by Rex Stout
“Nearly three years.”
“Were you there on April 3, 1915?”
“Yes, sir.”
Dan got up from his chair to whisper something in Mr. Leg’s ear. The lawyer nodded and returned to the witness.
“Cummings, did you ever see Mrs. Elaine Mount, known as Alice Reeves, a tenant in the house where you were janitor?”
“I knew Miss Reeves, yes, sir.”
“She lived there quite a while, didn’t she?”
“Yes, sir. I don’t know how long; she was there when I came.”
“Did you see Miss Reeves often?”
“Oh, yes, I saw her every day; sometimes two or three times.” Again Dan got up to whisper a suggestion in the lawyer’s ear; from this time on, indeed, half the questions were suggested by him. As for the witness, he was losing, little by little, the nervous fright that had possessed him when he took the chair. His voice was becoming stronger and louder, and his eyes had gained an expression of determination and defiance.
“Now, Cummings, do you know if Miss Reeves ever had any callers?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, did she?”
“She had one.”
“Only one?”
“There were others, sir, but not very often; but this man came every two or three days, sometimes oftener than that.”
“So it was a man?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Can you describe him?”
The witness hesitated, then spoke in a louder voice than before:
“He was a man about thirty-eight or forty, with dark hair and dark eyes. He was a good-looking man.”
“And you say he would call often on Miss Reeves. How do you know he was calling on her?”
“Why, he would go in her flat.”
“Did you see him go in?”
“Of course I did. And besides, he would often send me out for something at the restaurant or delicatessen; and I’d take it up, and he’d be there in the flat, and he’d give me a dollar, or sometimes even five.”
“So he was liberal, was he?”
“Sir?”
“He was good to you, was he?”
“Oh, yes; he always gave me something. He always had lots of money.”
“Do you know who this man was?”
“No, sir. That is, I don’t know his name.”.
“Do you know where he lived?”
“No, sir.”
“I see. And did he continue to call on Miss Reeves all the time you were there?”
“Yes, sir. Two or three times a week, except toward the last, when he didn’t come quite so often.”
The lawyer stopped to confer with Dan a moment. Then, with a nod of satisfaction, he turned again to the witness.
“Now, Cummings, do you remember whether this man whom you have described called at No. 714 West One Hundred and Fifty-seventh Street on the evening of Saturday, April 3, 1915?”
The witness’s answer was lost in a sudden stir which passed over the courtroom as the spectators leaned forward. Judge Manton took advantage of the interruption to beckon to an attendant for a glass of water. When it came he drank a little and placed me glass, still half full, before him on his desk. The last question was reread by me clerk, and the witness, repeated his answer:
“Yes, sir; he was there.”
“What time did he arrive?”
“I don’t know; I didn’t see him come in.”
“Did you see him at all that evening?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What time?”
“About half past eight, I think it was, the bell rang for the dumbwaiter. That was the way he always sent for me to come up when he wanted something. I went up and rang the bell at Miss Reeves’s door, and he opened it.”
“How was he dressed?”
“Why, he had on a black suit, except he had taken off his coat and put on a smoking jacket. He always did that.”
“Did you see Miss Reeves?”
“Yes, sir; I went inside the hall to wait, while he went to the desk to write something, and I saw Miss Reeves in the front room. She was sitting by the table, crying. She had her handkerchief up to her eyes.”
“Did she say anything to you?”
“No, sir; she didn’t even look at me.”
“I see. What did the man go to the desk for?”
“He went for some paper to write down something. I remember he didn’t find any there, and he took a piece out of his pocket. He wanted to write down the name of some wine he wanted me to get. He wrote it down and gave it to me, and gave me a ten-dollar bill to get it with.”
Mr. Leg turned to find Dan at his elbow with a slip of paper in his hand. The lawyer took it, and examined it while the boy whispered in his ear. By this time every spectator in the room was listening intently to the witness’s every word. The prosecuting attorney had leaned forward in his chair with a new expression of interest for this unexpected Irishman. Judge Manton sat up straight, gazing at the prisoner Mount with an expressionless countenance.
