_He knocked the pistol out of his hand, small room was there to strive
‘’Twas only by favor of mine,’ quoth he, ‘ye rode so long alive._’
The game was up. Almost on the instant that the shot was fired Berry
struck down Belknap’s hand and twisted the gun from him. There was no
flicker of resistance on Belknap’s part. Nor would there have been the
chance of any if Stebbins had had his way. For the Sergeant was a prey
to impulsive rages and quick on the trigger. If Berry, in tackling
Belknap, had not had a strong arm for Stebbins, Belknap would have
joined Nadia Mdevani in the dust.
“No!” Berry cried sharply. “Not that way. Shooting’s too good for him.
And we want the dope.”
Stebbins, like copper wire, cooled off as rapidly as he had heated.
“I’m sorry,” he growled. “It’s just that it’s rank cold-blooded murder
to shoot a lady down like that.”
Berry had to laugh.
“Not his first one, Sergeant; you should be used to ’em. Come on, lend a
hand.”
They bound Belknap, securely. No more playing with fire. And a swift
body-search from head to foot revealed several damning articles of
trade: Whittaker’s Diary in an inner pocket; several varieties of poison
in neatly labeled pill-boxes; a pair of suède gloves; a very exquisite
six-inch dagger with an inlaid handle of silver and lapis; a kit for the
designing and manufacture of keys; a veritable armory of revolvers, six;
a cunningly contrived combination tool that in its various
transformations became a screw-driver, a hammer, an auger and bit, a
saw, and God knows what else.
“By the way,” Berry shouted suddenly, as he was arranging the articles
in an orderly row on the divan table, “where’s Joel Lacey?”
“Oh yes, of course,” Belknap murmured quietly, coolly, and as if to
reprimand Berry for his raised voice. “You _would_ want to know. Well,
dead or alive, you’ll find her in that strong-box over yonder. Top
left-hand drawer, so to speak! If you ever knew the combination it isn’t
the same now. I changed it.”
“To what?” Berry cried desperately from where he already stood beside
the great door of Whittaker’s wall-safe. “Quick!”
“9031.”
Berry fumbled stupidly with the locks. The terrible speed of events
during the past few hours, together with the excited, thrilling
knowledge of his own scoop (it had been his idea to put Nadia up to her
piece of acting, which he had to admit had been beautifully done on her
part) had reduced the still ingenuous Berry to a trembling, weakened
condition of hand and eye. Stebbins, whose emotional flights limited
themselves to rage and suspicion, took the job from him. Under his
stolid fingers the blocks fell quickly, expertly into place. And, on the
final number, the heavy door sprang. The two men slowly swung it back.
Joel was there. She lay in a tumbled, cramped heap among a litter of
papers on the safe bottom. There was no least sign of life—and there was
an odor of chloroform. From her attitude it appeared unlikely she had
ever regained consciousness since being thrown into the airtight
compartment. They lifted her to the couch. Belknap kept his eyes
averted.
Julian chose this particular moment to appear. He was shouting something
about the doors of the wine cellars being locked and no keys to be
found— He stopped, looked, and, in another flash, was on his knees
beside Joel, his arms around her, calling her name. It took Berry every
ounce of extra strength to tear Julian free and fling him away on the
floor.
“_Keep off_, you fool. Give the child air. She is dying for lack of
air—just that.”
Berry, with Stebbins’ clumsy help, rendered such first aid as one gives
the drowning. Julian hovered near them muttering a frantic rigmarole of
endearments for Joel, and ugly curses for humanity in general, Berry in
particular. Two policemen, large and unresponsive, kept a firm guard on
Belknap who sat stone-motionless, apparently absorbed in his bound hands
lying limply before him on the table. He remained breathlessly still,
until at last—it seemed forever—Joel, almost invisibly at first, and
then visibly, drew a breath, stirred, and faintly stiffened with renewed
life as a Japanese pulp flower opens to water. Then, in unison with her,
Belknap too breathed, stirred, shifted his position. Berry saw, and as
he quietly lifted Joel into Julian’s arms, felt a pang of sympathy for
the great man he had so long admired and envied. How are the mighty
fallen. But he had only to look at Joel’s face, and Julian’s, to lose
every iota of it.
“Here, boy, carry her upstairs. Wrap her up good and warm; and give her
some hot brandy, if you can find any. She’ll be as right as rain in no
time, mark my words for it. And, what’s more, it’s going to be plain
sailing for you two from now on. Remember that, and don’t worry.” He
tapped the Diary with a meaning forefinger. “It’s a closed book; you
know what I mean. Easy there, don’t fall.” He turned to question
Belknap.
