ESCAPE
Mrs. Bascom was very busy the following morning, yet her activities
were somewhat peculiar. She had gone to sleep the previous evening
reading another of King’s books, awakened quite early, finished the
story, then tiptoed down to the library for another volume. This she
skimmed through, reading a page here and there only, and completing
it before breakfast.
From that time on, she had a book under her arm wherever she went,
and only when necessary did she raise her eyes from its printed
pages. For the most part she had remained in her room with the door
to Sylvia’s partly open. In this way she could be of service at a
moment’s notice if needed, but, more important still, she would be on
hand if Basil attempted to make his threatened call. This he had not
done, however, and nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
Sylvia, pleading weariness, had decided to remain in bed until noon
at least. She had stayed awake, but whenever Mrs. Bascom looked
into the room, her expression was thoughtful, as if turning all the
energy saved by her languor into mental activity. Mrs. Bascom had not
interrupted this mood; in fact, she was sure Sylvia had not even seen
her stand in the doorway at all.
The house had been very quiet. The doctor and the judge had gone
for a walk, while Basil was content to read and write in the rooms
below. This did not surprise Mrs. Bascom, for she knew that he was on
his vacation, also that he had expressed a wish to be left alone to
loaf about and not feel he must go anywhere or do anything requiring
energy; yet she looked in on him more than once during the morning
and kept a watchful eye on what he was doing. Thus she knew, when he
later on went for the mail, that he was taking along two letters of
his own, but they were the ordinary size and bulk.
It was about noon when she finally laid aside her books and nodded
silently to some weighty decision she had made. She was replacing the
last volume in the bookshelf in the library when Basil returned.
‘Caught in the act!’ he laughed. ‘I’ve always heard it was the meek
and mild pillars of virtue who really support blood and thunder
literature, but I’d never suspected it of you. It only goes to show
how little we can judge our fellow beings by their faces--in a manner
of speakin’, as Sewell would say.’
A withering response rose to her lips, but she checked it back and
forced herself to smile.
‘You would think there was enough mystery about here, even to satisfy
me! But I read one of King’s stories--and that was my downfall.--Did
you stop for the mail?’
‘Worse and worse!--I have a letter for you, and I do believe it is in
a masculine hand.--Ah, your blush confirms it. Here, let me not delay
the happy moment longer.’ He turned about with elaborate courtesy
after he handed her the note.
She glared at his back for a moment, her lips curling with
unconcealed disdain to relieve the resentment she could no longer
control, then read the letter quickly. A gleam of satisfaction
lighted her eyes as she stuffed it into her dress, forcing herself to
speak casually and naturally.
‘A business matter--quite successful, too.’
‘Sounds serious.’ Basil turned about again with a fatuous grin. ‘I
only hope you haven’t been playing the market, Mrs. Bascom? There are
widows and----’
‘Widows!’ finished Mrs. Bascom emphatically, and the one word neatly
closed the subject. ‘I think dinner--or lunch, as King always called
it--will be ready as soon as you are.’
‘Good, I take the hint. I’ll be with you in a tick.’
Throughout the meal they talked quite steadily on various
subjects, but the one uppermost in their minds had no share in the
conversation. Mrs. Bascom asked a good many questions about city
life, a subject for which she expressed considerable interest and
little knowledge. Basil responded readily enough to her lead, but
she rather suspected his answers were not always strictly truthful.
Though his manner was deferential and serious, she sensed the lighter
mood behind it, so accepted his statements in equal gravity without
believing a word of them. That he could be quite charming and
entertaining, he proved conclusively, yet she was on her guard to
discount all this, repressing a growing dislike for him and his easy
duplicity.
Ezra Sewell arrived soon after the meal was concluded. He requested
Mrs. Bascom to find out if Miss Hawley felt able to go through the
papers in King’s desk and check up on a possible loss. This Sylvia
consented to do, insisting she was perfectly rested and anxious to be
of assistance. As soon as she had dressed, Sewell himself came up to
assist her down the stairs, but she declined his offer, saying it was
time she learned to get about alone, become less dependent on others.
