THE GARAGE FIRE
“Now, watch me,” he said, and with a quick thrust of his arm down among
the ferns, he drew forth a revolver, which he turned over to Burdon.
“Land o’ goodness!” exclaimed that worthy. “Howja know it was there?”
“Knew it must be—looked for it—saw it,” returned the boy, nonchalantly,
and then, hearing a short, sharp whistle, he looked up at the house to
see Fleming Stone regarding him from an upper window.
“Found the weapon, Fibs?” he inquired.
“Yes, Mr. Stone.”
“All right. Bring it up here, and ask Mr. Burdon to come along.”
Delighted at the summons, Burdon followed the boy’s flying feet and they
went up to Stone’s rooms. A small and pleasant sitting-room had been
given over to the detective, and he admitted his two visitors, then
closed the door.
“Doing the spectacular, Terence?” Stone said, smiling a little.
“Just one grandstand play,” the boy confessed. As a matter of fact, he
had located the pistol sometime earlier, but waited to make the discovery
seem sensational.
“All right; let’s take a look at it.”
Without hesitation, Burdon pronounced the revolver Mr. Wheeler’s. It had
no initials on it, but from Wheeler’s minute description, Burdon
recognized it beyond reasonable doubt. One bullet had been fired from it,
and the calibre corresponded to the shot that had killed Samuel Appleby.
“Oh, it’s the right gun, all right,” Burdon said, “but I never thought of
looking over that way for it. Must have been thrown by a left-handed
man.”
“Oh, not necessarily,” said Stone. “But it was thrown with a conscious
desire to hide it, and not flung away in a careless or preoccupied
moment.”
“And what do you deduce from that?” asked Burdon, quite prepared to hear
the description of the murderer’s physical appearance and mental
attainments.
“Nothing very definite,” Stone mused. “We might say it looked more like
the act of a strong-willed man such as Mr. Wheeler, than of a frightened
and nervously agitated woman.”
“If either of those two women did it,” Burdon offered, “she wasn’t
nervous or agitated. They’re not that sort. They may go to pieces
afterward, but whatever Mrs. Wheeler or Maida undertake to do, they put
it over all right. I’ve known ’em for years, and I never knew either of
them to show the white feather.”
“Well, it was not much of an indication, anyway,” Stone admitted, “but it
does prove a steady nerve and a planning brain that would realize the
advisability of flinging the weapon where it would not be probably
sought. Now, as this is Mr. Wheeler’s revolver, there’s no use asking the
three suspects anything about it. For each has declared he or she used it
and flung it away. That in itself is odd—I mean that they should all tell
the same story. It suggests not collusion so much as the idea that
whoever did the shooting was seen by one or both of the others.”
“Then you believe it was one of the three Wheelers?” asked Burdon.
“I don’t say that, yet,” returned Stone. “But they must be reckoned with.
I want to eliminate the innocent two and put the guilt on the third—if
that is where it belongs.”
“And if not, which way are you looking?”
“Toward the fire. That most opportune fire in the garage seems to me
indicative of a criminal who wanted to create a panic so he could carry
out his murderous design with neatness and despatch.”
“And that lets out the women?”
“Not if, as you say, they’re of the daring and capable sort.”
“Oh, they are! If Maida Wheeler did this thing, she could stage the fire
easily enough. Or Mrs. Wheeler could, either. They’re hummers when it
comes to efficiency and actually doing things!”
“You surprise me. Mrs. Wheeler seems such a gentle, delicate
personality.”
“Yep; till she’s roused. Then she’s full of tiger! Oh, I know Sara
Wheeler. You ask my wife what Mrs. Wheeler can do!”
“Tell me a little more of this conditional pardon matter. Is it possible
that for fifteen years Mr. Wheeler has never stepped over to the
forbidden side of his own house?”
“Perfectly true. But it isn’t his house, it’s Mrs. Wheeler’s. Her folks
are connected with the Applebys and it was the work of old Appleby that
the property came to Sara with that tag attached, that she must live in
Massachusetts. Also, Appleby pardoned Wheeler on condition that he never
stepped foot into Massachusetts. And there they were. It was Sara
Wheeler’s ingenuity and determination that planned the house on the state
line, and she has seen to it that Dan Wheeler never broke parole. It’s
second nature to him now, of course.”
“But I’m told that he did step over the night of the murder. That he went
into the sitting-room of his wife—or maybe into the forbidden end of that
long living-room—to see the fire. It would be a most natural thing for
him to do.”
