CHAPTER XI
EVIDENCE
THE two women, who were eagerly listening, were, of course, more surprised than were Keeley and I, but they were no more chagrined.
I could see Kee’s look of blank astonishment, as he heard March’s assertion and saw the look of conviction on the detective’s face.
“Then,” Keeley recovered himself enough to speak coolly, “then, we must look for a master diver, after all.”
“Practically, yes,” March agreed. “But that doesn’t mean a world wonder or a professional champion. It is more to the point that our diver should know the position of the rocks under the windows and the locality of the clear depths.”
“Have you any proof of all this?”
“I sure have. Footprints on the window sill, fingerprints on the window frame and a streak of red paint.”
“Red paint?”
“Yes, which I take to be the scratch of that Totem thing.”
“Why do you take that?”
“Well, to my mind, that Totem means something. You know the old original Totem Poles,—I’ve been looking up the matter,—had to do with clans or family fealty or something like that.”
“You don’t seem to be entirely clear about it,” Lora said, with a little smile.
“No, ma’am, I’m not. But I’m clear enough to make my point that whoever took that pole took it as a memento or mascot or whatever you like to call it of Sampson Tracy. I mean it made it all a personal matter, not the work of an ordinary burglar.”
“No,” Kee agreed, “I can’t see the earmarks of an ordinary burglar.”
“I see what Mr. March is driving at,” Maud declared. “He means that the murderer, whoever he was, was one who knew Mr. Tracy, and had known him intimately. One who was either a family connection or a housemate, and who killed his victim for personal reasons rather than for robbery or sordid motives.”
“Yes, ma’am,” March spoke gratefully, “that’s what I mean, partly. And it seems to me like the work of a friend suddenly turned enemy or a calm, self-restrained nature that something roused to the pitch of homicidal mania.”
“Ah, psychology” began Lora, but March interrupted.
“No, ma’am, I don’t hold with those modern, hifalutin sciences. Doctor Rogers, now, he knows all about such things, but you didn’t hear him referring to anything of the sort. No, I don’t mean psychology, but only just the natural working of a brain suddenly roused to ungovernable rage.”
“For a reason?”
“For a reason, of course. The reason doubtless being Tracy’s refusal of whatever boon the other was asking.”
“Then this other may be a relative, a friend or a servant?”
“Yes, always remembering it is a person with an ingenious brain and proficiency in diving and swimming.”
“Count ’em up, then,” and Moore held up his hand and checked off on his fingers. “Ames, Everett, Griscom”
“Mrs. Dallas and Miss Remsen,” March finished for him.
“Oh, leave out the women,” I said, trying to speak lightly, “they can’t dive like pearl fishers.”
“Miss Remsen can,” March asserted, “and it may be that Mrs. Dallas can, though we don’t know for certain.”
“Well,” Lora said, slowly, “give us some more evidence. You can’t sit up and reel off names of people. You might as well include Mrs. Merrill and myself.”
“No, ma’am, you had no motive. You’re not mentioned in the will.”
“But surely then, Mrs. Dallas had no motive. She expected to marry Mr. Tracy—why should she want to kill him?”
“Mrs. Dallas is in love with Mr. Everett. She would rather have her legacy and his legacy than to marry Tracy and have the whole works. Mrs. Dallas is not a grasping sort, but she is a woman of deep passions and she is desperately in love with that good-looking young man.”
“You seem to know the secrets of their hearts, March,” Keeley said. “What about Harper Ames?”
“He’s the puzzle.” March shook his head. “He’s the one I can’t make out. He asked you to take on the case, didn’t he?”
“He certainly did,” Moore stated.
“Well, that’s either because he’s innocent himself, or because he wants to appear so.”
“Can he swim?”
“It’s hard to say who can swim and who can’t. For those who can, can easily pretend they can’t. But that man is as deep as the Sunless Sea, and so far I haven’t been able to size him up exactly.”
“But look here, March, if you’ve footprints and fingerprints, what more do you want? Whose are they, anyway?”
“That’s another queer thing. They’re Miss Remsen’s, but she isn’t the criminal.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve talked with her. Now, I’m puzzled about Ames, he’s a deep and wily sort. But Miss Remsen is a sweet, innocent young girl, and I’m not so inexperienced that I can’t read such. She was scared of me at first, but once I got her calmed down she was straightforward and truthful. I know that, and I’ll stand by it.”
