"I note that you've changed your ideas considerably in regard to the culpability of Miss Ada." Vance spoke incuriously.
Sibella looked a little shamefaced.
"I did get a bit excited, didn't I?" Then a defiance came into her voice. "But just the same, she doesn't belong here. And she's a sneaky little cat. She'd dearly love to see us all nicely murdered. The only person that seems to like her is cook; but then, Gertrude's a sentimental German who likes everybody. She feeds half the stray cats and dogs in the neighbourhood. Our rear yard is a regular pound in summer."
Vance was silent for a while. Suddenly he looked up.
"I gather from your remarks, Miss Greene, that you now regard the shootings as the acts of someone from the outside."
"Does anyone think anything else?" she asked, with startled anxiety. "I understand there were footprints in the snow both times we were visited. Surely they would indicate an outsider."
"Quite true," Vance assured her, a bit over-emphatically, obviously striving to allay whatever fears his queries may have aroused in her. "Those footprints undeniably indicate that the intruder entered each time by the front door."
"And you are not to have any uneasiness about the future, Miss Greene," added Markham. "I shall give orders to-day to have a strict guard placed over the house, front and rear, until there is no longer the slightest danger of a recurrence of what has taken place here."
Heath nodded his unqualified approbation.
"I'll arrange for that, sir. There'll be two men guarding this place day and night from now on."
"How positively thrilling!" exclaimed Sibella; but I noticed a strange reservation of apprehension in her eyes.
"We won't detain you any longer, Miss Greene," said Markham, rising. "But I'd greatly appreciate it if you would remain in your room until our inquiries here are over. You may, of course, visit your mother."
"Thanks awf'ly, but I think I'll indulge in a little lost beauty sleep." And she left us with a friendly wave of the hand.
"Who do you want to see next, Mr. Markham?" Heath was on his feet, vigorously relighting his cigar.
But before Markham could answer Vance lifted his hand for silence, and leaned forward in a listening attitude.
"Oh, Sproot!" he called. "Step in here a moment." The old butler appeared at once, calm and subservient, and waited with a vacuously expectant expression.
"Really, y' know," said Vance, "there's not the slightest need for you to hover solicitously amid the draperies of the hallway while we're busy in here. Most considerate and loyal of you; but if we want you for anything we'll ring."
"As you desire, sir."
Sproot started to go, but Vance halted him.
"Now that you're here you might answer one or two questions."
"Very good, sir."
"First, I want you to think back very carefully, and tell me if you observed anything unusual when you locked up the house last night."
"Nothing, sir," the man answered promptly. "If I had, I would have mentioned it to the police this morning."
"And did you hear any noise or movement of any kind after you had gone to your room? A door closing, for instance?"
"No, sir. Everything was very quiet."
"And what time did you actually go to sleep?
"I couldn't say exactly, sir. Perhaps about twenty minutes past eleven, if I may venture to make a guess."
"And were you greatly surprised when Miss Sibella woke you up and told you a shot had been fired in Mr. Chester's room?"
"Well, sir," Sproot admitted, "I was somewhat astonished, though I endeavoured to conceal my emotions."
"And doubtless succeeded admirably," said Vance dryly. "But what I meant was this: did you not anticipate something of the kind happening again in this house, after the other shootings?"
He watched the old butler sharply, but the man's lineaments were as arid as a desert and as indecipherable as an expanse of sea.
"If you will pardon me, sir, for saying so, I don't know precisely what you mean," came the colourless answer. "Had I anticipated that Mr. Chester was to be done in, so to speak, I most certainly would have warned him. It would have been my duty, sir."
"Don't evade my question, Sproot." Vance spoke sternly. "I asked you if you had any idea that a second tragedy might follow the first."
"Tragedies very seldom come singly, sir, if I may be permitted to say so. One never knows what will happen next. I try not to anticipate the workings of fate, but I strive to hold myself in readiness--"
"Oh, go away, Sproot--go quite away," said Vance. "When I crave vague rhetoric I'll read Thomas Aquinas."
"Yes, sir." The man bowed with wooden courtesy, and left us.
His footsteps had scarcely died away when Doctor Doremus strode in jauntily.
"There's your bullet, Sergeant." He tossed a tiny cylinder of discoloured lead on the drawing-room table. "Nothing but dumb luck. It entered the fifth intercostal space and travelled diagonally across the heart, coming out in the post-axillary fold at the anterior border of the trapezius muscle, where I could feel it under the skin`; and I picked it out with my pen-knife."
"All that fancy language don't worry me," grinned Heath, "so long's I got the bullet."
He picked it up and held it in the palm of his hand, his eyes narrowed, his mouth drawn into a straight line. Then, reaching into his waistcoat pocket, he took out two other bullets, and laid them beside the first. Slowly he nodded, and extended the sinister exhibits to Markham.
"There's the three shots that were fired in this house," he said. "They're all .32-revolver bullets--just alike. You can't get away from it, sir: all three people here were shot with the same gun."
CHAPTER X
THE CLOSING OF A DOOR
(Friday, November 12th; 9.30 a.m.)
AS Heath spoke Sproot passed down the hall and opened the front door, admitting Doctor Von Blon.
