"For information--and I got it. She's been scared of the notoriety and
has held back something which seems important. Her husband's been prying
her up to the point of going to the District Attorney and she's agreed,
but tried it on me first. Do you hear?"
"I got you."
"The night of the murder, about nine, a man knocked at her door saying
he'd lost his way and wanting to know where he was, and how to get to
the turnpike. She spoke to him from an upper window and couldn't see his
face, the night being dark. All she could make out was that he was large
and wore an overcoat. He told her his auto was in the road back of him
and he'd got mixed up in the country lanes. The thing's funny, as there
are very few roads that side of the pike."
"Hold on--what's that about pike?"
Babbitts repeated it and went on:
"Doesn't appear to have been in the least drunk--perfectly sober and
spoke like a gentleman. She gave him the direction and here's what
caught me--describes his voice as very deep, rich and pleasant, almost
the same words the Longwood telephone girl used to describe the voice
she overheard speaking to Miss Hesketh Saturday noon."
"Any more?"
"Impossible to identify man but says she'd know the voice again. He
thanked her very politely--she couldn't lay enough stress on how good
his manners were--and she heard him walk away, splashing through the
mud."
There were a few ending-up sentences that gave me time to pull out a
novel and settle down over it. I seemed so buried in it that when
Babbitts put down his money I never raised my eyes, just swept the coin
into the drawer and turned a page. He didn't move, leaning against the
switchboard and not saying a word. With him standing there so close I
got nervous and had to look up, and as soon as I did it he made a motion
with his hand for me to lift my headpiece.
"If two heads are better than one," he said, "two ears must be; and the
words I am about to utter should be fully heard to be appreciated."
Of course I thought he was going to tell me what he'd found out at
Cresset's. It made me feel proud, being confided in by a newspaper man,
and I pushed up my headpiece, all smiling and ready to be smart and
helpful. He didn't smile back but looked and spoke as solemn as an
undertaker.
"Miss Morganthau, yours is a very sedentary occupation."
Believe me I got a jolt.
"If you're asking me to violate the rules for that," I answered, "you're
taking more upon yourself than I'll overlook from a child reporter with
a head of hair like the Fair Circassian in Barnum & Bailey's."
"I speak only as one concerned for your health. A walk after business
hours should be the invariable practice of those whose work forbids
exercise."
"Thank you for your interest," says I, very haughty, "but it's well to
look at home before we search abroad. The man who spends all his time
riding in autos at the expense of the Press would be better employed
exercising his own limbs than directing those of others. So start right
along and walk quick."
He didn't budge, but says slow and thoughtful:
"Your remarks, Miss Morganthau, are always to the point. I'm going to
take a walk this evening--say about seven-thirty."
"I hope you'll enjoy it," says I. "As for me, I'm going straight home to
rest. I need it, what with my work and the ginks that stand round here
taking up my time and running the risk of getting me fired"--the door
handle clicked. I looked over my shoulder and saw a man coming in.
"Which way?" I says in a whisper.
"Down Maple Lane," he whispers back, and I was in front of my board with
my headpiece in place when the man came in.
We walked up and down Maple Lane for an hour, and it may amuse you to
know that what that simple guy wanted was to tell me to listen to every
voice on my wires.
I looked at him calm and pitiful. _Me_, that had been listening till, if
your ears grow with exercise, mine ought to have been long enough to tie
in a true lover's knot on top of my head!
There's a wonderful innocence about men in some ways. It makes you feel
sorry for them, like they were helpless children.
Then he capped the climax by telling me about Mrs. Cresset that
morning--hadn't thought I'd heard a word. And as he told it, believing
so honest that I didn't know, I began to feel kind of cheap as if I'd
lied to someone who couldn't have thought I'd do such a thing. I didn't
tell him the truth--I was too ashamed--but I made a vow no matter how
sly I was to the others I'd be on the square with Babbitts. And I'll say
right here that I've made good resolutions and broken them, but that one
I've kept.
There's a little hill part way along the Lane where the road slopes down
toward the entrance of Mapleshade. We stopped here and looked back at
the house lying long and dark among its dark trees. The sky was bright
with stars and by their light you could see the black patches of the
woods and here and there a paler stretch where the land was bare and
open. It was all shadowy and gloomy except where the windows shone out
in bright orange squares. I pointed out to Babbitts where Sylvia's
windows were, not a light in them; and then, at the end of the wing,
four or five in a row that belonged to Mrs. Fowler's suite. Her
sitting-room was one of them where Anne had told me she and the Doctor
always sat in the evenings.
