III
At midnight, shortly after we reached home, Sperry called me on thephone. "Be careful, Horace," he said. "Don't let Mrs. Horace thinkanything has happened. I want to see you at once. Suppose you say I havea patient in a bad way, and a will to be drawn."
I listened to sounds from upstairs. I heard my wife go into her room andclose the door.
"Tell me something about it," I urged.
"Just this. Arthur Wells killed himself tonight, shot himself in thehead. I want you to go there with me."
"Arthur Wells!"
"Yes. I say, Horace, did you happen to notice the time the seance begantonight?"
"It was five minutes after nine when my watch fell."
"Then it would have been about half past when the trance began?"
"Yes."
There was a silence at Sperry's end of the wire. Then:
"He was shot about 9:30," he said, and rang off.
I am not ashamed to confess that my hands shook as I hung up thereceiver. A brick house, she had said; the Wells house was brick. And sowere all the other houses on the street. Vines in the back? Well, evenmy own house had vines. It was absurd; it was pure coincidence; itwas--well, I felt it was queer.
Nevertheless, as I stood there, I wondered for the first time in ahighly material existence, whether there might not be, after all, aspirit-world surrounding us, cognizant of all that we did, touching butintangible, sentient but tuned above our common senses?
I stood by the prosaic telephone instrument and looked into the darkenedrecesses of the passage. It seemed to my disordered nerves that back ofthe coats and wraps that hung on the rack, beyond the heavy curtains,in every corner, there lurked vague and shadowy forms, invisible when Istared, but advancing a trifle from their obscurity when, by turning myhead and looking ahead, they impinged on the extreme right or left of myfield of vision.
I was shocked by the news, but not greatly grieved. The Wellses had beenamong us but not of us, as I have said. They had come, like gay youngcomets, into our orderly constellation, trailing behind them their carsand servants, their children and governesses and rather riotous friends,and had flashed on us in a sort of bright impermanence.
Of the two, I myself had preferred Arthur. His faults were on thesurface. He drank hard, gambled, and could not always pay his gamblingdebts. But underneath it all there had always been something boyishlyhonest about him. He had played, it is true, through most of the thirtyyears that now marked his whole life, but he could have been made a manby the right woman. And he had married the wrong one.
Of Elinor Wells I have only my wife's verdict, and I have found that, asis the way with many good women, her judgments of her own sex are rathermerciless. A tall, handsome girl, very dark, my wife has characterizedher as cold, calculating and ambitious. She has said frequently, too,that Elinor Wells was a disappointed woman, that her marriage, whilegiving her social identity, had disappointed her in a monetary way.Whether that is true or not, there was no doubt, by the time they hadlived in our neighborhood for a year, that a complication had arisen inthe shape of another man.
My wife, on my return from my office in the evening, had been quitelikely to greet me with:
"Horace, he has been there all afternoon. I really think somethingshould be done about it."
"Who has been where?" I would ask, I am afraid not too patiently.
"You know perfectly well. And I think you ought to tell him."
In spite of her vague pronouns, I understood, and in a more masculineway I shared her sense of outrage. Our street has never had a scandalon it, except the one when the Berringtons' music teacher ran away withtheir coachman, in the days of carriages. And I am glad to say that thatis almost forgotten.
Nevertheless, we had realized for some time that the dreaded trianglewas threatening the repute of our quiet neighborhood, and as I stoodby the telephone that night I saw that it had come. More than that,it seemed very probable that into this very triangle our peacefulNeighborhood Club had been suddenly thrust.
My wife accepted my excuse coldly. She dislikes intensely the occasionaloutside calls of my profession. She merely observed, however, that shewould leave all the lights on until my return. "I should think you couldarrange things better, Horace," she added. "It's perfectly idiotic theway people die at night. And tonight, of all nights!"
I shall have to confess that through all of the thirty years of ourmarried life my wife has clung to the belief that I am a bit of a dog.Thirty years of exemplary living have not affected this conviction, norhad Herbert's foolish remark earlier in the evening helped matters. Butshe watched me put on my overcoat without further comment. When I kissedher good-night, however, she turned her cheek.
