Mr. Beale and Mr. Jones were, so far as their exteriors showed, nearly back to the normal iciness of their every-day appearance when Braceway found them in the president’s office a few minutes after half-past five. He did not have to ask what they had discovered; their faces were frank confessions. He dropped into a chair and smiled.
“How much?”
Mr. Beale cleared his throat and moved his lips deliberately one against the other.
“Before I say anything else, Mr.—er—Braceway, I want to express to you not only my own gratitude but that of all the officers and directors of the Anderson National. You have, it seems, saved us from great trouble. As things are, they are bad enough. But you have enabled us to put our fingers on the—ah—situation almost in time.”
He glanced at Jones.
“Briefly,” the vice-president took up the statement, “it has been established, thus far, that Morley has stolen from the Anderson National the—”
Mr. Beale’s composure broke down at this. He interrupted the subordinate’s calm explanation:
“Stolen from the Anderson National! Think of that, sir! Of all the outrageous things, of all the unqualifiedly and absolutely incredible things! We have in our bank, on our payrolls, a thief, an unmitigated scoundrel!” He pushed back his chair and drummed on his knees. “We find that one of his thefts was seven hundred dollars, and another five hundred. We—I—trusted him, trusted him! And with what result?”
He slid his chair forward and bruised his fist by striking the desk with all his strength.
“And the crudity of his methods! Preposterous! The old trick of entries in pass-books and no entries in the records! He chose, for his own safety, depositors who carried large balances and were not apt to draw out anywhere near their total balance. It’s the most abominable—”
Between the outbursts of the president and the cold, lifeless words of the vice-president, Braceway managed to elicit these facts: they expected to uncover more than the $1,200 shortage already established; when they could examine all the pass-books now out of the bank, the total would undoubtedly be found much larger; they demanded Morley’s arrest at once; in fact, if the law had allowed it, they would have sent him to the scaffold within the next hour.
“Now,” the detective reminded them, “he’s also under suspicion of murder.”
“My God!” spluttered Beale. “What do we care about murder? Hasn’t he tried to murder this bank? Hasn’t he assassinated, so far as he could, its good name? Get him! Put him behind the bars!”
At last they agreed to Braceway’s plan: Morley was to be arrested by one of Major Ross’ plain-clothes men when he stepped off the train from Baltimore. It was to be done quietly, so that the news of it would not be in the morning’s papers.
He was then to be taken to one of the outlying police stations for the sake of privacy, was to be told that he was charged with embezzlement; and then, having been frightened by the arrest, he would be compelled to undergo the cross-examination of Braceway and Bristow, who wanted to prove or disprove his connection with the murder in Furmville.
Braceway returned to the hotel to await a report from either Major Ross or Delaney.
Delaney came into the lobby and joined him. They went straight to Braceway’s room.
“We caught the five o’clock in Baltimore and got here a little before six,” the big man started his story. “One of the men from headquarters stepped up to him and arrested him. I figured you had arranged for it, so I beat it up here.”
“What happened in Baltimore?” asked Braceway in a tone so friendly that it dissipated much of the other’s embarrassment.
“I declare, Mr. Braceway,” he said humbly, “I don’t know how it happened. I never had such a thing hit me before. But I lost him slick as a whistle. I was in the bar of the hotel, and he was sitting in the lobby. I had my eye right on him, and he had no idea I was following him. Then, all at once, after I’d turned to the barkeeper just long enough to order a soft drink, I looked around, and he was gone. I combed the house from top to bottom, but it was no use. He had ducked me clean.”
“What time was that?”
“Twelve-forty-five.”
“And then what?”
“The chief gave me your message, and I went back to keep a look on Eidstein’s place. I didn’t think he’d show there again, but he did—at four o’clock and stayed there almost half an hour. After that, he went to the station, me right after him. We both caught the five o’clock for Washington.”
“Did you talk with Eidstein?”
“No, sir; had no orders. But he’s no loan-shark, and no fence. Eidstein’s on the level. We know all about him.”
“How did Morley look when he showed up there the second time?”
“Done up, sir, fagged out. That’s what makes me uneasy. He’d been up to something that shook him, something that rattled his teeth. He looked it.”
“Pawning something, perhaps?”
“That’s just it—just the way I figured it—something he knew was risky—something that made him sweat blood.”
“Well, it’s all right,” Braceway concluded. “There’s nothing for you to worry about. It may be that losing him was the best thing you ever did. I’m not sure, but it may turn out so.”
Delaney, greatly relieved, thanked him and left.
Braceway hurried to the sick man’s room and, having been ushered in by Miss Martin, found him, fully dressed, sitting on the edge of the bed. He was still pale and looked tired, but his voice was strong. He was setting down a half-empty glass of water on a tray near the bed, and his hand, although it wavered a little, had lost the helpless tremulousness Braceway had noticed at noon.
“Hello!” said the visitor. “You’re a wonder! I expected to find you prostrated.”
“Oh, no,” Bristow answered quietly. “I knew the rest and sleep would bring me around all right, and Miss Martin has given me a twentieth of a grain of strychnine. What’s the news?”
