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THE BACK-SEAT MURDER
HERMAN LANDON
The Back-Seat Murder was originally published in 1931 by Horace Liveright, New York.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I — The Ash Pile
It was a little after two o’clock in the morning, and the cellar of Mr. Christopher Marsh’s house on the old Peekhaven Turnpike presented the unusual spectacle of a private secretary raking an ash pile.
Leonard Harrington had donned the cap and overalls belonging to old Stippett, gardener and handy man, and a pair of gloves protected the secretarial hands against grime and injury which might have betrayed their occupation with an unusual task. The electric light attached to one of the crosswire timbers in the ceiling showed an eager and determined look on his passably handsome face. There was a strain of excitement and suspense, too. Looking at him, one might have thought that he was searching for diamonds in the ash pile.
The pile was fairly large, and it represented last winter’s accumulation of ashes. It was now the first week in September, and within a month the pile would be carted away and a supply of coal would take its place in a corner of the cellar. Working a few hours each night, Harrington faced a rather prodigious task if he meant to sift the entire heap within the remaining time.
Kneeling on the cement floor, he was attacking the mound with a small rake, a child’s toy. Now and then he came to a clinker which he tossed aside after a glance. The finer stuff, after being dislodged with the rake, was sifted through his gloved fingers, handful by handful, and then cast to one side. Gradually a smaller mound of ashes and clinkers was rising beside the larger one.
It was a slow and tedious task, and Christopher Marsh’s private secretary appeared anything but patient. He grumbled now and then, and occasionally he gave a nervous start, as if he had apprehended some disturbing sound. There was no apparent reason for such nervousness, for it seemed unlikely that any member of the small household would visit the cellar at such an hour. The bedrooms occupied by Christopher Marsh and his wife, the latter a confirmed invalid, were on the second floor and far off to one side of the house. The bedrooms of the servants—there were only four—were even more remote. Miss Lanyard, the nurse, whose services were necessitated by the hypochondria of the mistress of the house, occupied a room adjoining her patient’s. All in all, it seemed that Leonard Harrington could have pursued his task in peace.
Moreover, neighbors were few and far between in this isolated locality, the nearest being a good mile away. Peekacre, the Marsh country home, stood in a grove of hemlocks situated some five hundred yards from what had once been the mam highway, fallen into neglect and disuse since the opening of the new state road. Thus, and aside from the lateness of the hour, there was no apparent reason why Harrington should fear an interruption.
Yet he was unmistakably nervous. At frequent intervals he cast uneasy glances across the tracery of lights and shadows that covered the floor and walls. Possibly the raking of the ash pile was a deed of darkness that troubled a sensitive conscience. Or perhaps he had a morbid feeling that the shrewd, watchful eyes of Christopher Marsh had the power to penetrate walls. Then again it might be that he was disturbed by thoughts of Theresa Lanyard, the nurse.
He had often wondered about her during the three weeks he had been employed by Christopher Marsh. Her prim and almost severe appearance had evoked conflicting impressions in his mind. He bad often wondered how she would look without her crisp white apron and peaked cap, without her primness and professional imperturbability. Was she as staid and dignified and coolly capable as she looked, or was she playing a role of some sort? Had she, like himself, entered the Marsh household under false pretenses, in pursuit of some ulterior motive? There was no sound reason why Harrington should ask himself such questions, but he could not keep them out of his mind.
And now, as he knelt on the hard cellar floor, running handfuls of ashes through his fingers, these very questions were agitating his brain. Once or twice, he felt sure, he had surprised a vagrant glance out of Theresa Lanyard’s eyes that was not in keeping with her demureness. In an unguarded moment he had seen a strange sort of smile trespassing upon her lips. And once—
He jerked up his head and stared across the cluttered cellar floor, most of it in shadow. In the next instant he dropped the rake and sprang to his feet. Half way down the stairs at the farther side stood a feminine figure draped in a dressing gown. Her face was in dusk, but he fancied there was a faint, mocking smile on her lips.
“Miss Lanyard!” he exclaimed.
She came down the remaining steps and approached him, then surveyed his grimy overalls and dust-streaked face with an amused expression.
“Mr. Harrington, you’re a sight,” she declared.
Harrington found no answer. He felt exceedingly foolish. Miss Lanyard came a little closer.
“You are the most ambitious secretary I ever saw,” she declared.
He gazed at her stupidly, then glanced guiltily at the rake lying at his feet.
“Looking for anything in those ashes?” she inquired.
“Yes,” awkwardly. “I—er—lost a stickpin the other day and thought it might have got mixed up in this pile.”
“Really?” There was mockery in her fine gray eyes. “Couldn’t you think up a better one?”
“Give me time.” In desperation he was resorting to banter. “You took me by surprise.”
“And you looked positively guilty. It’s no crime to be poking about in a pile of ashes, is it?”
