The Trigger of Conscience (Detective Story serial)/Part 3
[ PART III ]
SYNOPSIS OF PRECEDING CHAPTERS.
The Halloween dance of the Broadlawns Country Club is suddenly terminated by the tragic death of the new house secretary. The murdered man, known to the members of the club as James Grant, is Detective James Doyle of O'Hare's Agency, in the city. He has been secretly installed by the house committee to prevent a repetition of the robbery which occurred at the last big dance of the club. At midnight, when the lights had been lowered, he was standing under a dragon lantern on the veranda. The fatal shot came from inside through an open window. The secretary of the club, Samuel Estridge, a well-known criminal lawyer, immediately sends Jack Fraser in his car for Sheriff Coburn and Coroner Fellowes. Under his instructions Rutherford Sowerby, the banker, telephones to the O'Hare Agency. The dancers, who include dapper Philip Dorrance and his middle-aged wife, “Empress Josephine,” Ogden Bowles, a broker of forty, who has brought the beautiful Mrs. Carter, Ralph Fraser of Texas, a guest of his brother Jack, Mrs. de Forest and her niece, young Alice Dare, who is in love with Gerald Landon, a youth in Sowerby's bank—all gather in the rotunda of the club. Maud Sowerby, the young wife of the elderly banker, is made hysterical by the tragedy, and she has to be taken home at once. On his arrival, Renwick Crane, the famous detective from the O'Hare Agency, learns from the coroner that Doyle was shot through the heart. The inquest is set for Monday, and the guests are allowed to depart. Crane has a word with Mrs. Carter, and Mrs. de Forest assures him she heard two reports from a pistol. Sheriff Coburn retains Mrs. de Forest's necklace, which was found in the dragon lantern. Crane infers two people may have been concerned in the robbery, and two people may be responsible for Doyle's death.
CHAPTER VII.
Man in the Bushes.
When O'Hare's star detective finally escorted Mrs. de Forest back to the entrance hall they found it occupied solely by the latter's niece. Alice Dare rose sleepily at their approach.
“Are you ready to go home now, auntie?” she asked in the dazed accents of a child suddenly awakened. “The car's been waiting for ever so long.”
“Then it can wait a few minutes longer!” the elderly lady retorted tartly. “Alice, this is Mr. Crane. He has come out to investigate the death of that other detective. My niece, Alice Dare.”
The sleepy look vanished all at once from the girl's eyes. In its place there came a swift gleam of apprehension, but she responded to the introduction and added hesitatingly: “It—it was terrible, of course, Mr. Crane! I do hope you will be able to find out who did it. How could any one”
“Alice!” her aunt interrupted her. “I managed to keep my eyes on you most of the evening, but I couldn't locate you every minute in the crowd that was here. Where were you standing when the lights were lowered for the singing at midnight?”
“Auntie!” Horrified incredulity sharpened the girl's tones. 'Surely you and—and Mr. Crane don't think that I saw anything! Wouldn't I have told? I had the last dance with Mr. Jack Fraser, and when the clock struck twelve and the music stopped so abruptly, we halted over there, just between the doors of the billiard room and the entrance to the conservatory. We stood there together, my hand still tucked in his arm, and sang with the rest until—until that awful shot came. Mrs. Jack and Mr. Ralph Fraser were just beside us.”
“Let me see.” Renwick Crane gazed speculatively across the big, almost circular hall. “If you stood near the door of the billiard room, Miss Dare, only the door of the secretary's office and the hall leading to the rear separated you from the main staircase. In that case, your partner, and the other couple were not at an acute angle from the window there, where the dragon lantern hung. Although you were not in a direct line with it, of course, had you any idea, any impression of the direction from which the shot was fired?”
“Why, no!” she said. “I didn't even know it was a shot until the lights went up and everybody rushed out on the veranda. I was carried along with the crowd, but I didn't realize what had happened. If any impression came to me at all it was that the noise was outside—the back-firing of one of the cars or a bursting tire. Couldn't the shot have come from out there, somewhere? It seemed to sort of echo.”
Mrs. de Forest darted a quick glance at the detective, but his face remained impassive.
“Anything is possible at this stage of the investigation, Miss Dare,” he responded. Then, turning to the older woman, he added: “I will not detain you ladies any longer. May I escort you to your car? You must both be very tired, and I have much to do in the next few hours.”
When next he reëntered the deserted hall, Crane paused for a time on the threshold. Meditatively he surveyed the main staircase directly opposite, the two hall offices—one open, one so significantly closed—which flanked it, and the various doors and alcove entrances to her rooms of the club.
Drawing an envelope and pencil from his pocket he made a rapid sketch, placing crosses and initials here and there. With a satisfied nod he returned them to his pocket just as the coroner appeared in the hall leading to the rear.
“I thought you had gone, doctor,” he remarked. “I've just got rid of the last of the club members who were here when I arrived. I presume you have depositions from those who had already left?”
“The sheriff and I got what we could from them, but it wasn't much—mostly hysteria on the part of the women and a muddle of conflicting and unwanted opinions on the part of the men,” Doctor Fellowes replied. “With the exception of a Mr. and Mrs. Dorrance and Mrs. Sowerby, those you met were the only ones, as far as I have have been able to discover, Mr. Crane, who seemed capable of giving us any assistance in our investigation. The only members or guests, I mean. Murdock, the steward, was was behind his desk—there to the left of the staircase. I've just come from having a little talk with him.”
“I should like to interview him myself if it is not too late,” remarked Crane. “Those three members of the house committee have gone home, I suppose.”
Dr. Fellowes chuckled. “Mr. Fraser took his wife home, and his brother accompanied him, but old President Sowerby wouldn't budge a foot until they telephoned from his house that his wife was in hysterics. He went then, all right, but you could hear him swearing all down the drive. He's voice covered the noise of his car. He's afraid he'll miss something, or Lawyer Estridge will get in ahead of him on the investigation.”
“Is Mr. Estridge still here?”
“Yes. He's waiting in the billiard room for a word with you when you have finished interviewing the witnesses. Murdock will stay up until Mr. Bowles returns. He'll show you to your room and see that you are comfortable. He's an odd character—that steward,” the coroner added reflectively. “I've known him around here ever since the club was built, and I can't make him out. Anybody can see that he's taking what happened last night mighty hard, and yet, for all that, he doesn't forget a detail of his duties. He appears to be half man and half machine.”
“Oh, well, if he is going to tuck me in to-night—or rather, this morning—I won't bother to talk to him now. I think I'll see what Mr. Estridge wants with me and then turn in for an hour. I suppose that Murdock is not in solitary charge?”
Doctor Fellowes responded to the implied question with simple directness.
“Sheriff Coburn is on the job, and he has an eye on him as well as on all the rest within doors. I think you must have seen the constable on the porch out there just now. We've no more occasion to suspect Murdock than any one else in the building. I'm bound to tell you, Mr. Crane, that we've searched the club from top to bottom, and we can't afford to take chances on anybody leaving it now, who either belongs here or might have sneaked in past the guards in the grounds. Well, I'll get on home and to bed for an hour or two before the autopsy.”
“Before you do perform it, doctor, I wish you'd phone to me up here at the club. I want to come down and have a look at the body as it was when you first saw it,” Crane said earnestly. “I'm not asking this for sentimental reasons alone, though I liked Jim, and we'd worked on many a case together, but because it may help me in my own investigation. We are not rivals, you know, sir, but partners—you and the sheriff and I—and it is not my chief's wish or mine to have me appear in the case at all. The only thing we are after is to find out who murdered Jim Doyle and have the guilty party get what's coming to him or to them.”
