American Sherlocks

by Nick Rennison

  Madelyn was leaning against the maple when we reached her. Senator Duffield said gravely, as he pointed to the gnarled trunk, ‘You are standing just at the point where the woman waited, Miss Mack.’

  ‘Woman?’

  ‘I refer to the assassin,’ the Senator rejoined a trifle impatiently. ‘Judging by our fragmentary clues, she must have been hidden behind the trunk when poor Rennick appeared on the driveway. We found her slipper somewhat to the left of the tree – a matter of eight or ten feet, I should say.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Madelyn listlessly. I fancied that she was somewhat annoyed that we had followed her.

  ‘An odd clue, that slipper,’ the Senator continued with an obvious attempt to maintain the conversation. ‘If we were disposed to be fanciful, it might suggest the childhood legend of Cinderella.’ Madelyn did not answer. She stood leaning back against the tree with her eyes wandering about the yard. Once I saw her gaze flash down the driveway to the open gate, where the detective, Martin, stood watching us furtively.

  ‘Nora,’ she said, without turning, ‘will you kindly walk six steps to your right?’

  I knew better than to ask the reason for the request. With a shrug, I faced toward the house and came to a pause at the end of the stipulated distance.

  ‘Is Miss Noraker standing where Mr Rennick’s body was found, Senator?’

  ‘She will strike the exact spot, I think, if she takes two steps more.’

  I had hardly obeyed the suggestion when I caught the swift rustle of skirts behind me. I whirled to see Madelyn’s lithe form darting toward me with her right hand raised as though it held a weapon.

  ‘Good!’ she cried. ‘I call you to witness, Senator, that I was fully six feet away when she turned! Now I want you to take Miss Noraker’s place. The instant you hear me behind you – the instant, mind you – I want you to let me know.’ She walked back to the tree as the Senator reluctantly changed places with me. I could almost picture the murderess dashing upon her victim as Madelyn bent forward. The Senator turned his back to us with a rather ludicrous air of bewilderment.

  My erratic friend had covered perhaps half of the distance between her and our host when he spun about with a cry of discovery. She paused with a long breath.

  ‘Thank you, Senator. What first attracted your attention to me?’

  ‘The rustle of your dress, of course!’ Madelyn turned to me with the first smile of satisfaction I had seen since we entered the Duffield gate.

  ‘Was the same true in your case, Nora?’

  I nodded. ‘The fact that you are a woman hopelessly betrayed you. If you had not been hampered by petticoats –’ Madelyn broke in upon my sentence with that peculiar freedom which she always reserves to herself. ‘There are two things I would like to ask of you, Senator, if I may.’

  ‘I am at your disposal, I assure you.’

  ‘I would like to borrow a Boston directory, and the services of a messenger.’

  We walked slowly up the driveway, Madelyn again relapsing into her preoccupied silence and Senator Duffield making no effort to induce her to speak.

  IV

  We had nearly reached the verandah when there was the sound of a motor at the gate, and a red touring car swept into the yard. An elderly, clean-shaven man, in a long frock coat and a broad-brimmed felt hat, was sharing the front seat with the chauffeur. He sprang to the ground with extended hand as our host stepped forward to greet him. The two exchanged half a dozen low sentences at the side of the machine, and then Senator Duffield raised his voice as they approached us.

  ‘Miss Mack, allow me to introduce my colleague, Senator Burroughs.’

  ‘I have heard of you, of course, Miss Mack,’ the Senator said genially, raising his broad-brimmed hat with a flourish. ‘I am very glad, indeed, that you are able to give us the benefit of your experience in this, er – unfortunate affair. I presume that it is too early to ask if you have developed a theory?’

  ‘I wonder if you would allow me to reverse the question?’ Madelyn responded as she took his hand.

  ‘I fear that my detective ability would hardly be of much service to you, eh, Duffield?’

  Our host smiled faintly as he turned to repeat to a servant Madelyn’s request for a directory and a messenger. Senator Burroughs folded his arms as his chauffeur circled on toward the garage. There was an odd suggestion of nervousness in the whole group. Or was it fancy?

