stockily built, with eyes that were always on the verge of laughter and
lips that sloped inward as if biting down on the threatened mirth. The
shape of his lips was symbolical of his habit of discourse; he was of
few words.
"Webster," he said, standing across the table from his employer and
shooting out his words like a memorized speech, "been overplaying his
hand financially. That's the rumour; nothing tangible yet. Gone into
real estate and building projects; associated with a crowd that has the
name of operating on a shoestring. Nobody'd be surprised if they all
blew up."
"As a real-estate man, I take it," Hastings commented, slowly shaving
off thin slivers of chips from his piece of pine, "he's a brilliant
young lawyer. That's it?"
"Yes, sir," Hendricks agreed, the slope of his lips accentuated.
"Keep after that, tomorrow.--What about Mrs. Brace?"
"Destitute, practically; in debt; threatened with eviction; no
resources."
"So money, lack of it, is bothering her as well as Webster!--How much is
she in debt?"
"Enough to be denied all credit by the stores; between five and seven
hundred, I should say. That's about the top mark for that class of
trade."
"All right, Hendricks; thanks," the old man commended warmly. "That's
great work, for Sunday.--Now, Russell's room?"
"Yes, sir; I went over it."
"Find any steel on the floor?"
Hendricks took from his pocket a little paper parcel about the size of a
man's thumb.
"Not sure, sir. Here's what I got."
He unfolded the paper and put it down on the table, displaying a small
mass of what looked like dust and lint.
"Wonderful what a magnet will pick up, ain't it?" mused his employer: "I
got the same sort of stuff at Sloanehurst this morning.--I'll go over
this, look for the steel particles, right away."
"Anything else, sir--special?"
The assistant was already half-way to the door. He knew that a floor an
inch deep in chips from his employer's whittling indicated laborious
mental gropings by the old man. It was no time for superfluous words.
"After dinner," Hastings instructed, "relieve Gore--at the Walman.
Thanks."
As Hendricks went out, there was another telephone call, this time from
Crown, to make amends for coolness he had shown Hastings at
Sloanehurst.
"I was wrong, and you were right," he conceded, handsomely; "I mean
about that Brace woman. Better keep your man on her trail."
"What's up?" Hastings asked amicably.
"That's what I want to know! I've seen her again. I couldn't get
anything more from her except threats. She's going on the warpath. She
told me: 'Tomorrow I'll look into things for myself. I'll not sit here
idle and leave everything to a sheriff who wants campaign contributions
and a detective who's paid to hush things up!' You can see her saying
that, can't you? Wow!"
"That all?"
"That's all, right now. But I've got a suspicion she knows more than we
think. When she makes up her mind to talk, she'll say something!--Mr.
Hastings," Crown added, as if he imparted a tremendous fact, "that
woman's smart! I tell you, she's got brains, a head full of 'em!"
"So I judged," the detective agreed, drily. "By the way, have you seen
Russell again?"
"Yes. There's another thing. I don't see where you get that stuff about
his weak alibi. It's copper-riveted!"
"He says so, you mean."
"Yes; and the way he says it. But I followed your advice. I've
advertised, through the police here and up and down the Atlantic coast,
for any automobile party or parties who went along that Sloanehurst road
last night between ten-thirty and eleven-thirty."
"Fine!" Hastings congratulated. "But get me straight on that: I don't
say any of them saw him; I say there's a chance that he was seen."
The old man went back, not to examination of Hendricks' parcel, but to
further consideration of the possible contents of the letter that had
been in the grey envelope. Russell, he reflected, had been present when
Mildred Brace mailed it, and, what was more important, when Mildred
started out of the apartment with it.
He made sudden decision: he would question Russell again. Carefully
placing Hendricks' package of dust and lint in a drawer of the table, he
set out for the Eleventh street boarding house.
It was, however, not Russell who figured most prominently in the
accounts of the murder published by the Monday morning newspapers. The
reporters, resenting the reticence they had encountered at Sloanehurst,
and making much of Mrs. Brace's threats, put in the forefront of their
stories an appealing picture of a bereaved mother's one-sided fight for
justice against the baffling combination of the Sloanehurst
secretiveness and indifference and the mysterious circumstances of the
daughter's death. Not one of them questioned the validity of Russell's
alibi.
