Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 104, No. 4, August 22, 1936

In the meanwhile, a police launch has recovered Tydings’ body, floating in the bay. An autopsy is ordered by the dead man’s daughter, Vivian, and it is learned that Winifred Staunton’s shot did not kill the collector. He died of accumulative arsenic poisoning. Dr. Hamblin collapses when he hears the news. He had been prescribing an arsenic tonic for Tydings. An analysis proves that it is a much stronger solution than the pharmacist had prepared. In the midst of the questioning, Kearton, with the aid of someone inside the house — probably Chatham — escapes. Shortly thereafter, Campbell accuses the doctor of Tydings’ murder. O’Rourke third-degrees Hamblin, learns that he was the one who moved the dead body around. He had found Tydings dead in his room just after the shooting at the dinner table. Afraid of suspicions, he carried the body to the armory, put it into one of the suits of armor. Then he managed to spirit it from the armory to the dumb-waiter, where the cook saw it, and from there to the cellar, where he cast it into the sea. While O’Rourke goes to lord it over Campbell with this information, Hamblin falls from his window and is killed. On a sudden hunch, O’Rourke goes to the laundry, directly above Hamblin’s room, and discovers that a flatiron, tied to a length of laundry cord, was dropped on the doctor’s head as he leaned out the window.

O’Rourke goes to the room of Clifford, the butler, and surprises the servant writing a letter, threatening to expose someone in the household. Together, the detectives force Clifford to send the blackmail letter to each of the suspects. Gifford balks at sending one to Chatham, on account of the man’s violent temper.

“And you think he might have killed Tydings?” O’Rourke asked.

“Yes, sir,” Clifford answered.

“And Hamblin?” the Irishman added.

“Yes.”

“You hear that, Campbell? Look here, Clifford. Are you ever wrong in the way you dope out people?”

“No, sir,” Gifford answered, at the door. “I am never wrong.”

Chapter XXI Sneak!

Campbell sat steadily at his work on the books, his pondering of the picture, an hour later when O’Rourke came back to the room from his meanderings. He carried a small bottle in his hand.

“You remember when the druggist sent back the bottle of the arsenic tonic?” asked O’Rourke.

“I remember,” said Campbell.

“Remember how much stuff there was in the bottle?”

“Yeah, and what of it?”

“Take a look now.”

O’Rourke set the bottle on the table Campbell said: “That ain’t possible.”

“Take a look-see,” said O’Rourke. “It’s been back there in Tydings’ medicine cabinet ever since the druggist sent it back with his report.”

“Half the stuff is gone,” said Campbell.

“Half?”

“I think so.”

“So do I,” agreed O’Rourke. “You only got half an eye in your head, but I wanted to get your idea. Who’s been stealing the stuff? Who’s it being fed to?”

The night was hot, but that was not the reason that Sergeant Angus Campbell broke into a heavy sweat. He pushed back his chair from the table and stood up. He leaned his weight on his arms and stared at the Irishman.

“There’s still murder turned loose in this hell-hole,” said Campbell. “Who are they after now? Who’s getting sick?”

“Lionel Reid is looking damn’ bad.”

“We’ll keep the stuff in here,” said Campbell. “D’you think there’s enough been used to kill a man?”

“I dunno,” muttered O’Rourke. “It’s gonna be a big setup for you and me. It’s gonna build us right up to the sky with the Inspector. He sends us out on a job and the dead begin to fall all around us. And Sergeant Campbell, like a damn’ fool, spends his time lookin’ at a lousy picture that somebody painted a thousand years ago!”

Such an idea came to Campbell that he paid no heed to the latest insult. He merely exclaimed: “Kearton!”

O’Rourke started and looked over his shoulder at the door.

“What about him?” demanded O’Rourke.

“What about him? Why, you seen something shine the other night when he chucked it out the window... It was another bottle of this damned stuff. When I came in behind him, the first thing he did was to chuck the bottle out the window into the sea. Then he turned around and took a shot at me. That must of been it. Kearton! If we could get hold of that rat! Kearton’s at the bottom of it. He comes to the house, and Tydings is scared to death. He fades right out of our hands with maybe Chatham helping him. Chatham and Kearton are the men we want, Pat.”

“That sounds like sense,” said O’Rourke.

Here came a knock at the door.

In response to Campbell’s call, Walden entered, with a paper in his hand. “I thought you people might like to hear this,” he said.

He stood close to a light and read aloud, calmly, the letter which Clifford had printed with such care in copy after copy, and which had been distributed secretly to every suspected person in the house.

O’Rourke and Campbell listened with the greatest attention.

“Who signed it?” said O’Rourke.

“No one, naturally,” said Walden. “I wonder what to make of it. Blackmail barking up the wrong tree, perhaps?”