Murder by an Aristocrat

by Mignon G. Eberhart

  “But if Dave killed Bayard, what about the diamonds?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t understand about the diamonds. But I think that someone in the family put them in that jar of bath salts merely because they would be thought to be quite safe there. It would have to be someone who knew I don’t use bath salts.”

  “You don’t think, then, that it was a deliberate attempt to make it look as though you had taken the diamonds?”

  I could feel her astonishment.

  “Oh, no,” she said after a moment. “Why should anyone do that? There would be no point in my taking the family diamonds. Many of them were to come to Dave’s wife anyway — were, in fact, already mine. Oh, no, it wasn’t that. I think — perhaps I ought not to tell you this, Miss Keate, but I think that Adela or Evelyn somehow managed to get the diamonds out of the safe merely to give an appearance of burglary. I know,” she said sadly, “that we all feared Dave had killed Bayard and tried to shield him.”

  “What were the circumstances of Dave’s first attack upon Bayard? You told me you didn’t know why they quarreled, but can’t you think of anything that might have caused trouble between them?”

  “I didn’t know when I talked to you before, Miss Keate, but now I believe I know. I think Bayard was supplying Dave with veronal. The drug is hard to get in this state, you know. And there’s nothing Bayard would have liked better than to ruin Dave — or Hilary, or both. He’s always hated them. I suppose he was jealous of them. Or perhaps the whole thing dated back to something in their childhood. And Bayard was thoroughly bad. He was unbelievably bad.”

  “Why do you think Bayard was supplying Dave with veronal?”

  “I’m not sure that he was. I only heard a few words of their quarrel. But there’s nothing else they could have quarreled so dreadfully about. Dave hasn’t been well in a long time, and lately he’s been growing more and more unlike himself. Of course, Adela and I knew, though we never talked of it, that he was taking some drug. I thought it was morphine, though I could never be sure. We did everything we could to distract and amuse him. We watched him so carefully. We tried everything. It’s been rather bad here for the last two years, Miss Keate.”

  She paused, staring thoughtfully into the shadows for a moment before she continued sadly:

  “I don’t know whether Hilary knew or not. It was nothing we liked openly to discuss. I suspected Bayard, but not for any definite reasons; it was a sort of instinct. I dreaded his visits here. But when Florrie took veronal by mistake, and you said you had had no veronal, and I knew that Bayard had hidden my letter in your bag, I felt sure that he had also hidden the veronal in your bag. He had had access to it, and he would know it was not safe to keep the drug openly about the room while he was ill. If he was furnishing veronal to Dave he would undoubtedly ask a large price for it. What more likely than that he asked more than Dave would pay? Or held back a supply of the drug? If poor Dave was like drug addicts usually are, he would be frantic for it. That’s my explanation for Dave’s frenzied quarrel with Bayard. I think Bayard goaded Dave until Dave was beside himself. Poor Dave — he must have hated himself, and he must have hated Bayard for the hold he had. Do you think I am right?”

  “It sounds quite likely that Bayard supplied him with veronal,” I said. “And if Bayard hid your letter in my bag, which is the only reasonable thing to suppose, he could easily have hidden the veronal he had with him in the same place. He would think it a safe place in case anyone searched his room. But, of course, if this has been going on for two years or more, they must have had some systematic system of supply. Just what happened the night Bayard was shot and Dr. Bouligny called me?”

  “I don’t know exactly. They were in Bayard’s room, Dave and Bayard. I couldn’t sleep that night, and I had heard Dave moving about in his room and the door into the hall closing as I supposed he left the room. In a short time I heard him come back, and pull open a drawer, and then leave again. He seemed hurried, and I don’t know why I immediately thought he’d come back for his revolver. But that’s what I thought, and I hurried out of bed and after him. It had taken me a moment to get into a dressing gown and slippers, and Dave was already in Bayard’s room when I reached the hall. Adela must have been awake, too, for just as I passed her door it opened, and she came out, and before we had time to speak we heard —”

  Again she steadied herself.

