Fifty Candles

by Earl Derr Biggers

  “Sergeant Barnes—you are needed here,” he said.

  “Yes!”

  The voice of Detective Sergeant Barnes rang out sharp and alive and vital in that house of dim shadows and far memories. He slipped off coat and hat and tossed them down on a chair. I saw that he was a cool, quick little man, bald of head, unsympathetic of eye, business from the word go.

  “Henry Drew?” he snapped.

  Riley nodded. “In the dining room—about forty minutes ago,” he said.

  “Myers!” Detective Barnes turned to one of the uniformed men. “You take the front. Murphy—the back door for you.” The two men left for their posts. Barnes stood, staring about the room. “Drew had a son. Mark Drew—lawyer—Athletic Club. I don’t see him here.”

  “He’s on his way, sir,” said Mrs. MacShane. “I called him. Sure, I thought of him right away, though why I did I don’t know, for not in five years has he set foot in this house—”

  “All right,” the detective cut her short. He was still studying that odd little group: Parker, sneering, unmoved; Carlotta Drew, shaken a bit in the face of a consummation she had no doubt long desired; Mary Will, young and innocent and lovely; the old Irish woman with the tears still wet on her cheeks; and the yellow Chinaman standing patient as a beast of burden by the stairs. And finally he looked at me, whose enemy lay low at last beside the fifty candles.

  “No one leaves this house until I have completed my investigation,” he announced. “You stay here, Riley, and see to that.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Riley, with a determined look about our circle. Sergeant Barnes strode into the dining room.

  “A merry party—to brighten up the old house—to get things going in a friendly way again.” The words of the old millionaire spoken in his car as we rode uptown came back to me. How different, this, from the party Henry Drew had planned! No one spoke. Each sat wrapped in gloomy thought under the glare of Riley. Only one sound broke the stillness—the voice of Time in the person of the clock, still ticking its eternal threat.

  Mary Will sat not three feet from me, but I had the feeling that she was miles away. Some sudden barrier seemed to have arisen between us. She glanced toward me but seldom, and when she did it was with a look in her eyes I did not like to see. I was glad when the loud peal of the doorbell broke the stillness of the room.

  Mrs. MacShane opened the door, and a brisk good-looking man of about thirty- five came in. The old woman’s first words identified him.

  “Oh, Mr. Mark,” she cried. “Your poor father!”

  So this was Mark Drew. There was none of his father’s shrewd, wicked cunning in his eyes as he gazed frankly about the room. His face was a pleasant one, wrinkled with the evidence of much smiling. No wonder this man and his cruel old father had come in time to the parting of the ways.

  Carlotta Drew stepped forward and held out her hand. “I am Carlotta. Your father’s wife. We have never met.”

  He made no move to take her hand.

  “I have heard about you,” he said gravely and moved on, leaving her standing foolishly with her hand outstretched.

  The wave of hatred that passed over her face was not pretty to see, but she tossed her head and with a hard little laugh resumed her seat. Mark Drew went on instinctively to the dining room, and we heard his voice and that of the detective as they conversed together. Then the voices grew fainter, a window slammed; they had moved on into the garden.

  After an interval Drew and the detective came back into the hall. The former sat down, his face in his hands, and Barnes stood in the center of our group playing with a little pack of white cards in his hand.

  “Well—let’s get acquainted,” he began. “How many of you were in the house when this thing happened?”

  All save Parker admitted their presence.

  “Was there any noise—any sound—from that room?”

  “Yes,” I told him. “There was a cry—a sharp, rather terrible scream. I was in the library, waiting for—er—him. I ran into the dining room. The table was set—the cake with fifty candles on it.”

  Mark Drew raised his head. “Sergeant, in regard to those fifty candles—” he began.

  “Yes,” said Barnes. “Let that pass for now. You—go on. You went into the room. You were the first to enter.”

  “Undoubtedly. Mr. Drew was lying on the floor on the other side of the table, not far from the open window. He was dead—stabbed just below the heart.”

  “Did you notice a knife or any other weapon?”

  “I didn’t look for one. The open window caught my eye, and when I stepped to it I thought I saw someone in the garden.”

  The moment I had been dreading had come, and I pulled myself together. Once more I must relate my story, and this time the manner of its acceptance was vital to me. I told of the figure in the garden, the footsteps on the gravel, the gate that had been slammed and locked behind me. I pictured myself lost in the fog, trying to return to the house. Though I put forth every effort to make it sound reasonable, it didn’t; it sounded silly, preposterous. I felt Mary Will’s eyes upon me. The detective gave no sign.

