One of the handsomest types of American manhood is that rather
frequently seen combination of iron-gray hair and dark, deep-set eyes
that look out from under heavy brows with a keen, comprehensive glance.
This type of man is always a thinker, usually a professional man, and
almost invariably a man of able brain. He is nearly always well-formed,
physically, and of good carriage and demeanor.
At any rate, Fleming Stone was all of these things, and when he came
into the Embury living-room his appearance was in such contrast to
that of the other two detectives that Eunice greeted him with a pleased
smile.
Neither Shane nor Driscoll was present, and Mason Elliott introduced
Stone to the two ladies, with a deep and fervent hope that the great
detective could free Eunice from the cloud of danger and disgrace that
hovered above her head.
His magnetic smile was so attractive that Aunt Abby nodded her head in
complete approval of the newcomer.
“And now tell me all about everything,” Stone said, as they seated
themselves in a cozy group. “I know the newspaper facts, but that’s
all. I must do my work quite apart from the beaten track, and I want any
sidelights or bits of information that your local detectives may have
overlooked and which may help us.”
“You don’t think Eunice did it, do you, Mr. Stone?” Aunt Abby
broke out, impulsively, quite forgetting the man was a comparative
stranger.
“I am going to work on the theory that she did not,” he declared.
“Then we will see what we can scare up in the way of evidence against
some one else. First, give me a good look at those doors that shut off
the bedrooms.”
With a grave face, Fleming Stone studied the doors, which, as he saw,
when bolted on the inside left no means of access to the three rooms in
which the family had slept.
“Except the windows,” Stone mused, and went to look at them. As they
all had window boxes, save one in Aunt Abby’s room, and as that was
about a hundred feet from the ground, he dismissed the possibility of an
intruder.
“Nobody could climb over the plants without breaking them,” said
Eunice, with a sigh at the inevitable deduction.
Stone looked closely at the plants, kept in perfect order by Aunt
Abby, who loved the work, and who tended them every day. Not a leaf
was crushed, not a stem broken, and the scarlet geranium blossoms
stood straight up like so many mute witnesses against any burglarious
entrance.
Stone returned to Aunt Abby’s side window, and leaning over the sill
looked out and down to the street below.
“Couldn’t be reached even by firemen’s ladders,” he said,
“and, anyway, the police would have spotted any ladder work.”
“I tried to think some one came in at that window,” said Elliott,
“but even so, nobody could go through Miss Ames’ room, and then
Mrs. Embury’s room, and so on to Mr. Embury’s room--do his deadly
work--and return again, without waking the ladies--”
“Not only that, but how could he get in the window?” said
Eunice. “There’s no possible way of climbing across from the next
apartment--oh, I’m honest with myself,” she added, as Stone
looked at her curiously. “I don’t deceive myself by thinking
impossibilities could happen. But somebody killed my husband,
and--according to the detectives--I am the only one who had both motive
and opportunity!”
“Had you a motive, Mrs. Embury?” Stone asked, quietly.
Eunice stared at him. “They say so,” she replied. “They say I was
unhappy with him.”
“And were you?” The very directness of Stone’s pertinent questions
seemed to compel Eunice’s truthful answers, and she said:
“Of course I was! But that--”
“Eunice, hush!” broke in Elliott, with a pained look. “Don’t say
such things, dear, it can do no good, and may injure your case.”
“Not with me,” Stone declared. “My work has led me rather
intimately into people’s lives, and I am willing to go on record
as saying that fifty per cent of marriages are unhappy--more or less.
Whether that is a motive for murder depends entirely on the temper and
temperament of the married ones themselves. But--it is very rarely that
a wife kills her husband.”
“Why, there are lots of cases in the papers,” said Miss Ames. “And
never are the women convicted, either!”
“Oh, not lots of cases,” objected Stone, “but the few that do
occur are usually tragic and dramatic and fill a front page for a few
days. Now, let’s sift down this remarkably definite statement of
‘motives and opportunities’ that your eminent detectives have
catalogued. I’m told that they’ve two people with motive and no
opportunity; two more with opportunity and no motive; and one--Mrs.
Embury--who fulfills both requirements! Quite an elaborate schedule, to
be sure!”
Eunice looked at him with a glimmer of hope. Surely a man who talked
like that didn’t place implicit reliance on the schedule in question.
