"What do you expect to get out of his empty rooms?" he asked.
"I'm working up a story," said Lyon carelessly. "I want to see what I can get in the way of personal idiosyncrasies."
The suite3 consisted of three rooms,--a large reception room, one side of which was covered with book-cases; a private office at the back; and, adjoining this, a room for the use of a stenographer4, as was evident from the typewriter beside the window. There was so little furniture in this room that Lyon saw it could be dismissed in the special inquiry5 which he had in mind. In the private office a large flat desk occupied the center of the room.
"Is this room the way Fullerton left it?" Lyon asked, taking the chair which was placed before the desk, and glancing about.
"Yes. No one has been here since he left."
"No stenographer or clerk?"
"He has had no clerk for some time, and when he needed a stenographer he called one in from the agency in the building. As a matter of fact, I think his business had fallen off rather seriously in the last few years. He had lost some of his old clients, and he didn't seem to get new ones. Often his office would be locked up and he would be away for days at a time."
"Bad for business, that. Was his office rent paid?"
The manager shrugged7 his shoulders and laughed. "No. But I have a lien6 on his library, so I guess I'm safe."
"Indeed! Then he must really have been pretty badly tied up financially?"
"He was pretty obviously going to pieces. You see, his personal tastes were expensive, and they incapacitated him for business. That cut both ways, in the matter of income."
"How about his other creditors8, if you have a lien on his library? That seems to be the only valuable property here."
The manager laughed again. "If there was one man here the day after he was killed there were nineteen. They were all ready to attach his books. There was some rather deep swearing. Funny what things come out about a man after he is dead."
"It's more than funny," said Lyon, with an air of saying something worth listening to. He was automatically pulling out one drawer of the desk after another, sometimes merely glancing in, sometimes lightly turning over the contents with a careless hand. "We don't know much of the personal lives of the people about us. Things are not always what they seem." He probably could have kept up the platitudinizing longer if necessary, but he had opened all the drawers. None were locked. There was no scrap9 of the curious greenish gray paper anywhere, nor, indeed, anything but files of documents obviously legal, and mostly dust-covered. "But his personal belongings10 were rather gorgeous." He opened curiously11 a bronze stamp box which matched the other appointments of the desk, and examined the contents. There was a lot of red stamps, but no green. That was about all that he had hoped to discover. It had seemed probable from the first that Fullerton would have his peculiar12 personal belongings at his own room rather than at his office, but Lyon had wished to eliminate the other possibility.
As he came out of the room, a strange and yet familiar figure passed down the hall toward the elevator just ahead of him,--the heavy figure and white head of Mr. Olden. Lyon glanced back. Lawrence's office was farther down the hall, and Lawrence's law cleric, a young fellow named Freeman, whom Lyon knew slightly, stood in the open door looking after his departing visitor with a curious watchfulness13. On the impulse, Lyon turned back.
"What scrape has my most respectable landlord been getting into, that he needs legal advice?" he asked.
"Come in," said Freeman, with evident pleasure. "I'm mighty14 glad to have you give the old gentleman a character. I began to wonder if there wasn't something suspicious about him."
"Why?"
"He came in a few days ago and asked for Lawrence. I explained why he couldn't see him. He fumed15 around a little, and finally said he wanted a will drawn16 up, and couldn't I do it? I thought I could all right, so I got him to give me the items. It involved a lot of little bequests,--he seems to be a retired17 merchant from somewhere down the state with an interminable family connection,--and I took a lot of notes and told him I would have the will drawn up in a few days. He has been in every day since to make changes and alterations18, till I am all balled up. Either I got things badly mixed in my notes or he has forgotten just how his sisters and his cousins and his aunts are arranged. I'll swear he has mixed the babies."
"Well, if he pays you for your trouble," laughed Lyon.
"Yes, he made it clear that he wanted me to charge up my wasted time, but--he's queer all the same. I almost thought to-day that the whole business of the will was a blind, and that he was here for some purpose of his own."
"That sounds more serious. What made you think that?"
"I had gone into the inner room to hunt up my original notes, because he insisted that I had made a mistake, when I heard the roll top of Lawrence's desk pushed up. Lawrence never locks it, but the old man hadn't any business in there, all the same. I came out in a hurry, and there he was, hunting around in the desk. He wasn't a bit fazed by my coming back, either. Said he wanted some paper to write a letter and fretted19 and fumed over the pen and ink as though the whole outfit20 belonged to him. I cleared a place for him, and left him writing, while I shifted my own chair so that I could keep an eye on him. He wrote two or three short letters, and tossed something into the waste basket there. Then, when he was through, he picked up the waste basket and began hunting through it. I supposed he wanted to recover what he had thrown in, until I saw him pick out a square envelope and put it with his own papers."
