Another Murder
Dumbfounded, I stood holding the receiver, too dazed to even move.
Then, frantically, I called Patton's name, though the sharp click
which came when he hurriedly placed the receiver on the hook told me
he had rung off. Hastily hanging up the receiver, I rushed into the
living room and halted by the door. At my sudden appearance, there was
a pause in the conversation. Bartley's eyes came to my face, rested,
and he rose quickly to his feet, his face very grave.
“What is it?” came his quick question.
“Another murder—at Warren's,” I stammered.
I saw Ranville's face stiffen into attention as he slowly rose.
Bartley's keen eyes never left my face, and a trace of anxiety swept
across his face. Carter looked as though he did not believe me, but he
asked quickly:
“Who? What do you mean?”
I told them in a few words of Patton's voice and what he had said. As
I named the young professor, I saw that Bartley was not only relieved,
but also he seemed rather puzzled. His eyes opened wider when I said
he had told me the gardener had been murdered. But at the statement
that Patton wanted us to come at once, they all started for the door.
Carter, as he rushed out into the hall, said he would get his big car
from the garage. Bartley, with a sharp command to wait a moment while
he went to his room, rushed up the stairs. Ranville and myself went
out on the veranda and watched Carter rush across the grass and fling
open the garage door. Immediately there came the first sharp explosion
of the engine, and then it settled into a steady roar. He backed in a
sweeping circle to the drive. By the time we reached the lawn Bartley
came rushing down the steps with a bag in his hand.
We fell into the car, and almost before we were seated, Carter started
with a jerk. Before we reached the street it was in high, and we swept
out of the drive in a sharp curve. Then with the car increasing in
speed every second we started down the lighted street. Not a word was
said. I could see Carter's face, set and determined, as he drove his
car, first at forty, then crept to fifty, and settled down around
sixty. Down the wide street we swept, with people turning to look at
us in amazement as we dashed past them with the siren wide open.
As we came around the bend of the street, where the road led straight
as an arrow to Warren's estate, Ranville spoke. He was the first one
to speak since we had left the house. And what he said seemed far more
spoken to himself than any one else.
“So there is something in the library that some one is after,” came
his musing voice.
“Of course,” Bartley shot back at him. “And what is more, I have been
afraid all day that this might happen. I did not want a murder to take
place, but if something did happen—an attack on Patton or a
burglary—then it would prove a theory that I have.”
With a glance over his shoulder, Carter shot out:
“Got another one of your hunches, John?”
The car was slowing down. In front of us, through the gathering dusk,
loomed the wall which enclosed the Warren estate. As the car stopped
and we jumped out, Bartley answered Carter's question.
“Call it that, Carter,” he said. “I think we will discover something
to-night.”
Nothing else was said, and on a half run we rushed through the gate
and up the path which led to the house. As we turned to the path which
ran through the hedges, I gave one glance back at the house. Through
the semi-darkness there came the friendly gleam of a light, but there
were no signs of confusion, or of any one about. Up the path we ran,
and then, as the hedge ended, we could see the eight-sided library
before us.
Every light seemed to be on, and the front door was slightly open. But
of Patton we did not see a sign until we rushed into the building.
Then we saw him standing silently near the desk. He whirled around as
we entered, and I saw a look of relief sweep his face. One thing
struck me sharply—in his hand was a revolver—a revolver which he was
gripping firmly.
He started down the room to meet us. His face seemed strained, though
there was no fear in it. The color had gone out of his cheeks as if
there had come some sudden shock. He said nothing, but as we reached
his side, he took us around the desk and pointed to the door at the
extreme end of the room. For a moment I saw nothing, and then as I
took one step forward, I paused and came to a halt. For there by the
door, huddled in a heap on the floor, lay the figure of a man—a man
who did not move, a man whose appearance seemed to fill the silent
room with dignity, a man whom I knew in a glance was dead.
