IX
The following day was Monday. When I came downstairs I found a neatbundle lying in the hall, and addressed to me. My wife had followed medown, and we surveyed it together.
I had a curious feeling about the parcel, and was for cutting the cordwith my knife. But my wife is careful about string. She has alwaysfancied that the time would come when we would need some badly, and itwould not be around. I have an entire drawer of my chiffonier, which Ireally need for other uses, filled with bundles of twine, pink, whiteand brown. I recall, on one occasion, packing a suit-case in the dusk,in great hasty, and emptying the drawer containing my undergarments intoit, to discover, when I opened it on the train for my pajamas, nothingbut rolls of cord and several packages of Christmas ribbons. So I wasobliged to wait until she had untied the knots by means of a hairpin.
It was my overcoat! My overcoat, apparently uninjured, but with thecollection of keys I had made missing.
The address was printed, not written, in a large, strong hand, witha stub pen. I did not, at the time, notice the loss of certain paperswhich had been in the breast pocket. I am rather absent-minded, and itwas not until the night after the third sitting that they were recalledto my mind.
At something after eleven Herbert Robinson called me up at my office.He was at Sperry's house, Sperry having been his physician during hisrecent illness.
"I say, Horace, this is Herbert."
"Yes. How are you?"
"Doing well, Sperry says. I'm at his place now. I'm speaking for him.He's got a patient."
"Yes."
"You were here last night, he says." Herbert has a circumlocutory mannerover the phone which irritates me. He begins slowly and does not knowhow to stop. Talk with him drags on endlessly.
"Well, I admit it," I snapped. "It's not a secret."
He lowered his voice. "Do you happen to have noticed a walking-stick inthe library when you were here?"
"Which walking-stick?"
"You know. The one we--"
"Yes. I saw it."
"You didn't, by any chance, take it home with you?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Certainly I'm sure."
"You are an absent-minded beggar, you know," he explained. "You rememberabout the fire-tongs. And a stick is like an umbrella. One is likely topick it up and--"
"One is not likely to do anything of the sort. At least, I didn't."
"Oh, all right. Every one well?"
"Very well, thanks."
"Suppose we'll see you tonight?"
"Not unless you ring off and let me do some work," I said irritably.
He rang off. I was ruffled, I admit; but I was uneasy, also. To tell thetruth, the affair of the fire-tongs had cost me my self-confidence. Icalled up my wife, and she said Herbert was a fool and Sperry also. Butshe made an exhaustive search of the premises, without result. Whoeverhad taken the stick, I was cleared. Cleared, at least, for a time. Therewere strange developments coming that threatened my peace of mind.
It was that day that I discovered that I was being watched. Shadowed,I believe is the technical word. I daresay I had been followed from myhouse, but I had not noticed. When I went out to lunch a youngish man ina dark overcoat was waiting for the elevator, and I saw him again when Icame out of my house. We went downtown again on the same car.
Perhaps I would have thought nothing of it, had I not been summoned tothe suburbs on a piece of business concerning a mortgage. He was at thefar end of the platform as I took the train to return to the city, withhis back to me. I lost him in the crowd at the downtown station, but heevidently had not lost me, for, stopping to buy a newspaper, I turned,and, as my pause had evidently been unexpected, he almost ran into me.
With that tendency of any man who finds himself under suspicion tosearch his past for some dereliction, possibly forgotten, I puzzled overthe situation for some time that afternoon. I did not connect it withthe Wells case, for in that matter I was indisputably the hunter, notthe hunted.
Although I found no explanation for the matter, I did not tell my wifethat evening. Women are strange and she would, I feared, immediatelyjump to the conclusion that there was something in my private life thatI was keeping from her.
Almost all women, I have found, although not over-conscious themselvesof the charm and attraction of their husbands, are of the convictionthat these husbands exert a dangerous fascination over other women, andthat this charm, which does not reveal itself in the home circle, isused abroad with occasionally disastrous effect.
My preoccupation, however, did not escape my wife, and she commented onit at dinner.
"You are generally dull, Horace," she said, "but tonight you aredeadly."
After dinner I went into our reception room, which is not lighted unlesswe are expecting guests, and peered out of the window. The detective, orwhoever he might be, was walking negligently up the street.
