The listeners straightened up and watched him intently.
“In the meantime,” Whittaker proceeded, “Marsh had begun to entertain certain suspicions of his private secretary, who had entered his employ under the name of Leonard Harrington. He was also doubtful of his wife’s nurse, whom he knew as Theresa Lanyard. Little by little he was led to the belief—and he was absolutely right—that these two were secretly trying to connect him with the murder of Mooreland. And one night—the night before his death, by the way—he overheard the nurse and the secretary talking in the cellar. What he heard proved to him that Mr. Harrington was in possession of dangerous information and that he was likely to discover still more damaging evidence. He resolved to kill Harrington.
“I suppose nearly every murderer has aspired to achieve the perfect crime. Marsh planned to kill Mr. Harrington in a way that would be absolutely detection-proof. In accord with this plan, he salt Mr. Harrington away on a fake errand, instructing him to deliver a letter to me in which Marsh professed to be in fear for his life and designated Mr. Harrington as one of the persons he was afraid of. Perhaps Marsh’s queer sense of humor got in its work there. But I think he had a practical purpose, too. A letter of such astonishing nature would exclude all suspicion of his real purpose from Harrington’s mind.
“Mr. Harrington drove off, stopping at Luke Garbo’s garage, as Marsh had instructed him to do. While the battery was being changed, his mind was occupied by the strange letter he had in his pocket. Anybody would be a bit absent-minded under such circumstances. He sat at the wheel while the job was being done, looking at the gray sky and thinking of his strange errand. He heard the garage man say something about a storm. Then he heard him close the rear doors of the car. Naturally he thought they were being closed from the outside. He was wrong. They were being closed from the inside.”
“Inside?” said Harrington blankly. “But why—“ He started sharply. “Oh, I see, Garbo concealed himself in the car. You did the same thing yesterday, Mr. Whittaker. And I never thought—It never occurred to me to look back.”
“Why should you look back? After a man has stopped at a filling station and bought ten gallons of gasoline, he doesn’t look back to see what becomes of the filling-station keeper. He just slips the clutch in and drives off. That’s exactly what you did. You could have no suspicion that the garage man had concealed himself in the space between the two seats.”
Harrington nodded, then jerked up his head with a start.
“But Garbo? Garbo wasn’t the man whose face I saw in the glass three-quarters of an hour later.”
“No, and Garbo wasn’t the man who changed your battery and afterward slipped inside your car. It was Marsh.”
“What?” Harrington exclaimed.
“Marsh had gone to the garage that morning,” Whittaker went on. “He had no suspicion that Luke Garbo was merely Carstairs in disguise, and he had not yet missed the imitation coffin. He asked Garbo to run into New York and inspect a certain second-hand car he was contemplating buying. You see, he wanted to get rid of Garbo for a few hours. In fact, he expected Garbo would be gone most of the day. And soon after luncheon Marsh went back to the garage, donned Garbo’s cap and slipped Garbo’s jacket and overalls over his clothes, and smeared his face with grease. He had seen and heard enough of the garage-keeper to be able to imitate his manners and speech. You came along as per arrangement, and he got into your car in the manner I have explained. He sat on the floor while he removed the grease from his face and took off the overalls and jacket. When you crossed the Crooked Creek bridge he threw them out of the window, knowing the stream would carry them away. It carried them quite a distance, but Storm found them yesterday.”
“Yes,” said Harrington wonderingly, “Storm found the overalls and the jacket, but how did you find the solution?”
“Well, you remember I found some grease spots in the car the other day. They confirmed a hunch of mine. After all, Marsh’s appearance in the car couldn’t be explained in any other way. Now, Marsh was a coward and had a mean streak in him. That’s why he went about his intended murder in that particular way. Appearing suddenly in the car, with a pistol in his hand, he had you completely at his mercy. You had no possible chance to fight him. Moreover, having the drop on you, he could compel you to drive to an isolated spot where he could commit his crime in safety and where it would be easy to dispose of your body. But it was the mean streak in him that made him remove his overalls and dean his face before he showed himself to you. He wanted you to know who he was. He wanted you to know that the man who was going to kill you was the man you had tried to send up for murder. And so he tormented you for a bit before he pulled the trigger—”
“But he didn’t pull the trigger,” Harrington interrupted. “He might have done so a second later, but he was murdered just then.”