The street, with its open spaces, was a relief after the dark hall. Istarted for Sperry's house, my head bent against the wind, my mind onthe news I had just heard. Was it, I wondered, just possible that we hadfor some reason been allowed behind the veil which covered poor Wells'last moments? And, to admit that for a moment, where would what we hadheard lead us? Sperry had said he had killed himself. But--suppose hehad not?
I realize now, looking back, that my recollection of the other man inthe triangle is largely colored by the fact that he fell in the greatwar. At that time I hardly knew him, except as a wealthy and self-mademan in his late thirties; I saw him now and then, in the club playingbilliards or going in and out of the Wells house, a large, fastidiouslydressed man, strong featured and broad shouldered, with rather too muchmanner. I remember particularly how I hated the light spats he affected,and the glaring yellow gloves.
A man who would go straight for the thing he wanted, woman or power ormoney. And get it.
Sperry was waiting on his door-step, and we went on to the Wells house.What with the magnitude of the thing that had happened, and our mutualfeeling that we were somehow involved in it, we were rather silent.Sperry asked one question, however, "Are you certain about the time whenMiss Jeremy saw what looks like this thing?"
"Certainly. My watch fell at five minutes after nine. When it was allover, and I picked it up, it was still going, and it was 9:30."
He was silent for a moment. Then:
"The Wellses' nursery governess telephoned for me at 9:35. We keep arecord of the time of all calls."
Sperry is a heart specialist, I think I have said, with offices in hishouse.
And, a block or so farther on: "I suppose it was bound to come. To tellthe truth, I didn't think the boy had the courage."
"Then you think he did it?"
"They say so," he said grimly. And added,--irritably: "Good heavens,Horace, we must keep that other fool thing out of our minds."
"Yes," I agreed. "We must."
Although the Wells house was brilliantly lighted when we reached it,we had difficulty in gaining admission. Whoever were in the house wereup-stairs, and the bell evidently rang in the deserted kitchen or aneighboring pantry.
"We might try the servants' entrance," Sperry said. Then he laughedmirthlessly.
"We might see," he said, "if there's a key on the nail among the vines."
I confess to a nervous tightening of my muscles as we made our wayaround the house. If the key was there, we were on the track of arevelation that might revolutionize much that we had held fundamental inscience and in our knowledge of life itself. If, sitting in Mrs. Dane'squiet room, a woman could tell us what was happening in a house a mileor so away, it opened up a new earth. Almost a new heaven.
I stopped and touched Sperry's arm. "This Miss Jeremy--did she knowArthur Wells or Elinor? If she knew the house, and the situation betweenthem, isn't it barely possible that she anticipated this thing?"
"We knew them," he said gruffly, "and whatever we anticipated, it wasn'tthis."
Sperry had a pocket flash, and when we found the door locked weproceeded with our search for the key. The porch had been covered withheavy vines, now dead of the November frosts, and showing, here andthere, dead and dried leaves that crackled as we
touched them. In thedarkness something leaped against, me, and I almost cried out. It was,however, only a collie dog, eager for the warmth of his place by thekitchen fire.
"Here's the key," Sperry said, and held it out. The flash wavered in hishand, and his voice was strained.
"So far, so good," I replied, and was conscious that my own voice rangstrange in my ears.
We admitted ourselves, and the dog, bounding past us, gave a sharp yelpof gratitude and ran into the kitchen.
"Look here, Sperry," I said, as we stood inside the door, "they don'twant me here. They've sent for you, but I'm the most casual sort of anacquaintance. I haven't any business here."
That struck him, too. We had both been so obsessed with the scene atMrs. Dane's that we had not thought of anything else.
"Suppose you sit down in the library," he said. "The chances are againsther coming down, and the servants don't matter."
As a matter of fact, we learned later that all the servants were outexcept the nursery governess. There were two small children. There was aservants' ball somewhere, and, with the exception of the butler, it wasafter two before they commenced to straggle in. Except two plain-clothesmen from the central office, a physician who was with Elinor in herroom, and the governess, there was no one else in the house but thechildren, asleep in the nursery.
As I sat alone in the library, the house was perfectly silent. But insome strange fashion it had apparently taken on the attributes of thedeed that had preceded the silence. It was sinister, mysterious, dark.Its immediate effect on my imagination was apprehension--almost terror.Murder or suicide, here among the shadows a soul, an indestructiblething, had been recently violently wrenched from its body. The body layin the room overhead. But what of the spirit? I shivered as I thoughtthat it might even then be watching me with formless eyes from some darkcorner.
