CHAPTER XIV
POSY MAY
“WELL,” Keeley began, as we arranged ourselves comfortably on the glass-enclosed porch and prepared for a confab, “our impulsive friend here has gone and done it now!”
The two women gave me a quick look, and Lora, with her uncanny intuition, said:
“When is the wedding, Gray?”
“As soon as it can be arranged,” I declared, stoutly, for I wasn’t going to be secretive about this matter, anyway. “But don’t plan for it yet, Lora, for the lady hasn’t by any means said yes. It’s only, so far, that ‘Barkis is willin’.’”
“It is serious,” Keeley said, slowly. “It’s all serious, and getting more so every minute. I say, you’ll have to excuse me, I’ve got to go on an errand.”
He rose hastily and gathering up his hat and coat, started off down the road.
“Kee’s on the warpath for sure,” declared Lora. “What happened at Whistling Reeds, Gray?”
“Nothing much—or, yes, I suppose there were developments. Better wait till Kee comes back. He went over the house on a searching bout.”
“Did he find anything?”
“I don’t know, but I doubt if he found anything as important as I did. You girls may as well know, first as last, I found—that is—I was given—oh, pshaw, here it is—Alma asked me to destroy a book for her, and it was a copy of that book that has in it the story of The Nail.”
“No!” cried Maud, aghast at the revelation. “Then” She paused.
“Now, don’t jump at conclusions,” Lora begged, looking at me with the utmost kindness, “To find that book there doesn’t necessarily point to Alma. It may implicate that old harridan of a nurse or her caveman husband. Far more likely than that cultured girl!”
I looked at her gratefully.
“Good for you, Lora,” I said. “Now I’m going to fight this thing to a finish. I’m far from ready to admit that the book’s presence at that house is a proof of anything; but of course, it must be investigated. The worst part of it is that Alma asked me secretly to destroy it.”
“She would, if she is shielding either of those two caretakers of hers. She is devoted to them, and I for one shouldn’t be at all surprised if one or both of them did that murder. You see, they were afraid that the marriage of Mr. Tracy would cut off the fortune from their beloved mistress and so there’s motive enough.”
“But not a shred of evidence,” I said. “And the evidence against Alma is simply piling up. The print of a shoe sole in the window sill shows diamond-shaped dots, as you know, and Alma denied having any other rubber-soled shoes. But, on the garden path there were distinct prints of soles with diamond-shaped dots, and when Kee saw them, he drew my attention. And besides,” in my despair I blurted out the whole story, “Alma told me she had destroyed the shoes.”
“You poor boy,” and that blessed Lora patted my shoulder encouragingly, as she flitted about, “don’t put too much weight on those facts. I begin to see through it all. Alma was there, in that room—must have been—but she was not the criminal. Nor did she cut up all those monkey tricks in the bedroom. But these things must be sifted. Keeley will do it, once he gets fairly started. That is, Gray, if you will help him. Do believe me, when I tell you it is far better for you to be frank. Do you know, even now, Kee thinks you’re holding out on him.”
“I certainly should have held out on that confounded book, if I’d had the least idea he would sneak it away from me! Good Lord, Lora, you’ve been in love—what would you have done if every man’s hand was against Kee and you”
“Hold on there, Gray, I love Kee now as much as I ever did! And I’m not saying I wouldn’t lie or steal for him. But not if I were convinced that honesty was the best plan. No matter what you know or what you may learn against Alma, let Kee in on it, for that is the only way to prove her innocence.”
“You haven’t any doubt of her innocence, have you, Gray?” Maud asked, gently.
“No, Maudie, I haven’t. But there are such blatant, glaring bits of evidence that seem to be against her, that I am afraid others won’t be willing to sift them down, but will assume them to be proof positive of her guilt.”
“But if she is shielding some one else, as she must be, surely detectives like Keeley and Mr. March will see through it. Mr. March isn’t nearly as keen as Keeley, but he’s nobody’s fool, and he can see through a millstone with a hole in it.”
“She tries to take it all so lightly,” I went on, thinking aloud. “Keeley made her say she left her fingerprints when she tried to raise that window, and then he flung at her that it was raining all Tuesday afternoon. And she only said: ‘Oh, well, then it must have been Monday.’ Now, that’s all right, and probably it was Monday, but March won’t be satisfied with that. He’ll cross question her and bullyrag her until he gets her so mixed up she won’t know where she’s at!”
“But, Gray,” Lora said, quietly, “have you realized that those fingerprints are not such as would be made in an attempt to raise the window? They are on the frame, not on the sash. They are obviously the marks made by some one who stepped up on the window sill and sprang out of the window. Kee is positive about this. He has examined them minutely.”
