Afternoon Tea Mysteries Vol Three

by Anthology

  I did as he requested, but not to the point of taking a cigar. I could think without its aid as well as he.

  “Now, sir,” he immediately began, “you were the first man to enter upon the scene of crime. May I ask if you will be so good as to relate afresh and circumstantially your whole experience with Mr. Gillespie? You cannot be too minute in your de tails. Somehow or somewhere we have missed the clue necessary to the clearing up of this case. You may be able to supply it. Will it bore you too much to try?”

  “Not in the least. I am as anxious as yourself to get at the bottom of this business.”

  “Begin, then, sir. You won’t mind my closing my eyes? I find it so much easier to identify myself with the situation when I see nothing about to distract me. And, sir, since I dread speaking when actively absorbed in this kind of work, will you pardon me if I simply raise my finger when I want a minute for reflection? I know I am a crank, and not much used to gentlemen’s ways, but I appreciate kindness more than most folks, especially when it takes the form of respect paid to my whims.”

  I assured him I was only too ready to do anything which would serve to further the end we had in view; and all preliminaries being thus amicably settled he dropped his head into his hands and I began my tale in much the same language I have used in these pages. He listened without a movement while I spoke of Claire and of my entrance into the house, but his finger went up when I mentioned the appearance presented by Mr. Gillespie as he stood propping himself against the table in a condition of impending collapse.

  “Was the house quiet?” he asked. “Did you hear no sneaking step in the halls or adjacent dining-room?”

  “Not a step. I remember receiving the impression that this old gentleman and his grandchild were all alone in the house. One of the greatest surprises of my life was the discovery that there were servants in the basement and more than one member of the family on the floors above.”

  “A discovery which leads to our first argument, sir. We have taken it for granted (and certainly we were justified in doing so) that Mr. Gillespie knew whose hand poured out the poison he felt burning into his vitals. We have argued that it was this knowledge which led him to spend the final moments of his life in an extraordinary effort to settle the doubts of his favourite niece. But, sir, if he had had this knowledge, would he not have mentioned outright and without any circumlocution the name of the son he had finally settled upon as the guilty one, rather than have made use of the same vague phrase which had been his torment and hers, ever since the hour he told her of the shadowy hand he had detected hovering over his glass of medicine? With the remembrance in your mind of the few words he left behind him, are you ready to declare that you find in them any proof of his knowing then, any better than before, which of his three sons had mingled poison with his drink? And, sir,—you are a lawyer,—does it follow from any evidence we have since received that he even positively knew it was one of these three men? Might not his fears and the haunting memory of that former attempt have so worked upon his failing faculties that he took for granted it was one of his sons who had made this last effort at poisoning him?”

  “It is possible,” I admitted, “but—”

  “You don’t place much stress on the suggestion.”

  “No,” said I, “I don t. Anxious as I am that each and all of these young men should be relieved from the appalling charge of parricide, I saw too great a display of anxiety on his part for the right delivery of what he believed to hold the last communication he had to make to his favourite niece, for me to think these final words of his contained nothing more definite than a repetition of his former vague surmise. He was facing immediate death, yet all his thought, all his fast-ebbing strength, were devoted to the effort of making her know that he had not been mistaken in his former conclusion: that it was one of his sons who sought his life, and that this son had now actually succeeded in poisoning him. That he did not proceed further and name which one, was due probably to a sudden loss of strength. That he meant to say more than he did is evident from the he which follows the four words we have been considering.”

  “True, true, but my argument holds; an argument which the difficulties of the case surely justify me in advancing. You say he would never have made such an effort to insure the safe delivery of words that were a mere repetition of a former statement. Yet what more were they in the unfinished condition in which we find them? Do you think he could have been blind to the fact that he had not succeeded in mentioning the name which alone could give value to his accusation, and make its safe delivery a matter of real moment to Miss Meredith? Surely, sir, you do not believe his wits were so far gone that he regarded himself as having made his suspicions clear in those five words: one of my sons he”?

  “No, I do not. Yet who can tell. Bright as his eye was, his faculty of memory as well as of observation may have left him. Witness how he tore off the blank edge of the paper, instead of the words he wished to send.”

  “I know.”

  Sweetwater’s tone was gloomy; a cloud seemed to have settled upon his newly risen hopes.

  “Nevertheless,” I now felt bound to admit, “I can not quite bring myself to believe that he was so bewildered. On the contrary, I feel confident that he was in full possession of his faculties when he cast that dramatic glance upward, which, by a happy inspiration, I was led to interpret as meaning Hope. If we could penetrate this matter to its very core, I believe we should find the truth we seek either in those five words themselves or in the means he took of getting them to Miss Meredith. Have you ever thought, Sweetwater, that we have not given all the attention we should to the latter fact?”

  “Yes, sir.” His hands had fallen from his face, and he spoke with volubility. “It has struck you, I see, as oddly as it has us, that it was a very strange thing for him to send into the street for a messenger when he had one right at his hand.”

