TWO TRAILS
"I'm afraid," said Bristow, after the policeman had hurried out, "we made
a mistake in permitting Morley to talk to Miss Fulton just at present."
"I can go down there and interrupt them," Greenleaf volunteered.
The lame man reflected, a forefinger against the right side of his nose,
the attitude emphasizing the fact that this feature was perceptibly
crooked, bent toward the left.
"No," he concluded. "We'd probably be too late." Then he added, "And we
didn't find out Morley's employment or profession in Washington--but
we can do that later."
The chief of police prepared to leave, saying he was going to call at
Douglas Campbell's office and from there go to headquarters in the hope
that Perry had been found.
"Can't you come with me?" he invited.
"It's against the doctor's orders," Bristow replied. "He tells me not to
leave this house or its porches. If I started to run around with you, I'd
be exhausted in an hour. But I'll tell you what: this afternoon, after
you've talked to Campbell and the darky, suppose you come back here, and
we'll drop down to interview Miss Fulton ourselves."
This surprised Greenleaf.
"You mean you suspect----"
Bristow laughed.
"Oh," he countered lightly, "we've enough suspecting to do already.
There's Perry--and there's Morley. Don't let's complicate it too much.
But what Miss Fulton has to say may be valuable. By the way, if I should
need to do so, how can I persuade anybody that I have authority to ask
questions, or to do anything else in this matter?"
The captain thought a moment.
"I'll appoint you to the plain-clothes squad. I appoint you now, and the
city commissioners will confirm it. They meet tonight. You're on the
force--at a nominal salary--say ten dollars a week. That suit you?"
"Perfectly," consented Bristow. "What I want is the power to help in case
I have the opportunity."
Greenleaf went out to the porch, followed by Bristow, and started down
the steps.
"By the way," his new employee said in a cautious tone, "don't forget to
stop at Number Five and look for those scratches, on the fingers and the
neck."
"By cracky!" exclaimed the chief. "I'd forgotten all about it. I'll do
that right away."
Looking toward No. 5, Bristow saw a hearse-like wagon drawing up in front
of the door. The coroner had already made arrangements for the removal of
the body of Mrs. Withers to an undertaking establishment.
The lame man went slowly into the house and stood at the window, staring
at the mountains. In the clear, newly washed air, they looked like the
soft, tumbling waves of some magically blue sea.
Like most retiring, secluded men, he had his vanity in pronounced degree.
He saw himself now, the dominant figure in this city of thirty thousand
people, the man who had been selected by the chief of police as the one
able to unravel the web of mystery surrounding this startling murder. The
thought pleased him, and he smiled. He began to think about himself and
about life as a general proposition.
Everything was always so mixed up, so involved. People talked of a divine
providence, of the law that virtue is rewarded, of the rule that to do
good is to have good done to one. He smiled again. If all that was true,
what explanation was there for the murder of this woman, this beauty
whose good nature, kindness, and cleverness had endeared her to all with
whom she came in contact?
He had heard the women on the porch of No. 5 say that everybody had loved
her. Why, then, had some ignorant negro or some white man bent on robbery
been permitted to steal up on her in the dead of night and crush out her
life? Was there any reason, any logic, any mercy in that?
He drummed on the window-pane with his fingertips and whistled, scarcely
audibly, a fragment of tune. His pursed up mouth made it clear that he
was not a handsome man--the lower lip was heavy, somewhat protuberant.
Pshaw! There was only one rule of life that held good, so far as he had
been able to see. Strength and persistence accomplished things and
brought success and security. Weakness and foolish prating about
righteousness and virtue were never worth a dollar.
That was it! If you were mighty and clever, you stayed on top. If you
were sentimental and looking after other people's interests, you went
down. You had no time to bother about the safety and happiness of others.
Look out for yourself. Never relent in the fierce battle against the odds
of life. That was the only way to conquer and avoid catastrophe.
He was sure of it when he thought about himself. He had a brilliant
brain. It was not particularly egotistic for him to think that. It was
merely a fact. But he had not used it relentlessly and incessantly.
He had relaxed his hold too often when seeking pleasure. Although he had
done things which had been applauded by his friends, he had nothing much
to show in the way of lasting results.
That was why he was here now, with scarcely enough resources to pay the
rent of his bungalow and the expenses of living. A little dabbling in
real estate, some third-rate work for the magazines, a passing notoriety
as a guesser of crime riddles--it was not a record that promised a bright
future.
He sighed. Well, that was the way of life. He might yet accomplish big
things although he was under a terrific handicap--and he might not. He
would try, and see.
His future was much like the probable outcome of this murder. How
would the circumstances shape themselves? What would be the result of
circumstantial evidence?
It was all a gamble. Some murderers were lucky and got away. And some
innocent men were not lucky. These were like the blundering, illiterate
negro Perry. There was an even chance that the guilty man would be
caught--and there was an even chance that an innocent man would hang.
Life was like that!
