CHAPTER XI
THE VOICE
CAPTAIN LEWIS looked up with a grin as Odell entered the bureau at Police Headquarters that evening and sank into a chair beside the big desk.
"I thought there must be something doing when you 'phoned down for eight of the boys to-day," he commented. "What's going on at the Meade house?"
"Murder," responded Odell succinctly. "Systematic murder on a bigger scale than this city has known for years, and an inside job. Someone is trying to wipe out the whole family. Captain; and I have struck a million clues and no motive. In all the five years I have been on your staff I've never seen anything to equal this case."
The captain gave a low whistle.
"Murder, eh? Sure of it, Odell?"
"Does a man cut his own throat by accident, severing the jugular vein; drop his razor, grope around with bloody hands to save himself, and then before he dies hunt for that razor so that he shall be found with it in his hand?" demanded the detective. "You know how young Julian Chalmers was supposed to have died last week. I have proof that someone took his razor from him, cut his throat with it, and then slipped it back into his hand as he lay dead; but they didn't take into consideration the fact that the marks of both his hands in blood were upon the side of the bathtub."
"You can prove that?"
"Two reliable witnesses. Moreover, I'm convinced that his mother, Mrs. Richard Lorne, was also murdered not a month before."
"Mrs. Lorne died of blood-poisoning."
"Yes. By poison with which she was deliberately if indirectly infected."
Odell gave his chief a detailed description of the case as he had learned it from the physicians, and demonstrated once more his discovery of the substitution of the needle; and the captain's skeptical manner changed.
"Good work, Odell!" he exclaimed. "Your proof is more conclusive in the instance of young Chalmers's death than in his mother's; but it is circumstantial enough in that alone to warrant a thorough investigation. I'll see the Chief Medical examiner to-night and arrange for an autopsy at once. We'll have to keep a soft pedal on the press, though, and go slow on this 'inside job' stuff until we have the dope. The Meades are an influential old family and Lorne has big money interests back of him. Did you get an interview with, each of them?"
"All except the youngest daughter and Lorne himself; but I saw them both for a moment. Any news of that butler, Peters?"
"Not yet, but I'm having his sister's house watched. What was that you handed me over the 'phone this morning about two attempts having been made upon the lives of two members of the family within the last twenty-four hours?"
The detective told his story from the inquiries which he and Titheredge had made at the carpenter's shop concerning the mysterious telephone message to the conclusion of his interview with Randall Chalmers and the discovery in the parrot's cage; and after he had finished the captain sat for a while in silence.
"Well, let's say that you have established proof of the murder of Julian Chalmers and the attempted murder of his brother and of Richard Lorne," he remarked at last. "You have also strong circumstantial evidence of the murder of Mrs. Lorne; and it all points to an inside job. I think for the time being we can drop Miss Meade and the two young ladies out of it; that leaves Lorne himself, the two Chalmers boys, and the four servants. What do you make of that cripple?"
"He has abnormally long arms, and hands like talons; and his attitude toward his family shows that he is lacking in moral sense to a certain degree, provided this utter callousness of his isn't a pose. I admit he has me guessing," Odell replied frankly. "He's only a kid, yet he talks like an old man; and his brain is keen if it is warped. Now, these two attempted crimes, like the two already accomplished, show remarkable ingenuity coupled with a carelessness in execution in each case that would seem to mark them as the conception of a mind that was erratic, to say the least; and the hacked picture-wires and sawed step of the stairs would both have required strength of no mean order. The hint that maid Gerda tried to give me, too, about insanity sticks in my mind. Who could she have meant but that boy?
"There is the sawdust, also. When I first examined the stairs I saw that it had all been carefully removed except a few flecks, and I started on a still hunt to find out what had been done with it. I discovered the ashes as you know in Gene Chalmers's fireplace, but I wasn't satisfied. Wood-ashes smudge, but paper ashes form just a fluff; and the grate was too clean. That's why I set Taylor the task of examining the fireplaces in the other rooms; but he found no trace.
"It's evident that whoever wanted to get rid of them had to do it in a hurry, and for some reason couldn't or didn't dare use a grate. There is none in the hunchback's room; but there was that metal tray in the bottom of the parrot's cage, which could be and undoubtedly was used to burn the sawdust on.
