The Classic Mystery Novel

by Dorothy Cameron Disney

  “Yes,” Bristow said, surprised. “Pawnshops?”

  “Perhaps—two pawnshops.”

  “And the pawned diamonds and emeralds are certainly the Withers stuff, a part of it?”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “Anyway you look at it,” Bristow smiled pleasantly, his manner tinged with patronizing, “you’ve a hard job to get away with.”

  “If,” the other ruminated, “the jewels pawned yesterday were not Mrs. Withers’, why wouldn’t the man who pawned them come forward and say so? If there wasn’t anything crooked about them, why should he hide himself? The papers are full of it this morning. It’s public property.”

  Bristow, looking at his watch, saw that it was nine o’clock and time for him to go to the railroad station.

  They said good-bye, each confident that the other was on the wrong trail.

  “I’m leaving you,” the lame man declared, “to run to your heart’s content around the clever circles you’ve outlined, and to beat off the newspaper reporters.”

  “It’s not for long,” Braceway returned seriously. “I hope to be in Furmville next week with an armful of new facts. I’ll see you then.”

  He went to the desk and got his mail. In addition to reports from his Atlanta office, there was one letter in a big, square envelope. He recognized the writing and opened that first.

  “Dear Mr. Braceway,” it said: “I hope Mr. Bristow repeated to you everything I told him. He is quite brilliant, I have no doubt, but I talked to him in the belief and hope that he would tell you everything. I know what you can do, and I trust you more than I do him. You see, you have successes behind you.

  “If he did not tell you all, I shall be glad to do so at any time.”

  It was signed, “Sincerely yours, Maria Fulton.”

  He read the note twice. When he put it into his pocket, there was a new light in his eyes, and at the corners of his mouth a relaxation of the lines of sternness.

  “I wonder—” he began in his thoughts, and added: “Some other time, perhaps. No; surely. I always knew her better than she knew herself.”

  He was frankly happy, felt himself uplifted, freshened in spirit. Standing there in the crowded lobby, with people brushing past him and jogging his elbow, he flashed back two years in memory to the evening when he had warned her not to let the sweetness of her personality be overshadowed by her sister. It was then that he had insisted on her living her own life instead of giving up to the wishes of others always.

  She had misconstrued it, deciding that he was disappointed in her. She said his love for her had lessened, and therefore their engagement was a great mistake.

  Then came her promise to marry Morley, a promise made in pique. Afterwards she had done everything possible to show the world she had chosen a man instead of a weakling. This, Braceway knew, was why she had advanced him money, bolstering up one mistake with another. It was why she had listened to his stories of getting great wealth, if only he had a small amount of money to start on!

  What a fiasco the whole thing had been, what bitter disappointment and sorrow! And yet, she had been fortunate in discovering now what he was.

  There was no doubt about it, Braceway decided; she had loved him, Braceway, all this time. In a few days he would tell her so, make her confess it. He would compel her to listen to what he had to say; he would never again jeopardize their happiness by allowing her to misunderstand him.

  He crossed the lobby with long, springy strides. He felt that he could encounter no obstacle too great for him to overcome. Failure could not touch him.

  He left the hotel and went to Golson’s office. He had much to do in Baltimore—and elsewhere.

  Hurrying to the station after a brief conference with Golson, he wondered why he had heard nothing from Withers. What was the matter with George anyhow? Why hadn’t he acknowledged the telegram of yesterday? Couldn’t he realize, without being told, that he might be charged with the murder at any moment?

  Braceway was as well aware as Bristow of the rising flood of criticism against Withers.

  “If I can’t bring things to a last show-down within a day or two,” he looked the situation squarely in the face, “it will be uncomfortable for him—emphatically uncomfortable.”

  He turned to a study of the questions he wanted to put to Eidstein, this kindly old merchant who was so considerate, so handsomely considerate, about buying back jewels he had once sold. Mr. Eidstein, he felt sure, must be an interesting character.

