by Marion Bryce
“I was in his room, yes.”
“Mrs, Embury was in her own room then?”
“Yes.”
“Her outer door was closed?”
“Yes.”
“And, therefore, fastened by the snap-bolt?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“Don’t you know so? Don’t you know that it must have been?”
“Yes.”
“And then—then, when you left Mr. Embury’s room—when you left him for the night-did you close his door?”
“I did.”
“And that, of itself, locked that door?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“Stop saying you suppose so. You know it did! You’ve lived in this house two years; you know how those doors work—you know your closing that door locked it? Didn’t it?”
“Yes, it did. I turned the knob afterward to make sure. I always do that.”
Ferdinand now seemed to be as discursive as he was reticent before. “And I know Miss Eunice’s—Mrs, Embury’s door was locked, because she had to unbolt it before I could get in this morning.”
“But look here,” Driscoll broke in, “are these doors on that snap-bolt all day? Isn’t that rather an inconvenience?”
“Not all day,” vouchsafed Ferdinand. “They can be turned so the bolt doesn’t catch, and are turned that way in the daytime, usually.”
“But,” and Driscoll looked at him intently, “you can swear that the bolts were on last night?”
“Yes, sir—”
“You can’t!” Hendricks shot at him. The lawyer had been listening in silence, but he now refuted Ferdinand. “You don’t know that Mrs, Embury put on the catch of her door when she closed it.”
“I do, sir; I heard it click.”
“You are very observant,” said Shane; “peculiarly so, it seems to me.”
“No, sir,” and Ferdinand looked thoughtful; “but, you see, it’s this way. Every night I hear the click of those locks, and it sort of seems natural to me to listen for it. If it should be forgotten, I’d think it my duty to call attention to it.”
“A most careful butler, on my word!” Shane’s tone was a little sneering.
“He is, indeed!” Eunice defended; “and I can assert that it is because of his faithfulness and efficiency that we have always felt safe at night from intrusion by marauders.”
“And you did lock your door securely last night, Mrs, Embury?”
“I most assuredly did! I do every night. But that does not prove that I killed my husband. Nor that Miss Ames did.”
“Then your theory—”
“I have no theory. Mr. Embury was killed—it is for you detectives to find out how. But do not dare to say—or imply—that it was by the hand of his wife—or his relative!”
She glanced fondly at Miss Ames, and then again assumed her look of angry defiance toward the two men who were accusing her.
“It is for you to find out how,” said Mason Elliott, gravely. “It is incredible that Mrs, Embury is the guilty one, though I admit the incriminating appearance of the henbane. But I’ve beet thinking it over, and while Mr. Driscoll’s surmise that the deed can possibly be traced to one who recently saw the play of ‘Hamlet,’ yet he must remember that thousands of people saw that play, and that therefore it cannot point exclusively toward Mrs, Embury.”
“That’s so,” agreed Driscoll. “Who went with you to the play, Mrs, Embury?”
“My aunt, Miss Ames; also a friend, Mrs, Desternay. And, I understand you went yourself, Mr. Driscoll. Why single out me for a suspect?”
The haughty face turned to him was quite severely critical.
“True, Mrs, Embury, why should I? The answer is, motive. You must admit that I had neither motive nor opportunity to kill your husband. Mrs, Desternay, let us say, had neither opportunity nor motive. Miss Ames had opportunity but no motive. And so you, we must all admit, are the only human being who had both opportunity—and motive.”
“I did not have motive!” Eunice flushed back. “You talk nonsense! I have had slight differences of opinion with my husband hundreds of time, but that is not a motive for murder! I have a high temper, and at times I am unable to control it. But that does not mean I am a murderess!”
“Not necessarily, but it gives a reason for suspecting you, since you are the only person who can reasonably be suspected.”
“But hold on, Driscoll, don’t go too fast,” said Mason Elliott; “there may be other people who had motives. Remember Sanford Embury was a man of wide public interests outside of his family affairs. Suppose you turn your attention to that sort of thing.”