The coroner held out his hand. “I'm sure of that, Mr. Crane, and I'll be glad to phone to you in time. If you and your chief want to avenge the death of one of your own men, Sheriff Coburn and I—even more than the members of this ciub—because we're natives here—want to find out the truth and clear the name of the village as well as the club of Broadlawns. I guess we can work together, all right! Good night, or rather, good morning!”
The genial doctor departed, and Crane turned thoughtfully toward the billiard room. Within, stretched out upon one of the wide leather seats, which divided the wall space with the cue racks, he found Samuel Estridge. The lawyer's eyes were closed and his hands were peacefully relaxed at his sides.
Thinking that the other was asleep, the detective was about to retreat, but Estridge opened his eyes and arose. “Have you finished with the witnesses, Crane?” he asked. “I don't want to urge you to tell me anything that you would prefer to keep to yourself at this time. I haven't waited here to bother you with my half-baked theories, but to offer you any possible assistance that I can. As the secretary of the club and one of its old members, I may be able to help you with the identity and the position of the members. Murdock, the steward, can furnish you with a list of the entire club membership, and the coroner, being the general medical practitioner of the neighborhood could probably tell you a great deal about their idiosyncracies, but”
He paused suggestively, and Crane smiled and finished for him. “But he represents the local authorities, at least until the inquest. I do not think he could tell me anything, Mr. Estridge, that would be of material assistance to me at this stage of my investigation, but you can help me a lot if you will. Just who, for instance, are the Frasers?”
“Thoroughly good people in every way,” replied the attorney emphatically. “I'd vouch for them personally any time. Jack Fraser is manager of the Mexamer Oil Company's New York branch, and his wife is a fine little woman. They have lived out here for six or seven years.”
“And Mr. Jack Fraser's brother?” pursued Crane.
“He's something of a stranger here, the guest of the Jack Frasers. Ralph Fraser comes from Texas, and President Sowerby likes him; he's had some dealings with him at the bank. He seems to be all right.” Estridge paused suddenly and then added: “He might be of some technical assistance to you, for I understand that he is quite an amateur enthusiast about weapons of all kinds, especially firearms.”
“I may call upon him. What about the young girl—the niece of Mrs. de Forest—she is an heiress isn't she?” asked the detective perfunctorily.
Estridge smiled in his turn.
“On the contrary, the child is an orphan without a penny of her own, but, according to present indications, she will not be dependent upon her aunt for long. That good-looking Landon boy, who is a house guest of the Frasers, has a responsible position in Sowerby's bank and—but I'm talking like a gossipy, romantic old maid!” He shrugged good-naturedly. “Anybody else I can tip you off about?”
“I haven't interviewed Murdock yet, but the coroner says he is an odd sort of character,” Crane remarked.
The attorney eyed him keenly for a minute. “We've always found Murdock straight enough,” he said at last. “He's a taciturn individual, but there has never been any criticism as to the way he performed his duties. Beyond that I do not believe that we've thought much about him, one way or another.”
“I see,” Crane replied. “Do the other people whom I interviewed to-night all belong to the club? The red-haired lady, Mrs. Carter, for one instance?”
"Yes. She came here two or three years ago from the South and bought the Horton cottage.” Once more Estridge's gaze narrowed. “As I told you, I do not want to force your confidence, Crane, but why do you ask about these people in particular?”
“I am going to take you into my confidence, Mr. Estridge.” The detective spoke frankly. “Preposterous as it appear to mention any of them in connection with the case, I have discovered so far in my investigation six people, and only six, who, from their positions alone, could have fired through that window before which the dragon lantern hung. It is possible, of course, that some one may have crouched in the rear hall beside the main staircase, and, after shooting, have retreated in the direction of the kitchen and pantries, but we must take up the more obvious positions first. Murdock was behind his desk, and and Mrs. Carter on the staircase.”
The attorney frowned. “Except in your ordinary routine I think Mrs. Carter may be safely eliminated, but you spoke of six persons. Who were the other four?”
“The two Fraser brothers and Mrs. Jack Fraser with little Miss Dare stood here, near the door of the billiard room. This room, as you know, is separated by the secretary's locked door and the narrow rear hall from the main staircase. These are the only people I have as yet found who were within a radius of that window.”
Samuel Estridge paced thoughtfully across the room. When he turned the frown had disappeared, and his face resumed its wonted impassivity, as though a mask had fallen over it, obliterating all expression.
“I am glad that we are speaking confidentially, Mr. Crane, for you can realize that I am in rather a delicate position as one of the house committee,” he remarked smoothly. “As I told you I have no possible theory to offer, but may I voice a suggestion? Is there a chance that the shot which killed Doyle might have been intended for another? I mean, could he have been mistaken there in the shadows outside the window for some one else?”
The detective shook his head. “The bullet which killed Jim Doyle was intended for him alone,” he responded decidedly. “It is a pity that you yourself were not nearer than the cardroom at that moment, Mr. Estridge. I should like to have had your opinion of the sound of that shot!”
“There were many other people in the rotunda at the time,” Estridge remarked. “It appears almost a miracle that the bullet should have threaded its way among them to the window, but I presume that, when the dancing stopped, they insensibly divided into little groups and backed against the wall, leaving the center of the hall clear. You haven't interviewed Mr. and Mrs. Philip Dorrance, or Mrs. Rutherford Sowerby. They were permitted to depart before your arrival. But, I believe, they were also in the rotunda when the lights were lowered for the singing. Then there is another guest of the club, Ogden Bowles—but I forgot. He was standing in the door of the smaller supper room, out of range, wasn't he?”
There was a wearied note in the attorney's tones, but it was now Crane's turn to regard the other sharply. In court Estridge had never been known to let the most minor and irrelevant detail of a case slip his alert mind. What the detective read in his countenance, however, was merely a look of blank fatigue, and he decided that there was nothing further to be gained by prolonging the interview.
“I'll see the rest of them later, and, in the meantime, I won't detain you now, Mr. Estridge. I've got to have a talk with Murdock and then get an hour's sleep before I tackle the job again.”
“I have a small cottage near here where I keep bachelor's hall. Any one can direct you to it. If you care to come to me in strict confidence, as you have just now, I shall be glad to give you the assistance of any information which may occur to me.” The attorney held out his hand. “Until I see you again, Mr. Crane.”
The village constable had long since ceased his vigil when the two emerged upon the veranda, and the dragon lantern, in common with all the others, had vanished. Before the window where it had hung, instead of the sinister crimson stain, there now appeared a freshly scrubbed space upon the floor, which glistened in a ray of the morning sun, and the steward arose from his knees at their approach. He seemed as little disconcerted, as though the brush and pail were his usual implements of employment, but he addressed himself apologetically to the attorney.
“None of the servants would touch this, sir, and, after taking down the lanterns, I thought best”
“You took down the lanterns?” Estridge asked.
“Just now, sir.” The deprecation deepened in his tone. “It should have been done before, but a person from the village told me he had orders that nothing was to be disturbed, indoors or out.”
“Ah, quite right; that was the constable, no doubt.” Estridge turned to Crane and, indicating the steward, announced: “This is Murdock. He will show you to your room and answer any questions you may choose to put to him.”
