Donald wiped his forehead. "Yes; I think that's all. In order that you may be sure that you have all the knowledge that we have of the previous occurrences, I ask Miss Waring to go over with you everything that she has seen or that has come to her. She has been in what I may describe as the central position among us all," Donald smiled a bit ruefully. "Do it for me, will you, Melicent?"
And Melicent did it.
The lawyer and Donald Cornwall sat for almost a full hour listening. During this hour, Donald spoke not at all; he merely watched her. The lawyer spoke only to ask questions to make clearer details he did not understand.
Into that hour was crowded the narrative of a young girl who had taken a strange position which brought her face to face with a series of appalling circumstances which she endeavored to detail without passing judgment upon them.
Especially she endeavored not to pass judgment upon Donald, not to color her account either to exonerate or accuse him. She could not accuse him; she could not! And she was too proud, too loyal to him to conceal or alter any circumstance which might seem unfavorable to him. As she approached critical points in her story and at moments when Mr. Reese asked her, in his cold, precise voice, "Where was Donald Cornwall at this time?" she answered honestly and fearlessly.
She could feel Donald watching her, as she had watched him when he told of the pin in the parachute; and so she went through to the end.
At last Mr. Reese rose from the chair in which he had been sitting. "God! What a story! What a life you have led! Young lady, if I'd had an inkling of the sort of thing you were confronting, I wouldn't have hired you if I could have offered you a hundred thousand a year."
"Then," said Melicent quietly, "I'm glad you had no inkling."
The direction of his thoughts became less personal. "I have been following you, trying to find whom you, yourself, suspect as the murderer--or one of the murderers. I could not feel that you suspected, strongly, anyone."
"I don't," said Melicent slowly. "Through it all, I have tried to see who was to blame, who could be suspected, who could be proved guilty, but I can't settle--for any length of time--upon anyone."
"Yet you have suspected several, temporarily." Melicent nodded. "Sometimes I have suspected almost--myself."
Mr. Reese turned to Donald. "Whom have you suspected?"
"Two hundred millions of dollars is stake enough, I suppose, for any crime or series of crimes. It is stake enough to stir almost any man," Donald returned. "So I have suspected a good many people. I even suspected you." His eyes met those of the lawyer candidly. "A day or two ago, I could have sworn it was that astrologer, Priscilla Loring--
or at least people associated with her. Then that idea washed out. This morning when I woke up, I found myself thinking of Lydia. She's in ill health and her mind takes queer slants. She's insulated herself, you might say, to ordinary human sympathies; you can't tell what a mind like hers might do--or direct. Her very physical helplessness might make her more defiantly determined to outlive all the rest and make her more merciless toward them. Yet--" he halted, looking at Melicent. "What is it! Melicent?"
"I've thought of her," said Melicent. "But I don't now."
"Neither do I," admitted Donald.
"But you both," pursued the lawyer, "suspect people and not fate."
"Fingers put that pin in that parachute," said Donald.
"But fate may use fingers. I mean," explained the lawyer, "it is possible that Theodore Cornwall's parachute was pinned by some moronic or perverted person who could have had no idea whom it would kill. Fate might have simply seen that he got that parachute."
"And also put the message in his lunch box?"
The lawyer nodded. "Yes; there's a flaw there. I was merely admitting all possibilities. There are acts of God and acts of devils; but the devils, at least, can usually be reduced to human form. Your father's death, Donald, does not lend itself to further investigation. He was poisoned, you think; and in that place where he died, any native might have been the agent of anyone. You have no evidence but the suspicion of poison--
and the five-word message which preceded his death.
"So we come to Everitt and the five-word message sent to him; and the little copper spider found in his hand. I merely enunciate what is in the minds of both of you when I tell you that probably--no one can prove it now--Everitt Cornwall met his death in this manner:
"Electrocution was prepared for him. Someone, anticipating his coming, put a wire between the tiles into the bathroom beside the tub. You," Reese looked at Melicent,
"saw the hole in the plaster in the adjoining room. It was necessary to make a hole there; but after it was made, the wire could be pushed between two tiles on the other side and make no noticeable hole. I think, then, that the copper spider was lightly soldered to the wire and the wire pulled tight so that the spider seemed to be standing on the tile. The wire was then connected with the light socket in the next room and, at the proper time, the current turned on.
"Everitt Cornwall could be counted upon to touch the spider, if he noticed it after he got into the bath; and that is the time he would notice it. He would be standing or sitting in water--immersed in it--thoroughly grounded and so was instantly killed.
"The powerful electric shock had a convulsive action upon the muscles causing his fingers to close on the spider. Possibly he plucked the spider from the wire as he died; possibly the wire had to be pulled away from the other side. At any rate, it was withdrawn; and as soon as possible afterwards, the house was burned. I believe this is what happened."
"So do I," said Donald; and Melicent, on her part, nodded. "Obviously, this series of events required the presence of the murderer in the house at the time."
"Obviously," agreed Donald. "You will remember I was not far away and many strangers, whom you, yourself, supplied, were in the house."
"Also," pursued the lawyer, imperturbably, "either the principal or a confederate was in New York a short time earlier. For the five-word telegram was sent from there."
