“I have wondered lately,” he said slowly, “whether the mildness of your manner at the hospital was acting, or the chastening effect of three years under an order book.”
“A man always likes a woman to be a sheep.”
“Not at all. But it is rather disconcerting to have a pet lamb turn round and take a bite out of one.”
“Will you read the reports now?”
“I think,” he said quietly, “they would better wait until we have eaten. We will probably both feel calmer. Suppose we arrange that nothing said before the oysters counts?”
I agreed, rather sulkily, and the meal went off well enough. I was anxious enough to hurry but he ate deliberately, drank his demitasse, paid the waiter, and at last met my impatient eyes and smiled.
“After all,” he said, “since you are determined to go anyhow, what’s the use of reading the reports? Inside of an hour you’ll know all you need to know.” But he saw that I did not take his teasing well, and drew out his pocketbook.
They were two typewritten papers clamped together.
They are on my desk before me now. The first one is endorsed:
Statement by Laura J. Bosworth, nurse, of St. Luke’s Home for Graduate Nurses.
Miss Bosworth says:
I do not know just why I came here. But I know I’m frightened. That’s the fact. I think there is something terribly wrong in the house of Francis M. Reed, 71 Beauregard Square. I think a crime of some sort has been committed. There are four people in the family, Mr. and Mrs. Reed and two children. I was to look after the children.
I was there four days and the children were never allowed out of the room. At night we were locked in. I kept wondering what I would do if there was a fire. The telephone wires are cut so no one can call the house, and I believe the doorbell is disconnected too. But that’s fixed now. Mrs. Reed went round all the time with a face like chalk and her eyes staring. At all hours of the night she’d unlock the bedroom door and come in and look at the children.
Almost all the doors through the house were locked. If I wanted to get to the kitchen to boil eggs for the children’s breakfast—for there were no servants, and Mrs. Reed was young and didn’t know anything about cooking—Mr. Reed had to unlock about four doors for me.
If Mrs. Reed looked bad, he was dreadful—sunken eyed and white and wouldn’t eat. I think he has killed somebody and is making away with the body.
Last night I said I had to have air, and they let me go out. I called up a friend from a pay-station, another nurse. This morning she sent me a special-delivery letter that I was needed on another case, and I got away. That’s all; it sounds foolish, but try it and see if it doesn’t get on your nerves.
Mr. Patton looked up at me as he finished reading.
“Now you see what I mean,” he said. “That woman was there four days, and she is as temperamental as a cow, but in those four days her nervous system went to smash.”
“Doors locked!” I reflected. “Servants gone; state of fear—it looks like a siege!”
“But why a trained nurse? Why not a policeman, if there is danger? Why anyone at all, if there is something that the police are not to know?”
“That is what I intend to find out,” I replied. He shrugged his shoulders and read the other paper:
Report of Detective Bennett on Francis M. Reed, April 5, 1913:
Francis M. Reed is thirty-six years of age, married, a chemist at the Olympic Paint Works. He has two children, both boys. Has a small independent income and owns the house on Beauregard Square, which was built by his grandfather, General F. R. Reed. Is supposed to be living beyond his means. House is usually full of servants, and grocer in the neighborhood has had to wait for money several times.
On March twenty-ninth he dismissed all servants without warning. No reason given, but a week’s wages instead of notice.
On March thirtieth he applied to the owners of the paint factory for two weeks’ vacation. Gave as his reason nervousness and insomnia. He said he was “going to lay off and get some sleep.” Has not been back at the works since. House under surveillance this afternoon. No visitors.
Mr. Reed telephoned for a nurse at four o’clock from a store on Eleventh Street. Explained that his telephone was out of order.
Mr. Patton folded up the papers and thrust them back into his pocket. Evidently he saw I was determined, for he only said:
“Have you got your revolver?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know anything about telephones? Could you repair that one in an emergency?”
“In an emergency,” I retorted, “there is no time to repair a telephone. But I’ve got a voice and there are windows. If I really put my mind to it you will hear me yell at headquarters.”
He smiled grimly.
CHAPTER II: HOUSE OF MYSTERY
The Reed house is on Beauregard Square. It is a small, exclusive community, the Beauregard neighborhood; a dozen or more solid citizens built their homes there in the early 70’s, occupying large lots, the houses flush with the streets and with gardens behind. Six on one street, six on another, back to back with the gardens in the center, they occupied the whole block. And the gardens were not fenced off, but made a sort of small park unsuspected from the streets. Here and there bits of flowering shrubbery sketchily outlined a property, but the general impression was of lawn and trees, free of access to all the owners. Thus with the square in front and the gardens in the rear, the Reed house faced in two directions on the early spring green.
In the gardens the old tar walks were still there, and a fountain which no longer played, but on whose stone coping I believe the young Beauregard Squarites made their first climbing ventures.
