The Black Eagle Mystery Part 10

I went up to the private office where the old man and George were talking with Babbitts and told them. George was sent to see if he could manage better than I had and presently was back again with the announcement:

"I can't get a thing out of her. She insists on seeing you, father, and says she won't go till she does."

"Bring her in," growled the chief, and as George disappeared he turned to Babbitts and said, "Wait here for a moment. I want to ask you a few more things about that girl last night."

Babbitts drew back to the window and I, taking a chair by the table, said, laughing:

"She's probably been sued by her landlord and wants you to take the case."

"Maybe," said the old man quietly. "I'm curious to see."

Just then the woman came in, the child beside her, and George following.

She looked at the chief with a steady, inquiring gaze, and he rose, as urbanely welcoming as if she were a star client.

"You want to see me, Madam?"

"I do," she answered, "if you're L'yer Whitney. For it's to no one else I'll be goin' with what I'm bringin'."

He a.s.sured her she'd found the right man, and waved her to a chair. She sat down, drawing the boy against her knee, the chief opposite, leaning a little forward in his chair, all encouraging attention.

"Well, what is it?" he said.

"It's about the Harland suicide," she answered, "and it's my husband, Dan Meagher, who drives a dray for the Panama Fruit Company, who's sent me here. 'Go to L'yer Whitney and tell him,' he says to me, 'and don't be sayin' a word to a soul, not your own mother if she was above the sod to hear ye.'"

George, who had been standing by the table with the sardonic smile he affects, suddenly became grave and dropped into a chair. The chief, nodding pleasantly, said:

"The Harland suicide, Mrs. Meagher; that's very good. We'd like any information you can give us about it."

The woman fetched up a breath so deep it was almost a gasp. With her eyes on the old man she bent forward, her words, with their rich rolling r's, singularly impressive.

"It's an honest woman I am, your Honor, and what I'll be after tellin'

you is G.o.d's truth for me and for Dannie here, who's never lied since the day he was born."

The little boy looked up and spoke, his voice clear and piping, after the fuller tones of his mother:

"I'm not lying."

"Let's hear this straight, Mrs. Meagher," said the chief. "I'm a little confused. Is it you or the boy here that knows something?"

"_Him_," she said, putting her hand on the child's shoulder, "he _seen something_. It's this way, your Honor. I'm one of the cleaners in the Ma.s.sasoit Building. The three top floors is mine and I go on duty to rid up the offices from five till eight. It's my habit to take Dannie with me, he bein', as maybe you can see, delicate since he had the typhoid, and not allowed to go to school yet or run on the street."

"I empty the trash baskets," piped up the little boy.

"Don't speak, Dannie, till your evidence is wanted," said she. "On the evenin' of the suicide, L'yer Whitney, I was doin' my ch.o.r.es on the seventeenth floor, in the Macauley-Blake Company's offices, they bein', as you may know, at the back of the buildin'. I was through with the outer room by a quarter past six, so I turned off the lights and went into the inner room, closin' the door, as I had the window open and didn't want the cold air on the boy."

"You left him in the room that looks over the houses to the front of the Black Eagle Building?"

"By the window," spoke up the little boy. "I was leanin' there lookin'

out."

"That's it," said she. "The office was dark and as I shut the door I seen him, by the sill, peerin' over some books they had there." She took the little boy's hand and, fondling it in hers, said, "Now, Dannie, tell his Honor what you saw, same as you tolt Paw and me this day." She turned to the chief. "It's no lie he'll be after sayin', L'yer Whitney, I'll swear that on the Book."

The little boy raised his big eyes to the old man's and spoke, clearly and slowly:

"I was lookin' acrost at the Black Eagle Building, at the windows opposite. On the floor right level with me they was all dark, 'cept the hall one. That was lit and I could see down into the hall, and there was no one in it. Suddent a door opened, the one nearest to the window, and a head come out and looked quick up and down and then acrost to our building. Then it went in and I was thinkin' how it couldn't see me because it was all dark where I was, when the door opened again, slow, and an awful sort of thing came out."

He stopped and turned to his mother, shrinking and scared. She put her arm round him and coaxed softly:

"Don't be afeart, darlint. Go on, now, and tell it like you tolt it to me and Paw at breakfast."

The old man was motionless, his face as void of expression as a stone mask. George was leaning forward, his elbows on the table, his eyes on the boy in a fixed stare.

"What was it you saw, Dannie?" said the chief, his voice sounding deep as an organ after that moment of breathless hush. "Don't be afraid to tell us."

The boy spoke again, pressing back against his mother:

"It was like an animal creepin' along, crouched down--"

"Show the gentlemen," said Mrs. Meagher, and without more urging the little chap slid down to the floor on his hands and knees and began padding about, bent as low as he could. It was a queer sight, believe me-the tiny figure creeping stealthily along the carpet-and we four men, all but the old man, now up on our feet, leaning forward to watch with faces of amazement.

"That way," he said, looking up sideways. "Just like that-awful quick from the door to the window." He rose and went back to his mother, cowering against her. "I thought it was some kind of bear, and I was terrible scairt. I was so scairt I couldn't raise a yell or make a break or nothin'. I stood lookin' and I saw it was a man, and--" He stopped, terrified memory halting the words.

She had to coax again, her arm around him, her face close to his.

"Go on, Dannie boy, you want the gintlemin to think you're the brave man that ye are. Go on, now, lamb." Over his head she looked at the chief and said, "It's a sight might have froze the heart of anyone, let alone a pore, sickly kid."

The boy went on, almost in a whisper:

"He had another man on his back, still, like he was dead, with his arms hangin' down. I could see the hands draggin' along the floor like they was bits of rope. And when he got to the window, quick-I never seen nothin' so quick-the one that was creepin' slid the other on to the sill. He done it this way." He crouched down on his knees with his hands raised over his head and made a forward, shoving motion. "Pus.h.i.+ng him out. Just for a second I could see the dead one, acrost the sill, with his head down, and then the other gave a big shove and he went over."

There was a moment of dead silence in which you could hear the tick of the clock on the mantel. I had an impression of Babbitts, his face full of horror, and George, bent across the table, biting on his under lip.

Only the old man held his pose of bland stolidity.

"And what did the man-the one that was on his knees-do then, Dannie?" he asked gently.

"He got up and made a break for the door. Whisht," he shot one palm across the other with a swift gesture-"like that, and went in."

"Which door was that-which side?"

Dannie waved his right hand.

"This one-the door he came out of-this side!"

"The Azalea Woods Estates," came from George.

The old man gave him a quick glance, a razor-sharp reproof, and turning to Dannie held out his hand.

"Well, Dannie, that's a wonderful story, and it's great the way you tell it. Let's shake on it." The little boy stepped forward and put his small, thin paw in the chief's big palm. "You've told it to all the fellows on the block, haven't you?"