THE STILL, SMALL VOICE
CHARLES, the butler, stared in dismay at the untasted breakfast sitting
temptingly before Walter Ogden. Not a dish had been touched, and twenty
minutes had elapsed since he brought them in, hot from the kitchen. The
perturbed butler took a hesitating step toward Ogden but a glimpse of
his face behind the morning paper, and its forbidding expression caused
Charles to retreat on tip-toe, his warning about a cold breakfast
unspoken. Once before he had incautiously interrupted Ogden at just
such a moment, and had fled before the storm provoked by his temerity.
Charles had left the room but a bare five minutes when Ogden threw down
his newspaper, poured out a cup of coffee, drank it almost in one gulp,
and leaving his breakfast uneaten, walked heavily away from the table.
His destination was his wife’s bedroom, and he found her sitting before
the mahogany dressing table arranging her hair, with an absorption as
to detail which admitted no hurry.
“I won’t be very long,” exclaimed Mrs. Ogden, catching sight of her
husband’s reflection in the mirror. “Go down and get your breakfast;
don’t wait for me,--I can’t be any quicker than I can.”
Mrs. Ogden could not break herself of the last phrase; it was
invariably a red rag to her husband, whose impatient disposition chafed
at being kept waiting, even for an infinitesimal second. He did not
retreat as Mrs. Ogden hoped he would, but instead advanced into the
bedroom.
“Send your maid away,” he directed, scowling at the pretty French
woman, and Mrs. Ogden with a resigned expression directed Celeste to
wait in her own room until she rang for her. When the door had closed
behind the maid, Ogden jerked a chair forward and planted it by the
dressing table.
“What do you think of the papers?” he demanded.
“The papers?” repeated Mrs. Ogden. “I haven’t had time to read
them; well, you needn’t be provoked,” offended by Ogden’s impatient
snort. “It’s your own fault; if you didn’t insist on my breakfasting
downstairs, I could read the papers in bed.”
“Here is the _Post_,” Ogden thrust the newspaper into her hand. “Read
this account of the inquest,” and at the word “inquest” his wife seized
the paper with avidity, but her reading of the article was delayed by
a search for her eyeglasses which had misplaced themselves, according
to Mrs. Ogden. Thoroughly exasperated, Ogden tumbled the puffs and
hairpins about the dressing table until he drew a wail from Mrs. Ogden,
who had finally discovered the missing glasses under her pillow. But
the lure of the newspaper averted any lengthened argument, and Mrs.
Ogden read the entire article before her husband again addressed her.
“What do you make of it?” he asked as she lowered the paper.
“I don’t know exactly what to think,” she answered. “I wish I had been
permitted to sit in the courtroom and listen to the other witnesses
testify.”
“That is neither here nor there,” interrupted Ogden, rudely. “Have you
seen this miniature of which Ethel speaks?”
“No, never,” Mrs. Ogden reread a paragraph in the paper. “Strange she
never showed it to me!”
“And the ring”--Ogden rumpled his heavy white hair until it stood
upright. “Was the ring given to her by James Patterson or Julian
Barclay?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“Seems to me,” Ogden rose abruptly, “it’s time you found out what is
taking place in this house,” and he banged out of the room before his
astonished wife could question his meaning.
Mrs. Ogden contemplated her reflection in the mirror in indecision; she
was more perturbed than she cared to admit even to herself. Completing
her dressing with no sign of haste, she summoned her maid and ordered
her breakfast served in her bedroom, and between dainty bites of hot
toast and marmalade again read the newspaper account of the inquest;
but she did not linger over the particular paragraphs which had so
excited her husband, instead concentrating her attention on Julian
Barclay’s testimony. At last throwing the paper aside, she wrote out
the _menu_ for the day, the orders for the grocer and the market
man, and dispatched them to her cook by Celeste, and with the relief
occasioned by having completed her morning’s work, she went in search
of Ethel.
A faint “Come in” answered Mrs. Ogden’s determined rap on Ethel’s
bedroom door, but she stopped abruptly just over the threshold on
beholding the room in darkness.
“Bless me! Why don’t you pull up the shades, Ethel?” she asked. “Do you
know it’s nearly noon?” And not waiting for a reply, she hurried across
the room and pushed aside the blinds. “Brr! every window open!” she
ejaculated, shivering. “And the steam heat turned off. Ethel, you are
incorrigible! Do you want to have pneumonia?”