  “We heard a revolver shot. It was so loud — I can’t tell you how dreadful it was. We ran to Bayard’s room, and Dave was standing there aiming the revolver again, and Bayard was swearing terribly and had his hand over his shoulder, and it was bleeding all on his pajama coat. And Dave looked white and dazed, as if he didn’t know what he was doing. As if he were another person. Adela ran and seized his arm and I managed to get the revolver away from him and out of sight while Adela talked to him. When I came back Dave was beginning to look less queer, and Adela took him to his room, and I looked at Bayard’s shoulder and put cold water on it, and by that time Emmeline and Florrie were in the hall, and Adela was back, and she told them what we told everyone. That Bayard had had an accident. It was foolish, of course, but we couldn’t say Dave shot him. Adela sent Florrie to telephone to Dr. Dan, and he came right away and dressed the wound and said Bayard would recover. That he was not seriously wounded. What a relief that was!”

  “But didn’t Dave explain why he had tried to kill Bayard?”

  “No. No. He said nothing. That made it worse, somehow. You must have seen how frightened Adela and I were. We were desperately afraid Dave would attack Bayard again. We tried to hide our fear, act as if there was nothing. We tried to keep the two men apart. Adela insisted on a nurse coming in the hope that she would — that your presence would in a measure protect Bayard. And thus protect Dave; it was Dave we cared for. Poor Dave.”

  She sighed, and after a moment said thoughtfully:

  “I was very young, you know, when I married. I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything about love. I didn’t know —”

  She paused, her face turned a little away from me as if the darkness were kind to her. The moonlight lay, by that time, white on the roses, and the fragrance was heavy and sweet, and the shadow over the bench black and soft and cool. Janice said in a voice that was not steady:

  “You are very good to me, Miss Keate.”

  “I? Nonsense!” I said brusquely. And repeated, “Nonsense!”

  She moved, took a long breath, and said gravely:

  “Is there anything else, Miss Keate? I want you to know the whole truth.”

  “Well, yes, there is,” I said promptly. “There are several things, in fact. It was you who tried to enter Bayard’s room from the hall that first night I was here, wasn’t it? You tried the doorknob, and while I was unlocking the door returned to your room and watched me in the mirror?”

  “Yes,” she admitted at once. “I didn’t think Bayard would need night care, so I supposed you were in your own room. I hoped, of course, that I could get into the room and by some lucky chance discover my letter while Bayard was asleep. I knew that Dr. Dan must have given him a bromide, and I thought there might be some small chance of my success. I was desperate, or I wouldn’t have tried.”

  “Who then was on the balcony that night?”

  “What do you mean? Was someone on the balcony?”

  I did not explain. At a sudden memory I said:

  “Had the dog followed you to Bayard’s door? I thought I heard a sort of panting sound. Like a dog on a hot day.”

  “Yes,” said Janice and added, “It was rather horrible, wasn’t it? I felt so furtive. Stealthy. Ashamed. It seemed to me even Pansy must know what I was doing and why.”

  The moonlight was so clear on us then that I could see her face quite definitely. Her lovely sad face, and her slender white arms, and the soft outlines of her frock. She was twisting a fold of the white silk nervously in her fingers, twisting and folding it tightly. I watched her idly for a moment. Then I jumped to my feet.
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  A new and amazing theory had flashed into my mind.

  That piece of tightly folded paper that I had found on the Sarouk rug there in Dave’s study — had found there immediately after Bayard’s death was discovered.

  Could it possibly mean what I thought it might mean?

  CHAPTER XVII

  Janice murmured something in surprise at my abrupt motion, and I suppose I replied. I don’t know what I said, for I was only anxious to get to my room. I left her sitting there among the roses, with the moonlight soft on her beauty. As I reached the lawn I met Allen. He looked grave but very tall and cool and resourceful, and his eyes were shining.

