Murder by an Aristocrat

by Mignon G. Eberhart

  “You are in good time, Daniel,” she said. “The nurse has just hinted that Dave, too, was murdered.”

  Dr. Bouligny gave me a sharp look from under his bushy eyebrows.

  “Dave murdered!” he said in surprise. “Oh, no, Miss Keate. There is no question of that. Dave was a veronal addict. I have proved that beyond a doubt. Adela and Janice have known it for some time. I don’t know whether or not he took an overdose intentionally but I do know that no one could have given it to him without his knowledge. Florrie’s mistake came from ignorance; she knew nothing of veronal, and besides, was under the firm conviction that she was taking some kind of aspirin. It was an entirely different matter with Dave, as you can readily understand. The dose he took yesterday was his own doing. There’s no doubt of that. But, of course, I can’t say that it was with suicidal intent. I wish you had told me of Dave’s — illness.”

  “I wish I had, Daniel,” said Adela sadly, but she returned resolutely to me. “Does that answer your question, Miss Keate?”

  Well, it did in a measure; that is, I agreed with Dr. Bouligny and had agreed from the beginning. But that was not all of my question.

  “In part,” I said with dignity. “But where did he get the veronal?”

  Adela looked blankly at me, and Janice said slowly:

  “I suppose he must have got it from Bayard.”

  “But if Bayard was withholding a supply of veronal when they quarreled, and Dave needed it so badly that he was ready to kill Bayard for tantalizing him by not giving him the drug, why, Dave must have had none then. And I am sure Bayard and Dave were together only once, from the time I arrived until Bayard was found dead. And that one time was at the lunch table the afternoon Bayard was killed.”

  Allen said meditatively, “But you were not with Bayard every moment of the time, Miss Keate.”

  “His door was locked when I left him alone.”

  Hilary made an impatient gesture.

  “We are running up against something else we can’t possibly prove. But what became of the veronal in the box Florrie had?”

  “Evelyn took it,” said Dr. Bouligny. “Where is it, Evelyn?”

  “I don’t know,” said Evelyn. “I didn’t like to speak of it after Dave had died of veronal. You see, I don’t know what happened to it.”

  “What do you mean?” said Adela crisply. “Do try to speak plainly, Evelyn. I don’t understand you. Do you mean you had in your possession the remaining veronal tablets from the box Florrie had?”

  “Why, yes,” said Evelyn. “I saw the box lying there on the table by Florrie’s bed, and I thought that was a poor place for it. So I took it and left it on the dressing table in my room. But it —” she seemed to speak with an effort and avoided Hilary’s look — “it disappeared that night. Sunday night. And I don’t know who took it. I suppose it must have been Dave.”

  “Why on earth didn’t you tell me about that, Evelyn!” exploded Hilary.

  “Well,” said Evelyn, glancing at Allen as if for support, “I didn’t think it was the thing to do. I guessed, of course, that someone must take the drug habitually or it wouldn’t have been in the house. But I thought it would only make matters worse to try to discover who had taken it from my room and why. Things were bad enough,” said Evelyn rather miserably, “as they were.”

  “Now we’ll never know,” said Hilary impatiently. “You should have told me about it sooner, Evelyn. We’ll just have to suppose that Dave found the veronal and took it. That’s as near as we can come to it, and it must be the truth. I don’t think anyone will accuse Evelyn of inducing Dave to swallow the overdose of veronal —” He paused, rather in the fashion, half threatening, half suggestive, that a minister pauses when he says if anyone has a just objection to a marriage will “speak now or forever hold his peace.”

  Then he continued, “As Dan says, Dave must have taken the overdose himself. By his own hand. Couldn’t be any other way. We know he must have been out of the drug when he shot Bayard the first time, and that he certainly had it when he died. And that a rather large supply of veronal disappeared from Evelyn’s dressing table last Sunday. And that we have scarcely seen Dave during these four days. Those facts, put together, seem to me conclusive. I’m in favor of letting the whole thing drop. Now. Let Miss Keate go,” concluded Hilary, forgetting discretion just for an instant, “and drop the whole matter.”

  “But, Hilary,” said Adela, “you know what people will say. They’ll say Dave killed Bayard and then himself.”

