CHAPTER III THE TRAGEDY
As we went up the steps and crossed the porch of the Moore bungalow, wesaw a man seated in the lounge, talking to Lora.
Both jumped up at our approach, and Lora cried out, “Oh, Kee, Mr. Tracyis dead!”
“Sampson Tracy! Dead?” exclaimed Moore, with a look of blankconsternation.
“Yes,” the man said, tersely, “and not only dead, but murdered. I’mPolice Detective March. I’ve just come from the Tracy house. You see,everything is at sixes and sevens over there. Nobody authorized to takethe helm, though plenty of them want to do so. In a way, Everett, thesecretary, is head of the heap, but a guest there, Mr. Ames, refuses toacknowledge that Everett has any say at all. Claims he is Tracy’s oldestand closest friend, and insists on taking charge himself.”
“Why shouldn’t he?” asked Keeley Moore, quietly.
“Well, why should he?” countered the policeman. “And, besides, I thinkhe’s the man who killed Tracy. But here’s my errand here. It seems Mr.Ames was here last night to dinner?”
Lora nodded assent to his inquiring glance.
“Well, he formed a high opinion of Mr. Moore’s detective ability, and hewants to engage his services, if possible.”
Kee Moore was a tall, dark man, about thirty-five or so. But when heundertook a case, or even thought about undertaking a case, he seemed tochange his personality. Rather, he intensified it. He seemed to betaller, darker and older.
I saw this change come over him at once, as he listened to the policedetective’s words.
There is a phrase about an old warhorse scenting the battle. I’ve neverseen such a thing, but I am sure it implies the same attitude that Mooreshowed at the moment. His eyes took on a far-away look that was yet alertand receptive. His hands showed strained muscles as he grasped the backof a chair that stood in front of him. His lips lost their smiling curveand set in a straight line. I knew all these gestures well, and I knewthat not only would he take up this case, but that he was anxious to getat it at once.
Lora knew it, too, and I heard her sigh as she resigned herself to theinevitable. It wasn’t necessary for any of us to say we had hoped Kee wasto have a rest from his work, an idle vacation. The two Moores and I knewthat, and we all knew, too, that the vacation was broken in upon andthere would be no rest for the busy, inquiring brain until the Tracy casewas settled for all time.
“I don’t know about accepting this offer of Mr. Ames to engage myservices,” Kee said, “but I will most certainly look into the matter andif I can be of help we can make definite arrangements. Tell me a littlemore of the circumstances, please, and then we will go over to PleasureDome.”
“It seems the butler or housekeeper was in the habit of taking tea to Mr.Tracy’s room of a morning, at nine o’clock. Well, this morning, the doorwas locked and nobody responded to knocks on it. So—you can get theconnecting data later, sir—they broke in, and found Mr. Tracy dead inbed, with the strangest doings all about.”
“What do you mean by strange doings?”
“Well, he was all dolled up with flowers and a long red scarf, and, ifyou please, a red feather duster sticking up behind his head——”
“Did you see all this?” demanded Moore, his eyes growing darker everyminute.
“Yes, and that’s not half! There was an orange in his hand and crackerson his pillow and a crucifix against his breast——”
“Come on,” said Moore, quietly, but in a tone of suppressed excitement.“Let’s get over there before they disturb all that scenery! I never heardof such astounding conditions.”
“No, sir, I’ll say you didn’t,” March agreed. “I felt a bit miffed whenthey told me to come and get you; any detective would, you know, but whenI came to think over all that hodge-podge of evidence, I knew it was acase too big for me to tackle alone. I hope you’ll let me help you, sir.”
“Oh, of course,” said Moore, a little impatiently, as he urged thedetective to start. “Will your car hold us all?” His glance included me,and March answered; “Oh, yes. I’ve one of Mr. Tracy’s big cars.”
When we reached the great house, and stopped at the landing place underthe porte-cochère, I was more than ever impressed by the beauty allabout.
There was nothing glaring or ostentatious. The bit of verandah wetraversed to reach the front door was brightened with a few railingflower-boxes and potted palms, but it was quietly dignified and stately.
Stately was the key word for the whole place, and I suddenly rememberedthat Kubla Khan’s Pleasure Dome was described as stately. Surely, SampsonTracy had sensed the real meaning of the phrase.
Inside, the house was the same. Marked everywhere by good taste, theappointments were of the finest and best.
There seemed to be a great many people about. Servants were coming andgoing and policemen were here and there.
March took Moore and myself directly to the library, where InspectorFarrell was awaiting us.
Also present were Ames, whom we already knew, and a young man, who provedto be Charles Everett, the confidential secretary of the dead man.
I took to Everett at once. He was the clean-cut type of so many of ourefficient young American secretaries. He looked capable and wise, andbeing introduced, bowed gravely.
