by Helen Reilly
The hole in the woods doored by water was lonely and very still. Less than a quarter of a mile from the Chalet and lights and people and voices, it might as well have been a hundred. Two startled deer with eyes like glass and what looked remarkably and unpleasantly like the hindquarters of a bear disappearing into the forest on his left—but no Madame Flavelle.
Todhunter stroked his chin thoughtfully, lie had lost the Frenchwoman somewhere along the way—and yet no other paths branched off the one they had traveled. Moonlight and blackness. He had a flashlight in his pocket. He hadn't used it before, afraid of alerting his quarry. He took it out, switched it on.
Ranks of green in layers stared back derisively in the cone ol moving light. He sighed. The Frenchwoman could be standing in there within a couple of yards, giving him the merry ha-ha, and he wouldn’t be any the wiser. There might be other things in there, too. These woods were the real McCoy. No fooling. Wild cats maybe. . . . He wished he had his dog, George, with him. He was distinctly uneasy. It might be all very w’ell for the inspector who was afraid of nothing, but he didn’t like it. He listened. Not a sound. There was no wind down here at the bottom of this cup in the mountains. The stillness was absolute. It was suddenly broken. A groan broke it. The small grunt of agony stopped. Then there wasn’t anything.
Todhunter had already turned away. He turned back and ran to the top of the low bank. Just below, a narrow strip of shingly beach went left and right. Ten feet to the right a dark shape that was a man’s body was sprawled across a fallen tree trunk above the water. Blood covered what could be seen of his face.
The man was Daniel Font.
Todhunter jumped down on the strip of shingle, ran forward, and knelt.
EIGHT
Daniel Font wasn’t dead. As Todhunter felt for a pulse Font groaned again and tried to roll over. The little detective explored gently with his fingertips. Font had been hit over the back of the head and knocked out. Already a sizeable lump was rising at the base of the skull behind the right ear. While he was unconscious he had been thoroughly searched. Every one of his pockets was inside out. He had his own coat on. There was another coat there, lying close to the log. It was a pale gabardine jacket in a lamentable state of repair. Its pockets were also inside out, and the lining had been torn away in places. Near the jacket was a woman's pliafilm rain cape in a crumpled heap.
Todhunter rolled the spare jacket in the rain cape, made a loop of the ends, slung it over his arm and contemplated the stricken man. No telling how seriously Font was hurt. A doctor ought to examine him before he was moved. The Chalet and help were almost a quarter of a mile away and Todhunter disliked the idea of leaving the man alone in that spot.
Daniel Font solved the problem himself.
His eyes opened. He sat up, stared around, saw the little detective and stumbled to his feet. His eyeballs were a white gleam in the bloody mask of his face. He looked at the bundle Todhunter held, and caught an overhanging tree branch to steady himself.
There was a moment of silence.
Todhunter said mildly, “Yes, Mr. Font?” and Daniel Font gave his head a shake to clear it.
“I—someone conked me, and I—”
His voice was thick. He was clearly groggy and in no condition to talk coherently. But there were no bones broken. Todhunter said, “Do you think you can walk, Mr. Font?” and Font nodded.
Todhunter had a job getting him up the bank. His knees kept buckling and he was a heavy weight. The darkness and the rough ground, even with the torch Todhunter held on the thread of path, were hampering. Help arrived unexpectedly before they had made much progress. Voices and lights—three men came hastily along the path armed with powerful torches. Constable Duvette was in the lead. He was followed by the manager of the Chalet, a Mr. Brownell, and Nils Gantry. The three men pulled up at the sight of Daniel Font, leaning on Todhunter. Exclamations, stares; the little detective explained how he had found Font.
“He needs a doctor."
The manager had the shakes. He was aghast. One of Mrs. Questing’s guests attacked! It was terrible. Nothing like this had ever happened at Amethyst Lake before. He didn’t know what the central office would say. Yes, there was a local doctor. There was also a doctor staying at the Chalet with his wife. The manager hurried off in advance. Duvette and Nils between them supported Daniel Font, with Todhunter bringing up the rear, carrying his bundle.
