Murder by an Aristocrat

by Mignon G. Eberhart

  Some of the hard lines disappeared from Adela’s face as if she had fought a battle and won.

  “And you came in and bent to look at him?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you had on — forgive me, dear, but I must ask it — you had on your white felt hat? And you bent and — and touched him to be sure he was dead? And your fingers — that’s how the stain was on your hat?”

  Janice was looking somberly out the window; her eyes were large and dark in her white face, and it seemed to me I caught a flicker of horror in their depths.

  “Yes. That’s how it happened.”

  “And you were shocked. So shocked you didn’t know what you were doing. And frightened — as any sensitive girl would be frightened. You ran upstairs. Took off your hat. Heard Emmeline’s screams and came down again. And then in the excitement and hurry and commotion there was no occasion for you to tell that your own discovery had preceded Emmeline’s by a moment or two.”

  “No occasion,” said Janice in a stifled sort of way, still looking out onto the green summer lawn.

  “You see, Miss Keate? And then, Janice, you didn’t purposely hide your hat. I mean you didn’t hide it because of the — the stains on it. Did you?”

  “Not exactly hide it, Adela. But I — didn’t like the stains on it. I intended to clean it. In cold water, you know. But I didn’t have time. And of course, I didn’t want anyone to see it. But Florrie found it.” There was no apology, no suggestion of explanation in Janice’s voice. It was rather detached and remote, as if she were stating quite impersonal facts about something that was of very little interest to her. “That hat, you know, was the least of it.”

  “Then there is — the matter of the revolver, Janice darling. You see, Emmeline found it. Brought it to me. Miss Keate was with me at the time. We — you — you didn’t —”

  Suddenly the detached manner left Janice. Her face became full of life and she turned swiftly toward Adela.

  “Don’t ask me about the revolver, Adela,” she said almost fiercely. “Don’t ask me that. You see, I don’t lie very well.”

  Adela stood, stately, a little severe in her lavender silk with her eyeglasses catching the light.

  “I’m not asking you to lie, Janice,” she said. “I only want you to tell me the truth. The truth is the only thing that can save us.”

  The two women faced each other for a long moment. Each so resolute, each so proudly unbent; Janice’s swift steel matched against Adela’s sturdy, rocklike determination.

  Finally Janice said:

  “You don’t know — you can’t know what you are asking.”

  I believe, just for the moment, they had forgotten me.

  “But I do know. I know. Why don’t you tell me the truth? None of you will tell me. I feel you are all keeping something back. You and Hilary and Evelyn — all of you. As if I were a helpless old woman. And I’m not. It’s my house. It’s my family. I must know.” Adela’s blunt white hands were shaking. It was the only time I saw her drop that impregnable shield of dignity with which she faced her family and the world.

  Her appeal touched Janice. I could see the girl’s face soften; I felt she was about to speak. It was curiously tantalizing, like a play, that Evelyn should appear in the doorway at exactly that moment and enter.

  Both Adela and Janice turned at the sound of her footsteps. Evelyn’s dark blue eyes went rapidly from one to the other. She said, as Janice had said:

  “Is anything wrong?”

  “No,” said Janice.

  “Yes,” said Adela. “Why will none of you help me? I can’t do this alone.”

  Evelyn did not ask what. With her swift common sense she grasped the situation at once, I think. Perhaps Adela’s amazing moment of weakness shocked her as it did me.

  “We’ll do anything we can to help you, Adela,” she said calmly. “Good heavens, it’s warm this afternoon! Can’t Emmeline make us some iced tea? Never mind, Adela, I’ll speak to her.”

  It was very still in the library while Evelyn walked with her customary long, graceful strides to the door. Emmeline must have been near, for we could clearly hear Evelyn’s concise directions. Adela turned away from Janice and sat down again in her high-backed chair and resumed at once her beads and her dignity.

  And Janice, white and still, stood by the table, touching and arranging the roses in the big green bowl, with hands that trembled a little. Her eyes were still dark and wide and touched with horror, and I think she did not quite know what she was doing. Then Evelyn was back in the room, tossing her hat onto a chair and sitting down with a sigh.

