Murder by an Aristocrat

by Mignon G. Eberhart

  “You mean,” I said, “that you really want me to ask any questions that occur to me? To make any inquiry I wish to make?”

  She looked relieved; I suppose because that was exactly what she did want. That was the only way in which I could be convinced.

  “That is exactly it, Miss Keate,” she said. “Please don’t hesitate at all. Don’t feel that any inquiry is at all —” She floundered a little and then adroitly skirted the dangerous ground. “You see, you have so much clearer a viewpoint than I. You are so much more apt to think of the obvious. — Oh, there you are, Emmeline. Come in, please. You may sit down. Emmeline,” as the gaunt woman sat stiffly and uncomfortably on the edge of a chair, glanced with distrust at me, and then back to Adela’s mouth, “Emmeline, I want to ask you a few questions about — about the afternoon of the robbery, and I want you to answer freely. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Emmeline hoarsely, with another side glance at me, and her hands working in her white-aproned lap.

  There was a brief pause while Adela formulated her questions, and I remember wondering that Adela dared undertake such a dangerous campaign. Was she really convinced that her family — every member of it — was innocent? Or could it be that she knew who had murdered Bayard? Knew and counted on her powers to protect him?

  “You were making jelly in the back kitchen that afternoon. Did you see anybody at all besides Higby all that afternoon?”

  “No, ma’am, not a soul.”

  “But of course you were not at the window of the kitchen all that time?”

  “Why, yes, ma’am, I was.”

  “But, Emmeline, you couldn’t have been at the window every moment.” Adela’s face was granite again, her blue eyes like two stones. How she must have longed to beat down Emmeline’s testimony; yet she had not asked the woman to lie.

  “Why, yes, ma’am,” said Emmeline. “I was. Higby gets lazy when the weather gets warm. And Miss Janice had told me you would all be gone that afternoon and I’d better keep an eye on him. So I just brought all the sugar and glasses and strainers and everything I would need to the long table below the window. I had the little stove right there too — you know how wide the windows are, Miss Adela — so there was no need for me to leave at all. And I kept an eye on him all the time like I said I would. He knew it, too. And worked right along.”

  “You can see the back door from there?”

  “Why, of course. You know that, Miss Adela. You can’t help seeing the back door. It’s right square in front of the window. No, ma’am, nobody went in that back door. There was nobody at all around the back of the house that whole afternoon, ma’am. I’m sure of it.”

  Adela’s face looked gray and old and tired. But she was still stately and unmoved.

  “Can you see the library windows from the back kitchen?”

  Emmeline looked scornful.

  “You know I can’t, ma’am.”

  “Then anybody could have entered the library windows without your seeing him?”

  Emmeline did not understand her immediately, and the question had to be repeated. It was just at that moment, I believe, that Pansy waddled across the room, looked at me suspiciously like a cranky little old woman, and settled with a tired puff at Adela’s feet.

  “Why, yes, Miss Adela, I suppose so. But Higby was out there on the lawn all afternoon. I know that. I can see most of the lawn, you know, and nobody could have crossed it without my seeing him. Unless he came from the front, and then Higby —”

  “We’ll let Higby speak for himself,” said Adela rather sharply. “That is all, Emmeline — unless — Miss Keate?”

  “When she came in through the house and found Bayard dead here in the library, did she see anybody? Was the house quite deserted?”

  Adela looked approving; she put my question to Emmeline at once.

  “No,” said Emmeline. “There was nobody about. I’d have seen him if there was. I have to let my eyes make up for my ears.”

  “Did you look through the rooms downstairs? Or upstairs?”

  “Why, of course not. You know what I did. When I passed the library door and looked in and saw him — right there where you are sitting, Miss Keate, ma’am — I ran in to look at him. Right there on the floor he was. Dead as a doornail. I dropped my spoonful of jelly and ran outdoors, and there you was on the steps. I’ve told you all that.”

  “You see, Miss Keate, someone could have been hiding here without Emmeline’s knowing it. Although I really think the burglar made his escape immediately. Is there anything else you think of?”

