_The Lady In White_
Half way toward the thicket, Kip Burland saw that the light had gone
out. But he had marked the spot from which it had originated, and in
another moment he had broken through the tangled branches of the shrubs
to the place from which the light ray had come. He saw no one. He
stopped, listening. On his left he heard the crackling of twigs. He
moved quickly in that direction, saw now a wraithlike figure in white.
"Hello there."
It was the soft voice of a woman who called. Kip Burland took a few more
cautious steps in the direction of the figure in white. Now that his
eyes were more used to the gloom, he could see that the woman was not
alone. There was a man standing beside her.
"Hello," Kip responded calmly. He took a box of matches from his pocket,
struck one, and held it high. The woman wore a white evening gown. Her
beautifully molded face was nearly as white as her dress. Her hair was
black as India ink, drawn back from her rounded forehead to knot softly
at the back of her head. Her eyes were cool green with an exotic lift at
the outer extremities of the lids.
The man beside her was evidently her chauffeur, judging from his
uniform. He was a dark, somber looking man with a particularly ugly scar
on his chin.
The woman smiled--a smile that did not quite reach her green eyes.
"Are you the man with the flashlight who was out here a moment ago?" she
asked.
Kip's eyes narrowed. He wondered if the woman was beating him to the
draw. He might have asked her, and with better reason, if it was she who
had turned that beam of light on the Weedham house.
The match burned out in Kip's fingers. He tossed the stub of it aside.
"Obviously I'm not the man with the flashlight," he said evenly, "or I
would not have had to light a match just now."
"How silly of me," the woman with the green eyes laughed. "Of course you
are not. But I am so anxious to find my little locket. I am Vida
Gervais, and I live just over the wall in the next house. I think I lost
my little locket while walking here this afternoon. I hoped that you
were the man with the flashlight and could help me find it."
"Don't you find that gown something of a liability hunting in this
jungle?" Kip asked. Her explanation was entirely too glib to suit him.
But before she could form an answer, the whip-crack of a shot rang out
from the direction of the Weedham house. The woman who had introduced
herself as Vida Gervais uttered a short, sharp cry. Then she and her
chauffeur turned and fled.
Kip Burland thrashed his way through the bushes to the border of the
thicket. In the dim night glow, he saw a man running toward the house
and a second figure that lay huddled on the lawn in front of the terrace
steps. Burland could not be absolutely certain, but he thought that the
running man was Jack Carlson. There were hoarse shouts from the
immediate vicinity of the house, and Kip recognized the bellow of Joe
Strong and the harsh rasping voice of Sergeant McGinty.
Kip broke away from the shrubbery and ran across the open lawn toward
that point where the man lay on the ground. The second figure, which he
thought was Jack Carlson, was now kneeling beside the fallen man.
In another moment, Kip saw that his first impression had been correct.
The second man was Carlson. He looked up at Kip, his face chalk white in
the uncertain light.
"He's dead," Carlson said. "He's been shot."
Burland dropped beside Jack Carlson, brought out his matches, struck
one. The man on the ground was wearing an ordinary business suit. He was
entirely bald, with a large, shapeless nose and chubby cheeks. He was
lying on one side, his left arm extended. Clutched in the dead fingers
of his left hand was a yellow slip of paper. It looked like bank check
paper to Burland.
Others were coming from around the side of the house--Jeff Weedham and
Barbara Sutton. Behind them came Major Paxton and two other members of
the committee.
* * * * *
Kip Burland shot a glance at Jack Carlson, saw that the latter was
looking in the direction of the newcomers. Kip thrust out a hand toward
the piece of yellow paper in the fingers of the corpse. It was so rapid
a movement that even if Carlson had been watching him it is doubtful if
the auto livery operator could have caught it. Kip jerked the piece of
paper from the hand of the dead man, and stood up.
By the time Barbara and Jeff Weedham had joined them, Burland had rolled
the slip of yellow paper into a cylinder and placed it inside the cap of
his fountain pen.
"Kip!" Barbara gasped. "What's happened?"
"Someone seems to have been shot," he replied mildly. "I don't know just
who."
Jeff Weedham had a flashlight. He turned the beam on the face of the
dead man.
