with light. It was small, with nothing to distinguish it from any
other vestibule of any other well-furnished flat. Beyond led a narrow
corridor which, when lit, showed me several doors. I opened the
nearest, switched on another light, and found myself on the threshold
of a moderate-sized sitting-room or study, with bookshelves ranged
along one of the walls. The window was so heavily curtained that I had
no fear of the sudden illumination being noticed from the street. The
air was heavy and smelled of moth powder. The mahogany table in the
centre of the room and the desk under the window were coated with thin
films of dust, but everything was stiffly in order: no books lying
about, no woman's work, no trace of cigarette ash, dropped glove, nor
pile of newspapers with a tell-tale date.
I walked over to the desk and, pulling out the swivel chair, sat down.
In the silver inkstand the ink had dried. In a pen-rack were two pens,
one stub, the other an old-fashioned quill, both almost new, but
faintly stained with ink. Neither, it struck me, could have been used
more than once or twice. There were several small drawers; all were
empty. No paper nor envelopes, no sealing-wax nor seal, not so much as
an end of twine. But the blotting-pad--the only movable thing on the
desk beside the inkstand and pen-rack--was more repaying. It also
appeared to be nearly new. Just inside the soft green leather cover
lay two sheets of plain, unmonogrammed grey-blue paper with two
envelopes to match. I annexed one of the latter and made a mental note
that, in the police dossier of the Callender-Graham case the empty
envelope found in the pocket of the younger brother was said to be
blue-grey in colour and of thick texture. No record had been kept
concerning the colour of the envelope in Perry's pocket, as little
importance had been attributed to it, until the coincidence of the
second envelope was remarked later.
The blotting-pad was as new-looking as the pens. The two uppermost
sheets were of unspotted white, but the middle pages had both been
used, and traces were visible of two short notes having been pressed
against the paper while the ink was still very wet. Apparently these
documents had had neither heading nor signature, and consisted of a few
lines only. On another page a longer letter began "Dearest," and had
been signed with an initial. There was no mirror in the room in which
to reverse these writings, and, carefully separating the used sheets
from their unsoiled fellows, I folded and slipped them into an inner
pocket. There was nothing else in the room which could help me, with
the exception, perhaps, of the books; and most of these were in sets,
bound in a uniform way. These had a book-plate and the monogram
"M.L.," no doubt meaning Maurice Lowenstein. Of new novels or other
publications there were none: an additional proof (if it had been
needed after the clue of the dried ink and almost unused blotter) that
the new tenants were seldom in the place.
Having deduced this fact, I then went through the remaining six rooms
of the flat without any discoveries, and finally reached, in its due
order, the problem I had left for the last. This was the examination
of the lock which the dead brothers' latchkeys had fitted. The work
had to be done with the door open, and therefore I waited until the
hour when most people lunch. It would look like burglarious business,
what I had to do, and it was important not to be interrupted or
arrested.
The hands of my watch were at one o'clock as mine were on the latch
which, if I were right, could with a single click solve the
Callender-Graham mystery. If I were wrong, not only were four out of
my twenty-four hours wasted, but my theory fell to the ground and broke
into pieces past mending.
I opened the door of the flat and made sure that, for the moment, no
one was in the hall. Then, bending down with my back to possible
passers-by, I whipped out a magnifying glass and pocket electric torch
which I had bought on my way to the agent's.
During the next five minutes I had good cause to thank Heaven for the
mechanical bent that had turned my mind to motors and aeroplanes.
The same evening, at a little after six, a "commuter's" train landed me
at the station of a small Long Island town almost too far away from New
York to be labelled suburban. Big automobiles and small runabouts were
there to meet the tired business men who travelled many miles for the
sake of salt breezes and the latest thing in Elizabethan houses. I was
more tired than any business man; also, I had encountered as many
setbacks as successes, but nobody and nothing came to welcome me. I
was able, however, to get a place in an old-fashioned horse-drawn
vehicle whose mission was to pick up chance arrivals. There were
several of us, and as my rate of locomotion was slow, by the time I had
hobbled off the platform the one seat left was beside the driver. I
was not sorry, as the other men appeared to be strangers in Sandy
Plain, and having said I would go to the hotel (for the sake of saying
something), I asked my companion if he knew anybody named Paulling.