  “Not just now,” I said slowly, thinking how difficult it was going to be to ask the things I really wanted to know without bringing somewhat dangerous suspicion on my own head. What would they do, what would they say, when they discovered all those things I knew!

  “Very well, Emmeline. That is all. Higby is on the east lawn. Will you send him here, please.”

  We were silent while we waited; Adela stared out on the lawn with unseeing blue eyes. I could not know what she thought of Emmeline’s stubborn refusal to admit the possibility of the fictitious burglar having got past her sharp eyes. It was one of the ironies of life that so short a time was to elapse before Adela was to be so frantically glad for that stubborn refusal. But she couldn’t know that, then, and I wondered what her thoughts were as we sat there waiting for Higby.

  Higby was easier to confuse. Probably Adela’s bland stateliness awed him. He began by saying that not a fly could have got into the library windows without his, Higby’s, seeing it, and ended by admitting that there were many times when his back was of necessity turned to those windows.

  “But there’s no shrubbery near the house, Miss Adela, except there in front. And my back would be turned only for a moment or two at a time.”

  “Much can happen in a moment,” said Adela. “Don’t you agree with me, Miss Keate, that the burglar could have made his entrance into the house without Higby’s seeing him?”

  “I don’t think anybody could —” began Higby helplessly, and stopped on encountering Adela’s cold blue gaze.

  “There’s only this,” I said slowly. “A thief would have had to approach the windows from the back or front of the house. Since there are no side doors, he couldn’t have entered that way. And Emmeline is positive no one was at the back of the house. And I am equally positive no one came from the front of the house. Between the three of us the whole circuit of the house was under observation.”

  Adela always knew when to agree.

  “That’s quite true, Miss Keate. But don’t you think it possible for an intruder to have somehow managed to approach the house from the west?”

  “No, ma’am,” said Higby, sticking to his guns for a rather brief moment. “I know nobody did.”

  “But you were mowing the lawn continuously,” reminded Adela affably.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Higby, looking uncomfortable and shifting about on his feet.

  “And in pushing the lawnmower up and down the stretches of lawn your back was often turned to the windows and to the lawn itself at different angles. And you were paying attention to your work.”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am,” said Higby looking further discomfited.

  “You see, Miss Keate,” said Adela blandly, “he was watching his work all the time. Probably paid little attention to anything else. It seems very clear to me that someone could have run across the lawn back of him, watched his chance, likely, to do so, and then slipped into the house. These screens, you see, can be unhooked and opened quite readily. And closed as readily. Thieves are very adept at that sort of thing. Do you think of anything you’d like to ask? Do you feel quite convinced?”

  “Were the screens, then, closed when they examined the house after Bayard’s — death?”

  “Why, really,” said Adela politely, “I don’t know. I don’t believe anyone thought to look. They can be opened and closed so readily.” Her bland voice trailed away into space as if my ques
tion had not been of much interest.

  “But, ma’am,” said Higby, lingering, “I don’t think — I’m sure nobody — it ain’t possible for anybody to cross that wide strip of open lawn —”

  “But you’ve already said it was possible, Higby,” said Adela pleasantly. “I’m afraid we can’t depend upon your testimony at all, if you change about like this. You may go now,” she concluded loftily. And added, “Thank you,” in a way that sent Higby, crushed, out of the room. He stopped in the doorway to say again, in the manner of one who fires his last shot but knows in his heart it will have no effect, “But nobody did —” and Adela murmured, “That is all.” He disappeared, vanquished, and she smiled at me.

  “I’m afraid poor Higby isn’t too certain of anything. That type seldom is. He and his family would have starved long ago if we hadn’t found something for him to do. But he doesn’t like to work. Has to be watched and directed every moment.”

  Emmeline stood in the doorway and approached.

  “Mrs. Steadway calling, ma’am.”