Murdock bowed slightly. “Mr. Crane's room is ready for him, sir. The coroner told me to have it prepared.” He seemed scarcely to glance at the detective, but addressed himself once more to the attorney. “Here is your car being brought around now, sir. Mr. Bowles returned a few moments ago and retired at once, but he instructed me to awaken him if he could be of any service to you.”
“He cannot. I am going home and follow his example, Murdock. So long, Mr. Crane, and good luck.” Estridge descended the steps and was climbing into his car when a subdued hubbub arose from around the east corner of the veranda, and a man appeared, his bulldog features alive with excitement.
“Mr. Estridge! Stop a minute, sir! There's been more dirty work here last night! One of our boys, that was stationed on the lawn on that side of the house is lying in a clump of bushes with a gash on the back of his head that you could put your two fingers in!”
Estridge started back as Crane descended the steps. The detective explained, a slight tremble for once manifest in his level tones, “It is one of the I men I had sent out from the city for last night. He isn't dead, Saunders?”
“No, but he's dead to the world!” Saunders responded. “He's laid out with one of the nastiest swipes I ever saw, and I'm blessed if I know how any one could have got to him and hit him hard enough with this to lay his head open!”
As he spoke he held out in the palm of his hand something which glittered in the sun, and the attorney motioned to Crane to take it. The latter complied, and, after an instant's glance at it, he and Estridge gazed at each other in wordless questioning.
The object which the detective held Was a tiny pistol almost as small as a toy, but upon its highly-polished barrel appeared a dark blotch; the second sinister indication they were to behold of that night's work.
CHAPTER VIII.
In the Boxwood Bushes.
Go and call the sheriff, Murdock!” Estridge turned with a start to where the steward stood gaping at them from the veranda. Then to Saunders he added: “Show Mr. Crane and myself where he is. Which one of the boys is it? Who found him?”
Saunders stared at the mention of the private detective's name. Rousing himself he replied to the last question first.
“I did, sir. The head cook was having us in the kitchen in relays for some hot coffee, and I went looking for Pete Lindsay—that's who it is. He was on the stand for you in the Lockwood case. I knew about where he'd been stationed last night, and I called, but got no answer, and finally I see the two feet of him sticking out from underneath these bushes.”
While he talked Saunders had led them around the corner of the club house to a clump of ancient boxwood. Here, on the edge of the driveway, a short, figure lay motionless. The man's broad, freckled face was upturned in the sunlight, and his arms were extended helplessly above his head.
“I dragged him out by the feet, just after your car passed around to the front, Mr. Estridge,” explained Saunders. “The little toy pistol was winking up at me from the grass, and I picked it up, and then, as I turn Pete over and see that he was still breathing, I didn't stop to call for anybody, but I ran to catch you before you should beat it away.”
“He was lying squarely on his back in the bushes?” Crane spoke for the first time.
“No, on his side. His feet was kind of twisted one over the other.” Saunders glanced again at the tiny weapon in the detective's grasp. “It must have taken a guy with an arm like a pile driver to crown him and lay him out cold with that toy thing, let alone to sneak up on him from behind through those thick bushes.”
“That is just what I was thinking,” Crane remarked. Thrusting the pistol into his hip pocket he suddenly dived into the mass of shrubbery, just as Sheriff Coburn appeared on the run, the anxious-eyed Murdock trotting discreetly in the rear. Between them they carried the unconscious man into the clubhouse and placed him on the steward's bed. Estridge went to the private telephone booth in the locker room to summon Doctor Fellowes.
In the excitement none of them had observed the fact that the detective had not accompanied them within doors. As the attorney emerged from the booth he found Crane awaiting him.
“What do you think of this latest development, Mr. Estridge?” the latter asked.
“Frankly I am almost past the stage of coherent thought!” Estridge responded. “I have handled many a bizarre case in court in my time, but this outranks them all! Of course that terrific blow on Lindsay's head could never have been caused by the tiny weapon which Saunders found, no matter what strength lay behind it—that is a foregone conclusion.”
“Not if the pistol were used to strike with, perhaps, but suppose it had been thrown?”
“What?”
“A missile as light and small as that, if flung from a distance and—let us say—height of one story from the ground, might have caused such a wound, provided that Lindsay's back was turned to the house and his head uncovered.” Then, as the attorney still stared, Crane continued: “If he were lighting his pipe, contrary to orders, and had taken off his cap to shield the flame of the match that pistol thrown at random from one of the upper windows might well have found an unintentional mark.”
“Great heavens!” Estridge exclaimed. “But who was upstairs?”
“I should very much like to know who was on the second floor when the lights were lowered at midnight, or who might have slipped past Mrs. Carter on the stairs, immediately after the shot was fired.” There was a note of added seriousness in the detective's tones. “I found these in the bushes just now. They must have dropped from Lindsay's hands as he fell.” From his coat pocket he drew a crumpled cap, sodden with dew, a pipe with a small quantity of unlighted tobacco still adhering to the bottom of the bowl, and a thin packet of matches.
“But could any one have passed Mrs. Carter on the stairs without her knowledge?” Estridge asked. “On the other hand, if some one were already on the second floor when the lights were lowered, how could they have shot Doyle below on the veranda?”
“Mrs. Carter has stated that the sound of the shooting dazed and numbed her faculties. In such a condition some one might have slipped past in either direction, for the staircase is wide, remember,” Crane replied. “If any one were hiding upstairs, awaiting that moment, they could have crept down a few steps, fired, and then retreating, thrown the pistol from an upper window. If the autopsy shows that the bullet took a sharply downward course and was of a caliber to fit this tiny weapon the conclusion is inevitable.”
He produced the pistol once more, and Estridge exclaimed impatiently:
“We're getting nowhere, man! Nothing but a series of suppositions. An examination of this pistol should show whether a shot had been fired from it, and how recently. Then, when the owner of it is discovered, or at least the identity of the person in whose possession it was last seen, the matter will be fairly obvious. Only one bullet was fired at Doyle.”
The detective smiled slightly. “You heard it merely as a muffled report, Mr. Estridge; that is a pity. One witness has already voiced the opinion that two distinct detonations, so close together as to be almost simultaneous, rang through the rotunda, and that witness was unconsciously corroborated by another who said that the shot seemed to 'echo.' One cartridge only has been fired within the last few hours from this pistol, but was it the bullet which killed Doyle? Here is Doctor Fellowes in his car. While he attends to your man, Lindsay, I think I will just have a look about the second floor.”
The doctor found the second victim of the night suffering from a bad scalp wound, but already conscious.
“What hit me?” the latter repeated faintly over and over. “I didn't see nothin', nor hear a step. All of a sudden somethin' fetched me a crack, and what little light there was went out for fair!”
“You are sure you didn't hear anything?” Samuel Estridge insisted, as Doctor Fellowes deftly dressed the wound. “I don't mean a step behind you, when you turned to light your pipe, contrary to orders, Lindsay, but a sound of any sort, in or near the clubhouse, other than the music and singing.”
The man made a sheepish grimace of admission.
“I don't know how you found out about my pipe, Mr. Estridge, but my throat was parched for a smoke. I heard the song stop with a bang and a lot of women hollerin', but they'd been makin' a racket all the evenin', and you couldn't tell whether they was laughin' or cryin'. I'd had my orders not to interfere, and I thought it was all part of the fun. I turned my back to light up for just a minute when somethin' crowned me.”
