I could hear him talking, but I could not stop crying. He said the police had the case anyhow, and that everybody knew that Charlie Elliott had been crazy about Paula for years; and jealous of her, too. But when he went upstairs, I was still crying, and that gibbering idiot of a Florence was standing in the doorway staring at me with hard amused eyes.
“And did she get her feelings hurt!” she said. “And didn’t he pet her, or anything?”
“Oh, for God’s sake keep quiet,” I said, and went out on the porch for air and to escape from her. I found Paula just coming up the steps.
She was white and distracted, and I had to draw her around the corner of the house, for Florence was watching from the hall. I was ready to shout at her, to tell her what the delay had cost; but one look at her was enough, and anyhow it was too late. She looked as nearly frantic as I have ever seen a human being look, and she simply caught at me and held on.
“Is the Inspector here?” she demanded. “I’ve got something to tell him. Are they all crazy, down there?”
“They found him, here in the house.”
“Is the Inspector here? Don’t talk. Tell me!”
“The District Attorney sent for him. Now listen, Paula. Try to be quiet and listen to me. There’s no hurry. You’ve got months; weeks, anyhow. What you have to tell the Inspector can wait.”
“But it can’t wait. Why should Charlie Elliott be under arrest, when I ought to be?”
I almost shook her. “Don’t talk like that. You didn’t kill Herbert Wynne, and you know it.”
“I got Charlie into this mess,” she said doggedly. “I’ve got to get him out. Listen, Miss Adams, I gave him those keys he had last night. They were mine.”
“You gave them to him?”
“Don’t look at me like that. I don’t care what you think about me. I gave him those keys, to get something of mine that I’d left in that room.”
It is not easy to shock me, but I was shocked at that moment. By and large, I know as much as anyone about the free and easy ways of this generation of youngsters, and I have always believed that the free and easiness is a matter of manners, not morals. It seems strange now, but my first reaction had nothing to do with murder, but with the fact that this girl, wide-eyed and young, had had keys which had enabled her to visit Herbert Wynne in that upper room of his; and that she had done so.
But I rallied myself, and I hope my face showed nothing. Not that I think she would have noticed, anyhow.
“What was it that you had left in that room?”
“My bag.”
“And when?”
She hesitated, and looked at me with quick suspicion. “I’d rather talk to the Inspector.”
“And make things worse!” I said. “I’m friendly, at least. I warn you now that the Inspector is not. Nor any of the police. When did you give Charlie Elliott those keys?”
“I don’t see—”
“Listen,” I said brutally. “Do you want to send him to the chair? Don’t you see what I mean? If you go to the police and tell them that Charlie Elliott had your keys on last Monday night, that’s the end of him.”
She paled, and drew a quick breath.
“I’ll tell you this, for your own sake,” I went on. “They know a lot that you don’t realize; they know about the ladder, and they think they know who got it, for one thing. Maybe they can’t prove that, but they’ll try. And they know that Charlie Elliott was jealous of Herbert, and that you two quarreled about him on Monday night. What’s the use of making things worse by telling about those keys until you have to? And damaging your reputation into the bargain?”
She lifted her chin at that. “I’ve done nothing I’m ashamed of,” she said. “And I’ve told you part of the truth anyhow. Charlie Elliott came here last night on an errand for me.”
“To get your bag? Don’t be foolish.”
“To get something.”
I turned as if to go. “All right,” I said. “I’ve done my best for you. Maybe you’d better run to Police Headquarters and let them work on you for a little while. I have a lot of things to do.”
But she ran after me and caught my arm. “Listen,” she said. “I’ve got to talk to somebody, and I know you’re friendly. It wasn’t a bag. It was a letter. I’ve told you there was a letter.”
“You’ll have to go further than that,” I said shortly. “If you know something that will help Charlie Elliott out of this trouble, I’m simply telling you that I’d be glad to hear about it, and to help if I can. If that isn’t enough, then I’ll go back to my patient. What about this letter, and where is it? You’d better come clean.”
