After what seemed an interminable wait, Dr. Keith arrived.
“Stabbed,” he said, briefly, as he examined the body, “and with one of his own etching needles! Who did it?”
“With what?” exclaimed Mrs. Faulkner, looking puzzled.
“With an etching point—or needle. An artist’s tool. Who did it?”
There was a silence, not so much awkward, as fraught with horror. Who could answer this question, even by a surmise.
Blake threw himself into the breach.
“We don’t know, sir,” he said. “It was doubtless done in the dark, and, when I turned up on the lights—the—the murderer had fled.”
A half exclamation from Joyce seemed to deny this assertion, and Natalie’s lovely face again showed that hunted, terrified look that had marked it at first.
“Where’s Barry?” went on Dr. Keith.
“I am here,” said young Stannard, himself, coming in from the terrace. “Dr. Keith, I want this matter hushed up. I am master here now, and horrible though it may all be, it will not lessen our trouble, but rather increase it, if you have any investigation or inquiry made into this thing.”
Dr. Keith looked at the speaker in amazement. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Barry, my boy. It is not possible to ignore the facts and causes of an occurrence of this sort. Do you know who stabbed your father?”
“No, I do not. Nor do I want to know. Father is gone, no persecution of any innocent person can restore him to life, and the criminal can never be found.”
“Why not? Why do you say that?”
“I feel sure of it. Oh, listen to me, Dr. Keith. Be guided by my wishes, and do not seek the one who brought about my father’s death. Joyce, you agree with me, don’t you?”
The young fellow had never addressed his father’s wife more formally than this; indeed, there was not much more than half a dozen years between their ages, and Joyce, at twenty-seven or thereabouts, looked almost as young as her stepson. There had always been good comradeship between the two, and during the two years Joyce had been Stannard’s wife she and Barry had never had a word of disagreement or unpleasantness of any sort.
About six weeks ago, Natalie Vernon, a professional model, had come to pose for Stannard, and as she had proved most satisfactory, Eric had informed his wife that he wished the girl to stay as a house guest for a time. Joyce had voiced no objection, whatever she may have felt in her heart, and had always treated Natalie with all courtesy and kindness.
The girl was a most exquisite beauty, a perfect blonde, with a face like Dresden china and a form of fairylike grace. The soft pink and white of her apple-blossom skin, the true sky colour of her eyes and the gleaming gold of her wonderful hair were Greuze-like in their effects, yet of an added piquancy and charm.
It is not to be wondered at that Barry promptly fell in love with her, nor is it remarkable that Eric himself was more or less under the spell of his beautiful model. A worshipper of all beauty, Stannard could not help it if his soul bowed down to this masterpiece of Nature’s.
A professional model Natalie was, but only for the draped figure. She was but eighteen, had been well brought up and educated, but, obliged to earn her own living, had found she had no resources of work except in her God-given beauty. Posing was a joy to her, and she had posed for but a few artists and those of the better, even best class. But Eric, accustomed to having whatever he desired, was determined Natalie should pose for some allegorical figures in a great picture on which he was engaged. This she refused to do, and the more Stannard insisted the more obdurate she became, until there was continual war between them on the subject. And owing to this state of things, Natalie had decided she must leave “Faulkner’s Folly,” and it was only Barry’s entreaties that had thus far kept her from fulfilling her intentions.
Joyce, herself a beautiful woman, of the dark-haired, brown-eyed type, had often been a model for Eric’s pictures, and if she resented being superceded by this peaches and cream maiden, she never confided the fact to those about her. Joyce Stannard was clever by nature, and she knew the quickest way to make her impressionable husband fall desperately in love with Natalie, was for her, his wife, to be openly jealous. So this Joyce would not appear to be. She chaffed him gaily about his doll-faced model and treated Natalie with the patronising generosity one would show to a pretty child.