“You heard no other sound?” Estridge's tones had taken on a deeper note. “Just an instant before you were struck, I mean. Think, Lindsay!”
Lindsay contracted that part of his brow which was visible from beneath the bandage in a painful effort at concentration. “Seems to me there was a kind of a scraping noise, but I supposed it was the branches of trees rubbin' together. I ain't used to country sounds, and I didn't think nothin' of it.”
In the meantime the detective had hastened up the staircase. The main upper hall ran the entire width of the clubhouse, with a window at each end. Lesser halls branched off from it toward the rear, and around the gallery to the front were the ladies' dressing and cloakrooms. Crane gave a cursory glance into one or two of the rooms which lined the back corridors and were evidently intended for the use of transient guests. Then he turned his attention to the windows. That at the left end of the hall was closed, but the other had been opened, and the detective walked quickly over to it and glanced out. As he had expected, it looked directly down upon the driveway from the garage and the clump of boxwood before which Lindsay had been stationed. It would not have taken a particularly muscular throw or deliberate aim to have struck him that blow, even had he had time to light the match and reveal his presence by its flare. If the pistol had been flung blindly straight from the window it could scarcely have avoided hitting him.
The cloak rooms, which Crane entered next, were a disordered litter of fans, handkerchiefs, and small, fancy receptacles for carrying cosmetics. The pillows on the couch in one of the dressing rooms were deeply indented, showing that some one had rested there for a part of the previous evening at least.
Nothing further of significance rewarding his efforts, the detective descended the staircase to find Murdock hovering about its foot.
“I've some coffee and toast here for you, sir,” the latter announced, wetting his thin lips nervously as he spoke. He appeared older by ten years than on the previous night, and the gray at his temples was more evident in the broad light of day.
“Thank you, Murdock.” Crane seated himself at the little table, and, as the other served him, he added: “I understand from Mr. Estridge that you have been here a long time.”
“Since the club was built, sir; that's what makes it so awful—what happened last night—aside from the shock about poor Mr. Grant. There's never been a hint of a scandal, never even a hitch in any of the entertainments, nor a complaint from a single member that was serious enough to be laid before a meeting of the board, let alone the suspicion of a crime, until last evening. I shouldn't wonder if it would entirely disrupt the club, and I was as proud of it as a member himself could have been!” Murdock, the silent, had suddenly waxed loquacious, but his tones were still habitually deferential. “From the very day that Mr. Grant came to take the place of Mr. Martin I am sure that none of the members nor club attendants had the slightest idea that he was anything more than the house secretary he pretended to be—except, of course, those who engaged him. I cannot imagine even yet why a detective should have been installed here, but as to his murder”
“Go on!” Crane commanded tersely as the other hesitated.
“Well, sir, I know it's not my place to offer an opinion, especially to a person—er—a gentleman of your experience,in such cases, but couldn't that have been the work of an outsider, someone who, perhaps, had a private grudge against him? With the crowd that was here last night there would be plenty of chance for a stranger to slip in and out unnoticed, even though I was behind my office desk there all the time.”
“You were there when the shot was fired?” Crane ignored the suggestion.
“Yes, sir. I remember that one of the hired waiters tried to pass from the rear hall to the supper room in the midst of the singing, and I was just reaching out to stop him when the sound of the shot came.”
Crane turned and regarded the broad desk top reflectively, then once more gazed at his informant.
“You stretched out your hand to touch this waiter from behind your desk?”
Murdock flushed but replied promptly: “No, sir. Now and again the gentlemen members leave their golf bags in my office, instead of taking them back to their lockers; there are usually two or three of them there, just as there were last night. When that waiter started to pass I was afraid he would disturb the singing, so I fumbled at random in one of the bags at my feet, picked out a golf club and was trying to tap him on the arm with it when the shot rang out. The club was still in my hand when I vaulted over the desk top—I was too much excited to remember the little swinging door—and ran out on the veranda with the others. I didn't see from what direction the shot came, and I hadn't even noticed Mr. Grant at the window there until we found him lying dead. Then Mr. Estridge sent me to collect the extra cooks and waiters and regular attendants in the billiard room until the sheriff and coroner should come. That's really all I can tell you, sir.”
“Did you notice any one move after the singing started, except that waiter?” Crane asked.
“No, sir.” For once Murdock raised his eyes and gazed straight into those of the detective. “I was thinking of them the song was intended for. They were all gentlemen whom I'd served for years, and who wouldn't be coming back to the club, ever.”
Crane pushed back his chair and rose. “Let me see inside that office of yours; I'd like to know just where you were standing when you heard the shot.”
Without a word Murdock turned, folded back the hinged top of the counter and, opening the narrow, gate-like door, ushered his visitor inside.
“Here, sirs. was standing right here and the waiter was there between me and the newel post when I reached down.”
“Into a golf bag at your feet, I think you said, Murdock!” The detective's tones had suddenly crisped. “Where is that bag now? There is only a shelf of ledgers under the counter.”
Murdock stared down stupidly. “Why, it's gone!” he exclaimed. “I'm positive there were three, for I had to move two for room to stand. Yes, there they are—one in front of my little safe, and the other under the letter rack. The gentleman who owned the third must have taken it home with him when he went, and he'll miss his stick. I left it in the billiard room or somewhere about, in the excitement.”
He had once more become the well-trained servant, and his distress at such a trivial error would have been almost comical under other circumstances.
“Never mind about the stick!” Crane said impatiently. “This club member must have been a very enthusiastic golfer to remember his bag at such a time. Who was he?”
“I don't know, sir.” A suspicion of a shrug lifted Murdock's lean shoulders. “If I'm busy somewhere else they just drop their bags over the counter, and this one may have belonged to a guest of one of the members. I couldn't even tell you who owns those other two.”
It was at this juncture that the coroner made his reappearance from the room where, in his capacity as physician, he had attended Lindsay. Seeing the detective he exclaimed: “Oh, there you are, Crane! Been looking for you. Thought you'd like to ride down to the village with me; you mentioned it, if you remember.”
“Thank you, doctor, I should.” Crane emerged from behind the steward's desk. “Murdock, while I'm gone you might find that golf club you spoke of and see if you can identify its owner by it. Now, doctor.”
But, as they descended the veranda steps to Doctor Fellowes' waiting car, an alert-eyed young man arose from a garden bench and came forward.
“Man about forty, gray hair at temples, walks like a cat; know him, Mr. Crane?” he asked without preamble.
“I know him,” the detective responded briefly.
“Took 'em down, without looking inside one, and carried 'em into the house heaped up in his arms, as careless as though they were a bundle of straw. Same man you found scrubbing up under the window later, but he didn't look around. Nothing more doing since.”
“All right, Jewett. Go around to the back and get some breakfast; say I sent you. When I return I'll have further instructions for you.” Crane followed the mystified doctor into the car, and, as they rattled down the drive to the open road, he added to the latter: “That was one of the operatives from our own agency whom I brought out from town. He relieved your constable in his watch over the dragon lantern. You are going to perform the autopsy now?”
“Yes. There's no doubt, of course, that the man was killed with that pistol which was found beside the body of the man I have just attended. I understand that you have it, Mr. Crane, and I'll want it as evidence at the inquest.”
“It is in my pocket now, and I will turn it over to you as soon as we reach your house, if you like,” Crane said. “It's almost as small as a toy.”
“Small enough for a woman to use, eh?” asked the other.
“Quite,” Crane acquiesced gravely. “Or for a man, either, if he wanted to throw suspicion upon a woman.”
