It seemed as if no one breathed, lest he be thought to betray a guilty interest in my chief’s words. I sat grasping the arms of my chair, my palms wet with sweat. John Patrick tossed something on the desk in front of us.
“There it is,” he said, “the bit of brass which once carried the bullet that killed Cyrus; the bit of brass for whose possession Charles forfeited his life; the bit of brass, gentlemen, which has already claimed two lives and will demand a third in atonement.”
A silence fell, heavy and brooding. Then my chief went on: “Now you know, all of you, that the mark a firing-pin leaves on the soft brass of a primer is, in its way, the finger-print of the pistol on the cartridge-case; to simplify my meaning, I’ll put it another way—no two firing-pins ever strike the primer to leave the same imprint, yet each firing-pin leaves its characteristic mark. I want to make that plain to every one, for the rest of my theory depends on it. What I am saying is this—I hold in my hand the cartridge-case which was once fired by a pistol we shall call X. And the firing-pin of pistol X we shall call Y. Now, if I can find X and fire a bullet through it and pick up the ejected cartridge-case, I shall discover the imprint of Y on the primer. But I have here in my hand a cartridge-case with a mark on its primer, and if I put these two cases side by side under a microscope, I shall find the Y imprint on each case.
“Well, then, I am going to take this case to the District Attorney’s office tomorrow; the only possible reason for Charles’ retaining it in his possession, the only possible value it can have to the murderer, is because in that collection of bullets and ejected cartridges at the D. A.’s office, there is one cartridge which bears on its primer the mark Y. And that means, we can find out what gun is X. The only remaining corollary to be proved, then, is the ownership of gun X—a matter of record in the office right now.”
We sat in speechless silence, fascinated by the bit of brass before us. Finally Tom said abruptly, “I’d like to see that thing, if I may. I don’t mind telling you, this is news to me and rather does alter the aspect of suicide.”
He reached for the cylinder and took it over to the light to examine it. I don’t think Edwin’s eyes ever left it, he was staring in blank horror at it all the time. It was a gruesome object when one considered its history and meaning. Then Tom fumbled it, it slipped from his fingers onto the stone hearth. With a lightning-like move, he seized the heavy brass lamp and brought it down full force.
“There is your evidence,” he cried, a wild note in his voice. “The Evans family has been in court for the last time. I am the head of the house, and if Cyrus is to be avenged on one of his own family, it shall be done in my own way. I have had enough of the law.”
He lifted his eyes from the flattened piece of metal on the hearth to glare at John Patrick and, even in that crowded room, I felt the boding menace in his look, then suddenly the menace was gone, the muscles of his face slacked, a tiny nerve twitched at the corner of his lips and I, too, turned to my chief. The light from the heavy lamp gleamed brightly on the cartridge-case held between thumb and forefinger of Vaile’s left hand. It seemed to be rigid, pointing at Thomas Evans.
There was one of those age-long instants, and then Tom leaped backward out of the room; the door slammed, the key grated in the lock, and Lyttle, scarcely comprehending what had happened, rushed for the door, only to be halted by the forgotten handcuff fastening him to Edwin.
Yet I think, even then, there was only one of us who understood, who knew that the murderer of Charles and Cyrus Evans had vanished into the darkness lying on the other side of that locked and bolted door.
TWENTY-THREE
A few days after the events that I have set down in the preceding chapter, Edwin came in to Baltimore to see us and express his thanks to my chief for all that John Patrick had done for him. Tom had made good his escape, a bitter triumph at best, since his future could be only that of a hunted creature, whereas the whole plan of the crime, its focal point, had been to enjoy his ill-gotten gains free from fear of even the slightest suspicion of his father’s murder, living out his life as a well-thought-of country squire. Knowing Tom as I did, I imagined that death would be a preferable fate to life cut off from all he had gone to such lengths to gain. The police had the same idea, and Sergeant Lyttle had offered to furnish a guard for John Patrick’s lodgings in town, lest Tom attempt to harm the man who had tricked him into the betrayal of the crime which could never have been proved against him.
But the offer had been refused, my chief saying, “No, Tom will never come back out of any desire for revenge. He is not that type at all. He is an intellectual, a dangerous enemy to those who stand in his path, but we are no longer in his way. He has gone for good, the loser in a stupendous gamble.”
So, on the afternoon when Edwin sought us out, we were quietly at our work, trying to forget the momentous events so recently lived through. But Edwin was not willing to bury the past so quickly without a fuller knowledge of what had taken place than he had as yet.
“I wish,” he began, “you would start the story at the beginning and tell me exactly what did happen and how you found it out. I was the goat of the whole affair, I suppose. Anyway, after the trial and acquittal, I never gave another thought to Tom’s possible guilt. I had a lot of things on my mind and they rather blinded me as to what was going on around Bayside.”
I knew, he was thus referring to Elissa. Since Tom’s disappearance and since Edwin had become heir to the Evans’ fortune, I was aware that he and Elissa were seeing each other daily with no attempt at concealment. The natural presumption was they intended to marry as soon as the hue and cry over the case died down. In spite of my chief’s cheerful attitude, I could look on the proposed marriage with nothing but the gravest apprehension—I suppose my feelings, however, are not of much importance.