  I think Adela was glad for the respite. She said affably:

  “Ask her to come in here, Emmeline. It’s the wife of the man who manages the east farm,” she said in an explanatory way to me. “Very worthy people, they are. We’ve never had better on that farm. Oh, good afternoon, Mrs. Steadway. Come in. It’s good of you to come.”

  “I’d have come long ago, Miss Adela, but I’ve been busy with the canning. We are so sorry to hear about the trouble you’ve had.”

  She was a fresh-faced woman, large and neat and capable looking, but a little uncomfortable under Adela’s eyeglasses and graciousness.

  “Do sit down, Mrs. Steadway. This is my nurse, Miss Keate. Yes, it’s been a great shock to me. To us all.”

  “That’s what I told my husband. Miss Janice was out to the farm that very afternoon for butter and eggs. I guess she didn’t dream what was happening here.”

  “No. No. Dear Janice. Such a shock.”

  Adela sat erect and stately in the high-backed chair regarding her caller through her eyeglasses. There was a short silence. Mrs. Steadway’s faint look of discomfort became more acute. She moved uneasily in her chair, glanced at me, glanced at Adela, hunted for something to say.

  “Yes, that’s what I told my husband. I said, she didn’t dream what was happening here while she stopped her car there on the hill above the farm and talked to young Mr. Carick.”

  CHAPTER XIII

  In all probability Mrs. Steadway has never known the fateful part she played in the Thatcher case. Indeed, it was imperative from Adela’s viewpoint that she should not know. This was apparent even in that first moment of shocked astonishment following the unexpected revelation, while I watched Adela’s face lose its careful graciousness and become stiffly blank. The swift, anxious drawing together of her reserves to meet this new development was so visible to me that I marveled that our caller could sit there, still with that air of timid politeness, entirely unaware of the crushing blow she had dealt.

  “You mean Allen Carick?” said Adela stiffly. “He is visiting my brother Mr. Thatcher and his wife. He is Evelyn’s brother, you know. We are all very fond of Allen,” she said deliberately, and then, because she had to know, she added, “Dave — my brother Dave — was with him.”

  “Oh, no,” said Mrs. Steadway, only too glad to relieve her awkward discomfort with conversation. “No, he wasn’t there. There was just Mr. Carick. He was driving Frank Whiting’s old roadster, and when I saw the car stop there beside the coupé Miss Janice was driving I thought it must be Frank Whiting, and I wondered if somebody had died out our way. Then I saw Mr. Carick get out; he went and leaned against the door of the coupé, and they talked for quite a while. But young Mr. Thatcher wasn’t with him.”

  “Yes. Yes. We are all so fond of Allen,” repeated Adela with blue lips. “Hilary bought the old roadster of Mr. Whiting for the boys to use. They will soon be home for the rest of the summer. How did you get along with your canning? Things are early this year, aren’t they?”

  And she sat there, fumbling with her blue beads, looking at her caller with bleak blue eyes, still stately, still gracious, somehow asking questions of the farm and listening to their replies and finally permitting the conversation to lapse suggestively. Mrs. Steadway’s skirt had scarcely vanished into the hall before Adela rose with a soft rustling of lavender silk, gave me a blank look that might have meant anything, and walked slowly to the door of Dave’s study.

  She knocked, listened for a moment, and returned slowly to her chair.

  “I don’t like to disturb him,” she said to me. “He hasn’t been well lately. But of course I must ask him — I thought they were together all afternoon. Fishing. He and Allen. But Emmeline said no one came — Oh, Janice. It’s you. Come in, my dear.”

  Janice hesitated for a moment, sensing, I think, something in the atmosphere, for she looked swiftly from Adela to me and back again and said:

  “Is anything wrong?”

  “No. No. Only, Janice — Mrs. Steadway was here just now, and she happened to mention that Allen met you on the hill above the farm the afternoon Bayard was killed. And that Dave — Dave was not with him. Is that true?”