“Now come across, Belknap. _Talk._ Or shall we run you up to town for
that? Room 27 at Headquarters is a fine place to talk. As you should
know.”
Belknap, examining his folded hands with meticulous interest, spoke
sidewise through a lifted corner of his mouth.
“Can the rough stuff, Berry. It won’t get you anywhere with me, as _you_
should know. What’s eating you? Curiosity? Yes, I killed ’em. Do I
_have_ to say it? Oh, don’t let it worry your poor weak intellect that
you haven’t the right man. You have. How many did I murder? I lost
count. You add ’em up. And don’t for God’s sake ask me why. Why the
Hell! Look in that rotten little Diary there. It’ll tell you why and
then some. _One_ of us had to wipe out the litter before it hatched; to
make his world safe—for crime. I got in my licks first, that’s all.”
Belknap would have made a waving gesture with his right hand but was
checked by its anchorage to his left. “Let’s clear out of this,” he
cried. “I expect you’re champing at the bit to drag me at your chariot
wheels through the streets of Rome. Well, do it and be damned. Only get
it over.” Belknap’s eyes, a little sunken in their heavily shadowed
sockets, gleamed feverishly. The lines in his face had deepened. He
looked his age. “When, may I ask, did _you_ catch the cat out of my bag?
I hadn’t a notion I’d let it out. Thought I had it pretty well sewed in.
Like the Little Red Hen you must have left a stone in its place. Or
_she_ did, the vixen. I should have marked the extra weight. _Christ_,
the mess I’ve made of the perfect crime; all in my best tradition. And I
had it on toast but for playing with fire. The utter fool I was to take
her into my game when I already had her so neatly fitted to my boots.
Just as I fitted Violet Mowbray to Blake’s, and Durgin to Allan Galt’s,
and Thane to— Take her away,” he shouted suddenly, hoarsely, half rising
to his feet. “In God’s name why leave the carrion about! Get her false
face to Hell out of here or I’ll—”
Berry came close to Belknap. His face was white. He gripped the sides of
the table between them till the knuckles of his hands shone; and in a
level, hard voice spoke into Belknap’s eyes and teeth.
“Keep quiet, and listen to me for a change! You’ll take a page from _my_
book now. I’m not a proud man, or a boastful one, Ordway Belknap,
one-time Judge, and _one-time_ detective, but this here is a haul of
mine, and you know it. For once in a lifetime _I_ had a hunch. From the
crack of the whip this morning I had you on the list. As a _guest_ in
this house last night. Don’t you see what a difference that makes in the
point of view? You came here too early for safety, my boy, and you’re
leaving here too late. It may be true I didn’t downright suspect you
until Mdevani and Lacey caught onto something at sight of your black
number on the wall. But then it took a psychologist (and that’s my
strong point) to figure why they were keeping their mouths shut. One was
scared of her life of you; and the other cared about you. Right? After
that I found the extra bullet. And I knew right then, as well as you
did, that neither would fit the Mdevani weapon. We’ll prove tomorrow,
when it won’t matter a hoot, that they both fit this little gun of
yours.” Berry picked up Belknap’s 22 and dropped it again with a clatter
that echoed in the tense stillness of the listening room. Berry was
decidedly working himself into a heat. “Then Lacey remembered the
Mowbray name—and I saw why the poor little actress had to be bumped off.
She was the only one of your morning’s bag I had to find your motive
for. Blake had to go because he was so much a part of your most recent
legal crime. Yours and the Judge’s.”
“Bit off there,” Belknap hissed, his face dark and threatening, close to
Berry’s. “I can’t have you _imputing_ motives. I collided with him in
the dark last night. He knew what we both were after—and that _I_ got
it. So I got him.”
“Aha! That’s the way the wind blew, is it? And after that you strangled
the baby doll—”
“Before, as it happens.”
“Well, _before_. A Hell of a lot of difference it makes when you did it.
Too bad I had to come barging in just about then, before you’d finished
off your Damon and Pythias friend. Guess Whittaker threw his dice so
you’d play the villain’s part all along. He had it in for you, to my way
of thinking. Clever idea your wall-hole and the planted gun. But a bit
out of the reckoning that your first shot missed. However, I’d have got
you anyway, one shot or two. The holes, by the way, reminded your
girl-friend that she’d once interrupted your investigation in this room
at an embarrassing moment. _She_ lit the Murad, I understand. Miss Lacey
was also reminded that you mysteriously emerged from no man’s land when
she was here in the night. Whereupon it ceased to be no man’s land. And
don’t think I missed the little by-play when you tried to convince Miss
Mdevani she hadn’t done what she knew she did—put that carnation in your
buttonhole. She was too keen to try that kind of trick on. I don’t know
when you made up your mind to lay the whole pack of crimes at her door.