John Patrick replied to Edwin’s eager demand willingly enough.
“At the very beginning,” he said, “I could not believe Tom guilty; that is, before the evidence of the last day of the trial. You remember up to then the case looked so clear-cut that it did not seem possible, to any one who knew Tom, that a man as clever as he undoubtedly was would commit a murder with no more plan or subtlety than this one exhibited. Then came the expert’s testimony and, paradoxical as it may seem, with this testimony my suspicion of Tom was born, for it was clever, the latest move of his. It was the first touch of the master hand, as far as I had observed.
“The selection of Lewisholm as a ballistician to give evidence intrigued me from the moment I heard of it. He is a person so detached from the everyday world, so innocent of contact with criminals and murders, that I began to wonder if the reason for his selection might not be because he could be counted on to give exactly the evidence he was expected to give, without arousing in his own mind, or in the minds of any of his hearers, suspicion of some little point held back. Remember, I was fresh on the case, I had just returned from England, and I could survey the situation far more dispassionately than any of you who had been on the scene from the very beginning, distracted by the rush of events and the surprise of the denouement. So it came to me that there was a way in which the crime could have been committed and still the evidence at hand would fit in. It seemed probable that any one of three persons might have used such a method, but there were certain things to make me believe that Tom was guilty.
“To begin with, the choice of a forty-five as a weapon was curious. Very few people use such a heavy gun. The reason for the selection, of course, might have been that all three of the Evanses habitually used this particular caliber; but there is a peculiar characteristic of the Colt automatic which set me thinking. As any doughboy can tell you, the big point about an Army automatic is that, with no tool other than its own cartridge, it can be taken to pieces in a comparatively short time, and—this is the significant feature—its various parts can be quickly and easily replaced with others. Remember, the markings on any bullet are caused by the action of the lands of that particular barre
l on the bullet as it goes through the barrel. This means, the gun can be fired, the barrel can then be changed and, while it is still the same gun which fired the shot, it now has a new barrel, with an entirely different set of lands, so that the next bullet to be fired through this very gun will show entirely different marks.
“To come to the case at hand, then, the person who murdered Cyrus Evans could have removed the barrel from his automatic as soon as the deed was done, thrown it away, and put in a new one in less than two minutes’ time. Then, when the gun was test-fired, the new barrel would put entirely different marks on the bullet than those scratched on the bullet which killed Cyrus, because the former were made by the lands of an entirely different barrel.
“As I say, this solution came to me as a possibility; then the effort was made to impress the police that Tom had one gun, and one only, which, as he had taken such pains to show, could be identified by the name plate on the side, made me suspect that it was his gun which had been so changed. Also, remember the bullet taken from Cyrus’ body showed much pitting, as though the barrel had been dirty or carelessly treated. Unless I was to believe that the gun was owned by some one outside the family entirely, I could not see where this fitted in, how it happened, when all of you Evanses are so careful about your own guns. I don’t believe I need to say, I never gave a thought to the proposition of an outside killer; there was an absence of motive, unless he expected to gain under the will, an absence of opportunity for any one not connected with the immediate family, and finally I was suspicious of any professional murderer using a forty-five.
“Well, then I went back over the notes Bob had made for me. The first thing I noticed was, that when Tom cleaned his gun in front of the Sergeant, he did so without taking it to pieces. Bob put it this way, as nearly as I recall it, ‘Tom thrust an oily rag through the barrel and it came out dirty.’ No mention of taking the pistol apart, as a gun expert might be reasonably expected to do. Of course, Tom wished to impress upon the beholders the idea of the gun’s having been fired, but he dared not take it to pieces, lest the barrel, lying apart from the rest of the gun, suggest the possibility of the change which actually had been effected. Later on, Bob told me—”
I interrupted hastily, “It was after Charles’ death that I remembered the point, the thing that had bothered me for so long, because I had noticed it at the time and then I forgot it in all the ensuing excitement. When I picked up Tom’s gun, there in the study, it was warm, and there was no reason on earth for it to be warm when only one shot had been fired.”
“Warm?” exclaimed Edwin. “Why was that?”
John Patrick smiled. “Having told you why I began to suspect Tom, I’ll tell you what I think really happened. On the afternoon of November tenth, Tom persuaded his father to go out in the cruiser. At that time he was aware of two things; namely that Bob was coming down on the afternoon train and that the police had a radio equipped car in service.”
Edwin interrupted, “Why, I thought the police felt that his ignorance of both these factors was what led to his apprehension; certainly, the verdict of the Coroner’s court was based on the theory that he was taken by surprise by the police before he had a chance to dispose of his gun; and the story Williams told about hearing the shot was the one thing Tom had not counted on.”
“Well,” I replied grimly, “I would say it was one of the things Tom had counted on from the beginning. I was nicely sold, both then and when I so obligingly hurried the D. A.’s office to bring the case to an immediate trial.”
