THE RETURN OF JOAN NORWOOD
At Inspector Druet's suggestion Oliver Jarvis accompanied him and the
maid back to his own house. Terhune, murmuring something about the
interests of his client, prepared to follow and Norwood turned to
McCarty.
"Don't you want to come, also? I am going whether the Inspector desires
my presence or not. I am Oliver's closest friend and I do not propose
to be barred from this investigation by any jealousy on the part of
the police. I'll show them yet that my life-long study of crime is of
more value than their haphazard, bull-dozing methods! How about it, Mr.
McCarty?"
"Thanks, sir, but I'll not be going over there again. 'Tis different
with me, and being as I've left the force I don't want to get in Dutch
with the Inspector by butting in. If you don't mind, I'll wait here for
you. There are one or two little points sticking in my mind and I'd
like to look over the ground again."
"The museum? Go as far as you like," responded his host affably.
"Victor will unlock the door for you if he's not there already. But
don't leave till I return; I want to talk this all over with you."
Left alone, McCarty approached the table where the blind secretary's
typewriter stood and selecting a page or two at random from the
scattered notes examined them. The subject-matter was unintelligibly
scientific to him but the typing itself was as precise and clean-cut
as though the young man's sight were unimpaired. A book printed in the
Braille system for the blind lay open beside the machine; it was in
some foreign language, presumably French; but the spacing of the lines
denoted poetry, and McCarty whistled softly to himself as he replaced
it.
Leaving the library he made his way down the hall, treading as lightly
as his solid weight permitted. The museum door stood ajar and through
the narrow aperture he could see a man's form bent over a case in the
far corner between the fireplace and the window. Tiptoeing, McCarty
had reached the threshold before the figure turned revealing the thin,
keenly sensitive countenance of Captain Marchal.
"Who is it?" he asked in a high strained voice.
"'Tis me, Captain; Timothy McCarty, that had dinner here last night
with Mr. Norwood and yourself."
The Frenchman bowed gravely.
"You will forgive my surprise, Monsieur McCarty. I did not hear you
enter." His tone was unfailingly courteous but there was a shade of
hauteur in his bearing as though he resented the intrusion upon his
solitude.
"I've been having a little talk with Mr. Norwood and the rest of them
in the library but they've all gone over to Mr. Jarvis' house now,
and Mr. Norwood told me I could look about a bit in here," McCarty
explained.
"Here?" The secretary raised his eyebrows. "You will find nothing more
here, Monsieur, to be of use in solving this most terrible affair. Were
you not with the others last night? Do you not know that the crime was
committed in Madame Jarvis' own home?"
He spoke with an eagerness which made McCarty's eyes narrow
speculatively but the latter replied in bland nonchalance.
"Still, 'twas here we found the body and I thought I'd have a look at
that window by daylight, but if I'm disturbing you, Captain----?"
"Not at all, Monsieur." The secretary closed the case with a snap.
"I was but rearranging some fingerprint records. If I can be of any
assistance to you----"
"Fingerprints!" McCarty interrupted. "I didn't know Mr. Norwood
collected them, too!"
"He has here everything pertaining to the identification of criminals
and the investigation of crime." Captain Marchal pointed toward a
distant corner. "You see those astronomical instruments and charts upon
that stand? With them Monsieur Norwood can calculate what autumn day
corresponded in luminosity at dusk with a certain day in spring and in
this way he can study if necessary the scene of a crime in autumn in
order to discover if this or that could be seen at a certain day in
spring."
"Can he, now?" McCarty rubbed his chin. "Have they not enough evidence
on the earth to help them find a crook, without dragging in the
heavens, too? Many's the time I've looked through a telescope at a
nickel a throw on the Island, but devil a thing could I see, though
once 'twas because I had my hat hung on the end of it. Mr. Norwood will
be beating Terhune yet at his own game. Howsomever, 'tis fingerprints
I'm asking after, Captain Marchal. Is it only criminals he's kept a
record of?"
The secretary shook his head with a trace of impatience.
"No; at one time I believe Monsieur Norwood had a _toquade_, a hobby of
collecting those of his friends also, but he is now more interested in
handwriting specimens. Perhaps, Monsieur, you would desire to have me
show to you----?"
