TRAGEDY
“RAT-A-TAT! Rat-a-tat-tat!”
The imperative summons on his bedroom door roused Hugh Wyndham. It
seemed but a moment since he had fallen asleep, and he listened in
uncomprehending surprise to the repeated drummings, which grew in
volume and rapidity. His hesitancy was but momentary, however, and
springing out of bed he seized a bathrobe, unlocked the door and jerked
it open with such precipitancy that Vera Deane’s clenched fist expended
its force on empty air instead of on the wooden panel. Her livid face
changed the words on Wyndham’s lips.
“What’s happened?” he demanded. “Craig isn’t--?”
“No--no--not Mr. Porter”--in spite of every effort to remain calm Vera
was on the point of fainting. Totally unconscious of her action she
laid her hand in Wyndham’s, and his firm clasp brought a touch of
comfort. “It’s B--Mr. Brainard. Come!” And turning, she sped down the
hall, her rubber-heeled slippers making no more sound on the thick
carpet than Wyndham’s bare feet. She paused before a partly opened door
and, resting against the wall, her strength deserting her, she signed
to her companion to enter the bedroom.
Without wasting words Wyndham dashed by the nurse and reached the foot
of the bed; but there he stopped, and a horrified exclamation broke
from him. Bruce Brainard lay on the once spotless white linen in a pool
of blood which had flowed from a frightful gash across his throat.
Wyndham passed a shaking hand before his eyes and turned blindly toward
the door and collided with Vera.
“Don’t come in,” he muttered hoarsely. “It’s no spectacle for a woman.”
And as she drew back into the hall again he burst out almost violently:
“God! Brainard can’t be dead, really dead?” He glared at her. “Why
didn’t you go for Noyes instead of me? He’d know what to do.”
Vera shook her head. “Mr. Brainard was lifeless when I found him”--her
voice gained steadiness as her years of training in city hospitals and
still grimmer experiences in the American Hospital Corps abroad came to
her aid, and she grew the more composed of the two. “I went first to
summon Dr. Noyes--but his room was empty.”
“Empty!” echoed Wyndham dazedly. “At this hour?” and his glance
roved about the hall, taking in the still burning acetylene gas jet
at the far end of the hall, its artificial rays hardly showing in
the increasing daylight. How could the household remain asleep with
that ghastly tragedy so close at hand? He shuddered and turned half
appealingly to Vera. “What’s to be done?”
“The coroner--”
“To be sure, the coroner”--Wyndham snatched at the suggestion. “Do you
know his name?”
“No,” Vera shook her head, “but I can ask ‘Central.’ I presume the
coroner lives in Alexandria.”
“Yes, yes.” Wyndham was in a fever of unrest, chafing one hand over the
other. “Then will you call him? I’ll wait here until you return.”
Vera did not at once move down the hall. “Had I not better awaken Mrs.
Porter?” she asked.
“No, no,” Wyndham spoke with more show of authority. “I will break the
news to my aunt when you get back. The telephone is in the library. Go
there.”
He was doubtful if she heard his parting injunction for, hurrying
to the stairway, she paused and moved as if to enter Mrs. Porter’s
boudoir, the door of which stood ajar; then apparently thinking better
of her evident intention, she went noiselessly downstairs and Wyndham,
listening intently, detected the faint sound made by the closing of a
door on the floor below. Not until then did he relax his tense attitude.
Stepping back into Brainard’s bedroom he closed the door softly and
stood contemplating his surroundings, his eyes darting here and there
until each detail of the large handsomely furnished bedroom was
indelibly fixed in his mind.
There was no sign of a struggle having taken place; the two high-backed
chairs and the lounge stood in their accustomed places; the quaint
Colonial dresser near the window, the highboy against the farther wall,
and the bed-table were undisturbed. Only the bed with its motionless
burden was tossed and tumbled.
Wyndham hastily averted his eyes, but not before he had seen the opened
razor lying on the sheet to the left of Brainard and just beyond the
grasp of the stiffened fingers. Drawing in his breath with a hissing
noise, Wyndham retreated to his post outside the door and waited with
ever increasing impatience for the return of Vera Deane.
The noise of the opening and shutting of a door which had reached
Wyndham, contrary to his deductions, had been made not by the one
giving into the library, but by the front door. Vera Deane all but
staggered out on the portico and leaned against one of the columns.
The cold bracing air was a tonic in itself, and she drank it down in
deep gulps, while her gaze strayed over the sloping lawn and the hills
in the background, then across to where the Potomac River wound its
slow way between the Virginia and Maryland shores. The day promised to
be fair, and through the clear atmosphere she could dimly distinguish
the distant Washington Monument and the spires of the National Capital
snugly ensconced among the rolling uplands of Maryland.