But if Joyce was clever, Natalie was too, and she took this treatment exactly as it was offered, and returned it in kind. Her manner to her hostess was entirely correct, well-bred and even indicative of gratitude; but it also implied, with subtle touch, the older and more settled state of Joyce, and gave a hint of contrast in the freshness of Natalie’s extreme youth and the permissibility of a spice of the madcap in her ways.
But all these things, on both sides, were so veiled, so delicately suggested, that they were imperceptible to any but the closest observer.
And now, whatever the facts of Eric Stannard’s death might be shown to be, now it must soon be made known that when the lights of the room where he died were turned on, they had revealed these two—his wife and his paid model—near his stricken body, already quivering with its last few heartbeats.
In answer to Barry’s question, Joyce lifted her white face. “I don’t know—” she said, slowly, “I suppose—as Dr. Keith says—these things must be—be attended to in—in the usual way. But I, too, shrink from the awful publicity and the harrowing experience we must go through,—Beatrice, what do you think?”
Mrs. Faulkner replied, with a gentle sympathy: “I fear it won’t matter what we think, Joyce, dear. The law will step in, as always, in case of a crime, and our opinions or wishes will count for nothing.”
“I have sent for the Coroner and for the Police,” said Dr. Keith, who had given Halpin many whispered orders. “Now, Barry, don’t be unreasonable. You can no more stop the routine of the law’s procedure than the stars in their courses. If you know any facts you must be prepared to state them truthfully. If not, you must say or do nothing that will put any obstacle in the way of proper inquiry.”
Dr. Keith was treating Barry like a child, and though the boy resented it, he said nothing, but his face showed his hurt pride and his disappointment.
“Tell us all you can of the facts of the attack,” said Beatrice Faulkner to the doctor.
“The simple facts are plainly seen,” was the reply. “Some one standing in front of Mr. Stannard, as he sat in his chair, intentionally stabbed him with the etching needle. The instrument penetrated his flesh, just above and a little to one side of the breast bone, piercing the jugular vein and causing almost instant death.”
“Could it not have been a suicide?”
“Impossible, Mrs. Faulkner. Stannard could not have managed that thrust, and, too, the position of his hands precludes the theory of suicide. But the Coroner and his physician will, I am sure, corroborate my statement. It is a clear case of wilful murder, for, as you must see for yourself, no accidental touch of that instrument would bring about such a deep sinking of the point in a vital part of the victim.”
“But, if I may ask, sir,” said Miller, respectfully, “how could a murderer see to strike such a blow in a dark room? While Mr. Stannard could have stabbed himself in the dark.”
“Those points are outside my jurisdiction,” returned the Doctor, looking grave. “The Coroner and the Police Detectives will endeavour to give the answers to your perfectly logical queries.”
And then the men from Police Headquarters arrived.
CHAPTER II
Where They Stood
The countryside was in a tumult. A murder mystery at Faulkner’s Folly, of all places in the world! Rensselaer Park, the aristocratic Long Island settlement, of which the celebrated house was the star exhibit, could scarcely believe its ears as the news flew about. And the criminal? Public opinion settled at once on an intruder, either burglarious or inimical. Of course, a man of Eric Stannard’s position and personality had enemies, as well
as friends, from Paris, France, to Paris, Maine. Equally, of course, his enormous collection of valuable art works and even more valuable jewels would tempt robbers.
But the vague rumors as to his wife or that darling little model girl being implicated, were absurd. To be sure, the installation of Miss Vernon as a house guest was a fling in the face of conventions, but Eric Stannard was a law unto himself; and, too, Mrs. Stannard had always introduced the girl as her friend.
The Stannards were comparatively new people at The Park, but Mrs. Faulkner, whose husband had built the Folly, was even now visiting there, and her sanction was enough for the community. It would, one must admit, be thrillingly exciting to suspect a woman in the case, but it was too impossible. No, it was without doubt, a desperate marauder.
Thus the neighbours.
But the Police thought differently. The report of the Post Patrolman who first appeared upon the scene of the tragedy included a vivid description of the demeanour of the two ladies; and the whole force, from the Inspector down, determined to discover which was guilty. To them the death of Eric Stannard was merely a case, but from the nature of things it was, or would become, a celebrated case, and as such, they were elated over their connection with it.