“No such luck!” muttered Ethel, and Mrs. Ogden, busily turning on the
cock of the steam radiator missed the remark. “Do you want me for
anything, Cousin Jane?” throwing back the bedcovers as she spoke.
“Just to chat with you,” Mrs. Ogden ensconced herself in a big chair,
first taking the precaution to slip on Ethel’s sweater which lay on a
near-by sofa. “My goodness, Ethel, I don’t believe you slept a wink
last night!” getting a good look at her as she moved toward her bureau.
“I couldn’t sleep,” acknowledged Ethel. “That is why I stayed in bed
this morning.” She paused to gather up her underclothes and returned
to her bed, on which she perched. “Nothing exciting has occurred, has
there?”
In spite of Ethel’s effort to keep her voice indifferent, a trained ear
would have caught the undertone of pent-up anxiety and fear; a fear of
herself, of Julian Barclay, and of Detective Mitchell, which had kept
her a prisoner in her room. Her night had been a night of horrors.
Her faith in Julian Barclay had been shaken to its foundations by the
discovery of the powder-stained flannel and Charles’ unintentionally
incriminating remark--Julian Barclay had occasion to clean his revolver
the morning after James Patterson had been murdered by a shot from a
revolver; and Barclay had surrendered that self-same revolver to the
detective cleaned and each chamber containing a loaded cartridge.
“Coincidences,” Ethel had told herself. “All coincidences,” but the
mere word brought little comfort as she twisted and turned on her
pillow. Detective Mitchell did not look like a man who would place
confidence in coincidences; and Ethel, toward daylight, had fallen into
fitful slumber, in which dreams of Julian Barclay, handcuffed, standing
in the prisoner’s pen while she, Ethel, testified against him, haunted
her. The nightmare had seemed so realistic that she awoke cold with
fright, but with one resolve firmly taken; for weal or for woe she
would befriend Julian Barclay; and until he, himself, confessed his
guilt she would believe him innocent.
Mrs. Ogden’s sudden descent on her bedroom had aroused her dormant fear
of Mitchell; had he acted precipitously after his discovery of the
powder-stained flannel, and had Mrs. Ogden appeared to break the news
of Julian Barclay’s arrest to her?
“No more excitements here, thank Heaven!” exclaimed Mrs. Ogden, having
taken her time to make herself comfortable. “My nervous system won’t
stand any more cyclonic outbreaks. I’ve been spending the morning
reading accounts of the inquest; here, glance at the _Post_,” flinging
the newspaper across the bed, and Ethel, but half dressed, perused the
article with feverish haste, and she, like Mrs. Ogden, lingered longest
over Julian Barclay’s testimony.
“Well, what do you think of it?” asked Mrs. Ogden finally,
unconsciously repeating her husband’s question to her earlier in the
morning.
“I wonder what the Japanese, Yoshida Ito, and James Patterson were
discussing,” replied Ethel, laying down the paper and resuming her
dressing.
“You think they met?”
“Julian Barclay states so, according to this article,” and Ethel
glanced curiously at the older woman.
Mrs. Ogden shrugged her shoulders. “As Ito is still a fugitive from
justice and poor Jim dead, we are not likely to know what they talked
about, nor can Julian’s statement of the meeting be confirmed.”
“You doubt Julian’s testimony?” and Mrs. Ogden had the grace to blush
under Ethel’s scorn. “You, his own cousin?”
“Well, my dear,” she began, moving uneasily. “Julian has sometimes, eh,
prevaricated. I remember as a boy he used to tell the most abominable
stories to get out of going to church, and I--I--have reason to fear
the habit’s grown on him,--of prevarication, I mean,” she added
confusedly. “Have you ever caught him in an, eh, evasion?”
It was the one thing in which Ethel had caught Barclay in, and she
winced at the question. “Oh, pshaw! what is an evasion?” she asked with
assumed lightness. “We are all guilty of it, and you remember the boy
who said ‘a lie is an abomination of the Lord, but a very present help
in time of trouble’.”
Instead of smiling, Mrs. Ogden sighed. “Some people attract trouble,”
she said gloomily. “Julian is one of them.”
