Mary Roberts Rinehart & Avery Hopwood (17 page)

"Suppose I could find that piece of blue-print for you?" said Dale
desperately. "Would that establish Jack Bailey's innocence?"

The detective stared at her keenly for a moment.

"If the money's there—yes."

Dale opened her lips to reveal the secret, reckless of what might
follow. As long as Jack was cleared—what matter what happened to
herself? But Miss Cornelia nipped the heroic attempt at self-sacrifice
in the bud.

She put herself between her niece and the detective, shielding Dale
from his eager gaze.

"But her own guilt!" she said in tones of great dignity. "No, Mr.
Anderson, granting that she knows where that paper is—and she has not
said that she does—I shall want more time and much legal advice before
I allow her to turn it over to you."

All the unconscious note of command that long-inherited wealth and the
pride of a great name can give was in her voice, and the detective, for
the moment, bowed before it, defeated. Perhaps he thought of men who
had been broken from the Force for injudicious arrests, perhaps he
merely bided his time. At any rate, he gave up his grilling of Dale
for the present and turned to question the Doctor and Beresford who had
just returned, with Jack Bailey, from their grim task of placing
Fleming's body in a temporary resting place in the library.

"Well, Doctor?" he grunted.

The Doctor shook his head

"Poor fellow—straight through the heart."

"Were there any powder marks?" queried Miss Cornelia.

"No—and the clothing was not burned. He was apparently shot from some
little distance—and I should say from above."

The detective received this information without the change of a muscle
in his face. He turned to Beresford—resuming his attack on Dale from
another angle.

"Beresford, did Fleming tell you why he came here tonight?"

Beresford considered the question.

"No. He seemed in a great hurry, said Miss Ogden had telephoned him,
and asked me to drive him over."

"Why did you come up to the house?"

"We-el," said Beresford with seeming candor, "I thought it was putting
rather a premium on friendship to keep me sitting out in the rain all
night, so I came up the drive—and, by the way!" He snapped his
fingers irritatedly, as if recalling some significant incident that had
slipped his memory, and drew a battered object from his pocket. "I
picked this up, about a hundred feet from the house," he explained. "A
man's watch. It was partly crushed into the ground, and, as you see,
it's stopped running."

The detective took the object and examined it carefully. A man's
open-face gold watch, crushed and battered in as if it had been
trampled upon by a heavy heel.

"Yes," he said thoughtfully. "Stopped running at ten-thirty."

Beresford went on, with mounting excitement.

"I was using my pocket-flash to find my way and what first attracted my
attention was the ground—torn up, you know, all around it. Then I saw
the watch itself. Anybody here recognize it?"

The detective silently held up the watch so that all present could
examine it. He waited. But if anyone in the party recognized the
watch—no one moved forward to claim it.

"You didn't hear any evidence of a struggle, did you?" went on
Beresford. "The ground looked as if a fight had taken place. Of
course it might have been a dozen other things."

Miss Cornelia started.

"Just about ten-thirty Lizzie heard somebody cry out, in the grounds,"
she said.

The detective looked Beresford over till the latter grew a little
uncomfortable.

"I don't suppose it has any bearing on the case," admitted the latter
uneasily. "But it's interesting."

The detective seemed to agree. At least he slipped the watch in his
pocket.

"Do you always carry a flashlight, Mr. Beresford?" asked Miss Cornelia
a trifle suspiciously.

"Always at night, in the car." His reply was prompt and certain.

"This is all you found?" queried the detective, a curious note in his
voice.

"Yes." Beresford sat down, relieved. Miss Cornelia followed his
example. Another clue had led into a blind alley, leaving the mystery
of the night's affairs as impenetrable as ever.

"Some day I hope to meet the real estate agent who promised me that I
would sleep here as I never slept before!" she murmured acridly. "He's
right! I've slept with my clothes on every night since I came!"

As she ended, Billy darted in from the hall, his beady little black
eyes gleaming with excitement, a long, wicked-looking butcher knife in
his hand.

"Key, kitchen door, please!" he said, addressing his mistress.