  CHAPTER XXV

  A MYSTIFYING TELEGRAM

  Reaching Furmville early Sunday morning, Bristow went straight to his bungalow, where Mattie had breakfast waiting for him.

  “You is sholy some big man now, Mistuh Bristow!” she informed him. “Sence you been gawn, folks done made it a habit to drive by hyuh jes’ foh de chanct uv seem’ you.”

  Before the day was over, he found that this was true. And he liked it. He spent a great deal of his time on the front porch, finding it far from unpleasant to be regarded as a second Sherlock Holmes.

  Late in the afternoon his Cincinnati friend, Overton, called on him, puffing and gasping for breath as he climbed the steps. Bristow was glad to see him; it afforded him an opportunity to discuss his success. He did not try to delude himself in that regard; he was proud of what he had accomplished—rightfully proud, he told himself—and pleased with his plans for the future.

  “Gee whiz!” the fat man panted. “This hill is something fierce. It’s only your sudden dash into the limelight that drags me up here.”

  “You behold”—Bristow softened his statement with a deprecating laugh—“Mr. Lawrence Bristow, a finished, honest-to-heaven detective, a criminologist.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m going to make it my profession. I’m starting out as a professional detective.”

  Overton burst into bubbling laughter.

  “That’s rich!” he exclaimed. “You’d never in the world make good at it. Why, Bristow, you’re lame; you’ve a crooked nose; that heavy, overhanging lip of yours—those things would enable any crook to spot you a mile off.” He laughed again. “I’d like to see you shadowing some foxy second-story worker!”

  “I said ‘a consulting detective’,” Bristow corrected him. “That shadowing business is for the hired man, the square-toed, bull-necked cops. I’ll work only as the directing head, the brains of the investigations.”

  “Oh, that’s different,” said Overton, at once conciliatory. “That’s nearer real sense. Big money in it, isn’t there?”

  “Yes. I’m not an eleemosynary institution yet.”

  Overton mopped his fat cheeks.

  “Ah, me!” he sighed. “We never know what’s ahead of us, do we? A year ago you were dubbing around in Cincinnati trying to sell real estate and working out crime problems on paper—and here you are now, a big man. It’s hard to believe.”

  “It is, however, a very acceptable fact.”

  “No doubt, no doubt,” assented the fat man.

  On Overton’s heels came the chief of police. After getting a minute recital of what had happened in Washington and Baltimore, he agreed that Braceway was only setting up straw men for the pleasure of knocking them down.

  “Even if there is something mysterious in Morley’s conduct, in what occurred in Baltimore,” said the chief, “it can’t do away with the open-and-shut fact that Perry did the murder.”

  “Of course,” Bristow commented. “But what’s the news with you?”

  “For one thing, Perry gave us last night what he calls a confession. In it he says he did tell Lucy Thomas he knew where he could get money ‘or something just as good’; he did go to Number Five in a more or less drunken condition; and he got as far as the front door.

  “There, he says, he thought he heard a noise across the road from him, and he lost
his nerve. He tiptoed down the steps and went away, passing in between Number Five and Number Seven. He ran all the way back to Lucy’s house, threw down the key he had got from her, and then went to his own rooming-house. He says he stayed there the rest of the night.”

  “Is that all?”

  “That’s all.”

  “How about the lavalliere? Wasn’t it found under his window? The papers said so.”

  “Yes; in the grass in the yard. But he denies knowing anything about it.”

  “Of course! And his confession is nothing but a confirmation of the case against him.”

  “Exactly. He seems to want to hang himself. And he’ll do it. The grand jury meets next Thursday. He’ll be indicted then, and tried two weeks later.”

  “What are the people here saying about Braceway’s bitterness against Morley? Anything?”

  “Yes. I’d meant to tell you about that. Some of the gossip hits Withers pretty hard. They can’t understand what’s behind this persecution of Morley after it’s been proved that Perry did the murder. You’ve seen hints of it in the papers.