“Not exactly.” At length he was able to raise his eyes and meet her inquiring gaze. She was still smiling in a mocking way, but there was solemnity in her smile. Without the prim, shell-rimmed glasses, which she usually wore during the day, she seemed years younger. Not a day over twenty-four, he reflected. “Did I make a noise?” he added. “Is that why you came down?”
“No, I didn’t hear anything. You are the quietest ashman I ever saw. Most of than make a dreadful noise. But I’ve been wondering about you, Mr. Harrington. You don’t look quite genuine as a secretary.”
“And you are not overly convincing in the role of a nurse.”
She gave him a long, calculating look. Without her peaked cap and her professional manner, her face was quite attractive, he observed. There were signs of an inner tension, however. He saw little flickers of anxiety in her gray eyes.
“Then you think I’m a fraud?”
“A rather charming fraud.”
Her mouth tightened a trifle.
“I wonder,” she murmured, “if your name is really Leonard Harrington.”
“And I wonder,” he mimicked, “if yours is really Theresa Lanyard.”
“No,” she thoughtfully confessed. “It isn’t.”
He started. He had not been prepared for such a prompt and candid admission.
“But I am really a nurse,” she added. “I worked in a hospital at one time. Are you a real secretary?”
“Mr. Marsh appears satisfied with my services.�
�
“So it seems. I wonder what he would think if he should see you now.”
“Yes, I wonder,” Harrington murmured. “He would probably take another look at my credentials.”
“That would be embarrassing, wouldn’t it?”
“Oh, rather.” He took out a handkerchief and mopped his face, then regarded her with new curiosity. “If I made no noise, what brought you down here?”
“Feminine inquisitiveness. One night last week I heard you walk down the hall at three o’clock in the morning. You didn’t walk like an honest man. Your footsteps had a sort of sneaky sound. The next night you did the same thing, and the night after that I discovered you had acquired the habit of prowling about a lot in the small hours. Little by little I got curious about you, and tonight I decided to investigate.”
“H’m. You must be a light sleeper, Miss—er—Lanyard.”
“Not exactly, Mr.—er—Harrington. But most of Mrs. Marsh’s ailments—they are all imaginary, anyway—come on at night, and that keeps me awake a great deal. I usually manage to snatch a nap in the afternoon. Now, Mr. Ashman, we understand each other, don’t we?”
“No, I don’t think we have even begun to understand each other.”
“Your fault. Men are always slow in such matters.” She looked at the two heaps of ashes, the small one and the big one. “So you think this is the place where David Mooreland was murdered, do you?” He started, then stood stonily still, gaping at her. There was a tight, mirthless smile on her lips. One hand fumbled nervously with the girdle of the dressing gown.
“Good heaven!” he exclaimed. “Who are you?”
“Does it matter? What we want to know is who murdered David Mooreland.”
Impulsively he came a little closer and regarded her in astonishment. Now he could see that she was in the grip of an intense excitement. The slender figure within the dressing gown was trembling.
“Isn’t it true?” she demanded. “You want to know who murdered David Mooreland, don’t you?”
He was silent for a moment, gazing into her white, tense face.
“Oh, I’ve known that for some time.”
The statement appeared to startle her.
“You know? You actually know? You have found some proof?”
Again he searched her face and hesitated.
“Oh, I don’t blame you for being discreet, Mr. Ashman. You know nothing about me except that I call myself Theresa Lanyard and that I am employed here as Mrs. Marsh’s nurse. I may be a friend, or I may be an enemy. It’s always well to be circumspect. But tell me, why should a hard-working secretary spend his nights searching an ash pile unless he hoped to find—certain things?”
“Why, indeed?” asked Harrington stiffly.
Her gray eyes slanted toward one of the dusky corners of the cellar.
“Let me see. David Mooreland disappeared one day last March. To most people his disappearance was a complete mystery. It was supposed that he had gone away and met with an accident. A few initiated ones know better. They know that he was about to lay certain unpleasant facts before the authorities—facts that would probably have sent Christopher Marsh to jail for a long term of years. They also suspect—though they can’t be positive as to that—that David Mooreland came to this house on the day of his disappearance.”
Harrington fixed her with a searching, noncommittal gaze.
“You are one of the initiated, I see,” he remarked dryly “Go on.”
“Oh, there isn’t very much more. Not much that Is definitely known, at any rate. It is supposed by the initiated few that Mr. Mooreland was enticed here by some hook or crook and that he never left Peekacre alive. It is regarded as significant that his disappearance took place only two days before he was to lay his facts before the district attorney. Certain persons, friends of Mr. Mooreland’s, searched the vicinity, but they found no trace of him. It seems certain that he died here.”
She shivered and her voice shook a little.
“Oh, yes, that’s certain enough,” Harrington declared. “He was murdered in add blood.”
“Who murdered him?”
“Our estimable employer, Christopher Marsh, of course.”
She lowered her head and seemed to fight for control of her nerves.
“Do you know that, or are you only guessing?”
“No one else had a motive for the murder. Mooreland’s death saved Christopher Marsh from prison.”
