A FINAL CONFESSION
Inquiry for Keefe brought the information that he had gone to a nearby
town, but would be back at dinner-time.
Mr. Appleby was also expected to arrive for dinner, coming from home in
his motor car.
But in the late afternoon a severe storm set in. The wind rose rapidly
and gained great velocity while the rain fell steadily and hard. Curtis
Keefe arrived, very wet indeed, though he had protecting clothing. But a
telephone message from Sam Appleby said that he was obliged to give up
all idea of reaching Sycamore Ridge that night. He had stopped at a
roadhouse, and owing to the gale he dared not venture forth again until
the storm was over. He would therefore not arrive until next day.
“Lucky we got his word,” said Mr. Wheeler. “This storm will soon put many
telephone wires out of commission.”
When Keefe came down at the dinner hour, he found Maida alone in the
living-room, evidently awaiting him.
“My darling!” he exclaimed, going quickly to her side, “my own little
girl! Are you here to greet me?”
“Yes,” she said, and suffered rather than welcomed his caressing hand on
her shoulder. “Curtis, I told them you would tell them who killed Mr.
Appleby.”
“So I will, dearest, after dinner. Let’s not have unpleasant subjects
discussed at table. I’ve been to Rushfield and I’ve found out all the
particulars that I hadn’t already learned, and—I’ve got actual proofs!
Now, who’s a cleverer detective than the professionals?”
“Then that’s all right. Now, are you sure you can also get father freed?”
“I hope to, dear. That’s all I can say at present. Do you take me for a
magician? I assure you I’m only an ordinary citizen. But I——”
“But you promised——”
“Yes, my little love, I did, and I well know that you promised because I
did! Well, I fancy I shall keep every promise I made you, but not every
one as promptly as this exposure of the criminal.”
“But you’ll surely fix it so father can go into Massachusetts—can go to
Boston?”
“Well, rather! I expect—though you mustn’t say anything about it—but I’ve
an idea that you may yet be a governor’s wife! And it wouldn’t do then to
have your father barred from the state!”
Maida sighed. The hopes Keefe held out were the realization of her
dearest wishes—but, oh, the price she must pay! Yet she was
strong-willed. She determined to give no thought whatever to Jeffrey, for
if she did she knew her purpose would falter. Nor did she even allow
herself the doubtful privilege of feeling sorry for him. Well she knew
that that way madness lay. And, thought the poor child, sad and
broken-hearted though Jeff may be, his sadness and heartbreak are no
worse than mine. Not so bad, for I have to take the initiative! I have to
take the brunt of the whole situation.
The others assembled, and at dinner no word was said of the tragedy. Save
for Maida and Jeffrey Allen, the party was almost a merry one.
Daniel Wheeler and his wife were so relieved at the disclosure of Maida’s
innocence that they felt they didn’t care much what happened next. Fibsy
flirted openly with Genevieve and Fleming Stone himself was quietly
entertaining.
Later in the evening they gathered in the den and Keefe revealed his
discoveries.
“I felt all along,” he said, “that there was—there must have been a man
on the south veranda who did the shooting. Didn’t you think that, Mr.
Stone?”
“I did at times,” Stone replied, truthfully. “I confess, though my
opinion changed once or twice.”
“And at the present moment?” insisted Keefe.
“At the present moment, Mr. Keefe, your attitude tells me that you expect
to prove that there was such a factor in the case, so I would be foolish
indeed to say I doubted it. But, to speak definitely—yes, I do think
there was a man there, and he was the murderer. He shot through the
window, past Miss Wheeler, and most naturally, her father thought she
fired the shot herself. You see, it came from exactly her direction.”
“Yes;” agreed Keefe, “and moreover, you remember, Rachel saw the man on
the veranda—and the cook also saw him——”
“Yes—the cook saw him!” Fibsy put in, and though the words were innocent
enough, his tone indicated a hidden meaning.
But beyond a careless glance, Keefe didn’t notice the interruption and
went on, earnestly:
“Now, the man the servants saw was the murderer. And I have traced him,
found him, and—secured his signed confession.”
With unconcealed pride in his achievement, Keefe took a folded paper from
his pocket and handed it to Daniel Wheeler.
