Transcriber’s Notes: Italicized text is surrounded by underscores:
_italics_.
The Crookshaven Murder
THE CROOKSHAVEN
MURDER
BY
ALEXANDER MORRISON
[Illustration: (Colophon)]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1927
COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY ALEXANDER MORRISON
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
TO
MY MOTHER
WHO ONCE SAID THAT
ANY BOOK WITH SUCH A DEDICATION
MUST BE A GOOD ONE
CONTENTS
I. COMEDY 1
II. TRAGEDY 18
III. SUSPICION 35
IV. EZRA MAKES A PROFESSIONAL CALL 52
V. MRS. BASCOM LAYS A GHOST 68
VI. ROBBERY 84
VII. A LIE 99
VIII. THREAT AND PROMISE 115
IX. GROPING 132
X. ESCAPE 148
XI. EZRA TURNS THIEF 163
XII. ‘IT’S GONE!’ 179
XIII. CONFUSION 195
XIV. THE PRODIGAL RETURNS 212
XV. MRS. BASCOM CAPITULATES 228
XVI. CONFLICTING WILLS 244
XVII. EZRA TAKES A NAP 260
XVIII. THE WHOLE TRUTH 274
[Illustration: _KEY._
_D--Desk at which King sat._
_W--Open window through which actors entered._
_C--Curtained windows._
_T--Typewriter desk._
_S--Safe._
_G--Guests’ chairs._
_H--Old grain chutes._]
THE CROOKSHAVEN
MURDER
∵
CHAPTER I
COMEDY
Gerard King frowned at a folded slip of paper that lay on the floor
at his side. It had fallen from his pocket when he pulled out a
handkerchief. He stooped with an angry exclamation, retrieved and
unfolded it, staring at some figures written across its face. His
eyes slowly dilated; his ire changed to dread, as he peered about
uneasily, glanced behind him into the shadows that encircled a desk
light, the room’s only illumination.
With an effort he shrugged, touched a lighted match to the paper and
watched it burn, scowling to see his fingers tremble as he tossed the
ashes into a tray.
‘I’m a fool. A doddering old fool--afraid of his own shadow. Worse
than one of the shrinking victims of blackmail in one of my own
detective stories.’
His words were scornful, yet his rather gaunt face mirrored their
literal sense rather than the bravado with which he had striven to
utter them.
‘This must be only some clumsy joke--a coincidence.--Yet some one
sent that paper to me--has sent other, similar ones----’
His jaw sagged open and his mutter ceased as something moved in the
darkness before him, a ghostly figure that floated toward him. But as
it approached into the light, it took form, became a young woman in a
white chiffon gown that drifted about her in a restless cloud. King
relaxed with a faint sigh, studying her vivacious, piquant face.
‘Mr. King, what is it?’ Her animation faded abruptly to alarm as she
looked into his eyes. ‘Something’s worrying you. I’ve noticed that
look on your face several times lately. What does it mean?’
The smile that had fled from her face seemed to leap across into his,
wiping away its fear.
‘Nonsense, my dear Miss Hawley. You’ve no right to impute such dire
notions to an old man’s reflections.’
‘Old man--tosh,’ she cut in indignantly. ‘But I know you’re worried.
Tell me what it is--let me help you as you’ve so often helped me.’
‘All right, Sylvia, forget your imaginative foolishness, and you
can--by making my little amateur mystery play a success.’
‘Oh, I’m primed to do my share, Mr. King--or Uncle, pro tem.’ She
smiled as she made this reference to her assigned rôle in the
entertainment he had planned so carefully for the amusement of
his week-end house-party. ‘Yet I’m sure you are bluffing me about
this. Somehow even I feel “all of a jump,” as Mrs. Bascom would
say--nervous, for no apparent reason. I wish you’d tell me----’
‘That must be stage fright, Sylvia.--It’s almost time for my curtain
speech of explanation to my guests, so I must hurry. Perhaps I’ll
tell you--some other time.--Now, then, let’s see. Paper-knife is
ready; red ink, in the drawer. The stage is set for the murder scene,
I guess, and the props all in order. I’ll take one last look just to
be sure.’