  ‘Have you ever given particular study to the legal angle in your cases, Miss Mack?’ The question came from Senator Burroughs as we ascended the steps.

  ‘The legal angle? I am afraid I don’t grasp your meaning.’

  The Senator’s hand moved mechanically toward his cigar case. ‘I am a lawyer, and perhaps I argue unduly from a lawyer’s viewpoint. We always work from the question of motive, Miss Mack. A professional detective, I believe – or, at least, the average professional detective – tries to find the criminal first and establish his motive afterward.’

  ‘Now, in a case such as this, Senator –’

  ‘In a case such as this, Miss Mack, the trained legal mind would delve first for the motive in Mr Rennick’s assassination.’

  ‘And your legal mind, Senator, I presume, has delved for the motive. Has it found it?’

  The Senator turned his unlighted cigar reflectively between his lips. ‘I have not found it! Eliminating the field of sordid passion and insanity, I divide the motives of the murderer under three heads – robbery, jealousy and revenge. In the present case, I eliminate the first possibility at the outset. There remain then only the two latter.’

  ‘You are interesting. You forget, however, a fourth motive – the strongest spur to crime in the human mind!’

  Senator Burroughs took his cigar from his mouth.

  ‘I mean the motive of – fear!’ Madelyn said abruptly, as she swept into the house. When I followed her, Senator Burroughs had walked over to the railing and stood staring down at the ground below. He had tossed his cigar away.

  In the room where we had breakfasted, one of the stable boys stood awkwardly awaiting Madelyn Mack’s orders, while John Dorrence, the valet, was just laying a city directory on the table.

  ‘Nora,’ she said, as she turned to the boy, ‘will you kindly look up the list of packing houses?’

  ‘Pick out the largest and give me the address,’ she continued, as I ran my finger through the closely typed pages. With a growing curiosity, I selected a firm whose prestige was advertised in heavy letters. Madelyn’s fountain pen scratched a dozen lines across a sheet of her note-book, and she thrust it into an envelope and extended it to the stable lad.

  As the youth backed from the room, Senator Duffield appeared at the window.

  ‘I presume it will be possible for me to see Mr Rennick’s body, Senator?’ Madelyn Mack asked.

  Our host bowed.

  ‘Also, I would like to look at his clothes – the suit he was wearing at the time of his death, I mean – and, when I am through, I want twenty or thirty minutes alone in his room. If Mr Taylor should arrive before I am through, will you kindly let me know?’

  ‘I can assure you, Miss Mack, that the police have been through Mr Rennick’s apartment with a microscope.’

  ‘Then there can be no objection to my going through it with mine! By the way, Mr Rennick’s glasses – the pair that was found under his body – were packed with his clothes, were they not?’

  ‘Certainly,’ the Senator responded.

  I did not accompany Madelyn into the darkened room where the corpse of the murdered man was reposing. To my surprise, she rejoined me in less than five minutes.

  ‘What did you find?’ I queried as we ascended the stairs.

  ‘A five-inch cut just above the sixth rib.’

  ‘That is what the newspapers said.’

  ‘You are mistaken. They said a three-inch
cut. Have you ever tried to plunge a dagger through five inches of human flesh?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  Accustomed as I was to Madelyn Mack’s eccentricities, I stood stock still and stared into her face.

  ‘Oh, I’m not a murderess! I refer to my dissecting room experiences.’

  We had reached the upper hall when there was a quick movement at my shoulder, and I saw my companion’s hand dart behind my waist. Before I could quite grasp the situation, she had caught my right arm in a grip of steel. For an instant I thought she was trying to force me back down the stairs. Then the force of her hold wrung a low cry of pain from my lips. She released me with a rueful apology.

  ‘Forgive me, Nora! For a woman, I pride myself that I have a strong wrist!’

  ‘Yes, I think you have!’

  ‘Perhaps now you can appreciate what I mean when I say that even I haven’t strength enough to inflict the wound that killed Raymond Rennick!’

  ‘Then we must be dealing with an Amazon.’