Overwrought as I was, I was forced to bring my common sense to bear onthe situation. Here was a tragedy, a real and terrible one. Suppose wehad, in some queer fashion, touched its outer edges that night? Thenhow was it that there had come, mixed up with so much that might bepertinent, such extraneous and grotesque things as Childe Harold, a hurtknee, and Mother Goose?
I remember moving impatiently, and trying to argue myself into myordinary logical state of mind, but I know now that even then I waswondering whether Sperry had found a hole in the ceiling upstairs.
I wandered, I recall, into the realm of the clairvoyant and theclairaudient. Under certain conditions, such as trance, I knew that someindividuals claimed a power of vision that was supernormal, and I had atone time lunched at my club with a well-dressed gentleman in a pincenez who said the room was full of people I could not see, but who wereperfectly distinct to him. He claimed, and I certainly could not refutehim, that he saw further into the violet of the spectrum than the restof us, and seemed to consider it nothing unusual when an elderly woman,whose description sounded much like my great-grand-mother, came andstood behind my chair.
I recall that he said she was stroking my hair, and that following thatI had a distinctly creepy sensation along my scalp.
Then there were those who claimed that in trance the spirit of themedium, giving place to a control, was free to roam whither it would,and, although I am not sure of this, that it wandered in the fourthdimension. While I am very vague about the fourth dimension, I did knowthat in it doors and walls were not obstacles. But as they would notbe obstacles to a spirit, even in the world as we know it, that got menowhere.
Suppose Sperry came down and said Arthur Wells had been shot above theear, and that there was a second bullet hole in the ceiling? Added tothe key on the nail, a careless custom and surely not common, we wouldhave conclusive proof that our medium had been correct. There wasanother point, too. Miss Jeremy had said, "Get the lather off his face."
That brought me up with a turn. Would a man stop shaving to killhimself? If he did, why a revolver? Why not the razor in his hand?
I knew from my law experience that suicide is either a desperate impulseor a cold-blooded and calculated finality. A man who kills himself whiledressing comes under the former classification, and will usually seizethe first method at hand. But there was something else, too. Shavingis an automatic process. It completes itself. My wife has an irritatedconviction that if the house caught fire while I was in the midst of theprocess, I would complete it and rinse the soap from my face before Icaught up the fire-extinguisher.
Had he killed himself, or had Elinor killed him? Was she the sort tosacrifice herself to a violent impulse? Would she choose the hard way,when there was the easy one of the divorce court? I thought not. And thesame was true of Ellingham. Here were two people, both of them carefulof appearance, if not of fact. There was another possibility, too.That he had learned something while he was dressing, had attacked orthreatened her with a razor, and she had killed him in self-defence.
I had reached that point when Sperry came down the staircase, usheringout the detectives and the medical man. He came to the library door andstood looking at me, with his face rather paler than usual.
"I'll take you up now," he said. "She's in her room, in bed, and she hashad an opiate."
"Was he shot above the ear?"
"Yes."
I did not look at him, nor he at me. We climbed the stairs and enteredthe room, where, according to Elinor's story, Arthur Wells had killedhimself. It was a dressing-room, as Miss Jeremy had described. Awardrobe, a table with books and magazines in disorder, two chairs, anda couch, constituted the furnishings. Beyond was a bathroom. On a chairby a window the dead mans's evening clothes were neatly laid out, hisshoes beneath. His top hat and folded gloves were on the table.
Arthur Wells lay on the couch. A sheet had been drawn over the body, andI did not disturb it. It gave the impression of unusual length that isalways found, I think, in the dead, and a breath of air from an openwindow, by stirring the sheet, gave a false appearance of life beneath.
The house was absolutely still.
When I glanced at Sperry he was staring at the ceiling, and I followedhis eyes, but there was no mark on it. Sperry made a little gesture.
"It's queer," he muttered. "It's--"
"The detective and I put him there. He was here." He showed a place onthe floor midway of the room.
"Where was his head lying?" I asked, cautiously.
"Here."
I stooped and examined the carpet. It was a dark Oriental, with much redin it. I touched the place, and then ran my folded handkerchief over it.It came up stained with blood.
