CHAPTER XII
MY SECRET
WE went back into the house and Maud, with a smile at me, said:
“Keeley, I asked our super-sleuth, March, to scout around for a stray copy of that book that has in it the story of The Nail, and Graysie, here, is mad at me.”
“Nonsense!” I cried, “I’m not. But I daresay there were some thousands of copies of the book printed, and if, when and as you find one, you can’t at once assume that you have hit upon the murderer of Sampson Tracy.”
“That story is Maud’s angle of the case,” Kee said. “Her own exclusive property and she must be allowed to exploit it as she likes. I’m free to confess I haven’t much faith in it as a pointer, but I will say if the book is found on the bedside table of any one who benefits by Sampson Tracy’s death, it will be a lead that must be followed up.”
“Oh, all right,” I said, grumpily. “I can see you all suspect Alma Remsen more or less, but why don’t you come out and say so?”
“Gray,” Keeley spoke a little sternly, “you’ve fallen in love with Miss Remsen, and while that’s your own affair, you mustn’t assume that it at once absolves her from all suspicion in this matter. Now, wait a minute before you explode. I don’t say the girl is suspected of crime, but there is a possibility that she knows something she hasn’t told, just as Ames knew about that step in the hall, and just as you know something that wild horses couldn’t drag out of you.”
“What do you mean?” I spluttered, angry and ashamed at the same time.
“You know what I mean. You have some bit of knowledge or information that you have been on the point of telling me half a dozen times, and then have concluded not to do so. I’m not asking you what it is, I’m not saying it is your duty to tell. That’s your business. But I do say you have no right to cavil at anything I may do in the interests of justice, and no reason to get upset if my investigations tend toward Alma Remsen’s connection with the case.”
I was in love, I was upset, but after all, my sense of fairness was still with me.
“You’re right, Kee,” I said. “And I will not again let my admiration for Miss Remsen come into the question. Except where it concerns her, I am ready to help, if I can, with your work, and I am sure you can give me chores to do, away from that line of inquiry. Let me interview others, there must be others, and you will find that I am not the fool you think me.”
“There, there, bless the boy,” Maud patted my arm, and though I might have resented her manner in another there was something about her kindly sympathy that made me welcome her friendly interest.
“Of course I think you a fool, Gray,” Moore assured me. “I’ve always thought so. But, aren’t we all?”
“Of course we are,” chimed in Lora. “I wouldn’t give a fig for anyone who wasn’t a fool in some ways. Now, don’t think, Gray, your shy avowal is news to us, for we knew you had fallen for the lovely Alma almost before you knew it yourself. And we all approve, and look forward to a happy ending. But for the moment, we are engrossed in another matter. And though Keeley says he is not going to urge you to tell us the secret you are withholding, I am, and I hope you will feel that it is better to let us know it.”
I thought a minute and then I said:
“Lora, you’re a dear, and I can scarce refuse you anything at all. But this thing I know, which may mean something or nothing, is so trivial, so insignificant that I do not feel guilty in keeping it quiet, at least for a little time longer. Moreover, its weight, if it has any, would be against Alma’s interests, so please think I am justified in keeping still.”
“You are, Gray,” Keeley said, heartily. “The more so, that I do not ask for evidence against the girl. If she is implicated at all, we have enough evidence, what we want is admission on her part. So, keep your bit of information and should it become really necessary I’ll demand it.”
He nodded his head so understandingly that I saw we were reëstablished on the old footing, and I rejoice that I had not told my secret.
For, whatever they said, I felt sure that a statement that I had seen Alma go to Pleasure Dome that fatal night at about one-thirty and had probably heard her return about two-thirty, would be something like a match to a trail of gunpowder.
“Now,” Keeley went on, “I must do some real Sherlocking. First, as to Harper Ames. I’m inclined to scratch his name from my list of suspects because of his frankly expressed desire that I should take the case for him. Either he has the knowledge of his own absolute innocence, or else he is the very most clever devil I have ever chanced to run across.”
“He’s innocent all right,” Lora said. “He couldn’t act out all that. He really wants you to take the case, Kee, and that proves his innocence.”
“But does it?” Moore argued. “May it not be that he is the guilty man and he is bold enough to think that by taking such a course he can steer suspicion away from himself?”
“Seems to me,” I put in, “that for a real Sherlock you are doing a lot of theorizing and surmising. Why not get down to shreds of wool, missing cuff-links and dropped handkerchiefs?”