It was the Frenchwoman who had given the alarm. Less than ten minutes earlier she had shot out of the woods like a bullet out of a gun and run full tilt into Nils Gantry in the Chalet grounds. She was on the verge of hysteria. She cried out that a man had followed her along the path under the trees, an evil-looking man, a thief.
Nils grinned over his shoulder at the little detective. Madame Flavelle said that she had eluded the man dogging her by stepping behind a tree. As soon as he had gone on she had taken to her heels. Her money was safe, and her rings. She kept exclaiming that she had fooled the wicked apache, the brigand.
They took Daniel Font to his own cottage. Candy Font was in the pretty little living room when they went in. She looked at her husband and screamed. Font said thickly, “I'm all right, Candy, I’m all right." Loretta Pilgrim came out of her bedroom pulling on a robe. She got warm water and a washcloth. Most of the blood on Font's face was from his nose. The doctor staying at the Chalet, a doctor Passgrove, came. He examined Font, and was reassuring.
He didn’t believe there’d be any ill effects beyond an extremely sore head. He spoke paternally to Mrs. Font, with whom he was evidently taken, and went. Todhunter had had a quiet word with the constable, and Duvette then took over.
Daniel Font hadn't seen his assailant. He was standing at the end of the path, a little off the path just over the water, when something hit him from behind. The next thing he knew he was lying on the ground and Mr.—Todhunter?—Todhunter, was there.
“What were you doing out in those woods, Mr. Font?"
It was the $64 question. The bundle Todhunter had carried was lying on a table for all to see. Todhunter undid it, staring wideeyed at the crumpled pliafilm rain cape, the ruined gabardine jacket. Candy Font and her mother were clearly at sea.
Not Daniel Font. He sat back in his chair and stretched out his legs. Relaxation—and resignation. He held a glass of wrhiskey in his hand. He drained the glass and put it down. He looked straight at Duvette.
“I was going to throw that jacket, my jacket into the lake.”
He spoke tiredly, his eyes steady. He went on, “I’ll tell you, Constable. I should have told you before but—” he shrugged, “—well, I didn’t. The jacket is mine. It had blood on it. I tried to wash it out and couldn’t, all of it. The blood was Davidson’s. I got it on the jacket when I went into Davidson’s compartment on the train and found him dead.”
Font stopped there as though he had finished, and there wasn’t anything more to say.
Duvette said, “And this, Mr. Font?” and touched the rain cape.
“It’s my wife’s. I wrapped the wet jacket in it.”
The luxurious little guest house buried in its nest of flowers and bushes and trees was very quiet. An indrawn breath from Candy Font, very straight in a stiff chair, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her eyes enormous, was loud.
Loretta Pilgrim said, “But Candy never had—” and stopped.
It was too late. The initials R. O’H. were stamped on a tape inside the rain cape. It had to come out in the open then. It did come out. It was Rose O’Hara who told them.
Rose was sitting in darkness on the veranda outside her room smoking a tasteless cigarette and gazing at the lake when Todhunter arrived at the door. She had come down from the Chalet shortly after rejoining the Beldings and Loretta Pilgrim and Nils and Candy.
The first thing she did when she got back to the lodge was examine the bag. The jacket wrapped in her rain cape was gone and the key was in the dressing table drawer.
Three of our aircraft are missing—Elizabet
h and Colonel Eden hadn’t reappeared; Candy had asked w^here Daniel was. Rose had ignored that, and Nils’s fixed glance at her disordered hair, her bitten lipstick, saying that she was tired and was going to bed. He hadn’t objected.
Sitting in darkness, staring out into the darkness listlessly, Rose had a feeling of letdown, in spite of the fact that Daniel was safe. Mission accomplished. It was over now, everything was over. '1 here was nothing to keep her at Amethyst Lake any longer. She might as well go back to the bookshop and her job. Her mouth twisted a little when she thought of how much she had looked forward to the trip, the journey with Nils, being here with him.
Then Todhunter came. The moment she saw the little gray detective she knew something was wrong. Her heart began to pound.
Todhunter merely said that Mr. Font had run into a little trouble but was all right and that Constable Duvette wanted to ask her some questions.
