“That’s Something!”
O’Gar and I took Gantvoort around to the morgue to see his father, then. The dead man wasn’t pleasant to look at, even to O’Gar and me, who hadn’t known him except by sight. I remembered him as a small wiry man, always smartly tailored, and with a brisk springiness that was far younger than his years.
He lay now with the top of his head beaten into a red and pulpy mess.
We left Gantvoort at the morgue and set out afoot for the Hall of Justice.
“What’s this deep stuff you’re pulling about Emil Bonfils and Paris in 1902?” the detective-sergeant asked as soon as we were out in the street.
“This: the dead man phoned the agency this afternoon and said he had received a threatening letter from an Emil Bonfils with whom he had had trouble in Paris in 1902. He also said that Bonfils had shot at him the previous evening, in the street. He wanted somebody to come around and see him about it tonight. And he said that under no circumstances were the police to be let in on it—that he’d rather have Bonfils get him than have the trouble made public. That’s all he would say over the phone; and that’s how I happened to be on hand when Charles Gantvoort was notified of his father’s death.”
O’Gar stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and whistled softly.
“That’s something!” he exclaimed. “Wait till we get back to headquarters—I’ll show you something.”
Whipple was waiting in the assembly room when we arrived at headquarters. His face at first glance was as smooth and mask-like as