The Alan Ford Mystery MEGAPACK®

by Carolyn Wells

  The beautiful woman looked even more stately in her mild acquiescence than she had done on her first mute refusal. Her large, soft black eyes rested on Joyce with a pitying air and then strayed to Natalie, the little model, who was a mere collapsed heap of weeping femininity. With a deep sigh, Beatrice turned to the Coroner.

  “I am ready,” she said, with the air of one accustomed to dictate times and seasons.

  A little awed, Coroner Lamson asked: “Do you corroborate the story as just related by Blake, the footman?”

  “Yes, I think so,” and the witness drew her beautiful brows together as if in an effort of recollection. Though fully thirty-five, Beatrice Faulkner looked younger, and yet, compared to Joyce or Natalie she seemed a middle-aged matron. “I am sure I agree with his facts as stated, as to our entering the room, but I’m not sure he was able to hear clearly the words spoken by Mr. Stannard. I was not.”

  “You were not?”

  “No. I heard the indistinct mumble of the dying man, but I am not ready to say positively that I clearly understood the words.”

  “You came down stairs just as Blake was peeping in at the door?”

  “He wasn’t peeping. He was, it seemed to me, listening. I, naturally, thought it strange to see a footman prying in any way, and I called out his name, reprovingly. Then, I suddenly realised that as he was not my footman I had no right to reprimand him; and just then he turned his full face toward me, and I saw that the man looked startled, and that something unusual must be happening in the studio. He told me the lights had just gone out, and even as he spoke we both heard that sighing ‘Help!’ It was a fearful sound, and struck a chill to my very heart. I bade Blake turn on the light quickly, and then I followed him into the room.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Faulkner, that is just as the footman told it. Now, will you tell what you saw in the studio, and what you inferred from it.”

  “I saw Mr. Stannard in his arm chair, a dagger or some such thing protruding from his breast, and blood stains on his clothing. I inferred that some burglar or marauder had attacked him and perhaps robbed him.”

  “And how did you think this intruder had entered?”

  “I didn’t think anything about that. One doesn’t have coherent thoughts at such a moment. I realised that he had been stabbed, so of course, I assumed an assailant. Then I saw his wife and Miss Vernon standing near him, and I had no thought save to assist in any way I might. I cried out to Blake to get a doctor, and then I went to Mrs. Stannard’s side, just as she was about to faint.”

  “Did she faint?”

  “No, that is, she did not entirely lose consciousness, though greatly agitated. And then, soon, the butler and Miller, Mr. Stannard’s valet, came in, and after that Barry came and—and everything seemed to happen at once. Doctor Keith came——”

  “One moment, Mrs. Faulkner, you are getting ahead of your story. What about the words uttered by Mr. Stannard before he died?”

  “They were so inarticulate as to be unintelligible.”

  “You swear this?”

  “I do. If he said ‘Joyce’ or ‘Natalie,’ it is not at all strange, considering that those two women were in his sight. But I repeat that he did not say them in a connected sentence, nor did he himself mean any real statement. It was the unconscious speech of a dying man. In another instant he was gone.”

  Though outwardly calm, Beatrice Faulkner’s voice trembled, and was so low as to be scarcely audible. But she stood her ground bravely, and her eyes met Barry’s for a moment, in the briefest glance of understanding and approval.

  “Hum,” commented the astute Roberts to his favourite confidant, himself, “the Barry person is in love with the dolly-baby girl, and the queenly lady is his friend, and she’s helping him out. She isn’t telling all she knows, or if she is, she’s colouring it to save the implicated ladies.”

  “What is your position in this house, Mrs. Faulkner?”

  The faintest gleam of amusement passed over the white face. It was almost as if he thought her a housekeeper or governess.

  “I am a guest,” she returned, simply. “I have been staying here a few weeks for the purpose of having my portrait painted by Mr. Stannard.”

  “You previously owned this house, did you not?”

  “My late husband, an architect of note, built it. Later, it was sold to Mr. Stannard, who has lived in it nearly two years.”

