“Is it the murderer’s thumbprint? How can you be sure?”
He couldn’t be sure, of course. But neither he nor Rowley could remember getting blood on their hands during that grisly transaction. They’d been very careful about that. He hadn’t told Rowley about the thumbprint. But he had asked him about blood on his hands. He took the sliver of wood bearing its horrible little burden from her fingers.
“I’m pretty damn sure,” he said confidently, “the police and the crime-detection laboratories can do things—have secured convictions on less evidence than this. So you see, Daph, if they do arrest us—I mean me—here’s this.”
“Why don’t you give it to the police now?” she said, watching him put it carefully into an inside coat pocket.
He gave her a very queer look. “It’s better,” he said shortly, “to wait. After all, Daphne, it was on the stairway—someone going upstairs—”
“Oh. Oh, you mean someone in the house,” she said and swallowed with a tight throat.
He nodded. But they’d known that. Known it from the beginning. He meant, then, to give it to the police only if he had to. To save himself—to save her. Besides, to give it to the police would be to tell them the whole story of the murder as only she and Dennis knew it. And suddenly she understood: saw through all his excuses. He had found her alone in the springhouse, alone except for Ben—murdered at her feet. And his whole object was to keep that knowledge from the police.
Her eyes blurred suddenly so she couldn’t see him distinctly, and he turned, saw it, and told her briskly to cheer up.
“At worst there’s the thumbprint,” he reminded her. “And at the very least it will give its owner something to explain. So don’t worry too much, Daphne—I mean if we—I—you—finally are charged with murder, there’s always this.” He patted his pocket and gave her a kind of smile, meant to reassure. “It may save both of us yet,” he said. “And look here, my girl, don’t get any notion that I’m intent on sacrificing my young life for—for anything,” he said. “Suppose the police do find out we were in the springhouse—”
“I was there first. You found me with him. I could have murdered him before you came.”
“But you didn’t. And as to that, I could have murdered him, left the springhouse and returned later to meet you,” said Dennis cheerfully. “I didn’t, but I could have. So there’s no question of sacrifice, and don’t be a little idiot.” He went on quickly to other things: Could they, he asked her, depend upon Rowley? Rowley had never been exactly trustworthy. But here his own interests—safety, even—were involved.
“He may turn state’s evidence if—” Dennis checked himself and said, “Eventually.”
They talked, too—fruitlessly—of Archie. Of Amelia’s offer to pay him off. Of the progress the police had made or had not made.
“They found the revolver near the springhouse,” said Dennis. “Seems odd that they happened to look just there. But if they know the murder occurred in the springhouse they’ve not yet said so. To me, at any rate.”
But he hadn’t known about the wedding ring. And he stopped poking up the fire again and turned abruptly to face Daphne when she told him of it.
“Wedding ring!”
“Yes—oh, of course, I knew you had only taken it—without thinking what you were doing while you and Rowley were—were—”
“I didn’t take it. It didn’t roll out of Ben’s pocket, if that’s what you were going to say.” He frowned. “I know nothing about this, Daphne. In my pocket, you say?”
“Yes. I—I was so sure that was how it happened. I didn’t attach much importance—”
“Do the police? I mean do they seem to—to emphasize it?”
“Yes,” said Daphne miserably and told him.
He stared somberly into the fire for a moment and then poked it vigorously and took the heavy, bronze-handled fire tongs in order to adjust the lumps of coal so they would burn.
“And you are sure it was the wedding ring?”
“Yes. Ben showed it to me before dinner that night. He put it back in his pocket. I’m sure it is the ring.”
“That means, then, that whoever took the ring from his pocket knows we were in the springhouse—knows at least something of what we did that night—and is trying to—well, to frame me.” He gave a short, dry laugh. “Pleasant, isn’t it? And God knows there are enough clues involving me if the murderer knows of them and can bring them to Wait. Well, it’s to be war, then. And with an unseen enemy. Working in the dark. How about this will of Ben’s, Daphne? Your father told me of it, and you say Gertrude knew it. What are you going to do about it?”
