Motives
“I’ve got to speak, Ricky,” Miss Prall said, but her tone was not angry
now. She seemed to have changed her mood and was half frightened, half
sad. “I’ve got to speak, to save myself. Don’t you see that if that
paper-cutter points towards me,—as Mr Gibbs implies, I must tell what I
know——”
“What you know,” assented Bates, “but not what you suspect.”
“Yes, ma’am, what you suspect,” directed the detective. “The time has
come, Miss Prall, when suspicions must be voiced, whether true or not,
in order that we may prove or disprove them.”
“Then get up your own suspicions,” cried Bates. “Find your own suspects
and prove their guilt or innocence.”
“We’re doing that,” Gibbs said, quietly, “but we necessarily depend also
on the statements of witnesses.”
“But Miss Prall isn’t a witness.”
“Not an eye-witness, perhaps, but a material witness, if she knows
anything that we want to know.”
“She doesn’t know anything you want to know,” exclaimed Eliza Gurney,
coming into the room. “But Kate Holland does! If you’re anxious for
information get that girl and quiz her!”
“Hush up, Eliza,” stormed Letitia. “What did you learn in at the
Everett’s, Mr Gibbs?”
“I learned that you said you’d kill Sir Herbert Binney yourself, if you
were sure you wouldn’t be found out.”
“What!” Miss Prall turned perfectly white, but whether with rage or
fear, Gibbs didn’t know. “She said that! The little devil! Just let me
get at her, once!”
“Didn’t you make that remark?”
“I did not; but she did, and then, I said I would, too. Neither of us
meant it, really, but that’s what was said. The woman is so clever it
makes her doubly dangerous!”
“But it’s a queer thing for two ladies to be talking about killing
anybody.”
“Nonsense! It’s done all the time. It doesn’t mean they’d really do
it—though sometimes I have thought——”
“Aunt Letty!” put in Bates, beseechingly.
“I will speak, Richard! Sometimes I have thought that Adeline Everett
would be capable of—of anything! Those sleek, fat, complacent people
are the very worst sort! I bluster out frankly, but that oily, deceitful
woman,—and that Kate of hers,—well, if you want to know my
suspicions,—there they are.”
“Then, Miss Prall,” Gibbs looked straight at her, “here’s the situation.
Both you and Mrs Everett expressed a willingness to kill Sir Herbert
Binney,—no matter if it was not meant. Both of you may be said to have
had a motive; both of you could have found opportunity. And, finally,
each of you claims to suspect the other. Now, granting for argument’s
sake that one of you is guilty, would not the plausible procedure be to
pretend to suspect the other?”
“Of course it would,” Eliza Gurney declared. “And since Mrs Everett is
the guilty party,—I see it all now! She casts suspicion toward Miss
Prall! Of course, Mrs Everett didn’t do it herself, but that Kate
Holland did! She is a fiend incarnate, without heart or soul! She
is——”
“There, there, Eliza, you’d better be still,” Miss Prall warned her. “If
you go on like that, Mr Gibbs will think you’re protesting too much!”
As a matter of fact, that’s just what Gibbs was thinking, and he looked
sharply at Letitia, marveling at her cleverness. If she had been
instrumental in the death of Sir Herbert, surely this was just the way
she would conduct herself. She was deep as well as clever, and Gibbs
began to see light.
He was convinced now that the criminals were of a more subtle type than
young girls in their teens could possibly be, and the affair, to his
thinking, was narrowed down to the households of these two women who
were each other’s enemies.
He reasoned that the only way to learn anything from such dissemblers as
they all were, was to catch them off their guard, and he greatly desired
to get the rival factions together, in order that anger or spite might
cause one or other to disclose her secret.
“Perhaps,” Gibbs said, “it might be well for us to go to Mrs Everett, or
send for her to come here, and so get the testified statement as to
these assertions of willingness to kill. I don’t think they’re customary
among the women of your class.”
“You doubt my word!” flared up Letitia Prall. “Let me tell you, Mr
Gibbs, that I refuse to have it corroborated by that woman! I tell you
the truth,—she is incapable of that!”
“That’s why I want to give you a chance to refute her, to deny her to
her face——”
“Never! I don’t want to see her! She shall not enter my door! Her very
presence is contaminating! Adeline Everett! She is a slanderer——”
“Wait a moment, Miss Prall. What she has said of you, you have also said
of her!”
“But I speak truth; she tells falsehoods. Nobody ever believes a word
she says!”
“Of course not!” chimed in Eliza. “Adeline Everett is a whited
sepulcher,—a living lie!”
