XX
MURDER
There was something not natural in Beverley's air and manner. Normallyshe had a proud, erect carriage. Now she came stumbling out of Number658, and with drooping head, and shoulders bent, crept into the hall,leaving the door half open behind her; but she stopped abruptly andturned back. Clo, forgetting her own weakness, and forgetting the browntrunk, hurried to join her friend. But Beverley seemed to be unconsciousof the girl's presence. She stood as far as possible from the door,closed it without noise, and was walking away again when Clo's arm slidround her waist.
"Darling, what has he said, what has he done to you?" the girl implored.
Beverley seized Clo by the wrist, and pulled her toward the lift.
"Hurry!" she whispered. "We must get away as soon as we can, for Roger'ssake!"
"But what about the papers, and the pearls?" Clo persisted. "HadPeterson taken them? Did he give them to you?"
"I don't know whether he had them or not. Nothing matters now, except toget home," was the astounding answer. Clo could hardly believe that shehad heard aright. Ten--five minutes ago, nothing in the world mattered,except the papers and the pearls. Now they had lost all theirimportance!
"You don't want them any more?" she gasped.
"Want them?" Beverley echoed. "Yes, more than ever, I want them. Butit's too late. Don't ask me why. Only--come!"
Clo could not argue with Angel, or oppose her, in such a mood as this.She wished that she had taken her own way, and gone herself to "have itout" with Peterson. She felt that nothing he could have said or donewould have forced her to give up without at least knowing whether or notthe booty were in his possession. As she kept pace with Beverley she wasscrewing up her courage to one last, desperate coup. She would make itin spite of Angel!
They came to the elevator, but before Clo could put out her hand totouch the electric button, Beverley drew her farther on, to thestaircase. They went down swiftly and in silence. The entrance hall ofthe hotel smelt of tobacco. They descended into it behind the elevator.A group of men surrounded the desk where they had inquired for Peterson,and the two girls in motor coats and veiled toques passed withoutcatching sight of the clerk who had sent them to 658. Three or four menof the commercial traveller type glanced at the gray and brown figures;but the elevator had at that moment released a golden-haired, black-eyedyoung woman in a pink evening dress. She became at once an object ofinterest, and the plainly-cloaked pair vanished unnoticed.
The taxi, which had been ordered to wait, was at a distance. Theyhurried to it. It was Clo who opened the door of the cab, and almostpushed Angel in!
"Shall I tell him to go to the corner where he picked us up?" she asked.Beverley nodded, and sank back against the shabby leather cushions. Thiswas Clo's moment. She had led up to it, and decided what to do. Firstshe placed the bag of jewels in Beverley's lap. Next she spoke to thechauffeur, giving clear directions. Then she slammed the door shut, andstepped back upon the sidewalk, motioning to the man to start.
"Angel will be so surprised, she won't know what to do for a minute,"the girl thought. "By the time she pulls herself together she'll realizeit's too late to stop me."
As fast as she dared, Clo retraced her steps to the hotel. She hated toleave Beverley alone, but between two evils it seemed that she hadchosen the less. When the taxi stopped Beverley would get out; and thenshe would have a few blocks to walk before reaching home. As for thebag, she could hardly forget it in the cab. The thing was too heavy tofall from her lap without being noticed. She would have the jewels safe,while Clo tried to bargain with ferret-face on promises of reward.
By the time she had argued away her worst tremors, Clo had again enteredthe Hotel Westmorland. She had decided to say that her friend hadforgotten something if a question were asked; but the desk was stillsurrounded with its group of talkative men, and she walked to the stairsat the back of the hall as if she were a guest of the hotel. Thence shetoiled to the top.
It was only when she approached the door of Number 658, and saw oncemore the brown trunk at the end of the hall, that Clo remembered the oddside-issue of her adventure. She hesitated between the need for hasteand the wish to solve the mystery that troubled her. But it would takeonly a minute to run to the trunk, to sit on it again, and see whathappened! Meanwhile, any one who went in, or came out from, Number 658,must do so under her eyes.
