IV. SWEET LITTLE MISS CLARKE
When we took our seats at the breakfast-table, it was with the feelingof being no longer looked upon as connected in any way with this case.Yet our interest in it was, if anything, increased, and when I sawGeorge casting furtive glances at a certain table behind me, I leanedover and asked him the reason, being sure that the people whose faces Isaw reflected in the mirror directly before us had something to do withthe great matter then engrossing us. His answer conveyed the somewhatexciting information that the four persons seated in my rear were thesame four who had been reading at the round table in the mezzanine atthe time of Miss Challoner's death.
Instantly they absorbed all my attention, though I dared not give them adirect look, and continued to observe them only in the glass.
"Is it one family?" I asked.
"Yes, and a very respectable one. Transients, of course, but very wellknown in Denver. The lady is not the mother of the boys, but their aunt.The boys belong to the gentleman, who is a widower."
"Their word ought to be good."
George nodded.
"The boys look wide-awake enough if the father does not. As for theaunt, she is sweetness itself. Do they still insist that Miss Challonerwas the only person in the room with them at this time?"
"They did last night. I don't know how they will meet this statement ofthe doctor's."
"George?"
He leaned nearer.
"Have you ever thought that she might have been a suicide? That shestabbed herself?"
"No, for in that case a weapon would have been found."
"And are you sure that none was?"
"Positive. Such a fact could not have been kept quiet. If a weapon hadbeen picked up there would be no mystery, and no necessity for furtherpolice investigation."
"And the detectives are still here?"
"I just saw one."
"George?"
Again his head came nearer.
"Have they searched the lobby? I believe she had a weapon."
"Laura!"
"I know it sounds foolish, but the alternative is so improbable. Afamily like that cannot be leagued together in a conspiracy to hidethe truth concerning a matter so serious. To be sure, they may all beshort-sighted, or so little given to observation that they didn't seewhat passed before their eyes. The boys look wide-awake enough, but whocan tell? I would sooner believe that--"
I stopped short so suddenly that George looked startled. My attentionhad been caught by something new I saw in the mirror upon which myattention was fixed. A man was looking in from the corridor behind, atthe four persons we were just discussing. He was watching them intently,and I thought I knew his face.
"What kind of a looking person was the man who took you outside lastnight?" I inquired of George, with my eyes still on this furtivewatcher.
"A fellow to make you laugh. A perfect character, Laura; hideouslyhomely but agreeable enough. I took quite a fancy to him. Why?"
"I am looking at him now."
"Very likely. He's deep in this affair. Just an everyday detective,but ambitious, I suppose, and quite alive to the importance of beingthorough."
"He is watching those people. No, he isn't. How quickly he disappeared!"
"Yes, he's mercurial in all his movements. Laura, we must get out ofthis. There happens to be something else in the world for me to do thanto sit around and follow up murder clews."
But we began to doubt if others agreed with him, when on passing out wewere stopped in the lobby by this same detective, who had something tosay to George, and drew him quickly aside.
"What does he want?" I asked, as soon as George had returned to my side.
"He wants me to stand ready to obey any summons the police may send me."
"Then they still suspect Brotherson?"
"They must."
My head rose a trifle as I glanced up at George.
"Then we are not altogether out of it?" I emphasised, complacently.
He smiled which hardly seemed apropos. Why does George sometimes smilewhen I am in my most serious moods.
As we stepped out of the hotel, George gave my arm a quiet pinch whichserved to direct my attention to an elderly gentleman who, was justalighting from a taxicab at the kerb. He moved heavily and with someappearance of pain, but from the crowd collected on the sidewalk many ofwhom nudged each other as he passed, he was evidently a person of someimportance, and as he disappeared within the hotel entrance, I askedGeorge who this kind-faced, bright-eyed old gentleman could be.
He appeared to know, for he told me at once that he was Detective Gryce;a man who had grown old in solving just such baffling problems as these.
"He gave up work some time ago, I have been told," my husband went on;"but evidently a great case still has its allurement for him. The trailhere must be a very blind one for them to call him in. I wish we hadnot left so soon. It would have been quite an experience to see him atwork."
"I doubt if you would have been given the opportunity. I noticed that wewere slightly de trop towards the last."