But I suppose you rifled her room of her gun and handkerchief for the
express purpose. Damn lucky for you she came across with the Blake order
for you to sprinkle about. _And_ the drug for Crawford, for you to
exchange _en passant_. God, you’re a beast. Worse than they come. Why
Crawford? Just because it clinched the case against her? His death to
insure hers? And all the time making eyes at the woman you were playing
for a sucker. Well, don’t ever kid yourself you succeeded in putting it
over on her. She was watching you cut your own throat. Only wasn’t
helping give you away until she had to. Until it was your life or hers.
But with you determined to make it hers she still had enough guts left
to outplay you. For she _has_ outplayed you. Dead as she lies on that
floor, God rest her soul, she’s better off than you are. No, Dorn was
your best bet for a double if you had to have one. You should have stuck
to someone who couldn’t defend himself.”
“Defend himself!” Belknap laughed ferociously, breathing hard. “Dorn
defend himself! It is to laugh! About as much chance of his coming back
to—”
And Milton Dorn came back. Above the strained, ugly, mounting voices of
the two men pitched against each other came the crash of the
window-doors to the terrace, burst forcefully open. On the sill,
exaggerated and unattached against the swirling mist, stood two of
Stebbins’ uniformed guards with a sagging body slung between them from
the knees and armpits: like some strange inhabitants of Davy Jones’
locker bringing back to earth a victim too horrible for even the sea to
swallow.
“Sorry,” growled one of them apologetically, dimly conscious of the
startled horror in the silenced room, “we found this in the old well
down back. Thought you might need it, Sergeant. So we brought it along
up.”
The man’s recourse to the neuter in referring to his burden all too
vividly indicated its lifelessness. Not that it could have possibly been
otherwise. Its face was crushed out of human shape. The head fell back
and off to the side, loosely, as though the neck were broken. The
covering of one leg was savagely torn and the flesh from thigh to knee
bared to the bone. The clothing was stiff and ungainly with congealed
blood.
“Speak of the Devil!” Belknap whispered.
“Dorn, I take it,” Berry said with super-gentleness. He forced an odd
laugh. “Say, you boys, next time you make a visit with that kind of
visiting card, come to the front door—and ring. I don’t like stage
entrances. Another of yours?” he asked, turning to look at Belknap,
through narrowed eyes, as no man looks at a man.
Belknap smiled.
“How _did_ you guess it, Lieutenant? Yes, number one. I had to scotch
him on the spot last night when he was trying to slip from under.
Couldn’t take any chances on how much he knew. Talk about your blind
witnesses! None of ’em even saw me take my little trip to fetch
something from my car last night. Went out on Dorn’s heels, too.”
“That’ll do from you,” Berry said. “Not another word. We’ve had enough.
Take him to Glory for me, men. Sergeant,” he added to the stupefied
Stebbins, “will you give them a ring in town and say we’re on our
way—with the goods. _Broad_cast it. Tell them to be ready with the racks
and boiling oil. And clean up this mess as best you can when my back’s
turned. Run the bodies down to the morgue in the morning. There’ll be
autopsies, I suppose, though God knows they aren’t needed. Come along,
you,” he said, as Belknap rose unsteadily to his feet.
But Belknap, with a quick, vicious movement of his bear-like shoulders,
thrust his jailors aside, and bent over the motionless, shrunken form of
Nadia Mdevani. Even, bending down and using his two hands as one, he
turned her face uppermost. It was an exquisite and clear-cut face, very
quiet, very perfect, like a medallion or cameo face. And as devoid of
expression. Suddenly Belknap straightened, threw back his head, and
laughed wildly, breaking into a snatch of song:
“_‘She was my woman,
But she done me wrong._’”
“Shut up, Belknap,” Berry shouted. “Don’t go playing the sentimental
fool so late in the day. I guess _she_ could have sung that song as it
should be sung. And meant it.” Pushing Belknap roughly toward the hall
door, Berry turned back to give his final orders. “By the way, Sergeant,
I believe there are a few left-overs straying about the house. I
wouldn’t care to sleep here myself and it’s likely they wouldn’t. You’d
better round ’em up and take ’em places. There’s that John, and the girl
named Lily, I believe. And of course Mr. Prentice and Miss Lacey and
Mrs. Crawford—”
“You are most thoughtful, Lieutenant Berry.” Sydney Crawford, in hat and
cloak, descended the stairs toward them. “But don’t have me on your
mind. I’m just leaving—and I have my car.” She was about to pass them,
and paused. “Thank you, Mr. Belknap,” she said, stiffly, her glazed eyes
rigidly avoiding him, “for a thrilling week-end. And for my precious
life which it is a joy to be able to dispose of as I please. Goodnight.”
