More Rivals of Sherlock Holmes

by Nick Rennison

  Madelyn Mack gently led Bertha Van Sutton to the chair I had vacated. One hand was stroking the girl’s temples as she turned.

  ‘You are wrong, Mr Wiley!’ she said quietly. ‘For the peace of mind of this household, I am willing to stake my reputation that you are wrong.’

  Detective Wiley whirled with a sneer. ‘Really, you astound me, my lady policeman! May I humbly inquire how your pink tea wisdom deduces so much?’

  Madelyn smoothed the folds of her coat as she straightened. ‘I have promised Miss Van Sutton that if she and her father will call at “The Rosary” tomorrow afternoon at four, I will give them a complete explanation of this unfortunate affair! You may call also if you are interested, Mr Wiley – and don’t arrest the murderer in the meantime! Will you kindly loan us your motor for the trip back to town, Mr Van Sutton?’

  IV

  I confess that I approached Madelyn Mack’s chalet the next day with pronounced scepticism. The morning papers of both New York and Newark had been crammed with the discovery of Norris Endicott’s blood-stained garments, and were full of hysterical praise for the ‘masterly work’ of Detective Joseph Wiley.

  Someone had found that Madelyn Mack had also been retained in the case, and the reporters had tried in vain to obtain an interview. In the face of her silence, the applause for the police had become even more emphasised.

  She was alone when I entered; but, as I pointed to the clock just on the verge of four, she held up her hand. The bell sounded through the house, and the next moment Susan conducted Adolph Van Sutton and his daughter into the room.

  In the confusion of the greeting, the signs of nervous strain on Madelyn’s face struck me sharply. It did not need her weary admission to tell me that she had spent a racking day, nor that she had had frequent recourse to the stimulant of her cola berries. Even her hair, about whose arrangement she generally was precise to the point of nervousness, was dishevelled, and once, when Peter the Great thrust his nose into her lap, she ordered him impatiently away.

  The Van Suttons had hardly seated themselves when there was a step in the hall and the last guest of the afternoon made his appearance. There was not the slightest hint of ill humour in Madelyn’s greeting as Detective Wiley somewhat awkwardly took the hand that she extended to him.

  ‘Have you traced the murderer yet, Mr Wiley?’

  ‘No, but I expect to have him in custody within the next twenty-four hours!’ Detective Wiley dropped heavily into his chair and crossed his knees.

  ‘May I ask if you have found the body?’

  ‘I can’t say that we have, but we have certain information which –’

  Madelyn walked over to the end of the room where she could face the entire group. She was the only one of us who was standing.

  ‘Then I am more fortunate than you are!’

  The detective bounded from his seat, his sandy moustache – the barometer of his emotions – bristling. ‘I am not a man to trifle with, Miss Mack. Do you mean to tell me –’

  ‘That I have discovered the body of Norris Endicott? You have caught my meaning exactly!’

  Wiley stood staring at her in a sort of tongue-tied amazement. A gasp recalled me to the other occupants of the room. Bertha Van Sutton was devouring Madelyn’s face as though pleading with her to end her suspense. Her father was stroking her hand.

  Madelyn stepped to the door and threw it open. On the threshold stood a young man in a brown tweed suit, with a purple lump showing just at the edge of his hair. He stared at us as though he were dazed by a sudden light.

  Bertha Van Sutton darted across the room, with a cry, and threw herself into his arms.

  It was Norris Endicott.

  Madelyn sprang to her side, with a query intensely practical – and intensely feminine. ‘Has she fainted?’

  ‘I – I think so.’ Norris Endicott stood gazing down at his burden helplessly.

  ‘We must carry her into the next room then – take hold of her shoulders, please! No, the rest of you stand back! It needs a woman to take care of a woman!’

  Detective Wiley strode over to the desk telephone and called police headquarters. He had just turned from the instrument when the door opened and Madelyn returned.

  ‘She is all right, I assure you!’ she cried hastily, as Adolph Van Sutton started from his chair. ‘I have left her with Mr Endicott. On the whole, he is the best nurse we could find. Sit down, Mr Wiley. You will find that rocker more comfortable, Mr Van Sutton. It is not a long story that I have to tell, but it contains its tragedy – and we have to thank Providence that it isn’t a double one!’

