have been ruined if I'd thrown further suspicion on him. Besides, what I
did conceal could have been of no value to any detective or sheriff on
earth. It meant nothing, so long as I knew the boy's sincerity--and his
innocence as well as Arthur's."
"But," Hastings persisted, "why all this concern for Webster, after his
engagement had been broken?"
"How's that?" Wilton countered. "Oh, I see! The break wasn't permanent.
Arthur and I had decided on that. We knew they'd get together again."
Hastings halted in front of the judge's chair.
"Have you kept back anything else?" he demanded.
"Nothing," Wilton said, with a return of his former sullenness. "And,"
he forced himself to the avowal, "I'm sorry I kept that back. It's
nothing."
Hastings' manner changed on the instant. He was once more cordial.
"All right, judge!" he said heartily, consulting his ponderous watch.
"This is all between us. I take it, you wouldn't want it known by the
sheriff, even now?" Wilton shook his head in quick negation. "All right!
He needn't--if things go well. And the person I got it from won't spread
it around.--That satisfactory?"
The judge's smile, in spite of his best effort, was devoid of
friendliness. The dark flush that persisted in his countenance told how
hardly he kept down his anger.
Hastings put on his hat and ambled toward the door.
"By the way," he proclaimed an afterthought, "I've got to ask one more
favour, judge. If Mrs. Brace troubles you again, will you let me know
about it, at the earliest possible moment?"
He went out, chuckling.
But the judge was as mystified as he was resentful. He had detected in
Hastings' manner, he thought, the same self-satisfaction, the same quiet
elation, which he and Berne had observed at the close of the music-room
interview. Going to the window, he addressed the summer sky:
"Who the devil does the old fool suspect--Arthur or Berne?"
XIV
MR. CROWN FORMS AN ALLIANCE
"If you've as much as five hundred dollars at your disposal--pin-money
savings, perhaps--anything you can check on without the knowledge of
others, you can do it," Hastings urged, ending a long argument.
"I! Take it to her myself?" Lucille still protested, although she could
not refute his reasonings.
"It's the only way that would be effective--and it wouldn't be so
difficult. I had counted on your courage--your unusual courage."
"But what will it accomplish? If I could only see that, clearly!"
She was beginning to yield to his insistence.
They were in the rose garden, in the shade of a little arbor from whose
roof the great red flowers drooped almost to the girl's hair. He was
acutely aware of the pathetic contrast between her white, ravaged face
and the surrounding scene, the fragrance, the roses of every colour
swaying to the slow breeze of late afternoon, the long, cool shadows. He
found it hard to force her to the plan, and would have abandoned it but
for the possibilities it presented to his mind.
"I've already touched on that," he applied himself to her doubts. "I
want you to trust me there, to accept my solemn assurance that, if Mrs.
Brace accepts this money from you on our terms, it will hasten my
capture of the murderer. I'll say more than that: you are my only
possible help in the matter. Won't you believe me?"
She sat quite still, a long time, looking steadily at him with unseeing
eyes.
"I shall have to go to that dreadful woman's apartment, be alone with
her, make a secret bargain," she enumerated the various parts of her
task, wonder and repugnance mingling in her voice. "That horrible woman!
You say, yourself, Mr. Hastings, she's horrible."
"Still," he repeated, "you can do it."
A little while ago she had cried out, both hands clenched on the arm of
the rustic bench, her eyes opening wide in the startled look he had come
to know: "If I could do something, _anything_, for Berne! Dr. Welles
said only an hour ago he had no more than an even chance for his life.
Half the time he can't speak! And I'm responsible. I am! I know it. I
try to think I'm not. But I am!"
He recurred to that.
"Dr. Welles said the ending of Mr. Webster's suspense would be the best
medicine for him. And I think Webster would see that nobody but you
could do this--in the very nature of things. The absolute secrecy
required, the fact that you buy her silence, pay her to cease her
accusations against Berne--don't you see? He'd want you to do it."
That finished her resistance. She made him repeat all his directions,
precautions for secrecy.
"I wish I could tell you how important it is," he said. "And keep this
in mind always: I rely on your paying her the money without even a
suspicion of it getting abroad. If accidents happen and you're seen
entering the Walman, what more natural than that you want to ask this
woman the meaning of her vague threats against--against
Sloanehurst?--But of money, your real object, not a word! Nobody's to
have a hint of it."
