“That’s true enough,” assented Farrish, “but you must have a little common sense in the matter.”
“That’s so, Mr. Farrish,” said Kinney. “I’m afraid, Ferrall, you’re going too fast. Only further investigation can show who had a motive for desiring the death of the ill-fated bride. You have no idea of any such person, Mr. Bingham?”
“Certainly not. And I must say that I think the mystery will never be solved if left in such incompetent hands as are managing it at present.”
“By Jove, that’s right!” and Eugene Hall jumped to his feet “I move we get a first-class detective on the case!”
“You are a little premature, Mr. Hall,” said Bingham; “I have no fault to find with Mr. Ferrall’s work. As he says, he must investigate; and as his first investigations point in my direction, I am content to let him run that line down and then turn to some more promising suspect.”
“Now, that’s white of you, Mr. Bingham,” said the somewhat crestfallen detective; “I can’t rightly say that I suspected you really, but there seemed to be no way to look—”
“There will be ways to look, Ferrall,” and the Inspector’s voice was grave, “but we can’t see things clearly all at once. A crime like this means premeditation and preparation. The criminal was prepared for it before the ceremony began. It was no sudden or spontaneous act.”
“It’s mysterious enough,” said Eugene Hall. “I wish I could be of definite help. But as I’ve told all I know, I may as well go home. Going my way, Farrish?”
Farrish was, and the two men left the church together, just as a coloured woman entered it by the side door.
“I’m Charlotte,” she stated, curtsying to the group of men who still stood by the pulpit.
“Yes, Charlotte, what is it?” and Stanford Bingham turned to greet her with a startled look in his eyes. “Charlotte is Miss Randall’s maid,” he added, by way of explanation of his own interest.
“Miss Randall she sent me ovah, suhs, to say as how Miss Ethel’s dimun ain’t been found on her pusson, suhs. An’ Miss Eileen, she say won’t you-all please look most ca’ful roun’ about dis yer chu’ch. De doctahs, dey done had a nawtopsy, an’ dey cyan’t fine de dimun anyw’eres on Miss Ethel. An’ Miss Eileen, she say it mus’ be in de chu’ch, summers.”
“I don’t think so,” said Bingham, slowly; “if that diamond is not on Ethel,—caught in her clothing or veil,—then it has been stolen. Had it been here on the floor, where she stood, some one must have seen it before this. It is too large to escape observation.”
“What was its value?” asked Ferrall.
“It cost more than fifty thousand dollars,” replied Bingham, “but it has no value now, in my eyes. It was my wedding gift to my wife; as I have now no wife, I have no use for the diamond.”
“Oh, I don’t know!” said Ferrall, with a distinctly offensive look at Bingham.
“Explain that speech!” cried Bingham, his eyes blazing again, as he turned on the detective.
“I only meant,” said Ferrall, slowly, and a little insolently, “that as you are so unconcerned about the loss of a great treasure, perhaps it is not so mysteriously or so irrecoverably missing!”
Stanford Bingham went white. “You mean that I know where it is?” he whispered, hoarsely.
“Something like that,” admitted the detective.
“I can’t stand any more of this,” said Bingham, passing his hand wearily across his forehead. “I think I will go home.”
“I think you won’t,” said Ferrall, but Kinney interrupted. “Yes, he may. Certainly, Mr. Bingham, go. You have stood enough for a man in such trouble as you are in. You will be at home if we want to see you again?”
“Certainly,” said Bingham, and with the staggering step of a half-dazed man, he left the church.
“You ought not to have let him go!” cried Ferrall. “He’ll light out and we’ll never see him again! Of course, he is the guilty man! His very attitude condemns him. He had motive, opportunity, and he is intensely clever, just such a one as could carry out such a crime!”
“But it is absurd, on the face of it!” expostulated Kinney. “For a man to shoot his own bride at his own wedding altar! It is incredible!”
“Lots of murders are incredible. Who else wanted to be rid of that woman? Not her aunt or uncle or any of her relatives or friends. She was a greatly admired young lady, a favourite, a belle, a most popular society girl. But Bingham had to marry her to get his fortune. So,—his fortune secured,—he rid himself of her, in circumstances so diabolically clever, that he thought he never would be suspected. Nor would he have been, if I did not happen to know that he did not love the lady he made his wife.”