The gardens were always alive with birds, and later on from my windows I learned the reason. It seems to have been a custom sanctified by years, that the crumbs from the twelve tables should be thrown into the dry basin of the fountain for the birds. It was a common sight to see stately butlers and chic little waitresses in black and white coming out after luncheon or dinner with silver trays of crumbs. Many a scrap of gossip, as well as scrap of food, has been passed along at the old stone fountain, I believe. I know that it was there that I heard of the “basement ghost” of Beauregard Square—a whisper at first, a panic later.
I arrived at eight o’clock and rang the doorbell twice. The door was opened at once by Mr. Reed, a tall, blond young man carefully dressed. He threw away his cigarette when he saw me and shook hands. The hall was brightly lighted and most cheerful; in fact the whole house was ablaze with light. Certainly nothing could be less mysterious than the house, or than the debonair young man who motioned me into the library.
“I told Mrs. Reed I would talk to you before you go upstairs,” he said. “Will you sit down?”
I sat down. The library was even brighter than the hall, and now I saw that although he smiled as cheerfully as ever his face was almost colorless, and his eyes, which looked frankly enough into mine for a moment, went wandering off round the room. I had the impression somehow that Mr. Patton had had of the nurse at headquarters that morning—that he looked as if he expected a knife in his back. It seemed to me that he wanted to look over his shoulder and by sheer will power did not.
“You know the rule, Miss Adams,” he said: “When there’s an emergency get a trained nurse. I told you our emergency—no servants and two small children.”
“This should be a good time to secure servants,” I said briskly. “City houses are being deserted for country places, and a percentage of servants won’t leave town.”
He hesitated. “We’ve been doing very nicely, although of course it’s hardly more than just living. Our meals are sent in from a hotel, and—well, we thought, since we are going away so soon, that perhaps we could manage.”
The
impulse was too strong for him at that moment. He wheeled and looked behind him, not a hasty glance, but a deliberate inspection that took in every part of that end of the room. It was so unexpected that it left me gasping.
The next moment he was himself again.
“When I say that there is no illness,” he said, “I am hardly exact. There is no illness, but there has been an epidemic of children’s diseases among the Beauregard Square children and we are keeping the youngsters indoors.”
“Don’t you think they could be safeguarded without being shut up in the house?”
He responded eagerly. “If I only thought—” he checked himself. “No,” he said decidedly; “for a time at least I believe it is not wise.”
I did not argue with him. There was nothing to be gained by antagonizing him. And as Mrs. Reed came in just then, the subject was dropped. She was hardly more than a girl, almost as blond as her husband, very pretty, and with the weariest eyes I have ever seen, unless perhaps the eyes of a man who has waited a long time for deathly tuberculosis.
I liked her at once. She did not attempt to smile. She rather clung to my hand when I held it out.
“I am glad St. Luke’s still trusts us,” she said. “I was afraid the other nurse— Frank, will you take Miss Adams’s suitcase upstairs?”
She held out a key. He took it, but he turned at the door.
“I wish you wouldn’t wear those things, Anne. You gave me your promise yesterday, you remember.”
“I can’t work round the children in anything else,” she protested.
“Those things” were charming. She wore a rose silk negligee trimmed with soft bands of lace and blue satin flowers, a petticoat to match that garment, and a lace cap.
He hesitated in the doorway and looked at her—a curious glance, I thought, full of tenderness, reproof—apprehension perhaps.
“I’ll take it off, dear,” she replied to the glance. “I wanted Miss Adams to know that, even if we haven’t a servant in the house, we are at least civilized. I—I haven’t taken cold.” This last was clearly an afterthought.
He went out then and left us together. She came over to me swiftly.
“What did the other nurse say?” she demanded.
“I do not know her at all. I have not seen her.”
“Didn’t she report at the hospital that we were—queer?”
I smiled. “That’s hardly likely, is it?”
Unexpectedly she went to the door opening into the hall and closed it, coming back swiftly.
“Mr. Reed thinks it is not necessary, but—there are some things that will puzzle you. Perhaps I should have spoken to the other nurse. If—if anything strikes you as unusual, Miss Adams, just please don’t see it! It is all right, everything is all right. But something has occurred—not very much, but disturbing—and we are all of us doing the very best we can.”
She was quivering with nervousness.
I was not the police agent then, I’m afraid.
“Nurses are accustomed to disturbing things. Perhaps I can help.”
“You can, by watching the children. That’s the only thing that matters to me—the children. I don’t want them left alone. If you have to leave them call me.”
“Don’t you think I will be able to watch them more intelligently if I know just what the danger is?”
I think she very nearly told me. She was so tired, evidently so anxious to shift her burden to fresh shoulders.
“Mr. Reed said,” I prompted her, “that there was an epidemic of children’s diseases. But from what you say—”
But I was not to learn, after all, for her husband opened the hall door.
“Yes, children’s diseases,” she said vaguely. “So many children are down. Shall we go up, Frank?”
The extraordinary bareness of the house had been dawning on me for some time. It was well lighted and well furnished. But the floors were innocent of rugs, the handsome furniture was without arrangement and, in the library at least, stood huddled in the center of the room. The hall and stairs were also uncarpeted, but there were marks where carpets had recently lain and had been jerked up.