  “And it looks queer. Some say Withers is guilty, out-and-out guilty, and afraid the case against Perry won’t hold good. So, they say, he wants to get a case against Morley.”

  “A sort of second line of defense?”

  “I reckon so. But, then, there are others saying right now that Morley was mixed up in some sort of scandal for which Withers wants revenge. That’s what you said at the very start. Remember?”

  Bristow laughed softly.

  “Yes; I had that idea, and I’ve reasoned it out. On the way to Washington, and after we got there, I saw that Braceway wasn’t entirely frank with me. You know how a man can feel a thing like that. He gets it by intuition.

  “And it worried me. Having handled the case here, I didn’t want him to spring some brand new angle which possibly, in some way, might make me look like a fool.

  “I puzzled over the thing a whole lot. What was it he was after without letting me in on it? The night we talked to Morley in the station house, I got it. We were in a cab at the time, a lucky thing, because, when it burst upon me, I narrowly escaped hysterics. The thing came to me like an inspiration.

  “Braceway was afraid Morley knew something detrimental to Withers and would spring it under questioning. Understand now: it wasn’t directly connected with the murder, but something that would make it pretty hot for Withers. And here was the laugh: while Morley didn’t know it, I did. Braceway had made the trip to gag Morley, to see that he didn’t uncover something which, after all, Morley didn’t know—and I did!

  “It was this: about nine months ago Mrs. Withers, while in Washington, got a lawyer, the firm of Dutton & Dutton, to draw up for her the necessary papers for suing Withers for a divorce. In these documents she set forth in so many words that her husband had treated her with the utmost brutality, so much so that she lived daily in danger of death while under his roof.

  “She regarded him, she swore, as capable of murdering her at any time. Now, do you see? If that had gotten into the newspapers, if Morley had known of it through Maria Fulton and had blurted it out, no power on earth could have kept down the very reasonable assumption that Withers had had a hand in his wife’s death—or, at least, had regarded it with complaisance.

  “No wonder I laughed, was it? But I said nothing about it to Braceway. I couldn’t have explained to him how I knew it, although the tip came to me straight enough. And, as there’s no earthly chance of Withers having been implicated in the crime, why worry about it?

  “I merely laughed and—kept quiet.”

  Greenleaf had listened in great solemnity to this amusing recital.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “But Withers has done some funny things.”

  “What things?”

  “His wife was buried in Atlanta Thursday morning. He immediately left Atlanta, and hasn’t been seen or heard of since—a sharp contrast to old Fulton. He got back here early Friday morning and came up to Number Five. They’re going to keep that bungalow.”

  “When did Withers leave Atlanta?”

  “Thursday morning, right after the funeral. Another thing: he’s heels over head in debt.”

  “Well, what about it? What are you driving at?” Bristow asked, perceptibly irritable.

  “I’m not driving at anything. What’s it to us anyway? It stimulates this ugly talk. That’s all.”

  Bristow was doing some quick thinking. If Withers had left Atlanta early Thursday morning, he might have reached Washington by Friday afternoon—and gone to Baltimore! But did he? And did Braceway know of it and keep it to himself?

  He recalled that Braceway, during their breakfast together in Washington, had said:

  “Get one thing straight in your mind, Bristow. Any man I find mixed up in this murder I’m going to turn over to the police. If I thought George Withers had killed his wife, I’d hand him over so fast it would make your head swim. You may not believe that, but I would—in a second!”

  Had that been a prophecy? Was Withers in Baltimore at two-thirty Friday afternoon? Could he have been fool enough to pawn anything? Or did he go there in the hope of incriminating Morley further? All these things were within the realm of possibility, but hardly credible. Braceway might have known of them, and he might not.

  Abrahamson, he remembered, had put it into Braceway’s head, against Braceway’s own desire, that the man with the gold tooth and Withers resembled each other. But nobody believed that. It would be futile to consider it.