“I have here,” Mr. Leg resumed, “a slip of paper bearing in ink the words, Bonneau et Mouet—Sec. Now, Cummings, is this the paper which this man in Miss Reeves’s apartment handed to you on the night of April third?”
The witness took the slip and examined it. “Yes, sir; that’s it,” he said finally. “That’s the name of the wine he wanted me to get.”
“And that’s the paper he wrote on and handed to you?”
“Yes, sir; it’s the same one,” answered Cummings. “It’s got that funny thing in the corner.”
Mr. Leg turned to the judge:
“Your honor, I wish to introduce this paper in evidence.”
Judge Manton merely inclined his head. The clerk took the slip and marked it.
“Now, Cummings,” went on the lawyer, “after this man gave you the slip of paper, what did you do?”
“I went out after the wine.”
“Did you get it?”
“Yes, sir, but I had a hard time. I always went to a wine store at the corner of One Hundred and Fifty-eighth Street and Broadway, but they didn’t have this kind, so I went down to One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, and I had to go to four or five stores before I could find it. I was gone about an hour, or maybe more, because when I got back it was nearly ten o’clock.”
“All right, go on. You took the wine upstairs?”
“Yes, sir. I went up to Miss Reeves’s apartment, and I was about to ring the bell when I heard her crying inside. She was crying and talking very loud.”
“Could you hear what she was saying?”
“Some of it, yes, sir. I heard her say, ‘Let me go! I love him! Let me go!’ Then I heard the man’s voice, only he didn’t talk as loud as she did; but I could hear him even plainer than her. He was saying, ‘You’ll stay right here; do you hear? I won’t let you go back to him; do you hear? Let him wait all night if he wants to.’ I didn’t want to ring the bell while they were going on like that, so I stood and listened for a long while. Miss Reeves kept crying, and the man kept swearing at her. He kept saying, ‘I won’t let you go back to him!’
“Finally I got tired waiting and rang the bell. I guess I stood there half an hour. The man opened the door, and he told me to come in, and go and put the wine in the refrigerator. I went back to the kitchen and unwrapped it, and put the bottle on the ice. Then I went out again. As soon as I closed the door behind me I heard them begin fighting again inside.”
“Do you remember what became of the slip of paper on which this man had written the name of the wine?”
“Yes, sir; I remember they had wrapped it up with the wine. I threw it on the floor with the wrapping paper.
“I see. What did you do after you left the apartment?”
“I turned down the lights in the halls, and then went down to the basement and got ready to go to bed.”
“Do you know what time that was?”
“Yes, sir; when I wound my clock it was twent
y minutes past ten. I put some coal on the hot-water furnace and locked the basement doors and went to bed.”
“Well?”
“Well, I’d been in bed, I guess, about half an hour and was nearly asleep when there was a knock on the door. I went—”
“You mean the door of your room?”
“Yes, sir; the room in the basement where I was sleeping. I got up and lit the gas and opened the door, and there stood the colonel.”
“The colonel?”
“That’s what I called the man who called on Miss Reeves. He stepped inside the room, and I saw that he had a big bundle of papers and things in his hand. He had on his hat and light overcoat, and the muffler he always wore around the lower part of his face. He told me to close the door because he had the bundle in his hands, and then he said, ‘Hurry up, Cummings; dress yourself. Don’t ask me any questions.’ “
“I knew at once from his funny voice and the way he looked at me that something had happened. I didn’t say a word, but dressed myself as quick as I could. When I was done he said, ‘Where’s the furnace? I want to burn this stuff.’ I went back and opened the furnace door, and he threw the papers and things on the fire. He wouldn’t let me help him.”
“Did you see any of the articles? Do you know what they were?”
“No, sir; only there was a lot of letters and other papers. I supposed they came from Miss Reeves’s—”
“Never mind what you supposed. Go on.”
