Parachute Murder
Page 26
“I alone am gu——followed by that wavering pencil mark. He compared her writing with that on the note he had pocketed, and then handed both to the District Attorney.
“This closes the parachute murder case,” the actor said. “You can arrest Edith Vane Newman and her brother Leighton Newman for the murder of Chadwick Morne and of Kiyoshi—”
“No! No! It can’t be true! “ cried Mrs. Delano, groping her way up the steps to the stage. “Edith! Tell them it’s not—”
“Stop him!” cried Mr. Brixton, and jumped to his feet as Arthur Layman sprang to the side of his sister and extended his hand to her mouth.
“You are too late, Walton,” said Kemerson, as Layman raised his hand to his own lips and drained a small vial which had been concealed in his palm. “Prussic acid is too quick for the law.”
Stephen Blake, who had been sitting in stunned horror, at last found his voice, and cried out in terror at Kemerson’s words. He ran down the aisle and leaped upon the stage.
“Edith! Edith!” he cried, and knelt by the chair in which the young woman had slumped. She was drawing her breath with the greatest difficulty. She stared at Blake with widely distended pupils, as the distraught press agent flung his arms about her. “Edith! Speak to me! Tell me it’s all a horrible mistake!”
The girl was seized with convulsive movements of the muscles of her arms and body.
“Forgive...”
She gasped, and her labored breathing increased. Her face took on a bluish cast; the spasmodic movements of her muscles grew quiet. She began struggling slowly, raucously for breath.
“Mr. Kemerson!” cried Blake. “Send for a doctor! Do something! “
“No doctor can help her, my boy,” said Kemerson, gently. “It is best this way.” He laid his hand on Blake’s shoulder, bent down to look at the girl whose movements had stilled. “She’s gone.”
“Not dead! So soon! “ cried Mrs. Delano, who had got, unaided, upon the stage. “Without a word——”
“She tried to take all the guilt upon herself,” said Kemerson. “Instead of writing what I dictated, from her own note to her brother, she wrote: ‘I alone am gu——.’ She could not write out the word ‘guilty.’ I believe she felt no guilt. Felt rather that she was the instrument of Providence in avenging the murder of her sister, Mrs. Marshall Brewster, for she undoubtedly believed that her sister’s end was more murder than suicide.”
“Can’t something be done for her brother,” asked Detective Dugan. “To see such suffering and...” His voice died away.
“Why try to revive him only to meet death in the electric chair, even if we could?” said Kemerson, glancing down at the figure of Leighton Newman on the floor of the stage. “He would be dead before a doctor could arrive. It’s a miracle he has lived this long. Look! The death spasm has overtaken him. Death by hydrocyanic acid sometimes results in spasms like this just before dissolution.”
It was a horrible sight, to see the strong, athletic figure of the dying man wracked by violent convulsions, but no one could take eyes away from the terrible spectacle. In a few seconds the muscular contortions stopped; a long gasp for breath, a sigh that was almost a wail, and all was over. Profound and shocked silence gripped the spectators. It was broken, after what seemed minutes, by the voice of Mrs. Delano, small, barely audible.
“What could have made her do it?”
“That, in all probability, we shall never know now,” replied Kemerson. “We can only surmise. My surmise is that both Miss Vane and her brother were many years younger than their sister, Mrs. Brewster, and that they were devoted to her. She went overseas as a “Y” entertainer, soon after having married the aviator, Brewster. In France she met Morne who promised to make her his leading woman—as he did—and she left her husband for a stage career. Perhaps they did not learn the reason for her suicide until several years afterwards. They had an ailing parent to care for, and were freed, perhaps, only by her death to seek out the man who had caused Mrs. Brewster to take her own life.”
“Poor, unhappy things,” said Mrs. Delano. “If they had only waited. I don’t believe a jury would have convicted them.”
“Perhaps not for first degree murder, Mrs. Delano, but they would have got long sentences.”
“I will see to their burial, if I may,” said Mrs. Delano. “I loved Edith. I would like to do that for her.”
“That can be arranged, Mrs. Delano,” said the District Attorney.
“Thank you.” She felt about until her hand came in contact with Stephen Blake who still knelt by the chair in which lav the still, unresponsive body of Edith Vane, clasped in his arms. Her head was on his breast.
“Come with me, Stephen. We both loved her for what was sweet and gentle in her nature.”
“Go, my boy,” said Kemerson. “Mrs. Delano is right. I will see to the...arrangements for her.”
Blake yielded to the blind woman’s gentle urging, after a last caress of the girl’s face, and walked unsteadily towards the steps leading down into the auditorium.
“Remember Mrs. Delano cannot see, Stephen,” said Kemerson.
The press agent, steadied by the necessity of guiding Mrs. Delano, recovered, with an effort, some measure of composure.
No word was spoken until they had left the projection room, the door of which was held open for them by two policemen.
“Now, Vanuzzi,” said the District Attorney, “why did you not give this evidence when you were first questioned?”
“I can answer that for him,” said Kemerson. “He ‘fell’ for Miss Vane—Miss Newman—wanted her for his ‘girl.’ By kidnapping her, and holding her note as a threat, he thought to stop her attempt to fasten the murder of Chadwick Morne upon him and to force her to accept him as her lover. That about hits it, doesn’t it, Vanuzzi?”
“Near enough,” grunted the night club owner.
THE END
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