Silently we went down the length of the room and came to a pause by
the body. It was lying on its face, with the feet toward the desk; one
hand was reaching forth in a pathetic position as if in the last
moment of life it had tried to stretch toward the safety of the open
door a few feet away. As I looked at the figure, I was impressed with
the fact that the man was wearing a suit very similar to Patton's—of
some indescribable dark stuff. Not only that, save for the difference
in years, the figure was about the same build and hair almost the same
color.
This thought lasted only a moment. Bartley dropped silently to his
knees and gently lifted the still head. We bent forward to observe the
man's face, and then there passed a glance between Ranville and
myself, for the cold face with the staring eyes was that of the man
who worked around Warren's place. I started to say something, only to
have Bartley speak first.
“He was shot through the heart, from behind. I think he must have been
leaving the room when the shot was fired.”
He rose to his feet and cast a reflective look back to the desk, then
hurried across the floor. Silently we followed him, and when we
reached the desk, we received another surprise. It was a very large
desk, with a great deal of room underneath. By its side stood a
wastebasket, but the wastebasket was filled to overflowing with small
pieces of paper—paper torn into hundreds of small pieces, which
spilled over the side of the basket and over the floor—typewritten
sheets torn into hundreds of tiny bits.
Bartley picked up a handful of paper and tried to fit some of the
pieces together. He found this rather difficult, and then stood
looking thoughtfully at the basket. I took several pieces of the paper
in my hands and discovered that they once had been part of some
typewritten manuscript. Ranville gave one look at the basket, glimpsed
the typewritten letters, then glanced hurriedly at the desk.
“It looks as though some one went to considerable effort to destroy a
manuscript.”
Patton's voice came sharp and quick. “They did; I found that mess of
papers on the floor. When I left the room there lay on my desk several
hundred pages of Warren's notes. And now—now they are torn to a
thousand pieces. And”—he paused—“for the life of me I cannot
understand it.”
Patton's face, as he looked at the destroyed manuscript, showed that
he was facing a situation which was beyond him. Not only was he very
much disturbed, but also rather frightened at what had taken place. It
was with a great deal of eagerness that he started to answer the
request Bartley made—to tell us just what had happened.
“Carter brought me over, you know. I was unable to do very much until
the girl, who had acted as Mr. Warren's secretary, came. She came to
the library about one and showed me what had been done. I found that
Warren had half completed his book. In fact I never looked at any of
his material beyond where he had ended. He was half finished, and I
thought it would be best to see just what had been done.”
Bartley gave a quick look at the pieces of paper upon the floor and
asked: “Then this torn paper is simply the notes and materials which
Warren used in the first portion of his book?”
“Yes. I left the papers upon the desk when I went out. As I told you,
I did not go beyond what Warren had already done. I wanted to become
familiar with his plan. For that matter, the untouched notes are still
in the safe. But when I returned to the library, I found the condition
which you see.”
“It looks as if some one simply destroyed those papers in a fit of
rage,” was Carter's comment.
I saw Ranville turn to Bartley and their eyes met; but they said
nothing, and it was Patton's excited voice which broke the silence:
“That's right, Carter. Of all fool things, the biggest one was to
destroy that mass of notes I left on the desk. The manuscript of the
book, the half which Warren had completed, is still in the safe.”
“You say you left the library?”
Patton nodded. “Yes; about five o'clock the secretary went home for
her lunch. She was to return again in an hour. I remembered what you
told me—not to leave the library unguarded if I went out.”
“What!” came Carter's startled voice as he turned to Bartley. “Do you
mean to tell me you expected something like this to happen?”
Bartley's eyes went down the length of the room to the still figure at
the door. There was a note of sorrow in his voice as he replied
briefly:
“I expected something.”
Carter gave a start, his face expressing a good deal of amazement. The
Englishman, however, did not seem at all surprised by what had been
said. And then Patton went on to tell why he had left the library. It
was a very simple thing; he wanted some tobacco and he discovered that
he had none in his pockets. Not finding any in the library, he went
out leaving the door open. That was a little after five. Down by the
iron gate he found the gardener and asked him to go and stay in the
library until he returned. This was the first hint I had received that
the gardener was still working on the estate.