King disappeared into the darkness. A light flashed on with a click,
and he strode over to a row of chairs placed at the farther end of
the room. In one of these he seated himself and looked about swiftly.
It was a long room with walls of rough clapboards, ceiling of dusty
rafters, and crude plank floor, covered by threadbare rugs. In
reality it was a part of the hayloft of a barn, converted into a
study, or ‘workshop,’ as he called it, where King spent a large part
of his days writing detective stories that, started as a hobby, had
superseded all other work.
Three French windows had been cut into the walls to give light
and air. The one at the farther end of the room from him was
uncurtained and slightly ajar; the other two--one on his left, one
behind him--were covered with heavy portières which lapped over the
casements, effectually excluding any light from outside. A desk,
placed diagonally between the open window and the one on his left,
together with two straight-backed chairs, completed the meager
furnishings.
‘Just switch off all the lights except on the desk, will you, Miss
Hawley?’ asked King from his seat. ‘Great! You can’t see a thing from
here except the immediate area of the desk and a gray blur from the
open window. Aside from these two spots, the room is pitch black. I
couldn’t have picked a better night for my play. It’s so overcast, no
light can seep in to reveal too many details.’
‘It’ll be the darkest murder of the year!’ chuckled Sylvia.
‘I hope so,’ responded King. He tossed an old dressing-gown over the
back of the desk chair, turned off the light, and led Sylvia away,
discussing some final preparations still to be made.
A few minutes later, Sylvia returned to straighten up the desk and
put a fresh blotter in the pad. Approaching almost noiselessly in
the darkness, she hesitated just outside the door, thinking she had
heard a board squeak under a footstep in the room. But when she
called out--‘Who’s there?’--a faint creak was her only answer, so she
hurried in and switched on the light. The room was empty.
Sylvia was not a timid or imaginative woman normally, yet, as she
changed the blotter, she looked up twice, unable to throw off the
feeling that some one had been, or still was, in the room. Her task
quickly completed, she did not stop to investigate further, plunging
the room into darkness and hastening away, trying not to hear a sound
from behind her that might have been a person breathing or moving
lightly, stealthily.
When she reached the brightly lighted living-room of the house
itself, Gerard King was ensconced before the fireplace, addressing
his guests in a hearty voice.
‘--And I doubt every last one of you. All this talk about the ease
of solving a mystery once you find the clues is the theorizing of
amateurs. Clues, so-called, may be twisted any number of ways. As a
writer of detective fiction, I consider myself an authority on the
matter and challenge your sleuthing powers.
‘Now here’s a practical test for you. We’ll act out a play, a murder
scene--let you watch and hear everything except who actually does
the deed, then see who is clever enough to deduce the truth. I’ll
guarantee to provide sufficient tangible clues that, when rightly
interpreted, will prove the murderer’s guilt. As a spur, I’ll give
a prize to the one who actually proves--not merely guesses, mind
you--who the guilty one is.’
A clamor of applause greeted his words, but he held up his hand for
silence.
‘Of course you must observe certain conditions. You must not
interrupt the play nor move from your seats during it. You, Basil
and Ruel, will play the villains, I’ll be the victim. And we must
have a heroine too. Miss Hawley shall do that rôle.--Now, then,
after the play is over, I shall remain “dead” until my murderer has
been discovered. You can do as you please then, make deductions and
find clues--which you will discover in the room itself; but you must
not touch or disturb anything that might prove vital evidence. That
clear?--Then come along to my workshop. We’ll make that the scene of
the crime.’
When the guests trooped up the narrow, dark stairs to the loft, King,
who refused to have any lights turned on, was in the lead. Beside him
walked a slender, erect little woman who was speaking crisply.
‘You can put it any way you please, Gerard King, but making a play
and entertainment out of death is fool----’
‘Foolish? Of course, but what is any impromptu entertainment at a
house-party if not foolish?’