"Oh, yes; I see the necessity of that." But she was distressed. "Suppose
she refuses?"
Her altered frame of mind, an eagerness now to succeed with the plan she
had at first refused, brought him again his thought of yesterday: "If
she were put to it--if she could save only one and had to choose between
father and fiance, her choice would be for the fiance."
He answered her question. "She won't refuse," he declared, with a
confidence she could not doubt. "If I thought she would, I'd almost be
willing to say we'd never find the man who killed her daughter."
"When I think of Russell's alibi----"
"Have we mentioned Russell?" he protested, laughing away her fears.
"Anyway, his old alibi's no good--if that's what's troubling you. Wait
and see!"
He was in high good humour.
In that same hour the woman for whom he had planned this trap was busy
with a scheme of her own. Her object was to form an alliance with
Sheriff Crown. That gentleman, to use his expressive phrase, had been
"putting her over the jumps" for the past forty minutes, bringing to the
work of cross-questioning her all the intelligence, craftiness and logic
at his command. The net result of his fusillade of interrogatories,
however, was exceedingly meagre.
As he sat, caressing his chin and thrusting forward his bristly
moustache, Mrs. Brace perceived in his eyes a confession of failure.
Although he was far from suspecting it, he presented to her keen
scrutiny an amusing figure. She observed that his shoulders drooped, and
that, as he slowly produced a handkerchief and mopped his forehead, his
movements were eloquent of gloom.
In fact, Mr. Crown felt himself at a loss. He had come to the end of his
resourcefulness in the art of probing for facts. He was about to take
his departure, with the secret realization that he had learned nothing
new--unless an increased admiration of Mrs. Brace's sharpness of wit
might be catalogued as knowledge.
She put his thought into language.
"You see, Mr. Crown, you're wasting your time shouting at me, bullying
me, accusing me of protecting the murderer of my own daughter."
There was a new note in her voice, a hint, ever so slight, of a
willingness to be friendly. He was not insensible to it. Hearing it, he
put himself on guard, wondering what it portended.
"I didn't say that," he contradicted, far from graciousness. "I said you
knew a whole lot more about the murder than you'd tell--tell me anyway."
"But why should I want to conceal anything that might bring the man to
justice?"
"Blessed if I know!" he conceded, not without signs of irritation.
So far as he could see, not a feature of her face changed. The lifted
eyebrows were still high upon her forehead, interrogative and mocking;
the restless, gleaming eyes still drilled into various parts of his
person and attire; the thin lips continued their moving pictures of
contempt. And yet, he saw, too, that she presented to him now another
countenance.
The change was no more than a shadow; and the shadow was so light that
he could not be sure of its meaning. He thought it was friendliness, but
that opinion was dulled by recurrence of his admiration of her
"smartness." He feared some imposition.
"You've adopted Mr. Hastings' absurd theory," she said, as if she
wondered. "You've subscribed to it without question."
"What theory?"
"That I know who the guilty man is."
"Well?" He was still on guard.
"It surprises me--that's all--a man of your intellect, your
originality."
She sighed, marvelling at this addition to life's conundrums.
"Why?" he asked, bluntly.
"I should never have thought you'd put yourself in that position before
the public. I mean, letting him lead you around by the
nose--figuratively."
Mr. Crown started forward in his chair, eyes popped. He was indignant
and surprised.
"Is that what they're saying?" he demanded.
"Naturally," she said, and with the one word laid it down as an
impossibility that "they" could have said anything else. "That's what
the reporters tell me."
"Well, I'll be--dog-goned!" The knuckle-like chin dropped. "They're
saying that, are they?"
Disturbed as he was, he noticed that she regarded him with apparently
genuine interest--that, perhaps, she added to her interest a regret that
he had displayed no originality in the investigation, a man of his
intellect!
"They couldn't understand why you were playing Hastings' game," she
proceeded, "playing it to his smallest instructions."
"Hastings' game! What the thunder are they talking about? What do they
mean, his game?"
"His desire to keep suspicion away from the Sloanes and Mr. Webster.
That's what they hired him for--isn't it?"
"I guess it is--by gravy!" Mr. Crown's long-drawn sigh was distinctly
tremulous.
"That old man pockets his fee when he throws Gene Russell into jail.
Why, then, isn't it his game to convince you of Gene's guilt? Why isn't
it his game to persuade you of my secret knowledge of Gene's guilt?