The gardener had said that he would go in a moment or so, adding that
no one could reach the building without passing up the path. With
this, Patton had wandered down the street to the business section and
had gone into the first store he noticed, bought tobacco and an
evening paper. As he figured it, he was not away from the grounds more
than thirty or forty minutes, returning directly after making his
purchase. When he came up the path and entered the library, the first
thing he saw was the hundreds of bits of paper on the floor, and that
the manuscript was destroyed.
That was the first thing. Almost in the same moment he saw the figure
lying by the rear door. He ran over to its side—to discover it was the
gardener and that he was dead—shot. He was so dazed for a moment that
he did nothing. Then he went to the phone and called us.
It was a simple story, and yet an amazing one. That in the space of
one hour—in the time it took Patton to go to a store and buy some
tobacco—another murder had been committed in the scientist's library;
it seemed almost beyond belief. But that the gardener—a simple-minded
man of his type—should be the victim was even more startling. I
started to voice my thought, but Carter was ahead of me.
“But, John! Why—why under God should any person kill that gardener?”
“They never intended to kill the gardener,” came Ranville's dry voice.
Bartley gave him a keen look, commenting:
“Ranville is right. No one ever intended to kill the gardener. They
wanted—that is, if they wished to kill any one—to murder Patton.”
“But,” came Patton's wailing voice, “why should any one wish to kill
me?”
Bartley's eyes met Ranville's, and it was the Englishman who spoke:
“I am not so sure that they intended to kill you, Patton. Though if
any one was to be killed, why you were the logical victim. What I
think happened was this: they thought they killed you. You and the
gardener are about the same build. You are both wearing a dark suit
to-day, and your height is the same. When they shot at that man, they
thought they were shooting you.”
“But—” Patton started in a bewildered voice. He was interrupted by
Bartley's statement:
“Ranville is right, I think; but we might go even further. It is my
idea that the murderer never discovered who it was he killed. He
thought he killed Patton.”
“How do you make that out?” was Carter's question.
“I may be wrong, you understand. But it seems to me something like
this happened. The gardener, when he said he could see any one come up
the path, forgot it was an easy matter for a person to land on the
shore in a boat. The trees would hide him from any person down by the
gate. I have an idea also that the gardener never hurried about coming
to the library. He took his own time and for some unknown reason went
to the back door instead of the front one.”
“I don't see how you make that out,” broke in Patton.
“Look where he was killed,” came the quick response from Ranville.
“Yes,” said Bartley slowly. “Look where the body was lying. You find
it on its face with one hand reaching for the door—the open door only
a few inches away. The man was shot in the back while his face was
turned away from the person who shot him. He fell, naturally, in the
position in which we found him. And that makes me think the gardener
came in the rear door, got several feet within the building, when all
at once he saw the person engaged in destroying the manuscript.”
“But why did he turn to leave then?” was my question.
“It is my idea that when he turned to get out of the library, the
other person had not seen him. Perhaps, even, the gardener knew who it
was. He managed to go several feet before the man fired. I believe
when he fired and the man fell and did not stir, he thought he had
killed Patton. From the back, with the same colored suit, and the same
general build, they look a bit alike.”
It seemed logical enough, and I could tell from the men's faces that
they agreed. Then all at once Carter gave a sudden cry and said that
we must get the chief. He started for the telephone, only to have
Bartley call out to him:
“George, don't tell the chief what we want him for. Tell him to come
right up here, but say nothing about the murder. I have my reasons.”
Carter shrugged his shoulders and, after fooling with the phone for
some time, managed to get the chief. When he returned to our side, he
said the chief was puzzled, wishing to know for what he was wanted,
but he would come up right away.
With this, we started to examine the room. But after a quick, though
very careful, search on the part of Ranville and Bartley, there was
nothing of importance found. Only the small pieces of torn paper,
which filled the wastebasket and littered the floor by the desk,
showed that anything had been touched. There was no doubt these pieces
of paper had once comprised Warren's notes—the notes which Patton said
he had left on the desk.