“Well, after the stuff was burned up we went back in front. He had me sit down in a chair, and then he said, ‘Cummings, I’ve got a proposition to make to you. I’ll give you a thousand dollars cash to leave New York immediately and put yourself where nobody can find you.’
“I didn’t know what to answer, I was so surprised, and he went on to say that that was all he happened to have with him, and that it was lucky he had that much. He said he wouldn’t tell me who he was, but he told me how to have something printed in the Herald if I ever needed money, and he would send me some. He said I’d have to take his word for that. I decided to do it when I saw him count out the thousand dollars on the table. I promised to leave right away, in ten minutes, without stopping to take anything but my clothes.”
Mr. Leg interrupted:
“Didn’t you suspect that a crime had been committed?”
“Yes, sir; of course I knew something had happened, but all that money was too much for me. After he had gone—”
“Didn’t he wait to see you go?”
“No, sir; he went right away. I guess he knew that I’d certainly beat it with the money. I let him out at the basement door, and in less than no time I had my clothes packed and was all ready. I went out by the basement door, too, but I couldn’t make myself go. I stood there on the sidewalk maybe two minutes calling myself a fool, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted to see what had happened in that flat upstairs.
“I went up to the ground floor by the front steps, leaving the outer door open as I entered, dropped my suitcase in the front hall, and went up two more flights to the door of Miss Reeves’s flat. It was locked. I ran down to the basement for my duplicate key, came back up and unlocked the door. The flat was dark. I switched on the lights, and there on the floor I saw Miss Reeves. The hilt of a knife was sticking from her breast, and there was blood on her dress, and her face looked awful. It scared me so I didn’t know what I was doing. I ran out without turning off the lights, and I think I forgot to lock the door.
“I ran back to the ground floor as fast as I could and picked up my suitcase. I started for the outside door, and then I suddenly saw a man coming up the stoop. I was so scared I didn’t know what to do. I stepped back into the corner of the hall as the man entered the door, and, scared as I was, I was surprised to see that it wasn’t one of the tenants, or anyone I had ever seen before. He came in and started upstairs without saying anything, just glancing at me. I picked up—”
“Just a minute, Cummings,” Mr. Leg interrupted. He turned and pointed at William Mount. “Is that the man you saw enter and go upstairs, after you had seen Miss Reeves’s dead body on the floor?”
The witness examined the prisoner a moment.
“Yes, sir, I think so. The light in the hall was dim, so I couldn’t be sure, but it looks like him.”
“All right. Go on.”
“That’s all, sir. I picked up the suitcase and ran. I took the subway to the end of the line, and there I got on a trolley for Yonkers. The next day I went on to Albany, and I’ve been hiding there ever since.”
“And don’t you know that you have made yourself an accessory to this murder and are liable to punishment?” asked the lawyer.
“Yes, sir, I know that. I didn’t care at first, until I saw in the papers that some man that I knew was innocent had been arrested for it. Then I wanted to come and tell all I knew—I really did, sir—but I was afraid, and I couldn’t ever make myself start. When that young man came after me this morning”—he pointed to Dan—“I was only too glad to come, sir. Ask him. I hope I won’t be punished, sir.”
At this point Judge Manton interrupted the examination. He leaned forward in his chair as he spoke, while the fingers of his right hand were toying with the edge of the glass which had remained on his desk, half full of water.
“I think we had better adjourn for luncheon, Mr. Leg,” he observed. “It’s one o’clock. You may continue with the witness after the recess.”
Dan sprang up to murmur something in Mr. Leg’s ear. The lawyer looked astonished and bewildered, but finally nodded in acquiescence.
“Very well, your honor,” he said to the court. “But I would like to ask the witness just two more questions before adjournment, if your honor please.”
“Let them be short,” the judge said curtly.
Mr. Leg turned to the witness.
