by Joan Sanger
“While you joked and sang and laughed here in complete darkness, I’ve a kind of hunch, the door behind Wyndham was stealthily unlocked. Yes, this one here!” Alcott turned and threw wide open the door to the room behind him.
“There! Don’t look so surprised, gentlemen. By now you surely must realize there were two men in that adjoining room all evening. Not your own set, of course. Pretty tough customers, those, I’d say. But how else do you suppose that electric light fuse was so opportunely blown? How else do you suppose Wyndham’s body was so quickly and ingeniously disposed of?
“Oh! Don’t look so horrified, Mr. Ford! And so taken back, Mr. Brady! There was a neatness and precision about this whole crime that surely must recommend it to any group of intelligent men. That intervening door was locked, of course, and if you heard no sounds from Mr. Ford’s room that fatal evening, remember you were intended to hear none. It so happens, I myself performed the same little trick tonight. A short while ago, while you were playing cards, I entered Mr. Ford’s room and blew the electric fuse and I believe, you gentlemen heard as little on this occasion as you did on the last.”
I think we all gaped our surprise, much to Pete’s embarrassment. For this one time, at any rate, I saw him disconcerted enough to mistake the low whistle Dunlap let out for mine. Under the shelter of the table he gave me a discreet kick and then said aloud:
“Instead of all that whistling Johnny, I wish you’d rustle us up a candle or a lamp. We could stand a little light around here, the Lord knows.”
I nodded and moved off to obey orders. Still Pete didn’t seem entirely at ease. As I left the room, I heard him saying:
“I wonder, Mr. Lamar, if you’d mind taking Ellis’s place here. I’m never too sure of what that young explosive is going to do next.”
That there was something behind the easy banter of Alcott’s tone struck me at once. And when some few minutes later I returned to the room with the solitary candle Miguel had found for me, the conviction had grown upon me. I placed the candle in the center of the table (much to the general relief), settled into my new place and looked discreetly about me. To my right, Sanchez, with bloodshot eyes, was watching the scene with nervous expectancy. To my left, Brady smiled, affable, wide-eyed, insouciant.
Meanwhile, Alcott, his mouth set grimly, was proceeding in his low, even tone. “Yes, gentlemen, my theory is that Wyndham’s unconscious body was passed through that door, into the hands that waited there to grasp him. Then quietly, noiselessly, that door was once more shut and locked. And all the while, in here, remember, chairs were being overturned, and you gentlemen were singing, laughing and cutting up, egged on, doubtless, by those who had most to gain.
“My hunch is that the two gangsters (and I say gangsters not without reason) who waited in the next room, hoisted Wyndham’s limp body up between them, slapped one of their hats over his eyes, and with their arms firmly around his body, and with his arms limply and lifelessly about their necks, managed under the cover of that infernal darkness, to get him down the service stairway, and out the rear door. On the street outside, there no doubt stood a waiting car, ready to convey them to some stretch of the waterfront where they could dispose of their guilty burden without leaving a trace. Yes, gentlemen, that’s my theory, though God alone can prove it. However, I’ve a few facts that do corroborate it, oddly enough!”
He looked around at each of the men at the table, studying their tense faces, biding his time, playing like an orchestra leader for his maximum effect.
“Some of my minor corroborative testimony is the sudden appearance on the morning of February 14th of a discolored mark on the wall of room 208, just by the electric switch. This was made no doubt when that fuse was blown. Also there is the fact that shortly after midnight on the night of February 13th, (to be exact at about 12:30 A.M. on the morning of the 14th), three men passed out the service door of this hotel, two of them lending what seemed to be the helping hand to a man who appeared dead drunk. Interesting, isn’t it? Yes, but more interesting still is the fact that last night, young Calvin Watts was shot down in cold blood, because, poor cuss, the actual significance of your unused lighters suddenly occurred to him and with more clarity than seems to have been good for his health, he let his knowledge be too widely known. Regrettable! Of course! Tragic! Yes! A thoroughly contemptible crime quite worthy of the hand that plotted the end of Stephen Wyndham. Which brings me, gentlemen, to the strangest part of all. . . .”