"With the innocence of the dead girl's fiance established," said one
account, "Sheriff Crown last night made no secret of his chagrin that
Berne Webster had collapsed at the very moment when the sheriff was on
the point of putting him through a rigid cross-examination. The young
lawyer's retirement from the scene, coupled with the Sloane family's
retaining the celebrated detective, Jefferson Hastings, as a buffer
against any questioning of the Sloanehurst people, has given Society,
here and in Virginia, a topic for discussion of more than ordinary
interest."
Another paragraph that caught Hastings' attention, as he read between
mouthfuls of his breakfast, was this:
"Mrs. Brace, discussing the tragedy with a reporter last night, showed a
surprising knowledge of all its incidents. Although she had not left her
apartment in the Walman all day, she had been questioned by both Sheriff
Crown and Mr. Hastings, not to mention the unusually large number of
newspaper writers who besieged her for interviews.
"And it seemed that, in addition to answering the queries put to her by
the investigators, she had accomplished a vast amount of keen inquiry on
her own account. When talking to her, it is impossible for one to escape
the impression that this extraordinarily intelligent woman believes she
can prove the guilt of the man who struck down her daughter."
"Just what I was afraid of," thought the detective. "Nearly every paper
siding with her!"
His face brightened.
"All the better," he consoled himself. "More chance of her overreaching
herself--as long as she don't know what I suspect. I'll get the meaning
of that grey letter yet!"
But he was worried. Berne Webster's collapse, he knew, was too
convenient for Webster--it looked like pretence. Ninety-nine out of
every hundred newspaper readers would consider his illness a fake, the
obvious trick to escape the work of explaining what seemed to be
inexplicable circumstances.
To Hastings the situation was particularly annoying because he had
brought it about; his own questioning had turned out to be the straw
that broke the suspected man's endurance.
"Always blundering!" he upbraided himself. "Trying to be so all-shot
smart, I overplayed my hand."
He got Dr. Garnet on the wire.
"Doctor," he said, in a tone that implored, "I'm obliged to see Webster
today."
"Sorry, Mr. Hastings," came the instant refusal; "but it can't be done."
"For one question," qualified Hastings; "less than a minute's talk--one
word, 'yes' or 'no'? It's almost a matter of life and death."
"If that man's excited about anything," Garnet retorted, "it will be
entirely a matter of death. Frankly, I couldn't see my way clear to
letting you question him if his escaping arrest depended on it. I called
in Dr. Welles last night; and I'm giving you his opinion as well as my
own."
"When can I see him, then?"
"I can't answer that. It may be a week; it may be a month. All I can
tell you today is that you can't question him now."
With that information, Hastings decided to interview Judge Wilton.
"He's the next best," he thought. "That whispering across the woman's
body--it's got to be explained, and explained right!"
As a matter of fact, he had refrained from this inquiry the day before,
so that his mind might not be clouded by anger. His deception by the
judge had greatly provoked him.
XIII
MRS. BRACE BEGINS
Court had recessed for lunch when Hastings, going down a second-story
corridor of the Alexandria county courthouse, entered Judge Wilton's
anteroom. His hand was raised to knock on the door of the inner office
when he heard the murmur of voices on the other side. He took off his
hat and sat down, welcoming the breeze that swept through the room, a
refreshing contrast to the forenoon's heat and smother downstairs.
He reached for his knife and piece of pine, checked the motion and
glanced swiftly toward the closed door. A high note of a woman's voice
touched his memory, for a moment confusing him. But it was for a moment
only. While the sound was still in his ears, he remembered where he had
heard it before--from Mrs. Brace when, toward the close of his interview
with her, she had shrilly denounced Berne Webster.
Mrs. Brace, her daughter's funeral barely three hours old, had started
to make her threats good.
While he was considering that, the door of the private office swung
inward, Judge Wilton's hand on the knob. It opened on the middle of a
sentence spoken by Mrs. Brace:
"--tell you, you're a fool if you think you can put me off with that!"
Her gleaming eyes were so furtive and so quick that they traversed the
whole of Wilton's countenance many times, a fiery probe of each separate
feature. The inflections of her voice invested her words with ugliness;
but she did not shriek.
"You bully everybody else, but not me! They don't call you 'Hard Tom
Wilton' for nothing, do they? I know you! I know you, I tell you! I was
down there in the courtroom when you sentenced that man! You had cruelty
in your mind, cruelty on your face. Ugh! And you're cruel to me--and
taking an ungodly pleasure in it! Well, let me tell you, I won't be
broken by it. I want fair dealing, and I'll have it!"
