The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  Billy shook his head.

  "No."

  "He couldn't have locked us in," said Miss Cornelia. "He was with us."

  Bailey demurred, not to her remark itself, but to its implication of Billy's entire innocence.

  "He may know who did it. Do you?"

  Billy still shook his head.

  Bailey remained unconvinced.

  "Who did you see at the head of the small staircase?" he queried imperatively. "Now we're through with nonsense; I want the truth!"

  Billy shivered.

  "See face - that's all," he brought out at last.

  "Whose face?"

  Again it was evident that Billy knew or thought he knew more than he was willing to tell.

  "Don't know," he said with obvious untruth, looking down at the floor.

  "Never mind, Billy," cut in Miss Cornelia. To her mind questioning Billy was wasting time. She looked at the Unknown.

  "Solve the mystery of this man and we may get at the facts," she said in accents of conviction.

  As Bailey turned toward her questioningly, Billy attempted to steal silently out of the door, apparently preferring any fears that might lurk in the darkness of the corridor to a further grilling on the subject of whom or what he had seen on the alcove stairs. But Bailey caught the movement out of the tail of his eye.

  "You stay here," he commanded. Billy stood frozen. Beresford raised the candle so that it cast its light full in the Unknown's face.

  "This chap claims to have lost his memory," he said dubiously. "I suppose a blow on the head might do that, I don't know."

  "I wish somebody would knock me on the head! I'd like to forget a few things!" moaned Lizzie, but the interruption went unregarded.

  "Don't you even know your name?" queried Miss Cornelia of the Unknown.

  The Unknown shook his head with a slow, laborious gesture.

  "Not - yet."

  "Or where you came from?"

  Once more the battered head made its movement of negation.

  "Do you remember how you got in this house?" The Unknown made an effort.

  "Yes - I - remember - that - all - right" he said, apparently undergoing an enormous strain in order to make himself speak at all. He put his hand to his head.

  "My - head - aches - to - beat - the - band," he continued slowly.

  Miss Cornelia was at a loss. If this were acting, it was at least fine acting.

  "How did you happen to come to this house?" she persisted, her voice unconsciously tuning itself to the slow, laborious speech of the Unknown.

  "Saw - the - lights."

  Bailey broke in with a question.

  "Where were you when you saw the lights?"

  The Unknown wet his lips with his tongue, painfully.

  "I - broke - out - of - the - garage," he said at length. This was unexpected. A general movement of interest ran over the group.

  "How did you get there?" Beresford took his turn as questioner.

  The Unknown shook his head, so slowly and deliberately that Miss Cornelia's fingers itched to shake him in spite of his injuries.

  "I - don't - know."

  "Have you been robbed?" queried Bailey with keen suspicion.

  The Unknown mumbled something unintelligible. Then he seemed to get command of his tongue again.

  "Everything gone - out of - my pockets," he said.

  "Including your watch?" pursued Bailey, remembering the watch that Beresford had found in the grounds.

  The Unknown would neither affirm nor deny.

  "If - I - had - a - watch - it's gone," he said with maddening deliberation. "All my - papers - are gone.

  Miss Cornelia pounced upon this last statement like a cat upon a mouse.

  "How do you know you had papers?" she asked sharply.

  For the first time the faintest flicker of a smile seemed to appear for a moment on the Unknown's features. Then it vanished as abruptly as it had come.

  "Most men - carry papers - don't they?" he asked, staring blindly in front of him. "I'm dazed - but - my mind's - all - right. If you - ask me - I - think - I'm - d-damned funny!"

  He gave the ghost of a chuckle. Bailey and Beresford exchanged glances.

  "Did you ring the house phone?" insisted Miss Cornelia.

  The Unknown nodded.

  "Yes."

  Miss Cornelia and Bailey gave each other a look of wonderment.

  "I - leaned against - the button - in the garage - " he went on. "Then - I think - maybe I - fainted. That's - not clear."

  His eyelids drooped. He seemed about to faint again.

  Dale rose, and came over to him, with a sympathetic movement of her hand.

