The Gloved Hand

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

  CHAPTER XVIII

  BUILDING A THEORY

  I was surprised, when I came down for dinner an hour later, to findGodfrey awaiting me.

  "I always try to make it, Saturday night," he explained. "The chiefthrows the work on the other fellows, if he can. That's the reason Ihustled away after the inquest. The story's all in, and now we'll havea good dinner--if I do say it myself--and then a good talk. I feel theneed of a talk, Lester."

  "So do I," I said; "though I'm afraid talking won't help us much."

  "The funny thing about this case is," mused Godfrey, "that the fartherwe get into it the thicker it grows."

  "Yes," I agreed, "and the more one thinks about it, the less oneunderstands."

  "Well, suppose we get away from it for a while," said Godfrey, andturned the talk to other things. No man could talk more delightfullyof music, of art, of letters. How he managed it I could never guess,but he seemed to have read everything, to have seen everything, tohave heard everything. Marryat, for instance; who reads Marryatnowadays? And yet he had read the "Phantom Ship," and so knewsomething of Goa. An hour passed very quickly, but at last he rose andled the way into his study.

  "A friend of mine dropped in to see me to-day at the office," heremarked, "a Cuban planter who comes up to New York occasionally, andwhom I happened to help out of a rather serious difficulty a few yearsago. Perhaps some day I'll tell you about it. He always brings me abundle of his own special cigars. I didn't see him to-day, but he leftthe cigars, and I want you to try one. Perhaps it will give you aninspiration."

  He went to his desk, opened a tin-foiled package that lay there, andcarefully extracted two long cigars of a rich and glowing brown.

  "Perhaps you've heard of the special cigars that are made for PierpontMorgan," he went on, as he handed one to me, after carefully replacingthe wrappings of the bundle. "Well, I smoked one of Morgan's cigarsonce--it was good, mighty good; but it wasn't in the same class withthese. Light up."

  I did. Never before had I drawn between my lips a breath sosatisfying--so rich, so smooth, so full of flavour. I exhaled thefragrant smoke slowly.

  "Godfrey," I said, "I never knew what tobacco was before. Are thesecigars purchasable? I'm only a poor lawyer, but even one a month wouldbe a thing to look forward to and dream about."

  But Godfrey shook his head.

  "I've felt like that," he said; "but they're not to be had for money.And now about Swain."

  "Let's postpone it a little longer," I begged. "I don't want my minddistracted."

  Godfrey laughed, but fell silent; and for the next half hour, no soundwas heard.

  "Now," I said, at last, "I'm ready to listen, so fire ahead wheneveryou want to."

  "I haven't much to tell," he began; "nothing new about the case. But Istopped at the Tombs, before I started back, to make sure that Swainhad everything he wanted. They'd given him an upper cell, and sentover to the Marathon and got him his things, and I arranged to havehis meals sent in to him from Moquin's."

  "I ought to have thought of that," I said, contritely. "I'm muchobliged to you, Godfrey. Did you see him?"

  "Only for a minute. He seemed fairly cheerful. He'd had them bringsome of his law books to him, and remarked that he'd have plenty oftime to study. I like the way he's taking it. He gave me a message foryou."

  "What was it?"

  "That you are not to forget your promise."

  I smoked on for a few moments in silence.

  "I promised him I'd get Miss Vaughan away from that house," I said atlast. "I had Mrs. Royce write her a note, inviting her to stay withher. I gave it to her this afternoon."

  "What did she say?"

  "She didn't say anything, but I could see the idea didn't impress her.And I had thought all along that she would jump at it."

  Godfrey gave a little grunt, whether of surprise or satisfaction Icould not tell.

  "Why didn't you put her on the stand to-day, Lester?" he asked."Afraid of upsetting her?"

  "I wouldn't have stopped for that, if her evidence would have helpedSwain. But it would only have put him deeper in the hole."

  "In what way?"

  "Well, in the first place, she says that as she and her fatherreturned to the house, she heard footsteps behind them and thought itwas Swain following them, because that would be a natural thing forhim to do; and, in the second place, she saw that blood-stainedhandkerchief on the floor beside her father's chair when she came intothe room and found him dead."

  "So," said Godfrey slowly, "it couldn't have been dropped there bySwain when he stooped to pick her up."

  "No; besides, we know perfectly well that it wasn't about his wristwhen he came back over the wall. Goldberger knows it, too, and we'llbe asked about it, next time."