Even more belligerent than the words was the tone and the facial
expression of the speaker. Miss Gurney was not a beautiful woman at
best, and her rage transformed her into a veritable termagant. Her
sparse gray hair fell in wisps about her ears and her head shook in
emphasis of her objurgations, while her pale blue eyes blinked with fury
as she strove to find words harsh enough.
“Eliza!” and Miss Prall’s warning tone was quiet but very stern. “Stop
that! You only make matters worse by going on so! If you can’t keep
still, leave the room.”
Eliza sniffed, but ceased her talk for the moment, at least.
“Now, Miss Prall,” Gibbs resumed, “it is necessary, in my opinion, to
have an interview at which both yourself and Mrs Everett are present. I
have a right to ask this, and I offer you the choice of going there, or
sending for her to come here.”
“I won’t do either,” snapped Letitia. “I refuse to go to her home, and I
certainly shall not let her enter mine.”
“But, don’t you see that is most damaging to your own side of the
story.”
“What do I care? Don’t think you can frighten me, young man! Letitia
Prall is quite able to take care of herself.”
“That may be, but you are not able to defy, successfully, the course of
the law. If I insist on this interview, I think, Miss Prall, you will be
obliged to consent.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then, I am sorry to tell you, your refusal must be set aside, and you
will, I am sure, see the advisability of accepting the situation.”
“Oh, come, Auntie,” said Bates, “you’re making a lot of unnecessary
trouble. Neither you nor Mrs Everett had any hand in this murder,—the
mere idea is ridiculous! and if you have the interview Mr Gibbs wants,
it will soon be over and then you will both be freed from suspicion and
can go on with your silly ‘feud.’ That is a foolish thing, but trivial.
This other matter is serious. You _must_ get it over with at once,—for
all our sakes.”
“I won’t.” And Miss Prall set her lips obstinately.
Gibbs rose abruptly and left the room.
“He’s gone for Mrs Everett,” said Richard, looking severely at his aunt.
“Now, you must be careful, Aunt Letty. If you don’t look out, they’ll
accuse you of the murder, and though you’ll disprove it, it will mean a
whole lot of trouble for us all.”
Letitia Prall adored her nephew, and, too, she saw there was no use of
trying to avoid the meeting with Mrs Everett. It was bound to be brought
about, sooner or later, by the determined Gibbs, and it might as well be
gone through with.
She sat still, thinking what attitude it was best to assume, and she
decided on continued silence.
“Eliza,” she warned, “don’t talk too much. You’ll get us in an awful
predicament if you’re so free with your tongue. First thing you know,
you’ll tell——”
“Hush, they’re coming!” and in a moment Gibbs rang the bell.
Richard admitted him, and with him came both Adeline Everett and the
maid, Kate.
“I didn’t invite your servant,” was Miss Prall’s only word of greeting,
accompanied by a scathing glance at Kate.
“You didn’t invite me,” Mrs Everett returned, pertly, “and I shouldn’t
have come if you had, except that I was commanded to appear by a
representative of the law. I don’t see, though, why I should be mixed up
in your murder case.”
“It isn’t my murder case any more than it is yours, Adeline Everett,”
her enemy faced her. “I understand you’re suspected of being——”
“Oh, don’t, Aunt Letitia,” begged Richard, who was always distressed if
obliged to be present when the two “got going,” as Eliza called it.
“Now, please, auntie,—please, Mrs Everett, can’t you two forget your
private enmity for a few minutes and just settle this big matter? Disarm
the suspicions of Mr Gibbs by telling the truth, by stating where you
all were at the time of the murder, and so, get yourselves out of all
touch with it. Truly, you will be sorry if you don’t. You don’t realize
what it will mean if you have to be mixed up in all sorts of witness
stands and things.”
“Go ahead, Mr Gibbs,” and Miss Prall glared at the detective. “We owe
this unpleasant scene to you,—make it as short as possible.”
“I will,” and Gibbs’ sharp eyes darted from one face to another, for
this was his harvest time, and though he expected to learn little from
the wily women’s speech, he hoped for much from their uncontrollable
outbursts of anger or their involuntary admissions.
It was a strange gathering. Letitia Prall sat on a straight-backed
chair, erect and still; but looking like a leashed tiger, ready to
spring.
Beside her, trying hard to keep quiet, was Eliza Gurney, small, pale,
and with a distracted face and angry eyes that darted venomous glances
at the visitors.
Mrs Everett had chosen for her rôle an amused superiority, knowing it
would irritate Letitia Prall more than any other manner. She smiled and
quickly suppressed it, she stared and then dropped her eyes and she
would impulsively begin to say something and then discreetly pause.