He caressed with his forefinger his protruding lip. He wouldn't say the
negro was guilty. In spite of the evidence of the buttons, he would
advance no such theory yet. And as to Morley--nobody could think that
a man with such a weak face would have the nerve to do murder. He knew
this. There must be somebody else. It might be that the sister, Maria
Fulton, in an excess of rage--But why reason about that before he had
talked to her?
It was up to him to fasten the guilt on the guilty man--or woman. That
was what was expected of him. And it was a task which----
He turned toward the table and began methodically to paste into their
proper places the clippings he had cut from the newspapers concerning
other "big" murder cases. He would study them later.
He looked up and saw a very fat man standing just outside the door.
"Hello, Overton," he said, without cordiality, and joined him on the
porch.
"I picked out an interesting time to visit you," observed the fat man,
still puffing from the exertion of climbing the Manniston Road hill;
"what with murder and----"
"And I'm going to be frank with you," Bristow put in. "I'm helping the
police a little, and I haven't the time to gossip now. I know you'll
understand----"
"Surely, surely!" said Overton. "I'll come some other time. This sort
of stuff's right in your line. You used to be an authority on it in
Cincinnati, I remember."
He said good-bye and lumbered awkwardly down the steps. He and Bristow
had been good friends in Cincinnati, and he seemed now not at all
offended by the summary dismissal.
The door leading from the kitchen to the dining room opened. Mattie had
returned. Bristow reentered the house.
"Well?" he said in the low, kindly tone he used in speaking to her.
"I foun' Lucy Thomas, Mistuh Bristow," she said, breathless and
indignant. "She is sho' one sorry nigger. She wuz drunk--layin' out in de
parluh uv dat little house uv her'n. Dead drunk."
"Did you wake her up, Mattie?"
"Yas, suh; but she ain' fit to come do no wuk. Dis ole rotten blockade
whisky dese niggers drink jes' knocked her out--knocked her out fuh
fair."
"Did she say when she got drunk?"
"Las' night, suh, late, wid dat Perry. You know, Mistuh Bristow; he been
doin' some wuk fuh you."
"Was Perry drunk last night? Did she tell you?"
"He wuz a little lit up, she says, but he warn't drunk. She didn't have
no idea whar he wuz jes' now."
Bristow made no comment on this, and Mattie, turning slowly away from
him, began to mumble something.
"What's that, Mattie?" he asked, only half curious.
"I wuz jes' sayin', Mistuh Bristow, it 'pears to me marveelyus how some
uv dese niggers behave. Dey don' look arter de white folks dey wuk fuh.
Seems to me marveelyus how a lot uv dem keeps out uv jail."
He was curious enough now.
"What do you mean?" he asked sharply. "What are you talking about?"
"It's jes' dis, suh: when I gits ovuh to Lucy's house, de fus' thing I
sees is a key layin' on de flo'. When I ast her 'bout it, she says it
mus' be de key to Number Five--she mus' uv drapped it."
"I see," said Bristow thoughtfully. "Yes, you're right, Mattie. There are
a lot of careless people in the world."
When she had gone back to the kitchen, the full force of what she had
said struck him. How simple it would have been for Perry to have taken
the key from the drunken Lucy and gone to No. 5! After the commission of
the crime, what would have been easier than for him to throw the key on
the floor in Lucy's house, thus apparently proving that he had had no way
of gaining entrance to the bungalow?
"I didn't foresee this," he meditated. "There's only one thing more
needed to hang that darky. That is the discovery that he has in his
possession, or has hidden, the jewelry."
He seemed suddenly reminded of something else by this thought. He went to
the telephone and called up the Brevord Hotel.
"A Mr. Morley, Mr. Henry Morley, registered there last night, didn't he?"
he inquired of the clerk.
"Yes," the clerk replied.
"I wonder," continued Bristow suavely, "if you'd mind looking at the
register and telling me exactly at what time he did register. This is
Chief Greenleaf's office talking."
"I see. Yes, sir; very glad to. Just hold the wire a moment while I
look."
Bristow waited. The Brevord was scarcely four minutes' walk from the
railroad station. Morley, having missed the midnight train by two
minutes, should have registered at the hotel certainly not later than ten
minutes past midnight.
"I have it," came the clerk's voice. "Mr. Henry Morley, of Washington, D.
C., registered here at five minutes past two this morning."
Bristow was astonished, but his voice was uncoloured by surprise when he
inquired:
"Are you sure of that?"
"Quite," said the clerk laconically. "We always put down opposite each
guest's name the time of arrival and registering."
"Thanks ever so much." Bristow hung up the receiver slowly.
It was now after one o'clock, and, following the routine prescribed by
his doctor, he made his way to the sleeping porch to lie down for half an
hour before dinner, his midday meal.
"From midnight until two o'clock this morning," he reflected, revolving a
dozen different facts in his mind. "Mr. Morley failed to mention how he
amused himself during all that time. If he's not a criminal, he's
criminally stupid."