Trudi shook her head at him with a dispirited grin.
“Nothing doing, Sherlock; you can’t pin anything on my lawful wedded husband that way! I swept the pile of flour back into the bowl, and stuck it in the lacquer cabinet over there.… No, you’re still the boy with the means, the motive, and the opportunity, if that means anything. If it’s any consolation to you it leaves me fairly cool. Pretty, but cuckoo—too darned pat, somehow.”
Gavin Dart said equably:
“I’ll grant that it leaves something to be desired as a formula; still, as a starter, it may prove serviceable. I’ll head the line of suspects that is about to form to the right, naturally, but I think that we’ll have some more recruits before we’re through. And before we abandon the flour theme entirely, suppose you show me just which table you brushed it off of.”
“The little one over there in the corner, near the tub with the apples in it.”
“Near the tub with the knife in it,” corrected Gavin Dart gently. He crossed the room leisurely, and stood inspecting the table with more than perfunctory interest. “You didn’t make a very tidy job of sweeping off your flour, Trudi—there’s quite a bit left.… Baird, come here for a moment, will you?”
Joel joined the two hanging over the table, his eyes on fire with a curiosity that he endeavoured to conceal beneath a coolly scientific detachment.
“Now why in heck do you suppose it makes that funny little track down the centre of the table?”
“Let’s find out,” suggested Dart. “When you retraced your steps through this room, groping your way along the wall, you collided with the tub just short of this table, didn’t you?”
“I’ll tell the world I did!”
“Did you run into the table, too?”
“Nope—I stopped groping after that and lit out catty-cornered for the hall doors.”
“But if you had been coming from the hall, feeling your way in the dark, what would have happened then, I wonder? Or even if you had been crossing from the sofa? Try this, will you, Joel? Close your eyes, and start from anywhere over there by the hall door. No—wait a moment; get this before you start. Remember that you’re supposed to know that this tub is here, and that there’s a table just short of it. Remember that it’s pitch dark, and that it’s vitally important to you that you shouldn’t make a noise, but it’s also vitally important that you should get to the tub as rapidly as possible. Got all that straight? All right—start.”
The circle about the fire leaned forward, tense and bewildered, watching the tall figure with the conscientiously screwed-up eyes and the young excited grin groping his cautious way along the wall, absorbed as a small boy intent on Blindman’s Buff. But the two men in the corner, watching his progress with a curious disquieting concentration, did not seem to find the game particularly amusing.
“Here’s the table,” muttered Joel, the grin deepening. “Check! And about a yard or so farther on there ought to be that double-damned tub—righto—check again!” He opened his eyes, blazing with excitement. “Now will someone kindly step up and tell me just why anyone in his senses would want to head for that confounded tub if he knew it was there? Why, for Pete’s sake, wouldn’t he—”
He bit off the end of his sentence with a sharp sound of enlightenment as his eye fell once more on the reddened water at his feet.
“By golly, the knife! You actually mean that someone planned from the very beginning to get rid of it there, so that there wouldn’t be any finger prints or anything? That someone worked out all the landmarks and—”
“Lift your arm, will you, Hardy? No, the left one.”
Joel lifted it obligingly, and a little sigh of incredulous wonder rose from the circle about the fire. Even across the room they could see it quite clearly—the long, thick white slur, running from cuff to elbow against the black sleeve of the dinner jacket.
It was Sheridan who saw it first. He pushed his glass from him so violently that half its contents splashed across the gleaming perfection of Hanna’s gown, and plunged toward the group by the table.
“Here, what is this, anyway? What’s all this stuff about flour got to do with who killed Doug King? You aren’t going to get your neck out of the halter by trying to put mine in it, let me tell you, and you won’t put mine in it by finding a white spot on my sleeve. Are you telling me that I—”
“I’m not telling you anything just now, Sheridan.” Gavin Dart spoke a little absently, as though his mind were on more important matters than halters. “You weren’t in this room at all before Jill screamed, were you? I mean after the game started, naturally.”
“I told you where I was.”
