The Moving Finger

by Natalie Sumner Lincoln

  “Why are you staying here in the dark, Vera?” she inquired. “Oh, I beg pardon,” perceiving for the first time that Vera was not alone; then as her eyes grew accustomed to the dim light she recognized Alan Noyes. A wave of emotion, instantly suppressed, shook her, and, laying one trembling hand on the nearest chair back, she waited in silence; a silence spent by Vera in glancing from one to the other, her perplexity deepening; what had arisen to estrange the surgeon and Millicent? And if they had quarreled, why had he returned to be a guest in her mother’s house? Vera’s expression betrayed her doubts, and Noyes, who had edged imperceptibly nearer, perceived her hesitancy.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Porter,” he said, and the effort to repress all emotion made his voice devoid of feeling.

  “Good evening,” responded Millicent with equal coolness. “It is Dr. Noyes, is it not?”

  Noyes flushed hotly. “Yes, I returned, I—”

  Mrs. Porter’s entrance broke in on his stammered explanations. She wasted no words, but advanced with outstretched hand.

  “Welcome back,” she exclaimed in cordial greeting. “I could hardly believe Murray when he said you were here. Have you seen Craig?”

  “Not yet, I—” Noyes brightened perceptibly at her cordiality. “I was just telling your daughter and Miss Deane that I missed my steamer and—”

  “Came back here, naturally,’ put in Mrs. Porter blandly. “We would not pardon your going elsewhere, would we, Millicent?” addressing her daughter who had stepped over to the mantelpiece and was absently fingering one of the Sevres vases.

  “No, certainly not,” she remarked without turning around. Mrs. Porter’s eyebrows met in a frown, but whatever rejoinder she would have made was cut short by an announcement from Murray as he waited in the doorway.

  Dr. Thorne is here to see you, madam.”

  Good gracious! I had forgotten.” Mrs. Porter moved toward the door. “Wait for me, Dr. Noyes. I will come back at once.” And she walked majestically into the hall, Murray holding aside the portieres for her. He was about to release the portieres when Millicent, without a glance at Noyes, who had watched her every movement, hurried into the hall. Apparently unconscious of Vera’s continued presence, Noyes turned restlessly to the nearest window and looked out with unseeing eyes. Vera stared at him, in indecision, for a brief second, then left the room. But in the hall she found her way to the staircase blocked by Mrs. Porter’s ample figure and paused, not liking to brush past her, and at that instant Beverly Thorne appeared from the reception-room where Murray had ushered him on his arrival.

  “Good evening.” His bow and greeting included both Mrs. Porter and Vera, then he addressed the older woman directly. “My man-servant, Cato, told me that you had telephoned for me, and I came at once.”

  “Thank you.” Mrs. Porter was graciousness itself, but the smiling eyes hid intent watchfulness. “I find that the message was telephoned you prematurely; I am sorry to have troubled you—” A gesture completed the sentence.

  “You mean”—Thorne advanced nearer—“that you do not require my professional services for your son?”

  “Yes, doctor.” Mrs. Porter’s eyes shifted to the hat stand where Thorne’s hat and overcoat and medicine bag were lying. “It was good of you to come so promptly, but since I telephoned you my son’s regular physician has arrived, and so—”

  Thorne took a step toward the hat stand, then paused. “May I ask you to give a message to Dr. Washburn—”

  “Dr. Washburn is not here,” interjected Mrs. Porter hastily. “I refer to Dr. Alan Noyes, who has just returned.” She had a carrying voice and her words reached other ears than her companions’, for as she ceased speaking, Detective Mitchell emerged from the back hall, an eager light in his eyes.

  “You say Dr. Noyes is here,” he exclaimed, ignoring manners in his interest. “Then I must see him at once.”

  “I fail to see why,” retorted Mrs. Porter, whose violent start at sight of the detective was not lost on Thorne. “Dr. Noyes is here to attend my son, and his presence is required in the sick room.”

  “I must have a word with him. I will not detain him long.” Mitchell’s insistence was not to be denied. “Where is Dr. Noyes?”

  Mrs. Porter stiffened, but her angry retort was checked by a voice behind her.

  “I am here,” announced Noyes, looking out on the group from between the drawing-room portieres. “Who wants me?”

