Six Men of Evil

CHAPTER III WALTON EXPLAINS

CARL WALTON was sitting in a chair in the corner of Anthony Hanscom’s study. Mosier’s body still lay upon the floor. Two uniformed policemen and a physician were in the room; beside them was a stern-faced man in a light-gray business suit. This was Police Chief Culver, who headed Tilson’s small but efficient force.

Carl Walton still wore a half-dazed expression. He was staring blankly at the wall ahead. He had told his story to Chief Culver, and the chief had immediately issued important orders. Now, as Walton rubbed his forehead and lost some of his bewilderment, Culver came over to the corner and sat down in front of him.

“Let’s go over this again, Walton,” requested Culver quietly. “You say Earl Northrup left here about ten minutes after nine to take Mr. Hanscom to the station.”

“Yes, sir,” responded the secretary.

“What time was it when Northrup came back?” questioned Culver.

“About quarter of ten,” answered Walton. “He said he might be coming back and I was waiting for him.”

“And he took some bonds from the safe?”

“He said he was putting them in there. He closed the safe and locked it. But I didn’t think he put the bonds inside.”

“And then—”

Chief Culver was artfully turning this resume into a statement on the part of Walton. The chief was moving his hand as a signal that the others should listen.

“Then,” declared Walton, staring straight ahead, “I told Northrup I suspected him of stealing the bonds. I pulled the revolver from the desk drawer to make him wait until I called for help. He took it from me and hit me here” — the secretary rubbed the side of his head — “and — and that was all I knew until I came to and saw Mosier dead. I–I picked up the revolver. It was on the floor.”

“You say that Mr. Hanscom went to Chicago?”

“Yes, sir, Northrup took him to the station, like I told you. They went out together.”

“Very good,” asserted Culver. “Well, we’ll have Mr. Hanscom with us soon. We phoned ahead to Grahamstown to have him leave the train and come back. He’s less than an hour out from Tilson.”

LOOKING toward the door, Culver saw a man in plain clothes enter the room. The police chief walked over to meet the newcomer. The man spoke in a low voice.

“We’ve got Northrup’s car, sir,” he said.

“His car?” questioned Chief Culver. “Where did you pick it up?”

“At the station.”

“At the station!” Culver’s echo was a puzzled one. “I can’t figure why he would have gone back there. The express to Chicago was the last train out.”

“There was no one at the station,” said the man in plain clothes. “The ticket office closes at nine thirty, you know. But we found the car down there.”

“Hm-m-m,” said Culver thoughtfully. “Then Northrup must have gotten someone to drive him back. I can’t understand that. How do you figure it, Johnson?”

“Seems rather queer to me,” responded the plain-clothes man. “If I could have located the agent, I might have learned something. We’re looking for him now.”

“Here’s Walton’s story,” remarked Culver, going over the details that impressed him. “Northrup expected to come back, and he came back. He knocked out Walton and evidently made a getaway. Now if he came in another car beside his own, he may have had an accomplice — or he may have had a second car parked at the station. But why?”

Johnson shrugged his shoulders.

“The question is whether or not those bonds are in the safe,” continued Culver. “We’ll find that out when Hanscom gets here. As it now stands, all the evidence we’ve got is that Mosier was dead, and Walton was here alone. Looking at it that way, Walton could have killed the butler.”

“He said that he was knocked out, didn’t he?”

“Yes, but that could be a fake. For that matter, Mosier might have cracked him, but not enough to have kept Walton from shooting. No, the bonds are the important matter. I’ll tell you why. If they’re gone, there’s a third man mixed in this.”

“Northrup, eh?”

“Maybe,” said the police chief cryptically. “That’s what Walton says, and that’s why we’ve got to find Northrup. But I can’t get over the fact that Walton was here with the body.”

Culver glanced at his watch and strode nervously up and down the floor. He stopped his pacing and turned to Johnson.

“Wait until Hanscom gets here,” he said. “Then we’ll know more than we do now. He ought to be here at any time, coming back by car from Grahamstown.”

As the police chief finished his statement, a man appeared at the door of the room. He was a wan-faced fellow, whom Culver recognized as the agent from the Tilson station.

“Ah!” exclaimed the chief. “You’re the man I want! Did you see Earl Northrup down at the station with Anthony Hanscom?”