The progress up the staircase was not calculated to soothe my nerves. The thought of my little revolver, locked in my suitcase, was poor comfort. For with every four steps or so Mr. Reed, who led the way, turned automatically and peered into the hallway below; he was listening, too, his head bent slightly forward. And each time that he turned, his wife behind me turned also. Cold terror suddenly got me by the spine, and yet the hall was bright with light.
(Note: Surely fear is a contagion. Could one isolate the germ of it and find an antitoxin? Or is it merely a form of nervous activity run amuck, like a runaway locomotive, colliding with other nervous activities and causing catastrophe? Take this up with Mr. Patton. But would he know? He, I am almost sure, has never been really afraid.)
I had a vision of my oxlike predecessor making this head-over-shoulder journey up the staircase, and in spite of my nervousness I smiled. But at that moment Mrs. Reed behind me put a hand on my arm, and I screamed. I remember yet the way she dropped back against the wall and turned white.
Mr. Reed whirled on me instantly. “What did you see?” he demanded.
“Nothing at all.” I was horribly ashamed. “Your wife touched my arm unexpectedly. I dare say I am nervous.”
“It’s all right, Anne,” he reassured her. And to me, almost irritably:
“I thought you nurses had no nerves.”
“Under ordinary circumstances I have none.”
It was all ridiculous. We were still on the staircase.
“Just what do you mean by that?”
“If you will stop looking down into that hall I’ll be calm enough. You make me jumpy.”
He muttered something about being sorry and went on quickly. But at the top he went through an inward struggle, evidently succumbed, and took a final furtive survey of the hallway below. I was so wrought up that had a door slammed anywhere just then I think I should have dropped where I stood.
The absolute silence of the house added to the strangeness of the situation. Beauregard Square is not close to a trolley line, and quiet is the neighborhood tradition. The first rubber-tired vehicles in the city drew up before Beauregard Square houses. Beauregard Square children speak in low voices and never bang their spoons on their plates. Beauregard Square servants wear felt-soled shoes. And such outside noises as venture to intrude themselves must filter through double brick walls and doors built when lumber was selling by the thousand acres instead of the square foot.
Through this silence our feet echoed along the bare floor of the upper hall, as well lighted as belowstairs and as dismantled, to the door of the day nursery. The door was locked—double locked, in fact. For the key had been turned in the old-fashioned lock, and in addition an ordinary bolt had been newly fastened on the outside of the door. On the outside! Was that to keep me in? It was certainly not to keep anyone or anything out. The feeblest touch moved the bolt.
We were all three outside the door. We seemed to keep our compactness by common consent. No one of us left the group willingly; or, leaving it, we slid back again quickly. That was my impression, at least. But the bolt rather alarmed me.
“This is your room,” Mrs. Reed said. “It is generally the day nursery, but we have put a bed and some other things in it. I hope you will be comfortable.”
I touched the bolt with my finger and smiled into Mr. Reed’s eyes.
“I hope I am not to be fastened in!” I said.
He looked back squarely enough, but somehow I knew he lied.
“Certainly not,” he replied, and opened the door.
If there had been mystery outside, and bareness, the nursery was charming—a corner room with many windows, hung with the
simplest of nursery papers and full of glass-doored closets filled with orderly rows of toys. In one corner a small single bed had been added without spoiling the room. The window sills were full of flowering plants. There was a bowl of goldfish on a stand, and a tiny dwarf parrot in a cage was covered against the night air by a bright afghan. A white-tiled bathroom connected with this room and also with the night nursery beyond.
Mr. Reed did not come in. I had an uneasy feeling, however, that he was just beyond the door. The children were not asleep. Mrs. Reed left me to let me put on my uniform. When she came back her face was troubled.
“They are not sleeping well,” she complained. “I suppose it comes from having no exercise. They are always excited.”
“I’ll take their temperatures,” I said. “Sometimes a tepid bath and a cup of hot milk will make them sleep.”
The two little boys were wide awake. They sat up to look at me and both spoke at once.
“Can you tell fairy tales out of your head?”
“Did you see Chang?”
They were small, sleek-headed, fair-skinned youngsters, adorably clean and rumpled.
“Chang is their dog, a Pekinese,” explained the mother. “He has been lost for several days.”
“But he isn’t lost, Mother. I can hear him crying every now and then. You’ll look again, Mother, won’t you?”
“We heard him through the furnace pipe,” shrilled the smaller of the two. “You said you would look.”
“I did look, darlings. He isn’t there. And you promised not to cry about him, Freddie.”
Freddie, thus put on his honor, protested he was not crying for the dog. “I want to go out and take a walk, that’s why I’m crying,” he wailed. “And I want Mademoiselle, and my buttons are all off. And my ear aches when I lie on it.”
The room was close. I threw up the windows, and turned to find Mrs. Reed at my elbows. She was glancing out apprehensively.
The Big Book of Female Detectives Page 87