Basil joined them in the den where the robbery had taken place, and
Mrs. Bascom watched keenly for some interchange of greeting between
him and Sylvia, but the latter did not look up or speak as she began
to take out the papers from the drawer that had been forced open.
Coming upon a sealed envelope that was not labeled, she reached out
for a paper-cutter with which to open it, but there was none on the
desk. Sewell interpreted her gesture rightly and put her question
into words.
‘A paper-knife? It ain’t where it usually is, eh?’
Sylvia nodded.
‘What kind of thing was it?’
‘Why, it was one of Mr. King’s favorite keepsakes. It was shaped like
a sword--silver blade and cleverly imitated hilt.’
Something had warned Mrs. Bascom at Sewell’s first question, so she
was able to conceal her emotions at the moment. Undoubtedly it was
the knife she had found in the chute--had thought was familiar--knew
was the one used to murder King!
‘It was always kept on this desk?’
‘Always.’
‘Hm.--Perhaps the burglar opened the drawer with it, an’ took it off
with him,’ suggested Sewell with apparent indifference. ‘But let’s
see if he took anythin’ else, Miss Hawley.’
She continued with her work, a moment later looking up at the
inspector.
‘There is one bundle of papers missing. They were folded sheets, a
package about two inches thick, I should say.’
‘You know what was in ’em, what they were about?’
‘No, not exactly. I only saw the bundle, folded up in a blank sheet
of paper. There were several sheets inside this, and it was something
to do with business, I gathered.’
‘Then you wouldn’t know ’em if you saw ’em again?’
‘No.--All I do know is that Mr. King locked them in there late in the
afternoon of the--the day he died.’
‘But he might have taken ’em out again himself.’
‘I doubt it. He was busy with his guests from that time on. I’m sure
he did not remove them.’
‘An’ the thief did, eh?’
She nodded silently, and for the first time gave one fleeting glance
at Basil. Mrs. Bascom saw this, interpreted it as half pleading, half
defiant, but Basil’s expression did not change in response to it.
‘Then it seems like another of these here affairs that might have
been done this way or that way, for all we know. I’d give fifty cents
if I could get hold of somethin’ definite an’ clear just for once,’
grumbled Sewell disconsolately. ‘You ain’t got anythin’ to add, I
s’pose, Basil? You knew somethin’ about his business affairs. Do you
happen to know about this?’
‘Not a thing more than Sylvia does,’ responded Basil readily. ‘He
spoke of some business matter he wished to run over with me sometime,
but gave no hint as to its purport. He has often talked things over
with me--the business end of his writing and all--so I have no idea
just what he had on his mind this time.’
‘This safe, Miss Hawley, I wonder if the thief broke into that too?’
At this implied question, Sylvia pointed to a panel in the wall and
told the inspector how to open it. This he did, revealing the locked
door of a wall safe.
‘Maybe you’d better open it an’ make sure.’
‘I can’t, Inspector. It was Mr. King’s private safe and only he knew
the combination.’
‘Then I guess we don’t need to bother with that now.--Miss Hawley,
if you don’t mind, I’d kind of like to have a little confab with you
alone, just to run over certain things a bit.’
This was a request Mrs. Bascom had both anticipated and tried to
avoid. She had fully intended to talk with Sylvia herself, to impress
upon her the very real danger of her position. That she had not done
so was partly her own fault, partly due to Sylvia’s unresponsiveness.
Yet Mrs. Bascom had come to fear Sewell’s innocent conversations, his
apparent simplicity, so she tried to forestall him.
‘Ezra Sewell, you know she isn’t fit to go through another grilling.’
‘Grillin’, ma’am? I promise it won’t be that--just a friendly chat.’
