“I’m going to see Floyd,” he told her. “I’ll drop you off in the lane. And don’t speak of what we’ve found. Not to anyone. It might be dangerous.”
After he left her he drove smartly into the village, to find Colonel Richardson entering Floyd’s office, with Floyd at his usual place and Mason with his chair tilted back in a corner. Neither man rose, and the colonel remained standing before the desk. None of them noticed Dane.
“Well, colonel,” Floyd said, “anything I can do for you?”
“I have something to tell you,” said the colonel, standing with his hat in his hand and his white hair blowing softly in the breeze from an open window. “It will, I hope, save Captain Spencer from an indictment next week. He is innocent, but these things stick, sir.”
The chief gave Dane a quick glance but did not greet him.
“You’ll be good if you can save Spencer, colonel,” he observed casually. “We have enough to convict him two or three times. He was married to the Barbour woman, he was engaged to a redhead—she’s here, and a good excuse for murder any time—and he has no alibi for the night the girl was killed. I think he was here and we can prove it. What more do you want?”
The colonel sat down, carefully placing his hat on his knee.
“I can prove he did not shoot his sister, sir,” he said stiffly.
“What’s that got to do with it? We’ve never claimed he did.”
The colonel flushed.
“You think that we have more than one murderer in this vicinity? That’s nonsense, Floyd.”
“Why more than one?”
“I’m not alone in the conviction that Gregory Spencer has committed no crime,” he said slowly. “Perhaps I should have spoken sooner, but things have been moving fast. But with Mrs. Ward having a stroke, and Nathaniel carrying a gun even last night when I distinctly saw it in his dressing gown pocket—”
Floyd was looking astonished.
“See here,” he said, “you’re not accusing old Mr. Ward of shooting anybody, are you?”
“Certainly not. The man who shot Elinor Hilliard was taller than Nathaniel.”
“For God’s sweet sake!” Floyd shouted. “Are you saying you saw him?”
“I did. Not close enough to recognize him, but I certainly saw him.”
Sheer amazement kept Floyd silent. Mason’s jaw had dropped. Neither one paid any attention to Dane or interrupted as the colonel told his story.
On the night Elinor had been shot, he said, he had unfortunately taken coffee after dinner, with the result that he could not sleep. He had gone downstairs about one o’clock to get a magazine, and was at the table in the center of the room when he saw a face at the window. It was raining hard. The pane was wet, and it was merely a flash, but there was no mistake about it.
He had put out the light at once and gone outside. There was no one there, but he heard someone running. He could see that it was a man, fairly tall and in a dark overcoat or raincoat, but that was all.
However, several suspicious things had been happening, the colonel explained, including Dane now in his glance, “so I thought it best to follow him. He went up the lane between Rockhill, the Ward place, and Crestview. I tried to follow him to see who it was, but I was in bedroom slippers and I’m not so young as I was. That was when I heard the shot.”
“Why haven’t you reported this sooner?” Floyd asked angrily.
“I would not be here at all,” the colonel said simply, “but an old and dear friend passed away an hour ago. Mrs. Ward is dead. This cannot hurt her now.”
“What does that mean?”
The colonel drew a long breath. His color was bad, Dane noticed.
“The fellow turned in at the Ward place,” he said, and was silent.
It was a moment before Floyd spoke.
“And that’s all? You didn’t investigate further?”
Colonel Richardson looked at him bleakly.
“I found Elinor Hilliard,” he said. “I pulled her up on the hillside, away from where some late car might run over her. She was lying in the lane. Then I ran back to my house and telephoned the doctor. His line was busy, and I was trying to get the hospital when I heard people running about and calling. I knew then she had been found. After that I—well, I just kept quiet. If she had been killed I’d have had to tell what I know, of course.”
Floyd was watching him intently, his eyes hard and suspicious.
“Why are you telling it now?” he inquired.
“Because it was not Gregory Spencer. I’ve know Greg all his life, and this man was not so tall. I’ve a hard decision to make, but I can’t allow an innocent man to be tried for his life.”
“Who was it? You know, don’t you?”
“I’m not sure, but I’m afraid it was Terry Ward.” He drew a long breath. “Remember, I’m making no accusation. And I don’t think the shooting was deliberate. I was after him and Mrs. Hilliard got in his way. But he’s had a long, grueling experience as a fighter pilot. He may be suffering from combat fatigue. I don’t know.”
Dane spoke for the first time.
“Does Mrs. Hilliard know you moved her?” he asked.
“I don’t think so. She was completely unconscious. Shock, of course.”
“Have you any idea why she was out in the rain that night?”
The colonel stirred unhappily.
“She must have been on her way to the Wards’,” he said. “That’s obvious. She had followed the path to the lane and was crossing it. He may not have meant to kill her or even shoot her. He wanted to scare her, probably.”
“And have you told the Wards this story?” Floyd demanded curiously.
“No. I would not have come at all, but I cannot allow Carol Spencer’s brother to be crucified without a protest.”
He turned quietly and went out, closing the door behind him.
25
DANE REMAINED BEHIND WHEN the colonel left. Floyd sat staring at the door, his mouth partly open, and Jim Mason let his chair down with a thump. Floyd’s eyes turned to Dane.
