She made no comment on that. He had brought up the disagreeable
topic--one which would have been heart-breaking to any other mother he
had ever known--in the hope of arousing some real feeling in her. And he
had failed. Her self-control was impregnable. There was about her an
atmosphere that was, in a sense, terrifying, something out of all
nature.
She brushed up the remaining chips and shavings while he got his hat. He
was deliberating: was there nothing more she could tell him? What could
he hope to get from her except that which she wanted to tell? He was
sure that she had spoken, in reply to each of his questions, according
to a prearranged plan, a well designed scheme to bring into high relief
anything that might incriminate Berne Webster.
And he was by no means in a mood to persuade himself of Webster's guilt.
He knew the value of first impressions; and he did not propose to let
her clog his thoughts with far-fetched deductions against the young
lawyer.
She got to her feet with cat-like agility, and, to his astonishment,
burst into violent speech:
"You're standing there trying to think up things to help Berne Webster!
Like the sheriff! Now, I'll tell you what I told him: Webster's guilty.
I know it! He killed my daughter. He's a liar and a coward--a traitor!
He killed her!"
There was no doubt of her emotion now. She stood in a strange attitude,
leaning a little toward him in the upper part of her body, as if all her
strength were consciously directed into her shoulders and neck. She
seemed larger in her arms and shoulders; they, with her head and face,
were, he thought, the most vivid part of her--an effect which she
produced deliberately, to impress him.
Her whole body was not tremulous, but, rather, vibrant, a taut mechanism
played on by the rage that possessed her. Her eyebrows, high on her
forehead, reminded him of things that crawled. Her eyes, brilliant like
clear ice with sunshine on it, were darting, furtive, always in motion.
She did not look him squarely in the eye, but her eyes selected and
bored into every part of his face; her glance played on his countenance.
He could easily have imagined that it burned him physically in many
places.
"All this talk about Gene Russell's being guilty is stuff, bosh!" she
continued. "Gene wouldn't hurt anybody. He couldn't! Wait until you see
him!" Her lips curled momentarily to their thickened, wet sneer.
"There's nothing to him--nothing! Mildred hated him; he bored her to
death. Even I laughed at him. And this sheriff talks about the boy's
having killed her!"
Suddenly, she partially controlled her fury. He saw her eyes contract to
the gleam of a new idea. She was silent a moment, while her vibrant,
tense body swayed in front of him almost imperceptibly.
When she spoke again, it was in her flat, constrained tone. He was
impressed anew with her capacity for making her feeling subordinate to
her intelligence.
"She's a dangerous woman," he thought again.
"You're working for Webster?"
Her inquiry came after so slight a pause, and it was put to him in a
manner so different from the unrestraint of her denunciation of Webster,
that he felt as he would have done if he had been dealing with two
women.
"I've told you already," he said, "my only interest is in finding the
real murderer. In that sense, I'm working for Webster--if he's
innocent."
"But he didn't hire you?"
"No."
Seeing that he told the truth, she indulged herself in rage again. It
was just that, Hastings thought; she took an actual, keen pleasure in
giving vent to the anger that was in her. Relieved of the necessity of
censoring her words and thoughts closely, she could say what she wanted
to say.
"He's guilty, and I'll prove it!" she defied the detective's disbelief.
"I'll help to prove it. Guilty? I tell you he is--guilty as hell!"
He made an abrupt departure, her shrill hatred ringing in his ears when
he reached the street. He found it hard, too, to get her out of his
eyes, even now--she had impressed herself so shockingly upon him. The
picture of her floated in front of him, above the shimmering pavement,
as if he still confronted her in all her unloveliness, the smooth, white
face like a travesty on youth, the swift, darting eyes, the hard,
straight lines of the lean figure, the cold deliberation of manner and
movement.
"She's incapable of grief!" he thought. "Terrible! She's terrible!"
Lally drove him to his apartment on Fifteenth street, where the largest
of three rooms served him as a combination library and office. There he
kept his records, in a huge, old-fashioned safe; and there, also, he
held his conferences, from time to time, with police chiefs and
detectives from all parts of the country when they sought his help in
their pursuit of criminals.
The walls were lined with books from floor to ceiling. A large table in
the centre of the room was stacked high with newspapers and magazines.
Dusty papers and books were piled, too, on several chairs set against
the bookcases, and on the floor in one corner was a pyramid of
documents.
