The Almost Perfect Murder by Hulbert Footner (reading the story of the TXT) 📕

see that it had two unshuttered windows opening on the blessed outer

air! But first we had to barricade the way we had come. With immense

exertions we managed to shove a heavy wardrobe in front of the window

on the shaft. This offered a formidable obstacle to anybody on the

insecure perch of the window sill, and we did not believe they could

follow that way. There was still the door of the room, of course. We

discovered that it was locked, and no key in it.

When we had time to look about us we saw a man’s personal belongings

scattered about; clothes, shoes, knick-knacks on the dresser. On the

wall was a framed photograph of an Association picnic.

“Ah,” said Mme. Storey dryly. “Mr. Punch’s own room!”

There was a ball of string lying on the bureau that she pounced on with

the light of triumph in her eye. “If we get out alive we’ll hang him

with this!” she cried, and thrust the ball in the pocket of her skirt.

I could make nothing of this at the moment. A sudden thought had

caused my heart to sink like a stone.

“If it’s his room he has the key in his pocket!” I gasped.

Mme. Storey’s eyes flashed around the room, searching. She snatched up

a stick-pin from the bureau, stuck it diagonally in the lock, then

hammered it with a boot so that it crumpled up inside the lock and the

head broke off.

“He won’t get a key in there in a hurry,” she remarked.

By this time the two men had broken into the little room on the shaft.

They must have been astonished when they found it empty. But when they

saw the wardrobe backed up against the other window on the shaft they

knew where we had gone.

“They’re in my room!” yelled Mr. Punch. “Come on!”

A moment later he was trying to insert his key in the lock. Failing in

that, they kicked the panels. Fortunately those were stout doors.

“Wait a minute!” said Punch. “Fetch the fire axe from the head of the

stairs.”

Meanwhile Mme. Storey and I were busy shoving the bureau in front of

the door, and the bed against the bureau to give them plenty to chop

through. Then we ran to an outer window.

It was half day and the city lay in a curious stillness under the cool

sky. Madison Avenue ran under the window, and across the way we could

see the apse of St. Patrick’s between the priests’ residences flanking

it on either side. The street lights were still burning and the early

cats were coming out to sniff in the gutters. The only human in sight

was an honest policeman leaning against a fire box on the corner, idly

swinging his club on its thong. As I was about to yell, Mme. Storey

clapped a hand over my mouth.

“If we raise an alarm they’ll escape us!” she cried.

She picked up a hairbrush, and leaning out the window tapped it against

the wall of the house. It made only a little sound, but in the

stillness of early morning it was sufficient. The policeman looked up

and saw us. What a strange shock he must have received, seeing Anne

Boleyn and Lorenzo hanging out of the top window of an apparently

shut-up house at dawn! One can imagine the eyes fairly starting from

his head. Mme. Storey gave him the most dramatic pantomime of distress

and terror, wringing her hands and alternately pointing inside the

house and towards the fire box. All the time she was murmuring to me:

“That ought to fetch him! That ought to fetch him!”

I don’t know what he thought, but there was obviously only one thing

for him to do. He yanked open the door of the fire alarm box, and

pulled the hook inside. He then ran down the side street to try to get

in the building from the rear.

For a moment or two there was silence in the room. I was desperately

trying to figure how long it took firemen to reach a fire. The beating

of my heart almost suffocated me. The silence must have alarmed Mr.

Punch outside, for he vigorously rattled the door and called out:

“You, in there!”

Mme. Storey winked at me and answered in a trembling voice: “Oh, spare

us! Spare us!” I wondered how she could joke at such a moment.

Mephisto arrived with the axe and they tackled the door. It proved to

be a tough job, because the passage was too narrow to swing the axe

effectively.

Almost immediately I heard the distant clang of the engines, and then I

saw the wisdom of Mme. Storey’s ruse. The men with the axe were making

too much noise themselves to hear the engines. Even if they did hear

they wouldn’t connect it with us. After all, it’s a common enough

sound in the city. Mr. Punch had fairly to hew the door in pieces

before he could get sufficient leverage to push the furniture out of

the way.

Meanwhile Mme. Storey and I were hanging out of the windows. When the

fire trucks swept up below we stretched out our arms to the men just

like all the pictures of distressed females we had seen. They swung

the big hook and ladder truck around with marvellous skill, and started

the machinery going, and the great ladder raised up and extended itself

until it dropped with a light tap against our window sill. They had

judged it to a hair. Then the men came scrambling up like monkeys.

Firemen are such handsome, well-built fellows, and so modest!

Everybody loves the firemen, because they don’t interfere with us as

the police do—they only save our lives!