“And yet,” Stone went on, “it is certainly true. A motive is a
queer thing--an elusive, uncertain thing. They say--I have this from the
detectives themselves-that Mr. Hendricks and Mr. Elliott both had the
motive of deep affection for Mrs. Embury. Please don’t be offended, I
am speaking quite impersonally, now. Mr. Hendricks, I am advised, also
had a strong motive in a desire to remove a rival candidate for an
important election. But--neither of these gentlemen had opportunity,
as each has proven a perfect and indubitable alibi. I admit the
alibis--I’ve looked into them, and they are unimpeachable--but I
don’t admit the motives. Granting a man’s affection for a married
woman, it is not at all a likely thing for him to kill her husband.”
“Right, Mr. Stone!” and Mason Elliott’s voice rang out in honest
appreciation.
“Again, it is absurd to suspect one election candidate of killing
another. It isn’t done--and one very good reason is, that if the
criminal should be discovered, he has small chance for the election he
coveted. And there is always a chance--and a strong one--that ‘murder
will out’! So, personally, I admit I don’t subscribe entirely to the
cut-and-dried program of my esteemed colleagues. Now, as to these two
people with opportunity but no motive. They are, I’m told, Miss Ames
and the butler. Very well, I grant their opportunity--but since they are
alleged to have no motive, why consider them at all? This brings us to
Mrs. Embury.”
Eunice was watching the speaker, fascinated. She had never met a man
like this before. Though Stone’s manner was by no means flippant, he
seemed to take a light view of some aspects of the case. But now, he
looked at Eunice very earnestly.
“I am informed,” he went on, slowly, “that you have an
ungovernable temper, Mrs. Embury.”
“Nothing of the sort!” Eunice cried, tossing her head defiantly and
turning angry eyes on the bland detective. “I am supposed to be unable
to control myself, but it is not true! As a child I gave way to fits of
temper, I acknowledge, but I have overcome that tendency, and I am no
more hot-tempered now than other people!”
As always, when roused, Eunice looked strikingly beautiful, her eyes
shone and her cheeks showed a crimson flush. She drew herself up
haughtily, and clenching her hands on the back of a chair, as she stood
facing Stone, she said, “If you have come here to browbeat me--to
discuss my personal characteristics, you may go! I’ve no intention of
being brought to book by a detective!”
“Why, Eunice, don’t talk that way,” begged Aunt Abby. “I’m
sure Mr. Stone is trying to get you freed from the awful thing that is
hanging over you!”
“There’s no awful thing hanging over me! I don’t know what you
mean, Aunt Abby! There can’t be anything worse than to have a stranger
come in here and remark on my unfortunate weakness in sometimes giving
way to my sense of righteous indignation! I resent it! I won’t have
it! Mason, you brought Mr. Stone here--now take him away!”
“There, there, Eunice, you are not quite yourself, and I don’t
wonder. This scene is too much for you. I’m sure you will make
allowance, Mr. Stone, for Mrs. Embury’s overwrought nerves--”
“Of course,” and Fleming Stone spoke coldly, without sympathy or
even apparent interest. “Let Mrs. Embury retire to her room, if she
wishes.”
They had all returned to the big living-room, and Stone stood near a
front window, now and then glancing out to the trees in Park Avenue
below.
“I don’t want to retire to my room!” Eunice cried. “I don’t
want to be set aside as if I were a child! I did want Mr. Stone to
investigate this whole matter, but I don’t now--I’ve changed my
mind! Mason, tell him to go away!”
“No, dear,” and Elliott looked at her kindly, “you can’t change
your mind like that. Mr. Stone has the case, and he will go on with it
and when you come to yourself again, you will be glad, for he will free
you from suspicion by finding the real criminal.”
“I don’t want him to! I don’t want the criminal found! I want it
to be an unsolved mystery, always and forever!”
“No;” Elliott spoke more firmly. “No, Eunice, that is not what you
want.”
“Stop! I know what I want--without your telling me! You overstep your
privileges, Mason! I’m not an imbecile, to be ignored, set aside,
overruled! I won’t stand it! Mr. Stone, you are discharged!”
She stood, pointing to the door with a gesture that would have been
melodramatic, had she not been so desperately in earnest. The soft black
sleeve fell away from her soft white arm, and her out-stretched hand was
steady and unwavering as she stood silent, but quivering with suppressed
rage.
“Eunice,” and going to her, Elliott took the cold white hand in his
own. “Eunice,” he said, and no more, but his eyes looked deeply into
hers.
She gazed steadily for a moment, and then her face softened, and she
turned aside, and sank wearily into a chair.
“Do as you like,” she said, in a low murmur. “I’ll leave it to
you, Mason. Let Mr. Stone go ahead.”
“Yes, go ahead, Mr. Stone,” said Aunt Abby, eagerly. “I’ll show
you anywhere you want to go--anything you want to see I’ll tell you
all about it.”