The doctor glanced up, quickly, but he made no comment until they reached his home where, in a small outbuilding, he conducted the few autopsies he had been called upon to perform.
“Come into the house for a minute,” he said. “I want to get my instruments Hang it! There's some one in the office! I can't be bothered with patients now.”
But the big, broad-shouldered, keen-eyed man of thirty-five or more, who arose at their entrance, proved to be no patient.
“Hello, coroner!” he exclaimed in bluff, hearty tones. “My brother, Jack, suggested that I drop in to see if I could be of any assistance to you, shooting irons being my middle name. Mr. Crane, I guess you saw me in that bunch at the club a few hours ago, though you didn't put me through any third degree. I'm Ralph Fraser.”
The detective nodded pleasantly. “I remember you, Mr. Fraser. Doctor, if you will just let me have a look at the body, I'll come back and talk to your guest here until you have finished the autopsy, or until you need him.”
He accompanied the coroner to the little outbuilding, examined the body of his late associate without visible expression of other than professional interest, and then returned to the office. Ralph Fraser was pacing the worn strip of carpet, his huge, well-knit bulk seeming to fill the narrow confines of the room.
He paused expectantly, and Crane placed his hat on the table and then seated himself.
“Rotten affair, that!” Fraser observed with an expressive gesture toward the window, through which the little whitewashed building was visible. “I was right in the hall, not thirty feet from where the poor fellow stood out on the veranda, and yet I couldn't have told the direction from which the shot came!”
“That is a puzzling matter to determine sometimes,” Crane responded, and then abruptly switched the subject from the present and its attendant circumstances. He alluded to Fraser's adopted State and its resources until the coroner rejoined them. “What's the verdict, doctor?” he asked quickly before Fraser could speak. “I don't mean the details—they will keep until the inquest. If it isn't asking too much would you mind telling us in confidence what caliber bullet killed Doyle?”
“A thirty-two,” responded the coroner gravely.
The result of his disclosure was extraordinary. Fraser sprang from his chair, and his strong voice rose almost to a shout. “What! Say that again, will you, doc? You're dead certain that it was a thirty-two?”
For answer the coroner held out in his palm a tiny, steel-coated object. Fraser seized and eagerly examined it. Then, with a smothered ejaculation, he returned it, and, dropping back into his chair once more, he passed his handkerchief hastily across his forehead.
“Mr. Fraser”—Renwick Crane's incisive tones cut the tension in the air like the thrust of a knife—“what do you know of this? With what size bullet did you think Doyle had been killed? Did you think it was the other shot? The shot that missed?”
CHAPTER IX.
The Curiosity of Mrs. Sowerby.
The coroner was the first to find his voice,
“Do you mean to say, Crane, that two shots were fired at Doyle?”
“I have a witness or two who can testify that such is their personal opinion, which appears to have been corroborated by Mr. Fraser's surprise just now.” The detective turned to the latter who still sat as though dazed. “I believe you had a very definite reason for assuming that a bullet other than a thirty-two killed my colleague. Will you tell us what that reason was?”
Fraser roused himself and squared his shoulders. “No reason except an instinctive conviction based on my own knowledge of firearms,” he responded with a show of his former frank, hearty manner. “I told you a little while ago that I couldn't tell the exact direction from which the shot came; that was perfectly true, owing to the acoustics of the rotunda, but it is also true that I was absolutely certain, from the volume of sound, that the weapon used must have been a thirty-eight.”
“Yet, surely, you heard, from the coroner's preliminary examination of the body, that the wound was caused by a bullet of very small caliber,” Crane declared.
“Gentlemen, I am a stranger here, not a member of the country club, but a guest of my brother.” Fraser smiled slightly as he rose. “Down where I come from it isn't healthy for an outside party to set up his opinion against that of the folks in charge, and I thought, of course, that the autopsy would prove my conviction to be the one. That is why I dropped around this morning, and why I was so surprised just now to find that my judgment had been at fault. I must apologize to the doctor here for thinking that I knew more than he did about it, but I didn't have a glimpse of the wound, you know. I guess you wouldn't take much stock in any help I might offer you, after making such a bull as that, Doctor Fellowes. I'll be getting on back to my brother's place. I will stay on for several days' visit, though, and, if I can be of any service at any time, you will know where to find me. Mr. Crane, I shall be glad to horn in on your investigation, too, and trail along whenever you say the word.”
“You may easily have mistaken the bark of a thirty-two for that of a thirty-eight, especially since, as you say, the acoustics of the hall confused you at the moment, Mr. Fraser.” The detective's tone was pleasantly ingratiating now, but his eyes were steady and rather hard. “However, if a totally untrained ear could distinguish between two distinct, but almost simultaneous, shots, surely you would have been able to do so; that is, provided there had been two shots instead of one. It is a mere supposition as yet, of course.”
Ralph Fraser paused in the doorway. “I've been proved wrong once in this case, and I ought to have horse sense enough not to venture a further opinion,” he remarked. “However, I'd be willing to wager my bottom dollar that only one shot was fired last night.”
When he had taken his departure the coroner and the detective eyed each other in silence. When they heard the gate latch the former asked: “Were you serious about that, Crane, or was it a bluff? Have you actually witnesses who are prepared to swear that two shots were fired?”
“Not actually.” Crane smiled. “However, our friend Fraser evidently had some good reason of his own for believing, or at least suspecting, that the weapon used was not this one.” As he spoke he took from his pocket the pistol which had felled Lindsay. “This is, as you see, a thirty-two, a single shot has been fired from it, and you know where it was found. Of course, doctor, if your autopsy has shown that the shot which killed Doyle was fired straight in front of him and on a level with his breast”
Doctor Fellowes shook his head. “I will be frank with you, Crane. That was my first opinion, based on a hasty examination of the body at the club, but I'll have to modify it in part now. The bullet took a downward course and must have been discharged from several feet, at least, above Doyle's head; how far would depend naturally upon the distance of the assassin from his victim.”
“Yes, if Doyle were standing upright, but what if he had been squatting upon bent knees, the upper part of his body still erect, in order the better to see in at the window?” asked Crane.
“In that case any one within the hall of Doyle's own height might have fired point-blank at him—any one, of course, within straight range,” the doctor conceded.
Crane began pacing the floor reflectively. All at once he paused on the threshold and faced the other. “Doctor, do you realize that a straight range may not mean the rear of the hall, alone? Have you noticed the width of that window before which Doyle was stationed? I didn't arrive in time to see the position of his body, but, from what testimony I have been able to gather, it was lying in a crumpled heap under the lantern.”
Doctor Fellowes nodded gravely. “That was how I found it when I got here, and Mr. Estridge assured me that its position had not been disturbed in any way. But it has been my experience that, during the excitement following the discovery of such a crime, the body is frequently moved, if only in the effort to learn whether life is extinct or not.”
“But, even if it had not been disturbed, the position in which you yourself saw it would not prove that Doyle had been directly in the center of the window space, would it?” asked the detective. “Might he not have been peering in at the extreme right or left of the casing?
The coroner started. “Why, certainly! And in that case”
“In that case he would have been within range of almost a complete semicircle of the rotunda—a semicircle which would have reached from the conservatory entrance, where young Landon stood alone, around to the door of the smaller supper room, where Ogden Bowles had halted, also alone. It would take in all those who stood in the radius between.”
