The Cadaver of Gideon Wyck by Alexander Laing Page B

interested in, for a chapter in the Short Sketch.
    He returned on the 10th, and phoned me in the evening that he would want to resume our usual work the following afternoon. But it was in the morning mail of the 11th that Dr. Wyck’s clothes were delivered, and this fact sent Prexy back to Boston again with Dr. Kent, the coroner, on the theory that Dr. Wyck might have been an amnesia victim, who had been jerked up by the Boston police.
    The theory prove false, and they were back again on the 13th. That afternoon, Dr. Alling phoned to say that he wanted to see me at five o’clock. I was possessed at once by an irrational feeling of panic.
    Dr. Alling was seated at his desk. “Weird business about Wyck, isn’t it?” he remarked, eyeing me quizzically.
    I prepared for the worst, nodded, and asked whether he had discovered anything of importance in Boston.
    “Not much. The parcel of clothing seems to have been left on one of the public desks in the main post office after closing hours on the evening of the ninth. The clerk remarked it because the person who left it, to make sure of the postage, had put about twice as many stamps on it as were needed. There were three speakeasy cards in his wallet, and we went to all of the places with the police. They hadn’t seen him in nearly a year. Or so they said.”
    I stiffened when he continued, “What I wanted to talk to you about is something that happened the night Dr. Wyck disappeared.”
    The blood began to buzz in my ears. “At faculty meeting, that evening, Dr. Wyck had two blue books—examinations by Prendergast and Jarvis. What became of them?”
    My mind cleared enough to permit me to say, “Why, it was my impression that they were passed around to a few of the doctors, then back to you. Yes, and the you read parallel passages for me to take down in the minutes, and handed the books back to Dr. Wyck.”
    “Precisely, and he put them in his pocket. Well, everything else that was in his pockets seems to have been returned in that bundle—everything but those blue books.” He paused impressively. “I’m telling you this, Saunders, because the matter has got to be cleared up for the good name of the college. I’ll need help, and the sheriff’s a blundering fool. Do you want to work with me?”
    “Why, certainly,” I said, thoroughly perplexed by this failure to ask the obvious expected question.
    “Good,” he answered. “Now, you know all that’s been published?” I nodded. “Very well then, after faculty meeting Dr. Wyck went to his office. Dr. Kent saw him. I stayed, talking to Mr. Tolland, Prendergast’s uncle. When I left the building, Wyck’s study window was dark. He must have gone straight home, because his daughter says he came in a little after half past nine. He told her he was going for a walk, and she tried to dissuade him because he seemed ill. He made his usual boast that he had never been ill in his life, although at the meeting I remember thinking that he looked very pale.”
    “I noticed it too,” I agreed.
    “Well, Marjorie couldn’t dissuade him, but it was some while after he went out that she heard the sound of someone descending the steps. At the time, she had no thought of its being anyone other than her father. What’s your idea on that?”
    He spoke the last sentence crisply. I hesitated, more wary of this little man’s cordial manner. He had failed to ask an absolutely obvious question, which I had come expecting to have to answer. Instead, he asked me about footsteps on the Wyck’s porch, heard at a time when I myself had actually been by the barberry hedge, a few yards from the spot. Did he think the footsteps on the porch had been mine? To justify my pause, I said slowly, “Why, I’ve tried to think of another possibility, but I haven’t anything to go on.”
    He merely nodded. “Very well then, those descending footsteps are our last positive knowledge of the whereabouts of Gideon Wyck. That is, I assume anyone