I leaned back and looked at Joseph, and for the first time, I realized that he was pale, almost waxy.
“Have you been ill, Joseph?”
“No, madam. I have had an accident.”
“An accident? What sort of an accident?”
But as it turned out, Joseph had had no accident. Dragged out of him, and later corroborated by the maids, came the story of an attack in broad daylight so mysterious and so brutal that it made my blood run cold.
The story was this: on the afternoon of the day I left for New York, he had allowed the women servants to go out. He often did this in my absence, getting himself a supper of sorts, and apparently glad to have his pantry to himself.
The house was locked and Robert was washing the car in the garage. According to Robert, and this was later found to be true, the first knowledge he had of any trouble was at four o’clock that afternoon, when he heard a faint rapping on the pantry window and looking toward the house, saw a bloody head, wavering with weakness, inside.
Robert was frightened. He made no effort to get into the house alone, but summoned a white chauffeur from the garage of my bootlegger neighbor, and the two of them broke open the basement door and rushed up the stairs.
They found Joseph unconscious on the pantry floor, his head bleeding profusely from a bad cut, and as Doctor Simonds later discovered, his body a mass of bruises. It was two hours before he recovered consciousness, and then he could give no description of his assailant.
“I saw and heard nobody,” he told me. “I was on the second floor. It looked like rain and I was closing the windows. I had finished that and was about to go down the back staircase when I felt that some one was behind me. But I never saw who it was. The next thing I remember, madam, I was at the foot of the stairs, trying to crawl to the pantry.”
And this story of his was borne out by the fact that the maids later found blood on the stairs and a small pool at the bottom.
Doctor Simonds however did not place too much confidence in the story of the attack, when he came in that night to see me.
“Sure he was hurt,” he said, with that cheerful descent into the colloquial with which the medical profession soothes its fearful patients and its nervous women. “Surest thing I ever saw. It took four stitches to sew him up! But why assault? Why didn’t Joseph catch his rubber heel on something and pitch down those stairs of yours? There are twenty odd metal-edged steps there, and every one got in a bit of work.”
“He says he felt that there was some one behind him.”
“Exactly. He was stepping off as he turned to look; and why he didn’t break that stiff neck of his I don’t know. It’s a marvel to me that he’s up and about.”
But Joseph stuck to his story. He had been attacked by some one from the rear, armed either with a club or a chair. And as we know now, he was right. Joseph had indeed been murderously assaulted, and very possibly left for dead.
As it happened, it was during that call of Doctor Simonds’ that I first learned of the possibility that Howard had left a second will. He had attended Howard during his illness at the Imperial the summer before, and expressed regret over his death.
“Of course it was bound to come,” he said. “He knew it. He was not a man you could deceive, and that attack he had here was a pretty bad one. By the way, did he alter his will at that time? Or do you know?”
“Alter it? I don’t know, I’m sure.”
“He was thinking of it. Walter had been very attentive to him, and they’d patched up a peace between them. It was rather amusing, in a way. Poor Miss Gittings hated Walter, and she would have kept him out if she could.”
“I hope he did change the will,” I said, thoughtfully. “After all, his only son—”
“He may, and he may not. I talked it over with Walter, and he said there would be hell to pay if it did happen. He wasn’t sure, of course. But he got me to give him a letter, to the effect that his father was capable of drawing such a document; ‘not under drugs, or mentally enfeebled.’” He laughed a little. “Mentally enfeebled,” he said. “If Howard Somers was mentally enfeebled I wish I had arterio-sclerosis!”
But Joseph’s injury had made me most uneasy. What was the motive? What had been gained by it? I must confess that once again I considered the possibility of a killer who killed for the sheer lust of murder.
That day I bought a new revolver for Joseph, and moved him to a guest room on the second floor. Before he retired I made the round of the house with him, and even of the garage and the cellars. Then, with my own door locked, I was able to pass a quiet if not an easy night.
But again I did not sleep. I lay in bed with a pencil and a sheet of paper, and tried that night to put together what we knew about this unknown. I wrote down that he was crafty and physically strong; that he had no scruples about taking human life; that he knew my house even to the detail of the airshaft and its window; that he was—at least probably—of the same height and build as Jim Blake; that my dogs knew him; that, although since Sarah’s death the front door lock had been changed, he was still able—if Joseph’s story were accurate—to enter my house at will; and that his motive, still hidden, had somehow already involved and destroyed Sarah and Florence Gunther and possibly Howard, and might in the end affect others, God only knew who.
I was badly frightened by that time, and when just as I had finished the list I heard the stealthy padding of feet in the hall, I was in a cold sweat of terror. It was only Jock, however, moving restlessly about, with the call of the spring night in his blood and a closed and double-locked front door between him and his kind.
Chapter Fifteen
THE NEXT DAY I went through my house, acting on Dick’s suggestion. I imagine that the servants thought that our recent tragedies had slightly unbalanced me, as I took down one circular object after another and examined it. One or two old daguerreotypes in round frames I literally ripped open, but at the end of these acts of vandalism I was no wiser than before.