"D-d-damn!" he stammered. "It's Biggert. Poor old Biggert. Why, he's
D-d-dad's private secretary. Attended to everything for D-d-dad."
William Weedham, Adler, and the rest of the committee men hurried from
the corner of the house.
"Biggert, did you say?" William Weedham gasped. "Good lord! Where's that
Sergeant McGinty?" And then Weedham dropped beside the dead man, looked
long and searchingly into the immobile face.
Sergeant McGinty put in his appearance a moment later and with him was
Joe Strong. He was holding onto Joe by the ear.
"Try your football tackles on me, will you!" McGinty was growling, while
Joe was trying to break away without losing an ear.
"Aw, Sergeant, how did I know it was you prowling around in all that
dark?" Joe complained.
It was evident that Joe had made another of his unfortunate mistakes.
But McGinty forgot and forgave when he saw the body of Biggert lying
there on the lawn. The sergeant bent his thick knees, took Jeff
Weedham's flashlight, turned it on the corpse.
"It was obviously a mistake," Jack Carlson was explaining smoothly. "The
killer had no designs on Biggert, certainly."
"Huh?" McGinty looked up, his red face contorted by a puzzled frown.
"What do you mean, it was a mistake?"
"This is obviously the Eye's work," Carlson explained. "I was standing
just about in this spot when this man Biggert came running around the
house and directly in front of me. That was when the shot was fired. The
bullet was intended for me. You would expect as much after the Eye's
warning."
McGinty nodded his head. "Could be. And believe me, Mr. Carlson, you'd
better put yourself under police protection."
"I can take care of myself, thanks," Carlson insisted. As he turned away
from McGinty and the body, his eyes met those of Kip Burland. And then
Carlson stepped quickly to the outer rim of the circle around the body.
Kip Burland knew that Carlson was lying. Carlson hadn't been near
Biggert at the time of the shooting. It was Carlson whom Burland had
seen running toward the body.
"D-d-dad," Jeff Weedham stammered, "where was Biggert when we were in
the library?"
"Oh, how should I know!" The elder Weedham ran his fingers through his
gray hair. "I don't know where he was. In his room, I suppose, going
over my personal accounts."
"Possibly," Major Paxton put in, "he was disturbed when the lights went
out in the house and came down to investigate. He probably heard the
rest of us outside the house, searching for that prowler who turned the
light through the library window."
"And possibly," McGinty said, "Biggert had discovered something pretty
important, too! There's a little scrap of yellow paper in his
fingers--just a corner, as though somebody snatched a note or something
from his hand."
"Just a corner, you say, Sergeant?" Jack Carlson asked. "When he fell in
front of me, I noticed that there was quite a sizable slip of paper in
his hand."
"There was, huh?" McGinty's eyes rested accusingly upon each face in the
circle about the body. "All right. Now just tell me who first joined you
and the murdered man, Mr. Carlson."
Carlson looked at Kip Burland. "It was that young man," he said.
"Burland, huh?" McGinty said. "I guess I'll have to search your pockets,
Burland, if you've no objection."
Kip smiled. "None whatever, Sergeant."
McGinty went through Kip's pockets. He ignored the fountain pen which
was clipped in plain sight. He stood back, shook his head.
"I guess you're clean, Burland," he admitted, and then turned to the
others. "But I'm finding whatever was in Biggert's hand, understand?
Mr. Weedham, you'll go call headquarters and tell them I want the
Homicide Detail out here."
"You mean me, d-d-don't you?" Jeff Weedham asked.
McGinty shook his head. "I mean your father. You and the rest stay here.
I'll have a little more searching to do. And a lot more questions to
ask."
Though McGinty fulfilled his promise in so far as the questions and the
searching were concerned, he didn't turn up the piece of paper he was
looking for. Neither did he find the weapon or the murderer.
It was about eleven o'clock when Jack Carlson asked permission to leave.
He had some urgent business to attend to, he explained to the sergeant.
McGinty had no grounds for holding Carlson, told him to go ahead.
But Carlson did not leave alone. Kip Burland, without asking permission
from anybody or even saying good-night to Barbara, slipped quietly from
the house. He was particularly interested in the urgent business which
was pressing Mr. Jack Carlson.