“The attic, wasn’t it? Way up on the fourth floor in the attic—the farthest away of any of us from what is popularly referred to as the scene of the crime. So naturally you couldn’t have been here after the gong sounded. No, it must have been before.… Jill, would you mind coming over here for a minute? Come with her, Larry, if you want to. It’s all right, I promise—you don’t have to go near this thing. Now, Jill, can you remember just where you were standing when Doug told you that he was going to hide on the sofa?”
“I was standing here—by this window. I was trying to see what the wind had done to those trees.”
“About eight or ten feet from where we’re standing then. And you were whispering, weren’t you? Can you remember what he said to you? Just a sentence will do.”
“He said—”
“Just whisper it, will you?”
“He said—” The whisper wavered for a second and then resumed steadily, “He said, ‘How about the big sofa in front of the fire? Nobody in God’s world will ever think of that.’”
“Thanks—that’s just what I wanted. Could you hear that, Baird?”
“Perfectly.”
“You, Hardy?”
“Sure I could hear it.”
“How about you, Sheridan?”
Sherry said with the uncanny distinctness of one to whom distinctness has become a somewhat onerous effort:
“I may be drunk, but I’m not anywhere near drunk enough not to see what you’re driving at. Now get this straight once and for all, will you? The first time I heard that Doug was going to hide on that sofa was when Jill was answering one of your famous cross-examinations an hour or so ago. I wasn’t eavesdropping on Doug to find out where I could murder him, and I’ll bet anyone in God’s world ten thousand dollars that you don’t even think I was, you—”
“It would be a little difficult to prove what I’m thinking, even by me,” remarked Gavin Dart drily, “so let’s stick to outward and visible signs, shall we? And will you start in again by telling us exactly where you were when—”
“I’ll tell you just exactly nothing,” shouted the luckless Sherry, hysteria once more clutching at his shoulder. “If you want to try to save your rotten neck by pinning this murder on someone else, try pinning it on someone but the only friend Doug’s got in this room, will you? Try pinning it on Joel Hardy or Kit Baird or Tom Ross—every last one of ’em out after his scalp—sure, you fellows all belong to the same union! Doug told me so himself—he told me so to-night.” He strangled for a moment, brushing aside the chilled disdain of Trudi’s “Oh, Sherry, for the love of the Lord!” with a gesture of despairing vehemence. “Trudi, lay off me just for once, will you? Go ahead, Dart, ask some of these boys what they thought of Doug—just ask them, will you? Ask Larry Redmond for a starter. You weren’t so damn fond of Doug, were you, Larry?”
“No,” said Larry briefly and explicitly.
“I’ll say you weren’t! And neither were you, were you, Kit?”
“And neither was I,” agreed the red-headed young man gently.
“You were in this room about two minutes before Jill screamed, Joel. Why don’t you go ahead and tell Inspector Dart how much you loved Doug?”
Joel said in a tone that matched Sherry’s for violence:
“You know darned well what I thought about Doug King—I th
ought he was a bounder and a rotter and a cad—and I still think so. But I don’t go around bumping everyone off just because I think they’re bums. I’d have a swell time if I did! If you weren’t up to any more mischief in this room than I was, you’re sitting pretty.”
“And just cut this room stuff out, will you? There isn’t a soul in the world that can prove I was anywhere near this room! Just because I’ve got some flour on my cuff—for all I know, you’ve all got flour on your cuffs, or your skirts, or your elbows! Look at Chatty Ross; she’s got some on her shoulder, hasn’t she? Does that make her a murderess or doesn’t it?”
Chatty echoed in a small stupefied voice, twisting her curly head in a vain effort to verify his statement,
“On my shoulder, Sherry? How could it be on my shoulder? I haven’t been near the flour—not once, truly. Not even when Jill was trying to do the ring trick.”
“Well, there you are—there’s Chatty’s bright explanation of how she got it! And while you’re playing Grand Inquisitor around here, Dart, why not try it on some of the girls? Or are you thinking that Lady Macbeth was the last lady to stick a knife into a gentleman?”
