THE CORPUS DELICTI
The ensuing three weeks were busy ones for Oliver. He was off
“electioneering” by day and out speechmaking by night in district
schoolhouses, in town-halls, and at mass meetings held at the county
seat. The opposition press, stirred to action by the harassed Mr. Gooch,
printed frequent reports of the progress made by the authorities in
their search for old Oliver Baxter. They made sensation out of two or
three minor discoveries—such as the finding of an old straw hat in one
of the pools; the unearthing of a stout spade handle at the edge of the
swamp not far from where the old man and his son parted company; the
turning up among the weeds at the roadside of a small notebook which,
despite months of exposure to rain, snow and sun, was identified as the
property of the missing man. It was Oliver October who unhesitatingly
identified this notebook. He recalled that his father had made notations
in it before they left the house on that all-important night. The
weather had rendered these and other notes illegible.
Strange to say, Peter Hines’s cabin was still boarded up. The morning
after Oliver and Jane observed the motionless lights across the swamp,
the former motored over to the shack. He was amazed to find the door and
the windows nailed up securely; there was nothing to indicate that they
had been opened or tampered with during the night. He went to Malone
with the puzzle. The detective promptly declared that neither he nor his
partner had been down at the shack the night before and could offer no
explanation. The cabin was watched every night for a week, but the
lights did not reappear.
Oliver was astonished to find that no one in Rumley was surprised by the
announcement that he and Jane were engaged to be married. Apparently the
whole town knew about it weeks before he himself was aware of it! Quite
a number of people seemed to be frankly annoyed because they had not
announced their engagement a year ago.
Meanwhile, Malone and his gang of Italian laborers were leisurely
conducting the quest. The chief operative was bored. He admitted that he
was bored—admitted it to Oliver and Mrs. Grimes and Lizzie Meggs and to
the high heavens besides.
Mid-afternoon of a windy day in October—it was the 19th to be exact—he
sat in the shelter of the kitchen-wing, his chair propped against the
wall, reading a book. He yawned frequently and seemed to be having great
difficulty in keeping his pipe going. From time to time he dozed. Some
one had told him he ought to read this book. It had been recommended to
him as a rattling good detective story. The only thing that kept him
awake was the thud of pick-axes under the kitchen porch just beyond
where he was sitting—not that he wasn’t accustomed to the thuds and
could have slept soundly in spite of them, but there was always the
possibility that Lizzie Meggs might carry out her threat to “douse”
everybody with hot water if the noise got to be more than she could
bear.
His partner, Charlie What’s-his-name, was out in the swamp directing the
efforts of eight or ten men who were sounding the scattered “mudholes”
with long poles or digging at random in sections where the earth was
sufficiently solid to bear the weight of man or beast. These men were
now far out beyond the wire fence, within a hundred yards or so of the
pond. They had advanced across the dangerous terrain with the aid of
planks, and they worked with such extreme caution that even Horace
Gooch, on the one surreptitious visit he paid to the locality, was
satisfied with the progress they were making: they could not possibly
complete the job before election day.
Mr. Malone’s rest was disturbed shortly before three o’clock by the
arrival of Oliver October. The two had become quite good friends.
“Say, Malone, would you mind calling off these gravediggers of yours for
half an hour or so? I am expecting a committee here at three o’clock.”
“Sure,” said Malone. He got up slowly. “Hey!” he shouted over his
shoulder. “Come out o’ that! Knock off! It’s four o’clock. In New York,”
he added in an aside to Oliver. “As I’ve said before, Mr. Baxter, it’s
all damned foolishness digging up your place like this.”
“Mrs. Grimes says the house is likely to fall down on our heads at any
minute,” said Oliver. “How is your lumbago, Malone?”
“Better. Mrs. Grimes almost succeeded in putting a mustard plaster on me
yesterday. She had me gargling my throat last week. I’m never going to
complain again as long as I’m around where she is.”
