A chance statement which I was to remember with considerable bitterness a few hours later.
But the Inspector was not smiling when, a half hour later, he came upstairs alone and into Miss Juliet’s room. He closed the door behind him.
“I’ve sent Stewart off,” he said. “He’s an ass. A pompous little baldheaded ass! But he’s pretty much worked up. I have an idea that he had hoped for a new will before she died, and this ends it. Don’t let him worry you.”
He glanced at me with a sort of half apology, and going to the bed, stood looking down at the sheeted figure on it.
“Life’s a queer business, Miss Adams,” he said, “but death is sometimes queerer. Now you take this old woman. Who would want to put her out of the way, if she was put out of the way? She hadn’t long at the best.”
“No. But she should have had that, at least.”
“Precisely. She’s got a little money. She’s going to be comfortable and without worry. Then somebody decides to get rid of her, and—she’s gone. Like that!”
“But she is gone,” I pointed out. “We can’t help her now; and you’ll admit that Charlie Elliott had nothing to do with this. I take it he’s still safely locked away?”
“He is, and he’ll stay locked away.”
“He hasn’t talked, I suppose?”
“He talks all right, but he doesn’t say anything. You heard him last night.” He felt for his pipe, but after a look at the bed he took it out and held it, unfilled and unlighted, between his teeth.
“You know,” he went on, “by and large I’ve seen a good bit of murder in my time, but this case gets me. We’ve got one suspect locked up, and this happens.”
Well, I dare say my nerves had commenced to go, for I found myself laughing, half hysterically.
“Maybe he did it, at that,” I said, while he watched me carefully. “Maybe he wandered into my room last night on his way upstairs, and dropped a tablet or two into that tube on my tray. Why stop at one murder? He may have got a taste for it, like eating olives.”
“You need a rest and a bromide,” he said. “That is, if that’s hysteria. If you’re merely trying to be funny, for God’s sake don’t. I’ve had enough of it with that blond-haired killer at Headquarters. He’d better do his laughing now. He won’t laugh long.”
“You are as sure as that, are you, Inspector?”
“Sure enough.”
“As sure as you were of suicide, and that scrap of paper?”
“What’s that got to do with it? It was a week old. I’ve told you that.”
“But it did have powder stains, didn’t it?”
“Certainly it did. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. That was a pruning ladder that Paula Brent brought here that night, but she didn’t prune any trees, did she?”
Well, I might have told him that there were two young men on the roof at that minute who had brought a ladder, too, but not to paint a roof. I refrained, however, for I saw that he was gravely troubled by the turn events had taken. He left the bed and moved about the room, and when he spoke again, it was in his usual businesslike manner.
“No use wasting time bickering over this case,” he said. “You and I may not always see eye to eye, but we’re likely to see a lot between us. I suppose you agree with the doctor? It’s poison, eh?”
“I think so, Inspector.”
“And you’ve no idea how it got there?"
“I can think of a half-dozen ways. I’m not sure of any of them.”
“Let’s see where that tray was kept.”
I led him into the other room, and he stood for some little time, surveying it. He opened the door into the hall, and glanced out.
“I suppose anybody could get in here. You didn’t keep this door locked?”
“No.”
I knew his methods. He preferred to get his own picture first, so I volunteered nothing. But he gave a quick look at my dresser, and then at my face.
“Who used the face powder? There’s none on you.”
Then I knew that the time had come to tell him of Miss Juliet’s statement. I had dreaded it all along, but it had to come. We went back into Miss Juliet’s room, and with that rigid thin old body on the bed, I told him my story.
I told of the article in the paper about Paula Brent, and its effect on Miss Juliet. I told of her bringing Mr. Glenn there the night before, and of the long argument and his protest, which had followed; and of Hugo’s presence beside Miss Juliet’s bed early that morning, before Mr. Glenn came, and his attitude of resentment.
“But she was determined to make that statement,” I said. “She had something on her conscience, and she felt guilty. She wanted to make it, and then to see her clergyman.”
He looked up quickly. “Why? Had she any idea that there was trouble coming for her?”
“I think not.”
“And Glenn has this statement now?”
“He took it away with him. Hugo and I witnessed it, and the Lenz girl, his secretary, is a notary. She attested it. But Miss Juliet didn’t want it made public, Inspector. Mr. Glenn said—and she corroborated it—that it was only to be used in case a grave miscarriage of justice threatened. I suppose she was thinking of Paula Brent.”
“You didn’t read it, of course?”
“No. She folded it down, so none of us could see it.”
“A grave miscarriage of justice, eh? Now what did that mean? I’ll get hold of Glenn and have a look at it.”
He left me then and went down to the telephone. I could hear him there, trying to locate either Florence or Mr. Glenn; but they were both out of the office at lunch, and Mr. Glenn had a case in court that afternoon. The Inspector came back in a very bad humor, having left word to trace them and get them to the Mitchell house as soon as possible. Then he went back to the kitchen and had a few words with Mary, and when he came back, his face was set.
I knew something had happened when I saw him. He stood for a moment, eying me coldly. “How many people have had access to that room of yours, and that tray, this morning?” he demanded. “The doctor, and the Lenz girl, and Hugo and Mary, I suppose. Is that all?”