In due course, the Coroner’s Inquest took place, and was held in the big studio where Eric Stannard had met his death.
Owing to the personality of Coroner Lamson, this was not the perfunctory proceeding that inquests sometimes are, but served to bring out the indicative facts of the situation.
It was the day after the murder and the room was partially filled with the officers of the law, the jury and a crowd of morbidly curious strangers. It seemed sacrilege to give over the splendid apartment to the demands of the occasion, and many of the audience sat timidly on the edge of the luxurious chairs or stared at the multitudinous pictures, statues and artistic paraphernalia. In the original plan the studio had been a ballroom, but its fine North light and great size fitted it for the workroom of the master painter. Nor was the brush the only implement of Eric Stannard. He had experimented with almost equal success in pastel work, he had done some good modelling and of late he had become deeply interested in etching. And it had been one of his own etching needles that had been the direct cause of his untimely death.
This fact was testified to by Doctor Keith, who further detailed his being called to the house the night before. He stated that he had arrived within fifteen minutes after Mr. Stannard—as the family had told him—had breathed his last. Examination of the body had disclosed that death was caused by the piercing of the jugular vein and the weapon, which was not removed until later, was a tool known as an Etcher’s needle, a slender, sharp instrument, set in a Wooden handle, the whole being not unlike a brad-awl. On being shown the needle, the Doctor identified it as the instrument of death.
Blake, the footman, was next questioned. He was of calm demeanour and impassive countenance, but his answers were alert and intelligent.
“Too much so,” thought Mr. Robert Roberts, a Police Detective, who had been put upon the case, to his own decided satisfaction. “That man knows what he’s talking about, if he is a wooden-face.”
Now, Roberts, called by his chums, Bobsy, was himself alert and intelligent, and therefore recognised those traits in others. He listened attentively as Coroner Lamson put his queries.
“You were the first to discover your master’s dead body?”
“Mr. Stannard was not dead when I entered the room,” replied Blake.
“No, no, to be sure. I mean, you were the first to enter the room after the man was stabbed?”
“That I can’t say. When I entered——” Blake paused, and glanced uncertainly about. Barry Stannard was looking at the footman with a stern face.
Inspector Bardon, who was present, interposed. “Tell the story in your own words, my man. We’ll best get at it that way.”
“I was on duty in the hall,” began Blake, slowly, “and I noticed the lights go out in the studio here——”
“Was the door between the hall and studio open?” asked Lamson.
“No, sir, not open, but it was a very little ajar. I didn’t think much about the light going out, though Mr. Stannard never turned off the lights when he left the room to go upstairs to bed. And if it did strike me as a bit queer, I had no time to think the matter over, for just then I heard a slight sound,—a gasping like, as if somebody was in distress. As I had not been called, I didn’t enter, but I did try to peep in at the crack of the door. This was not curiosity, but there was something in that gasp that—that scared me a little.”
“What next?” said the Coroner, as Blake paused.
“Just then, sir, Mrs. Faulkner came down the stairs. She was surprised to see me peeping at a door, and spoke chidingly. But I was so alarmed, I forgot myself, and—well, and just then, I heard a distinct sound—a terrible, gurgling sound, and a voice said, ‘Help!’ I turned to Mrs. Faulkner to see if she had heard it, and she had, for her face looked frightened and she asked me what it meant, and she told me to go in and turn on the light. So—so, I did, and then I saw——”
“Be very careful now, Blake; tell us exactly what you saw.”
“I saw Mr. Stannard first, at the other end of the room, in his favourite big chair, and he was like a man dying——”
“Have you ever seen a man die?” Lamson snapped out the words as if his own nerves were at a tension.
“No—no, sir.”
“Then how do you know how one would look?”
