“Well, be gob, sor, ye’re makin’ th’ dose harder to take than ever,” Costello muttered. “First ye tell us that th’ same felly kilt th’ both o’ them; then ye demonstrate beyant th’ shadder o’ a doubt that no one livin’ could ’a’ struck th’ blows as kilt ’em. What’s th’ answer, if anny?”
“Hélas, as yet there is none,” de Grandin returned. “Tomorrow, when the funeral has been held, I shall investigate, and probably I shall be wiser when I finish. Until that time we only know that some one for some motive as yet unguessed has done away with son and father, and from the difficult technique of both the murders, I am most confident is was the same assassin who perpetrated them. As for the motive—”
”That’s just it, sor,” Costello interrupted. “There ain’t none.”
“Précisément, mon vieux, as I was saying, this seeming absence of motive may prove most helpful to us in our researches. It is better to be lost in the midst of impenetrable night than to be witch-led by will-o’-the-wisps. So in this case. With no false leads, we commence from the beginning—start from scratch, as your athletes say. Yes, it is better so.”
“Ye—ye mean to say because there’s nayther hide nor hair o’ motive, nor rime nor reason to these here killin’s, th’ case is easier?” Costello demanded.
“You have removed the words from my lips, mon brave.”
“Glory be to God—’tisn’t Jerry Costello who’d like to see what ye’d be afther callin’ a har-rd case, then!” the Irishman exclaimed.
The little Frenchman grinned delightedly. “Forgive me if I seem to jerk your leg, my old one,” he apologized. “Let us gather here tomorrow at this time, and we shall talk more straightly to the point, for we shall then know what we know not now.”
“Be gob, ’tis meself that’s hopin’ so,” Costello responded with none too much optimism in his tone.
A MOTORCADE OF BLACK AND shining limousines was ranked beneath the Lombardy poplars which stood before the Pancoast house. Frock-coated gentlemen and ladies in subdued attire ascended the front steps, late floral deliveries were unostentatiously shunted to the kitchen door and signed for by a black-coated, gray-gloved gentleman. The air in the big drawing-room was heavy with the scent of carnations and tuberoses.
“Good afternoon, Doctor Trowbridge; how are you, Doctor de Grandin?” Coroner Martin, officiating in his private capacity of funeral director, met us in the hall. “There are two seats over by that window,” he added in an undertone. “Take my advice and get them while you can, the air in here is thick enough to choke you.”
“Bien merci,” de Grandin murmured, treading an assortment of outstretched feet as he wove his way between the rows of folding chairs to the vacant seats beside the window. Arrived, he perched on the extreme forward rim of the chair, his silk hat held tenderly with both hands on his knees, his little, round blue eyes fixed unwinkingly upon the twin caskets of polished mahogany, as though he would drag their secrets from them by very force of will.
The funeral rites began. The clergyman, a man in early middle life who liked to think that Beecher’s mantle had fallen on him, was more than generous with his words. Unrelated and entirely inapposite excerpts from Scripture were sandwiched between readings from the poets, his voice broke and quavered artistically as he spoke feelingly of “these our dear departed brethren;” when the time came for final prayer I was on the verge of sleep.
“Capote d’une anguille,” de Grandin murmured angrily, “does he take the good God for a fool? Must he be telling him these poor ones met their deaths by murder? Does le bon Dieu not yet know what everyone in Harrisonville already knows by heart? Bid him say ‘Amen’ and cease, Friend Trowbridge; my neck is breaking; I can no longer bow my head!”
“S-s-s-sh!” I ordered in a venomous whisper, reinforcing my order with a sharp dig of my elbow in his ribs. “Be quiet; you’re irreverent!”
“Mordieu, I am worse; I am impatient,” he breathed in my ear, and raised his head to cast a look of far from friendly import on the praying divine.
“Ah?” I heard him breathe between his teeth. “A-a-ah?” Abruptly he bowed his head again, but I could see his sidelong glance was fixed on some one seated by the farther window.
When the interminable service was at length concluded and the guests had filed out, de Grandin made excuse to stay. The motor cars had left, and only one or two assistants of the mortician remained to set the funeral room in order, but still he lingered in the hall. “This cabinet, my friend,” he drew me toward an elaborate piece of furniture finished in vermilion lacquer and gold-leaf, “is it not a thing of beauty? And this”—he pointed to another piece of richly inlaid brass and tortoise-shell—“surely this is a work of art.”