“Why the written confession? Where is the man?” asked Stone, his dark
eyes alight with interest.
“Gee!” muttered Fibsy, under his breath, “going some!”
Genevieve Lane stared, round-eyed and excited, while Allen and the
Wheelers breathlessly awaited developments.
“John Mills!” exclaimed Mr. Wheeler, looking at the paper. “Oh, the
faithful old man! Listen, Stone. This is a signed confession of a man on
his death-bed——”
“No longer that,” said Keefe, solemnly, “he died this afternoon.”
“And signed this just before he died?”
“Yes, Mr. Wheeler. In the hospital. The witnesses, as you see, are the
nurses there.”
The paper merely stated that the undersigned was the slayer of Samuel
Appleby. That the deed was committed in order to free Daniel Wheeler from
wicked and unjust molestation and tyranny. The signature, though faintly
scrawled, was perfectly legible and duly witnessed.
“He was an old servant of mine,” Wheeler said, thoughtfully, “and very
devoted to us all. He always resented Appleby’s attitude toward me—for
Mills was my butler when the trouble occurred, and knew all about it. He
has been an invalid for a year, but has been very ill only recently.”
“Since the shooting, in fact,” said Keefe, significantly.
“It must have been a hard task for one so weak,” Wheeler said, “but the
old fellow was a true friend to me all his life. Tell us more of the
circumstances, Mr. Keefe.”
“I did it all by thinking,” said Keefe, his manner not at all superior,
nor did he look toward Fleming Stone, who was listening attentively. “I
felt sure there was some man from outside. And I thought first of some
enemy of Mr. Appleby’s. But later, I thought it might have been some
enemy of Mr. Wheeler’s and the shot was possibly meant for him.”
Wheeler nodded at this. “I thought that, too,” he observed.
“Well, then later, I began to think maybe it was some friend—not an
enemy. A friend, of course, of Mr. Wheeler’s. On this principle I
searched for a suspect. I inquired among the servants, being careful to
arouse no suspicion of my real intent. At last, I found this old Mills
had always been devoted to the whole family here. More than devoted,
indeed. He revered Mr. Wheeler and he fairly worshipped the ladies. He
has been ill a long time of a slow and incurable malady, and quite lately
was taken to the hospital. When I reached him I saw the poor chap had but
a very short time to live.”
“And you suspected him of crime with no more evidence than that?” Fleming
Stone asked.
“I daresay it was a sort of intuition, Mr. Stone,” Keefe returned,
smiling a little at the detective. “Oh, I don’t wonder you feel rather
miffed to have your thunder stolen by a mere business man—and I fear it’s
unprofessional for me to put the thing through without consulting you,
but I felt the case required careful handling—somewhat psychological
handling, indeed——”
“Very much so,” Stone nodded.
“And so,” Keefe was a little disconcerted by the detective’s demeanor,
but others set it down to a very natural chagrin on Stone’s part.
Fibsy sat back in his chair, his bright eyes narrowed to mere slits and
darting from the face of Keefe to that of Stone continually.
“And so,” Keefe went on, “I inquired from the servants and also,
cautiously from the members of the family, and I learned that this Mills
was of a fiery, even revengeful, nature——”
“He was,” Mr. Wheeler nodded, emphatically.
“Yes, sir. And I found out from Rachel that——”
“Rachel!” Fibsy fairly shot out the word, but a look from Stone made him
say no more.
“Yes, Rachel, the maid,” went on Keefe, “and I found that the man she saw
on the veranda was of the same general size and appearance as Mills.
Well, I somehow felt that it was Mills—and so I went to see him.”
“At the hospital?” asked Wheeler.
“Yes; some days ago. He was then very weak, and the nurses didn’t want me
to arouse him to any excitement. But I knew it was my duty——”
“Of course,” put in Stone, and Keefe gave him a patronizing look.
“So, against the wishes of the nurses and doctors, I had an interview
alone with Mills, and I found he was the criminal.”
“He confessed?” asked Stone.
“Yes; and though he refused to sign a written confession, he agreed he
would confess in the presence of Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Stone. But—that was
only this morning—and the doctor assured me the man couldn’t live the day
out. So I persuaded the dying man to sign this confession, which I drew
up and read to him in the presence of the nurses. He signed—they
witnessed—and there it is.”