He turned suggestively toward another case, but McCarty held his
ground:
"No, Captain; it's the fingerprints I'd like to see. Has he a record of
Mrs. Jarvis', by any chance?"
"It is possible, Monsieur; I do not know." The secretary shrugged.
"Of the many impressions which Monsieur Norwood took he has retained
comparatively few for his collection and I have not yet started to
catalogue them."
He opened the spring lock of the fingerprint case with a small key
which he carried and stepped aside.
"Voilà, Monsieur. You will perhaps desire to look them over for
yourself. I have no data concerning them so I cannot be of assistance,
but if there is anything else in which I can aid your search you will
find me in the library."
He bowed and departed, but McCarty spent little time over the case in
which he had evinced such interest. He fingered a few of the slides
and molds tentatively, then closed the case and tiptoeing to the door,
examined the lock with minute care. Upon its surface about the keyhole
a few very fine angular scratches caught his eye and he nodded to
himself in satisfaction. The seemingly untenable thought which had
presented itself to him during his talk with the butler on the way to
the house was strengthening in probability with each point gained,
yet he would have hesitated to lay it before anyone else for serious
consideration, so preposterous would it have appeared.
A glance from the window showed him that the ladder still remained
propped against the ledge as it had been left the night before, and
leaving the museum he descended the back stairs to the passageway
leading to the yard.
Viewed through the slanting curtain of rain the ladder seemed even more
frail and insecure than it had previously as it trembled and creaked in
each gust of wind. Umbrella-less, McCarty turned up his coat collar and
advancing, shook the light support speculatively. Then, heedless of
the downpour he paused and gazed about him.
A few small branches detached by the storm lay beneath the sprinkling
group of stunted trees, but otherwise the yard was immaculate.
Beneath the porch formed by the jutting museum extension a burlap sack
and an orderly row of small wooden boxes met his eye, flanked by a
small heap of loose bricks, and behind, in the kitchen window a tall,
gaunt, female form could be discerned peering curiously at him from
between the curtains but McCarty gave small heed to it. The concrete
floor of the porch was sunk a foot or two below the level of the yard
and clambering down he examined the burlap sack. It was almost empty
but a few potatoes still weighed its end and McCarty dumped them
unceremoniously into a box and began refilling the sack with bricks
from the pile beside him.
When it was half full, he twisted the top, slung it over his shoulder
with a mighty heave and scrambling up to the path once more started for
the ladder.
The curtains at the kitchen window parted and the woman watched with
bulging eyes as he clumsily essayed the first round of the ladder.
It creaked ominously and its slender rungs, slippery from the rain,
afforded but precarious hold for his square-toed, generous-soled boots,
but he plodded upward doggedly.
The ladder trembled and swayed, its lower end held fast in the soft,
glutinous mud but its top grated alarmingly as the center sagged
beneath the unprecedented weight placed upon it. Perspiration mingled
with the raindrops on McCarty's brow and he tested the rung above
apprehensively with each upward step.
The sill of the museum window was within reach when the bending
supports of the ladder emitted a warning crack and McCarty with a quick
swing of his shoulder dropped the bag of bricks with a squelching thud
and crash into the mud below. The sudden release from weight made the
light ladder rebound so swiftly that the climber was almost jarred from
his place, but he held on tenaciously. It had been a close call, but
he had pushed his experiment to the limit of safety and for a moment
he clung there gazing down with immense satisfaction at the bricks
tumbling in all directions from the burst bag.
He had proved his theory, even though he had all but broken his neck in
the effort and his purpose was achieved.
Gingerly he felt his backward way down once more and as his feet
found the solid ground at last he heard the voice of his host, Calvin
Norwood, from just behind him:
"Well, McCarty, upon my soul!"
"Yes, sir." McCarty turned hastily. "I near broke your ladder."
There was more satisfaction than regret in his tones and Norwood
peering at him from beneath his umbrella remarked drily:
"So I observe. Why on earth were you carrying a load of bricks up to
the museum?"
"'Twas just a bit of an experiment, sir," McCarty explained. "A fine
mess I've made of your yard with the bricks, too! I'd no notion the bag
would burst so easy!"
"Well, never mind. Come into the house and let us have a talk." At
arm's length Norwood held the umbrella over his dripping guest and
drew him into the passageway. "You will be the better for a drop of
something, too, man; you're soaked to the skin!"
