I opened the doors carefully and let my light travel over the room. No trace of its former grandeur remained, however. If the library had been dingy, this once-famous long parlor of the Mitchell house was depressing. It was done in the worst of the later Victorian manner, with figured wallpaper and a perfect welter of old plush chairs and sofas, and there were a number of windows with heavy curtains and an additional one at the rear, looking out over the service wing and the entrance to it.
It was not until my light had traveled to that window that I started. It had never occurred to me that the room might be tenanted. But tenanted it was, and by Hugo. He was sitting, only partially dressed, in a large easy chair just inside the window, and he was sound asleep.
Mysterious as this was, I had no intention of arousing him, so I slipped back into the hall again and closed the doors. I must have turned my light off at that time, for I recall standing in the hall in the dark and listening, afraid I had awakened him. No sound came from the parlor, however, and I proceeded to grope my way up the stairs. I dare say I moved very quietly in my rubber-soled shoes, for my memory is of silence, utter and complete. Silence and black darkness. I know that I was halfway up the stairs when the hall clock began to strike midnight, and that the wheeze it gave before it commenced sent a cold shiver over me. But it was not until I reached the landing that the real shock came.
There was something there on the landing with me, something blacker than the darkness, which moved and swayed in the corner by the door. And not only moved and swayed, It seemed to be coming toward me.
I could hear a voice screaming, but I did not even realize that it was mine. And I must have backed down the stairs, although I have no recollection of that retreat; for when Hugo came running, he stumbled over me, halfway up the stairs. I still remember his ghastly pallor when, having turned on the light, he bent over me and found that I was uninjured. Then he shook me, not too gently.
“What was it? What happened?”
“There was something on the landing. Somebody. It came at me.”
“There’s nobody there, miss.”
“There was somebody there. I’m not an idiot. Do you think I want to scare myself to death?”
I saw then that he had a revolver in his hand, an old-fashioned single-action gun.
But the careful search which followed revealed nothing whatever. The door on the landing was locked and bolted. Miss Juliet was gently snoring in her bed, and from beyond, in the servants’ sitting room, Mary was hysterically demanding to know what was wrong.
We went over the entire house together that night, Hugo and I. It was certain that, if anyone had been on the landing, he could not have passed me to get down the stairs, and so we directed our main attention to the third floor.
There were two front rooms there, unoccupied and sparsely furnished; a small storeroom; and the rear one where Herbert had been killed. But we found nothing in any of them, nor any indication that anybody had entered them. Hugo persisted long after I was willing to abandon the search and to try to get some sleep. He still had his revolver in his hand, but he offered no explanation for it, or for his appearance from the parlor when I screamed.
It was full daylight before I dropped off into an uneasy sleep. My mind was abnormally active and filled with questions. Why had Hugo kept that vigil of his at the parlor window? What did he know that he would not tell, about the whole mystery? And who had been on that landing? For someone had been there. I was willing to stake my reputation on it.
It was not until the next morning at breakfast that Hugo saw fit to enlighten me as to how he had come from the parlor in answer to my scream, and with a revolver at that.
“You may have wondered at my having a gun last night, miss,” he said, as he put down my cup.
“I had plenty of things to wonder about,” I said dryly.
“I suppose you couldn’t describe what it was you saw?”
“It looked like a ghost. I don’t suppose that helps any!”
“Tall or short, miss?”
“I was a little excited,” I admitted. “It was rather like a tall man, stooping. It was there, and then it wasn’t, if that means anything.”
There was no question that he was disturbed, and that he was trying to connect what I had seen with what turned out to have been an experience of his own the night before. Briefly, and corroborated by Mary, his story was that both of them had retired shortly after the doctor left. As I have said, the doctor had remained after the others, to pay Miss Juliet his final visit.
At half past ten or thereabouts Hugo had put out the light and gone to raise a window; but that particular window looked down over the rear end of the long parlor, and as he stood there, he thought he saw somebody in the corner below, close up against the wall.
He put on some clothes, took his revolver and went down the rear staircase. At the side door at its foot he stopped and listened, but he heard nothing, so he groped his way to the parlor and looked out the window there. The room was dark, and he could see nothing suspicious outside. But he was very tired, having had no sleep the night before, and when everything remained quiet, he sat down and finally dropped off.
That was the story, and what I had seen bore it out. But I wondered if it was all of the story, although it was possibly all that Mary knew. It seemed to me that he was vaguely on the defensive, and now and then he glanced at his wife as though for confirmation. Or perhaps to see the effect on her! Who knows, even now? I had an idea that he was not in the habit of confiding in Mary.
The Inspector called me up as I finished breakfast, and after our usual custom when this is necessary, I pretended that he was a doctor.
“Listen,” he said, “I want you to do something for me.”
“Yes, doctor.”
“Take a bit of air this morning, and look close to the house for marks of a ladder; a pruning ladder. I’ll explain later.”
