“To my club, I think. We have both missed lunch; it’s much too late in the day to bother. But the club can supply us with a sandwich even on Sunday.”
Uncle Gil’s club, the Blackstone for men of law, had been so long nicknamed the Wranglers’ that most non-members believed it thus christened. Located well downtown, it reared three floors of double bay windows at the corner of Gravier Street and St. Charles Avenue.
Another rain squall had come and gone before Gilbert Bethune left his car in the parking lot just north. Following him into the club, down a dusky hall towards the staircase at the rear, Jeff thought he saw a vaguely familiar figure enter the front door behind them.
In the lounge upstairs, a large comfortable room of deep leather armchairs and sofas, its double bay windows overlooking Gravier Street, Uncle Gil waved his guest towards a chair. They had not yet seated themselves when in shouldered that familiar figure: the burly man grown somewhat overweight, ruddy of face and expansive of nature, whom Penny had pointed out on Friday night as Billy Vauban.
“Ah, Mr. District Attorney!” he said.
Uncle Gil introduced Jeff, who at once became conscious of the newcomer’s likable qualities.
“Pleasure!” declared Billy Vauban, shaking hands cordially. “If you’re wondering what a common-or-garden businessman is doing at a lawyers’ club, I am a lawyer. Passed my bar examination years ago, even if the family did push me into a job once held by an uncle of mine. —What’s the good or bad word, Mr. District Attorney?”
“I was about to order sandwiches and something to drink, if it’s possible to get them served in here. Join us, Billy?”
“Thanks, but I can’t. Got to pick up my wife at the Wentworths’, out on the River Road beyond … Here! Shockin’ business about Serena Hobart, wasn’t it? Is it true she fell from her bedroom window?”
“That, at least, is what the evidence seems to indicate.” Uncle Gil sat down lazily, reaching for a cigar. “You’ve never held a grudge against the Hobarts, have you?”
“No; why should I? It’s no fault of the family if Uncle Thad slipped and killed himself out there. Can’t say I’ve ever been intimate with any of ’em, it’s true. But many’s the game of pool I’ve shot with Harald, and had a few drinks with him too. One other funny thing, Gil. Somebody’s been industriously spreading the rumor I want to buy Delys Hall.”
“It’s only a rumor, then?”
“It’s worse than a rumor; it’s a damn lie,” the burly man said with great heartiness. “We’ve got a country place of our own, and that house on the Esplanade in town. What we’d do with an imported English museum, all decked out as though they expected Queen Elizabeth or Sir Francis Drake to drop in at any minute, it would take some inspired crystal-gazing to tell you.”
“A prospective buyer named Merriman …”
“I don’t know who’s spreading the report; I don’t care. But I must run along now to get Pauline, and that reminds me. Two nights in succession, first Friday and then Saturday, I’ve walked into domestic hot water that almost boiled over. The first time was at a public night club; I admit I did some carrying on. Last night we attended a formal dinner at the Wentworths’. The trouble started much more quietly; it didn’t really work up until we were on our way home, and I was cold sober. But …”
“When you were on your way home at what time? Do you by any chance remember?”
“Oh, round about midnight. Yes, easily that!” Then Vauban exhaled a deep breath as though to blow the matter away. “You never married, did you? You can thank your lucky stars you didn’t! Anyway, goodbye now. Glad to have met you, Jeff; you keep out of matrimony too!”
When the non-practising lawyer had gone, as self-assured as ever, Gilbert Bethune rang the bell for a waiter.
“That little interview,” he commented, “at least provided us with additional information and one more suggestion. What do you make of Forthright Billy?”
“I can tell you what I make of both the information and the suggestion.”
“Yes?”
“Outwardly,” Jeff replied, “there is no reason to connect either Vauban or his wife with whatever happened to Serena. But, if they didn’t leave their friends’ home until midnight, which should be easily established, it gives us another complete and unanswerable double alibi.”
“Perhaps we’re not thinking of the same suggestion,” said Uncle Gil.
At his request they were served with chicken sandwiches, potato salad, and iced lager which tasted like real Pilsener. Afterwards they both sat back, smoking, as evening shadows began to darken in the lounge. Gilbert Bethune, like a sort of legal Sherlock Holmes, studied the tip of his cigar.
