Murder at Bayside

by Raymond Robins

  “No.” The answer was very short. Edwin began to laugh.

  “So the Sergeant thinks there should be some explanation as to why, when the police have been searching high and low, Hirstein finally comes to light on his lawyer’s estate? It doesn’t look so very good, Tom.”

  Charles interrupted suddenly, “Did they find the shell beside Uncle Cyrus’ body?”

  “Probably not,” I replied, anxious to smooth over what looked as if it might develop into a quarrel between the cousins—for I had caught the black look Tom sped toward Edwin after the latter’s remark. “It would be difficult to find, since we don’t know where the killer stood. When the doctor has examined the wound, he will be able to hazard a guess about the direction the bullet took, and then the ejected shell will be found within six or eight feet of the spot where the assassin stood.”

  No one paid me the slightest heed. Charles went on talking to Tom.

  “You know, Tom, if it weren’t for the Hirstein angle, I’d find your tale a bit difficult to believe myself.

  The general run of tramps around this place is so sadly harmless and meek it taxes my imagination somewhat heavily to picture one of them carrying a gun, much less actually using it.” He got up and sauntered out, as if to let us digest his last comment.

  Edwin gazed after his departing brother and then stood up himself. “I’m for some dry clothes and a bit of food. How about it, Tom? At least I suppose you are head of the house now—do we eat at all under the new regime?”

  Tom jumped up hastily to his feet. “I’ll go see James right away and get him to fix up some sort of light supper so we can all eat as we feel like it.”

  He departed on his errand, leaving me alone in the shadows of the gun-room. In a short while the Sergeant reappeared, looking very grave indeed.

  “Pardon me, Mr. Williams,” he said, “I see you are alone, so perhaps you will let me take down your story of this afternoon.”

  I told him in detail all about my arrival, why I had come down on the early train, and then I mentioned, somewhat diffidently, my hearing of the single shot. Lyttle no longer seemed to regard my testimony in this field as irrelevant; indeed, he questioned me about it, asked me if I had any reason to doubt my hearing or my ability to draw deductions from it, and under his sympathetic questioning I quite expanded and confided in him some of the curious doubts which had come to me since my discovery that Tom had shot at Hirstein from a point actually nearer the house than the dock. Lyttle nodded and finally asked me, “Did you hear any other noise, at any time, which might possibly have been gun-fire? You know, for instance, when you were getting out of your taxi, you might have mistaken such a noise for back-fire.”

  I shook my head. I had heard nothing. Raising his hand as if to hide the drooping, twitching eyelid, Lyttle said, “Mr. Williams, the doctor tells me that, without doubt, Mr. Evans was killed during the time you were at the house. And he was killed by the bullet from a forty-five; so I am beginning to think you actually heard the shot which killed him.”

  Startled, I protested at once. “But that is impossible. According to Tom’s own story, he had Hirstein in sight then. Hirstein couldn’t have been down at the dock at that time and then have gotten back to the pheasant runs when Tom got there; he must have killed Cyrus before Tom came to fetch his pistol.”

  “You would think so, wouldn’t you?” Lyttle replied in an absent-minded fashion. “The doctor says absolutely no. Still, the medicos can be mistaken and, no doubt, when we get Hirstein we’ll get his explanation. After all, it isn’t a question of getting evidence to convince a jury. He’s already guilty of one murder—he’ll never go to trial for this one.”

  I fell to thinking. There was something about this I didn’t like. Could it be that the police thought there was something queer in the presence of Hirstein at Bayside, even as Edwin had insinuated? Surely they knew Tom; although he represented the bandit as counsel he would never risk anything as; unethical as protecting him after his escape. My reverie was broken abruptly as Lyttle asked another question, the one he had held in his mind from the beginning, I think.