“Not natural, no, sir.” Burdon rubbed his brow thoughtfully. “Yet he
might ’a’ done it. But one misstep like that ought to be overlooked, I
think.”
“And would be by his friends—but suppose there’s an enemy at work.
Suppose, just as a theory, that somebody is ready to take advantage of
the peculiar situation, that seems to prove Dan Wheeler was either
outside his prescribed territory—or he was the murderer. To my way of
thinking, at present, that man’s alibi is his absence from the scene of
the crime. And, if he was absent, he must have been over the line. I know
this from talks I’ve had with the servants and the family and guests, and
I’m pretty confident that Wheeler was either in the den or in the
forbidden north part of the house at the moment of the murder.”
“Why don’t you know which it was?” asked Burdon, bluntly.
“Because,” said Stone, not resenting the question, “because I can’t place
any dependence on the truth of the family’s statements. For three
respectable, God-fearing citizens, they are most astonishingly willing,
even eager, to perjure themselves. Of course, I know they do it for one
another’s sake. They have a strange conscience that allows them to lie
outright for the sake of a loved one. And, it may be, commit murder for
the sake of a loved one! But all this I shall straighten out when I get
further along. The case is so widespread, so full of ramifications and
possible side issues, I have to go carefully at first, and not get
entangled in false clues.”
“Got any clue, sir? Any real ones?”
“Meaning dropped handkerchiefs and broken cuff-links?” Stone chaffed him.
“Well, there’s the pistol. That’s a material clue. But, no, I can’t
produce anything else—at present. Well, Terence, what luck?”
Fibsy, who had slipped from the room at the very beginning of this
interview, now returned.
“It’s puzzlin’—that’s what it is, puzzlin’,” he declared, throwing
himself astride of a chair. “I’ve raked that old garage fore and aft, but
I can’t track down the startings of that fire. You see, the place is
stucco and all that, and besides the discipline of this whole layout is
along the lines of p’ison neatness! Everybody that works at Sycamore
Ridge has to be a very old maid for keeping things clean! So, there’s no
chance for accumulated rubbish or old rags or spontaneous combustion or
anything of the sort. Nextly, none of the three men who have any call to
go into the garage ever smoke in there. That’s a Mede and Persian law.
Gee, Mr. Wheeler is some efficient boss! Well, anyway, after the fire,
though they tried every way to find out what started it, they couldn’t
find a thing! There was no explanation but a brand dropped from the
skies, or a stroke of lightning! And there was no storm on. It wouldn’t
all be so sure, but the morning after, it seems, Mr. Allen and Mr. Keefe
were doin’ some sleuthin’ on their own, and they couldn’t find out how
the fire started. So, they put it up to the garage men, and they hunted,
too. It seems nothing was burnt but some things in Mr. Appleby’s car,
which, of course, lets out his chauffeur, who had no call to burn up his
own duds. And a coat of his was burned and also a coat of Mr. Keefe’s.”
“What were those coats doing in an unused car?” asked Stone.
“Oh, they were extra motor coats, or raincoats, or something like that,
and they always staid in the car.”
“Where, in the car?”
“I asked that,” Fibsy returned, “and they were hanging on the coat-rail.
I thought there might have been matches in the pockets, but they say no.
There never had been matches in those coat pockets, nor any matches in
the Appleby car, for that matter.”
“Well, the fire is pretty well mixed up in the murder,” declared Stone.
“Now it’s up to us to find out how.”
“Ex-cuse me, Mr. Stone,” and Burdon shook his head; “you’ll never get at
it that way.”
“Ex-cuse me, Mr. Burdon,” Fibsy flared back, “Mr. Stone _will_ get at it
that way, if he thinks that’s the way to look. You don’t know F. Stone
yet——”
“Hush up, Fibs; Mr. Burdon will know if I succeed, and, perhaps he’s
right as to the unimportance of the fire, after all.”
“You see,” Burdon went on, unabashed, “Mr. Keefe—now, he’s some smart in
the detective line—he said, find your phantom bugler, and you’ve got your
murderer! Now, what nonsense that is! As if a marauding villain would
announce himself by playing on a bugle!”
“Yet there may be something in it,” demurred Stone. “It may well be that
the dramatic mind that staged this whole mysterious affair is responsible
for the bugle call, the fire, and the final crime.”
“In that case, it’s one of the women,” Burdon said. “They could do all
that, either of them, if they wanted to; but Dan Wheeler, while he could
kill a man on provocation—it would be an impulsive act—not a premeditated
one. No, sir! Wheeler could see red, and go Berserk, but he couldn’t plan
out a complicated affair like you’re turning this case into!”