“But this pistol!” The coroner picked it up from the table as he spoke. “Doesn't all the circumstantial evidence point to the fact that the fatal shot was fired from it, and that it was flung out of that window at the end of the upper hall, immediately afterward?”
“Yes, but it doesn't necessarily prove that the murderer was hiding up on the second floor,” Crane objected. “He might easily, in that minute of stunned sensibility on the part of the people, which followed the sound of the shot, have either slipped past Mrs. Carter and up and down the stairs in time to join the general hue and cry, or he might have dashed down the hall leading to the rear and so up the back staircase. As I understand it, in the confusion that followed the discovery of the crime, it was quite ten or fifteen minutes before any one thought of counting heads. We know at the agency why Doyle was sent down here, of course, and that knowledge will enable us to eliminate a lot of people from suspicion.”
“The loss or theft of Mrs. de Forest's necklace,” said the coroner.
“Loss?” repeated the other.
“Yes. The sheriff has taken charge of it, you know, and an examination shows that the clasp was defective; it might have slipped from the old lady's neck at any time after she put it on in her own home until she missed it at the Harvest Dance and reported the matter to the house committee, a period of several hours.” Doctor Fellowes paused and then went on: “Whoever picked it up has been evidently waiting for a large reward to be offered, or he was afraid to dispose of it, not understanding why a public announcement of the loss was not made.”
“Loss or deliberately planned theft, wherever that necklace has been hidden during the past month, it was placed in the dragon lantern last night and for a particular reason.” The detective made an impatient gesture. “That's beside the point. We're investigating the murder of Jim Doyle, and I can't help feeling that there is something which has been overlooked, some trifling clew that would give us the key to the whole affair.”
“This pistol” began the coroner.
“Splendid bit of circumstantial evidence, but, unless it has been seen in some one's possession lately, it would take a month to trace it back from the manufacturer to the original purchaser and so on down the line. It is not a new model and hasn't a single mark of identification beyond the usual number, maker's name, and the year in which it was patented. No, doctor, I think I shall try a new trail even if I have to blaze it.” Crane picked up his hat. “I'd like a little more intimate knowledge of the people up at the country club than Doyle's reports gave us. Most of the members are your patients, aren't they?”
“The majority of those who make Broadlawns an all-year home,” Doctor Fellowes responded. “Their places are all in the neighborhood. The Sowerby place is the nearest; it is that big stone house with turrets, the one we passed over the hill. On the top of the next hill Mrs. de Forest's old Colonial house stands, and the others of that set are clustered down in the valley. Mrs. Carter's little cottage is sandwiched in between two old farms, within a mile of the club, I have got to call on a patient of mine off Eastville way, but I'll be glad to run you first anywhere you say.”
“No, thanks. I think I will stroll around the town a little and get a line on the country club crowd from the local angle. I'll be at the club later if you want to consult me.”
Yet, when Crane had seen the doctor's little car disappear down the village street, he turned his steps rapidly back in the other direction—to the turreted stone house over the hill. He noted the wheel tracks of many vehicles on the driveway as he approached and was not surprised when, in response to his ring at the entrance door, a harassed butler informed him that Mr. Sowerby was not at home and Mrs. Sowerby had absolutely nothing to say for publication.
“I do not represent the press,” the detective retorted. “Kindly tell Mrs. Sowerby that Mr. Crane”
He got no farther. The mention of his name wrought a miraculous change in the servant's manner. “Come right in, sir. Mr. Sowerby has gone up to the country club, but I've had instructions that Mrs. Sowerby would be at home to you, of course, if you should call.” The man spoke in a nervous undertone. “This way, sir.”
He led the detective into a small drawing-room. A tiny wood fire crackled on the hearth, and the heavy scent of fresh violets in low bowls vied with the cloying, sensuous odor of incense from a bronze brazier. The daylight had been all but excluded by thick curtains which shrouded the windows, and a low wing chair had been drawn up suggestively near a tall, cathedral-backed one.
As Crane seated himself in the latter he smiled inwardly. The stage had evidently been set for a carefully rehearsed scene, but why so much effort to make an impression upon him? He had learned that Mrs. Sowerby went into a fit of hysterics at the time of the shooting and was one of the first to leave the club, escorted by the Dorrances, before his arrival. Was she merely another of the neurasthenics with whom he had more than once come into contact, or had she some deeper reason for this reception?
She had evidently hoped for his coming, planned for it, and it could not have been difficult to get her self-important husband back to the scene of the previous night's tragedy. Crane thought of the irascible, rheumatic Rutherford Sowerby in this dim, scented, boudoirlike apartment and chuckled to himself. A faint, silken rustle came to his ears, and he turned to greet the small figure in trailing, violet draperies which appeared in the doorway.
“You're the wonderful Mr. Crane, aren't you?” she asked. “I felt so relieved directly I heard you had arrived. I knew you would clear up this dreadful mystery for us! Please sit down and tell me if you have discovered who did that—that fearful thing last night.”
She motioned toward the chair, and, as he reseated himself, the detective made several quick mental notes. There was a certain native shrewish quality back of the lady's childlike tones, a hardness underlying her delicate features, and the finger tips of the hand she had extended to him were stubby and hard. This youthful wife of an elderly millionaire was not an aristocratic sensation-seeker, after all; for some purpose of her own she was prepared to use him if she could, and he had to admit to himself that her work, although crude, was consistent with her type.
“You flatter me, my dear Mrs. Sowerby!” he replied with exaggerated deference. “I have had very little time, you know, and, with so many people at the club to interview, it is a lengthy business. But I understand that you were ill. I will make my call as brief as possible. If you will just answer a question or two, I won't detain you long.”
“I? But what could I possibly tell your” A sharper note, quickly suppressed, edged the childish voice. “Of course I have been frightfully ill all night, as my husband can tell you, from the sheer horror of the thing, but poor Mr. Grant was, as far as we knew, just a—a sort of an inferior, an employee of the club like Murdock. How could we possibly imagine that he was a detective? Why has he been there all this past month, disguised and watching us all, and the mystery of it makes the whole affair seem like a perfect nightmare!”
Could that be mere avid curiosity in her tone, or something bordering on anxiety? Crane paused before he responded: “I am sorry, Mrs. Sowerby, but I am afraid I cannot tell you that just now. You were present when the shot was fired?”
She shuddered and shrank back within the screening wings of her chair.
“Yes—no! I—I was in the conservatory—alone. I had gone there to get away from the dancing and noise, for I had a slight headache and didn't want any supper. Then I heard the crash of the shot in the midst of the singing, and some one told me what had happened, and I went into hysterics. I don't see how a highly strung, sensitive woman could have helped it!”
“A Mr. and Mrs. Dorrance brought you home, I believe. Are they intimate friends of yours, Mrs. Sowerby?” Crane asked.
She gave a nervous little laugh, and the fingers, which had been tapping the arms of her chair suddenly clutched them. A full minute passed before she replied in a voice of studied naïvete: “What a funny question, Mr. Crane! The Dorrances happened to be the first to leave, and my husband or somebody asked them to take me home, as I was quite beside myself! We are all intimate out here in a way, but they are no closer associates of ours than any other members of our set at the club. Mr. Dorrance is an amusing sort of boy, but his wife, being so much older, doesn't go in for many things except bridge, and, as I have always been far too stupid to learn that, I really know her merely as an acquaintance. Have you interviewed them?”
