It may sound funny now to say that, when the Inspector came up, I was packing my bag to go, and that I had put on my hat, although I still wore a uniform. It was not funny then. That impulse to get out was nothing but a premonition; I know that now. I had not a doubt in the world that day but that Charlie Elliott would go to the chair, and I was not so certain that Paula would not go with him.
I heard Mr. Glenn going, and the Inspector coming up the stairs. He walked heavily, like a tired man, and when he came into my room, I even thought that, like Hugo, he looked older. He sat down without saying anything, and got out his pipe and lighted it.
“I dare say it’s bad news?” I asked.
“I suppose that depends on the point of view. It doesn’t cover everything, but it covers enough. I suppose you’d like to read it. You certainly deserve to get the low-down on this case, if anyone does.”
Which I took to be his apology. After all, he could afford to be lenient; he had his case in his pocket, and he knew it. He produced the statement and passed it to me, and well enough I knew it; Mr. Glenn’s careful writing, Miss Juliet’s signature, my own signature in the corner, then Hugo’s, and below them Florence’s seal.
“You’ll find,” he said, “that the early portion of the story is substantially as Miss Juliet told it before. It is only at the end that it differs.”
But I read it from start to finish nevertheless, with a slowly sinking heart. Clearly she had dictated it in her own words, although here and there was the evidence of a legal mind.
“I, Juliet Mitchell, being of sound mind and in the full possession of my faculties, wish to make the following statement, which I hereby state is the truth and nothing but the truth. I say this realizing that before long I shall have to face my Maker.
“My previous testimony to the police was also true to a certain extent. It is true that, on the night of Monday, September the fourteenth, I was awakened at about ten minutes before twelve by someone passing outside my door, and looked at my clock. It is true that I then prepared to go up the stairs to see if my nephew had come home, and that while preparing to get out of bed I felt by the vibration of the floor that someone was passing in the hall. It is true that on going to my door and seeing the light burning in his room above, I called to him and received no answer. And it is also true that I then put on my dressing gown and slippers and went up to his room to put out the light.”
Here, however, this rather formal style ended, and Miss Juliet began to tell her story in a more ordinary manner, and to this effect:
She had got halfway up the stairs that night, from which point her head was slightly above the floor level above, and she could see directly into the room. To her horror, she saw her nephew lying on the floor in the center of the room, not moving.
What followed, according to that statement, must have had for her the stark drama of a silent motion picture shown in a dark theater. She could hear nothing, of course, and the brilliantly lighted room must have been like a stage, seen through the open door. However that may be, she was clear enough as to what followed. From a space which she could not see, but which was apparently the location of the closet or the bed, she saw a man approach this body and stoop over it; a young man, fair-haired and well dressed. To her horror, she then saw him drag what she now realized was Herbert’s dead body toward the dresser; and stooping again, saw him deliberately bend the legs and lay a revolver beside it.
Up to that moment the full import of what she was seeing had not dawned on her. But with this man still stooping, she had found her breath and began to shriek. The figure turned and looked toward her, and then made a leap toward the window. Whether he escaped that way or not she was not certain. As she had only gone down the stairs to arouse the servants, however, he couldn’t have passed her. She was convinced that he had gone by way of the roof.
But, although she had recognized the guilty man, she did not tell either Hugo or Mary when they appeared, and Hugo had at first believed that it was suicide. Also, Hugo had said that if it was suicide, it would invalidate certain insurance policies held by Herbert, and suggested moving the body away from the bureau. But this she would not allow. She was back on the stairs again at that time, with Mary holding aromatic ammonia to her nose. She had not been able to climb all the way to the room.
It was Hugo who discovered that there were no powder marks around the wound, and called to her that it was either a murder or accidental death. There was some unimportant detail here, and then Miss Juliet entered into a defense of her course of action which was typical and yet almost incredible. She went on to state that she had given Herbert a home, and what she could of support, and he had rewarded her with cold ingratitude. She would not pretend, even now, that she felt any grief at his death, or that the world had suffered any loss. And she was entirely engrossed that night, she admitted, with the situation in which she found herself.
There had never been a scandal of this sort in the Mitchell family. They had made their mistakes, but if Herbert had been murdered, she was convinced that it had been for good and sufficient reason. She dreaded the publicity, the stirring up of some filth—the word is mine—which would disgrace what had been a proud old name, and she was prepared to take any steps possible to avoid this.
Also there was another reason. She had recognized the boy. He belonged to a good family, and had at one time been engaged to Paula Brent, the granddaughter of an old friend of hers. She had made up her mind, sitting weakly there on the stairs that night, to keep her knowledge to herself!
She broke off here, to say that she did not know when or where Hugo had opened a window downstairs. She learned later that one had been found open; and she believed that he had done so in his anxiety to prove the case not one of suicide. He had been a loyal employee, and he knew that there was some insurance. Nor did she know when he had sent for the police. She herself had asked him to telephone to Mr. Glenn, and he had arrived shortly after the police got there. But she had had no chance to talk to him that night. Mary had sent for Doctor Stewart, and he had ordered her to bed.