“I’ll tell you,” she said in an exhausted voice. “Can’t we sit down somewhere? I haven’t slept or eaten for days.”
She looked it, too, poor child. I found an old bench in a corner of the grounds, somewhat screened from the house, and there she tried to tell me what she knew. It was not a great deal, as it turned out, and it sounded rather fantastic, to tell the truth, when I finally did get it.
Some of it, of course, I already knew. Within the last few months, Herbert had got mixed up in something shady. She thought that it involved Hugo, but whatever it was—and obviously she did not know except that it was “not bootlegging”—it had finally dawned on him that Hugo, or whoever it was, was not playing fair with him; and that he was possibly in danger of his life.
It was after they were fired at that he began to talk of their going away together. She knew then that he was frightened, and she tried to get from him what the trouble was, and who was after him. But he would not tell her. But here came the matter of the letter again.
“I’ll put that in a letter and leave it for you,” he told her. “So if somebody gets me, you can pin the rap on the proper party!”
He had said it with a laugh, but the idea had taken hold of her, and she insisted that he do it.
“You can see why,” she told me. “It wasn’t that I wanted it for that reason; but if he wrote such a letter, and Hugo, or whoever it was, knew there was such a letter, it would keep him from—bothering Herbert.”
Well, it was not a bad idea at that, and it appeared that Herbert had thought so, too, after a long delay. There had been no more trouble, apparently, after that one attempt to shoot him; and on that last night, Monday, he had been very cheerful.
“I’ve got it all set down, honey,” he told her. “But I think it’s all right anyhow. We’ll be getting out of here pretty soon. As soon as the market settles down.”
He had promised to give her the letter the next day, and she was to place it in a bank vault. In the meantime he had hidden it in a safe place; she thought in his own room.
I have said that it sounded fantastic; like the juvenile vaporings of an immature mind, trying to impress a romantic girl by working on her fears and her sense of drama. But there is something fantastic about all unusual crimes, and after all, there was that shot to account for. Also I remembered something the Inspector had said to me when I took my first case for him. “Working on crime is a lot like working in a steel mill; never sit down on anything until you spit on it first. It may be hot.”
But the point of all this was that, after Monday night, first Paula herself, and later Charlie Elliott, had set to work to find that letter, and had failed. I tried to think that out.
“Then,” I said, “it was this letter that Charlie Elliott was trying to find last night?”
“Yes. I’d tried to once myself, but you came up the stairs. You may remember. You screamed.”
Did I remember! I would have shaken her then and there, small and woebegone as she looked.
“And nothing else? Just a letter?”
I thought she was less assured when she replied to that. “What else could there be?”
“And it hasn’t been found?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think it is there,” she said. “I think they got it and destroyed it.”
And by “they” once more I knew she mea
nt the people in the house.
CHAPTER XVIII
Standing there with the wind blowing my uniform about me, I had a moment of doubt. Never before had I worked against the Inspector, and I felt disloyal and uncomfortable. Yet the Inspector wanted the facts, and if this girl offered one way to get at them, then it seemed to me that it was my duty to use her.
But I was convinced that Paula had not told me all the truth. Indeed, had it not been that the letter had not been found, I might have gone so far as to suspect her of planting such a letter after the crime! Certain as she was that someone inside that house had killed Herbert Wynne, she might conceivably have gone even to such a length to bring out what she felt were the facts.
But the letter had not been found, and inside that house I was certain that old Miss Juliet Mitchell was at that moment making her peace with her God, and was about to sign Charlie Elliott’s death warrant.
I was roused by Paula touching my arm. “Listen,” she said. “Why can’t you get me into that house and upstairs? Now.”
“I might, if you had come clean as I asked you.”
She colored faintly. “I’ve told you all I can,” she said. “I’ll give you my word for this, Miss Adams. I’ll show whatever I find to you. Absolutely. And you can tell the police.”