“What brings you here?” he inquired. “Were you in that lane too when the Hilliard woman was shot? Looks like the whole summer colony gets around in the middle of the night. Maybe you did the shooting,” he added. “You are quite a shot, aren’t you?”
“I haven’t been camping out at Pine Hill for two weeks or so.”
“And who has? We searched that place. Nothing there but the blankets.”
“If you’ll look again you’ll find a number of fresh tin cans there, by the garage.”
“And what would that mean?” Floyd roared. “What’s the idea anyhow. Are you all in cahoots to try to save Greg Spencer. Some hobo camps out in an empty house, and all at once he kills a girl, shoots a woman, and scares Lucy Norton to death! The colonel says he sees him, you find where he’s been staying, and there’s your killer!”
Having done his duty, Dane drove slowly home. One part of the colonel’s story had struck him as distinctly odd. He was still thinking it over when he saw him on the street ahead, walking slowly and dejectedly home. He stopped the car.
“Care for a lift?” he asked.
The colonel roused himself.
“Thanks. Yes, I would, I’m not as young as I like to think I am, major.”
When they started again Dane reverted at once to the colonel’s experience the night Elinor was shot.
“I can see you were in a difficult position,” he said. “You’re not sure it was Terry Ward, are you?”
“What am I to think? It was someone who knew his way around, and war does strange things to men. I know that.”
“Would Mr. Ward go armed against his own grandson?”
The colonel’s color rose. He looked goaded and unhappy.
“I’m afraid he’s going armed against me. He hasn’t been the same for some time. He may have seen me moving Elinor, you know. May have heard the shot and come out.” He tried to light a cigarette with uncertain hands. “He’s been
different since then. We used to play a good bit of chess together. We haven’t for some time.”
The picture of the two elderly men, each suspecting the other, was rather pathetic. It was the old story, Dane thought, no one being entirely frank. It was the same with every crime.
“Just what do you know about Terry Ward, Colonel Richardson? Known him a long time?”
“Since he was born. Knew his father before him. Fine Boston family, you know. His grandmother’s death will be a blow to the boy. Only thing is”—the colonel cleared his throat—“he’d never shoot Elinor. There may have been some reason for the other. God knows I judge nobody. But why Elinor?”
“It was raining hard. He may not have seen who it was. You yourself said something like that, sir.”
The colonel looked uncertain. He even looked shaken.
“I can’t help, I’m afraid,” he said thickly. “Nat won’t see me. He won’t see anybody today. He’s a broken man.”
“Have you any idea where Terry is now?”
“Gone, I suppose. They move fast these days. Hop a plane and are back on some God-forsaken island before you know it. I shouldn’t say that perhaps. My own son may be on just such an island. You know, I’m considered something of a crackpot around here.” He smiled faintly.
“Really? About what?”
“About my son. We were very close. After my wife’s death I had only the boy, and—well, let that go. Only I’ve always felt that I would know if anything had happened to him. Maybe you think that’s foolish.”
“Not at all,” Dane said gravely.
“For instance, I knew when he had pneumonia in college. I wakened out of a sound sleep, and I was so sure that I telephoned at once. He had it, you see. It’s—well, I suppose it’s psychic, although I don’t like the word.”
He got a clipping from his wallet. It was the story of a flier found after months on a Pacific island, where the natives had kept him alive. He had been badly injured, but had returned to duty. Dane read it gravely.
“Am I to understand that you think this may be your son?” he inquired.
Henry’s face fell.
“That would be too much to hope, I expect. But it shows it can happen, doesn’t it? There are so many islands,” he added, almost wistfully, “and I’ve never felt that Don was gone.”
“There’s always hope,” Dane said. “That’s what keeps most of us ticking, isn’t it?”
The colonel got out stiffly at his gate. He had aged even in the last day or so, and it seemed absurd that Nathaniel could suspect him of anything. Or was it? Dane pondered that on his way home. The story could be true, or it could be a cleverly concocted one, made up after all the evidence was in. The colonel had been a military man. He was used to firearms, and his story of having found Elinor in the lane was as incredible as Floyd had evidently regarded it.
He wanted badly to talk to Mr. Ward, but this was not the time for it, with Terry flying back to the blue inferno of the Pacific, with Mrs. Ward lying dead, and Nathaniel himself wandering around like an ancient distracted ghost. Time was growing short too. He still had no alibi for Greg in New York. Tim had had men working on it from his own agency, but with the plethora of army officers in the city and the definite percentage of them who drank to excess after prolonged battle strain, they had failed utterly.
In the end he decided to see Elinor again. He found her looking better, the room full of flowers, and a nurse reading a book by a window. Elinor looked frightened when she saw him. He went over to the bed.
“I would like to talk to you, Mrs. Hilliard,” he said. “If you want the nurse to stay it is all right with me.”
Certainly she did not want the nurse. She sent her out quickly. Dane closed the door and went back to the bed.
“I’m wondering,” he said, “if you are really willing to let your brother be found guilty of a murder you know he didn’t commit?”