“Shall we argue this business a little?” he suggested. “Most of the facts, let it be repeated, are in full view. One such fact, in itself apparently of no importance, has been repeated more often than almost any other. And yet nobody seems to have noticed what it may mean.”
“Some clue to the missing gold?”
“This fact, Jeff, bears no reference to the missing gold.”
“No reference to …?”
“Consider!” Uncle Gil urged in a low voice. “The commodore’s gold is a fact of importance; it has been acknowledged as such. But it is only of partial importance to the solution of the mystery. If I betrayed the whereabouts of the gold at this minute, as I am inclined to think I could, we should be no nearer learning who killed Serena or how the murderer approached her.”
“Are you telling me there’s something so obvious I can’t see it?”
“Forget paradoxes; they will lead us only into a blind alley. No, Jeff! There is something so commonplace, so everyday, so much to be expected, that of itself it would rouse nobody’s suspicion or even curiosity. And yet, harmless though the fact may be, its attendant circumstances buzz with rattlesnake warning at any unwary tread. We must be warned and take care. We must—”
He was interrupted by the entrance of the waiter, who, in clearing away the dishes, told him he was wanted on the telephone.
“I can take it up here, can’t I?” demanded Uncle Gil.
He indicated a telephone on the wall of the lounge at right angles to the wall with the big marble fireplace. When the waiter assented, Uncle Gil rose, strode there with some haste, and addressed himself to responsive carbon.
“Yes, Harry?” Jeff heard him say. “What’s that? When? But he’s …?”
Despite gathering dusk that made faces hard to read, Jeff could not have missed the alarm in his uncle’s voice. Foreboding entered the lounge as palpably as a sentient visitor. After monosyllabic questions and comments, a perturbed District Attorney hung up the receiver.
“There’s been another attempt,” he said, striding back again. “No, it did not succeed; Dave is still alive. But it might have succeeded; the murderer has almost shown his face. We must go out to the Hall, and in a hurry. Come on!”
14
IT WAS LIEUTENANT Minnoch who opened the front door. Again the lower floor of Delys Hall gleamed with lights, from the main hall to the rooms on either side. At the lieutenant’s elbow Cato waited patiently to take Uncle Gil’s hat and coat.
Harry Minnoch himself, with a red stain of wrath across his forehead but the air of one lurking in ambush behind some weapon he will use at the right time, beckoned the two newcomers.
“This way,” he said. “I wasn’t here when it happened. All day,” he passionately addressed the District Attorney, “all day, sir, I’ve been chasing over town to establish a few things, and I reckon I’ve established ’em. No, I wasn’t here when it happened. But O’Bannion was; he’ll tell you.”
Thus Minnoch led them through minor drawing-room, library, and two more rooms to the lighted study at the rear.
At the table with the lamp stood a broad-shouldered, neatly dressed young man whose dark hair contrasted with his fresh complexion and Celtic blue eyes. Lieutenant Minnoch made an encouraging gesture.
“All right, O’Bannion; fire away
!”
“Well, Lieutenant—”
“Don’t speak to me, young fellow; I know what you’re gonna say. Speak to Mr. Bethune and this other gentleman, who’s Mr. Bethune’s nephew. That is, sir, if it’s all right for your nephew to hear it?”
“Yes, he may hear it,” Uncle Gil assented. “What is it we have to hear?”
Terence O’Bannion obeyed orders.
“Well, gentlemen, it was this way. Last night the lieutenant posted me to guard young Mr. Hobart’s door. When I came off duty, after I’d gone home to get some sleep, I was to return here and keep an eye on things. No specific orders; just ‘keep an eye on things.’ When I did come off duty this morning, Mr. Hobart asked me to take a message to a friend of his at the St. Charles Hotel—”
“You shouldn’t ’a’ done that, Terry!” Minnoch admonished him. “A cop’s no errand-boy to take messages; leastways, not without he gets permission from his superior officer. Still! No great harm done, I reckon, so we’ll forget about it this time. Go ahead; take it from there.”