The dead silence of the room was broken only by the chance sounds from the corridor outside. Young Stone leaned forward, his myopic eyes wide with expectancy. On Sanchez’ forehead great beads of perspiration were breaking out, trickling slowly down his face and neck. Brady had abandoned his wide, clear look of blue-eyed innocence, Lamar his air of casual omniscience. Only Ford and Dunlap sat by motionless, tense, imperturbable.
“Yes, the strangest fact of all, gentlemen, is that each one of you assembled in this room tonight, excepting only Mr. Brady, I believe—each one of you, I say, had a very good reason to have struck that dastardly blow in the dark. For each of you, as I see it, stood to profit in his own way from Wyndham’s untimely end.”
There was a gasp of protest from that semi-darkness. Then Alcott’s voice above the tempest.
“Oh, gentlemen, it won’t do to get excited. There are police in the corridor just outside.”
Chapter XXV THE CHARGE
THE effect of Alcott’s announcement was electric. As abruptly as the storm had arisen it subsided. Everyone still looked as though they would have liked to have given Alcott a sock in the jaw, but as usually happens when everyone wants to do something, no one actually does anything. In consequence, Alcott got a momentary chance to peer through the flickering candle light at the circle of set, angry people around him. Whatever was churning in the hidden recesses of his mind, at that moment, God alone knew. To me, his eyes looked a trifle mad, but his manner, as always, was calm and unruffled.
“Yes, I repeat it, gentlemen. With the exception of one person here, every one of you stood to profit very neatly from Wyndham’s untimely end. Oh, yes, we may as well face the facts, unpleasant as they are. Even the charming Señorita Lola doesn’t seem to have been above reproach.” Alcott’s eyes sought hers out through the shadow. “Hm, yes. By the way, Señorita, I learned today that when you took up your stand outside Wyndham’s door on the fatal night, you carried this little trinket with you!”
Alcott took a narrow steel stiletto from his pocket and casually tossed it down on the table in front of him. “An ugly little thing, isn’t it?” he said eyeing the blade in the wavering candle light. “Especially for a pretty woman.”
Lolita’s voice came tremulously through the shadows. “You know not what you say, you Americano. That stiletto was for my heart, not for his, if I found he no longer loved me.”
Alcott shrugged impatiently. “Maybe. Just the same, my charge holds with regard to you all.” He made an inclusive gesture around the table then turned slightly to his left, peering intently through the darkness at the well tailored bulk that loomed beside him. “As for you, Mr. Dunlap, I’ve a hunch you bore Stephen Wyndham a grudge because, no doubt, he knew you for the cad you really were.”
The sheer audacity of Pete’s attack took my breath and then I grew cold with apprehension for him. For Dunlap had pushed his chair back and risen unsteadily to his feet.
“Yes, Mr. Dunlap,” Alcott went on coolly. “You knew that Wyndham was in love with your wife and that she, due to your abuse, neglect or what you will, had come to care for him. Well, sir, jealousy may sometimes be an overrated emotion, but I’d say not in your case.”
But Dunlap’s endurance had snapped somewhere back in the darkness. “By God,” he muttered drunkenly through his set teeth, “if no one’s going to shut this maniac up, I will.” His arm shot out, but Alcott caught it in a sudden vise and pushed him unceremoniously back in his chair.
“Don’t be incautious, Mr. Dunlap! It mak
es you look so guilty. After all, I’m going to have my say this once, though Hell itself breaks loose. Do you get me?”
There was a rising outburst from the table: “The fellow’s mad....” “What’s the big idea? ...” “Do we have to put up with this?” ... “Aw, quiet, it’s a good show....” “Rats.” “Why doesn’t someone fix the lights?” An angry ripple.
But with a fixed, steady smile, Alcott went ploughing ahead. “And get this straight, gentlemen, I’m aware there’s enough desperation in this room tonight to blow me to Kingdom Come. All right, but let me warn you, I’m not exactly a fool. Before coming here, I took definite precautions, so that no matter what happens to me, gentlemen, justice will somehow be done.”