"I wouldn't have minded that; not on my own account, that is. It mightnot have been pleasant for you. However, the office is waiting. Come,let me put you on the car."
That night I bided his coming with an impatience I could not control. Hewas late, of course, but when he did appear, I almost forgot our usualgreeting in my hurry to ask him if he had seen the evening papers.
"No," he grumbled, as he hung up his overcoat. "Been pushed about allday. No time for anything."
"Then let me tell you--"
But he would have dinner first.
However, a little later we had a comfortable chat. Mr. Gryce had madea discovery, and the papers were full of it. It was one which gave me asmall triumph over George. The suggestion he had laughed at was not soentirely foolish as he had been pleased to consider it. But let me tellthe story of that day, without any further reference to myself.
The opinion had become quite general with those best acquainted with thedetails of this affair, that the mystery was one of those abnormalones for which no solution would ever be found, when the aged detectiveshowed himself in the building and was taken to the room, where anInspector of Police awaited him. Their greeting was cordial, and thelines on the latter's face relaxed a little as he met the still brighteye of the man upon whose instinct and judgment so much reliance hadalways been placed.
"This is very good of you," he began, glancing down at the ageddetective's bundled up legs, and gently pushing a chair towards him. "Iknow that it was a great deal to ask, but we're at our wits' end, andso I telephoned. It's the most inexplicable--There! you have heard thatphrase before. But clews--there are absolutely none. That is, we havenot been able to find any. Perhaps you can. At least, that is whatwe hope. I've known you more than once to succeed where others havefailed."
The elderly man thus addressed, glanced down at his legs, now propped upon a stool which someone had brought him, and smiled, with the pathos ofthe old who sees the interests of a lifetime slipping gradually away.
"I am not what I was. I can no longer get down on my hands and knees topick up threads from the nap of a rug, or spy out a spot of blood in thecrimson woof of a carpet."
"You shall have Sweetwater here to do the active work for you. What wewant of you is the directing mind--the infallible instinct. It's a casein a thousand, Gryce. We've never had anything just like it. You'venever had anything at all like it. It will make you young again."
The old man's eyes shot fire and unconsciously one foot slipped to thefloor. Then he bethought himself and painfully lifted it back again.
"What are the points? What's the difficulty?" he asked. "A woman hasbeen shot--"
"No, not shot, stabbed. We thought she had been shot, for that wasintelligible and involved no impossibilities. But Drs. Heath andWebster, under the eye of the Challoners' own physician, have made anexamination of the wound--an official one, thorough and quite finalso far as they are concerned, a
nd they declare that no bullet is to befound in the body. As the wound extends no further than the heart, thissettles one great point, at least."
"Dr. Heath is a reliable man and one of our ablest coroners."
"Yes. There can be no question as to the truth of his report. You knowthe victim? Her name, I mean, and the character she bore?"
"Yes; so much was told me on my way down."
"A fine girl unspoiled by riches and seeming independence. Happy,too, to all appearance, or we should be more ready to consider thepossibility of suicide."
"Suicide by stabbing calls for a weapon. Yet none has been found, Ihear."
"None."
"Yet she was killed that way?"
"Undoubtedly, and by a long and very narrow blade, larger than a needlebut not so large as the ordinary stiletto."
"Stabbed while by herself, or what you may call by herself? She had nocompanion near her?"
"None, if we can believe the four members of the Parrish family who wereseated at the other end of the room."
"And you do believe them?"
"Would a whole family lie--and needlessly? They never knew thewoman--father, maiden aunt and two boys, clear-eyed, jolly young chapswhom even the horror of this tragedy, perpetrated as it were under theirvery nose, cannot make serious for more than a passing moment."
"It wouldn't seem so."
"Yet they swear up and down that nobody crossed the room towards MissChalloner."
"So they tell me."
"She fell just a few feet from the desk where she had been writing. Noword, no cry, just a collapse and sudden fall. In olden days they wouldhave said, struck by a bolt from heaven. But it was a bolt whichdrew blood; not much blood, I hear, but sufficient to end life almostinstantly. She never looked up or spoke again. What do you make of it,Gryce?"
"It's a tough one, and I'm not ready to venture an opinion yet. I shouldlike to see the desk you speak of, and the spot where she fell."