“I’m terribly sorry,” I said, for Hugo’s benefit. He was in the dining room. “But I imagine I’ll be here for several days. I’d like to take the case for you, however. Don’t forget me later on, will you?”
“Do it soon, and come in this afternoon,” was his reply. Then he hung up.
The servants and I had agreed to keep the story of the night before from Miss Juliet. She was not so well that morning, and although I did not think she was grieving for the boy, it was as plain as the rather aquiline nose on her face that she was worrying about something. I put it down as anxiety over the inquest, which was to be held that morning. After all, poor old soul, the verdict would mean a great deal to her, and she could not bring the boy back to life. I saw her looking at the clock now and then. She spoke only once, and that was when I had rubbed her back with alcohol.
“You have good hands, my dear.”
And once again I detested my job, sneaking into that house under false pretenses and fooling the poor old creature into being even mildly grateful to me. I had to harden myself deliberately, to remember that very probably she had found and hidden an important piece of evidence, before I felt equal to going on with the work. An important piece of evidence, perhaps, for which the detectives for the insurance companies would have given their eyeteeth!
That was on Wednesday. The inquest was to be held at eleven, and both Hugo and Mary left the house at ten thirty that morning. Miss Juliet was drowsing, and so I had an opportunity to make the search the Inspector had ordered without any interested supervision. I had only the faintest idea of what constituted a pruning ladder, but any ladder leaves twin impressions, and so I made my way slowly around the house, beginning at the front door, continuing around the library, the kitchen wing and back to the long parlor.
But I found no ladder marks, and it was at the side door, just behind that rear window, that I passed a clump of shrubbery and suddenly confronted the girl who had stopped me in the drive the night Herbert Wynne was killed. She was standing in the corner, backed up against the wall, and if ever I have seen a girl look
scared to death, she did.
CHAPTER VII
She relaxed, however, the moment she saw me.
“Good heavens! I thought they’d come back!”
“Who had come back?”
“The servants. I waited until I saw them go out, and then I slipped in.”
Well, I had had time to have a good look at her, and I saw that if she had not looked so utterly stricken, she would have been really beautiful. Now, however, she looked as though she had not slept for a week; her eyes were swollen, and now and then she gave me an odd little defiant look.
“What are you doing here, anyhow?” I asked her.
“I came to see you,” she replied rather breathlessly. “After all, you’re a nurse. You’ll understand, and I have to talk to someone or I’ll go crazy. You see, he never killed himself. I don’t care what the verdict is. He never did.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I knew him very well. I was—engaged to him. And he knew he was in danger.”
“What sort of danger? Who from?” I said.
“I don’t know. He said he was being followed. That’s why he was cleaning his gun. He said somebody was trying to get him.”
“But he must have said something to explain all that.”
“He wouldn’t tell me. There was something going on, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was.”
“You haven’t told the police?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to be dragged into it,” she said. “But he knew it might happen. And he knew something else. He told me once that if anybody got him, they’d try to get me, too.”
“But that’s ridiculous,” I expostulated. “Why should anyone want to kill you? And why do you think that all this wasn’t an accident? They do happen, you know.”
She shook her head again. “He was murdered,” she said, looking at me, her eyes swollen with long crying. “He was murdered, and I know who did it.”
I was not so certain that she knew, however, when she had finished her story. But before I let her begin, I made an excuse of going back to Miss Juliet, and did a thing which I loathed, but which was essential. I telephoned to Headquarters and left word that the girl was at the Mitchell place, and to have somebody ready to follow her when she left.
Miss Juliet was quiet when I ran up to her. I suppose she knew that the inquest was being held that morning, but she had not mentioned it to me.
“I’m all right,” she said in her flat voice. “You needn’t stay in the room. Go out and get some air.”
When I went back to the girl, I found her crouched on the doorstep, a small heap of young wretchedness that went to my heart and made me feel guiltier than ever. But she told her story clearly and well.
She had been in love with the dead boy, and he with her. She knew his faults. He was lazy, and not too scrupulous, I gathered, but that had not made any difference, apparently; except that it had caused her people to dislike him, and finally to forbid him at the house. After that, they had had to meet outside, wherever they could. Sometimes they took walks, or drove in her car. She had a small coupé. Sometimes they merely sat and held hands in the movies. I gathered, too, that there was another young man who cared for her, and who was likely to make trouble if he saw her with Herbert, so they had had to choose remote places.
“What sort of trouble?” I asked sharply.
She started and colored, but her chin went up. “Not what you think. That’s ridiculous.” She looked rather uneasy, however, and she expatiated on this other youth’s good qualities at some length. Then she went back to Herbert again.
It appeared that they had been quite happy, until a month or so ago. At that time Herbert had changed. Sometime in the spring he had got a little money, she didn’t know where, and had put it into the market on a margin. Stocks were very low, and he had thought he would make some money. But all summer they had remained low, and even dropped. That had worried him.