It was that afternoon that I was sent for by the District Attorney; a disquieting interview, with accusation and suppressed anger on his part, and sheer dismay on my own.
“This is a curious case, Miss Bell,” he said. “Two horrible crimes have been committed by the same hand, and two attacks, one of them certain; the other, on your butler, at least possible. We have either a maniac loose in the community, or we have a motive so carefully concealed that so far we have not found it. I think there is a motive. Of the two women killed, one was apparently negligible, without background. The other had no background save a certain family, to which she had been loyal and from which she had certainly received a considerable measure of confidence. These two women became friends; the secret of one became the secret of the other. Therefore, granting there was some detrimental knowledge, when one died the other must die. That’s simple. But the family in question has done nothing to help the law. It has even withheld certain matters from the police.”
“I deny that, absolutely.”
“Do you? Is that entirely wise, Miss Bell? If this case comes to trial, and you are put under oath on the witness stand—”
“How can it come to trial? You have made no arrest.” But he ignored that.
“I want to urge you to tell what you know, Miss Bell, as a public duty. You owe that to the community. If there is a man of this description loose, a wholesale murderer, shrewd, without conscience or scruple, defeating justice to serve his own ends, then your obligation lies plain before you.”
“I know nothing. If you think you are describing Jim Blake, I do not. He is as innocent as you are.”
He bent forward.
“Then why did you burn the carpet from his car? You need not answer that. We know that you did. We are not guessing.”
“If you are going to try to convict a man on purely circumstantial evidence—”
“What is circumstantial evidence? It is the evidence on which we rely every day of our lives. Your door bell rings; you have not se
en anybody at the door, but you know that somebody is there, ringing that bell. That’s circumstantial evidence.”
He leaned back and spoke more quietly.
“This cane,” he said, “the one with the hidden blade. How wide was that blade?”
“It was very narrow; perhaps a half inch at the widest part. It tapered.”
“And it had a double cutting edge?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You haven’t seen it since you gave it to Jim Blake?”
“Not since.”
“And when did you give it to him?”
“I’ve already told you that; last March. He had admired it.”
“Did he ask for it?”
“Hardly that. He said if I ever wanted to get rid of it, he would take it.”
“He dropped in to see you rather often?”
“Not so often. Once a month or so.”
“And where did you sit, when he called?”
“In my library, usually.”
On my way out I saw Mr. Henderson, of Waite and Henderson, and bowed to him. It seemed to me that he looked worried and upset, but I laid this to the death of Florence and its continuing mystery, and thought no more of it.
That was on Saturday, May the fourteenth, and that night Inspector Harrison came in. He looked tired and rather untidy, and when he took off his overcoat a flashlight fell to the floor.
For some reason he brought it into the library with him, and sat snapping it on and off as he talked. Perhaps he was out of his customary ammunition. He began rather apologetically.
“I’ve got the habit of dropping in here,” he said. “I suppose it’s because I like to talk and you’re willing to listen.”
“I daresay,” I observed, “although I had hoped it was due to my personal charm.”
That embarrassed him. He smiled rather dubiously, gave me a quick glance, and then proceeded quite calmly to focus the flashlight on my feet.
“You see,” he said. “I’ve been studying those molds I took. It’s my belief that they were made with a woman’s shoe. Not that sort; a big woman’s shoe. Flat heeled and sensible, and considerably worn. A woman who walked on the outsides of her feet; maybe bandy legged.”
“I assure you, Inspector—”
“No need of it,” he said politely. “But before I go I’d like to look over the closets here. Somebody appears to have pretty free access to this house, and it’s just possible we’ll locate that pair of shoes.”
He made no immediate move, however. He surveyed himself rather ruefully.
“I’ve been tramping about,” he explained. “It’s a curious thing, but things can be seen at night that can’t be seen in daytime. Take blood on furniture. In the daylight it looks like varnish, but in a good electric light it often shows up. Then take marks in the ground. Look at what your car headlights do! I’ve slowed down for a rut no deeper than my finger.”
“And now you have found something?”
“Well, I have,” he said. “It’s bad news for you, Miss Bell. It’s like this; I went to the museum and looked at one of those sword sticks they have there. They look like other sticks, but there’s one difference. The ferrule is open at the bottom. When you put it down on the ground it makes a circle, not a hole. I took it out and tried it. You get the idea, don’t you? A ring is what it makes. In the one in the museum the blade is loose, so it makes a ring with a dot in the center. That’s the tip of the knife. In yours the blade is hung better. There’s only the ring.”
I could hardly speak.
“And you’ve found such rings?”
“A dozen of them. Maybe two dozen. I’ve got them marked and covered, and tomorrow we’ll lift them. I thought I’d better tell you.”
“Then Jim—”
“He was there, all right. There are a half dozen of the things in the bridle path between the sewer and the foot of the hill; and there are others on the side of the hill. What’s more, I think I have found what stunned Sarah Gittings before she died.”
