Asey took the letter and read it aloud.
“‘My dear Miss Gross:
“ ‘I am sending you to-day material for the special candles about which I spoke to you last summer. There is one extra wick, in case you should meet with any difficulties. I will let you know later as to where they may be sent.
“ ‘You have been very kind to do this for me and I assure you that I am most grateful.
“Faithfully yours,
“ ‘WM.’ BOLES.’ ”
“Well!” I exclaimed, “and you were so certain that the servants had nothing to do with this, Asey!”
“I’m still,” he scanned the letter, “I’m still not so sure. This is written on a typewriter, for one thing, an’,” he licked his forefinger and rubbed the signature, “this name’s been put on with a rubber stamp. An’ for another thing, Miss Prue, William may talk kind of formal like, but this ‘about which I spoke’ business would of been too much for him. He’d of said ‘that I spoke about.’ An’ he’d of used ‘got into trouble’ instead of all this ‘meetin’ with dif’culties.’ An’ ‘Yours truly,’ not ‘Faithf’ly yours.’ Nope, William’s name may be at the bottom of this, but I’m bettin’ that it ain’t William that wrote it.”
Crump had been hunting around in his brief-case, and now he produced a check and gave it to Asey.
“One of William’s endorsed pay checks,” he said. “See if the signature is anything like it.”
“It’s just like it,” Asey said, “ ’cept for the e. The e’s dif’rent. See, Miss Prue.”
“It’s a Greek e,” I said. “I use it myself.”
“Funny,” Asey said, “that the feller should make that break. Darn funny. I guess we’ll get William down an’ see what he has to say about it.”
William read the letter and gasped. “I never wrote that,” he said. “Honest, Mr. Mayo. It looks like just the way I write my name, but it’s different, somehow.”
“How dif’rent?”
“I can’t tell.” He picked up the letter and examined the signature closely. “Yes. It’s the e. I don’t make that kind of an e. Mr. Stires always used to, though.”
“What?”
“Yes, sir. There were three e’s in his name, and I often noticed how he made them. I”—William coughed—“I tried to make ’em that way myself once, long ago, but it was too hard. I gave it up. I don’t think I ever signed my name with one, anyway. I just practised, as you might say.”
Asey nodded wearily. “Okay, William. That’s all.”
“I wonder,” Stephen said, “about this ‘extra’ piece of material. How many poisoned candles have you found?”
Asey laughed. “One, really. Only one we’re sure about. But there was six at Mary’s house an’ five in Stires’s room. That would mean that he ordered a dozen.”
“A dozen plus the extra one,” Crump corrected. “But why aren’t you sure about the eleven?”
Asey explained the method by which the wicks had been left unpoisoned for the first and last inch or so.
“I see,” Crump said, “but, Asey, how was it that six candles were left at Mary’s anyway?”
“Slip-up of some sort, I reckon. Certainly the feller didn’t leave ’em there on purpose. Wouldn’t be no reason why he should spoil the show when it was a hundred-to-one chance no one’d ever find out about the candles, an’ it’s sure as shootin’ that he wouldn’t of killed Mary on purpose. ’Course, he might of, but I don’t think so.”
“What are those two candles on the table?” the doctor asked.
“Some Miss Fible says she swiped from an up-stairs room. I clear forgot about her. You go up an’ see her, Doc, an’ then when you come back, you look at them wicks.”
The doctor picked up his bag, then put it down and looked at the candles again.
“Say, Asey, one of those is marked.”
“Where?” We crowded around.
“Here. See, on the sides. There are three single little bayberries stuck in a row in the wax. The other whole ones that I looked at weren’t like this.”
“Let Miss Fible wait,” Asey directed, “an’ see about this now.” He turned to Mrs. Howes, who had picked up the letter and was reading it again. “Anything strike you about that?”
“Yup. Look here, Asey. This feller talks about special candles. Well, you remember when I told you about that James man gettin’ the candles on Tuesday, then the Hobart feller cornin’ in after? Well, he asked if they wasn’t Stires’s special candles. D’you s’pose that means anything?”