With evident modesty, Keefe pointed to the paper still in Wheeler’s
hands, and said no more.
For a moment nobody spoke. The storm was at its height. The wind whistled
and roared, the rain fell noisily, and the elements seemed to be doing
their very worst.
Genevieve shuddered—she always was sensitive to weather conditions, and
that wind was enough to disturb even equable nerves.
“And this same Mills was the phantom bugler?” asked Stone.
“Yes—he told me so,” returned Keefe. “He knew about the legend, you see,
and he thought he’d work on the superstition of the family to divert
attention from himself.”
Genevieve gasped, but quickly suppressed all show of agitation.
Fibsy whistled—just a few notes of the bugle call that the “phantom” had
played.
At the sound Keefe turned quickly, a strange look on his face, and the
Wheelers, too, looked startled at the familiar strain.
“Be quiet, Terence,” Stone said, rather severely, and the boy subsided.
“Now, Mr. Keefe,” Fleming Stone said, “you must not think—as I fear you
do—that I grudge admiration for your success, or appreciation of your
cleverness. I do not. I tell you, very sincerely, that what you have
accomplished is as fine a piece of work as I have ever run across in my
whole career as detective. Your intuition was remarkable and your
following it up a masterpiece! By the way, I suppose that it was Mills,
then, who started the fire in the garage?”
“Yes, it was,” said Keefe. “You see, he is a clever genius, in a sly way.
He reasoned that if a fire occurred, everybody would run to it except Mr.
Wheeler, who cannot go over the line. He hoped that, therefore, Mr.
Appleby would not go either—for Mr. Appleby suffered from flatfoot—at any
rate, he took a chance that the fire would give him opportunity to shoot
unnoticed. Which it did.”
“It certainly did. Now, Mr. Keefe, did he tell you how he set that fire?”
“No, he did not,” was the short reply. “Moreover, Mr. Stone, I resent
your mode of questioning. I’m not on the witness stand. I’ve solved a
mystery that baffled you, and though I understand your embarrassment at
the situation, yet it does not give you free rein to make what seem to me
like endeavors to trip me up!”
“Trip you up!” Stone lifted his eyebrows. “What a strange expression to
use. As if I suspected you of faking his tale.”
“It speaks for itself,” and Keefe glanced nonchalantly at the paper he
had brought. “There’s the signed confession—if you can prove that
signature a fake—go ahead.”
“No,” said Daniel Wheeler, decidedly; “that’s John Mills’ autograph. I
know it perfectly. He wrote that himself. And a dying man is not going to
sign a lie. There’s no loophole of doubt, Mr. Stone. I think you must
admit Mr. Keefe’s entire success.”
“I do admit Mr. Keefe’s entire success,” Stone’s dark eyes flashed, “up
to this point. From here on, I shall undertake to prove my own entire
success, since that is the phrase we are using. Mr. Wheeler, your present
cook was here when John Mills worked for you?”
“She was, Mr. Stone, but you don’t need her corroboration of this
signature. I tell you I know it to be Mills’.”
“Will you send for the cook, please?”
Half unwillingly, Wheeler agreed, and Maida stepped out of the room and
summoned the cook.
The woman came in, and Stone spoke to her at once.
“Is that John Mills’ signature?” he asked, showing her the paper.
“It is, sir,” she replied, looking at him in wonder.
A satisfied smile played on Keefe’s face, only to be effaced at Stone’s
next question.
“And was John Mills the person you saw—vaguely—on the south veranda that
night of Mr. Appleby’s murder?”
“That he was not!” she cried, emphatically. “It was a man not a bit like
Mills, and be the same token, John Mills was in his bed onable to walk at
all, at all.”
“That will do, Mr. Wheeler,” and Stone dismissed the cook with a glance.
“Now, Mr. Keefe?”
“As if that woman’s story mattered,” Keefe sneered, contemptuously, “she
is merely mistaken, that’s all. The word of the maid, Rachel, is as good
as that of the cook——”
“Oh, no, it isn’t!” Stone interrupted, but, paying no heed to him, Keefe
went on; “and you can scarcely doubt the signature after Mr. Wheeler and
your friend the cook have both verified it.”
