bellow, “WHERE?” with a blast that nearly swept the little fingerprint expert off his feet.
“In the study,” Tucker repeated jumpily. “Three prints on the desk top, a couple on the door, one on the light switch, one near the—”
The lieutenant had heard enough. “Haggard!” he snapped. “I’m seeing Mrs. Wolff now!” He shot out through the door so fast I marveled that the friction of the air didn’t make him blaze, meteorlike, into incandescence.
Haggard scowled and hurried after him. Then, as Merlini followed, I swung quickly out of bed, pulled my cocoon of blankets around me and joined the parade, shedding hot-water bottles as I went.
As I passed Tucker he was saying, “Hey, Lieutenant. Wait! The worst is yet to—”
But Flint didn’t hear him. He had seen Merlini and was busy growling, “Oh no you don’t. You two are staying put. Tucker, see that they stay in that bedroom.”
He vanished with the doctor into Mrs. Wolff’s room. The door closed solidly behind them.
“The policeman’s lot,” Merlini muttered glumly, “is not so hot. And an amateur detective naps on no bed of roses either.” He turned and looked at Tucker. “What is this ominous-sounding something else you found?”
If Merlini intended to catch the detective oft guard, he failed. Tucker said, “Wouldn’t you like to know?” shooed us back into Wolff’s room, and locked the door.
“Well,” I griped, “here we are again. In the soup. Didn’t you have Flint check with Gavigan’s office and get our detecting visas okayed?”
“I tried,” Merlini said, “but the inspector is the little man who isn’t there when we need him most. He’s attending a police convention in Philadelphia. And cops’ conventions, apparently, are like all the others. I put through a long-distance call to his hotel. Four o’clock in the morning and he wasn’t in his room. I wonder what amusements an inspector of police can find at that hour and, of all places, in that town? It’s highly suspicious.”
He filled his whisky glass and walked into tire bathroom.
“You should talk,” I grumbled. “Bathroom drinker! I wish you’d put some of that highly advertised clairvoyance of yours to work and find out what goes on in Mrs. Wolff’s room.”
“That,” his voice came back, “is exactly what I am doing. Pipe down, will you?”
I blinked and joined him hastily. He stood close by the connecting door that led into Mrs. Wolff’s room, his ear pressed against the panel. I imitated him. But, although the sound of voices trickled through, the words were indistinguishable. Merlini warned me with a glance and turned the doorknob slowly and carefully. When the catch had been drawn all the way back, he eased the door open a fraction of an inch.
Flint’s voice was saying, “Why did your husband decide so suddenly a week ago to transfer his files to his bedroom and lock up that study? Why did he issue orders that no one was to go into that room?”
Mrs. Wolff’s voice, worried, replied, “I don’t know.”
“But he must have given some reason. What was it?”
“He didn’t give one. He merely issued orders. And Dudley wasn’t the sort of person one cross-examined.”
“All right, then why do you think he did it? You could guess, couldn’t you?”
Flint wasn’t getting very far very fast. “I’m sorry,” Mrs. Wolff said, “I haven’t the slightest idea. I don’t understand it at all.”
The lieutenant was silent for a moment. Then he said, “You have a key to the study?”
“A key? No. My husband and Dunning were the only ones who had keys. And he took Dunning’s.”
“I see. And yet when you left the guest room you went directly to the study, and went in. What made you think that door would be unlocked?”
“I didn’t. I wanted to see Dudley. I thought I was opening his door. It was because the door wasn’t locked that I didn’t realize I had opened the wrong one until I was inside. Why was the door unlocked? Who—”
Flint ignored that. “You went in. Go on. Then what?”
“I–I was curious to know why Dudley had locked the room up. I wondered why it was unlocked now. I started to look around. Then—”
“You had turned on the light?”
“Yes. But then suddenly I heard someone in the hall outside — someone putting a key in the lock.”
“You locked the door after going in. Why?”
“The door was partly ajar when I got there. When I closed it behind me, it locked by itself. It’s a spring lock.”