  "It might have been pushed up his sleeve--we weren't absolutelycertain. But this new evidence settles it."

  I assented miserably and Godfrey smoked on thoughtfully. But my cigarhad lost some of its flavour.

  "How did Miss Vaughan come to find the body?" he asked at last, and Itold him the story as she had told it to me. He thought it over forsome moments; then he leaned forward and laid his hand on my knee.

  "Now, Lester," he said, "let's review this thing. It can't be as darkas it seems--there's light somewhere. Here is the case, bared of allinessentials: Swain crosses the wall about eleven o'clock, cutting hiswrist as he does so; Miss Vaughan meets him about eleven-thirty, andafter a time, finds that his wrist is bleeding and ties herhandkerchief about it; they agree to have her father examined forlunacy, arrange a meeting for the next night, and are about toseparate, when her father rushes in upon them, savagely berates Swainand takes his daughter away. That must have been about twelve o'clock.

  "Swain, according to his story, sits there for ten or fifteen minutes,finally sees the cobra, or thinks he does, and makes a dash forsafety, striking his head sharply against a tree. He tumbles over thewall in a half-dazed condition. The handkerchief is no longer abouthis wrist. That, you will remember, was about twelve-twenty.

  "Almost at once we heard Miss Vaughan's screams. After that, Swainisn't out of our sight for more than a minute--too short a time,anyway, for anything to have happened we don't know about.

  "Meanwhile, Miss Vaughan has returned with her father to the house,hearing steps behind her and taking it for granted that it is Swainfollowing at a distance. She goes to her room, stays there fifteenminutes or so, and comes downstairs again to find her father dead.

  "Now let us see what had happened. You were right in saying that herfather must have been strangled immediately after she left him.Otherwise he would still have been twitching in such a way that shemust have noticed it. No doubt he dropped into the chair exhausted byhis fit of rage; the murderer entered through the garden door,stopped to cut off the end of the curtain-cord and make a noose ofit--that would have taken at least a minute--and then strangled hisvictim. Then he heard her coming down the stairs, and escaped throughthe garden-door again just as she entered at the other. She saw thecurtain still shaking. Then she fainted.

  "Now, what are the clues to the murderer? A string tied with apeculiar knot, the blood-stained handkerchief, and the finger-printson the dead man's robe."

  Godfrey paused for a moment. Freed of its inessentials, in this way,the case was beautifully clear--and beautifully baffling. It was apaved way, smooth and wide and without obstruction of any kind; but itended in a cul-de-sac!

  "One thing is certain," Godfrey went on, at last; "the murder wascommitted by somebody--either by Swain, or by one of the Hindus, or bysome unknown. Let us weigh the evidence for and against each of them.

  "Against Swain it may be urged that he was on the ground, that he hadtime to do it, and some provocation, though the provocation, as weknow it, seems to be inadequate, provided Swain was in his right mind;a handkerchief which was tied about his wrist is found beside thebody, and his finger-prints are found upon it. Miss Vaughan believedhe was following them; he admits that he thought of doing so.
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  "In his favour, it may be urged that a man like Swain doesn't commitmurder--though, as a matter of fact, this is a dangerousgeneralisation, for all sorts of men commit murder; but if he shoulddo so, it would be only under great provocation and in the heat ofanger, certainly not in cold blood with a noose; and, finally, if themotion of the curtain Miss Vaughan noticed was made by the murderer,it couldn't possibly have been Swain, because he was with us at thatmoment. You will see that there is a mass of evidence against him, andpractically the whole defence is that such a crime would be impossibleto one of his temperament. You know yourself how flimsy such a defenceis.

  "Against the Hindus, on the other hand, practically the only basis forsuspicion is that such a crime might be temperamentally possible tothem. They may have been on the ground, and the method of the murdersavours strongly of Thuggee--though don't forget that Swain admittedhe could have tied that knot. Besides, if it was the Thug who followedthem, he wouldn't have made any noise, and most certainly he couldn'thave left the prints of Swain's fingers on the body. But if Swain isright in his assertion that he saw the snake in the arbour, it isprobable that the Thug wasn't far away.

  "Against an unknown it may be urged that neither Swain nor the Hinduscould have committed the crime; but I don't see how an unknown couldeither, unless he happened to be one of the three or four people inthe world with finger-tips like Swain's. And that is too far-fetchedto be believable.