McCarty was nothing loath and in a few minutes he was seated with his
host before the cracking library fire, a steaming glass at his elbow
and a fragrant cigar poised at an argumentative angle between his lips.
"'What do I think of the Inspector?'" he repeated in response to a
query just voiced by the other. "He's the best man on the force to-day,
sir. There's not much gets by him, though to them that don't understand
his way of getting results he might seem a trifle bull-headed. I worked
under him on many a case and it's seldom he falls down."
"'Bull-headed'!" Norwood repeated in his turn. "I should say he was!
It has never before been my privilege to watch the inner workings of
the police force from the inception of a case, but I must admit I
am disappointed. These sledgehammer methods of Inspector Druet are
certainly not getting him anywhere now; for all his bullying, Margot is
sticking steadfastly to her statement that Mrs. Jarvis' dressing-room
was undisturbed at eight o'clock last night and her manner is so
convincing that if I had not seen the state it was in later with my own
eyes, I declare I would be inclined to believe her."
"They've found nothing else, sir, in the dead lady's rooms?" asked
McCarty after a meditative pause.
"Nothing. I don't know what use the Inspector has made of the glove
you gave him last night--the one your friend found on the top of
the ladder--but I don't believe it will prove of any value in the
investigation."
"No, sir?" McCarty's tone was a question and as the other did not reply
he went on: "'Tis an expensive one, of foreign make, and it might be
easy traced to the shop that sold it."
"But think of the number of men who walk into a shop, buy a pair or two
of gloves and take them away with them," Norwood objected. "There would
be no possible way of tracing them unless they were regular customers,
and then that glove, although originally good, was so worn and soiled
that it may have been kicking around some garage for weeks and changed
hands many times. For some reason, Inspector Druet had turned his
attention when I left from Margot to the housemaid, Etta, but bullying
won't have any effect on that girl."
"Etta?" McCarty bent forward suddenly, both hands outspread upon his
knees. "The one that had her face tied up, that was sick all yesterday?"
Norwood nodded.
"There's no sign of her toothache this morning, but when the servants
over there were told the truth--they had to be, of course, when the
body was brought home--she collapsed. Everyone who came in contact
with Mrs. Jarvis loved her, you know, and though this girl had given
her a good deal of trouble, she seems after all to have worshiped her
mistress, like the rest."
"What kind of trouble?" McCarty asked quickly.
"Well, she was insubordinate, and hot-tempered and sullen by turns.
I've heard Mrs. Jarvis speak of her difficulties with her to my niece,
Joan. I don't think she would have kept the girl in her service but for
the fact of her relationship to the cook. She had to let Dick go."
"Who is Dick?"
"Etta's brother. Oliver employed him for a time as second man, but
he was utterly no good; lazy, impudent, drank up everything he could
lay his hand on and drove old Henry nearly crazy. Oliver told me he
was surprised and touched this morning at the grief Etta displayed,
but it evidently hasn't modified her temper. Inspector Druet tried to
cross-examine her about yesterday, making her repeat what she told
us all last night and she flared up at him like a spitfire and then
refused point blank to answer another question." Norwood chuckled.
"He'll have his hands full with her."
"Mrs. Jarvis knew your friend Professor Parlowe, didn't she?" McCarty
remarked somewhat irrelevantly.
"Yes. It was she who brought me his invitation to join him in his
experiment yesterday," the other responded. "I was engaged when she
dropped in on Tuesday afternoon to tell me of it, but she spoke of
it particularly on Wednesday evening after her dinner party. She was
always so interested, poor dear child, in whatever interested her
friends. That was one of her greatest charms."
McCarty removed his cigar and knocked the ash off carefully on the
hearth.
"Mr. Norwood, who was present at that dinner?"
"Let me see. It was just a small, informal affair, you know. Beside
Oliver, his wife and myself there were the Blakes, the Gardners, Mrs.
Hilton and the Fowlers, all intimate members of their circle."
"Who are they; those people?" persisted McCarty. "What are they like?"
"The Blakes are a bridal couple; he's off to the front in a fortnight."
Norwood explained indulgently. "The Gardners are elderly; they were
friends of Oliver's family. Mrs. Hilton is a young widow, and the
Fowlers are the powder-works people. All quite above suspicion in this
affair, McCarty, I assure you."