The station agent nodded.

“They came into the ticket office,” he declared. “Mr. Hanscom bought a ticket for Chicago. Then Northrup said—”

“Wait!” Culver’s exclamation was an excited one. “Here’s Hanscom now — and there’s Northrup with him!”

The words were true. Anthony Hanscom and Earl Northrup had come up the stairs together. Hanscom was staring at the body of Mosier. Northrup’s odd features were impassive, but the lips were puckered in a puzzled manner.

Chief Culver did not know what to make of the double arrival. He glanced from one man to the other; then motioned a policeman to take charge of Northrup while he spoke to Hanscom.

“Please open the safe at once,” requested Culver. “We’re worried about your bonds, Mr. Hanscom.”

WITHOUT a word, Hanscom went to the safe and turned the dials. The door swung back. Hanscom gasped. Culver nodded knowingly. The safe was empty.

“They’re gone,” said the police chief solemnly, “and the man who’s got them either killed Mosier or knows who killed him! There’s the man I want to talk to now! Earl Northrup!”

Culver swung toward the door. Earl Northrup’s lips were opened in amazement. He did not seem to understand the situation.

“How did you get back here?” demanded Culver. “Why did you attack Walton and kill Mosier? What have you done with the bonds you stole?”

Before Northrup could respond, Anthony Hanscom intervened. The gray-haired man thrust himself in front of the police chief. His eyes blazed angrily.

“What do you mean?” he demanded. “This is preposterous! What do you mean by questioning Earl Northrup, my friend, in this manner. Are you insane, Chief Culver?”

Culver was taken aback. He could not understand the cause of Hanscom’s sudden wrath. Then he realized that Hanscom was in ignorance of Walton’s statement.

“I’m going by what Carl Walton told us,” he explained. “He said that Northrup was to come back here; that he did come back; that he took the bonds—”

“Walton said that?” cried Hanscom. “Walton has lied!”

Striding across the room, Hanscom glowered at his secretary. Walton, bewildered, shrank away from the accusation that he saw in his employer’s eyes. Hanscom cast a withering glance; then pointed toward Walton.

“There is the culprit, Chief Culver,” he declared. “His story is a deliberate lie. He has hung himself in his own noose.

“He expected Earl Northrup back here. But Earl Northrup did not come back. When we reached the station, Northrup decided to go to Chicago with me. He left his car parked by the station. He got off the train with me at Grahamstown. He has been with me every minute since ten past nine — the time we left this house!”

Culver was too astonished to reply. He looked at Hanscom; then at Northrup; finally at the station agent. This last man nodded.

“I was just going to tell you about it, chief,” declared the agent. “When Mr. Hanscom bought his ticket to Chicago, Mr. Northrup decided to go along, too. He asked me if his car would be safe outside the station. I told him it would be. So I sold him a ticket, too, and I saw him get on the train with Mr. Hanscom—”

Chief Culver waited no longer. He sprang across the room and grabbed Carl Walton by the shoulders. He spun the secretary around and stared into the young man’s eyes.

“Answer up!” he exclaimed. “What do you know about this? Was Earl Northrup back here?”

Carl Walton was totally bewildered by the statements that he had heard. He tried to rub his head as he feebly sought a response to the question hurled at him.

“I–I” — Walton’s words were confused — “I thought I saw Northrup come in here — like I — like I told you. I–I got hit on the head, you know — and — and — maybe I don’t remember things just like they happened—”

“But you remember taking that gun from the desk drawer?”

“Yes, I picked up the gun.”

“And you pointed it at someone?”

“Yes — I–I pointed it at North — I thought I pointed it at Northrup—”

“And then what?”

“I–I - don’t remember.”

“You fired that gun, didn’t you?”

“I–I - don’t remember.”

“And it might have been Mosier you pointed it at?”

“I don’t think so,” protested Walton.

“But it might have been Mosier?” grilled the police chief.

“I–I guess so — ” stammered Walton.

Police Chief Culver beckoned to an officer. He pointed to Walton’s huddled form in the chair.

“Take him away,” he ordered. “We’re holding him for murder.”

“No — no” — Walton’s protesting voice became a scream — “no — no — you can’t take me! I didn’t shoot Mosier! I found the gun lying on the floor—”

“Yes?” mocked Culver grimly. “You found it in the desk drawer, according to your last statement.”

