Afternoon Tea Mysteries [Vol Three] Page 21

  Suddenly that pressure was removed. Her hands had flown to her eyes, shutting out the spectacle she could no longer confront. Nor was it easy for me to look on unmoved, or view with even an appearance of equanimity the scene before me.

  I have not mentioned Leighton. He had not come forward with the other two, but he allowed his pockets to be searched without a protest when his turn came, though it was very evident that the proceeding caused him more suffering and a keener sensation of disgrace than it did the other two. Was this on account of the superior sensitiveness of his nature, or because he shrunk with a proud man’s shame from the publicity entailed upon the anomalous articles which were drawn from his inner pockets? When some few minutes later my eyes fell on these objects lying piled on the library table, I marvelled over the character of a man who could gather and retain in one place a small prayer-book, a lock of woman’s hair, the programme of some common music hall, and a photograph which after one glance I instinctively turned face downwards, lest it should fall under the eye of his cousin, whose delicacy could not fail to be hurt by it.

  The phial had not been found on any of the young gentlemen.

  When Miss Meredith became aware that the ordeal was over, she let her hands drop, and stepped hastily into the drawing-room. I did not follow her, but remained in the doorway watching the detectives as they moved from room to room in the search which was now being extended to all parts of the house. As I saw these men pass so quietly but with such an air of authority into rooms where a few hours before they would have hesitated to put foot even upon the genial owner’s express invitation, I experienced such a realisation of the abyss into which this hitherto well-reputed family had fallen that I lost for a little while that sense of personal bitterness which the predictions evinced by Miss Meredith had so selfishly awakened.

  But to continue the summary of events.

  Seeing Leighton withdraw upstairs, followed by an officer in plain clothes, who had appeared on the scene as if by magic, I could not refrain from asking why he was allowed to separate himself from the others, and was much moved at being informed that he had gone up to sit by his child’s bed, that child who of all in the house had found her wonted rest.

  That he could calm himself down to such a task under the eye of one who could have little sympathy with his feelings, whether they were those of outraged innocence or self-accusing guilt, struck me as the most pathetic exhibition of self-control I had ever known; and more than once during the busy hour that followed, I was visited by fleeting visions of this silent man, sitting out the night under the watchful eye of one who moved if he so much as lowered his head to kiss the only cheek likely to smile upon him on the morrow as it had smiled upon him to-day.

  That the search for the missing phial was likely to be a long-continued one soon became apparent to everyone. Two men, who had carried the investigation into the room where the servants had been shut up since early evening, came back with the report that nothing had come to light in that quarter. At the same time two more returned from above with a similar report in regard to the sleeping-rooms of the three brothers. Sweetwater and Gryce, who had spent the last half-hour in the dining-room, appeared to have an equally unsatisfactory tale to tell, and I was wondering what move would now be made, when I intercepted a glance from the coroner cast in the direction of the drawing-room, and realised that the law was no respecter of persons and that she, she too, might be called upon to give proof of not having this tell-tale article upon her person.

  The prospect of such an indignity offered to one I regarded with more than passing admiration unnerved me to such an extent that I was hardly myself when Dr. Frisbie advanced upon me with this remark:

  “I regret the necessity, Mr. Outhwaite; but the emergencies of the case demand the same compliance on your part as on that of the other gentlemen found upon this scene of crime. It is needless to say that we have the utmost confidence in your integrity, but you were here when Mr. Gillespie died, and have been close to a certain member of this family many times since—and, in short, it is a form which you as a lawyer will recognise and—”

  “No apologies,” I prayed, recalling the one son of Mr. Gillespie who had not been on the scene of crime at the time of his father’s death.

  An intelligent glance from the coroner convinced me that he was thinking of him too. Indeed, he seemed to be more than willing to have me under stand that he exacted this thorough search in order to fix the crime on Leighton. For if the phial was not to be found anywhere in the house, the necessary conclusion must be that it had been carried out of it by the one person known to have left it during the critical half-hour preceding Mr. Gillespie’s death.

  “I understand your thoughts,” quoth the coroner, who seemed to read my face like an open book. “The phial may have been smashed on the sidewalk or thrown into some refuse barrel. But that would be the unwisest thing a guilty man could do. For its odour is unmistakable, and once it is found by the men I will set looking for it at daybreak—Well, what now?”

  Sweetwater was whispering in his ear.

  “The child? Do I remember that the father suggested she should be put to bed undressed? Oh, I cannot have you disturb the child. Used as I am to the subterfuges of criminals I find it impossible to believe that a father could make use of his child as a medium for his own safety.”

  “Or Miss Meredith?” the insidious whisperer went on.

  “Or Miss Meredith. She may have the bottle on her own person, but she would never pass it over to the child. No, no! curb your extravagances and confine your attention to Mr. Outhwaite, who is kind enough to allow us to inspect his pockets—”

  Here the curtain at the drawing-room door was disturbed and a pallid face looked forth.

  “I pray you,” came in entreaty from Hope’s set lips, “spare this stranger, whose only crime has been to show kindness to a man he did not know, in an extremity he did not understand. Search me; search Claire; but do not subject this gentleman to an act so injurious. I swear that the phial is not on him! I swear—”

  She hardly knew what she was saying. The heaped-up excitements of the last two hours were fast unsettling her reason.

