Dutch Shoe Mystery (7 page)

As Velie opened the Amphitheater door, a number of blue-coats became visible, wandering slowly about the operating-room. Ellery caught a brief flash of the gallery; Philip Morehouse was on his feet, protesting violently about something. He was in the grip of a burly policeman. To the side, Dr. Dunning and his daughter sat in what seemed to be stupefied silence.

Ellery exclaimed sharply, “Heavens, dad, the relatives!” He turned to Minchen. “John, there’s a dirty job for you. Will you go back to that Waiting Room—here’s an idea; take young Morehouse with you; he’s evidently in trouble up there—and inform Hendrik Doorn and Hulda Doorn, Miss Fuller and whoever else is there. … Just a moment, John.” He conversed in low tones with the Inspector. The old man nodded and motioned to a detective.

“Here, Ritchie, you’re aching for something to do. Let’s see the District acquit itself,” said the Inspector. “Go over to that Waiting Room with Dr. Minchen and take charge. Keep ’em all in there—Doctor, you’ll probably need help; shouldn’t wonder if there’d be fainting and things there; might get a few nurses to help. Don’t let one of them go until I give permission, Ritchie.”

Ritchie, a black-jowled individual with a sullen air, made some indistinct reply and followed Minchen surlily from the room. Through the open door Ellery saw Minchen gesture upward toward Morehouse, who ceased struggling and bounded up to the gallery exit.

The door swung shut. Almost immediately it opened again to admit a white-clad physician and a nurse.

“Ah—Dr. Byers?” cried the Inspector. “Come in, come in! Glad you could come so soon. Not taking you or this charming young lady away from your work? No? Well, Well! … Dr. Byers,” he snapped suddenly, “were you in that Anæsthesia Room next door this morning?”

“Certainly.”

“Under what circumstances?”

“I was administering anæsthesia to a patient with the aid of Miss Obermann here. She’s my regular assistant.”

“Was any one besides you, Miss Obermann and your patient in the room?” “No.”

“At what time were you attending to this duty?”

“We used the room from 10:25, when we took it over, until about 10:45. The patient was an appendectomy, scheduled to be operated on by Dr. Jonas, who was a little late. Had to wait for both ‘A’ and ‘B’ operating-rooms to be vacated—we’re busy to-day.”

“Hmm.” The Inspector smiled pleasantly. “And, Doctor, did any one enter the Anæsthesia Room while you occupied it?”

“No—that is,” added the physician hastily, “no stranger. Dr. Janney passed through about 10:30, I should say, perhaps a minute or two after, going into the Anteroom; and about ten minutes later came out again. Ten minutes or a little less.”

“You, too,” muttered Dr. Janney, flashing a venomous glance at Dr. Byers.

“Eh? I beg your pardon—?” stammered Dr. Byers. The nurse at his side looked astonished.

The Inspector came forward a little, speaking hurriedly. “Ah—never mind that now, Dr. Byers. Dr. Janney is not feeling well—a little upset—naturally, naturally! … Now, sir, you would be willing to make a sworn statement, I suppose, that the man you saw pass in and out of that room this morning was Dr. Janney?”

The doctor shifted restlessly, hesitating. “You put it pretty bluntly, sir. … No, I wouldn’t make a sworn statement. After all,” he said, brightening up, “I didn’t see his face. He wore a surgical gag, gown, and the rest. Quite covered—oh, yes!”

“Indeed!” commented the Inspector. “So you wouldn’t swear to it. Yet a moment ago you seemed very sure it was Dr. Janney. Why?”

“Well …” again Dr. Byers hesitated, “of course there was the limp that we have grown so accustomed to. …”

“Ha! the limp! Go on.”

“And then too, subconsciously, I suppose, I more or less anticipated the presence of Dr. Janney, since I knew that his next surgical case was in the Anteroom—we were upset about it—Mrs. Doorn, you know … and, well—I just thought so, that’s all.”

“And you, Miss Obermann,” the Inspector turned swiftly to the nurse, taking her by surprise—“did
you
assume it was Dr. Janney?”

“Yes—yes, sir,” she stammered, flushing. “For the—the same reasons as Dr. Byers.”

“Hmm!” grunted the Inspector. He took a turn about the room. Janney was staring unwinkingly at the floor. “Tell me Doctor,” continued the old man, “did your patient see Dr. Janney enter and leave? Was he conscious during this time?”

“I think,” faltered the physician, “that he might have seen Dr.—Dr. Janney come in, because the cone had not yet been applied and his table faced the door. But he was under ether when Dr. Janney reappeared, and couldn’t have seen, of course.”

“And who is this patient?”

