The Classic Mystery Novel

by Dorothy Cameron Disney

  “About his alibi?”

  “He has no alibi for the twentieth, Mrs. Storm. Maybe he hunted that day,” said Harkway with a certain gallows humor, “but he wasn’t hunting rabbits. He went out with the guide on the nineteenth, but not on the twentieth. The Canuck remembered perfectly. His sister’s child was christened that day, and he knocked off work and stood up with it.”

  “Then Elliott could have been in Crockford at the time Darnley was shot?”

  “He could have been,” said Harkway, “and I believe he was.”

  The door into the living room was open. The rustle of the magazine ceased. There was no sound. Annabelle had heard everything we said, as I believe Harkway intended she should. He stepped into the other room and shot rapid questions at her. He met the same blank wall. Silence.

  The useless interrogation continued until Jack and Standish returned from the Lodge, and then the police escorted Annabelle home. She bade me a contained goodbye, but she wasn’t as composed as she seemed, for although she carefully adjusted her hat and pulled on her gloves she neglected to take her purse. I remember her as she looked that night, a taut, pale, contemptuous woman with a policeman on either side. I remember her scornful smile as she glanced from one to the other.

  “My bodyguard,” she said.

  The door slammed. They drove off. When they reached the Bayne home I believe Annabelle roused her maid and ordered coffee. “Since it appears you gentlemen plan to stay.” They stayed on and on, drank quarts of coffee, spilled ashes on her carpets and bombarded her with questions which she answered with a shake of the head.

  “I am sorry. I do not know where Franklyn Elliott is, why he went or when he will return. If I did know I would not say.”

  They pointed out that Elliott’s flight and her silence indicated his guilt. At this, Standish told us later, she whitened. “I won’t be drawn into any discussion of the matter. I have nothing to tell you. Elliott will return and explain the things which I cannot explain.”

  Her resolution was inflexible, and in the end she wore them out. When dawn streaked the windows they permitted her to go to bed.

  Contiguous with this futile questioning the relentless search for Franklyn Elliott and the yellow car moved along the Atlantic seaboard. Town by town the search advanced as the midnight hours wore away. Roads were patrolled, hotels were notified, and many a policeman missed his rest. To no purpose. Car and driver seemingly had dropped into a void.

  The morning newspapers raged and raved and demanded action. The Darnley case revived with a bang. One of the more sensational papers editorially linked up the disappearance of Laura Twining with that of Franklyn Elliott and asked its readers if the two might not be in hiding together. A love nest was hinted at. Which was as far north as any of the suggestions went.

  I spent the morning in bed. My cold was in the handkerchief stage. I used them by the dozens, but admitted I would survive. Jack and I read the papers and awaited news. The police were busy elsewhere.

  We guessed their activities at the Lodge, and since there was a clear view up the hill from the bedroom windows we shamelessly drew back the curtains and watched. Men strode purposefully in and out the building. Various bulky objects—the distance prevented identification—were removed, and Jack hazarded that some of the damaged furniture was being conveyed to the station. Blair trotted about the pasture, rounded up Mrs. Coatesnash’s three blooded cows and drove them off. An ambulance arrived, lumbered almost to the door and carried away a sheeted, silent figure. Reuben was lying on my lap. He stirred and whined, and I’ve always half imagined that he knew.

  Toward four o’clock Harkway came down from the Lodge, caught us at the window, smiled and dropped into a chair. He said at once, “Tell me, Mrs. Storm. How long was it after you heard Silas and Elliott quarreling over the phone before you went to the Lodge?”

  “About half an hour.”

  “No longer?”

  “Hardly as long.”

  “You are sure they were angry?”

  “Elliott was in a towering rage.”

  “Then,” said Harkway, “I cannot understand why immediately he arrived the two men sat down together to drink coffee and eat cake. As the broken crockery indicates they did. You saw the two smashed cups on the floor, the two plates, the two overturned chairs. And they are an important part of the pattern we have built up.”

  “What is that pattern?”

