Death Lights a Candle

by Phoebe Atwood Taylor

  Walker nodded.

  “I don’t think ’twas anything in the food I give him. We can’t find that he et or drank anything after we left him. You say there ain’t no sores nor nothin’ on him where he might of been poisoned by clothes.”

  “Right.”

  “Hobart was the only feller that saw him after we did. That is, he’s the only one we know about. Now, what about this Mr. Hobart, Miss Prue?”

  “I don’t know much about him. I met him for the first time only yesterday. He’s the head of the Hobart Lumber, he went to school with Adelbert and he was at Harvard with him. He was pretty wrought up when Bert didn’t come last night and he fussed about and muttered about some business that Bert was to do for him.”

  Asey nodded. “When he come down-stairs last night after seein’ Stires, he was happy an’ cheerful as a basket of chips. He told Blake that Stires had put over a good deal for him. ’Course, he might of been bluffin’, but I don’t know. He’d have sense ’nough to know that we could pretty well find out about any business deals, ’cause they ain’t things you can’t trace. Well, anyways, he seemed plenty satisfied with Stires an’ with life in gen’ral. Didn’t have the look of a man that’d just give his host arsenic. Denny James, he lent Stires dry clothes, but he wasn’t alone with him when Stires changed outside the game-room. What’s Denny do?”

  “He doesn’t do much of anything; that is, I don’t think he has any business unless you can call enjoying himself a business. He collects prints and books. That’s about all.”.

  “Lives on his income, does he? An’ this girl, now? She’s Stires’s ward, is she? They didn’t seem to be awful cordial.”

  “She’d only arrived from France yesterday,” I said, and told him about Cass Allerton and Lucia Hammond. “Besides, you know Bert was not a ladies’ man.”

  “What about the servants?” Walker asked. “How many are there?”

  “There’s William, and his wife, the housekeeper, and Lewis, the man you tended for the burns. They’re the only ones I’ve seen, but there’s Stires’s chauffeur and I believe that the Blakes have one, too. Don’t you think it must have been one of them?”

  Asey smiled. “For your sake, Miss Prue, I’ll hope so. But I got my doubts. The doc an’ I sort of decided that some one pretty clever done this, an’ from the glimpse I had of the hired help, I don’t think that they’re so dummed clever. Any fool that can’t light an oil stove without lettin’ it explode——”

  The doctor grinned at his scorn.

  “Have you examined the room?” I asked. “I mean, have you looked in corners and on the floor to see if there isn’t some clue?”

  “We give it a pretty thorough once-over,” Asey said, “but we didn’t find nothin’. Not even a cuff link or a cigar stub or anything else.”

  “Have you looked through Stires’s clothes?”

  Asey smiled. “I told you,” he said to Walker, “that we needed a woman on this job. Nope, we ain’t. The clothes he had on are all down-stairs. Miss Prue, s’pose you go get some clothes on. You must be nigh froze.”

  I admitted that I had been warmer. “But I’ll probably wake Rena if I go into the room and she’ll be sure to ask me what the trouble is—and then the house will be roused for sure.”

  “Then get your clothes quiet,” Asey said, “an’ you can dress down-stairs. The game-room’s probably the warmest place, ’cause I made sure that the fire’d keep. You go in an’ get your things. We’ll lock this room up—I guess we can, an’ wait for you outside an’ then go down with you.”

  I literally sneaked into the yellow room and grabbed the clothes I’d taken off the night before. I need not have feared that Rowena would wake. She was sleeping like a baby. Ginger, however, hopped out of his basket, and it was only with difficulty that I persuaded him to return.

  The game-room was almost warm. I dressed with the dubious aid of a flash-light and discovered, as I slipped on my sweater, that I’d put on everything wrongside out. But remembering Olga’s superstition about changing,—she said it brought trouble,—I left things as they were. There had already been, I decided, trouble enough.

  I put on my fur coat as Asey knocked at the door.

  “All set? Well, we went through Stires’s pockets, an’ here you are.”

  He passed over a silk handkerchief into which he had dumped the miscellaneous assortment. There was a full key ring, a small pocket-knife, a wallet and change purse, two small leather-covered note-books and a check-book. Then, with a grin, Asey produced a set of false teeth.