‘Impromptu?’ she echoed with a shrewd sniff. ‘It’s all a hoax of
yours--concocted well ahead of time, or I miss my guess. You brought
it about entirely too cleverly for an impromptu stunt.’
‘Right--as usual, Mrs. B., but I defy you to solve the mystery when
you witness it, just the same!’
‘Oh, you’ll probably bungle it enough times to make that easy,’ she
gibed. ‘You just watch me.’
They had no time for further conversation as King left his guests to
fumble into their places in the darkness.
Mrs. Bascom picked out a prominent chair in the front row, tucked her
feet neatly under it, and stoically endured being bumped and prodded
rather than relinquish her seat. She had not thoroughly approved
of this idea of acting out a murder--it seemed vaguely wrong, like
tempting Providence; yet, since King intended to carry it through,
Mrs. Bascom intended to miss no detail of it!
When the confusion and murmur of voices had somewhat abated, a light
at the farther end of the room flashed on, and Mrs. Bascom leaned
forward--though she would have stoutly denied any feeling of interest
or excitement then. At his desk sat King, his dressing-gown loosely
tied about his waist, revealing a paper sticking out of his vest
pocket. By squinting, Mrs. Bascom made out the words printed on its
outer fold--‘Last Will and Testament’--before he withdrew it to read
its contents. He was smiling as he did this, but the expression
changed abruptly to consternation, it seemed to Mrs. Bascom. He
frowned, seized the sheet as if to tear it, then shrugged and
obviously shook off this mood of surprise.
The incident passed so quickly that most of the guests accepted it as
a bit of clever acting, but Mrs. Bascom checked off a point on her
finger which she bent down to her palm. That was not all acting, she
commented mentally. At the very outset, something had gone wrong,
some mistake had been made and he was trying to conceal it. Nor
was it an ordinary one to have called forth such an expression of
surprise, almost of--well, dread, for lack of a better term, thought
Mrs. Bascom. Yet evidently he had decided to overlook it and go on
with the play. She wondered----
Her speculations were interrupted by a low, scratching sound like
pebbles thrown against glass. King half turned toward the French
window that stood ajar, and called out gruffly, ‘Come in.’
It flew open with a crash and Major, his ecstatic puppy, bounded into
the room, only to stop short, bracing himself clumsily on all four
paws at the burst of laughter from the guests behind Mrs. Bascom.
His expressive tail drooped, one ear cocked up, and his head tipped
quizzically. Then he hesitatingly sat up to beg, as if it were the
only thing to do under the circumstances! A whispered pleading and
insistent snapping of fingers from outside the window were hardly
necessary to inform Mrs. Bascom that this actor, though effective,
was usurping another’s rôle. She bent a second finger with a chuckle,
wondering if she would have hands enough for all the mistakes that
seemed predestined to occur.
Reluctantly the dog dropped to his feet again and obeyed the summons
from without, at which the expected actor made his anticlimactic
entrance. It was Basil Stacey, wearing a long yellow slicker and
carrying a slouch hat in his hand. His was a jolly, likable face,
yet to Mrs. Bascom the concentrated light seemed to bring out the
weakness of his jaw and lack of strong character.
‘Beastly sort of a night to set a man on a cross-country hike,’ he
began at once as he advanced to the desk. ‘Of all the toe-stubbing,
shin-barking darkness I ever stumbled through----’
‘It was necessary,’ interrupted King, overdoing the severity of his
tone. ‘No one knows you came or shall see you go, understand?’
A bark of remonstrance from outside smothered his answer.
The dialogue and acting that followed were decidedly unimpressive to
Mrs. Bascom. Both men were upset, almost too overcome with mirth to
carry out their rôles, much less make them effective. King demanded
some undefined papers; Basil declined to give them up. An argument
was clearly intended to follow, but Basil cut it short, unable to
play his part longer. With a sound that he tried to pass off as a
sob of emotion, he threw down a packet of papers on the desk, kicked
aside the chair by which he had been standing, and stumbled toward
the window. When he had passed out of the immediate area of the light
so that his expression could no longer be seen, he paused to shake
his fist menacingly, then disappeared into the darkness. But the
point of the scene had been hopelessly spoiled.
