The Silent Bullet | Page 6

up, believe me. Now, Inspector, can
you spare the time to go down to Parker's office and take me over the
ground? No doubt we can develop something else there."
"Sure," answered O'Connor, and within five minutes we were hurrying
down town in one of the department automobiles.
We found the office under guard of one of the Central Office men,
while in the outside office Parker's confidential clerk and a few
assistants were still at work in a subdued and awed manner. Men were
working in many other Wall Street offices that night during the panic,
but in none was there more reason for it than here. Later I learned that
it was the quiet tenacity of this confidential clerk that saved even as
much of Parker's estate as was saved for his widow--little enough it was,
too. What he saved for the clients of the firm no one will ever know.
Somehow or other I liked John Downey, the clerk, from the moment I
was introduced to him. He seemed to me, at least, to be the typical
confidential clerk who would carry a secret worth millions and keep it.
The officer in charge touched his hat to the inspector, and Downey
hastened to put himself at our service. It was plain that the murder had
completely mystified him, and that he was as anxious as we were to get
at the bottom of it.
"Mr. Downey," began Kennedy, "I understand you were present when
this sad event took place."
"Yes, sir, sitting right here at the directors' table," he replied, taking a
chair, "like this."
"Now can you recollect just how Mr. Parker acted when he was shot?
Could you-er--could you take his place and show us just how it
happened?"
"Yes, sir," said Downey. "He was sitting here at the head of the table.
Mr. Bruce, who is the 'CO.' of the firm, had been sitting here at his

right; I was at the left. The inspector has a list of all the others present.
That door to the right was open, and Mrs. Parker and some other ladies
were in the room--"
"Mrs. Parker?" broke in Kennedy.
"Yes: Like a good many brokerage firms we have a ladies' room. Many
ladies are among our clients. We make a point of catering to them. At
that time I recollect the door was open--all the doors were open. It was
not a secret meeting. Mr. Bruce had just gone into the ladies'
department; I think to ask some of them to stand by the firm --he was
an artist at smoothing over the fears of customers, particularly women.
Just before he went in I had seen the ladies go in a group toward the far
end of the room--to look down at the line of depositors on the street,
which reached around the corner from one of the trust companies, I
thought. I was making a note of an order to send into the outside office
there on the left, and had just pushed this button here under the table to
call a boy to carry it. Mr. Parker had just received a letter by special
delivery, and seemed considerably puzzled over it. No, I don't know
what it was about. Of a sudden I saw him start in his chair, rise up
unsteadily, clap his hand on the back of his head, stagger across the
floor --like this--and fall here."
"Then what happened?"
"Why, I rushed to pick him up. Everything was confusion. I recall
someone behind me saying, 'Here, boy, take all these papers off the
table and carry them into my office before they get lost in the
excitement.' I think it was Bruce's voice. The next moment I heard
someone say, 'Stand back, Mrs. Parker has fainted.' But I didn't pay
much attention, for I was calling to someone not to get a doctor over
the telephone, but to go down to the fifth floor where one has an office.
I made Mr. Parker as comfortable as I could. There wasn't much I could
do. He seemed to want to say something to me, but he couldn't talk. He
was paralysed, at least his throat was. But I did manage to make out
finally what sounded to me like, 'Tell her I don't believe the scandal, I
don't believe it.' But before he could say whom to tell he had again
become unconscious, and by the time the doctor arrived he was dead. I

guess you know everything else as well as I do."
"You didn't hear the shot fired from any particular direction?" asked
Kennedy.
"No, sir."
"Well, where do you think it came from?"
"That's what puzzles me, sir. The only thing I can figure out is that it
was fired from the