“Don’t use that tone with me, Inspector.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that Paula Brent was here this morning? And that she was upstairs, at that!”
“I suppose Mary told you that.”
“So she was upstairs? No, Mary didn’t know that, but she saw her going out. Now listen to me, Miss Adams. Whether we see eye to eye on this case doesn’t matter a damn. What does matter is that you decide whether you’re working for me or for Paula Brent.”
“She never poisoned Miss Juliet Mitchell, Inspector.”
“Was she in that room?”
“Yes. But Florence Lenz was there at the same time.”
It was only after I had said it that I remembered that Paula had been in that room later on as well, and alone. But he gave me no time to go on. He flushed angrily, and banged his hand on the arm of his chair.
“I’d break a man for doing a thing like that,” he said. Then he relented, I suppose when he saw my face. “What story did she put up, to make you do a fool thing like that, and then keep it from me?”
“A story I believed. I still believe it, for that matter. And as for your breaking a man, you can break me and welcome. I’m about broken now anyhow. If I wasn’t a darned fool, I’d be at home this minute, feeding sugar to my canary!”
That restored his temper, and he listened patiently while I told him Paula’s story of the morning, and after some hesitation, that the keys they had found on Charlie Elliott were hers. But I did not tell him that Charlie Elliott had had those keys on Monday night. Why should I? Under oath I might have to, but not then.
“So she was going to Herbert’s room!” he said. “Well, I give up. One thing is certain, however. If Elliott had those keys later, he had them on Monday night, too. I imagine they are what our friend Henderson heard him taking from her. Well, we’ll soon know.”
He leaned back and started to light his pipe, but after a look at the bed he put it in his pocket.
“We’ll soon know,” he repeated. “But this morning is a horse of another color. So far as I can figure out, about six people have had access to that room of yours and that tray, in the last dozen hours or so: Hugo, Mary, Glenn, Paula Brent, Florence and Doctor Stewart.
“Hugo and Mary we know about. They had a motive and they had opportunity. But they were pretty loyal to the old lady. Glenn seems fairly well accounted for. He didn’t want that statement made, but take the average man of his type, and he’ll stand up for a boy like Charlie Elliott as against the law any time. If you think all lawyers are sold on the law, think again! Now take the doctor. What motive would he have? But the doctor, according to what you say, had a pretty good chance.”
“He asked me last night about her will.”
“Well, that’s natural enough. She has left a good bit of money, and he knew she hadn’t long.”
“He said there was an old will, and that Hugo and Mary are left legacies in it.”
“How much? Did he know?” he said quickly.
“He didn’t say.”
“I’ll have a look at that will.” He made a note in the small book he carries, and sat looking at it. “Both Hugo and Mary?”
“So he said.”
“Well, let’s get on. How about this Florence Lenz? I gather you don’t like her.”
“I don’t.”
“Why?”
“I know her type, and I don’t like it,” I said shortly. “She’s playing up to Mr. Glenn, for one thing. Rolls her stockings and lets him know it. And she staged a faint here that night when she was scared in the grounds. It wouldn’t have fooled anybody. It didn’t fool me, anyhow.”
He began that sort of noiseless whistling which often accompanies his thinking, and slid farther down in his chair.
“Of course,” he said finally, “in a way, poison is a woman’s method. She isn’t strong enough to use a knife, and it’s messy anyhow. She hates blood. In a majority of cases she’s afraid of firearms. But poison is different. She can understand poison. I don’t suppose you can connect this Florence with the case?”
“I’m not certain. I think she hates Paula Brent, but I don’t know why.”
I told him then about the encounter that morning, and he listened carefully.
“It was Florence who was the aggressor?”
“Yes. But Paula Brent knew her, or knew who she was. She was almost rude, herself.”
He looked at his watch. “Well, the Lenz woman ought to be here soon. It would be interesting to find out whether she knew Herbert, or this Elliott boy. In that case …” He shifted to something else. “How about Mary? She’s been taking strychnia for her heart, if this was strychnia. But in capsules, not hypodermic tablets. She’s a queer woman, fanatically religious, according to the doctor, and neurotic. But sane enough.”
“She cleaned my room this morning.”
“Well, you dressed in it probably. That doesn’t mean you killed this poor old woman, does it? No. Take it all in all, Miss Pinkerton, and what does this second murder look like? For I think it was murder. What happens when any crime is committed? The first step is to escape and leave nothing incriminating behind. The next step, once the escape is made, is to protect that escape.
“That is, the murderer’s fear is not for the thing he knows about and can clear up, but for the thing that turns up later on. He lies awake at night and worries about that. The somebody or something which he hasn’t counted on, and which may destroy him.
“Now take this case. Here’s the way it looks just now. I’m not saying it’s right. Herbert Wynne was killed last Monday night, and we think we have the killer. We have every reason to think so. But here is Miss Juliet hiding something, and finally deciding to spill it. Something damaging to the killer, of course. That has to be suppressed, or at least the old lady put where she can’t confirm it on the stand, we’ll say. So she is poisoned.”