"There's two families of that name hereabouts," he replied.
"My Paullings," I hazarded, "are retiring people, don't make friends,
and are away a good deal."
"Ah, they'd be the Paullings of Bayview Farm!" returned the driver.
"There's no others answer that description around here that I ever
heard of, and I've lived at Sandy Plain since before the commuters
discovered it."
"Yes, I mean the Paullings of Bayview Farm," I caught him up.
"The farm's about a mile and a half past Roselawn Hotel," my seat mate
went on. "I can take you there after I drop the other folks."
I thanked him and said he might come back for me if he cared to after I
had dined, and inquired casually if the Paullings were staying at their
farm just then.
The driver shook his head. He didn't know. Few persons did know much
about the Paullings, who weren't old residents, but had rented Bayview
Farm two or three years ago. Maybe the hotel folks might be able to
tell me whether I was likely to find them.
They could not do so, I soon learned. Mr. Paulling was said to be an
invalid, though he never called in the local doctor. He was often at
home alone for weeks together, except for a man-servant, a foreigner as
reserved as himself, whom he had brought with him to Sandy Plain.
There was another servant sometimes--a woman--also a foreigner; but
when the Paullings were both away a Mrs. Vandeermans, a country
dressmaker who lived in a cottage near by, looked after the house,
going in occasionally to see that all was well.
I asked as many questions as I dared, but learned little; and as soon
as dusk had begun to fall I started off in the nondescript vehicle
which had returned for me. The driver spent most of the twenty minutes
it took him to reach the farm in explaining that it wasn't really a
farm except in name. Nothing was left of it but the house and two or
three acres of orchard; all the rest had been sold off in lots by the
owner before he let it to the Paullings. What "city folks" admired in
it was beyond the knowledge of my companion, but when we arrived at the
gate and saw the far-off house gleaming white behind a thick screen of
ancient apple trees, I realised the attractions of the place,
especially for such tenants as I believed the Paullings to be. The
farm-house, with its wide clapboarding, its neat green shutters, and
its almost classic "colonial" porch hung with roses, had the air of
being on terms of long familiar friendship with the old-fashioned
garden and the great trees which almost hid it from its neighbours and
the road. Its front windows, closed and shuttered now, would look out
when open over sloping lawns and flowerbeds to distant blue glints of
the sea; and altogether Bayview Farm seemed an ideal retreat for
persons who could be sufficient to themselves and each other.
Those shuttered windows, however, hinted at disappointment for me. Not
a light showed, behind one of them, and when I had rung the bell of the
front door, and pounded vainly at the back, I had to make up my mind
that the Paullings were either away or determined to be thought so.
"Mrs. Vandeermans 'll know all about 'em," my conductor comforted me.
"She lives next door, a quarter of a mile farther on."
We drove the quarter mile, only to be struck by another blow. The one
person at home in Mrs. Vandeermans' cottage was that widowed woman's
mother, very old, very deaf, half blind, knowing little about anything,
and nothing at all about the tenants of Bayview Farm.
"My darter's gone to my son's in Buffalo," she quavered when I had
screamed at her. "He's sick, but she'll be back to-morrow to look
after me. She knows them Paullings. You come again to-morrow
afternoon if you want to talk to her."
"You seem sure disappointed," remarked my companion, as he drove me and
my crutches back to Roselawn Hotel.
"I am," I admitted; but the words were as inadequate as most words are.
I was bowled over, knocked out, or so I told myself in my first
depression. Nothing was of any use to me after to-morrow morning at
nine o'clock.
On my way back to New York in a slow train I gloomily thought over the
situation. Certain startling yet not unexpected discoveries made early
in the day had elated me too soon. I had collected evidence, but only
circumstantial evidence. I had no absolute proof to give Roger Odell,
and nothing less would suffice. I had counted on getting hold of proof
at Sandy Plain, from which place on Long Island (I had learned from the
agent) cheques came regularly each quarter to pay the rent of the flat
in the Alhambra--cheques sometimes signed T. Paulling, sometimes M.
Paulling. One had arrived only a few days before with the former
signature, so I had reason to hope that T. Paulling might be unearthed
at Sandy Plain.