Why----"
"So, that's----"
"Let me say what I started," she in turn interrupted him. "As one of
the reporters pointed out, why isn't it his game to try to make a fool
of you?"
The smile with which she recommended that rumour to his attention
incensed him further. It patronized him. It said, as openly as if she
had spoken the words: "I'm really very sorry for you."
He dropped his hands to his widespread knees, slid forward to the edge
of his chair, thrust his face closer to hers, peered into her hard face
for her meaning.
"Making a fool of me, is he?" he said in the brutal key of unrepressed
rage.
A quick motion of her lifted brows, a curve of her lower
lip--indubitably, a new significance of expression--stopped his
outburst.
"By George!" he said, taken aback. "By George!" he repeated, this time
in a coarse exultation. He thrust himself still closer to her, certain
now of her meaning.
"What do you know?" He lowered his voice and asked again: "Mrs. Brace,
what do you know?"
She moved back, farther from him. She was not to be rushed
into--anything. She made him appreciate the difficulty of "getting next"
to her. He no longer felt fear of her imposing on him--she had just
exposed, for his benefit, how Hastings had played on his credulity! He
felt grateful to her for that. His only anxiety now was that she might
change her mind, might refuse him the assistance which that new and
subtle expression had promised a moment ago.
"If I thought you'd use----" she began, broke off, and looked past his
shoulder at the opposite wall, the pupils of her eyes sharp points of
light, lips drawn to a line almost invisible.
Her evident prudence fired his eagerness.
"If I'd do what?" he asked. "If you thought I'd--what?"
"Let me think," she requested.
He changed his posture, with a great show of watching the sunset sky,
and stole little glances at her smooth, untroubled face. He believed now
that she could put him on the trail of the murderer. He confessed to
himself, unreservedly, that Hastings had tricked him, held him up to
ridicule--to the ridicule of a nation, for this crime held the interest
of the entire country. But here was his chance for revenge! With this
"smart" woman's help, he would outwit Hastings!
"If you'd use my ideas confidentially," she said at last, eying him as
if she speculated on his honesty; "if I were sure that----"
"Why can't you be sure of it?" he broke in. "My job is to catch the man
who killed your daughter. I've got two jobs. The other is to show up
old Hastings! Why wouldn't I do as you ask--exactly as you ask?"
She tantalized him.
"And remember that what I say is ideas only, not knowledge?"
"Sure! Certainly, Mrs. Brace."
"And, even when you arrest the right man, say nothing of what you owe me
for my suggestions? You're the kind of man to want to do that sort of
thing--give me credit for helping you."
Even that pleased him.
"If you specify silence, I give you my word on it," he said, with a
fragment of the pompous manner he had brought into the apartment more
than an hour ago.
"You'll take my ideas, my theory, work on it and never bring me into
it--in any way? If you make that promise, I'll tell you what I think,
what I'm certain is the answer to this puzzle."
"Win or lose, right or wrong idea, you have my oath on it."
"Very well!" She said that with the air of one embarking on a tremendous
venture and scorning all its possibilities of harm. "I shall trust you
fully.--First, let me sketch all the known facts, everything connected
with the tragedy, and everything I know concerning the conduct of the
affected individuals since."
He was leaning far toward her once more, a child-like impatience stamped
on his face. As she proceeded, his admiration grew.
For this, there was ample ground. The newspaper paragraph Hastings had
read that morning commenting on her mastery of all the details of the
crime had scarcely done her justice. Before she concluded, Crown had
heard from her lips little incidents that had gone over his head. She
put new and accurate meaning into facts time and time again, speaking
with the particularity and vividness of an eye-witness.
"Now," she said, having reconstructed the crime and described the
subsequent behaviour of the tragedy's principal actors; "now who's
guilty?"
"Exactly," echoed Crown, with a click in his throat. "Who's guilty?
What's your theory?"
She was silent, eyes downcast, her hands smoothing the black, much-worn
skirt over her lean knees. Recital of the gruesome story, the death of
her only child, had left her unmoved, had not quickened her breathing.
"In telling you that," she resumed, her restless eyes striking his at
rapid intervals, "I think I'll put you in a position to get the right
man--if you'll act."
"Oh, I'll act!" he declared, largely. "Don't bother your head about
that!"
"Of course, it's only a theory----"
"Yes; I know! And I'll keep it to myself."
