ALL THE YOUNG PEOPLE
Brent smiled openly and Graham discreetly at Bernard’s expense. Landis
contented himself with an inquiring glance toward his imperturbable
friend.
Here was the type of case to arouse every man-hunting instinct in the
subtle old detective. Bernard was subtle, far more subtle than his
brusque, sometimes overbearing methods seemed to indicate. Of this he
had shown ample evidence in the Carson case. No doubt he would give
proof of it in this case as well. In the meantime, Landis proposed to
give him full share of the road, go his own pace and get there first if
he could.
Entirely unruffled, Bernard had not shifted his grim, speculative
regard from Miss Mount’s face. She returned it unsmiling, as composed
as he.
“Well, Miss Mount,” he growled at last, “that covers what happened, I
think. We’re much obliged to you. Now perhaps we ought to have a clear
idea of the plan of the house. Suppose you describe the general plan of
it.”
“Certainly!” Miss Mount paused a moment to arrange her data. “I’ll
describe the main building first. On this floor, the rooms from front
to back on the left of the front door are the drawing-room, the
dining-room, the butler’s pantry, the kitchen and beyond that a wide
back porch.
“From front to back in the center there is the vestibule, the main
hall, the main staircase, the back hall which opens upon the same rear
porch and the back stairs down to the cellar and up to the second
floor.
“On this side of the house from front to back, we have the
reception-room where Mr. Harrison was killed, then this library, then
the hall beyond the armor there and then the billiard-room. Beyond that
lies the sunken garden.
“The plan of the wing is the same on all three floors; a suite of two
bedrooms and a bath facing the front of the house and a similar suite
facing the rear. The suites are separated by a long hall. At the end
of the wing toward the rear, a servants’ staircase and fire escape
runs from the ground floor to the third floor. On the second and third
floors there is a window at the end of the hall. On this floor there is
a door leading out to the garage.”
“Are any of the wing bedrooms occupied on this floor?” inquired Landis.
“Mr. Allen occupies the rear bedroom toward the end of the hall on the
ground floor and has the use of the adjoining bath this side of it. Mr.
Russell occupies the far front bedroom and uses the adjoining bath. The
front and rear bedrooms next the main building are unoccupied.”
Bernard got to his feet and glanced at Landis.
“Believe I’ll have a look at the wing again and get that clear,” he
said. “Like to come?”
The others, including Miss Mount, rose to their feet. Landis and Graham
prepared to follow Bernard and Miss Mount. Brent glanced at the big
desk and moved toward it.
“I’ll stay here,” he said, “and look over Mr. Harrison’s papers. That
is my duty as executor--”
“That’s perfectly all right, Mr. Brent,” Landis cut in courteously.
“Only please don’t change the position of anything or remove anything
until we have examined the desk. There may be something there that will
help us.”
“Very well,” retorted Brent testily. “I shall merely arrange the
papers--”
Landis shook his head, smiling. “Just what I don’t want you to do, Mr.
Brent! But we’ll look the desk over now. Then you may do as you please.”
He caught Bernard’s eye. With a word of apology to Miss Mount, Bernard
left her and walked past the ruffled lawyer to the desk, which Landis
had already approached.
Each taking an end, they examined the papers and documents on the
polished surface and studied the contents of the drawers, while Brent
looked on in high dudgeon. They found a few unanswered business letters
on top of the desk, drawers full of answered letters in files--and
innumerable prospectuses. One drawer contained pipes, tobacco and
cigars; another, odds and ends of personal possessions. The center
drawer held a huge checkbook and nothing else.
“Who typed his letters for him since he retired?” Bernard demanded
suddenly.
Miss Mount smiled a wintry smile.
“Most of his correspondence consisted of writing checks and enclosing
them in envelopes,” she said. “He wrote very briefly and in long hand,
as a rule. When there was a longer letter or a document to be written,
I typed it for him.”
“All right,” nodded Bernard. “Now for the wing.”
“There you are, Mr. Brent,” Landis smiled. “Sorry to delay you!”
Brent became genial.
“Not at all, Mr. Landis! One can only admire a man for doing his duty!”
He drew Harrison’s chair to the desk and sat down.