“Gladly, Mr. Elliott; but when we’ve proved no outsider could get into Mr. Embury’s room, why look for outside motives?”
“It seems only fair, to my mind, that such motives should be looked into. Now, for instance, Embury was candidate in a hotly contested coming election—”
“That’s so,” cried Hendricks; “look for your murderer in some such connection as that.”
“Election to what? “growled Shane.
“President of the Metropolitan Athletic Club—a big organization—”
“H’m! Who’s the opposing candidate?”
“I am,” replied Hendricks, quietly.
“You! Well, Mr. Hendricks, where were you last night, when this man was killed?”
“In Boston.” Hendricks did not smile, but he looked as if the question annoyed him.
“You can prove that?”
“Yes, of course. I stayed at the Touraine, was with friends till well after midnight, and took the seven o’clock train this morning for New York, in company with the same men. You can look up all that, at your leisure; but there is a point in what Mr. Elliott says. I can’t think that any of the club members would be so keen over the election as to do away with one of the candidates, but there’s the situation. Go to it.”
“It leaves something to be looked into, at any rate,” mused Shane.
“Why didn’t you think of it for yourself?” said Hendricks, rather scathingly. “It seems to me a detective ought to look a little beyond his nose!”
“I can’t think we’ve got to, in this case,” Shane persisted; “but I’m willing to try. Also, Mrs, Embury, I’ll ask you for the address of the lady who went with you to see that play.”
“Certainly,” said Eunice, in a cold voice, and gave the address desired.
“And, now, we’ll move on,” said Shane, rising.
“You ain’t under arrest, Mrs, Embury—not yet—but I advise you not to try to leave this house without permission—”
“Indeed, I shall! Whenever and as often as I choose! The idea of your forbidding me!”
“Hush, Eunice,” said Hendricks. “She will not, Mr. Shane; I’m her guaranty for that. Don’t apprehend any insubordination on the part of Mrs, Embury.”
“Not if she knows what’s good for herself!” was Shane’s parting shot, and the two detectives went away.
CHAPTER XI. FIFI
“Oh, yes, indeed, Mr. Shane, Mrs, Embury is a dear friend of mine—a very, very dear friend—and I’d so gladly go to see her—and comfort her—console with her—and try to cheer her up—but—well, I asked her last night, over the telephone, to let me go to see her to-day—and—she—she—”
Mrs, Desternay’s pretty blue eyes filled with tears, and her pretty lips quivered, and she dabbed a sheer little handkerchief here and there on her countenance. Then she took up her babbling again.
“Oh, I don’t mean she was unfriendly or—or cross, you know—but she was a little—well, curt, almost—I might say, cool. And I’m one of her dearest friends—and I can’t quite understand it.”
“Perhaps you must make allowances for Mrs. Embury,” Shane suggested. “Remember the sudden and mysterious death of her husband must have been a fearful shock—”
“Oh, terrible! Yes, indeed, I do appreciate all that! And of course when I telephoned last evening, she had just had that long inter
view with you—and your other detective, Mr. What’s-his-name—and—oh, yes, Mr. Elliott answered my call and he told me just how things were—but I did think dear Eunice would want to see me—but it’s all right—of course, if she doesn’t want my sympathy. I’m the last one to intrude on her grief! But she has no one—no one at all—except that old aunt, who’s half foolish, I think—”
“What do you mean, half foolish?”
“Oh, she’s hipped over those psychic studies of hers, and she’s all wrapped up in Spiritualism and occult thingamajigs—I don’t know what you call ’em.”
“She seems to me a very sane and practical lady.”
“In most ways—yes; but crazy on the subject of spooks, and mediums and things like that! Oh, Mr. Shane, who do you suppose killed Mr. Embury? How awful! To have a real murder right in one’s owns circle of acquaintances—I had almost said friends—but dear Eunice doesn’t seem to look on me as her friend—”
The blue eyes made a bid for sympathy, and Shane, though not always at ease in the presence of society ladies, met her half way.
“Now, that’s a pity, Mrs, Desternay! I’m sure you’d be the greatest help to her in her trouble.”