Ames took up the matter at once.
He looked perturbed rather than grumpy this morning, but his speakingvoice had an unpleasant twang, and I saw Kee stiffen up as if he wouldcertainly decline to be at this man’s beck and call.
“I sent for you, Mr. Moore,” Ames began, “to get your help in unravellingthe mystery of Sampson Tracy’s death. As you will soon learn, theconditions are startlingly unusual, even bizarre. But I have heard thatthe more bizarre the clues and evidence, the easier a case is to solve.So, I beg you to get at it at once and exert your most clever efforts.”
“But I haven’t yet said I would take the case for you,” Moore told him.
“Why not?” cried Ames, his face lowering in a pettish frown. “I shallmake no objection to your terms, whatever they may be—in reason. I shallnot trammel you with any restrictions or annoy you with any advice. I amtold you are a famous detective. I know you for a friend of Mr. Tracy.Why, then, would you hesitate to solve the problem of his death and learnthe identity of his murderer?”
“Are you sure he was murdered?” asked Moore. “You see, I know little ofthe facts in the case.”
“No,” broke in Inspector Farrell, “no, we don’t know that he wasmurdered. And the facts that we do know are seemingly contradictory. Itrust, Mr. Moore, that you will look into the matter, at least, and giveus the benefit of your findings, whether you officially take up the caseor not.”
“I cannot say,” Moore told him, “until I am in possession of the detailsof the tragedy. Nor do I want it told me here. Let me see the body, letme inquire for myself concerning the facts, and let me draw my ownconclusions. Only after that can I decide whether I take on the case ornot.”
“I think you very unreasonable, Mr. Moore,” Ames grumbled. “I want you tobe my agent in this matter, and so I want you to start in fully equippedwith my sanction and authority.”
“Just how much authority have you here, Mr. Ames?” asked Moore, lookingat him thoughtfully.
“As the oldest and nearest friend of Sampson Tracy, and as his intimateconfidant and adviser, I think I can claim more authority than any oneelse. In fact the man had no relatives in the world except a niece. Hehad no friends of a confidential nature except myself. I am not referringto financial affairs, they are in the hands of his lawyer and hissecretaries. But if he has been murdered, I propose to hound down thewretch who is responsible for his death. I know much about Tracy’s lifethat nobody else knows. I know of those who might wish him dead, and myknowledge, combined with the skill of a canny detective, must bring outthe truth.”
This was straightforward talk, and Ames, though his face wore anaggrieved expression, spoke concisely and to t
he point. But after all,his manner was truculent, he didn’t ask Moore’s help so much as hedemanded it, almost commandeered it. I was not surprised to see Kee stickto his first decision.
“I appreciate all you say, Mr. Ames,” Kee said, “but I repeat I am notwilling to take a case until I look into it. Do not delay further, butlet us go at once to the scene of the tragedy.”
Ames glowered, but without another word he led the way from the room andturned toward the staircase.
The broad steps, carpeted with red velvet, branched half way up, andturning to the right, Ames conducted us to Sampson Tracy’s rooms. Theywere in a wing that had been flung out at the back of the house, probablyas a later addition to the structure. Entrance was through a privatehall, and then into a foyer or ante-room, from which led several doors.
“This is the bedroom,” said the Inspector, taking a key from his pocketas he paused before one of the doors.
“I thought you had to break in,” Moore said, looking at the unmarreddoor.
“Not exactly,” Farrell told him. “The door was locked and the key inside,in the lock. But they got the garage mechanician up here, and he managedto dislodge the key and then get the door unlocked with his tools.”
He opened the door, and we filed in, the Inspector first, then Moore andI, then Ames and Detective March.
Farrell closed and locked the door behind us, and it was then that I sawthe strange, the grotesque spectacle of Sampson Tracy’s deathbed.
The first thing that caught my attention and from which I found it wellnigh impossible to detach my vision was the red-feather duster.
A full plume of bright red feathers seemed to crown the head on thepillow.
The handle of the duster had been thrust down behind and under the head,and only the red plume showed, of such fine, light feathers that a fewfronds waved at a step across the room or a movement near the bed.
Then I looked at the rest of the strange picture.
Sampson Tracy was a large and heavy man. His head was large, and his facewas of the conformation sometimes called pear-shaped. He had heavy jaws,pendulous jowls and a large mouth. Clean shaven as to face, his hair wasthick and rather long. His eyebrows were bushy, and his half opened eyesof a glassy and yet dull blue.
His hair was iron-gray, and round his brow were wreathed some blossoms ofblue larkspur. Across his chest, diagonally, was a garland of the sameflowers. The blossoms were not tied or twined, they had merely been laidin a row in order to form a vinelike garland.
The right hand, bent to rest on his breast, held a crucifix, and in theleft hand was, of all things, a small orange.