Mrs. Bascom gave an audible ‘Hump!’ which she hoped would reach
King’s ears, then fixed her eyes on his face as he thumbed the papers
in gloating silence before muttering, ‘I must put them into the
safe.’ He crossed the room, passing before the dim oblong of light
that defined the window, stooped down to fumble in the shadow beyond
it, swung open the door to the safe she knew stood against the wall,
and thrust in the papers.
Back again in his chair, he took up the will, drumming with his
fingers as he read it.
A footstep sounded from the window, and another figure materialized,
stepping inside and advancing slowly toward the desk.
‘Well, back again? Changed your mind about letting me have ’em?’
sneered King without turning his head.
‘Pardon me, sir. May I have a word with you?’
‘Oh, Ruel Moore. Well, I’m busy, but I’ll listen if you make it
brief. Need another loan, I suppose?’
King’s greeting seemed to confuse Ruel. He stood stiffly by the
side of the chair, and Mrs. Bascom relaxed as if in anticipation of
another scene about to miscarry. Ruel, typical gentleman farmer in
overalls and corduroy jacket, was too literal, too matter-of-fact for
such fooling.
‘No, Mr. King,’ the latter answered as dramatically as he could.
‘I’ve come to pay back what I’ve borrowed--with interest in full.’
King grunted, received the paper Ruel extended and glanced at it.
‘The check is correct.--How did you do it? Some one die and leave you
a fortune?’
‘Pigs!’ answered Ruel laconically. ‘If you’ll give me a receipt----’
He waited, manifestly ill at ease while the other scribbled on a
paper. This he thrust into his pocket without a glance.
‘Mr. King, there’s another matter.’
‘What, more pigs?’
‘No, that is, you see, it’s--it’s not that--er--gender.’
‘Oh, you mean sows--lady pigs?’
‘Yes, the--er--ladies--your niece, to be exact.’
The guests behind Mrs. Bascom laughed, hissed and applauded this
sally, but she suspected his embarrassment was due more to stage
fright or diffidence than deliberate cleverness of acting. At their
clamor, he stiffened, his jaw protruding with determination, his
hesitancy vanishing.
‘Young man, am I to assume you are proposing marriage to me?’
‘Yes--that is, not to you, but to your niece. She’s already accepted
me and we intend----’
‘Intend, do you?--Let me get this straight. Ruel Moore, farmer,
borrows money from Gerard King, feeds it to his hogs, and, through
luck, gets it back again. He pays up his obligations, then announces
his intentions of marrying his benefactor’s wealthy niece, thereby
clinching for himself--and his hogs--a future income.--And if she
were penniless, what then?’
‘Sylvia is, for all I know. Nothing would alter my intentions, for
that matter.’
Some one near Mrs. Bascom interrupted _sotto voce_, ‘You see, my
dear, his intentions are honorable!’ but King paid no attention to
this remark, launching into a tirade against the pseudo-lover,
the ‘brawny hero all aquiver to carry off his romantic--and
wealthy--heroine.’ His anger was well simulated even though his
bombastic words overdid the effect he tried to create. Ruel remained
silent.
‘Damn you, get out!’ roared King in a final burst. ‘My niece shall
never marry a man with a piggery for a home. Sylvia shall marry when
I choose and whom I choose, understand?--Now get out before I throw
you out.’
‘I go, sir, but I shall return.’
King sprang to his feet. ‘If it is the last thing I do, it will be
to prevent such a marriage. Let me find you so much as looking at
Sylvia again, and I’ll----Wait. Though I’ve made a will here leaving
everything I possess to her, before I sleep to-night I’ll add a
codicil cutting her off without a cent if she marries you. Then we
shall see how pressing our swain becomes!’
‘We shall see,’ echoed Ruel as he stalked toward the window.
Mrs. Bascom led the applause heartily. In her estimation, Ruel had
been a most natural actor after all, and her shrewd mind was already
at work surmising which of these men would prove to be the murderer,
as one was obviously cast for that rôle.