A young fellow who had been hovering in the background at once steppedforward. He was the plain-faced detective who had spoken to George.
"Will you take my arm, sir?"
Mr. Gryce's whole face brightened. This Sweetwater, as they called him,was, I have since understood, one of his proteges and more or less of afavourite.
"Have you had a chance at this thing?" he asked. "Been over theground--studied the affair carefully?"
"Yes, sir; they were good enough to allow it."
"Very well, then, you're in a position to pioneer me. You've seen it alland won't be in a hurry."
"No; I'm at the end of my rope. I haven't an idea, sir."
"Well, well, that's honest at all events." Then, as he slowly rose withthe other's careful assistance, "There's no crime without its clew. Thething is to recognise that clew when seen. But I'm in no position, tomake promises. Old days don't return for the asking."
Nevertheless, he looked ten years younger than when he came in, or sothought those who knew him.
The mezzanine was guarded from all visitors save such as had officialsanction. Consequently, the two remained quite uninterrupted while theymoved about the place in quiet consultation. Others had preceded them;had examined the plain little desk and found nothing; had paced off thedistances; had looked with longing and inquiring eyes at the elevatorcage and the open archway leading to the little staircase and themusicians' gallery. But this was nothing to the old detective. Thelocale was what he wanted, and he got it. Whether he got anything elseit would be impossible to say from his manner as he finally sank into achair by one of the openings, and looked down on the lobby below. It wasfull of people coming and going on all sorts of business, and presentlyhe drew back, and, leaning on Sweetwater's arm, asked him a fewquestions.
"Who were the first to rush in here after the Parrishes gave the alarm?"
"One or two of the musicians from the end of the hall. They had justfinished their programme and were preparing to leave the gallery.Naturally they reached her first."
"Good! their names?"
"Mark Sowerby and Claus Hennerberg. Honest Germans--men who have playedhere for years."
"And who followed them? Who came next on the scene?"
"Some people from the lobby. They heard the disturbance and rushed uppell-mell. But not one of these touched her. Later her father came."
"Who did touch her? Anybody, before the father came in?"
"Yes; Miss Clarke, the middle-aged lady with the Parrishes. She had runtowards Miss Challoner as soon as she heard her fall, and was sittingthere with the dead girl's head in her lap when the musicians showedthemselves."
"I suppose she has been carefully questioned?"
"Very, I should say."
"And she speaks of no weapon?"
"No. Neither she nor any one else at that moment suspected murder oreven a violent death. All thought it a natural one--sudden, but theresult of some secret disease."
"Father and all?"
"Yes."
"But the blood? Surely there must have been some show of blood?"
"They say not. No one noticed any. Not till the doctor came--her doctorwho was happily in his office in this very building. He saw the drops,and uttered the first suggestion of murder."
"How long after was this? Is there any one who has ventured to make anestimate of the number of minutes which elapsed from the time she fell,to the moment when the doctor first raised the cry of murder?"
"Yes. Mr. Slater, the assistant manager, who was in the lobby at thetime, says that ten minutes at least must have elapsed."
"Ten minutes and no blood! The weapon must still have been there. Someweapon with a short and inconspicuous handle. I think they said therewere flowers over and around the place where it struck?"
"Yes, great big scarlet ones. Nobody noticed--nobody looked. A paniclike that seems to paralyse people."
"Ten minutes! I must see every one who approached her during thoseten minutes. Every one, Sweetwater, and I must myself talk with MissClarke."
"You will like her. You will believe every word she says."
"No doubt. All the more reason why I must see her. Sweetwater, someonedrew that weapon out. Effects still have their causes, notwithstandingthe new cult. The question is who? We must leave no stone unturned tofind that out."
"The stones have all been turned over once."
"By you?"
"Not altogether by me."
"Then they will bear being turned over again. I want to be witness ofthe operation."
"Where will you see Miss Clarke?"
"Wherever she pleases--only I can't walk far."
"I think I know the place. You shall have the use of this elevator. Ithas not been running since last night or it would be full of curiouspeople all the time, hustling to get a glimpse of this place. Butthey'll put a man on for you."
"Very good; manage it as you will. I'll wait here till you're ready.Explain yourself to the lady. Tell her I'm an old and rheumatic invalidwho has been used to asking his own questions. I'll not trouble hermuch. But there is one point she must make clear to me."