  "You don't remember how you were hurt?" she asked gently.

  The Unknown stared ahead of him, his eyes filming, as if he were trying to puzzle it out.

  "No," he said at last. "The first thing I remember - I was in the garage - tied." He moved his lips. "I was - gagged - too - that's - what's the matter - with my tongue - now - Then - I got myself - free - and - got out - of a window - "

  Miss Cornelia made a movement to question him further. Beresford stopped her with his hand uplifted.

  "Just a moment, Miss Van Gorder. Anderson ought to know of this."

  He started for the door without perceiving the flash of keen intelligence and alertness that had lit the Unknown's countenance for an instant, as once before, at the mention of the detective's name. But just as he reached the door the detective entered.

  He halted for a moment, staring at the strange figure of the Unknown.

  "A new element in our mystery, Mr. Anderson," said Miss Cornelia, remembering that the detective might not have heard of the mysterious stranger before - as he had been locked in the billiard room when the latter had made his queer entrance.

  The detective and the Unknown gazed at each other for a moment - the Unknown with his old expression of vacant stupidity.

  "Quite dazed, poor fellow," Miss Cornelia went on. Beresford added other words of explanation.

  "He doesn't remember what happened to him. Curious, isn't it?"

  The detective still seemed puzzled.

  "How did he get into the house?"

  "He came through the terrace door some time ago," answered Miss Cornelia. "Just before we were locked in."

  Her answer seemed to solve the problem to Anderson's satisfaction.

  "Doesn't remember anything, eh?" he said dryly. He crossed over to the mysterious stranger and put his hand under the Unknown's chin, jerking his head up roughly.

  "Look up here!" he commanded.

  The Unknown stared at him for an instant with blank, vacuous eyes. Then his head dropped back upon his breast again.

  "Look up, you - " muttered the detective, jerking his head again. "This losing your memory stuff doesn't go down with me!" His eyes bored into the Unknown's.

  "It doesn't - go down - very well - with me - either," said the Unknown weakly, making no movement of protest against Anderson's rough handling.

  "Did you ever see me before?" demanded the latter. Beresford held the candle closer so that he might watch the Unknown's face for any involuntary movement of betrayal.

  But the Unknown made no such movement. He gazed at Anderson, apparently with the greatest bewilderment, then his eyes cleared, he seemed to be about to remember who the detective was.

  "You're - the - Doctor - I - saw - downstairs - aren't you?" he said innocently. The detective set his jaw. He started off on a new tack.

  "Does this belong to you?" he said suddenly, plucking from his pocket the battered gold watch that Beresford had found and waving it before the Unknown's blank face.

  The Unknown stared at it a moment, as a child might stare at a new toy, with no gleam of recognition. Then -

  "Maybe," he admitted. "I - don't - know." His voice trailed off. He fell back against Bailey's arm.

  Miss Cornelia gave a little shiver. The third degree in reality was less pleasant to watch than it had been to re
ad about in the pages of her favorite detective stories.

  "He's evidently been attacked," she said, turning to Anderson. "He claims to have recovered consciousness in the garage, where he was tied hand and foot!"

  "He does, eh?" said the detective heavily. He glared at the Unknown. "If you'll give me five minutes alone with him, I'll get the truth out of him!" he promised.

  A look of swift alarm swept over the Unknown's face at the words, unperceived by any except Miss Cornelia. The others started obediently to yield to the detective's behest and leave him alone with his prisoner. Miss Cornelia was the first to move toward the door. On her way, she turned.

  "Do you believe that money is irrevocably gone?" she asked of Anderson.

  The detective smiled.

  "There's no such word as 'irrevocable' in my vocabulary," he answered. "But I believe it's out of the house, if that's what you mean."

  Miss Cornelia still hesitated, on the verge of departure.

  "Suppose I tell you that there are certain facts that you have overlooked?" she said slowly.

  "Still on the trail!" muttered the detective sardonically. He did not even glance at her. He seemed only anxious that the other members of the group would get out of his way for once and leave him a clear field for his work.

  "I was right about the Doctor, wasn't I?" she insisted.