"Key?" said Miss Cornelia, startled. "What for?"

For once Billy's polite little grin was absent from his countenance.

"Somebody outside trying to get in," he chattered. "I see knob turn,
so," he illustrated with the butcher knife, "and so—three times."

The detective's hand went at once to his revolver.

"You're sure of that, are you?" he said roughly to Billy.

"Sure, I sure!"

"Where's that hysterical woman Lizzie?" queried Anderson. "She may get
a bullet in her if she's not careful."

"She see too. She shut in closet—say prayers, maybe," said Billy,
without a smile.

The picture was a ludicrous one but not one of the little group laughed.

"Doctor, have you a revolver?" Anderson seemed to be going over the
possible means of defense against this new peril.

"No."

"How about you, Beresford?"

Beresford hesitated.

"Yes," he admitted finally. "Always carry one at night in the
country." The statement seemed reasonable enough but Miss Cornelia
gave him a sharp glance of mistrust, nevertheless.

The detective seemed to have more confidence in the young idler.

"Beresford, will you go with this Jap to the kitchen?" as Billy, grimly
clutching his butcher knife, retraced his steps toward the hall. "If
anyone's working at the knob—shoot through the door. I'm going round
to take a look outside."

Beresford started to obey. Then he paused.

"I advise you not to turn the doorknob yourself, then," he said
flippantly.

The detective nodded. "Much obliged," he said, with a grin. He ran
lightly into the alcove and tiptoed out of the terrace door, closing
the door behind him. Beresford and Billy departed to take up their
posts in the kitchen. "I'll go with you, if you don't mind—" and Jack
Bailey had followed them, leaving Miss Cornelia and Dale alone with the
Doctor. Miss Cornelia, glad of the opportunity to get the Doctor's
theories on the mystery without Anderson's interference, started to
question him at once.

"Doctor."

"Yes." The Doctor turned, politely.

"Have you any theory about this occurrence to-night?" She watched him
eagerly as she asked the question.

He made a gesture of bafflement.

"None whatever—it's beyond me," he confessed.

"And yet you warned me to leave this house," said Miss Cornelia
cannily. "You didn't have any reason to believe that the situation was
even as serious as it has proved to be?"

"I did the perfectly obvious thing when I warned you," said the Doctor
easily. "Those letters made a distinct threat."

Miss Cornelia could not deny the truth in his words. And yet she felt
decidedly unsatisfied with the way things were progressing.

"You said Fleming had probably been shot from above?" she queried,
thinking hard.

The Doctor nodded. "Yes."

"Have you a pocket-flash, Doctor?" she asked him suddenly.

"Why—yes—" The Doctor did not seem to perceive the significance of
the query. "A flashlight is more important to a country Doctor
than—castor oil," he added, with a little smile.

Miss Cornelia decided upon an experiment. She turned to Dale.

"Dale, you said you saw a white light shining down from above?"

"Yes," said Dale in a minor voice.

Miss Cornelia rose.

"May I borrow your flashlight, Doctor? Now that fool detective is out
of the way," she continued some what acidly, "I want to do something."

The Doctor gave her his flashlight with a stare of bewilderment. She
took it and moved into the alcove.

"Doctor, I shall ask you to stand at the foot of the small staircase,
facing up."

"Now?" queried the Doctor with some reluctance.

"Now, please."

The Doctor slowly followed her into the alcove and took up the position
she assigned him at the foot of the stairs.

"Now, Dale," said Miss Cornelia briskly, "when I give the word, you put
out the lights here—and then tell me when I have reached the point on
the staircase from which the flashlight seemed to come. All ready?"

Two silent nods gave assent. Miss Cornelia left the room to seek the
second floor by the main staircase and then slowly return by the alcove
stairs, her flashlight poised, in her reconstruction of the events of
the crime. At the foot of the alcove stairs the Doctor waited uneasily
for her arrival. He glanced up the stairs—were those her footsteps
now? He peered more closely into the darkness.

An expression of surprise and apprehension came over his face.