‘Call it what you will, she’s upset and----’
‘No, Mrs. Bascom,’ interrupted Sylvia. ‘I may have been foolish and
nervous before, but I’m perfectly fit again now. Besides, I want to
clear up things, to talk them over with Inspector Sewell.’
Mrs. Bascom attempted to dissuade her, but Sylvia remained firm,
ignoring all hints obdurately, quite as determined on the interview
as the inspector himself. Almost literally shoved out of the room,
Mrs. Bascom’s temper very nearly got the better of her. She even
contemplated eavesdropping to further her own knowledge of events
and to be able to rush in and interrupt matters if Sylvia became too
involved. But before she had decided on a definite plan, Dr. New
entered the hall and insisted upon leading her away to another room
for a private discussion of Sylvia’s physical condition.
‘Frankly, Mrs. Bascom, I’m rather troubled about her,’ he began,
placing the finger-tips of one hand against those of the other and
staring at them as he moved his palms backward and forward. ‘I do not
mean so much her physical as her mental condition.’
‘She seemed perfectly rational--if that’s the proper word--to me.
She’s just been going over King’s papers with Inspector Sewell and is
now talking with him alone.’
‘Was anything found to be missing?’
Mrs. Bascom briefly recounted the discovery of the loss of the papers.
‘I see. Still I’m not satisfied. Her mind is clear now and her
physical reactions seem normal for the moment, yet, when I stepped
into her room earlier this morning, she was quite the reverse. Her
pulse was racing, her nerves too taut, although she seemed relaxed
to the point of enervation. When I talked with her, asked a few
simple questions to test her reactions, her answers were disjointed,
almost irrelevant at times and contradictory. Finally she became
moody, silent, and hostile, to judge from her eyes.’
‘But is that exactly abnormal?’ countered Mrs. Bascom. She was
privately wondering whether this was acting on Sylvia’s part, or
whether her plan to make the doctor suspicious of the latter’s mental
balance was not working a little too well. ‘You know she’s been moody
and unlike herself ever since I found her in the chute.’
‘You mean, in other words, that because she is a woman she has a
right to be changeable?’ twitted the doctor. ‘Seriously, it is this
exaggeration of mood that troubles me, you admit she is different,
vacillating from mood to mood. A normal mind has periods of extremes,
depressions on the one hand and gayety on the other, but between them
come stretches of repose--a sort of middle ground, so to speak. She
goes too rapidly from one extreme to the other and does not seem to
gain that equilibrium which is natural.’
‘True--in a way. I’ve noticed that myself. But what do you infer from
that?’
‘Merely, we must watch her more carefully, Mrs. Bascom. Understand
me, I am not actually alarmed or predicting any relapse, but this
mental state, if allowed to continue, would result in a super-nervous
condition that might prove decidedly serious. You have influence with
her, you can do much that a man or her physician cannot. Find out
what is really troubling her and let me know. Then we can take steps
to counteract it.’
It was upon the tip of Mrs. Bascom’s tongue to reply that she had
already tried and failed, but instead she promised to do all she
could. Then the doctor gravely left her.
For a time she sat there, silent and thoughtful, her mind working
rapidly. Something must be done, some action must be taken. But
what? Ezra Sewell seemed content to let matters drift; that was not
her idea of tracing a murderer. She had little as yet to go on, yet
she had something which no one else knew about and her ruse for
protecting Sylvia had obviously borne fruit.
Her speculations were interrupted when she heard a door open and saw
Sewell assisting Sylvia toward her room. The latter was silent and
thoughtful, but the inspector talked in a cheerful monologue. Mrs.
Bascom followed after them to Sylvia’s room, and there stopped Sewell
as he was leaving.
‘I want to talk with you. Where are you going now?’
‘Well, I was goin’ down town, Ellen B. ‘Course if you----’
‘I’ll go with you,’ she interrupted quickly, then turned to Sylvia
who was sitting silently by the window.
‘Did he ask you a lot of questions?’