  “Let them,” said Hilary grimly. “I only hope that’s what they’ll say. It’s the kindest thing we can hope for.”

  “I am leaving tomorrow morning,” I said. “I can be of no more assistance here, Dr. Bouligny, and I must go.”

  Dr. Bouligny looked uneasy but murmured, “Yes, yes, certainly, Miss Keate.” And Adela looked at me thoughtfully. I could almost see her revolving in her mind some plan for keeping me on until she was convinced that I would never be a danger to them. I said firmly:

  “I must go. It is quite impossible for me to remain any longer.”

  Adela glanced at Hilary and then at Evelyn. Apparently she received no help from either of them, and she said, “Certainly, Miss Keate. It’s been very good of you to stay with us this long. Especially under the — er — sad and trying circumstances.”

  Momentarily I wondered if she would actually give up her project or if she hoped yet, either to convince me of her burglar theory, or to induce me to give her more time. Or perhaps she hoped to prove to me that there was no solution; that it was impossible to arrive at the real truth of the matter and thus the murderer’s identity.

  “That,” repeated Hilary, harking back, “is the kindest thing people could say. That is, that Dave killed Bayard and then himself. It is hopeless to try to prove anything further. We could never prove anything to a jury. God knows I hope we’ll never have to try.”

  “You are right that far,” said Allen soberly. “The more we talk of it, the worse the tangle grows. We say the same things over and over again. Or we deny what we have already said. Now that Adela says Bayard was dead when she left the house and — But you didn’t hear all that, Dan, did you?”

  “All what?” asked Dr. Bouligny, and Hilary briefly explained.

  “You ought to have told the truth about it from the beginning, Adela,” said Dr. Bouligny, when Hilary had finished. “But I don’t see that it makes things any clearer. The question is, could Dave have got back into the house during that five minutes, and I don’t see how we could ever prove that. I think it’s best to drop the whole thing. Let people think what they will. It will never be brought to a jury. You can be sure of that.”

  “Can we?” said Adela.

  Dr. Bouligny looked thoughtfully at me.

  “I think so, Adela. It isn’t likely there will be any new evidence. Miss Keate is the only stranger here. It isn’t likely she will interest herself further in the matter.”

  It was an invitation for me to promise to keep still. Hilary had openly tried to bribe me. Dr. Bouligny appealed, not too subtly, to my better nature.

  “I’m sure I have no particular interest in this deplorable affair,” I said with some spirit. “But if it’s evidence you want, I know of several rather singular matters which might lead to the discovery of the real murderer.”

  “What do you mean, Miss Keate?” said Adela.

  “For one thing, you said you left the safe open after you had removed the diamonds, so as to call attention to the presumable burglary. The safe was closed when Mrs. Thatcher entered the study. Who closed it?”

  Hilary cleared his throat.

  “I did,” he said. “I closed it.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know exactly,” said Hilary. “You see, I had come to see Bayard about the old check he had. I hoped we could arrive at some conclusion. I did not expect a pleasant interview. When Evelyn said Bayard goaded us, she used the correct word, for that is exactly what he did. He
nearly drove us all to a frenzy. Well, dreading that interview as I did, you can imagine what a shock it was to discover that someone had been there before me. Had killed Bayard. There were just two things in my mind. I’ve made them clear already, but Miss Keate seems to want things in black and white. I was sure Dave had killed Bayard. But I knew people would think I had killed him. Everyone knows that Bayard and I were never friends. That’s all clear, surely. Even to the nurse.”

  “Very clear, indeed,” I said crisply. “But you haven’t told why you closed the safe.”

  “But I tell you, I don’t know why,” he said in a peevish way. “I just saw it open and reached out and closed it. I really didn’t think what I was doing. And Adela’s notion of a burglary had not occurred to me.”

  “I wish,” said Adela coldly, “that you had never come near here that afternoon. Otherwise —”

  “Otherwise your scheme would have worked,” finished Hilary. “Well, if it’s any comfort to you, Adela, I heartily agree with you.”

  “But the telephone. I suppose you picked that up and replaced it, too, without knowing what you were doing.”