Trudi cut in coldly and bitterly:
“If you’re trying to throw suspicion on everyone in the room, Sherry, I think that it would be prettier to duck behind coat-tails instead of petticoats. Gavin’s not forgetting the ladies.… Bend over, Chatty, and I’ll brush you off.”
“Wait just a moment, will you?” Gavin Dart’s voice was reassuringly friendly. “Chatty, do you remember which side—”
Sherry demanded wildly:
“Trudi, what are you driving at with that stuff about ducking behind coat-tails? Are you in on this? Do you believe that I killed Doug King?”
Trudi said wearily:
“Lord, no. I don’t think you’d kill a bat.… Give me a cigarette, will you, Tom? I’ve smoked twenty-two since this thing started.”
“You know what I thought about Doug. You know what—”
“I’ll say I know! Can a wife testify for her husband, Gavin? Doug and Sherry were as thick as—thieves. They had a whole lot in common. Sherry isn’t faking any sorrow for your benefit; he was crazy about Doug.”
Gavin remarked pleasantly:
“Thanks; any sidelights of that kind are just what we want. Now, Chatty, can you tell us on which side the person passed you in the north corridor just after Jill screamed?”
She knitted soft brows in a valiant effort to follow him. “On which side, Gavin?”
“Did the person pass on your left or on your right?”
“Oh, yes—I see. It was on this side, Gavin—on my left.”
“On your left. Exactly. Hardy, you’re about Sheridan’s height, aren’t you—five eleven or thereabouts?”
“Eleven and a half.”
“Excellent. Now, Chatty, we need you. Brush that stuff off your shoulder, and then just stand right between us and the door—that’s it exactly. Help us out again, will you, Joel? Start from the fireplace; imagine that it’s dark again, but this time you’re running—down a corridor, fast. You have your arms lifted to ward anything off. You pass Chatty on your right, please, brushing against her. When I count three, you’re off. Now—one, two, three—go!”
Joel tore by like a puppy off a leash. Long since, he had forgotten that it was a murder that they were avenging and a murderer that they were hunting. He remembered only that it was a game—an enthralling, an intoxicating game, in which, for a moment, he was being permitted to play the leading rôle.… Chatty staggered from the zealous energy of his impact, and Gavin Dart checked him with an outflung arm.
“Steady on, young fellow! Turn this way, Chatty—no, all the way round, so that everyone can see your new flour patch. Sheridan, do you want to ask her again where she got the flour from?”
Sherry, staring at the neat white patch on the dark blue shoulder, said thickly:
“There’s no more proof that she got it from me than that I got it from her, and you know it.”
“Oh, come, come! Chatty couldn’t very well drag her shoulder through the flour on that table—even though she’s small enough to fit nicely under your arm. No, I think that two or three things are fairly self-evident by now! It’s the six or eight that aren’t that I’m interested in.”
Trudi remarked dispassionately:
“Flour or no flour, if you think that Sherry killed Doug, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Why in Heaven’s name should he want to kill him?”
Gavin, looking at the tired eyes above the undaunted mouth, said thoughtfully:
“A motive? Oh, I think that I could even supply a motive, if it’s necessary. But I’m after something more than that.”
“What more?”
“Trudi, I’m after a confession. Nothing else is going to help us much, I’m afraid. As far as the means, motive, and the opportunity go, any one of us might have had the knife—any one of us might have been in the room—any one of several of us, according to Sherry, might have had the motive.… No—it’s not as simple as that, I’m afraid. But I think that it will be simple when we get the answer to half a dozen questions that have been bothering me ever since I’ve started. Only first I want to try a little experiment.”
“Why not start with the questions? I’m good at answering questions.”
“Well, you might be thinking over the answer to some of these while we’re working out the experiment. So might some of the rest of us, if it comes to that! First, I’d like to find out what it was that King had to say to Lindy when he called her upstairs, just before the game started.”
Lindy, deep in the jade chair, looked up from her twisted pearls with something too shadowy and elusive to be quite a smile.