“Then Heaven help Alma,” I groaned. “For they say they are her fingerprints and her footprints and she admits that she had that Totem thing in her mind. But it’s too clear! It’s too obvious! She never killed her uncle, fixed up all that gimcrack business and then went in the sitting room and jumped out of the window!”
“Stick to the things she evidently did do,” put in Maud. “She must have stood on the sill and dived out of the window”
“Not necessarily,” I stormed. “Even if she stepped up on the sill, say, to open a window that stuck, that doesn’t say she jumped, nor does it prove she killed her uncle.”
“Certainly not—hush, somebody is coming up the steps.”
The somebody proved to be Posy May, the pretty youngster whom I had seen a few times already.
“Well, how goes it?” she demanded, dropping into a chair and curling her feet under her, while I accommodated her with a cigarette and a light.
“How goes what?” asked Maud, who was not entirely in favour of the young lady, being herself of the type that can’t quite understand the flapper motif.
“Oh, the detective business in general. It intrigues me, you know. I sometimes think I’ll take a correspondence course in Sherlocking.”
“What are you doing to-day?” Lora said, pleasantly. “Why aren’t you at the McClellan’s tea?”
“Nixie on the switch! I like the subject I started better. And you needn’t scorn me so. I could a tale unfold. …”
Annoyed beyond measure by this impudent minx, I rose and sauntered toward the house door.
But Lora had evidently caught a note of reality in the girl’s voice, for she said, almost sharply, “What do you know, Posy? If you know anything concerning the matter, it is your duty to tell of it.”
“I’d rather tell Mr. Moore,” she put on an air of importance. “He is at the head of the investigation, I assume.”
Lora smiled, in spite of herself, at the chit’s manner, but she only said, suavely:
“As a good wife, I am my husband’s helpmeet in all his business. And I assure you it will be better to tell me and let me pass it on to him, for he’s gone out, and I don’t know when he’ll get home again.”
“Do tell us,” Maud urged, helpfully. “We are all intrigued, as you say, with the case, and your assistance might prove invaluable.”
The flattering glance that accompanied this speech seemed to win the day, and Posy settled back in the big chair, sticking her feet out straight in front of her.
“Well,” she said, smoothing down her brief and scant skirt, “you see, our house is on down the lake, next below Whistling Reeds.”
Recognizing there was or might be something coming, I turned back, and sat down again.
“So, of course, I can’t help seeing them about now and then, though I don’t really rubber much—I don’t get time, as I’m busy on my own. And, after all, there’s nothing to see, and if there was, you can’t see much with all that wall of evergreens all round about.”
“If this is idle gossip, my dear” Lora began.
“No, it’s—it’s information.”
Thoroughly enjoying the attention she was receiving, Posy prolonged the situation by selecting and lighting a fresh cigarette. Having drawn one puff, she turned it round and critically surveyed the lighted end, as is the absurd habit of some people.
But each one of her hearers knew better than to interrupt by word or look the possible continuance of her revelations.
“Now, what I have to tell, I’ve never breathed to a soul. I’m not sure now that I ought to breathe it.”
She looked questioningly about, but we gave no aid or hindrance, knowing the best plan was to let her alone.
Then she drew a long sigh, and let the whole story pour forth in a mad rush of words.
“And it’s only one thing I saw, and one thing I heard. And I saw Alma Remsen, out on the tennis court, in a perfectly fiendish rage, and she was striking that old nurse person of hers and calling her the most terrible names, and the man who takes care of the place came and carried her into the house.”
“Carried the nurse?”
“No, of course not! Carried Alma into the house, and she was kicking and fighting like mad. And the other time was when I was out on the lake and I could see just the same sort of row going on, but I was too far to hear what she said. But this time the man wasn’t about and the nurse managed by herself to drag Alma into the house.”
“You’re sure what you are saying is true, Posy?” asked Lora, very gravely and with an intent look at the girl.
“Oh, yes, Mrs. Moore, I’m sure, and the reason I’m telling you is because I think that Alma isn’t—you know—isn’t quite right, sometimes. She isn’t—exactly, all there. And then, except on these occasions, she is all right, her own sweet, lovely self.”
“Do you know Alma well, Miss Posy?” I asked.