Fifi Desternay raised her hands and let them fall with a pretty little gesture of helplessness. She was a slip of a thing, and—it was the morning of the day after the Embury tragedy—she was garbed in a scant but becoming negligee, and had received the detective in her morning room, where she sat, tucked into the corner of a great davenport sofa, smoking cigarettes.
Her little face was delicately made up, and her soft, fair hair was in blobs over her ears. For the rest, the effect was mostly a rather low V’d neck and somewhat evident silk stockings and beribboned mules.
She continually pulled her narrow satin gown about her, and it as continually slipped away from her lace petticoat, as she crossed and recrossed her silken legs.
She was entirely unself-conscious and yet, the detective felt instinctively that she carefully measured every one of the words she so carelessly uttered.
“Well, Mr. Shane,” she said, suddenly, “we’re not getting anywhere. Just exactly what did you come here for? What do you want of me?”
The detective was grateful for this assistance.
“I came,” he stated, without hesitation, “to ask you about the circumstances of the party which Mrs, Embury attended here night before last, the night her husband—died.”
“Oh, yes; let me see—there isn’t much to tell. Eunice Embury spent the evening here—we had a game of cards—and, before supper was served, Mr. Embury called for her and took her home—in their car. That’s all I know about it.”
“What was the card game?”
“Bridge.”
“For high stakes?”
“Oh, mercy, no! We never really gamble!” The fluttering little hands deprecated the very idea. “We have just a tiny stake—to—why, only to make us play a better game. It does, you know.”
“Yes’m. And what do you call a tiny stake? Opinions differ, you know.”
“And so do stakes!” The blue eyes flashed a warning. “Of course, we don’t always play for the same. Indeed, the sum may differ at the various tables. Are you prying into my private affairs?”
“Only so far as I’m obliged to, ma’am. Never mind the bridge for the moment. Was Mr. Embury annoyed with his wife—for any reason—when he called to take her home?”
“Now, how should I know that?” a pretty look of perplexity came into the blue eyes. “I’m not a mind reader!”
“You’re a woman! Was Mr. Embury put out?”
Fifi laughed a ringing peal. “Was he?” she cried, as if suddenly deciding to tell the truth. “I should say he was! Why, he was so mad I was positively afraid of him!”
“What did he say?”
“That’s just it! He didn’t say anything! Oh, he spoke to me pleasantly—he was polite, and all that, but I could see that he was simply boiling underneath!”
“You are a mind reader, then!”
“I didn’t have to be, to see that!” The little figure rocked back and forth on the sofa, as, with arms clasped round one knee, Fifi gave way to a dramatic reconstruction of the scene.
“‘Come, Eunice,’ he said, just like that! And you bet Eunice went!”
“Was she angry, too?”
“Rather! Oh, you know her temper is something fierce! When she’s roused, she’s like a roaring lion and a raging bear—as it says in the Bible—or Shakespeare, or somewhere.”
“Speaking of Shakespeare, you and Mrs, Embury went to see ‘Hamlet’ recently, I believe.”
“Oh, yes; when the Avon Players put it on. Everybody went. Didn’t you? You missed it, if you didn’t! Most marvelous performance. ‘Macbeth,’ too. That was perfectly darling! I went to that with—”
“Excuse me. As to ‘Hamlet,’ now. Did you notice particularly the speech about the poisoning of—”
“Of Hamlet’s father! I should say I did! Why, that speech by Mr. Postlewaite—he was ‘The Ghost,’ you know—was stunning, as much applauded as the ‘Soliloquy’ itself! He fairly made you see that poisoning scene!”
“Was Mrs, Embury interested?”
“Oh, we both were! We were at school together, and we both loved Shakespeare—we took it ‘Special.’ And we were terribly interested in the Avon Players’ ‘Hamlet’—it was unlike any representation we had ever seen.”
“Ah—yes; and did you—you and Mrs, Embury—discuss the poison used by the wicked uncle?”