“Then, you know where this letter is? Or was?”
“I think I do. I’m not certain.”
“Why not let me look?”
But she made an impatient gesture. “Why should I?” she demanded. “I’ve trusted you, and I think you’re friendly. But this is a life and death matter, and after all they employ you.” She changed her tone. “I’m sorry, but you’ll not regret it. I promise you that.”
I agreed, at last. Agreed with an uncomfortable feeling that Paula was probably being shadowed all the time, and that the Inspector might come down on me with one of his rare rages when he found it out. She followed me to the front of the house, and rather to my surprise it was empty. Florence Lenz had disappeared and there was no sign of Hugo. The house was very quiet, except for Mary, scrubbing viciously somewhere in the rear.
I turned and nodded to Paula, and she slipped in, looking about her nervously. Everything was quiet as we reached the landing; Miss Juliet’s door was still closed, and from behind it came the faint monotonous sound of her voice. But just as I reached the door leading into my own room, which adjoined Miss Juliet’s, I heard Hugo’s heavy step in the hall overhead. He was coming down from the third floor.
Both of us stopped, petrified. Then I caught Paula and shoved her—there is no other word—into my room and followed her. As I closed the door, Hugo was on the stairs above! I stood for a moment, facing the door and holding the knob, and I confess that my heart was beating a good hundred and fifty, and then some. Hugo did not stop, however. I thought he hesitated outside of Miss Juliet’s door, but he went on again, and I waited until I could hear him in the lower hall before I turned.
Florence was in front of the dressing table, staring at Paula with her hard curious eyes. She had been powdering her nose, and using my powder to do it. The puff was still in her hand.
“Miss Brent, isn’t it?”
“Never mind,” I said shortly. “This young lady wants to talk to me. If you have anywhere else to go, I’d like my room for a few minutes.”
But she was quite impervious to sarcasm. Indeed, I doubt if she heard me at all. There was a twisted little smile on her face by that time, and she ran her eyes over Paula, beginning at her feet and ending at her face.
“I’m Florence Lenz,” she said. “Maybe you’ve heard of me?”
She meant something by that. I knew it, and Paula knew it. She drew herself up and gave the other girl look for look.
“Possibly. Is there any particular reason why I should?”
“There’s plenty of reason, and you damned well know it,” Florence retorted, reddening under her coating of powder. But she seemed to make an effort then, and pulled herself together.
“Mr. Glenn sent for me to come up,” she explained to me. “Then the old woman in there thought of something else, so I wandered in here. I’m a notary, and she is to sign something.” Her eyes flickered to Paula again, standing stiff and straight, and then to me. “Making a will, isn’t she? She’s got plenty of money now.”
That, too, I felt, was for Paula. The scene, if it could be called that, had no meaning for me; but it had meaning. I knew it, or felt it. And I felt that for some unknown reason Paula was slowly reaching a breaking point. She was entirely colorless by that time, and rigid.
I went to the hall door and opened it, but although Hugo had disappeared, Mary was in the hall now. Ostensibly she was moving that clothing which still lay, trampled from the night before, on the stairs. Actually she was close to the door of Miss Juliet’s room, and although her arms were loaded, I was certain that she had been listening with her ear to the door.
She started and moved away when she saw me, and I waited until she had gone down the stairs. Halfway down, she looked up again, and I began to think that I was developing a complex about Mary; that I was always looking down at her from those stairs, and she looking up with wary eyes, watching me.
Maybe I only imagine all that. Maybe, as I look back over the case, I remember certain incidents and give them a value they did not have at the time. But Mary looked back right enough, and then stumbled over a dragging garment and almost fell. And back of me in that room Paula Brent certainly stood, icily still, while Florence made up her mouth and watched her in the mirror.
I gave Paula a quick look, and motioned to the hall. “We’ll have to talk another time, Miss Brent,” I told her. “If you don’t mind waiting somewhere, I can see you later.”