At that moment, facing full toward Hastings, she caught sight of him.
But his presence seemed a matter of no importance to her; it did not
break the stream of her fierce invective. She did not even pause.
He saw at once that her anger of yesterday was as nothing to the
storming rage which shook her now. Every line of her face revealed
malignity. The eyebrows were drawn higher on her forehead, nearer to the
wave of white hair that showed under her black hat. The nostrils dilated
and contracted with indescribable rapidity. The lips, thickened and
rolling back at intervals from her teeth, revealed more distinctly that
animal, exaggerated wetness which had so repelled him.
"You were out there on that lawn!" she pursued, her glance flashing back
to the judge. "You were out there when she was killed! If you try to
tell me you----"
"Stop it! Stop it!" Wilton commanded, and, as he did so, turned his head
to an angle that put Hastings within his field of vision.
The judge, with one hand on the doorknob, had been pressing with the
other against the woman's shoulders, trying to thrust her out of the
room--a move which she resisted by a hanging-back posture that threw her
weight on his arm. He put more strength now into his effort and
succeeded in forcing her clear of the threshold. His eyes were blazing
under the shadow of his heavy, overhanging brows; but there was about
him no suggestion of a loss of self-control.
"I'm glad to see you!" he told Hastings, speaking over Mrs. Brace's
head, and smiling a deprecatory recognition of the hopelessness of
contending with an infuriated woman.
She addressed them both.
"Smile all you please, now!" she threatened. "But the accounts aren't
balanced yet! Wait for what I choose to tell--what I intend to do!"
Suddenly she got herself in hand. It was as unexpected and thorough a
transformation as the one Hastings had seen twenty-four hours before
during her declaration of Webster's guilt. She had the same appearance
now as then, the same tautness of body, the same flat, constrained tone.
She turned to Wilton:
"I ask you again, will you help me as I asked you? Are you going to deny
me fair play?"
He looked at her in amazement, scowling.
"What fair play?" he exclaimed, and, without waiting for her reply, said
to Hastings: "She insists that I know young Webster killed her daughter,
that I can produce the evidence to prove it. Can you disabuse her mind?"
She surprised them by going, slowly and with apparent composure, toward
the corridor door. There she paused, looking at first one and then the
other with an evil smile so openly contemptuous that it affected them
strongly. There was something in it that made it flagrantly insulting.
Hastings turned away from her. Judge Wilton gave her look for look, but
his already flushed face coloured more darkly.
"Very well, Judge Wilton!" she gave him insolent good-bye, in which
there was also unmistakable threat. "You'll do the right thing sooner or
later--and as I tell you. You're--get this straight--you're not through
with me yet!"
She laughed, one low note, and, impossible as it seemed, proclaimed with
the harsh sound an absolute confidence in what she said.
"Nor you, Mr. Hastings!" she continued, taking her time with her words,
and waiting until the detective faced her again, before she concluded:
"You'll sing a different tune when you find I've got this affair in my
hands--tight!"
Still smiling her contempt, as if she enjoyed a feeling of superiority,
she left the room. When her footsteps died down the corridor, the two
men drew long breaths of relief.
Wilton broke the ensuing silence.
"Is she sane?"
"Yes," Hastings said, "so far as sanity can be said to exist in a mind
consecrated to evil."
The judge was surprised by the solemnity of the other's manner. "Why do
you say that?" he asked. "Do you know that much about her?"
"Who wouldn't?" Hastings retorted. "It's written all over her."
Wilton led the way into his private office and closed the door.
"I'm glad it happened at just this time," he said, "when everybody's
out of the building." He struck the desk with his fist. "By God!" he
ground out through gritted teeth. "How I hate these wild, unbridled
women!"
"Yes," agreed Hastings, taking the chair Wilton rolled forward for him.
"She worries me. Wonder if she's going to Sloanehurst."
"That would be the logical sequel to this visit," Wilton said. "But
pardon my show of temper. You came to see me?"
"Yes; and, like her, for information. But," the detective said, smiling,
"not for rough-house purposes."
The judge had not entirely regained his equanimity; his face still wore
a heightened colour; his whole bearing was that of a man mentally
reviewing the results of an unpleasant incident. Instead of replying
promptly to Hastings, he sat looking out of the window, obviously
troubled.