“Lord,” Asey said gravely, “knows an’ no one else. Asked for special candles, did he? ’Member how many Mary gave ’em?”
“I’d say there was three ’n’ a half or four dozen.”
“Hm. How you cornin’, Doc?”
“Hold your horses, Asey.”
We held our horses, so to speak, for fifteen minutes, at the end of which time Walker straightened up from his work.
“Marked one’s arsenic,” he said. “Other’s all right.”
“Six,” Asey said, “an’ five an’ one in the closet an’ then this. A dozen, plus one. Well. An’ Miss Fible had it!”
He yawned abruptly.
“What are you going to do?” Crump asked.
“I’m goin’ to bed,” Asey said. “ ’Nough’s ’nough. An’ this p’tic’lar camel refuses to carry any more straws for one night. Mrs. Howes, I thank you kindly. Doc, you see Miss Fible an’ tell Phrone what to do.”
“What about Greta Garbo on Monday?” I asked slyly.
“Mebbe,” Asey informed me as he opened the door, “mebbe I’ll git to see her grandchildren, but I got my doubts even of that.”
And mentally, I agreed with him.
I slept that night in a bedroom where Phrone had thoughtfully placed my clothes. I was too tired even to remember the precaution of locked doors and barricades; I was too exhausted to care particularly whether or not some one murdered me in my sleep.
The strain of the last four days suddenly began to tell. I felt like an air cushion that has been sat upon once too many times.
It was after nine Sunday morning when Phrone woke me up.
“Nothin’s the matter,” she said in response to my question. “Only Miss Rena wanted to see you. I sort of hated to bother you, but I banged an’ yelled like a wild Indian outside of your door, an’ I kind of thought ’twould be a good thing to come in an’ make sure that no one done away with you durin’ the night.”
“No one has,” I assured her with a yawn. “I don’t want to rise and shine, Phrone. If I had my way I’d never plan to see daylight before ten-thirty. What does Rena want?”
“I dunno what she wants. Seems kind of wrought up, she does. Say, Asey told me about them candles an’ Mary. Wasn’t nothin’ wrong with them candles you took last night, was there?”
I nodded, and Phrone clucked her tongue. “Well, I’m pos’tive Miss Rena didn’t have nothin’ to do with all this, even if they prove it. Miss Prue, I’m dependin’ on you to see that them men don’t get her mixed up with Stires’s death.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said, “but I have my doubts.”
I went down to the yellow room to find Rowena still in bed.
“I wanted to get up,” she explained, “but that doctor’s a determined sort and Phrone simply won’t cooperate. Prue, there was arsenic in those candles, wasn’t there?”
“How’d you know about the candles?”
“Oh, Phrone told me. But in those you took, I mean. Something was wrong with ’em, wasn’t there?”
I nodded.
“And Asey and that shrimp of a Stephen Crump are beginning to suspect that I killed Bert, aren’t they?”
“Well,” I began lamely.
“Prue, you couldn’t prevaricate if you wanted to. They do suspect me. Well,” she sighed as she wriggled around in the bed, “I suppose they have every reason to think so. But they’re wrong.”
It occurred to me that Blake had said ex
actly the same thing.
“I know that they’re wrong,” I said, “but how can you explain away that candle?”
“Mrs. Boles,” she said calmly.
“Mrs. Boles? How could she have had anything to do with it?”
“Just before dinner yesterday I came up-stairs, and I saw some one slipping into the room. I switched out the light in the hall and pretended that I was a part of the wall. Pretty soon she came out. She had some dirty towels under her arm, and I s’pose she came to bring clean ones. But—she could have hidden the candles she substituted for mine under ’em when she came, and taken mine away, all covered up. See?”
“Did you look at the candles after she left?” I asked.
“Nope, as Asey would say. The only reason I watched her so closely was that I’ve become wary of people slipping into rooms. But when Asey snatched those candles last night and you began to make faces, I decided that something undoubtedly would prove wrong. It seems to have.”