"This place is like me," he explained to visitors; "it's loosely
dressed."
He sat down at the table and wrote instructions for one of his two
assistants, his best man, Hendricks. Russell's room must be searched and
Russell interviewed--work for which Hastings felt that he himself could
not spare the time. He gave Hendricks a second task: investigation of
the financial standing of two people: Berne Webster and Mrs. Catherine
Brace.
He noted, with his customary kindness, in his memorandum to Hendricks:
"Sunday's a bad day for this sort of work, but do the best you can.
Report tomorrow morning."
That arranged, he set out for Sloanehurst, to keep his promise to
Lucille--he would be there for the inquest.
On the way he reviewed matters:
"Somehow, I got the idea that the Brace woman _knew_ Russell hadn't
killed her daughter. Funny, that is. How could she have known that? How
can she know it now?
"She's got the pivotal fact in this case. I felt it. I'm willing to bet
she persuaded her daughter to pursue Webster. And things have gone
'bust'--didn't come out as she thought they would. What was she after,
money? That's exactly it! Exactly! Her daughter could hold up Webster,
and Webster could hold up the Sloanes after his marriage."
He whistled softly.
"If she can prove that Webster should have married her daughter, that
he's in need of anything like sixty-five thousand dollars--where does he
get off? He gets off safely if the Brace woman ever sees fit to
tell--what? I couldn't guess if my whittling hand depended on it." He
grimaced his repugnance.
"What a woman! A mania for wickedness--evil from head to foot,
thoroughly. _She_ wouldn't stick at murder--if she thought it safe.
She'd do anything, say anything. Every word she uttered this morning had
been rehearsed in her mind--with gestures, even. When I beat her, I beat
this puzzle; that's sure."
That he had to do with a puzzle, he had no manner of doubt. The very
circumstances surrounding the discovery of the girl's body--Arthur
Sloane flashing on the light in his room at a time when his being awake
was so unusual that it frightened his daughter; Judge Wilton stumbling
over the dead woman; young Webster doing the same thing in the same
instant; the light reaching out to them at the moment when they bent
down to touch the thing which their feet had encountered--all that
shouted mystery to his experienced mind.
He thought of Webster's pronouncement: "The thug, acting on the spur of
the moment, with a blow in the dark and a getaway through the
night----" Here was reproduction of that in real life. Would people say
that Webster had given himself away in advance? They might.
And the weapon, what about that? It could have been manufactured in ten
minutes. Crown had said over the wire that Russell's nail file was
missing. What if Webster's, too, were missing? He would see--although he
expected to uncover no such thing.
He came, then, to Lucille's astounding idea, that her father must be
"protected," because he was nervous and, being nervous, might incur the
enmity of the authorities. He could not take that seriously. And yet the
most fruitful imagination in the world could fabricate no motive for
Arthur Sloane's killing a young woman he had never seen.
Only Webster and Russell could be saddled with motives: Webster's,
desperation, the savage determination to rid himself of the woman's
pursuit; Russell's, unreasoning jealousy.
So far as facts went, the crime lay between those two--and he could not
shake off the impression that Mrs. Brace, shrilly asserting Russell's
innocence, had known that she spoke the absolute truth.
VII
THE HOSTILITY OF MR. SLOANE
Delayed by a punctured tire, Hastings reached Sloanehurst when the
inquest was well under way. He went into the house by a side door and
found Lucille Sloane waiting for him.
"Won't you go to father at once?" she urged him.
"What's the matter?" He saw that her anxiety had grown during his
absence.
"He's in one of his awfully nervous states. I hope you'll be very
patient with him--make allowances. He doesn't seem to grasp the
importance of your connection with the case; wants to ask questions.
Won't you let me take you to him, now?"
"Why, yes, if I can be of any help. What do you want me to say to him?"
As a matter of fact, he was glad of the opportunity for the interview.
He had long since discovered the futility of inquests in the uncovering
of important evidence, and he had not intended to sit through this one.
He wanted particularly to talk to Berne Webster, but Sloane also had to
be questioned.
"I thought you might explain," she continued hurriedly, preceding him
down the hall toward her father's room, "that you will do exactly what I
asked you to do--see that the mysterious part of this terrible affair,
if there is any mystery in it--see that it's cleared up promptly. Please
tell him you'll act for us in dealing with newspaper reporters; that
you'll help us, not annoy us, not annoy him."