“Didn’t love her? What do you mean? How do you know?”
“I don’t know, that is, not positively. That’s why I wanted to talk to him, and get him to incriminate himself.”
“Nonsense, Ferrall, you’re romancing. You have formed a crazy theory and you have let it run away with your common sense. But that is your habit, as I’ve often had cause to note. Now, then, come back to material things. Where’s the big diamond? Or do you think Bingham stole his own property?”
“Of course he stole it! It wasn’t his, after he gave it to her. He wanted it back, and he could get it no other way, so he took it. He had plenty of chances during the first immediate excitement.”
“But it would have been his. Of course, all the property his wife died possessed of, must necessarily have reverted to him.”
“Oh, well, that may be so, but he knew if he were suspected of the crime, he might have difficulty in getting possession of the diamond. So he made sure of it. Why, man, he must have done so! If any other person were the assassin, he couldn’t get near enough to the body to take the jewel. And you can’t for a moment believe that some bystander, one of the wedding-party, took it!”
“Why not? I’d just as soon think it of one of the ushers as of the bridegroom himself.”
“But the bridegroom had a motive for the murder, and so, for the theft. The ushers had no motive for murder—”
“You don’t know that!”
“Well, it can be proved, I’ve no doubt.”
“The bride had many admirers.”
“Yes, more than any girl in town. She was the reigning belle.”
“Then the deed may have been the desperation of a discarded lover.”
“That will mean raking the town with a fine-tooth comb. For every young blade in Boscombe Fells was in love with the beautiful Ethel Moulton.”
“Then get to work and rake, before you accuse the bridegroom!”
“I’ll rake, all right; but there was no other man who had the cleverness or the nerve to plan and carry through this horrible performance.”
“Suppose you take a try at finding the diamond first; that may give a clue to the murderer. Indeed, I think it’s bound to. Here, you, Charlotte,—if that’s your name, you run along home. I forgot you were here. You tell Miss Randall that the police are searching for the jewel, and will report progress, when there is any to report.”
“Yassah. An’ can I tell yo’ sumpin, suh?”
“Certainly. What is it?”
“Well, I knows who kilt Miss Ethel.”
Charlotte was a very black negro, and as she spoke, she rolled her eyes in a tragic and mysterious manner. Inspector Kinney had heard this sort of fairy-tale evidence before, and he was for putting the woman out without listening further. But Ferrall wanted to hear her story.
“It means nothing, Ferrall,” said Kinney; “these darkies are always ready to make up yarns for the excitement of the thing.”
“But she may know something. Surely it will do no harm to listen to what she has to tell.”
“Go on, then,” said the other.
“Well, yo’ see, suh,” began the dusky servant woman, “I was outside that there window, a-look-in’ in.”
“That window!” exclaimed Ferrall, for Charlotte had indicated the first w
indow on the east side of the church, the one directly inside range of the bride and groom as they stood at the altar.
“Yes, suh, dat berry window. An’ I knows as how nobody outside dat window didn’t shoot thoo it, kase ef dey had I’d ‘a’ seen ‘em, dat I would. Well, suh, dere was a man jest inside de chu’ch, an’ he was a-watchin’ ob de bride-lady, an’ he kep’ his hank’chif all ober his hand all de time. Now, suh, says I, moughtn’t he be de vilyun dat shot Miss Ethel?”
“Rubbish,” said the Inspector. “It was simply a man holding his handkerchief carelessly in his hand. It means nothing at all.”
“Don’t jump at conclusions so!” said Ferrall, getting back; “tell us more, Charlotte. What did the man look like?”
“I dunno, suh. I didn’ notice him much, kase I was a-watchin’ de bride myself. But I sort o’ sensed him all de time, an’ he nebber took dat hank’chif offen o’ dat hand!”
“Would you know the man if you saw him again?”
The black woman looked uncertain. “I mought an’ I moughtn’t,” she said, at last. “You see, his back was to me. But he had red hair.”
“Really red? Very red?” And Ferrall spoke excitedly.