  “Where on earth did you find these?” I asked.

  “In his coat pocket. Kind of funny to carry spares along with you, ain’t it?”

  “Let me see theml But, Asey, these aren’t spares! These are broken.”

  “Just as funny t’ carry busted ones,” Asey commented gravely.

  There was something in his tone that made me laugh, and the doctor joined me.

  “I suppose it’s callous to snicker,” Walker remarked, “but there is something funny about false teeth anyway,—and to find them in this situation is amusing. You know, I had a patient once who had a false eye and false teeth. He told me that people always laughed at his teeth because he had a peculiarly shaped jaw and he couldn’t always make ’em stay put, and they felt awfully sorry about his eye. As a matter of fact, he said that the teeth hurt him a lot more. But it is a peculiar thing for Stires to lug around with him.”

  “He had teeth in, didn’t he?” Asey asked.

  The doctor nodded. “Uh-huh. He had a full set. I noticed them.”

  “Then don’t you s’pose that the ones he had in was the spares, an’ that he broke these here, the ones he had in his mouth, an’ switched? That’s the only way I can figger it out. These is his regulars an’ them’s his spares, an’ prob’ly he was intendin’ to get these mended. Well, so much for all that. What you findin’ in them books, Miss Prue?”

  “One’s just full of addresses and phone numbers. The other is an engagement book, apparently. It’s full of lists, too. See, here’s one headed Tuesday. It’s a list of things that some one was to get for the house here.”

  Asey glanced at the book. “Great boy for details, wa’n’t he? I’ll look ’em over careful later. How about that check-book?”

  I passed it to him.

  “Huh, he kep’ a bank balance, didn’t he? Only used two checks in this book. Five hundred for cash, an’ two thousand for cash.” He picked up the wallet. “That’s funny, too. They’s only about seventy-five in bills in here, an’ that check was dated yesterday. Wonder what he spent all that money for?”

  “See here, Asey,” I said, “where was he yesterday, and Tuesday night? Did you ask him?”

  Asey shook his head. “Nope. Didn’t he tell you while I was up gettin’ his supper?”

  “He did not. Asey, no one asked him! And he never offered to tell us. How stupid of us, after we’d waited and worried so long! Where do you suppose he could have been?”

  “Dunno. Didn’t he tell any one? Even Hobart when he saw him?”

  “He must have, after all that dithering about Hobart’s business. But it’s funny he didn’t tell the rest of us. He didn’t even make any attempt to.”

  “Well.” Asey pocketed the check-book and the notebooks and, to my surprise, the teeth. “We got some exhibits t’ conjecture about, anyhows. It don’t look like they was goin’ to do us such an awful lot of good, but we got ’em.”

  “I wish,” Walker said, “that we could find out when and where and how that arsenic was given him. If you prepared his food, Asey, and tasted some of it yourself, and if it was the same food that the rest of us had, I don’t see how his supper could have been to blame. I don’t quite see how he was killed by anything but a huge amount, either, but that’s beside the point for the moment. We’ll have to assume that the food was all right. How about the plates?”

  “You mean, some one could of put arsenic on ’em? I don’t see how. I got the pla
tes kind of random-like out of the chiny closet. Couldn’t of been in the sugar, neither, ’cause he didn’t take no sugar in his coffee.”

  “Were any of the servants around?”

  “Nope. That William was helpin’ Stires get his clothes off an’ his wife was up-stairs with the cook. The other fellers was in the other part of the cellar playin’ cards. Kent told ’em not to sleep out over the g’rage for fear they might get stuck out there. He told William t’ find room for ’em somewheres. No one was around attall.”

  “Well, are you sure that no one passed you on the way down there, Asey?”

  Asey slapped his thigh. “God A’mighty,” he said disgustedly, “but I’m gettin’ old an’ forgetful. Cal’late I’ll be forgettin’ my head one of these days if it wa’n’t sewed on to my body. Doc, at the end of the hall they was only one of them bayb’ry candles for light. You know how soft an’ squashy the carpets is. Well, just as I was goin’ down-stairs, Blake come up. If I hadn’t sidestepped quick, I’d of knocked him over. As ’twas, his sleeve got into the creamed chicken.

