The Alan Ford Mystery MEGAPACK®

by Carolyn Wells

  Slamming the door behind him, Warren went from the room.

  “Don’t mind him,” said his father, wearily running his hand through his iron-grey hair. “Warry’s of a nervous disposition, and this affair is pretty hard on him. He is amazed, as I am myself, to learn that he will not inherit Ethel’s property, but he is too proud to show it. The two were always chums and her death has shocked him horribly. He has been trying at my advice to throw off the sorrowful thoughts and turn his mind to other things, but he can’t do it. I doubt if he had thought much about the money, until you spoke of it.”

  “H’m!” thought Detective Ferrall to himself, “I think he was pretty conscious of that will all the way along!” but aloud he only said, “Very natural, I’m sure, Mr. Swift. It’s a terrible thing to come into his young life. Well, I’ll be going now, and I’ll see you again when I’ve anything to report.”

  “A queer lot,” he thought, as he left the Swift house. “Not an affectionate family, as far as the niece was concerned. I don’t know about Mrs. Swift, but the uncle and cousin are by no means overwhelmed with grief.”

  However, Ferrall did them an injustice. The Swifts, father and son, were men who rarely showed their feelings, and they would never have dreamed of speaking of Ethel in endearing or even in personal terms before a comparative stranger, least of all, a detective!

  * * * *

  It was Saturday evening before the detective and the District Attorney had another confab on the subject, and then Ferrall told Somers how surprised the Swifts had been to learn the truth about the bride’s will.

  “Well, don’t tell everybody about it, Ferrall,” said the District Attorney, a little sharply. “You talk too much! You tell every one of all your discoveries and all your plans. Do learn to keep your mouth shut.”

  Ferrall, miffed, relapsed into silence, and it was at this juncture that Bob Keene appeared.

  “Anything new?” he asked. “Anything that I can print, I mean. I don’t want theories. Any facts yet?”

  “Nothing for publication,” said Ferrall, glancing at Somers with an air of keeping his own counsel.

  “Oh, tell him, if you want to,” said Somers. “You will, anyway.”

  Thus encouraged, Ferrall did tell Keene about the surprise of the Swifts on learning that Warren could not inherit under Ethel’s will.

  “Yes, I knew that,” said Keene, carelessly; “I mean I knew that marriage nullifies a woman’s will. I thought everybody knew that. But, I say, this gives a new trend to affairs. If Warry Swift didn’t know that he wouldn’t inherit, why do you think he didn’t kill his cousin to get that same little old inheritance?”

  “Rubbish!” ejaculated Somers. “That little whipper-snapper wouldn’t have the nerve to kill anybody, and it’s too preposterous to think of his killing his cousin!”

  “Not half so preposterous as to think of the bridegroom’s killing her! I tell you, Mr. Somers, if you’ve got a murderer to find, you’ve got to look for him among the most unlikely personages. And, you can’t think an utter stranger came along and killed a bride, without any motive. No, sir! There are only three motives for murder, love, money, and revenge. Now, Bingham had none of these reasons to kill his bride; we know of no one who had, until we run up against the man who was to inherit.”

  “But young Swift doesn’t inherit.”

  “But he thought he did, so it’s all the same. I tell you we’re on a trail! What do you say, Mr. Ferrall?”

  “It doesn’t sound to me very plausible, but it may be possible. It will do no harm to look into it. Where was young Swift during the ceremony?”

  “He was best man,” answered Keene, “so, of course, he stood at the right of the bridegroom.”

  “Then he was on the right side of the bride, as well. We’ve concluded she was shot from the other, the west side of the church, so that lets Swift out.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. After the ceremony, just before the shot, there was more or less of a mix-up as they got ready for the return trip down the west aisle. I wouldn’t say that he couldn’t have gotten a chance then, if he had wanted to.”

  “I can’t seem to see it,” and the District Attorney looked blank. “I wasn’t at the wedding, and I haven’t been over to the church since.”

  “Then you ought to go,” said Keene; “let’s run over now.”