I could have hugged the man in my joy at his staunch partisanship toward Alma, and I asked more questions.
“Yet you say those were her fingerprints on the window frame?”
He gave me a quick look. “You saw them, then? Yes, they were hers, she was there, you know, on the Tuesday afternoon. Her uncle did say she could have the waistcoats for her fancy work, and he gave her the Totem Pole, too. She had the pole in her hand when she went to open a window, as the room was too warm. She remembered its scratching the white paint, and hoped the mark it made could be washed off.”
“And was it the mark of her shoe sole on the window sill?” Keeley asked, and I couldn’t judge whether his suave tone was indicative of suspicion or not.
“No, sir, it wasn’t!” March sounded triumphant. “Miss Remsen’s soles have little round dots in the rubber, these prints showed diamond-shaped dots.”
“That lets her out, then,” Kee said, drawing a long breath of relief, which made me suddenly realize how strongly he had suspected her.
“It does, but she never was in. That girl couldn’t have committed that fearsome crime. It’s against all belief! A hardened man of the world, now; or a callous-hearted servant; or even an experienced woman of society; all these sophisticated minds, yes. But that simple-hearted, innocent young girl—no!”
“I agree to that,” Lora said, “not only because I want to, but because it’s common sense and also psychology. Alma might have shot or stabbed, in a moment of mad rage, but to bring a nail and hammer—it’s too absurd.”
“Do you think the murderer was abnormal?” Maud said to Keeley.
“To my mind all murderers are abnormal,” he replied, thoughtfully. “It surely isn’t normal for any one to kill any one else, so, whether temporarily or permanently, to me a murderer is not only abnormal but insane.”
“Insane in the sense you mean,” March agreed, “that is, on one occasion and on one subject. But that is not what is usually meant by insanity. However, I think we’re of the same mind about that.”
“Did you see the doughty Merivale when you were at Miss Remsen’s house?” Kee asked.
“Yes, and she is a Tartar. She tried to put me off the premises, but Miss Remsen stayed her hand. Also, her better half came to her aid and I had the pair to placate.”
“I didn’t know the Amazon had a mate.”
“Oh, yes. John Merivale, and even bigger and more muscular than ‘Merry’ herself. Miss Remsen is well protected. They are both her absolute slaves, and except for her intervention would willingly have thrown me in the lake.”
“What attitude did you take?”
“Strong arm of the law effect. Said they must answer questions or they’d be haled to court for contempt of same. I scared them good and plenty but I got absolutely no information from them. That is, by word of mouth. But I gleaned a few hints from their unguarded expressions, or their sudden exhibitions of emotion.”
“Such as?”
“Nothing very definite. Only their reactions to other people. The two Merivales seem to think in unison. I gathered that they hate Mrs. Dallas, abhor Mr. Ames, tolerate the two secretaries, and are inordinately jealous and envious of all and sundry servants on the Pleasure Dome estate. That, and their worshipful adoration of Miss Remsen herself, is about all I picked up.”
“Did you go inside the house or only on the porch?”
“Both. I asked to go inside as it was too damp for my rheumatism outside. But, of course, I saw nothing suspicious. No waistcoats or missing fruit plates. The room I was in was just an ordinary, tastefully furnished living room. A piano, davenport, tables, bookcases, lamps—all such as you’d expect to find in a modern home.”
“And the girl lives all alone?”
“Yes. I asked her if she didn’t care for a companion or chaperon, and she smiled and said Merry was all those things to her. She seems entirely able to look after herself, and now, she will be mistress of Pleasure Dome, and I think she’ll be able to look after that.”
“Then you’ve definitely crossed her off the suspect list?”
“Almost. There’s one little point still bothering me, and I shall go again to the Island when both Miss Remsen and her two sentinels are out.”
“Can you get such an opportunity?”
“Yes, to-morrow at the time of the funeral. They will, of course, all attend the services and I shall make a small raid on Whistling Reeds. By the way, what a weird, eerie place it is!”
“Isn’t it!” Lora cried. “It gives me the shivers just to go past it in the boat. But I must go to call on Alma. Shall we go to-day, Maud?”
“Later, perhaps, dear. I’d like to go, I’m fond of Alma and, like Mr. March, I am sure she never had a hand in this terrible affair.”
A maid entered then and announced Mr. Harper Ames.
Keeley looked at March, who nodded, and Ames was shown in.