As we went over to the front door, Ranville, who was in the lead, bent
over, and as he straightened up, held in his hand a magazine—a very
popular magazine with a gay cover of a girl in a scanty bathing suit.
As Bartley saw it, he gave one glance, then turned to Patton.
“Two questions, Patton. Did you slip on the rug, and did you buy this
magazine when you went to the store?”
The rug was a small Turkish one which we had noticed the various times
we had been in the library. The colors were so beautiful that no one
could help noticing it. It was always just inside the door, but now it
was rumpled and disturbed, laying partly across the doorsill. As I
looked at it, I decided that some one had slipped upon it.
Patton gave the magazine one glance, then gazed at the rug. He slowly
shook his head, saying:
“It is ‘no’ to both questions.”
“Somebody slipped on that rug,” commented Carter.
“And when they went out of the room,” added Ranville. “It's dragged
over the sill. If they stumbled when they entered the room, it would
be lying farther inside the library.”
He bent a second and then fell to his knees, apparently interested in
something he found by the sill. Scraping the substance with his knife,
which he had taken from his pockets, he rose extending his hand to
Bartley.
“It's mud,” he said.
We came closer to observe. There in his hand were a few bits of dried
dirt—dirt which evidently had been wet only a short time ago. As
Bartley saw it, he reached forth to crumple a piece of it between his
fingers. Then he went out on the veranda and down the three steps to
the ground. At the bottom step he bent down and then called:
“You will find more of it here.”
On the edge of the bottom step there were unmistakable signs of a
muddy shoe. The signs were not plain enough to form a footprint, but
one could see that some person in going up the steps must have brushed
off the mud from their shoes. Patton gave it one look, then
straightened up to say:
“That's not mine. I never went within a mile of any mud.”
Bartley was on the verge of a reply when we heard some one hail us at
the bottom of the slight hill. Turning, we saw the chief hurrying
across the lawn. His face was red as if he had been running, and when
he stopped at our side, he gave us a very wondering look. There was no
doubt he was very curious as to why he had been called so suddenly
again to the library.
In a few short words Bartley told him of the dead man that was within.
His eyes opened wide at the information, and his jaw dropped when
Bartley told him it was the gardener who was dead. Then as he started
for the house, Bartley's hand went forth and touched his arm:
“Chief, don't call up your office for several hours. Get your coroner
if you must, but try and get him out here without any one knowing what
has taken place.”
As the chief turned a puzzled face in his direction and started to
protest, Bartley continued:
“I have my reasons, Chief, and they are good. If you keep this thing
still for several hours, I have an idea I can come pretty close to
putting my hand on the murderer.”
We all gave him a startled glance. So far as I could see, not only was
Warren's murder destined to become one of the unsolved crimes, but
this deepened the mystery. There had been no apparent reason for
Warren's death, for the gardener's there was none at all. True,
Bartley had said the gardener had been killed in mistake for Patton;
but there was no reason in the world why any person should have wished
to kill Patton. But here was Bartley calmly saying that he thought he
might be able to discover the murderer. And it needed only one look at
his set face to know he was sincere in his belief.
Puzzled, though not protesting, the chief agreed to what Bartley had
asked, and then turned again to the house. Telling him we would be
with him in a few moments, we watched the heavy figure ascend the
steps and vanish within the room. Then, when he had passed from our
sight, Bartley said:
“Twice we have heard about a boat in connection with this affair. Now,
if the murderer wished to enter the grounds without being seen, it is
reasonable to assume he used a boat. The traces of mud that we found
show he was in some water. With this dry weather we are having water
is hard to find.”
With that he started across the lawn and down through the trees. The
estate ended by the lake, which was several hundred feet away. Along
the edges of the water low-hanging willow trees formed a leafy green
screen. The trees were rather close together; a person could have
landed on the shore without much chance of being seen by any one who
was a few feet away.