"Very well. Arthur Sloane is prostrated, can't be interviewed. He can't
be interviewed, for the simple reason that he's afraid he'll tell what
he knows. Why is he afraid of that? Because he knows too much, for his
own comfort, and too much for his daughter's comfort. How does he know
it? Because he saw enough night before last to leave him sure of the
murderer's identity.
"He was the man who turned on the light, showing Webster and Judge
Wilton bending over Mildred's body. It occurred at a time when usually
he is in his first sound sleep--from bromides. Something must have
happened to awake him, an outcry, something. And yet, he says he didn't
see them--Wilton and Webster."
"By gravy!" exclaimed the sheriff, awe-struck.
"Either," she continued, "Arthur Sloane saw the murder done, or he
looked out in time to see who the murderer was. The facts substantiate
that. They are corroborated by his subsequent behaviour. Immediately
after the murder he was in a condition that couldn't be explained by
the mere fact that he's a sufferer from chronic nervousness. When
Hastings asked him to take a handkerchief, he would have fallen to the
ground but for the judge's help. He couldn't hold an electric torch.
And, ever since, he's been in bed, afraid to talk. Why, he even refused
to talk to Hastings, the man he's retained for the family's protection!"
"He did, did he! How do you know that, Mrs. Brace?"
"Isn't it enough that I know it--or advance it as a theory?"
"Did--I thought, possibly, Jarvis, the valet, told you."
She ignored that.
"Now, as to the daughter of the house. There was only one possible
reason for Lucille Sloane's hiring Hastings: she was afraid somebody in
the house, Webster, of course, would be arrested. Being in love with
him, she never would have suspected him unless there had been concrete,
undeniable evidence of his guilt. Do you grasp that reasoning?"
"Sure, I do!" Mr. Crown condemned himself. "What I'm wondering is why I
didn't see it long ago."
"She, too, you recall, was looking out of a window--on that side of the
house--scarcely fifteen yards from where the crime was done. It's not
hard to believe that she saw what her father saw: the murder or the
murderer.
"Mr. Crown, if you can make her or her father talk, you'll get the truth
of this thing, the truth and the murderer.
"And look at Judge Wilton's part. You asked me why I went to his office
this morning. I went because I'm sure he knows the truth. Didn't he stay
right at Webster's side when old Hastings interviewed Webster yesterday?
Why? To keep Webster from letting out, in his panic, a secret which both
of them knew."
The sheriff's admiration by this time was boundless. He felt driven to
give it expression.
"Mrs. Brace, you're a loo-loo! A loo-loo, by gravy! Sure, that was his
reason. He couldn't have had any other!"
"As for Webster himself," she carried on her exposition, without
emotion, without the slightest recognition of her pupil's praise, "he
proves the correctness of everything we've said, so far. That secret
which the judge feared he would reveal, that secret which old Hastings
was blundering after--that secret, Mr. Crown, was such a danger to him
that, to escape the questioning of even stupid old Hastings, he could do
nothing but crumple up on the floor and feign illness, prostration. Why,
don't you see, he was afraid to talk!"
"Everything you say hits the mark!" agreed Crown, smiling happily.
"Centre-shots! Centre-shots! You've been right from the very beginning.
You tried to tell me all this yesterday morning, and, fool that I
was--fool that Hastings was!" He switched to a summary of what she had
put into his mind: "It's right! Webster killed her, and Sloane and his
daughter saw him at it. Even Wilton knows it--and he a judge! It seems
impossible. By gravy! he ought to be impeached."
A new idea struck him. Mrs. Brace, imperturbable, exhibiting no elation,
was watching him closely. She saw his sudden change of countenance. He
had thought: "She didn't reason this out. Russell saw the murder--the
coward--and he's told her. He ran away from----"
Another suspicion attacked him: "But that was Jarvis' night off. Has she
seen Jarvis?"
Impelled to put this fresh bewilderment into words, he was stayed by the
restless, brilliant eyes with which she seemed to penetrate his
lumbering mind. He was afraid of losing her cooperation. She was too
valuable an ally to affront. He kept quiet.
She brought him back to her purpose.
"Then, you agree with me? You think Webster's guilty?"
"Think!" He almost shouted his contempt of the inadequate word. "Think!
I know! Guilty? The man's black with guilt."
"I'm sure of it," she said, curiously skilful in surrendering to him all
credit for that vital discovery. "What are you going to do--now that you
know?"