“I’m not turning it into anything,” Stone laughed. “I’m taking it as it
is presented to me, but I do hold that the phantom bugler and the
opportune fire are theatrical elements.”
“A theatrical element, too, is the big sycamore,” and Burdon smiled.
“Now, if that tree should take a notion to walk over into Massachusetts,
it would help out some.”
“What’s that?” cried Fibsy. “What do you mean?”
“Well, the Wheelers have got a letter from Appleby, written while he was
still governor, and it says that when the big sycamore goes into
Massachusetts, Wheeler can go, too. But it can’t be done by a trick. I
mean, they can’t transplant the thing, or chop it down and take the wood
over. It’s got to go of its own accord.”
“Mere teasing,” said Stone.
“Yes, sir, just that. Appleby had a great streak of teasing. He used to
tease everybody just for the fun of seeing them squirm. This whole
Wheeler business was the outcome of Appleby’s distorted love of fun. And
Wheeler took it so seriously that Appleby kept it up. I’ll warrant, if
Wheeler had treated the whole thing as a joke, Appleby would have let up
on him. But Dan Wheeler is a solemn old chap, and he saw no fun in the
whole matter.”
“I don’t blame him,” commented Stone. “Won’t he get pardoned now?”
“No, sir, he won’t. Some folks think he will, but I know better. The
present governor isn’t much for pardoning old sentences—he says it
establishes precedent and all that. And the next governor is more than
likely to say the same.”
“I hear young Mr. Appleby isn’t going to run.”
“No, sir, he ain’t. Though I daresay he will some other time. But this
death of his father and the mystery and all, is no sort of help to a
campaign. And, too, young Appleby hasn’t the necessary qualifications to
conduct a campaign, however good he might be as governor after he got
elected. No; Sam won’t run.”
“Who will?”
“Dunno, I’m sure. But there’ll be lots ready and eager for a try at it.”
“I suppose so. Well, Burdon, I’m going down now to ask some questions of
the servants. You know they’re a mine of information usually.”
“Kin I go?” asked Fibsy.
“Not now, son. You stay here, or do what you like. But don’t say much and
don’t antagonize anybody.”
“Not me, F. Stone!”
“Well, don’t shock anybody, then. Behave like a gentleman and a scholar.”
“Yessir,” Fibsy ducked a comical bow, and Burdon, understanding he was
dismissed, went home.
To the dining-room Stone made his way, and asked a maid there if he might
see the cook.
Greatly frightened, the waitress brought the cook to the dining-room.
But the newcomer, a typical, strong-armed, strong-minded individual, was
not at all abashed.
“What is it you do be wantin’, sor?” she asked, civilly enough, but a
trifle sullenly.
“Only a few answers to direct questions. Where were you when you first
heard the alarm of the garage fire?”
“I was in me kitchen, cleanin’ up after dinner.”
“What did you do?”
“I ran out the kitchen door and, seein’ flames, I ran toward the garage.”
“Before you ran, you were at the rear of the house—I mean the south side,
weren’t you?”
“Yes, sor, I was.”
“You passed along the south veranda?”
“Not along it,” the cook looked at him wonderingly—“but by the end of it,
like.”
“And did you see any one on the veranda? Any one at all?”
The woman thought hard. “Well, I sh’d have said no—first off—but now you
speak of it, I must say I do have a remimbrance of seein’ a figger—but
sort of vague like.”
“You mean your memory of it is vague—you don’t mean a shadowy figure?”
“No, sor. I mean I can’t mind it rightly, now, for I was thinkin’
intirely of the fire, and so as I was runnin’ past the end of the verandy
all I can say is, I just glimpsed like, a person standin’ there.”
“Standing?”
“Well, he might have been moving—I dunno.”
“Are you sure it was a man?”
“I’m not. I’m thinkin’ it was, but yet, I couldn’t speak it for sure.”
“Then you went on to the fire?”
“Yes, sor.”
“And thought no more about the person on the veranda?”
“No, sor. And it niver wud have entered me head again, savin’ your
speakin’ of it now. Why—was it the—the man that——”
“Oh, probably not. But everything I can learn is of help in discovering
the criminal and perhaps freeing your employers from suspicion.”
“And I wish that might be! To put it on the good man, now! And worse,
upon the ladies—angels, both of them!”
“You are fond of the family, then?”
“I am that! I’ve worked here for eight years, and never a cross word from
the missus or the master. As for Miss Maida—she’s my darlint.”