His head lay on one large pillow, and on the other pillow was a foldedhandkerchief and also two small sweet crackers. And encircling the headand shoulders, framing all these strange details, a long and wide scarf,of soft and filmy scarlet chiffon, a beautiful scarf, from a woman’spoint of view, but a peculiar adjunct to a man’s taking-off.
I stared at all this, quite forgetting to look at Moore to see how he wastaking it.
When I did glance up at him, hearing his voice, I saw he had evidentlycompleted his scrutiny of the bed and had turned to Harper Ames.
“Why do you think Mr. Tracy was murdered?” Kee asked of the glum-facedone.
“What other theory is possible?” Ames returned. “A suicide would notplace all that flumadiddle about himself. A natural death wouldn’t havesuch decorations, either. So, he was killed, either by some one with amost distorted sense of humour, or there is a meaning in each seeming bitof foolishness.”
“What did he die of, exactly?”
“That we don’t know yet, the doctor will be here any minute, and thecoroner, too.”
Even as he spoke, Doctor Rogers arrived. He was the family physician, andas Farrell opened the door to his knock, he went straight to the bed.
“What’s all this rubbish?” he exclaimed, reaching for the scarf.
“Don’t touch it, If you can help it, Doctor,” March implored him. “It maybe evidence——”
“Evidence of what?”
“Crime—murder—or is it a natural death?”
Doctor Rogers was making his examination with as little disturbance asmight be of the flowers and scarf.
But the feather duster he pulled from its place and flung across theroom. The orange followed it, and the crackers.
“Pick them up if you want them for clues,” he said; “you know where theywere found, and I won’t have my friend photographed with all those monkeytricks about him!”
March picked up the things, with a due regard for possible finger prints,and stored them away in a drawer of the chiffonier.
Finally, Doctor Rogers straightened up from his examining, and rose tohis feet.
“Apoplexy,” he said. “What’s all this talk about murder? Sampson Tracy isdead of apoplexy, as I have often told him he would be, if he kept onwith his plan of eating and drinking too much and taking little or noexercise. He had an apoplectic stroke last night which proved fatal. Hedied, as nearly as I can judge, about two o’clock. As to these foolishtrinkets, they were brought in here later and placed round him after hewas dead. You can see that though he seemed to hold the cross and theorange in his hands, they weren’t tightly held, the fingers were bentround them after death. It must have been the deed of some child or ofsome servant who is mentally lacking. Is there a girl of twelve orfourteen on the place? But I’ve no time to tarry now. I’m on my way tothe train. I’m going for my vacation on a trip through Canada and downthe Pacific coast. I’d throw it over, of course, if I could be of anyuse. But I can’t, and my wife is waiting for me. I’ve given my statementas to Tracy’s death, and I know I’m right. Here comes Coroner Hart now. Isay, Hart, the Inspector and Mr. Ames here will tell you my findings, andI know you’ll corroborate me. It’s all a terrible pity, but I knew he wasdigging his grave with his teeth. No amount of advice did a bit of good.As to the flowers and rags, look for a twelve-year-old girl.... There arethe ones who kick up such bobberies. Maybe the housekeeper has agrandchild, or maybe there is a kiddy in the chauffeur’s or gardener’scottage. Good-bye, I must run. Sorry, but to lose this local train meansto upset our reservations all along the trip.”
The Doctor hurried away, yet so positive had been his diagnosis, and sological his disinclination to linger when he could be of no possible use,that we all forgave him in our minds.
The Coroner gave a start at the masses of flowers, somewhat disarrangedby Doctor Rogers’s manipulations, and drew nearer to the body.
Farrell told him how things had been before Doctor Rogers removed thefeather duster and threw out the orange and crackers.
“He ought to have let them alone!” Hart declared, angrily.
“It doesn’t really matter,” put in March, “I know exactly how they werelying, and anyway, Rogers says it’s a natural death.”
“Natural? With all that gimcrack show!”
“He says that’s the work of a mischievous child, for preference, a littlegirl of twelve or fourteen.”
“He’s thinking of Poltergeist—he’s got that sort of thing on the brain.Let me take a look at the body.”
So Doctor Hart sat on the side of the bed and made his examination of thedead millionaire.
“There is every symptom of apoplexy,” he said, at last, “and no symptomof anything else. Yet, I feel a little uncertainty. We’ll have to seewhat the autopsy says.”
“When can you have that?” Ames asked him.
“Very soon. This afternoon, probably. But it is important now to makeinquiries as to conditions last night. You were here, Mr. Ames?”
“Yes,—that is, I am staying here, visiting, you know,—but last evening Iwas out to dinner, with our neighbour, Mr. Moore here.”
“What time did you get home?”
“Not late; about eleven, I think.”
“Had Mr. Tracy gone to bed then?”