  “Tell me, Mr. Williams, can you think of any reason Hirstein should choose Bayside as a place of refuge?” I was prepared for the inquiry and ready to defend Tom from the insinuation. Heaven above!—what a horrible retribution had been visited on him if he had knowingly offered sanctuary to his erstwhile client I “I should think Hirstein had chosen the worst place in the world to hide,” I stated frankly, with an honesty I hoped would carry conviction. “To begin with, Cyrus Evans, in his lifetime, guarded the repute of his family and his property so jealously that not a breath of scandal should touch them.”

  As plainly as if he had spoken, I knew Lyttle was thinking of the reputations of the two brothers. I hastened to clarify my statement. “Whatever reckless acts have clouded the name were not done here at Bay-side, were not done where Cyrus would be able to nip them in the bud as he surely would. Tom has that same sense of reverence for the family reputation, and the two boys were not in the position to flaunt their uncle’s wishes openly.”

  Lyttle seemed amused. “I have not suggested that any of the family connived at hiding the fellow.”

  I drew a deep breath of relief. Charles and Edwin entered together, and I hoped their arrival would terminate our unwelcome conference. The Sergeant, however, addressed them at once.

  “Ah, gentlemen, Mr. Williams and I are discussing the strange situation that has arisen. Most amazing to find this long-sought-for criminal actually daring enough to hide himself at Bayside! You’d think that was one place he’d stay away from, since, if Mr. Thomas saw him, he’d unquestionably recognize him and turn him over to the police at once.”

  I saw Edwin steal a covert look at his brother. “Exactly what happened, wasn’t it? As a matter of fact, the servants have been saying for days that some one was hiding on the place, and it seemed to me that Tom kept the rumors alive by his own actions. I think it is poppy-cock myself; probably wasn’t Hirstein at all.”

  “Careful, son,” cautioned Charles lightly, “Can you name, off-hand, anybody else in this sacred county who is apt to wander around armed and take pot-shots at people for no good reason? You’d better rejoice that Tom got a good look at him and was able to identify him; otherwise, our Sergeant friend might be inquiring into your own activities a bit too closely.”

  I thought Edwin changed color; at any rate, he was very angry for he snapped, “Well, armed thugs are more in your line.”

  Charles replied very sweetly, “That’s right, this wasn’t a bank robbery, was it?”

  Just what might have happened next I can’t say, but fortunately Tom came into the gun-room with the welcome announcement, “Food in a few minutes now. James will bring it in here.”

  Then he stopped to look at the two brothers curiously. I made a desperate attempt to save the situation. After all, we had one topic of conversation sufficiently enthralling to overcome personal quarrels.

  “What is your theory of the murder, Tom?” I asked, heedless of the Sergeant’s presence.

  Tom answered promptly. “Why, it is obvious. Hirstein had been hanging around waiting for a chance to make off in the cruiser. Dad brought her up with the engine throttled down, while I was up at the house after my gun. Hirstein went over, shot Dad, but when I came out the second time, he fled to the woods, thinking, of course, that I had seen what he had done. Now I think he is hanging around the woods waiting for a chance to get back to the cruiser. Is the boat being watched?” he broke off to ask.

  Lyttle nodded and I noticed his betraying eyelid. As for me, I had listened to Tom’s story in utter amazement. Could he really believe it himself? Why, in the first place, should Hirstein want to go off in a boat by himself, or, presuming he was a skilled yachtsman, or, more likely, intended to pick up an accomplice to run the boat for him, why should he shoot the owner, when, by waiting until dark, he could make off unseen? Even if we laid these unaccountable actions to
an unbalanced mentality, still Tom’s theory fell down on both the time and the place elements. It presupposed Hirstein flitting back and forth, aimlessly but with lightning-like speed, over say some six hundred yards. No, if Hirstein shot Cyrus, then he was not down by the pheasant pens when Tom came out the second time; and, if it were not he whom Tom chased, then why did the tramp turn and fire at his pursuer? Were we to suppose the joint presence of two tramps of desperate character?

  At this moment James created a pleasant diversion by entering with two trays of food. It looked good to me, as I realized for the first time that I had not eaten since I left Baltimore. The butler set up a small table and produced cold meats, a salad and coffee. Tom courteously suggested that we summon Starr and Brown, the only troopers left near the house, and they came as promptly as if they had previously scented the food. Their appearance gave me a sudden idea.

