THE AWFUL TRUTH
“Well, Fibs,” said Stone, as the two sat alone in conclave, “what about
Rachel’s story?”
“You know, F. Stone, how I hate to doubt a lady’s word, but—not to put
too fine a point upon it, the fair Rachel lied.”
“You think so, too, eh? And just why?”
“Under orders. She was coached in her part. Told exactly what to say——”
“By whom?”
“Oh, you know as well as I do. You’re just leading me on! Well, he
coached her, all right, and she got scared before the performance came
off and that’s why she ran away.”
“Yes, I agree to all that. Keefe, of course, being the coach.”
“Yessir. He doing it, to save the Wheelers. You see, he’s so desperately
in love with Miss Maida, that it sort of blinds his judgment and
cleverness.”
“Just how?”
“Well, you know his is love at first sight—practically.”
“Look here, Terence, you know a great deal about love.”
“Yessir, it—it comes natural to me. I’m a born lover, I am.”
“Had much experience?”
“Not yet. But my day’s coming. Well, never mind me—to get back to Friend
Keefe. Here’s the way it is. Miss Wheeler is sort of engaged to Mr.
Allen, and yet the matter isn’t quite settled, either. I get that from
the servants—mean to gossip, but all’s fair in love and sleuthing. Now,
Mr. Keefe comes along, sees the lovely Maida, and, zip! his heart is
cracked! All might yet be well, but for the wily Genevieve. She has her
cap set for Keefe, and he knows it, and was satisfied it should be so,
till he saw Miss Wheeler. Now, the fat’s in the fire, and no pitch hot.”
“You do pick up a lot of general information.”
“It’s necess’ry, sir.” The red-head nodded emphatically. “These
sidelights often point the way to the great and shinin’ truth! For, don’t
you see, Mr. Keefe, being so gone on Miss Maida, naturally doesn’t want
her or her people suspected of this crime—even if one of them is guilty.
So he fixes up a cock-and-bull story about a bugler man—on the south
veranda. This man, he argues, did the shooting. He gets Rachel—he must
have some hold on her, bribery wouldn’t be enough—and he fair crams the
bugler yarn down her throat, and orders her to recite it as Gospel
truth.”
“Then she gets scared and runs away.”
“Exactly. You see it that way, don’t you, Mr. Stone?”
The earnest little face looked up to the master. Terence McGuire was
developing a wonderful gift for psychological detective work, and
sometimes he let his imagination run away with him. In such cases Stone
tripped him up and turned him back to the right track. Both had an
inkling that the day might eventually come when Stone would retire and
McGuire would reign in his stead. But this was, as yet, merely a dream,
and at present they worked together in unison and harmony.
“Yes, Fibsy—at least, I see it may have been that way. But it’s a big
order to put on—to Mr. Keefe.”
“I know, but he’s a big man. I mean a man of big notions and projects.
Anybody can see that. Now, he’s awful anxious Miss Wheeler and Mr.
Wheeler shall be cleared of all s’picion—even if he thinks one of ’em is
guilty. He doesn’t consider Mrs. Wheeler—I guess nobody does now.”
“Probably not. Go on.”
“Well, so Keefie, he thinks if he can get this bugler person guaranteed,
by a reliable and responsible witness—which, of course, Rachel would seem
to be—then, Mr. Keefe thinks, he’s got the Wheelers cleared. Now, Rachel,
getting cold feet about it all, goes back on Keefe—oh, I could see it in
his face!”
“Yes, he looked decidedly annoyed at Rachel’s failure of a convincing
performance.”
“He did so! Now, Mr. Stone, even if he bolsters up Rachel’s story or gets
her to tell it more convincingly—we know, you and I, that it isn’t true.
There wasn’t any man on the south veranda.”
“Sure, Terence?”
“Yessir, I’m pretty sure. For, what became of him? Where did he vanish
to? Who was he? There never was any bugler—I mean as a murderer. The
piper who piped some nights previous had nothing to do with the case!”
“Sure, Terence?”
“Oh, come now, Mr. Stone—I was sure, till you say that at me, so dubious
like—and then I’m not so sure.”
“Well, go on with your theory, and let’s see where you come out. You may
be on the right track, after all. I’m not sure of many points myself
yet.”
“All right. To my mind, it comes back to a toss-up between Miss Maida and
her father, with the odds in favor of the old gentleman. Agree?”
“I might, if I understood your English. The odds in favor of Mr. Wheeler
indicating his guilt or innocence?”
