Murder at Bayside

by Raymond Robins

  “Trophy gun, isn’t it, Mr. Evans?”

  “Yes,” I thought Tom’s modesty was palpably forced. “I won it at the matches at Camp Perry, in 1919. I’ve used it a bit since then, but lately I’ve rather given up competition shooting. I find that my law business keeps me well occupied.”

  “The men at Bayside have the reputation of being excellent shots,” said the Sergeant politely. “Mr. Cyrus Evans is really remarkable, considering his age, I understand.”

  “We never think of Dad as old,” Tom replied soberly. “I wonder what is keeping him out on the water in this foul weather. I hope he has docked the cruiser at some neighbor’s and will leave it there overnight. We ought to hear from him soon, though.”

  “Does he run Mr. Charles’ cruiser?” Lyttle asked in surprise. The involuntary motion he made as soon as he had spoken betrayed the fact that he wished he could recall his words. Tom realized it and replied half-humorously, half-bitterly, to the trooper’s unspoken thought.

  “Yes, he runs her. Because so much suspicion has been cast on the cruiser’s activities of late, Dad has taken to going out in her alone. I don’t know whether he expects to elevate the reputation of the boat, or merely to ascertain for his own benefit the truth of certain rumors.”

  Tom was referring to the stories which had been all too frequent recently, to the effect that Charles had been employing the cruiser in a lucrative, if illegal, business. Maryland has never ratified the prohibition act, so none of us feels any too friendly in regard to the constitutional bone of contention, no matter how we may regard the evil of liquor itself. But in spite of this laxity of thought, gossip had not spared a man of Charles’ standing when the belief was common that he was engaged in rum-running. Somehow we felt it to be one thing to sit in one’s easy chair at the club, sipping a mint julep, the while deploring federal usurpation of state’s rights, and an entirely different thing to have one’s fellow club member mixed up with bootleggers, hijackers and others of the nefarious trade. So when Tom saw the trooper’s movement and knew that the mention of the cruiser made him think of this half-hinted activity of Charles’, he answered as he did.

  Sergeant Lyttle had no desire to pursue the subject. In the weeks to come, we were to realize that the man had an instinctive delicacy which made him far different from the traditional policeman. In point of truth, as I found out much later, he was a well-born, well-bred youngster, who had been caught in the maelstrom of war when barely out of his ‘teens. He had had the time of his life in the Army, so much so that when he shed his uniform and donned mufti again, he found the spice gone out of life. Young enough in years to go back to school, he was too restless, nor had he the training to go into any trade. So he eventually drifted into police work and, before this case was over, we were all willing to admit that he was making a success in his chosen line. Soft-spoken, unfailingly courteous and diplomatic, he was, nevertheless, highly efficient, his very casual, easy manners masking a quick mind and keen discernment.

  In appearance he was lean and wiry, very blond, with wide blue eyes belying his years. Rather short, he gave the impression of slightness, but never physical weakness. He was always neatly dressed, his uniform showing his figure off to good advantage, his legs shapely in their black leather covering. He had a curious trick of drooping one eyelid when he was thinking hard and puzzled by his thoughts. That eyelid drooped now as he watched Tom industriously at work, thrusting oily rags through the pistol barrel with an intensity of concentration bespeaking a gun enthusiast of rare degree. Tom finished up by polishing the gold plate with loving care.

  As for me, I was frankly upset and filled with nervous forebodings; a most unusual condition for me who am ordinarily one of the most imperturbable of beings. I felt a tense uneasiness in the atmosphere. All the while, the rain dribbled monotonously against the windows. I stirred about uneasily. Yet the circumstances were perfectly ordinary. A trespasser had been found on the property, chased off, the police notified, and now we were waiting for the report of the guardians of the law who were searching the grounds. Not even the belief that the trespasser was a dangerous criminal, a notorious killer, served to explain my alarm. My uneasiness was not caused by anything which had already transpired, not even the possible return of the bandit was worrying me. It was an unexplained something that I had heard, or that I had noticed, plaguing me with the warning that all was not as it seemed. There was an undercurrent of events, unintelligible to me at the time, but whose presence I sensed as a stream of evil about to engulf us all. I felt as if I should leap to my feet and say, “Why, yes, I know”—but there, what was it? What did I know?