  “I do, Detective Mitchell of the Central Office.” Mitchell scanned the surgeon’s face with close attention. “We can’t talk here,” glancing disapprovingly about the large square hall.

  “You can use the library.” But the permission did not come graciously from Mrs. Porter; she never took kindly to having her plans thwarted even in trifling details. “Make your interview as brief as possible, Mr. Mitchell, as I desire to have Dr. Noyes see my son.”

  “I will come upstairs in a few minutes,” promised Noyes, before the detective could make reply, and, stepping past Vera, who had been a silent witness of the scene, the Englishman led the way to the library. Thorne, who had picked up his hat and overcoat preparatory to leaving the house, was detained by a gesture from Mitchell.

  “Come with us, doctor,” he said, and after a moment’s hesitancy Thorne went with them, ignoring Mrs. Porter’s indignant glance and half-extended hand to stop him.

  The library lamps were lighted, and the fire replenished by Murray some minutes before burned brightly on the hearth. Noyes, his manner suggesting the host rather than a guest in the house, signed to Mitchell to draw up a chair, then glanced inquiringly at Thorne, and the detective hastened to introduce them.

  “This is Dr. Beverly Thorne who is assisting me in my investigation of the murder of Mr. Bruce Brainard,” he said, and the two men bowed. “Now, Dr. Noyes,” as Thorne took a chair near at hand, “let’s be brief. Why did you leave here Tuesday morning?”

  “To catch the steamer St. Louis—but I reached New York too late.”

  “Humph!” The detective eyed him searchingly. “It is not on record that you tried to catch the steamer. I had the piers and booking-offices of the steamship companies watched.”

  “Did you?” Noyes’ raised eyebrows expressed polite surprise. “Why?”

  “Because I desired certain information,” tartly. “Why did you leave here without bidding Mrs. Porter good-by, or the nurses?”

  “I said good night to Mrs. Porter and her daughter on Monday night—they both were aware of my plans—as for the nurses, Mrs. Hall and Miss Deane, they had my written instructions and Dr. Washburn was to take over the case in my absence.”

  Mitchell looked at him steadfastly. “Then you claim that your departure on Tuesday morning was not on the spur of the moment?”

  “I do.”

  Mitchell shot an inquiring glance at Thorne, who promptly joined in the conversation.

  “I understand you were expecting a cable from England,” he began. And Noyes turned instantly and gave him his full attention. “Did you receive that cable?”

  “Yes.”

  “At what hour?”

  “Let me see.” Noyes thought a minute. “I imagine it was about twenty minutes of three Tuesday morning when I was called on the long-distance telephone and the cable message repeated to me.”

  “Twenty minutes of three”—Thorne did some rapid calculating, and when he spoke again his manner was grave. “It was at that hour or thereabouts that Deputy Coroner McPherson contends Brainard was murdered. Did you hear no sound from his room?”

  “No,” shortly. “I spent most of the night in this library, and this old house, with its thick brick walls, is sound-proof.”

  “Quite true,” acknowledged Thorne, and his manner showed disappointment. “Too bad, doctor; I had hoped that you might give us some light on Brainard’s death, as you were up and awake practically all night on Monday.”

  “There was one other person up, also—Miss Deane,” volunteered Noyes, and Thorne’s piercing eyes
bored into him. “Even she, in the next room, heard no sound—while I was down here.”

  “How did you know Miss Deane never detected any sound in Brainard’s bedroom?” demanded Mitchell swiftly.

  “I read it in the newspapers.”

  “That brings me to another point.” Mitchell bent forward in his chair in his eagerness. “You left here early Tuesday morning, ostensibly to catch the steamer St. Louis, which you say you missed—then where have you been staying since then, and how did you leave this country place early Tuesday morning without anyone seeing you, and get into Washington?”

  “That is my affair, Mr. Mitchell, and I question your right to quiz me on the subject.” Noyes’ face hardened, and there was a glint of anger in his eyes.

  “Here’s my authority.” Mitchell displayed his badge. “I’m in charge of this case, and I consider you a material witness, and as such you are amenable to the law.”

  “You forget I am a British subject.”

