The Mystery & Suspense Novella

by Fletcher Flora

  There was not even the shadow of a motive. Raymond Rennick was one of those few men who seemed to be without an enemy. In an official capacity, his conduct was without a blemish. In a social capacity, he was admittedly one of the most popular men in Brookline—among both sexes. Rumour had it, apparently on unquestioned authority, that the announcement of his engagement to Beth Duffield was to have been an event of the early summer. This fact was in my mind as I stared out into the darkness.

  On a sudden impulse, I opened the paper again. From an inside page the latest photograph of the Senator’s daughter, taken at a fashionable Boston studio, smiled up at me. It was an excellent likeness as I remembered her at the inaugural ball the year before—a wisp of a girl, with a mass of black hair, which served to emphasize her frailness. I studied the picture with a frown. There was a sense of familiarity in its outlines, which certainly our casual meeting could not explain. Then, abruptly, my thoughts flashed back to the crowded courtroom of the afternoon—and I remembered.

  In the prisoner’s dock I saw again the figure of Beatrice Farragut, slender, fragile, her white face, her sombre gown, her eyes fixed like those of a frightened lamb on the jury which was to give her life—or death.

  “She poison her husband?” had buzzed the whispered comments at my shoulders during the weary weeks of the trial. “She couldn’t harm a butterfly!” Like a mocking echo, the tones of the foreman had sounded the answering verdict of murder—in the first degree. And in New York this meant—

  Why had Beatrice Farragut suggested Beth Duffield? Or was it Beth Duffield who had suggested—I crumpled the paper into a heap and tossed it from the window in disgust at my morbid imagination. B-u-r-r-h! And yet they say that a New York newspaper woman has no nerves!

  A voice hailed us from the darkness and a white-gowned figure sprang out on to the walk. As the chauffeur brought the machine to a halt, Madelyn Mack caught my hands.

  Her next two actions were thoroughly characteristic.

  Whirling to the driver, she demanded shortly, “How soon can you make the Grand Central Station?”

  The man hesitated. “Can you give me twenty minutes?”

  “Just! We will leave here at one sharp. You will wait, please!”

  Having thus disposed of the chauffeur—Madelyn never gave a thought to the matter of expense!—she seized my arm and pushed me through the entrance of the “Roanoke” as nonchalantly as though we had parted six hours before instead of six weeks.

  “I hope you enjoyed Jamaica?” I ventured.

  “Did you read the evening papers on the way over?” she returned as easily as though I had not spoken.

  “One,” I answered shortly. Madelyn’s habit of ignoring my queries grated most uncomfortably at times.

  “Then you know what has been published concerning the case?”

  I nodded. “I imagine that you can add considerably.”

  “As a matter of fact, I know less than the reporters!” Madelyn threw open the door of her room. “You have interviewed Senator Duffield’s secretary on several occasions, have you not, Nora?”

  “You might say on several delicate occasions if you cared to!”

  “You can tell me then whether Mr. Rennick is in the habit of polishing his glasses when he is in a nervous mood?”

  A rather superior smile flashed over my face.

  “I assure you that Mr. Rennick never wears glasses on any occasion!”

  Something like a chuckle came from Madelyn.

  “Perhaps you can do as well on another question. You will observe in these newspapers four different photographs of the murdered secretary. Naturally, they bear many points of similarity—they were all taken in the last three years—but they contain one feature in common which puzzles me. Does it impress you in the same way?”

  I glanced at the group of photographs doubtfully. Three of them were obviously newspaper “snapshots,” taken of the secretary while in the company of Senator Duffield. The fourth was a reproduction of a conventional cabinet photograph. They showed a clean shaven, well built young man of thirty or thereabouts; tall, and I should say inclined to athletics. I turned from the newspapers to Madelyn with a shrug.

  “I am afraid I don’t quite follow you,” I admitted ruefully. “There is nothing at all out of the ordinary in any of them that I can catch.”