Then she went back to her story. It was much later on Monday night, toward morning, indeed, that, as she lay in her bed, it had occurred to her that this man was probably still on the roof and unable to escape. She had felt fairly safe until then; Mary had reported that the police thought it was either suicide or accidental death, and probably an accident. But if he was still on the roof, it meant discovery, so she got out of bed and went upstairs. She leaned out of the window and called to him, but he must have escaped, for he did not answer to his name.
That name was Charlie Elliott.
CHAPTER XXII
There was more of it, but nothing of importance. All the week, it was evident, Miss Juliet had struggled with an increasing sense of sin. She believed in the Bible, and there was the law of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. She had allowed her pride and a sentiment for an old friend to defeat the law, God’s law and man’s. It was when she learned that Herbert had taken out a large amount of insurance, and that his death had released her from serious financial worry, that she began to see where her duty lay.
She could not profit by his murder and protect his murderer; if, indeed, it were a murder. And when she saw by the paper that Paula Brent had been dragged into the case, she determined to do what she should have done at once.
It was that astounding document, which meant the chair for that blithe boy who had faced us all down that night in that upper room, which Hugo and I had signed. Here was Miss Juliet’s wavering signature, here was Hugo’s shaking one, and my own scrawl.
I stood, holding it in my hand and gazing at nothing. So Paula had known all along that Miss Juliet had seen Charlie in the room, and that the old lady could destroy him with a word. Here was Florence, telling the police Paula had gone back to my room that morning; had been there alone. Inspector Patton was watching me, a curious look on his face.
“Now you know what I’ve been talking about,”
he said. “I don’t claim that I knew the old lady had seen Elliott in that room. But I do claim that I’ve known all along that Paula Brent knew more than she was telling. Then what do you do? You go out of your way, and forget your duty into the bargain, to tell her that Miss Mitchell is about to confess something! And I’ll tell you something maybe you don’t know. Paula’s in love with this Elliott boy. Maybe she doesn’t know it either, but that’s the fact. It sticks out like a sore thumb. She’s in love, and she’s desperate.”
“How could she know I was giving that Nitroglycerin?”
“Well, that’s not hard, is it? Maybe you told her; you seem to have told her a good bit, one way and another. Maybe Doctor Stewart told her; he’s the family doctor for the Brents. Maybe she got into your room on Tuesday night and saw your tray. As a matter of fact, maybe that’s why she got into the house. I don’t uphold that theory. I only mention it.”
“I’ve given half a dozen hypodermics since then.”
“Still, she might have seen what you were using. And there were only two tubes on that tray. One of them was morphia, and it had not been opened. The other was nitroglycerin. Just remember that.”
“And I suppose Paula Brent knew what was the matter with Miss Juliet’s heart! And what it could stand, or couldn’t!”
But I was remembering something else. “Listen, Inspector,” I said earnestly. “You couldn’t buy strychnia in hypodermic tablets so that two would be a poisonous dose. If those two injections killed Miss Juliet, that was because of her heart condition. Whoever substituted those tablets must have known that. Do you think a girl like Paula Brent could possibly have known such a thing?”
“You’re certain of that, are you?”
“Ask the doctor.”
He was silent for a few minutes, evidently turning that over in his mind. Then he got up and wandered to the bureau, standing in front of it and surveying it with care: my silver brush and comb; the tray, looking strangely empty and useless; my box of powder. With his back to me, he spoke again.
“I suppose you wouldn’t notice if the tube had been tampered with?”
“It was a fresh tube. I had opened it, but I had not used it.”
He wheeled. “A fresh tube? Then, supposing two tablets had been put into it, two others would have had to come out.”
“Yes. Although I hadn’t thought of it.”
He looked around then. The bathroom, as in most old houses, was reached only by way of the hall. He glanced at the carpet, got down to examine some powder Florence had spilled on the floor, found it only powder, and then, rising, glanced at the rear window, which was open.
“What about that window? Was it open all morning?”
“It was.”
“Let me see one of those tablets.”
“The laboratory man took them.”
He muttered something, and then, without another word, he went out of the room and down the stairs.
I looked at my watch, and I had to hold it to my ear to be certain that it had not stopped. It was only a little after four, and it seemed to me that I had lived a lifetime since morning. The house was as still as only a house with death in it can be. There was no sign of Hugo, or of Mary; but from the rear window of mine I could see Mary’s black cat, moving stealthily across the grass toward the building. When I went closer to the window, I saw what had attracted it. The Inspector was furiously moving that ladder from where I had thrown it, and loudly demanding to know how it had got there!
Well, it had been a bad day for me, and was slowly growing worse. And evidently the two youths on the roof felt rather the same, for they never peeped while he was below.
He flung the ladder away, and then began to go over the ground with minute care, getting down on his hands and knees to do so. His tall figure in its gray sack suit was concentration personified, and I drew my first real breath when I saw him pick up some small object, lay it in the palm of his hand, and then drop it lightly in one of those small glass vials which the Bureau provides for such purposes.