  “Where were you just before you came down the stairs and saw Blake?”

  “In the Drawing Room, on the second floor, at the other end of the house. I had been entertaining a guest, and as he had just taken leave, I went down stairs to rejoin my hostess.”

  “Where did you expect to find Mrs. Stannard?”

  “Where I had left her, in the Billiard Room.”

  “You left her there? How long before?”

  “An hour or so. There were several guests at dinner, and they had drifted to the various rooms afterward.”

  “Who were the guests at dinner?”

  “Mr. Wadsworth, who was with me in the Drawing Room; Mr. Courtenay, a neighbour, and Mr. and Mrs. Truxton, who also live nearby.”

  “Mrs. Truxton, the jewel collector?”

  “Yes; that is the one.”

  “There was no one else at dinner?”

  “Only the family group; Mr. and Mrs. Stannard, Mr. Barry Stannard, Miss Vernon and myself.”

  “Once again, Mrs. Faulkner, you attach no significance to the words, ‘Natalie, not Joyce,’ which Blake quotes Mr. Stannard as saying?”

  Taken thus unexpectedly, Mrs. Faulkner hesitated. Then she said, steadily: “I do not. They were the articulation of a brain already clouded by approaching death. He merely named the people he saw nearest to him.”

  “That is not true! Eric meant what he said!”

  It was Joyce Stannard who spoke.

  CHAPTER III

  What They Said

  With a vague idea of taking advantage of a psychological moment, Coroner Lamson began to question Joyce.

  “Why do you make that statement, Mrs. Stannard?” he said; “do you realise that it is a grave implication?”

  But Joyce, though not hysterical, was at high tension, and she said, talking rapidly, “My husband’s words were in direct answer to the footman’s question. Blake said, ‘Who did this?’ and Mr. Stannard, even pointing to Miss Vernon, said, ‘Natalie, not Joyce.’ Could anything be plainer?”

  “It might seem so, yet we must take into consideration the fast clouding intellect of the dying man, and endeavour thus to get at the truth. Will you tell the circumstances of your entering the room, Mrs. Stannard?”

  “Of course I will. I had been in the Billiard Room for some time, ever since dinner, in fact——”

  “Alone?”

  “Not at first. Several were there with me. Then, later, all had gone—and—I was there alone.”

  The speaker paused. She seemed to forget her audience and became lost in recollection or in thought. She looked very beautiful, as she sat, robed in her black gown of soft, thin material, with a bit of white turned in at the throat. Her brown hair waved carelessly back to a loose, low knot and her deep-set brown eyes, full of sorrow, grew suddenly luminous.

  “Perhaps it wasn’t Natalie,” she said, speaking breathlessly. “Perhaps it wasn’t Miss Vernon—after all.”

  “We are not asking your opinion, Mrs. Stannard,” said the Coroner, stiffly; “kindly confine your recital to the facts as they happened.”

  But now, the witness’ poise was shaken. Of a temperamental nature, Joyce Stannard had thought of something or realised something that affected the trend of her testimony.

  Bobsy Roberts watched her with intense interest. “Well, Milady,” he said to her, mentally, “you’ve struck a snag in your well-planned defence. Careful now, don’t leap before you look!”

  “Yes,” said Joyce, but her quivering lip precluded further speech.

  The Coroner was made decidedly uncomfortable by the sight of her beau
ty and her distress, always a disquieting combination, and to hide his sympathy, he repeated, brusquely, “The facts, please, as they occurred.”

  “I was in the Billiard Room,” Joyce began again, “and I heard, in the studio, a slight sound of some sort, and then the light in here went out.”

  “Which was first, the sound or the sudden darkness?”

  “The sound—no, the darkness. I don’t really know. Perhaps they were simultaneous.”

  “One moment; was the Billiard Room lighted?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the door between open?”

  “The sliding doors were open—the curtains pulled together.”

  Glancing at the heavy tapestry curtains in question, Mr. Lamson said quickly: “If they were pulled together, and the room where you were was light, how could you notice when this room went dark?”