  Madelyn carefully clipped the pictures and placed them under the front cover of her black morocco notebook. As she did so, a clock chimed the hour of one. We both pushed back our chairs.

  As we stepped into the taxicab, Madelyn tapped my arm. “I wonder if Raymond Rennick polished his glasses when he was nervous?” she asked musingly.

  CHAPTER III

  Boston, from the viewpoint of the South Station at half-past seven in the morning, suggests to me a rheumatic individual climbing stiffly out of bed. Boston distinctly resents anything happening before noon. I’ll wager that nearly every important event that she has contributed to history occurred after lunchtime!

  If Madelyn Mack had expected to have to find her way to the Duffield home without a guide, she was pleasantly disappointed. No less a person than the Senator, himself, was awaiting us at the train-gate—a somewhat dishevelled Senator, it must be confessed, with the stubble of a day-old beard showing eloquently how his peace of mind and the routine of his habits had been shattered. As he shook hands with us, he made an obvious attempt to recover something of his ease of manner.

  “I trust that you had a pleasant night’s rest,” he ventured, as he led the way across the station to his automobile.

  “Much pleasanter than you had, I fear,” replied Madelyn.

  The Senator sighed. “As a matter of fact, I found sleep hopeless; I spent most of the night with my cigar. The suggestion of meeting your train came as a really welcome relief.”

  As we stepped into the waiting motor, a leather-lunged newsboy thrust a bundle of heavy-typed papers into our faces. The Senator whirled with a curt dismissal on his tongue when Madelyn thrust a coin toward the lad and swept a handful of flapping papers into her lap.

  “There is absolutely nothing new in the case, Miss Mack, I assure you,” the Senator said impatiently. “The reporters have pestered me like so many leeches. The sight of a headline makes me shiver.”

  Madelyn bent over her papers without comment. As I settled into the seat by her side, however, and the machine whirled around the corner, I saw that she was not even making a pretence of reading. I watched her with a frown as she turned the gates. There was no question of her interest, but it was not the type that held her attention. I doubted if she was perusing a line of the closely-set columns. It was not until she reached the last paper that I solved the mystery. It was the illustrations that she was studying!

  When she finished the heap of papers, she began slowly and even more thoughtfully to go through them again. Now I saw that she was pondering the various photographs of Senator Duffield’s family that the newspapers had published. I turned away from her bent form and tapping finger, but there was a magnetism in her abstraction that forced my eyes back to her in spite of myself. As my gaze returned to her, she thrust her gloved hand into the recesses of her bag and drew out her black morocco notebook. From its pages she selected the four newspaper pictures of the murdered secretary that she had offered me the night before. With a twinkle of satisfaction, she grouped them about a large, black-bordered picture which stared up at her from the printed page in her lap.

  Our ride to the Duffield gate was not a long one. In fact I was so absorbed by my furtive study of Madelyn Mack that I was startled when the chauffeur slackened his speed, and I realized from a straightening of the Senator’s bent shoulders that we were nearing our destination.

  At the edge of the driveway, a quietly dressed man in a grey suit, who was strolling carelessly back and forth from the gate to the house, eyed us curiously as we passed, and to
uched his hat to the Senator. I knew at once he was a detective. (Trust a newspaper woman to “spot” a plain clothes man, even if he has left his police uniform at home!) Madelyn did not look up and the Senator made no comment.

  As we stepped from the machine, a tall girl with severe, almost classical features and a profusion of nut-brown hair which fell away from her forehead without even the suggestion of a ripple, was awaiting us.

  “My daughter, Maria,” Senator Duffield announced formally.

  Madelyn stepped forward with extended hand. It was evident that Miss Duffield had intended only a brief nod. For an instant she hesitated, with a barely perceptible flush. Then her fingers dropped limply into Madelyn Mack’s palm. (I chuckled inwardly at the ill grace with which she did it!)