“But not enough to make him kill himself,” she hastened to explain. “He was anxious, but he was sure they would do better this fall. And he didn’t worry about money anyhow. He was like that. It was something else. He began to act as though he was afraid of something.”
“He didn’t say what it was?”
“No. But he said that he was being followed, and that he was in danger of some sort.”
“Did he know who it was?”
She hesitated. “He thought it was my father, at first. It was someone who had a car, and of course he knew my family was watching me, or trying to. I knew it wasn’t Father; I thought at first that Herbert was just excited. He liked to imagine things, you know. But one night I saw the car myself. It trailed us along a country road. At first I thought it was someone else, but I know now that it wasn’t.”
“You thought it was the other man, I suppose?”
She nodded. “But it wasn’t. It wasn’t his car.” She looked at me searchingly. “I’m telling you the truth. I knew his car well, and it wasn’t his.”
“It wasn’t your father’s?”
“Father and Mother dined out that night, and played bridge. They came in after I did, together.”
“Then who was it? Who is it you suspect?”
She looked around before she answered. “Hugo,” she said. “Miss Juliet’s butler.”
“Hugo hasn’t got a car. There’s no car here.”
“He could rent one, couldn’t he? Or she could rent one for him.”
“But why? Aren’t you imagining things now?”
“I’m not imagining that Herbert is dead, am I? Look at it! The papers say he had taken out a lot of insurance. Where did he get the money to do that? And why would he do it? He knew they had no use for him. And—maybe you don’t know this—that old woman in there was pretty desperate. She was going to be put out of the house.”
“But even that …”
“You don’t know her,” she went on, her voice rising. “She hated Herbert. She had hated his father for marrying his mother and then losing her money. And she’s proud. She’s always been a great lady in this town, and she’d rather kill than have a Mitchell go to the poorhouse. You’ve seen her. Is she grieving? Is she even decently sorry? You know she’s not.”
“If she was as desperate as that, how would Miss Juliet have obtained any money to insure Mr. Wynne?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Hugo had some. Herbert used to say that he was as tight as the paper on the wall. He’d probably saved a lot.”
However all that may be, Herbert had been less depressed for the past ten days. He told her that he was getting everything ready, and that soon they would go away together. He had a plan of some sort, but he didn’t say what it was. All he told her was that she was to be ready to go at any time.
“To be married, I suppose?”
“Certainly. What do you think I am?”
I thought she was less frank about this, however. There was a change in her manner. She seemed to be choosing her words. But there seemed to be no doubt as to the essential facts. They were to go away as soon as he could sell his stocks without a loss. He had put five thousand dollars in them.
“Five thousand dollars,” I said. “Where did he get it? From Miss Juliet?”
“She’s never seen five thousand dollars at one time in her life,” she replied scornfully. “No. I don’t know where he got it last spring. He just said he had had a windfall. He wasn’t very communicative, at any time. I—well, I asked him if he was bootlegging, and he just laughed. He said it was all right, and that the only dealing he’d ever had with a bootlegger was to buy a quart of gin.”
Then, about a week before, they had both had a bad fright. They had been motoring along a country road again, and they were both certain that they had not been followed. They had stopped by the side of the road, and he had turned on the light on the instrument board to look at a railroad schedule. They were planning the elopement. Both of them, I gathered, were bent forward so that they saw nothing, but a car raced
by them and fired several shots. Neither one was hit, but the glass in the windshield of her coupé had been shattered.
They gave up driving about after that. Herbert was in a bad way. His hands shook and he said he couldn’t sleep. For two or three days they did not meet at all, although he called her now and then over the telephone.
“And still you had no explanation of all this?” I asked incredulously.
She hesitated. “I thought it was someone else. But I know now that I was wrong.”
“You thought it was the other young man?”
“Well, I did and I didn’t. I’d been engaged to him when I met Herbert, and he was pretty bitter about it. After that shooting, of course, I knew it wasn’t. He’s not that sort at all. And anyhow,” she added naively, “he wouldn’t have risked killing me.”
Then came that last night. She told it clearly enough, although she constantly dabbed at her eyes with a moist ball of handkerchief.
They had met about nine o’clock at a small neighborhood moving-picture theater. Herbert was uneasy, she said, and he told her that he had brought his revolver along. But he would tell her no more than that, and they sat quietly enough through the picture. When they went out, she found that her bag was missing, and she went back and found it, on the floor under her seat. When she emerged again, he had bought a copy of the evening edition of the Eagle, and was looking at the financial page.
“It looks as though everything has gone to hell,” he said to her, and folded the paper and put it in his pocket. But he did not seem particularly depressed. He put his arm through hers and took her to the corner, and once he turned around and looked back. He seemed satisfied that he was not followed, however, and he put her into her car there, and, leaning in, kissed her good night.
Miss Pinkerton Page 5