She had made the appointment and we were admitted at once. I was rather shocked by the change in Mr. Waite. He looked worn and not too well, and I thought there was a certain apprehension in his eyes when he greeted us.
He rose, but did not come forward.
“I am lame again,” he explained, indicating a cane which stood beside him. “The old trouble. Well, I can only say that I am shocked and grieved, Mrs. Somers. Of course the appeal—”
“An appeal will do no good,” said Katherine somberly.
“Still, new facts may come up. The case is of course not closed until—”
“Until they have killed an innocent man,” Katherine finished for him. “And that is what they will do, Mr. Waite, unless the truth can be brought out.”
He stirred uneasily in his chair.
“The truth? What is the truth? I am as much in the dark as you are.” And seeing her face, he bent toward her across the desk. “I know what you mean, Mrs. Somers, and—I can understand. Nevertheless, I tell you that as surely as I sit here in this chair, Mr. Somers outlined the provisions of that will and signed it when I had prepared it. He was as rational as I am now. He discussed his family and his affairs. He even recognized that the will would be a blow to you, and said that he meant to leave an explanatory letter with it. Just why he did not do so I don’t understand.”
He was not acting. He was telling us facts, and I think Katherine saw it as well as I did. She sat stiffly upright, but the antagonism was gone from her voice.
“He did not explain the fund of fifty thousand dollars?”
“He did, and he did not. The son was to administer it for some purpose. He simply said that Walter would understand. He was of course still very weak, and he was not a talkative man, I understand. To be frank, I was in pain that first day, and not much better the second. I don’t recall many details, although of course I have tried to since. A will is a routine matter.”
“He did not appear to have been drugged?”
“Absolutely not.”
“And Sarah was there? Sarah Gittings?”
“She left the room, but she came in once and gave him some medicine.”
But Katherine was stubborn. Here were the facts, and she still refused to accept them. Mr. Waite saw that, and stiffened in his chair.
“The will was genuine, Mrs. Somers,” he said. “If you have any doubt of it, I will go to the hotel with you, and we will repeat my own actions of those two days. I will show you that on the first day I was taken to Mr. Somers’ room by the hotel manager himself, and that the floor clerk saw us and remembers this. I will show you that Walter Somers received me at the door and took me in, and that on both days Florence Gunther was with me. The floor clerk saw her there also.”
“That is what she says. I know that, Mr. Waite.”
He made an angry gesture.
“But she may be lying? I wonder if you realize what you are saying? If I had forged that will—and it seems to me that this is what you imply—why should I have gone there at all? Good God, madam, what had I to gain by such a criminal proceeding? It’s nonsense, insane outrageous nonsense.”
Katherine, however, seemed hardly to hear him. Certainly his words had no effect on her. She looked up from that careful inspection of her gloves.
“You would be willing to go to the hotel?”
“Of course I’ll go to the hotel. Do you think I am afraid to go?”
She stood up, and for the first time it apparently occurred to her that he was angry; white with anger. She looked at him with that faint childlike expression which so altered her face.
“I’m sorry. It’s only that I don’t understand. You see, there was no reason, no reason at all. Not if Margaret Somers was dead.”
He was polite but still somewhat ruffled when we started out. None of us, I am sure, had any idea that any dénouement was imminent. I remember that Mr. Waite delayed a moment or two to sign some letters, and that he grunted as he got up and reached for his stick.
“I’ve lost four teeth and two tonsils to cure this thing,” he grumbled, “and I’m just where I started.”
And so we reached the hotel, Katherine silent and absorbed, Mr. Waite limping, and I trailing along and feeling absurd and in the way.
We were fortunate in one thing: the rooms Howard had occupied were empty. Unluckily the manager was out, but the floor clerk, Miss Todd, was at her desk. She greeted us with the decorous gravity the occasion seemed to demand, and bowed to Mr. Waite.
“You remember me?” he asked her.