“His guilt, I meant, F. Stone. I can’t think that sweet young lady would
do it, and this isn’t because she is a sweet young lady, but because it
isn’t hardly plausible that she’s put the thing over, even though she was
willing enough to do so.”
“It seems so to me, too, but we can’t bank on that. Maida Wheeler is a
very impulsive girl, very vigorous and athletic, and very devoted to her
father. She worships him, and she has been known to say she would
willingly kill old Mr. Appleby. These things must be remembered, Fibsy.”
“That’s so. But I’ve noticed that when folks threaten to kill people they
most generally don’t do it.”
“I’ve also noticed that. But, striking out Maida’s name, leaves us only
Mr. Wheeler.”
“Well, ain’t he the one? Ain’t he the down-trodden, oppressed victim,
who, at last, has opportunity, and who is goaded to the point of
desperation by the arguments of his enemy?”
“You grow oratorical! But, I admit, you have an argument.”
“’Course I have. Now, say we’ve got to choose between Miss Wheeler and
Mr. Wheeler, how do we go about it?”
“How?”
“Why, we find out how Mr. Appleby was sitting, how Mr. Wheeler was facing
at the moment, and also Miss Maida’s position. Then, we find out the
direction from which the bullet entered the body, and then we can tell
who fired the shot.”
“I’ve done all that, Fibs,” Stone returned, with no note of superiority
in his voice. “I found out all those things, and the result proves that
the bullet entered Mr. Appleby’s body from the direction of Miss Maida,
in the bay window, and directly opposite from what would have been its
direction if fired by Mr. Wheeler, from where he stood, when seen
directly after the shot.”
Fibsy looked dejected. He made no response to this disclosure for a
moment, then he said:
“All right, F. Stone. In that case I’m going over to Mr. Keefe’s side,
and I’m going to hunt up the bugler.”
“A fictitious person?”
“Maybe he ain’t so fictitious after all,” and the red-head shook
doggedly.
A tap at the door of Stone’s sitting-room was followed by a “May I come
in?” and the entrance of Daniel Wheeler.
“The time has come, Mr. Wheeler,” Stone began a little abruptly, “to put
all our cards on the table. I’ve investigated things pretty thoroughly,
and, though I’m not all through with my quest, I feel as if I must know
the truth as to what you know about the murder.”
“I have confessed,” Wheeler began, but Stone stopped him.
“That won’t do,” he said, very seriously. “I’ve proved positively that
from where you stood, you could not have fired the shot. It came from the
opposite direction. Now it’s useless for you to keep up that pretence of
being the criminal, which, I’ve no doubt, you’re doing to shield your
daughter. Confide in me, Mr. Wheeler, it will not harm the case.”
“God help me, I must confide in somebody,” cried the desperate man. “She
did do it! I saw Maida fire the shot! Oh, can you save her? I wouldn’t
tell you this, but I think—I hope you can help better if you know. You’d
find it out anyway——”
“Of course I should. Now, let us be strictly truthful. You saw Miss Maida
fire the pistol?”
“Yes; I was sitting almost beside Appleby; he was nearer Maida than I
was, and she sat in the bay window, reading. She sits there much of the
time, and I’m so accustomed to her presence that I don’t even think about
it. We were talking pretty angrily, Appleby and I, really renewing the
old feud, and adding fuel to its flame with every word. I suppose Maida,
listening, grew more and more indignant at his injustice and cruelty to
me—those terms are not too strong!—and she being of an impulsive nature,
even revengeful when her love for me is touched, and I suppose she,
somehow, possessed herself of my pistol and fired it.”
“You were not looking at her before the shot?”
“Oh, no; the shot rang out, Appleby fell forward, and even as I rose to
go to his aid, I instinctively turned toward the direction from which the
sound of the shot had come. There I saw Maida, standing white-faced and
frightened, but with a look of satisfied revenge on her dear face. I felt
no resentment at her act, then—indeed, I was incapable of coherent
thought of any sort. I stepped to Appleby’s side, and I saw at once that
he was dead—had died instantly. I cannot tell you just what happened
next. It seemed ages before anybody came, and then, suddenly the room was
full of people. Allen and Keefe came, running—the servants gathered
about, my wife appeared, and Maida was there. I had a strange
undercurrent of thought that kept hammering at my brain to the effect
that I must convince everybody that I did it, to save my girl. I was
clear-headed to the extent of planning my words in an effort to carry
conviction of my guilt, but that effort so absorbed my attention that I
gave no heed to what happened otherwise.”
“Thank you, Mr. Wheeler, for your kindness. I assure you you will not
regret it.”