  The sound of the door below closing. Footsteps coming up the stairway. The soft swish of a wet raincoat as it brushed against the banisters. Just one person coming. Was it Cyrus, returning at last to his house? Then before the footsteps reached the door, I knew. Not the thing that had been bothering me, but another thing. I had an absolute foreknowledge of the news coming to us. I did not even turn around as the men stepped into the doorway and trooper Starr’s quiet voice said:

  “We have, found the body of a man down by the boatlanding. He has been killed by a pistol shot in the back.”

  “By the boatlanding? Where is that? Was it Hirstein?” Lyttle jumped to his feet.

  “I don’t think so, sir,” Starr answered the last question first. “I’ll lead the Sergeant to the spot.”

  “We’ll all go,” I said mechanically, for the moment I had been dreading was now upon us. As if in a spell, we soundlessly followed the trooper.

  The going was hard. We went along the path on the edge of a pine-grove, but the trees could not keep out the murky fog entirely. The water dripped steadily off the branches, although I think the rain had ceased. The sound of the bay, hammering on the beach, played a ceaseless obbligato to my somber thoughts.

  Just where the path left the shelter of the woods and wandered through the tall marsh grass to the beach, a dark form loomed up, huge in the distorting fog. I stopped dead for a moment until trooper Brown’s voice rang out, “This way, sir.”

  Brown was keeping watch over a still, limp form on the ground. The police flashlights traversed the recumbent figure which lay sprawled grotesquely at our feet. In my mind rang the trite phrase, “dropped in his tracks.” No doubt, it was literally true. The man lay on his face, but the police turned the head around and played their lights on the distorted features of my old client.

  “It is Father,” Tom’s voice echoed eerily in the fog. That was the worst of all, I think, to hear the ghostly echo repeat Tom’s words. Beyond us, at the dock, we could hear the cruiser as she strained at her ropes against the ebb-tide. Cyrus had made her fast, then had come along the dock to the shore, crossed the narrow strip of beach, and proceeded but a few feet on his homeward path when the assassin’s bullet had struck him.

  He was clad in his usual yachting costume, white rubber-soled shoes, white flannel trousers, and blue coat. His cap, bearing the insignia of the yacht club to which he belonged, was a few feet away, dislodged by the fall. He had been out on the cruiser all right, but he had been lying here long enough to be wet by the fog damp. It grieved me to think of all of us sitting warm and comfortable in the house while he lay here outside, and I hoped they would not delay in bringing in the body.

  By now Tom had completed his formal identification. He turned to the Sergeant gravely. “There has been a terrible accident here, Sergeant,” he said quietly.

  “No, Mr. Evans, there has been a murder,” replied that gentleman in equally grave tones.

  THREE

  If I had thought I had reason to complain of Lyttle’s lack of activity before, I surely had none now. He sprang into action immediately before I, shocked by the thought that Cyrus had been murdered, could gather my scattered wits and speculate on the identity of the killer.

  “Was it anywhere near here where you first saw Hirstein?” the Sergeant asked Tom, and his voice rang with barely suppressed exulta
tion at being so close on the trail of the much-sought-for murderer.

  Tom seemed as surprised by the trooper’s question as I was, for I thought he had made it plain, back in the study, that his encounter with the trespasser had taken place in an entirely different part of Bayside. On the other hand, I realized, with a curious feeling of fear in my heart, that right about here was the spot I had suggested when I told my story of hearing the single shot.

  “I’ll take you back to the house another way,” Tom was saying, “and show you the lay-out of the land, as well as the spot where Hirstein stood when he fired on me and made his get-away.”

  I followed them mechanically, leaving Brown and Starr to take the body back by the shorter route. Somehow, I did not want to go with them, still less did I desire to be alone.