“I’ll sketch it to you. But how about dinner?”
“I’ve arranged for us to have it up here, if you don’t mind?”
Braceway agreed, and Miss Martin straightened up the other room, where the meal was served.
Bristow, restricting himself to clam broth, crackers, and coffee, heard the story of the day’s developments with profound interest. Except for the little tremor in his fingers, there was no sign that he had been ill a few hours earlier. Not a detail escaped him. The whole thing was photographed on his mind, even the hours and minutes of the time at which this or that had occurred.
“So,” concluded Braceway, “you can see why I feel pretty fine! Morley’s a thief, as I’d believed all along. The motive for the murder is established, particularly when you remember that Miss Fulton, who had been advancing him money, was prevented by her sister from doing so any further.”
“No; I can’t see that,” objected Bristow. “A motive? Yes; but not a motive for murder. So far as I can size it up, he wanted to steal more money, and that’s all. It’s a far cry between theft and murder.”
“You stick to your old theory, the negro’s guilt?”
“Naturally. There you have the motive and the murder—the proof that he said he would rob, and the indisputable evidence that he did rob and kill. Why, he brought away with him particles of the victim’s body! What more do you want?”
For a long moment their glances interlocked and held. In a sharp, intuitive way Braceway felt that Bristow suspected his concern about George Withers. He did not know why he suspected it, but he did. He was convinced that the other, with his darting, analytical mind, had gone to the secret unerringly.
“Oh, well,” he laughed, rising from the table, “if you’re so fond of your own ideas, Bristow, you won’t be of much use to me in questioning Morley tonight.”
“On the contrary,” the other retu
rned quickly, “I’m just as anxious as you are to get the truth out of him. As long as one man’s story is left vague and indefinite, just that long you run the risk of somebody’s coming forward with facts or conjectures to overthrow the theory you’ve advanced. It applies to my idea as well as to yours.”
“No doubt.”
“You know as well as I do,” the lame man continued, “that, if Perry Carpenter isn’t guilty, the next one to suspect logically is Withers.”
“What makes you say that?” The question was put sharply.
“I’ve two reasons. In the first place, the facts and Withers’ own story; in the second, common sense.”
The telephone rang. When Bristow answered it, a man’s voice asked for Braceway. Major Ross himself was on the wire.
“I had the man in Baltimore interviewed,” he reported. “Here is his story in a few words: some years ago Morley’s father bought from his shop a pair of earrings, each one set with an unusually valuable pigeon’s-blood ruby, and gave them to Mrs. Morley. Young Morley, now in trouble, took him this morning the two stones and asked him to buy them back. He explained that it must be done secretly because he might be suspected of having been implicated in a murder.
“He denied any guilt, but said it would embarrass him if the deal became known. The owner of the shop—you understand who—could not buy them back, but promised to raise money on them, something he’d never done before. He was greatly affected by Morley’s grief and despair. He says the rubies are the ones he sold years ago.”
“Did he raise the money?”
“He tried, but couldn’t get the sum Morley wanted, seven hundred dollars. Finally, he did advance it from his own pocket.”
“And the stones? How do they compare with those on the list of Withers’ stuff?”
“Identical.”
“All right; thanks. We’ll see you at eight.”
Braceway repeated the report to Bristow, eliciting the comment:
“Is somebody trying to make fun of us—or what is it? If those rubies belonged to Mrs. Withers, one thing at least is certain: Morley was in the bungalow the night of the murder, and after the murder had been committed. Miss Fulton distinctly told me the only jewelry that had ever passed between her and Morley was the ring found in his room in the Brevord that morning.”
Braceway laughed aloud.
“At last,” he said, “You’re beginning to see the light—or to appreciate the jungle we’re running around in.”
He had arranged for them to meet Major Ross at the station house of No. 7 police precinct. Since it was off the principal beats of police reporters, Morley was detained there.
Bristow went into his bedroom, where Miss Martin gave him another dose of strychnine. He asked her to await his return—not that he expected to be in need of her, he said, but just to be on the safe side. He waved aside Braceway’s solicitousness about his strength.
As they stepped into the corridor, a boy handed Braceway a telegram. He read it, and, without a word, handed it to Bristow. It said:
“Two diamonds and two emeralds, unset, apparently part of Withers jewelry, pawned here about two-thirty this afternoon by medium-sized man; a little slim; black moustache; high, straight nose; bushy eyebrows; very thin lips; gray eyes; age between thirty and forty; weight 140 pounds. Two pawnshops used. No trace of him yet.”
It was signed by the chief of the Baltimore plain-clothes force.
“What do you think of that?” asked Braceway, his voice hard.
“This Morley,” answered Bristow, his voice equally hard, “must have lost his mind.”
They went down and took a cab.
“That description,” the lame man was thinking, as they rolled through the streets toward the northwest part of the city, “fits Withers perfectly, except for the moustache and the colour of the eyes. But that’s absurd. I’d like to—”
He began again to wonder what, in addition to the capture of the guilty man, had brought Braceway to Washington. With his highly sensitized brain, he had received the impression that there was joined to the case some event or interest of which he had not the slightest inkling. How was Morley hooked up with the hidden phase of the affair? He intended to know all they knew about the whole business.