“You’re going to save her? You can save my little girl? Oh, Mr. Stone, I
beg of you——”
The agonized father broke down completely, and Stone said, kindly:
“Keep up a good heart, Mr. Wheeler. That will help your daughter more
than anything else you can do. I assumed that if one of you were guilty
the other was shielding the criminal, but your story has straightened out
the tangle considerably.”
“Lemme ask something, please,” broke in Fibsy. “Say, Mr. Wheeler, did you
see the pistol in Miss Maida’s hands?”
“I can’t say I did or didn’t,” Wheeler replied, listlessly. “I looked
only at her face. I know my daughter’s mind so well, that I at once
recognized her expression of horror mingled with relief. She had really
desired the death of her father’s enemy, and she was glad it had been
accomplished! It’s a terrible thing to say of one’s own child, but I’ve
made up my mind to be honest with you, Mr. Stone, in the hope of your
help. I should have persisted in my own story of guilt, had I not
perceived it was futile in the face of your clear-sighted logic and
knowledge of the exact circumstances.”
“You did wisely. But say nothing to any one else, for the present. Do not
even talk to Miss Maida about it, until I have time to plan our next
step. It is still a difficult and a very delicate case. A single false
move may queer the whole game.”
“You think, then, you can save Maida—oh, do give a tortured father a
gleam of hope!”
“I shall do my best. You know they rarely, if ever, convict a woman—and,
too, Miss Wheeler had great provocation. Then—what about self-defence?”
“Appleby threatened neither of us,” Wheeler said. “That can’t be used.”
“Well, we’ll do everything we can, you may depend on that,” Stone assured
him. And Wheeler went away, relieved at the new turn things had taken,
though also newly concerned for Maida’s safety.
“Nice old chap,” said Fibsy to Stone. “He stuck to his faked yarn as long
as the sticking was good, and then he caved in.”
“Open and shut case, Terence?”
“Open—but not yet shut, F. Stone. Now, where do we go from here?”
“You go where you like, boy. Leave me to grub at this alone.”
Without another word Fibsy left the room. He well knew when Stone spoke
in that serious tone that great thoughts were forming in that fertile
brain and sooner or later he would know of them. But at present his
company was not desired.
The boy drifted out on the terraced lawn and wandered about among the
gardens. He, too, thought, but he could see no light ahead.
“S’long as the old man saw her,” he observed to himself, “there’s no more
to be said. He never’d say he saw her shoot, if he hadn’t seen her. He’s
at the end of his rope, and even if they acquit the lady I don’t want to
see her dragged through a trial. But where’s any way of escape? What can
turn up to contradict a straight story like that? Who else can testify
except the eye-witness who has just spoken? I wonder if he realized
himself how conclusive his statement was? But he trusted in F. Stone to
get Maida off, somehow. Queer, how most folks think a detective is a
magician, and can do the impossible trick!”
In a brown study he walked slowly along the garden paths, and was seen by
Keefe and Maida, who sat under the big sycamore tree.
“Crazy idea, Stone bringing that kid,” Keefe said, with a laugh.
“Yes, but he’s a very bright boy,” Maida returned. “I’ve been surprised
at his wise observations.”
“Poppycock! He gets off his speeches with that funny mixture of newsboy
slang and detective jargon, and you think they’re cleverer than they
are.”
“Perhaps,” agreed Maida, not greatly interested. “But what a strange
story Rachel told. Do you believe it, Mr. Keefe?”
“Yes, I do. The girl was frightened, I think; first, at the information
she tried to divulge, and second, by finding herself in the limelight.
She seems to be shy, and I daresay the sudden publicity shook her nerves.
But why shouldn’t her story be true? Why should she invent all that?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure. But it didn’t sound like Rachel—the whole thing,
I mean. She seemed acting a part.”
“Nonsense! You imagine that. But never mind her, I’ve something to tell
you. I know—Maida, mind you, I know what Mr. Appleby meant by the speech
which I took to be ‘Mr. Keefe and the airship.’”
Maida’s face went white.
“Oh, no!” she cried, involuntarily. “Oh, no!”
“Yes,” Keefe went on, “and I know now he said heirship. Not strange I
misunderstood, for the words are of the same sound—and, then I had no
reason to think of myself in connection with an heirship!”
“And—and have you now?”
“Yes, I have. I’ve been over Mr. Appleby’s papers—as I had a right to do.
You know I was his confidential secretary, and he kept no secrets from
me—except those he wanted to keep!”
“Go on,” said Maida, calm now, and her eyes glistening with an expression
of despair.
“Need I go on? You know the truth. You know that I am the rightful heir
of this whole place. Sycamore Ridge is mine, and not your mother’s.”