  “This must be a most trying occasion for you,” Madelyn said with a note of sympathy in her voice, which made me stare. Effusiveness of any kind was so foreign to her nature that I frowned as we followed our host into the wide front drawing-room. As we entered by one door, a black-gowned, white-haired woman, evidently Mrs. Duffield, entered by the opposite door.

  In spite of the reserve of the society leader, whose sway might be said to extend to three cities, she darted an appealing glance at Madelyn Mack that melted much of the newspaper cynicism with which I was prepared to greet her. Madelyn crossed the room to her side and spoke a low sentence, that I did not catch, as she took her hand. I found myself again wondering at her unwonted friendliness. She was obviously exerting herself to gain the good will of the Duffield household. Why?

  A trim maid, who stared at us as though we were museum freaks, conducted us to our rooms—adjoining apartments at the front of the third floor. The identity of Madelyn Mack had already been noised through the house and I caught a saucer-eyed glance from a second servant as we passed down the corridor. If the atmosphere of suppressed curiosity was embarrassing my companion, however, she gave no sign of the fact. Indeed, we had hardly time to remove our hats when the breakfast gong rang.

  The family was assembling in the old-fashioned dining room when we entered. In addition to the members of the domestic circle whom I have already indicated, my attention was at once caught by two figures who entered just before us. One was a young woman whom it did not need a second glance to tell me was Beth Duffield. Her white face and swollen eyes were evidence enough of her overwrought condition, and I caught myself speculating why she had left her room.

  Her companion was a tall, slender young fellow with just the faintest trace of a stoop in his shoulders. As he turned toward us, I saw a handsome, though self-indulgent face, to a close observer suggesting evidences of more dissipation than was good for its owner. And, if the newspaper stories of the doings of Fletcher Duffield were true, the facial index was a true one. If I remember rightly, Senator Duffield’s son more than once had made prim old Boston town rub her spectacled eyes at the tales of his escapades!

  Fletcher Duffield bowed rather abstractedly as he was presented to us, but during the eggs and chops he brightened visibly, and put several curious questions to Madelyn as to her methods of work, which enlivened what otherwise would have been a rather dull half hour.

  As the strokes of nine rang through the room, my companion pushed her chair back.

  “What time is the coroner’s inquest, Senator?”

  Mr. Duffield raised his eyebrows at the change in her attitude. “It is scheduled for eleven o’clock.”

  “And when do you expect Inspector Taylor of headquarters?”

  “In the course of an hour, I should say, perhaps less. His man, Martin, has been here since yesterday afternoon—you probably saw him as we drove into the yard. I can telephone Mr. Taylor, if you wish to see him sooner.”

  “That will hardly be necessary, thank you.”

  Madelyn walked across to the window. For a moment she stood peering out on to the lawn. Then she stooped, and her hand fumbled with the catch. The window swung open with the noiselessness of well-oiled hinges, and she stepped out on to the veranda, without so much as a glance at the group about the table.

  I think the Senator and I rose from our chairs at the same instant. When we reached the window, Madelyn was half across the lawn. Perhaps twenty yards ahead of her, towered a huge maple, rustling in the early morning breeze.

  I realized that this was the spot where Raymond Rennick had met his death.

  In spite of his nervousness, Senator Duffield did not forget his old-fashioned courtliness, which I believe had become second nature to him. Stepping aside with a slight bow, he held the window open for me, following at my shoulder. As we reached the lawn, I saw that the scene of the murder was in plain view from at least one of the principal rooms of the Duffield home.

  Madelyn was leaning against the maple when we reached her. Senator Duffield said gravely, as he pointed to the gnarled trunk, “You are standing just at the point where the woman waited, Miss Mack.”

  “Woman?”

  “I refer to the assassin,” the Senator rejoined a trifle impatiently. “Judging by our fragmentary clues, she must have been hidden behind the trunk when poor Rennick appeared on the driveway. We found her slipper somewhat to the left of the tree—a matter of eight or ten feet, I should say.”