I closed the door behind her when she went, and I knew well enough that she was on her way to the third floor almost before I could turn around. I glanced at the dressing table, and sure enough there was powder all over it; over my instruments and my hypodermic tray as well, and I gave that young woman a piece of my mind as I straightened it. But I might as well have reproved one of the old silhouettes framed on the wall. She never even heard me.
“Is there any particular reason why I should know her?” she repeated. “I’ll say there is. And I’ll say she’s got a hell of a lot of nerve, hanging around this house!”
Only the opening of the connecting door saved me from a charge of assault and battery with intent to kill. It was Mr. Glenn, and he seemed relieved to find me there.
“Come in, Miss Adams,” he said, “and you, too, Miss Lenz. I want you to witness a signature.”
He looked disturbed and very sober, and I saw that he had a paper in his hand. To my surprise I found Hugo there, also. Miss Juliet, her eyes closed, was lying back on the pillows; and I saw that Florence, well dusted with powder, was gazing at her with an expression of avid interest. From the bed her eyes traveled about the room, taking in every detail of its worn dignity, its shabby gentility.
Mr. Glenn had approached the bed. “You won’t think better of this, Miss Juliet?” he said.
She sensed what he said rather than heard it, and shook her head. “I must do what is right, Arthur. I’m sorry; but I have told you the truth. Now let me sign it.”
He turned to us. Hugo had not moved.
“I have read this statement to Miss Mitchell. She acknowledges it to be correct, but while she wishes to sign it before witnesses, she prefers to keep the contents secret, for the time at least. Is that correct?” He looked at her.
“It is correct, Arthur.”
So the four of us stood by while she signed with his pen, in a wavering old hand that still had some faint distinction: “Juliet Mitchell.” Then she herself took it, folded it over so that only the signature showed, and Hugo and I both wrote our names in the opposite corner. Hugo’s hand, I noticed, was shaking. That finished, Florence affixed her notarial seal and Mr. Glenn put the paper carefully into his brief case, and went back to the bed.
“I suppo
se you realize the importance of what you have done, Miss Juliet?” he said impressively. “What it means to several people.”
She nodded. “I know you have tried, Arthur. But I have not long to live, and I must right a great injustice.”
I thought she glanced at Hugo as she said that. But he said nothing. He turned and went out of the room, and Mr. Glenn followed him almost immediately, taking Florence with him.
I had plenty to think about for the next fifteen minutes or so; so much that I almost forgot Paula. For one thing, Miss Juliet’s pulse was thin and reedy, and she seemed exhausted to the point of coma. It was not until I had telephoned for Doctor Stewart and had gone into my room for some spirits of ammonia that I really thought of Paula at all, and then it was because I found her there, looking utterly dispirited.
“I can’t get out,” she said. “Hugo is sweeping the hall.”
“Did you find anything?”
She shook her head hopelessly. “They’ve got it,” she said. “And if that old woman in there knows it, then death is too good for her.”
She did not mention Florence at all.
I went back to Miss Juliet. I had not told the girl about that scene which had just ended, and I did not intend to. It seemed to me that if that statement of the old lady’s incriminated Charlie Elliott, Paula would learn it soon enough; and I had a shrewd idea, too, that in spite of everything she was more fond of Charlie Elliott than she realized. That Herbert’s death had horrified rather than grieved her, and that her romance or infatuation, or whatever it might have been, had been almost over when he died.
I did not see Paula again until that evening. When Doctor Stewart came and I went in again for my hypodermic, she was gone.
All this which I have just written took place on Friday morning, the eighteenth of September. Herbert Wynne had been dead for almost four days, and Charlie Elliott had been under arrest since the night before. From the absence of reporters at the doorbell and in the grounds I gathered that public interest now centered around Police Headquarters; but shortly after Mr. Glenn left, somewhere around eleven o’clock, I saw two young men in paint-spattered overalls carrying a long ladder in through the gates, and I went to the back window of my room and watched them as they went around the house.
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