“Keeley isn’t a fictional detective,” Lora exclaimed. “He doesn’t work on conventional lines”
“There are two kinds of fictional detectives, my dear girl,” Keeley told her. “The detective of fiction, and the story-book sleuth who declares that he is not the detective of fiction. The original detective of fiction was the hound-on-the-scent sort. The man who could put two and two together. The wizard who could tell the height, weight, and colouring of the unknown criminal from a flick of cigar ash. Then, as this superman palled a bit on the reader, came then his successor, the man who scorned all these tricks of the trade and announced himself as not the detective of fiction.”
“And which sort are you?” asked Lora, brightly, with a hint of veiled chaffing.
“I’m a mixture of both,” Kee stated calmly. “But I do think one should consider the bent and inclination of a suspect as well as the material clues he leaves about.”
“For instance?” I asked.
“All that stuff left on the bed. Your old Sherlock type would say: ‘These flowers were placed here by an ex-gardener, with red hair and a missing little finger.’ But to my mind, the deduction would be that the flowers were put there by a man the farthest possible remove from an ex-gardener, rather, a man of keen, sharp wits and decided ingenuity.”
“Merely as a blind, or, rather as a misleading clue?” I suggested.
“Yes. Now, the superfluity of those things on the bed, I mean the multiplicity of them, betokens a nature inclined to overdo. Like a man who, getting on a steam-boat, ties himself on.”
“Or,” put in Lora, “if a man compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.”
“Yes, something of that sort. Yet it may be that he started on his mad career of bed decorating and went on and on, sort of absent-mindedly.”
“Got started and couldn’t stop.”
“Exactly. Say he placed the flowers first, then, seeing the orange and crackers, added those, then, noticing the crucifix, used that; then the handkerchief, and finally draped the scarf round them all, just because it was handy by.”
“And the watch in the pitcher?”
“Oh, that dratted thing! That throws the whole matter into another category. That watch is my hope and my stumbling block, both.”
“You’ve been mysterious before, Kee, about that watch. Now out with it. What’s the separate mystery of the watch in the pitcher?”
“Quid pro quo,” said Kee, smiling at me. “You tell me what you’re concealing up your sleeve and I’ll divulge the dark hint suggested to me by the watch.”
I hesitated, but my disinclination to tell of the canoe incident was too strong. I couldn’t bring myself to let loose a torrent of suspicion that might engulf Alma.
“Can’t do it,” I said, honestly. “I would, if I thought it my duty as a citizen or as your friend, Kee. But, as I see it, it’s better left untold.”
“You remind me,” Kee said, smiling, “of Jurgen, who said, ‘I do my duty as I see it. But there is a tendency in my family toward defective vision.’ That isn’t quoted verbatim, but nearly so. All right, old son, keep your guilty secret and I’ll keep mine.”
“Do. What’s next on your sleuthing program?”
“I’m going to interview Mrs. Dallas.”
“How will she like that?”
“I daresay she won’t be any too well pleased. But, unless she refuses to see us, we can’t help learning something. Will you go with me?”
“Of course,” I returned, glad he wanted me. I truly desired to help, so long as the work didn’t touch on the girl I cared for.
The talk with them about her had, in a way, crystallized my feelings, and I knew now I loved her, a fact of which I had before been only vaguely aware.
Also, I was prepared to fight for her. And if the fight could be helped on by incriminating some one else, so much the better.
We started for Mrs. Dallas’s home, which was only a short walk along the lake shore.
Keeley was quiet as usual, and gave me fully to understand that he bore no ill will over my refusal to confide in him more fully.
“You see, Gray,” he said, talking things over with me in the old, friendly fashion, “there’s no use blinking the accepted fact that those who benefit most by the death of a rich man are the ones to be suspected. I know how you feel about Alma, but as you care for her, you, of course, deem her innocent. Therefore you can’t feel that she is in any danger from an investigation by detectives. If I were you I should welcome all possible questioning of her, feeling sure that she would have satisfactory explanation for anything that might seem suspicious.”
“That’s all very well, Kee, if the detectives were not such dunderheaded idiots. You know I don’t mean you, but that March Hare and that Hart that panted at the inquest, have it in for the girl, and they are ready to turn anything she may say against her.”
“Oh, not so bad as that. But it complicates things, your having gone dotty over her.”
“Sorry for the complications, but not sorry for the rest of it. I say, old man, do you suppose she’d look at me?”
“She might do worse,” said Kee, as he eyed me appraisingly.
Although he spoke lightly I welcomed his words as a good omen and turned in at the Dallas place, determined to do all I could to help him.
It was a pleasant cottage, unpretentious and homelike, and we were admitted by a trim-looking maid, and conducted to a small reception room.
“Come over here,” said a voice, a moment later, and we saw Katherine Dallas smiling at us from the door of the big living room opposite.