“Why, do you know anything I haven’t been told, Miss Ames? I thought
we had pretty well sized up the situation.”
“Yes, but I can tell you something that nobody else will listen to,
and I think you will.”
Eunice started up again. “Aunt Abby,” she said, “if you begin that
pack of fool nonsense about a vision, I’ll leave the room--I vow I
will!”
“Leave, then!” retorted Aunt Abby, whose patience was also under a
strain.
But Stone said, “Wait, please, I want a few more matters mentioned,
and then, Miss Ames, I will listen to your ‘fool nonsense!’ First,
what is this talk about money troubles between Mr. and Mrs. Embury?”
“That,” Eunice seemed interested, “is utter folly. My husband
objected to giving me a definite allowance, but he gave me twice the
sum I would have asked for, and more, too, by letting me have charge
accounts everywhere I chose.”
“Then you didn’t kill him for that reason?” and the dark eyes of
the detective rested on Eunice kindly.
“No; I did not!” she said, curtly, and Stone returned,
“I believe you, Mrs. Embury; if you were the criminal, that was not
the motive. Next,” he went on, “what about this quarrel you and Mr.
Embury had the night before his death?”
“That was because I had disobeyed his express orders,” Eunice said,
frankly and bravely, “and I went to a bridge game at a house to which
he had forbidden me to go. I am sorry--and I wish I could tell him
so.”
Fleming Stone looked at her closely. Was she sincere or was she merely a
clever actress?
“A game for high stakes, I assume,” he said quietly.
“Very high. Mr. Embury objected strongly to my playing there, but I
went, hoping to win some money that I wanted.”
“That you wanted? For some particular purpose?”
“No; only that I might have a few dollars in my purse, as other women
do. It all comes back to the same old quarrel, Mr. Stone. You don’t
know--I can’t make you understand--how humiliating, how galling it is
for a woman to have no money of her own! Nobody understands--but I have
been subjected to shame and embarrassment hundreds of times for the want
of a bit of ready money!”
“I think I do understand, Mrs. Embury. I know how hard it must have
been for a proud woman to have that annoyance. Did Mr. Embury object to
the lady who was your hostess that evening?”
“Yes, he did. Mrs. Desternay is an old school friend of mine, but Mr.
Embury never liked her, and he objected more strenuously because she had
the bridge games.”
“And the lady’s attitude toward you?”
“Fifi? Oh, I don’t know. We’ve always been friends, generally
speaking, but we’ve had quarrels now and then--sometimes we’d be
really intimate, and then again, we wouldn’t speak for six weeks at
a time. Just petty tiffs, you know, but they seemed serious at the
time.”
“I see. Hello, here’s McGuire!”
Ferdinand, with a half-apologetic look, ushered in a boy, with red hair,
and a very red face. He was a freckled youth, and his bright eyes showed
quick perception as they darted round the room, and came to rest on Miss
Ames, on whom he smiled broadly. “This is my assistant,” Stone said,
casually; “his name is Terence McGuire, and he is an invaluable help.
Anything doing, son?”
“Not partickler. Kin I sit and listen?”
Clearly the lad was embarrassed, probably at the unaccustomed luxury of
his surroundings and the presence of so many high-bred strangers. For
Terence, or Fibsy, as he was nicknamed, was a child of the streets, and
though a clever assistant to Fleming Stone in his career, the boy seldom
accompanied his employer to the homes of the aristocracy. When he did
do so, he was seized with a shyness that was by no means evident when he
was in his more congenial surroundings.
He glanced bashfully at Eunice, attracted by her beauty, but afraid to
look at her attentively. He gazed at Mason Elliott with a more frank
curiosity; and then he cast a furtive look at Aunt Abby, who was herself
smiling at him.
It was a genial, whole-souled smile, for the old lady had a soft spot in
her heart for boys, and was already longing to give him some fruit and
nuts from the sideboard.
Fibsy seemed to divine her attitude, and he grinned affably, and was
more at his ease.
But he sat quietly while the others went on discussing the details of
the case.
Eunice was amazed at such a strange partner for the great man, but she
quickly thought that a street urchin like that could go to places and
learn of side issues in ways which the older man could not compass so
conveniently.
Presently Fibsy slipped from his seat, and quietly went into the
bedrooms.
Eunice raise her eyebrows slightly, but Fleming Stone, observing, said,
“Don’t mind, Mrs. Embury. The lad is all right. I’ll vouch for
him.”
“A queer helper,” remarked Elliott.