  After a moment’s thought the others agreed, and the three went to the church. As it was Saturday night, they found the choir there for practice.

  “Good work!” said Keene; “do you know, as those men were up in the choir loft, they had the best possible view of the whole affair and ought to be able to tell us everything about it.”

  “Be careful,” warned Somers; “don’t let them know what we are thinking about, just ask them of the positions of the principals.”

  The choristers were quite willing to describe the programme of the wedding party, and after going over all the others, Keene said, apparently carelessly, “and what about Warry Swift? I mean where was he? On the east side?”

  Guy Farrish answered. “He was on the east side at first, in fact until after the ceremony. Then he crossed over to be on the other side ready to walk down the aisle with the maid of honour. These things were all planned and rehearsed, you know.”

  “Were you here at rehearsal, Mr. Farrish?” asked Somers.

  “No, the choir was not needed. We merely preceded the wedding party into the church, and then took our usual places in the choir, and, of course, no rehearsal was needed for that.”

  “From the choir you had ample opportunity to see the wedding ceremony, hadn’t you?”

  “Yes, indeed; and what followed,” and Farrish turned aside as if to shun the dread subject. But Somers was not through. He questioned Eugene Hall as to Warren Swift’s movements.

  “Why, yes,” Hall said; “I saw Warry cross over behind the minister just after the ceremony was finished. You see his work was all done; he had given the ring to the bridegroom and hadn’t dropped it or fumbled it, and he had then to look out for his partner in the march, the maid of honour. He crossed over, I suppose to be ready to escort her after she had finished fixing the bride’s furbelows. Oh, I know a lot about it, ’cause I stood here with nothing to do but watch ’em.”

  “Young Swift was over on the west side of the church some minutes, then, before the shooting took place?”

  “He was so. He stood just about there,” and Hall indicated a spot in front of the cross pews known as the “Amen Corner.”

  “Thank you, sir, that’s all. We won’t detain you longer from your music,” and Somers stepped away from the group of choristers who returned to their work.

  “You see,” whispered Keene to the others with him, “if Swift stood here when the bride passed him, he could easily have fired the shot.”

  “But he would have been seen,” objected Ferrall.

  “Not at all, a man can fire one of those little automatics, and keep it concealed in his hand. They’re very small. Well, any way, take my advice and look into this matter.”

  * * * *

  Late that night a note was left at the Swift home for Warren.

  It ran:

  “I have reason to think you are suspected in connection with the shooting of your cousin. If you want to get away, I’ll meet you with my car, corner Broad and Myrtle at midnight. Perhaps it would be better for you to go.”

  “E.”

  And that night at midnight, Warren Swift was at the appointed tryst.

  CHAPTER VII

  Warry’s Getaway

  “YOU came!” said Eugene Hall, with surprise in his tone, as Warry Swift climbed into the car.

  “Of course,” returned the other, with a somewhat unsuccessful attempt at nonchalance. “But that doesn’t mean I’m a murderer. I came to ask the meaning of your extraordinary message.”

  “Now, Warry, don’t try bluffing with me, for it won’t go! We’re old pals, you and I, and when I heard the talk at the church to-night,
I just had to warn you that they’re on to you.”

  Young Swift turned pale and his teeth chattered. “What do you mean, Gene?”

  “To-night we were at choir practice, and the District Attorney and Ferrall came there to look over the place. Keene was with ‘em,—Bob Keene. They confabbed a lot, and then they put us choristers through a bit of questioning. Well, the upshot was, Warry, that when they learned that you crossed over to the west side of the church, just before Ethel fell, they immediately began to suspect you. I had been their chief source of information about your crossing over, and when I found it meant trouble for you, I concluded to give you a chance to clear out if you want to. I don’t ask you if you did it, I don’t want to know. I hate all this detective business, and evidence, and everything. And, you know, old chap, how I felt toward Ethel. She refused to marry me two years ago, but I never quit loving her. If you knew what it meant to me to stand up there and watch her marry Bingham! Well, I had to do it, of course; it would have looked queer to refuse. Where shall I take you?”