Curiosity conquered. Clo tip-toed to the trunk, sat heavily down on therounded top, as she had done before, and nothing happened. There was nosign of movement within; and Clo wondered if, after all, the thing thathad jumped under the lid had been created by her own jumping nerves.Suddenly the impulse came upon her to try and open it. She seized thecorner of the rounded lid, but it remained immovable. She picked at themetal hasp which covered the cheap lock. It did not yield, but herfingers--or she fancied it--touched moisture. The girl shrank back andlooked at her hand. Thumb and forefinger were smeared with blood.
The girl felt sick, and might have fainted comfortably. "Pooh!" shescolded herself. "You've cut your finger. Serve you right for notminding your own business. Go to it now, and no nonsense, if youplease!"
Goading herself to courage she marched to the door of 658 and knocked.No answer came, and the girl's heart sank. It seemed too bad to be truethat Peterson should have escaped during the few minutes spent inputting Angel into a taxi. Besides, she had scarcely gone beyondeye-shot of the hotel entrance.
"Perhaps he's asleep," thought Clo. She turned the handle, and to hersurprise the door yielded. She had expected to find it locked. Asbefore, the room was unlit save by golden reflections from the streetbelow. The girl opened the door wide, and deliberately looked in.Strange; there sat the man in his easy chair in front of the window,with his mean profile outlined against the light, just as he had satwhen Beverley had answered the summons to "Come in!" One would say, tolook at him, that he had not moved an inch.
Clo's theory had gone wrong. She had urged her conviction upon Angelthat he was the thief; that, if he were the thief, he would "make hisget-away" in haste. Yet here he sat, in the dark, asleep.
She stepped across the threshold, felt along the wall for an electricswitch, found it, and flooded the room with light. Still the figure inthe chair did not stir.
Clo glanced round the squalid room. Peterson had begun to pack. Asuitcase lay open on the narrow bed. The wrinkled gray-white counterpanewas half covered with scattered clothing.
"If he's fast enough asleep, I can go through everything," she thought,"including his pockets!"
The girl walked in, and closed the door resolutely but softly, her eyesalways upon the figure in the chair. She mustn't begin to search theplace without making sure that Peterson was not playing "possum." Itwould be awful, when her back was turned, to have him pounce upon herlike a monkey. She tip-toed across the room, and stopped in front of theeasy-chair, within a yard of the stretched-out feet, where she couldtake a good look at the sleeper. His head was bent down over his breast,and the girl had to stoop a little to peer into the face. But a glancesent her reeling back against a chest of drawers. The top of the man'shead had been crushed in by some blunt instrument. His forehead and theside of his face turned toward the window were covered with blood. Hisshirt and coat were soaked with it, in a long red stripe, and a darkpool had formed in a vague heart-shape on the patterned carpet.
Clo had never before seen a dead man, yet she did not doubt that thisman was dead. He could have been dead for a short time only. The bloodon the livid face glistened wet in the electric light. It had hardlyceased to drip from the wound in his head.
For a time Clo stood still, as if frozen. But slowly the power to thinkcame back. To her own horror and disgust she found herself wondering ifBeverley Sands had killed Peterson. It would have been a tremendous blowfor a woman to strike, but Beverley was desperate, and she was strong.She had boasted of her strength of arm only the other day, to SisterLake, who had tested and admired the splendid firmness of her youngmuscles. Besides, t
he man had been caught unawares, and had been struckfrom behind; the position of the wound showed that. On a small table bythe chair lay the weapon. It was a long pistol, Clo did not know of whatkind or make, but it looked old-fashioned; and there was no question asto the way in which it had been used. Someone had taken it by the muzzleand struck with the butt end, which was coated with blood and hairs.Perhaps the pistol had not been loaded, or perhaps the murderer--(no,"avenger" was the better word, with that fear knocking at her heart!)had not dared fire because of the noise.
Clo's mind began to work more quickly. She pieced details together. Theperson who had killed Peterson could not have picked up the pistol fromthat table without being seen by him, therefore it had been lying therebefore the murder. Most likely it had lain on the bed, among the strewnthings which ferret-face had begun to pack. In that case any oneentering the room might have spied and snatched it, unsuspected by theman in the chair.
"If my poor, tortured Angel didn't do this, I can bear anything!" Clotold herself. "It wouldn't so much matter for me. I'd have killed himfor her sake--I believe. But for her it would be horrible!"