“Thanks,” replied Landis as he joined the others. They passed into the
front hall, leaving Brent drumming with his fingers on the edge of the
teakwood monstrosity, his eyes lowered.
Miss Mount led the way toward the swing door at the back of the hall.
Bernard fell behind the others and waited for Landis to join him, then
jerked his head toward the library door. Landis turned and moved back
the way he had come, his feet making no sound on the deep hall carpet.
When he reached the doorway he took one quick glance around the edge of
it. Brent was going methodically through the file of unanswered letters.
Smiling at his own expense, Landis retraced his steps and overtook the
others in the billiard-room, where Russell and Allen were still playing
a leisurely game.
They passed through the arch into the hall of the wing. Here Bernard
turned to Miss Mount.
“Are these near bedrooms unlocked?” he demanded.
“Certainly. Do you wish to inspect them?”
“Wouldn’t mind,” grunted Bernard.
Miss Mount opened the nearest door on their left and pressed the switch
just inside. Bernard crossed a corner of the lighted room to the
bathroom door, tried it and found it locked, the key under his hand.
He turned this and the door opened. The bathroom, used by Allen, was
cluttered with discarded underwear and damp towels.
Bernard relocked the door, switched out the light and crossed the hall,
where he found the corresponding bathroom door locked on the near side
and unbolted on the bathroom side. Russell’s bathroom, also obviously
used that evening, was in worse confusion than the other.
Leaving these rooms, as they had found them, and led by Bernard, they
retraced their steps to the front hall. Here the older detective turned
to Landis.
“If you agree and Miss Mount will be so kind,” he said, “I’d like to
get a line on the second floor and the occupants of the bedrooms up
there.”
Catching an inconspicuous nod of assent from Landis, Bernard started
up the main staircase without waiting for Miss Mount’s views on the
subject. With an air of stern determination she mounted rapidly in
pursuit, while Landis and Graham brought up the rear.
Half-way up, Miss Mount addressed Bernard’s broad back in a tone
electric with displeasure.
“Do you propose to intrude on Mr. Harrison’s bereaved daughters?” she
demanded.
“Certainly, if it seems necessary!”
Near the top, the main staircase divided left and right at a landing
backed with carved paneling and guarded by a rail above. Beyond
this, across the head of the stairs, ran a wide hall similar to the
one across the back of the library below. This upper hall, however,
extended a little farther to the left. On the right, where it reached
the house wall, it was blank like the hall beneath. But on this floor,
immediately above the door into the billiard-room, a narrower hall
extended back to the rear of the main building. Out of it on the right
opened an archway into the hall of the wing, similar to and directly
over the archway from the billiard-room. These two second-floor halls
formed an “L” in the angle of which were the bedroom and bath assigned
to Joel Harrison. Both rooms were exactly over the billiard-room.
The branching stairs from the landing opened upon two balconies running
to the front of the house along both sides of the long well of the main
hall.
On the landing Bernard stopped and eyed Miss Mount.
“I’d be obliged if you’d describe this floor as you described the one
below,” he told her gruffly. “You might mention the occupants of the
various rooms as you go along.”
Landis and Graham exchanged expectant glances. But Miss Mount had her
formidable temper well in leash. She turned to face the front of the
house and pointed to the left.
“That front bedroom over the reception-room is the one Mr. Harrison
occupied,” she explained curtly. “Next to it comes Mr. Harrison’s
bathroom and the bedroom formerly used by Mrs. Harrison. They are both
over the library of course. Mrs. Harrison’s room is unoccupied at
present.
“On the right, from front to rear, are Miss Isabelle’s room, then her
bath, then a guest room, then the linen room, then another guest room,
a bathroom and Miss Anita’s room over the kitchen.”
Miss Mount turned as she indicated these rooms until she was facing the
back of the house.
“Across the back from left to right,” she continued, “are the enclosed
back stairs, Mr. Joel’s bedroom and his bath. The last door on the
left-hand side of the house toward the rear is, of course, that of Miss
Anita’s room. The door at the back there, close to it, opens into the
back hall and the back stairs, up and down. This door in the middle at
the back is that of Mr. Joel’s room. His bathroom to the right has no
outlet other than through his bedroom.”