She had stopped at Sloane's door.
"And you?" Hastings delayed her knock. "If they want you to testify, if
Dr. Garnet calls for you, I think you'd better testify very frankly,
tell them about the footsteps you heard."
"I've already done that." She seemed embarrassed. "Father asked me to
'phone Mr. Southard, Mr. Jeremy Southard, his lawyer, about it. I know I
told you I wanted your advice about everything. I would have waited to
ask you. But you were late. I had to take Mr. Southard's advice."
"That's perfectly all right," he reassured her. "Mr. Southard advised
you wisely.--Now, I'm going to ask your help. The guest-rooms
upstairs--have the servants straightened them up this morning?"
They had not, she told him. Excitement had quite destroyed their
efficiency for the time being; they were at the parlour windows,
listening, or waiting to be examined by the coroner.
"That's what I hoped," he said. "Won't you see that those rooms are left
exactly as they are until I can have a look at them?" She nodded assent.
"And say nothing about my speaking of it--absolutely nothing to anybody?
It's vitally important."
The door was opened by Sloane's man, Jarvis, who had in queer
combination, Hastings thought, the salient aspects of an undertaker and
an experienced pick-pocket. He was dismal of countenance and alert in
movement, an efficient ghost, admirably appropriate to the twilit gloom
of the room with its heavily shaded windows.
Mr. Sloane was in bed, in the darkest corner.
"Father," Lucille addressed him from the door-sill, "I've asked Mr.
Hastings to talk to you about things. He's just back from Washington."
"Shuddering saints!" said Mr. Sloane, not lifting his head from the
pillows.
Lucille departed. The ghostly Jarvis closed the door without so much as
a click of the latch. Hastings advanced slowly toward the bed, his eyes
not yet accustomed to the darkness.
"Shuddering, shivering, shaking saints!" Mr. Sloane exclaimed again, the
words coming in a slow, shrill tenor from his lips, as if with great
exertion he reached up with something and pushed each one out of his
mouth. "Sit down, Mr. Hastings, if I can control my nerves, and stand
it. What is it?"
His hostility to the caller was obvious. The evident and grateful
interest with which the night before he had heard the detective's
stories of crimes and criminals had changed now to annoyance at the very
sight of him. As a raconteur, Mr. Hastings was quite the thing; as
protector of the Sloane family's privacy and seclusion, he was a
nuisance. Such was the impression Mr. Hastings received.
At a loss to understand his host's frame of mind, he took a chair near
the bed.
Mr. Sloane stirred jerkily under his thin summer coverings.
"A little light, Jarvis," he said peevishly. "Now, Mr. Hastings, what
can I do for--tell you?"
Jarvis put back a curtain.
"Quivering and crucified martyrs!" the prostrate man burst forth. "I
said a little, Jarvis! You drown my optic nerves in ink and, without a
moment's warning, flood them with the glaring brilliancy of the noonday
sun!" Jarvis half-drew the curtain. "Ah, that's better. Never more than
an inch at a time, Jarvis. How many times have I told you that? Never
give me a shock like that again; never more than an inch of light at a
time. Frantic fiends! From cimmerian, abysmal darkness to Sahara-desert
glare!"
"Yes, sir," said Jarvis, as if on the point of digging a grave--for
himself. "Beg pardon, sir."
He effaced himself, in shadows, somewhere behind Hastings, who seized
the opportunity to speak.
"Miss Sloane suggested that you wanted certain information. In fact, she
asked me to see you."
"My daughter? Oh, yes!" The prone body became semi-upright, leaned on an
elbow. "Yes! What I want to know is, why--why, in the name of all the
jumping angels, everybody seems to think there's a lot of mystery
connected with this brutal, vulgar, dastardly crime! It passes my
comprehension, utterly!--Jarvis, stop clicking your finger-nails
together!" This with a note of exaggerated pleading. "You know I'm a
nervous wreck, a total loss physically, and yet you stand there in the
corner and indulge yourself wickedly, wickedly, in that infernal habit
of yours of clicking your finger-nails! Mute and mutilated Christian
martyrs!"
He fell back among the pillows, breathing heavily, the perfect picture
of exhaustion. Jarvis came near on soundless feet and applied a wet
cloth to his master's temples.
The old man regarded them both with unconcealed amazement.