The girl remembered the blood on her fingers, which she had found aftertouching the lock of the brown trunk, and this remembrance gave herhope. The murderer must have passed that way, whereas Beverley had notbeen near the trunk. "Thank goodness for one good bit of evidence incase it's ever needed!" Clo thought. "Who knows but the murderer washiding in the trunk, and jumped in his fright when I plumped down on it?Well, if he did, he must either be smothered by now, since the trunk'sbeen locked since then, or else he's escaped. Oh, Angel, how could Idream for a minute it might have been you? And yet if this wretch wasdead then, who called 'Come in?'"
A wild impulse to run away seized the girl. She started toward the door,but stopped half way. No, she would not fail Angel. The man was dead. Hecould do her no harm. If Beverley's pearls, or if Beverley's papers,were in this room, no matter where, even if she had to touch thatblood-stained coat to search the pockets, she would not go without them.
The dark blind ought to be pulled down, because from some high windowshe might be seen and identified afterward, if trouble came of thisnight's work. To reach the blind she had to step over the feet whichsprawled beyond the chair; and stretching up her arm to touch the brokencord, she was conscious that her dress brushed the dead man's knees.
Next she went to the bed, and began turning over Peterson's miserablebelongings. She prayed that, by a miracle, she might come across thesealed envelope. As for the pearls, if the murderer were of the Petersontype, to steal them would have been his first thought. But--it wouldneed a stout-hearted criminal to go through the pockets of his victim,and if the motive were other than theft, it might be that the pearls andpapers were still on the body. If Clo failed to find them elsewhere shewould have to ransack those pockets. The thought was too horrible todwell upon. Frantically she tossed over the contents of the suitcase,lifting and shaking every garment scattered on the bed. She peered underthe pillows; she pulled out the drawers of wash-stand anddressing-table; but there was nothing to be found there, not even aletter, not a torn morsel of paper which could serve Beverley's cause.Clo's spirit groaned a prayer for strength when at last--sick andshaking, her palms damp--she had to set about the pillage of the deadman's pockets. Some she needed merely to touch with her finger ends, tomake sure that they were empty. Others had to be searched to theirdepths: and the girl felt convinced that she would die if in the horridbusiness she plunged a hand into some unseen sop of blood.
From a waistcoat pocket she pulled out a small leather cigarette case,still warm from the wearer's breast--another proof, if she had letherself think of it, that he had not long been dead. In the leathercase, behind a store of tightly packed cigarettes, was a card--thecheapest sort of visiting card, on which, scrawled in pencil, was thename Lorenz Czerny. On the back of this card, in a differenthandwriting, but also in pencil, a memorandum had been scribbled. Aglance showed Clo that it consisted of names, abbreviated addresses, andthe hours of appointments, or perhaps of trains. She did not stop toexamine the card thoroughly, but slipped it into her pocket for futurereference, and went on with her task.
The sealed envelope she sought was too large not to protrude over thetop of any pocket of a man's indoor coat; but Clo reflected that theenvelope might have been destroyed, and the contents distributed, orfolded into smaller compass. With this idea she spared herself nothingin her quest; but the sole reward she had (save for the cigarette case)was the finding of a paragraph cut from a newspaper, a roll ofblood-stained greenbacks, which she hastily replaced, and a torn silkhandkerchief. The newspaper cutting told of Roger Sands' magnificenthouse in Newport, whither he and his "beautiful young bride" wouldshortly move. This also Clo annexed, in order that no connection shouldseem to exist between Beverley Sands and the man Peterson when thepolice got to work. The handkerchief she took from the coat pocket intowhich it had been untidily stuffed, in order to search underneath. Butthe nervous jerk she gave pulled out something else also--somethingsmall, which fell to the floor with a tinkle as of a tiny stone strikingwood, when it touched a chair leg, and rolled under the chest ofdrawers. Clo had not time to see what the thing was. There was only aflashing glimpse of a pebble-like object as it disappeared. But herheart leaped at the thought of what it might be. Thrusting the raggedhandkerchief into a pocket already examined, she had just stooped topeer under the clumsy piece of furniture when a telephone bell began toring.
The girl sprang to her feet, quivering and alert. It seemed that thebell had rung almost in her ear. Someone was calling for Peterson!
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