“Oh, yes. We come up here every summer, I’ve known her for five or six years. She’s older than I am, we don’t go in the same set, but we meet at fairs and tournaments and she’s always most chummy with me. Now, I know you all think I’m telling this just to make a sensation and all that, but it isn’t at all. I’ve thought it over a lot, and it seemed to be my duty. You see, I’ve doped it out that she has spells—you know, epileptic, or whatever they call it, and that they don’t come on often, but when they do, she has no control over her passions. She becomes—oh, somebody else, like—and she fights like a mad person. If you’d seen her go for Mr. Merivale—wow! I don’t want to see it again!”
“I can’t help thinking you’re mistaken in your diagnosis, Miss May,” I said, speaking indulgently, for I didn’t want her to flare up. “But I think it’s far more likely the two occasions you speak of were just fits of anger, unladylike, perhaps, even unjustifiable, but not the result of a diseased mind or body.”
She looked at me with earnest eyes.
“You wouldn’t say that if you had seen her, Mr. Norris. She was mad—I mean mad, in the sense of demented—I don’t mean just angry. Well, anyway, I’ve told my story, now you can take it up. But I know, if you go there and face that nurse down, she’ll have to admit there’s some such state of things as I tell you of. She’d deny it to me, or to these ladies, but if a man went there and made her tell the truth, you’d soon find out! That’s why she had to be put out of her uncle’s house, when he decided to get a wife in there. He couldn’t bring a wife to a home with a girl like that in it. If it had not been for his approaching wedding, Mr. Tracy never would have put Alma out.”
“Posy,” Lora spoke gently, “are you willing to keep this secret a while longer? Are you willing to promise not to tell anybody about it until Mr. Moore says you may? If you will do this, you may feel that you have been of real help to us, but if you’re going to spread the story you will do incalculable harm.”
“No, I won’t tell if you don’t want me to.”
“That’s a good girl and we certainly don’t want you to. Don’t even tell Dick Hardy, will you?”
“Oh, gosh, no! He wouldn’t listen, anyway. He’s just my sheik, you know. He and I don’t talk about anything serious.”
“You’re a funny youngster, Posy,” and Lora smiled kindly at her, “but I’m going to trust your word in this thing. If you say you won’t tell, you won’t, will you?”
“No, ma’am, I sure won’t. And, I don’t s’pose you can get me, but I seemed to think the ends of justice couldn’t be served unless I coughed up my yarn.”
“Oh, Posy, you funny kid!” said Maud, laughing outright.
But Posy didn’t smile, nor, indeed, did I.
After a few more words she went off, and as she ran round the corner of the hedge I felt that doubtless she had dismissed the subject from her addle-pated head.
For a few moments we sat, silently thinking over the story we had heard.
I broke the silence finally by saying, “It’s too circumstantial not to be true.”
“Yes,” Lora agreed, “it’s true, right enough, but I can’t quite understand.”
“Nothing hard to understand,” I argued. “Alma has a more uncontrollable temper than I had any idea of. This doesn’t make me think she went so far as to kill her uncle in one of her angry fits but I will say that the matter must be looked into.”
“Kee will look into it,” Lora said, with one of her gentle smiles.
Kee’s wife was a good sort, and she always tried to make things easy and pleasant for me. I knew, though, that she was thinking over this thing, and I dreaded to learn whither her thoughts led her.
For I distinctly remembered Mrs. Dallas saying that Sampson Tracy had wanted to tell her something about Alma, something unpleasant, she had implied. What could it have been but this, that the girl had, at times, an ungovernable temper?
For I was determined I would not believe that the trouble lay deeper than that. That the sweet girl I adored had a flaw in her brain or a physical disorder that meant impaired intellect in any way!
We ignored the subject by common consent, Lora, no doubt feeling that since it must be discussed with Kee, there was small use mulling it over beforehand.
And then, Kee returned.
He was full of some news of his own, so we listened to him first.
“It’s about that sound Ames heard,” he told us. “You know he said, after several false starts, that it was like a stick drawn along a wall.
“Well, it occurred to me that, if it was anything at all, it might be the murderer trailing along, with his hammer and nail in his hand, and if the hall was dark, feeling along the walls and doors to guide him.”
“Rather far-fetched.” I smiled.
“Well, the only way to see about it was to look on the door of Ames’s room and there, sure enough, was a long scratch, as if a nail or something had been dragged along it. A distinct scratch, but only across the door—at least, I could find no other such mark. So, me for the Coroner’s office to look over the exhibits. And, if you please, with a powerful lens, I discovered some minute particles of dark varnish in under the head of that nail that played the principal part in our death drama.”
“Seems incredible,” I murmured, and indeed it did.
“Yes, but true,” Kee averred. “And the brown varnish corresponds exactly to the door of Ames’s room, all the doors in that wing, in fact.”