  “Now, then,” she said, coolly matter-of-fact, “what is it you want me to do, Adela?”

  “I only want you to tell me the truth, Evelyn,” said Adela deliberately. She was again complete mistress of herself. “That is the only way in which I can prove —” She stopped, touched me with her cold blue eyes, and resumed, “We have no need to fear the truth.”

  Evelyn’s clear eyes went to me, too. She took off her gloves, stripping them off her brown hands with two quick gestures, touched her straight gold hair to be sure it was smooth and said:

  “I’ve just been up at the house. There was a letter from the boys. And one from Aunt Hetty. Allen and Hilary drove over with me; they are outside. They’ll be in, in a moment — here they are now.”

  “Good Lord, it’s hot,” said Hilary. He was pink and coatless, with dampish spots on his shirt.

  Allen took Adela’s hand gently.

  “Sit down, Allen,” said Adela. “You have come in good time. I want you — all of you — to help me.”

  Something in her voice caught Hilary’s quick attention. He stopped wiping his face with his handkerchief, glanced swiftly at Adela and sharply at me, and said at once:

  “Certainly, Adela. Certainly.”

  “You see,” said Adela, “I think we owe it to ourselves to prevent — any talk there may be about — Bayard’s death.”

  The last two words came out rather jerkily, as if with tremendous effort on Adela’s part. The room was very still for a moment — still, yet echoing those two words: Bayard’s death. Bayard’s death. It was as if it said: I know which of you killed him; are you going to tell? Are you going to be trapped?

  “Any unpleasant talk,” said Adela rather stiffly and stuck again, looking rather helplessly at Evelyn. And Evelyn, blessedly direct, said:

  “You mean people are apt to hint that one of us killed Bayard? Why, of course, they will. Probably have already. People aren’t going to pass up such a chance for talk. I think that’s very wise of you, Adela. It’s a good thing to prove to our own or any outsider’s satisfaction that none of us killed him. Isn’t that what you mean?”

  “Why — why, yes,” said Adela, taken rather off her feet, I think, by Evelyn’s blunt stating of the situation.

  “Go right ahead, Adela,” said Hilary a bit pompously. “I am ready for any inquiry you — or anyone else — choose to make.” He addressed Adela and looked at me. I’m sure that even if I had not overheard that family conference I would have known what they were attempting to do. Well, I might spare Janice if I could; I might even keep the affair of the diamonds a secret. But Hilary was, so to speak, a horse of another color.

  “Indeed,” continued Hilary. “You might like me to undertake this — er — inquiry. I’m more accustomed to matters of this sort.”

  “Thank you, Hilary,” said Adela tartly. “I’ll do it myself. The point just now is to get you all to tell me the truth. Not to try to hide things from me. We don’t fear the truth. Hilary, where was Bayard when you last talked to him?”

  “Here in the library.”

  “What did you talk of?”

  “Why, nothing much. I asked him how he felt. If there was anything I could do for him. Ah, here’s Emmeline with some iced tea. It certainly looks good.” It seemed to me his gusto was a little forced.

  Ice tinkled in the tall glasses. Emmeline, tall and black and spotles
sly aproned, passed the tray. The interruption gave us all a little rest from the growing tension. Adela sipped her tea delicately, slowly. As Emmeline put the tray on the table and went away, she said:

  “You and Bayard had had no trouble, had you, Hilary? If you had, you know, someone is bound to have heard of it. There are no secrets in C —.”

  “No, of course not,” said Hilary. He gulped some tea and continued: “That is, no more than we’d always had, and you know all about that. He wanted more money, but you knew that. He always wanted money. He’d been bleeding us white for years.”

  “Hilary! Don’t use such coarse expressions.” Adela was chalk gray. She set her glass carefully on the table and touched the turquoise beads. “It’s quite true, Miss Keate. I suppose everyone in the county knows that Bayard was — a source of much anxiety and trouble to us. He —”

  “He was an out-and-out scoundrel,” said Hilary, flushing as if the bare memory infuriated him. “Time after time we gave him money, started him in some kind of business, tried to establish him. He always failed, squandered the money, came back for more. And he always worked around us somehow to get it. If he couldn’t appeal to our sympathies he —” Hilary stopped abruptly, the frightened look coming into his eyes as they went quickly to Evelyn.