  In brief, terse sentences he sketched out the bloody crime as the police recapitulated it. Silas had been on the verge of confessing to the truth about Hiram Darnley’s murder. Elliott knew it. He phoned Silas, and by appointment proceeded to the Lodge. The two men seated themselves, and the lawyer attempted to dissuade the other from his purpose. After failing by argument, he resorted to violence. Thus, if the recapitulation were correct, the interview which had ended in an appalling battle had begun on an amicable note.

  I had been too shocked during those frightful minutes at the Lodge to draw logical conclusions. But now the picture struck, me wrong. In the first place, when I had heard Elliott talking on the telephone he had been in no coffee-drinking, conciliatory humor. In the second place, it seemed to me the lawyer had barely time enough to rush to the Lodge, wreck the room and kill Silas before I got there. Add the hurried attempt at order—the pail of water, the partially scrubbed floor—and he had no time left.

  “Let’s drop the crockery,” said Jack impatiently. “Maybe Elliott did arrive in a rage. Maybe Silas prepared the food in advance and laid the table in the hope of creating a friendly atmosphere. I saw those cups last night—or the fragments of them. You couldn’t tell they had both been used.”

  “Both had been filled,” said Harkway quietly. “It seems unlikely Silas would pour in advance of his guest.”

  However, the coffee cups seemed a small mystery in the maze of mysteries, and since no one, offered any better explanation, I concluded Jack was probably right. Harkway reached restlessly for another cigarette and then said there was another facet of the case which he regarded as still more puzzling. It was the flight itself.

  “An ordinary citizen—you, for instance, Storm—might kill a man and run off out of sheer funk. But Elliott isn’t an ordinary citizen. He is a lawyer. If he had stuck around he could have put up a damn good defense for himself. There were no witnesses to the battle. And the scrap was not one-sided. So far as any physical evidence goes, Elliott could have claimed that Silas struck the first blow.”

  I said promptly, “But he had made threats. I heard him on the phone.”

  “A thing which Elliott couldn’t know. And even though he made threats I honestly doubt he went to the Lodge with murder in his mind.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “So clumsy a murder could not have been premeditated. Think it over, Mrs. Storm, and you will agree. A murderer goes prepared. He carries a weapon. A gun, a knife, a dirk. He doesn’t count on using a kitchen chair! Silas died of a fractured skull. In addition, he had a broken collar bone, a broken wrist, three fractured ribs and nineteen separate bruises and contusions The seat of the chair was cracked, one leg was loose and a rung was out at the back. You remember the blood-splashed room and the upset furniture. It all points to fury, and again fury seldom accompanies a premeditated murder.”

  I envisioned a Franklyn Elliott gone berserk, swinging a bloody kitchen chair. I suppose I went a little pale. Jack noticed, but Harkway did not. He eyed the glowing tip of his cigarette. “Which brings us up to Elliott’s suit.”

  “His suit?”

  “The light-gray suit he wore yesterday.”

  At this moment Standish walked down the hill and into the cottage. He had missed his lunch, and gratefully accepted coffee and a heaping plate of cinnamon toast. While the newcomer munched and drank, the conversation was resumed. It appeared that when Elliott quit the Tally-ho Inn to go to the Lodge he had
worn a light-gray suit. Bill Tevis remembered because he had thought the lawyer was “rushing the season.”

  Harkway glanced at me. “It’s unpleasant to think about, but after the fight Elliott would have had to get rid of his suit. Immediately. He must have been spattered with blood from head to foot. I can understand how he might contrive a temporary escape except for that. I don’t see how he could manage a change of clothes.”

  “A bag perhaps in his car?”

  “The car was empty. The garage attendant took it around to the Inn and is certain.”

  “In some ways,” Standish said, “strong as it is, I don’t like this case. We’ve got almost too much on Elliott. His threats, his presence at the Lodge, that stupid flight.” He added wearily, “We’ve got too much in one sense, and not enough in another. We haven’t been able, for instance, to establish that there was friction of any sort between Elliott and Hiram Darnley, and the Lord knows we’ve tried! So far as we’ve been able to discover, Elliott had no real reason for wishing his partner dead. The fact that Mrs. Coatesnash had a motive for wanting Darnley murdered would hardly seem sufficient to weigh with Elliott. And yet it appears he beat Silas to death to prevent his uncovering the original conspiracy.”