"You'll have to excuse me, Mr. Hastings, really, I can't be annoyed!"
the wreck, somewhat revived, announced feebly. "All I said to my
daughter, Miss Sloane, is what I say to you now: I see no reason why we
should employ you, or indeed why you should be connected with this
affair. You were my guest, here, at Sloanehurst. Unfortunately, some
ruffian of whom we never heard, whose existence we never
suspected--Jarvis, take off this counterpane; you're boiling me,
parboiling me; my nerves are seething, simmering, stewing! Athletic
devils! Have you no discrimination, Jarvis?--as I was saying, Mr.
Hastings, somebody stabbed somebody else to death on my lawn,
unfortunately marring your visit. But that's all. I can't see that we
need you--thank you, nevertheless."
The dismissal was unequivocal. Hastings got to his feet, his indignation
all the greater through realization that he had been sent for merely to
be flouted. And yet, this man's daughter had come to him literally with
tears in her eyes, had begged him to help her, had said that money was
the smallest of considerations. Moreover, he had accepted her
employment, had made the definite agreement and promise. Apparently,
Sloane was in no condition to act independently, and his daughter had
known it, had hoped that he, Hastings, might soothe his silly mind, do
away with his objections to assistance which she knew he needed.
There was, also, the fact that Lucille believed her father unaccountably
interested, if not implicated, in the crime. He could not get away from
that impression. He was sure he had interpreted correctly the girl's
anxiety the night before. She was working to save her father--from
something. And she believed Berne Webster innocent.
These were some of the considerations which, flashing through his mind,
prevented his giving way to righteous wrath. He most certainly would not
allow Arthur Sloane to eliminate him from the situation. He sat down
again.
The nervous wreck made himself more understandable.
"Perhaps, Jarvis," he said, shrinking to one side like a man in sudden
pain, "the gentleman can't see how to reach that large door. A little
more light, half an inch-not a fraction more!"
"Don't bother," Hastings told Jarvis. "I'm not going quite yet."
"Leaping crime!" moaned Mr. Sloane, digging deeper into the pillows,
"Frantic imps!"
"I hope I won't distress you too much," the detective apologized grimly,
"if I ask you a few questions. Fact is, I must. I'm investigating the
circumstances surrounding what may turn out to be a baffling crime, and,
irrespective of your personal wishes, Mr. Sloane, I can't let go of it.
This is a serious business----"
The sick man sat up in bed with surprising abruptness.
"Serious business! Serious saints!--Jarvis, the eau de cologne!--You
think I don't know it? They make a slaughter-house of my lawn. They make
a morgue of my house. They hold a coroner's inquest in my parlour.
They're in there now--live people like ravens, and one dead one. They
cheat the undertaker to plague me. They wreck me all over again. They
give me a new exhaustion of the nerves. They frighten my daughter to
death.--Jarvis, the smelling salts. Shattered saints, Jarvis! Hurry!
Thanks.--They rig up lies which, Tom Wilton, my old and trusted friend,
tells me, will incriminate Berne Webster. They sit around a corpse in my
house and chatter by the hour. You come in here and make Jarvis nearly
blind me.
"And, then, then, by the holy, agile angels! you think you have to
persuade me it's a serious business! Never fear! I know it!--Jarvis,
the bromide, quick! Before I know it, they'll drive me to
opiates.--Serious business! Shrivelled and shrinking saints!"
Arms clasped around his legs, knees pressed against his chin, Mr. Sloane
trembled and shook until Jarvis, more agile than the angels of whom his
employer had spoken, gave him the dose of bromides.
Still, Mr. Hastings did not retire.
"I was going to say," he resumed, in a tone devoid of compassion, "I
couldn't drop this thing now. I may be able to find the murderer; and
you may be able to help me."
"I?"
"Yes."
"Isn't it Russell? He's among the ravens now, in my parlour. Wilton told
me the sheriff was certain Russell was the man. Murdered martyrs!
Sacrificed saints! Can't you let a guilty man hang when he comes forward
and puts the rope around his own worthless neck?"
"If Russell's guilty," Hastings said, glad of the information that the
accused man was then at Sloanehurst, "I hope we can develop the
necessary evidence against him. But----"
"The necessary----"
"Let me finish, Mr. Sloane, if you please!" The old man was determined
to disregard the other's signs of suffering. He did not believe that
they were anything but assumed, the exaggerated camouflage which he
usually employed as an excuse for idleness. "But, if Russell isn't
guilty, there are facts which may help me to find the murderer. And you
may have valuable information concerning them."