“They’re fortunate in having you here,” said Stone, kindly. “That’s all,
now, cook, unless you can remember anything more of that person you saw.”
“Nothin’ more, sor. If I do, I’ll tell you.”
Thinking hard, Stone left her.
It was the most unusual case he had ever attempted. If he looked no
further for the murderer than the Wheeler family, he still had enough to
do in deciding which one of the three was guilty. But he yearned for
another suspect. Not a foolish phantom that went around piping, or a
perhaps imaginary prowler stalking on the piazza, but a real suspect with
a sound, plausible motive.
Though, to be sure, the Wheelers had motive enough. To be condemned to an
absurd restriction and then teased about it, was enough to make life gall
and wormwood to a sensitive man like Wheeler.
And who could say what words had passed between them at that final
interview? Perhaps Appleby had goaded him to the breaking point; perhaps
Wheeler had stood it, but his wife, descending the stairs and hearing the
men talk, had grown desperate at last; or, and Stone knew he thought this
most plausible of all, perhaps Maida, in her window-seat, had stood as
long as she could the aspersions and tauntings directed at her adored
father, and had, with a reckless disregard of consequences, silenced the
enemy forever.
Of young Allen, Stone had no slightest suspicion. To be sure, his
interests were one with the Wheeler family, and moreover, he had hoped
for a release from restrictions that would let the Wheelers go into
Massachusetts and thereby make possible his home there with Maida.
For Maida’s vow that she would never go into the state if her father
could not go, too, was, Allen knew, inviolable.
All this Stone mulled over, yet had no thought that Allen was the one he
was seeking. Also, Curtis Keefe had testified that Allen was with him at
the fire, during the time that included the moment of shooting.
Strolling out into the gardens, the detective made his way to the great
tree, the big sycamore.
Here Fibsy joined him, and at Stone’s tacit nod of permission, the boy
sat down beside his superior on the bench under the tree.
“What’s this about the tree going to Massachusetts?” Fibsy asked, his
freckled face earnestly inquiring.
“One of old Appleby’s jokes,” Stone returned. “Doubtless made just after
a reading of ‘Macbeth.’ You know, or if you don’t, you must read it up
for yourself, there’s a scene there that hinges on Birnam Wood going to
Dunsinane. I can’t take time to tell you about it, but quite evidently it
pleased the old wag to tell Mr. Wheeler that he could go into his native
state when this great tree went there.”
“Meaning not at all, I s’pose.”
“Of course. And any human intervention was not allowed. So though Birnam
Wood _was_ brought to Dunsinane, such a trick is not permissible in his
case. However, that’s beside the point just now. Have you seen any of the
servants?”
“Some. But I got nothing. They’re willing enough to talk, but they don’t
know anything. They say I’d better tackle the ladies’ maid, a fair
Rachel. So I’m going for her. But I bet I won’t strike pay-dirt.”
“You may. Skip along, now, for here comes Miss Maida, and she’s probably
looking for me.”
Fibsy departed, and Maida, looking relieved to find Stone alone, came
quickly toward him.
“You see, Mr. Stone,” she began, “you must _start_ straight in this
thing. And the only start possible is for you to be convinced that I
killed Mr. Appleby.”
“But you must admit, Miss Wheeler, that I am not _too_ absurd in thinking
that though you say you did it, you are saying it to shield some one
else—some one who is near and dear to you.”
“I know you think that—but it isn’t so. How can I convince you?”
“Only by circumstantial evidence. Let me question you a bit. Where did
you get the revolver?”
“From my father’s desk drawer, where he always keeps it.”
“You are familiar with firearms?”
“My father taught me to shoot years ago. I’m not a crack shot—but that
was not necessary.”
“You premeditated the deed?”
“For some time I have felt that I wanted to kill that man.”
“Your conscience?”
“Is very active. I deliberately went against its dictates for my father’s
sake.”
“And you killed Mr. Appleby because he hounded your father in addition to
the long deprivation he had imposed on him?”
“No, not that alone. Oh, I don’t want to tell you—but, if you won’t
believe me otherwise, Mr. Stone, I will admit that I had a new motive——”
“A new one?”
“Yes, a secret that I learned only a day or so before—before Mr.
Appleby’s death.”
“The secret was Appleby’s?”
“Yes; that is, he knew it. He told it to me. If any one else should know
it, it would mean the utter ruin and desolation of the lives of my
parents, compared to which this present condition of living is Paradise
itself!”
“This is true, Miss Wheeler?”
“Absolutely true. _Now_, do you understand why I killed him?”