  She held out her hands imploringly. “I don’t know why I care so much,” she murmured in fresh expostulation, “but I feel as if I could not bear it.”

  From that moment I loved her, though I knew this interposition in my behalf sprang from her womanly instinct rather than from the spontaneous impulse of a freshly awakened heart. I must have shown how deeply I was moved, for the coroner looked distressed, though he gave no signs of modifying his intention, and I was beginning to empty my pockets before his eyes, when Sweetwater’s expressive countenance showed a sudden change, and he rushed again to the rear. Here he stood a moment before the dining-room door, striking his forehead in wrathful in decision; then he disappeared within, only to shout aloud in another instant:

  “Fool! fool! And I noticed when I first came in that the clock had stopped. See! see!—”

  We were at his side in an instant. He was standing by the mantelpiece, with the heavy French clock tilted up before our eyes. Under it, tucked away in the space allowed to the pendulum, we saw a small homoeopathic bottle. There was one drop of liquid at the bottom, which even before Mr. Gryce lifted the bottle to his nose we recognised by its smell to be prussic acid.

  The phial which had held the deadly dose was found.

  X The Pencil

  UNDER Sweetwater’s careful guidance, the clock fell slowly back into place. It was one of those solid time-pieces which seem to form part of the shelf on which they stand. When it was again quite level, he pointed to its face. The hands stood at half-past nine, just ten minutes previous to the time of my entering the house.

  “At what hour did Mr. Leighton Gillespie go out to-night?” he asked.

  No one answered.

  “Before half-past nine or after it?” urged the coroner, consulting the faces about him for the answer he probably had n
o expectation of receiving from any one’s lips.

  “Leighton’s all right,” cried out a voice from the library. “I hate his puritanical ways, but there’s no harm in him.”

  It sounded like Alfred, but the impression made by this interruption was not good.

  “Will you allow me to state a fact,” ventured Miss Meredith, coming impulsively forward. “If you hope to establish the guilt or innocence of anyone by the time marked by these hands, you will make a mistake. The clock has been out of order for some days. Yesterday it ran down. I heard my uncle say that it would have to go back to Tiffany’s for repairs.”

  Fetch in the butler or whoever has charge of this room,” ordered Dr. Frisbie. “Let none of you at tempt to speak while he is present. I wish to interrogate him myself and will have no interruptions.”

  We all drew back, and silence reigned in the spacious apartment which, lit up as for a dinner party, was yet in such a state of disorder that the orderly old butler groaned as his eyes fell upon the heaped-up rugs, the overturned chairs, and the great table stacked with fine china and cut-glass taken from the buffet and closets.

  “Oh, what shall I do here?” he grumbled. “What would master—”

  He did not finish; but we all understood him. The coroner pointed to the clock.

  “When was this wound last?”

  The old man stared at the time-piece, mumbled, and shook his head. Then his eyes fell on Miss Meredith.

  “I don’t remember,” he protested. “It has not been running for days; has it, Miss? I have had to use my watch in order to be on time with the meals. Why do you ask, sir?”

  He was not answered. This repeated closing up of every avenue of inquiry was beginning to tell upon the police.

  “Mr. Gillespie looked very sober, very sober indeed, when he found he had to drink his wine alone,” continued the butler, with a melancholy emphasis calculated to draw our attention back to the scene which had manifestly made such an impression upon him.

  “He lifted up his glass and held it out a long while before he drank it. I think he looked at each one of the young gentlemen in turn, but I didn’t care to watch him too closely, for there was something solemn about him which made me feel queer, living so long as I have in the family and with every one of these young gentlemen babies in arms when I came here. He drank it finally, standing. But there was no harm in that glass, sirs, for I finished the bottle myself afterwards, and I am well, as you see. More’s the pity!”

  “Shut up!” shouted an angry voice from across the hall. “You are making a —— mess of the whole affair with your confounded drivel.”

  The coroner motioned the butler away.

  The atmosphere of the house had now become oppressive even to me, and for the first time I experienced a desire to be quit of it, and would certainly have made some movement towards departure had it not been for my dread of leaving Miss Meredith alone with her own thoughts.

  Meanwhile the coroner was issuing his orders.

  “Dakin, request the gentlemen upstairs to come down again for a few minutes. Dr. Bennett, the body of your patient can now be moved.”

  “Ah, here we are again,” he exclaimed, as Leighton was heard descending the stairs.

  “Now, if the two other sons of the deceased will attend to my words for a moment I will state that under the existing circumstances I feel it my duty to call a jury and hold an inquest over Mr. Gillespie’s remains. The phial smelling of prussic acid having been found in the dining-room, I shall only require restraint put upon the movements of the two sons of Mr. Gillespie who are known to have entered this room during the hour when this fatal dose was ad ministered. The one called Alfred, having remained above, is for the present free from suspicion. I would be glad to show the same consideration to the others; but the facts demand a severity which I hope future developments will allow us to confine to the guilty party. Mr. Outhwaite, I must request you to hold yourself subject to my summons. Miss Meredith, I advise you to hold no communication with your cousins till this matter shows a clearer aspect.”