  “That won’t prevent my getting legal authority through the State Department, if necessary, to summon you to court when this case goes to trial,” retorted Mitchell. “Take it from me, you can’t dodge the issue.”

  “I am not striving to dodge it.” Noyes spoke with angry emphasis. “Surely, gentlemen, you are not striving to fasten the crime on me?”

  Thorne, watching him intently, wondered at the almost fanatical light that leaped for an instant into Noyes’ deep sunken eyes, then died out as Mitchell responded.

  “I am seeking information to clear up the mystery surrounding Brainard’s death,” he said roughly. “If it involves you, so much the worse—for you.”

  “Tut! No threats are necessary,” broke in Thorne. “You go too far, Mitchell,” meeting the detective’s stony glare with composure. Then he turned courteously to Noyes. “You and Miss Deane are the only ones known to have been up and about this house on Monday night, between midnight and early morning; and we are seeking to learn from every source the identity of the third person who was also up and about—”

  “A third person?” Noyes looked at him, startled. “What third person do you refer to?”

  “The murderer,” dryly. “The quest sifts down to you and Miss Deane, doctor; Miss Deane has cleared herself of suspicion”—with emphasis—“while you—”

  “Have not.” Noyes eyed his inquisitors with sharp intentness. “Kindly state your reasons for intimating that I killed a man whom I only met for the first time on Monday evening—barely ten hours before he was found murdered in his bed.”

  “It’s a bit unusual to give reasons,” said Mitchell dubiously, but a nod from Thorne reassured him, and he continued, more quickly: “You admit you were up all night Monday, doctor; you disappeared early Tuesday morning without leaving word how or where you were going; you won’t tell us where you spent the past few days; and you haven’t told us what brings you back to this house today.”

  “Surely, the fact of my voluntary return clears me of all suspicion,” argued Noyes heatedly.

  “Not necessarily,” retorted Thorne. “Your actions lead us to suppose one of two motives inspired you to disappear so promptly Tuesday morning before the discovery of Brainard’s murder. Don’t interrupt,” as Noyes moved restlessly. “Either you were guilty or you were seeking to protect the guilty party.” Noyes sat rigidly in his chair, his expression blank as Thorne paused and scanned him narrowly. “Now, doctor, which is it?”

  Thorne’s question did not receive an immediate response, and the detective assumed a self-congratulatory air as he waited for Noyes to speak, but Thorne, never taking his eyes from the Englishman, waited with concealed anxiety for his next words. They were slow in coming; apparently Noyes was feeling his way.

  “Sifted down to bed-rock, you have nothing against me except an unavoidable absence of body at the time Brainard’s murder was discovered. My so-called ‘disappearance’ was but a coincidence,” said Noyes finally, and he looked at Thorne. “I understand you are a surgeon.”

  “I am.”

  Then you must be aware that cutting a man’s throat is a difficult operation.” Noyes spoke slowly, impressively. “According to the newspaper accounts which I read, Brainard’s throat was cut from right to left, and that he was found lying on the right side of the bed; therefore, if such was the case, the wound must have been inflicted by a right-handed man.”

  “Do you mean to claim as your defense that you are left-handed?” demanded Mitchell.

  “No, not originally left-handed.” Noyes threw back the officer’s cape which he still wore, and disclosed an empty coat sleeve pinned across his chest. “I left my right arm on a battlefield of France,” he added.

  There was a long silence broken by a scream from the hall. Springing to his feet Mitchell darted through the open door and down the hall, Noyes and Thorne at his heels. All three paused at sight of Millicent Porter on the lower step of the staircase.

  “My papers!” she gasped. “Someone has stolen my papers!”

  Noyes’ left arm supported her as she staggered and almost fell. Thorne, standing somewhat in the background, whistled low at sight of the Englishman’s expression as he bent above Millicent.

  “So—the red herring across the trail,” he muttered below his breath, and started violently at finding Vera Deane at his elbow.