  “I don’t know; I’m all upset! Gene, how can they think I would shoot Ethel?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, man! Don’t let’s talk about it. I got you into this mess,—being suspected, I mean, and I’m willing to help you get out, but I won’t discuss it with you.”

  “What do you mean, that I’m suspected because I crossed over to the west side?”

  “I don’t know all about it myself. But somehow they’ve concluded Ethel was shot by some one on the west side of the church—”

  “How could she be? The wound is in her right temple. That was the side toward Bingham, toward the east.”

  “I know it, but they say she had turned all the way round, to walk out, when she was struck.”

  “Turned around! Nonsense! She had scarcely finished her responses.”

  “I don’t know about all that, but I’ll tell you one thing, Warry, and I haven’t told another soul. Clements, the organist, could see in his organ mirror, you know, and he said to me, that he distinctly saw the back of Ethel’s head before she fell. Now, that proves she had turned, and though Clem didn’t tell the detectives that, they’ve got the notion that she did turn, and they’re looking for some one on the west side of the church, who could have done the shooting, and,—as I told you, for some reason they’re leaning toward you.”

  “But why would I kill Ethel? I was more than half in love with her myself.”

  “Maybe that’s the reason they suspect you. I don’t know. But, good Lord, for that reason they could suspect half the men in town! Who didn’t love Ethel Moulton? If a man is going to shoot the woman he loves because she marries some one else, then they could suspect a whole lot of us! I adored her, but I’m not murderously inclined.”

  “Neither am I!”

  “That may be, but the point is, they think you had a chance and, of course, I didn’t. I couldn’t very well commit a crime when I was up there in the choir, in full view of the whole audience. But you, on the west side, and as Ethel passed you—”

  “Stop, Hall! For Heaven’s sake, stop! Of course, I didn’t do it!”

  “Well, that’s all right, but can you prove it?”

  “Do I have to?”

  “Honestly, Warry, I believe you do. I didn’t hear all they said,—they were jolly careful we shouldn’t,—but I know when those men left the church, they had you in mind as first suspect. They had been thinking it might have been Bingham, but,—oh, well, I suppose they found it hard to suspect the bridegroom himself. Say, Warry, were he and Ethel much in love?”

  “No; I don’t know all about it, but there was trouble somewhere. It may have been Ethel’s fault. She was as queer as could be all the last days before the wedding. And old Bingham seemed to go back on her, somehow. But Ethel was always queer. She fascinated me, because I never knew what she would do next And she was such a flirt. She would carry on outrageously with somebody else, right before Bingham’s eyes, for no reason but to annoy him. Only a week ago, at a dance, she gave all the dances to Fred Benson, just to make Stanford furious, and another night she left the ball-room, and went for a motor ride with Farrish. Why, the very morning of the wedding, she went off somewhere and stayed an hour, and nobody knew where she was!”

  “Don’t talk about her as if she did wrong; I can’t bear it! When I had to sing at her wedding service, I thought I should go right down there and grab her away from that man. Warry, you don’t know what it means to sing at the marriage of the woman you love!”

  “But I know what it means to stand by as best man!” returned Swift, in such a desolate voice that Hall started.

  “Never mind,” he said, roughly; “where do you want to go? Back home?”

  “No,” said Warren Swift, “you have frightened me. I’m innocent of that crime,—but I can’t face the music! Oh, help me, Hall! How could I bear to be suspected of anything so horrible! Can’t I get away on some plausible pretext, and come back when it blows over?”

  “That’s what I’m here for. I don’t want to talk to you about it, Warry, but I will help you to get away. Suppose I drive you straight to New York, and let you lose yourself there?”

  “But what word shall I send back home? And how? Shall I write?”

  “No; telegraph. But what’s your excuse?”

  “I don’t know! Gene, I’m in a blue funk over the whole matter. Advise me. What could I say?”

  “Oh, say you’ve gone to hunt down a clue that you believe may lead to the criminal.”

  “Just the thing! I wish I had your brain and your ingenuity.”