  She paused, as though marshalling her thoughts. Detective Wiley surveyed her uneasily.

  ‘I am sorry to inform you, Mr Van Sutton, that your daughter is a widow! Or perhaps – as I wish to be entirely frank – I should say that I am glad to convey this announcement to you!’ Her slight, black figure bent forward. ‘Your daughter’s husband was one of the greatest scamps that ever went unpunished!’

  ‘But my daughter never had a husband. Miss Mack! You forget –’

  ‘I forget nothing! Has it ever occurred to you that there might be a chapter in Miss Van Sutton’s life unknown to you? Pray keep your seat, my dear sir! You are a man of the world and a father. You have the knowledge of the one and the heart of the other. When I tell you that during your daughter’s college days – Nora, will you kindly pour Mr Van Sutton a little of that brandy? Thank you!’

  Madelyn did not change her position as the owner of ‘The Maples’ gulped down the liquor. She waited until he had finished, her chin still on her hand, her eyes never shifting.

  ‘Let me give you the explanation of our mystery in a few words, Mr Van Sutton. The wedding ceremony of Wednesday night was not performed – because your daughter was already a wife! Norris Endicott disappeared from “The Maples” – eliminated himself – to save her from one of the most agonising alternatives that ever confronted a woman!’

  Behind me, I heard Detective Wiley give a cry of sudden comprehension.

  ‘Incredible, impossible as it may seem, Miss Van Sutton did not know of the barrier to her marriage until the ceremony was less than an hour distant. What she would have done under other circumstances I don’t know. It was the man, who was waiting to lead her to the altar, who came to her rescue!’

  Madelyn spoke in as emotionless a tone as though she were discussing the weather. There was even a bored note in her voice as though the glamour of the problem had left her – with its solution.

  ‘To understand the situation, we must go back quite five years. When Miss Van Sutton was a senior at Vassar she fell in love with the matinee idol of a New York stock company. Reginald Winters was a man with a character as shallow as his heart. Bluntly, he knew of your wealth, and schemed to gain a part of it. You don’t find the situation unusual, do you? In the end, he persuaded Miss Bertha to elope with him. But he made a slight error. He did not investigate your disposition until after the marriage.

  ‘He was too shrewd to risk an open avowal and a paternal storm. Rather a canny villain, as a matter of fact! He set on foot a series of inquiries which showed him, too late, that, rather than accept him in your house, you would lose your daughter.

  ‘A disinherited heiress did not appeal to him. Less than a week after the elopement, your daughter awoke to the fact that she was deserted. Mr Van Sutton, you must calm yourself! I warn you I will not relate the sequel unless you do!

  ‘Fate plays us queer pranks. Or is it Fate? I come now to the first suggestion of the fantastic. A year later, Miss Van Sutton read in a report of a wreck – somewhere in the West, I believe – that Reginald Winters had been killed. I don’t know what her emotions were. I imagine she was like the prisoner who inhales his first breath of freedom.

  ‘I think you can guess the next chapter? Am I verging too much on the lines of the woman novelist? It
was not until the evening which was to have made her the bride of Norris Endicott that she discovered her ghastly mistake – which another hour would have made still more ghastly.

  ‘Reginald Winters not only was living, but he had followed her to her father’s door. To make our melodrama complete, in a characteristic note he reminded her of the disagreeable fact that she was his wife.’

  Madelyn’s eyes closed wearily. When she opened them, the lines of strain on her face seemed more intense than ever – in contrast to her light tone.

  ‘In a novel, the bride, driven to desperation, would have killed her Nemesis. But women of real life seldom have the desperation of those of romance. Bertha Van Sutton turned to the last refuge in the world that the woman in the novel would have sought. She carried her burden and her problem to the man who was waiting to place his wedding ring on her finger.

  ‘She dismissed her maid, bolted the door of her room, and stepped out on to the veranda below, with a dark cloak thrown over her white dress. Once at Norris Endicott’s apartment, it was a matter of only an instant to bring him to the window.