“When I did get back,” continued O’Bannion, with one eye on his superior officer, “it was fairly late in the afternoon. The lieutenant had said I needn’t hurry, so I took my time. But I expected to find him here when I returned. He wasn’t here; there was no other officer on the premises.”
“I can’t be every place at once, can I?” demanded Lieutenant Minnoch. “I’ve done enough running around to wear out two younger men; but I don’t complain; I’ve got the job done!”
“One question at this juncture,” said Uncle Gil, putting his brief-case on the table. “When you returned, Officer O’Bannion, who was here? Apart from the servants and Dave Hobart himself, that is, who was here?”
“Only their family lawyer, sir: Mr. Rutledge. Mr. Rutledge told me what the butler had already told me. Mr. Hobart had got dressed and had even come downstairs for a little while. But he was still feeling rocky after last night. So he said he’d go on back up to his room and rest, maybe take a nap.”
“Yes? And then?”
“Not knowing just what I was supposed to do, sir, I wondered. The lieutenant hadn’t said anything about keeping guard during the day, but I thought it mightn’t be a bad idea.”
“Your suspicions,” Uncle Gil told him, “would seem to have been justified. What did you do?”
“I went upstairs, sir, and tapped very lightly at Mr. Hobart’s door. When he didn’t answer, I opened the door. He was stretched out on the bed: fully dressed, sound asleep, and breathing peacefully.
“I went out and closed the door. I got a big chair from the main part of the upper hall; I pulled it up near the door of the young gentleman’s room; I sat down to wait. It couldn’t have been more than ten or fifteen minutes later …”
Clearly approaching the climax of the narrative, Officer O’Bannion tried to speak without allowing nerves to show in his Hibernian face, but without loutish stolidity in evidence either.
“It couldn’t have been more than ten or fifteen minutes later,” he said, “that the doorbell rang. I thought it would be Lieutenant Minnoch, probably, and I’d better be on hand. The butler had opened the door when I got downstairs. But it wasn’t the lieutenant. It was a young lady, very pretty and also very nervous, named Miss Lynn.
“She asked after Mr. Hobart but wouldn’t come inside. When I told her Mr. Hobart was asleep, she said she wouldn’t stay and couldn’t stay. She said it as though she meant she couldn’t bear to stay. Oh, yes!” O’Bannion turned towards Jeff. “If you’re Mr. Caldwell, sir, the young lady also asked after you. I told her there was nobody of that name here now, and she ran back to her car and drove away.
“There’s not much more, gentlemen.
“I thought I’d glance through the downstairs rooms before I went back up; I don’t know why I did. The main drawing-room’s to the right of the front door as you enter this house. Mr. Rutledge was there. For some reason that room seems to fascinate him; he’s almost always there when he’s on the premises. But he said he had to be going.
“After I’d looked through the rooms on this side of the main floor, it was time to return to my post upstairs. It’s a funny thing, Mr. Bethune. I don’t want to lay any claim to … to …”
“What is it you don’t want to claim, Officer O’Bannion?” prompted Uncle Gil. “Prophecy? Divination? Second sight?”
The young Irishman uttered what was not quite a laugh.
“If you’ll excuse me, sir, I don’t hold much with this second-sight business, or being born with a caul, or other things I’ve heard about in my family. All I can tell you is this. As I went back up the stairs, I started to walk a little faster. I didn’t run, you understand. I just walked a little faster. And I did it, so help me God I did it or thought I did it, just before I heard a choky kind of cry from the direction of Mr. Hobart’s bedroom, followed by a crash as something tipped over.
“Then I did run. You make a lot of noise on those stairs, and there’s no carpet in the upstairs hall. But I didn’t hear any other noise, or see anybody on the move.
“The door of Mr. Hobart’s room stood wide open. Beside the bed I’d already noticed a table and a tray with some half-eaten food. The table and everything on it had been upset: broken dishes, cold coffee stains, quite a mess. Mr. Hobart himself was crumpled up on the floor beside the bed, with one hell of a lump—sorry, sir—!”
“We note it was one hell of a lump,” said Uncle Gil. “Don’t apologize; explain!”
“—with one hell of a lump, sir, on the left side of his forehead just below the hairline. On the carpet to one side of him was a pillow off the bed; to the other side was a blackjack, a crook’s blackjack of weighted leather, such as you’ll find when you frisk ’em.