“I saw something had been thrust into his breast, I saw red stains on his shirt front, and I saw his face, drawn as in agony, and his eyes staring, yet with a sort of glaze over them, and his hands stretched out, but sort of fluttering, as if he had lost control over his muscles. I couldn’t think other than that he was a dying man, sir.”
“That is what I want you to tell, Blake. An exact account of the scene as it appeared to you. Now the rest of it. Were you too absorbed in the spectacle of Mr. Stannard’s plight to see clearly the others who were present?”
“No, sir,” and the man’s calm face quivered now. “It is as if photographed on my brain. I can never forget it. Behind Mr. Stannard were the two ladies, Mrs. Stannard and Miss Vernon.”
“Directly behind him?”
“Not that, exactly. Mrs. Stannard stood behind, but off toward his left, and Miss Vernon was behind, but toward the right.”
“Show me exactly, Blake, where these two ladies stood,” and Coroner Lamson rose to see his demands fulfilled.
“Oh, sir,” begged Blake, his frightened eyes wavering toward the members of the household which employed him, “oh, sir—Mrs. Faulkner, sir,—she came in with me,—she can tell better than I——”
“Mrs. Faulkner will be questioned in due time. You came in first; we will hear your version and then hers. Be accurate now.”
With great hesitancy, Blake stepped to the spots he had designated.
“Mrs. Stannard stood here,” he said, indicating a position perhaps a yard back and to the left of Stannard’s chair, which was still in its place.
“What was she doing?”
“Nothing, sir. One hand was on this table, and the other sort of clasped against her breast.”
“And Miss Vernon?”
“She was over here,” and Blake, still behind the chair, crossed to its other side, and stood near the outer door.
“How was she standing?”
“Against this small table, and the table was swaying back and forth, like it would upset in a minute.”
“And her hands?”
“They were both behind her, sir, clutching at the table.”
“You have a wonderful memory, Blake,” and the Coroner looked hard at his witness.
“Not always, sir. But the thing is like a picture to my mind.”
“Like a moving picture?”
“No, sir, nobody moved. It was like a tableau, sir——”
“And then,” prompted Ins
pector Bardon.
At this point, Barry Stannard was again seen to look at Blake with a glance of deep concentration.
“Important, if true,” Detective Roberts said to himself. “Young Stannard is afraid of the footman’s further disclosures!”
Whether that was so or not, Blake suddenly lost his power of clear and concise narration.
“Why, then——” he stammered, “then, all was confusion. I started toward Mr. Stannard, it—it seemed my duty. And Mrs. Faulkner, she came toward him——”
“And the two ladies behind him?”
“They came toward him, too, and Mrs. Stannard took hold of his hand——”
“Well?”
“Well, sir, I couldn’t help it, sir—I blurted out, ‘Who did this?’ And Mr. Stannard—he said——”
“Said! Spoke?”
Attention was concentrated on the footman, and it is doubtful if any one save Roberts noticed Barry Stannard’s face. It was drawn in an agonised protest at the forthcoming revelation. But Blake, accustomed to obeying orders implicitly, continued to tell his story.
“Yes, sir, he spoke—sort of whispered, in a gasping way——”
“And what did he say?”
“He said, ‘Natalie, not Joyce.’”
“You are sure?”
“Yes, sir,” answered the stolid Blake. “And he sort of raised his hand, pointing toward the lady.”
“Pointing toward Miss Vernon, you mean?”
“Yes, sir.”
Barry Stannard could stand it no longer. “I won’t have this!” he cried. “I won’t allow this hysterical story of an ignorant servant to be told in a way to incriminate an innocent girl. It’s all wrong!”
The Coroner considered. It did seem too bad to listen to the vital points of the story from an underling, when such tragic issues were at stake.
“Sit down, for the present, Blake,” he said. “Mrs. Faulkner, will you give us your version of these events?”
Beatrice Faulkner looked very white and seemed loth to respond and then with a sudden, determined air, she faced the Coroner, and said, “Certainly. Will you ask questions?”
The Alan Ford Mystery MEGAPACK® Page 22