  As I emerged from the shadows of the shrubbery he said quickly and eagerly:

  “Is it you —” and in a different tone, “Oh, Miss Keate. I caught the flash of your white skirt there in the shadow. I thought —” he stopped abruptly, and I did something that, considering the circumstances, was in very bad taste. I said, “She’s in the rose garden,” and walked rapidly toward the house.

  I had no romantic notion that Janice and Allen would fall promptly into each other’s arms. Thoughts travel swiftly, and they could not have failed to realize what Dave’s death meant to them. But Janice was a sensitive woman; she had temperament and pride. All Allen could do then was give her the comfort of his presence; talk to her of the things that must be done; love her and protect her and try to shield her.

  In my unwontedly tender mood I found myself strolling with slower and slower steps across the moonlit lawn, thinking of the two in the rose garden and of the soft dusky shadows and of what they might be saying and feeling.

  Once at the door, however, I walked hurriedly through the still, polished spaces of the hall, up the dim stairway with its gleaming handrail, and toward my own room. As I passed Adela’s door it opened and Dr. Bouligny emerged.

  “Ah, Miss Keate,” he said. “We have finally got Miss Thatcher to sleep. I think she’ll rest all night, but you’d better take your room next to hers here, in case she needs you during the night. I’ve left a sedative if she needs it. Florrie is quite recovered; I just went up to see her; she can be up and about her work tomorrow.”

  I assented and watched his thick figure move along the hall toward the stairway. He looked old and weary; his shoulders were stooped, and his body sagged, and he went slowly down the stairs.

  I turned into my own room.

  Owing to the delay there had been about getting my supply of fresh uniforms the wrinkled and soiled uniforms I had worn had still not been sent down to be laundered. I hunted feverishly among them, diving into the pockets rapidly, and in only a moment or two found what I sought, the little tightly folded piece of paper I had picked up there in the study immediately after we had found Bayard dead.

  Adela had been telephoning, I remembered. And I remembered, too, how she had first asked me to telephone for the doctor and then had changed her mind suddenly and said, “No, I’ll go.” And I had followed her into the small room and had picked up almost at her feet that tiny folded paper.

  There was one way to attempt a proof of the amazing explanation that had occurred to me.

  I glanced at my watch. It was something after eleven, and the house had been very silent when I came upstairs. In all probability I could do what I wished to do without being seen, and an inner voice cautioned me that it would not be well for me to be seen.

  I waited for a long time. I heard Janice’s light step go past my door. I thought I heard Evelyn’s voice speaking to Hilary and his reply before another door closed with a decisiveness which led me to think that Evelyn’s hand had propelled it. I waited until the moon was high and white and the whole house had sunk into complete stillness — as complete a silence as if there were not another living soul besides myself in its dark, wide old walls.

  When I finally ventured from the comparative safety of my own room into the silent gleaming spaces of the hall, the rustle of my uniform sounded loud and sharp through the stillness. I felt uneasy, as if eyes were watching me from some place, and it was difficult to plunge into the dark stair well. And yet I was going on no errand of positive danger. I was not, I certainly hoped, going to meet Bayard’s murderer. I was only going to the telephone in Dave’s study.

  The lower hall was as usual dimly lighted, but the drawing rooms, so peaceful by day, were by night great black caverns, and at the door of the library I hesitated. It was all so silent. So black. The room so large. And over there by the table we had found Bayard’s body.

  I sought for but did not find the button which would turn on the electric light. Finally, my eyes becoming more accustomed to the darkness, and finding that the reflected moonlight from the white lawn actually served faintly to dispel the blackness in the room, I gave up trying to find the light and groped my way across to the study door. The furniture along the way loomed up dimly black and solid, and I felt, absurdly perhaps, that almost any dreadful thing might be crouching behind the davenport or in the shadow of the great leather chairs, or even behind the carved oak screen at the fireplace. But I did reach the study door, opened it, and entered.

  There I had no difficulty in discovering the light switch, although a moment of panic caught me and brought my heart pounding to my throat as I brushed against the foot of the couch where Dave’s body had lain.

  The desk light, shaded with green, sprang into view and lighted softly the small room. The telephone stood beside it on the desk.

