CHAPTER XVI
INTO THEIR HANDS
WHEN the defiant Alexander, accompanied by Mr. O'Rourke and Inspector Druet, had departed, Nicholas Cutter rose.
"Mr. Terhune," he began smoothly, "you must not be annoyed with our hot-headed young Irish friend for his ill-advised interruption of your test. I do not presume to express an opinion in the case but. I shall await the outcome with the keenest expectation, and I want to thank you for a most interesting evening. It has been indeed a privilege to have been present, and I trust that at some more propitious time you will permit me to drop in on you and learn how you prepared the word-test. Good evening."
As though taking leave of his host at a purely social function he bowed himself out, and the criminologist, his equanimity partially restored by the tactful if ambiguous speech, turned to McCarty and Dennis. Bassett had shown the others to the door and the three were alone.
"Well, McCarty, you did not hear the confession I promised you, owing to the interference of your compatriot and the stupidity of your superior, but has my little experiment given you food for thought?"
"If the old gentleman has got the pistol—" Dennis was beginning, but stopped and side-stepped quickly when a heavy boot descended suddenly upon his own.
"If he has, it's no proof he's not guilty!" McCarty declared heartily. "That other one might have been left by the body as a blind, and there are about three million army pistols kicking around the country.—Mr. Terhune, sir, it was wonderful! Never did I see the beat of the way you worked it out! Now, if 'tis not too late will you be after telling us what you doped out from the association tests?"
Dennis stared at his friend in blank amazement and Terhune beamed.
"I always told you that there were possibilities in you far above the ordinary rank and file of the department, my dear McCarty!" he exclaimed. "I will explain the test to you with pleasure. Let us take each one in order. I shall not bore you with the technicalities of the vibratoscope record as thrown upon the projection sheet, but merely give you the result indicated. Mr. O'Rourke's reckless, pleasure-loving, impulsive character was clearly shown in his reactions: 'life' to him meant only sport, and money, debts."
"He loves his wife!" murmured Dennis.
"He had no emotion at the remembrance of Creveling's death but denied the possibility of scandal in connection with it," continued Terhune. "His only thought of grief concerned the dog.—Now we will take Waverly. He was doggedly determined to impress the theory of suicide upon us and his motive was plain; he feared that he himself might be regarded with suspicion because of his recent quarrel with Creveling which, the butler overheard, and he rushed away in a pretense of fury before he learned how groundless that fear was. Cutter, too, insisted upon suicide as the explanation of Creveling's death but that was only from a conservative gentleman's natural distaste for being brought, however remotely, into the notoriety of a murder investigation. You can, I think, follow the steps of the test in Alexander's case."
McCarty nodded.
"That was all true about the brother's will, and the niece's money, and the marriage and all?" he asked slowly.
"Yes. I learned from her maid that Mrs. Creveling bitterly reproached her uncle for forcing her into the marriage and said that the very odor of orange blossoms stifled her; that evidently remained in his thoughts. I have had access to his private papers and account books which proved the state of his financial affairs, and the office boy can testify as to his actions with the pistol on Wednesday and Thursday." Terhune spoke with grim satisfaction. "You heard him admit taking the pistol and also being absent from his rooms at the time the murder was committed, although I did not need his confession; the night elevator boy in the bachelor apartment building where he lives was not asleep as he thought."
"Well, sir, 'twas remarkable the way you led up to it all, and I'll be waiting myself to hear from the inspector whether the old gentleman breaks down and confesses or not.—Come, Denny, we'll be getting along." McCarty edged toward the door.
"I am glad to see, at least, McCarty, that you have an open mind." Terhune shook hands cordially. "It will be rather humiliating to the inspector, I am afraid, but he will have to admit that he was on the wrong track."
"Yes, sir." McCarty laughed. "I told you I'd not be surprised if he had to let Hill go again! Good night, Mr. Terhune."