I shrugged impatiently. “Do you think it good taste to take inventory of the furniture at such a time?” I asked acidly.
“One wonders how they came here, and when,” he answered, ignoring my remark; then, as a servant hurried by with brush and dustpan, “Can you tell me whence these came?” he asked.
The maid, a woman well past middle life, gave him a look which would have withered anyone but Jules de Grandin, but he met her frown with a smile of such frank artlessness that she relented despite herself.
“Yes, sir,” she returned. “Mr. Carlin—Mr. Pancoast, sir—God rest him!—brought them home with him when he returned from India. We used to have a ruck of such-like things, but he sold ’most all of ’em; these two are all that’s left.”
“Indeed, then Monsieur Pancoast was once a traveler?”
“Well, I don’t rightly know about that, sir. I only know the talk around the house; you see, I’ve only been here twenty years, and he came back long before that. It’s only what Mrs. Hussy—she used to cook here, and had worked for the family long before I came—it’s only what she told me that I know for certain, sir, and even that’s just hearsay.”
“Bien, quite so, exactement,” he answered thoughtfully and slipped a folded bill into her hand. “And can you by some happy chance tell one where he may find this queen among cooks, this peerless Madame Hussé?”
“Yes, sir, that I can; she’s living at the Bellefield Home. She bought an an-uty and—”
“A which?” de Grandin asked.
“An an-uty—a steady income, sir. She bought it when she left service and went to live at the home. She’s past eighty years old, and—”
“Parbleu, then we must hurry if we wish to speak with her!” de Grandin interrupted with a bow. “I thank you for the information.
“Expect me when I return, my friend,” he told me as we reached the street. “I may be early or I may be late; that depends entirely upon this Madame Hussé’s powers as a conversationist. At any rate, it would be wiser if you did not wait for me at dinner.”
IT WAS FORTUNATE WE did not wait on him, for nine o’clock had struck and dinner was long over when he came bursting in the door, his little round blue eyes alight with excitement, a smile of satisfaction on his lips. “Has the good Costello yet arrived?” he asked as he looked hastily around the study as though he half suspected the great Irishman might be hidden beneath the couch or desk.
“Not yet,” I answered, “but—” The ringing of the doorbell cut me short, and the big detective entered. A parenthesis of worry-wrinkles lay between his brows, and the look he gave de Grandin was almost one of appeal.
“Well, Doctor de Grandin, sor,” he remarked, brightening as he noted the little Frenchman’s expression, “what’s in th’ news-bag? There’s sumpin’ up yer sleeve beside yer elbow, I can see it be th’ look o’ ye.”
“You have right, my friend,” de Grandin answered. “Did not I tell you that the absence of a motive was a cheerful sign for us? But yes. Attend me!
“At Monsieur Pancoast’s late abode this afternoon I chanced to spy two objects of vertu the like of which we do not ordinarily find outside of museums. Jules de Grandin, he has traveled much, and what he knows he knows. The importation of such things is rare, fo
r they are worth their weight in gold and—a thousand pardons if I give offense—Americans as a class are not yet educated to their beauty. Only those who have lived long in the East appreciate them, and few have brought them home. Therefore I asked a most excellently garrulous maidservant who was passing if she could tell me whence they came, and though she knew but little she gave to me the clue for which I searched, for she said first that Monsieur Pancoast brought them from India—which was not so—and that she had heard as much from a former cook, which was indubitably true.
“Alors, to Bellefield I did go to interview this Madame Hussé who had once been cook for Monsieur Pancoast, and she did tell me much. Mais oui, she told me a very great deal, indeed.
“She told me, by example, that he had studied for the ministry as a young man, and had gone to preach the Gospel in Burma. She had known him from a lad, and much surprised she was when he decided on the missioner’s vocation, for he had been a—how do you say? a gay dog?—among the ladies, and such behavior as his and the minister’s black coat did not seem to her in harmony.
“Eh bien, there is no sinner so benighted he can not see the light if he will but look toward it, and so it was with this one. Young Pancoast assumed the ministry and off he went to battle with the Evil One and teach the heathen to wear clothes.
