“Keep your opinions until they are called for, man,” Belknap said
curtly. “Or until you know something of the lay of the land.” Swinging
on his heel he made an imperious, inclusive gesture that swept the room
clean of momentarily irrelevant persons.
“Clear out of here,” he ordered.
As the door closed on the retreating group, that tried to make its exit
with dignity, but somehow failed to convey better than the appearance of
a disorganized partridge brood scuttling into a thicket, Belknap
returned to Berry and the Sergeant.
“Now,” he said, “let’s you and I start from scratch. I’ll concede you
that much. I’ll throw down what I’ve seen and heard to date. After that
I make no promises.” He smiled with a bleak mockery. “There are
conclusions and conclusions—_and_ conclusions. And what I may make of a
given detail may differ widely from what you make of it. Then again, it
may not: ‘great minds,’ they say.— However that may be, don’t let’s make
a girls’ dormitory of it and hang confidences around each other’s necks.
I’ve always played, and always will play, a lone wolf game. I’m an Akela
or nothing. So you’ll have to—”
“We will, Belknap, we will. Don’t worry about us.” Berry interrupted
gently, trying to conceal a faint embarrassment. “What’s to do now is to
get going, isn’t it? Before your friend’s body here has gone cold.
Quick, Belknap, snap into it. Every second may count.”
Belknap regarded Whittaker with a swift, half-averted glance, and a
spasm of pain twitched the taut little muscles drawn slantwise across
his square jaws.
“God be merciful to him,” he said in a lowered key. “Though he doesn’t
deserve it, I fear,” he added, hardening instantly, as a man does who
dislikes being caught out with an emotion. “First of all, you must know
he is largely to blame for the argument I expect he’s having with St.
Peter. I won’t waste precious time going into the story now. It’s rather
complicated. The point you need to know for a starter is that he did a
sneaking, low-down thing last night that set the house completely by its
ears, where it still is. Under cover of reading us a bit of original
manuscript to amuse us, he made it a passage from his Diary that
disclosed—names withheld, but entirely obvious—one of his present guests
as an erstwhile murderer. (Neil Crawford, the man in evening dress.)
What made matters more acute was that he had claimed, at dinner, that
the Diary was on the eve of being published, real names given, his own
included. I doubt the truth of the claim somehow. But we can check it.
Be that as it may, there has been no congeniality or conviviality in our
midst for the past eight hours, as you can well imagine. I had had an
inkling there was trouble in the wind. In fact the Judge had given me to
understand he was out for blood.”
“Wanted you to keep an eye on Crawford in case of—of reprisals, is that
it?” Berry, as he threw out the question, was rapidly taking notes. He
was a methodical man, Berry, and, though he had an excellent memory,
refused to depend upon it.
“Something of the sort.”
“And when did the first storm warnings occur?”
“Immediately,” Belknap continued, pacing the room restlessly. “And it
was right there I somehow made my first blunder. And having lost the
trail once I’m afraid I’ve blundered often. In fact, as I see it now, I
probably made a serious error even earlier when I let one of the party
slip away without even getting out orders to have his trail picked up. A
man by the name of Milton Dorn left directly after dinner last
night—though I’m sure his first intention had not been to leave before
morning. Doubtless there’s nothing more in it than that he foresaw
bothersome complications; but he’s someone to look up.”
“Just to get back to what happened after the old man came clean about
this guy Crawford,” Stebbins growled, with a distrust of your famed
detective that was slow to be appeased. “What about it?”
Belknap’s invulnerable self-complacency affected Stebbins and Berry in
totally dissimilar fashion. It stirred in the Sergeant a confused,
stubborn rage, such as the English peasant feels for the arrogant
huntsman heedlessly taking his fences, even though the hunter does no
actual damage. While Berry, understanding Belknap’s natural pride, and
realizing all that nourished it, only wished that a man of so great a
professional stature should know the meaning of humility. “Perhaps the
day will come,” Berry thought in passing, “when he will come a cropper
in a case of importance, and, bowing his head, will bow his heart.”
“I was coming to that,” Belknap was saying. “Forgive my lack of speed
and clarity in presenting the facts. My own thinking leads me astray.
Each item, as I check it for your benefit, gives me pause to reconsider.
To go back: Whittaker read his Diary. Suddenly, at a bad moment in the
gruesome tale, Crawford gave himself away, if that were needed, by a
call for water and help from his wife. Apparently she was so bewildered
by the catastrophe that was falling upon the family she let another
catastrophe present itself head over heels. For she delayed going to her
husband long enough to allow his mistress—that little red-haired minx
you’ve just seen upstairs—fall about his neck and prove how _they_
stood. _Also_ if proving was necessary. But it brought Mrs. Crawford to
her senses, and _she_ was knocking Miss Video into a cocked hat when
Colonel Blake seemed to consider knocking the Judge into one. Then the
lights went out. They _would_! Well, instead of going to the Judge’s
rescue, which I guess is what I should have done, I spent my time
reinstating the lights. They showed, when they came on, rather a mess.
Whittaker was pretty well floored by what must have been a blow with
intent to kill. Mrs. Crawford and Miss Video were looking murder at each
other. Crawford appeared about to die of heart failure.”