“Well, not fi’ry red. But moh sorta aubuhn, suh.”
“You’re wasting time, Ferrall; send her home, and let us go home ourselves and think this thing out. We know a lot of facts that need to be straightened out and considered. Run along, Charlotte. Tell Miss Randall you delivered her message, and Mr. Kinney will see her to-morrow.”
“Yas, suh. Will yo’ come to huh house, suh?”
“I don’t know. If I do, I’ll telephone first, and make an appointment.”
The black woman went away. “You talked too much before her, Ferrall,” said Kinney, reprovingly.
“Oh, I didn’t say anything that oughtn’t to be repeated. And she didn’t understand, anyway. She’s an ignorant thing.”
“Not so awfully ignorant! I saw her watching you out of the corner of her eye, and she’s no fool. She made up that story of the ‘red-headed man’!”
“Ridiculous! She did nothing of the sort!”
“Well, see if you ever find him, that’s all!”
CHAPTER V
The East Side of the West?
From the church, Detective Ferrall went to the Swift home.
It was ghastly, as he had anticipated, to see the caterer’s men taking away the chairs and decorations. The laden tables in the dining-room had already been denuded and the waiters dismissed. Many people were in the house, standing in groups in the various rooms, some of them still in their gala attire.
On a sofa near the front window were Bob Keene and Betty Stratton, who had been one of the bridesmaids; they were talking earnestly in low whispers.
Ferrall joined them, hoping to pick up stray information of some sort.
But neither of the young people was at all cordial and Ferrall went on in search of Mr. Swift.
He found him in the library, and behind closed doors the men sat down for a serious talk over the tragedy.
Ferrall told frankly his suspicions of Stanford Bingham. At first immeasurably shocked, Mr. Swift listened more and more intently to the detective’s reasoning, and at last said:
“It’s unthinkable, it’s well-nigh impossible, and I can’t and won’t believe it, and yet,—and yet, there wassomething between Bingham and Ethel that I never quite understood. We all knew that the man must marry before he was thirty to inherit his father’s fortune, but he and Ethel had been engaged a long time, and we were all satisfied that, while he desired, naturally, to be wed before the prescribed-time, yet they would have been married had there been no complication about the money.”
“How long had they been engaged, Mr. Swift?”
“Let me see; it’s June now. Well, they were engaged last Summer, I think, about July or August.”
“Why weren’t they married sooner?”
“Bless my soul! I don’t know. I suppose because they didn’t want to be. Probably Ethel wanted a June wedding. I know she wanted every furbelow or gimcrackery there was. That chorus choir, for instance, and an orchestra here at the house. Well, I’m glad now that I denied her nothing. I let her have it all just as she chose. She was the orphan child of my favourite sister, and as I’ve never had any daughter of my own, I indulged her as I would have my own child.”
“Did Mrs. Swift feel the same affection?”
“Almost, I think. Of course, Ethel was my niece, not hers, but she was always kind to the girl, and they never had any differences that I know of.”
“And your son. Were he and your niece friendly?”
“Very, indeed. In fact, at one time I thought Warren was in love with her. But I think it was only a cousinly attachment. They were always good chums, though, and as he was best man, I fancy his heart wasn’t broken beyond remedy at her marriage. But now, the poor boy is nearly prostrated. Both he and my wife are suffering intensely from the shock and nervous prostration.”
“Miss Moulton was a great belle, I’m told.”
“Yes, Ethel was always a heart-breaker. I don’t know how many men have asked me for her hand, but she never favoured any one as she did Bingham. I sometimes thought it was because he was rich. My niece had most extravagant tastes.”
“Had she money of her own?”
“Some. She inherited about twenty-five thousand dollars from her father, but the interest of that was not enough for her to spend. Or, at least, she thought not, and I was glad to give her what more she wanted.”
“She was fond of dress, then?”
“Yes, and of jewels, and of running about travelling here and there. I indulged her, as I say, because I had no daughter, and my wife and I have rather simple tastes.”
“Was your niece,—pardon me,—was she what could be called a flirt?”