A drenching April shower was falling as they gained the street but they trudged on beneath their umbrellas in silence. Finally Dennis remarked disgustedly:
"And so you've fallen for Terhune at last! Think shame to yourself, Mac! That little he-goat with the beard may have been selfish enough to sell his niece to the blackguard who by all accounts is better dead, but he never killed him! He wouldn't soil his hands!"
"No more he did," McCarty agreed placidly. "Still, it amused Terhune and there's no harm done. He most likely took the pistol to blow his own brains out with if Creveling kept his word and told how he'd made away with the money left to Mrs. Creveling, and where he could have been when the shooting took place is more than I know, but 'twas not there. I'll call the inspector up later and get the truth of it."
"So you were just kidding Terhune into explaining about the word test?" demanded Dennis, bewildered. "What did you mean, then, about the inspector having to let Hill go? What man was it who murdered that guy, anyway?"
"I meant what I said," responded McCarty firmly. "And that's the last word you'll get out of me this night!"
He parted from Dennis at the fire house and proceeded to his own rooms, but he had scarcely turned on the light when the telephone rang.
"Who is it?" he demanded cautiously as he lifted the receiver.
"Druet speaking, Mac. Say, of all the blunderers in this world that scientific—!"
"I know, sir," McCarty interrupted. "Old Alexander's as innocent as a babe; I could tell that with half an eye. Did you find the pistol?"
"Yes. He's hidden it under the bathtub in his suite and Grayson came down and identified it. The old boy meant to kill himself rather than face disgrace."
"And his alibi, sir?"
"He has none," the inspector replied. "His story rings true, though; he says he couldn't sleep with what was on his mind and he went out and walked the streets. He hasn't any clear recollection of where he wandered and he didn't meet any one he knew who could testify for him, but in about two hours he found himself at Columbus Circle and took a taxi home. He remembers that the chauffeur was an ugly looking customer with a deep scar on one side of his face and that ought to help. Come downtown to-morrow morning and we'll go over the evidence against Hill."
But when early on Sunday morning McCarty presented himself at the outer office of the homicide bureau he was met by Martin who greeted him with an air of ill-concealed jubilation.
"Mac!—sir!" He corrected himself in belated acknowledgment of official manners in the possible hearing of superiors, but his eyes danced with excitement. "Who do you think is in there this minute, closeted with the Chief?"
He pointed toward the inspector's private office and McCarty eyed the door thoughtfully.
"Well, now," he observed at last. "It wouldn't knock me off my feet with surprise if 'twas the Hildreth woman."
"What-t!" Martin exploded. "You couldn't have heard! You must be in league with the devil himself!—She came in here not ten minutes ago and gave herself up; walked deliberately right into our hands!"
"I expected it, though not quite so soon," McCarty remarked placidly. "'Tis no devil I'm in league with, Martin, my lad, but I make some use of the head the Lord gave me except just to grow hair so I can listen to the barber's conversation! When you've been in the game as long as I have you'll learn to look two jumps ahead of yourself. For what else but to make her come clean do you think I let the inspector lock up Hill again?"
"You old fox!" Martin grinned. "Terhune pulled a bonehead, too, last night, didn't he? Who do you think the fellow was who croaked Creveling?"
"I'm wasting no time wondering what fellow did it!" McCarty retorted with a trace of impatience. "Give the inspector a buzz and see will he let me in on that little conference in there?"
Inspector Druet, it appeared, had been awaiting his arrival and he entered the inner sanctum to find two women there; one standing and facing the inspector across his desk and the other huddled on a chair in the corner, sniffling into her handkerchief.
"I do not want that she should be blamed," the first woman was saying in her mild, gentle voice. "It was only a great kindness that she showed in hiding me, for you see, sir, she believed in me."
Inspector Druet nodded briefly to his confrère and the woman turned her great, blue eyes slowly upon McCarty with a start of recognition.
"Who are you?" The inspector turned to the huddled figure in the corner.