"The proceeding was so hurried, however, that the sawdust was not entirely burned. The tray wasn't cleaned, and it was returned to the cage so hot that it blistered the parrot's feet. Then the ashes of the sawdust were dumped in Gene's grate."
"Exactly. To throw suspicion upon him," the captain commented. "So that's the case against the hunchback as far as it goes?"
"I'm not so sure," Odell demurred thoughtfully. "You've heard of what these criminologist sharks on the other side call the elementary and secondary mind, haven't you, Captain?"
His superior grunted.
"You know what I think of all that bunk," he said noncommittally.
"Well, those are only terms used to classify the different degrees of cleverness on the part of the criminal, anyway." Odell's diplomacy came to his aid. "If someone else had burned that sawdust and put the ashes in Gene's grate to throw suspicion on him it wouldn't have taken much mental effort; would it? But if Gene himself had burned it in the tray from the bottom of the cage in Randall's room, purposely put back the tray uncleaned to leave the evidence, and then emptied the ashes into his own grate to make it look as if his brother were guilty and trying to incriminate him, that would show scheming of a rather higher order; wouldn't it?"
"What are you trying to put over, Odell?" demanded the captain. "Got anything on this Gene that you haven't told me about? From what I gather he is a kind of a weak-kneed but harmless young pup; and he certainly wouldn't have cut the wires of that portrait almost through and then sat under it and waited for it to fall on him."
"Weakness directed by a stronger and more evil personality may very easily develop into viciousness, all the more dangerous because in a moment of action it would be backed by the desperation of panic," the detective remarked. "I'm not trying to preach, Captain; you know yourself that the strong-minded crooks are the easiest to handle in the long run. We haven't any proof that Gene Chalmers ever sat for an instant under that portrait at the desk last night. The ladies and Randall had retired, and the only persons near were Lorne and his attorney in the next room with a heavy door closed between.
"What was to prevent that young man from cutting the wires of the portrait with the electric file—I have it on the authority of an expert that such an instrument makes only a low buzzing sound, and it is quite possible that it would not be heard through the massive walls of that old-fashioned house—waiting until he saw that it was about to come down and then going in on some flimsy excuse about one of the letters to his stepfather and the attorney in order to establish the fact of his narrow escape?
"I admit that I do not believe him capable of conceiving such a plan; but if the details were drilled into him by someone else and the incentive strong enough, I am convinced that he could carry it out. Do you remember my telling you about some letters that I took from his desk after I had interrupted him in his task of burning them? I have them here and they will recall someone to you whom we have been trying to get for a long time."
Captain Lewis took the letters, glanced over them, frowned at the signature, and at last brought his mighty fist down resoundingly on the desk.
"Farley Drew! So he had his hooks into that lad too, did he?"
"Not only Gene, but the other brother also, I understand; the one who is dead. There is a certain note here in particular that I want you to read."
Odell selected the one which he had first hurriedly scanned in Gene's room that morning and laid it before his chief.
"‘Where do you think you get off—in too deep—meant you should be—mother's went off without a hitch—got to be done by the sixth—mean business—Farley Drew.'" The captain skimmed it hastily aloud and glanced up at his subordinate. "It is coercion, of course, perhaps blackmail, but what has it to do—"
"Gene's mother was already dead when that note was written, as you can tell if you look at the postmark, and that reference to the sixth may mean anything; it just happens, however, that that was the date on which Julian Chalmers was killed."
"Great Jehoshaphat!" Captain Lewis almost leaped from his chair. "The Assistant D. A. has tried to get him in more than one vice clean-up but we never thought we could hang a thing like this on him! I'll have him down here to-night and sweat him out. Anything in the rest of these notes of a threatening nature?"
"No. They are merely to make or break appointments," Odell smiled. "Don't be too sure of landing your bird here to-night, Captain."
His superior, who had just pressed a button on his desk, turned to him with a muttered exclamation very like an oath.
You don't mean that he's beaten it?" he demanded. Did that Gene get away from your man and warn him?"