  "But this I am sure of, Lester," and Godfrey leaned forward again:"the murder was committed either by Swain or by someone anxious toimplicate Swain. We agree that it wasn't Swain. Very well, then: theperson who committed the murder made a noise in following Miss Vaughanand her father so that she should think it was Swain who was followingthem; he picked up the blood-stained handkerchief, which Swain haddropped perhaps when he fled from the arbour, and placed it beside thebody; and in some way inconceivable to me he pressed the prints ofSwain's fingers on the dead man's robe. Now, to do that, he must haveknown that Swain was injured--the blood-stained handkerchief wouldtell him that; but he must also have known that it was his right handthat was injured. There was no blood on Swain's left hand."

  Again Godfrey paused. I was following his reasoning with suchabsorbed attention that I could feel my brain crinkle with the effort.

  "Now, listen," said Godfrey, and I could have smiled at theuselessness of the admonition--as if I were not already listening withall my faculties! "There is only one way in which the murderer couldhave known that it was Swain's right hand, and that was by overhearingthe conversation in the arbour. But if he overheard that much, heoverheard it all, and he knew therefore what it was Swain proposed todo. He knew that Vaughan's sanity was to be questioned; he knew thathe would probably be placed in a sanitarium; he knew that Miss Vaughanwould probably marry Swain. Presuming that it was Silva, he knew that,unless something was done to stop it, a very few days would place bothVaughan and his daughter beyond his reach."

  "That is true," I admitted; "but Vaughan was beyond his reach a gooddeal more certainly dead than he would have been in a sanitarium.Besides, it isn't at all certain that he would have been sent to asanitarium."

  "That's an objection, surely," Godfrey agreed; "but I must find out ifVaughan is really beyond his reach dead."

  I stared at him.

  "You don't mean...."

  "I don't know what I mean, Lester. I can feel a sort of dim meaningat the back of my mind, but I can't get it out into the light."

  "Besides," I went on, "if the yogi did it, how did he get back intothe house before we got there?"

  "He peeped in at the door, saw the coast was clear, and went backthrough the library. Remember, Miss Vaughan was unconscious. Thatdoesn't bother me. And another thing, Lester. How did Miss Vaughan'sfather come to burst in on her and Swain like that? How did he knowthey were in the arbour? It was dark and he couldn't have seen eitherof them."

  "He might have been walking about the grounds and overheard them."

  "I don't believe it. I believe somebody told him they were there. Andonly one person could have told him--that is Silva. No--there's onlyone point I can't get past--that's the finger-prints."

  And then I remembered.

  "Godfrey," I cried, "there's one thing--I forgot to tell you. Youheard Swain remark that Vaughan was a collector of finger-prints?"

  "Yes."

  "And that he had a set of Swain's?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, when I told Miss Vaughan about the prints on her father'srobe, she ran to a book-case and got out a book. It had Vaughan'scollection in it, all bound together. But the page on which Swain'swere had been torn out."

  Godfrey sat for a moment, staring at me spell-bound. Then he beganpacing up and down the study, like a tiger in its cage; up and down,up and down.

  "I'm bound to add," I went on finally, "that Hinman suggested a veryplausible reason for their disappearance."

  "What was it?"

  "He said they were probably destroyed by Vaughan himself, because ofhis dislike of Swain. He said that would be characteristic ofVaughan's form of insanity."

  Godfrey took another turn up and down, then he stopped in front of mychair.

  "What did Miss Vaughan think of that explanation?" he asked.

  "It didn't seem to impress her, but I don't remember that she made anycomment."

  He stood a moment longer staring down at me, and I could feel theintense concentration of his mind; then he ran his fingers impatientlythrough his hair.

  "I can't get it, Lester!" he said. "I can't get it. But I _will_ getit! It's there! It's there, just out of reach." He shrugged hisshoulders and glanced at his watch. "I'm getting dippy," he added, inanother tone. "Let's go out and get a breath of air."

  I followed him out into the yard--I knew where he was going--among thetrees and up the ladder. Silently we took our places on the limb;silently we stared out into the darkness.

  And there, presently, the strange star glowed and burned steel-blue,and floated slowly down, and burst above a white-robed figure,standing as though carved in marble, its arms extended, its headthrown back.

  "That fellow is certainly an artist," Godfrey muttered, as he led theway back to the house.