“You sound convincing, Mr. Ferrall, and yet, now that you put it into words, I cannot believe it. It is too incredible!”
“I’m not urging you to believe it, Mr. Swift. It is my duty, as a detective, to try to get at the truth of this dreadful affair. I have my suspicions, I must ascertain if they are true or false. You must help me in any way you can, not to prove my theories, but to learn the truth. But, of course, you must see that what you have told me goes far toward confirming my belief in Mr. Bingham’s guilt, though as yet I cannot imagine just how he accomplished his awful purpose.”
A tap at the library door interrupted their conversation.
It was Betty Stratton, the pretty little bridesmaid, and Bob Keene, the reporter.
“We’ve found out something!” Betty announced, as she entered the room, followed by Keene.
“Of importance?” asked Ferrall, frowning slightly, for he had little use for the discoveries of these “youngsters.”
“Yes, it is of importance,” answered Keene. “It’s a distinct point, anyway. You have all decided, haven’t you, that the shot was fired from the east side of the church, whether inside or outside?”
“Yes, of course,” said Ferrall; “as the bride faced the altar, her right side was toward the east, and as the wound is in her right temple, why, it inevitably—”
“But that’s just it!” cried Keene; “she didn’t face the altar! You see, she had turned, the bride had, for Miss Randall to adjust her long, heavy train, and as she turned, toward the other aisle, the west aisle, her right cheek came around toward the west, and when she was shot she had turned and was really facing the back of the church, ready to walk down that west aisle. She was expecting the bridegroom to join her as soon as he had spoken with the minister,—all this was rehearsed, you know,—and,—well, the point is, that the bride had turned round, and was standing with her right side to the west when she was shot!”
“H’m, all very fine, but how do you know it?” demanded Mr. Ferrall.
“I’m the one who knows it,” put in Betty Stratton. “You see, it was this way. All us bridesmaids were looking forward to catching Ethel’s bouquet when she threw it, later on, of course, as brides always do when they go away. Well, when I went back to the altar after they had taken Ethel away, I saw her bouquet lying where she had dropped it as she fell, and it made me feel so awful! I thought at first I ought to pick it up and carry it into the other room where Ethel was, and then I just couldn’t do that! You know what it means to pick up a bride’s bouquet! Well, then, I noticed that it lay right on the chalk mark that had been mine! I mean, the place where I had to stand, quite west of the bride. And don’t you see, Ethel couldn’t have dropped it there, unless she had turned round! So doesn’t that prove that she had turned, and that the shot came from the west side of the church?”
“I see what you mean,” said Mr. Ferrall, slowly. “If you will, I’d like you to go back to the church with me, and show me exactly where you stood.”
So Bob Keene and Betty went back to the church with the detective and showed him. It was certainly as Betty had said. The bride, in order to have let her bouquet fall on the mark that designated Betty’s place, must have turned round, preparatory to leaving the church.
The bridal party had walked up the east aisle to the altar, and expected to go back down the west aisle. The exact mode of procedure had been carefully rehearsed, and each one knew just where he or she was to stand and in what order to proceed.
“You see,” explained Betty, “every bride has her attendants stand just as she wants them. Ethel had us placed with two bridesmaids and two ushers on each side of her and Mr. Bingham. Of course, Eileen, the maid of honour, was at Ethel’s left hand, and the best man, Mr. Swift, at the bridegroom’s right. Well, after the ceremony, we all stepped back a little to let Ethel’s train get by, and as I was directly behind her, she must have already turned round, to have dropped her bouquet right on my chalk mark!” And Betty broke into sobs at the recollection of the awful scene.
“That’s right!” said the detective, thinking deeply. “The bride must have turned to have dropped the flowers there as she fell. Unless, that is, somebody moved them afterward, inadvertently.”