  “Oh!” said Madelyn listlessly. I fancied that she was somewhat annoyed that we had followed her.

  “An odd clue, that slipper,” the Senator continued with an obvious attempt to maintain the conversation. “If we were disposed to be fanciful, it might suggest the childhood legend of Cinderella.”

  Madelyn did not answer. She stood leaning back against the tree with her eyes wandering about the yard. Once I saw her gaze flash down the driveway to the open gate, where the detective, Martin, stood watching us furtively.

  “Nora,” she said, without turning, “will you kindly walk six steps to your right?”

  I knew better than to ask the reason for the request. With a shrug, I faced toward the house, and came to a pause at the end of the stipulated distance.

  “Is Miss Noraker standing where Mr. Rennick’s body was found, Senator?”

  “She will strike the exact spot, I think, if she takes two steps more.”

  I had hardly obeyed the suggestion when I caught the swift rustle of skirts behind me. I whirled to see Madelyn’s lithe form darting toward me with her right hand raised as though it held a weapon.

  “Good!” she cried. “I call you to witness, Senator, that I was fully six feet away when she turned! Now I want you to take Miss Noraker’s place. The instant you hear me behind you—the instant, mind you—I want you to let me know.”

  She walked back to the tree as the Senator reluctantly changed places with me. I could almost picture the murderess dashing upon her victim as Madelyn bent forward. The Senator turned his back to us with a rather ludicrous air of bewilderment.

  My erratic friend had covered perhaps half of the distance between her and our host when he spun about with a cry of discovery. She paused with a long breath.

  “Thank you, Senator. What first attracted your attention to me?”

  “The rustle of your dress, of course!”

  Madelyn turned to me with the first smile of satisfaction I had seen since we entered the Duffield gate.

  “Was the same true in your case, Nora?”

  I nodded. “The fact that you are a woman hopelessly betrayed you. If you had not been hampered by petticoats—”

  Madelyn broke in upon my sentence with that peculiar freedom which she always reserves to herself. “There are two things I would like to ask of you, Senator, if I may.”

  “I am at your disposal, I assure you.”

  “I would like to borrow a Boston directory, and the services of a messenger.”

  We walked slowly up the driveway, Madelyn again relapsing into her preoccupied silence and Senator Duffield making no effort to induce her to speak.
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  CHAPTER IV

  We had nearly reached the veranda when there was the sound of a motor at the gate, and a red touring car swept into the yard. An elderly, clean-shaven man, in a long frock coat and a broad-brimmed felt hat, was sharing the front seat with the chauffeur. He sprang to the ground with extended hand as our host stepped forward to greet him. The two exchanged half a dozen low sentences at the side of the machine, and then Senator Duffield raised his voice as they approached us.

  “Miss Mack, allow me to introduce my colleague, Senator Burroughs.”

  “I have heard of you, of course, Miss Mack,” the Senator said genially, raising his broad-brimmed hat with a flourish. “I am very glad, indeed, that you are able to give us the benefit of your experience in this, er—unfortunate affair. I presume that it is too early to ask if you have developed a theory?”

  “I wonder if you would allow me to reverse the question?” Madelyn responded as she took his hand.

  “I fear that my detective ability would hardly be of much service to you, eh, Duffield?”

  Our host smiled faintly as he turned to repeat to a servant Madelyn’s request for a directory and a messenger. Senator Burroughs folded his arms as his chauffeur circled on toward the garage. There was an odd suggestion of nervousness in the whole group. Or was it fancy?

  “Have you ever given particular study to the legal angle in your cases, Miss Mack?” The question came from Senator Burroughs as we ascended the steps.

  “The legal angle? I am afraid I don’t grasp your meaning.”

  The Senator’s hand moved mechanically toward his cigar case. “I am a lawyer, and perhaps I argue unduly from a lawyer’s viewpoint. We always work from the question of motive, Miss Mack. A professional detective, I believe—or at least, the average professional detective—tries to find the criminal first and establish his motive afterward.”