  An’ I s’pose that if his sleeve did——”

  “His hand,” Walker said quietly, “might well have got into it, too.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MISS ALLERTON

  ASEY nodded. “I guess,” he observed cheerfully, “that I’ll run an’ bring that gent down here.”

  As he disappeared up the stairs, Walker shook his head. “That man amazes me, Miss Whitsby. You know, I’ve always felt that it would be pretty exciting to be mixed up in an affair of this sort. I even had some idea that if I were, I’d be able to lay hands on the guilty party before you could say ‘Eighteenth Amendment.’ But I’ve seen as much as he has of this, and I admit that I’m sunk. But look at him—he’s as calm and confident as he can be. I don’t see how he’s going to get anywhere, but, by George, I feel he’s going to!”

  I nodded. “I know what you mean. I rather have faith in Massachusetts myself.”

  Asey returned with Blake. His gray hair was rumpled and full of cow-licks and he was shivering with the cold. He yawned and seated himself before the fire.

  “What’s the matter, Asey?”

  And very briefly, Asey told him.

  “Look here, man alive,” Blake said irritably, “this is not funny. I’m not one to protest against practical jokes, but this is going a bit far.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Blake,” Walker said, “but Asey’s not joking. He’s telling you the Gospel truth.”

  Blake leaned back in his chair and for a second I thought that he was going to faint. Walker, watching him closely, even took a step toward him.

  “But it’s incredible! It’s—oh, I can’t believe it!

  Bert dead? Killed? Miss Whitsby, is it true?”

  I nodded.

  He was silent for a minute and I could see the effort he was making to control himself.

  “Who did it?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Asey informed him gently.

  “But Bert had no enemies—and certainly none here in the house! All the servants have been with him for years. They’re perfectly trustworthy. They loved him. And as for the rest of us, why, no one here could have killed him, Asey. They couldn’t have!”

  “But we’re sure,” Walker said, “that it must have been some one here. We know almost for a fact that it couldn’t have been any one from outside.”

  “But who?”

  Asey drew a long breath and started in without any preamble. “Mr. Blake, when I took Stires’s supper down to him last night, I near bumped into you on the stairway. We sort of hit each other as it was.”

  “Yes. I didn’t hear you coming and the light was bad.”

  “Well, Mr. Blake, we’re pretty sure that nothin’ in the food as it was when I left the kitchen hurt Stires. We sort of can’t think of any other way except that it was food that poisoned him. Now, you was the only person I met from the time I left the kitchen until I got down-stairs.”

  “You don’t think that I—that I put poison in the food? You’re certainly not accusing me?”

  “Before Asey answers,” Walker spoke up, “I want to say something. We’re snowed in here, Mr. Blake, and all of us are going to have a difficult and unpleasant time. Asey’s job is going to be particularly hard. We’re just trying to put together what we can before the rest are told. We’re not accusing any one. We’re only trying to get the facts straight. Now this has been a shock, but as one of Mr. Stires’s friends, I know that you will want to help us all you can. Asey has got to find out a lot of things that he personally doesn’t want to pry into. But it’s his job, right now, and if you and the rest will understand and just try to help, the whole thing will be a lot easier.”

  “I understand, Doctor.” From the pocket of his dressing-gown he drew out his glasses and commenced to swing them on their ribbon. “Asey, I was on my way up-stairs to get a handkerchief. It sounds absurd, but I’d forgotten one and I’d sniffed until I couldn’t bear it any longer. June offered to go up for me, but I knew that he couldn’t find one because he’s never been known to find anything. I brushed by you, but I’ll give you my word that I didn’t poison Bert’s food. I wish that you or the doctor would go up to my room now and search it thoroughly and see for yourselves that I have nothing there that might have hurt Stires.”

  There were footsteps on the stairs and William, with a heavy ulster over his black suit,’ came down. Asey glanced at him and turned to Blake.

  “Thank you, Mr. Blake. The doc’ll go up with you, an’ I sort of wish you wouldn’t say anything about this until later. Not even to your son.”