The firemen were in the act of scrambling over the sill at the precise

moment when our two enemies, having succeeded in shoving the bureau a

foot or two from the door, appeared from behind it. The surprise was

mutual. Seeing the grotesque figure of Mr. Punch, axe in hand, and

Mephisto, horns and tail, the firemen may well have thought they were

in a madhouse.

“What’s the matter here?” stammered the leader.

Mme. Storey, with a twinkle in her eye, said courteously: “I’m sorry,

chief, there’s no fire. But these gentlemen were bent on murdering us.”

Mr. Punch and Mephisto turned to run, but the firemen leaped on their

backs and quickly secured them. Such grand fellows! I disgraced

myself by going into hysterics when it was over.

The next scene took place at Police Headquarters. Of course a general

alarm had been sent out for our party and the police had been combing

the town for us all night. So we were rushed direct to Headquarters.

I doubt if the building had ever witnessed a more bizarre scene than

the seven of us in fancy dress lined up before the lieutenant at the

desk. Ebbitt, the fat treasurer of the Butlers’ Association, now

carried Mephisto’s grinning headpiece under one arm, while his spiked

tail dragged forlornly on the ground. Ebbitt had just such a smooth

and flabby face as you might expect in the butler who deferentially

fills your glass.

At first we were all treated as malefactors alike. When Mme. Storey

explained who she was the lieutenant received it with an air of

incredulity that was far from polite. In fact he jeered. Whereupon

she insisted on having our friend Inspector Rumsey sent for. After he

got there all was clear sailing.

I cannot end my story better than by giving you my employer’s statement

to the police.

“In the course of my investigation of the Creighton Woodley jewel

robbery,” she said, “certain facts turned up which suggested to me that

there was a very profitable racket being worked by an inner ring of the

Butlers’ Association in connection with expert jewel thieves. But it

was difficult to secure evidence.

“The annual masked ball of the Butlers’ Association tonight gave me an

opportunity of mixing with these people in disguise, so I attended the

ball and took with me my secretary, Miss Brickley. I also had an

operative mixing with the dancers, but we became separated from him.

“As it drew on towards midnight my secretary and I were invited to join

a supper party in a private room given by Mr. Punch here. I accepted

because I suspected from his air of authority that he was an important

man in the Association. Later I discovered that he was none other than

Alfred Denby, the president, and the man I was most anxious to watch.

The gentleman in red, yonder, is Ebbitt, the treasurer of the

Association.

“Unfortunately I had no knowledge beforehand that there was trouble

within the Association itself, or I could have taken steps to prevent

the murder at the supper table. The murdered man, as you may know, is

George Danforth, who was butler to the Creighton Woodleys at the time

of the robbery, and, of course, a member of the Association. I am

prepared to offer proof of every statement I am going to make to you.

All this evidence turned up after the murder.

“Danforth was a handsome, pleasure-loving man, very popular among the

ladies. Technically he was an honest man, and they tricked him into

giving the layout of his master’s house, and the information that

enabled a successful robbery to be carried out. Danforth, you

remember, was called away on the night of the robbery, and had

therefore a perfect alibi.

“But he knew then, of course, that he had been tricked. Honesty is all

a matter of degree. If he had been absolutely honest he would have

taken his story to the police. But he saw a way of supporting himself

in luxurious idleness and he fell for it. They offered to admit

Danforth to the inner ring, but he refused, and he proceeded to

blackmail the Butlers’ Association out of large sums of money.

“The Creighton Woodley robbery was actually committed by Antonio

Pagliariello, more commonly known as Tony Yellow. He is no stranger to

you. Alfred Denby gave Tony a receipt for the money turned over to the

Butlers’ Association as their share of the loot, and in some manner

this receipt came into Danforth’s hands. Probably Tony double-crossed

the Association and gave the paper to Danforth. It would be like him.

This paper constituted Danforth’s hold over the Association. It will

undoubtedly be found among the dead man’s effects.” Mme. Storey

paused, with a slight smile at the police officials’ surprise.

“The inner ring,” she went on, “resolved to put Danforth out of the

way. They planned to use this man here, Frank Harris by name, as their

instrument, but when they were unable to fan Harris’s hatred of

Danforth up to the killing point, Denby, the president, made up his

mind to kill Danforth himself and fasten the murder on Harris. The

inner ring had nothing against Harris, who was a loyal member of the

organisation, though not a party to the crookedness of the inner ring.

Harris was a stupid sort of fellow, they figured, who would never see

through the plot.

“The supper party tonight was staged for the murder. Mr. Punch there,

or Denby, made sure of his men, Danforth, Harris, and Ebbitt—he had

previous knowledge of the costumes they were going to wear; but

apparently he picked up some of the women at random. So cunningly

thought out was his plan that he wished to have strangers present to

give disinterested