“No, he was waiting up for me. We went into the smoking room and had asmoke and a
chat.”
“What time did you retire?”
“We went upstairs about midnight, I should say. I said good night to himon this floor and then went on upstairs to my own room.”
“He seemed in his usual health and spirits?”
“So far as I noticed, yes.”
“You heard nothing unusual in the night?”
“Nothing at all.”
“What was the subject of your conversation last evening?”
“Nothing of serious moment. He asked me who were at the Moore party and Itold him. He was lightly interested, but cared only to hear about Mrs.Dallas, who is his fiancée and who was at the party.”
“And Mr. Tracy was not there?”
“No. He had been invited, but—well, he had had a little tiff with thelady, and in a moment of anger had declined the invitation. He was sorryafterward and wished he had accepted it. I begged him to go in my place,I would have willingly stayed home, but he wouldn’t hear of such a thing.Then I wanted to telephone Mrs. Moore, the hostess, and ask her to makeroom for him, too, but he wouldn’t allow that, either. So I went to thedinner, and Mrs. Dallas went, but Mr. Tracy stayed at home.”
“Alone?”
“I think so, except for his two secretaries. When I came home, he was ina pleasant enough mood, and I concluded he had thought it all over andstraightened it out in his mind one way or another. I didn’t refer to thematter at all, but he asked me many questions about Mrs. Dallas, such ashow she looked, what mood she was in and whether she said anything abouthim. Just such questions as a man would naturally ask about his absentsweetheart.”
“All this properly belongs to the inquest,” Coroner Hart said. “But Iwant to get any side-lights I can while the matter is fresh in your mind.Do you know this room well, Mr. Ames?”
“Not at all. I’ve only been in here once or twice in my life.”
“Then you can’t tell me if anything is missing?”
“No, I think not,” Ames looked around. “No, I don’t know anything aboutthe appointments here. Or do you mean valuables?”
“Anything at all. I think we can’t blink the fact that somebody came inhere after the man was dead, and arranged all those weird decorations.Now maybe that somebody took away something as well.”
“That I don’t know,” Ames reiterated. “I know nothing of Tracy’sbelongings.”
The man had been pleasant enough at first, but now he was resuming hisirritable manner, and I wondered if he would get really angry.
Keeley Moore was saying almost nothing. But I knew he was losing nopoints of what was happening, and I rather expected him to break outsoon. He did.
“Perhaps, Doctor Hart,” he said, quietly, “it might be a good idea to getMr. Tracy’s manservant or housekeeper up here, and find out a little moreabout the appointments of this room. For instance, whether the orange andcrackers were already here, or whether the mysterious visitor broughtthem.”
“I was just about to do that, Mr. Moore,” the Coroner said, with suchhaste that I had my doubts of his veracity.
But he rang a bell in the wall, and we waited for a response.
The butler himself answered it, a rather grandiose personage in thethroes of excitement and grief at the terrible happenings to his master.
“Well, Griscom,” Ames said, with his habitual frown, “these gentlemenwant to ask you some questions. Answer them as fully as you can.”
“Was it Mr. Tracy’s habit to have a bit of fruit or a cracker in his roomat night?” the Coroner inquired.
“Yes, sir,” said the butler, and the sound of his own voice seemed tosteady him. “He always had an orange or a few grapes and a cracker or twoon the table by his bed, sir.”
“And do you think this orange and these crackers are the ones put out forhim last night?”
“I’m sure of it, sir. I put them out myself.”
“Then where is the plate? Surely you had them on a plate.”
“Of course, sir. They were on a small gilt-edged plate. I don’t see itabout.”
“No, I don’t either. Had Mr. Tracy a valet?”
“No, sir, he didn’t like a man fussing about. I attended him, sir, and afootman helped me out now and then; and Mrs. Fenn, she’s cook andhousekeeper, sir, she looked after his clothes, saving what I didmyself.”
“Have you any reason to think your master would take his own life?”
“Oh, Lord, no, sir. Begging your pardon, but he was very fond of life,was Mr. Tracy. I thought he died of a fit, sir.”
“Probably he did. A fit or stroke of apoplexy. I begin to think,Inspector, we have no murder mystery on our hands after all.”
“No,” said Farrell, shaking his head, “apparently not.”
“Apparently yes,” said Keeley Moore, quietly. He had been looking at thedead man, and though he had not moved, but had stood for a long time,with his hands in his pockets, staring down at the still figure on thebed, I knew, somehow, that he had made a discovery.
“Stand over here, please, Inspector,” he said, in his calm,matter-of-fact way.
Farrell went and stood beside him, and Moore pointed to a very smallcircular object that shone like silver, though nearly hidden by the thickand rather long hair of Sampson Tracy.
It was the head of a nail that had been driven into the man’s skull.