“There was nobody in that room but the victim. He’s got a weak heart, as his sister had. You’d have thought being knocked cold with a blackjack would have finished him, to say nothing of what else might have happened. He was alive, all right, though I didn’t like the sound of his breathing. By that time the old butler, Cato or Seneca or something Roman, had run in and joined me. Together we hoisted him up on the bed. Cato gave me the phone number of the family doctor. On my way down to phone it occurred to me … but you don’t want to know what I was thinking, do you?”
“On the contrary,” Uncle Gil corrected, “it would interest me to hear your thoughts. What were they?”
“Well, sir,” answered O’Bannion, clearing his throat, “somebody hit Mr. Hobart and ducked out of the room. The murderer or would-be murderer couldn’t have run along that side passage towards the main part of the upper hall, or I’d have seen him. There’s only one thing he could have done.”
“Yes?”
“In the passage, not far from the bedroom door, there’s a back stairway. The murderer ducked down those stairs, and out of the house by a side door that’s never locked until late at night.”
“Or else—” Lieutenant Minnoch began with great portentousness, but checked himself. “To teach you a little about police work, me lad, I’ll just stay quiet for a minute. Now that Mr. Bethune’s heard your deep thinkin’, you might stick to what it was you did.”
“I went downstairs to phone Dr. Quayle. Old Mr. Rutledge had already gone, as he said he was going to. I was on the phone to Dr. Quayle when the lieutenant and the sergeant arrived. The lieutenant took over. And that, Mr. Bethune, is all I can tell you of my own knowledge.”
“Thanks; it was very clear.” Uncle Gil squared his shoulders. “Whereat, Lieutenant,” he added formally, “a still small voice whispers that you have much to impart.”
“I have, sir; it’s gospel truth I have! In a short time, if you don’t mind, I’ll ask you to step upstairs …”
“What for? To question Dave Hobart?”
“We can’t do that just yet; not tonight, anyway. The doctor’s still with him. I wondered if they’d call an ambulance and take that young fellow off to the hospital. But Dr. Quayle said he wouldn’t need
to; he said he could handle it. There’s something upstairs I’d like you to see, that’s all. Meanwhile,” said Lieutenant Minnoch, taking out a notebook, “we might clear up a few odd bits and pieces that ought to be helpful.”
“Such as?”
“Alibis for last night, which is the key to the whole business. We mustn’t neglect a murder last night just because of what looks like a near-murder late this afternoon.”
“I have no intention of neglecting it.”
“Good for you, sir! Much earlier today, you remember, I told you both Mrs. Keith and Mr. Townsend are absolutely ruled out. Too many witnesses will swear they never left that night club between ten o’clock and after one in the morning. She didn’t drop him at his hotel until nearly three. While I wouldn’t say one word against the lady’s character, it’s dollars to doughnuts she took him home with her between the time they left the night club and the time she brought him back to the St. Charles. But all the dirty work was over long before then. Besides, I’ve talked to both of ’em today …”
“So have we.”
“And I’m satisfied, Mr. Bethune, if you are. Anyway, I could ’a’ told you no woman had anything to do with this murder in the first place.”
“No woman had anything to do with it in any way?”
“No woman had anything to do with it in a guilty way. Next, there’s Mr. Rutledge and Mr. Caldwell here.”
“Are you satisfied of their innocence as well?”
“I’d like to see the cop who wasn’t satisfied! That’s so plain it don’t even need to be argued or talked about. Finally, if you remember, you asked me to get a line on this fellow Saylor.”
“And did you?”
“Yes, sir. He’s out of it too.”
Lieutenant Minnoch opened his notebook and flicked over a few pages.
“It was through you, sir, I got my first line on Townsend and Mrs. Keith. Early this morning, you said, Miss Penny Lynn had telephoned you and told you those two left this house together after dinner last night, Mrs. Keith remarking they’d probably go to the Montmartre Mill. So I could rout out the night-club people, much as they hated seein’ a cop on Sunday morning, even before I tackled Townsend and Mrs. Keith.”
Deadly Hall Page 18