I could, I told myself, write to Roger Odell and ask for a delay, but
that would kill such feeble faith in me as I had forcibly implanted in
him. He would think me a fraud, and believe that I had been trying to
gain time in order to spring some trick upon him. Besides, the
Paullings might come to New York, if they were not already there, and
discover that some person unknown was on their track and had been
tearing sheets out of their blotting-book. No, I must keep my
appointment with Roger Odell or face the prospect of complete failure.
But how to convince him of what I was myself convinced, with the
disjointed bits of evidence in my possession? Just as my train came to
a stop with a slight jolt in the Pennsylvania station, I saw as in an
electric flash a way of doing it. Perhaps it was the jolt that gave
the flash.
I could not wait to get back to my hotel. I inquired of a porter where
I could get a messenger boy. He showed me. I begged two sheets of
paper and two envelopes. They were pushed under my hand. I scratched
off six lines to Roger Odell: "Don't think when you get this I'm going
to ask you to put off our interview. On the contrary, I ask you to
advance it. Please be in Julius Felborn's private office at a quarter
to nine instead of nine. This is vitally important. If he has a large
safe in his office, get the key or combination so that you can open it.
Small safe no use.--Yours hopefully, J.H."
I finished this scrawl and sent it away by messenger to the club where
Odell had said I might 'phone, if necessary, up to one o'clock that
night. It was only just eleven.
The second letter was longer and more troublesome to compose. It was
to Grace Callender, and I trusted for its effect to the kindness she
professed for me. Her aunt also had been friendly and had shown
interest in the prospects of Carr Price's play. Neither, however,
dreamed that success depended in any way upon Roger Odell.
"DEAR MISS GRACE," I wrote,--"You will think the request I'm going to
make of you and Miss Callender a very strange one, but you promised
that if you could help me you would do so. Well, extraordinary as it
may seem, _you can make my fortune if you_ will both come to the
Felborn Theatre at the unearthly hour of nine to-morrow morning, and
ask to be shown into Mr. Felborn's private office. I shall be there,
waiting and hoping to see you two ladies arrive promptly, as more than
I can tell depends upon that. You happened to mention in my presence
something about dining out to-night and returning rather late, so I
feel there is a chance of your getting this and sending me a line by
the messenger to the Belmont. He will wait for you, and I will wait
for him.--Yours sincerely, JOHN HASLE."
An hour later the answer came to my hotel. "Of course we'll both be
there on the stroke of nine. Depend upon us," Grace Callender replied.
"Thank Heaven!" I mumbled. Yet I was heavy with a sense of guilt. If
it had been only for punishment, or only for my own advancement, I
could not have done what I planned to do. No man could. But Grace
Callender's happiness was at stake.
Roger Odell was five minutes before his time in Felborn's office next
day, yet he found me on the spot. I saw by his face that his
well-seasoned nerves were keyed not far from breaking-point. But he
kept his role of the superior, indifferent man of the world. He hoped
I didn't see the strain he was under, and I hoped that I hid my
feelings from him. Each probably succeeded as well as the other.
"Well, what have you got to tell me?" he asked, when we were alone
together in Julius Felborn's decorative private office.
"I've nothing to tell you," I said. "Nevertheless, I believe you will
hear something if you've done as I suggested. Have you got the key or
the combination of that big safe in the wall behind the desk?"
"I have the combination for to-day. Felborn was at the club last night
when your letter came, and I asked him for it. There aren't many
favours he wouldn't grant me. But what has Julius Felborn's safe to do
with the case?"
"Please open it. We haven't much time to spare." I looked at my
watch. In a quarter of an hour the Misses Callender ought to be
announced. If they failed me after all--but I would not think of that
"if."
Odell manipulated the combination, and the door of the safe swung open.
I saw that there was room for a man inside, and explained to Odell that
he must be the man. "It's absolutely necessary for you to hear for
yourself," I insisted, "all that's said in this room during the next
half-hour. If you didn't hear with your own ears, you'd never believe,
and nothing would be said if you were known to be listening."
"You want me to eavesdrop!" he exclaimed, ready to be scornful.
"Yes," I admitted. "If you can call it eavesdropping to learn how and
by whom Perry and Ned Callender Graham were done to death."
Without another word Odell stepped into the safe.