“Very clearly expressed,” said Bernard. “Now, does Anita’s room open
into the back hall as well as into this one across the head of the
stairs?”
“No, it does not.”
With a nod, Bernard mounted the right-hand flight, crossed a corner of
the lateral hall and entered the narrower hall which led to the wing.
In the archway he paused.
“As I understand it,” he said, “there are four bedrooms and two baths
on this floor of the wing. Mr. and Mrs. Graham have the rear bedrooms
and the bath between. You occupy the near front room opposite that of
Mr. Graham?”
“That is correct.”
“And have, presumably, the exclusive use of the front bathroom
adjoining your room?”
“I have.”
“Then the far front bedroom is unoccupied?”
“No one sleeps there, Mr. Bernard. The room has been turned into a
sort of play--a sort of den for Mr. Joel Harrison. He keeps his stamp
collection and his personal treasures there and potters about with his
experiments.”
“Chemical experiments?”
“Oh, no. He has a workbench in there and sometimes makes things. At the
moment his interest is in bows and arrows.”
“Oh!” said Bernard.
“Joel Harrison,” observed Miss Mount evenly, “is as harmless as a
sweet-tempered child.”
“Thank you!” Bernard walked down the hall and tried the door of Joel
Harrison’s den. It was locked. “I suppose there’s another door through
your bathroom?” he asked. “I’d like to see the den.”
“You may come through my bedroom if you wish,” said Miss Mount
patiently. “The door from my bathroom to the den is locked on my side,
as Mr. Joel has a bathroom of his own adjoining his bedroom.” She
opened her door for them.
Her room had an air of spartan simplicity. In the near right-hand
corner stood a chest of drawers. Then came a big four-poster, a bedside
table and in the right front corner an old easy-chair. Between the two
windows stood a small table with a book or two and a vase of field
flowers. In the left front corner stood an old typewriter desk of the
type in which the machine sinks down to leave a flat top. It was down
now and the surface bore a blotting-pad, ink-well, pens and stationery.
Next to it came the door to the bathroom, then a dressing table and
then, in the near left corner, a smaller door which opened into a
clothes-closet.
Miss Mount led them to the bathroom door, passed through and unlocked
the door beyond into darkness. In a moment three overhead lights and a
hanging lamp with a green glass shade showed them a room packed almost
everywhere with a collection of possessions in the wildest disorder.
The exception was the workbench against the far wall, at and about
which a place had been cleared. The hanging lamp shone down upon this,
revealing rows of large and small tools stuck anyhow into racks along
the wall, arrows and a bow dumped on the flat surface and in a vise a
single unfletched arrow. Near the pile of arrows lay an old pair of
soft leather gloves, several finger guards and an arm guard.
On chairs and tables about the rest of the room lay stamp albums and
books on stamp collecting; thousands of stamps in envelopes and in
heaps; sheets of loose manuscript written in a round, childish hand;
boomerangs; an old box-kite; electrical parts of all sorts; clockwork;
cross-bows, light and heavy; long bows and short bows, in one piece and
spliced; also many lengths and types of arrows.
There were countless other articles, relics of previous fads impossible
to catalogue in a brief inspection. If ever the disorder of a room
expressed the pathetic, struggling disorder of a man’s mind, this one
did.
Landis and Bernard and Graham, too, looked soberly about the silent
room. After a moment Bernard spoke for all three.
“Thank you,” he said. “That’s all.”
They returned in silence to the head of the main staircase. Here Landis
addressed Miss Mount, who had preserved a stony silence since they left
her room.
“We may as well be thorough,” he said. “What about the third floor? Do
the servants sleep up there?”
“Yes, all of them. Do you wish to see it?”
“Where are the servants now, Miss Mount?”
“They are all waiting in the kitchen in case you wish to question them.”
“Anything else up there of interest?”
“There is a big play-room where the girls still go sometimes. They were
shooting up there on Tuesday, I believe, the day it rained.”
“The girls were?” inquired Bernard.
“All the young people, I believe.”
“I think I’d like to see the third floor, too,” said Landis cheerfully.