“By the way, she notified me this noon that our hired girl, Lizzie
Meggs, has decided to give up her place unless your men fill up some of
the graves they’ve dug in my cellar. She says that every time she goes
down for a pan of potatoes or a jar of pickles she has to jump over a
grave or two, and it’s getting on her nerves.”
“I’ll have ’em put some planks over those holes,” said the detective.
“That reminds me. Now that they’ve stopped work under the porch, you
might call off your watch-dog. Give the old boy a little much needed
rest. He’s been sitting back there on the kitchen steps ever since one
o’clock—and he’s here every morning before we begin work.”
Oliver walked to the corner. Joseph Sikes was sitting on the back steps,
his coat collar turned up about his throat, his aged back bent almost
double, his chin resting on the mittened hands that gripped the head of
his cane, his wrinkled face screwed up into a dogged scowl.
“Better step into the kitchen, Uncle Joe, and ask Lizzie for a cup of
hot coffee. Work’s over for to-day.”
“The hell it is,” growled Mr. Sikes, without changing his position.
“Let him alone,” said Malone, good-naturedly. “He’s hatching out some
new trouble for me. Reminds me of a crabbed old hen setting on a basket
of eggs. As for the other one—the chubby undertaker—he’s down there in
the swamp from morning till night, supervising the whole blamed job.”
“They are the best friends I’ve got in the world, Malone,” said Oliver
earnestly.
“Well, we’ll clear out so’s you can have your committee meeting in
peace,” said the detective.
Two soiled Italians had crawled out from beneath the porch and were
making off with their coats and dinner-pails in the direction of the
barn.
“I have put it up to County Headquarters, Malone,” said Oliver, in an
emotionless tone, “as to whether I should stay in the race or withdraw.”
“What do you mean withdraw?” asked the detective sharply.
“Well, it’s only fair to give them a chance to put some one else on the
ticket in my place if they feel—”
“Come off! In the first place, they can’t put anybody in your place now.
It’s too late. And in the second place, you’ve got old Gooch licked to a
standstill, so what the devil’s got into you? You must be off your nut.
We’re not going to find your father’s body, my boy. Why? Because it
isn’t—”
“How do you know you are not going to find it?” was Oliver’s surprising
question.
Malone stared. “What has caused you to change your tone like this,
Baxter?”
“It’s getting on my nerves, Malone—I don’t mind saying so,” said the
younger man, frowning. “At first I laughed at all this fuss, but lately
I’ve been lying awake thinking that maybe we’ve been wrong all the time
and that he is out there—My God, Malone, it—it turns the blood cold in
my veins.”
“I get you,” said Malone, sympathetically. “It does give a fellow the
shivers. But now about this getting off the ticket. Don’t you do
anything of the sort, Baxter. Don’t lay down. You’ve got this election
sewed up—and say, what if we do accidentally find your old man—what’s
that got to do with it? Haven’t you been looking for him for over a
year? Supposing he did wander off into the swamp that night—”
“Malone, I can feel it in the air that a great many people believe I
know what became of him. It’s in the air, I say. There may be people who
believe that I had something to do with putting him out of the way.
People like to believe the worst. The Democratic speakers are mighty
decent and so are the newspapers. They haven’t uttered a word or printed
one that isn’t fair and square. But back in the minds of a lot of people
is the thought that perhaps, after all, I did murder my father. You
can’t blame—”
Mr. Sikes, who had shuffled around the corner, overheard the remark. He
fairly barked:
“It don’t make a particle of difference what they believe provided
nobody is able to find the corpus delicti. I don’t want to hear you say
another word about murder, young man—not another damned word. They’ve
got to dig up your father’s corpus delicti before—What in thunder are
you laughing at, sir?”
Malone, to whom this question was addressed in Mr. Sikes’s most
aggressive manner, put his hand to his mouth and, after a brief
struggle, succeeded in replying with as straight a face as possible:
“I’ve been reading an awfully funny book, Mr. Sikes. It’s about
detectives.”