“Ah, Mr. March, a confab?” he said, after he had greeted the rest of us. “No objections to my joining it, I suppose?”
He took no heed of March’s reply, but seated himself comfortably, and accepted the cigar Keeley offered him.
“I have come,” he said, speaking slowly and distinctly, “to see if you are investigating the Tracy matter, Mr. Moore. To see what you have accomplished so far and to learn if you hope for success.”
His pause and his inquiring glance demanded a reply, and Keeley said, with equal slowness and distinctness:
“Yes, Mr. Ames, I am investigating the Tracy matter. I have accomplished so far only some preliminary work, and I hope for success, of course, or I shouldn’t keep on with the case.”
“One more question, then. Are you making your investigation at my request, at my expense, and under my direction?”
“No, I think not.” Keeley spoke with utmost good nature, but with a decided shake of his head. “You see, it irks me to work for another, if I am interested in a case for myself.”
“Why are you so interested in this case?”
Kee stared at him.
“Because it is a case to interest all residents of Deep Lake district. Because murder has been done in our hitherto peaceful community and every right-thinking man must or should be interested. If by my experience and training I am better able than some to look into the facts and indications of the evidence gathered, it is surely my duty to do so, regardless of requests or directions from anybody else.”
“Well, then, after all,” Ames smiled, “I can’t see that it matters much, except that if you’re working for me, you get paid for it, if you’re on your own, you don’t.”
I couldn’t quite understand this man. Suave, polished, and of gentle voice and correct manners, he now and then broke out with a brusque, blunt speech that seemed to betray a cruder nature beneath his veneer.
Yet he had said nothing really rude, had only stated the bald facts of the matter.
I glanced at March. He too, was covertly studying Ames. I felt sure he was puzzled in the same way I was.
Keeley, however, seemed ready to meet Ames on his own ground.
“Yes,” he added, “you’ve struck it right. Work for you and take your money, or go it alone and get no pay. Well, Mr. Ames, I’m going it alone this trip. But, if I don’t take your money, mayn’t I ask for something else from you? Won’t you give me some advice or some data or some facts you’ve picked up”
“Why should I?”
“Because, though I’m not working at your direction, I shall do just as good work, in fact, just the same work as if I were. Therefore, you will get the results the same as if you paid for them. Oughtn’t that to make you willing to help in any way you can?”
“But you’re assuming I want to save money. You speak as if I should be glad not to have to pay your bill. Not so, Mr. Moore. When I asked you to take me as a client, I was, and am, perfectly willing to shoulder the expenses.”
“I see; then, Mr. Ames, the question of price doesn’t interest you. Therefore, I ask of you, as you ask of me, to help me with any information you may possess.”
“And how do you know I possess any?”
“Because you are afraid. You are not afraid for yourself but for some one else.”
It was when Kee was making a statement of this sort that he was at his best. His good-looking face grew positively handsome in its impressive strength and forcefulness.
Only I, and perhaps Lora, knew that it was play acting. Knew that what Keeley Moore said in this histrionic manner was, almost always, merely bluff. He didn’t know at all that Ames was shielding some one else, but this was his way of finding out. And nine times out of ten it was successful.
It was this time.
Harper Ames collapsed like a man struck by lightning. He fell back in his seat and turned a sickly white.
I felt sorry for him. It didn’t seem quite cricket for Kee to get him like that. I moved toward him, but Moore spoke sharply: “Let him alone, Gray, don’t touch him.”
That moment, however, had given Ames time to pull himself together.
Also, his insolent manner returned to him.
“I get you, Moore,” he said, with an unpleasant laugh. “We are enemies, then? So be it. You have turned me down, now I turn you down, and the thing I came to tell you, you will never know. The investigation you propose to make will be futile; the success you so confidently hope for you will never achieve.”
The man was very angry. Indeed, his rage was a revelation to me. I had not supposed him capable of such fierce passions. It flashed across my mind that a man like that could murder on a sudden provocation.
But now March took a hand.
“Mr. Ames,” the police detective said, in a quiet way, “you have said too much not to say more. Since you admitted you came here to tell something, you are obliged to tell it.”
“And if I refuse?”
“You will be called upon to tell it to the chief of police.”
“And if I still refuse?”
“I think you know for yourself the consequences of such a procedure.”
Ames sat silent a few moments and then he said:
“Oh, I don’t want any unpleasantness. My speech was partly bluff, but what there is to it, I am quite willing to tell you. It is only that after I went to my room that night, after leaving Mr. Tracy, I heard sounds, of which I have not told.”