  “Was the doctor able to judge from the path the bullet took from what direction it came?” I asked.

  Starr nodded, his mouth already full. “If Mr. Evans was coming up the path from the boat, as we think he must have been, the killer fired from a point to the right of the path.”

  “The right?” I said meditatively, seeking to stabilize my mental picture of the place.

  “The lumber-pile, Sherlock,” explained Charles. “But I forget, you haven’t been here since the repairs to the dock were made. The carpenters left their lumber down there until they could get back to rebuild the boat-house. Lord knows, it ought to have been done long ago, but it wasn’t, so there you are—a convenient shelter for the murderer, no clues, no footprints.”

  Starr, who seemed to be the most communicative of the troopers, spoke up. “I think he came down to see the body though. There are pine needles all around there, and they look sort of scuffed up like. We looked around the lumber-pile as soon as we found the body, but there weren’t nobody around, then. Only one thing, me and Brown don’t either of us see how Hirstein could have hit Mr. Evans from there. It’s all of forty yards, maybe more, and Hirstein never hit anything, unless it was a point-blank shot, and then he used a couple of machine guns.”

  The more silent Brown agreed with his buddy by sundry nods of the head. “You are sure it was Hirstein, aren’t you?”

  “It was he without any doubt,” Tom replied shortly.

  “Maybe he has been practicing,” Charles remarked politely. “We have a nice range down that way for pistol-shooting. Look here, we don’t have to preserve this funereal air, do we? I’d like to get the sporting news over the radio, if no one objects.”

  No one replied, so he walked over to the radio and turned the dials. We listened in silence to the sports reporter, although I doubt if any of us, save perhaps Charles, was paying much attention. Then the program broke off and after a minute continued, “We have a special A. P. dispatch of great interest to our Maryland listeners-in. This evening at Washington, D. C., the Baltimore police identified Jim Hirstein, the notorious bandit who broke jail in that city last week. He was picked up yesterday and held for vagrancy until his identification.”

  The news broke over me—as it must have done over the others—like a great wave. A dozen thoughts went tumbling through my head. Hirstein had not been at Bayside this afternoon. Tom’s bandit now became a hazy, incredible figure; and my evidence assumed weighty proportions.

  FOUR

  When I awakened next morning the sun was shining brightly. Fourteen years before, the morning of the Armistice had dawned, but unfortunately all it meant to me today was the necessity of postponing the inquest until the holiday was over. After the dramatic announcement on the radio the night before, Sergeant Lyttle had requested us to remain at Bayside until the inquest could be held, and had then withdrawn himself and his troopers from the house. Even the men searching the woods had gone, although a guard had been maintained around the estate itself during the night.

  While I dressed leisurely, since I was in no hurry to face any of the family, I pondered as to whether the news of Jim Hirstein’s capture had caused the police to discard entirely Tom’s story of the tramp. Obviously, if Hirstein had been in jail twelve hours before his identification, he could not have been at Bayside yesterday afternoon. On the other hand, from what I gathered of Sergeant Lyttle’s methods, he would not toss lightly into discard anything which might be proved later to have some truth in it, if to do so would cast discredit on the inmates of Bayside. He would move very cannily, having us all up for investigation and questioning. This made my part the harder, for I was now willing to admit to myself I had never placed any great belief in the existence of the tramp. As long as there was the possibility it might be Hirstein, I clung to the thought that, no matter how impossible the tale might be, it was still probable and, anyway, any solution which exactly fitted the facts was going to be hard to find. On the other hand, I had been at the house all the time the tragedy was taking place and I had no proof, save Tom’s word, as to there being at any time any sign of a tramp. To put it bluntly, it was Tom’s unsupported word against the contrary testimony of my senses. But why else, save that his story was true, would Tom risk the telling of it? Surely, he could not think it sounded plausible, he who in the courtroom had attacked countless better tales than this one and torn them into shreds? When all was said and done, the events of the afternoon, as he related them, served in the face of evidence against them to cast suspicion in his direction. I had reached this point in my argument with myself the night before and taken a resolution which was later to bear fruit. The time was coming when I must get into communication with my chief. Very well then, I should write down everything that had happened at Bayside, the conclusions I drew from those events and my line of reasoning, all while it was fresh in my mind. If I could do my job well enough, then when John Patrick returned he would have something to go on, almost as reliable and valuable as if he had been present himself from the very beginning. So I sat down before I went to bed and began my task.