Now, for the past two weeks Mr. Sikes and other overripe citizens of
Rumley had made frequent and profound allusions to the corpus delicti.
They didn’t know what it was at first but Mr. Link soon found out. He
said it was French for “body.” Corpus delicti sounded so well—after
considerable practice—that most people preferred to use it instead of
“remains”; besides, it wasn’t quite so personal.
There is no telling what Mr. Sikes would have said to Mr. Malone about
detectives in general if the delegation from Republican headquarters had
arrived a minute or two later. He could have said a great deal in a
minute or two.
The automobile came swinging up the drive on the tail of Mr. Malone’s
defensive explanation. Oliver hurried off to greet the occupants of the
car, Mr. Sikes hobbling along in his wake. Malone refilled his pipe as
he strode across the stable yard. In the lee of the barn he scorched his
fingers. His gaze was fixed on the swamp. Far out in the “danger zone” a
number of men were compactly grouped. A solitary figure was running
toward the Baxter house, while from the main highway to the right of the
slough a dozen or more scattered people were picking their way gingerly
across the intervening space. The detective dropped the charred match
and started briskly down to meet the runner. He was no longer bored. He
was an alert, vital, keen-sensed hunter of men.
Mrs. Grimes appeared on the front porch as the three committee-men
stepped out of the car. She knew one of them, James Parsons, a lawyer.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Grimes,” said he, coming up the steps. “Baxter
here?”
“He’s around back. I’ll call—”
“Just a second. I’d like a word with you in private. Hello, here he is.”
There were handshakings, and then Parsons motioned with his head for
Serepta to remain behind as the others entered the house. “Say, have you
got any influence over him, Mrs. Grimes?”
“Not a bit,” said Serepta. “What have you men decided he ought to do?
Drop out?”
“We’ve decided—the whole Central Committee—that he’d be a damned fool
to drop out of the race. Excuse my French.”
“With pleasure. Now, let me give you a piece of advice.” She looked over
her shoulder to make sure that Oliver was out of hearing. “Don’t plead
with him. Act as mad as you know how. Don’t go in there and tell him
he’d be a damned fool to drop out—excuse _my_ French—don’t go at him
that way. Tell him he’d be an ornery, low-lifed skunk if he left you in
the lurch like that. Make it strong. Nobody on earth minds being called
a damned fool, Mr. Parsons, but it is something awful to be called a
skunk. He is really serious about withdrawing. You mustn’t let him. All
he needs is your encouragement and he’ll—”
“You think it will encourage him if we call him a skunk?”
“I didn’t say you were to call him one,” said she tartly. “I said you
were to tell him he’d _be_ one.”
“If you have the slightest influence—”
“I told you I haven’t a bit. You men got him into this race and it’s
your business to keep him in it. I guess you’d better go in. They’re
calling you.”
Mr. Sikes ambled up as Parsons disappeared through the door. He stopped
short in the gravel walk just below where Mrs. Grimes was standing.
After an instant’s hesitation, he drew nearer to the rail, treading
ruthlessly upon the frost-ravaged peony bed that skirted the porch. He
felt that it was necessary to lower his voice.
“We’ve only six more days to go, Serepty,” he said. “This is the
nineteenth.”
“Yes. He will be thirty on the twenty-fifth. I hope you’ll be satisfied,
Joe Sikes.”
He pondered gloomily. “Setting back there on the kitchen steps I got to
thinkin’ about the last time I was up here before old Ollie disappeared.
I wonder if you remember what he said to me and Silas, setting right
here on this porch.”
“He said a lot of things, Joe.”
“Do you remember him telling us he was getting so he hated to go to
sleep at night in this house? Maybe he said he was afraid to go to
sleep, but no matter. Do you remember?”