  ‘He comprehended the situation in a flash. Of course, it was obvious enough – after the first shock. The marriage could not take place. But how could it be prevented? The girl could have told the truth, of course. Was there no other way? And then Endicott made his decision. He must disappear – until he could find and reckon with the man who was threatening her. A Don Quixotic plan? Could you have made a better one? He sent Miss Van Sutton back to her room, and made his preparations for flight.

  ‘It was not until the clock struck eight, however, that he nerved himself to the crucial step, and swung out from the veranda to the lawn below. It was a drop of perhaps twelve feet, and he made it without accident. While Willard White was calling his name through the room, he was watching him from the shadows of the yard.

  ‘Now we come again to the unkindness of Fate. He was threading his way through the shrubbery adjoining Thompson’s Creek when his foot caught in a vine and he was thrown to the ground. His head struck on a stone and for nearly an hour he lay unconscious. When he struggled to his feet, his coat and collar were matted with blood.

  ‘Without a thought of possible consequences, he dropped them into the water. I believe that is where you found them, Mr Wiley. It was nearly daylight when he reached his rooms, almost exhausted.

  ‘He had but one coherent thought. He must find Reginald Winters – without delay and without publicity. The note, which the actor had written to Miss Van Sutton, contained the address of his hotel – an obscure Fourth Avenue boarding-house in New York. It was easy enough to find the hotel – but the man was out.

  ‘All of that day and night he watched the building, like a hungry dog watches a bone. It was not until this morning that Winters returned. Then he reappeared in the street so quickly that Endicott had no time to follow him up to his room.

  ‘The actor swung off toward Broadway, with Endicott stubbornly following him. At Thirty-fourth Street and Sixth Avenue, there was a tie-up of the surface cars, and the crossing was jammed. I see you are anticipating what followed! Well – the wheel of fortune turned abruptly. Winters plunged into the swarm of vehicles, absorbed in his thoughts. Just before he reached the curb, a dray swayed before him. He dodged – too late. The rearing team crushed him to the pavement.

  ‘When they picked him up he was quite dead.

  ‘It was over his body that Norris Endicott and I met for the first time – with the realisation that Bertha van Sutton was free.

  ‘As a matter of fact, I had been “shadowing” Mr Endicott, as you would express it, Mr Wiley, for several hours.’ Madelyn pushed back her chair and walked across the room, drawing long, deep breaths.

  ‘Have I made myself quite clear?’

  ‘Are you a woman or a wizard?’ gasped Adolph Van Sutton.

  Detective Wiley sprang to his feet. ‘I’m doing what I never thought I would have to do, Miss Mack.’ He held out his hand. ‘Apologising to a petticoat detective! But I don’t see how on earth you did it!’

  Madelyn shrugged. ‘Now we are descending to the commonplace.’ She leaned against the mantel with a yawn. Adolph Van Sutton thrust an unlighted cigar nervously into his mouth.

  ‘Have you done me the honour to remember a certain maxim of mine – that nothing is trivial in crime? But – this is not a lecture on deduction!

  ‘Miss Van Sutton’s connection with the affair really was plain after that first newspaper report. By the way, Nora, did you write the description of the bride’s wedding dress? I thought I recognised your style. May I congratulate you? From the viewpoint –’

  ‘Aren’t we veering from the subject, Miss Mack?’ Detective Wiley broke in impatiently.

  ‘Do you think so?’ Madelyn’s eyes rested on his florid face. ‘I was particularly interested, Nora, in your account of the bride’s coiffure. I agree with you that it was decidedly becoming. I remember that you mentioned that her point d’esprit veil was fastened by two long pins, each with a sterling silver ball as a head.’

  A sudden light broke over me. ‘And the silver ball that was found in Norris Endicott’s room was one of those, of course!’

  Madelyn smiled. ‘Your penetration amazes me! It was your own report of the case that gave me my first and most important clue before we left this house.