  ‘Would Cinderella’s missing slipper fit an Amazon?’ she answered drily.

  As she finished her sentence, we paused before a closed door which I rightly surmised led into the room of the murdered secretary. Madelyn’s hand was on the knob when there was a step behind us, and Senator Duffield joined us with a rough bundle in his hands.

  ‘Mr Rennick’s clothes,’ he explained. Madelyn nodded.

  ‘Inspector Taylor left them in my care to hold until the inquest.’

  Madelyn flung the door open without any comment and led the way inside. Slipping the string from the bundle, she emptied the contents out on to the counterpane of the bed. They comprised the usual warm weather outfit of a well-dressed man, who evidently avoided the extremes of fashion, and she deftly sorted the articles into small neat piles. She glanced up with an expression of impatience.

  ‘I thought you said they were here, Mr Duffield!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mr Rennick’s glasses! Where are they?’

  Senator Duffield fumbled in his pocket. ‘I beg your pardon, Miss Mack. I had overlooked them,’ he apologized, as he produced a thin paper parcel.

  Madelyn carried it to the window and carefully unwrapped it.

  ‘You will find the spectacles rather badly damaged, I fear. One lens is completely ruined.’

  Madelyn placed the broken glasses on the sill, and raised the blind to its full height. Then she dropped to her knees and whipped out her microscope. When she arose, her small, black-clad figure was tense with suppressed excitement.

  A fat oak chiffonier stood in the corner nearest her. Crossing to its side, she rummaged among the articles that littered its surface, opened and closed the top drawer, and stepped back with an expression of annoyance. A writing table was the next point of her search, with results which I judged to be equally fruitless. She glanced uncertainly from the bed to the three chairs, the only other articles of furniture that the room contained. Then her eyes lighted again as they rested on the broad, carved mantel that spanned the empty fire-place.

  It held the usual collection of bric-a-brac of a bachelor’s room. At the end farthest from us, however, there was a narrow red case, of which I caught only an indistinct view, when Madelyn’s hand closed over it.

  She whirled toward us. ‘I must ask you to leave me alone now, please!’

  The Senator flushed at the peremptory command. I stepped into the hall and he followed me, with a shrug. He was closing the door when Madelyn raised her voice. ‘If Inspector Taylor is below, kindly send him up at once!’

  ‘And what about the inquest, Miss Mack?’

  ‘There will be no inquest – today!’

  Senator Duffield led the way downstairs without a word. In the hall below, a ruddy-faced man, with grey hair, a thin grey beard and moustache, and a grey suit – suggesting an army officer in civilian clothes – was awaiting us. I could readily imagine that Inspector Taylor was something of a disciplinarian in the Boston police department. Also, relying on Madelyn Mack’s estimate, he was one of the three shrewdest detectives on the American continent.

  Senator Duffield hurried toward him with a suggestion of relief. ‘Miss Mack is upstairs, Inspector, and requested me to send you to her the moment you arrived.’

  ‘Is she in Mr Rennick’s room?’

  The Senator nodded. The Inspector hesitated as though about to ask another question and then, as though thinking better of it, bowed and turned to the stairs.

  Inspector Taylor was one of those few policemen who had the honour of being numbered among Madelyn Mack’s personal friends, and I fancied that he welcomed the news of her arrival.

  Fletcher Duffield was chatting somewhat aimlessly with Senator Burroughs as we sauntered out into the yard again. None of the ladies of the family was visible. The plain-clothes man was still lounging disconsolately in the vicinity of the gate. There was a sense of unrest in the scene, a vague expectancy. Although no one voiced the suggestion, we might all have been waiting to catch the first clap of distant thunder.

  As Senator Duffield joined the men, I wandered across to the dining room window. I fancied the room was deserted, but I was mistaken. As I faced about toward the driveway, a low voice caught my ear from behind the curtains.

  ‘You are Miss Mack’s friend, are you not? No, don’t turn around, please!’

  But I had already faced toward the open door. At my elbow was a white-capped maid – with her face almost as white as her cap – whom I remembered to have seen at breakfast.