Ethel selected a silk waist from the bureau drawer with care. “Has
Julian spent many years in the Far East?”
“I don’t know how long he was out there,” answered Mrs. Ogden. “We
haven’t met for years until this winter. Julian has traveled ever since
the death of Cousin Julian Barclay, senior--he adopted him, you know.”
“No, I wasn’t aware of it,” Ethel dressed more slowly; she had tried
before, but unsuccessfully, to get Mrs. Ogden to discuss Julian
Barclay, and she was determined to learn something of him now that Mrs.
Ogden was at last in a communicative mood.
“Yes, Cousin Julian left him all his money as well as his name----”
“Then Julian’s father was----?”
“William, Cousin William,” Mrs. Ogden added quickly. “Both Julian’s
parents died while he was young, and he was brought up by Cousin
Julian, the most eccentric, cantankerous old wretch!” Mrs. Ogden paused
breathlessly. “No one grieved when he died, and his will just about
saved young Julian from--What do you want, Celeste?” she asked abruptly
as the Frenchwoman appeared.
“Mrs. McLane is downstairs, Madame.”
Ethel paused, conscious-smitten. “Oh, I asked Lois to lunch with me,
thinking you were going to the Van Alstynes’ today, Cousin Jane, and I
never thought of it again until this minute.”
“I am glad you did, I like Lois McLane,” answered Mrs. Ogden. “Ask her
to come upstairs to Miss Ethel’s room, Celeste.” She waited until the
maid had disappeared, then turned to Ethel. “What about this miniature
business? You never told me you had one of yourself.”
“I--I--meant to,” stammered Ethel, taken by surprise. “I will some day.”
“Who made it?” Mrs. Ogden was not to be put off.
“The artist? I don’t recall his name,” Ethel brushed a stray curl into
place. “The miniature was a--a surprise to me, Cousin Jane.”
“Humph! Jim Patterson was always doing the unexpected,” Mrs. Ogden,
deterred by Ethel’s manner from too close questioning, was trying by
indirect means to elicit information. “Did he give you the ring, too?”
“No.”
Mrs. Ogden left her chair and faced Ethel. “Did Julian Barclay give you
the ring?” she demanded, looking straight at her, but evasion was far
from Ethel’s mind.
“He did,” she said simply. Her eyes, however, told more than she knew,
and Mrs. Ogden suddenly saw her through a mist of tears.
“What have I done?” she stammered, laying her hand almost imploringly
on the girl’s shoulder. “God forgive me for ever asking Julian Barclay
here!” and turning she stumbled blindly from the room, and passing Lois
McLane in the hall without a word of greeting, made her way into her
bedroom and flung herself on her lounge.
Lois stopped to look after Mrs. Ogden in bewilderment; it was the first
time she had known her to be guilty of rudeness; then she continued
more slowly to Ethel’s bedroom.
Ethel was still standing where Mrs. Ogden had left her, and her face
lighted with relief at sight of Lois.
“I’m so glad you’ve come,” she said, clinging to Lois as they embraced.
“I am frightened, Lois, frightened,” and a sob broke from her.
Lois’ arms closed about her lovingly. “Come and tell me all about it,”
she coaxed; and Ethel, her natural reserve giving way to her longing
for comfort and help, poured her hopes and fears into Lois’ sympathetic
ears.
“Let me understand clearly, Ethel, the reasons you have for thinking
Julian guilty of Dwight Tilghman’s death?” Lois’ expression had grown
graver and graver as Ethel’s account had progressed. “They were both
from California; both on the same train; they played cards the night
before the murder and Julian lost a large sum of money to Dwight which
was strangely missing after his death; Dwight remained alone in the
smoker while the train was in Atlanta and was there poisoned. Julian,
among the men who might have poisoned Dwight, is the only one who
cannot give an alibi; and your mother passing along the train-shed,
saw a hand wearing a peculiar ring, holding a small paper aloft in a
suspicious position, and this ring----”
“Is here,” springing to her feet Ethel took the ring and a letter
from her bureau drawer. “See, they are identical,” spreading out the
sketch of the hand sent by her mother. “And appearances lead me to
believe that Julian gave me the ring that it might not be found in his
possession----”
“Because it might be incriminating evidence?” finished Lois. “Do you
not think it just possible that Julian gave it to you because he wanted
you to have something of his?” Ethel flushed and glanced up eagerly,
hopefully. “Have you other reasons for thinking Julian connected with
Dwight’s death?”