  Janice walked slowly toward us, her plain white dress, rather severely tailored, showing the graceful lines of her young body. Her face had for an instant flamed into beauty, as if the recollection of those few moments was so sweet that their loveliness could not be denied even at such an anxious moment. Then the beauty was gone, and she looked tired and a little frightened. She sat down, her hands going out to clasp the arms of the chair. The light from the west windows was on her face and showed rather cruelly the purple marks under her eyes, and caught a high light from her slender wedding ring.

  “Yes,” she said.

  Adela looked bewildered, frightened, and hard.

  “But you didn’t mention it before. We all thought Dave and Allen were together the entire afternoon.”

  “No, I didn’t mention it. We, Allen and I, thought it better not to. And Dave said nothing. Under the circumstances, we thought it as well to let people suppose what you all assumed was true. That Allen and Dave had been together all afternoon. It was only to prevent unpleasant comment or — questions.”

  “Then, Janice, where was Dave?”

  “I don’t know.” The girl glanced doubtfully at me.

  Adela closed her eyes for a moment as if to summon strength.

  “Speak freely before Miss Keate, Janice. I know that none of my family is in any way connected with — with Bayard’s death. I know it so well that I am undertaking to prove it. I want Miss Keate to hear everything. I am convinced that she can hear everything.”

  “I don’t know where Dave was,” said Janice slowly. “And he’s not been feeling well lately — I didn’t like to ask him. Allen said when I met him there above the farm that Dave had found it pretty warm fishing and said he’d take a walk. That it would help his head. So Allen took the roadster, drove out toward the farm, met me just leaving. We talked a while, and then he drove back to the lake and met Dave. Dave said his headache was gone and they both fished until — well, until they came back to the house. And found us all — here in the library.”

  “Dave took a walk?” said Adela. “Where did he go?”

  The eyes of the two women met.

  “I don’t know,” said Janice. “But — of course, he didn’t come back to the house. Emmeline would have seen him. Or Higby. Or Miss Keate.”

  “That’s true,” said Adela at once. “That’s quite true. He couldn’t have walked in this direction. I’ll ask him, though. I should have known this long ago; yet you and Allen were right not to speak of it. It was quite unnecessary to mention. Janice, dear, do you mind answering a few questions?”

  “Not at all, Adela. You mean questions about —”

  “About Bayard, my dear.”

  “Oh. About Bayard.” Janice’s white fingers seemed to clutch the a
rms of her chair. There was no beauty now in her face. But there was a certain comprehension, as if she guessed Adela’s purpose. And there was also a guarded look I did not like to see. “Very well, Adela.”

  But Adela, resolute though she was with her bleak eyes and the granite in her face, found her inquiries difficult. She sat there, drawing the blank blue beads through her blunt fingers. Presently she said:

  “Janice, the afternoon Bayard was killed, when we — you and I — returned home late in the afternoon, I walked down among the flowers, and you took the baskets and went directly to the house. What did you do?”

  Very white was Janice now, her slender fingers taut.

  “I took the baskets to the kitchen and went up the back stairs.”

  “Where did you leave the baskets?”

  “I put the egg basket in the refrigerator. The basket with the butter and buttermilk I left on the table for Emmeline to empty.”

  “When you went past the door of the library — this door — did you — Oh, Janice, my dear, I can’t question you like this. Won’t you tell me the truth? Wasn’t Bayard dead — here on the rug — then?”

  Janice rose, walked to the door of Dave’s study, listened for a moment, then walked slowly back, her dark head bent. She looked grave and yet steady.

  “Is Dave in his study?” she asked Adela.

  “Yes, I believe so. I haven’t seen the poor boy since breakfast. I’m afraid he’s got one of his headaches, but I don’t like to disturb him. He may be asleep. He sleeps so wretchedly. I shouldn’t like to wake him if he’s actually getting any rest.” Something about protesting too much went vaguely through my head, though I couldn’t have told why.

  Janice had stopped beside a chair, her hands moving over its high carved back.

  “He’s not been at all well,” she said thoughtfully. “I’m afraid he’s taken Bayard’s death badly. None of us blames him for it. Yes, Adela, Bayard was dead when I came through the hall.”