We pushed through the branches to find that the shore line was several
feet below the grass embankment. Below the grass a soft silt formed
the shore, and the water was very shallow for some yards out. As I
turned and looked through the low branches—branches which in places
dropped below the bank and almost touched the water—I discovered that
I could not see the library.
By the water's edge we scattered. Carter and I went down the grass to
our right, while Bartley and Ranville followed the shore in the
direction to where the wall ended at the water. We had not taken more
than four steps when there came Bartley's voice, and we hurried to
where he and Ranville were standing.
They were several feet away from the wall. It came, not only down to
the water, but extended a few feet into the lake. The heavy stones had
caused the water to hollow out a little curve just inside the estate.
It was here that Bartley was pointing. Below us the soft silt—almost
mud—extended for several feet into the lake. And there was no doubt,
from a deep impression in the mud, that a boat had been run ashore at
this very spot. Not only could one see where the boat had landed, but
what is more, where some one had jumped for the shore, missed the
bank, and had placed one foot in the silt.
“That boat did not leave there so very long ago,” came Ranville's
comment, as we all looked at the impression. “There is a slight breeze
on the lake, the water is lapping against the shore, and in an hour
that impression in the mud will be all smoothed out.”
Bartley nodded, then bent over the bank to study the impression. He
rose with a very perplexed look on his face and began to go slowly
over the near-by grass. Suddenly he stopped and turned quickly.
“That's not all, Ranville. The man in the boat got one foot in the
water when he got out. You can see the dirt where it fell from the
edge of the bank. But when he came back, he had something with
him—something heavy. Maybe he carried it, but he had to half drag it
into the boat. Look,” and he pointed to the bank.
There, a little away from the spot where the impression was in the
mud, were two places a foot apart—places where the grass was tangled
and matted, and where the bank itself was broken down. It did look as
though something had been dragged over the bank to the boat. As
Bartley looked, his face grew very white, and I saw his hands open and
close. He turned to Patton, and his voice was crisp as he shot out:
“Patton, that was not your magazine we found in the library.”
Patton shook his head. He might have replied, but Bartley gave him no
time. The voice was insistent as he asked:
“You said the girl—the secretary—was to return to the library and work
an hour?”
“Why, yes; she went to supper and was to come about six and work until
seven. Carter told me we were to eat at seven.”
“And you never saw her again after she left?”
“Oh, yes, I did,” was Patton's unemotional answer. “Yes, I did. I saw
her going up the street toward Warren's when I was in the tobacco
store. If I had not stopped to talk for a few moments, I would have
been able to catch up with her. Why, what's the matter?”
Bartley's grave glance went to Ranville's face. As the Englishman
looked at him, to my surprise I saw the red fade slowly from his face.
Very gravely he started to nod his head when there came Bartley's
quick voice:
“What's the matter? Good Lord! Don't you see that the girl must have
come up the path just about the moment the gardener was shot? Don't
you see she must have walked right into the library, perhaps while the
murderer held the gun in his hand—perhaps even at the very moment of
shooting? She was there; the magazine on the floor was hers.”
Carter gave a sudden start, and Patton's face grew white. He was the
first to stammer out:
“But where is she now?”
Bartley's eyes swept over the water of the lake and rested on the
faint impression in the silt—an impression now almost smoothed out.
Then, pointing to the bedraggled grass and the place where the bank
was broken, he said slowly:
“She must have been at the front door just as the murder took place.
Whoever did the killing dragged the girl down across the lawn and to
the boat. Her feet, as they dragged along the grass, broke down the
edge of the bank.”
He paused and there came a moment of horrified silence. It needed but
one glance at Ranville to see that he agreed with Bartley. From
Carter's expression as he gazed at the broken place in the bank, I
could tell he believed the same. Only Patton seemed too dazed to
comprehend what it might mean.
And then as our glances met, Bartley, for one of the few times in his
life, uttered an oath and started to run toward the library. As the
rest of us stood, hesitatingly, Bartley turned—turned to cry back at
us in a voice that shook a little:
“For God's sake, hurry! We may be just in time to prevent another
murder, and this time the most horrible one of all.”