"They're there now," I said. "What do you suppose they're doing?"
"Search me," said Babbitts, "I can't answer for another man, but if I
was in the Doctor's shoes I'd be pacing up and down, with my Circassian
Beauty hair turning white while you waited."
"Yes," I said, nodding. "I'll bet that's what he's doing. I can see
them, surrounded by their riches, jumping every time there's a knock on
the door, thinking that the summons has come."
And that shows you how you never can tell. For at that hour in that room
the Doctor and Mrs. Fowler were talking to Walter Mills, who had just
come from Philadelphia, bringing them the first ray of hope they'd had
since the tragedy. It was in the form of a diamond and ruby lavalliere
that he had found the day before in a pawn shop and that Mrs. Fowler had
identified as Sylvia's.
Four days later a piece of news ran like wildfire through Longwood:
Virginie Dupont had been arrested and brought to Bloomington.
They put her in jail there and it didn't take any third degree to get
the truth out of her. She made a clean breast of it, for she was caught
with the goods, all the lost jewelry being found in the place where she
was hiding. It sent her to the penitentiary, and her lover, too, for
whom--anyway she said so--she had robbed Sylvia's Hesketh's room on the
night that Sylvia Hesketh disappeared.
If her story threw no light on the murder it exonerated the Doctor, for
it fitted at every point with what he had said.
I'll write it down here, not in her words, but as I got it from the
papers.
For some time she had been planning to rob Sylvia, but was waiting for a
good opportunity. This came, when the Doctor, being out of the house,
she discovered that an elopement was on foot. She had read Sylvia's
letters, which were thrown carelessly about, and knew of the affair with
Jack Reddy, and when on Sunday morning she was sent to the village to
get a letter from Reddy she guessed what it was. Before giving it to
Sylvia she went to her own room, opened the envelope with steam from a
kettle, and read it. Then she knew that her chance had come.
When evening drew on she hung about the halls and saw Sylvia leave at a
few minutes past six, carrying the fitted bag. The coast being clear,
she went to her room, took an old black bag of her own and stole back.
It was while she was getting this bag that the idea came to her of
impersonating her mistress, as in that way she could steal some clothes.
She secured the jewelry in a pocket hanging from her waist, took some
false hair that Sylvia wore when the weather was damp, and covered her
head with it, and selected a little automobile hat of which there were
several, over all tying a figured black lace veil.
What she particularly wanted was a new Hudson seal coat that had been
delivered a few days before. No one but herself and Miss Hesketh knew of
this coat as there had been so much quarreling about Sylvia's
extravagance, that the girl often bought clothes without telling. After
putting it on she filled her bag with things from the bureau drawers,
and just as she was leaving saw the gold mesh purse on the dresser and
snatched it up.
All this was done like lightning and she thinks she left the house not
more than twenty or twenty-five minutes after Sylvia. To catch the train
she had to hurry and she ran up Maple Lane behind the hedge. She was
nearing the village when she heard the whirr of an auto and through the
hedge saw the two big headlights of a car, coming slowly down the Lane.
For a moment she paused, peeking through the branches and made out that
there was only one person in it, Jack Reddy.
She reached the station only a few minutes before the train came in. As
she had a ticket, she stood at the dark end of the platform, not moving
into the light till the engine was drawing near. Then Jim Donahue saw
her and came up, addressing her as Miss Hesketh. She had often tried to
imitate Sylvia's voice and accent which she thought very elegant, and
she did so now, speaking carefully and seeing that Jim had no doubt of
her identity. On the ride to the Junction she had only murmured "Good
evening" to Sands, being afraid to say more.
At the Junction she was going to get off, take the branch line to
Hazelmere and transfer there to the Philadelphia Express. In the women's
waiting-room, which would probably be deserted at that hour, she
intended taking off Sylvia's coat and hair and reappearing as the modest
and insignificant lady's maid. She had thought this out in the
afternoon, deciding that Sylvia would probably communicate with her
mother in the morning and that the theft would then be discovered.