“I remember the poor old thing saying he couldn’t go to sleep nights
because he was afraid a mob would come up to the house and take Oliver
October out and hang him for something he’d never done.”
“I guess maybe that was it. And another thing. Didn’t he say he wouldn’t
blame Oliver if he up and beat his brains out for letting that gypsy
queen lift the veil and cause all this worry?”
“What are you trying to get at, Joe Sikes?”
“Oh—nothin’ particular. Only somehow I’ve got the queerest feelin’ that
something’s going to happen, Serepty—and I—I just thought I’d warn you
not to say anything about our talk that night, ’specially what he said
about Oliver beatin’ his brains out.”
“Good gracious, man! Why should I say anything—”
“I mean,” began Mr. Sikes solemnly, “if—if you was called as a
witness—in court. If you was put under oath and had to testify. That’s
what I mean. I mean,” he repeated sternly, “that you and me and Silas
never heard him say anything like that—then or any other time.”
“What’s got into you, Joe? What do you mean by a trial in court and—”
“I’m just giving you a few instructions, Serepty, in case anything
_does_ happen. I’ve been a little worried over you, anyhow.”
“Worried over me?”
“Yes. You’re so darned good and conscientious, as the saying is, that
I’ve worried myself sick over you. I mean about swearing to a lie. Of
course Silas and I would swear to a thousand of ’em if necessary, but
would you? That’s what’s worryin’ me. Would—”
“I would swear to a million of them,” she cried, “if it would be any
help to Oliver October.”
“Birds of a feather,” said Mr. Sikes, rather proudly.
An automobile, packed with men and running at a high rate of speed,
flashed past the Baxter house and was almost instantly lost to sight
around the bend.
“They ought to be locked up,” cried Mrs. Grimes, scandalized.
Mr. Sikes seized the opportunity to utter one withering word—and on his
lips it had all the ferocity of a curse.
“Prohibition!” he snarled, his voice cracking on the last syllable.
Mrs. Grimes drew her shawl a little closer about her throat.
“Seems to me it’s turning a lot colder, Joe,” she said.
“Better go in the house, Serepty,” he advised quickly.
“Come in and have a cup of coffee, Joe,” said she.
“I guess I’d better go ’round the back way, Serepty, so’s not to disturb
Ollie and the committee. Has he set the day for the wedding?”
She came down from the porch and together they started for the rear of
the house.
“No, he ain’t,” said she.
“I thought he had. He’d ought to.”
“He’s not the one to do the setting, Joe Sikes. It’s none of his
business. That’s the girl’s lookout. Jane has named the day, if that’s
what you want to know. It’s to be the tenth of November.”
“He’s a lucky feller,” said the old man. “Think of a feller being able
to get married to as purty a girl as Jane and still not have any
brother-in-laws.”
“I wish you’d get tired talking about brothers-in-law all the time,” she
said, severely. “Don’t forget that you are a brother-in-law yourself,
Joe Sikes. You are a brother-in-law to two men and—”
“What are you trying to do, Serepty Grimes? Insult me? Make a mortal
enemy out of me? For two cents I’d refuse to drink a mouthful of your
coffee. And what’s more—”
“Look out yonder, Joe—in the swamp,” she broke in, pointing through the
fringe of trees. “There’s a crowd—”
“Serepty!” he cried bleakly. “They—they have found something out
yonder. I feel it in my bones. The corpus delicti. I guess I won’t have
any coffee. I’ll just mosey out there and see what’s happened.”
“Wait a minute. Isn’t that Silas Link coming across the swamp?”
He groaned. “If it is, he’ll never get here. He’s too old and fat to be
hurryin’ like that. He’ll drop dead. He’s got a weak heart.”
“Sit down, Joe,” she said suddenly, after a quick look at his paling
face.
“I guess maybe I’d better,” he said weakly. “Just for a second or two.