"Ada Hopkins." The hand holding the handkerchief fell to her lap disclosing a small, pinched, delicately withered face. "I'm a seamstress, out by the day, and I have the flat under Mrs. Hildreth's—Mrs. Hill's, I mean. I got sick and she took care of me like an angel; nobody ever did anything for me before in all my life! I knew she was sad and in some kind of trouble, but she never told me about it and I didn't like to ask; if I didn't mind my own business I never could have kept my customers for twenty years, going from house to house—!"
"Come, come!" the inspector interrupted. "Get down to cases, Miss Hopkins. So you hid this woman when we were after her the other night, did you?"
"Yes, sir, and I'd do it again!" The little creature flared up suddenly. "She never laid a finger on anybody's jewelry, and as for accusing Mr. Hill of shooting that man—why, he was home from a little past eleven o'clock Thursday night until nearly three in the morning! That's what I've come down here to tell you and I don't care what you do to me for helping Mrs. Hill!"
"So you knew she had skipped her bail, did you?" asked the inspector.
"Not till Friday night, but it wouldn't have made any difference to me; she was no thief, no matter what that rich family said about her!—I'm working extra nights, making a wedding dress for one of the girls in the neighborhood and I ran out of white silk thread on Thursday night. I went around to a little shop on Third Avenue that I knew kept open late to get some more, and when I came back I met Mr. Hill in the vestibule and we talked real pleasantly all the way upstairs."
"What time was this?"
"Twenty minutes after eleven by the clock on my mantel when I got back into my own rooms," Miss Hopkins responded promptly. "I know, because I looked particular; I was timing myself on that dress and I knew I'd have to work until near morning. The floors and ceilings in that Lenahan house are as thin as paper and I heard Mr. Hill go into his flat and the sound of their voices talking for hours while he tramped back and forth, shaking my chandelier. I was sewing away so hard that I never realized how late it was getting till I heard him go out again. It surprised me and I looked at the time to find it was five minutes to three. I put away my sewing then and went to bed."
There was a pause during which the inspector's eyes slowly met those of McCarty and what he read there brought a slight flush to his cheek.
"You are prepared to swear that Hill was in his rooms all during the time you mention?"
"Yes, sir."
"How do you know that the man who is charged with the murder of Eugene Creveling is the same man you knew first as Hildreth and then as Hill?" persisted the inspector.
"From the pictures of him that was printed in last night's papers, and this morning's, too; I'd swear to him anywhere," she retorted with spirit.
"What happened Friday night?"
"Well, I was busy putting sleeves in that dress, sir, when along between twelve and one I heard a sound like people going upstairs past my door real soft but I didn't think anything of it. I heard some one groaning, too, but I wouldn't open my door; I never want to get into any neighbors" rows! Then Mrs. Hildreth's door slammed and I heard her running toward the kitchen; she ain't what you might call light-footed!
"I dropped my needle and listened, then, and I heard a terrible noise all at once; the crash of her door coming down and a lot of pottery breaking. Something hit my kitchen window and I ran in there just in time to see Mrs. Hildreth come down the fire escape. She begged me to hide her, and said it was the police but she hadn't done any wrong and she could explain. That was enough for me, and I hid her, all right!" A little mischievous twinkle came into Miss Hopkins' reddened eyes. "The policeman and your own smart young detective walked all 'round her and never saw her!"
"What do you mean?" Inspector Druet demanded.
"I made a dummy of her!" she replied with evident satisfaction. "There wasn't a place you could hide a cat in my rooms and I was at my wit's end, when all at once I thought of the form—the figure, you know, that I drape dresses on. Quick as a wink I whipped that wedding dress off it, dragged it over and stuck it in the closet and made Mrs. Hildreth stand straight up on the skirt measuring platform. I don't know how I ever got that wedding dress on her for it was an awful tight fit, her being so big, but I managed it somehow, pulling the skirt down over her feet and throwing a sheet over the top of her like I always do over dresses on the form to keep them clean. When the policeman and your detective come through my rooms I was sitting on the floor, stitching away at the hem of that skirt and they never so much as lifted a corner of the sheet!"