“The point is,” explained John Patrick, “Tom intended all along to be arrested. You know the law of double jeopardy; Tom was counting on it. No man can be tried twice for the same murder—his life may not be twice placed in jeopardy for the same offense. Tom wanted to be accused of murder and brought to trial while he could still free himself by the testimony of Lewisholm. Speed and confusion to his opponents—these were his two allies. He is by way of being quite a psychologist, you know, and he figured out in advance just what every one would say or do under a given set of circumstances. Now let us see what he did to set these circumstances into the pattern he wished them to take.
“He was determined to kill Cyrus, because he was in danger of being found out in the matter of his gambling debts, and gambling was a thing Cyrus had forbidden. The motive the State established at the trial was substantially the correct one, only it didn’t go far enough. Tom was determined to do the killing in such a way that he should at once be suspected, brought to trial immediately and acquitted. Then, no matter who was next suspected, no matter what facts came to light afterwards, not only was the law through with him, but, in all probability, public opinion would completely exonerate him.
“So he waited for the cruiser to come to the dock. I don’t know whether he could actually see her, or whether he heard her coming; at any rate, the fog befriended him, for Cyrus had to bring her in slowly enough to give Tom all the time he needed, and, likewise, the engines being throttled way down, no one else was apt to hear her return. Tom, then, either saw or heard her, ran up to the house and staged the little comedy in front of James and Bob, so they both should testify subsequently about the shot and about his having just the one gun. A forty-five is a large weapon to hide on one’s person and he plainly could not have done so without its being noticed; but the barrel of the pistol is not much larger than my longest finger. It might have been secreted about his person, or it might have already been placed in the lumber-pile in readiness. It also has the advantage of being more easily obtainable than the pistol itself. The sale would be harder to trace; personally, I think Tom quite likely obtained it at a salvage sale, or from one of his officer friends at the Army post. At any rate, he fired the shot, the shot which Bob heard, because it was the only one fired, replaced the pistol barrel, probably throwing the old one in the water.
“This, I think, took him about a minute and a half, for there were two more things he could have done, but he didn’t. He could have replaced the firing-pin by a new one, or he could have searched for the ejected cartridge. Since he did neither, we must assume he was pressed for time, for he still had more to do. Of course, we know he assisted the troopers in their search next day, he may have expected to find the cartridge-case then, or he may have gone out that night to look. But, after the shooting, his immediate concern was to reach the house, for as soon as the barrel was changed he was safe so far as proving that his gun had fired the bullet was concerned, and he wished to prepare a little stage scene for the troopers who were due almost at once.
“He went to the study, set up a Sterno stove, and thrust the barrel of the gun into the flame. I believe the gun with this very barrel in it had been fired previously that day, but he wanted to make very sure it was sufficiently dirty, it presented accurate appearance of a gun recently fired, so there would be no question in any one’s mind. He wanted this for two reasons; first, to cast immediate suspicion in his direction, and, secondly, so that later, when Lewisholm had given his testimony, no possibility of a second gun should exist in any one’s mind. Two guns must postulate two shots, and hence be out of the question. You see, there were not two guns, there were two barrels, which is a vastly different thing.
“Well, then, in his eagerness to set the stage, he overdid the business; in smoking up the barrel to give the appearance of being freshly fired, he let it get warm, and there was no conceivable reason why the pistol should have been warm at all.”
“Why didn’t some one notice it at the time?” asked Edwin.
“I presume it did strike Tom when it was too late. Lyttle told Bob yesterday that he never noticed it because his mind was intent on capturing Hirstein, and he was more interested in Bob, himself, than anyone else, on account of his talking about the single shot. You see, they hadn’t found Cyrus’ body then and, when they did, it threw every other consideration out of their minds. Bob was the only person on whom it made a deep impression and then he forgot it. You know yourself how
hopeless it is to bring something back to your mind when you have recorded it more or less subconsciously in the first place.”
I thought this very handsome of my chief. I could not excuse my own poor memory so easily.
“Well, Tom tells his ridiculous story and within a few hours it is proved false. The capture of Hirstein before the crime at Bayside was a lucky break for Tom but, if he hadn’t been caught at this juncture, the story was so absolutely without proof that he would have come under suspicion rapidly enough anyhow; he would have said something or done something to discredit his own story further and hasten the reckoning. As soon as Bob told the tale of the single shot, the seed was planted.
“Meanwhile, something had been happening down by the waterside. Charles arrived on the scene so soon after Tom left, that he gained a much better understanding of the affair than any one was supposed to get. I think he picked up the empty cartridge-case at once. Had it lain there until next day, even if Tom had never recovered it, it is doubtful if the police would ever have bothered to examine the marks on the primer when they had the gun itself. The ejected shell was dubious evidence all alone—there must be a hundred such around the grounds, and Tom could always say he stood there to fire at a woodchuck the previous day, or even week. I don’t think Charles himself was absolutely sure of the value of his find, or the significance of its ownership, until the day the forty-fives were test-fired right here at Bayside and he picked up the cartridge-case ejected from Tom’s trophy gun and found the same marks around the primer as there were on the case he had picked up in the woodpile.”
I asked a question which had been bothering me. “I don’t see why Tom went to all the trouble of prowling around at night to look for the cartridge-case ejected from his gun. It seems to me it was, at best, rather controversial evidence.”
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