“Yes, I know. I have been thinking the same thing. But it doesn’t really prove anything, does it? Do you know anything else?”
“Perhaps I do, but—“ He came to a significant pause.
“I see. You hesitate to confide in me.”
She lifted her eyes, and her gaze was straight and clear. A little of his instinctive reserve left him.
“Perhaps I do,” he said, “but, aside from that, it isn’t a pleasant subject to discuss with a young woman.”
“I’m a nurse, you know.” A pale smile came to her lips. “Nurses come up against a lot of unpleasant things.”
“But this—Oh, all right.” For a moment his eyes went to the furnace and the battery of asbestos-lined pipes radiating from it. “I know that the body of David Mooreland was destroyed in that furnace.”
She shuddered. In the dim light her face took on a grayish hue.
“That is,” Harrington added, “it was destroyed to the best of the murderer’s ability. It seems he failed to realize that even in a raging fire a body can’t be completely obliterated.”
“Oh,” she breathed. “You found something in the ash heap?”
He nodded grimly. “Only a gold tooth so far. I found that last week. It has already been identified. I haven’t finished yet. I may find other things. It doesn’t really matter, though. The gold tooth is enough to establish the fact that Mooreland was murdered in this house.”
“But it doesn’t prove that Mr. Marsh murdered him.”
“True, it doesn’t.” Harrington ground the words between his teeth. “I’ll come to that later. Marsh will be convicted of murder before I am through.”
There was a note of vehemence In his voice that made her open her eyes wide.
“Are you a detective in disguise? No, of course you aren’t. Detectives take such things calmly, as a matter of routine. You—you talk as if you had a personal interest’ in the affair.”
“I have, but suppose we don’t go into that. It wouldn’t interest you, and besides—“ He paused, then looked at her with a new expression. “But what about yourself? You aren’t a lady detective, are you?”
“Mercy, no!” She gave a strained little laugh. “My interest in the case is—But suppose we don’t go into that either.”
“All right.” He laughed. “I won’t pry into your secrets, or bore you with mine.”
“But we might help each other,” she suggested. “It seems we are both working with the same aim in view. That is, if you can trust me.”
He regarded her steadily, in the manner of a man who penetrates appearances and takes nothing for granted. Her face, warm, lovely and yet tragic, was a different face from the one he had seen under the peaked cap.
“I can,” he declared.
“Then we are partners.”
Impulsively she thrust out her hand, and he took it and held it for a moment. Thus, with dust in their nostrils and creeping shadows all around, they sealed their compact.
Suddenly he drew back. In an instant he was all alertness. Theresa, head aslant, gazed through the dusk toward the stairs. Her chin quivered.
“What was that?” she whispered.
He tiptoed cautiously forward. His figure melted into the shadows at the farther side of the cellar. After a little while he came back.
“These old houses make all sorts of queer sounds at night,” he remarked.
But his voice lacked conviction. He could not be certain, but hadn’t there been a swift movement in the upper dusk as he glanced up along the stairway? Had someone beat listen
ing?
CHAPTER II — A Strange Letter
The man who for the present called himself Leonard Harrington sat in the little study adjoining the library and waited for the buzzer to summon him into his employer’s presence. While waiting, he occupied himself with a book of a size that just slipped snugly into his coat pocket. Leonard Harrington was a firm believer in the adage that reading maketh a full man.
Usually the buzzer sounded on the stroke of ten each morning, for punctuality was Christopher Marsh’s golden rule. Then, with his secretary’s assistance, he would devote himself to his correspondence. It was an odd sort of correspondence for a man who had as varied and extensive business interests as had Christopher Marsh. The letters, it seemed to Harrington, pertained to everything under the sun except business. Often they were of the most trivial nature; at other times their meaning was obscure. The private secretary had no cause for complaint, however, for his duties were light.
They were so light, indeed, that he often wondered what Marsh wanted with a private secretary. The correspondence, such as it was, rarely occupied more than an hour each day. He suspected that Marsh’s business interests were being managed by competent hands in the city and that he was only making a specious pretense of directing them from his library at Peekacre. Yet, though Harrington’s secretarial duties were light, his freedom was greatly circumscribed. Marsh, it soon appeared, wanted him within easy call, day or night. His outdoor life was limited to short walks about the grounds and an occasional drive to the village to post letters or send telegrams. Aside from these brief respites, it seemed that his employer was reluctant to let him out of his sight.
These and many other circumstances had gradually turned Harrington to the belief that what his master really required was not a private secretary but a bodyguard. There were numerous indications that such was the case. Day by day during these three weeks the older man had evinced a growing tension and nervousness, symptoms of a mental disturbance that expressed itself in a sour humor, a waspish disposition and a constant alertness. Every one with whom he came in contact was subjected to the most thorough scrutiny. It was his habit to make the rounds of the house late at night and satisfy himself that all the doors were properly locked and the window fastenings securely applied. His bedroom door was equipped with an electrical alarm that would give instant warning of a stranger’s approach.
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