In the Onyx Lobby Part 26

"At two in the morning?"

"No; there'd probably be no servants around then."

"So she could have done that, and waited, say, outside,----"

"Oh, nonsense! Waited out in the street at that hour?" Gibbs demurred; "that's too much to swallow!"

"But she may have known just about the hour Sir Binney expected to return. Anyway, suppose she did do that, and then, having succeeded, she slipped back to the servants' entrance and hid the knife where it was found and then scuttled back upstairs the way she came."

"But the paper said, 'women,'" mused Moore.

"That companion person was with her," declared Corson, triumphantly.

"Those two are great in team-work. Miss Gurney doubtless acted as scout and kept a lookout and Miss Prall did the deed."

"Oh, Mr Corson, I can't think it!" exclaimed Moore.

"Because you know Miss Prall only as a tenant of this house. You know nothing of what she may be capable of when her spirit is fired. And as far as I'm concerned, it's far easier to believe that she did it, than that it was the work of some foolish little girls scarcely out of their teens! Miss Prall is not only a strong-minded woman, and a strong-muscled woman, but she has a strong personality with practically illimitable powers of loving and hating. For her the sun rises and sets in young Bates, and in the other direction she is all wrapped up in her hatred of Mrs Everett.

"What's Mrs Everett got to do with the murder?" growled Moore.

"Nothing, that I know of, but she works in this way. Her daughter is in love with Richard Bates, and neither of the women will stand for the marriage of the two young people. Why, I think Mrs Everett and Miss Prall would see their young charges dead rather than married to one another. Now, Sir Herbert Binney favored the match. Therefore Miss Prall wanted him out of the way. Again, he favored young Bates going into the Bun business instead of sticking to his inventions. Therefore, again, Miss Prall wanted Binney out of the way. So, what would a woman of her caliber and her determination do, but put him out of the way?"

"Plausible enough," and Gibbs thought deeply.

"And so, I'm asking Moore," Corson went on, "how he thinks Miss Prall could have compa.s.sed her awful plan and he's solved any uncertainty by suggesting the servants' staircase at an hour so late that it was almost certain to be unused."

"I don't say I believe she did do it," Moore began, "but I have to say she could have done it that way. She must have known just about the time he'd come home----"

"That's not difficult to a.s.sume," Corson defended his theory, "he probably told her that. And she could have waited around some time,--it was a mild night."

"But how could she be sure she'd have the chance in the lobby?" asked Gibbs, his incredulity fast dwindling.

"Oh, she wasn't sure. She took a chance. I mean, she may have waylaid him outside, don't you see, and kept him there talking until she saw Moore go up in the elevator with somebody. This place is so brightly lighted that any one outside could see that. Or they could have been inside, standing in the shadow of the big pillars for a long time,--unnoticed."

"Have you any clews?" asked Bob Moore of the detectives.

"Dropped handkerchiefs and such like?" asked Gibbs, mockingly. "No; and if there were footprints, they're washed away now. But those things are only for story-books,--such as you're eternally reading, Moore."

"I do read a lot of 'em, and it's astonis.h.i.+ng, but most always a criminal leaves some trace."

"In the stories,--yes. In real life, they're not so obliging. But let's look at the spot. We might get an idea,--if nothing more tangible."

The three went along the lobby till they reached the place where Sir Herbert had breathed his last. Marks had been drawn to indicate the blood spots that were so quickly washed off, and these still showed clearly. The body had been found crumpled on the floor, in the angle made by the great square base of an onyx pillar and the wall.

They saw, of course, no traces of any personality, but as they looked each began to reconstruct the scene mentally.

"I think they were concealed here for some time," Corson said. "If they stood here talking, the pillar would partly s.h.i.+eld them from view of others entering. Nor could they be easily seen by Moore, in the back of the lobby."

"Maybe," Moore agreed hesitantly, "but if Miss Prall and Sir Herbert had come in together I bet I'd seen 'em."

"Not if you were up in the elevator," said Corson.

"No; of course not. That might have been the case."

"And then, when you took Mr Vail up, was no doubt the moment she chose to stab him and immediately pulled out the knife and ran away."

"We know," said Moore, positively, "that whoever did it, did it while I took Mr Vail up, and that the murderer then pulled out the knife and ran away. But that's not saying it was Miss Prall. And I've got to have some sort of evidence before I'll believe it was. Her desire to be rid of Sir Herbert isn't enough, to my mind, to indicate that she killed him. Can you tie it onto her any more definitely?"