"You, of course, were in the city and I came from New York just after the electrocution, you remember," Donald reminded Reese.
"But you could not, personally, have sent the message," returned Reese. "For the sender was completely forgotten by the girl who took it. You could not have been."
"Thank you for that," acknowledged Donald.
"I am not exonerating you. I exonerate, now, nobody."
"I was thanking you for believing I would not have been forgotten," Donald corrected him.
"Now the death of Alice Cornwall--of Alice Cornwall Wilbur--leads us into greater difficulties. I have had made, with the aid of the state department and of the Belgian authorities, an exhaustive examination of the character of the fatal fog. I cannot decide for myself whether it was made deadly by nature, by accident, or deliberately by poisons injected in it by man.
"Of all the victims of it, I can find none other beside Alice Cornwall who had been threatened. If it was made lethal to destroy those who died, I can find no reason for anyone desiring the death of any of the victims--except her. The spread of such a poison throughout the Domrey valley in order to murder one woman, seems inconceivable.
However, I have your word that Alice had just received one of the fatal messages. We will leave the mist for the moment; its implications are still unsolved.
"Let us come to the meteorite which flew into Theodore Cornwall's room. You, Donald, had it examined by the geologists at the university; later, as you ordered, it was delivered to me; and I also had it examined. The report made to me concurred with the report made to you. There is no possible question that it is a bit of meteoric iron; it was indeed a scrap of a star which found its way into Theodore Cornwall's room--and which might have struck and killed him. There is considerable question, however, as to whether God or man sent it on its way. Both the astronomers whom I have consulted--and who, finally, I brought to Theodore Cornwall's apartment--are agreed that it would be practic
ally impossible for a meteorite to strike with the small violence of the iron that flew into that room.
"It struck very hot, I understand; and meteorites become white hot from their flight through the air but yours, I believe, flew no farther than from the opposite roof.
Somewhere nearby it had been heated and then, by some catapult-like instrument, it was hurled through the window."
"But," Melicent interrupted, "it was a real meteorite, you said."
"Exactly; one that had fallen somewhere else on the earth and had been cool for perhaps a hundred years--until a murderer, having a very special mission to perform, obtained it and heated it and hurled it in."
"You, too, believe that, Mr. Reese?"
"I have to believe that," replied the lawyer simply, "or to believe that the sky is actually after these people. There remains the fog to bear out that theory; but I can't credit it. Human hands are against us--and human brains--amazingly merciless, calculating brains. Think how they drove Theodore through terror to his death. He was swayed by his stars; they knew it; and they decided to toss a bit of a star into his room. By chance it might strike him and kill him; but if it only fell to the floor, yet it could scarcely fail to affect him. We all know how it drove him to his death."
"Which would not have occurred, however," Donald reminded, "if the parachute had not been pinned."
"I said," agreed the lawyer, "that we were dealing with human hands and brains and purposes. Have either of you ever considered whether the purposes, at least, might not be Hannah's? I've known her better than any of your other aunts and uncles, and better than your father, Donald. Year after year, she's gone on fearing for her life, doubling her dreads, doubling her determination to outlive the rest. I've hired new servants for her every year and helped her carry out the schemes she perpetually devised to protect herself. The basis of her fear was always that one of her sisters or brothers--or people connected with them--would put her out of the way. Suppose in her mind, recently not quite sane, she became so obsessed with this idea that she came to believe that she could protect herself only by making away with the others. She would devise a scheme of murder in self-defense. It is possible that from the servants whom I have hired for her, year after year, and who have been flowing through her house that she found some who fitted into her scheme of assassination in self-defense. She has always drawn and kept at hand great sums in cash. And what could she not promise to them, if her schemes succeeded!"
"You speak," cried Melicent, "as though you were sure she formed such schemes!"
"Are you sure she hasn't?"
"But she's H--she, herself, is H in the sequence D EAT H. And D and E and A and T are gone and it has come to her."
"Who said so?" countered the lawyer. Someone noticed that five of the six members of her family had names, the initials of which combined spelled death; could she not have noticed this too? If the family started to die in that order, it would be logical to believe that she would be the fifth, and hence all suspicion would be averted from her and possibly directed toward Lydia, whose name did not occur in the sequence. Do you get my point?"
"Yes."
"It would leave her to the end, unsuspected; she would be the one to be defended, not to be feared."
Again Melicent broke in. "If you could see her--but she will see no one but me--
you could not possibly speak of her as one to be feared."
"Not in person; very likely not," agreed the lawyer. "It is most improbable that she, in person, could have committed any violent deed; but she may have motivated others to do them for her. And now, perhaps, she could not stop them, if she would. Great crimes occur in that way. Someone conceives a scheme not completely picturing, at the same time, the consequences of its execution. But events are started; they cannot be stayed; they seize the stage and run on and on. Subordinate hands become more savage and merciless and at last put the principal in their power. . . . I define the possibility in such detail because, in this extremity, we must consider any hypothesis. You, Miss Waring, have been almost constantly with Miss Cornwall; you can tell me whether you have assembled any evidence to sustain such a presumption."
