A Battle of Wits
I saw the swift spasm of hatred which crossed her face, as she
recognised me; I even fancied that her finger tightened convulsively
upon the trigger, and I braced myself for the shock. But she did not
fire. Instead, she lowered her pistol with a grim little laugh.
"So it's you!" she said, and stood looking at me, her lips curving
maliciously.
"Yes," I answered. "Who did you think it was?"
"Oh, I don't know. A burglar, perhaps."
"You seem to have been prepared for him."
"I always carry this pistol when I go back and forth through the grounds
at night."
"And know how to use it, I dare say."
"I think I'd be able to defend myself."
"I'm sure of it. Do you often go back and forth at night?"
"It's sometimes late when I get through here."
"But this time," I pointed out, "you weren't leaving the house--you were
returning to it."
"Is that any of your business?" she asked, her eyes beginning to gleam.
"Perhaps not," I admitted.
"And yet you're capable of making a mystery out of it!" she sneered.
"Let me relieve your mind--I'm staying with Mrs. Lawrence. She sleeps
badly, and wishes me near her."
"And your exits and entrances are, I suppose, usually by the window?"
"It's the most convenient way."
"Mrs. Lawrence doesn't object, then, to your leaving it open?"
"I don't leave it open."
"You did just now."
She looked at me a moment without replying, then laughed a short, little
laugh of mingled amusement and vexation.
"I'll leave you to puzzle that out, I think," she said. "You're so
ingenious, you'll surely hit upon the explanation. I scarcely expected
to see you here again," she added. "You thought it worth while to
return?"
"Yes; there are one or two points which are not quite clear."
"And you expect to make them so?" she asked, with a mocking smile. "How?
By lurking around the house like a thief, and following women?"
There was something in her tone, her look, her attitude, which caught my
attention--a sort of confident triumph, as of one who plays for a high
stake and wins. She was no longer anxious and perturbed, as she had been
the day before--nay, that very morning. She thought it safe to flout me
openly.
"So you convinced Mrs. Lawrence that you and your sister were not
guilty?" I asked. "But of course you'd do that!"
"Guilty of what?" she demanded, flushing darkly.
"Guilty of causing Miss Lawrence's flight," I answered bluntly. "Of
wrecking her life."
"Do you believe that?"
"I know it!"
She laughed scornfully.
"You know a great deal, it seems."
"More than you think," I retorted.
She flushed again, and bit her lips to restrain their trembling.
"Though there's one thing I don't know," I went on, determined to strike
home, if I could. "I can't imagine why Miss Lawrence should have chosen
your house as a place of refuge. She must know that you hate her--that
you waited, like a snake in ambush, for the moment when the blow would
pierce most deeply; she must see that you are using her to avenge
yourself----"
A sharp click interrupted me, and I found myself in darkness. I heard
the closing of a door, the turning of a lock. When, after a moment's
groping along the wall, I found the electric button and switched on the
light again, I saw that the door leading from the library to the hall
was closed. I tried it--it was locked.
"Good-night, Mr. Lester," called a low mocking voice from the other
side. "Please turn off the light before you go, and close the window
after you. Another thing--I'd advise you not to disturb my sister again
to-night; it would really not be safe. And I hope you'll let me know
when you succeed in clearing up those little points you were speaking
of--I'm immensely interested in them."
She laughed again, and I heard her footsteps die away down the hall.
Feeling absurdly foolish, I switched off the light, and left the house.
Plainly, Lucy Kingdon had ceased to fear me. She believed that she had
won the fight, that her position was impregnable. Either she thought
that Marcia Lawrence had escaped, that we had not traced her to the
_Umbria_, or she knew that the telegram was a blind, and that we had
been misled by it. Which was right, I wondered. And she must have come
off well, too, in that interview with Mrs. Lawrence, which I would have
given so much to have overheard--must have convinced her of her
innocence, else she would not still be employed as a maid in the
Lawrence house, and retained so near her mistress. How had she done it?
How had she succeeded in blinding her mistress so completely?
Then a sudden thought stabbed through me. Was it possible, I asked
myself, that Mrs. Lawrence had been a party to the deception--that she
had knowingly assisted in the farce of the telegram, for my benefit?
But, as I reviewed her behaviour at our morning interview, I could not
believe it. She was no such consummate actress as that would imply. If I
was a dupe, then she was a dupe also.
Busy with this problem, I made my way through the grove along the path
back to the Kingdon cottage, and stood for a moment looking over the
hedge before opening the gate. There was a light in the room which I
took to be the dining-room, but even as I gazed at it, the light moved,
a shadow crossed the blind; the light reappeared in the kitchen, faded
and disappeared--then, a moment later, my heart leaped suffocatingly as
I perceived a glimmer of light at the ventilator in the foundation! What
was this woman doing in the cellar? What was the task that was going
forward there?
I entered the grounds and started forward along the hedge, when suddenly
a hand reached up from the shadow and held me fast. For an instant I
struggled fiercely to free myself--but only for an instant.
"Come, Lester, sit down," said a voice carefully repressed, but which I
nevertheless recognised as Godfrey's. "I was looking for you," he added,
as I dropped to the grass beside him.
"Oh, is it you, Godfrey?" I asked, much relieved. "I rather thought you
might be out this way, when I found you weren't at the hotel. What are
the developments?"
"Wait a minute. I wonder where that light has gone?"
"It's in the cellar," I said, and pointed out to him the faint glimmer
which marked the ventilator. "It was there last night. I sat here for
over an hour and watched it," and I told him briefly of my adventures of
the night before.
He listened without comment until I had finished.