Sweetwater did not presume to ask what point, but he hoped to be fullyenlightened when the time came.
And he was. Mr. Gryce had undertaken to educate him for this work, andnever missed the opportunity of giving him a lesson. The three met ina private sitting-room on an upper floor, the detectives entering firstand the lady coming in soon after. As her quiet figure appeared in thedoorway, Sweetwater stole a glance at Mr. Gryce. He was not looking herway, of course; he never looked directly at anybody; but he formed hisimpressions for all that, and Sweetwater was anxious to make sure ofthese impressions. There was no doubting them in this instance. MissClarke was not a woman to rouse an unfavourable opinion in any man'smind. Of slight, almost frail build, she had that peculiar animationwhich goes with a speaking eye and a widely sympathetic nature. Withoutany substantial claims to beauty, her expression was so womanly and sosweet that she was invariably called lovely.
Mr
. Gryce was engaged at the moment in shifting his cane from the righthand to the left, but his manner was never more encouraging or his smilemore benevolent.
"Pardon me," he apologised, with one of his old-fashioned bows, "I'msorry to trouble you after all the distress you must have been underthis morning. But there is something I wish especially to ask you inregard to the dreadful occurrence in which you played so kind a part.You were the first to reach the prostrate woman, I believe."
"Yes. The boys jumped up and ran towards her, but they were frightenedby her looks and left it for me to put my hands under her and try tolift her up."
"Did you manage it?"
"I succeeded in getting her head into my lap, nothing more."
"And sat so?"
"For some little time. That is, it seemed long, though I believe it wasnot more than a minute before two men came running from the musicians'gallery. One thinks so fast at such a time--and feels so much."
"You knew she was dead, then?"
"I felt her to be so."
"How felt?"
"I was sure--I never questioned it."
"You have seen women in a faint?"
"Yes, many times."
"What made the difference? Why should you believe Miss Challoner deadsimply because she lay still and apparently lifeless?"
"I cannot tell you. Possibly, death tells its own story. I only know howI felt."
"Perhaps there was another reason? Perhaps, that, consciously orunconsciously, you laid your palm upon her heart?"
Miss Clarke started, and her sweet face showed a moment's perplexity.
"Did I?" she queried, musingly. Then with a sudden access of feeling, "Imay have done so, indeed, I believe I did. My arms were around her; itwould not have been an unnatural action."
"No; a very natural one, I should say. Cannot you tell me positivelywhether you did this or not?"
"Yes, I did. I had forgotten it, but I remember now." And the glanceshe cast him while not meeting his eye showed that she understood theimportance of the admission. "I know," she said, "what you are going toask me now. Did I feel anything there but the flowers and the tulle? No,Mr. Gryce, I did not. There was no poniard in the wound."
Mr. Gryce felt around, found a chair and sank into it.
"You are a truthful woman," said he. "And," he added more slowly,"composed enough in character I should judge not to have made anymistake on this very vital point."
"I think so, Mr. Gryce. I was in a state of excitement, of course;but the woman was a stranger to me, and my feelings were not undulyagitated."
"Sweetwater, we can let my suggestion go in regard to those ten minutesI spoke of. The time is narrowed down to one, and in that one, MissClarke was the only person to touch her."
"The only one," echoed the lady, catching perhaps the slight risingsound of query in his voice.
"I will trouble you no further." So said the old detective,thoughtfully. "Sweetwater, help me out of this." His eye was dull andhis manner betrayed exhaustion. But vigour returned to him before hehad well reached the door, and he showed some of his old spirit as hethanked Miss Clarke and turned to take the elevator.
"But one possibility remains," he confided to Sweetwater, as they stoodwaiting at the elevator door. "Miss Challoner died from a stab. The nextminute she was in this lady's arms. No weapon protruded from the wound,nor was any found on or near her in the mezzanine. What follows? Shestruck the blow herself, and the strength of purpose which led her to dothis, gave her the additional force to pull the weapon out and fling itfrom her. It did not fall upon the floor around her; therefore, it flewthrough one of those openings into the lobby, and there it either willbe, or has been found."
It was this statement, otherwise worded, which gave me my triumph overGeorge.