“Oh, perfectly, Mr. Waite.”
“And that I came here on two succeeding days?”
“Yes, indeed. Mr. Hendrickson brought you up the first day.” And she added glibly: “The first day you had the young lady with you. The second day she came again, and the hotel notary came up later. I remember it all very clearly. Miss Gunther sat down there on that chair until you called her in.”
“And why?” said Katherine suddenly, “did she wait in the hall? There was a sitting room.”
Miss Todd looked slightly surprised.
“That’s so,” she said. “That’s queer, isn’t it? Do you remember why, Mr. Waite?”
Mr. Waite however did not remember. He had seen no sitting room. He had been ushered directly from the hall into the bedroom.
“I suppose the nurse was in there,” he said impatiently. “If you will open the rooms, Miss Todd—”
Miss Todd was very curious, and I think rather thrilled. She led the way briskly to the sitting room of the suite, unlocked the door and threw open a window or two; but if she hoped to be asked to remain she was disappointed.
“In which room was Mr. Somers?”
“In there. I’ll light the lights.”
“Thanks. If you’ll close the door as you go out—”
Some of Mr. Waite’s irritation had returned. He limped into the bedroom Miss Todd had indicated and stood surveying it.
“I imagine your questions are answered, Mrs. Somers,” he said crisply. “Here is the room. You have learned that I came here as I said. If you believe that I came for any other purpose than to draw up a will, I will remind you that I had not spoken ten words to Mr. Somers in my life until that day. I came because I was sent for, and for that reason only.”
Katherine moistened her dry lips.
“And my husband was in bed?”
“In this bed. I sat down beside him, and I saw that he looked very ill. It was a dark day, but the lamp was on. I sat down here, as the lamp was on this side of the bed then. I see they have moved it.”
There was a curious look in Katherine’s face.
“I wonder,” she said tensely, “if you mind doing again just what you did then? Can you remember? Try to remember, Mr. Waite! Everything. Every little thing.”
I could see that her suppressed excitement had its effect on him. He glanced at her, and his voice was not so cold. He walked to the hall door and opened it.
“Let me see,” he said. “Yes. Walter Somers was outside the door, in the hall. He opened the door and said: ‘Father, Mr. Waite is here.’ Then he stepped back and I came in alone. I think he closed the door behind me. Yes, he closed the door.
“I said: ‘Well, Mr. Somers, I’m sorry to see you laid up.’ He said something about his condition; that he was better, or getting better, and I put down my hat and gloves and got out some paper and my fountain pen. After that it was strictly business. He had the will pretty well thought out, and I suppose I was there only a half hour.”
“And that is all?”
“All I can recall.
“He seemed perfectly normal. But he was nervous. I had propped my stick against the table, and once it slipped and fell. I remember that he jumped as though I had hit him. I picked it up and hung it on the doorknob, and—that’s funny! That’s damned queer.”
He was staring at the wall beside the bed.
“They’ve taken away the door,” he said.
“What d
oor?”
“There was a door there by my right hand. It’s on the other side of the bed now.”
We all stood there, stupidly staring at the door. None of us, I fancy, had the remotest idea of its significance at that moment. It was Katherine who realized it first.
“Are you certain you were in this room, Mr. Waite?”
“I don’t know. They all look alike. Of course they are always changing these places about.”
And I think to Katherine must go the credit of that discovery, although Inspector Harrison had known it for at least a week. She was very calm, very quiet, as she went into the hall and called Miss Todd again.
“You are certain that this was my husband’s bedroom?”
“Oh, yes, indeed, Mrs. Somers.”
“And it has not been altered since? No changes have been made?”
“Only the new curtains at the windows.”
“Thank you.”
Miss Todd retired, her sharp eyes giving us a final survey as she closed the door. Not until she was gone did Katherine move, and then it was to cross the sitting room and glance into the bedroom there. Then she called to us, quietly enough.