"And you think it was not his own?"
"I know it wasn't, because I knew the paper he was using. As it happens, that basket hasn't been emptied since Lawrence was here. The envelope must have been something he had tossed into the basket,--but I couldn't very well demand the return of an old envelope picked up from a waste basket. Still, I couldn't help wondering whether the man was a sneak21 thief or a private detective or just a little touched in the upper story."
"Has he been inquisitive22 about Lawrence's affairs?" Lyon asked.
"The first time he was here he asked a good many questions about him, but I thought that was natural curiosity under all the circumstances. One of his innumerable cousins had married a Lawrence and he wanted to find out if there was any connection between the families. And he really seemed to know something about him, because he insisted that Arthur Lawrence had married a Mrs. Vanderburg."
"But he didn't!"
"No, of course not. But he was a great friend of Mrs. Vanderburg's, and no one would have been surprised if he had married her. There were many who expected that to be the outcome. And when she became engaged to Broughton, whom she afterwards did marry, Lawrence took it hard. There was a serious quarrel, and Lawrence wouldn't attend the wedding. I remember hearing my mother say that if Lawrence had had Broughton's money, Broughton would never have had any show."
"But she wasn't divorced at that time, was she?"
"No, but she could have had a divorce whenever she wanted it. Vanderburg had been missing for ten or twelve years."
This was surprising information for Lyon, and not a little disturbing. Was there, after all, a possibility that even if he established the identity of the fleeing woman as Mrs. Broughton, Lawrence might still be entangled23? Lyon felt as though he were trying to pick his way among live wires.
"Did you tell Olden this story?" he asked, remembering the curious interest which that inquisitive person had always seemed to take in Lawrence's affairs.
"Well, he got it out of me, I guess. He knew so much that he could easily pump the balance."
"What did he say?"
"Nothing much. He kept nodding his head, as though he knew it all beforehand. What do you make of it, anyhow?"
"The curiosity of an idle mind," said Lyon, lightly. "There are plenty of people who have an abnormal curiosity about anybody who is accused of crime. But I wouldn't give him too much rope."
The episode gave him something new to puzzle about. Olden's curiosity about Lawrence had been marked from the beginning, and it had not been wholly a friendly curiosity. That much had been apparent. Lyon was accustomed to the curious interest which monotonously24 virtuous25 people take in criminals, and he had set down his landlord's desire to talk about the murder mystery to that score. He had shown no curiosity about Fullerton or interest in him. And though he was curious about Lawrence, he seemed very inadequately26 informed concerning him.
Lyon turned the thing in his mind without being able to make it fit in with anything else. At the same time he determined27 to find out something more about Mr. Olden at the earliest opportunity. For the immediate28 present, however, the thing to do was to get into Fullerton's rooms at the Wellington again, and see what discoveries he could make there.
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1
equity
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| n.公正，公平，（无固定利息的）股票 | |
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morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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suite
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| n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员 | |
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stenographer
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| n.速记员 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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lien
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| n.扣押权，留置权 | |
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7
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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8
creditors
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| n.债权人，债主( creditor的名词复数 ) | |
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9
scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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12
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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watchfulness
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| 警惕，留心； 警觉（性） | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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15
fumed
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| 愤怒( fume的过去式和过去分词 )； 大怒； 发怒； 冒烟 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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alterations
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| n.改动( alteration的名词复数 )；更改；变化；改变 | |
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fretted
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| 焦躁的，附有弦马的，腐蚀的 | |
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outfit
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| n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装 | |
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sneak
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| vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝)；偷偷摸摸做；n.潜行；adj.暗中进行 | |
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inquisitive
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| adj.求知欲强的，好奇的，好寻根究底的 | |
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entangled
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| adj.卷入的；陷入的；被缠住的；缠在一起的v.使某人（某物/自己）缠绕，纠缠于（某物中），使某人（自己）陷入（困难或复杂的环境中）( entangle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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monotonously
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| adv.单调地，无变化地 | |
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virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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inadequately
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| ad.不够地；不够好地 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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