“You are wrong. He did pull the trigger, meaning to kill you, and in doing so he shot himself.”
A dead silence prevailed for a time.
“Shot himself?” Harrington echoed.
“Who else could have shot him?” A slow smile spread over Whittaker’s dour face.
“But he wasn’t shot. He was stabbed.”
“Well, he was murdered, at any rate. Whether he was shot or stabbed makes no difference. It was an absentee murder, so to speak. The murderer was about three hundred yards away when his victim died. I mean Roscoe Carstairs, alias Luke Garbo. You see, Garbo had smelled a rat when Marsh came to him that morning and asked him to go to New York. He left his garage, but did not go far. He only went to the old hilltop hotel to have a conference with his confederate, Harry Stoddard, who had made the place his headquarters for some time. Now, there had been a difference between the two conspirators. Carstairs, or Garbo, believed that the diamonds were hidden in Marsh’s house. Stoddard believed they were in the old hilltop hotel, where Mooreland had been hiding before his death, and that they had never been in Marsh’s possession. As it happened, neither was right.”
“What?” Harrington exclaimed; and then, as he cast a glance in Theresa’s direction, his eyes narrowed.
“No,” Whittaker repeated, “neither was right. About a month ago Marsh discovered that the coffin containing the diamonds had disappeared. The person who took them had not been fooled by the boxful of nails which Marsh had used as a decoy. He had taken the right box. Marsh said nothing about it; he thought he knew where the diamonds were, and he had strong hopes of getting them back.”
“But where were they?” Harrington asked. Whittaker did not reply, but he fixed an odd glance on Carmody. The old gentleman brushed back the shock of gray hair from his temple and grinned in an embarrassed manner.
“Yes,” he admitted, “I took them away from Marsh.” I didn’t know about the decoy coffin. I just happened to find the right one. It’s a long story. Maybe I’ll tell it some day. Maybe Marsh suspected me; I don’t know. I didn’t tell anybody, not even Theresa.”
“No,” said Whittaker, “but Stoddard seemed to have a deep-rooted suspicion that Miss Lanyard knew where the diamonds were. He almost brought Carstairs around to the same way of thinking. Anyway, Carstairs thought it might be worth trying to find out how much Miss Lanyard knew. He put her through a harrowing ordeal, but of course he didn’t learn anything. Then Carstairs thought he would give Stoddard’s idea still another test He still had the decoy coffin, the one loaded with nails. With great ostentation and a great show of innocence, be brought it here at a time when he knew Mr. Carmody was present. The trick almost worked. As soon as Mr. Carmody recovered from the shock, he did exactly what Carstairs had anticipated—rushed home to see if the coffin was safe. Luckily Mr. Harrington and I happened to be here ahead of him.”
Harrington smiled. The district attorney’s modesty was a little comical at times.
“But Stoddard?” Harrington asked. “What happened to him?”
“Oh, Stoddard. Well, beneath all his crookedness, Stoddard had a soft streak in him. Carstairs didn
’t like it. He was afraid Stoddard would cause him trouble. Besides, he confidently expected to get hold of the diamonds, and he didn’t want to divide them with his accomplice. So he decided that Stoddard had to die.”
With a very solemn air Whittaker took a pistol from his pocket.
“Yesterday Carstairs handed Stoddard this pistol. He told him to go to Crooked Creek bridge and kill Storm. He said Storm might dig up some damaging evidence, and somebody had to stop him. It was only a subterfuge. Carstairs wasn’t greatly concerned over anything Storm might find. His only idea was to get rid of Stoddard, and he was hoping that one or two things might happen—either that Storm would kill Stoddard in a pistol battle, or else that Stoddard would accidentally kill himself. As it happened, Stoddard was too late. Storm had already started back. But Carstairs’ treacherous scheme worked out very nicely. Mr. Harrington and I trailed Stoddard to a hunter’s shack. He tried to take a shot at us—and he shot himself.”