“Rowena,” I said sadly, “why didn’t you leave me alone and——”
“And let you buy your orange silk? Pish-tush, Prue. And two pshaws. Things would have happened here whether we’d come or not. And you’d never met up again with Denny, and I’d never have had the chance to do Blake’s head. Are you going to marry Denny, by the way? He’s so jealous of Asey that he can’t see straight, and he’s so furious with Hobart that what he does see is bright crimson. You really should put him out of his agony. Prue, be a lamb and fetch Asey, and then I won’t tease you for blushing.”
“I’m not blushing,” I told her coldly. “And what d’you want with Asey?”
“You’ll see. Look here, Prue, before you go. Are they convinced that I killed Bert, or are they only suspicious?”
“I couldn’t say. Hobart and Blake and Denny,— oh, every one’s all muddled up. I don’t think Asey’s made up his mind on anything. Why?”
“I just wondered if they’d believe my new idea, or if they’d think I was trying to push the blame off on some one else.”
“I see. Is it awfully important, or may I get my breakfast first?”
“Eat first, by all means.”
And I did a lot of thinking as I breakfasted. Tom and Lewis were the only ones left who really hadn’t been involved in the case. I reflected that the whole situation was somewhat like watching my favorite stocks go down the previous fall. At first they had all seemed of sterling worth and above suspicion—but they proved to be otherwise. So here, every one of whose innocence you were absolutely convinced seemed to droop, point by point, toward new lows of guilt.
Asey wandered in.
“Look like you’d lost your last friend,” he remarked. “What’s the matter?”
I told him all that Rowena had said about Mrs. Boles and the candles. “Don’t you think,” I concluded, “that it’s possible that that letter is genuine, and that she and William are in back of all this?”
“Seems that way, an’ yet it don’t.”
“When are you going to do something?” I wanted to know.
“ ’Round t’morrow. Cheer up, Miss Prue. The Lord will provide. An’ He helps them as can’t help themselves, or He’s s’posed to. An’ if that’s all true, we should ought to be provided an’ helped pretty soon now.”
“Rowena’s got another idea,” I said. “She wants to tell it to you.”
“We’ll go up when you finished that toast.” Rowena greeted us cheerfully. If she felt at all worried about her position as temporary suspect, she gave no indication of it whatsoever.
Instead she held up a large book. Asey grinned. “One of them you wouldn’t tell me about? What’ve you discovered? Ink spots?”
“Don’t gibe, Asey. I still think that the ink-bottle-cover idea is good. But look here. This is a scrapbook of goings-on during Bert’s Harvard days. There are a lot of amusing items, like the Chandler Ball,— remember that, Prue?”
I nodded. “I wore pink satin——”
“No, you didn’t. It was blue silk with pink rosebuds and you wore a very daring scarf of pink tulle, that is, if you can believe these clippings. I——”
“Did you find anything in them clippings?” Asey asked patiently.
“Yes. You see, I’d run through it Tuesday after dinner, and I thought it might unearth something important. Well, there are three clippings here from the Transcript that tell of Denny James and Stires coming to blows.”
Asey and I reached for the book simultaneously.
“Mm,” Asey said, “looks from these stories like they had a good fight, don’t it? But it don’t say why. Just says resumey of battle. Where you goin’, Miss Prue?”
“I’m going to get Denny and have him explain.”
And when I told him about the clippings, Denny laughed. “Of course I’ll explain to Asey,” he said. “I haven’t thought about that in years.”
“What was it all about?” I wanted to know.
“Carrying on a family fight. Father—good lord, Prue, you must remember. My father and Bert’s were both running for Congress. That was when we lived in Boston, you know. Stires was a Democrat and father was a Republican, and Bert and I thought it would be rather a good idea to get a little publicity for ’em. That’s all there is to that. Don’t tell me Asey’s been digging out things like those cut-and-dried battles?”
“Rowena did it. It’s one of her ideas,” I said.
Up-stairs he told the story to Asey, who chuckled appreciatively.
“I guess, Miss Fible,” he said at last, “that this wasn’t as good an idea as the——”
He stopped short as Denny casually crossed to the table next Rowena’s bed and replaced the cover on the much mooted ink bottle.