A fleeting grin appeared on the lips of Dr. Byers. “I imagine he’s quite well known to you, Inspector Queen. Michael Cudahy.”

“Who? What! ‘Big Mike’!” The exclamations flew about the room. Every detective there had jerked about in surprise. The Inspector’s eyes narrowed.

He turned abruptly to one of his staff. “I thought you told me Michael Cudahy went to Chicago, Ritter,” he snapped. “You certainly get the fanciest ideas!” He wheeled on Dr. Byers. “Where’s ‘Big Mike’ now?” he demanded. “What room? I want to see that guerrilla!”

“He’s in a private room—32—on the third floor, Inspector,” replied the physician. “But it won’t do you any good to see him. He’s dead to the world, sir—they’ve just carted him out of the operating-room ‘B.’ Jonas operated. Your man caught me just as Jonas finished. He’s in his room now, but he won’t be out of the ether for a good couple of hours.”

“Johnson!” said the Inspector grimly. A small drab-looking man stepped forward. “Make a note to remind me to grill ‘Big Mike.’ Under ether, hey? That’s a new one.”

“Dr. Byers.” Ellery’s voice came quietly. “While you were working in the Anæsthesia Room, it is barely possible that you overheard some conversation emanating from here. Do you recall? Or you, Miss Obermann?”

Doctor and nurse regarded each other for a long moment. Dr. Byers looked frankly at Ellery. “Now, that’s funny,” he said. “It just happens that we overheard Miss Price call out to Dr. Janney that she would be ready in a moment, or something like that; and I remember remarking to Miss Obermann that the old ma—I mean Dr. Janney must be unusually cross to-day, because he didn’t even answer.”

“Ah! Then you mean you overheard no statement or question of any kind from Dr. Janney during the entire course of his visit to this room?” asked Ellery quickly.

“Not a syllable,” said Dr. Byers. Miss Obermann nodded in agreement.

“Do you remember hearing a door open and close in here and a voice say, ‘Pardon me!’?”

“I don’t believe I do.”

“You, Miss Obermann?”

“No, sir.”

Ellery whispered into the Inspector’s ear. The Inspector sucked his lip, nodded, motioned imperiously to a Swedish-looking detective of solid build. “Hesse!” The man slouched near. “Get this straight now, won’t you? Go out into the operating-room and ask the doctors and internes if any one of them poked his head in here between 10:30 and 10:45. And bring him back.”

While Hesse departed on his errand the Inspector dismissed Dr. Byers and the nurse. Janney watched them go with gloomy eyes. Ellery conversed with his father until the door reopened to admit a young dark-haired man of Semitic cast, dressed like the others in white Hospital regalia. Hesse herded him into the room.

“Dr. Gold,” said Hesse briefly. “He was the one.”

“Yes,” said the young interne at once, addressing himself to the diminutive Inspector, “I stuck my head in through that door—” he pointed to the door leading to the West Corridor—“about 10:35, I should say, looking for Dr. Dunning to ask about a diagnosis. Of course I immediately saw it wasn’t Dr. Dunning—saw it just as I opened the door—so I excused myself without going in and went away.”

Ellery leaned forward. “Dr. Gold, how far did you open the door?”

“Oh, just about a foot or so—enough to get my head in. Why?”

“Well,” smiled Ellery, “why not? At any rate, whom did you see?”

“Some doctor—don’t know who it was.”

“How did you know it wasn’t Dunning?”

“Why, Dr. Dunning is tall and thin, and this man was rather short and stocky—cut of the shoulders was different—I don’t know—simply wasn’t Dr. Dunning.”

Ellery polished his
pince-nez
vigorously. “And how was this doctor standing—tell me what you saw when you opened the door.”

“His back was to me, and he was slightly bent over the wheel-table. His body concealed whatever was on the table.”

“His hands?”

“I couldn’t see them.”

“Was he the only person in the room?”

“Only one I could see. Of course, the patient must have been on the table; but as for any one else, I can’t say.”

The Inspector cut in gently. “You said, ‘Oh pardon me!’, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir!”

“And what did the man reply?”

“Why, nothing. Didn’t even turn around, although I saw his shoulders sort of twitch when I spoke. Anyway, I stepped back, closed the door and went away. The whole business didn’t take more than ten seconds.”

Ellery approached Dr. Gold, tapped him on the shoulder. “One thing more. Might this man have been—Dr. Janney?”

The young interne drawled, “Oh-h, I suppose so. But it might have been a dozen others, too, from what I saw. … Anything wrong, Doctor?” He twisted his head to stare at the surgeon, who did not reply. “Well, I guess I’ll be going if that’s all. …”

The Inspector cheerily waved him out

“Get Cobb—the doorman.” Hesse sauntered out.

