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Page 58
"Who shall I say was here, sah?" the boy asked, with just a trace
of darky dialect.
Above all I didn't want to alarm Werner. I could not repeat the
explanation I had allowed the attendant downstairs to assume from
my remark, that I was a friend who had been out with the director
the night before. I should have to take a chance that Werner's
servant and the hallboy would not compare notes, and that the
latter would say nothing to the director upon his arrival.
"I'm an old friend from the Coast," I explained, with a show of
taking the negro into my confidence. "I wanted to surprise him
and so"--I slipped a half dollar into a willing palm--"if you'll
say nothing until I've seen him--"
He beamed. "Yes, sah! You jus' count on George, sah!"
Downstairs I wondered if I could seal the tongue of the youth who
had accommodated me before. Then I discovered that he had gone
off duty. It would be extremely unlikely that he would be about
until the following day. I smiled and hastened out to the street.
Once in the open air again, I realized the full extent of the
risk I had taken. All at once it struck me that no amount of
explanation from either Kennedy or myself would serve to mollify
Werner if he were innocent and learned of my visit. I doubted, in
this moment of afterthought, that I would escape censure from
Kennedy, who surely would not want his case jeopardized by
precipitate actions upon my part. I began to run, to get away
from the Whistler Studios as fast as possible.
Then I saw I had grown panicky and I checked myself. But I
hurried to the Subway and up to the university again, and to the
laboratory, eager to compare notes with Kennedy.
"If I were Alphonse Dupin," he remarked, calmly, grasping my
excitement, "I would deduce that you have discovered something. I
would also deduce that you believe it important and that you have
no intention of withholding the information from me, whatever it
is."
"Correct," I answered, grinning in spite of myself.
Then I handed him the needle, telling him in a few brief words of
my visit to Werner's apartment, of the hallboy's confirmation of
a nocturnal trip of some sort, of my search of the desk and some
other parts of the suite. "I fixed it so that he won't hear of my
visit, at least for some time. He won't suspect who it was, in
any case."
Kennedy examined the hypodermic.
"Not like the one used," he murmured.
"I thought that," I explained. "It simply indicates he is a dope
fiend and is familiar with the use of a needle. Here!" I produced
the ink filler which I had used to bring a sample of the contents
of the bottle. "This seems to be what he uses. What is it?"
Kennedy sniffed, then looked closely at the liquid through the
glass of the tube. "It's a coca preparation," he explained. "If
Werner uses this, he's unquestionably a regular drug addict."
"Well," I paused, triumphantly, "the case against the chief
director of Manton Pictures grows stronger all the time."
"Not necessarily," contradicted Kennedy, perhaps to draw me out.
"He's familiar with hypodermic syringes," I repeated.
"Which doesn't prove that no one else would use one."
"Anyhow, he was out until four A.M. last night and some one broke
into Phelps's house to--"
"You can't establish the fact that he went out there. There are
plenty of other places he could have been until four in the
morning."
"But I can assume--"
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