Rose was afraid then. When she stepped into the living room in the Font cottage and caught sight of the things lying across a table she realized that the jig was up. There was only one thing to do. She gave the whole story, crisply. She might have been talking into a vacuum. There was no interruption. At the end of it Duvette turned slowly to Daniel.
“You didn’t find Mr. Davidson dead, Mr. Font. He was alive when you entered his compartment. You killed him.”
Daniel stared at space. There was no change in his expression.
He said quietly, almost indifferently, a man prepared for a long siege, “No, I didn’t kill Davidson. He was dead when I went in.”
“Then if you found Davidson dead, if you didn’t shoot him, if you had nothing to do with his death, why didn’t you give the alarm?”
Silence. From Daniel, from Candy, and from Loretta Pilgrim. Rose looked from one woman to the other. Their faces were white, empty. Both of them knew why Daniel hadn’t said anything— both of them. It was intolerable. It took her only a moment to make up her mind. She dug clenched hands into the pockets of her cardigan, and spoke.
“Mr. Duvette, Mr. Font didn’t give the alarm because he found his wife’s glove in Mr. Davidson’s compartment when he went in, and knew his wife had been there a few minutes earlier.”
Miniature pandemonium. The pretty room shivered and shook.
“I didn’t kill Mr. Davidson. I didn’t. I didn’t, I didn’t.”
Candy’s high voice rang. She threw herself around in her chair threshingly. Loretta’s voice rode the tumult. She sent a glance full of smoldering rage at Rose, knelt beside Candy’s chair and took the wrenching hands in hers.
“Don’t be silly, Candy dear. Of course you didn’t kill Davidson. No one thinks you did for a moment—not for a moment. This whole thing is ridiculous. You stopped at the door of Mr. Davidson’s compartment on your way from the lounge car and said a word or two and then you rejoined me and we were together from then on. If Daniel found your glove and if he jumped, foolishly, to the wrong conclusion, that can’t be helped. It doesn’t involve you in any way. Not in the least. It was stupid of him, extremely stupid, but I suppose that coming on Mr. Davidson like that was a shock—so terrible—and he didn't have time to think. As for Rose O’Hara—" this time her look at Rose was merely sad, censoring, “—she has been anything but straightforward. Anything but that. Why didn’t you come to us, Rose, to Candy or to me, and we would have explained the whole thing?”
It was turning the tables with a vengeance. Loretta Pilgrim did it very well. It might be true. But surely—Rose thought of the voices she had heard in Davidson’s compartment shortly after he entered it—the woman with Davidson had done more than just pause and say a word.
Solid, foursquare, not to be diverted, the constable hammered at Candy. Todhunter had given him certain information and he intended to act on it. “Now, Mrs. Font—” Candy, very lovely with her tear-stained face still wet, but calmer, was forced to admit that she had gone into Davidson’s compartment “for just a moment,” and finally, that the door might have been closed while she was with him. Might have been, she would go no farther than that. She couldn’t possibly say in seconds how long she had been there, certainly not long. The purpose of her visit? It had no purpose. It was just a thing, a friendly thing.
“You're sure of that, Mrs. Font?”
Candy was very sure, just as sure as she was that Davidson was alive and well when she left him.
Duvette struck, suddenly. “Mrs. Font, you’re wearing something on a chain around your neck, under your dress. Would you care to show it to me?’'
Terror, a flash of it, pure and unadulterated in Candy’s eyes. She was sitting a little forward, elbows propped on the chair arms, her hands loosely clasped, her face lifted. She froze.
Daniel watching from under his brows, the constable, the little gray man in the shadows, Loretta Pilgrim on guard ready to defend her daughter but caught unprepared; Candy came unstuck.
She said falteringly, "It’s just a—a chain. Why shouldn’t I wear it? I don’t know what you mean . . But her hand went, revealingly, to her breast, with a clasping movement.
Constable Duvette broke her down. If she didn’t care to comply with his request voluntarily he would take the necessary steps, get a search warrant . . .
Candy interrupted him. “All right. Very well. I’ll show you. But it has nothing to do with Gil Davidson’s death. It’s mine. I didn’t want to take it but Gil insisted. It was his mother's. Fie had no use for it and when I admired it he put it on my finger and said something about its being where it belonged, on a pretty woman’s hand.”