The policemen were dragging Walton away. Culver watched them go. Then he turned to Hanscom. He spoke in an apologetic tone, glancing at Northrup as he did so.

“Walton didn’t fool us,” declared Culver calmly. “I figured his story was bad, all along. But he talked about those bonds — and I knew that if they were gone, there must be a third man. The question was whether Walton was innocent or an accomplice. He named Northrup.

“Maybe Carl Walton killed Mosier. Maybe the other man did. We have the circumstantial evidence on Walton — all we needed was to find something fishy in his story. We’ve got it now, because he slipped when he named Northrup. He thought Northrup was coming back here.

“Driving alone in his car — whether he was coming here or not — Northrup would have been up against it for an alibi. But this trip to Chicago makes it great. Walton’s goose is cooked now. We’ll grill him for all he knows.

“Too bad about the bonds, Mr. Hanscom,” he added, “We’ll do all we can to get them back. Give us a chance to work on Walton. A lot may come of it.”

Men were removing Mosier’s body. The police chief followed them. The room emptied. Only Earl Northrup, completely vindicated of all suspicion, remained with his friend, Hanscom.

“I think they’ll trace the bonds, Hanscom,” declared Northrup solemnly.

Anthony Hanscom slumped in the chair by the desk. He mopped his forehead; then regained his composure and extended his hand. Earl Northrup received it warmly.

“It may be a big financial loss to me,” declared Hanscom, “but those bonds weren’t all I have in the world. I’d rather lose four times their value than see a real friend — like you — suffer through the false accusations of a dastardly coward.

“I never trusted Walton very far, Northrup. I didn’t think he was crooked, but I never considered him reliable. If Mosier hadn’t been here, I wouldn’t have left those bonds in Walton’s care.

“There’s someone else in this — someone bigger than Walton. Some real crook was after those bonds, and he used Walton as his accomplice. That’s the way I see it, Northrup.”

Hanscom was staring straight across the room. He did not see the twisted smile upon Northrup’s lips. When Hanscom did glance toward his friend, the smile was gone. An impassive expression had replaced the one of evil.

IT was after midnight when Police Chief Culver returned to find Anthony Hanscom and Earl Northrup still together. He reported that Carl Walton had collapsed under the strain of a continued grilling; that the secretary’s story had become confused, although he still adhered to the impossible idea that Earl Northrup might have been the man who had entered Hanscom’s home to take the bonds.

Northrup left a short while later, and the police chief lingered long enough to add a few remarks to Anthony Hanscom.

“We’ll get the truth out of Walton,” declared Chief Culver. “He played a good bet when he tried to lay it on Northrup, but he lost the gamble. The fact that Northrup was with you cleared Northrup himself; but there’s another angle that shows Walton’s complicity in the theft.”

“What is that?” questioned Hanscom.

“Any plea of mistaken identity on Carl Walton’s part,” responded Culver wisely. “The only way he has tried to meet the facts is by saying that he thought the man who came in was Earl Northrup. That doesn’t go with me.

“Take a look at your friend Northrup. He’s an odd-looking fellow, with that flat, solid face of his. I’ve seen plenty of types of faces — but never one that could match Northrup’s. That was where Walton played a clever card. He knew that unless Northrup had an alibi — which Walton thought was impossible — we would believe him. That’s why I was almost inclined to believe Walton at first.

“Earl Northrup? You could spot that fellow out of a million. I don’t believe there’s another man in the whole State of Illinois that has a face that resembles Northrup’s!”

“I think you are right,” agreed Hanscom. “I am glad Northrup was with me tonight. I agree with you that there is probably no one else with his facial characteristics in all this State.”

Chief Culver and Anthony Hanscom were wrong in their assumptions. At that very moment, a man was boarding an eastbound limited at a junction point more than a hundred miles from Tilson. The man’s face was obscure in the darkness of the vestibule. His eyes were turned away as he handed the conductor a ticket that bore Baltimore as its destination.

But when this individual was safely behind the closed door of the compartment which he had taken for the night, his face was plainly revealed in the light.

Immobile features — steady, staring eyes — lips with a twisted evil smile — all were the characteristics of Earl Northrup!