“Yes,” Ethel hesitated; then plunged ahead with her story. “The night
I saw Ito dash out of the house with Julian in pursuit of him, I heard
Julian call to Ito in a guarded voice, ‘Ito, I have no more money to
spare.’” Ethel paused again. “It may be that this Ito may have seen
Julian poison Dwight Tilghman and be blackmailing him.”
Lois looked at her pityingly. “It may be,” she repeated mechanically.
“I--” A discreet knock on the door interrupted her.
“The mail, Miss Ethel,” announced Charles from the hall, and Ethel
hastened over to the door, returning to Lois an instant later with a
letter.
“Go on, Lois, I am listening,” she urged, tearing open the envelope.
“What is this?” her voice changing as her eyes fell on a torn and
ragged photograph.
It was the upper half of a man’s face, and as Ethel studied the fine
eyes, wavy black hair and straight nose, an exclamation escaped her.
“Why it might be Julian, taken years ago, before his hair turned gray
at the temples.”
Lois looked at the photograph attentively, then sat bolt upright. “I’ve
seen that before,” she announced excitedly. “Jim Patterson received it
during the dinner just before the fire; and in opening the envelope the
picture fell into my lap, face uppermost, and but that he wore a beard
in the photograph I should have known instantly that it was Julian
Barclay.”
“Really?” Ethel stared perplexedly at the torn photograph and then
examined the envelope. “Why should this scrap have been sent to me?
There is no name on the envelope, no card or message, and the address
is typewritten.”
“I can’t imagine,” Lois rubbed her hands excitedly together. “Jim said
that he had ordered the letter forwarded to him as it was important.”
“Did Julian see Jim receive the letter?”
“Yes, and the picture as well; for he caught the photograph as it slid
out of my lap.”
“Oh!” Ethel covered her face, then dropped her hand disclosing such
misery that Lois cried out. “Hush! Lois, before dinner, I found Julian
and Jim quarreling, and Jim threatened to expose Julian--for what I
don’t know. Perhaps this photograph had something to do with the
exposure--it was evidently taken years ago.”
“True. And Julian saw the photograph, saw exposure imminent and----”
“Shot Jim,” completed Ethel, with forced calmness. “So I reasoned
it out last night. I did not then know of the existence of this
photograph, but I knew of the quarrel, Jim’s threat of exposure, and
that Julian cleaned his revolver the morning after the murder.”
Lois’ eyes opened to their widest. “Heaven!” she exclaimed aghast. “And
Julian Barclay was the first to find Jim Patterson. My husband saw him
bending over his dead body--and no one else was in the vicinity.”
“It all dovetails,” admitted Ethel, and her eyes were indescribably
sad. “What more likely than that Julian took his revolver intending to
use it in the capture of the Jap, Ito; met Jim unexpectedly, and under
cover of the smoke and fusillade of shots, which drowned his, gave way
to temptation and killed Jim.”
“It is too horrible!” Lois’ gesture was eloquent. “And yet jealous men
have committed crime since the days of Cain, and, God knows, Julian had
reason to hate Jim Patterson”--she hesitated, but one look at Ethel
decided her, and the information she had come that day to give her
remained unspoken. “Ethel, dear”--impulsively she clasped her hands.
“What can I say to you? How comfort you?”
Ethel tightened her grip of Lois’ hands, then dropped them slowly. “I
told you I reasoned out all the evidence against Julian--I did not say
I _believed_ Julian a murderer.”
“Ethel!” Lois’ eyes were shining. “I pray God that your loyalty and
faith are not misplaced.”
There was a brief silence as Ethel, with shaking fingers, completed her
toilet, but her interview with Lois had strengthened her; she had lost
the feeling of being alone and helpless; she knew that she could depend
on Lois in any crisis.
“We had better go downstairs?” she suggested. “The household is so
disorganized that I don’t know whether Charles will think to send
us word when luncheon is ready.” She paused long enough to replace
Barclay’s ring, the sketch, and the photograph in her bureau and take
the drawer key, then accompanied Lois downstairs.
