by Helen Reilly
Savage’s story was at an end. McKee leaned forward, delicate blunt fingers of his left hand shading his eyes, the right drawing pictures aimlessly on a sheet of yellow paper in front of him. In a tired voice he said finally,
“Tree crash. And snow fell that night, heavily too. My men weren’t to blame. That tree was a long way from that house. The trunk is probably plastered with snow. Oh well.”
He took the receiver off the hook, got headquarters and gave precise orders, orders that embraced the finding of the tree into which the car fleeing down the back road away from Borrow’s house in Fieldston had crashed, the removal of the necessary section and the proper analysis. The police laboratory would take care of that. He was through with Savage. He said to the young man, regarding him with strained eyes that had dark shadows under them,
“That’s all for now, Mr Savage. Go back to the hotel. Wait there. I’ll get in touch with you later.”
The temperature had risen. It was a gray day with a low, even sky and a wind from the southeast. Bleak midday light filled the small room. When Kent and Pierson entered it a quarter of an hour after Savage had gone McKee was pacing up and down, hands clasped behind his back, his lined face absently intent.
Kent knew better than to break in on his abstraction, as profound as it was so very often to the point. Measured footsteps to and fro, to and fro, the stenographer slid unobtrusively behind the table with the typewriter on it.
Pierson didn’t share Kent’s penetration. He realized at once that something drastic had occurred, stared hard at the inspector. Unconsciously aware of the inquiry directed at him, McKee straightened, looked at Pierson as though he had never seen him before. The captain shuffled his feet. His glance went aimlessly around the room. He craned through the window at a woman passing by. “Nice-looking dame, ain’t she?” he said.
The silence remained unbroken.
Pierson examined a lithograph of Abraham Lincoln over the wash basin, fastened his eyes firmly on a steel engraving of the “Stag at Eve” on the wall beyond the desk. “The ‘Stag at Eve,’ ” he said with a mirthless grin to cover his confusion.
“Nice picture, ain’t it? The deer and all, and evening and the lake. Animals, that’s what I like, animals.”
The Scotsman was standing very still. He glanced at the captain sideways and then at the engraving on the wall. He examined it in his turn. A spark began to grow at the back of the shining disks between half-closed lashes. He kept on looking.
At the end of fully half a minute he swung on the stenographer with a movement of abandonment and of relief.
“Get me headquarters again, Kent,” he said. “I want Dalligan. And after that get me Mr Paulson, the vicepresident of Garth and Campbell’s.”
CHAPTER 23
“AND SO, Mrs Cambridge, you know nothing about a case containing butterflies, a case that was destroyed?”
Muriel Cambridge said angrily, “I certainly do not.” Her small face with the bulbous, handsome eyes was set and mutinous above the blue-and-white ruffled house dress she wore. She and the Scotsman were alone together in the living room of the Tudor cottage. Muriel grasped the back of the Windsor chair in front of which she stood defensively.
“But your husband Leslie did collect butterflies?” McKee said.
“What if he did?” Her tone was waspish.
“Nothing. Nothing at all, Mrs Cambridge,” McKee answered. “I just wanted to know.”
She stamped a small foot. Her grip on the chair back tightened. “How long is this going to continue, Inspector?” she demanded. “How long is it going to keep up? Policemen, day after day, walking in and out of our houses, following us around the streets. Why don’t you get after the real criminal instead of hounding innocent people?”
The Scotsman smiled. “That’s exactly what we intend to do, Mrs Cambridge.”
She looked as though she were about to burst into angry tears. She didn’t. She said, nostrils pinched, a ring of whiteness around the little tight mouth, “What about that Judith Borrow, who explained her being in Luke’s house the night he died by saying he telephoned to her? Very funny, very peculiar. None of us ever heard of her before. Who is she? Where does she come from? Butterflies!”
McKee had Muriel Cambridge exactly where he wanted her. He said placatingly,
“Don’t get excited, Mrs Cambridge. This crime will be solved all in good time. Miss Borrow has been given a clean bill of health, or will be after the district attorney talks to her this evening. She’s answered everything satisfactorily. We’re convinced she’s innocent. As a matter of fact, Miss Borrow is leaving Edgewood tonight.”