"Her game is blackmail," he declared at last.
"On whom?" the detective queried.
"Arthur Sloane, of course. She calculates that he'll play to have her
cease annoying his daughter's fiance. And she'll impress Arthur, if
Jarvis ever lets her get to him. Somehow, she strangely compels
credence."
"Not for me," Hastings objected, and did not point out that Wilton's
words might be taken as an admission of Webster's guilt.
The judge himself might have seen that.
"I mean," he qualified, "she seems too smart a woman to put herself in a
position where ridicule will be sure to overtake her. And yet, that's
what she's doing--isn't she?"
The detective was whittling, dropping the chips into the waste-basket.
He spoke with a deliberateness unusual even in him, framing each
sentence in his mind before giving it utterance.
"I reckon, judge, you and I have had some four or five talks--that is,
not counting Saturday evening and yesterday at Sloanehurst. That's about
the extent of our acquaintance. That right?"
"Why, yes," Wilton said, surprised by the change of topic.
"I mention it," Hastings explained, "to show how I've felt toward
you--you interested me. Excuse me if I speak plainly--you'll see why
later on--but you struck me as worth studying, deep. And I thought you
must have sized me up, catalogued me one way or the other. You're like
me: waste no time with men who bore you. I felt certain, if you'd been
asked, you'd have checked me off as reliable. Would you?"
"Unquestionably."
"And, if I was reliable then, I'm reliable now. That's a fair
assumption, ain't it?"
"Certainly." The judge laughed shortly, a little embarrassed.
"That brings me to my point. You'll believe me when I tell you my only
interest in this murder is to find the murderer, and, while I'm doing
it, to save the Sloanes as much as possible from annoyance. You'll
believe me, also, when I say I've got to have all the facts if I'm to
work surely and fast. You recognize the force of that, don't you?"
"Why, yes, Hastings." Wilton spoke impatiently this time.
"Fine!" The old man shot him a genial glance over the steel-rimmed
spectacles. "That's the introduction. Here's the real thing: I've an
idea you could tell me more about what happened on the lawn Saturday
night."
After his involuntary, immediate start of surprise, Wilton tilted his
head, slowly blowing the cigar smoke from his pursed lips. He had a fine
air of reflection, careful thought.
"I can elaborate what I've already told you," he said, finally, "if
that's what you mean--go into greater detail."
He watched closely the edge of the detective's face unhidden by his
bending over the wood he was cutting.
"I don't think elaboration could do much good," Hastings objected. "I
referred to new stuff--some fact or facts you might have omitted,
unconsciously."
"Unconsciously?" Wilton echoed the word, as a man does when his mind is
overtaxed.
Hastings took it up.
"Or consciously, even," he said quickly, meeting the other's eyes.
The judge moved sharply, bracing himself against the back of the chair.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Skilled in the law yourself, thoroughly familiar, with the rules of
evidence, it's more than possible that you might have reviewed matters
and decided that there were things which, if they were known, would do
harm instead of good--obscure the truth, perhaps; or hinder the hunt for
the guilty man instead of helping it on. That's clear enough, isn't it?
You might have thought that?"
The look of sullen resentment in the judge's face was unmistakable.
"Oh, say what you mean!" he retorted warmly. "What you're insinuating is
that I've lied!"
"It don't have to be called that."
"Well, then, that I, a judge, sworn to uphold the law and punish crime,
have elected to thwart the law and to cheat its officials of the facts
they should have. Is that what you mean?"
"I'll be honest with you," Hastings admitted, unmoved by the other's
grand manner. "I've wondered about that--whether you thought a judge had
a right to do a thing of that sort."
Wilton's hand, clenched on the edge of the desk, shook perceptibly.
"Did you think that, judge?" the detective persisted.
The judge hesitated.
"It's a point I've never gone into," he said finally, with intentional
sarcasm.
Hastings snapped his knife-blade shut and thrust the piece of wood into
his pocket.
"Let's get away from this beating about the bush," he suggested, voice
on a sterner note. "I don't want to irritate you unnecessarily, judge. I
came here for information--stuff I'm more than anxious to get. And I go
back to that now: won't you tell me anything more about the discovery of
the woman's body by the two of you--you and Webster?"
"No; I won't! I've covered the whole thing--several times."