As that was the night of the third seance, I find that my record coversthe fact that Mrs. Dane was housecleaning, for which reason we had notbeen asked to dinner, that my wife and I dined early, at six-thirty, andthat it was seven o'clock when Sperry called me by telephone.
"Can you come to my office at once?" he asked. "I dare say Mrs. Johnsonwon't mind going to the Dane house alone."
"Is there anything new?"
"No. But I want to get into the Wells house again. Bring the keys."
"They were in the overcoat. It came back today, but the keys aremissing."
"Did you lock the back door?"
"I don't remember. No, of course not. I didn't have the keys."
"Then there's a chance," he observed, after a moment's pause. "Anyhow,it's worth trying. Herbert told you about the stick?"
"Yes. I never had it, Sperry."
Fortunately, during this conversation my wife was upstairs dressing.I knew quite well that she would violently oppose a second visit on mypart to the deserted house down the street. I therefore left a messagefor her that I had gone on, and, finding the street clear, met Sperry athis door-step.
"This is the last sitting, Horace," he explained, "and I feel we oughtto have the most complete possible knowledge, beforehand. We will bein a better position to understand what comes. There are two or threethings we haven't checked up on."
He slipped an arm through mine, and we started down the street. "I'mgoing to get to the bottom of this, Horace, old dear," he said.
"Remember, we're pledged to a psychic investigation only."
"Rats!" he said rudely. "We are going to find out who killed ArthurWells, and if he deserves hanging we'll hang him."
"Or her?"
"It wasn't Elinor Wells," he said positively. "Here's the point: if he'sbeen afraid to go back for his overcoat it's still there. I don't expectthat, however. But the thing about the curtain interests me. I've beenreading over my copy of the notes on the sittings. It was said, youremember, that curtains--some curtains--would have been better placesto hide the letters than the bag."
I stopped suddenly. "By Jove, Sperry," I said. "I remember now. My notesof the sittings were in my overcoat."
"And they are gone?"
"They are gone."
He whistled softly. "That's unfortunate," he said. "Then the otherperson, whoever he is, knows what we know!"
He was considerably startled when I told him I had been shadowed, andinsisted that it referred directly to the case in hand. "He's got yournotes," he said, "and he's got to know what your next move is going tobe."
His intention, I found, was to examine the carpet outside of thedressing-room door, and the floor beneath it, to discover if possiblewhether Arthur Wells had fallen there and been moved.
"Because I think you are right," he said. "He wouldn't have been likelyto shoot himself in a hall, and because the very moving of the bodywould be in itself suspicious. Then I want to look at the curtains. 'Thecurtains would have been safer.' Safer for what? For the bag with theletters, probably, for she followed that with the talk
about Hawkins.He'd got them, and somebody was afraid he had."
"Just where does Hawkins come in, Sperry?" I asked.
"I'm damned if I know," he reflected. "We may learn tonight."
The Wells house was dark and forbidding. We walked past it once, asan officer was making his rounds in leisurely fashion, swinging hisnight-stick in circles. But on our return the street was empty, and weturned in at the side entry.
I led the way with comparative familiarity. It was, you will remember,my third similar excursion. With Sperry behind me I felt confident.
"In case the door is locked, I have a few skeleton keys," said Sperry.
We had reached the end of the narrow passage, and emerged into thesquare of brick and grass that lay behind the house. While the nightwas clear, the place lay in comparative darkness. Sperry stumbled oversomething, and muttered to himself.
The rear porch lay in deep shadow. We went up the steps together. ThenSperry stopped, and I advanced to the doorway. It was locked.
With my hand on the door-knob, I turned to Sperry. He was strugglingviolently with a dark figure, and even as I turned they went over with acrash and rolled together down the steps. Only one of them rose.
I was terrified. I confess it. It was impossible to see whether itwas Sperry or his assailant. If it was Sperry who lay in a heap on theground, I felt that I was lost. I could not escape. The way was blocked,and behind me the door, to which I now turned frantically, was a barrierI could not move.
Then, out of the darkness behind me, came Sperry's familiar, boomingbass. "I've knocked him out, I'm afraid. Got a match, Horace?"