  Joyce looked bewildered. “I don’t know,” she said, blankly, “how could I?”

  The question was so naive, and the brown eyes so puzzled and troubled, that Bobsy Roberts whistled to himself. But not for want of thought. His thoughts flocked so fast he could scarcely marshal them into line. “Of course,” his principal thought was, “one of these women is guilty. If the crime had been committed by a burglar they wouldn’t have any of this back and forth kiyi with their eyes. Now, the question is, which one?”

  Joyce and Natalie had exchanged many glances. But to a stranger they were unreadable, and Roberts contented himself with storing them up in his memory for future consideration. And now, as Joyce looked confused and nonplussed, Natalie seemed a bit triumphant, but she as quickly drooped her eyes and veiled whatever emotion they showed.

  “But you are sure you did know when the studio lights went out?” pursued Lamson.

  “Why, yes—I think so. You see—it was all so confused——”

  “What was?”

  “Why,—the lights,—and that queer sound—and——”

  “Go on, Mrs. Stannard. Never mind the lights and the sound. You entered the studio from the Billiard Room, and saw——?”

  “I didn’t see anything!” declared Joyce, with a sudden toss of her head. “I c-couldn’t. It was dark, you know. Then somebody, Blake, you know, turned the switch, and I saw Miss Vernon standing by my dying husband’s——”

  “How did you know he was dying? Did you see Miss Vernon strike the blow?”

  “No. But she was in the room when I entered—and, too, Eric said it was Natalie and not—me.”

  “You are prepared to swear that Miss Vernon was in the room before you were?”

  “She was there when I went in.”

  “But it was dark, how could you see her?”

  “I didn’t. I heard her breathing in a quick, frightened way.”

  “And when you first saw her?”

  “She was cowering back against the little paint stand.”

  “Looking terrified?”

  “Yes, and——”

  “And what?”

  “And guilty.” Joyce said the words solemnly, as one unwillingly pronouncing a doom.

  “Mrs. Stannard, I must be unpleasantly personal. Can you think of any reason why Miss Vernon would desire your husband’s death?”

  Joyce trembled visibly. “I cannot answer a question like that,” she said, in a low tone.

  “I’m sorry,—but you must.”

  “No, then,” and Joyce looked squarely at Natalie. “I cannot imagine why she should desire his death. I certainly cannot.”

  “But any reason why she should dislike him, or wish him ill?”

  “N-no.”

  “Think again.”

  “My husband was a great artist,” Joyce began, as if thinking it out for herself. “He was accustomed to having his models do as he requested. Miss Vernon was not always amenable to his wishes and—and they were not very good friends.”

  “But you and Miss Vernon are good friends? You like her?”

  Joyce favoured Natalie with a calm stare. “Certainly,” she said, in an even voice, “I like her.”

  “Whew!” breathed our friend Roberts, silently. “At last I see what one Mr. Pope meant when he wrote:

  “Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,

  And, without sneering, cause the rest to sneer.”

  For, surely, Joyce’s attestation of friendship between herself and the artist’s model convinced nobody. She sat, gracefully erect, her serious face blank of any emotion, yet impressing all with the sense of profound feeling beneath.

  “In what ways did Miss Vernon incur Mr. Stannard’s displeasure?” asked Lamson.

  “Merely on some technical matters connected with her posing for his pictures,” was the nonchalant reply.

  “That, then, could scarcely be construed into a motive for murder?”

  “Scarcely.” Joyce seemed to give a mere parrot-like repetition of the Coroner’s word.

  “Yet, you are willing to believe that Miss Vernon is the criminal we are seeking?”

  “I do not say that,” and Joyce spoke softly. “I can only say I saw her here when I came into this room and found my husband dying.”

  “Might she not have come in just as you did, attracted by that strange sound, as of a man in pain?”

  “In that case, who could have stabbed my husband? There was no one else near. That has been testified by those who entered at the other end of the room.”

  “Could not a burglar have entered by a window, attempted robbery, and, being discovered, stabbed Mr. Stannard in self-preservation?”

  “How could he have entered?” said Joyce, dully.