Inquiries started for the woman who had been seen on the train would
lead to nothing, as that woman would have dropped out of sight at the
Junction.
Everything worked without a hitch. The waiting-room was empty and she
had ample time to take off the hair and put it in the bag, hang the coat
over her arm with the lining turned out, and even pinch the small, soft
hat into another shape. No one would have thought the woman who went
into the waiting-room was the woman who came out.
And then came the first mishap--as she opened the door she stepped
almost into Dr. Fowler. She was terror stricken, but even then neither
her luck nor her wits left her, for almost the first sentence he uttered
showed her that he knew of the elopement and gave her a lead what to
say. She must have been a pretty nervy woman the way she jumped at that
lead. Right off the bat she invented the story about being sent by
Sylvia to Philadelphia--to wait there at the Bellevue-Stratford.
The Doctor was furious and ordered her into his auto. There was nothing
for it but to obey and in she got, sitting in the back. As she was
stepping up, he close beside her, she remembered the gold mesh purse
plain in her hand. Like a flash she bent forward and jammed it down
between the back and seat.
The ride up the Riven Rock Road was just as the Doctor described it. It
was after the lamp had been broken and he was back in the car starting
it up, that she slipped out. She was determined to get away with all her
loot and took the bag and coat with her, but between the hurry and fear
of the moment forgot the purse.
She wandered through the woods till she saw a small scattering of lights
which she took for one of the branch line stations. When the dawn came
she had lost some of her nerve and felt it was too risky to carry the
extra things. So she hid them at the root of a tree, took off the hat,
tying the veil over her head, and walked across the fields to the
station. As it was Monday morning there were a lot of laborers, men and
women, on the platform. She mingled with them, looking like them in her
muddy clothes and tied up head, and got away to Hazelmere without being
noticed.
She was feeling safe in her furnished room in Philadelphia when she read
of the murder in the papers. That scared her almost to death and she lay
as close as a rabbit in a burrow, afraid to go out and cooking her food
on a gas ring. It was the man she had stolen for who gave her away. When
she refused to raise money on the jewels, he stole the lavalliere and
pawned it.
Under the trees where she said she'd left them, the police found the
coat and hat. Beside them was the bag stuffed full of lingerie, gloves
and silk stockings, and with the false hair crowded down into the inside
pocket.
Besides clearing the Doctor her confession threw light on two important
points--one that Sylvia had left the house at a little after six, and
the other that Reddy had been at the meeting place at the time he said.
X
After the excitement of the French woman's arrest there was a sort of
lull. For a few days people thought we were going to move right on and
lay our hands on the murderer. But outside of proving that the Doctor
wasn't the guilty one the crime was no nearer a solution than it had
been the day it happened. Though there was still a good deal of talk
about it, it began to die down in the public interest and it was then
that the papers got to calling it "The Hesketh Mystery" in place of "The
Hesketh Murder."
The reporters left the Inn and went back to live in town, coming in
every few days to snoop around for any new items that might have turned
up. Babbitts came oftener than the others and stayed later, and he and I
had several more walks. We were getting to be like partners in some kind
of secret business, meeting after dark, and pacing along the roads round
the village, with the stars shining overhead and the ground hard and
crumbly under our feet.
If you'd met us you'd have set us down for a pair of lovers, walking
side by side under the dark of the trees. But if you'd followed along
and listened you'd have got cured of that romantic notion mighty quick.
Our flirtation was all about evidence, and leads, and clues--not so much
as a compliment or a baby stare from start to finish. I don't believe if
you'd asked Babbitts he could have told you whether my eyes were brown
or blue, and as for me--outside his being a nice kid he didn't figure
out any more important than the weathervane on the Methodist Church.
It was "the case" that drew us together like a magnet drawing nails.
We'd speculate about it, look at it all round as if it was something we
had hold of in our hands. I guess it was the mysteriousness of it that
attracted him, and the reward, too. There was more in it for me as you
know--but he never got a hint of _that_.
It was one evening, nearly four weeks after the murder that he gave me a
shock--not meaning to, of course, for even then I'd found out he was the
kind that wouldn't hurt a fly. We were talking of Jack Reddy, who we'd
seen that evening in the village, the first time since the inquest.
"You know," said Babbitts, "it's queer but I keep thinking of that yarn
of Jasper's, that evening in the Gilt Edge."