  Were one to draw a straight line from the dock to the opposite boundary of the Evans property, it would run almost due north and would terminate in, not the thick timber growth, but a sparse wooded area ending in a sandy beach where the water encroached upon the property, forming a sort of promontory. Hence when Tom set out in a northwesterly direction, he was moving in a roughly diagonal line ever approaching the house. At first this surprised me, and I thought he had made a mistake in his path, but he kept on for some six hundred yards until he reached the pheasant pens where, as he indicated, he had first spotted Hirstein. Still following the diagonal, he went on until we stood on a rocky barren piece of ground, well north of the dock but much nearer the house itself. Here Tom paused in his rapid walking and pointed to the just visible boundary some fifty yards beyond.

  “There is where he got away, right over the barbed wire fence. You can see why I felt pursuit was useless—the woods are thick and afford excellent protection to a fugitive.”

  I left the two men together, the Sergeant asking questions and flashing his light over the surrounding territory. As I hurried on to the house, I was trying to get a clear picture of what had actually occurred, because for some reason, not at once apparent to me, I had originally believed Hirstein had sought the shelter of the woods farther along the boundary line, much nearer the point where my hypothetical line from the dock would terminate. Now that I had been out here to look for myself, I realized that such could not be the case, for the land around there would have afforded no real shelter and Tom would certainly have been quick to follow and apprehend him. I clapped my hand to my head, struck by a sudden thought. What shot had I heard, then, the one which killed Cyrus, or one of the two fired up here? I could not get it out of my mind that I had heard Cyrus killed—yet Tom certainly fired nearer the house and it should have been his pistol which had so surprised me. But there was still the question of direction. Hirstein must have shot the old man before Tom had ever come down by the pheasant run—and then I could not possibly have heard the firing, for I was not even on the estate at the time.

  I must have been walking swiftly to keep up with my thoughts, for I was the first to reach the house. As James let me in, I knew I must tell him what had occurred and it took me some time to get him quieted down. Like all his race, he highly dramatized any death, and a violent ending was strong meat to him. His white eyeballs rolled around in his black face until I expected to hear them click like a china doll’s, as he searched every nook and corner of the shadowy hallway apparently fearing that some ghoulish killer would materialize at any moment. When he did finally arrive at coherent speech, his comment was illuminating as to the habits of the gentry he served.

  “Yessuh. You all go right in the gun-room, suh, and Ah’ll fetch a whiskey soda. Ah reckun the po-lice would care fo’ some, too.”

  As I turned to follow James’ most excellent advice, I observed that there had been a listener to our conversation. Charles was standing in the doorway of the gun-room, his clenched knuckles showing white against the dark woodwork.

  “Breaking the news, eh?” His impervious gambler’s mask was an emotionless blank. He turned his back on me, striding into the room ahead of me and throwing himself into an easy chair, from the depths of which he spoke again. “Give me a few details.”

  I sank into the luxurious Cogswell chair in front of the fire and stretched out my hands to the blaze. Then I gave him a careful reconstruction of such facts as I felt were due him, keeping to myself all mention of the shot I had heard. He listened until the end, then, throwing his cigarette into the fire, he faced me and remarked, “Jolly ending to the invitation the old man gave you, isn’t it? Or shall you shoot tomorrow just the same?”

  I did not answer what appeared to me as a heartlessly flippant question. So far, I alone seemed to feel any grief at Cyrus’ untimely end; even James was primarily struck by the drama of the situation. All too evidently, Cyrus, no matter what his good qualities, did not inspire any very loyal affection in those nearest him.

  Charles and I had little to say to one another, once I had finished my explanation of how his uncle had met his death, so we sat in silence awaiting the arrival of James with the promised refreshment. Just as the butler came bearing his tray, Tom and Sergeant Lyttle entered. It was over their tall glasses that the cousins exchanged their first words regarding the tragedy which had cast its shadow on Bayside. In response to a long level look from Tom, Charles nodded his head. “The family solicitor has broken the news all according to Hoyle. When do we start chasing your thug?”