  “Perhaps you don’t know, Miss Keate,” said Evelyn, “how difficult it is to have someone like that in the family. We couldn’t permit him to disgrace our name. To do the things he would threaten to do. And then besides — I think we may as well tell her the whole truth about it, Hilary.”

  “Nonsense. There’s no need.”

  “I think there is. You see, Miss Keate, when Hilary was a boy he did something very silly. It was when he and Dave and Bayard were all in prep school together.”

  “Do you think there’s really any need to tell that, Evelyn?” asked Adela, her face looking old and shrunken, her blunt white hands pulling the beads back and forth, back and forth.

  “Yes,” said Evelyn sensibly. “It can’t do us any harm. We all know about it, and Hilary found the check in Bayard’s things and destroyed it. And if we don’t tell Miss Keate the truth after having gone so far, she’ll think it was something much worse than it is. It was only a boyish scrape, Miss Keate. Hilary had to have some money for something — something that seemed terribly urgent to him then.”

  “We’d been playing cards — gambling a little,” said Hilary, looking pompous and blustering and as shamefaced as if he were a boy in his teens again. “I lost, and the kid I owed threatened to tell the Head if I didn’t pay him. He — this kid — was leaving school anyhow, so he didn’t care. But I knew I’d be expelled. And I didn’t have a cent, and Adela would never send checks between our allowance checks unless she knew why we wanted extra money and approved of it. Bayard — how I don’t know — had some money in the bank, and I — well, I forged his name to a check.” He wiped his face again. It was strange to hear that man, with sons of his own, confessing the boyhood scrape. “It was only a small amount. We’d often amused ourselves — you know how kids are — writing and imitating each other’s signatures. But Bayard — Bayard kept the check. It was written in pencil; he erased the date and amount and kept it all these years, threatening to fill it in for a larger amount, a recent date, and prosecute. He couldn’t have got far with it — still I’m not sure. It would have raised an awful stink.”

  “Hilary!” said Adela in faint protest.

  “Well, you know, Adela, there’d have been plenty of people to jump at the chance to discredit me. For a banker it would have been —”

  “Then he was using that check to bring pressure just now?” I said.

  Hilary looked at me uncomfortably.

  “Yes. He wanted a large sum of money. Larger than I could give him. He thought it was a good time to squeeze.”

  “But Hilary, you didn’t quarrel with him. That last afternoon.”

  “No, Adela,” said Hilary heavily. “I didn’t quarrel with him.”

  “You didn’t —” it was Allen, standing at the window, his back to us, speaking rather softly. “You didn’t shoot him. For that.”

  Hilary leaped to his feet, his plump face crimson again.

  “God, no! He was a scoundrel. A disgrace to the family. But I wouldn’t have killed him. Good God, I couldn’t do that.”

  “You left him alive,” said Evelyn quickly. “As I found him. Remember, Allen, that I was the last one to see Bayard alive. That was after Hilary had talked to him.”

  Allen turned suddenly away from the window, walked to Evelyn, and put his hand under her chin, looking down at her upturned face and smiling a little into the steady dark blue eyes so like his own. The two bright heads shone above the two brown faces.

  “That’s all right then,” he said. “We all know you didn’t shoot him.”

  “Then,” said Hilary, “Bayard was alive when Evelyn left him. Dead when Emmeline found him not an hour later. No one of the family saw him during that time —”

  “You are wrong, Hilary,” said Janice. “I have just told Adela that when I returned from the farm and came into the house a few moments ahead of Adela I found him dead. I saw him dead before Emmeline found him.”

  “Janice —” Allen was at her side. We’d have been blind, all of us, not to have seen the love and fear in his face. But she pushed him away with steady hands.

  “No, I didn’t shoot him. But I’m glad he’s dead. I think we ought to stop this talk. We ought not to try to discover who did it. If it was one of the family, how much better not to —”

  “But, Janice,” said Adela hoarsely, as if her throat and mouth were numb, “it was not one of the family. It was the burglar. We are only proving —”

  “You ought not to have started this, Adela,” said Hilary agitatedly. “Better let sleeping dogs lie.”