“Now what transpired in the East she does not know; but that he returned home again and not with empty pockets, she knows full well, for great was the surprise of everyone when the erstwhile poor clergyman returned and set himself up in business. And he did prosper mightily. Tiens, it was the wonder of the city how everything he touched seemed transmuted into gold. Yes. And then, though well along in years for marrying, he wedded Mademoiselle Griggsby, whose father was most wealthy and whose social standing was above reproach. By her he had one son, whose name was Harold. Does not an explanation, or at least a theory, jump to your eye?”
“Because he married Griggsby’s daughter an’ had a son named Harold?” Costello asked with heavy sarcasm. “Well, no sor; I can’t say as how me eye is troubled with any explanation jumpin’ in it yet awhile.”
“Zut, it is permissible to be stupid, but you abuse the privilege!” the little Frenchman snapped. “You know something of the East, I take it? Monsieur Kipling has nearly phrased it:
… somewheres East of Suez,
Where the best is like the worst,
And there ain’t no Ten Commandments—
“Ah? You begin to perceive? In that sun-flogged land of Burma the best is like the worst, or becomes so shortly after arrival. The white man’s morale—and morals—break down, the saint becomes a sinner overnight. The native men are worse than despicable, the native women—eh bien, who suffers hunger in an orchard or dies of thirst amid running brooks, my friends? Yes, strange things happen in the East. The laws of man may be enforced, but those of God are flouted. The man who is respectable at home has no shame in betraying any woman whose skin bears the sun’s kiss marks or at turning any shabby deal which lines his purse with gold and takes him home again in affluence. No. And Pancoast quit the ministry in Burma. A Latin or a Greek or Anglican priest may not quit his holy orders unless he is ecclesiastically unfrocked, but clergymen of the Protestant sects may lay their office down as lightly as a businessman resigning his position. Pancoast did. He said as much to Madame Hussé when once he had a bursting-out of confidence. Remember, she had known him from a little lad.
“Now, what have you to say?”
“Well, sor,” Costello answered slowly, “I know ye’re speakin’ truth about th’ East. I served me time in th’ Philippines, an’ seen many a man go soft in morals underneath that sun, which ain’t so different from th’ sun in Burma. I’m afther thinkin’, but—”
“There is a friend of Monsieur Pancoast, a boyhood chum, who went in business with him after his return,” de Grandin broke in. “By good chance it may be that you know him; his name is Dalky, and he was associated with Pancoast until some ten years since, when they had a quarrel and dissolved their partnership. This Monsieur Dalky, perhaps, can be of ser—”
The strident ringing of the telephone cut through his narrative.
“It’s you they want” I told Costello, handing him the instrument.
“Hullo? Sure—been here fer—Howly Mither, is it so? I’ll be right over!”
He clashed the monophone into its hooks and turned on us with blazing eyes.
“Gentlemen,” he announced, “here’s wor-rk fer us, an’ no time to delay. Whilst we’ve been settin’ here like three dam’ fools, talkin’ o’ this an’ that, there’s murther bein’ done. ’Tis Missis Pancoast. They got her. Th’ Lord help us—they’ve wiped out the whole family, sors, right beneath our very noses!”
3. The Message on the Card
THE SERVANT WE HAD talked with after the funeral met us in the hall when we reached the Pancoast home. “No, sir,” she answered Costello’s inquiries, “I can’t tell you much about it. Mrs. Pancoast came back from the cemet’ry in a terrible state—not crying nor taking on, but sort o’ all frozen up inside, you know. I didn’t hear her speak a word, except once. She’d gone into her bow-duer upstairs and laid down on the couch, and along about four o’clock I thought maybe a cup o’ tea might help her some, so I went up with it. She’d got up, and was standing looking at a picture o’ Mr. Harold in his uniform that hung on the wall—an almost life-sized portrait it is. Just as I come into the room—I didn’t knock, for I didn’t want to disturb her if she was sleeping—she said, ‘O, my baby; my belovèd baby boy!’ Just that and nothing else, sir. No crying or anything, you understand. Then she turned and seen me standing there with the tea, and said, ‘Thank you, Jane, put it on the table, please,’ and went back and lay down on the couch. She was calm and collected as she always was, but I could see the heart of her was breaking inside her breast, all the same.