“Not yet.” He rose. “I am sorry you cannot tell me anything more definite about last night's affair, but I won't detain you any longer, Mrs. Sowerby. By the way—from where you were seated in the conservatory could you see the main staircase? Another lady member of your club, a Mrs. Carter, was standing just at its foot, and, although the murder did not shock her into hysteria, it stunned her so that I have been able to gain no valuable impressions from her, either.”
“I couldn't imagine Mrs. Carter in hysterics under any circumstances!” Mrs. Sowerby exclaimed with a hard little laugh. “She would pose if the heavens fell!”
“Who is she?” Crane asked with seeming indifference.
“Nobody knows. She appeared here alone about two years ago and got into the club, somehow, but none of the women have taken her up beyond being civil to her. I don't think she minds, though, with all the men yapping at her heels as they do. She made a perfect fool of Phil—Mrs. Dorrance's husband—a season or two ago, but now it is a bachelor for a change—that broker who runs out from town to play golf.” Mrs. Sowerby caught herself up hastily and added with a belated return to her childlike manner: “Please don't think I am catty, Mr. Crane, I'm not really, but you quite see what I mean, don't you? I couldn't help showing my feelings by becoming hysterical last night! No woman with any heart could have!”
“I quite understand.” The detective spoke with bland sympathy. “You were alone in the conservatory when the crime took place, I think you said, Mrs. Sowerby?”
“Yes, There may have been other people there, of course, but I had hidden myself away in a corner behind some palms and didn't see nor hear any one.”
“When the sound of the shot came did you leave the conservatory, or did some one come there to tell you what had happened? Who told you?”
“I don't know! I cannot remember!” she replied. “Of course I must have gotten out into the foyer somehow, but everything was so confused and horrible! I caught a glimpse through the window of—of that poor thing lying out there on the veranda, and the next thing I can recall is of having given way completely, and Mrs. Fraser and some other ladies were attending me. Oh, I shall never forget the sight of that poor man! Why was he sent here to spy upon us? Dear Mr. Crane, surely you can tell just little me! I don't carry tales, really, truly!”
Her hand was on his arm, her coaxing face upturned very close, and the blue eyes were gazing straight into his. For a moment Crane deliberately dropped his mask of elaborate deference.
“Why are you so anxious to know, Mrs. Sowerby?” he demanded bluntly. “Surely you have nothing to fear from the presence of a detective?”
With a shrug she stepped back and again that hard little laugh rose to her lips.
“Scarcely!” The shrill, shrewish note was dominant now in her tones. “One doesn't like to think, however, that, among one's associates, there may be a person guilty of anything which would bring them under surveillance. Good morning, Mr. Crane!”
Once more out in the bright sunlight and striding down the drive, Crane added a significant note or two to his mental data. Mrs. Sowerby was or had been infatuated with the man named Dorrance, and she was jealous of Mrs. Carter; she had told two slightly conflicting stories of her own actions at the moment of the shooting, and, in spite of her denials, she was deeply and personally concerned in learning the motive for Doyle's presence at the club, although in ignorance of the loss of the necklace which had occasioned it.
Why was she so concerned? Could there be wheels within wheels in this quiet, conservative community? Could there, after all, have been some other possible motive than the theft of the necklace for the murder of Jim Doyle?
CHAPTER X.
The Woman Upstairs.
Returning to the village, Crane possessed himself of a small car at a renting garage. After consulting a road map he started by a wide detour toward the club. The machine he had hired was of an antiquated model and slow and halting in its gait, but it had the double advantage of a dull, neutral-gray color and a silent motor.
The road he had chosen led away from the estates of the country club colony, through a region of small farms, out upon a pleasant highway, bordered on the right by rolling fields and on the left by a deep glen. Through the dense, but almost leafless, trees there came the trickle of a waterfall.
Crane had passed no vehicles upon the way except an occasional farm wagon, but, as he reached the glen, an approaching rumble and roar came to his ears, and he drew up at the extreme right of the road just as another car thundered past, rocking from side to side, despite its weight, by the speed at which it was driven. The face of the man bent over the wheel was like a demon.
It was distorted with a very frenzy of fury, but, although the man went by in a swift blur, the detective recognized him. The man was the suave broker of the previous night's interview, Ogden Bowles.
Crane shut off his engine and sat back under the hoodlike top for a moment's reflection on the incident. Bowles was the acknowledged suitor of the red-haired Mrs. Carter, yet he was obviously not going to or returning from her little cottage, for it lay several miles in another direction. Where had he been, and what could have put him in such a rage? He had practically asserted the evening before that his only interest out of town was in the country club and his associates there. He, too, had been present when that shot was fired, standing at the extreme left of that semicircle, within pistol range of the window with the dragon lantern.
Crane shrugged and started to alight in order to crank his ancient little car. The faint sound of voices down in the glen at the left reached him, and he paused, then crossed the road quickly and, ducking between the railings of the fence, he began to make his way cautiously down the steep declivity through the crackling underbrush.
The sound of the voices came nearer, and, as Crane reached a sort of path which wound along the bank of a narrow stream, he saw a man and a woman approaching. The man was young and dapper, with a small, blond mustache, and he was evidently under stress of some violent emotion, for he gesticulated jerkily as he trotted along beside his taller companion, who walked steadily with a free, swinging stride. She wore a clinging sweater, and the sunlight, striking down through the naked branches of the trees, glowed on her bare head and turned it to molten copper.
Crane did not know the man, but he had little difficulty in recognizing Mrs. Carter, and he slipped hastily behind a clump of low-growing evergreens, as the couple approached.
“I tell you it's life or death!” The man's voice fairly broke in his excitement. “Don't you suppose I realize my position as it is? No mercy would be shown”
“You speak of mercy?” They were abreast of the detective now, and the contempt in the woman's rich, calm tones was as keen as a knife blade. “Women have shown me scant mercy in my life; why should I ruin myself now in order to help you to see that another doesn't suffer?”
“Then I'll tell!” The man's voice rose in a cry of rage. “I swear to Heaven I'll tell!”
“Very well, you cur!” Mrs. Carter's tones had not risen, and, as the couple rapidly receded down the path, the detective could barely distinguish her words. “The world is wide, and Broadlawns is only a tiny corner of it.”
The man began to plead in an indistinguishable, vehement murmur, and Crane scrambled back to the road and hurriedly cranked up his car. He drove back the way he had come until he reached a crossroad. A glance at the map showed him it must be a short cut to the club. The reason was apparent now for Bowles' jealous rage. But what was the secret which the inscrutable Mrs. Carter had defied her companion to disclose, and who was the other woman he was trying to induce her to save from suffering?
His reflections were interrupted by a deep-toned, resonant hail, and, looking up sharply, he beheld the head and shoulders of Samuel Estridge rising from behind a trim hedge of privet.
“Just the man I want to see!” the attorney exclaimed. “Come in and have lunch with me, Crane. I've been puttering around the club all the morning waiting for you to turn up, but they told me you had gone off with the coroner.”
The detective was only too glad to accept, not only because of this signal honor paid to him by one of the most eminent members of the bar and the opportunity to study him at close range, but because he felt that no one else in the colony could give him more information of the sort he required.
He drove in between pillars of the privet, turned his machine over to the chauffeur, and followed his host into the ivy-covered brick cottage.
“I hired that old bus there in the village. After the autopsy I left Doctor Fellowes and called on Mr. Sowerby, but I learned that he, too, had gone up to the club,” Crane explained.