  “Yes. That is, I mean no,” said Hilary, looking further annoyed. “I did that purposely. I thought —” his pink face grew a richer crimson — “I thought Dave hadn’t even given Bayard a chance. Shot him without warning while he was at the telephone. That part of it sort of got under my skin.”

  “Hilary’s like that,” said Evelyn. “I mean,” she added hurriedly, “I mean he is very neat. He likes things to be tidy. Everything in its place.”

  “Why, then,” I said at a sudden thought, “was it you on the balcony? In the rain? The night before Bayard was killed. It must have been you trying to get into the room through the darkness.”

  I had scarcely spoken before I regretted it; in view of Hilary’s extremely susceptible sensibilities it was rather unwise on my part. After all, I was to spend one more night in that silent, knowing house. At the moment all Hilary could do was to bluster a bit unconvincingly and incoherently, but with something in the narrowed eyes that I did not like. I reminded myself that a barking dog never bites, but unfortunately recalled at the same time that I’d never had much faith in the adage. I dislike cats and do not understand dogs, with the result that cats follow me about as if I were a can of sardines and dogs growl at me. Indeed, at that very instant Pansy, curled in a fat brown-and-white bundle under Adela’s chair, winked slyly at me and ran her tongue out of her mouth in a threatening manner. Pansy: what had she seen, I wondered, there in the library? What had she heard?

  “Was Pansy in the room when you last talked to Bayard?” I asked Janice, unheeding Hilary.

  “Yes,” said Janice. “I had to shut her in the library to keep her from following Dave and Allen when they drove away. She had got over her indignation about it by the time I came downstairs again, and when I talked to Bayard she was curled up on the couch in the study.”

  I turned to Adela.

  “Was Pansy still on the couch in the study when you found Bayard dead?”

  “Yes,” said Adela vaguely, her eyes on Hilary. “Asleep. Now, Hilary — there’s no need to become so excited.”

  “I wish you would stay on the subject, Miss Keate,” said Dr. Bouligny rather testily. “You have accused Hilary of something, heaven knows what, and now, instead of listening to him, you start talking of dogs. Why did you say Hilary was on the balcony in the rain?”

  “Because I think he was there,” I replied promptly. “But I have no reason,” I added, for I pride myself on being fair, “to suggest that he tried, then, to kill my patient.”

  “Then!” exploded Hilary, and Dr. Bouligny said, “Explain what you mean.”

  I did so briefly.

  “And I think it was Mr. Thatcher,” I concluded. “Because he seems to have a passion for setting things straight. And whoever was on the balcony had very carefully folded up the steamer chair to protect it from the rain. I’ve never felt that an ordinary burglar would have done that.”

  Hilary had got out his handkerchief and was wiping his face as if it felt very warm and uncomfortable.

  “Well, I was there,” he said grudgingly. “But I didn’t do anything except get tangled up in the roses and tear my clothes off, to say nothing of my skin. There are,” he added viciously, “millions of thorns on those damn roses.”

  The gray granite look of resolution on Adela’s face had given way to a rather singular look of mingled anxiety and alarm and irritation. The irritation was uppermost.

  “Really, Hilary,” she said in a sort of what-next way, “it seems to me you have deliberately tried to bring suspicion on yourself. What exactly were you doing on the balcony of Bayard’s room? After midnight? Secretly?”

  CHAPTER XX

  It added, not unnaturally, to my increasing feeling of blind groping in the dark that Hilary’s explanation should be so simple. That was the trouble: every explanation was simple and natural. All the things I had stored up in my memory as possible clues seemed to turn upon explanation into simple and natural acts which left me no closer to a solution of the ugly mystery. Perhaps the murderer had left no clues. Or perhaps the explanations were merely adroit and suave fabrications. Or again, perhaps there was no solution and the Thatcher case would remain forever a closed and sealed puzzle.

  I had felt from the beginning that the man on the balcony had had some sinister purpose there; there is a kind of primitive sense which warns one of danger, and I had felt, that night, shaken and terrified. But Hilary said simply that he had hoped to discover and take the check with which Bayard had threatened him for so long. And when I asked about the blank piece of paper he said merely that he’d thought possibly he could outwit Bayard; if Bayard awakened while Hilary was searching the room he would give him the envelope in exchange for the old check and induce Bayard to think it held a check for the sum of money he wanted.