"Make him talk, turn him inside out! Playing sick, is he! I'm going back
to Sloanehurst this evening. I'm going to start something. You can take
this from me: Webster'll loosen that tongue of his before another sun
rises!"
But that was not her design.
"You can't do it," she objected, her voice heavy with disappointment.
"Dr. Garnet, your own coroner, says questioning will kill him. Dr.
Garnet's as thoroughly fooled as Hastings, and," she prodded him with
suddenly sharp tone, "you."
"That's right." He was crestfallen, plucking at his chin. "That's hard
to get around. But I've got to get around it! I've got to show results,
Mrs. Brace. People, some of the papers even, are already hinting that
I'm too easy on a rich man and his friend."
"Yes," she said, evenly. "And you told--I understood you'd act, on our
theory."
"I've got to! I've got to act!"
His confusion was manifest. He did not know what to do, and he was
silent, hoping for a suggestion from her. She let him wait. The pause
added to his embarrassment.
"What would--that is," he forced himself to the appeal, "I was
wondering--anything occur to you? See any way out of it?"
"Of course, I know nothing about such procedure," she replied to that,
slowly, as if she groped for a new idea. "But, if you got the proof from
somewhere else, enough to warrant the arrest of Webster----" Her smile
deprecated her probable ineptness. "If Arthur Sloane----"
He fairly fell upon the idea.
"Right!" he said, clapping his hands together. "Sloane's no dying man,
is he? And he knows the whole story. Right you are, Mrs. Brace! He can
shake and tremble and whine all he pleases, but tonight he's my meat--my
meat, right! Talk? You bet he'll talk!"
She considered, looking at the opposite wall. He was convinced that she
examined the project, viewing it from the standpoint of his interest,
seeking possible dangers of failure. Nevertheless, he hurried her
decision.
"It's the thing to do, isn't it?"
"I should think so," she said at last. "You, with your mental
forcefulness, your ability as a questioner--why, I don't see how you can
fail to get at what he knows. Beside, you have the element of surprise
on your side. That will go far toward sweeping him off his feet."
He was again conscious of his debt of gratitude to this woman, and tried
to voice it.
"This is the first time," he declared, big with confidence, "I've felt
that I had the right end of this case."
When she had closed the door on him, she went back to the living room
and set back in its customary place the chair he had occupied. Her own
was where it always belonged. From there she went into the bathroom and,
as Hastings had seen her do before, drew a glass of water which she
drank slowly.
Then, examining her hard, smooth face in the bedroom mirror, she said
aloud:
"Pretty soon, now, somebody will talk business--with me."
There was no elation in her voice. But her lips were, for a moment,
thick and wet, changing her countenance into a picture of inordinate
greed.
XV
IN ARTHUR SLOANE'S ROOM
Hastings went back to Sloanehurst that evening for another and more
forceful attempt to argue Arthur Sloane into frankness. Like Mrs. Brace,
he could not get away from the definite conclusion that Lucille's father
was silent from fear of telling what he knew. Moreover, he realized
that, without a closer connection with Sloane, his own handling of the
case was seriously impeded.
Lucille was on the front porch, evidently waiting for him, although he
had not notified her in advance of his visit. She went hurriedly down
the steps and met him on the walk. When he began an apology for having
to annoy her so frequently, she cut short his excuses.
"Oh, but I'm glad you're here--so glad! We need your help. The sheriff's
here."
She put her hand on his coat sleeve; he could feel the tremour of it as
she pulled, unconsciously, on the cloth. She turned toward the verandah
steps.
"What's he doing?" he asked, detaining her.
"He's in father's room," she said in feverish haste, "asking him all
sorts of questions, saying ridiculous things. Really, I'm afraid--for
father's health! Can't you go in now?"
"Couldn't Judge Wilton manage him? Isn't the judge here?"
"No. He came over at dinner time; but he went back to the Randalls'.
Father didn't feel up to talking to him."
Crown, she explained, had literally forced his way into the bedroom,
disregarding her protests and paying no attention to the pretence of
physical resistance displayed by Jarvis.
"The man seems insane!" she said. "I want you to make him leave father's
room--please!"
She halted near the library door, leaving the matter in Hastings' hands.
Since entering the house he had heard Crown's voice, raised to the key
of altercation; and now, when he stepped into Sloane's room, the rush of
words continued.