  "Just fifty per cent right," said Anderson crushingly. "And the Doctor didn't turn that trick alone. Now - " he went on with weary patience, "if you'll all go out and close that door - "

  Miss Cornelia, defeated, took a candle from Bailey and stepped into the corridor. Her figure stiffened. She gave an audible gasp of dismayed surprise.

  "Quick!" she cried, turning back to the others and gesturing toward the corridor. "A man just went through that skylight and out onto the roof!"

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  MURDER ON MURDER

  "Our on the roof!"

  "Come on, Beresford!"

  "Hustle - you men! He may be armed!"

  "Righto - coming!"

  And following Miss Cornelia's lead, Jack Bailey, Anderson, Beresford, and Billy dashed out into the corridor, leaving Dale and the frightened Lizzie alone with the Unknown.

  "And I'd run if my legs would!" Lizzie despaired.

  "Hush!" said Dale, her ears strained for sounds of conflict. Lizzie, creeping closer to her for comfort, stumbled over one of the Unknown's feet and promptly set up a new wail.

  "How do we know this fellow right here isn't the Bat?" she asked in a blood-chilling whisper, nearly stabbing the unfortunate Unknown in the eye with her thumb as she pointed at him. The Unknown was either too dazed or too crafty to make any answer. His silence confirmed Lizzie's worst suspicions. She fairly hugged the floor and began to pray in a whisper.

  Miss Cornelia re-entered cautiously with her candle, closing the door gently behind her as she came.

  "What did you see?" gasped Dale.

  Miss Cornelia smiled broadly.

  "I didn't see anything," she admitted with the greatest calm. "I had to get that dratted detective out of the room before I assassinated him."

  "Nobody went through the skylight?" said Dale incredulously.

  "They have now," answered Miss Cornelia with obvious satisfaction. "The whole outfit of them."

  She stole a glance at the veiled eyes of the Unknown. He was lying limply back in his chair, as if the excitement had been too much for him - and yet she could have sworn she had seen him leap to his feet, like a man in full possession of his faculties, when she had given her-false cry of alarm.

  "Then why did you - " began Dale dazedly, unable to fathom her aunt's reasons for her trick.

  "Because," interrupted Miss Cornelia decidedly, "that money's in this room. If the man who took it out of the safe got away with it, why did he come back and hide there?"

  Her forefinger jabbed at the hidden chamber wherein the masked intruder had terrified Dale with threats of instant death.

  "He got it out of the safe - and that's as far as he did get with it," she persisted inexorably. "There's a HAT behind that safe, a man's felt hat!"

  So this was the discovery she had hinted of to Anderson before he rebuffed her proffer of assistance!

  "Oh, I wish he'd take his hat and-go home!" groaned Lizzie inattentive to all but her own fears.

  Miss Cornelia did not even bother to rebuke her. She crossed behind the wicker clothes hamper and picked up something from the floor.

  "A half-burned candle," she mused. "Another thing the detective overlooked."

  She stepped back to the center of the room, looking knowingly from the candle to the Hidden Room and back again.

  "Oh, my God - another one!" shrieked Lizzie as the dark shape of a man appeared suddenly outside the window, as if materialized from the air.

  Miss Cornelia snatched up her revolver from the top of the hamper.

  "Don't shoot - it's Jack!" came a warning cry from Dale as she recognized the figure of her lover.

  Miss Cornelia laid her revolver down on the hamper again. The vacant eyes of the Unknown caught the movement.

  Bailey swung in through the window, panting a little from his exertions.

  "The man Lizzie saw drop from the skylight undoubtedly got to the roof from this window," he said. "It's quite easy."

  "But not with one hand," said Miss Cornelia, with her gaze now directed at the row of tall closets around the walls of the room. When that detective comes back I may have a surprise party for him," she muttered, with a gleam of hope in her eye.

  Dale explained the situation to Jack.

  "Aunt Cornelia thinks the money's still here."

  Miss Cornelia snorted.

  "I know it's here." She started to open the closets, one after the other, beginning at the left. Bailey saw what she was doing and began to help her.

