Episode of the Wandering Knife

by Rinehart, Mary Roberts;

  “Ever see it before?”

  “Never”

  “It was under the—under Mrs. Shepard. Kind of funny, isn’t it? I mean, do women hang tassels on chains?”

  He let me take it and look at it. I suppose because there could be no fingerprints on a thing like that. The chain was the usual sort, but the tassel was not. It was ordinary enough in itself, but on the small solid top someone had made a cross in ink.

  The King man had his eyes on me.

  “Curious, isn’t it?” he said.

  I gave it back to him.

  “I can’t imagine her having a thing like that,” I told him. “You’d better show it to the police.”

  “They know I have it,” he said cryptically, and got up. “I’m just asking around.”

  He stopped in the doorway however and looked back at me.

  “Look here,” he said, “you can’t do anything, you know. Why not get out, for a while anyhow? Go home and get some rest. You may not know it, but you have a bad case of shock.”

  Well, I suppose I had, for the next thing I realized was that I was in a chair and he was pushing my head down between my knees.

  “Take it easy,” he was saying. “You’re a big girl now, and big girls don’t faint.”

  He didn’t leave me until the pantry shelves had stopped whirling, dishes and all. Then he wandered back to see the women in the kitchen, and I carried coffee to Mother. She was still on the stairs, looking defiantly at the police as they trampled over and around her. I thought she wanted to say something to me, but there was no chance.

  She never moved until at two o’clock the police ambulance came to take Isabel away. Larry was in the library with the Inspector, whose name turned out to be Welles, and a half-dozen detectives. Alma had been sent up to the house for the guest list of the dinner, and it was being checked over in the sun parlor. Other policemen were searching inside and out for the weapon, which the medical examiner had said was a knife. But they had not found it when the ambulance came.

  Mother got up then. It was the first time she had moved since she saw the body. She came downstairs stiffly, to close the library door so that Larry would not see that awful basket being carried out. She looked very queer. Not shocked, exactly. If anything, she looked stealthy.

  It seems queer, but it was not until then that we remembered the Lelands, and Larry finally roused enough to call them. As I have said, their house is still in the heart of town, one of those survivors of a past age before cars came and most people either evacuated the city or moved into apartments. It is a big square red-brick affair which has never compromised with the last quarter century. The Lelands were like that too. They belonged to the no-surrender group. The old lady, Isabel’s grandmother, used a handsome pair of horses and a carriage for her daily outing until she died. Her spinster daughter, Eliza, had lived up to the family tradition, devoted herself to her mother and good works, and left Isabel a fortune in trust when she passed on, the Leland words for dying. Isabel’s father, Andrew—always Andrew, never Andy—still wore a small imperial and a stiff winged collar. He was a precise, dapper little man usually, but there was nothing precise about him when, at three that morning, he stormed into Larry’s house.

  The first thing he saw however was Mother, and he stopped dead.

  “What is all this?” he demanded. “What has happened? Where’s Isabel?”

  “I’m sorry, Andrew,” Mother said. She had called him by his first name since the day Larry and Isabel were married, and he hated it. “I didn’t think Larry was being clear. It’s true.”

  “You mean that Isabel—”

  “They’ve taken her away. The police, I mean. I tried to stop them, but—Andrew, this will be a shock. She didn’t just die. She was—somebody killed her.”

  He took it very well. You have to say that for the Lelands of this world. They can take it. Pride or simply restraint, they can take it. And Andrew Leland, save that he sat down suddenly on one of the hall chairs, kept himself well in control. He shook his head when I brought him some brandy.

  “Just a moment,” he said. “I—I’m afraid I … It’s a great shock.” And after a minute: “Where is Lawrence? What does he know about this?”

  “He found her,” said Mother. “That’s all he knows. He loved her and he found her. Just remember that, Andrew.”

  She looked almost dangerous. They can talk all they like about a lioness protecting her young, but a lioness has nothing on a woman like Mother protecting her beloved son. She glared down at Andrew Leland, and he buried his face in his hands and groaned.

  “God knows how I’m to tell Emily,” he said, and got up. “Where is Lawrence?” he inquired, more steadily.

  “In the library. The police are there.”

  He went in, not bothering to knock. The Inspector looked up, annoyed. Then he saw who it was and came forward.

  “Very sorry about this, Mr. Leland,” he said. “Very sorry indeed.”

  Andrew, however, was not looking at the Inspector. He was staring at Larry, sunk in a chair and looking collapsed. “I would like to speak to Mr. Shepard alone,” he said.

  The Inspector did not like it.

  “Perhaps I’d better tell you first all we know,” he said. “If you’d care to sit down …”

  I don’t believe he would have, but Mother was beside him. She gave him a shove, and looking very surprised he found himself in a chair. The Inspector seemed gratified. I even thought he looked amused.

  “These are the facts so far as we know them, Mr. Leland,” he said. “At eight o’clock Mr. Shepard left this house for a dinner at his mother’s. His wife had intended to go, but at the last moment complained of not feeling well, and Mr. Shepard suggested that she go to bed instead. This she did. Her personal maid reports that she was in bed at eight-thirty. She seemed nervous and upset.

  “Between nine and ten the other servants all went to bed. But the personal maid, Anna Griffin, left the house by the kitchen door at nine o’clock and walked to Strathmore House. According to her story she was gone about an hour, leaving the kitchen door unlocked. She stopped and explained who she was to the mounted officer on duty in the driveway, and then went on to the house.

  “She stayed there outside a window, looking in and listening to the music, for approximately one hour. Then she came back to this house and went to bed. She did not enter this part of the building at all. There was a bell from your daughter’s room to her own, and the parlormaid, who was still awake and reading, reports that it did not ring.

  “At eleven-thirty Mr. Shepard left his mother’s house and came home. The front door was locked. He used his key to get in, and he found the lower hall dark. This, he says, surprised him, as a light is always left on until he comes in. He did not bother to turn it on, and so”—here his voice became almost human—“he had the unfortunate experience of stumbling over his wife at the top of the stairs.

  “I suppose we must make some allowance for the resulting delay. He did not call us at once. Instead he ran back to his mother’s house and collapsed there. His mother and sister came here and he followed them almost immediately. He then notified us.”

  Andrew Leland looked up.

  “That’s his story,” he said. “He could have left his mother’s house earlier, couldn’t he? There was a crowd of people. I understand half the undesirables in town were there.”

  “Don’t be a fool, Andrew!” Mother snapped. “Just because you don’t like me is no reason to accuse Larry. And if you want to know, the people I had tonight—”

  The Inspector looked tired.

  “Just what reason have you, Mr. Leland, for intimating that your son-in-law did this thing?”

  “I said he could have. When did she … When did it happen?”

  “Probably between nine and ten. The medical examiner may be able to set the time closer.”

  “We didn’t finish dinner until almost ten,” Mother broke in triumphantly.

  But nobody was list
ening. Not even Larry. All this time he had not spoken. It was as though everything was unimportant except for the single fact that Isabel was dead. I think he hadn’t even heard Mr. Leland’s accusation. He stirred now, however. “Why?” he said, out of a clear sky. “Why would anyone want to kill her? She never hurt anybody in her life.”

  The Inspector looked at him.

  “I suppose you can account for your time, Mr. Shepard?”

  “Not exactly. I didn’t look at my watch.”

  “Did you leave the house at all during the evening? Your mother’s house?”

  Larry shrugged.

  “I went outside after dinner was over,” he said indifferently. “To get away from the noise. I lit a cigarette and walked down the drive a few yards. That’s all.”

  “Did anyone see you?”

  “I don’t know. It was pretty dark. I heard the policeman’s horse. I’m not sure he was on it. If he was he could have seen me. The outside lights were off on account of the dimout, but I left the hall door open.