  Chapter XIV

  Pro and Con

  The dining-room at Thornedale Lodge looked particularly cozy in the soft lamplight, and old black Cato, surveying the room, could not repress a smile of subdued gratification. He considered himself “one ob de fam’ly,” and it was doubtful if even Beverly Thorne had as great an affection for his ancestral home as did the old man who in his youth had been a slave on the Thorne plantation. Year in and year out he had worked on the place, being advanced from field hand to house servant in the early days following the Civil War, and when the fortunes of the Thornes were at the lowest ebb he had worked without wages so as to help “Old Miss” educate her boy, Beverly, and keep the homestead from going under the hammer. Illiterate, kindly, faithful, Cato epitomized the spirit of the old-style darkey, to whose watchful care Southern men had not feared to leave their wives and children when they went to fight with Robert Lee.

  Cato had been true to every trust reposed in him. In his humble hands Mrs. Thorne had left the farming of the few acres still remaining to the once large estate, and but for his “truck garden” she would have gone without many necessities. And when Mrs. Thorne grew older and more feeble, Cato, when crops were bad, did not hesitate to do odd “chores” for neighboring farmers, receiving in return poultry or fresh vegetables which would be served to Mrs. Thorne as only Cato knew how to cook them. But even these delicacies could not prolong Mrs. Thorne’s feeble hold on life, and Cato, bottling up his own sorrow, turned to his “young marster” with the same blind devotion which had characterized his affection for Colonel and Mrs. Thorne.

  It was found on reading Mrs. Thorne’s will that a small legacy left by her husband, who had pre-deceased her by twenty years, had been carefully hoarded against the day when Beverly Thorne would be old enough to go to a medical college, and true to his promise to his mother he eventually entered Johns Hopkins University, and was graduated with honors; but the spirit of adventure, inherited from some doughty ancestor, had sent him far afield. In his absence Cato had acted as caretaker of the “lodge,” and when Beverly once again entered the house he had exclaimed with delight at finding every piece of furniture, every heirloom, valued by his mother, in its accustomed place, and showing by its excellent condition the care lavished upon it by Cato.

  Cato’s pleasure in the cozy appearance of the dining-room was shared by Detective Mitchell, who even forgot his impatience to see Beverly Thorne as he examined the handsome animal heads and skins hung on the walls.

  “Fine trophies,” he commented. “I had no idea Dr. Thorne was such a sportsman.”

  “He didn’t kill all de critters,” acknowledged Cato. “Some has been in
de fam’ly a long time, far’s I can remember, an’ dat’s consid’able far.”

  “So you’ve been in the family a long time?” Mitchell looked at him shrewdly. “Remember the Civil War?”

  “Jes’ like it ware yesserday,” promptly. “An’ seein’ yo’ all a-peepin’ an’ a-peerin’ at de Porter house makes me think ob when de ‘rebs’ an’ de ‘Yanks’ uster camp out hyar-abouts, an’ I’d wake in de mawnin’ an’ find de Yanks hyar an’ de nex’ day dey’d vamoose, an’ de rebs would come an’ take what was lef’ ob de fence rails ter make camp-fires.”

  “But they couldn’t run off with that stone wall toward the river,” remarked Mitchell. “Pity the wall didn’t extend around the whole place and you wouldn’t have had so much trouble. But perhaps the wall wasn’t built in those days?”

  “Oh, but ’twas. Ole Judge Porter, him dat was de gran’son ob de fust owner ob Dewdrop Inn, he had dat wall set dar ter cut off de ribber view, ’caise he hated de Thornes.”

  “But why?”

  “’Caise his gran’mother jilted Colonel Thorne jes’ de day befo’ de weddin’, to marry his gran’daddy.”

  “Do you mean to say seriously that that dead and gone romance is at the bottom of the present-day feud between the Thornes and the Porters?”

  “I ’spect it are.” Cato crossed the room and adjusted a rug to his taste. “Ain’t nebber heard nuffin’ else.”

  “And on the strength of that Mrs. Porter refuses to receive Dr. Thorne as a guest in her house,” Mitchell laughed. “It doesn’t seem possible in these enlightened days that people will nurse a grievance nearly a hundred years old. And apparently Mrs. Porter intends passing the feud to the next generation, and keeping her daughter and Dr. Thorne at loggerheads.” Mitchell jingled the keys in his pocket. “It has all the atmosphere of a Montague and Capulet affair—except for the lack of romance.”

  Old Cato scratched his bald head and the little tufts of wool still remaining, in perplexity.