“I can’t take the stock. I won’t—”
“You’ll have to,” he said. “You see, your father says Ben told him of it, and said he had given your name as Daphne Haviland when the will was drawn up and it was to be changed to Daphne Haviland Brewer immediately after the wedding. It was his lawyer’s doing; merely a matter of accuracy at the moment of making the will. But the result is, his whole property comes to you.”
“I won’t take it.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Dennis, “whether you do or not so far as—”
“Motive?”
“Well, yes.” He said it reluctantly, hating to add to the dark care already in her eyes. She was pale that morning, with small, dark shadows under her eyes, and she looked very young in her red sweater and tweed skirt. He thought of how he loved her and wondered why he had ever gone away. First Ben stood between them, and now Gertrude and Rowley and the ugliness of the thing they threatened to do. Well, he wouldn’t let them. He wouldn’t let her marry Rowley. It was a monstrous suggestion on Gertrude’s part; a queer, half-hysterical undertaking. But it was, he thought, in the future. They couldn’t press the thing until all this had died down. Until the murderer was found—or until the quest for him was given up. Until people had stopped talking.
He went to her and took her quietly in his arms. “I love you so,” he said. “Sometime, Daphne, soon—you’ll be my wife.”
“I’m afraid.”
“Of what?” he said, holding her more tightly against him.
“Of everything—of Wait—of the house—of all these things—”
“Nonsense!” He tried to laugh. But he thought of Wait, too.
“And the wedding ring,” she said suddenly. “It—it terrifies me, Dennis.”
He didn’t like it, either. But he smoothed her brown hair and told her he loved her and things would be all right and hoped it was the truth.
“Why should anyone take the wedding ring?”
He didn’t know. He looked over her head into the fire. In the drive below, cars were arriving—police cars, he supposed. Every now and then someone passed the door of the playroom; once he had thought someone paused in the hall outside, and he had listened for the creak that would tell of retreating footsteps. But Daphne hadn’t noticed it, and he hadn’t wanted her to; they couldn’t hear, he told himself, And forgot the thinness of the old walls; the remarkable ease and swiftness with which sounds in that echoing old house traveled.
For he was thinking of the wedding ring.
Why would the murderer of Ben Brewer take the wedding ring?
“Daphne,” he said suddenly, “don’t think I’ve gone out of my head, but did your father really want you to marry Ben?”
Chapter 14
“MY FATHER!”
“Yes. Oh, I know Johnny. But that wedding ring—”
“If it hadn’t been for my father I wouldn’t have promised to marry Ben,” said Daphne wearily. “He didn’t urge me to; he wouldn’t have tried to make me marry Ben against my will. But he liked Ben; he thought he would be a good husband as he was a good business man.” She shook her head slowly. “My father wouldn’t have murdered Ben to keep me from marrying him. Even if—if he thought I’d be unhappy; if he’d made some—some dreadful discovery about Ben. Oh, he loves me—he loves me dearly. But he—”
“I know,” said Dennis. Johnny wa
s innately selfish, hated trouble as a cat hates water and avoided it with the most affable determination. Of course, the most affable and social of persons might pluck up the desperate and momentary courage to do a murder. But there had to be a motive: Daphne herself profited by Ben’s death. Rowley would profit by it, if Gertrude could (but he wouldn’t let her) carry out her plans. But no one else. So far as money went, that is. “You’re sure both the aunts wanted you to marry him?”
“Perfectly. Oh, I don’t mean that they or my father brought—pressure to bear upon me. It was just that—somehow they made me see it was the thing to do. Made me do it—”
“And Rowley. Was he, too, in favor of it?”
“Why, I—I suppose so. I can’t think—”
“You see,” said Dennis, “Rowley may be in love with you, too.” He smiled a little as he said it, but his eyes searched her own deeply just the same.
“If Rowley’s in love with me,” said Daphne somewhat crisply, “he’s certainly done a good job of concealing it. Of course he’s not in love with me.”