  ‘I think you will agree that my inference was plain enough. Miss Van Sutton had visited Norris Endicott’s room after she was dressed for the ceremony – and consequently just before his disappearance. She had kept the fact secret – and she was so agitated that she did not miss the loss of a valuable hair ornament. Why?

  ‘There was another question that I put to myself. How had she reached the room? The discovery of the silver ball on the sill suggested, of course, the window. What was under the window? Here I found that a second-storey veranda extended along the entire side of the house. Miss Van Sutton then had only to step out of her own window to find a channel of communication ready made for her. You see I had a fairly good working foundation before we entered “The Maples”.

  ‘You may recall that I found much interest in Endicott’s ashtrays. Have you ever studied the relation of tobacco to human emotions, Mr Wiley? You will find it a singularly suggestive field of thought, I assure you.

  ‘The number of cigarette-ends impressed you, perhaps, as it did me. I don’t know whether you noticed that, in nearly every case, the cigarette had only been half consumed – and was so torn and crushed as to suggest that it had been thrown aside in disgust. What was the natural conclusion? Obviously, that a man in an extreme state of nervous excitement had been smoking. Now, what could agitate Norris Endicott so remarkably? Not his approaching wedding, surely! Then what? How about the sudden necessity of eliminating himself from that wedding?

  ‘In the closet, you may remember, I found a pair of the bridegroom’s shoes. In their way, their presence was exceedingly remarkable. On the hooks, above, was the street suit which Endicott had taken off in preparing for the ceremony. The shoes, however, were the thin-soled, expensive footwear that a man would use only on dress occasions. What had become of the street shoes that you would expect to find in the closet? My course of reasoning was simple. After Endicott had dressed for the wedding, something had occurred which forced him to change back to his heavier boots. What? The knowledge, of course, that he was about to leave the house on a rough trip. We now have the conclusion that he vanished of his own volition, that he knew where and why he was going, and that he made certain plans for leaving.

  ‘It was the next point which I found the most baffling – and which led me into my first error.’ Madelyn came to a pause by the rug of Peter the Great. The dog rose, yawning, to his feet and thrust his nose into her hand.

  ‘Perhaps you are wondering, Mr Van Sutton, why I locked myself into the room after you and Miss Noraker had left? Frankly, I was not
satisfied with my investigation – and I wanted to be alone. For instance, there was an object on Mr Endicott’s dressing table that puzzled me greatly. Under ordinary circumstances I might not have noticed it. It was the second tray of ashes.

  ‘They were not tobacco ashes. It didn’t need a second glance to tell me that they had come from a wood fire. Certainly there had not been a wood fire in that room – and, if there had been, why the necessity of preserving so small a part of the ashes?

  ‘I will admit frankly that I was about to give up the problem in disgust when I remembered my examination of the wastepaper basket and the grate. I had reasoned that Mr Endicott’s flight had been made necessary after he entered the house. By what? What more likely than a message, perhaps a note, perhaps a telegram? In nine cases out of ten, a nervous man would have burned or destroyed such a message; but, in spite of my closest search, I found no traces of it. It was not until I was moving away from my saucer of ashes that my search was rewarded. In the tray was a single torn fragment of white paper.

  ‘There were no others. Either the shreds had been carefully gathered up after the message was destroyed – which was hardly likely – or the fragment before me had been torn from a corner in a moment of agitation. But why had I found it in the ashes?’

  Madelyn glanced up at Mr Van Sutton with an abrupt turning of the subject. ‘Do you ever read Ovid?’

  The owner of ‘The Maples’ gazed at her with a frown of bewilderment.

  ‘Really, you are missing a decided treat, Mr Van Sutton. There is a quaint charm about those early Greek poets for which I have looked in vain in our modern literature. Ovid’s verses on love, for instance, and his whimsical letters to maidens who have fallen early victims to the divine passion –’

  ‘Are you joking or torturing me, Miss Mack?’

  Madelyn’s face grew suddenly grave.

  ‘I am sorry. Believe me, I beg your pardon! But – it was Ovid who showed me the purpose of the tray of ashes! In one of his most famous verses there is a recipe for sympathetic ink, designed to assist in the writing of discreet love letters, I believe.