“I think this is where you came, Mr. Waite,” she said. “To Walter’s bedroom, where an accomplice of Walter’s impersonated his father and drew that will.”
And only then was there a ring of triumph in her tired voice. “I knew it,” she said. “I knew it. My poor Howard!”
Chapter Thirty-one
OF THE PLOT WHICH lay behind that discovery we had no knowledge. It was enough at the moment that there had been a conspiracy.
But later on in the day, the initial shock over, our ideas began to crystallize. Who had been the man in the bed? What relation did he bear to the murders? Was he himself the murderer?
None of us, however, gathered in my library that night, believed what was the fact; that the amazing dénouement was even then in preparation, and that it was a matter of only a few hours until all our questions were to be answered.
We were silent but more cheerful than we had been for days on end. There was hope now for Jim, and Katherine’s relief was written in her face. Jim would be saved and Howard was once again hers to mourn. The frozen look had left her.
Judy too looked better than she had looked for weeks.
She had come in with her eyes bright and her color high, to show me a very nice but extremely small diamond on her engagement finger.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” she said.
“It is indeed beautiful,” I told her gravely. For it seemed so to me, that symbol of Dick’s pride and his essential honesty. And I was proud of Judy, that she wore that bit of stone as a queen might wear a crown.
But talking got us nowhere that night. Again and again we went back to the scene in that hotel bedroom, with no result. It was Judy, with Dick’s arm around her and Katherine accepting that as she had accepted the ring, who put forth the theory that the fifty thousand dollar clause which had been put in the will was to be the payment to this unknown for his services.
And it was Dick who followed that scene to its logical conclusion, and who said that a man who could put on a wig and look enough like Howard to deceive Mr. Waite under those circumstances, could easily have fooled Jim at night on the hillside.
Nevertheless, we were as far from the identity of this man as ever.
It was a broiling July night. At ten o’clock Joseph, in his traveling clothes, brought in some lemonade—he was leaving at eleven that night for a short holiday—and I remember that he had hardly gone out when Judy drew up a window shade for air, and suddenly drew back from the window.
“There’s a man out there!” she said, “Just outside the window!”
Dick ran out at once. He was gone for some time, and when he came back it was to report that nobody was in sight, but that it was about to storm and that they’d better be on their way. I thought he looked rather odd, but we were all on edge that night and so I said nothing.
I was uneasy after they had gone. I wandered back to the pantry, where Robert was talking with the policeman and waiting for Joseph to come down, and while Robert stayed in the pantry the officer made a round of the house, inside and out. He found nothing, however, and as the storm broke soon after that, Joseph departed to the car by way of the kitchen porch in such a downpour as I have seldom seen.
I did not go up to bed, although it was eleven o’clock. I had a strange feeling of uneasiness, as though something was about to happen, or had happened. And at a little after eleven Jock sat up in the hall and gave tongue to a really dreadful howl.
I do not even now pretend to explain that wail, or that when I went into the hall both dogs were standing with their neck ruffs on end, staring into the dark drawing room.
I had a picture of that, of the incredulous terror in their attitudes; then they turned and bolted into the library, and I am not ashamed to admit that I followed them, and slammed and locked the door.
No, I have no explanation. When a short time later Inspector Harrison arrived and rang the door bell, he found me locked in the library; and it was all he could do to make me open the door.
He was soaking wet, and he looked very weary. He looked dejected, too, although I did not understand that until later on.
“I’m late,” he said, “but we’ve had to cut open a safe deposit box in a bank, and it took some time and some red tape. Then I had another little job—I’m not proud of that. Still, maybe it’s all for the best. It will save Walter Somers a lot of trouble.”
“Walter? He is alive?”
“He is. I’ve been doing a little nursing now and then, in odd moments! But he’s alive. He’s going to live. He’s conscious, too, since yesterday. And now that you’ve turned up the story of the will—Waite told me—I hope the family won’t prosecute. He tried to do the right thing, and it damn near cost him his life.”