“Yes; but very worth-while. I rely on him in many ways, and he almost
never fails to help me. He’s now looking over the bedrooms, just as I
did, and he’ll disturb nothing.”
“Mercy me!” exclaimed Aunt Abby; “maybe he won’t--but I don’t
like boys prowling among my things!” and she scurried after him.
She found him in her room, and rather gruffly said, “What are you up
to, boy?”
“Snuff, ma’am,” he replied, with a comical wink, which ought to
have shocked the old lady, but which, somehow, had a contrary effect.
“Do you like candy?” she asked--unnecessarily, she knew--and offered
him a box from a drawer.
Fibsy felt that a verbal answer was not called for, and, helping
himself, proceeded to munch the sweets, contentedly and continuously.
“Say,” he burst out, after a thoughtful study of the room, “where
was that there dropper thing found, anyhow?”
“In this medicine chest--”
“Naw; I mean where’d the girl find it?--the housework girl.”
“You seem to know a lot about the matter!”
“Sure I do. Where’d you say?”
“Right here,” and Aunt Abby pointed to a place on the rug near the
head of her bed. It was a narrow bed, which had been brought there for
her during her stay.
“Huh! Now you could’a dropped it there?”
“I know,” and Aunt Abby whispered, “Nobody’ll believe me, but I
know!”
“You do! Say, you’re some wiz! Spill it to me, there’s a dear!”
Fibsy was, in his way, a psychologist, and he knew by instinct that this
old lady would like him better if he retained his ignorant, untutored
ways, than if he used the more polished speech, which he had
painstakingly acquired for other kinds of occasions.
“I wonder if you’d understand. For a boy, you’re a bright one--”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. I am! They don’t make ‘em no brighter ‘n me!
Try me, do, Miss Ames! I’m right there with the goods.”
“Well, child, it’s this: I saw a--a vision--”
“Yes’m, I know--I mean I know what visions are, they’re fine,
too!” He fairly smacked his lips in gusto, and it encouraged Aunt Abby
to proceed.
“Yes, and it was the ghost of--who do you suppose it was?”
“Your grandmother, ma’am?” The boy’s attitude was eagerly
attentive and his freckled little face was drawn in a desperate
interest.
“No!” Aunt Abby drew closer and just breathed the words, “Mr.
Embury!”
“Oh!” Fibsy was really startled, and his eyes opened wide, as he
urged, “Go on, ma’am!”
“Yes. Well, it was just at the moment that Mr. Embury was--that he
died--you know.”
“Yes’m, they always comes then, ma’am!”
“I know it, and oh, child, this is a true story!”
“Oh, yes, ma’am--I know it is!”
Indeed one could scarcely doubt it, for Aunt Abby, having found an
interested listener at last, poured forth her account of her strange
experience, not caring for comment or explanation, since she had found
some one who believed!
“Yes, it was just at that time--I know, because it was almost
daylight--just before dawn--and I was asleep, but not entirely
asleep--”
“Sort’a half dozing--”
“Yes; and Sanford--Mr. Embury, you know, came gliding through my room,
and he stopped at my bedside to say good-by--”
“Was he alive?” asked Fibsy, awe-struck at her hushed tones and
bright, glittering eyes.
“Oh, no, it was his spirit, you see--his disembodied spirit”
“How could you see it, then?”
“When spirits appear like that, they are visible.”
“Oh, ma’am--I didn’t know.”
“Yes, and I not only saw him but he was evident to all my five
senses!”
“What, ma’am? What do you mean?”
Fibsy drew back, a little scared, as Aunt Abby clutched his sleeve in
her excitement. He felt uneasy, for it was growing dusk, and the old
lady was in such a state of nervous exhilaration that he shrank a little
from her proximity.
But Fibsy was game. “Go on, ma’am,” he whispered.
“Yes,” Aunt Abby declared, with an eerie smile of triumph, “I saw
him--I heard him--I felt him--I smelled him--and, I tasted him!”
Fibsy nearly shrieked, for at each enumeration of her marvelous
experiences, Miss Ames grasped his arm tighter and emphasized her
statements by pounding on his shoulder.
She seemed unaware of his personal presence--she talked more as if
recounting the matter to herself, but she used him as a general audience
and the boy had to make a desperate effort to preserve his poise.
And then it struck him that the old lady was crazy, or else she really
had an important story to tell. In either case, it was his duty to let
Fleming Stone hear it, at first hand, if possible. But he felt sure that
to call in the rest of the household, or to take the narrator out to
them would--as he expressed it to himself “upset her applecart and
spill the beans!”