  “There might be some hidden motive.”

  “No doubt there is.” The policeman moodily sipped his coffee. “But even so the problem isn’t solved. How does Laura Twining fit into the picture? What’s become of her?”

  “Don’t you believe that Laura’s dead?”

  “I do indeed. I think,” said Standish slowly, “that the unfortunate woman was murdered. I don’t know why; I don’t know how. It may be barely possible that her body was buried in the rock garden.”

  “But the bone…”

  “The best of specialists can make mistakes. I’m not concerned at present over a three-inch splinter of bone. I have other worries.”

  “Our worry at the moment,” said Harkway, “is catching Franklyn Elliott. The details will have to wait.”

  Standish nodded. “I daresay you’re right. Certainly the time for guessing has passed. We can only hope that with Elliott’s arrest we can tie up the loose ends in our case.”

  But he sounded strangely doubtful. Jack and I were much perplexed. Neither policeman had any more to say.

  Presently Standish glanced at his watch. Reuben was seldom agreeable to company, and Jack had previously bundled him off to the kitchen. I heard him scratching at the door. A plaintive signal that he was ready for supper. Jack excused himself and went to feed the dog. When he returned, the policemen were putting on their coats.

  I spoke then of the dog. “Shall we keep him?”

  Standish smiled. “As you choose. You needn’t worry about other claimants. If the dog is a nuisance, we can drop him off at the pound.” Jack and I had grown fond of Reuben, and in this informal manner gladly took possession of him. Standish glanced toward the window. It was dark now, and the Lodge was lost in shadows. He sighed. “Things up the hill are in an awful mess. You can picture it. No one in charge. Mrs. Coatesnash dead, one of her lawyers dead, the other missing. We simply boarded up the Lodge and left it. I daresay the court will name other executors soon. Mrs. Coatesnash named Darnley and Elliott.”

  Standish and Harkway were at the door before Jack remembered Annabelle’s purse. He ran for it. “Here’s something you can drop off. It belongs to Annabelle Bayne. She forgot to take it home with her last night.”

  We had been curious, but we had not touched the purse. Standish opened it at once. Two five-dollar bills, a smart enamel compact, a matching lipstick, an initialed cigarette case in white and yellow gold, a ten-cent tintype of Annabelle and Elliott, linked arm in arm, photographed in New York. The lovely familiar arch of Washington Square showed behind them, and both were laughing. Jack and I had once had tintypes made at Washington Square. On such a day. In such a mood.

  Jack said rather quickly, “You will leave the purse with her.” Standish thrust the purse into his pocket, abruptly changed his mind. “No. I’ll leave it here. You’re friendly with the woman. Or friendlier than I am. The purse will give you an excuse to call. Maybe you can get her talking. That’s more than I can do!” I distrusted the experiment, and, with circumstances as they stood, had little taste for prying into Annabelle’s secrets. I felt sorry for her.

  Standish left the purse.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The Burglar Alarm

  After supper Jack was restless as a cat. He prowled up and down the living room until I became almost as restless as he. He turned on the radio. The news broadcast reported the unceasing search for Franklyn Elliott. He had vanished twenty-four hours earlier. He had not been found. Nor had the yellow car. Jack snapped off the radio, went into the dining room and closed the door.

  I heard him shifting furniture and wondered what he was doing. I went to see. What he was doing—in view of past events—seemed normal and familiar. He had rolled up the rug and was looking under it. He had taken down the pictures from the wall.

  I said patiently, “I should think there had been sufficient investigation of this house. Or have you got the habit?”

  “I—I had an idea, Lola.”

  “Would you mind explaining it?”

  Jack hesitated. “I don’t like to make you nervous.”

  “Your air of mystery is not a tonic.”

  “All right then. I believe Elliott wanted something that was hidden in the house when he broke in last Wednesday night. I believe he went off without it. I mean to find it.”