She was charming, both in appearance and manner, and greeted us with courtesy if not warmth.
But she clearly showed she considered it an interview rather than a social call and waited for Kee to state his errand.
“Mr. Ames has asked me to look into the matter of Mr. Tracy’s death,” Moore began, shamelessly hiding behind Ames’s skirts. “And though I regret the necessity, I feel I must ask you a few questions which I hope you will be gracious enough to answer.”
“Yes,” she returned, not at all helpfully, though in no way forbidding.
I saw by the play of Keeley’s features that he had sized her up and had concluded to carry on the interview in strictly business fashion.
“You were Mr. Tracy’s fiancée at the time of his death?” he asked.
“Yes, Mr. Moore, I was.”
“Then, as such, as the one holding the nearest relationship to him, if we except his niece, Miss Remsen, am I correct in assuming you desire the discovery of the criminal who is responsible for his death?”
“No, Mr. Moore, you are not correct in that assumption. I loved Mr. Tracy, I hoped to marry him, but now that he is dead, I should greatly prefer that the matter be considered a closed book. I am not of a vindictive nature and to me the horrors of an investigation and all the harrowing details of such a procedure would be only less distressing than the tragedy itself. So far as I am concerned, I should infinitely prefer that the name of the wretch who cruelly killed Sampson Tracy should be buried in oblivion to having it sought for and blazoned to the public gaze.”
“This is not the usual view to take of such a situation, Mrs. Dallas.” Kee’s tone conveyed distinct reproach.
“The usual view has never meant anything to me, nor does it in this instance.”
She was not exactly flippant, but there was a note in her voice that proved, to my mind at least, that she resented any discussion of her mental attitude, and indeed, resented the whole interview and our presence.
Clearly, no help could be expected from her, yet I was moved to put a few straightforward questions.
“Are you remaining here, Mrs. Dallas, for the rest of the summer?”
She favoured me with a glance that was strongly disapproving of such an intrusive remark, and answered, icily:
“That I have not yet decided.”
“You know the terms of the will?” Kee shot at her, suddenly, having decided, as he afterward told me, that she was unworthy of delicate consideration.
“Yes,” she said, with a face void of expression.
“Then, as one of the principal beneficiaries, you know that you cannot expect to escape definite questioning by the detectives.”
“I do not expect to escape it, nor do I fear it. Why are you telling me this, Mr. Moore?”
“I thought you understood that as Mr. Ames’s adviser, I must make certain inquiries in the course of pursuing my duties.”
She thawed a little, and said, half apologetically, “I suppose so. Is there anything else I can tell you?”
“Yes, Mrs. Dallas. Since Mr. Tracy is dead, have you any intention of marrying any one else?”
“I think, Mr. Moore, you are carrying your zeal for Mr. Ames’s work too far. I must beg to be excused from further conversation.”
She rose and stood, like a tragedy queen, not angry, but with a scornful look on her handsome face and an expression in her eyes eloquent of dismissal. She did not point to the door, but such a gesture was not necessary with that look in her eyes.
Courteously and with no effect of chagrin, Kee bowed his adieu and I followed suit.
“Whew!” I remarked, after we had regained the outer road, “some goddess!”
“Amazon! Boadicea! Xantippe! Medea!—yes, and Lucrezia Borgia!” he exclaimed, his voice making up in emphasis what it lacked in sound. “This case begins to look interesting, Gray. What price Everett and the Dallas in cahoots as murderers?”
“Are you serious?” I asked, thinking he was merely smarting under the lady’s stinging rebuke.
“No, I don’t think so. There are more likely suspects. But we learned a lot there. I honestly hated to bang her between the eyes as I did, but she was just about to order us out anyway, and I had to find out her state of mind regarding Everett.”
“And did you?”
“Of course I did. Her sudden flush of colour and the ghastly fear that came into her eyes for an instant told me the truth. Gray, she not only loves Charles Everett, but she is not at all certain that he is not the murderer.”
“That lets her out, then.”
“Oh, of course. … She never committed murder. And, she was at home in bed when the deed was done. She was at our party that night, you know.”
“Yes, I know, but she went home early.”
“Oh, well, there’s not the slightest suspicion attached to her. When I said in cahoots, I didn’t really mean it, or, if I did, I look on her as merely a sleeping partner. But I think she is entirely innocent of crime, or even accessory work, and I think, too, that she fears for Everett. Maybe not that he did the deed, but that he may be suspected of it. I don’t like the woman, I never did, but I think she’s innocent of any real wrong. I think she was engaged to Tracy for purely mercenary reasons, then Everett came along, and she fell for him, and she is now glad that old Samp is out of the way, but she didn’t bring it about.”