"With the door ajar you can hear every word spoken in this room," I
said. "In a few minutes you'll recognise two voices--those of Miss
Grace and Miss Marian Callender. I tell you this that you mayn't be
surprised into making an indiscreet appearance. Remember your future's
at stake and that of the girl you love. All you have to do is to keep
still until the moment when the mystery is cleared up."
"How can it be cleared up by either of those two?" Odell challenged me,
anger smouldering in his eyes.
"It will be cleared up while they are in the room," I amended.
"Further than that I can't satisfy you now. By Jove! there goes the
'phone! I expect it's to say they're here, though it's five minutes
before the time."
My guess was correct, and my answer through the telephone, "Let them
come up at once," passed on the news to the man behind the door of the
safe. I went out to the head of the stairs to meet my visitors, and
led them into Felborn's office. The two were charmingly though very
simply dressed, far more _les grandes dames_ in appearance than they
had been on shipboard, and their first words were of amused admiration
for the Oriental richness of Julius Felborn's office. It was evident
that, whatever their secret preoccupations were, both wished to seem
interested in their bizarre surroundings and in my success which they
had come to promote. I made them sit down in the two most luxurious
chairs the room possessed. Thus seated, their backs were toward the
safe, and the light filtered becomingly through thin gold silk curtains
on to their faces. I placed myself opposite, on an oak bench under the
window. If the door of the safe moved, I could see it over the
fashionable small hats of the ladies with their haloes of delicate,
spiky plumes.
When I got past generalities I blurted out, "I've a confession to make.
I won't excuse myself or explain, because when I've finished--though
not _till_ then--you'll understand. On shipboard I talked of my book,
and told you it was called _The Key_, but I didn't tell you that the
title and one incident in the story were suggested--forgive my
startling you--by the murder of Perry and Ned Callender-Graham."
"Oh!" exclaimed Grace, half rising, "you asked us here to tell us
_that_? It doesn't seem _like_ you, Lord John."
"Give me the benefit of the doubt and hear me to the end," I pleaded,
grieved by her stricken pallor and look of reproach as she sank into
the chair again. Marian was pale also, even paler than usual, but her
look was of anger, therefore easier to meet.
"You must not use the word 'murder,'" she commented, a quiver in her
voice. "Your doing so shows that you've very little knowledge of the
case."
"I beg your pardon," I said. "On the contrary, it precisely shows that
I have knowledge of it. The brothers were murdered by the same hand,
in the same way, and for the same motive."
Marian rose up, very straight and tall. "It would be more suitable to
give your theories to the police than to us. I cannot stay and let my
niece stay to listen to them."
"I shall have to give not my theories, but my knowledge, my proof, to
the police," I warned her; "only it's better for everyone concerned for
you to hear me first."
"You've brought us to this place under false pretences!" Marian cried,
throwing her arm around the girl's waist. "It's not the act of a
gentleman. Come, Grace, we'll go at once."
"For your own sakes you must not go," I insisted. "If you stay and
hear me through some way may be found to save the family name from
public dishonour."
"Dearest, we _must_ stay," Grace said steadily, when the older woman
urged her toward the door.
Marian looked at her niece with the compelling look of a Fate, but the
girl stood firm. Gently she freed herself from the clinging arm and
sat, or rather fell, into the big cushioned chair once more. Her aunt
hesitated for a moment, I could see, whether or not to use force, but
decided against the attempt. With a level gaze of scorn for me, she
took her stand beside Grace's chair, her hand clenched on the carving
of its high back. I realised the tension of her grip, because her grey
suede glove split open across a curious ring she always wore on the
third finger of her left hand, showing its great cabochon emerald. I
had often noticed this stone, and thought it like the eye of a snake.
"Say what you wish to say quickly, then, and get it over," she sharply
ordered.