She looked terrified. She cowered back among her pillows, as though she feared actual bodily violence.
“I can’t talk,” she said wildly. “I can’t say I was here that night. It would wreck my life. Howard’s too, all he has built for himself.”
“So that’s all you are thinking of?”
She had recovered somewhat by this time.
“I told you before. I don’t know who did it. I don’t know anything about it. I found her on the doorstep, and I left her there.”
“Will you swear to that in court? Because I’m going to see that you are called at the trial.”
“I won’t go to court,” she said obstinately. “I’ll leave the country first.” She was sullen now. “Maybe Greg did it. How do I know? She was already dead, I tell you.”
“Was it Greg you drove away that night, Mrs. Hilliard?”
She collapsed then. He got no more out of her. The nurse, returning, found her alone and weeping noisily, and when Dr. Harrison arrived he gave her a sedative.
“Tragic about her brother,” he said as he left. “She’s devoted to him.”
In a way Dane had played his last card. The solution, in view of Elinor’s silence, had to lie elsewhere, and he decided to fly to the Coast. He told Carol his plan that evening, sitting on the terrace in the warm darkness, with Virginia in bed and only the sleepy call of a gull now and then to break the silence.
“The story’s out there,” he said, “and my leave is over soon. There’s no time to waste.”
“But you’ll come back here?”
Something in her voice made him reach over and take her hand, now bare of Don’s ring. He touched that finger gently.
“Before I go I want to ask you something,” he said. “Are you still remembering Don Richardson? Do you still think he may come back? And if he ever does will you marry him?”
“He will never come back, Jerry,” she said positively. “I know that.”
“But if he does?”
“No,” she said simply.
He let go her hand.
“I’ve never thought of myself as a marrying man,” he said soberly. “In a way I have no right to ask any girl to marry me. My work is pretty important. Don’t get any false ideas about it. It’s not sensational, but it cuts me off from normal living. It takes all I’ve got, and sometimes more.”
She stirred in the dark.
“Are you proposing to me? Or are you giving me up?” she inquired.
“Both,” he said promptly. “I want you to wait for me, my darling. I want you to come back to. Good God, Carol, I wonder if you know what that would mean?”
“I will wait,” she said. “No matter what happens, I will always wait, Jerry.”
Then and only then he took her in his arms.
He left for the Coast the next day, Sunday, and he was still there when the Grand Jury met on Wednesday. The county seat was jammed with reporters and cameramen. Carol found herself in a small hotel room, with only a bed, a dresser and a chair or two, and with a group of newspapermen next door who banged things about, talked all night, and apparently drank when they were not talking.
Evidently Campbell and Floyd had built their case carefully. There was an air of assurance about the district attorney as he made his opening speech to the twenty-three men who sat in a semicircle around the room.
“It becomes my duty, as the representative of this sovereign state,” he began pompously, “to bring to your attention one of the most cruel crimes in our history. On the night of Friday, June sixteenth last, a summer night when our citizenry slept or worked to further a disastrous war, a young woman was done to death in the village of Bayside, in this county.
“Not only was she murdered by a heavy blow on the head, but an attempt was made to destroy her body. Her effects were taken to conceal her identity, and a quantity of inflammable liquid was poured over her and subsequently ignited.”
He went into details here, of the discovery of the body, the failure to locate the missing clothing, and the fatal identification. “A young woman, not yet thirty, an
d so far as we have discovered without family, except for a child which had been born some time previously.
“This woman came from Los Angeles, where she had given her child to a family with the idea of adoption soon after its birth. She had continued to see this boy, now two years old, at intervals, and we have the statement of the foster mother that on her last visit she was in a cheerful frame of mind.
“Yet she came to Bayside, in this state, to a large summer estate known as Crestview, and there she was done to death.”
He elaborated on the size of Crestview, “an establishment of so many rooms they had to be referred to by name;” that she had been assigned by the caretaker to what was known as the yellow room, and from this yellow room she had gone to meet her death.
“We know now what she told the caretaker, to obtain admission to the house. She told her that she was married, and to whom, and we will later present the certificate of this marriage discovered—along with her other effects—through the acumen of Samuel Floyd, the chief of police in Bayside.
“Unfortunately this caretaker, one Lucy Norton, is now herself dead, under circumstances which I shall not ask you to consider. But you will learn that every effort was made to conceal and destroy not only this young woman herself, but her personal effects.
“However, we now have certain facts which point to a certain individual as guilty of this heinous crime. These facts will be presented to you by various witnesses, and you will then decide whether or not to bring in a true bill against this prisoner.
“Shall we proceed, Mr. Foreman?”
Carol was the first witness. She had made her way through the curious crowd outside on her arrival with her head high, paying no attention to the cameramen as they shot her, but in the Grand Jury room she felt as though she was before a medieval inquisition. As she sat down she sensed that the men gazing at her were unfriendly; that she represented to most of them the idle rich, who lived on the bent backs of the rest of the world. Nevertheless, she told her story clearly, the finding of the house locked and Lucy gone, the discovery by Freda—now unfortunately departed into the limbo of domestic service elsewhere—and her own brief sight of the body.
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