The Alan Ford Mystery MEGAPACK®

by Carolyn Wells

  “Yes, without any trouble. But have you?”

  “Very well put, Mr. Farrish! I’m not surprised that so keen a man as yourself should suspect me of trying to learn the key from you by pretending to know it myself. Let us each write it down.” Without looking at each other, the two men wrote on bits of paper, and then exchanged the slips.

  Both nodded sagaciously.

  “To one familiar with ciphers it is an exceedingly easy one,” said Farrish. “Merely the two clefs; A being the ledger line below the bass and the alphabet running directly up the lines and spaces.”

  “Bringing Z on the first ledger line above the treble clef,” added Ford.

  “Yes. So simple an arrangement could scarcely fail to be seen at once by the expert. But it is admirably obscure to the general reader.”

  “There is decided artistic ability in the arrangement of the time and measures,” went on Ford. “Now, to decipher it...”

  Ignoring the real letters of the notes on the staff, and counting the alphabet directly from A on the line below the bass, there was no trouble in reading:

  “Last warning. If you marry Bingham I will surely kill you.”

  CHAPTER XVIII

  A Downward Course

  “FANCY a bride getting that, and then going right on to the altar!” said Farrish, in a low, awed tone; “yet that is just what she did do.”

  “And you think Bingham wrote this?”

  “Who else?”

  “But it speaks of Bingham in the third person. It must have been sent by some one else.” Guy Farrish looked at Ford in astonishment. “I thought you were a detective!” he said. “Can’t you see that is just what a man would do, to turn suspicion from himself?”

  “I thought of that,” said Ford, “but I wanted to see if you did. If Bingham sent this, of course he wrote his own name to seem as if some one else did it. At any rate the hand that wrote this, wrote the other cipher messages found in the lady’s desk.”

  “Were there many?”

  “Not many. Four or five. It was from them I learned the cipher. How well the notes are made. Bingham is not a musician, they say.”

  “No, and a musician does not make notes like those. One used to writing music, transcribing music, does it this way.”

  With a few careless strokes, Farrish dashed off a few bars, thus:

  “Yes, I see. By the way, a man’s music manuscript is as individual as his chirography, isn’t it?”

  “Indeed, it is. We do lots of it in the choir work, and I know most of the fellows’ notes at a glance.”

  “And none of them are like these ciphers?”

  “Oh, no; they’re all more careless. Some of them are almost as illegible as stenography, to a layman.”

  “When you made the dummy message to give back to Miss Randall, you copied these notes pretty accurately.”

  “That was no trouble. Those painstaking, colourless signs are far easier to copy than a musician’s work. I doubt if any one could copy my notes so that I couldn’t detect the difference.”

  “I doubt it, too. Well, I’ll jog along. I’m obliged to you for your frankness and courtesy. I’ll take this paper, and I think I’ll turn the whole cipher matter over to the police. I’m not in any way working against them, though not exactly with them, either. That man, Ferrall, is a bright fellow. He goes slowly, but surely.”

  “Think so? Somers told me he had the habit of jumping at conclusions.”

  “He has landed nowhere as yet, but you can’t tell; he may have something big up his sleeve.”

  “If I can help you in any way, Mr. Ford, call on me.”

  “When you’re in or out?” and Ford smiled broadly.

  “In for choice. I’ve been pretty good-natured about your ‘burglary’ of my desk, but I don’t mind telling you, I don’t care for that sort of thing as a practice.”

  “Neither do I, Mr. Farrish, and I promise you, on my honour, never to do it again.”

  Ford went for a long walk, after leaving Farrish’s office. He wanted to straighten out his thoughts and tabulate his facts.

  “But,” he said to himself, “my facts are so few and so definite, they don’t lead anywhere. They just state the case and stop. We have the shot, and no weapon. We have the crime and no suspect. We have clues but no deductions. That cipher business, now, is a picturesque clue,—with the Farrish complications almost a bizarre one, and yet where does it lead? Only back to the fact that the victim was warned, more than once, before she was killed.”