Much shaken, I went down the steps and gave Sperry a wooden toothpick,under the impression that it was a match. That rectified, we bent overthe figure on the bricks.
"Knocked out, for sure," said Sperry, "but I think it's not serious. Awatchman, I suppose. Poor devil, we'll have to get him into the house."
The lock gave way to manipulation at last, and the door swung open.There came to us the heavy odor of all closed houses, a combinationof carpets, cooked food, and floor wax. My nerves, now taxed to theirutmost, fairly shrank from it, but Sperry was cool.
He bore the brunt of the weight as we carried the watchman in, holdinghim with his arms dangling, helpless and rather pathetic. Sperry glancedaround.
"Into the kitchen," he said. "We can lock him in."
We had hardly laid him on the floor when I heard the slow stride of theofficer of the beat. He had turned into the paved alley-way, and wasadvancing with measured, ponderous steps. Fortunately I am an agile man,and thus I was able to get to the outer door, reverse the key and turnit from the inside, before I heard him hailing the watchman.
"Hello there!" he called. "George, I say! George!"
He listened for a moment, then came up and tried the door. I crouchedinside, as guilty as the veriest house-breaker in the business. But hehad no suspicion, clearly, for he turned and went away, whistling as hewent.
Not until we heard him going down the street again, absently running hisnight-stick along the fence palings, did Sperry or I move.
"A narrow squeak, that," I said, mopping my face.
"A miss is as good as a mile," he observed, and there was a sort ofexultation in his voice. He is a born adventurer.
He came out into the passage and quickly locked the door behind him.
"Now, friend Horace," he said, "if you have anything but toothpicks formatches, we will look for the overcoat, and then we will go upstairs."
"Suppose he wakens and raises an alarm?"
"We'll be out of luck. That's all."
As we had anticipated, there was no overcoat in the library, and afterlistening a moment at the kitchen door, we ascended a rear staircase tothe upper floor. I had, it will be remembered, fallen from a chair ona table in the dressing room, and had left them thus overturned when Icharged the third floor. The room, however, was now in perfect order,and when I held my candle to the ceiling, I perceived that the bullethole had again been repaired, and this time with such skill that I couldnot even locate it.
"We are up against some one cleverer than we are, Sperry," Iacknowledged.
"And who has more to lose than we have to gain," he added cheerfully."Don't worry about that, Horace. You're a married man and I'm not. If awoman wanted to hide some letters from her husband, and chose acurtain for a receptacle, what room would hide them in. Not in hisdressing-room, eh?"
He took the candle and led the way to Elinor Wells's bedroom. Here,however, the draperies were down, and we would have been at a loss, hadI not remembered my wife's custom of folding draperies when we close thehouse, and placing them under the dusting sheets which cover the variousbeds.
Our inspection of the curtains was hurried, and broken by variousexcursions on my part to listen for the watchman. But he remained quietbelow, and finally we found what we were looking for. In the lining ofone of the curtains, near the bottom, a long, ragged cut had been made.
"Cut in a hurry, with curved scissors," was Sperry's comment. "Probablymanicure scissors."
The result was a sort of pocket in the curtain, concealed on the chintzside, which was the side which would hang toward the room.
"Probably," he said, "the curtain would have been better. It would havestayed anyhow. Whereas the bag--" He was flushed with triumph. "How inthe world would Hawkins know that?" he demanded. "You can talk all youlike. She's told us things that no one ever told her."
Before examining the floor in the hall I went downstairs and listenedoutside the kitchen door. The watchman was stirring inside the room, andgroaning occasionally. Sperry, however, when I told him, remained cooland in his exultant mood, and I saw that he meant to vindicate MissJeremy if he flung me into jail and the newspapers while doing it.
"We'll have a go at the floors under the carpets now," he said. "If hegets noisy, you can go down with the fire-tongs. I understand you are anexpert with them."
The dressing-room had a large rug, like the nursery above it, andturning back the carpet was a simple matter. There had been a stainbeneath where the dead man's head had lain, but it had been scrubbed andscraped away. The boards were white for an area of a square foot or so.
