FOURTEEN ELM STREET
It was Monday evening when we found the body of poor old Thomas. Monday
night had been uneventful; things were quiet at the house and the
peculiar circumstances of the old man’s death had been carefully kept
from the servants. Rosie took charge of the dining-room and pantry, in
the absence of a butler, and, except for the warning of the Casanova
doctor, everything breathed of peace.
Affairs at the Traders’ Bank were progressing slowly. The failure had
hit small stock-holders very hard, the minister of the little Methodist
chapel in Casanova among them. He had received as a legacy from an
uncle a few shares of stock in the Traders’ Bank, and now his joy was
turned to bitterness: he had to sacrifice everything he had in the
world, and his feeling against Paul Armstrong, dead, as he was, must
have been bitter in the extreme. He was asked to officiate at the
simple services when the dead banker’s body was interred in Casanova
churchyard, but the good man providentially took cold, and a substitute
was called in.
A few days after the services he called to see me, a kind-faced little
man, in a very bad frock-coat and laundered tie. I think he was
uncertain as to my connection with the Armstrong family, and dubious
whether I considered Mr. Armstrong’s taking away a matter for
condolence or congratulation. He was not long in doubt.
I liked the little man. He had known Thomas well, and had promised to
officiate at the services in the rickety African Zion Church. He told
me more of himself than he knew, and before he left, I astonished
him—and myself, I admit—by promising a new carpet for his church. He
was much affected, and I gathered that he had yearned over his ragged
chapel as a mother over a half-clothed child.
“You are laying up treasure, Miss Innes,” he said brokenly, “where
neither moth nor rust corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal.”
“It is certainly a safer place than Sunnyside,” I admitted. And the
thought of the carpet permitted him to smile. He stood just inside the
doorway, looking from the luxury of the house to the beauty of the
view.
“The rich ought to be good,” he said wistfully. “They have so much that
is beautiful, and beauty is ennobling. And yet—while I ought to say
nothing but good of the dead—Mr. Armstrong saw nothing of this fair
prospect. To him these trees and lawns were not the work of God. They
were property, at so much an acre. He loved money, Miss Innes. He
offered up everything to his golden calf. Not power, not ambition, was
his fetish: it was money.” Then he dropped his pulpit manner, and,
turning to me with his engaging smile: “In spite of all this luxury,”
he said, “the country people here have a saying that Mr. Paul Armstrong
could sit on a dollar and see all around it. Unlike the summer people,
he gave neither to the poor nor to the church. He loved money for its
own sake.”
“And there are no pockets in shrouds!” I said cynically.
I sent him home in the car, with a bunch of hot-house roses for his
wife, and he was quite overwhelmed. As for me, I had a generous glow
that was cheap at the price of a church carpet. I received less
gratification—and less gratitude—when I presented the new silver
communion set to St. Barnabas.
I had a great many things to think about in those days. I made out a
list of questions and possible answers, but I seemed only to be working
around in a circle. I always ended where I began. The list was
something like this:
Who had entered the house the night before the murder?
Thomas claimed it was Mr. Bailey, whom he had seen on the foot-path,
and who owned the pearl cuff-link.
Why did Arnold Armstrong come back after he had left the house the
night he was killed?
No answer. Was it on the mission Louise had mentioned?
Who admitted him?
Gertrude said she had locked the east entry. There was no key on the
dead man or in the door. He must have been admitted from within.
Who had been locked in the clothes chute?
Some one unfamiliar with the house, evidently. Only two people missing
from the household, Rosie and Gertrude. Rosie had been at the lodge.
Therefore—but was it Gertrude? Might it not have been the mysterious
intruder again?
Who had accosted Rosie on the drive?
Again—perhaps the nightly visitor. It seemed more likely some one who
suspected a secret at the lodge. Was Louise under surveillance?
Who had passed Louise on the circular staircase?
Could it have been Thomas? The key to the east entry made this a
possibility. But why was he there, if it were indeed he?
Who had made the hole in the trunk-room wall?
It was not vandalism. It had been done quietly, and with deliberate
purpose. If I had only known how to read the purpose of that gaping
aperture what I might have saved in anxiety and mental strain!
Why had Louise left her people and come home to hide at the lodge?
There was no answer, as yet, to this, or to the next questions.
Why did both she and Doctor Walker warn us away from the house?
Who was Lucien Wallace?
What did Thomas see in the shadows the night he died?
What was the meaning of the subtle change in Gertrude?
Was Jack Bailey an accomplice or a victim in the looting of the
Traders’ Bank?
What all-powerful reason made Louise determine to marry Doctor Walker?