“——other,” Asey finished quickly. “You’re a great one for neatness, ain’t you, Mr. James?”
“Not usually,” Denny returned, quite unconscious of all the excitement he was causing. “Only that ink bottle looked a bit precarious. Why? You all look so grim.”
I drew a deep breath.
“Mr. James,” Asey said, “you told us last night that Miss Fible was the one that hung up the search party for us on Thursday when we got stuck into that closet. Now, would you——”
“He said that!” Rowena cried. “He said that I was the one? How perfectly—why, Denny! That’s a lie and you know it is! You held things up yourself!”
“I!” Denny’s voice was incredulous. “I held them up? I did nothing of the sort, and you know it. It was you that did all the delaying around.”
“See here,” Rowena sat up in bed and her face was bright pink, “see here, Denny James. For Prue’s sake I’ve not mentioned the fact that I found your handkerchief on top of my dressing-table the day that arsenic was planted around——”
“My handkerchief? My handkerchief?”
“You sound like a poll parrot. Yes, your handkerchief, with your initials on it. But this is just a little too much. I didn’t think that those clippings were worth a hoot, and I’ll admit that I thought you were too worried about Prue to know what you were doing when we hunted for her and Asey, but when you begin to accuse me of——”
“I’m not accusing you of anything.”
“You are. And you know it——”
Denny looked at her, surveyed Asey and me and cleared his throat. “Asey, I’ve kept my temper and not made any fuss about Hobart’s lies because I thought that it wasn’t necessary. But this is the end of all that.”
“Where are you going?” I cried as he started out of the room.
“Going to phone my lawyer, and until he comes, I’m going to take a page out of that red-head’s book and keep quiet. I can’t keep people from trying to involve me, I suppose, but I can at least refrain from saying anything that will be used against me.” He looked at me reproachfully.
“Now,” Asey said soothingly, “now don’t go an’ get excited about this, Mr. James. The doc told you the other day that I didn’t want to go around pryin’ into folks’ business, but
I got to. What Miss Fible thinks an’ what I think is two dif’rent things. An’ prob’ly Miss Prue here thinks even dif’renter. Now, Mr. James, won’t you just cool off an’ forget all about this silence-is-golden idea? I ain’t accused you of anythin’, an’ after all, I’m sort of the one who would.”
Denny hesitated.
“Please,” I said.
“Oh,—oh, all right.” And he turned on his heel and left.
“What about me?” Rowena asked indignantly. “He was trying to make me——”
“No,” Asey said firmly, reaching over and picking up the scrap-book, “he wasn’t. Where’s that handkerchief?”
She produced it from under her pillow.
“Here. But I think——”
Asey’s eyes glittered dangerously, but Rowena paid no attention.
“I think, Asey, that that ink-bottle top clinches the matter for him.”
“You,” Asey said with a certain restrained gentleness, “you just rest. Come along, Miss Prue.”
“Asey,” I said as we got out into the hallway, “she never told me about that handkerchief. I think she’s making it up. And that ink bottle was sort of rocking. I nearly put the cover on myself. Really, I did. I don’t think it proves a thing.”
Asey looked down at me and smiled. “Cheer up, Miss Prue. Cheer up. What’s the matter, William?”
“Gentleman to see you, sir.”
“Who? If it’s them reporters, I’m dummed if I don’t skin them fellers alive. I told them motorcycle cops that if they let one through I’d report ’em f’r gross negl’gence.”
“It’s not a reporter, sir. It’s a doctor.”
Asey and I hurried down to the library.
A chubby, apologetic-looking little man with a pug nose jumped as we entered.
“Mr. Mayo?” he asked indecisively, looking first at me, then at Asey. I wondered if he thought that / was Asey Mayo.
“Yessir. Right here.”
The little man extended a hand as though he were feeding lions in a cage.
“I—er—my wife, she thought—that is,” he made a mammoth effort. “I’m Doctor Jerome. Doctor Joseph Jerome.” Then, as Asey and I still looked blank. “I’m a dentist. That is, I’m Mr. Stires’s dentist.”
Death Lights a Candle Page 18