“Good boy!” I said inwardly, impressed anew by Pete’s cool courage, his crazy-right hunches; in fact, every damned thing about the guy.
And all the while, Alcott forging recklessly ahead. With a slow smile he had turned to Ford.
“As for you, Mr. Ford, you were in bad need of ready cash, I believe. Standard of living out of scale with regular income. Hopelessly infatuated at the time, from all reports. You held a valuable power of attorney from Stephen Wyndham. On the whole, it would have profited you considerable to have been able to draw every now and then on Wyndham’s estate without having to give an accounting to anyone. Or wouldn’t it? There! Don’t protest!” For Ford’s jaw had dropped open abruptly, and he sat forward peering at Alcott through the semi-darkness as though he were not hearing or seeing aright. But Alcott, impervious and unheeding, took an envelope from his pocket and laid it before him. “There are the dates and the amounts of your withdrawals from Manning & Wilson, together with a few other items of information you may find of interest. You can look it over at your convenience.”
Ford wasted no time in doing so. Idly I wondered what the other items might be. The withdrawal of funds from Wyndham’s brokerage account, and that mysteriously unexplained room on the night of Wyndham’s disappearance were the only facts that I knew against the man. And they seemed enough.
But Alcott was proceeding.
“Now for you, Mr. Stone.” He looked quietly into the myopic eyes of the young missionary. “You were frantic to return to China. You didn’t have a red cent to your name. Stephen Wyndham never liked you. But Miss Isabella ... ah, now, if she were suddenly to come into the whole of the Wyndham fortune? It might mean a return trip to China. Why do you start, my lad? Miss Isabella has always told you her brother was no count. She’s hated him since boyhood with a murderous hate. If he dies—well, there’s just one sinner less in the world, you reason. Ah, yes,” Alcott’s voice grew low and tense, “and remember, a chance to go back to that young Chinese girl whom you loved.”
“Look out what you say or I’ll tell a few things!” The words hurdled at Alcott through the shadows. I strained to see Stone’s face at the time he cried out. He was sitting forward in his chair, white and nervous. And this once his foolish smile seemed frozen on his lips.
And still Alcott’s voice, like a steel whip cutting through the darkness.
“As for you, Señor Sanchez, we went into the facts against you rather thoroughly at Headquarters yesterday. You’ve already admitted to the police your insane jealousy of Lolita Caros. You’ve admitted to the Police that you had threatened Wyndham’s life—oh, just in joke, I think you said.”
Alcott’s lips curved sarcastically. “But what you didn’t confess to the police, I’ve a notion, was the lead weight you held in your fist when you were fighting with Wyndham and the long knife that you drew from your pocket that night in the dark.”
There was a silence in the room so deep and prolonged that I thought it must be impenetrable. Then suddenly, I was aware of Lamar’s good-natured drawl.
“Well, I say, don’t I come in for my share of the general culpability?”
Suavely, Alcott turned toward him in the shadows. “Of course, Judge Lamar,” he said in a particularly deferential tone. “Quite as much as the rest. There was your anxiety as to how much Wyndham knew of the part you played in the matter of those now almost forgotten Schmidt indictments. What was more, there was your black fear of what he might do with the unpleasant facts, with which he faced you on the afternoon of his last appearance.”
Judge Lamar got up quietly and came around to my chair. “Is your friend quite all right?” he whispered to me, indignation and incredulity mingled in his tone.
I hardly knew what to answer. Inwardly, I was rather puzzled and worried myself. Alcott’s calm seemed strained to the breaking point and his eyes burned with an intense gleam that I’d never seen before.
“Oh, yes, I’m quite all right, Judge Lamar,” Alcott said wearily, as though divining what had been said. “And if you’ll be so kind, I’ll crave your indulgence a few moments more.”
“As I was saying, gentlemen, we’ve motives in our midst a plenty. And yet, as we all know, a man does not go to the electric chair simply for motive. No,” he said, and his voice sank to a tense whisper, “we have to nail this crime home a little closer than that.”