Ogden was standing in the large entrance hall, and he greeted their
appearance with a grunt of approval.
“Your Cousin Jane has a very ill-regulated appetite,” he said, after
shaking hands with Lois. “She never knows when it’s time for luncheon
or dinner. Have you seen her this morning, Ethel?” and a penetrating
look, of which his cousin was totally unaware, accompanied the question.
“Yes,” answered Ethel. “Cousin Jane came into my room for a few minutes
this morning.”
“Any idea where she is now?”
“No; but I can look for her,” and Ethel slipped into the drawing room,
only to find Professor Norcross the sole occupant of it.
“Don’t let me disturb you,” she exclaimed, as he dropped his newspaper
on seeing her. “I’m looking for Mrs. Ogden to tell her that luncheon is
ready.”
“Let me find her for you----?”
“No, don’t trouble.” But Norcross stepped after her into the hall.
“I imagine Cousin Jane is in the library,” and leaving the professor
greeting Lois McLane and Walter Ogden, she entered the library. Her
sudden entrance caused a man standing at the farther end of the room to
dart unseen behind a tall screen.
Ethel reached the center of the large library before she became aware
that Julian Barclay, and not Mrs. Ogden, was stretched on the large
leather sofa, sound asleep. Ethel drew back, intending flight, but an
overwhelming desire to see Barclay, to study his expression as he lay
asleep, mastered her, and step by step she crept nearer until she
stood at the head of the sofa, looking down at him.
Barclay showed the effect of sleepless nights. His eyes seemed more
sunken, or the shadows under his eyelashes gave them that appearance,
while deeper lines about his mouth and a graying of the black hair over
the temples were indelible marks of strain and suffering. His dreams
did not seem to be of the pleasantest, judging by the restless movement
of his head, and the twitching of his hands.
Out in the hall Ogden waited with unconcealed impatience for his other
guests and his wife to assemble for luncheon. Nor had Charles put in
an appearance, although he had repeatedly rung the bell. Finally Lois
could stand his nervous, almost furtive glances about the hall no
longer.
“I’ll go and see what’s keeping Ethel,” she volunteered, edging toward
the library door.
“It’s a pretty how-de-do if one guest has to seek another,” grumbled
Ogden. “Go with her, Norcross, and see she doesn’t vamoose the way
Ethel appears to have done.”
Norcross laughed as he crossed the hall and pulled back the portières,
but both he and Lois stopped short just over the threshold at sight of
the tableau confronting them in the sun-flooded room.
Ethel, love and a great compassion lighting her face, was stooping
over Julian Barclay, who lay apparently asleep on the sofa. Suddenly
Barclay tossed his hand above his head and his fingers touched Ethel’s
cool palm resting on his pillow. The contact evidently fitted into his
dream, for he smiled contentedly as his grasp tightened on her hand.
“Ethel!” he called, and as she bent further over him, his smile faded
into a frown, the lines in his face deepened, and he writhed as if in
pain, his lips moving, but at first no words came.
“God help me!” he groaned. “I killed Patterson.”
A scream, terrible in its agony, broke from Ethel and awoke Barclay
from his slumbers and Lois and Norcross from their stupor. It was the
professor who caught Ethel as she reeled backward, and assisted her to
a chair.
Barclay, but half awake, sat staring in growing horror at the handcuffs
dangling from his wrists, while Detective Mitchell, who had slipped
from behind a screen some seconds before, gazed with satisfaction at
his prisoner.
“I already had evidence enough to secure this warrant,” he said,
producing the document. “But I’m obliged to you, Mr. Barclay, for
calling out that you killed Patterson--and before witnesses, too.”
Barclay’s gaze roved around the little group, lingering longest on
Ethel, who sat with her face buried in her hands, and his expression
brought stinging tears to Lois’ eyes.
“Did I talk in my sleep?” he questioned, with dry lips.
Lois nodded, speech was impossible for her. Mitchell broke the painful
silence.
“You said: ‘God help me, I killed Patterson’,” he announced.
Barclay rose stiffly, and the jingle of the handcuffs caused Ethel to
look at him. He moved like an old man.
“Well, so I did kill Patterson,” he admitted slowly. “But not James
Patterson.”