  “Is anything the matter, sir?” William asked after they had gone.

  Asey looked at me pleadingly, and so I tried to break the news as gently as I could. Tears came into the man’s eyes and he tried in vain to brush them away.

  “I’ve worked for Mr. Stires twenty-seven years,” he said. “I was even his servant in the army. He took Mrs. Boles into the house rather than lose me when I married, and you don’t know how he disliked women, sir. I—I can’t tell you how I feel. Who did it?”

  “We don’t know, William. Mr. Mayo’s going to do his best to find out.”

  “If I can help you, sir, you just tell me what to do. My wife and I, we liked Mr. Stires as a friend and a gentleman as well as our boss. I don’t know what she’ll say to this.”

  “Don’t tell her now,” Asey said. “Don’t tell any one until after breakfast. We’re snowed in, William, an’ I don’t know when we’ll get back to normal, an’ things ain’t goin’ to be so happy. We’ll wait till they all got breakfast before we tell ’em, ’cause they prob’ly won’t feel like it if we tell ’em before. William, d’you know anythin’ about this attall?”

  “Not one thing, sir.”

  “Mr. Stires been havin’ any fights with any of the men?”

  “He never had fights with any one.” I wondered for a moment about Rowena. “He’d get peeved if things wasn’t just so, like his eggs being cooked three minutes by a stop-watch, and if we went over five seconds he knew it. He was fussy about things in the house and how they ran, but even when he got peeved, he forgot all about it in ten minutes. Same way with his friends. He’d get peeved with Mr. Kent or Mr. James and the rest, but he never got mad with any of ’em, and they never got mad with him, as far as I know.”

  Asey nodded. “Where was he yesterday and the day before? You know?”

  “Why, no, sir. He didn’t tell me last night, and with all the bustle I forgot to ask.”

  “Does he often go away an’ not tell you where?”

  “Never, sir. He always tells us where he’s going and how long he’ll be. And if he said he’d be somewhere at a certain time, he was always there. He was very punctual. He left for the factory every day at eighteen minutes to nine as long as I’ve been with him and unless he told us different, we knew he’d be back at eighteen minutes past five.”

  “I see. Al
l right, William. How’s that cook?”

  “Lewis? I looked in at him and he said he felt better, but I still don’t think he can cook, sir.”

  “All right. I’ll get breakfast. Miss Prue, you go up an’ see if you can keep Miss Fible from askin’ where you been an’ what you’re doin’ up.”

  And I managed to get myself dressed all over again before Rena awoke.

  “Are we all snowed up?” she asked cheerfully.

  “We are.”

  “How perfectly marvelous! I say, wasn’t Bert decent last night? I can’t get over how I’ve maligned him all these years. What’s the matter with you? You seem so glum!”

  “Just cold,” I lied. “I’m going to take Ginger down to be fed.”

  “I’ll be down presently. Lord, it is cold, isn’t it?”

  I rummaged around and found two belts which I tied together for a leash for my cat. It occurred to me that it might not be healthy for him to roam about the house at large.

  “Why all that?” Rowena wanted to know.

  “I’m afraid he’ll go for that Peke. Even if he didn’t pay any attention to it yesterday, it doesn’t mean that he won’t to-day. He clawed the ear of Ada West’s, you know, and nothing in the nature of a real reconciliation has ever taken place between us.”—That at least, I reflected, was true.

  “I see. And with Adelbert in such a good mood it would be a pity to have his niece rise up in wrath.” I shuddered at the casual mention of Adelbert, picked up Ginger and departed. I made my way out into the kitchen, and Asey smiled at the leash.

  “Gettin’ anxious for him? I’ve found a dozen tins of salmon there in the storeroom, so you needn’t worry about his food none. But I shan’t feel attall hurt if you want to feed him yourself.” He presented me with a can opener and I stood over Ginger while he ate his fish.

  Breakfast was probably the most awful meal I ever sat through. Asey, Blake, the doctor and I were so forcedly cheerful that it seemed to me the rest would surely ask questions. William put plates down and took them away, moving as automatically and jerkily as one of those mechanical toys one winds with a key.