All this Gibbs took in and Richard, seeing the detective’s interest,
became alarmed. He felt sure there was something sinister concealed in
the minds of some or all of the women present and his heart sank at the
possible outcome of things.
It was inconceivable that his aunt was in any way concerned in the
murder, yet it was even worse to imagine the mother of Dorcas mixed up
in it. Of course, it couldn’t be that either of them was really
implicated, but he had to recognize the fact that Gibbs was sufficiently
convinced of such implication to call this confab.
And it was a confab. The detective did not ask direct questions, but
rather brought out voluntary remarks by adroitly suggesting them.
“Now, that paper-knife——” he began, musingly.
“Is what they call a clue,” said Mrs Everett. “I know nothing of such
things,—I can’t bear detective stories, but if a paper-knife was used
to kill somebody, I should think the owner of the weapon must be more or
less suspected.”
“Of course you think that, because you’re suspected yourself,” said
Letitia, coldly; “naturally you think you can cast suspicion toward me,
but you can’t, Adeline Everett! I gave that paper-cutter to Sir Herbert
to get it mended——”
“Oho! Is _that_ the story you’ve trumped up! Clever, my dear, but too
thin. Can’t you see, Mr Gibbs, that that is a made-up yarn? She knows
Sir Herbert can’t deny it, and no one else can. So she thinks she’s
safe!”
“Well, she isn’t,” and Kate Holland gave Miss Prall a triumphant glare.
“That knife will hang her yet! She not only tried to make up a plausible
story about the thing, but she tried to fasten the guilt on me by saying
I have surgical skill! Ha, ha,—because I took a nurse’s training,—I’m
to be suspected of murder! A fine how-do-you-do! Let me tell you, Miss
Prall, you overreached yourself! I’ve been to see Dr Pagett about it,
and he says that while the fatal stroke may have been delivered by
somebody who knew just where to strike, yet, on the other hand, it might
have been the merest ignoramus, who chanced to strike the vital point!
So, your ladyship, your scheme to inculpate _me_ falls through!”
Gibbs listened eagerly, gathering the news of Dr Pagett’s decision, and
learning, too, that this maid of Mrs Everett’s was of a far higher
mentality than the average servant.
“I scorn to reply,” Miss Prall said, looking over the head of the
triumphant Kate. “I do not converse with servants.”
“Perhaps it would be well to dismiss both my servant and yours,” drawled
Mrs Everett, maliciously. “Let Kate and Eliza both leave the room.”
“I’m no servant!” cried Miss Gurney, bristling; “I’m Miss Prall’s
companion, quite her equal——”
“And think yourself her superior,” interrupted Mrs Everett, with her
most annoying chuckle. “Well, Eliza, I look upon you as just as much a
servant as my Kate,—more so, indeed, for you can’t hold a candle to
Kate for intelligence, education or——”
“Or viciousness,” Letitia broke in. “Now, Mr Gibbs, I decline to talk to
or with either of my unwelcome visitors. If you have to conduct this
official inquisition, go on with it, but I refuse to speak except to
answer your questions. Eliza, you are not to talk, either.”
“Good!” said Gibbs, “just what I want.” And he spoke sincerely, for he
began to see that he would learn little from the display of rancor and
temper that moved them all.
He put definite and straightforward questions, and elicited the
information that they were all in their beds and asleep at the hour of
the murder. This could not be corroborated from the very nature of
things, but he let it pass.
There was fierce disagreement as to which had first declared a
willingness to kill Sir Herbert Binney, and which had said she, too, was
inclined to the deed, but it was admitted that such hasty and
unconsidered declarations had been made.
In fact, the gist of the long and difficult grilling was an apparent
determination on the part of each one of the two factions to accuse the
other, and a most plausible and complacent assumption of innocence by
both.
This seemed a non-committal situation, but Gibbs did not deem it such.
He was definitely persuaded as to the guilty party, and his satisfied
nods and approving smiles showed Richard Bates plainly which way the
detective’s opinions leaned.
And the young man was thoroughly frightened. Though, for his part, it
would be a difficult matter to make a preference between the belief in
the guilt of his aunt or the guilt of the mother of the girl he loved.
And the trend of Gibbs’ investigation led surely to one or the other.
The use of the paper-cutter that Miss Prall admitted having given into
Sir Herbert’s keeping gave wide-spread opportunity. Any one desiring to
kill the man had a means provided, that is, reasoning that Sir Herbert
had the knife with him for the purpose of getting it mended.
Again, that story might be pure fabrication, in which case the suspicion
swung back to Miss Prall and Eliza.