“How?” Harrington asked, but an idea was already forming in his mind.
“You see this pistol. It looks like any ordinary pistol, especially to a person not familiar with firearms. If Stoddard had opened it, he might have discovered something very peculiar about it, but he had no occasion to do that. Yes, it’s a very peculiar pistol. It doesn’t fire a bullet, but a pointed steel slug—and it fires backwards.”
“Backwards?” Harrington exclaimed.
“Yes, this part”—he indicated a point along the upper portion of the handle—“opens up when the trigger is pulled. A powerful steel spring evicts the slug with great force. If the person pulling the trigger holds the pistol as pistols are generally held, he gets the slug in his chest. If he hold it a little higher, he gets it in the throat Carstairs told me he bought it from an inventor who had gone insane. It seems Marsh kept a pistol in his desk drawer. One day when Carstairs was prowling about the house looking for the diamonds, he found the pistol. He took it and left the trick pistol in its place. They were about the same size and shape. With his usual foresight, Carstairs anticipated that Marsh might take a shot at him some day when he was poking about the house. That anticipation was never fulfilled, but Marsh put this pistol in his pocket the day he started out to kill Mr. Harrington.”
With a shiver Harrington stared at the weapon in the district attorney’s hand.
“And afterward,” Whittaker went on, “Mr. Harrington picked it up from the floor of the car. He had no reason to suspect that it was not an ordinary pistol. He carried it for a day or so, and then he was assaulted in the hilltop hotel, and the pistol returned to Carstairs’ possession.”
A little pause fell. The listeners stared shudderingly at the diabolical weapon.
“But no slug was found in Marsh’s body,” Harrington pointed out.
“As I said before, Carstairs was at the hilltop hotel that night. He saw the lights of your car, and so he went out to investigate. You were not there. You had seen a light somewhere about the old hotel, and you thought the murderer had gone there. Naturally, feeling that you yourself might be suspected, you were anxious to catch him. And so, when Carstairs came up to the car, all he found was the body of Marsh. The slug had torn a hole in the throat, but had not gone in far. Carstairs pulled it out If he had left it in, we might have found the solution sooner. By pulling it out he made it look as if nobody but you, Mr. Harrington, could have committed the murder.”
Harrington’s thoughts went back to a memorable evening. Again, in imagination, he saw Marsh’s face in the dusk of the car.
“And then, as he walked away from the car,” Whittaker added, “he discovered that his hand had been stained with blood when he pulled the slug out. He wiped it off with a glove he had in his pocket—Miss Lanyard’s glove. Miss Lanyard, it seems, had lost it in the old hotel, and Carstairs had picked it up, meaning to confront her with it as evidence that she had been prowling about there. After wiping his hand, he dropped it near the car, where Tarkin found it afterward.”
Tarkin grinned his unwholesome grin.
“And Miss Lanyard almost threw a fit when I showed it to her,” he said with a giggle. “She was all on edge, anyway. Those blood stains made her see red all over the place. It made her wild to think that she might be dragged into the Marsh murder just when—”
Harrington silenced him with a contemptuous look and turned to the district attorney.
“How did it happen,” he asked, “that Marsh’s hat was found in Carmody’s house?”
“Likely as not Carstairs brought it there. For the sake of his own safety he complicated the mystery all he could.”
Harrington looked at Theresa, sitting with lowered eyes beside Carmody, with a somber smile on her lips. His thoughts went back to the night when they stood beside the ash heap in the cellar.
“You had competition, Mr. Harrington,” the district attorney remarked. “Miss Lanyard, too, was trying to find Mooreland’s murderer. You see, there were circumstances which made it look as if Mr. Carmody had had a hand In that affair. The whole chain of misunderstandings was due to his efforts to get hold of the coffin. Storm and I were badly mistaken. Anyway, being the brave and loyal girl she is, Miss Lanyard wanted to clear Mr. Carmody of suspicion.”