While Candy was saying this she was unfastening a clasp at the back of her neck under the curls. She drew out a gold chain. A ring dangled from it.
Duvette took the chain. The ring swung gently. He looked at it. They all did. It was a dinner ring, a large pear-shaped diamond surrounded by smaller stones set in platinum. If it had been real, Rose thought, it would have been worth a small fortune, but of course it wasn’t. It was too big.
It was real.
The small man in gray said mildly, “May I see, please? I know something about jewels.”
He took the ring, examined it under a light, weighed it in his hand, turned it this way and that. He had had a great deal of experience with precious stones. Guessing at their depth, tone, brilliance and value was a hobby of his. More than one jeweler envied his eye. He gave the ring back to Duvette.
He said it was genuine and that its value, at a rough guess and depending on the market, could be anywhere from $50,000 to $80,000.
The room became a small brightly lit charnel house filled with mummies. They were all motionless. No one spoke. Davidson had been shot to death in his compartment on the train. Daniel had just been savagely attacked here at the Lake. Was it for the little round glitter, $50,000 worth of it, was that what the killer was after—and had failed to get because all the time it was around Candy Font’s neck under her dress?
Of them all, Daniel was the most completely stunned. The ring was a surprise to him, there was no possible doubt of that. It was also a shock. He looked worse than he had looked when he first came in, white, ill, grim. His eyes went to Candy, rested on her curiously, as though he were seeing her for the first time. The accusation in them was deadly.
Candy fled from it, hands thrown out, pushing it away. She gave a moan.
“Oh no, no,” she exclaimed piteously. “Gil Davidson wouldn’t have given it to me like that if he knew it was real and worth all that money. I don’t believe it, I can’t believe it. It’s impossible.”
She was convincing. Daniel’s expression lightened a little. He slumped back in his chair. Loretta Pilgrim gathered herself together and spoke. The outraged dignity she showed was quiet. She refused, for both Candy and herself, to have anything further to do with the ring.
“It was Mr. Davidson’s mother’s. He could have had no idea of its value or he wouldn’t have given it to Candy like that, on a whim, because it would look pretty on her hand. We don’t want i
t. It belongs to Mr. Davidson’s heirs.” She stood with a hand on Candy’s shoulder. Candy’s eyes were cast down.
The constable said stolidly that he would take custody of the ring for the time being and went on questioning Candy in his painstaking way. She said, her brow furrowed, that Gilbert Davidson had taken the ring from the camera case and that, yes, there were other things in the case, wrapped in white tissue. She hadn’t seen them, didn’t know what they were or how many there were. Gilbert had given her the ring only? Only the ring.
Rose felt an enormous release of pressure. It was obvious then why Davidson had been killed. It was for the fortune in jewels he had been carrying on his person. After Candy left, and before Daniel arrived, the thief and murderer entered Davidson’s compartment, shot him and fled with the contents of the camcra c.ise— only to discover that the hoard was incomplete, that the ring, perhaps the most valuable single item, was missing. The killer suspected that Candy might have it, that was why her belongings, and Loretta Pilgrim’s, had been ransacked on the train that morning. Not finding the ring, the killer had turned his attention elsewhere. It was for the missing ring that Daniel had been attacked that night.
Rose pointed this out and the constable and Todhunter ngrced. Neither man had been watching her when she left the train, but someone else had, someone with sharp eyes, who noticed her preoccupation with the suitcase holding Daniel Font’s bloodstained jacket. Daniel had cut in ahead of the thief, going to her, Rose O’Hara’s, room in the lodge, unlocking the suitcase with the key she had given him, taking out the coat wrapped in the rain cape. He had been followed into the woods and bashed over the head before he could throw the bundle into the lake.
Duvette was both jubilant and outraged. He was beginning to see daylight, it would have come sooner except for the lies that had been told. Go into that later, at the moment he had more immediate business. Madame Flavelle had been in those woods when Font was there, she could be the one who had struck him down. The constable and Todhunter left the cottage. Rose went with them.