"Sobbing, sorrowing saints!" lamented Mr. Sloane, but his trembling
ceased; he was closely attentive. "A cigarette, Jarvis, a cigarette!
Nerves will be served.--I suppose the easiest way is to submit. Go on."
"I shall ask you only two or three questions," Hastings said.
The jackknife-like figure in the bed shuddered its repugnance.
"I've been told, Mr. Sloane, that Mr. Webster has been in great need of
money, as much as sixty-five thousand dollars. In fact, according to my
information, he needs it now."
"Well, did he kill the woman, expecting to find it in her stocking?"
"The significance of his being hard-pressed, for so large an amount,"
the old man went on, ignoring the sarcasm, "is in the further charge
that Miss Brace was trying to make him marry her, that he should have
married her, that he killed her in order to be free to marry your
daughter--for money."
"My daughter! For money!" shrilled Sloane, neck elongated, head thrust
forward, eyes bulging. "Leaping and whistling cherubim!" For all his
outward agitation, he seemed to Hastings in thorough command of his
logical faculties; it was more than possible, the detective thought,
that the expletives were time-killers, until he could decide what to
say. "It's ridiculous, absurd! Why, sir, you reason as loosely as you
dress! Are you trying to prostrate me further with impossible theories?
Webster marry my daughter for money, for sixty-five thousand dollars? He
knows I'd let him have any amount he wanted. I'd give him the money if
it meant his peace of mind and Lucille's happiness.--Dumb and dancing
devils! Jarvis, a little whiskey! I'm worn out, worn out!"
"Did you ever tell Mr. Webster of the extent of your generous feeling
toward him, Mr. Sloane--in dollars and cents?"
"No; it wasn't necessary. He knows how fond of him I am."
"And you would let him have sixty-five thousand dollars--if he had to
have it?"
"I would, sir!--today, this morning."
"Now, one other thing, Mr. Sloane, and I'm through. It's barely possible
that there was some connection between this murder and a letter which
came to Sloanehurst yesterday afternoon, a letter in an oblong grey
envelope. Did----"
The nervous man went to pieces again, beat with his open palms on the
bed covering.
"Starved and stoned evangels, Jarvis! Quit balling your feet! You stand
there and see me harassed to the point of extinction by a lot of crazy
queries, and you indulge yourself in that infernal weakness of yours of
balling your feet! Leaping angels! You know how acute my hearing is; you
know the noise of your sock against the sole of your shoe when you ball
your feet is the most exquisite torture to me! A little whiskey, Jarvis!
Quick!" He spoke now in a weak, almost inaudible voice to Hastings: "No;
I got no such letter. I saw no such letter." He sank slowly back to a
prone posture.
"I was going to remind you," the detective continued, "that I brought
the five o'clock mail in. Getting off the car, I met the rural carrier;
he asked me to bring in the mail, saving him the few steps to your box.
All there was consisted of a newspaper and one letter. I recall the
shape and colour of the envelope--oblong, grey. I did not, of course,
look at the address. I handed the mail to you when you met me on the
porch."
Mr. Sloane, raising himself on one elbow to take the restoring drink
from Jarvis, looked across the glass at his cross-examiner.
"I put the mail in the basket on the hall table," he said in high-keyed
endeavour to express withering contempt. "If it had been for me, Jarvis
would have brought it to me later. I seldom carry my reading glasses
about the house with me."
Hastings, subjecting the pallid Jarvis to severe scrutiny, asked him:
"Was that grey letter addressed to--whom?"
"I didn't see it," replied Jarvis, scarcely polite.
"And yet, it's your business to inspect and deliver the household's
mail?"
"Yes, sir."
"What became of it, then--the grey envelope?"
"I'm sure I can't say, sir, unless some one got it before I reached the
mail basket."
Hastings stood up. Interrogation of both master and man had given him
nothing save the inescapable conviction that both of them resented his
questioning and would do nothing to help him. The reason for this
opposition he could not grasp, but it was a fact, challenging his
analysis. Arthur Sloane rejected his proffered help in the pursuit of
the man who had brought murder to the doors of Sloanehurst. Why? Was
this his method of hiding facts in his possession?
Hastings questioned him again:
"Your waking up at that unusual hour last night--was it because of a
noise outside?"