Meanwhile King scowled and sat down, muttering, ‘The insolence of
him. Sheer bravado----Why, he--Sylvia----’
‘Yes, Uncle,’ answered a voice from the neighborhood of the door.
‘You want me?’
Mrs. Bascom recognized Sylvia Hawley’s accent, watched the grace of
her silhouette as it passed across the gray of the window and into
the spot light of the desk.
‘I do, Sylvia. Come here,’ replied King sternly.
Even Mrs. Bascom was surprised at the transformation in King’s
secretary. Gone was her severe business dress and manner, the air of
efficiency and briskness. She was animated, provocatively lovely.
‘Something wrong, Uncle?’
‘Decidedly so.--Ruel Moore has just been here.’
‘To pay back his debt? I shouldn’t think that would distress you.’
‘You know what else transpired.’
‘Perhaps I could guess.--But it was nothing “decidedly wrong,” I’m
sure.’ Her averted eyes and hurried words attested to her skill as an
actress.
‘It was ridiculous--utterly impossible--preposterous!’
‘Ridiculous? Not--not our love, Uncle.’
‘Puppy love is always absurd.’ The comparison was not a fortunate
one, and King hurried on. ‘As to this----’
‘This is not--what you just called it!’
‘Words--quibbling. Listen to me, Sylvia. You shall not spoil your
life by a hasty marriage to a common farmer. You are too fine for
that.--No, let me finish.--When I brought you here to act as my
secretary, I had no other thought than kindness toward an orphaned
relative. But you have changed all that.
‘Now you have become a daughter to me. Why, only to-day I made you
heiress to my wealth. And as my niece--daughter, rather--you shall
not throw yourself away for a whim, a romantic passion. You have
scarcely a nodding acquaintance with life, and there are others, real
men, more worthy of----’
‘Social dummies, you mean! No, Uncle, I’ve seen that sort of
successes--men birthmarked with a dollar sign who have never faced
an issue in their lives. I’ve had to fight for a living, and I want
a man who can do the same, one whom I can help. Ruel is that sort of
man.’
‘Nonsense--a yokel. I know the world better than you do. You leave
such matters to me.’
‘The world, yes--but not my love!’
‘Look here, Sylvia, enough of this parrying. I forbid you to speak
of that man again, absolutely forbid you to have anything to do with
him, do you hear? I am your guardian, and while you remain here, you
shall obey me--for your own good.’
‘Very well. While I am here, I shall obey.’
‘Quite right.’
Without further reply, she walked away and left as she had come.
While the guests cheered this bit of the drama, Mrs. Bascom sat
tense. A vague movement from the window had riveted her attention.
It was a movement so slow and indistinct that she scarcely could be
sure it was not her own imagination. She had rather scoffed at the
speeches and acting thus far, but there was something arresting,
pulse-quickening about this furtive shadow that sent a shiver of
expectancy down her erect spine.
King stared after his pseudo-niece as if in doubt as to the meaning
of her last words, took a step and called her name. When she did not
answer or return, he shrugged and settled back in his chair. But
Mrs. Bascom was oblivious to all this. The shadow had taken outline
against the window, became a man, peering stealthily into the room,
though his features were, of course, indistinguishable.
In spite of Mrs. Bascom’s scorn at the idea of the play, now that
she sensed the approach of the climax--the murder scene--she became
excited, clasping her hands tightly, thus wiping out all the errors
she had started to count, and wetting her thin lips in the darkness.
Something made her uneasy, ‘creepy’ she would have described the
feeling. The enacting of a murder, of death by violence, had not
appealed to her as an appropriate subject for amusement, but it was
more than a mere sense of indelicacy now. She was acutely nervous----
‘Stop being so skittish, Ellen Bascom,’ she admonished herself. ‘It’s
nothing but your own imagination--all worked up just because it’s
dark and sort of spooky.’
This seemed to calm her for a while and she watched keenly for some
clue to the identity of the silent intruder and the meaning of his
actions.