“Cummings, I want to ask you if this man whom you called the colonel, whom you saw and heard quarreling with Alice Reeves, and who gave you a thousand dollars to flee from the scene of the murder—I want to ask you if that man is now in this courtroom?”
Cummings hesitated a moment and glanced from side to side, then suddenly straightened up and said in a loud and distinct tone:
“Yes, sir, he is here.”
A gasp of amazement came from every side.
“Will you point him out to the judge and jury?”
For reply, Cummings turned and leveled his finger straight at the face of Judge Manton.
But the wave of astonishment and incredulity that swept over the courtroom was swiftly drowned in a great cry of alarm. Judge Manton, looking over the accusing finger straight into Cummings’s face, had lifted the glass of water to his lips; and Dan, springing up and knocking Mr. Leg out of his way, had leaped like a panther over the rail to the dais and with one sweep of his arm dashed the glass from the judge’s hand to the floor.
Court attendants ran forward, shouting; the jury stood up in their box; several of them leaped over the partition and rushed onto the platform of justice; the spectators tumbled over the rail by scores, trampling one another; screams were heard from a hundred throats. Dan was hanging desperately on to Judge Manton’s gown, calling at the top of his voice:
“The water was poisoned! Quick! Hold him! You fools! He’ll kill himself! Help!”
But the officers and attendants shrank back before the look of mad rage and passion on Judge Manton’s face. With a violent movement he threw Dan off; the boy fell on his knees on the platform, still calling out for help. Judge Manton seized the heavy wooden gavel from his desk and raised it high.
“Damn you!” he snarled in a voice of savage fury, and brought the gavel down on Dan’s head. The boy toppled over with a moan.
The next moment a dozen men had sprung forward and borne Judge Manton to the floor.
The following morning Mr. Leg and Dan sat talking in the lawyer’s office. Nearby was Miss Venner, listening to them; her eyes never left Dan’s face. The blow from Judge Manton’s gavel
had, luckily, not seriously injured him; he had been unconscious for more than an hour, but when he finally came to, was none the worse for it.
“Yes, I let Mount have two thousand dollars,” Mr. Leg was saying. “He’s going to buy a little cigar store or something somewhere and try to forget things. Poor devil! I hope he succeeds.”
“Yes, sir,” Dan agreed. “But he really hasn’t anything left to live for.” And quite unconsciously the boy’s eyes turned to meet those of Miss Venner, who flushed and looked the other way.
“And so you saw Manton take something from his pocket and put it in that glass of water,” Mr. Leg observed in a voice filled with undisguised admiration.
“Yes, sir. Of course, I was watching him all the time.”
“And you think it was with him that Mount’s wife left home. But why wouldn’t some of his friends have known about her?”
“Perhaps they did,” was the reply. “But it’s evident that the judge was pretty cagey; he doesn’t seem ever to have taken anybody up there. He probably met her in a cabaret, or somewhere, and simply fell in love with her.
As for his willingness to sacrifice Mount, well, some men are made that way. He probably said to himself, ‘What does this broken-down creature amount to compared with a man like me—wealthy, intellectual, cultured, of high position?’ You must remember that he murdered her in a fit of passion, just as when he hit me with that gavel.”
“There’s one thing I don’t understand yet,” observed Mr. Leg. “I’ve got to believe you when you say you thought it was Judge Manton all the time, because I saw you carrying his photograph around. And you say you found that slip of paper was in his handwriting by comparing it with his signature and the postscript on the letter he sent me assigning me to the case. But what the dickens made you compare it with his handwriting? What made you suspect him in the first place?”
“You remember what I quoted from Montaigne,” replied Dan, with a smile. “ ‘The passions smothered by modern civilization are doubly ferocious when awakened.’ ”
“Yes; but what made you suspect him?”
“What’s the difference, sir, so long as we got him? It certainly made a fuss, didn’t it?” Dan grinned with delight as he glanced at a pile of morning papers on his desk, the front page of each of which carried under scare headlines pictures of Manton, the murderer, and Dan, his boy Nemesis, side by side.