McCarty coughed, but the inspector avoided his eye and asked hastily:
"What happened after they had gone?"
"Nothing. Mrs. Hildreth came down off the platform and told me who she was and the story she's come here to tell you now and nobody knew she was in my rooms until now. Ever since she read in the papers yesterday afternoon that her husband had been arrested for that murder she was near crazy, and this morning she couldn't stand it any longer, for she knew he would never speak and give away where she was; he'd go to the chair first. She made up her mind to come down here to you and nothing could stop her."
"Is this all true?" The inspector turned once more to the woman before him. "Are you the wife of Frank Hill?"
"Yes, sir; I have brought with me my marriage certificate. It is most certainly true that my husband was at home with me at the time the murder was committed and true also that I did not touch the jewels of Mrs. Creveling. I told all that I knew about that when I was first arrested but what I suspect—?" she shrugged. "Who would listen or believe?"
"We'll listen to you, all right," the inspector promised. "Sit down and tell me everything. You are Swedish and called yourself Ilsa Helwig, didn't you, when you went to work at the Crevelings'?"
"Yes, sir, it is my name. I am of German parents but always I have lived in Stockholm. In October I went as housemaid to the Crevelings, and in January I married Frank." She paused and then added: "I have so many times before told my story of what happened the afternoon the emeralds disappeared, but perhaps you do not know. As Mrs. Creveling testified, I was summoned to help her dress for the pageant and had unpacked her costume when she came into the room with the jewel case in her hand. She put it down upon her dressing-table and then Rollins came to say that some one wanted her on the telephone. I had all day such a headache I was nearly crazy and I thought I would have time to slip away to my room and take a powder before Mrs. Creveling returned. I did go up to my room, sir, not downstairs as Mr. Creveling swore; I did not touch the jewel case. But who would believe?"
"Did you go directly back to Mrs. Creveling's dressing-room after you took your medicine?"
"Yes, but she had already returned, sir. No one was more surprised than I when she opened the jewel case and it was empty, but I—I never thought that I should be accused. I—it stunned me, I was for a time like one dead, and then I began to think, and so did Frank."
She paused once more and the inspector said impatiently.
"Well, what did you think?"
"Mr. Creveling is dead, sir, and it is not well to speak against those who are gone, but why should he have sworn to a lie about me?" the woman asked simply. "Why did he try to fasten on me the theft instead of doing all he could to find out who really took the emeralds unless he knew the truth and must hide it, no matter who suffered? Yet he could not have been all bad, that man, for who sent to my lawyers the money for my bond?"
The inspector bent forward over his desk.
"You think that Creveling himself took his wife's emeralds?" he cried. "Will you swear that neither you nor your husband know where the ten thousand came from for your bail?"
"I swear it, sir! It happened exactly as my lawyers told. Frank and I had suspected from the time Mr. Creveling said that which was not true about me, and he did not want me prosecuted from the beginning, you know. That was Mrs. Creveling's doing; she is of ice, that lady. Ice and iron!—But it does not matter about me. I can prove nothing against Mr. Creveling and she must do with me as she wishes. You have heard my good friend here; her word has cleared my husband of the murder charge, has it not? Oh, will you set him free?"
The inspector sent for Martin and dispatched him with a note to the Commissioner. Then for the first time he addressed McCarty.
"What do you think, Mac?"
McCarty cast a warning glance toward the two women who were conversing together in the corner and replied in low, quick tones:
"I'm thinking I'd like to go to the Tombs with the paper that lets Hill out and have a talk with him."
An hour later, as he made his way over to the gloomy, turreted pile of gray stone, McCarty went carefully in retrospection through the account of the theft which Mrs. Creveling had given him. That she herself had conspired with her husband to make away with her own jewels and place the blame upon the girl was unthinkable, but that Creveling might have abstracted them from the jewel case in the temporary absence of both mistress and maid was another matter. If the woman was to be believed, there was no one else against whom suspicion could be directed, for all the other servants of the household were together downstairs—except the maid who was ill—and they could testify for each other.