  I took a long breath. A moment more, and my errand would be accomplished, and I would be free to take to my heels if I wished and fly from those horror-laden shadows.

  I took the tightly folded paper from my pocket and bent over the telephone.

  After an absorbed moment or two I straightened up. I did not know whether I felt sad or triumphant. But I did know the truth about the telephone.

  The instrument was an old-fashioned desk set, with a mouthpiece on a standard and a separate receiver which hangs on its hook when the telephone is not in use and which, on being lifted, automatically connects the telephone. That tightly folded wad of paper fitted exactly into the narrow slot along which the hook moves up and down.

  I sank into a chair near the desk and sat there staring at the telephone. I inserted the paper above the hook and took down the receiver as if about to telephone, and there was, of course, no connection: I might dial as long as I liked and get no one.

  I inserted the paper below the hook; the receiver might, in that case, be left on the hook, but, since it was an automatic telephone, anyone might call that number indefinitely and still get the busy signal.

  But when I entered the study, following Adela, just after the discovery of Bayard’s death, she had been using the telephone, and the wad of paper was at my feet. And I had heard from Janice and Evelyn no mention at all of the telephone; they had not said that Bayard had the telephone in his hand; had not, in the shock of discovery, appeared to have so much as looked at the telephone.

  There was only one thing that was clear in my mind, but it was highly significant. And that was that Adela’s telephone conversation with Bayard — which, in my mind, and I’m sure in others, had gone so far to establish a conviction that Bayard had been murdered after Adela and Janice had left the house — might possibly have been no conversation at all. I had heard the telephone ring, it is true, and I had so distinctly heard it break off in the middle of one of its peals that I was sure someone had answered it. But a child would have known that if the connection at the other telephone had been suddenly broken, the bell of this telephone would instantaneously stop ringing.

  If that folded piece of paper meant what I thought it meant, Adela’s story of the telephone conversation with Bayard after every one of the Thatchers was out of the house meant precisely nothing.

  Or, rather, it meant that Bayard was dead before Adela left the house. Before Adela, clad in her dainty lavender frock with her eyeglasses dangling from their ribbon and her parasol carefully lifted to shield
her from the sun, had walked composedly along the broad turf path on her way to the Benevolent Aid Society.

  It was not possible. It was not, I repeated to myself, possible.

  But if it were true we must reconstruct the whole story of the crime. In the first place, it automatically released Hilary from suspicion. But then, if Bayard was already dead when Adela left the house that afternoon and she had arranged that contrivance on the telephone — what did that mean? I leaned my head on my hand and stared at the rich tones of the small Sarouk rug. The rug which still bore, hidden in its thick nap and concealed by the small, tightly interwoven figures, the stain of Bayard’s blood.

  If Bayard was dead when Adela left the house that afternoon, the field of suspects was thereby still more limited. With my own eyes I had seen Allen and Dave leave the house. Bayard had sent me to the arbor. Only Janice and Adela were in the house with him. And Florrie.

  Florrie. But Florrie had left the house before Janice came out of it with her baskets over her arms and her small white hat on her head, and from Janice’s story, as I had heard it that night, I had received a distinct impression that Janice had come directly from her brief and unpleasant interview with Bayard out of the house, into the garden to cut the flowers for Mrs. Steadway, and thence to the garage and away. If Janice had come directly from Bayard she had talked to him after Florrie had left the house.

  There were still Higby and Emmeline; they were always to be included among that extremely short list of possible suspects, but in spite of Hilary’s spirited and rather ingenuous defense of himself that very afternoon — a defense which, of course, was based upon the possible guilt of either Emmeline or Higby — I did not feel that either of the two was guilty. The small incident of the silver spoon on the floor of the library, upside down with a sticky little pool of purple jelly under it, went a long way in my mind toward proving Emmeline’s innocence of the crime. It was too trivial a thing to have been deliberately evolved; if Emmeline had been set upon proving her innocence of Bayard’s death she would have arrived at some far more ambitious a plan.