  A long walk, and a long cogitation brought Ford back with a positive hunger for more of the immediate facts of the victim’s death. He visited the Coroner, the other doctors, the District Attorney, and the undertaker, and returned to Doctor Randall’s a little late for dinner.

  As this was an unusual occurrence, he was forgiven by the two who waited for him.

  He showed Eileen the cryptogram Farrish had given him, without, however, telling her how he had first obtained it.

  “Yes,” she said, “this is the one I had first This is the very one that was in Ethel’s glove. I recognize the way the notes run, though I couldn’t remember them without the paper. What does it mean?”

  Ford told her. The girl refused to believe that the use of Bingham’s name was a ruse of his own to direct suspicion away from himself.

  But to Doctor Randall it seemed plausible!

  “I don’t suspect Stanford,” he said, “not for a minute! I know Stanford isn’t guilty. But justice makes me say that I do think a man who could conceive and carry out the deep plot that was carried out by somebody, would be quite capable of tricky messages of just that sort. I mean, I don’t think it strange that Farrish, if he believes Bingham guilty, thought at once that the use of Bingham’s own name was a clever ruse.”

  “I don’t know what to think,” said Ford, wearily, “but I don’t want to talk about it any more to-night. I’m going straight from the dinner table to my room, and I beg to be excused from coming down again this evening. But, to-morrow, I’d like to have a pow-wow with you, Jim, and discuss who’s who in Criminalistic Psychology.”

  Undeterred by the fear of long words and incomprehensible phrases, Eileen insisted on being present at the conference next morning. The three shut themselves in the library, and told Charlotte to admit no one.

  “Unless it’s Mr. Bingham,” the Professor added.

  “He isn’t in town,” said Eileen; “he’s gone to New York for the day.”

  “To begin with,” said Ford, frowning, as he stood cutting the end of his cigar, “somebody has been lying. Now, of course, we can’t expect criminals to tell incriminating truths, and it is up to the detective to find out who the liars are. Mr. Ferrall thinks that Mr. Bingham and young Swift are both guilty, or have guilty knowledge. Now, wait, Miss Randall,” as Eileen began to speak, “Ferrall is a sharp man, and he is undisturbed by personal prejudice or bias, which you and your father cannot say. I’ve lots of confidence, Jim, in your brain, and mind, but you’ve got to lay aside your certainty that Mr. Bingham is guiltless, and view this thing squarely for a time.”

  “All right,” agreed the Professor, equably, “I’ll hear your points, as you present them, with a calm and impartial judgment. But my belief in Bingham is not because of my friendship for him, it is because I have yet to see anything to point toward his guilt”

  “There isn’t anything!” broke in Eileen.

  “This is to be a serious talk, Miss Randall,” said Ford, not unkindly, “and unless you are content to listen quietly, I would prefer that you go away.”

  “I’ll be good,” promised Eileen, “please let me stay.”

  “I’ve learned something new,” Ford went on, “that is, it’s new to me. I should have inquired about it before, but I had so many other matters to attend to. It seems that when the doctors probed for the bullet, they found that its course into the brain was not quite straight. That is, while there was no evidence as to whether the shot was fired by a right o
r a left hand, there was a slight trend downward as if it had been fired from a point a little higher than the wound itself.”

  “You don’t say!” exclaimed Doctor Randall; “why was this not noticed or commented on before?”

  “Nobody seemed to consider it of any importance, as the down grade of the course was very slight, and the fact, though noted in the Coroner’s report, made no impression on anybody.”

  “It seems to me of utmost importance,” said the Professor, thinking deeply.

  “And to me,” said Ford. “Now, remember, Jim; keep your mind unbiassed, remember the remarks made about Bingham’s having raised his hand to adjust a veil pin, directly before the bride fell. Also of course, before she turned, but it has been shown that she may have turned after being shot. This would, if Bingham shot her then, cause the bullet to go a little downward, as his hand would be higher than her temple, where the shot entered.”

  “Yes,” agreed Randall, “go on.”

  “Also,” Ford continued, “if the shot had been fired by a woman, by any one, outside a window, that too would presuppose a higher point of aim, and the bullet would slant down a little.”