"The double murder was suggested and carried out by a man, but he had
accomplices, and his principal accomplice was a woman." (Miss
Callender's command excused my brusqueness.) "They had the same
interest to serve; purely a financial interest. It was vital to both
that Miss Grace Callender shouldn't marry--unless she married a person
under their influence who would share with them. They preferred some
such scheme, but it fell through. That drove them to extremes. Now
I'll tell you something about this couple--this congenial husband and
wife. Afterwards I'll give you details of their plot. They were
married secretly years ago, and lived together when they could, abroad
and on this side. The man was rich once, but lost his money--and the
capacity to make it--by losing his health. Life wasn't worth living to
either unless they could have the luxury they'd been used to. They
took an old house on Long Island--Bay View Farm, near Sandy Plain. The
man lived there for several months each year under the name of
Paulling. His wife paid him flying visits. She provided the money,
and had a banking account in the town. At Bay View Farm, when Miss
Grace first engaged herself to her cousin, the two thought out their
plot to suppress Perry. It took them some time to elaborate it, but a
week before the wedding they were ready. The woman, still under the
name of Paulling, engaged a furnished flat in New York, near Riverside
Drive. She took this flat for a term of years, realising it might be
needed more than once as time went on. In this apartment, in a house
called the Alhambra, she sat down one day at her desk and wrote an
anonymous letter to Perry Callender-Graham. She asked him to call at
that address at midnight the next night and learn a secret concerning
his cousin Grace's birth, which would change everything for them both
if it came out. Her handwriting was disguised by the use of a quill
pen, which used so much ink that most of the words left traces on the
blotter. The envelope and paper were blue-grey, and thick. Inside was
enclosed a small latchkey and a key to the front door of the house, for
the hall-porter would be in bed by the time she named. Perry
Callender-Graham could not resist the temptation to keep the
appointment. He went to the Alhambra, let himself in, was seen by
nobody, walked up to the third floor, and fitted the latchkey into the
door on the right side of the hall. As he tried to turn the key
something sharp as a needle pricked his forefinger. He was startled,
yet he went on trying to unlock the door. The key turned all the way
round, but the door stuck. It seemed to be bolted on the inside. He
began to feel slightly faint, but he was so angry at being cheated that
he pushed the electric bell, determined to get in at any cost. No
answer came, however, and at last he gave up in despair. Some vague
idea of warning the police and of going to see a doctor came to his
mind, but he was already a dying man. Before he got as far as the
street corner he fell dead. Exactly the same thing happened in the
case of Ned, when every effort to frighten him into breaking his
engagement had failed, when his love for his brother, his sensitive
conscience and his superstitious fear had all been played upon in vain.
Even the same formula was used for the anonymous letter, with a
slightly different wording. That was safe enough, for if Perry had
mentioned the first letter to Ned he would have told the police at the
time of Perry's death; it would have been a valuable clue. It wasn't
necessary to make new keys, for the two originals had been
returned--'to the family.' They were sent anonymously to Ned as they'd
been sent to Perry, and he also yielded to curiosity.
"The same ingenious lock, made for the plotters by a skilled
mechanician (whom they had reason to trust), shot out its poisoned
needle at the first turn of the latchkey in his hand. As for the
poison, it, too, was supplied by a trusted one---one who had something
to gain and vengeance to take as well. As the mechanician specialised
in lock-making, so did the chemist employed specialise in poisons. The
one he chose out of his repertory had two virtues: first, it began to
stop the heart's action only after coursing through the blood for
twenty or thirty minutes. Anything quicker might have struck down the
victim in front of the door and put the police on the right track.
Secondly, the poison's effect on the heart couldn't be detected by
post-mortem, but presented all the symptoms of status lymphaticus,
enlargement of the thyroid gland and so on. As for the lock, the
second turn of the key caused the needle to retire; and for a further
safeguard, an almost invisible stop, resembling a small screw-head,
could hold the needle permanently in place inside the lock, so that the
door might be opened by a latchkey and the existence of a secret
mechanism never suspected, except by one who knew how to find it. The
mechanism is in working order still, ready for use again, in case Miss
Grace Callender should change her mind and decide to marry."
"Who is it you are accusing, Lord John?" Grace stammered in a choked
voice.
I glanced from the drooping figure in the chair to the tall figure
standing erect and straight beside it. Marian Callender no longer
grasped the oak carving. The hand in the ragged glove was crushed
against her mouth, her lips on the emerald which had pressed through
the torn suede. The woman gave no other sign of emotion than this
strange gesture.
"I accuse Paolo Tostini, with his father, his brother, and his
wife--known still as Miss Marian Callender--as his accomplices," I said.