  “You’ll have to let me do as I think best,” said Adela. “You were going to tell me, Janice, about the revolver.”

  “The revolver!” cried Hilary, bouncing to his feet again. “What revolver? What about it?”

  “I — I warned you not to ask me, Adela,” said Janice. Allen’s hands were out to hers.

  “Don’t talk, Janice. Don’t say anything —”

  “Hush, Allen. The revolver — was on the floor — beside Bayard. I put it in the egg basket — to hide it.”

  “The egg basket!” cried Hilary, quite frantic with bewilderment. “What on earth are you talking about? What do you mean? For heaven’s sake, speak up! Why did you hide it?”

  “Why did I hide it?” repeated Janice, as if we should have known. “Why, you see,” she said helplessly, “it was Dave’s. Dave’s revolver. He’d already shot Bayard once with it.”

  “Janice — Dave didn’t kill Bayard.” Adela was on her feet, her eyes like ice, her thickish body swaying a little. “You are out of your senses.”

  “Now, Adela, wait. It was natural for Janice to think it might have been Dave who shot him.” Allen was speaking rapidly, trying to get Adela’s attention. Giving them all time, I thought. “If she came in, saw Bayard had been shot, was dead, saw Dave’s revolver, of course her first thought would be that Dave might have shot him. She’s not saying he did. She doesn’t think Dave killed Bayard. She only acted hurriedly. Her first thought was to hide the revolver. To conceal the fact. She acted,” said Allen gravely and rather sadly, “only as a loyal wife. You ought to be the last to reproach her for it.”

  Evelyn stood.

  “I think we are letting things get away from us,” she said bluntly. “There’s no need of making a scene. We are talking too much and not getting any place. The burglar could have picked up Dave’s revolver and used it. Just because it was Dave’s revolver, there on the floor, doesn’t prove anything. Doesn’t prove Dave used it. Doesn’t even prove Bayard was killed by a bullet from that gun. Doesn’t prove anything. Janice was frightened and shocked and acted hurriedly. The burglar must have just escaped. I think we ought to concentrate on finding the bu
rglar. When I left, Bayard was alive. And Dave and Allen were together.”

  “Not all the afternoon, Evelyn,” said Adela. “I have just discovered that Dave took a walk alone, and Allen went for a drive, met Janice near the east farm, and they talked awhile. Mrs. Steadway happened to mention it. Janice and Allen thought it unwise to tell that, after all, Dave and Allen did not each have the complete alibi we all thought they had. Janice and Allen acted as they thought best. But it makes it difficult.”

  “But didn’t you meet again, Allen? You returned together. You came into the library together,” said Evelyn.

  “Yes,” replied Allen. “After leaving Janice I drove directly back to the lake, and Dave was there. We fished for quite a while and then came home together.”

  “Why, then, that’s all right,” said Evelyn, relieved. “You see, Adela, they were together from — what time, Allen?”

  “About four, or a little earlier,” said Allen. “And you left Bayard alive at ten after four. So you see, Adela, Dave’s alibi is still good.”

  “And yours too, incidentally, Allen,” said Hilary rather bitterly.

  Allen shrugged.

  “I can’t help that.”

  “That is right,” I said, addressing Evelyn. “You were here after four. I am sure of that, for I saw you. The burglar must have come after you were here. You just came to the door of the library, here, and glanced in?”

  “Yes,” said Evelyn.

  “Bayard was here?”

  “Yes. I didn’t speak to him. He didn’t see me.”

  “Oh, yes, I remember you said that. The burglar must have come in directly after. When you were here, was the safe open?”

  “Why, no,” said Evelyn, frowning. “I remember distinctly. It was closed.”

  “Evelyn!” shouted Hilary. “Good God, don’t you know what you’ve done? That woman has tricked you.” He was purple with rage. “She’s tricked you. You’ve admitted that Bayard was —” He stopped, thoroughly frightened now, staring at me, on the verge of apoplexy.

  “Why, no — I —” said Evelyn.