“Yes.” The word was scarce audible. Poor Maida felt as if the last blow
had fallen. She had seared her conscience, defied her sense of honor,
crucified her very soul to keep this dreadful secret from her parents for
their own sake, and now all her efforts were of no avail!
Curtis Keefe knew that the great estate was legally his, and now her dear
parents would be turned out, homeless, penniless and broken down by
sorrow and grief.
Even though he might allow them to stay there, they wouldn’t, she knew,
consent to any such arrangement.
She lifted a blanched, strained face to his, as she said: “What—what are
you going to do?”
“Just what you say,” Keefe replied, drawing closer to her side. “It’s all
up to you, Maida dear. Don’t look offended; surely you know I love
you—surely you know my one great desire is to make you my wife. Give your
consent; say you will be mine, and rest assured, dearest, there will be
no trouble about the ‘heirship.’ If you will marry me, I will promise
never to divulge the secret so long as either of your parents live. They
may keep this place, and, besides that, darling, I will guarantee to get
your father a full pardon. I—well, I’m not speaking of it yet—but I’ll
tell you that there is a possibility of my running for governor myself,
since young Sam is voluntarily out of it. But, in any case, I have
influence enough in certain quarters—influence increased by knowledge
that I have gleaned here and there among the late Mr. Appleby’s papers—to
secure a full and free pardon for your father. Now, Maida, girl, even if
you don’t love me very much yet, can’t you say yes, in view of what I
offer you?”
“How can you torture me so? Surely you know that I am engaged to Mr.
Allen.”
“I didn’t know it was a positive engagement—but, anyway,” his voice grew
hard, “it seems to me that any one so solicitous for her parents’ welfare
and happiness as you have shown yourself, will not hesitate at a step
which means so much more than others you have taken.”
“Oh, I don’t know what to do—what to say—let me think.”
“Yes, dear, think all you like. Take it quietly now. Remember that a
decision in my favor means also a calm, peaceful and happy life insured
to your parents. Refusal means a broken, shattered life, a precarious
existence, and never a happy day for them again. Can you hesitate? I’m
not so very unpresentable as a husband. You may not love me now, but you
will! I’ll be so good to you that you can’t help it. Nor do I mean to win
your heart only by what I shall do for you. For, Maida dearest, love
begets love, and you will find yourself slowly perhaps, but surely,
giving me your heart. And we will be so happy! Is it yes, my darling?”
The girl stared at him, her big brown eyes full of agony.
“You forget something,” she said, slowly. “I am a murderess!”
“Hush! Don’t say that awful word! You are not—and even if you were, I’ll
prove you are not! Listen, Maida, if you’ll promise to marry me, I’ll
find the real murderer—not you or your father, but the real murderer.
I’ll get a signed confession—I’ll acquit you and your family of any
implication in the deed, and I’ll produce the criminal himself. Now, will
you say yes?”
“You can’t do all that,” she said, speaking in an awestruck whisper, as
if he had proposed to perform a miracle.
“I can—I swear it!”
“Then, if you can do that, you ought to do it, anyway! In the interests
of right and justice, in common honesty and decency, you ought to tell
what you know!”
“Maida, I am a man and I am in love with you. That explains much. I will
do all I have promised, to gain you as my bride—but not otherwise. As to
right and justice—you’ve confessed the crime, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you confess it to me, now? Do you say to me that you killed Samuel
Appleby?”
There was but a moment’s pause, and then Maida said, in a low tone:
“Yes—I confess it to you, Mr. Keefe.”
“Then, do you see what I mean when I say I will produce the—murderer? Do
you see that I mean to save you from the consequences of your own rash
act—and prove you, to the world at large, innocent?”
Keefe looked straight into Maida’s eyes, and her own fell in confusion.
“Can you do it?” she asked, tremulously.
“When I say I will do a thing, I’ve already proved to my own satisfaction
that I can do it. But, I’ll do it only at my own price. The price being
you—you dear, delicious thing! Oh, Maida, you’ve no idea what it means to
be loved as I love you! I’ll make you happy, my darling! I’ll make you
forget all this horrible episode; I’ll give you a fairyland life. You
shall be happier than you ever dreamed of.”
“But—Jeffrey—oh, I can’t.”
“Then—Miss Wheeler, you must take the consequences—all the consequences.
Can you do that?”
“No,” Maida said, after an interval of silence. “I can’t. I am forced to
accept your offer, Mr. Keefe——”
“You may not accept it with that address.”
“Curtis, then. Curtis, I say, yes.”