Though his demeanor was quiet, Keefe’s face wore a defiant expression and
his voice was a trifle blustering.
“I do not doubt the signature,” Stone declared, “nor do I doubt that you
obtained it at the hospital exactly as you have described that incident.”
Keefe’s face relaxed at that, and he recovered his jaunty manner, as he
said: “Then you admit I have beaten you at your own game, Mr. Stone?”
“No, Mr. Keefe, but I have beaten you at yours.”
A silence fell for a moment. There was something about Stone’s manner of
speaking that made for conviction in the minds of his hearers that he
said truth.
“Wait a minute! Oh, wait a minute!” It was Genevieve Lane who cried out
the words, and then she sprang from her chair and ran to Keefe’s side.
Flinging her arms about him, she whispered close to his ear.
He listened, and then, with a scornful gesture he flung her off.
“No!” he said to her; “no! a thousand times, no! Do your worst.”
“I shall!” replied Genevieve, and without another word she resumed her
seat.
“Yes,” went on Stone, this interruption being over, “your ingenious
‘success’ in the way of detecting is doomed to an ignominious end. You
see, sir,” he turned to Daniel Wheeler, “the clever ruse Mr. Keefe has
worked, is but a ruse—a stratagem, to deceive us all and to turn the just
suspicion of the criminal in an unjust direction.”
“Explain, Mr. Stone,” said Wheeler, apparently not much impressed with
what he deemed a last attempt on the part of the detective to redeem his
reputation.
“Yes, Mr. Stone,” said Keefe, “if my solution of this mystery is a ruse—a
stratagem—what have you to offer in its place? You admit the signed
confession?”
“I admit the signature, but not the confession. John Mills signed that
paper, Mr. Keefe, but he is not the murderer.”
“Who is, then?”
“You are!”
Keefe laughed and shrugged his shoulders, but at that moment there was
such a blast of wind and storm, accompanied by a fearful crash, that what
he said could not be heard.
“Explain, please, Mr. Stone,” Wheeler said again, after a pause, but his
voice now showed more interest.
“I will. The time has come for it. Mr. Wheeler, do you and Mr. Allen see
to it, that Mr. Keefe does not leave the room. Terence—keep your eyes
open.”
Keefe still smiled, but his smile was a frozen one. His eyes began to
widen and his hands clenched themselves upon his knees.
“Curtis Keefe killed Samuel Appleby,” Stone went on, speaking clearly but
rapidly. “His motive was an ambition to be governor of Massachusetts. He
thought that with the elder Appleby out of the way, his son would have
neither power nor inclination to make a campaign. There were other, minor
motives, but that was his primary one. That, and the fact that the elder
Appleby had a hold on Mr. Keefe, and of late had pressed it home
uncomfortably hard. The murder was long premeditated. The trip here
brought it about, because it offered a chance where others might
reasonably be suspected. Keefe was the man on the veranda, whom the cook
saw—but not clearly enough to distinguish his identity. Though she did
know it was not John Mills.”
“But—Mr. Stone——” interrupted Wheeler, greatly perturbed, “think what
you’re saying! Have you evidence to prove your statements?”
“I have, Mr. Wheeler, as you shall see. Let me tell my story and judge me
then. A first proof is—Terence, you may tell of the bugle.”
“I went, at Mr. Stone’s orders,” the boy stated, simply, “to all the
shops or little stores in this vicinity where a bugle might have been
bought; I found one was bought in a very small shop in Rushfield and
bought by a man who corresponded to Mr. Keefe’s description, and who,
when he stopped at the shop, was in a motor car whose description and
occupants were the Appleby bunch. Well, anyway—Miss Lane here knows that
Mr. Keefe bought that bugle—don’t you?” He turned to Genevieve, who,
after a glance at Keefe, nodded affirmation.
“And so,” Stone went on, “Mr. Keefe used that bugle——”
“How did he get opportunity?” asked Wheeler.
“I’ll tell you,” offered Genevieve. “We all staid over night in
Rushfield, and I heard Mr. Keefe go out of doors in the night. I watched
him from my window. He returned about three hours later.”
It was clear to all listening, that when Genevieve had whispered to Keefe
and he had told her to do her worst, they were now hearing the “worst.”