"Good morning, Sproot," we heard him say in his habitually pleasant voice. "Anything new?"
"No, sir, I think not." The reply was expressionless. "The District Attorney and the police are here. Let me take your coat, sir."
Von Blon glanced into the drawing-room, and, on seeing us, halted and bowed. Then he caught sight of Doctor Doremus, whom he had met on the night of the first tragedy.
"Ah, good morning, doctor," he said, coming forward. "I'm afraid I didn't thank you for the assistance you gave me with the young lady the other night. Permit me to make amends."
"No thanks needed," Doremus assured him. "How's the patient getting on?"
"The wound's filling in nicely. No sepsis. I'm going up now to have a look at her." He turned inquiringly to the District Attorney. "No objection, I suppose."
"None whatever, doctor," said Markham. Then he rose quickly. "We'll come along, if you don't mind. There are a few questions I'd like to ask Miss Ada, and it might be as well to do it while you're present."
Von Blon gave his consent without hesitation.
"Well, I'll be on my way--work to do," announced Doremus breezily. He lingered long enough, however, to shake hands with all of us; and then the front door closed on him.
"We'd better ascertain if Miss Ada has been told of her brother's death," suggested Vance, as we went up the stairs. "If not, I think that task logically devolves on you, doctor."
The nurse, whom Sproot had no doubt apprised of Von Blon's arrival, met us in the upper hall and informed us that, as far as she knew, Ada was still ignorant of Chester's murder.
We found the girl sitting up in bed, a magazine lying across her knees. Her face was still pale, but a youthful vitality shone from her eyes, which attested to the fact that she was much stronger. She seemed alarmed at our sudden appearance, but the sight of the doctor tended to reassure her.
"How do you feel this morning, Ada?" he asked with professional geniality. "You remember these gentlemen, don't you?"
She gave us an apprehensive look; then smiled faintly and bowed.
"Yes, I
remember them...Have they-found out anything about--Julia's death?"
"I'm afraid not." Von Blon sat down beside her and took her hand. "Something else has happened that you will have to know, Ada." His voice was studiously sympathetic. "Last night Chester met with an accident--"
"An accident--oh!" Her eyes opened wide, and a slight tremor passed over her. "You mean..." Her voice quavered and broke. "I know what you mean! ...Chester's dead!"
Von Blon cleared his throat and looked away.
"Yes, Ada. You must be brave and not let it--ah--upset you too much. You see--"
"He was shot!" The words burst from her lips, and a look of terror overspread her face. "Just like Julia and me." Her eyes stared straight ahead, as if fascinated by some horror which she alone could see.
Von Blon was silent, and Vance stepped to the bed.
"We're not going to lie to you, Miss Greene," he said softly. "You have guessed the truth."
"And what about Rex--and Sibella?"
"They're all right," Vance assured her. "But why did you think your brother had met the same fate as Miss Julia and yourself?"
She turned her gaze slowly to him.
"I don't know--I just felt it. Ever since I was a little girl I've imagined horrible things happening in this house. And the other night I felt that the time had come--oh, I don't know how to explain it; but it was like having something happen that you'd been expecting."
Vance nodded understandingly.
"It's an unhealthy old house; it puts all sorts of weird notions in one's head. But, of course," he added lightly, "there's nothing supernatural about it. It's only a coincidence that you should have felt that way and that these disasters should actually have occurred. The police, y' know, think it was a burglar."
The girl did not answer, and Markham leaned forward with a reassuring smile.
"And we are going to have two men guarding the house all the time from now on," he said, "so that no one can get in who hasn't a perfect right to be here."
"So you see, Ada," put in Von Blon, "you have nothing to worry about any more. All you have to do now is to get well."
But her eyes did not leave Markham's face.
"How do you know," she asked, in a tense anxious voice, "that the--the person came in from the outside?"
"We found his footprints both times on the front walk."
"Footprints--are you sure?" She put the question eagerly.
"No doubt about them. They were perfectly plain, and they belonged to the person who came here and tried to shoot you. Here, Sergeant"--he beckoned to Heath--"show the young lady that pattern."
Heath took the manila envelope from his pocket and extracted the cardboard impression Snitkin had made. Ada took it in her hand and studied it, and a little sigh of relief parted from her lips.
"And you notice," smiled Vance, "he didn't have very dainty feet."
The girl returned the pattern to the sergeant. Her fear had left her, and her eyes cleared of the vision that had been haunting them.
"And now, Miss Greene," went on Vance, in a matter-of-fact voice, "we want to ask a few questions. First of all: the nurse said you went to sleep at nine o'clock last night. Is that correct?"
"I pretended to, because nurse was tired and mother was complaining a lot. But I really didn't go to sleep until hours later."
"But you didn't hear the shot in your brother's room?"
"No. I must have been asleep by then."
"Did you hear anything before that?"
"Not after the family had gone to bed and Sproot had locked up."
"Were you awake very long after Sproot retired?"
The girl pondered a moment, frowning.
"Maybe an hour," she ventured finally. "But I don't know."
"It couldn't have been much over an hour," Vance pointed out; "for the shot was fired shortly after half past eleven. And you heard nothing--no sound of any kind in the hall?"