On the contrary, Gene has made no move to communicate with him in any way since I started the investigation. That is why I am quite certain that he managed in some manner to reach him either last night or early this morning and caution him that Lorne and the attorney had decided to call us in," Odell explained. "He lives at the Bellemonde Annex up near the park, but I don't believe you will find him at home this evening."
Nevertheless the captain issued a curt order to the plainclothesman who appeared in obedience to the summons, and then turned once more to Odell.
"Couldn't you get anything out of the boy himself; this Gene?"
"No; and the weakest of all the weak spots in this skeleton of a theory of mine is that I cannot believe him capable of having had any part in the death of his mother. I told you of the quarrel between himself and his brother on the last night of Julian's life, which the cook overheard; and it is just possible that they may have had a struggle with that razor in the early morning; but I don't think he would have had nerve enough to go immediately afterward to join the others at the breakfast-table and wait for discovery to come." The detective shook his head. "As a case, it is full of holes any way you look at it; and yet there is that coincidence of the date, the sixth.
"There is another thing, too. Conspicuous upon Gene's dressing-table is a silver photograph-frame, empty. And when in the course of my questioning I asked him if he and his brother got on well together he flushed, and his eyes flew to that frame; but he looked away again quickly when he was conscious that I had noticed the glance. Titheredge told me that part of the trouble between Julian and his stepfather over money matters was caused by his infatuation for a woman; and Marcelle when she listened to the brothers' quarrel that night heard Gene call Julian a thief.
"Now, there are other precious things that can be stolen besides those which have money value; love, for instance. If a young man keeps an ornate photograph frame upon his dressing-table it usually contains the picture of the object of his present regard; but when that frame is empty it might be that he had destroyed the picture in a moment of jealous rage but kept the frame there as a reminder of his injury. Gene is the sullen sort who would hug misery, real or fancied, to his bosom and nurse revenge. If he had been crazy about some girl and his brother had taken her from him, it would have been a strong enough motive to at least cause a resumption of the quarrel in the early morning."
"You're trying to convince yourself, Odell," the captain accused him.
"I am trying to find among the tangible clues which I have gathered and from the score of curious, possibly significant things which I observed in that strange household to-day, a single thread that will lead to the truth."
"What curious things?" asked the captain.
"Why is that woman Gerda occupying so menial a position when she is obviously far above it? What did she mean by that veiled hint about insanity? What does the hunchback Rannie know about her? These questions may all be beside the point at issue; yet I feel that in some way they are connected with it, although there is no place for them in the theory that Gene knows anything about the events of the past twenty-four hours, to say nothing of being implicated in his brother's death." Odell rose and began to pace the floor of the office as if the mental struggle within him required some physical expression. "Why did Peters run away? Who telephoned the carpenter to send someone to hang the portrait before it had fallen? Who does Cissie Chalmers fear? Is it Rannie; and if so has she any reason for that fear other than her very evident dislike of him?"
"It looks like a queer tangle, all right," his superior admitted. "You've done a good bit for one day, Odell. After the autopsy on Mrs. Lorne—"
"That can only prove what we know already or else leave us where we are now. Even if there is a negative result, which is almost a foregone conclusion, it cannot disprove the fact that she was poisoned; for Doctor McCutchen himself said there was no trace of poison discoverable in her blood-cultures, yet he is as convinced as I am of the truth." Odell turned suddenly and faced his superior. "The thing that gets me is that the guilty person is there beneath that roof, talked with me to-day, was within reach of my hand; and yet I was helpless to accuse. It is maddening! I've practically proved the fact of two murders and two attempted ones; I have the sawdust ashes, the pieces of filed wire, and the substituted needle for direct tangible clues; and I'm up against a stone wall. No motive, no slightest inkling as to the identity of the murderer, and yet among the ten people who make up that household the solution lies."
"One of the ten has skipped out, remember," Captain Lewis remarked. "When we lay our hands on Peters—"
A knock upon the door interrupted him, and at his impatient growl a subordinate entered. When the chief saw who the newcomer was he half rose from his chair.
"You've got him?"
"Yes, sir," the man chuckled. "Caught him just as he was trying to sneak into his sister's house. He's outside; shall I bring him in?"