  “Shut up, that’s all. Understand, once for all, Warry, that I believe you may be guilty. That I’m helping you to make a getaway because I don’t want Ethel’s cousin mixed up in such a terrible affair. I’m your friend,—that is, I used to be,—but it isn’t friendship that makes me help you, it’s regard for Ethel’s memory. I’d rather they’d never find the murderer than to discover it is her own cousin!”

  “But I’m not,” protested Swift, in a weak voice. “Do you suppose you can convince me or any one else of that? If you were guilty, wouldn’t you say you’re not, just the same?”

  “Gene, you’ve got me scared to death! Couldn’t I make them believe me innocent, really?”

  “Not unless you are, and the real murderer can be found. Oh, Warry, what a thing you are! If you were innocent, you would have convinced me right now, without trying at all! You couldn’t have helped it! They say it isn’t always true that ‘murder will out,’ but you bet it’s true that innocence will out! If you had no hand in this crime, you would be so enraged at this false suspicion that you’d fly all to pieces in your protestations. Now, wouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t know, Gene. I’m all nervous and trembling. The whole affair has upset me so—”

  “And well it may! Now stop! If you say another word I’ll put you out here on the road and you may get to New York as best you can!”

  Warry Swift said no more and after a rushing trip, Hall landed him at a small hotel on a side street, in the city.

  “There,” said Hall; “go in there, register under an assumed name and stay till morning. Then go where you choose and do as you choose. I’ve done all I can for you!”

  “Don’t leave me, Gene! Oh, don’t leave me!”

  “Yes, I will leave you! Be a man, if you can, which you can’t! And save your skin, if there’s any way to do it.”

  Hall whizzed away, leaving Warren Swift at the entrance of the hotel. The fast little runabout went back to Boscombe Fells, and it was between three and four o’clock in the morning when Eugene Hall crept wearily to bed. But not to sleep. For hours he pondered as to whether he had himself committed a crime in aiding Warry to get away. But, his thoughts concluded, I’d do more than that; to save Ethel’s family from disgrace.

  * * * *

  The next day was Sunday, and the funeral day of the martyred bride.

  None of the family or near friends were visible a
t the services, so the crowd of curious ones that thronged the house had no means of knowing whether they were present or not. The choristers had been asked to sing, but had one and all declined. Nor could they scarcely be expected to do so, after the awful experiences of the wedding ceremony.

  Robed in her wedding gown, from which the long court train had been removed, Ethel Bingham lay, as if asleep. The wound in her temple was covered by soft folds of her hair, and her beauty was unimpaired. The wedding ring gleamed tragically on the white hand, and if further impetus or energy had been needed to rouse the indignation and revenge of the residents of Boscombe Fells, that sight would have supplied it.

  More than one declared as the assembly dispersed that justice must be done and that young life avenged. More than one was willing to go to work personally to hunt down the scoundrel who could do the diabolical deed. But the majority were so awed and appalled by the unusual awfulness of the tragedy, that they could say nothing but repeated exclamations of horror and grief.

  The family and other close friends were gathered in upper rooms of the big Swift house.

  The services over and the lovely clay about to be carried to the grave, Stanford Bingham stood, alone, arms folded, in the upper hall, unable to go down to the room where the casket stood. “No,” he said, to himself, “I cannot look at her again, I positively cannot!”

  And then, for the hall was darkened, Eileen Randall came softly up to him. Silently, she laid her hand on his, and whispered: “Do go down, dear, it will look so much better.”

  “I can’t, Eily,” he whispered back; “it would kill me! Poor Ethel, how could I treat her so?”

  “Do you regret her death?” and Eileen’s beautiful, sirenic face came close to his own. The girl’s beauty was of the compelling type; her small, dark face was truly that of a siren, and Bingham caught his breath, as he felt her nearness. Silently he grasped her hand and just breathed into her ear, “Eileen, are you mad? Hush!”

  But a quick glance showed the girl there was no one in hearing, and she murmured again, “Tell me, you shall!Do you regret her death?”