“Probably you’re right, Kee, but I don’t hanker after any more calls on suspects if they’re going to be as strenuous as that.”
“Oh, that’s nothing—all in the day’s work. All right, then, if you’re off the case for to-day. I’m going over to Whistling Reeds, but you can toddle home, if you like.”
“You’re going there? To Alma’s? Indeed I will go with you. What are you going for?”
“On a quest for knowledge and information.” He spoke gravely.
“Are you going to torment her, Kee?” I asked.
“Not intentionally. But I must ask some questions and she must answer. Now, go or stay away, as you choose.”
“I’ll go,” I said, and we walked a while in silence.
Reaching our own boathouse, Kee chose his favourite round-bottomed boat and we started for the Island.
I rowed, for I felt the need of some physical exertion to calm my racing nerves, stirred by the thought of the ordeal ahead of us.
Keeley had not suspected Mrs. Dallas—he said so—but I had a feeling he did suspect Alma, and I wondered what his attitude would be.
“Don’t be harsh with her,” I said, at last, apparently apropos of nothing.
“I’m not utterly a brute,” he returned, and I bent to my oars.
It was a gray day. The clouds hid the sun entirely and they were dull heavy clouds, not fleecy white ones such as I loved. The lake was leaden, and the ripples waved slowly but did not break into whitecaps.
There were no other boats in sight and no crowds of merry people on the few docks we passed.
Reaching the Remsen boathouse, it seemed to me the Island looked more than ever like an abode of the dead. The trees were motionless in the calm air and the dark glades and copses seemed sepulchral in their sentinel-like rigidity.
We landed and went up the steps toward the house.
A man advanced to meet us.
“What’s wanted?” he said, not quite gruffly, but with an apparent intention of being answered.
“We want to see Miss Remsen,” Kee replied and his manner was suavity itself. “I am Keeley Moore, from Variable Winds, down the lake. This is my friend, Mr. Norris. Take us to the house, Mr. Merivale, and announce us to Miss Remsen.”
“Announce you, is it? When I’m tellin’ you she isn’t home!”
He hadn’t told us that before, but he seemed to think he had, and he stood directly in our path, so that we could advance no step.
“Where is she, please?”
“She and Merry—that’s my wife, sir—have gone down to the village.”
“And nobody’s home?”
“Nobody but me and one or two kitchen servants.”
“Well, let us sit on the porch a few moments. Mr. Norris is all tuckered out with his row over here, and I’ve got to row back. So, maybe you’ll give us a drink of water; if Mrs. Merivale was at home, I’d ask for tea.”
The strange-looking man seemed to relent a little.
He was an enormous, strapping fellow, not fierce-looking but of powerful build and a strong, forceful countenance. He gazed at us out of deep-set eyes overhung with shaggy eyebrows of stiff gray hair.
“Come along, then,” he said. “You can sit on the porch, and I’ll make you a cup of tea. I can make better tea than Merry.”
But as he turned to leave us, he said, with a slight smile:
“If so be you gentlemen could put up with a drop of Scotch and soda, it’d save me boilin’ the kettle.”
We agreed to put up with the substitute, and he went off.
We said little during the old man’s absence. I felt relieved that Kee did not insist on going into the house, and I sat looking about at the beautiful though gloomy landscape.
Yet, viewed from the porch, it was not so bad. The flower beds gave enough colour, and the near-by trees were mostly white birch, with their graceful shapes and pale, lovely trunks.
Yet between us and the lake was a solid wall of dark, dense woodland that shut off all view of the outer world and shut in the Island and its buildings and people.
“I can’t see why Alma likes this place,” I said, in a low voice. “She doesn’t seem at all morbid or despondent herself.”
“Do you know her?” Keeley asked me, and I suddenly realized that I didn’t know her at all! But, I promised myself, that was a defect that time should remedy and that, I hoped, soon.
From where I sat, I could see into the house through a window. I looked into the same room we had been in the other day I had called here, the day when Merry had told us if we were men to let the poor girl alone.
As I looked, not curiously, only idly, I saw the old man, Merivale, come into the room and adjust a record and then turn on a victrola.
The strains of Raff’s Cavatina floated out to us, and Kee gave a little smile of enjoyment.
A moment later, Merivale appeared with glasses on a tray, and I said, pleasantly, “Your music sounds fine, out here on the lake.”
He looked up suddenly, saw the open window and frowned.
“That Katy!” he exclaimed. “She’s forever turnin’ on that machine! Do you mind it, sir?” He looked anxiously at Kee.
“No,” was the reply, but I marvelled as to why this cheerful old liar should put the blame on poor, innocent Katy, for a deed that I had seen him do himself.