  “I can see no way. That is, he might have been in here, but in no way could he have gotten out. That great North window, I am told, opens only in a few high sectional panes. It is shaded by rollers from the bottom, and is inaccessible. The other large window, the West one, is so blocked up with easels, canvases and casts, that it is certain nobody could get in or out of that. The door to the main hall was, of course, in full sight of Blake the footman, and that leaves only the South end of the room to be considered. Now no intruder could have gone out by the door to the Billiard Room or the door to the Terrace without having been seen by you or Miss Vernon, who claims she was on the Terrace all evening.”

  Every one present looked around at the Studio. They saw a spacious room, about forty feet long by thirty wide, its lofty ceiling fully twenty feet high. An enormous fireplace was on the side toward the house, and above it ran an ornamental balcony, reached by a light staircase at either end. The fine, big windows were of stained glass, save where ground glass had been put in to meet the artist’s needs. Originally a ballroom, the decorations were ornate but in restrained and harmonious taste. There were priceless rugs on the floor, priceless works of art all about, and furnishings of regal state and luxury. Yet, also, was there the litter and mess of working materials and mediums—seemingly inseparable from any studio, however watched and tended. Here would be a stunning Elizabethan chair, all carved wood and red velvet, heaped high with paintboxes and palettes; there, an antique chest of marvellous workmanship, from whose half-open lid peeped bits of rare drapery stuffs or quaintly-fashioned garments. Tables everywhere, of inlay or marquetry, were piled with sketches, boxes of pastels, or small casts. Jugs and vases, fit only for museum pieces, held sheafs of paint-brushes, while scores of canvases, both blank and painted, stood all round the wall.

  The armchair, in which Eric Stannard had sat when he died, was undisturbed, also the tables near it. A new idea seemed to strike Lamson. He said, “When you came in in the darkness, Mrs. Stannard, how did you avoid stumbling over the chairs and stands in your way? I count four of them, practically in the course you must have pursued.”

  Joyce looked at the part of the room in question. True, there were four or more small pieces of furniture that would have bothered one coming in without a light.

  “That’s so!” she said, as if the idea were illuminating. “I must have come in just after or at the ve
ry moment that Blake lighted the electrics!”

  “And found Miss Vernon already here?”

  “Yes,” said Joyce.

  “Miss Vernon, will you tell your story?” said Lamson, abruptly, turning from Joyce to the girl.

  “Why—I——” Natalie fluttered like a frightened bird, and gazed piteously at the inquisitor. “I don’t know how.”

  “Good work!” commented Bobsy Roberts, mentally. “Smart little girl to know how the baby act fetches ’em!”

  But if Natalie Vernon’s air of helplessness was assumed, it was sufficiently well done to convince all who saw it.

  “Poor little thing!” was in everybody’s mind as the rosebud face looked pleadingly at the Coroner. At that moment, if she had declared herself the guilty wretch, nobody would have believed her.

  Lamson’s abruptness vanished, and he said, gently, “Just a simple description, Miss Vernon, of your presence in this room last night.”

  “It was this way,” she began, and her face drew itself into delicious wrinkles, as she chose her words. “I had been, ever since dinner, almost, on the terrace.”

  “Alone?”

  “Oh, no. Different people were there. Coming and going, you know. Well, at last, I chanced to be there alone——”

  “Who had been with you latest?”

  “Let me see,” and the palpable effort to remember was too pronounced to be real, “I guess—yes, I’m sure it was Barry,—Mr. Barry Stannard. And he went away——”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. For a stroll with the dogs, probably. I was about to go upstairs to my room, when I heard a sound in the studio that seemed queer.”

  “How, queer?”

  “As if somebody were calling me—I mean, calling for somebody.”

  “Did you hear your name?” and Lamson caught at the straw.

  “Oh, no, just a general exclamation, it was. And I went toward the door to listen, if it might be repeated.”

  “Was the door open?”

  “No, but it has glass in it, with sash curtains, and these were a little way open, and I could see through them that the light went out suddenly——”