“Good God,” said Janney quite tonelessly. No one paid the slightest attention.

The door opened to admit Hesse and Isaac Cobb, the crimson-faced ‘special.’ His cap was jauntily set on his head and he looked around expansively, as if he felt a kinship with these men of the police.

The Inspector wasted no words. “Cobb, stop me if I say something that isn’t so. … You approached Dr. Janney while Mr. Queen and Dr. Minchen were talking with him in the corridor. You told him that a man wanted to see him. He refused at first, but when you handed him the man’s card—bearing the name ‘Swanson’—he changed his mind and followed you down the corridor toward the Waiting Room. What happened then?”

“The Doctor says ‘Hello’ t’ this man,” replied Cobb in a conversational tone, “an’ then they went out of the Waiting Room, turned t’ the right—ye know Dr. Janney’s office is that way—an’ they went into the Doctor’s office. An’ they closed the door—I mean the Doctor. So I went back t’ my station in the vestibule an’ I stood there all th’ rest of the time until Dr. Minchen came along an’ said …”

“One moment, one moment!” said the Inspector testily. “Granted that you didn’t leave your post for a moment. Suppose—” he glanced at Dr. Janney, who was hunched up in his corner, suddenly tense, alert—“suppose Dr. Janney or his visitor had decided to leave Dr. Janney’s office to go toward the, let us say, operating-rooms, could he have passed without your seeing him?”

The doorman scratched his head. “Sure! I guess so. I don’t always face the inside. Sometimes I open th’ door and look out into th’ street.”

“Did
you look out into the street this morning?”

“Well—sure! I guess so.”

Ellery interrupted. “You say Dr. Minchen came along and told you to lock the door. How long before this did Dr. Janney’s visitor—this man Swanson—leave the building? By the way, he left the building, didn’t he?”

“Oh, sure!” Cobb grinned broadly. “Even gave me—I mean wanted to give me a quarter. But I wouldn’t take it—against the regulations. … Yes, I’d say this feller passed out into th’ street about ten minutes or so before Dr. Minchen gave me the order.”

“Did any one else,” continued Ellery, “go out of that front door between the time Swanson left and the time you locked the door?”

“Nary a soul.”

Ellery confronted Dr. Janney, who immediately straightened and looked off into space. “There’s a little matter, Doctor,” Ellery began softly, “that we haven’t had time to settle. You recall, don’t you? I believe you were about to tell me who your visitor was when the Inspector came in and .…” He broke off with a tightening of his lips as the door banged open and Sergeant Velie stalked in, flanked by two detectives.

“Ah, well,” said Ellery with a slight smile, “we seem doomed to defer the fatal question. … Carry on, sire. Messer Velie seems bursting with information.”

“Well, Thomas?” demanded the Inspector.

“No one left the Hospital since 10:15 except Dr. Janney’s visitor. Cobb told us about this Swanson a few minutes ago outside,” Velie growled. “Got a list of some people who came into the building during that time, but we’ve checked ’em over and they’re all accounted for. Got ’em all in the building too—we haven’t let any one go out.”

The Inspector beamed. “Excellent, Thomas, excellent! there you are, Ellery,” he exclaimed, turning to his son, “the Queen luck for you. Our murderer’s still in the building. Can’t get away!”

“Probably doesn’t want to,” said Ellery dryly. “I shouldn’t be too hopeful about
that.
…And, dad—”

“Well?” said the Inspector, suddenly glum. Janney looked up with a peculiar gleam in his eye.

“A persistent idea has been buzzing about in my conk,” said Ellery dreamily. “Let’s assume, for the sake of argument and—” he bowed toward the surgeon—“and I should hope for the sake of Dr. Janney, that the gentleman who perpetrated this plot was not Dr. Janney but a rank and nervy impostor.”

“Now you’re talking sense,” growled Janney.

“And let us go further in our supposition,” continued Ellery, rocking on his toes and gazing at the ceiling, “by assuming that our slippery criminal, having a dark but valid reason for putting as much distance as possible between himself and the clothes which he wore, divested himself of these figuratively bloody garments and hid them somewhere. … Now we know that he hasn’t left the building. Is it too much to hope that by assiduously scouring the premises …”

“Ritter!” barked the Inspector. “You heard Mr. Queen? Take Johnson and Hesse and start!”

“I heartily detest,” grinned Ellery, “introducing a literary allusion at such a solemn moment—but Longfellow seems to have anticipated me. Remember? ’Till all that it foresees it finds. …’ And I sincerely pray you
find,
Ritter—if only for Dr. Janney’s peace of mind!”