  “Go on.”

  “Also, and in spite of Warry Swift’s alibi for young Kennedy,—he might have been lying,—also if Kennedy had fired that shot from the choir, the course would have been downward.”

  “From the choir! Oh, that’s not possible. He would have been seen. But if that woman at the window were Kennedy’s accomplice, if she is his wife, and if she acted under his commands, then you have a point there,—for to fire in at the window would cause a bullet to go rather downward.”

  “It must have been that woman!” said Eileen. She spoke quietly, but with shining eyes as if greatly rejoiced. “It couldn’t have been Stan; even if he did fix Ethel’s veil pin, he wouldn’t have raised his arm so high. That pin was just behind her ear! And of course, it couldn’t have been Hal Kennedy, from the choir loft: everybody would have seen him! The choristers would, any way, and the audience, too. Of course it was that woman! Whether acting for Hal, or on her own account—she did it!”

  “By the way,” said Ford, looking in his notebook, “it was Mr. Kennedy who told Ferrall of the bridegroom’s touching that veil pin just before the bride fell.”

  “So it was!” cried Eileen. “Of course then it was at Hal’s orders, under his compulsion, that the woman fired. If she’s Hal’s wife, he could make her do it.”

  “Why?” said Doctor Randall. “I mean, why did he make her do it?”

  “Because he was in love with Ethel, and wouldn’t let her marry Stan. I know Hal Kennedy! He’s a very devil! And since this woman, this Caprice, as he called her, wouldn’t let him marry Ethel when he wanted to, he took his revenge this way!”

  “Eileen,” said her father, “that’s a plot worthy of a melodrama, but it’s hardly possible in civilized society.”

  “A murderer isn’t civilized society!”

  “But he may move in it, and the plan you’ve laid out is too wildly improbable, my child. Now, I think, Alan—”

  The telephone interrupted their talk.

  Eileen picked it up from the table and answered the call.

  “Some one is asking for you,” she said, handing it to Ford. “It’s a lady’s voice.”

  Ford took it and informed the speaker of his identity.

  “I want to be sure,” said the voice, a pleasant, feminine one. “Is this Mr. Alan Ford?”

  “Yes”

  “The detective?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I want to tell you that I shot the bride in the church, and it is useless for you to pursue the case farther—or,—or, to make any arrests.”

  “Indeed! And who is this speaking?”

  “As if I should tell you that! I have safeguarded this—this conversation, you can never,—never trace me,—but I feel it my duty to—to prevent the prosecution of—of innocent persons.”

  “Thank you. And answer one question, will you? Are you Caprice?”

  The response to this was a wild shriek, in which dismay, fear, and horror were blended. A shriek so loud and piercing, that Eileen and Doctor Randall heard it clearly, though Ford still held the telephone. And then silence. The call had shut off, no questioning met any further reply, and with that loud scream ringing in their ears, the three looked at each other.

  CHAPTER XIX

  Caprice

  “I DON’T like it!” said Ford, as after vain attempts to get further word, he hung up the receiver and set the telephone back on the table. “That woman,—you heard her scream?”

  “Yes,” said the other two.

  “That woman was scared to death! She said to me that it was she who shot Ethel Bingham, but she didn’t!”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because she was being forced to send that message! I distinctly heard a man’s voice, low, but threatening, prompting her what to say, and muttering at her. She stammered, and her voice trembled. She was in deadly fear of somebody who was with her!”

  “You called her Caprice,” said Eileen.

  “That was a venture. I’ve been very curious about this Caprice person, and I sung out that name to trap her. She screamed then, but whether because I used that name or not, I do not know. But I am certain that she is not the murderer, whatever her name is. It may be the murderer himself was making her telephone as she did. Perhaps at the pistol’s point”

  “If it was the woman who looked in at the window,” began Doctor Randall, “perhaps she did do the shooting and was forced to tell of it by her conscience. Women are queer that way.”

  “She was forced to tell of it,” agreed Ford, “but not by her conscience! There was a very terrifying man who compelled her to send that message.”