  He was moving off, when Alfred, who had been shifting uneasily under George’s eye, stepped up to him and said:

  “I don’t want any discrimination made between my brothers and myself. I may be quite conscious of my own innocence, but I cannot accept any show of favours founded on a misconception. If George and Leighton are to be subjected to surveillance on account of entering the dining-room this evening, then I want to be put under surveillance too. For I was in that room as well as they, searching for a small gold pencil which I had dropped from my pocket at dinner-time.”

  This acknowledgment made under such circumstances and against such odds was calculated to enlist sympathy, and my heart warmed towards the man who in the heat of anger could strike a brother to the ground, but scorned at a less angry moment to take refuge in a misunderstanding which left that brother at a disadvantage.

  But the imperturbability of the elderly detective, who at that moment found something to interest him in the chasing on a Chinese gong hanging from a bracket in the hall, warned me not to be too quick with my sympathies. Kindly as he beamed upon this favoured object of his attention, I saw that he took little stock in the generous attitude assumed by Mr. Gillespie’s youngest son; and my attention being attracted to his movements, I was happily glancing his way when he suddenly approached Alfred with what looked like an empty tumbler in his hand.

  “Is this the article you refer to?” he asked.

  And then we saw that the tumbler was not empty,—that it held a small object standing upright in it, and that this object was a gold pencil.”

  “Yes, that is my pencil,” Alfred acknowledged. “But—”

  “Oh, I am accountable for putting it into the tumbler,” the old man admitted. “The tumbler was a clean one, Mr. Gillespie. I assure you I examined it closely before making it a receptacle for this pencil. But the pencil itself—Let me ask you to put your nose to it, Mr. Gillespie.”

  It was a suggestion capable of but one interpretation. Alfred started back, his eyes staring, his features convulsed. Then he bent impulsively forward and put his nose to the object Mr. Gryce held out. With what result was evident from the sudden damp which broke out on his forehead.

  XI. Something to Think About

  “FATALITY!” exclaimed Alfred. And, raising his head, he strode impetuously towards Miss Meredith. “You have enjoined a confession of guilt and forbidden us to assert our innocence,” he cried. “But I shall assert mine now and always, whatever happens and whoever suffers. I should not be worthy of the happiness I aim at, if I did not declare my guiltlessness in the face of facts which seem to militate against me.”

  “I believe you—” she began, her hand trembling towards his. But the confiding impulse was stayed—by what thought? by what dread? and her hand fell and her lips closed before she had completed the sentence.

  “I am innocent,” he repeated, drawing himself up in proud assertion, nobly borne out by the clear regard of the eye which now turned alternately on George and Leighton, who were standing upon either side of him.

  “What is the use of repeating a phrase you cannot back up with proof?” called out George, who was still gnawing his own special grievance. “I am as innocent as you are, but I scorn to take advantage of each and every opportunity to assert it.”

  Leighton neither spoke nor moved. The melancholy in which he was now completely lost repelled all attempt to break it. Nor did this expression of complete wretchedness alter during the hubbub that followed. When it did—but I must make clear the circumstances of this change. I was engaged in making my adieux to Miss Meredith, when Sweet water, after a marked effort to meet my eye, motioned me to join him in the doorway of the den where Mr. Gillespie’s body still lay. Not enjoying the summons, yet feeling it impossible to slight them, I ventured, for the last time, or so I hoped, down the hall.

  The young detective was looking into the room which had already played so conspicu
ous a part in the events of the night, and as I drew up beside him, I perceived that his eyes were fixed not upon the out stretched figure of its late occupant, but on the face and form of Leighton Gillespie, who was bending above it.

  For all the humiliation I felt at thus sharing the professional surveillance entered into by this able young detective, I could not resist following his glance, which seemed to find something remarkable in the attitude or expression of the man before me.

  The result was a similar interest on my part and a score of new surmises. The melancholy which up till now had been the predominating characteristic of this inscrutable face had yielded to what could not be called a smile and yet was strangely like one; and this smile or shadow of a smile, had in it just that tinge of sarcasm which made it the one look of all others least to be expected from a son who in common with his brothers laboured under a suspicion of having been the direct cause of his father’s death.

  With the memory of it fixed indelibly in my mind, I moved away, and in another moment was quit of the house in which I had spent four hours of extra ordinary suspense and exciting adventure. As I passed down the stoop, I met a young man coming up. He was the first of the army of reporters destined to besiege that house before daybreak.

  XII. Gossip

  NEXT morning I routed up Sam Underhill at an early hour. Sam Underhill is my special friend; he is also my nearest neighbour, his apartment being directly under my own.

  He is a lazy chap and I found him abed, and none too well pleased at being disturbed.

  “What the dickens brings you here at this unearthly hour?” was the amiable greeting I received.

  I waited till he had made himself comfortable again; then I boldly stated:

  “You are a club-man, Sam, and consequently well up in the so-called gossip of the day. What can you tell me about the Gillespies?—the three young men I mean, sons of Archibald Gillespie.”