  The chief, as if reading his thoughts, gave more information:

  “Abrahamson, the loan-shark, came to my office yesterday; wanted to know where he could reach Braceway by wire. He evidently knew something and wouldn’t tell me. Said he wired yesterday morning to Braceway in Washington, but the telegraph company reported ‘no delivery’—couldn’t locate him. I wonder what the Jew knows.”

  “It’s too much for me.” Bristow dismissed the question carelessly, but immediately flared up peevishly: “What’s getting into these fellows? They act like fools, each of them, Morley and Withers, following Perry’s lead and trying to have themselves arrested! But Braceway—if he wasn’t in Washington, he must be on his way back here. We’ll soon have his last say on the case.”

  “All the same,” said Greenleaf, “if I were in that husband’s place, I’d stay away from here. The talk’s too bitter; worse here among the Manniston Road people than anywhere else.”

  “Well, what of it?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first instance of how easy it is for an innocent man to be—well, hurt.”

  “Oh, that sort of thing is out of the question, absurd.”

  “Never mind! I’d stay away. That’s what I’d do.”

  It was almost dark when the chief of police took his departure. Bristow sat watching the last crimson light fade over the mountains. The dim electric, a poor excuse for a street lamp, had flashed on in front of No. 4. The shadows grew deeper and deeper; there was no breeze; the oaks along the roadside and in the backyards became still, black plumes above the bungalows.

  Manniston Road was wrapped in darkness. The silence was broken, even at this early hour, only by the distant, faint screech of street-car wheels against the rails, or the far sound of an automobile horn down in the town, or the rattle of a sick man’s cough on one of the sleeping porches. There was something uncanny, Bristow thought, in the velvet blackness and the heavy silence.

  He got up and went into the living room, turning on the lights. The night, the stillness, had affected him. Perhaps, he thought, Withers after all would do well to give Furmville a wide berth. If disorganized rumour grew into positive accusation—

  And what of himself, Bristow? He had run down the guilty man, had discovered and hooked together the facts that made retribution almost an accomplished thing. Co
uld he have been mistaken, entirely wrong? Would public opinion turn also against him and say he had enmeshed an innocent negro instead of bringing to punishment a jealousy-maddened husband?

  Was there a chance that, in condemning Withers, they would destroy his reputation for brilliant work?

  Pshaw! He shrugged his shoulders. He was worse than the gossiping women, letting himself conjure up weird and incredible ideas. There was not a weak place, not an illogical point, in the case he had disclosed against Carpenter. He had won. His prestige was assured. Far from questioning his work, they ought to thank him for—

  The reverie was interrupted by the telephone bell. He took down the receiver and shouted “Hello!” as if he resented the call. His irritation showed what a tremendous amount of nervous energy he had expended in the last six days.

  “Western Union speaking,” said a man’s voice. “Telegram for Mr. Lawrence Bristow, nine Manniston Road.”

  “All right. This is Bristow. Read it to me.”

  “Message is dated today, Washington, D. C.—‘Mr. Lawrence Bristow, nine Manniston Road, Furmville, N. C. See Encyclopaedia Britannica, volume one, page five hundred and six, second column, line fifteen to line seventeen, and page five hundred and seven, second column, line seventeen to line twenty-three.’ Signed ‘S. S. Braceway,’ Do you get that?”

  “No! Wait a minute,” he called out sharply. “Let me get a pencil and take it down.”

  He did so, verifying the numbers by having the operator repeat the message a third time. When he had hung up the receiver, he sat staring at what he had written. It was like so much Greek to him.

  “What’s it all about?” he puzzled. “Is it one of Braceway’s jokes?”

  Then he remembered that Braceway was not that kind of a joker. He looked at his watch. He had no encyclopaedia, and it was now a quarter to eleven, too late to ring up anybody and ask the absurd favour of having extracts from an encyclopaedia read to him over the telephone. Besides, it might be something he would prefer to keep to himself.