"Why, no." The look of fright was creeping back into her face. "Why do you ask?"
"Your brother Rex," explained Vance, "said he heard a faint shuffling sound and a door closing a little after eleven."
Her eyelids drooped, and her free hand tightened over the edge of the magazine she was holding.
"A door closing..." She repeated the words in a voice scarcely audible. "Oh! And Rex heard it?" Suddenly she opened her eyes and her lips fell apart. A startled memory had taken possession of her--a memory which quickened her breathing and filled her with alarm. "I heard that door close, too! I remember it now..."
"What door was it?" asked Vance, with subdued animation. "Could you tell where the sound came from?"
The girl shook her head.
"No--it was so soft. I'd even forgotten it until now. But I heard it! ...Oh, what did it mean?"
"Nothing probably." Vance assumed an air of inconsequentiality calculated to alleviate her fears. "The wind doubtless."
But when we left her, after a few more questions, I noticed that her face still held an expression of deep anxiety.
Vance was unusually thoughtful as we returned to the drawing-room.
"I'd give a good deal to know what that child knows or suspects," he murmured.
"She's been through a trying experience," returned Markham. "She's frightened, and she sees new dangers in everything. But she couldn't suspect anything, or she'd be only too eager to tell us."
"I wish I were sure of that."
The next hour or so was occupied with interrogating the two maids and the cook. Markham cross-examined them thoroughly not only concerning the immediate events touching upon the two tragedies, but in regard to the general conditions in the Greene household. Numerous family episodes in the past were gone over; and when his inquiries were finished he had obtained a fairly good idea of the domestic atmosphere. But nothing that could be even remotely connected with the murders came to light. There had always been, it transpired, an abundance of hatred and ill-feeling and vicious irritability in the Greene mansion. The story that was unfolded by the servants was not a pleasant one; it was a record--scrappy and desultory, but none the less appalling--of daily clashes, complainings, bitter words, sullen silences, jealousies and threats.
Most of the details of this unnatural situation were supplied by Hemming, the older maid. She was less ecstatic than during the first interview, although she interspersed her remarks with Biblical quotations and references to the dire fate which the Lord had seen fit to visit upon her sinful employers. Nevertheless, she painted an arresting, if overcoloured and prejudiced, picture of the life that had gone on about her during the past ten years. But when it came to explaining the methods employed by the Almighty in visiting his vengeance upon the unholy Greenes, she became indefinite and obscure. At length Markham let her go after she had assured him that she intended to remain at her post of duty--to be, as she expressed it, "a witness for the Lord" when his work of righteous devastation was complete.
Barton, the younger maid, on the other hand, announced, in no uncertain terms, that she was through with the Greenes for ever. The girl was genuinely frightened, and, after Sibella and Sproot had been consulted, she was paid her wages and told she could pack her things. In less than half an hour she had turned in her key and departed with her luggage. Such information as she left behind her was largely a substantiation of Hemming's outpourings. She, though, did not regard the two murders as the acts of an outraged God. Hers was a more practical and mundane view.
"There's something awful funny going on here," she had said, forgetting for the moment the urge of her coquettish spirits. "The Greenes are queer people. And the servants are queer, too--what with Mr. Sproot reading books in foreign languages, and Hemming preaching about fire and brimstone, and cook going around in a sort of trance muttering to herself and never answering a civil question. And such a family!" She rolled her eyes. "Mrs. Greene hasn't got any heart. She's a regular old witch, and she looks at you sometimes as though she'd like to strangle you. If I was Miss Ada I'd have g
one crazy long ago. But then, Miss Ada's no better than the rest. She acts nice and gentle like, but I've seen her stamping up and down in her room looking like a very devil; and once she used language to me what was that bad I put my fingers in my ears. And Miss Sibella's a regular icicle--except when she gets mad, and then she'd kill you if she dared, and laugh about it. And there's been something funny about her and Mr. Chester. Ever since Miss Julia and Miss Ada were shot they've been talking to each other in the sneakiest way when they thought no one was looking. And this Doctor Von Blon what comes here so much: he's a deep one. He's been in Miss Sibella's room with the door shut lots of times when she wasn't any more sick than you are. And Mr. Rex, now. He's a queer man, too. I get the creeps every time he comes near me." She shuddered by way of demonstration. "Miss Julia wasn't as queer as the rest. She just hated everybody and was mean."
Barton had rambled on loquaciously with all the thoughtless exaggeration of a gossip who felt herself outraged; and Markham had not interrupted her. He was trying to dredge up some nugget from the mass of her verbal silt; but when at last he sifted it all down there remained nothing but a few shining grains of scandal.
The cook was even less enlightening. Taciturn by nature, she became almost inarticulate when approached on the subject of the crime. Her stolid exterior seemed to cloak a sullen resentment at the fact that she should be questioned at all. In fact, as Markham patiently pressed his examination, the impression grew on me that her lack of responsiveness was deliberately defensive, as if she had steeled herself to reticency. Vance, too, sensed this attitude in her, for, during a pause in the interview, he moved his chair about until he faced her directly.
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