"Her owners.h.i.+p of the knife, and her making no effort to find it, though missing, are evidence enough for me," said Corson doggedly. "And, how'd those little chorus chickens get it, if they're the ones?"

"I don't think they're the ones," Moore declared; "but I do think it was those two chambermaids. They could get the knife from the Prall apartment easy enough, and maybe Miss Prall did question Maggie about the missing knife and maybe Maggie gave a plausible explanation for its disappearance."

"Maybe and maybe and maybe not!" observed Gibbs, cryptically. "This sort of talk gets us no-where----"

"Yes it does," Corson interrupted. "It's shown us how Miss Prall could have done it. And when you remember that Sir Herbert declared with his dying heartbeats that women did it, and when we have no other women with half as much motive,--those little girls' jealousies are puerile by comparison,--I think we are bound to conclude we're on the right track."

"If so, let's forge ahead," and Gibbs nodded energetically. "What's the next move?"

"Don't move too fast," advised his colleague. "And, too, we want to interview those chambermaids. Though I think Miss Prall is at the back of the thing, she may have been aided by those women. They might have been paid----"

"Now, look here," put in Moore. "I know Miss Prall better than you two do. And I know if she undertook a thing of this desperate nature, she never called in any outside help. She'd be afraid to trust those women.

And that companion of hers is all the help she'd want. No, sir, if the women Sir Binney recognized were Miss Prall and Miss Gurney, that's all there was of them. Likewise, if it was those two chambermaids, that's all there was of _them_. But they never combined forces; no, sir, they didn't!"

"I believe that." Gibbs nodded his head. "Now, let's take a look at this paper again."

The paper left by the dying man had been carefully placed between two small panes of gla.s.s, in order to keep it intact and undefaced.

As Gibbs studied the pa.s.se-partout, he said, thoughtfully, "We must make up our minds what he meant in this second line. It's unintelligible, but what _could_ he have meant? 'Get bo----'"

"I think it means get both," said Corson, positively; "but it mayn't be that at all. As it was the very last effort of his spent muscles, it is far from likely that he wrote just what he meant to write. He might have intended that second letter for a or o or g or, in fact, almost any letter! He lost control of his fingers and the pencil fell away from them."

"All right; I grant you all that," Gibbs agreed. "But we've got to start somewhere. Now we know women killed him; he states that. Next, if this word is both, we know there were two women and two only."

"Marvelous, Holmes, marvelous!" guyed Corson. "And Miss Prall and Miss Gurney count up just two! Correct, so far."

"Don't be funny. The chambermaids in question number two also. And there were most likely only two, for women don't go round murdering in squads.

But the point is, he says, get both,--if the word is both. That would seem to imply that one is more probable as a suspect than the other, but he adjures us to get the other one also."

"There's something to that, Mr Gibbs," and Bob Moore looked at the detective admiringly. "Now, if it was a case of Miss Prall and Miss Gurney, they're so much together, that such a message would be practically unnecessary. So it may point to the chambermaids. You see, Maggie is on his floor, but he may have meant that Jane, too, was implicated."

"Oh, rubbis.h.!.+" cried Corson. "A dying man isn't going to use his last gasp to tell the police to get a certain chambermaid! That word isn't 'both' at all. It's something far more significant. I think it's a name.

I think it's a name that begins with Ba or Bo. Now, I'm as well aware as you two men are, that my own name begins with Bo and my girl's last name with Ba. But I'm not afraid, for I didn't do it. I was upstairs at the time, and anyway I'd no grudge against the old fellow. Nor did Julie do it. And he never would have called her Baxter, if she had! So, I say that I think it represents some name, and all possible names ought to be investigated."

"The trouble is it might represent so many names," Gibbs said. "I think myself that he might have meant to make a capital letter and only achieved a small one, but never mind that. Ba could be Babe Russell,--but I can't seem to think he'd take that method of accusation.

If it had been a man who killed him he would be more likely to feel revengeful."

"Good heavens, Gibbs!" and Corson's eyes opened wide; "I guess if you'd just been fatally stabbed by your lady friends, and had enough s.p.u.n.k to tell that women killed you, you wouldn't hesitate at bringing a name into the limelight! I've had a hunch it was that Baby Doll all along,--but it looked like an impossibility."

"So you see," offered Bob Moore, "you can't deduce much from that second line. And we may be 'way off. It might have been meant for, 'Get busy'