  “And why did he do it?” asked Doctor Randall, and then answered his own question. “Because he had forced her to shoot that day, and now, fearing detection of his part in the matter, forces her to take the responsibility on herself. Can’t we get at this woman?”

  “There is nothing so difficult as to trace a telephone call,” said Ford, “but I’ll try.”

  However, after a long session with the Central and Information, he succeeded in learning only that the call was from New York City.

  Eileen went white. “Don’t follow up this thing,” she begged. “If this gets to Mr. Ferrall’s ears, he’ll insist, I know he will, that this woman is mixed up with Stan, somehow! Why, Mr. Farrish said; if we proved a woman to be an accomplice, it would doubtless open up unpleasant chapters in Stan’s life! Of course, it has nothing to do with the case, but—but Stan is in New York to-day,—and Mr. Ferrall would say—”

  “That’s so,” said her father, “Ferrall is ready to pounce on anything that can be made to point toward Bingham. If some man forced this woman to send that message, we’d better look it up ourselves, or keep the matter quiet for the moment.”

  “But,” objected Ford, “as you both believe in Bingham’s innocence, it would be a whole lot better to let these things come out, and be truthfully explained. If we can trace that Caprice woman, it will, of course, go far toward freeing Bingham from suspicion, for it will expose the man with whom she is really connected in the matter.”

  Ford looked at the other two keenly as he spoke. “You see,” he went on, “you are not so sure of Mr. Bingham’s innocence as you want to be!”

  “I am!” protested Eileen, stoutly; “but I know Mr. Ferrall is not; and I don’t want to give him a chance to twist evidence to incriminate Stanford, when it really doesn’t.”

  “I don’t like it!” Ford said again, as he walked up and down the room. “This telephone message complicates everything, just as I thought I was getting things straightened out.”

  “Perhaps it’s a trick or hoax of some one’s,” suggested the Professor.

  “No, sir-ee!” declared Ford. “If you had heard that tremulous timid voice, saying words that were commanded,—well, that ‘Caprice’
woman must be found, that’s all!”

  “Reason it out,” said Doctor Randall. “Granting the woman did do the shooting, at the command of the man who forced her to telephone just now, why did she do it? Why did he, how could he make her do it?”

  “Too easy,” replied Ford. “If that was really Caprice, she’s the wife of the man who took Ethel to Flora Wood. She went away from there with him, you remember. He was in love with Ethel. When Ethel married Bingham, or was about to marry him, this man not only resolved to kill her, but sent her warnings to that effect, by telegram and by the cipher message. Unable to make her give up the marriage, he carried out his threat to shoot her; but through this accomplice, who may be his wife and may not. Now, who is this man?”

  “Hal Kennedy,” said Eileen, promptly.

  “But young Swift declares Kennedy was with him all last August, and the Flora Wood date is the seventh of August.”

  “I don’t care what Warry says. Hal may have bribed him to say that. You know what a weak thing Warry is. Hal could easily bribe or threaten him to tell that story and stick to it. You’d better verify it by somebody else.”

  “It doesn’t ring true,” and Ford shook his head, dubiously; “I can’t see a woman shooting in at the window and not being discovered or suspected.”

  “Charlotte saw her.”

  “She didn’t see her shoot”

  “No, the woman was too clever. And, too, nobody would be looking that way at that time. But directly after, Charlotte saw Caprice run around the church and escape in the waiting motor.”

  “There’s something in it,” said Doctor Randall; “but how can we go to work to back up any such theory as that?”

  Alan Ford stared at him as if not hearing. Then, apropos of nothing, he asked, “What did the choir sing just as the bride fell?”

  “They sang Bamby’s ‘O, Perfect Love,’” Eileen told him. “The first notes of that were to be my signal to fix Ethel’s train to go back down the aisle.”

  “I’ve got a bee in my bonnet,” said Ford, with a certain little smile of his that betokened hopefulness; “and it’s buzzing pretty loudly; I’m going out on a few errands. Miss Randall, if any one calls, don’t say anything about that telephone message till I return.”