  Not so Lizzie. She sat on the floor in a heap, her eyes riveted on the Unknown, who in his turn was gazing at Miss Cornelia's revolver on the hamper with the intent stare of a baby or an idiot fascinated by a glittering piece of glass.

  Dale noticed the curious tableau.

  "Lizzie - what are you looking at?" she said with a nervous shake in her voice.

  "What's he looking at?" asked Lizzie sepulchrally, pointing at the Unknown. Her pointed forefinger drew his eyes away from the revolver; he sank back into his former apathy, listless, drooping.

  Miss Cornelia rattled the knob of a high closet by the other wall.

  "This one is locked - and the key's gone," she announced. A new flicker of interest grew in the eyes of the Unknown. Lizzie glanced away from him, terrified.

  "If there's anything locked up in that closet," she whimpered, "you'd better let it stay! There's enough running loose in this house as it is!"

  Unfortunately for her, her whimper drew Miss Cornelia's attention upon her.

  "Lizzie, did you ever take that key?" the latter queried sternly.

  "No'm," said Lizzie, too scared to dissimulate if she had wished. She wagged her head violently a dozen times, like a china figure on a mantelpiece.

  Miss Cornelia pondered.

  "It may be locked from the inside; I'll soon find out." She took a wire hairpin from her hair and pushed it through the keyhole. But there was no key on the other side; the hairpin went through without obstruction. Repeated efforts to jerk the door open failed. And finally Miss Cornelia bethought herself of a key from the other closet doors.

  Dale and Lizzie on one side - Bailey on the other - collected the keys of the other closets from their locks while Miss Cornelia stared at the one whose doors were closed as if she would force its secret from it with her eyes. The Unknown had been so quiet during the last few minutes, that, unconsciously, the others had ceased to pay much attention to him, except the casual attention one devotes to a piece of furniture. Even Lizzie's eyes were now fixed on the locked closet. And the Unknown himself was the first to notice this.

  At once his expression altered to one of cunning - c
autiously, with infinite patience, he began to inch his chair over toward the wicker clothes hamper. The noise of the others, moving about the room, drowned out what little he made in moving his chair.

  At last he was within reach of the revolver. His hand shot out in one swift sinuous thrust - clutched the weapon - withdrew. He then concealed the revolver among his tattered garments as best he could and, cautiously as before, inched his chair back again to its original position. When the others noticed him again, the mask of lifelessness was back on his face and one could have sworn he had not changed his position by the breadth of an inch.

  "There - that unlocked it!" cried Miss Cornelia triumphantly at last, as the key to one of the other closet doors slid smoothly into the lock and she heard the click that meant victory.

  She was about to throw open the closet door. But Bailey motioned her back.

  "I'd keep back a little," he cautioned. "You don't know what may be inside."

  "Mercy sakes, who wants to know?" shivered Lizzie. Dale and Miss Cornelia, too, stepped aside involuntarily as Bailey took the candle and prepared, with a good deal of caution, to open the closet door.

  The door swung open at last. He could look in. He did so - and stared appalled at what he saw, while goose flesh crawled on his spine and the hairs of his head stood up.

  After a moment he closed the door of the closet and turned back, white-faced, to the others.

  "What is it?" said Dale aghast. "What did you see?"

  Bailey found himself unable to answer for a moment. Then he pulled himself together. He turned to Miss Van Gorder.

  "Miss Cornelia, I think we have found the ghost the Jap butler saw," he said slowly. "How are your nerves?"

  Miss Cornelia extended a hand that did not tremble.

  "Give me the candle."

  He did so. She went to the closet and opened the door.

  Whatever faults Miss Cornelia may have had, lack of courage was not one of them - or the ability to withstand a stunning mental shock. Had it been otherwise she might well have crumpled to the floor, as if struck down by an invisible hammer, the moment the closet door swung open before her.

  Huddled on the floor of the closet was the body of a man. So crudely had he been crammed into this hiding-place that he lay twisted and bent. And as if to add to the horror of the moment one arm, released from its confinement, now slipped and slid out into the floor of the room.