  “Claire, do you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “But Claire is a child; the slip of paper to which he attached such importance was unsealed and he dreaded its falling into wrong hands. Miss Meredith already knew his secret, but for him to proclaim openly that his death was due to the hatred or cupidity of one of his children would not be the act of a father who already, at the cost of so much misery to himself,—nay, as it proved, at the cost of his life,—had kept back from every ear save that of the one confidant of his misery, a knowledge of the fact that a previous attempt had been made upon his life.”

  “Yet to send into the street for a messenger! Why not send for one of the servants? Or why, if he knew which son he had cause to fear, did he not bid the child bring down one of the others?”

  “Leighton was out, George was half drunk, and Alfred was two flights up. Besides, he might have thought that an alarm of this kind would prevent the delivery of the letter on which he laid such stress. Who knows what goes on in the mind of a man conscious of having but one minute in which to perform the most important act of his life?”

  “True, true, sir; and yet there is something unnatural in his conduct, something I fail to understand. But I don’t despair. I won’t despair; we have only begun the recapitulation of details from which I hope so much; supposing we go on.” And he sunk his head again in his hands.

  I at once took up the thread of my relation at the point where I had dropped it.

  “When I approached Mr. Gillespie I noted three things besides his tortured face and sinking figure. First, that the shade was pulled up over his desk; second, that a typewriter stood close to his hand; and third, that a pot of paste, knocked over by some previous movement on his part, lay near the typewriter, with its contents oozing over a sheet of unused paper. You ask me to mention all details and I have done so.”

  Dreamily he moved his finger, but whether in thanks or in an injunction for me to continue, I could not determine. I therefore remained still.

  “I saw the paste,” he murmured. And taking this as an intimation to proceed, I went on till
I came to the moment when I pulled down the shade.

  “You glanced out as you did that?” said he, lifting his finger as a signal for me to pause.

  “Yes.”

  “And saw Mr. Rosenthal in his room in the neighbouring extension?

  “Yes.”

  “Standing how? With his back or his face to the window?”

  “His back. He was sauntering about his room.”

  “So that settles one fact. He had not been looking into Mr. Gillespie’s room at a critical moment. Had he seen that gentleman in a suffering condition or noted the curious incidents following your entrance, he would have been held to the spot by his curiosity, and you would have encountered his eager face staring down upon a scene of such uncommon interest.”

  “Very true. All he saw was the seemingly in significant incident of Mr. Gillespie emptying the contents of a wine-glass out of his window.”

  As Sweetwater had no remark to make to this, I proceeded with my narrative, relating, with a careful attention to details, my journey up-stairs, the words I had overheard at the door of Alfred’s room, my first sight of Hope, and—I was proceeding to describe the results of my intrusion into the Gillespie attic, when I perceived that Sweetwater was no longer listening. His head, which he had raised from between his hands, was turned my way, but his eyes were looking into space and his whole body was quivering in intense excitement, such as I have seldom seen. As I paused, he came back to earth and jumped to his feet.

  “Come,” he cried. “Come with me to the Gillespie house. I have an idea. It may not stand the test, it may prove a fatuous one, but—”

  The very hair on his forehead was bristling; the eagerness he tried to keep out of his voice showed itself in his eyes and in every jerking movement which he made.

  “Come,” he cried again; “it is not late. We will find the young gentlemen at home and perhaps—”

  He added nothing to that significant “perhaps,” but his repressed excitement had awakened mine, and my hat was on and I was following him down stairs before I realised that I had failed to turn out my gas.

  As I wheeled about with the intention of rectifying this oversight, I encountered Underhill’s languid figure loitering in his doorway. He accosted me with an easy:

  “Halloo, Outhwaite!” Then, as he leaned close enough to whisper in my ear, he added, in an indescribable drawl, these unexpected words:

  “I recognise your friend there. If you are piling up the evidence against poor Leighton Gillespie, you are doing wrong. No fellow with a heart like his ever put poison into his father’s wine.”

  Which shows the folly of thinking you know a man’s mind before he speaks it.

  XXXII. With the Shade Down

  NOT many words passed between Sweetwater and myself on our way up the Avenue. He had his “idea” to brood upon, while I was engaged in turning over in my mind various vague conjectures rising out of the argument we had just indulged in. But before reaching the point of our destination, I ventured upon one question.

  “Have you, during any of your investigations, public or private, learned which of the three sons of Mr. Gillespie is the greatest favourite with the old family servant, Hewson?”

  “No; that is, yes. Why do you ask?”

  “Because if it is not Leighton—”

  “And it certainly is not.”

  “Then I advise you to direct your energies towards the one he is known to like best.”

  Sweetwater stopped short and surveyed me in very evident surprise before venturing upon the following remark:

  “I should like to know just why you say that?”

  I replied by relating my interview with the butler in the drug-store, and his easy acceptance of Leighton’s guilt as implied in the arrest which had just taken place.

  Sweetwater listened and moved on; but so quickly now I could hardly keep pace with him.