Berry forever after wished he had obeyed his immediate impulse to detain
her. It might have made the difference between another life and death.
For, three days later, her body came ashore above Greenwich. It was the
only death directly connected with that memorable week-end at Thorngate
that was entered on the records as suicide.
But Berry, although it was with a strong feeling of apprehension and
pity that he watched her go toward the garage, escorted by a kindly and
gallant policeman, was more than anxious to reach town and deliver up
his capture. He drew on his gauntlet driving gloves, accepted a light
for his fag from the respectful hand of Sergeant Stebbins, slipped
behind the wheel of his old Stutz, and circled out of the Thorngate
drive cold on the stroke of midnight.
The following entry from the Diary of Judge Bertrand Whittaker, was
incorporated verbatim in Berry’s written report of the preceding case
given next day to Berry’s friend and chief, Inspector Thomas O’Donnell,
of the New York Detective Bureau:
April 29th ’31—Ran into O. B. at the club just now. Saw him before he
saw me. And the very look of him gave me the inspiration I’ve been
praying for. What with revising my will yesterday, and buying that
little gun this morning, I haven’t been in too good a humor. Not that
I mind dying— Oh, I’ve said it too often. Too many denials make an
affirmative! No, but death is the least part of it. It’s the wait, and
the pain. God, the pain! It took me three shots of morphine to pull me
through a spell last night. And, as I’ve also said before, the way
around the wait and the pain is suicide. But a tame route. And
unsavory. Certainly without thrill. I want thrill. I love it in my
fashion as much as B. ever did. I simply haven’t his genius for
devising it. How he has devised excitement for the two of us! When he
deserted the Bench for the sole purpose of entering into a destroying
pact with me, he the detective and I the judge, I couldn’t have
foreseen in my wildest moments how positively dangerous and evil he
was going to make our lives and our relations to each other. We’ve
gone so far with our false witnessing and our false condemning that we
are becoming terrified of each other and of our too great knowledge of
sin. It’s the only way I can explain the ugly reserves and distrusts
that have lately been thrusting between us. I’ve been sorry. It’s
spoiled the play. But I hardly wonder. Our two last cases,
particularly the Stanton-Mowbray-Blake, skimmed too close to
destruction to be altogether pleasant. Perhaps it was the thought of
the guillotines we hold over each other’s necks, together with a
glimpse of his too handsome wicked face (proximity to him has always
had the power to rouse in me such black magic as I possess), that
drove the dart of my new scheme between my cerebrum and cerebellum.
I have kept a fairly accurate record of our twenty-odd cases since B.
and I went into partnership. Eleven of them led to executions—that is,
in each, a man or woman paid with death for a crime they never
committed. Yet, of those eleven, eight _confessed_. The most
diabolical thing about B.’s power is that he can subtly instil his
victims with the exhausted and driven conclusion that to admit is the
most painless way out. In some instances I even think his hypnotic
force is so great that the person actually _believes_ himself guilty.
Anyway a judge can certainly do no less than impose the death penalty
on a confessed murderer, can he now?
The publication, or threatened publication, of these Arabian Nights’
entertainments—together with odds and ends of undiscovered murders
committed by various friends and relatives—should not only make good
sensational reading, but should bring about an upheaval that might
quite conceivably be climaxed by my own murder. _That’s_ my fresh idea
of an escape expressed in so many words! And however you look at it,
it’s such a gay, pleasant, bad game—and so worthy of my associations
with B.
And the Devil said to Mr. Legree,
“I like your style, so wicked and free
Come sit and share my throne with me—”
Yes, I’m all for trying it. And I even dropped B. a hint of something
in the wind as I passed him by. I think he took alarm. I’ll give him a
ring, in a few days, when my plans have matured. It’ll take a bit of
planning. There’s the rounding up of half a dozen spicy criminals.
Nadia Mdevani is number one.
My mind’s whirling with ideas! I can begin to see so many little
twists I can give the affair—ironic, comic, naughty. An especially
nice one for B. himself. It’s going to be jolly interesting. And a
good death knell to set the wild echoes flying!