Samuel Estridge's eyes twinkled. “I fancy your time wasn't wasted, however, if you were looking for any gossip of the colony,” he observed dryly. “Did the autopsy disclose what we expected?”
Crane nodded. “I don't think I am violating any professional confidence of the coroner's in saying that the weapon which knocked out your man Lindsay was unquestionably, as far as the present circumstantial evidence goes, the same that was used to kill Doyle. How is Lindsay? I forgot to ask the doctor.”
“Conscious and coming around all right, but the only thing he can remember, just before something hit him, was a sort of scraping noise; might have been the raising of that upper hall window, eh?”
“Yes—Mr. Estridge, I'm not going to accept your hospitality and abuse it, nor am I stupid enough to think that I could attempt to pump the cleverest cross-examiner in the courts to-day and get away with it!” Crane laughed with boyish” frankness. “However, I do want some dope on the crowd out here that only you can give me, if you will.”
“Gladly! Come along into the dining room, our chops are getting cold.” The attorney laughed also and led his guest into the austere Jacobean room. He waited until his man had served them and withdrawn before he added: “I'm afraid, Crane, that I'm reaching the age when a man loves to gossip. What can I tell you?”
“First of all I must confess that I did get a bit of illuminating gossip to-day, but not in the way that you imagine, sir,” Crane responded candidly. “In an investigation of this sort, where I am following a blind trail, the little, insignificant details about the lives of the people who were present when the crime was committed, sometimes provide unexpectedly valuable clews, even though they themselves are unquestionably innocent. For instance, can you tell me anything more about Mr. Fraser's brother than that he comes from Texas and has done some banking business with Mr. Sowerby's institution? I met him again this morning, and he seems to be a bug on weapons, especially firearms.”
“So Jack told me, but I never met Ralph Fraser until yesterday afternoon,” Estridge remarked. “He goes in more for collecting freak man-killing inventions, I believe, than the sort which usually come under your professional notice or mine. I don't mean bombs, but pistols and daggers, disguised more or less innocently, after the manner of the old sword canes. He seems to be rather an ingenuous sort of fellow for such a blood-thirsty hobby, and, since you have already got the weapon with which, in all human probability, the murder was committed last night, I don't believe he will be of much use to you.”
“I merely used him as an illustration,” Crane averred. “Then there is the broker, Mr. Bowles; what is his particular hobby, other than golf and defying the speed laws?”
“I don't believe I know,” replied the attorney thoughtfully. “He hasn't been a member long, but he was proposed and seconded by two members of the house committee, one of whom is ill, and the other away just now. I never realized it until you spoke, but I do not believe that any of the rest of us know much about him or his personal proclivities.”
“I gathered that he was rather more of a ladies' man,” Crane observed slyly. “By the way, Mr. Estridge, I don't mean to be indiscreet, but I have heard that there is a woman member of your club about whom no one seems to know very much, either, although that is the worst that any one appears able to say against her. Can you tell me where she came from and who were her social sponsors? I work mostly by a process of elimination, you know, and I like to have all the irrelevant factors tabulated and out of my way.”
The attorney hesitated for a moment frowningly, and then his brow cleared. “I can see no harm in giving you the information which, with a little more time and trouble, you might easily obtain elsewhere. The lady to whom you refer came from Raleigh, North Carolina, about three years ago, deposited negotiable stocks and bonds for a substantial amount in one of the local banks, and purchased the cottage which she now occupies. Of course being a stranger here and alone I will admit that she was looked at rather askance by the other matrons of the colony, but she made no attempt to force herself upon the society of any one and lived for several months in the strictest seclusion. Then gradually people began taking her up, and at length somebody proposed her at the club. I have been given to understand that she has a substantial income from her late husband's estate.”
“Does any one know what her late husband's business was, or his first name?” asked the detective.
Again the attorney hesitated before he replied: “His name was Amsa, or Abner, or some such old-fashioned name. I have heard that he was elderly and retired when she married him, and she was a mere girl. If I were a married man myself, Mr. Crane, I might be able to give you more intimate details, but, being just a bachelor, the ladies do not confide in me. However, it has been hinted that her life wasn't particularly happy—the old story of May and December, I suppose—and his death was more of a relief than a sorrow. At least that is the reason which is given for her distaste to discuss the past. There, you see, Crane, I told you I feared I had reached the age when a man loves to gossip!”
Accepting the final remark as a hint the detective turned the conversation away from personalities, and it was not until just as he was taking leave of his host that he asked, as though in an afterthought: “Know any blond young man around here who wears a little mustache and dresses like a fashion plate, only a little more so, Mr. Estridge? He has rather a high voice, and I imagine he thinks pretty well of himself.”
The attorney laughed carelessly. “Oh, you mean young Phil Dorrance! No one takes him very seriously, I am afraid. He and his wife are in the crowd up at the country club, but you didn't meet him because they went home early and escorted Mrs. Sowerby, whose nerves had gone to pieces. He is a harmless sort, too, and we've all known him for years.”
Crane laughed in return. “I didn't suspect him, sir, of carrying the pop-gun! Thanks so much for your good hospitality and your good counsel; I am sure I shall profit by both.”
Chugging off down the read, the detective turned a curve in leisurely fashion and then, secure from observation, he studied his map again.
The way to the country club he had already ascertained, but, after a prolonged scrutiny, he selected a veritable network of byways which finally brought him to the gate of a modest little villa modeled after the Elizabethan style. Here he left his car in the roadway and, proceeding up the path, was on the point of ringing the bell when a woman's voice called from the garden: “You are Mr. Crane, aren't you? If you want to talk to me, wouldn't you rather sit out here? It is not really cold yet, you know.”
Turning he beheld the woman of the sweater whom he had seen that morning on the glen road. Her coppery hair glowed in the sunlight. She beckoned invitingly to a garden seat, and nothing loath the detective complied, involuntarily comparing this reception with that of the morning from another hostess. Whatever Mrs. Carter's secret might be, she was evidently unafraid or unashamed of its possible consequences. Glancing into her clear eyes Crane felt a shade of compunction.
“I am very sorry to intrude upon you, Mrs. Carter.” Genuine sincerity rang in his tones. “I have just been lunching with Mr. Estridge, and, of course, our conversation hinged upon last night's tragedy at the country club.”
“Naturally, Mr. Crane, since you have come out here to investigate it.” Her steady eyes regarded him unblinkingly. “Is there any way in which I may assist you?”
“It is barely possible, Mrs. Carter. You will forgive me for recalling to you the moment which so unnerved you last evening, the moment in which the shot was fired which killed my colleague.” He watched her face narrowly as he spoke, and it did not blanch nor weaken as Mrs. Sowerby's had done.
“Perfectly, Mr. Crane. Do you think that I or any one else present could forget it? That poor young man!” The lines of settled sorrow had deepened around her mobile lips.
“You had been up in the ladies' dressing room, resting, I think,” Crane went on. “Was there no maid assigned there?”
“Oh, yes, but I fancy she had gone down to the kitchen or pantry. There was no one there when the singing started, except, of course, Mrs. Sowerby. I left her and then came downstairs.”
“What!” The exclamation arose unbidden to the detective's lips, and instinctively he amended it. “Only Mrs. Sowerby!”
“Yes, Mr. Crane. When I descended the stairs Mrs. Sowerby was resting on a couch in one of the dressing rooms. There could have been no one else on that upper floor.”
To be continued in next week's issue of DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE.