“She argued, plead with me. All this was in whispers. The necessity of whispering so long irritated me.
“Her refusal, flat and final, to part with the jewels enraged me. It was then that I made the first big mistake of my life.
“I lost my temper. Men who can not control their tempers under the most trying circumstances should let crime alone. They will fail.
“I killed her—a foolish result of the folly of yielding to my rage.
“Standing there and looking at her, I pondered, with all the clarity I could command. In a second, I perceived the advisability of throwing the blame upon some other person.”
The faces of Braceway and Fulton mirrored to the others the horror of the stuff they were reading. The scene taxed the emotional balance of all of them. The evil-faced man at the typewriter, the father getting by degrees the description of his daughter’s death, the policemen waiting to put the murderer behind bars—
Abrahamson, peculiarly wrought upon by the tenseness of it all, wished he had not come. His back felt creepy. He lit a cigarette, puffed it to a torch and threw it down.
Bristow wrote on:
“Mechanically, my fingers went to a pocket in my vest and played with two metal buttons I had picked up in my kitchen the day before, Monday.
“I knew the buttons had come from the overalls of the negro, Perry Carpenter. It would be easy to drop one there, the other on the floor of my kitchen, where I had originally found them.
“That would be the beginning of identifying him as the murderer. He had been half-drunk the day before.
“The rest was simple—dropping the lavalliere links back of Number Five, placing the lavalliere in the yard of his house, and so on.
“I had one piece of luck which, of course, I did not count on when I first adopted this simple course. That was when Greenleaf asked me to help him in finding the murderer. A confiding soul—your Greenleaf—and insured by nature against brain storms.
“Such a turn was a godsend. I had become the investigator of my own crime.
“There remains to be told only the fact that I made a second trip to Number Five.
“Having come back here in safety, I perceived I had left there without the jewels she was wearing and without those in her jewel cabinet.
“She had brought this cabinet into the living room to show me how her supply of jewelry had been depleted.
“To murder and not get the fruits of it, is like picking one’s own pocket. I returned immediately and rectified the mistake.
“Before departing this last time, I switched on the lights to assure myself that I had left only the clue to the negro’s presence, none to my own.
“That explains Withers’ story of his struggle at the foot of the steps. We really had it.
“In the ordinary course of events, the negro would have gone to the chair.
“But there were complications I did not foresee.
“Morley’s theft and clamour for money from Miss Fulton, Withers’ jealousy, and my own extra precaution of appearing with beard and gold tooth in the Brevord Hotel, so as to shift suspicion to a mysterious ‘unknown’ in case of necessity; all these things left too many clues, presented an embarrassment of riches.
“If I had known of them in advance, either Morley or Withers would have paid the penalty for the crime. The negro would never have received my attention.
“I have no game leg, never have had. The brace made it easy for me to transform myself into an agile, powerful man in my ‘private’ work.
“I have no tuberculosis, never have had. I have a normally flat chest. Sluggish veins and capillaries in my face, caused by my having suffered pathological blushing for ten years, cause a permanent flush in my cheeks.
“That was enough to fool the physicians. Besides, when the Galenites have once diagnosed your purse favourably, your disease is what you please.
“I have said my first great mistake was losing my temper with Enid Withers.
“My second was my laughter in the cab the night Braceway and I questioned Morley. I knew he was holding back something, but I never dreamed it was his knowledge of my having done the murder.
“That laugh was suicidal, for it was the disarming of myself by myself.
“But for the albino discovery by Braceway, my conviction would have been impossible. The case against Perry was too strong.
“Still, it is as well this way as another. I should never have served the time for embezzlement. A free life is a fine thing. I suspect that death, perhaps, is even finer.”
He handed the last page to Braceway, leaned back in his chair, put up his arms and yawned. The glance with which he swept the faces of those before him was arrogant. It had a sinister audacity.
“The confession’s complete,” Braceway told Greenleaf, clipping his words short. “Take him away. No—wait!” He pulled a pen from his pocket and turned to the prisoner.
“Oh, the signature,” Bristow said coolly. “I forgot that.”
He took the typewritten pages roughly from Fulton, and in a bold, free hand wrote at the bottom of each: “Thomas F. Splain.”
“I’m ready,” he announced, rising from his chair so that he jostled Fulton unnecessarily.
The old man, his self-control broken at last, struck him with open hand full in the face. His fingers left three red stripes across the murderer’s white cheek.
Before Braceway could interfere, Bristow checked his impulse to strike back and gave Fulton a long, level look.
“You’re welcome to it,” he said finally; “welcome, old man. I guess I still owe you something, at that.”
“Put the cuffs on him,” ordered Greenleaf.
“First, though, I’d like to have a clean collar, some clean linen; and I want to get rid of this brace,” Bristow interrupted.
“To hell with what you want!” Greenleaf cried, a shade more purple with rage.
Bristow turned to Braceway:
“You’re right. The stuff’s in the sole of this shoe.”
“Let’s take charge of that now,” Braceway said to the chief. They each grasped one of the prisoner’s arms and hustled him with scant ceremony to his bedroom. Bristow removed his trousers and, unbuckling the belt and straps of the steel brace, took off the thick-soled shoe.
Greenleaf put his hand into it and tugged at the inner sole.
“Opens on the outside,” prompted Braceway, “underneath, near the instep.”
The chief, after fumbling with it a moment, got it open. The jewels streamed to the floor, a little cascade of radiance and colour. He picked them up, getting down on all-fours so as not to miss one.
“Don’t be unreasonable,” Bristow complained as he slipped on another shoe. “Let me have a clean shirt and collar.”
“Be quick about it,” Braceway consented, his voice heavy with contempt.
Greenleaf, holding him again by one arm, shoved him toward the bureau. He got out of his shirt, Greenleaf shifting his grasp so as not to let go of him for a second. In trying to put the front collar button into the fresh shirt, he broke off its head.
“Come on,” growled the chief. “You don’t need a collar anyway.”
“Not so fast! I’ve more than one collar button.”
He put his hand into a tray and picked up another. It had a long shank and was easily manipulated because of the catch that permitted the movement of its head, as if on a hinge.
“This is better,” he said, fingering it, unhurried as a man with hours to throw away.
“Get a move on! Get a move!” Greenleaf growled again, tightening his hold until it was painful.
Bristow, apparently bent on throwing off this rough grasp on his left arm, swiftly raised his right hand with the button to his mouth.
For the fraction of a second his eyes, bright and defiant, met Braceway’s. The
detective, reading the elation in them, shouted:
“Look out!”
There was a click. And Bristow flung away the button as Braceway caught at his hand.
“I beat you after—” he tried to boast.
But the poison, quicker than he had thought, cut short his utterance. His eyelids flickered twice. He collapsed against Greenleaf and slid, crumpled, to the floor.
“Cyanide,” said Braceway. “He had it in the shank of that collar button.”
Greenleaf bent over him.
“God, it’s quick!” he announced. “He’s dead.”
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