  ‘Yes, I am Miss Mack’s friend. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I have a message for her. Will you see that she gets it?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Tell her that I was at the door of Senator Duffield’s library the night before the murder.’

  My face must have expressed my bewilderment. For an instant I fancied the girl was about to run from the room. I stepped through the window and put my arm about her shoulders. She smiled faintly.

  ‘I don’t know much about the law, and evidence, and that sort of thing – and I’m afraid! You will take care of me, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course, I will, Anna. Your name is Anna, isn’t it?’

  The girl was rapidly recovering her self-possession. ‘I thought you ought to know what happened Tuesday night. I was passing the door of the library – it was fairly late, about ten o’clock, I think – when I heard a man’s voice inside the room. It was a loud angry voice like that of a person in a quarrel. Then I heard a second voice, lower and much calmer.’

  ‘Did you recognize the speakers?’

  ‘They were Mr Rennick and Senator Duffield!’

  I caught my breath. ‘You said one of them was angry. Which was it?’

  ‘Oh, it was the Senator! He was very much excited and worked up. Mr Rennick seemed to be speaking very low.’

  ‘What were they saying, Anna?’ I tried to make my tones careless and indifferent, but they trembled in spite of myself.

  ‘I couldn’t catch what Mr Rennick said. The Senator was saying some dreadful things. I remember he cried, “You swindlers!” And then a bit later, “I have evidence that should put you and your thieving crew behind the bars!” I think that is all. I was too bewildered to –’

  A stir on the lawn interrupted the sentence. Madelyn Mack and Inspector Taylor had appeared. At the sound of their voices, the girl broke from my arm and darted toward the door.

  Through the window, I heard the Inspector’s heavy tones, as he announced curtly, ‘I am telephoning the coroner, Senator, that we are not ready for the inquest today. We must postpone it until tomorrow.’

  V

  The balance of the day passed without incident. In fact, I found the subdued quiet of the Duffield home becoming irksome as evening fell. I saw little of Madelyn Mack. She disappeared shortly afte
r luncheon behind the door of her room, and I did not see her again until the dressing bell rang for dinner. Senator Duffield left for the city with Mr Burroughs at noon, and his car did not bring him back until dark. The women of the family remained in their apartments during the entire day, nor could I wonder at the fact. A morbid crowd of curious sight-seers was massed about the gates almost constantly, and it was necessary to send a call for two additional policemen to keep them back. In spite of the vigilance, frequent groups of newspaper men managed to slip into the grounds, and, after half a dozen experiences in frantically dodging a battery of cameras, I decided to stick to the shelter of the house.

  It was with a feeling of distinct relief that I heard the door of Madelyn’s room open and her voice called to me to enter. I found her stretched on a lounge before the window, with a mass of pillows under her head.

  ‘Been asleep?’ I asked.

  ‘No – to tell the truth, I’ve been too busy.’

  ‘What? In this room!’

  ‘This is the first time I’ve been here since noon!’

  ‘Then where –’

  ‘Nora, don’t ask questions!’

  I turned away with a shrug that brought a laugh from the lounge. Madelyn rose and shook out her skirts. I sat watching her as she walked across to the mirror and stood patting the great golden masses of her hair.

  A low tap on the door interrupted her. Dorrence, the valet, stood outside as she opened it, extending an envelope. Madelyn fumbled it as she walked back. She let the envelope flutter to the floor and I saw that it contained only a blank sheet of paper. She thrust it into her pocket without explanation.

  ‘How would you like a long motor ride, Nora?’

  ‘For business or pleasure?’

  ‘Pleasure! The day’s work is finished. I don’t know whether you agree with me or not, but I am strongly of the opinion that a whirl out under the elms of Cambridge, and then on to Concord and Lexington, would be delightful in the moonlight. What do you say?’

  The clock was hovering on the verge of midnight and the household had retired when we returned. Madelyn was in singularly cheery spirits. The low refrain which she was humming as the car swung into the grounds – Schubert’s Serenade, I think it was – ceased only when we stepped on to the verandah, and realized that we were entering the house of the dead.