“Oh, come, come, Daph. Don’t be so disgustingly modest. You’re kind of a nice girl. I’m in love with you. Why shouldn’t Rowley be?”
“Well, he isn’t,” said Daphne definitely. “Gertrude’s plan for us to marry is probably altogether news to him.”
“Oh yes,” said Dennis, looking thoughtful. “Gertrude.”
It was just then that, with somewhat grim appositeness, Rowley came to the door, rattled it and called out, “Dennis!” impatiently.
“It’s the police again,” he said when Dennis opened the door. “They want to fingerprint us. Oh, of course they have no right to do so. But Jacob Wait—the detective, you know—asked us if anyone wanted to make a formal objection. Naturally no one did. What have you two been talking about so long?”
“Suspects,” said Dennis. “And you.”
Rowley’s eyes narrowed a little, and he looked quickly at Daphne.
“See here,” he said. “Have either of you told the police? I mean—told them about the—the springhouse?”
“No,” said Dennis. “Have you?”
“Certainly not.” Rowley looked at Dennis and at Daphne and back again. “But why, then, do they keep asking me about what I did that night—whether I was out of the house—if I saw anybody—all sorts of questions?”
“Probably to find out whether you killed Ben or not,” observed Dennis.
For just an instant Rowley looked remarkably like his father. Then he smiled. “You will have your joke, Dennis,” he said. “But this isn’t really a joking matter.”
“You are perfectly right,” said Dennis. “Did you burn the shirt and waistcoat? I didn’t ask you yesterday, but was checking things we might have forgotten.”
“Why, I—Yes. That is, I tried to. They wouldn’t burn—too wet.” He glanced quickly at Daphne and said hurriedly, “That is, they wouldn’t burn.”
“Good God!” said Dennis and took a quick step nearer him, so that Rowley stepped backward involuntarily. “Well, what did you do with them?” said Dennis between his teeth.
“I took them out on the river; made a hole in the ice and stuffed them in. Nobody saw me. Best I could do, and it’s just as good as burning. Just as—”
“Oh, you fool!” said Dennis, his eyes blazing. “Oh, you fool!”
“Dennis!”
“What else have you done—or failed to do?”
“Nothing, Dennis. Nothing, I swear it.”
One never knew when Rowley was telling the truth. Dennis said, “Look here, Rowley, I was trying to remember exactly what was in his pockets.”
“I don’t know,” said Rowley sullenly. “I remember when we took his shirt and waistcoat there was a lot of blood. I don’t think we looked in his pockets. At least, I didn’t. Why?”
“There might have been some clue,” said Dennis slowly.
“You might inquire of the police,” suggested Rowley with a lifting of his upper lip which was very like his father, and Johnny stopped in the doorway and said, “Hello there, children. Morning, honey, how are you? They’re waiting for you downstairs.”
Dennis shot one warning look at Rowley and said, “Okay. Come on, Daph.” And Rowley stepped suddenly toward Daphne and put his arm around her waist.
“I don’t like your airs, Dennis,” he said coolly, his anger hidden suddenly and showing only in the extreme paleness of his face. “I think you’d better know that Daphne is to be my wife.”
All her life afterward Daphne was to remember that moment, although at the time it was only a kind of blur from which certain things floated. The sense of Rowley’s nearness, her body pressed against him and his arm tight around her. The crackle of the coal and the faint smell of coal smoke and breakfast. Another car driving up outside and the closing of its doors—one, two, three. More police, she thought vaguely. Her father’s face, gray, with wide blue eyes, and the nervous way he patted his tie and pulled down his waistcoat and tugged at his mustache and still did not speak. No, he was never violent; always wanted things to be smooth and polite and civilized.
And Dennis.
Dennis, white with something besides rage; something more than momentary and purely physical jealousy. Dennis, with his eyes blazing again from under those peaked eyebrows. Dennis, starting forward furiously and checking himself within a foot of Rowley. Checking himself obviously at the thought of Gertrude.
She’d told Rowley, then. And they’d joined in that ugly, devilishly ingenious compact.