It appears, then, that the examination of poor Sarah’s body had shown more than we had known. The wound at the back of her head had been made with a blunt instrument, as we had been told; but the nature of that instrument was unknown. However, inspection had shown in her hair and in the wound itself numerous small fragments of bark from a tree.
“Of course the body had been dragged, and that would account for some of it. But there was bark deeply buried in the tissues. And there was another thing: the blow had been struck from above. The lower side of the wound was torn. Either she had been struck by a very tall man, or she was sitting down. I had to argue like this; we’ll leave out the tall man for the minute, and say she was sitting down. Now where does a woman like that sit, if she’s out in the open? She’s a neat woman, very orderly, and she isn’t young. She doesn’t sit on the ground. She finds a tree stump, or a fallen tree or a stone, and she sits on that.”
But he had been some time in coming to that, and Florence’s death had interfered. There had been rain, too, and sunlight. Sunlight, it appeared, faded blood. That night, however, he had started out, and he had found what he was looking for. Near a fallen tree at the top of the hill, and perhaps forty feet from where the dogs had been tied, he had turned his flashlight on the broken branch of a tree, about four feet long, and both heavy and solid. When he turned it over, on the side protected from rain and weather, he had found stains and one or two hairs.
He had wrapped it up carefully and sent it back to headquarters.
I felt sick.
“And you found the marks of the sword-stick there, too?”
“Well, no. But that’s not surprising. A man doesn’t walk up to commit a murder swinging a stick. He crept up behind her. I doubt if she knew anything until it was all over.”
I was thinking desperately.
“This sword-stick in the museum, would the blade of such a stick have made the other wounds?”
“They would,” he said promptly. “But we have to be careful there, Miss Bell. All stab wounds look alike. You can’t tell whether a blade has had two cutting edges or one. You see, every knife has two cutting edges at the point. Take this knife here.” He drew a substantial one from his pocket. “It cuts both ways for half an inch. No. Taken by itself, the fact that Jim Blake carried that stick that night doesn’t prove that he used it, or that it’s the weapon that was used. It’s the rest of the case—”
He had said what he came to say. There had been no new developments in the death of Florence Gunther. The bullet had been fired at close range, and from the left. The point of entry was a neat hole, but on the other side there had been some destruction. He was inclined to believe with Dick that she had been shot while in a car, and in front of or near my property.
“Even a head wound bleeds some,” he explained, “and that sort of wound is generally pretty—well, pretty messy. Of course that may be wrong. She may have been stunned first like Sarah Gittings; and killed in the country somewhere.”
He got up to go, and as he stood there with the light shining down on his bald head, I saw that like the rest of us he looked tired and depressed.
“There are times,” he said, “when I don’t like this job of mine. And this is one of them. Take you. Take little Miss Judy. She’s got troubles enough just now, and the chances are that in a day or two we’re going to add to them.”
“You’re going to arrest Jim Blake?”
“I’m going to do just that, Miss Bell. I don’t mind telling you that we think we’ve got the motive. Maybe you know about it, maybe you don’t. But we’ve got the motive now, and we know he was on that hillside that night. Only I’d like to find that sword-stick first.”
He was on his way to the door when I stopped him.
“How did you know I had burned that carpet, Inspector?”
“Well, somebody had burned it, and it looked as though you might be the guilty party.”
“But how did you know?”
He
gave me a whimsical glance.
“Did you ever examine one of those things, Miss Bell? Well, I’ll tell you something maybe you don’t know. That carpet had snaps—or buttons—on it to fasten it to the floor; and those snaps are metal. They won’t burn. A smart man now, going carefully through certain ashcans, can find them without any trouble.”
He turned, his hand on the door knob.
“But I’ll say this to you Miss Bell, in confidence. I’d like to know why you burned that carpet. I’d been over that car myself with a magnifying glass the day after Florence Gunther was killed. If you found anything in it, you’re smarter than I am.”
I could only stare at him in silent stupefaction.
“Never mind, then,” he said. “You think it over. There’s no hurry.” And with that he left.
It was only after he had gone that I remembered the shoes he had meant to examine.
I had two days in which to think that over, although thinking did me no good whatever. I had burned the carpet and thus put a weapon against Jim in the hands of the District Attorney, and no statement by the Inspector that he had found nothing suspicious on or about it would alter that.
They would believe, as he believed, that I had found something incriminating there which they had overlooked.
But mingled with this was a sense of relief. If they had not found the oil stains on the day after Florence’s murder it was because they were not there.
Those two days, however, were all I could bear. I saw nobody, heard nothing. It was as though there had been no murder of our poor Sarah, or of Florence; as though there had been no mysterious unknown, able to enter my house at will on some equally mysterious errand. But by the third day, Tuesday, I began to relax. Nobody had been arrested. Life was once more a quiet round of breakfast tray, lunch and dinner. I even prepared to go over my notes on my father’s biography, as a matter of morale; that poor endeavor we all make in trouble to provide some sort of protective mechanism for the mind.
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