‘A few. We just talked--in general.’
Mrs. Bascom realized she was in an unresponsive mood, so made her
comfortable with some cushions and prepared to leave.
‘Sylvia, will you promise me to stay here in this room and rest until
I return. Will you?’
Sylvia nodded assent rather wearily.
‘Ring this bell if you want anything and I’ll tell Martha to listen
for it.--Now remember, you’ve promised to stay here.’
‘I will, Mrs. B.’
‘By the way, I intend to stop in at the jail for a moment or two,’
suggested Mrs. Bascom offhandedly. She waited, but Sylvia turned her
head away and did not speak. ‘I thought you might like to send a
message to Ruel or perhaps a note?’
‘Tell him I’m sorry, of course,’ murmured Sylvia in such a low tone
that Mrs. Bascom scarcely made out her words. They were far from what
the latter had expected for an answer, but when nothing more was
added, she left the room, her face puckered into a frown as soon as
she entered the hall.
So Sylvia would not even send a message of cheer to Ruel, much less
the sort of intimate message she had expected to carry!
Ezra Sewell sat in his automobile patiently waiting for her. After
one glance at her face as she climbed in beside him, he drove rapidly
down the road and maintained what for him was a reckless pace until
they drew up before her home.
‘Well, here we are, Ellen B. Now what you got to say? From the look
on your face back there, I don’t know whether to expect a revelation
or a revolution!’
‘My information may prove both, Ezra Sewell,’ she answered briefly.
‘Information, did you say?’
‘I did, even though you may think you’re the only one who knows
anything about this affair.’
‘Wish I was an’ did, ma’am. Seems like I ain’t an’ don’t, though.’
‘I’m glad you admit it, at least.--However, I came to tell you two
things, and here they are. The other day I recalled one little fact
I’d almost forgotten. While we were searching for clues after the
play, one of the guests, Mrs. Tenney, found a stone or pebble on the
floor, but did not mention it in her written summary as it seemed so
unimportant. I wrote her when I recalled it. Here is her answer.’
She handed Sewell the letter Basil had delivered to her. He read it
slowly aloud:
MY DEAR MRS. BASCOM--
Yes, I do remember finding that pebble or piece of cement or
whatever it was. As it seemed useless, I threw it out of the
window later. Roughly (no pun intended, I assure you), the spot
where I found it was on the edge of the rug a few feet from the
desk over toward that closed window.
That answers all your questions, I think, though for the life of
me I can’t see anything to them. I suppose I am not intended to!
Do give my love to that wonderful specimen of a ‘constabule’
who----
Ezra read the remainder of the note in silence, chuckling at the
innuendos quite frankly.
‘Thanks for lettin’ me see this--all of it,’ he nodded. ‘It kind of
backs up our suspicions, don’t it?’
‘The other information,’ continued Mrs. Bascom, paying no attention
to his remark, ‘concerns Mr. King.--Have you ever read any of his
books?’
‘Sure. Mighty lively an’ interestin’ fun, too.’
‘I have just finished skimming through them all--especially some of
the older ones I did not know he had written. I think they are more
than merely interesting stories. They tell where he lived before he
went to New York.’
‘My land!’ exclaimed Ezra fervently. ‘You don’t mean it! Ellen B., if
you ain’t the cleverest, smartest woman----But get on, tell me the
rest.’
She was flushing faintly for no accountable reason at his compliment,
but her words were tart enough. ‘It’s plain as can be to any person
of sense. It was Boston.’
‘What was the book you found that in? How are you sure?’
‘It was in most all of them.’
‘But look here, near as I can remember they were written about
different places.’
‘Some of them were, of course, but more of them were laid in Boston
than any one other city. Besides, I found several, written some years
ago, I guess, and they were all about Boston. His characters are
invariably New England people too. I guess I’ve visited my sister in
Boston enough to know his descriptions are accurate, and that’s why
his stories are clear and interesting, because he wrote about places
he knew. Another thing. He must have known detectives and criminals
and their ways. He shows it in his books.