“Would you, Gavin?”
“I would indeed. And then I’d like to know what it was that upset Ray so badly while she was upstairs looking for the aspirin—I caught just a bit of what she said to Joel when she came down—just enough to make me want to hear more.”
The small creature huddled forlornly on the trivet did not offer to gratify his curiosity; she continued to stare at him solemnly, from the depths of a stupor that had long since deprived her of such minor comforts as words.
“Then after we get that straight, I want to know just why Sheridan was so clear that Joel, Kit, Ross, and Larry had it in for Doug—and I’m also somewhat intrigued by all that idle chatter over the card table about Panama and points south.”
“I’m the very fellow to help you about that,” offered the red-headed young man helpfully from the doorway. “Doug was trying to tell you that it was in Panama that I—”
“Kit, for God’s sake!” cut in Joel Hardy frantically. “Larry, are you going to stand there and let him—”
“Just keep out of this for a minute, young fellow, if it’s all the same to you.” His swift smile rested for a moment on Joel’s horrified countenance. “King was anxious to remind me that I’d been thrown out of a club in Panama during one of his sojourns there for playing cards not wisely, but too well. Does that help you out any, Dart?”
“I wonder. I’ve got a notion, Baird, that you’d play your cards both wisely and well—even a poor hand. I’m inclined to think that this rather proves it.” He drew his finger thoughtfully along the little path of flour, and said more thoughtfully still, “I don’t believe that I’ll ask you whether that charge was warranted.”
“Thanks,” said Kit, and the smile flashed again. “It’ll make it pleasanter all around. I’m a rotten liar.”
Larry Redmond, slipping an arm through Kit’s, asked briefly: “What’s your experiment?”
“Yes—the experiment, of course. It’s a very old-fashioned and melodramatic one, but they still use it in France, and I have a definite reason for doing it now. If you’ll all help me, I’d like to reconstruct the crime.”
There was a moment of petrified silence, broken by the irrepressible Joel.
“You mean put out the lights, and strike the gong, and go
over the whole thing? Golly!”
Jill asked in a voice so low that it was barely audible: “You mean that you are going to bring that—sofa back in this room?” She caught at the tall winged chair nearest her, her knees literally sagging beneath her as she reached it.
“Oh, I hardly think that will be necessary. What I want to do is to turn out all the lights and have everyone go to the places that they were in at the time that they heard Jill scream. When I give the signal, she will scream again, and you’ll all get to these doors as quickly as you can—just as you did before, of course. I’m out of it, and so is Ray, as neither of us turned up till later.… Anyone have any objections to this?”
Jill slumped forward suddenly in her chair, her head on her knees. She said in a small colourless voice: “I’m sorry … I think—I think I’m going to faint.”
Lindy was at her side in a soft rush. “Darling, what is it? Larry, get some water.”
Jill whispered:
“I can’t stay in this room in the dark. I can’t. I can’t. Larry, don’t let them make me.”
“That’s out, Dart,” said Larry briefly. “No one shall make you do anything in heaven or earth that you don’t want to, my darling. Try to drink a little of this, won’t you?”
Lindy stood considering for a moment, her delicate brows knitted. “You want someone to be here simply to scream as a signal, don’t you, Gavin?”
“Exactly.”
“Then why not let me do it? I was so close that I was practically in the room, anyway. I can stand over there by the fireplace just as well, if you want me to.”
“As I’ve said before, you’re worth a dozen of us, Lindy. Ray, suppose you and I patrol the outposts to make sure that everyone is in their proper place before the signal is given. We’ll do it together, naturally—hand in hand, if it makes you more comfortable. And Jill shall go with Larry to the linen presses. The rest of you to the positions that you were in when you heard Jill’s scream. Are you all ready? You can go to your places with the lights on, if you’d rather. I’ll turn them out after we make our patrol… and when the last light—the one in this hall—goes out, it’s the signal for you to scream, Lindy. Count ten, slowly, and then scream.”
Hide in the Dark Page 23