Melicent slowly shook her head. "Of course her brother Everitt's death occurred shortly after he arrived to visit her; then she went to visit her sister Alice, the fog came, but Miss Cornwall escaped. She brought us all back to visit her brother Theodore; and we all know what followed. However, I have never had any evidence that she is in communication with anyone, unknown to us, who might be acting against her brothers and sisters. She has criticized severely the other members of her family; but that is all."
"Of course an arrangement might have been with some agent, not now connected with the household, before you were originally engaged," the lawyer said. "And there might have been subsequent communication without your learning of it. She is alone, she sends you away whenever she wishes." Reese nodded regretfully. "I wish Granger had stayed. He could have supplemented you in watching her. But I presume the whole thing was too much for him. He came into my office after he returned from Belgium and told me he couldn't stand the job he had. Then he went down to Georgia to be with his mother, who was ill."
"Who was Granger?" Melicent asked. "I remember you told me I could have implicit confidence in him."
Mr. Reese started toward the hall and then stopped. "He was a young chap who came to my office looking for a job a long time ago. He worked for me several years and studied law at night. I learned to depend upon him. But he failed his bar examinations and that discouraged him. He left my employment. Last fall, just about the time Hannah Cornwall was due to change servants, he showed up again, looking for work. It occurred to me that it would be valuable to have someone I knew in Hannah's house, so I brought him along. He expressed great admiration for you, Miss Waring. It is clear, of course, that the difficulty he found in attending Miss Cornwall developed from the fact that he became emotionally attached to you; and you did not reciprocate. You have not heard from him at all since he left?"
"Only the letter which I have mentioned to you," Melicent said.
"I am surprised, remembering how he referred to you when I last saw him. Now I assume I know everything you know; and I have kept nothing from you. If Miss Cornwall will not see me, I had better return to town. Theodore's affairs, of course, must be attended to."
With that, Mr. Reese stepped into the hall, bid them good-by and a moment later they heard the sound of his car moving away from the castle. Donald looked at Melicent.
"I ought to drive in town this morning to make arrangements for Uncle Theodore's funeral. I hate to leave you." He sighed. "I suppose that by to-morrow the house will be full of police and we will both be watched and suspected, and maybe it's for the best.
Perhaps we were foolish not to have had the police from the very first. Anyway, I'll try to be back by early afternoon. I'd give a lot to know what Mr. Reese really thinks about the whole thing. I may drop in at his office." He opened the door of a small closet, put on his coat, took his hat in his hand and left the hall.
Melicent walked up the stairs. Her mind was in complete chaos.
She knocked on Hannah Cornwall's door.
"Who is it?"
"Miss Waring."
"Come in."
A certain amount of sunlight came through the tall windows that looked over the Hudson. The day outside was crisp and cold. Melicent picked up her pad and wrote, "Mr.
Reese was here. He has just left."
Hannah said, "Give me the facts."
Melicent began to write down the story of the interview, leaving out their suspicion of herself, but admitting freely that she had broken her promise of silence and discussed the mystery of the deaths with the lawyer.
Hannah, a shadow of herself, moved fretfully around the room while she waited for the preparation of the document. No one knew, no one could know, what thoughts, what alarms, what terrors stirred in her wretched soul. She had ceased almost to be a human being,
and she lived from minute to minute, hour to hour, with the sole purpose of stretching out that progression of time until safety was somehow assured. To win that safety she had given up definite effort of logical mental process. She stirred back and forth in the ancestral bedroom.
By and by a continuous sound outside the house attracted her restless attention. It drew her gaze through the window and up to the blue sky. The stretch of sky visible was the only thing outside her room on which she had dared to focus her attention. And as she looked into it, she saw an aeroplane there.
She stopped in the center of the room and watched the plane with stupid curiosity.
It was following no fixed course, but turned, spun and gyrated in a variety of complicated maneuvers. She watched it the more intently because it was the first glimpse of life outside her room which she had had in many hours.
Suddenly smoke belched from the aeroplane. A great streak of it across the blue sky. For an instant she thought that it had caught fire, but the smoke stopped and hung in the air, a straight, horizontal line. The plane whirled. The sun flashed upon it and it became a glittering dot as it went back to the place where the smoke had started. Again came the rush of cloud from the plane. This time the line was curved, so that together with the first one which still hung in the air it made a figure not unlike a tightly drawn bow. Perhaps Hannah Cornwall had never seen skywriting before. Certainly she did not recognize that the bow of smoke in the sky was also a letter "D."
Rapidly the plane continued to lay these streaks of smoke, moving like a busy insect in a garden. The whole maneuver interested Hannah and rested her mind. Her instinctive caution caused her to move away from the window; but when she had done so, she reasoned that, since the aeroplane was not even nearly overhead, it could not drop anything to hurt her. She had shut herself in so long. The plane, dodging about so, was interesting.
She returned to the window and pushed it open. It was a casement window and it swung silently on its hinges under the impulse of her hands as--she clung to it, turning to look up, daring only to look into the sky, avoiding even a glance down.
Five Fatal Words Page 24