My legs seem sort of wobbly and—”
“Don’t sit down yet,” she cried. “Wait till we get to the steps. You’ll
break a hip or something if you sit down—”
“Ain’t your legs sort of weak and—”
“No, they’re not,” she interrupted tartly. “Lean on me, Joe.”
“I’ll be dogged if I do!” he snorted vigorously. “What do you take me
for? Lean on a woman! Blast your eyes, Serepty Grimes—how many more
times are you going to insult me to-day? Let me tell you one thing more.
I’m not going to set down as long as Silas Link is on his feet. I am no
quitter!” he bellowed, squaring his broad old shoulders. “Not by a
blamed sight!”
They stood and waited. In due time, Silas Link panted his way up the
incline and came shuffling toward them. He stopped at the corner of the
barnyard, leaning against the fence to get his breath. Mr. Sikes stalked
forward, followed by Mrs. Grimes.
“Well?” demanded the former.
“They—fished—up—a—carcass,” puffed Mr. Link.
Absolute silence—except for the painful wheezing of the last speaker.
“Ollie’s?” asked Mr. Sikes at last, and quickly hooked his arm through
that of the tottering Mrs. Grimes.
“No telling. Unrecognizable. Been in the mire for a long time, according
to my best judgment.”
“Sure it’s a—a human being?”
“Certainly.”
“Male or female?”
“Didn’t I tell you it had been in the mire for a long time?”
“It must have had clothes on,” put in Mrs. Grimes stoutly. “Wouldn’t you
know Ollie Baxter’s clothes if you—”
“Hasn’t got any clothes on. Not a stitch. Shoes or anything. It ain’t
got _anything_ on. Not even flesh.”
“A—a skeleton?” gulped the old lady.
“No clothes on?” demanded Mr. Sikes. “Then it can’t be Ollie. He had his
new suit on.”
Mr. Link hesitated. “That detective says the chances are that whoever
did the killing stripped the body and burnt the clothes,” he said
slowly, weightily.
A longer silence than before. Mr. Link’s listeners seemed turned to
stone. Finally Mr. Sikes moistened his stiff lips.
“What do you mean, Silas, by—by killing?”
“If you feel sort of squeamish, Serepty,” began Mr. Link considerately,
“maybe you’d better—”
“I’m not squeamish,” retorted the redoubtable little woman. “Go on.”
“The top of the skull is smashed in—split wide open,” announced the
newsbearer, in a hushed, sepulchral voice. Then, apparently eager to get
it over with, he hurried on: “Couldn’t have died a natural death.
Couldn’t have committed suicide. Somebody hit him over the head—”
“Say _it_,” corrected Mr. Sikes. “You don’t know whether it’s a man or
woman.”
“—with a heavy instrument. Most likely an ax or a hatchet. Buried six
or eight feet deep in a mudhole. They pulled up a hand first with one of
them poles with a hook on it. Then they set to work scooping out the
hole with shovels. Wasn’t long before they got down where they could—”
“Don’t tell any more—don’t tell any more!” quaked Mrs. Grimes, covering
her eyes.
“Lean on me, Serepty,” said Mr. Sikes, who, if anything, was weaker than
she.
“They’ve sent for the police and for my men,” went on Mr. Link. “And
they’re telephoning for the sheriff and coroner and everybody else. Why,
the news must be all over town by this time. Look at the automobiles
rushing down that way—and people running on foot—and—oh, my Lord,
Joe! If it should turn out to be Ollie it will—it will look mighty bad
for Oliver October.”
Mr. Sikes was thoughtful. “Did you get a good look at it, Silas?”
“I did.”
“Wouldn’t you recognize Ollie’s Adam’s apple if you saw it—dead or
alive?”
“Not if it had been dead as long as this one has. Your Adam’s apple
ain’t a bone, Joe. It’s a cartilage.”
“A cartridge?”
“I guess we’d better tell Oliver,” said Mrs. Grimes briskly. She had, as
usual, risen to the occasion.