“Not lately. But in class we discussed that—years ago—oh, that’s one of the regulation Shakespearean puzzles. You can’t trip us up on our Shakespeare—either of us! I doubt if you can find two frivolous society women who know it better than we do!”
“Did you know that Mr. Embury was killed in a manner identical with the Hamlet murder?”
“No! What do you mean? I’ve really not heard the details. As soon as I heard of his death, I called up Eunice, but, as I said, she wasn’t cordial at all. Then I was busy with my own guests after that—last night and this morning—well, I’m really hardly awake yet!”
Fifi rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand—a childish gesture, and daintily smothered a slight yawn.
“But I’m awfully interested,” she went on, “only—only I can’t bear to hear about—a—murder! The details, I mean. I should think Eunice would go crazy! I should think she’d be glad to come here—I was going to ask her, when she called me down! But, what do you mean—killed like Hamlet’s father?”
“Yes; there was poison introduced into his ear as Mr. Embury slept—”
“Really! How tragic; How terrible! Who did it?”
“That’s what we’re trying to discover. Could—do you think Mrs, Embury could have had sufficient motive—”
“Eunice!” Fifi screamed. “What an idea! Eunice Embury to kill her own husband! Oh, no!”
“But only she and that aunt of hers had opportunity. You know how their bedrooms are?”
“Oh, yes, I know. Miss Ames is using Eunice’s dressing-room—and a nuisance it is, too.”
“Then you know that at night those three bedrooms are shut off from the rest of the house by strong bolts on the inside of the doors.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Then, don’t you see, as Mr. Embury was killed—the doctors say about daybreak, or earlier—nobody could have done it except somebody who was behind those locked doors.”
“The windows?”
“Tenth story, and no balconies. And, too, they all have flower-boxes, except one, and the flowers were undisturbed. The one that hasn’t a flower-box is on the side street, in Miss Ames’ room. And that—I looked out myself—has no balcony, nor even abroad ledge. It couldn’t be reached from the next apartment—if that’s what you’re thinking of.”
“I’m not thinking of anything,” returned Fifi. “I’m too dazed to think! Eunice Embury! Do you mean she is really suspected?”
“I mean that, very decidedly, ma’am. And I am here to ask you if you can give any additional evidence, any—”
“Any evidence! Evidence against my dear friend! Why, man, if I knew anything, I wouldn’t tell it, if it would go against Eunice!”
“Oh, yes, you would; the law would force you to. But do you know anything definite?”
“No, of course, I don’t! I know that Mr. and Mrs. Embury were not always cooing like turtle-doves! She had the devil’s own temper—and he wasn’t much better! I know he drove her frantic because he wouldn’t give her some privileges she wanted—wouldn’t allow her certain latitudes, and was generally pretty dictatorial. I know Eunice resented this, and I know that lots of times she was pretty nearly at the end of her rope, and she said all sorts of things—that, of course, she didn’t mean—but she wouldn’t kill him! Oh, I don’t think she would do that!”
“H’m! So they lived like cats and dogs, did they?”
“What an awful way to put it! But, well, Sanford didn’t make Eunice’s life a bed of roses—nor did she go out of her way to please him!”
“Mr. Embury was often a guest here?”
“He was not! Eunice came here, against his will—against his expressed commands.”
“Oho! She did! And her visit here night before last—that was an act of insubordination?”
“It was! I wouldn’t tell this—but it’s sure to come out. Yes, he had especially and positively forbidden her to come to that party here, and after he went to his club—Eunice ran away from home and came. Naughty girl! She told us she had played hookey, when she first came in! But, good gracious, Mr. Shane, that was no crime! In this day and generation a wife may disobey her husband—and get away with it!”
The arch little face smiled saucily, and Fifi cuddled into her corner, and again fell a-thinking.
“I can’t believe you really mean you think Eunice did it!” she broke out. “Why, what are you going to do? Arrest her?”
“Not quite. Although she is under strict surveillance at present.”
“What! Can’t she go out, if she likes?”
“No.”
“How perfectly absurd! Oh, I’ve a notion to telephone and ask her to go for a drive. What fun!”