“A clean bill of health ... Leaving Edgewood!” Muriel Cambridge was startled.
“Yes. She’s even leaving the country. She’s an actress, you know, and she has received an offer to go to South America with a touring repertory company. The boat leaves tonight. Under other circumstances she would have been gone by this time, but the district attorney is so tied up that we can’t complete formalities until this evening. She’s leaving on the ten-twelve. It’ll be a close call, but she can make it.”
“You mean you’re letting that girl actually get away, that she’s leaving the country, that you’re letting her leave the country?” A helpless fury swept through Muriel Cambridge’s small figure.
“Yes, Mrs Cambridge.” The Scotsman was calm. “It’s a real chance for her, and you must remember she just lost her father under very tragic conditions. Since she has satisfied us in every way we want to be of what assistance to her we can. That’s the only fair thing to do.”
There was veiled impatience and a leaping eagerness under her regained composure as Muriel said slowly, “I wonder what Gregory and Irene are going to think of this.”
McKee picked up his hat and moved toward the door. “Yes, I wonder too,” he said and took his leave.
As the Cadillac was heading along the road toward the town he looked through the back window. Muriel Cambridge, hatless and with a coat thrown hastily over her shoulders, was proceeding almost at a canter down the hill and over the bridge to the Gregory Cambridge house on the hill beyond. The Scotsman smiled.
Dusk was settling over the village when McKee got out of the Cadillac at the railroad station late that afternoon. A southbound freight was churning past. The lights of the northbound passenger train, the six-eighteen from New York, swung around the curve. The Scotsman wandered off into the dimness beyond the far end of the platform.
People jumped out of waiting cars and moved forward; the train swept in, ground to a stop. An outpouring of homecomers, voices, laughter, cries: “Hello, Ethel . . . See you tonight, Joe ... Taxi, taxi here ..Dalligan, the big photographer, dismounted from the smoker. He was carrying a big black case containing his paraphernalia. The Scotsman came up behind him, touched him on the shoulder.
Dalligan turned, stared and grinned. “Hello, Inspector. I didn’t know you were on this train,” he said.
“Didn’t you?” The inspector sounded pleased. Dalligan couldn’t understand the pleasure in his tone.
The Scotsman didn’t explain. He led the way to the waiting car on the far side of the enclosure. When the two men arrived at the town police station Kent advanced hurriedly toward McKee with a message that had been transmitted from the Telegraph Bureau. The message was from Shearer. It said:
Located Gainford former manager of Eldorado Hotel in Pueblo suburb. Gainford recalls summer of 1912 at Eldorado Hotel clearly. Corroborates records. Borrow and Luke Cambridge both tied up with a girl there. GirVs name Lucia Joyce harpist entertainer at hotel. Luke Cambridge and girl lit out together and were married in Douglas Bluff small town near hotel Aug. 22, 1912. Gainford did hotel shopping in Douglas Bluff. That's how he found out not only girl and Luke Cambridge married but split up after one week. Douglas Bluff records show marriage legally performed. Wire instructions. Chief of Police, Denver.
Lucia Joyce was the maiden name of Franklin Borrow’s wife. It hadn’t meant
anything before. It meant a great deal now. The basic situation was becoming rapidly clear. The Scotsman had sensed its general and necessary outlines. Lucia Joyce was Judith Borrow’s mother. She hadn’t married Borrow until 1915 but she had married Luke in the summer of 1912 and the girl was twenty-seven, which meant only one thing. Judith Borrow was Luke Cambridge’s daughter.
McKee folded the paper with the message on it and put it into his pocket. “Good man, Shearer,” he said. There was no time for further comment at the moment. He gave Dalligan his instructions. He called in Niles, Beard, Fish-baum, McQuillan, Snell and Peterson and told them what he wanted them to do. Todhunter had already had special instructions.