If Morley knew the secret—there was Maria Fulton! Incredulous for a moment, he considered an entirely new idea. His incredulity vanished—and he knew!
He lay back against the cab cushion and laughed, silently. His mirth grew. His laughter was almost beyond control. This was the thing that had bothered him, the “hidden angle” that had escaped him. He laughed until he shook. He had to put his hand to his mouth to prevent bursting into prolonged, riotous guffaws.
That was it—Withers and Fulton, and Braceway of course, were afraid of Morley, afraid of what he might say; not about events of the night of the murder, but what he might reveal concerning—
He struggled again with his consuming mirth. He saw now that he had handled everything exactly as it should have been handled.
Now, more than ever before, he was interested in what the embezzler would say under their examination and cross-questioning. It was like a game in which he, Bristow, was the assured winner before even the first move was made. He knew already the very thing they were so intent on concealing.
CHAPTER XXII
A CONFESSION
Bristow, satisfied now that he had fathomed Braceway’s reluctance to accept as final the case against Perry Carpenter, had not been the only one mystified by the detective’s course. Practically every other detective and police official in the country was wondering what secret motive had impelled Braceway to keep public attention focused on the tragedy after a flawless case against the real murderer had been established.
They knew that he was in the employ of the husband and father of the murdered woman, and that, therefore, his acts had the endorsement of her family. What, then, they asked, was the true situation back of the pursuit and persecution of the bank clerk, Henry Morley?
What possible interest could they have in running him down, in ruining his standing? What contingency was powerful enough to compel their approval of Braceway’s forcing the conclusion upon the mind of the public that an ugly scandal had touched Mrs. Withers?
And this question, at first whispered in the gossip in Furmville, had crept into the newspaper dispatches. The result was a morbid curiosity generally, and, in the minds of many, a belief that Braceway would fasten the crime on Morley. There were, however, a few who took the position that Morley, even if he had not committed the murder, had knowledge of some fact or facts even more terrible than the crime itself.
Major Ross awaited the two men in a large, bare-walled room on the second floor of the station house. The night was oppressively warm, and the tall, narrow windows were thrown open. Like Braceway, Bristow took off his coat, the absence of it showing plainly the outline of his heavy belt and steel brace.
Morley was ushered in and given one of the plain, straight-backed chairs with which the room was furnished. The only other furniture was a deal table, behind which Braceway, Bristow, and Major Ross sat in lounging attitudes. The major, aside from his interest in the case, was there merely as a matter of courtesy, a compliment to Braceway’s reputation.
The prisoner, a few feet from them across the table, was suggestive of neither resistance nor mental alertness. Above his limp collar and loosened cravat, his face looked haggard and drawn. It was without a vestige of colour save for the blue shadows under his eyes. There was a tremor on his lips almost continuously.
Once or twice throughout the whole interview, his eyes brightened momentarily with a hint of cunning or attempted cunning. Except for these few flashes, he was manifestly beaten, unnerved, suffering from a simultaneous desire and inability to weigh and ponder what he said.
Braceway began, in quick, incisive sentences:
“You’re up against it, Morley. You know it as well as we do. And we don’t want to trick you or bully you. We’re only after the truth. If you’ll tell the truth, it will help you and us. Will you give us a straight story?”
“Yes,” he answered dully, his hands folded, like a woman’s, against his body.
Braceway put more imperiousness into his voice.
“You know you’re under arrest for embezzlement, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And you did take money from the Anderson National Bank?”
Morley squirmed and looked at each of the three in front of him before he replied to that.
“Yes,” he said finally, swallowing hard, his voice high and strained.
“Good! That’s the sensible way to look at it,” Braceway jogged him with rapid speech. “We needn’t bother any more about that tonight. How about the jewelry you pawned in Baltimore today?”
The prisoner licked his lips and fixed on Braceway a look that grew into a stare.
“You mean the rubies?”
“Well, yes.”
“I didn’t pawn them, and—and they were my mother’s.”
“How about the diamonds and emeralds?”
“I had no diamonds and emeralds.”
“You didn’t! Where were you all the afternoon preceding the time you showed up at Eidstein’s?”
This was his first intimation that he had been watched. He hesitated.
“Do I have to tell that?”
“Certainly. Why shouldn’t you?”
A film, like tears, clouded his weak eyes. His voice was disagreeably beseeching.
“It would bring my mother into this,” he objected, twining his fingers about each other and shuffling his feet.
“You’ll have to tell us where you were and what you did,” Braceway persisted.
“Oh, very well,” he said desperately; “I was in a room in the Emerson Hotel with—with my mother. And I was—I was confessing to her that I’d stolen from the bank. She knew I needed money. I had told her I’d been speculating, and needed some extra money for margins. She gave me the rubies from her earrings; and she followed me to Baltimore. If I couldn’t raise the money on the rubies, she was to borrow it on our house. She owns that.”
The Classic Mystery Novel Page 88