He glanced swiftly at Dale—was she watching him? No—she sat in her
chair, musing. He turned back toward the stairs and made a frantic,
insistent gesture—"Go back, go back!" it said, plainer than words,
to—Something—in the darkness by the head of the stairs. Then his
face relaxed, he gave a noiseless sigh of relief.

Dale, rousing from her brown study, turned out the floor lamp by the
table and went over to the main light switch, awaiting Miss Cornelia's
signal to plunge the room in darkness. The Doctor stole, another
glance at her—had his gestures been observed?—apparently not.

Unobserved by either, as both waited tensely for Miss Cornelia's
signal, a Hand stole through the broken pane of the shattered French
window behind their backs and fumbled for the knob which unlocked the
window-door. It found the catch—unlocked it—the window-door swung
open, noiselessly—just enough to admit a crouching figure that cramped
itself uncomfortably behind the settee which Dale and the Doctor had
placed to barricade those very doors. When it had settled itself,
unperceived, in its lurking place—the Hand stole out again—closed the
window-door, relocked it.

Hand or claw? Hand of man or woman or paw of beast? In the name of
God—WHOSE HAND?

Miss Cornelia's voice from the head of the stairs broke the silence.

"All right! Put out the lights!"

Dale pressed the switch. Heavy darkness. The sound of her own
breathing. A mutter from the Doctor. Then, abruptly, a white,
piercing shaft of light cut the darkness of the stairs—horribly
reminiscent of that other light-shaft that had signaled Fleming's doom.

"Was it here?" Miss Cornelia's voice came muffledly from the head of
the stairs.

Dale considered. "Come down a little," she said. The white spot of
light wavered, settled on the Doctor's face.

"I hope you haven't a weapon," the Doctor called up the stairs with an
unsuccessful attempt at jocularity.

Miss Cornelia descended another step.

"How's this?"

"That's about right," said Dale uncertainly. Miss Cornelia was
satisfied.

"Lights, please." She went up the stairs again to see if she could
puzzle out what course of escape the man who had shot Fleming had taken
after his crime—if it had been a man.

Dale switched on the living-room lights with a sense of relief. The
reconstruction of the crime had tried her sorely. She sat down to
recover her poise.

"Doctor! I'm so frightened!" she confessed.

The Doctor at once assumed his best manner of professional reassurance.

"Why, my dear child?" he asked lightly. "Because you happened to be in
the room when a crime was committed?"

"But he has a perfect case against me," sighed Dale.

"That's absurd!"

"No."

"YOU DON'T MEAN?" said the Doctor aghast.

Dale looked at him with horror in her face.

"I didn't kill him!" she insisted anew. "But, you know the piece of
blue-print you found in his hand?"

"Yes," from the Doctor tensely.

Dale's nerves, too bitterly tested, gave way at last under the strain
of keeping her secret. She felt that she must confide in someone or
perish. The Doctor was kind and thoughtful—more than that, he was an
experienced man of the world—if he could not advise her, who could?
Besides, a Doctor was in many ways like a priest—both sworn to keep
inviolate the secrets of their respective confessionals.

"There was another piece of blue-print, a larger piece—" said Dale
slowly, "I tore it from him just before—"

The Doctor seemed greatly excited by her words. But he controlled
himself swiftly.

"Why did you do such a thing?"

"Oh, I'll explain that later," said Dale tiredly, only too glad to be
talking the matter out at last, to pay attention to the logic of her
sentences. "It's not safe where it is," she went on, as if the Doctor
already knew the whole story. "Billy may throw it out or burn it
without knowing—"

"Let me understand this," said the Doctor. "The butler has the paper
now?"

"He doesn't know he has it. It was in one of the rolls that went out
on the tray."

The Doctor's eyes gleamed. He gave Dale's shoulder a sympathetic pat.

"Now don't you worry about it—I'll get it," he said. Then, on the
point of going toward the dining-room, he turned.

"But—you oughtn't to have it in your possession," he said
thoughtfully. "Why not let it be burned?"

Dale was on the defensive at once.

"Oh, no! It's important, it's vital!" she said decidedly.

The Doctor seemed to consider ways and means of getting the paper.