District Attorney Dolan arrived with Captain Rasmussen. McKee had a long talk with them, going back over every inch of the ground that had already been covered, trying out here, testing there, weighing and measuring to be sure there was no possibility of a mistake.
At around nine-thirty they sent for Judith Borrow and Michael Savage. The girl entered the police station with Todhunter just ahead of the young man.
Almost half an hour later a cab rolled down the driveway from the rear of the police station and turned left over the bridge toward the railroad station. The figure inside sat rigidly erect, green toque set sideways on the black curls above the broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted military coat with its wide, swinging skirts. The slender dark face with the long eyes stared straight ahead, looking neither to the right nor left.
The weather had broken. The night was overcast with an invisible sky, dank patches of ground mist blowing before a wet wind out of the east. It was very dark. The few scattered street lamps cast a dim and ineffectual light through nimbuses of drifting grayness. Pedestrians were few and far between.
From his nook in the doorway of the darkened building across the street Todhunter watched the girl’s cab pull into the space beyond the express office and nose to the edge of the platform of the railroad station. The platform was silent, deserted.
Presently other people began to arrive. Car lights swung round the corner. Gregory Cambridge’s sedan, followed by Leslie’s smaller car, pulled up almost directly opposite Todhunter and some distance away from the cab with the slim, erect figure of the girl in it, lounging easily against the cushions.
Irene, Ellen and Toby Newell were in the sedan with Gregory. They all got out, their figures vague, indistinct in the billowing drifts of mist. Todhunter could make out the metal buttons on Irene’s coat and the girl’s white angora gloves. That was all, but he could hear. The night was very still.
Evidently Gregory Cambridge was also going to take the ten-twelve to New York. So was Leslie. Toby Newell had come over with Irene and Ellen in order to drive the car back. Todhunter heard Muriel say,
“That’s all right, Irene, I can manage. I’m not afraid of skidding.”
Irene laughed. “You’re not afraid of anything, are you, Muriel? Brave girl. Ellen dear, keep that collar up around your throat. This is tonsillitis weather.” Leslie’s heehaw laugh cut across something Toby Newell was saying. They all moved up the steps and vanished into the blackness of the platform beyond.
The bulk of the station intervened. Todhunter shifted his gaze. A hundred feet farther along the driver of Judith Borrow’s cab was getting out. His voice, too, was clearly audible.
He said, “A package of cigarettes and a paper? Yes, miss. I’ll have to go round the corner but you’ve got plenty of time. The train won’t be along for another couple of minutes. Don’t worry. It’ll be all right.” The man sped off at a trot for the stationery store.
Todhunter couldn’t see the girl until the glowing tip of the cigarette springing into view made of her a slim dark shape, head tilted sideways in the back seat of the taxi. She seemed at ease. He kept on watching.
Blackness in and around the cab, washes of it. The darkness was very nearly impenetrable. The mist kept blowing back and forth. Far away the train whistled mournfully. The wind moaned round the little station. Very few people were taking the ten-twelve out of Edgewood that night. Two other passengers appeared, one a trim elderly woman and the other a fat man with a bundle. Todhunter had completely lost sight of the Cambridges. The station was between him and the platform where they must be waiting in groups, altogether or singly. He couldn’t tell.
Blackness and the night and the mist and the figure unguarded in the cab, alone; a chill went down the little detective’s spine. He shivered. But the inspector’s orders had been explicit. Watch and wait. No matter what he saw he was to make no move. Just keep track of who showed and what he could see from the doorway.
He shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. The tip of the girl’s cigarette continued to glow on, a tiny spark in the converging obscurities. The train whistled again, this time more loudly. The signal lights to the north flashed from red to green and the engine swung around the distant curve, followed dimly by a long line of lighted coaches.
And then it happened, the thing for which Todhunter knew afterward he should have been prepared but that nevertheless nailed him to the spot on which he stood with a blind flash of panic. Because that was exactly what it was, a flash at the door of the cab in which the slim figure sat, cap askew on the soft dark curls.