“They didn’t,” said Betty; “I know, because I saw Ethel fall, I was very near her, you know, and I was so paralyzed I couldn’t move or speak, but I can see it all as clearly now as if it were photographed on my brain. Ethel sank, all in a heap, and the bouquet fell just where I had stood during the ceremony. And I kept my eyes on those flowers, I don’t know why, but they seemed to fascinate me, and nobody touched them till some time after, when Doctor Van Sutton picked them up and carried them in—in where Ethel was.”
“Get the dominie over here,” said Mr. Ferrall, briefly, and Bob Keene ran over to the parsonage for him. The two returned shortly, and Doctor Van Sutton corroborated all Betty had said.
“Yes; it must be so,” said the reverend gentleman, “I know the bride had turned away from me, I was then speaking to the bridegroom, and in order to drop the bouquet just there, she must have turned fully around. And it was from that spot that I picked up the flowers,—of that I’m certain. I had no definite reason for picking them up, except that it seemed more decorous than leaving them there on the floor. And, being a little uncertain what to do with them, I laid them on the breast of the bride. I thought of handing them to Mrs. Swift, but she was already so overcome, that it seemed inadvisable.”
Doctor Van Sutton was a mild-mannered, typical clergyman, and he was bowed with grief not only at the horror of the tragedy, but that it should have occurred in his church. Such things as crime and mystery had never come into his life before, and he was bewildered at the details to be considered.
“Then we must conclude the shot was fired from the west and not the east,” said Mr. Ferrall, looking greatly perplexed.
“That opens up again the question of a window,” said Bob Keene; “a window on the other side, of course. I’ll skip out and look for footprints.” Ferrall smiled as the young man hurried out of the church. “Trust an amateur detective to fly after footprints!” he said; “Keene has a sleuthing instinct, and he’s bright enough, but this mystery is not going to be solved by any of the usual means. I tell you, Doctor Van Sutton, it’s a big case. I’m not at all sure we’ll ever catch the criminal, but if we do, it will mean some clever work. Well, Keene, what luck?”
“There are footprints,” said Keene, joining them, “by that first window on the west side, there are footprints in the soft soil that’s banked up around the roots of the ivy vines. And they’re the prints of only one person. I’m sure but one person stood there.”
“Well, and what about it? Are you such a Sherlock Holmes that you can go out in the street and pick out the man?”
“No, I’m not; but I’ve always understood that if a detective had good clear footprints, he had—”
“Go ‘long, Keene; you understand your own work better than ours. Stick to reporting and don’t dabble in detecting. It’s a hard enough job for the experienced, let alone amateurs.”
“Well, you might be grateful for the help we’ve given you. I think it’s pretty good detective work on the part of Miss Stratton to prove to you that the shot came from the west side of the church, whether fired by some one inside or out.”
“That’s true; and I am indebted to you, Miss Stratton. You have given me a clear and graphic description of the few moments preceding the shot, and it may be of great help to know from which side it was fired.”
“Anyway, it lets old Bingham out!” declared Keene, who was a friend of the bridegroom.
“Not at all,” said Ferrall, “it may merely prove that he had an accomplice!”
CHAPTER VI
A Woman’s Will
THE wedding had been on Thursday. On Friday the whole town of Boscombe Fells was in an uproar. A steady stream of callers assailed the Swift house, and Mrs. Bingham, the mother of the bridegroom, was also intr
uded upon by friends and neighbours bringing sympathy and offers of aid.
The tragedy was so dreadful, the crime so horrible, that words were all too weak to express the vindictive and revengeful feelings of the townspeople. Moreover, it was so unheard of that such a thing should occur in that rank of social life to which the bride and groom’s families belonged. Murder, as they supposed, was confined to the lower classes, and for beautiful, haughty Ethel Moulton to be murdered at her wedding altar savoured of indignity and inappropriateness quite aside from the sad horror of the crime itself. Dozens of citizens flocked to the police headquarters to tell them how to conduct the matter. More went to the District Attorney with their advices, and Mr. Ferrall, too, found his office besieged and his mail crammed with would-be purveyors of clues and evidences intended to aid him.