It was Gibbs’ theory that the unintelligible letters of the dead man’s
message implied two women and the attempted direction was to get both.
This, he argued, meant either Miss Prall and Eliza Grundy or Mrs Everett
and her faithful aide, Kate Holland.
It seemed to him that the case narrowed itself down to these women,
either pair of which had both motive and opportunity.
The affair between Bates and Dorcas was, of course, known to both
guardians, though they tried to disbelieve it, and probably didn’t know
to what lengths it had already gone. But Mrs Everett knew that Sir
Herbert approved the match and doubtless feared that her modern and
up-to-date daughter might take the reins in her own hands. Therefore her
desire to have Sir Herbert removed was explainable. She felt sure that
without his Uncle’s insistence on Richard’s entering the Bun business,
the young man would return to his inventions and so forget Dorcas in his
work. At least, that’s the nearest Gibbs could come to her motive,
though he felt sure there was more to be learned regarding that. Mrs
Everett was deep and very plausible of manner. She had, he knew,
underlying motives and hidden capabilities that would lead her, with the
assistance of the Amazonian Kate, anywhere.
On the other hand, Miss Prall wanted the old man out of the say, so that
her nephew would lack his advice and assistance concerning the affair
with Dorcas, and the aunt felt that, with Sir Herbert out of it, she
could easily persuade Richard to return to the great work in which he
was so deeply interested and forget the girl. Moreover, she knew that
Mrs Everett, no more desiring the marriage of the young people than she
did herself, was planning to move away, and then all would be well.
The motives were not altogether clear, but, Gibbs reasoned, there must
be many points that were hidden and would remain so, with these clever
women to guard them.
He tactfully tried to draw them out, but with even greater tact they
evaded and eluded his questions and contradicted each other and
occasionally,—and purposely,—themselves, until the detective began to
think the determined masculine mind is no match for the equally
determined Eternal Feminine.
Indeed, involuntarily and almost unconsciously, they joined forces
against him, and presently found themselves aiding each other, which,
when they realized it, made them more angry,—if possible,—than before.
At last Mrs Everett looked at her watch.
“I’ve an appointment that I’m anxious to keep,” she said, drawlingly;
“as you don’t seem to be getting anywhere, Mr Detective, can you not let
me go, and finish up this absorbing discussion with Miss Prall?”
“You’re quite mistaken in assuming that I’m not getting anywhere, Mrs
Everett,” returned the nettled detective, “but you may go if you wish.
In fact, I allow it, because I have learned about all there is to
learn,—not so insignificant an amount as you imply.”
Mrs Everett looked at him sharply and was momentarily disconcerted
enough to gasp out:
“Oh, have you a clue?”
“Several,” Gibbs returned, carelessly. “Nothing that I care to make
known, but I’ve found out enough to set me on the right track.”
Covertly he watched the faces to see how this struck the two principals.
With little result, for Mrs Everett, regaining her poise, merely smiled
in an exasperating way, and Miss Prall looked coldly disinterested.
“Wonderful characters,” Gibbs commented to himself, for he had never
before met women who could so perfectly hide their feelings.
And he was sure that one of them, at least, was hiding her emotion; that
one of them was really aghast at the thought of exposure and was trying
with all her powers to conceal her dismay.
The maid, Kate, and the companion, Eliza, merely mirrored the other’s
calm. Eliza, glancing at Miss Prall, took her cue and looked disdainful
of the whole affair. Kate Holland curled a scornful lip and nodded her
head in Miss Prall’s direction.
And yet, if one pair were guilty the other two were innocent. Collusion
between the two factions was unthinkable. But Gibbs had made up his
mind, and he rose and opened the door.
“If you must keep your appointment, Madame, you are excused. I may say
that you are under surveillance, but I have little fear of your trying
to get away secretly, and unless you do, you will not be bothered in any
way.”
“Your surveillance does not interest me,” and, with a sublime disregard
of all present, Mrs Everett swept out of the room, followed by the large
and somewhat ungainly Kate.
“I don’t want to discuss this thing,” Gibbs began, as he himself
prepared to leave,—“but——”
“I don’t want to discuss it either,” said Bates, and his tone was full
of indignation. “There is no room for discussion after this asinine
performance of yours! You’re not fit to be a detective! You get some
ladies together and badger them into all sorts of thoughtless, unmeant
admissions and call that testimony! I’m surprised at you, Gibbs. And I
tell you frankly what I mean to do. I’m going out,—right now,—to get a
detective who can detect! A man who knows the first principles of the
business,—which you don’t even seem to dream of! I’ve had enough of
your futile questioning, your unfounded suspicions, your absurd
deductions! I’m off!”