The examiners were still working on the books of the Traders’ Bank, and
it was probable that several weeks would elapse before everything was
cleared up. The firm of expert accountants who had examined the books
some two months before testified that every bond, every piece of
valuable paper, was there at that time. It had been shortly after their
examination that the president, who had been in bad health, had gone to
California. Mr. Bailey was still ill at the Knickerbocker, and in this,
as in other ways, Gertrude’s conduct puzzled me. She seemed
indifferent, refused to discuss matters pertaining to the bank, and
never, to my knowledge, either wrote to him or went to see him.
Gradually I came to the conclusion that Gertrude, with the rest of the
world, believed her lover guilty, and—although I believed it myself,
for that matter—I was irritated by her indifference. Girls in my day
did not meekly accept the public’s verdict as to the man they loved.
But presently something occurred that made me think that under
Gertrude’s surface calm there was a seething flood of emotions.
Tuesday morning the detective made a careful search of the grounds, but
he found nothing. In the afternoon he disappeared, and it was late that
night when he came home. He said he would have to go back to the city
the following day, and arranged with Halsey and Alex to guard the
house.
Liddy came to me on Wednesday morning with her black silk apron held up
like a bag, and her eyes big with virtuous wrath. It was the day of
Thomas’ funeral in the village, and Alex and I were in the conservatory
cutting flowers for the old man’s casket. Liddy is never so happy as
when she is making herself wretched, and now her mouth drooped while
her eyes were triumphant.
“I always said there were plenty of things going on here, right under
our noses, that we couldn’t see,” she said, holding out her apron.
“I don’t see with my nose,” I remarked. “What have you got there?”
Liddy pushed aside a half-dozen geranium pots, and in the space thus
cleared she dumped the contents of her apron—a handful of tiny bits of
paper. Alex had stepped back, but I saw him watching her curiously.
“Wait a moment, Liddy,” I said. “You have been going through the
library paper-basket again!”
Liddy was arranging her bits of paper with the skill of long practice
and paid no attention.
“Did it ever occur to you,” I went on, putting my hand over the scraps,
“that when people tear up their correspondence, it is for the express
purpose of keeping it from being read?”
“If they wasn’t ashamed of it they wouldn’t take so much trouble, Miss
Rachel,” Liddy said oracularly. “More than that, with things happening
every day, I consider it my duty. If you don’t read and act on this, I
shall give it to that Jamieson, and I’ll venture he’ll not go back to
the city to-day.”
That decided me. If the scraps had anything to do with the mystery
ordinary conventions had no value. So Liddy arranged the scraps, like
working out one of the puzzle-pictures children play with, and she did
it with much the same eagerness. When it was finished she stepped aside
while I read it.
“Wednesday night, nine o’clock. Bridge,” I real aloud. Then, aware of
Alex’s stare, I turned on Liddy.
“Some one is to play bridge to-night at nine o’clock,” I said. “Is that
your business, or mine?”
Liddy was aggrieved. She was about to reply when I scooped up the
pieces and left the conservatory.
“Now then,” I said, when we got outside, “will you tell me why you
choose to take Alex into your confidence? He’s no fool. Do you suppose
he thinks any one in this house is going to play bridge to-night at
nine o’clock, by appointment! I suppose you have shown it in the
kitchen, and instead of my being able to slip down to the bridge
to-night quietly, and see who is there, the whole household will be
going in a procession.”
“Nobody knows it,” Liddy said humbly. “I found it in the basket in Miss
Gertrude’s dressing-room. Look at the back of the sheet.” I turned over
some of the scraps, and, sure enough, it was a blank deposit slip from
the Traders’ Bank. So Gertrude was going to meet Jack Bailey that night
by the bridge! And I had thought he was ill! It hardly seemed like the
action of an innocent man—this avoidance of daylight, and of his
fiancée’s people. I decided to make certain, however, by going to the
bridge that night.
After luncheon Mr. Jamieson suggested that I go with him to Richfield,
and I consented.
“I am inclined to place more faith in Doctor Stewart’s story,” he said,
“since I found that scrap in old Thomas’ pocket. It bears out the
statement that the woman with the child, and the woman who quarreled
with Armstrong, are the same. It looks as if Thomas had stumbled on to
some affair which was more or less discreditable to the dead man, and,
with a certain loyalty to the family, had kept it to himself. Then, you
see, your story about the woman at the card-room window begins to mean
something. It is the nearest approach to anything tangible that we have
had yet.”
Warner took us to Richfield in the car. It was about twenty-five miles
by railroad, but by taking a series of atrociously rough short cuts we
got there very quickly. It was a pretty little town, on the river, and
back on the hill I could see the Mortons’ big country house, where
Halsey and Gertrude had been staying until the night of the murder.
Elm Street was almost the only street, and number fourteen was easily
found. It was a small white house, dilapidated without having gained
anything picturesque, with a low window and a porch only a foot or so
above the bit of a lawn. There was a baby-carriage in the path, and
from a swing at the side came the sound of conflict. Three small
children were disputing vociferously, and a faded young woman with a
kindly face was trying to hush the clamor. When she saw us she untied
her gingham apron and came around to the porch.