‘I believe, Ezra Sewell, that he himself was a detective working in
Boston at one time, and his death was an act of revenge by some
crook he had captured. That explains everything.’
She concluded with an emphatic nod. Ezra took off his hat slowly
and scratched his head. He had been prepared to accept some shrewd
deduction from Mrs. Bascom, but this was a little too intangible, too
far-fetched for him.
‘Well, now, seems kind of possible, but I dunno as it means as much
after all. Sounds kind of like one of his own stories. ’Course I can
write down there an’ inquire a bit, but----’
‘You ought to go there yourself--do something at once,’ snorted Mrs.
Bascom, observing the doubt in his face. ‘It is certainly worth that
effort to find out.’
‘Nope, I can’t get away just now, Ellen B. Got too much to do here.’
‘In other words, you don’t believe me.’ She made a clicking sound
with her teeth that expressed her feelings of scorn for his judgment.
‘Very well, then, Ezra, I’ll tend to that myself.’
‘Goin’ down personal, you mean?’
Mrs. Bascom ignored his questions pointedly.
‘I want to talk to Ruel, if it’s possible. Will you take me there or
shall I walk?’
‘’Course I’ll take you to the jail.’
Wisely he let the matter of King’s identity drop for the time being.
After all, there was a chance that her deductions might prove right,
and certainly he must let no such chance escape. He could write
officially to make inquiries. But she was piqued, and he felt sure
she would do as she had threatened. Ellen B. was tenacious, not
easily discouraged, and if she determined to go on such a wild-goose
chase personally--well, that was her affair, and between them, they
would certainly find out all there was to know.
When they reached the jail, a new thought struck him.
‘Did you go for the mail to-day?’
‘No, Basil Stacey brought it.’
‘Hm. Then you can’t say as to who got letters, eh?--Happen to know
whether he did any writin’ himself, mail anythin’ to-day?’
‘Yes, two letters.’
‘Observin’, ain’t you?--Well, guess I’ll do a sort of errand or two,
Ellen B. Take me half an hour, maybe, then I’ll come back here for
you. That long enough for a call?--Help yourself, ma’am. You’ll find
the key to his cell hangin’ in the office near the door. Go right in
an’ make yourself to home. Guess he ain’t a desperate criminal, so
you needn’t be scared.’
Chuckling softly, Ezra left his car and watched her quizzically as
she disappeared into the jail, before he set off down the street,
whistling tunelessly as he scuffed away.
His first errand led to the post-office and general store, where he
lounged until the little room emptied of its few leisurely customers,
then he went to the mail window and gave the postmistress an order to
list all incoming or outgoing mail for any of the people at King’s
house. Questioning her as to the morning’s mail, he received a bit of
information that was both interesting and illuminating. Basil Stacey
had mailed his two letters, both addressed to his office, and with
them two packages of approximate letter size, though much more bulky.
These had gone under registered mail to his office also.
Turning this information over in his mind, Sewell next sought out
several of his feminine neighbors in the village and shamelessly
gossiped with them, in each case leading the subject about until
it touched upon Sylvia Hawley, and resulted in a brief character
sketch through these women’s eyes. Invariably, Sylvia came out with
flying colors as a thoroughly likable, sincere, and unselfish woman,
irrevocably devoted to Mr. King and his affairs.
It was almost an hour later he returned to the jail, expecting to
find Mrs. Bascom either already gone or impatiently waiting with
some quite personal remarks in store for him. She was not in the
office, and a glance at the hook where the key to Ruel’s cell hung
proved it was still in place. Grinning to himself, Ezra stepped into
the corridor to ask Ruel when she had gone and if she had left any
message. But the words froze on his lips.
There in the cell sat Mrs. Bascom, gagged, and tied hand and foot,
perched bolt upright on Ruel’s cot!
Ruel was gone!