Stationing Leary before the front door, with instructions to keep a
careful watch, Duvall went into the vestibule, and by means of his
pocket light, inspected the names of the occupants of the building, as
Grace had done a short time before. The hallway inside was dark, with
the exception of a dim light at the foot of the stairs. Apparently the
place boasted no elevator or hall-boy service.
The ten names on the boxes in the vestibule meant nothing to him. How
was it possible to determine which one was that of the woman he sought?
Weinberg--Scully--Martin--Stone--he ran down the list, trying to find
some distinguishing mark, some clue, that would guide him.
Suddenly he paused, allowing the light from his torch to rest upon the
card bearing the name of one of the tenants on the fourth floor.
This card had attracted his attention, because it was different from any
of the others in the two racks. They were either engraved or printed
visiting cards, stuck inside the brass frames provided for them, or the
names were written or printed by hand upon blank cards. But this card,
bearing simply the inscription E. W. Norman, was neither engraved nor
printed, nor written by hand. On the contrary, it was _typewritten_.
This in itself at once attracted Duvall's attention, owing to the fact
that the various letters received by Ruth Morton had also all been
typewritten. If the name, Norman, was an assumed one, as Duvall
concluded it to be, what more natural than that it should be
_typewritten_ on a blank card, especially when a regular printed or
engraved card was not available; when to have it written in long hand
would have been a disclosure of identity, and when, above all, the woman
in question possessed, and knew how to operate, a typewriter.
There was more than this, however, about the name on the card, to
convince Duvall that E. W. Norman was the woman he sought. He recalled
with distinctness the two salient features of the typewriting in all the
letters sent to Miss Morton, the misplaced "a," and the broken lower
right-hand corner of the capital "W." He looked closely at the two
letters in the name before him. The "a" was misplaced, the "W" minus its
lower right-hand corner. The evidence seemed to be complete.
The next thing to be considered was, how could he first obtain entrance
to the apartment building, and, subsequently, to the flat of the woman
posing as E. W. Norman? Were he to ring the latter's bell, he felt quite
sure she would not respond by unfastening the front door, but she would
on the contrary be warned, and even if unable to escape, might destroy
the evidence he hoped to find in her possession.
On the other hand, to ring the bell of one of the other apartments might
result in the unlatching of the front door, but might involve
explanations, difficult, in the circumstances, to make. There was no
help for it, however. Duvall pressed the bell belonging to the family
named Scully.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account