"There would be no object in using cold water there, so as not to setthe stain," Sperry said thoughtfully. "Whether he fell there or not,that is where she allowed him to be found."
"You don't think he fell there?"
"She dragged him, didn't she?" he demanded. Then the strangeness of whathe was saying struck him, and he smiled foolishly. "What I mean is, themedium said she did. I don't suppose any jury would pass us tonight asentirely sane, Horace," he said.
He walked across to the bathroom and surveyed it from the doorway. Ifollowed him. It was as orderly as the other room. On a glass shelfover the wash-stand were his razors, a safety and, beside it, in a blackcase, an assortment of the long-bladed variety, one for each day of theweek, and so marked.
Sperry stood thoughtfully in the doorway.
"The servants are out," he said. "According to Elinor's statement hewas dressing when he did it. And yet some one has had a wild impulse fortidiness here, since it happened. Not a towel out of place!"
It was in the bathroom that he told me Elinor's story. According to her,it was a simple case of suicide. And she was honest about it, in herown way. She was shocked, but she was not pretending any wild grief.She hadn't wanted him to die, but she had not felt that they could go onmuch longer together. There had been no quarrel other than their usualbickering. They had been going to a dance that night. The servantshad all gone out immediately after dinner to a servants' ball and thegoverness had gone
for a walk. She was to return at nine-thirty tofasten Elinor's gown and to be with the children.
Arthur, she said, had been depressed for several days, and at dinnerhad hardly spoken at all. He had not, however, objected to the dance. Hehad, indeed, seemed strangely determined to go, although she had pleadeda headache. At nine o'clock he went upstairs, apparently to dress.
She was in her room, with the door shut, when she heard a shot. Sheran in and found him lying on the floor of his dressing-room with hisrevolver behind him. The governess was still out. The shot had rousedthe children, and they had come down from the nursery above. She wasfrantic, but she had to soothe them. The governess, however, came inalmost immediately, and she had sent her to the telephone to summonhelp, calling Sperry first of all, and then the police.
"Have you seen the revolver?" I asked.
"Yes. It's all right, apparently. Only one shot had been fired."
"How soon did they get a doctor?"
"It must have been some time. They gave up telephoning, and thegoverness went out, finally, and found one."
"Then, while she was out--?"
"Possibly," Sperry said. "If we start with the hypothesis that she waslying."
"If she cleaned up here for any reason," I began, and commenced adesultory examination of the room. Just why I looked behind the bathtubforces me to an explanation I am somewhat loath to make, but which willexplain a rather unusual proceeding. For some time my wife has felt thatI smoked too heavily, and out of her solicitude for me has limited meto one cigar after dinner. But as I have been a heavy smoker for yearsI have found this a great hardship, and have therefore kept a reservestore, by arrangement with the housemaid, behind my tub. In self-defenceI must also state that I seldom have recourse to such stealthy measures.
Believing then that something might possibly be hidden there, I madean investigation, and could see some small objects lying there. Sperrybrought me a stick from the dressing-room, and with its aid succeeded inbringing out the two articles which were instrumental in starting us onour brief but adventurous careers as private investigators. One was aleather razor strop, old and stiff from disuse, and the other a wet bathsponge, now stained with blood to a yellowish brown.
"She is lying, Sperry," I said. "He fell somewhere else, and she draggedhim to where he was found."
"But--why?"
"I don't know," I said impatiently. "From some place where a man wouldbe unlikely to kill himself, I daresay. No one ever killed himself, forinstance, in an open hallway. Or stopped shaving to do it."
"We have only Miss Jeremy's word for that," he said, sullenly. "Confoundit, Horace, don't let's bring in that stuff if we can help it."
We stared at each other, with the strop and the sponge between us.Suddenly he turned on his heel and went back into the room, and a momentlater he called me, quietly.
"You're right," he said. "The poor devil was shaving. He had it halfdone. Come and look."
But I did not go. There was a carafe of water in the bathroom, and Itook a drink from it. My hands were shaking. When I turned around Ifound Sperry in the hall, examining the carpet with his flash light, andnow and then stooping to run his hand over the floor.
"Nothing here," he said in a low tone, when I had joined him. "At leastI haven't found anything."