In the office of the District Attorney, whose name was Somers, Detective Ferrall sat, on Friday afternoon, going over the case. It was an endless subject to discuss, for nothing positive had been learned, yet there was scope for suspicion in every direction.
“That’s the worst of it,” said Ferrall; “some cases have no possibilities, but this one has so many, I don’t know which way to turn.”
“Seems to me we must look up that diamond first. The murderer must be hunted down, of course, but the murder is done, and can only be avenged. But the theft is a crime also, and to recover the jewel might very easily give us a line on the murderer.”
“That’s so, right enough; well, there’s no use denying that I think the bridegroom responsible for both crimes.”
“Look here, Ferrall, you’re just bound Mr. Bingham shall be found guilty, and you bend every bit of evidence toward that end. That isn’t fair work for any detective.”
“I don’t, at all. If I see any evidence pointing to any one else, I’ll jump at it. But I haven’t so far. Bingham had motive and opportunity, and no one else did. Either he shot the lady himself or he hired some one else to do it. I’m not greatly impressed with that bridesmaid’s story, she may be mistaken. But any way you fix it, there’s evidence against Stanford Bingham and against no one else. Who else could have taken that diamond from the bride’s neck? Who else would?”
“Well, as to that, why should Bingham take it? It was his anyway, as his wife was dead.”
“That’s where you’re ‘way off! Ethel Moulton had made a will two years or more ago, leaving everything of which she died possessed to her cousin, Warren Swift. That gave young Swift the sparkler, and as that wouldn’t suit Bingham at all, he made sure of it for himself. Why, there’s no doubt of it. Miss Randall told me the gem was on the bride’s neck during the ceremony, and when the body was carried to the church parlour it was gone. Of course the criminal took it. There couldn’t have been two such fiends in the wedding party!”
“You’re ‘way off, yourself! You may be a good detective, Ferrall, but you don’t know much law! That will that you say Miss Moulton made, as Miss Moulton, became null and void when she married. Her property is all her husband’s, no matter if she left forty wills.”
“Is that right? Do you mean to say a woman can’t will her property as she likes?”
“I mean that marriage nullifies a woman’s will. The moment Miss Moulton became Mrs. Bingham, young Swift ceased to be her heir, and Stanford Bingham is entitled to everything his wife died possessed of.”
“Well, of course you’re right, for you know about those things and I don’t, but it’s news to me. And, another thing, I’ll bet you it’ll be news to Stanford Bingham! Of course, with his millions he doesn’t care for his wife’s money, she hadn’t very much, but he does care for that fifty thousand dollar diamond, and he stole it because he thought it would go to Warren Swift. You say it wouldn’t, but I’ll wager Bingham thought it would, or, at least, was uncertain, and so took no chances. He may not have considered it stealing, but merely taking his own. However, if he took the diamond, it is a small thing compared to his greater crime of murder.”
“How you do run on, Ferrall! Any one to hear you would think you had Mr. Bingham arrested, tried, and convicted; whereas, except you, I doubt if any one really suspects him.”
“Oho, you doubt that, do you? Well, let me tell you you won’t doubt it long. I may jump at conclusions, but when the conclusions are there just waiting to be jumped at, pray, why shouldn’t I?”
* * * *
From Somers’ office, Ferrall went to the Swift house, intent on gaining further information about the bride’s will.
He found both Everson Swift and his son at home, and quite ready to talk with him.
“I understand, Mr. Swift,” began Ferrall, “that your niece left all her property to her cousin, your son?”
“She did,” said Warren Swift, not giving his father time to speak. “Ethel made a will long ago, and I am her sole heir. It seems heartless to talk of it, but it is no secret, and there is no reason it should not be known.”
“And you inherit all her belongings?” asked Ferrall, looking hard at the young man.
“Yes; that is, all her money and valuables. Of course, her clothes and such personal belongings I shall turn over to my mother to do as she likes with.”
Ferrall began to feel sure that neither young Swift nor his father suspected that Warren was not the heir.