Sperry eyed the spot with indifference. "Not essential," he said. "Showsgood housekeeping. That's all. The point is, are there other spots?"
And, after a time, we found what we were after. The upper hall wascarpeted, and my penknife came into requisition to lift the tacks. Theycame up rather easily, as if but recently put in. That, indeed, provedto be the case.
Just outside the dressing-room door the boards for an area of two squarefeet or more beneath the carpet had been scraped and scrubbed. With thelifting of the carpet came, too, a strong odor, as of ammonia. But thestain of blood had absolutely disappeared.
Sperry, kneeling on the floor with the candle held close, examined thewood. "Not only scrubbed," he said, "but scraped down, probably witha floor-scraper. It's pretty clear, Horace. The poor devil fell here.There was a struggle, and he went down. He lay there for a while, too,until some plan was thought out. A man does not usually kill himself ina hallway. It's a sort of solitary deed. He fell here, and was draggedinto the room. The angle of the bullet in the ceiling would probablyshow it came from here, too, and went through the doorway."
We were startled at that moment by a loud banging below. Sperry leapedto his feet and caught up his hat.
"The watchman," he said. "We'd better get out. He'll have all theneighbors in at that rate."
He was still hammering on the door as we went down the rear stairs, andSperry stood outside the door and to one side.
"Keep out of range, Horace," he cautioned me. And to the watchman:
"Now, George, we will put the key under the door, and in ten minutes youmay come out. Don't come sooner. I've warned you."
By the faint light from outside I could see him stooping, not in frontof the door, but behind it. And it was well he did, for the momentthe key was on the other si
de, a shot zipped through one of the lowerpanels. I had not expected it and it set me to shivering.
"No more of that, George," said Sperry calmly and cheerfully. "This is aquiet neighborhood, and we don't like shooting. What is more, my friendhere is very expert with his own particular weapon, and at any moment hemay go to the fire-place in the library and--"
I have no idea why Sperry chose to be facetious at that time, and myresentment rises as I record it. For when we reached the yard we heardthe officer running along the alley-way, calling as he ran.
"The fence, quick," Sperry said.
I am not very good at fences, as a rule, but I leaped that one like acat, and came down in a barrel of waste-paper on the other side. Gettingme out was a breathless matter, finally accomplished by turning thebarrel over so that I could crawl out. We could hear the excited voicesof the two men beyond the fence, and we ran. I was better than Sperry atthat. I ran like a rabbit. I never even felt my legs. And Sperry poundedon behind me.
We heard, behind us, one of the men climbing the fence. But in jumpingdown he seemed to have struck the side of the overturned barrel.Probably it rolled and threw him, for that part of my mind which was notintent on flight heard him fall, and curse loudly.
"Go to it," Sperry panted behind me. "Roll over and break your neck."
This, I need hardly explain, was meant for our pursuer.
We turned a corner and were out on one of the main thoroughfares.Instantly, so innate is cunning to the human brain, we fell to walkingsedately.
It was as well that we did, for we had not gone a half block before wesaw our policeman again, lumbering toward us and blowing a whistle as heran.
"Stop and get this street-car," Sperry directed me. "And don't breatheso hard."
The policeman stared at us fixedly, stopping to do so, but all he sawwas two well-dressed and professional-looking men, one of them ratherelderly who was hailing a street-car. I had the presence of mind to drawmy watch and consult it.
"Just in good time," I said distinctly, and we mounted the car step.Sperry remained on the platform and lighted a cigar. This gave him achance to look back.
"Rather narrow squeak, that," he observed, as he came in and sat downbeside me. "Your gray hairs probably saved us."
I was quite numb from the waist down, from my tumble and from running,and it was some time before I could breathe quietly. Suddenly Sperryfell to laughing.
"I wish you could have seen yourself in that barrel, and crawling out,"he said.
We reached Mrs. Dane's, to find that Miss Jeremy had already arrived,looking rather pale, as I had noticed she always did before a seance.Her color had faded, and her eyes seemed sunken in her head.
"Not ill, are you?" Sperry asked her, as he took her hand.
"Not at all. But I am anxious. I always am. These things do not come forthe calling."
"This is the last time. You have promised."
"Yes. The last time."