  The next day I thought over what I had written the night before, to see if I could figure put what line of action the police would adopt. I was handicapped here by my meager knowledge of police procedure, but I was forced to admit, in spite of my own feelings, that Tom must certainly be considered a suspect. Now, I was willing enough to doubt the story of what had actually happened, but it was one thing to think him a liar and a far different thing to call him a murderer. Yet my common-sense told me it was quite likely he fired the fatal bullet and, if I were a member of the police, it seemed to me I must surely believe he did and concentrate my energies on finding out when and why.

  Was it an accident? Were Tom’s subsequent actions a hastily conceived, illogically practiced, scheme to conceal an accident?

  Right here, my knowledge of the man himself answered those questions beyond the shadow of a doubt. Thomas Evans never in all his life did anything without a definite reason for it; never was he, the coldest and most straight-thinking man I had ever known in my whole career, to be stampeded into garnishing a wild story with wilder embellishments. No, if Tom had been lying about the tramp, he had done so for a definite purpose; an accident fitted nowhere in the picture, so I gave it up and faced the fact that if Tom shot his adopted father he did so deliberately.

  Was Thomas Evans capable of committing murder? Well, my acquaintance with murderers was limited to what I had read about them, but no lawyer goes through life without gaining an insight into human nature which would surprise a trained psychiatrist. A lawyer, even if he limits himself to testamentary and advisory business as I had done, comes to recognize how greed, hatred, lust and revenge run in subterranean channels through the highest and the lowest of us, breaking out occasionally, but more often remaining hidden from all in the whole world save the man in the legal profession. I knew how, beneath Tom’s suave, cool exterior there ran a hard granite streak, which took no heed of sentiment and knew no fear of moral codes. What it all boiled down to was this—Tom would commit a murder if he saw no other way
out of the dilemma. Well, I thought immediately, who of us could be sure that we ourselves would not, provided the circumstances were sufficiently impelling?

  I went down to breakfast revolving gloomy thoughts in my mind. At Bayside we followed the custom of the English country house with a few American improvements. Breakfast was placed on the buffet, and the guest was expected to wait on himself. I poured waffle batter on the electric iron, connected the coffee percolator, then, slicing off a thin piece of Smithfield ham, I sat down to wait until my meal should be ready. A shadow fell across the doorway and Sergeant Lyttle walked in.

  “Good morning, Mr. Williams,” he began. “I’ve been waiting to have a few words with you. Just a few questions, you know, to keep my records straight.” In the days that were to come the last phrase became a by-word.

  What followed was an examination and cross-examination which would have done credit to Tom himself when he was trying a case. It was a repetition of yesterday, only this time the trooper was trying harder to break down my testimony. I told again the story of the single shot, and reiterated my own belief, not only in what I had heard, but in my own ability to draw correct conclusions from my hearing; and in that connection I swore as to my skill in distinguishing the type and caliber of the gun, within reason, by the sound of the shot. I think I acquitted myself of the ordeal rather well, and at the end I ventured to put a few inquiries myself to get an idea of what theory the police were working on.

  “Has any sign of the tramp been found?”

  “None,” replied Lyttle shortly. He was not given to showering information around.

  “Have you checked the possibility of some servant being out at the time?” I rushed this in hastily, although I knew all of Cyrus’ servants too well to have an instant’s suspicion of them. In fact, most of the colored people whom I knew would rather traffic with the Prince of Darkness himself than with a loaded forty-five.