He looked at me. “I would give a good bit to know,” he said, “just how many people knew in advance that she was going to make that statement. Did this Florence?”
“She seemed to think it was a will. That is, until Mr. Glenn explained.”
“Well, Hugo knew; and probably Mary. But maybe not. I have an idea that he isn’t very communicative with her.”
“She may have known. I found her listening outside the door this morning.”
“The doctor didn’t know, did he?”
“I think not. But I’ve just thought of something. I don’t believe two hypodermics of strychnia, say, a fifteenth of a grain in each, would have killed or hurt most people. It was only in her condition that it was fatal.”
He sat up and stared at me. “It wasn’t a poisonous dose in itself?”
“I couldn’t buy a hypodermic tablet of strychnia that would be poisonous in itself, unless I wanted to use it on a horse! And I want to ask you something, now. Paula Brent says that there was a letter left in Herbert’s room, and if the people here haven’t got it, it is still there. Have you ever given that room upstairs a real search? One based on the conviction that something is really hidden there?”
“I’ve been over it. You know that.”
“Then go over it again,” I said half hysterically. “Go up the chimney, or tear off the floor boards. Look around that bed. I tell you there was something else. It may be gone, but it was there. And I think it will solve these crimes.”
It was at that moment that the doorbell rang, and Hugo announced Florence Lenz.
CHAPTER XXI
I was not present at the Inspector’s interview with Florence. I could hear her in the lower hall, loudly explaining that she had notified Mr. Glenn and that he would be here as soon as court adjourned; and from the delay there I fancied that she had stopped as usual before the mirror to make up her face.
That must have irritated him, for I heard his voice, sharp and edged.
“Come, come, Miss Lenz,” he said. “This isn’t a beauty parlor.”
“I’ll say it isn’t!”
She flounced into the library, or so I imagined, and he closed the door.
I had nothing to do for the next half hour or so but to worry. I had been told not to touch anything in the room, and so far the press had apparently not been notified of the death. But it does not take long for such news to get about, and as I looked out of the window, I saw the usual car driving in through the old gates, and the usual young man with a soft hat and businesslike manner getting out of it.
Hugo answered the bell, and I called to him softly as he went through the hall, telling him to give simply the facts of the death, and the hour. It must have been two o’clock by that time, or even later. I had had no luncheon, and Mary had apparently retired to her room and locked herself in. But soon after that, Hugo rapped at my door with some crackers and milk. He did not look at the bed as he crossed the floor.
“My wife is ill, miss,” he said. “I’m sorry. She’ll get up to cook dinner.”
“What about that reporter, Hugo?”
“I did as you said, miss.”
He looked inscrutable to me, seen in the strong afternoon light that day. Old and suddenly feeble, but inscrutable. On an impulse I followed him as he turned to go, and put my hand on his arm.
“She’s gone, Hugo,” I said. “Perhaps she didn’t need to go so soon, but—well, she’s gone. Why not tell all you know. You will feel better for it, and she would have wanted it.”
“She has told it, miss,” he said heavily. “She told it this morning.”
The Inspector called me down soon after that. Florence was still in the room, dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief, and the Inspector’s face was stern but not unkind.
“I think we have got to the bottom of some of this, Miss Adams,” he said. “This young woman was at one time engaged to Herbert Wynne, or so she claims.”
“I was,” she broke in, b
ut he raised a hand for silence.
“This engagement, however, was broken last March, and she had not seen him since. But she knew that he was being seen constantly with Paula Brent. That explains her attitude to Miss Brent when they met today.
“This morning she came to the house with Mr. Glenn, to attest what she had expected to be a will. She waited downstairs until sent for; then something additional was apparently to be added to Miss Juliet’s statement, and she was left in the hall. From there she went into your room for face powder, and she was there when you brought Paula Brent in. Miss Brent left the room soon after that.
“Following that, she went with you into the large bedroom to witness the statement, and did so. But on leaving that room to go back to the office with Mr. Glenn, she opened the door into the upper hall, and she says she saw Miss Brent again. She was going into your room.”
“That is true, Inspector,” I said. “I found her there. She had been to the third floor, and as someone was in the hall, she couldn’t get out. She didn’t want to be seen.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Because it is absurd to suspect Paula Brent of poisoning anybody.”
And at that, that vixen in the corner let out a yelp of laughter, and I could cheerfully have killed her.
“How do you know she had been to the third floor?”
“I should know,” I said with some bitterness. “She’s been trying to get there all week, and you know it.”
“Faithful, wasn’t she?” Florence jeered. “Well, I’m on my way if that’s all, Inspector. Bye-bye! Be good!”
The Inspector let her go without a word, and I was just bracing myself for a defense when Mr. Glenn’s car drove up. That saved me for the time, although, by the very manner in which the Inspector told me that I could go, I realized that his faith in me was pretty thoroughly shaken.
Mr. Glenn breezed in a moment later, and I knew well enough what that meant.
As I went up the stairs, I was determined to get off the case and out of the house. I was heartsick and homesick. I wanted to get back to my little apartment, and see Dick’s eyes when I went to the closet for sugar. I wanted to sleep for twenty-four hours.
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