Creveling could have taken the jewels while they were in his safe, of course, but in that case no one else could be definitely accused. If Creveling had seen Ilsa slip away after her mistress' departure he might have seized upon the psychological moment to dart across the hall and possess himself of the emeralds, confident, if he considered it at all, that when they were not found in the maid's hands his wife would not press a charge against her. Mrs. Creveling herself had admitted that he did not want to prosecute the girl and then there was the matter of the cash bail; ten thousand does not drop from the skies!
But surely, in spite of his partner's statement as to the shrinkage of his capital, Creveling could not have been brought so low financially that he must steal his own wife's trinkets.... Then a sudden thought halted McCarty in the middle of a busy street, to the imminent danger of his neck and the wrath of the traffic policeman. Urged to action by the honk of a motor horn just behind his ear, he sprang mechanically for the curb and continued his way as though in a daze.
Creveling had opened the jewel case when he took it from the safe to give it to his wife and she had mentioned that she intended to have the stones reset almost immediately, but he had tried to dissuade her from doing so. Had his disapproval been merely because their antique setting appealed to his artistic sense, as Mrs. Creveling said, or had he another reason? Were the stones in those old settings the same ones which she had placed in his charge only a few days before?
There was another problem, too, in McCarty's mind, which bore more directly on the murder but he thrust it for the moment aside. He had felt from the start of the investigation that Hill held a possible key to the mystery if only he could be persuaded to speak; would he break silence now if he might thereby save his wife from going to trial?
When the former valet was ushered into his presence at the Tombs McCarty beamed at him in a guileless, friendly manner.
"Hello, Hill," he began genially. "I guess you knew we couldn't hang that murder charge on you for long, didn't you?"
The man's face was drawn and haggard and he raised burning eyes to meet the clear blue ones which smiled at him.
"What does that matter?" he asked listlessly. "You've found her—!"
"I did, but she got away from me Friday night," McCarty said frankly.
"Got away!" Hill clutched suddenly at a chair as if for support.
"She's down at headquarters now; that Hopkins woman on the floor below you has been taking care of her but she gave herself up when she heard that you were charged with Creveling's murder, so that she could prove your alibi.—Here! Buck up, man!"
With a groan Hill had sunk into a chair and covered his face with his thin hands.
"That's why you took me up!" he said. "You did it to make her show herself! Oh, why did she do it? Couldn't she realize that I would rather have anything happen to me than that she should be caught!"
"'Twas the very best thing that she could have done!" McCarty asserted stoutly. "We'd have got her sooner or later and what with her jumping her bail and all it might have looked pretty black against her, but now since she's come clean, Hill, I don't mind telling you that if your wife's story is straight I'm going to back her up. I'm going to see what Creveling himself might have had to do with the stealing of those emeralds!"
For an instant Hill looked up with a gleam of hope in his eyes. Then they darkened sullenly and he shook his head.
"It's only another trick!" he muttered. "Why would any one think that Mr. Creveling would take his wife's jewels? We'd have had no chance to convince people without proof, and Ilsa had better have kept quiet; it'll only go harder with her."
"'Tis no trick!" McCarty protested. "I know that Creveling needed money bad and those stones were worth thirty thousand—"
"Money?" Hill interrupted him in surprise. "Why, we thought he had given them to another—"
He stopped with his lips pressed tightly together, but McCarty finished the sentence for him.
"To another woman, do you mean? Hill, I'm speaking the God's truth when I tell you that if you'll come across with all you know about Creveling I'll do my best to clear your wife of the charge against her and get the indictment quashed. That can only be done by finding the stones or proving who took them and what became of them. I'm willing to say right now that I don't think your wife is guilty, but you'll have to help me prove it. Will you?"
Once more Hill's haggard eyes studied his face and after a long minute he drew a deep breath and straightened in his chair.
"Yes, sir," he said. "I believe you now, and if you'll only get her free I'll tell you everything I know about Eugene Creveling!"