9:45 p.m. —Guards Are Stationed at the Doors
There are knocks, Lieutenant Valcour believed, and knocks. He ranged them from gentle careless rappings, through sly sinister taps, to imperative demands and, finally, thumps. He classified the ones at the moment being bestowed upon the hall door as official whacks. He was right. He put the scrap of paper and the crayon pencil in his pocket and turned to greet five men from the station house who flooded into the room on the heels of his “Come in.”
They were intelligent-looking young men, well built, alert, and their uniforms were immaculate—five competent blue jays outlined sharply against gray walls. Lieutenant Valcour knew each one of them both by reputation and by name.
He nodded to the starchiest and youngest looking of them. “Cassidy,” he said, “stay in here. O’Brian, stay by the front door, and keep Hansen with you to carry messages. There’s a servants’ entrance at the front, McGinnis. It’s yours. And you, Stump, watch the door from the back of the house into the garden. If anyone wants to leave the house send him to me first. You can let anyone in, with the exception of reporters, and find out their business. Now in regard to the reporters just be your natural genial selves and say that apart from the plain statement that Mr. Herbert Endicott, the owner of this house, is dead and that—” Lieutenant Valcour choked slightly—“foul play is suspected, you can tell them nothing. The police, as usual, are actively on the job, have the case well in hand, and there is every reason to believe that in view of our customary efficiency the guilty parties will soon be brilliantly apprehended etcetera and so forth Amen. Excuse-it-please.”