The quaint atmosphere of a bygone age which enveloped the old
Virginia homestead had appealed to Vera from the first moment of her
arrival, and she had grown to love the large rambling country house
whose hospitality, like its name, “Dewdrop Inn,” had descended from
generation to generation. Mrs. Lawrence Porter had elected to spend the
winter there instead of opening her Washington residence.
Three months had passed since Vera had been engaged to attend Craig
Porter; three months of peace and tranquillity, except for the duties
of the sick room; three months in which she had regained physical
strength and mental rest, and now--
Abruptly turning her back upon the view Vera re-entered the front hall
and made her way down its spacious length until she came to the door
she sought. A draught of cold air blew upon her as she stepped over the
threshold, and with a slight exclamation of surprise she crossed the
library to one of the long French windows which stood partly open. It
gave upon a side portico and, stepping outside, she looked up and down
the pathway which circled the house. No one was in sight, and slightly
perplexed she drew back, closed the window, and walked over to the
telephone instrument which stood on a small table near by. Her feeling
of wonderment grew as she touched the receiver--it was still warm from
the pressure of a moist hand.
Vera paused in the act of lifting the receiver from its hook and
glanced keenly about the library; apparently she was alone in the room,
but which member of the household had preceded her at the telephone?
The old “grandfather” clock in one corner of the library was just
chiming a quarter of six when a sleepy “Central” answered her call. It
took several minutes to make the operator understand that she wished to
speak to the coroner at Alexandria, and there was still further delay
before the “Central” announced: “There’s your party.”
Coroner Black stopped Vera’s explanations with an ejaculation, and his
excited intonation betrayed the interest her statement aroused.
“I can’t get over for an hour or two,” he called. “You say you have
no physician--let me see! Ah, yes! Send for Beverly Thorne; he’s a
justice of the peace as well as a physician. Tell him to take charge
until I come;” and click went his receiver on the hook.
Vera looked dubiously at the telephone as she hung up the receiver.
Pshaw! It was no time for indecision--what if an ancient feud did
exist between the Thornes and the Porters, as testified by the “spite
wall” erected by a dead and gone Porter to obstruct the river view
from “Thornedale”! In the presence of sudden death State laws had to
be obeyed, and such things as the conventions, aye, and feuds, must be
brushed aside. Only two days before, when motoring with Mrs. Porter,
that stately dame had indicated the entrance to “Thornedale” with a
solemn inclination of her head and the statement that its present
owner, Dr. Beverly Thorne, would never be received at her house. But
Coroner Black desired his immediate presence there that morning! In
spite of all she had been through, a ghost of a smile touched Vera’s
lovely eyes as she laid aside the telephone directory and again called
“Central.”
Five seconds, ten seconds passed before the operator, more awake,
reported that there was no response to her repeated rings.
“Keep it up,” directed Vera, and waited in ever growing irritation.
“Well?” came a masculine voice over the wires. “What is it?”
“I wish to speak to Dr. Beverly Thorne.”
“This is Dr. Thorne at the telephone--speak louder, please.”
Vera leaned nearer the instrument. “Mr. Bruce Brainard has died
suddenly while visiting Mrs. Lawrence Porter. Kindly come at once to
Dewdrop Inn.”
No response; and Vera, with rising color, was about to repeat her
request more peremptorily when Thorne spoke.
“Did Mr. Brainard die without medical attendance?” he asked.
It was Vera’s turn to hesitate. “I found him dead with his throat cut,”
she stated, and the huskiness of her voice blurred the words so that
she had to repeat them. This time she was not kept waiting for a reply.
“I will be right over,” shouted Thorne.
[Illustration: “Yes, I heard,” Millicent could hardly articulate.]
As Vera rose from the telephone stand a sound to her left caused her
to wheel in that direction. Leaning for support against a revolving
bookcase stood Millicent Porter, and her waxen pallor brought a
startled cry to Vera’s lips.
“Yes, I heard.” Millicent could hardly articulate, and her glance
strayed hopelessly about the room. “I--I must go to mother.”
“Surely.” Vera laid a soothing hand on her shoulder. “But first take a
sip of this,” and she poured out a glass of cognac from the decanter
left in the room after the dinner the night before. She had almost to
force the stimulant down the girl’s throat, then, placing her arm about
her waist, she half supported her out of the room and up the staircase.
As they came into view Hugh Wyndham left his post by Brainard’s door
and darted toward them. Millicent waved him back and shrank from his
proffered hand.
“Not now, dear Hugh,” she stammered, reading the compassion in his fine
dark eyes. “I must see mother--and alone.” With the false strength
induced by the cognac she freed herself gently from Vera’s encircling
arm and, entering her mother’s bedroom, closed the door behind her.