At the captain's emphatic nod he withdrew, and the former turned to Odell.
"Peters!" he exclaimed with immense satisfaction. "Perhaps you'll get something more to work on now. If he isn't willing to come across with what he knows watch me make him."
But it was a wilted and wholly abject Peters who stumbled over the threshold and collapsed into the chair opposite the chief. He panted like a frightened rabbit, and his flabby jowls had lost their ruddiness and turned a pasty grayish hue.
"You're Peters, butler up at the Meade house?"
"George Peters; yes, sir." His tones quavered.
"Peters, what did you run away for this morning?"
There was a pause, and the butler passed a trembling hand across his face.
"I don't know, sir. I—I've just been wandering around all day. I—that house—I couldn't stand it any longer."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, the two deaths in the family, sir; and then the falling picture, and the men that were sent for to hang it again before any human being could know it was going to fall! I'd have stood by the family through thick and thin; but there are some things no mortal can face." His hands were clenching and unclenching on his plump knees. "When—when a person cannot sit down without having something fall on him, or step on the stairs without being flung to the bottom, to say nothing of what—what had gone before, it's rank suicide to stay in such a house."
Captain Lewis turned to Odell with a gesture of relinquishment, and the latter, took up the interrogation.
"When did you first get the impression that there was something uncanny going on, Peters?"
The butler hesitated.
"Well, sir, when I found poor Mr. Julian's body—"
"No," the detective interrupted bruskly. The moment of hesitation had been too significant. "I mean before that. What was it that first made you think there was something happening which you couldn't understand?"
"How did you know, sir?" Peters's jaw dropped. "I thought nobody heard it but me. You mean the voice—the voice the night Mrs. Lorne died?"
The captain's chair creaked as he shifted his weight suddenly, but Odell merely nodded.
"Well, you see, sir, it was this way. We all knew by then that the mistress couldn't live; for Jane had heard one of the doctors, the last called in it was, tell Mr. Lorne so, and we were all upset, as you might know; for she was a—a rare lovely lady, sir, and a kind, good mistress. My room is on the fourth floor front, just over Mr. Julian's; and there was nothing above me but the trunk and store-rooms. I stayed up till midnight to see if I would be wanted, and then Miss Meade told me to go to bed; but I couldn't sleep though Marcelle and Jane and Gerda had long since quieted down.
"Of course, Miss Nan and Mr. Julian and Mr. Gene didn't go to bed all night; so there wasn't any sound except the church clock near striking the hours, and now and then a snore from Marcelle across the hall. It was after four o'clock, almost five, I guess, when a thin little thread of light came in under my door and traveled across the floor, and then went out again. I couldn't believe my eyes, for there hadn't been the sound of a footfall outside and I couldn't see what anybody would be doing with a light up there in our quarters at that hour; but I jumped out of bed and opened my door a crack very softly so as to make no noise.
I couldn't see anything, not a ray of the light which had shone under my door; but I heard a voice that seemed to come from somewhere in the air, and there—there wasn't anything human about it!"
The butler paused, and drawing a handkerchief from his pocket he wiped his pallid face, down which the sweat had started. He was staring wide-eyed into space, and his breath rasped in his throat.
"What did it say?" Odell asked.
Peters shuddered.
"I feel as if it was calling down a curse on me to repeat it, sir; but I'll never forget it to the longest day I live. It said: 'The first one gone! So shall they all go, one by one!' That was all; but it started me shaking like a leaf, and I didn't need anyone to tell me that poor Mrs. Lorne had passed away. I shut my door somehow and got to the side of my bed and sat down, straining my ears to listen for the sound of a footstep; but none came nor did that light show under my door again. I must have sat there for a good twenty minutes, for finally the clock in the church outside struck five; and in the morning they told me that Mrs. Lorne had died at twenty-five minutes to five."
"What did that voice sound like?" Odell spoke quickly, for the butler seemed to be upon the verge of collapse.
"It was low and more like a whisper, but clear and full of a horrid sort of joy as if the Thing, whatever it was, was gloating over what had happened. I—I haven't been the same since; for I keep hearing it in my ears all the time." Peters suddenly buried his face in his hands and sobbed aloud. "God help me, I hear it now."