THIS HELPS ME.
The three men were now standing grouped about the table with its
scattered books and manuscripts, and Ferrars bent toward Robert Brierly,
putting a hand upon his shoulder.
"Brierly," he said, "sit down; this thing is using up your strength. I
will tell you what I think of all this, and then we must lock up this
place for a little while just as it is." And as Brierly obediently
dropped into the chair which the doctor quickly placed beside him, the
detective resumed.
"Since yesterday half a dozen theories have suggested themselves to my
mind as possible explanations of this very daring murder, for I am now
fully convinced that it is nothing less; but I make it a rule never to
accept, much less announce, a belief, until I have established at least
a reasonable series of corroborative circumstances. This I have not
done entirely to my satisfaction, and so we will not go into the theory
of the case, but will see what facts we have established; and fact
number one, to my mind, is this: Your brother, Mr. Brierly, was most
certainly shot down with malice aforethought. He could not have shot
himself, and no one, in that open place, could have killed him by
accident. He may have been entirely unaware of it, but he had an enemy;
and the deed of yesterday was planned, I believe, long ago, and studied
carefully in every detail."
Robert Brierly flushed and paled. He opened his lips as if to speak, but
the detective's eyes were steadfastly turned away, and he resumed almost
at once.
"I blame myself that I did not establish myself here last night, as I at
first thought of doing. But it is too late for useless regret. And now,
about this boy. Have you, either of you, a thought, a suspicion, as to
his identity?"
The doctor shook his head.
"You can't suspect one of the pupils, surely?" hazarded Brierly.
"Be sure that Mrs. Fry knows every pupil in Glenville, by sight, at
least; and this lad was a stranger, remember. It was a clever lad who
first secured the key to these rooms and then decoyed Mrs. Fry half way
across the town perhaps. How long must it have taken her, Doc, to go and
come, in haste?"
"Quite half an hour, I should think."
"Well, we will assure ourselves of that later. Now we will suppose that
this strange boy was acquainted with these rooms to some extent, and
that he was, I fully believe. When Mrs. Fry is out of sight--and we
know, from her story, that he was careful that she should be before he
left his station upon the front porch--he slips indoors and evidently
knows where to look for a lamp, which he does not light until he is
inside this room." And Ferrars put a finger upon the match remarked upon
by Mrs. Fry. "Now, as Mrs. Fry observed, there has been quite a film of
dust in the air for the past twenty-four hours, so that, in spite of the
good woman's tidy ways, it has accumulated upon this dark and shining
wood." And he put down his finger and called their attention to its
prints upon the table at his side.
"When we entered this room," he went on, "and I took it upon myself to
look at that window with the swinging blind, under pretence of opening
the shutters, I first noted that the visitor had left us a clue to his
identity--several clues, indeed. Before seeing these I had thought that
the boy was only an advance guard for some one else, but I see I was
wrong. It was the boy, and a very keen and clever boy, who entered here
alone. See upon this table, upon the window sills, and upon the desk,
the prints of one, two, and sometimes all four, small slender fingers."
Ferrars paused a moment, while they examined the dust prints, faint but
yet clear, upon the dark wood, and making lines of clearer colour upon
the painted brown of the window sills.
"And what," asked Brierly, speaking for the first time since the
detective began his explanation--"what was his real object?"
"His real object! Ah, I see you have been observant, and if I am not
much mistaken he has left something; but the things he took were taken
solely to cover up the real reason of his coming. Mr. Charles Brierly's
pistol, his watch, and the foreign bijouterie were so little wanted by
this remarkable boy that he will no doubt get rid of them in some way at
the first opportunity. All but one thing."
"And that?" asked Brierly, breathlessly.
Ferrars walked over to the writing-desk and signed them to follow.
"Observe that letter file!" he said. "There is not much upon it, bills
for school books, two or three circulars, and so on, but observe that
this file hangs over the top of the desk, so that anything falling from
it would touch just here. He moistened the tip of a forefinger, and,
touching with it a small bit of paper lying upon the top of the desk and
just below the letter file, he lifted it deftly, and they all saw
beneath it the dust of the previous day upon the polished surface.
"This," said Ferrars, holding out the bit of paper upon the palm of his
hand, "was torn from something pulled from this file since Mrs. Fry
dusted the furniture here yesterday morning, after Charles Brierly left
the house. See, as the paper was pulled from the file this bit came off,
because it was attached at the corner, as you see. It is a fragment from
a newspaper. If it had been a letter the paper would not have parted so
readily; it would merely have torn through."
It was, indeed, a tiny scrap of newspaper, not of the best quality, and
not half an inch from the smoothly-cut corner to the ragged edge, where
the file had perforated it.
"The slip of printed paper from which this was torn," said Ferrars, "was
the one thing which was taken from this room because it was wanted! The
rest were merely carried away as a blind."
"But," asked the doctor, "why did he make this search among the books
and papers?"