The cigarette went out, the dark head toppled sideways, the door slammed shut, there was a quick sound of running footsteps away from the cab and blackness came down again like a curtain, defeating, terrible.
The little detective forced himself to remain crouched in the doorway. His heart was hammering against his ribs.
“All right, Todhunter.”
It was McKee’s voice. He had come around the corner fast. On the embankment above, beyond the station, the long train was pulling to a stop. McKee, followed by Todhunter, McQuillan, Niles and Beard, sped across the road, up the steps and onto the platform.
Gregory Cambridge, surrounded by Toby Newell, Irene and Ellen and with Leslie and Muriel hovering close, was saying good-by. He kissed his wife. Ellen threw her arms around his neck. He disengaged himself, moved toward the steps of the smoker. Leslie started to follow him. McKee advanced.
“I think not, Mr Cambridge,” McKee said. “You’re not taking the ten-twelve to New York. You’re staying right here. That goes for you too.” He turned to Leslie.
“What’s all this?” Gregory Cambridge demanded.
The sudden appearance of the group of officials out of nowhere, McKee’s order and Gregory’s sharp retort, had aroused the curiosity of passengers inside the train. Heads craned and people got up out of their seats. Irene grasped her husband’s arm. Ellen was leaning against Toby Newell. Beside the weedy and shivering Leslie Muriel was a whitefaced shrew gazing furiously at the Scotsman.
McKee said calmly, “I’ll tell you what it is.” His glance went slowly around the circle of faces. “A murderous assault was just attempted on Judith Borrow out there in that cab.” He waved toward the shadows. “Back to the police station, all of you.”
CHAPTER 24
CHAIRS had been placed in readiness for their arrival, which McKee had anticipated and which had fallen out exactly as he had planned. There was only one occupant of the room when they entered it en masse. The single occupant drew a startled gasp from the huddle of white-faced men and women.
Seated in an armchair was the slim figure in the narrow-waisted military coat with the swinging skirts, toque cocked sideways over the black curls. A ragged gash marred the surface of the smooth green cloth just over the breast. The faintly smiling face didn’t change. It couldn’t.
As they all stood there, staring, a door on the other side of the room opened and the living counterpart of the figure in the green outfit walked in. It was Judith Borrow. Savage was behind her. The figure in the chair was the mannequin that Savage had made with Judith as the model. If the girl herself had been inside the cab waiting at the station she would have been dead. That ragged gash in the green cloth was the result of a knife thrust, as swift and accurate as
it was vicious. Murder had been attempted. This time it had failed.
Standing by Savage, Judith Borrow looked coldly at the Cambridge family. The first shock over, they looked back at her with equal coldness as they seated themselves, taut, silent and guarded, watching her, watching each other and watching the Scotsman. He dropped into , the swivel chair behind the desk. Detectives, filing in, took their places in a row around the walls.
Gregory Cambridge’s protestations had died away. Foursquare, solid and bristling, he waited for McKee to make the first move.
On the desk in front of the Scotsman were Franklin Borrow’s green dispatch case, empty, its fine tooled leather stained and scratched, the gun which had killed both Borrow and Jones, Borrow’s bunch of keys, copies of Shearer’s messages from the West and the fragment of burned but-tefly wing.
The district attorney and Rasmussen came in. They drew up chairs, flanking the Scotsman. McKee said slowly, picking up a pencil,
“There is a murderer in this room, a murderer who didn’t hesitate to kill three times and who tried to kill again tonight. In a very few minutes I will know who that murderer is.”
No one spoke. The entire collection of men and women sat inert, waiting.
“I arranged this latest attempt,” the Scotsman said. “That is—I banked on the killer’s doing exactly what was done. But I didn’t intend that there should be any more loss of life. I called Mr Paulson at Garth and Campbell’s and Mr Paulson was very glad to cooperate. He furnished us with the mannequin.”
Eyes went unwillingly and with a hypnotic movement to the figure in the rakish green outfit, lingered on the jagged tear in the green cloth of the breast. There was something horrible about it. McKee continued,