"killerinthehouse" - читать интересную книгу автора (Blackmon Robert C)

BANK EMPLOYEE DlSAPPEARS.

Colton police officials were faced today with a baffling mystery in
the disappearance of Abel Wilmot, for years a clerical employee of
the Liberty Trust Co. of this city, and the simultaneous disappear-
ance of a hundred thousand dollars in currency from the company's
vaults. Wilmot and the money disappeared, apparently, some time
yesterday.

Liberty Trust Co. officials expressed a reluctance to accept the
theory that Wilmot absconded with the missing money, giving as
their reasons his years of faithful service with the company. The
Colton police, however, are inclined to believe that the missing
money will be found when Wilmot is apprehended, and have issued a
State-wide order for his arrest.


The paper was from Colton, a large city about three hundred miles up the coast, in the
next State. It was dated the 19th, two days ago.

I looked at the penciled headlines again, frowning. Then I slid a couple of fingers into
the breast pocket of Marsh's coat, on the chair. A found a couple of opened letters, slid
them out. They were addressed to Alfred Marsh, in Colton. I put the letters back into Marsh's
pocket, turned out the light and left the room.

I had seen nothing that looked like a knife in either his or Ollis' room. I went to 706,
Neal Carter's room, and rapped on the door. I didn't expect anyone to answer and no one did.

I opened the door and went in. No lights were on, and there was only the gray half-
light from the windows opening on the seventh-floor balcony. By that, I could see the bed
and Neal Carter's dark hair. He was Iying on his back on the bed.

Standing just inside the door for a moment, I listened to him snore. He didn't miss a
beat and the regular noise got on my nerves. I switched on the light and had a quick look
around.

He was Neal Carter, all right, according to the letters and cards in his wallet, and
he had come from Colton, as had Marsh. He was in his underwear, as Marsh was, though he
was younger and heavier. His body had an athletic stockiness. He appeared to be in about
the same stage of drunkenness as Alfred Marsh. James Ollis, apparently, had "drunk'en
under the table" in fine fashion. Ollis, however, as well as Marsh and Carter, seemed to
be too drunk to even think of knifing David Hammond in 712.

I turned off Carter's light and left the room. My mind was churning.


With the three drunks out of it, and with the young couple at the dance, everybody on the
seventh floor was accounted for. There were empty rooms on the seventh floor, though, and
the knife-armed killer could be hiding in any of the unoccupied rooms. My stomach got cold
as I thought of opening the doors of those empty rooms. Then I remembered that four of