  Allen listened with open derision.

  “Did you really think you could put that over?” he asked when Hilary had finished.

  “I hoped to, certainly,” said Hilary with a touch of his old pomposity. It wilted suddenly as he continued: “You see, I knew Dan would give Bayard something to make him sleep. And I thought it possible that Bayard, not being quite himself, if he waked, would be more — amenable to reason. You can’t deal honorably with dishonorable men. I had hoped Bayard would not wake at all and that I could search the room at my leisure. But I didn’t expect the nurse to be in the room. And in getting away in a hurry I suppose I lost the envelope.” Hilary looked darkly at me. “What was it you threw at me?”

  “I didn’t throw anything at you,” I replied stiffly.

  “You certainly did,” insisted Hilary with heat. “I heard it crash.”

  “I accidentally knocked over a lamp,” I said with dignity. “Then — was it you who searched Bayard’s room immediately following the murder? Someone went through it like a cyclone while I was in the very next room.”

  “You would be there,” muttered Hilary, favoring me with another bitter look. “No, I didn’t search his room. He had the old check in his pocket when I found him dead. I looked for it then and there and found it: that’s why I was in the house for ten minutes or so. But I didn’t have to touch his body.”

  “Then was it you?” I asked Allen.

  But I had reached apparently another blind alley. It was not Allen who had searched the room. It was not any of them. I explained as much as I knew of the incident, and Evelyn finally advanced the theory that it was Dave looking for the veronal. That seemed as likely an explanation as any, particularly in view of the fact that Bayard had undoubtedly hidden the veronal in my bag, but it was one that in a moment or so we were to prove. For Evelyn had scarcely spoken when Emmeline appeared in the doorway with several telegrams. Adela took the telegrams, adjusted her eyeglasses as if to read them, and said to Emmeline:

  “Emmeline, Miss Keate says someone searched Mr. Bayard’s room immediately after
his death. That it was left in shocking confusion. Do you know anything about it?”

  Emmeline looked narrowly at me. Tall and gaunt, with her hands working and her eyes unfathomable, the woman looked quite capable of keeping any number of dark secrets. Just for an instant I wondered if Hilary’s accusation could have had a measure of truth. Then I remembered the testimony of the jelly spoon, and Emmeline said:

  “Yes, ma’am. It was Mr. Dave. I saw him. And if he wanted to search that room he had a perfect right to do it.”

  “By all means,” said Adela. “You may go, Emmeline.”

  “No, wait, Emmeline,” cried Hilary. And as the gaunt woman turned to watch his mouth, he went on: “Can you swear that Mr. Dave did not return to the house the afternoon Bayard was killed?”

  Well, she was sure that Dave had not returned. That there had been no one at the back of the house. Nothing had occurred to distract her attention; she was all the time within full view of the house and lawn. When they let her go at last she stopped in the doorway and said something that actually made a cold shiver creep up my back. She said, her somber eyes on Hilary’s mouth, and her gaunt dark hands working hungrily:

  “I’m telling you the truth. Mr. Dave wasn’t here. He couldn’t have murdered Mr. Bayard. But I’ll say this, and when I’ve done I’ll leave this house, if you want, Miss Adela. The murderer is here. Right now. In this room. And if you’d buried Mr. Bayard with his face down like I said to do the murderer would have confessed long before this. But now you’ll never know. You’ll never know whose hand is stained with blood.”

  “Emmeline!” gasped Adela. But Emmeline, a tall black ramrod, had vanished on the heels of her grisly pronouncement, leaving us, I must say, more than a little shaken. I wondered momentarily when and where she had told them to bury Bayard with his face down.

  There was a note of grim truth in her words that was unpleasant in the extreme. The case that seemed in retrospection loose and full of loopholes was actually very tight and rigidly limited. According to the evidence we now had, Janice was the last one to see Bayard alive. And while it had been at the beginning a tangle of lies, evasions, cross-purposes, we were at last, I was convinced, as near the truth as we might ever approach.