Meanwhile, King sat gazing into the light in thought, then blinked
and abruptly snapped off the switch. The room became pitch black,
except for that shadow against the window where a man waited
patiently.
A match flared up as King lighted a cigarette. Its tip made a glowing
point of light as he puffed a few times, then tossed it into an ash
tray on his desk. The whistling sound of his breath became more
pronounced and regular. He was supposedly asleep.
Then the man at the window moved, tiptoed into the room, halting
at each step to listen and peer into the darkness toward the desk.
He did not turn his head enough for his face to be seen in profile,
however, and it might have been either Ruel or Basil for all Mrs.
Bascom could tell.
At last he passed out of line with the dim light of the window,
became invisible. She strained to trace his movements, but in vain.
She heard him shuffle toward the desk. There was a soft scraping,
perhaps when his fingers fumbled over the desk or blotter. Mrs.
Bascom thought she heard a rustle, then a swish as from a quick,
sudden movement of an arm. The gasping sigh that followed was
convincing. She shuddered as King’s stertorous breathing abruptly
ceased.
A thud announced the falling of a body against the desk. Something
metal clattered to the floor and she caught her breath sharply to
stifle an exclamation. It all seemed so vividly real.
Out of the obscurity a voice whispered tentatively, ‘Uncle.’ When
there was no reply, a woman’s figure glided from the doorway into the
oblong of light, advanced toward the safe and stooped down before it.
Mrs. Bascom recognized this was Sylvia.
The knobs twirled and clicked, the door swung open. A sheet of paper
appeared in her silhouetted hand, and she held it close to her eyes
as if to read it in the half light. Satisfied with her scrutiny,
she tore it into tiny bits which she scattered on the floor, then
chuckled, and slipped away through the door as she had come.
Silence--broken by a deep sigh like the exhaling of a breath held
almost to the bursting point. A cautious fumbling, the click of a
ring or finger nail as it rapped against wood, then a shuffling of
footsteps, and the man appeared abruptly before the window. He paused
to wipe his fingers meticulously on a handkerchief which he withdrew
from his pocket. This done, he produced a pair of gloves and slowly
drew them on his hands, just as there was a second sharp sigh and
movement from the direction of the desk.
To this latter sound, the actor paid no attention, yet it had a
curious effect on Mrs. Bascom. She held her breath, peered toward
the desk, and half arose to her feet. King’s first death sigh in the
play had been gruesomely realistic; this one seemed unnatural, out
of keeping with the action. There was no definite reason for her
feeling, yet she became stifled, oppressed. It was too much. She must
relieve her tenseness, cry out, or----
She sank back, flushing.
‘You skittish old fool--as emotional as a school girl! Stop making
a scene of yourself,’ she whispered, forcing her eyes to the man
kneeling before the safe to listen for the fall of the tumblers in
the combination.
At length his efforts succeeded and the door swung part-way open. But
he did not reach in, instead became rigid, listening intently.
Somewhere outside the room a board squeaked under the pressure of
a foot. A woman’s voice hummed a tune, then a chair scraped along
the floor. A typewriter clicked as a paper was inserted into the
carriage, the keys tapped out a brief sentence, then the chair
scratched again as if the woman had stood up. There followed a
smothered exclamation, a curious thump, dying away in a series of
low, bumping jerks as when some bulky object is dragged across the
floor.
The thief sprang to his feet and leaped toward the window, stepped
across its sill and vanished. But his hands were empty, Mrs. Bascom
noted.
She sat listening, still tense. After a brief pause, two men’s voices
came from a distance and the clatter of feet upon an uncarpeted
stairway. They stumbled in the darkness as they neared the door.
A hand fumbled along the wall, a switch clicked, and the room was
flooded with blinding light.
Involuntarily, as she blinked at the sudden illumination, Mrs. Bascom
turned first to look at the motionless figure, fallen forward on the
desk. But under this light, her unnatural fears vanished. After all,
it was only a play!
With a smile, she turned to Ruel and Basil who had just entered the
room.