  “You didn’t come down to your own house?”

  “I wish to God I had.”

  “What about cars? Were there no chauffeurs around?”

  “There were a few parked cars, but their lights were off too. The cars with chauffeurs had been told to stay outside in Linden Avenue until they were called.”

  The Inspector abandoned Larry for the minute. He picked up the platinum chain with its tassel and held it out.

  “Do you recognize this, Mr. Leland?” he inquired.

  Andrew Leland looked uncertain.

  “I don’t remember it. What about it?”

  The Inspector explained, but Andrew shook his head.

  “I wouldn’t know. Perhaps Emily—perhaps my wife will remember.”

  The thought of his wife seemed to overwhelm him. He got out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead, and I glanced at Mother. All at once I felt there was something queer about her. She nodded her head to me, but I couldn’t understand what she meant. The Inspector was talking. There had been no robbery. Isabel’s pearls were on her dressing table, as was her huge square-cut diamond engagement ring. Larry had given the police the combination of Isabel’s safe, but her bracelets and other jewels were still there.

  “That is not conclusive, of course,” he said. “The man might have been scared off, perhaps by the maid’s return. And we have not been able to find the weapon. It may have been thrown into the shrubbery, and we will find it in the morning. Mr. Shepard states that he saw no weapon by the body, and so does his mother.”

  “I wouldn’t believe either one of them on oath,” said Andrew Leland, and gave Larry a look of pure hatred.

  That was when Mother did something she had never done before. She simply put her head back in her chair, closed her eyes, and sagged. Larry was on his feet in a second, yelling for water. But by the time he reached her she was over whatever it was. She looked up pathetically.

  “I’m so tired, Larry,” she said. “I’m too old for this sort of thing. Can’t I go home and go to bed?”

  I knew then that it was an act. In all her life Mother has never admitted age, and she has never wanted to go to bed until there was nothing left to stay up for. For some reason she wanted to get out of the house.

  I played it up as well as I could. “She’s had a frightful day,” I said. “And of course she is getting on, as she says.” She gave me a nasty look from under her eyelids. “I can take her home, if you like. That is, if she can walk.”

  They wouldn’t let her walk, however. They took her in one of the police cars, and one of my most vivid memories of that awful night is Mother padding out in her stocking feet, holding to an officer’s arm and giving everyone in the room but Andrew Leland a faint but winsome farewell nod.

  I followed her out. I knew she wanted me to go with her, but I couldn’t leave Larry. A man in the hall was sprinkling powder on the light switch there. He blew on it and then examined it with a magnifying glass. The man called Tony King was on his knees inspecting the stair carpet. When I looked out Mother was getting into the police car, and she was still putting on an act, crawling in as if she was too feeble to lift her legs.

  Only it was not an act, as I learned later.

  III

  It must have been about four in the morning before the mounted policeman was brought in. Without his mount, of course. He was a tall young man, and he looked scared to death. Evidently he had been in bed, for his hair was still rumpled. He had put on his uniform, however, and he blinked in the light as he stood in the doorway.

  The Inspector eyed him coldly.

  “Officer Barnes?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You were on duty here tonight?”

  “Not here, sir. I was ordered to report outside the big house up the drive, to watch the traffic. The Mayor—”

  “We know all that. Did you leave your post at any time during the evening?”

  “No, sir. That is …”

  He looked at me.

  “Well, did you?” snapped the Inspector.

  He gulped.

  “Only once, sir. A call of nature. I …”

  “All right,” said the Inspector, rather hastily. “What I want to know is this. You were within sixty feet or so of the house. Did you see anyone leave that house at any time during the evening? Before the party broke up?”

  “No, sir. I didn’t.”

  Larry leaped to his feet, but the Inspector motioned for him to sit down again. He turned to Barnes, standing still and unhappy in front of him.

  “Did you see a woman go up the drive and stand on the side terrace, looking in?”