"Is there anything that you haven't told--anything you've decided to
suppress?"
Wilton got up from his chair and struck the desk with his fist.
"See here, Hastings! You're getting beside yourself. Representing Miss
Sloane doesn't warrant your insulting her friends. Suppose we consider
this interview at an end. Some other time, perhaps----"
Hastings also had risen.
"Just a minute, judge!" he interrupted, all at once assuming the
authoritative air that had so amazed Wilton the night of the murder.
"You're suppressing something--and I know it!"
"That's a lie!" Wilton retorted, the flush deepening to crimson on his
face.
"It ain't a lie," Hastings contradicted, holding his self-control. "And
you watch yourself! Don't you call me a liar again--not as long as you
live! You can't afford the insult."
"Then, don't provoke it. Don't----"
"What did Webster whisper to you, across that corpse?" Hastings
demanded, going nearer to Wilton.
"What's this?" Wilton's tone was one of consternation; the words might
have been spoken by a man stumbling on an unsuspected horror in a dark
room.
They stared at each other for several dragging seconds. The detective
waved a hand toward the judge's chair.
"Sit down," he said, resuming his own seat.
There followed another pause, longer than the first. The judge's
breathing was laboured, audible. He lowered his eyes and passed his hand
across their thick lids. When he looked up again, Hastings commanded him
with unwavering, expectant gaze.
"I've made a mistake," Wilton began huskily, and stopped.
"Yes?" Hastings said, unbending. "How?"
"I see it now. It was a matter of no importance, in itself. I've
exaggerated it, by my silence, into disproportionate significance." His
tone changed to curiosity. "Who told you about--the whispering?"
The detective was implacable, emphasizing his dominance.
"First, what was it?" When Wilton still hesitated, he repeated: "What
did Webster say when he put his hand over your mouth--to prevent your
outcry?"
The judge threw up his head, as if in sudden resolve to be frank. He
spoke more readily, with a clumsy semblance of amiability.
"He said, 'Don't do that! You'll frighten Lucille!' I tried to nod my
head, agreeing. But he misunderstood the movement, I think. He thought
I meant to shout anyway; he tightened his grip. 'Keep quiet! Will you
keep quiet?' he repeated two or three times. When I made my meaning
clear, he took his hand away. He explained later what had occurred to
him the moment Arthur's light flashed on. He said it came to him before
he clearly realized who I was. It----
"I swear, Hastings, I hate to tell you this. It suggests unjust
suspicions. Of what value are the wild ideas of a nervous man, all to
pieces anyway, when he stumbles on a dead woman in the middle of the
night?"
"They were valuable enough," Hastings flicked him, "for you to cover
them up--for some reason. What were they?"
Wilton was puzzled by the detective's tone, its abstruse insinuation.
But he answered the question.
"He said his first idea, the one that made him think of Lucille, was
that Arthur might have had something to do with the murder."
"Why? Why did he think Sloane had killed Mildred Brace?"
"Because she had been the cause of Lucille's breaking her engagement
with Berne--and Arthur knew that. Arthur had been in a rage----"
"All right!" Hastings checked him suddenly, and, getting to his feet,
fell to pacing the room, his eyes, always on Wilton. "I'm acquainted
with that part of it."
He paid no attention to Wilton's evident surprise at that statement. He
had a surprise of his own to deal with: the unexpected similarity of the
judge's story with Lucille Sloane's theorizing as to what Webster had
whispered across the body in the moment of its discovery. The two
statements were identical--a coincidence that defied credulity.
He caught himself doubting Lucille. Had she been theorizing, after all?
Or had she relayed to him words that Wilton had put into her mouth?
Then, remembering her grief, her desperate appeals to him for aid, he
dismissed the suspicion.
"I'd stake my life on her honesty," he decided. "Her intuition gave her
the correct solution--if Wilton's not lying now!"
He put the obvious question: "Judge, am I the first one to hear
this--from you?" and received the obvious answer: "You are. I didn't
volunteer it to you, did I?"
"All right. Now, did you believe Webster? Wait a minute! Did you believe
his fear wasn't for himself when he gagged you that way?"
"Yes; I did," replied Wilton, in a tone that lacked sincerity.
"Do you believe it now?"
"If I didn't, do you think I'd have tried for a moment to conceal what
he said to me?"
"Why did you conceal it?"