Wyndham and Vera regarded each other in silence. “Better so,” he
muttered. “I confess I dreaded breaking the news to Aunt Margaret.”
The gong in the front hall rang loudly and he started. “Who’s coming
here at this hour?” he questioned, turning to descend the stairs.
“It is probably Dr. Thorne, the justice of the peace,” volunteered
Vera, taking a reluctant step toward Brainard’s bedroom. “He said he
would run right over.”
“Run over!” echoed Wyndham blankly. “Thorne? You surely don’t mean
Beverly Thorne?”
“Yes.”
Wyndham missed a step and recovered his balance with difficulty just as
a sleepy, half-dressed footman appeared in the hall below hastening to
the front door. Wyndham continued to gaze at Vera as if not crediting
the evidence of his ears. From below came the murmur of voices, then a
man stepped past the bewildered servant and approached the staircase.
Then only did Wyndham recover his customary poise.
“This way, Dr. Thorne,” he called softly, and waited while the newcomer
handed his overcoat and hat to the footman and joined him on the
stairs. Vera, an interested spectator, watched the two men greet each
other stiffly, then turning she led the way into Brainard’s bedroom.
Neither man guessed the effort it cost Vera to keep her eyes turned on
the dead man as with a tremor now and then in her voice she recounted
how she had entered the bedroom to see her patient and had made the
ghastly discovery.
“I then notified Mr. Wyndham,” she concluded.
“Did you visit your patient during the night?” questioned Thorne, never
taking his eyes from the beautiful woman facing him.
“Yes, doctor, at half past one o’clock. Mr. Brainard was fast asleep.”
“And the remainder of the night--”
“I spent with my other patient, Mr. Craig Porter.” Vera moved
restlessly. “If you do not require my assistance, doctor, I will return
to Mr. Porter,” and barely waiting for Thorne’s affirmative nod, she
slipped away, and resumed her seat in the adjoining bedroom halfway
between the window and Craig Porter’s bedside.
From that vantage point she had an unobstructed view of the shapely
head and broad shoulders of the young athlete whose prowess in
college sports had gained a name for him even before his valor in the
aviation corps of the French army had heralded him far and near. He had
been taken from under his shattered aëroplane six months before in a
supposedly dying condition, but modern science had wrought its miracle
and snatched him from the grave to bring him back to his native land a
hopeless paralytic, unable to move hand or foot.
As she listened to Craig Porter’s regular breathing Vera permitted her
thoughts to turn to Beverly Thorne; his quiet, self-possessed manner,
his finely molded mouth and chin and expressive gray eyes, had all
impressed her favorably, but how account for his lack of interest in
Bruce Brainard--he had never once glanced toward the bed while she was
recounting her discovery of the tragedy. Why had he looked only at her
so persistently?
Had Vera been able to see through lath and plaster, her views would
have undergone a change. Working with a skill and deftness that
aroused Wyndham’s reluctant admiration, Beverly Thorne made a thorough
examination of the body and the bed, taking care not to disarrange
anything. Each piece of furniture and the articles on tables, dresser,
and mantel received his attention, even the curtains before the window
were scrutinized.
“Has anyone besides you and Miss Deane been in this room since the
discovery of the tragedy?” asked Thorne, breaking his long silence.
“No.”
“When was Mr. Brainard taken ill?”
“During dinner last night. Dr. Noyes said it would be unwise for him to
return to Washington, so Mrs. Porter suggested that he stay here all
night, and I loaned him a pair of pajamas,” Wyndham, talking in short,
jerky sentences, felt Thorne’s eyes boring into him.
“I should like to see Dr. Noyes,” began Thorne. “Where--”
“I’ll get him,” Wyndham broke in, hastening to the door; he disappeared
out of the room just as Thorne picked up the razor and holding it
between thumb and forefinger examined it with deep interest.
However, Wyndham was destined to forget his errand for, as he sped down
the hall, a door opened and his aunt confronted him.
“Wait, Hugh.” Mrs. Porter held up an imperative hand. “Millicent has
told me of poor Bruce’s tragic death, and Murray,” indicating the
footman standing behind her, “informs me that Dr. Beverly Thorne has
had the effrontery to force his way into this house--and at such a
time.”
She spoke louder than customary under the stress of indignation, and
her words reached Beverly Thorne as he appeared in the hall. He never
paused in his rapid stride until he joined the little group, and his
eyes did not fall before the angry woman’s gaze.
“It is only at such a time as this that I would think of intruding,” he
said. “Kindly remember, madam, that I am here in my official capacity
only. Before I sign a death certificate, an inquest must decide whether
your guest, Bruce Brainard, committed suicide--or was murdered.”