He sat back and bit savagely on the end of a rather soggy toothpick.
“Yes,” he said, “I’ve bungled this thing. When I did get on the right track it was pretty late. It was the shooting of Joseph Holmes that started me straight, by the way. But I lost a lot of time, one way and another, and—well, I’ll say this, our killer will never kill again.”
“You’ve got him? The murderer?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes—and no.”
I sat bolt upright in my excitement.
“Who was it, Inspector? Surely I have a right to know.”
“I’m coming to that.” He looked at me and smiled quizzically. “But not right off. We’ll lead up to it, and then there’ll be no shock.”
“Shock! Then I know him?”
“You do indeed,” he said gravely. “That’s why I want to tell you the story first, so you’ll understand. We’ll call it a sort of psychological preparation. And I’m going to tell the story without telling you his name. We’ll call him James C. Norton, because that’s the name he used when he rented the safe deposit box. Norton. And up to a quarter to three o’clock today we hadn’t a hope of landing him. We knew he was guilty, guilty as hell. We’ve watched him and followed him, but we hadn’t a thing. Then today he went to the Commercial Bank—he had to—and he gave the show away.
“Mind you, he knew he was being watched, or he suspected it. He didn’t know I’d found Walter, however. He had half killed Walter and tied him up in an abandoned farmhouse, and for a while he went back there now and then. It wasn’t to his interest that Walter die. But later on it was to his interest that Walter Somers die. He left him where I found him, left him to die. I want you to remember that.
“Things were getting pretty hot for him, and with Walter dead the story wasn’t likely to come out. And I’ll say for him, that he held on to the last minute. He knew we had nothing on him. As a matter of fact we didn’t, until about seven o’clock tonight.
“I want to give you a picture of this man, Miss Bell. We knew that he was at least moderately tall and stronger than the average. After I lear
ned the story of that little comedy at the Imperial we knew he could act, and that he was a bit of a forger. Also we knew he was quick and catlike on his feet.
“But we knew some other things.
“This man had no heart, had no bowels of compassion. He had instead a lust for money and an infinite capacity for wickedness. Also he had cunning, a cunning so devilish that he had not only covered up his tracks; he had deliberately thrown suspicion on another man by the manufacture of false evidence.
“Such, for instance was the oil in Jim Blake’s car; the use of Jim Blake’s name in that deadly visit to New York, and the clothing, expressly arranged to give the impression to the man Parrott that it was Blake; and there was the telephone message using Blake’s name. And I say here and now that this man would have let Jim Blake go to the chair with less scruple than I break this toothpick.
“That’s the picture of this assassin. I want you to remember it.
“Now I’m going to somebody else. I don’t need to give you a picture of her. But she seemed to be in this thing up to the neck. She was, and my hat’s off to her. Her name is Mary Martin.”
“Mary! What has she done, but damage?”
He smiled again.
“She did her bit, when the truth began to drift in on her. She tried to save Howard Somers, but this—this Norton was too smart for her. She helped to find Walter. And on the night she was seen here in the drive she was running because she knew something. She knew there was going to be another murder, or an attempt at it.”
“She knew Joseph was to be killed!”
“She was afraid it would be tried. We’re coming to that. But she was in a bad way herself; she suspected what had happened to Walter. She was almost crazy, that girl. So she relaxed her vigilance and—you find Joseph shot.”
“What possible interest had Mary Martin in Walter Somers, Inspector?” I asked, bewildered.
“She had a very real interest. She had married him last fall.”
He gave me a moment to comprehend that, and then went on more briskly.
“Now let’s go back. Let’s go back to last summer, to the end of July.
“Walter Somers was in town, and one day he got a note to go to a house on Halkett Street. He went, and he met there this man I’m calling Norton, and a woman named Bassett. The Bassett woman claimed to have been a maid in Margaret Somers’ employ in Biarritz, and that Margaret Somers had there given birth to a child.”
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