“She didn’t come down to supper, of course, so I took some toast and eggs up to her. The tea I’d brought earlier was standing stone-cold on the table, sir; she hadn’t poured a drop of it. When I went in she thanked me for the supper and had me set it on the table, and I left.
“It was something after nine o’clock, maybe, when the young woman called.”
“Eh? A young woman? Do you tell me? This is of interest. Describe her, if you please,” de Grandin ordered.
“I can’t say as I can, sir,” the woman answered. “She wasn’t very tall, and she wasn’t exactly what you’d call short, either. She was just medium, not tall nor short, thin nor fat. Her hair, as far as I could see, was dark, and her face was rather pale. I guess you’d call her pretty, though there was a sort o’ queer, goggle-eyed expression to her that made me think—well, sir, you know how young folks are these days, what with Prohibition and cocktail parties and all—if I’d smelled anything, I’d have said she’d been drinking too much, but there wasn’t any odor of alcohol about her, though she did have some kind o’ strong, sweet perfume. She asked to see Mrs. Pancoast, and when I said I didn’t think she could be seen, she said it was most urgent; that Mrs. Pancoast would surely see her if I’d take her card up. So she handed me a little note in an envelope—not just a visiting-card, sir—and I took it up, though I didn’t feel right about doing it.
“Mrs. Pancoast didn’t want to be bothered at first; told me to send the young lady away, but when she read what was written on the card her whole manner changed. She seemed all nervous and excited-like, right away, and told me to show the visitor right up.
“They stayed there talking about fifteen minutes, I should judge; then the two of ’em came down, the young lady still blear-eyed and sort o’ dazed-looking and Mrs. Pancoast in an awful hurry. She was more excited than I’d ever seen her in all the twenty years I’ve worked here. It seemed to me like she was all trembly and twitching-like, sir. They got into the taxi, and—”
“Oh ho, there wuz a taxi, wuz there?” Costello interrupted.
“Why, yes, sir; didn’t I say the young lady came
in a taxi?”
“Ye did not; an’ ye’re neglecting to tell whether ’twas th’ same one she came in that took them off, but—’
“Yes, sir, it was. She kept it waiting, sir.”
“Oh, did she, now? I don’t suppose ye noted its number?”
“No, sir, I didn’t; but—”
“Or what kind it wuz—yellow, blue or—”
“I’m not exactly certain it was a taxi, sir, now I come to think of it. It was sort o’ dark-colored, and—”
“An’ had four wheels wid rubber tires on each o’ em, I suppose? Ye’re bein’ mighty helpful to us, so ye are, I must say. Now git on wid it. What happened next?”
“Nothing happened, sir. They drove off and I went on about my work. First I tidied up the bow-duer and took away the supper tray—Mrs. Pancoast hadn’t touched a bite—then I came downstairs and—”
“Howly St. Bridget! Will ye be gittin’ on wid it?” Costello almost roared. “We’ll admit fer th’ sake o’ argyment that ye done yer duties and done ’em noble, but what we’re afther tryin’ to find out, if ye’d please be so kind as to tell us, is when ye first found out Mrs. Pancoast had been kilt, and how ye found it out.”
The woman’s eyes snapped angrily. “I was coming to that,” she answered tartly. “I’d come down to the basement to wash the supper things from Mrs. Pancoast’s tray, when I heard a ringing at the lower front door—the tradesmen’s door, you know. I went to answer it, for Cook had gone, and—oh, Mary, Mother! It was terrible!
“She lay there, gentlemen, head-foremost down the three steps that leads to the gate under the porch stairs, and blood was running all over the steps. I almost fainted, but luckily I remembered to call the coroner to come and take it—her, I mean—away. Oh, I’ll never, never be able to go up those service steps again!”
“Ten thousand small and annoying active little blue devils!” de Grandin swore. “Do you tell me they took her away—removed the body before we had a chance to view it?”
“Yes, sir; of course. I knew the proper thing to do was not to touch it—her, I mean—until the coroner had come, so I ’phoned him right away and—”
The Best of Jules de Grandin Page 27