“Who stood where?”
“The ‘foreign lady,’ as you call her, Sergeant, was nearest to the
Judge. Blake seemed not to have reached him. Though he may have been on
the spot and retreated. The rest were as they had been, as far as I can
recall.”
“Gosh-all-hemlock! Pretty good pickin’s, eh?” Stebbins, flushed with
excitement, was forgetting the chip on his shoulder. “What next, Mr.
Belknap?”
“Little enough for awhile. _Too_ little. It was ominous. There was
nothing much _I_ could do, really. Every one went to bed, or pretended
to. I think they would have gone home, to a man, last night, but were
downright ashamed to suggest it. Or perhaps they felt, as I did, that
with morning a bad dream might vanish. Perhaps it’s the best excuse I
have to offer for not proving much good in the crises. I assisted
Whittaker upstairs, and suggested he apologize to Crawford and clear the
air. I said he was getting the house into all sorts of a pickle—to say
nothing of the real danger to himself. But he was in a mean mood. He had
been ill lately and not himself. I’ll tell you about that later, too.
Anyway, he stuck to his guns. He wasn’t badly hurt, though might have
been. A slight head wound that someone will have to account for along
with everything else.”
“Did _he_ have any ideas?”
“None. We discussed the loss of the Diary. But that didn’t seem to worry
him much, either. I imagine the threat of printing it was merely a ruse
to drive his point more terribly home to Crawford. Poor Crawford.”
“Poor Crawford!” Stebbins snorted. “Haven’t you eyes in your head,
Belknap? Why, I’ve had that dress-suited fellow spotted from the minute
I came in here. I’ll have _him_ on toast in a jiffy. A little rough
stuff and he’ll—”
“Loss of the Diary?” Berry asked, having caught up on his notes, and
ignoring, as did Belknap, the fact that Stebbins had spoken. “What do
you mean?”
“What I said. It disappeared during the fracas. Not that it matters
much. I can retail you enough of what was said of Crawford to see him
convicted hands down, if that’s the count we want to get him on.
Somehow, I think it isn’t.”
“We’ll see. And after you all withdrew—what then?”
“Nothing, my dear Berry. I was a night-hawk; more so than usual, though
at my best I’m up and about most of the night. Rotten sleeper. Always
was. Possibly the most telling bit of evidence I picked up during my
sleepless walking was what I’m convinced was a glimpse of the departed
Dorn. From an upper window I saw a figure I’d swear was his run along
below the terrace wall and into the shrubbery at the north corner. It
moved with extreme rapidity and a lightness of footing that made me
almost uncertain I saw more than a shadow. But for a twig that snapped
as he vanished I would have let him pass as shadow. I went immediately
down, and around by the opposite side, with intention of circumventing
him, but, though I remained concealed in a niche of the north wing for
at least half an hour, he never materialized.”
“So that was that. Interesting, but not particularly helpful. Who else
did you cross footsteps with during the night?”
“With several. Every one had dragged anchor and was adrift. Miss Video
spent a few moments in Whittaker’s room. I believe he found her there
when he went up. And she seems to have enticed him to return the visit.
For Mr. Prentice, the young man in negligee, spent most of the night
asleep in Whittaker’s room waiting for the absent to return. _He_ may
have had designs on the Judge.”
“Or the Judge on Miss Video? What about Crawford?”
“Never saw him. What became of him I haven’t a notion. Probably was the
one person to go quietly to bed, having a wife to see that he got tucked
in. I bumped into Miss Lacey in the library, quite late. Said she was
after a bracer, and looking for her fiancé. She’s engaged to young
Prentice. And she’s Whittaker’s niece, as you doubtless know. I saw her
to her room, as she was in a state of nerves. And, soon after, I decided
the tenseness of the situation had eased, for the time being at least,
and turned my back on it. But I’d hardly entered my room when Miss
Mdevani came on a visit. She was quite incoherent, but before I could
begin to make head or tail of what about, we picked up the first death
broadcast. Mrs. Crawford had found the Colonel. Says _she_ was looking
for her husband, which leads one to believe he wasn’t in bed after all,
as do the clothes he’s wearing. Or else she’s trying to cover _her_
tracks.”
“You don’t think your Miss Mdevani was—fresh from the kill, so to speak?
Her manner might suggest it.”
“I’ve thought of it, of course. Who wouldn’t? But—well, with Miss
Video’s death, and the Judge’s, I’ve rather discarded her. I feel the
three are the work of one. A woman is seldom a good wholesale murderer.”
“Granted. But she’s tarnation clever. Her record isn’t savory, as we all
know. Though I admit the motives, such as we have, don’t fall her way.
This man Crawford has motive enough for a couple—perhaps even the third,
for if he wished to destroy the Diary, as he conceivably would, and
Blake was the first to nab it, Blake might have to die. Yes, it looks
black for Mr. Crawford. What do you say, Sergeant?”
“My feeling exactly. It looks mighty black for Mr. Crawford. Him that
kills once can kill again and kill easier. Come on: let’s catch him cold
before he clears out. And before there’s any more shooting. One, two,
three murders—”