  The notion had previously flickered through my mind, and I had hurriedly banished it. It now occurred to me that if Elliott had wanted something in the cottage as recently as Wednesday he probably would still like to lay his hands on it. I had a dismaying vision of the lawyer, clad in a stained gray suit, creeping noiselessly through a dark spring night upon the cottage.

  I said faintly, “You mean he might come back for it?”

  “Of course not, goop! He’s getting away from Crockford as fast as his plump legs—or rather his yellow car—will carry him. He’s in too deep to bother us again or show his face in Crockford. However—” Jack paused on the word. “—however, I agree with Standish that there are missing links in the case. Lots of them. I’m not sure Elliott’s arrest will clear everything up. If I could find something in the cottage—some clue—if T could figure out why he came here three nights ago I’d feel better satisfied.”

  “Jack!” He turned guiltily. My suspicion was confirmed. “Do you think someone else—not Elliott—but someone else might break in? Is that why you’re hunting?”

  Jack’s explosive denial was neither convincing nor reassuring, and I retired that night in an uneasy frame of mind. I had hoped that Elliott would be under arrest when I awoke in the morning. It was a vain hope. The newspapers reported nothing. Jack telephoned the police station before we breakfasted, but Standish apparently had removed the receiver from the hook, for a continuous busy signal was reported. There was nothing to do but wait. After breakfast Jack resumed his self-appointed researches, tapping the walls, examining the moldings and baseboards, rapping at the fireplaces, until I was distracted. The wallpaper in the cottage was casually applied. He loosened it further. He got plaster in the rugs. He made a wreck of the house. He found nothing.

  By mid-afternoon I was thoroughly on edge, and Jack himself was discouraged. It was in that mood that he suggested we return Annabelle’s purse. I didn’t want to go there unless Standish accompanied us and Jack agreed with me.

  “God knows,” he said, “we’ve done our share of snooping. Our share and then some! I have my own opinion of Annabelle, but she’s suffering. Suffering like hell. Maybe she’ll talk with Standish present; maybe she won’t. Anyhow it isn’t up to us to trap her.”

  We proceeded to the police station. The anteroom buzzed with action, and for one wild m
oment I thought that Elliott had been captured. Loud voices came from behind the closed door of Standish’s office. Many unfamiliar men—neighboring police judging from their appearance—bustled in and out. A telephone rang steadily and no one answered it. Jack tried to find out what was going on, but no one seemed to know. Eventually a small boy escorted by his mother emerged from the office. He wore a boy-scout uniform with an eagle badge and he clung tightly to his mother’s hand. There was a mixture of embarrassment and pride on his face.

  When we went in, Standish was alone. He explained the excitement. Elliott was still at large, but the yellow roadster had been located. It had been abandoned in a thickly wooded section some ten miles beyond Crockford.

  “It was well concealed,” said Standish. “Four miles off the road, driven straight across the tree stumps, and a bumpy ride it must have been. Three flat tires and a busted headlight to say nothing of ruined springs. We had a lot of luck in finding it. A boy-scout picnic. Those boy scouts have sharp eyes. I’ve been talking to the kid who spotted it.” He smiled. “To the kid and also to his mother. She was pretty anxious I should commit the township to a medal.”

  “There was no sign of Elliott?”

  “The car was empty.”

  “Could he be hiding in the woods?”

  “Fifty men say he isn’t. They’ve been hunting since nine this morning, and those woods have been covered inch by inch. No. Elliott isn’t there.” Standish made his fingers into a church steeple. “That roadster was conspicuous, and Elliott was smart enough to know it. My hunch is he drove immediately from the Lodge to that isolated spot, got rid of the car and then lit out on foot.”

  “Walking four miles at night through unfamiliar woods to the road?”

  “A man can walk when he has to. But where did he walk? He didn’t walk to the railroad station and buy a ticket; he didn’t walk to the bus station; and he isn’t the type hitchhiker a car owner would be likely to forget. His picture has been in all the papers. He was wearing a light-gray, blood-stained suit. We know that. The steering wheel of the car is bloody. And there is blood upon the seat.”