"What did they talk about, during the dinner?" McCarty accepted the
final observation with a nod. "You remember, sir, 'twas just after
you'd all gone that Mrs. Jarvis herself went to pieces, if that girl
Margot is telling the truth. If she'd no warning from outside and
nobody else got to her, there must have been something said that
brought her trouble back to her again; something to do with that matter
of blackmail."
"That is quite impossible!" Norwood declared. "The conversation was of
the most general character, as I remember it, and it could not have
had the most remote bearing on whatever this secret trouble is which
was preying on the poor young woman's mind. She seemed as cheerful and
happy----"
He broke off and McCarty, watching him, saw a shadow cross the older
man's face.
"Was she so?" he asked. "Didn't her manner change at all during the
evening, Mr. Norwood? Was she just as gay at the end as she was when
the dinner started?"
"No; I can't say that she was," the other admitted. "It did occur to
me that she grew very quiet all of a sudden; not sad nor troubled but
just silent and abstracted. It was during dinner, but I cannot remember
what the subject under discussion was at the moment. It could only have
been some pleasant triviality. Whatever caused Mrs. Jarvis' change of
mood was merely passing, for she quite recovered her spirits before the
evening was over."
"Before I played the fool with that ladder awhile ago, I was talking to
Captain Marchal in the museum." McCarty lowered his voice and glanced
cautiously about him but the secretary had not been in evidence since
their return to the house. "He tells me that you once made quite a
collection of your friends' fingerprints. Did you ever by any chance,
sir, take an impression of Mrs. Jarvis'?"
"Why, yes." Norwood glanced up in surprise. "I didn't keep the slide,
of course, but the enlarged photograph of it is there with the rest.
What do you want it for?"
"Oh, I just thought I'd like to see it," McCarty responded diffidently.
"Didn't Victor show it to you?" Norwood arose. "Come, then, and I
will. I collected scores but kept just twenty-five aside from those of
interest from a criminological standpoint. I remember distinctly the
occasion on which I obtained Mrs. Jarvis' fingerprints; she didn't
want me to take them for some inexplicable reason, and her husband
teased her unmercifully about it."
As he spoke, he had led the way down the hall to the museum and McCarty
asked:
"When was this, Mr. Norwood?"
"Oh, about four years ago; just after their return from abroad. Here
are the photographs. As you see, each one is plainly marked on the
back----"
He shuffled through the handful of prints which he took from the case
McCarty had previously examined and the latter waited expectantly, but
his host shook his head.
"This is very odd. Mrs. Jarvis' prints are missing, and they are the
only ones that have been mislaid. I told you I had twenty-five such
records; there are only twenty-four here, and hers are not among them."
He eyed his companion in bewilderment. "I--I don't know what to make of
it!"
"Maybe 'tis in some other part of the case, mixed up with those
slides," suggested McCarty. There was a curious tenseness in his manner.
"No; it is not here, anywhere. Really this is most extraordinary! I
was showing it, together with the others to Professor Parlowe only the
other day. I must ask Victor at once----"
"Uncle Cal! I've come home!"
At the sound of the fresh, clear, young voice incongruously joyous in
that room where tragedy and death had stalked but a few short hours
before, both men turned to the doorway.
On the threshold there appeared a pretty, fair-haired girl, her
blue eyes dancing with mischievous delight, her hands extended for
the welcome she knew would greet her. Just behind her stood a tall,
broad-shouldered masculine figure, with hair as light as hers and a
small blonde mustache lifted in a half smile.
"Joan!" Norwood's voice was hushed but filled with emotion as he
advanced to the girl. "My dear, what brought you home? You--you cannot
have received my letter so soon!"
"I haven't had a line from you in days, but I wanted to surprise you!"
She faltered and with a little gesture drew her companion forward.
"Uncle Cal, I've something to tell you, and, oh! I want you to be happy
about it, because I am!"
"Then you don't know? You haven't heard?" Norwood stammered, ignoring
in his troubled preoccupation the significance of her words. "My poor
child----"
"I haven't heard anything!" The gay, heedlessly joyous tones
interrupted him. "But just wait till you hear my news! Uncle Cal, this
is Eric Vivaseur, and though you've never met him before I know you
are going to be very good to him because I--I have promised to be his
wife!"