“Well, after all, what does it prove?” I asked, wearily, wondering what new horror was to be divulged.
“Only premeditation. It proves that the murderer went to Tracy’s room, passing by Ames’s room, carrying the nail with him, and presumably the hammer. That’s all I can see in it, but it lends a bit of colour to Maud’s idea that the story of The Nail may have been responsible for the whole thing.”
“Yes,” I said, holding myself together, “it does. But of course, even though we found that book at the house on the Island, there are several inmates of that house who may become suspect; also there is the possibility that one of those inmates may have lent that book to anybody in all Deep Lake.”
“Perfectly true, Gray,” and Keeley spoke almost casually. “That’s logical enough. Now to find out who did or might have done that. It’s quite on the cards that somebody in the Pleasure Dome household read that book and used that method to do away with Tracy. It’s even possible that a rank outsider did the same thing. But somebody did do it, and with that book in the vicinity it’s only rational to assume the connection between the suggestion and the deed.”
“Could it have been the work of a demented person?” asked Maud.
“Very easily,” Keeley said. “I’ve hoped all along some maniac would turn up whom we could suspect. But none has, so far. Yes, it all has the earmarks of the work of a distorted brain, I mean the feather duster and all that tomfoolery. But I’ve not been able to find any trace of anybody even slightly or temporarily demented.”
Well, then, of course, Posy May’s story had to be told to him.
Lora undertook the telling, and without any help from Maud or me, she gave a clear and concise résumé of Posy’s statements.
Kee listened, as always, thoughtfully and with deepest interest.
When she had finished, he turned to me and said, in what was intended for a comforting manner:
“Take it easy, old man. The game’s never out till it’s played out. I’m not at all of the opinion that the scenes the volatile Posy described actually happened just as she described them. It may be Alma lost her temper, lost it to such an extent that the Merivales, one and all, urged her into the house. But make allowances for the source of that information and remember that it may all have happened some time ago, that Posy’s memory may be greatly stimulated by her imagination, and that she is decidedly prone to exaggerate, anyway.”
My very drooping spirits revived and I plucked up a little hope. But I had to know what Kee thought about the book.
“Do you feel sure, as Maud does, that the story in the book started the whole thing?”
“As I said, a few moments ago, I do, at this moment, think there is some connection, but I am quite willing to say, also, that it is, to my mind, just as likely there is none.”
“Then why did Alma want the book destroyed?” I demanded.
“Because she thinks there is a connection”
My heart lightened.
“That,” I exclaimed, “proves you think her innocent.”
“I never said I didn’t think that. But thinking so is a far cry from proving it. If you, Gray, could only bring yourself to tell me the important bit of information you are holding out on me, I should know better where we stand. I think, boy, the time has come—if you’re ever going to tell—to tell now.”
I pondered. How could I tell them that I had seen Alma on the lake that night? How could I put her dear head in the noose?—for it was nothing less than that. I shook my head.
“There’s nothing, Kee,” I said.
“Don’t tell, if you don’t want to, Gray, but don’t think you can lie to me successfully. You can’t.”
“But, Keeley,” I begged him, “granting I do know of a point that I haven’t told you, and supposing it definitely incriminates the girl I love, can you wonder that I want to withhold it?”
“You mean you think it definitely incriminates her. You may well be mistaken.”
“It doesn’t seem so to me.”
“And you propose to lock this important piece of information in your own soul, away from us all, and let us go on, blindly floundering”
“Do you suppose I care how blindly you flounder if you don’t suspect Alma Remsen? Do you suppose I care that I’m accessory after the fact, and all that, if I can keep her safe from suspicion?”
“But, Gray, if I can convince you that it’s wiser to let me know, and if I promise not to utilize the information you give me, if it does prove her guilty, what then?”
“If you give me your word of honour on that, I’ll tell.”
“Very well, word of honour.”
“Then,” I said, “I saw Alma Remsen in her canoe go to Pleasure Dome at about half-past one that night her uncle died, and I saw—no, I heard, her come back past here about half-past two.”
“How are you so sure of this?” Kee asked. “You didn’t know her then. That was the very night you arrived here.”
“I know that. I was looking out of my bedroom window and saw the girl; it was moonlight and I saw her distinctly. Then, next day when I saw Alma I recognized her for the same girl.”
“And you didn’t see her return?”
“I heard her, but I was sleepy and didn’t get up to look out. It may not have been she, of course, but it was a sound as of similar paddling.”
“I’m glad you told me,” Keeley said, but his face was sombre and his eyes sad.