“She was, indeed! Ethel would flirt with a messenger boy if she chose! It was all harmless flirting, she was as good as gold, but she could no more help flirting than she could help breathing. Every man in town will tell you that,—and many out of town. We always joked her about it, but she only laughed and said it was the spice of life to her. Her aunt and I hoped she would get over it and settle down after she married Bingham.”
“You’ve known Mr. Bingham long?”
“Yes, for years.”
“You admire him?”
“Indeed, yes. He’s a fine man, a splendid man, in every way, and yet,—this is confidential, Mr. Ferrall, there seemed to be something of late that made me uneasy about him and Ethel.”
“In what way?”
“I don’t know how to tell you; it is so intangible. It almost seemed, at times, as if he wanted to back out of the wedding, and yet, I know that couldn’t have been so.”
“Why couldn’t it?”
“Why? Oh, bless my soul! Bingham’s not that sort of a man. No, I must have imagined it, I suppose. But there seemed a constraint between him and Ethel that became more and more noticeable as their wedding day neared.”
“Did you speak of it to them?”
“To Ethel, yes; never to him. She laughed at me, and said if Stanford were any more devoted to her than he was, she couldn’t stand it.”
“What did she mean by that?”
“Between you and me, I think she was bluffing. I think he was not so demonstrative as Ethel would have liked, and her proud spirit wouldn’t admit it, and even went to the extreme of overdenying it.”
“Then you really think, in your heart, that Bingham did not want to marry your niece?”
“Mr. Ferrall, I have never gone so far as to say that to any one, not even my wife; but since I know you ask in the interests of law and justice, I will confess to you that that thought was in my mind as I walked up that church aisle to-day. And I cannot help thinking it was in Ethel’s mind, too. She was nervous and unstrung more than the occasion demanded. I have never seen her so distraught before. My wife didn’t notice this as I did, because she was in the pew w
hile I was right with Ethel and beside her all the way. And I tell you, Mr. Ferrall, that girl was afraid of something. Of something not definite, perhaps, but she was conscious of a vague danger of some sort.”
“Then, Mr. Swift,—I don’t wonder you’re shocked,—but you can not be so greatly surprised when I tell you I have reason to suspect Mr. Bingham of being in some way responsible for his wife’s death.”
“I wish I could feel more surprised, but I am forced to admit, Mr. Ferrall, that I have been haunted by that suspicion, myself. I can’t see how it is possible, I hope and pray that it is not true, but I can think of no other living human being who had the least reason to desire Ethel’s death. It is absurd to think for a moment that any of the many men who admired her would be so desperate at thought of her marriage to Bingham that one of them could go so far as to murder her in cold blood.”
“Who were some of these men, Mr. Swift?”
“Let me see; in fact it would be easier to think of men whom she had not had affairs with. Two of the ushers, Stone and Benson, have both been refused by the dear girl. Eugene Hall is another who was hard hit at the news of her marriage; and Guy Farrish and Chester Morton,—but it’s too absurd! Not one of these men would have harmed a hair of her head! Nor can I really think Stanford would. But what else is there to think? It is impossible that it could have been an accident. And then, again, how could Bingham have done it? The doctors agree that the assailant probably stood several feet away, and the bridegroom was no more than two or three feet away at the utmost.”
“But that sort of thing is uncertain, Mr. Swift, and as the shot entered through her hair, we cannot know—”
“Oh, heavens, man! It isn’t possible! I can’t, I won’t believe that any man on earth could be black enough of soul to stand there and shoot the woman he had just married! It is unspeakable!”
“Most murders are unspeakable, Mr. Swift. And think what the man had at stake! To get his million dollars,—I understand the fortune is a million or more,—he had to be married before next month, when his thirtieth birthday occurs. It would be practically impossible for him to break with Miss Moulton and arrange to marry any one else in the meantime,—this is supposing for the moment that he loved another,—so he married Miss Moulton, and then, if, as you fear, he did not want her for a wife, except to secure his fortune, what cleverer way could be devised to rid himself of her? Had they gone away on a wedding tour, his deed must surely have been discovered. How plausible, then, for the villain to think that this way, this fiendish way, was the safest and surest for himself?”
The Alan Ford Mystery MEGAPACK® Page 4