But when I turned away from that window, I knew one thing, and knew it beyond a doubt. Miss Juliet had been murdered; deliberately and skillfully murdered.
The Inspector did not find the other tablet, apparently. Or he was satisfied with the one. I heard him coming back into the house, and up the stairs. But he made no explanation to me. He passed my door as though I were not in the room, and moving with that peculiar catlike rapidity which is his when he needs it, he went on up the third-floor stairs and into Herbert’s room.
Some ten minutes later he was down again, and at my door. “Can you get me a hammer?” he said. “One with a tack puller on the other end, or something of the sort?”
“There is a drawer of tools in the pantry. But I imagine Hugo is there.”
“Then don’t try it.” He scanned the room quickly. “Have you a nail file, or a strong pair of scissors?”
Well, I had both, and I gave them to him. “They are my best surgical scissors,” I told him. “Don’t break them.”
“My God!” he said. “What a contradictory person you are, Miss Pinkerton! You go calmly through murder and sudden death, and now you don’t want your scissors broken. Take that hat off and stop being ridiculous! And if Hugo shows up, ask for something from downstairs. Tea, molasses, I don’t care what. Just hold him.”
He was excited; I could see that. He is seldom facetious except at such times. Excited and happy, like a dog which has followed a cold trail for a long time, and suddenly finds it a hot one.
“I gather that you found something, down below that window.”
“I did,” he said dryly. “I found that a hardhearted young woman had left a couple of reporters on a hot tin roof, and that it is only by the grace of Providence that in venting her personal spleen she didn’t destroy some valuable evidence.”
He grinned at me, and then he was on his way upstairs again, taking the steps two or three at a time.”
He was upstairs for some fifteen minutes. Then I heard him coming down, and at the same time Hugo’s slow steps on the staircase, coming up. They met just outside my door, and neither one of them seemed to realize that I was there. I can still see Hugo, stopping and looking up, and the Inspector moving down on him, stern and implacable.
But it was Hugo who spoke first. “I was going to ask about the funeral arrangements. I suppose we can go ahead with them?”
“Why not?”
“You know that better than I do, sir. But if she died a natural death, why bring the Medical Examiner? You don’t think she did; nor I either.” Then, without any warning, he broke down and began to weep, the terrible unwilling tears of age. To weep and to talk. “I killed her, Inspector. I’d have done anything for her, and—I killed her!”
“Pull yourself together, Hugo,” the Inspector said sharply. “You are not confessing a crime to me, are you?”
But Hugo only shook his head, and would have passed on. The Inspector caught him by the shoulder.
“Why don’t you come clean about this?” he said. “What’s the use now, Hugo? She’s gone.”
“I have nothing to say, sir.”
“You’ve said something already, too much or too little.”
“I’ve got my wife to think of, Inspector. If anything happens to me, what will become of her?”
“What could happen to you?” the Inspector demanded roughly. “I know about the insurance, and your fear that Herbert’s death would be considered a suicide. I know that you wanted to move the body away from the bureau up there, for that reason. And I understand that better than you think. But I know a lot of other things also. For instance, why Miss Juliet got out of bed that night and went up to the room again.”
“She told that, sir?”
“She did.”
“It was my fault that she didn’t do it before, sir.”
The Inspector nodded. He still had his hand on Hugo’s shoulder.
“Isn’t it time you told what you know, Hugo? Or w
hat you suspect? What’s the use of holding back now? If you’re afraid, I’ll take steps to protect you.”
“Protect me! You couldn’t protect her, sir.”
“But if I tell you that I know the whole story? What then?”
Hugo did not answer. He caught hold of the stair rail, looked blankly ahead of him, and then crumpled up on the floor in a dead faint.
It was some little time before he recovered sufficiently to be moved from my room, where the Inspector had carried him, and still later before he was strong enough to be taken to Headquarters for interrogation. Up to the time he left, he had stubbornly refused to talk, and much of that time the Inspector had spent in pacing up and down in the lower hall. I had gone down to the kitchen and on up the back stairs to tell Mary, but although she was clearly startled, it was some time before I could induce her to open the door and let me in.
She was not in bed. She had apparently been sitting by the window, and she was fully dressed. She was pale, even for her, and I had to assure her that I was alone before she would unlock the door. She was suspicious even then, for she kept looking over my shoulder into the sitting room.
“Where is he?” she asked.
“In my room, Mary.”
Then, for the first time that day, so far as I knew, she broke down and cried.
I took her to Hugo, and she bent down and touched his forehead with her work-hardened hand.
“I told you,” she said. “I told you. But you’re a stubborn man.”
He opened his eyes and looked at her, and I saw then that, whatever had separated them, there was a strong bond between them; the bond of years and habit, and maybe something more. He took her hand.
“My poor Mary,” he said weakly. “My poor girl.”
It was about that time that the Inspector ordered the release of the two boys on the roof. Instead of leaving at once, however, I saw them in deep conference with the Inspector in the lower hall. One of them had something in his hand, and the Inspector took it and looked at it.
Miss Pinkerton Page 15