Johnny was talking: “Daphne, is this true? Are you and Rowley—Dear me, wouldn’t it be best to wait a little? What will people say? What—”
Rowley’s voice cut through it, cool and malicious: “Congratulate me, Dennis—that is, if you have any—affection—for Daphne.”
“You damn cur!”
“Dennis—Rowley—good God, what’s the matter with you!” cried Johnny, pulling his mustache wildly, but cautiously refraining from getting between them. “See here, you two. Keep your quarrel till this thing is safely over. Good heavens, does it matter? Now? When there’s been a murder here and any of us are likely to hang for it? Good God! Dear me!” He twisted his mustache, ran his hands through his blond hair and turned in anguish to Daphne. “My dear, do tell them to stop. Tell them anything—tell them—”
“Daphne doesn’t need to speak,” said Dennis. He took her hand. “I’ll speak for her. She’ll do as she pleases and—”
It was then that Daphne saw him standing in the doorway. His hat over his face. His dark eyes somber.
“Dennis!” she cried in a choked way. Both Dennis and Rowley saw him then, too, and stiffened.
“Don’t mind me,” said Jacob Wait, his dark eyes shining deeply. “Go right ahead. You were about to say?”
“We were just going down to be fingerprinted,” said Rowley coolly. “Coming, Daph?”
Somehow she moved. For an instant or two it looked as if the detective did not intend to permit them to go, but he moved aside then and followed them downstairs.
And they were fingerprinted.
Which was out of all order. But none of them refused.
It was the beginning of a queer and unpleasant day. A day that seemed long because such strange and unaccustomed things took place. And that yet passed swiftly.
In the first place no one knew what Archie Shore would or would not do, and it was an ever-present and immediate source of anxiety.
“But he’ll keep his mouth shut till tonight,” said Amelia once. “We can count on that.” But she would not discuss the thing at length; nor would she say more of her willingness to pay him.
Gertrude’s asthma was worse, and she was in and out of her room, wandering about with washcloths wrung out of steaming water and pressed over her face, which grew blotchy and red. After lunch the family doctor came and, meeting Daphne in the hall, stopped her and pulled her to a window and looked searchingly into her face.
“It’s a bad business,” h
e said. “Stick out your tongue.”
She did so, and he looked at it and at her throat quite as he had always done.
“It’s the damnedest cold house,” he said grumpily. “You’ll all likely get pneumonia. See here, Daphne, who did kill him?”
She shook her head hopelessly.
“Well, what about the Haviland Bridge Company? All my savings are in it, as you know. It’s all right, of course—don’t look so scared. But—” He paused and glanced down the hall. “You know this stockholders’ meeting scheduled for January first?”
She nodded. They had intended to be back for it; back from that strange honeymoon in Bermuda.
“Well,” said the doctor, “they do say there was a pretty strong movement on foot to oust Ben. Of course, they’ve always wanted him out—your aunts, I mean. Everybody knows that. But it looks as if they were doing things this time that—Yes, yes, Maggie. Tell Mrs Shore I’m coming.” Maggie vanished, and he said to Daphne, “Keep yourself wrapped up and take some soda. No sense getting down sick. Why Amelia insists on living in this drafty old barn—” He went away grumbling.
Other people came, too. The corporation lawyer with a clerk carrying a fat brief case. The family lawyer, flurried and carrying another brief case. Two or three stockholders to see Johnny and Amelia. A steady succession of Western Union boys with telegrams. And always the police.
Always that knowledge of them working secretly, constantly, with all the powers of crime detection at their service—hunting, seeking, questioning, discovering things of which one knew nothing. Drawing conclusions.
And there was no way to know what.
Jacob Wait did not question Daphne again that day; did not, indeed, as far as she knew, question any of the family at length. She had, however, a strong feeling that it was only because he was gathering evidence against them.
He was away from the house that day, too, for a long time—visiting Ben’s apartment in town, his office in the Loop and at the plant. Searching, always searching for evidence.
“It’s elimination,” he said shortly to Johnny and Rowley, who met him by appointment at the Loop office. “Do you have keys to his desk?”
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