  Barnes looked more scared than ever, as if he wanted to bolt and run. He glanced around the room. Andrew Leland was watching him, as were all the others, including Larry, who was looking bewildered.

  “If I could know what it’s all about, sir,” he began uneasily.

  “Answer the question,” the Inspector roared. “Did you or did you not see a woman go up the drive and onto the terrace?”

  “Not that I remember,” he mumbled. “She might have. I’m not saying she didn’t. I was pretty tired, sir. I may have dozed a bit.” He looked as though the idea had just occurred to him. He was sheepish but reassured. He even grinned a little. “I guess that’s it, sir. I may have shut my eyes for a minute.”

  The Inspector looked back through his notes. He picked one out and examined it.

  “I see. And in your sleep, when this woman told you she was going to look in a window and try to see the Mayor, you then replied: ‘Atta girl, and to hell with him.’”

  Barnes looked shocked and then absolutely terrified. It was some time before he even spoke. Then his voice was shaking.

  “I never said anything of the sort. She’s—she’s lying.”

  “One of you is lying, that’s certain,” said the Inspector, and sent him out to another room under guard. When the door had closed behind them he looked at the captain of the local precinct.

  “What about him?” he said. “What’s scared him?”

  “I don’t know, sir. He’s a decent sort. Has a wife and two children. Lives not far away. I don’t get it.”

  I have often wondered since what would have happened had Barnes told his story that night. As it was they only confused and alarmed him. Perhaps he knew they would not have believed him. There was that fifty dollars to account for, and he had already given it to his wife. But they let him go eventually, on orders to report at the Inspector’s office the next morning, and I took Larry home to get what sleep he could. Mr. Leland protested about their letting him go, but the Inspector was firm.

  “We don’t arrest on opportunity alone,” he said, “and we have yet to find that there was even opportunity.”

  “That policeman was bribed. It stuck out all over him.”

  Even this resort to the vernacular, coming from a Leland as it did, failed to impress the Inspector. It merely annoyed him.

  “Y
ou can leave that to me, sir,” he said gruffly, and drove away.

  Larry and I walked up to the house. There was no incentive to talk, even if we had wanted to, as one of the detectives went with us. He said good night quite civilly, however, when we got there, and, turning, went briskly down the drive. When we went in Patrick and James, the footman who valets Larry, were waiting. Alma had had a hysterical attack and gone to bed.

  Larry fairly reeled when we got into the house, but the two men took charge of him. I waited until his door closed; then I went in to see Mother. The lights were all on, and it was evident she had sent her maid, Sarah, away and undressed herself. Her clothes were all over the room. She was sitting upright in bed, and she looked at me with an expression which was a nice mixture of grief and triumph.

  “I just made it,” she said. “That damned stocking of mine tore. Right in front of all those policemen too. That’s why I fainted.”

  I eyed her.

  “You didn’t faint,” I said. “I watched you.”

  “Of course not, but with you being completely dumb what could I do? I had to get away before it fell out.”

  I hope I was patient. She says now that I exhibited all my father’s vicious temper plus the worst traits of Aunt Henrietta, who was the family harridan. But at last I got it out of her.

  She had had the knife all along.

  “What do you suppose kept me on the stairs?” she demanded. “There it was stuck under the edge of the carpet. What could I do but sit on it?”

  “You might have given it to the police,” I suggested.

  “To the police? Larry’s knife! Are you crazy?”

  I could feel myself going cold all over. And it was Larry’s knife. She had known it by the part of the handle she could see: the moth-eaten hairy handle of the old hunting knife that he had carted around with him on hunting trips for years. After he married he still kept it, in the room he called his gun room, downstairs in his own house. “Anyone could have got at it, of course. The glass doors of the closet were never locked. Just the same …”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” Mother said sharply. “He didn’t kill her. If he had, would he have used his own knife and left it there? That knife was meant to be found, and by the police. Anyhow, why should he? He liked her.”