"It's a pity you didn't tell me that this morning," he said.
"I didn't see that it was connected with the case in any way. Is it?"
"I don't know," he answered slowly. "Perhaps it is. Did Miss Kingdon
mention it when she saw you this morning?"
"Yes--she said she'd been in the cellar, putting away some fruit."
"Absurd! There's no fruit this early in the year. Besides, even if it
were true, she wouldn't have to repeat the process again to-night. What
else haven't you told me?"
I laughed and recounted my adventures from the moment Mrs. Lawrence gave
me her daughter's telegram until that other moment when Lucy Kingdon
left me alone in the darkened library.
He listened without interruption, his eyes on the glimmer of light at
the ventilator.
"Yes," he said, "I saw Lucy Kingdon leave the house a few minutes ago.
Her sister's alone there now. What do you suppose she's doing in the
cellar?"
"I can't imagine."
"You could see nothing?"
"Not a thing except her shadow moving back and forth."
"Moving back and forth?"
"Yes; it seemed to me that she was alternately rising and stooping, as
though she were going through some sort of exercise."
"She'd hardly go into the cellar at midnight to exercise."
"No, of course not. But that's the only explanation I could think of,
unless she's bowing up and down before an idol."
Godfrey laughed grimly.
"That would be a unique solution," he said. "Fancy our headlines: 'Devil
Worship at Elizabeth! Fantastic Midnight Orgies in a Cellar!' Wouldn't
that stir the public? But I'm afraid it's a little too fantastic. Could
you hear anything?"
"Only the faintest of faint sounds. I couldn't make anything of them."
"Well, there wouldn't be any sounds at all if she were merely bobbing up
and down before an idol. Was she alone last night?"
"Yes. Her sister spent the night with Mrs. Lawrence. Godfrey," I added,
"you haven't told me yet why you sent that telegram. Has Miss Lawrence
returned?"
"Not that I know of. Furthermore, I don't think she will return very
soon."
"Then you think she really sailed?"
"I think--I don't know what to think, Lester. Give me a moment more.
Isn't there a window to the cellar?"
"Yes, but it's closely curtained."
"Well, I'm going to take a look, myself," he said. "Wait here for me,
and be as patient as you can."
I saw him go cautiously forward toward the ventilator, and stoop down
before it. He remained there motionless for some moments, then
disappeared around a corner of the house. I sat there waiting for him,
thinking not without some chagrin, that, as usual, he had pumped me dry,
and given nothing in return. It was really unfair of Godfrey to expect
every one to play into his hands. And yet, I reflected, if he hadn't
wanted to be friendly, he would scarcely have taken the trouble to send
me that message.
I looked up to see his tall figure coming toward me through the
darkness. He dropped beside me, and sat for a moment silent--only, as I
caught a glimpse of his face, I was startled to see how white it was.
"I couldn't see a thing," he said, at last, "except a shadow moving up
and down, as you said. And I heard the sounds. The woman is working at
something in the cellar--something that requires time--something which
must be done secretly. I couldn't make anything out of the shadows, and
not much out of the sounds--at least, I fear it's only my imagination
which gave them the significance they had for me."
"What significance did they have?" I asked.
"I'm half afraid to tell you, Lester; you'll laugh at me. But as I bent
outside that ventilator yonder with my ear against it, I could have
sworn that the person inside was engaged in shovelling earth--shovelling
it into--a grave!"
A little shudder ran through me at the words; never was laughter farther
from my thoughts.
"A grave!" I stammered. "But whose grave?"
"I don't know--Marcia Lawrence's, perhaps."
"Marcia Lawrence sailed on the _Umbria_."
"You don't know she did. You don't even believe she did."
"Whether she did or not, who would kill her, and why?"
"Ah, if you come to the why and wherefore, I can't answer you--not yet."
"Besides," I went on, "the writing on the message left at the West
Street office was her writing."
"Perhaps it was only a good imitation--you can't be absolutely sure that
you've ever seen a sample of her writing. There's nothing to prove that
she wrote either the note or the message."
"But Curtiss identified them--he was sure the writing was hers."
"Curtiss wasn't in a condition to be sure of anything. But suppose it
was hers. She may have wished to blind her mother and Curtiss
completely--she may have wished them to think that she had really gone
abroad--she must have foreseen that you would trace the telegram. She
may have done all that before she came back here----"
"Came back here?" I repeated, suddenly finding a dozen arguments against
my own theory of half an hour before. "Walk into the lion's jaws?
Nonsense, Godfrey! Place herself in the power of the people who, I
suppose you think, killed her!"
"I don't think they killed her," Godfrey said composedly. "My belief is
that she killed herself to escape her husband--to get out of the tangle
in which she'd involved herself."
"Her husband! You cling to the husband then, do you?"
"More than ever. He's an Italian--a tall, well-built, handsome fellow,
with black eyes and a most becoming black moustache. He has a florid
complexion and can speak English, though with a strong accent. He smokes
cigarettes, which he rolls himself, and he has lost the tip of the
little finger of his left hand. He's fond of music; perhaps himself a
singer or musician, and it may have been as instructor that he first met
Miss Lawrence----"
I had been staring at Godfrey open-mouthed; I could restrain myself no
longer.
"But how do you know all this?" I gasped. "Or is it merely a fairy
tale?"
"It's not in the least a fairy tale, my dear Lester. I know it because
this estimable gentleman was himself in Elizabeth yesterday. The letter
which Miss Lawrence received appointed a rendezvous at the Kingdon
cottage. It was here she fled to see him--to buy him off, as she had
done once before."