  “If my idea has no will-o’-the-wisp uncertainty in it, and I have lighted upon a way out of this mystery, I will be made for life,” he declared, as we reached the Gillespie house and he paused for a moment at the foot of the steps. “But there! I’m counting chickens—something which Mr. Gryce never approves of at any stage of the game.” And rushing up the stoop, he rang the bell, while I waited below with my heart in my mouth, as they say.

  Who would respond to the summons; and if we effected an entrance—which I felt to be a matter of some doubt—whom would we be likely to come upon in a visit of this nature? George? Alfred? I did not like to ask, and Sweetwater did not volunteer to inform me.

  The opening of the door cut short my reflections as well as gave answer to my last-mentioned doubt. Old Hewson, and Hewson only, opened the door of this house; and whether this renewed encounter with his patient figure had something disappointing in it, or whether the solemn grandeur of the interior thus quietly disclosed to view produced an impression of family life that was more than painful under the circumstances, I experienced a recoil from the errand which had brought me there, and would have retreated if I had not recalled Hope’s interest in this matter, and the joy it would give her to see Leighton Gillespie proved innocent of the crime for which he was at present held in custody.

  Meantime, Sweetwater, with an air of perfect nonchalance admirably assumed, had stepped past Hewson into the house. Evidently he was accustomed to go in and out of the place at will, and though the old servant did not fail to show his indignation at this palpable infringement upon the family dignity, he did not abate a jot of his usual politeness or even watch the unwelcome intruder too closely in his passage down the hall.

  But his complaisance did not extend to me. He gave me a look which demanded a response.

  “Some formality of the law!” I whispered, hoping that the unaccustomed words would befog the old man sufficiently to cover my own embarrassment, and answer any doubts he might have as to the purpose of our errand there. And perhaps they did, for, with some muttered words, among which I heard this pathetic phrase, “There are so many of them!” he crept away and disappeared through the door leading into the dining-room. As he did so, I noted a man sitting on a settee pushed well into the corner near the study door. I did not know this man; I only noted that he sat there very quietly, and that the only movement he made at our approach was a slight raising and falling of his fingers on his crossed arms.

  We were making for the study behind the stairs, and into this room Sweetwater, after unlocking it with a key he had taken from his pocket, now walked:

  “Do you object to visiting this place again?” he asked, striking a match and reaching up to light the gas.

  Of course I answered no, yet it was not quite a pleasant experience to stand there and watch the light flickering on his face, in a spot where I had last seen the one horrid spectacle of my life.

  But when the cheerful flame had sprung up, and walls made familiar not by long seeing but close seeing had come into view, I was conscious simply of a strong desire to know why I had been brought to this room in such haste and secrecy, and what the “idea” was which had produced so marked an effect upon my singular companion.

  He showed no immediate intention of enlightening me. He was engaged in casting a keen glance about him, a glance which seemingly took in every detail of the well-remembered room; then, as if satisfied that nothing had been disturbed since his last visit, he advanced to the window and pulled down the shade.

  “We will not have the curious Mr. Rosenthal giving away our secrets,” he dryly commented. “And this is our secret, is it not? You won’t feel called upon to repeat outside what goes on between us in this room?”

  “Certainly not.”

  The assurance seemed unnecessary, but I did not regret giving it when I saw how it relieved him of all doubt, and caused his eye to lighten and his manner to grow easy as he went on to say:

  “So far as mortal calculation can go, this room has not been entered by anyone but the police or persons acting under the instructions of the police, since the hour
when Mr. Gillespie was carried out of it. Consequently we have a right to expect all articles remaining here to be in the same condition as on that night. This, for instance.”

  He had taken out the typewriter from a closet built in one of the corners, and set it as he spoke down in its old place on the edge of the desk.

  “Ah!” I burst forth. “Your idea is in connection with this typewriter!”

  He frowned, or almost frowned, for he was an amiable fellow; then, giving me a pleading look, observed:

  “I am young yet, Mr. Outhwaite, and it is very easy for me to deceive myself with imaginary results. You will therefore allow me a minute to myself, and if I find out that I have struck a false trail, or if my idea proves to be one I cannot sustain by facts, I’ll sing out and we will consult as to our next move.”

  “Shall I step outside?” I asked.

  But this he would not listen to.

  “All I want,” said he, “is for you to look the other way while I stoop over this typewriter.”

  I naturally felt disposed to humour him, and meanwhile he remained so still that I was confident he did not touch the instrument. But the cry which impetuously burst from him after a moment of intense stillness startled me so I can never forget it. It was something between a sob and a shout, and it was so suggestive of triumph that I could not forbear turning about and rushing up to the instrument over which he still stooped.

  He greeted me with a look of delight and a rush of confused gestures.

  “See, sir; oh, see! How I wish Mr. Gryce were here! Look at the top of that key, sir the one with the words, ‘Shift key’ on it. Yes, that one; that! What is the matter with it? Tell me.”

  “The face of it is obscured. I can scarcely read the words. There is something on it. Something like—”