“So,” Stone narrated, “Mr. Keefe came over here and did the bugling as a
preliminary to his further schemes. You admit that, Mr. Keefe?”
“I admit nothing. Tell your silly story as you please.”
“I will. Then, the day of the murder, Mr. Keefe arranged for the fire in
the garage. He used the acids as the man Fulton described, and as Keefe’s
own coat was burned and his employer’s car he felt sure suspicion would
not turn toward him. When the fire broke out—which as it depended on the
action of those acids, he was waiting for, Keefe ran with Mr. Allen to
the garage. But—and this I have verified from Mr. Allen, Keefe
disappeared for a moment, and, later was again at Allen’s side. In that
moment—Mr. Wheeler, that psychological moment, Curtis Keefe shot and
killed Samuel Appleby.”
“And Mills?”
“Is part of the diabolically clever scheme. Mills was dying; he was
leaving a large family without means of support. He depended, and with
reason, on hope of your generosity, Mr. Wheeler, to his wife and
children. But Curtis Keefe went to him and told him that you were about
to be dispossessed of your home and fortune, and that if he would sign
the confession—knowing what it was—that he, Keefe, would settle a large
sum of money on Mrs. Mills and the children at once. And he did.”
“You fiend! You devil incarnate!” cried Keefe, losing all control. “How
do you know that?”
“I found it all out from Mrs. Mills,” Stone replied; “your accomplices
all betrayed you, Mr. Keefe. A criminal should beware of accomplices.
Rachel turned state’s evidence and told how you bribed her to make up
that story of the bugler—or rather, to relate parrot-like—the story you
taught to her.”
“It’s all up,” said Keefe, flinging out his hands in despair. “You’ve
outwitted me at every point, Mr. Stone. I confess myself vanquished——”
“And you confess yourself the murderer?” said Stone, quickly.
“I do, but I ask one favor. May I take that paper a moment?”
“Certainly,” said Stone, glancing at the worthless confession.
Keefe stepped to the table desk, where the paper lay, but as he laid his
left hand upon it, with his right he quickly pulled open a drawer,
grasped the pistol that was in it, and saying, with a slight smile: “A
life for a life!” drew the trigger and fell to the floor.
From the gruesome situation, its silence made worse by the noise of the
storm outside, Daniel Wheeler led his wife and daughter. Jeffrey Allen
followed quickly and sought his loved Maida.
Reaction from the strain made her break down, and sobbing in his arms she
asked and received full forgiveness for her enforced desertion of him.
“I couldn’t do anything else, Jeff,” she sobbed. “I had to say yes to him
for dad’s sake—and mother’s.”
“Of course you did, darling; don’t think about it. Oh, Maida, look! The
wind has torn up the sycamore! Unrooted it, and it has fallen over——”
“Over into Massachusetts!” Maida cried; “Jeffrey, think what that means!”
“Why—why!——” Allen was speechless.
“Yes; the sycamore has gone into Massachusetts—and father can go!”
“Is that real, Maida—is it truly a permission?”
“Of course it is! We’ve got Governor Appleby’s letter, saying so—written
when he was governor, you know! Jeffrey—I’m so happy! It makes me forget
that awful——”
“Do forget it all you can, dearest,” and beneath her lover’s caresses,
Maida did forget, for the moment at least.
“It’s the only inexplicable thing about it all, Fibs,” Fleming Stone
observed, after the case was among the annals of the past, “that the old
sycamore fell over and fell the right way.”
“Mighty curious, F. Stone,” rejoined the boy, with an expressionless
face.
“You didn’t help it along, did you? You know the injunction was, ‘without
intervention of human hands.’”
“I didn’t intervent my hands, Mr. Stone,” said the boy, earnestly,
“honest I didn’t. But—it wasn’t nominated in the bond that I shouldn’t
kick around those old decaying roots with my foot—just so’s if it
_should_ take a notion to fall it would fall heading north!”
Transcriber’s Notes
--Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public
domain in the country of publication.
--Provided an original cover image, for free and unrestricted use with
this Distributed Proofreaders-Canada eBook.
--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and
dialect unchanged.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Mystery of the Sycamore, by Carolyn Wells