  Sergeant Lyttle replied with dignity, “The search is being conducted by my men. I am waiting here at the house for the arrival of the police surgeon and also the reserves who are due any moment. It seems very likely that while Hirstein cannot get very far in the woods, he can conceal himself very effectively against a handful of men. However, if you wish to join the party hunting him, I’ll instruct the troopers accordingly—I can easily understand how inaction might be difficult for you and Mr. Thomas.”

  There was a strange look on Tom’s face, an open grin on Charles’. “Wrong again, my dear Sergeant. I haven’t the slightest intention of going out to comb through the underbrush. I was merely curious to find out why you were not doing your duty with your brave boys.”

  A black look spread over Lyttle’s countenance and his left eyelid drooped and twitched angrily. Tom spoke up promptly. “I am sure the police are doing all they possibly can, and I think the house is the place for both the Sergeant and myself. We must establish a headquarters somewhere, so why not here in the gun-room?”

  I looked up suddenly and saw a dark form standing in the doorway. It was Edwin, returned at last to complete the family circle, save for the one who would never come back. His slow, pedantic voice sounded unwarrantably loud and irritated.

  “What is going on around here? There is a carload of troopers at the back door.”

  Lyttle set down his glass and hurried out without explanation. His reserves had arrived to conduct the search of the woods. The rest of us looked at each other, waiting for some one to speak. Edwin said again, “Well?”

  Then I took upon myself once more the duties of spokesman. “Tom saw a tramp hiding down by the pheasant run. He came up to the house to get his gun, and had me send for the police while he went out for the man. He got away after firing a shot at Tom, but as he turned to aim his pistol Tom recognized him. It was Jim Hirstein, as Tom had suspected when he had me call the police. Tom fired back, but didn’t hit him, and he escaped into the woods where the police are now looking for him. Meanwhile a search of the grounds was made and the body of your uncle was found.” I stopped, not knowing what else to say.

  Edwin’s cold little eyes were darting from one to the other of us. “All I gather from your recital, Williams, is that Hirstein aimed at Tom and hit Uncle Cyrus. Or was it the other way about? Where was Uncle Cyrus, what was he doing, and who was the man who rushed out when I came in?”

  To my intense relief, Sergeant Lyttle returned in time to catch Edwin’s questions and he obligingly took up the tale.

  “My name is Lyttle, Sergeant in the State Police.” He held out his hand, but Edw
in seemed oblivious of the gesture. “Of course, we are not sure who killed your uncle, but we found the body down by the boathouse, whereas Mr. Thomas encountered Hirstein a third of a mile from that spot. You know, Mr. Evans, when a known killer is at large, a man whose own death will result from his apprehension, it is not surprising to find murder in his wake.”

  Charles’ mocking tones broke in, “Really, Sergeant, you are not so explicit yourself. You’d better let me break the news to my brother. Edwin, old son, you may have gathered that our revered uncle did not die of apoplexy, heart failure, or chronic dyspepsia, or any of those ailments which I have expected would carry him off to his reward any day. He was murdered, and Williams is my authority for saying he was shot in the back, so I don’t suppose it is the question of suicide which is worrying the amiable Sergeant and causing him to stick to us like a leech.”

  It was horrible to hear Charles running on that way. I wondered if he were really as callous as he seemed, or if, perhaps, he chose this almost juvenile form of expression to relieve his natural worry and nervousness. I looked at Edwin. He sat down suddenly as if his legs would no longer support him, but, in spite of the shock, I could detect no signs of grief. When he spoke, his voice was absolutely unchanged from the first time he addressed us.

  “Hirstein killed him, of course. How long has he been dead?”

  “That, as well as the caliber of the bullet, will have to wait on the arrival of the doctor,” said Lyttle, and, as if these words were the signal for which he had been waiting, James came in to announce that the police surgeon had come. Lyttle excused himself and went out.

  I gazed after his retreating back and then addressed myself to Tom. “What was he looking for when I left you?” I was referring to the way the Sergeant had been flashing his light around on the ground.

  “The ejected cartridge from my forty-five,” Tom replied briefly.

  I almost made the error of asking why, and then caught myself in time to modify my remark, “Why—er—did he find it?”