“And the great diamond,” Ferrall went on; “if that is found, and, of course, it must be, is that yours, too?”
“It is,” said Warren, confidently, and he spoke with a sort of braggadocio far from becoming in a relative of the ill-fated bride. “Do you think the stone will be found, Mr. Ferrall?”
“I do, indeed. An attempt to dispose of it would lead at once to discovery. It is too large a stone to offer for sale without full account of ownership.”
“That’s good. Then I may yet hope to see it returned to me, its rightful owner. Would you advise offering a reward, Mr. Ferrall?”
But Everson Swift spoke in answer to this. “Why, Warren, I think a reward should be offered for the conviction of Ethel’s slayer, before we consider the lesser matter of the diamond.”
“And, anyway, if the diamond is found, it will be Mr. Bingham’s property.” Ferrall spoke carelessly, but he watched every expression of Warren Swift’s face.
However, if the expectant heir was surprised, he concealed it fairly well, and said only, “What do you mean by that, Mr. Ferrall?”
But the older man showed a definite surprise. “Why will it be Bingham’s?” he said. “Why won’t it be Warren’s, with the rest of Ethel’s belongings?”
“Because none of Mrs. Bingham’s property will be Mr. Swift’s. Don’t you know that marriage nullifies a will?”
His two hearers looked up at him with faces of blank amazement, but it was the father who spoke first.
“No, I don’t know any such thing! And I don’t believe it! Who’s your authority?”
“The District Attorney, for one, but I refer you to any reputable lawyer for confirmation.”
“A most unjust law! Then is all Ethel’s property now her husband’s?”
“Every bit. The will is absolutely nullified.”
“I don’t so much mind in this instance,” and Mr. Swift looked a little ashamed of his ebullition, “but it’s wrong on general principles. Why in the name of common sense couldn’t my niece leave her money to my son, if she wanted to?”
“Don’t ask me, Mr. Swift; ask the laws of your country.”
“Never mind, father,” said Warren; “don’t take it so hard. It’s a blow to me, for Stan has all he needs, while I have nothing. I was glad to have Ethel’s money, for I know she loved me and wanted me to have it. She often told me I was to be her heir. We were good chums.”
Ferrall looked from one man to the other. He was surprised that Everson Swift seemed more disappointed than his son. But perhaps Warren was playing a part. Ferrall was not quick at reading expressions, but he concluded that Warren Swift was more upset at the news he had just received than he wished to have
known, and that he was more clever in concealing his disappointment than his father.
“And the diamond will be Bingham’s if it is found?” Mr. Swift went on.
“Yes, of course,” returned Ferrall, looking at Warren as he spoke.
“That doesn’t matter, it must be hunted for and found just the same,” Warren said. He spoke in a dull, colourless tone, as if he wanted to do and say the right thing, but found it hard.
“Of course, of course,” agreed his father, “but if it is really Bingham’s property, it is his place to instigate the search for the gem.”
Ferrall was getting bewildered. He was firmly of the opinion that Bingham had himself taken the diamond from his wife’s neck, or had picked it up from the floor where it had fallen, and to imagine the criminal instigating a search for the jewel was absurd. But again, perhaps Bingham did not know that his wife’s property reverted to himself, and supposing the jewel would fall to Warren, he secured it when he had opportunity. This was all conjecture, but Ferrall was given to conjecture, and to his credit it must be said that more often than not his suppositions were true.
“Didn’t you know this fact regarding a will?” asked Ferrall, turning to the younger Swift.
Warren looked at him a moment in silence. Then, rising, he said somewhat peevishly, “I do wish, Mr. Ferrall, you’d stop quizzing my father and me. It’s all very well for you to do your detective work, but I, for one, think you ought to ask your questions of people outside the family of the victim of the crime. I can’t see what possible good it can do you to learn what I know or knew regarding my cousin’s will, and I refuse to be persecuted any longer.”
The Alan Ford Mystery MEGAPACK® Page 5