“Important sounds?”
“That’s as may be. How do I know? I heard, or I thought I heard, a step on the stair.”
“Are you sure, Mr. Ames?” asked March. “For I cannot manage to make a step that is audible on those softly carpeted stairs at Pleasure Dome.”
Ames looked at him in surprise.
“Is that so? Well, it may have been a step in the hall”
“Nor along the thick carpet of the hall” went on March, as if he had not been interrupted.
“You’re trying to say I lie,” Ames cried out. “But it is true. I will not say, then, what the sound was, but I did hear a slight sound outside my door a little before two o’clock”
“Did it waken you?” March spoke eagerly.
“N-no, I was awake—I think. But I heard it distinctly, though very faintly. It was like”
“Yes, what was it like? You said, like a step.”
“No, not like a step—like a gliding, shuffling movement and a—a”
“Go on.”
“Like a stick or something dragged across my door.”
“Dragged?”
“Oh, I mean, drawn across my door,—here, like this.”
Ames, with a petulant gesture, picked up an ivory paper cutter from the table and drew it leisurely across a cupboard door, making a slight rattling sound.
“Yes,” he said, nodding his head satisfiedly, “just like that.”
“As if some one were passing your door, and idly drew across it something he had in his hand?”
“Yes, just that.”
“Why haven’t you told this before?”
“I attached no importance to it. In fact, I had forgotten it.”
“And what brought it again to your mind?”
“Nothing especial. I was going over the events of that night, to think if there was anything else I could tell Mr. Moore. I didn’t know he was going to throw me!”
Keeley laughed outright. Ames spoke so like an aggrieved child.
“I haven’t thrown you, Mr. Ames,” he declared. “I’m sure you and I are going to work together. I’m awfully interested in the chap who drummed along your door. I believe it was the murderer himself.”
“You do!” Ames turned a friendly look on Kee. “Then you can run him down?”
“I hope so. Now, tell us, who is it you’re shielding?”
“Nobody. Honest. But this sound in the hall was worrying my conscience.”
“I see. I see.” And I knew that Keeley Moore had crossed Harper Ames definitely off his list of suspects.
Doubtless he was right. Kee was seldom wrong.
But I was worried. I was getting to the pitch where I was always worried—about Alma. Oh, if only I hadn’t seen her go to Pleasure Dome that night! Or if I could find an innocent reason for her going. Or if she hadn’t denied on the witness stand that she did go.
Anyhow, it was plain to be seen that not only Keeley Moore but Detective March had exonerated Ames in their minds, and that because of Ames’s own frank relation of a hitherto suppressed bit of evidence.
“All a fake,” I said, angrily, to myself. “He’s pulling wool over their eyes!” But I knew better. Even to my untrained intelligence, Ames’s story had rung true. He had heard the sound in the hall, and no one who heard his tale could doubt it.
Then Ames rose to go, and somehow, I found myself by Maud’s side walking down to the gate with our caller.
“Do come over again, Mr. Ames,” Maud said, hospitably, as she bade him good-bye.
And then Ames went off and March came along on his way out.
Maud stopped him to speak a moment, and I half turned aside. Had I known what the result of her words would be, I think I should have choked her to silence ere I let her utter them!
But I only heard her say, casually: “Then you will not be at the funeral, Mr. March?”
“No, Mrs. Merrill. I think it too good a chance to lose to do two or three errands I have in mind.”
“One of them being to search Miss Remsen’s home?”
“That’s almost too strong a phrase. But I mean to take a run over there and see what I can get from the other servants when the two Merivales are away.”
“Then, do this, Mr. March, will you? Glance over the bookcase and see if you notice a book of short stories—detective stories, you know. The title is Mystery Tales of All Nations, Volume VIII.”
“Is it your book?”
“Oh, no, I don’t know that it’s there at all. Just see, that’s all.”
“Yes, ma’am, I will,” and March went away.
Angrily, I turned on Maud Merrill.
“Have you got it in for Alma?” I exclaimed.
“Mercy, no! Don’t look at me like that, Gray Norris! I’m only trying to get any information I can. And I still think that story is at the bottom of this murder!”
“Trust a woman to get a fool idea into her head and stick to it like a puppy to a root!” I cried, scowling at her.
But she only laughed at me, and changed the subject.