“And the diamonds?” Harrington asked, glancing about the room. His face clouded as for an instant he looked into Samuel Tarkin’s shifty and watery eyes.
Carmody brushed his shock of gray hair away from his temples and gave an embarrassed cough.
“I knew Marsh and Stoddard were crooks,” he declared. “They had no right to the diamonds. That was why, when my chance came, I took them. I knew Carstairs was after than, too. It seemed to me I had as good a right to them as anybody. Besides—”
He faltered and looked affectionately at Theresa, and Harrington recalled what he had recently said, that it was the ambition of his life to leave a competence to his adopted daughter.
“Anyway,” Carmody added, “half of the diamonds belong by rights to me, according to the terms of Mooreland’s murder insurance. You know the provision he made, that in case he should die a violent death half of them should go to the person who could supply information leading to the detection of the murderer. It is rather late now, for the murderer is dead. Nevertheless,” and with a dramatic flourish he drew a bulky envelope from his pocket, “I think these papers will convince you that Marsh was the murderer.”
The listeners stared in astonishment as he handed the envelope to Whittaker. The district attorney fingered it perplexedly. A snicker sounded in the room, and he gave Samuel Tarkin a reproachful glance.
“Some of the papers in the envelope,” Carmody explained, “give a detailed account of Mooreland’s movements immediately before his death. They prove inferentially that Marsh murdered him. I’ve had that part of the evidence for some time. The others, which are of a more specific nature, have come to me just recently.”
The tense silence which followed the statement was broken only by the shuffling of the papers in Whittaker’s hands.
“And where did you get this evidence, Mr. Carmody?”
“Oh, the credit doesn’t really belong to me. I got the evidence from Snooks.”
“Snooks?”
“Yes, the faithful servant who followed Mooreland when he went into hiding. For reasons of his own he doesn’t want to appear personally in the affair. Snooks is a modest and unselfish sort. Now that his late master’s murderer is beyond the reach of the law, he has lost interest. He made me a present of the evidence. He absolutely refuses to accept a share in the diamonds. He has a deep-rooted conviction that they bring ill luck. It would almost seem he is right.”
Whittaker gaped at him for a moment, and then, with Storm at his side, began to examine the papers. Carmody went out on the piazza for a stroll and a cigar. Harrington and Theresa were standing at the window, their minds full of the events that had followed their first intimate talk beside the ash pile.
“I hope we are still partners,” he said. “Rememb
er what you promised?”
“I haven’t forgotten,” she murmured, and a soft smile illuminated her lovely gray eyes.
“Then—“ He paused and looked disdainfully at Tarkin, who had just slunk up to them in his furtive way. “Well, what do you want? Oh, I still owe you two thousand.”
“You needn’t growl at me,” Tarkin whimpered. “I’ve done you some good turns, haven’t I? I did you a good turn even when I took the coffin away from you. I thought the diamonds were in it; didn’t know then it was loaded with nails. Somebody else would have gotten it away from you if I hadn’t You might have been murdered for it Anyway, I wanted Mr. Carmody to have it Yes, I’ve done you some good turns, and I’ve been kicked and cuffed for it Say,” and his unwholesome face wrinkled into a grin that displayed all his gold teeth, “you’d like to kick me again, wouldn’t you?”
Harrington compressed his lips. A strange thought was stirring in his mind.
“When a fellow looks like a crook, he’s got to act like a crook,” said Tarkin sententiously. “If I had come to you like an honest man, you wouldn’t have believed me. You’d been afraid of me. It wouldn’t have been so good. But you thought you could handle a crook who didn’t pretend to be honest And so—”
“Wait,” Harrington broke in. “Who the deuce are you?”
Tarkin rolled his shifty eyes at Theresa.
“I am Snooks,” he said.
THE END
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The Back-seat Murder Page 19