“Good afternoon,” I said. Jamieson lifted his hat, without speaking. “I
came to inquire about a child named Lucien Wallace.”
“I am glad you have come,” she said. “In spite of the other children, I
think the little fellow is lonely. We thought perhaps his mother would
be here to-day.”
Mr. Jamieson stepped forward.
“You are Mrs. Tate?” I wondered how the detective knew.
“Yes, sir.”
“Mrs. Tate, we want to make some inquiries. Perhaps in the house—”
“Come right in,” she said hospitably. And soon we were in the little
shabby parlor, exactly like a thousand of its prototypes. Mrs. Tate sat
uneasily, her hands folded in her lap.
“How long has Lucien been here?” Mr. Jamieson asked.
“Since a week ago last Friday. His mother paid one week’s board in
advance; the other has not been paid.”
“Was he ill when he came?”
“No, sir, not what you’d call sick. He was getting better of typhoid,
she said, and he’s picking up fine.”
“Will you tell me his mother’s name and address?”
“That’s the trouble,” the young woman said, knitting her brows. “She
gave her name as Mrs. Wallace, and said she had no address. She was
looking for a boarding-house in town. She said she worked in a
department store, and couldn’t take care of the child properly, and he
needed fresh air and milk. I had three children of my own, and one more
didn’t make much difference in the work, but—I wish she would pay this
week’s board.”
“Did she say what store it was?”
“No, sir, but all the boy’s clothes came from King’s. He has far too
fine clothes for the country.”
There was a chorus of shouts and shrill yells from the front door,
followed by the loud stamping of children’s feet and a throaty “whoa,
whoa!” Into the room came a tandem team of two chubby youngsters, a boy
and a girl, harnessed with a clothes-line, and driven by a laughing boy
of about seven, in tan overalls and brass buttons. The small driver
caught my attention at once: he was a beautiful child, and, although he
showed traces of recent severe illness, his skin had now the clear
transparency of health.
“Whoa, Flinders,” he shouted. “You’re goin’ to smash the trap.”
Mr. Jamieson coaxed him over by holding out a lead-pencil, striped blue
and yellow.
“Now, then,” he said, when the boy had taken the lead-pencil and was
testing its usefulness on the detective’s cuff, “now then, I’ll bet you
don’t know what your name is!”
“I do,” said the boy. “Lucien Wallace.”
“Great! And what’s your mother’s name?”
“Mother, of course. What’s your mother’s name?” And he pointed to me! I
am going to stop wearing black: it doubles a woman’s age.
“And where did you live before you came here?” The detective was polite
enough not to smile.
“_Grossmutter_,” he said. And I saw Mr. Jamieson’s eyebrows go up.
“German,” he commented. “Well, young man, you don’t seem to know much
about yourself.”
“I’ve tried it all week,” Mrs. Tate broke in. “The boy knows a word or
two of German, but he doesn’t know where he lived, or anything about
himself.”
Mr. Jamieson wrote something on a card and gave it to her.
“Mrs. Tate,” he said, “I want you to do something. Here is some money
for the telephone call. The instant the boy’s mother appears here, call
up that number and ask for the person whose name is there. You can run
across to the drug-store on an errand and do it quietly. Just say, ‘The
lady has come.’”
“‘The lady has come,’” repeated Mrs. Tate. “Very well, sir, and I hope
it will be soon. The milk-bill alone is almost double what it was.”
“How much is the child’s board?” I asked.
“Three dollars a week, including his washing.”
“Very well,” I said. “Now, Mrs. Tate, I am going to pay last week’s
board and a week in advance. If the mother comes, she is to know
nothing of this visit—absolutely not a word, and, in return for your
silence, you may use this money for—something for your own children.”
Her tired, faded face lighted up, and I saw her glance at the little
Tates’ small feet. Shoes, I divined—the feet of the genteel poor being
almost as expensive as their stomachs.
As we went back Mr. Jamieson made only one remark: I think he was
laboring under the weight of a great disappointment.
“Is King’s a children’s outfitting place?” he asked.
“Not especially. It is a general department store.”
He was silent after that, but he went to the telephone as soon as we
got home, and called up King and Company, in the city.
After a time he got the general manager, and they talked for some time.
When Mr. Jamieson hung up the receiver he turned to me.
“The plot thickens,” he said with his ready smile. “There are four
women named Wallace at King’s, none of them married, and none over
twenty. I think I shall go up to the city to-night. I want to go to the
Children’s Hospital. But before I go, Miss Innes, I wish you would be
more frank with me than you have been yet. I want you to show me the
revolver you picked up in the tulip bed.”
So he had known all along!
“It _was_ a revolver, Mr. Jamieson,” I admitted, cornered at last, “but
I can not show it to you. It is not in my possession.”