"To find perhaps this very thing," replied Ferrars. "But his first and
most important errand was this." He drew forth the letter given into his
hands by Robert Brierly, and held it toward them. "Witness the thing
itself. It bears no post-mark, it never did bear one, and it is thrust
into the most conspicuous place, doubtless, after some looking about, in
search of a better. I do not know its contents but I guess."
A gesture from Brierly cut short his speech. "Read it, both of you," he
said, with something like a groan. "And tell me what it means."
Ferrars drew forth the sheet of note paper and slowly unfolded it. For a
moment he scrutinised the page with a frown, and then began to read--
"Mr. Charles Brierly: I don't know why I should be drawn into your
love affair any further, and I have said my last word about your
friend, Miss G----. One would think that the proofs you have
already had would be more than enough. She is not the first woman,
with a pretty face and an innocent way, who has fooled and tricked
a man. Why don't you ask her and have it out? You'll find she can
scratch as well as the rest of her sex. One word more, when you
have had it out with her, beware! Especially if she weeps and
forgives you. Remember the 'woman scorned.'
"Don't write me again. I shall not answer any more questions. And,
remember your promise, don't let her dream that you ever heard of
me. I shall feel safer. So good-bye and good luck. Yours, J. B."
Ferrars folded up this strange letter slowly, saying:
"This document has no date and no post office address." He held it in
his hand for a moment in silence, looking at it thoughtfully, then. "I
should like to retain this," he said, looking at Brierly, "as one of the
documents in the case." And as Brierly silently bowed his assent, he
added: "Have you formed an opinion concerning this letter?"
"I believe it is a shameful trick," declared Robert Brierly, hotly. "An
attempt on the part of some person or persons to injure Miss Grant, who
stands to me as a sister henceforth. If I am any judge of womankind, she
is as good as she is lovely, and I believe that she mourns my brother's
awful death as only a good, true and loving woman can. I wish you could
and would say the same, Mr. Ferrars."
"I can say that you have said the only right and manly thing, in my
opinion. You don't want to know what I think, however, but what can be
done? And, first, this affair must be kept between ourselves. This
letter makes it all the more important. If it has been put here to
mislead justice and to make trouble, perfect silence regarding it will
be the most baffling and perplexing course we can pursue. And it may
lead to some further manifestation. The word must go out at once that
Mr. Brierly has desired these rooms closed for the present, with
everything to remain untouched. Meantime I consider that we have got our
hands upon some strong clues, if we can find the way to develop them
aright. Don't ask me anything more now, gentlemen. I want time to study
over this morning's discoveries, and Mr. Brierly, it is time you
breakfasted."
At this moment there came a quick tap at the door, and Mrs. Fry's voice
was heard without. At a signal from Ferrars, Doctor Barnes opened the
door.
"Gentlemen," began the little woman in eager explanation, "I don't want
to interrupt."
"We are just going," said the doctor politely.
"Oh, well, I got to thinking, after I went downstairs, and it came into
my mind that I didn't see Miss Grant's picture on the top of the
writing-desk up here. Mr. Brierly had had it three weeks or so, and he
showed it to me himself and says, 'Mrs. Fry, this picture is in its
proper place here in my room. You and Nellie both know and love Miss
Grant, and so I may tell you that she is to be my wife some day, God
willing.'" The woman's voice broke at the last word, and Robert Brierly
made a quick stride back toward the desk. But Ferrars said,
unconcernedly, "Thank you, Mrs. Fry; we shall find it in the desk, I
fancy," and then he explained to her Mr. Brierly's desire that the rooms
remain closed to all curious visitors until further notice, adding that
they would close the outside blinds and be downstairs directly; then,
shutting the door upon the woman's retreating form, and softly turning
the key in the lock again, Ferrars went to the desk, and, catching back
Brierly's extended hand, said, "Wait!"
He came closer to the desk and bent to scan at the top shelf.
"Look," he said after a moment, "do you see that line, close to the
back, where the dust is not quite so apparent? The picture has been
taken from there." He took hold of the back and pulled the desk from the
wall a few inches.
"Ah," he exclaimed, "I thought so!" and dropping upon one knee he drew
out two pieces of cardboard. "I thought so," he repeated as he arose,
and there was a steely gleam in his eyes as he held out to view the two
halves of a fine picture of Hilda Grant, torn across the middle as if by
a firm and vindictive hand. "This helps me," he said, with a touch of
triumph in his voice. "It helps me more than all the rest."
He made a movement as if to put the picture together with the letter
which he had put down upon the desk-top, into a capacious inner pocket,
and then suddenly withdrew his hand and bestowed them elsewhere, for,
thrust into that safe side pocket, so convenient and capacious, was a
folded newspaper, from which a "clipping" had been carefully cut, a
paper which he had found in the rack near the desk, and had secreted, as
he thought, unseen, at his earliest opportunity.