“What in hell’s the matter with you, Pete, old man?” I thought, half-aloud. An instant’s pause. Then once more the old cool self-possession.
“Now, then, gentlemen, ask yourselves, who among you could have perpetrated this crime? You look blank. You shake your heads. And you’re almost right. I’ve a hunch the person who struck the blow did not do it without an accomplice! I’ve a hunch that it was this accomplice who very cleverly manoeuvered your matches and lighters away from you! I’ve a hunch either the man or his accomplice was well acquainted in the underworld! Oh, yes, particularly well acquainted! I’ve a hunch that the decision to commit this crime was not long in formulating and that it followed very close upon the chance discovery that Wyndham was planning to leave Havana at midnight! I’ve a hunch that it necessitated access to Ford’s room sometime during the fatal day, in order to obtain the key to that hall door! I’ve a hunch that the need for action loomed desperate, imperative, immediate! I’ve a hunch that the man who did all of this was a master at that one supreme tribute that vice must always pay to decency—I mean hypocrisy. Yes, a sort of modem disciple of Macchiavelli’s Prince. In other words, gentlemen, I’ve a hunch we might ask the police in to arrest Judge Sanfred Lamar!”
Chapter XXVI GUILTY?
FOR a few seconds after the thunder clap of Alcott’s statement, a pall of silence hung over the room. No one moved or uttered a sound. It was as though we were all stupefied, frozen to stone, by the very audacity of such a charge. I have an indistinct recollection of Alcott mopping his forehead and saying with faint sarcasm.
“In my indictment, I might also include the Honorable Mr. George Meenan. Only he had the good luck to have been quietly done away with some ten days ago in New York. Yes, gentlemen—when, my guess is, Judge Lamar grew a trifle uneasy about his fellow conspirator.”
But no! The whole thing didn’t hold water. It was too fantastic. I simply couldn’t or wouldn’t believe it. It was as though there was a void somewhere in my brain; as though the ground was opening beneath my feet; as though with the known dignity and honor of Judge Lamar. the very foundations of organized society were slipping.
I have a vague recollection of the sound of Lamar breathing shortly and heavily in the darkness. He still must have been standing behind me, for the sound came close to my ears. Then as though in a dream, I remember seeing him turn and stride back to his place at the table, a colossus of white indignation.
“I don’t know whether you realize the seriousness of what you’ve just said, young fellow. That George Meenan myth I won’t even stoop to discuss. I believe there is a death certificate that can prove the falsity of that. But with regard to the rest....”
The Judge confronted Alcott squarely, his words weighted with deadly authority. Only the knuckles of his hands, showing strained and pale as he grasped the back of the chair in front of him gave a clue to his inward tension. “I warn you! Unl
ess you retract your damnable charges here and now, I shall institute an immediate suit for slander against you, naming these gentlemen as my witnesses.”
The Judge’s poise was magnificent. He looked Alcott coldly up and down, a strong man facing his adversary, taking his measure cannily. The thought struck me of what incalculable force the man’s reputation was. There wasn’t a person at that table who wasn’t solidly behind him.
In the balance, I felt Pete going down, down, irretrievably down! Until this point, I’d patiently swallowed all his reasoning. I’d talked myself into believing I saw most of his grounds, remote though they were. But now the water seemed closing over his head, engulfing him.
Nonetheless, even in the face of the tumult, Alcott’s voice with the sting of ice:
“I retract nothing, Judge Lamar.”
“Look out, you fool!” Anger glowed in Lamar’s eyes, but he remained fixed in his terrible glacial calm. “You say, that Stephen Wyndham had learned of some alleged complicity of mine in the matter of those Schmidt acquittals?”
“Exactly.”
“And what precisely was the nature of the complicity?”
Alcott, standing haggard but erect among the quivering shadows, flung his answer back defiantly. “Simply that you had accepted a bribe and the promise of political advancement for your white-wash of the Schmidt crowd when they came up for trial before you.”
I was thankful to hear Judge Lamar’s laugh in that semi-darkness. “Good God! If you weren’t so altogether preposterous, I might be able to take you seriously.”