  “Before I ask you how you got back here,” he said, “I want to say—I don’t get you. Who are you? What’s your position here? A friend of Henry Drew?”

  “Decidedly not. I was an employee.”

  “Decidedly not? What do you mean by that?”

  “If I may speak,” drawled Carlotta Drew. She stared at me between narrowed lids, cold, calculating, hostile. “If I may speak, I think I can throw some light on that. This young man was employed by my husband in the Yunnan mines, and he claimed he bad been unfairly treated. There was some cock-and-bull story about a promise—”

  “There was a promise,” I said, “and it was no cock-and-bull story.”

  “He had quarreled violently with my husband, who dismissed him.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. “I resigned.”

  “By chance they occupied the same cabin on the boat coming from China, along with Doctor Parker here,” the woman went on. “I believe the quarreling continued.” She looked questioningly at Parker.

  “It did,” the doctor said. “For several days after they came aboard. I’ll swear to that. Then they stopped speaking to each other.”

  “And yet—” Barnes turned to me. “You were a guest at dinner?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I believe that for some reason Drew wanted to smooth the matter out. He suggested I come here to meet his partner in the mines, Doctor Su Yen Hun, a Chinese merchant in this town. I agreed to come, but I told him I’d rather not discuss business.”

  “If you didn’t want to talk business, why did you come?”

  “I came because—” I stopped. But I was resolved to tell the truth from start to finish. “I came because I wished to see again Mrs. Drew’s companion, Miss Tellfair.”

  The detective’s eyes followed mine and rested on Mary Will. “Huh! You’re interested in the young lady?”

  “I’ve asked her to marry me,” I told him.

  “Yeah. You admit, then, that there had been bad blood between you and Henry Drew over business matters? You claim he cheated you?”

  “I do.”

  “We left you wandering in the fog, trying to get back to this house, you say. You got back. How?”

  “I met this gentleman—Doctor Parker. He had been invited here to dinner and was walking up from his hotel. He claimed that he, too, was lost.”

  “Doctor Parker?” Barnes turned and surveyed him.

  “Yes,” said the doctor, smiling his devilishly mean smile. “I met this young man wandering in the fog. I must say he had a wild look about him, but that, of course, is unimportant. Truth compels me to add that he was going at a rather rapid gait away from the house.”

  “How did you know, if you were lost yourself?” Barnes asked.

  “It was later proved when we met Officer Riley and he showed us the way.” I saw the eyes of Parker and Carlotta Drew meet then, and I
knew without further proof that a partnership had been formed to fasten this crime on me, if possible. But why? There could be but one reason, and I was startled as it flashed into my mind. Where was Doctor Parker at a little before seven-thirty? Lost in the fog—alone.

  Detective Barnes turned again to Carlotta Drew.

  “Now, Mrs. Drew,” he began, “please tell me what you were doing at half past seven o’clock?”

  “I was in my room, dressing for dinner,” she said. “Miss Tellfair, my companion, was with me. I have no maid at present, and I had called her up to assist me with some troublesome hooks in the back. We were together there when we heard the cry.”

  “You heard a cry. What then?”

  “My heart stood still. I tried to speak, but I couldn’t.”

  Mary Will turned suddenly and faced her.

  “I beg your pardon,” she said. “Your memory is slightly at fault. You had no difficulty in speaking. In fact, you spoke distinctly.”

  “Nonsense! I don’t remember.”

  “I do,” replied Mary Will firmly. “You said quite clearly, ‘He’s done it! He’s done it!’ You said it twice.”

  “He’s done it?” repeated Barnes. “Just what, Mrs. Drew, did you mean by that?”

  “If I said it at all,” answered Carlotta Drew icily, “which I doubt, I do not know what I meant. I was beside myself with terror.”

  “But why should you be beside yourself with terror, as you say? You had no means of knowing what that cry meant.”

  “I knew only too well. My dear husband’s life had been threatened—only recently, as a matter of fact—by Mr. Winthrop here.”

  “I deny that,” said I.

  “Did you hear Mr. Winthrop threaten your husband—my father?” asked Mark Drew sharply.

  “No-o,” said the woman. “Not precisely. But Henry—Mr. Drew—had told me he was afraid of Mr. Winthrop. He was very much upset when he found himself in the same stateroom with him. He tried to be moved.”

  “Then when you cried out ‘He’s done. it,’“ suggested Doctor Parker, “you were—almost unconsciously—thinking of Winthrop?”

  “That must have been it.”

  “Doctor—you’re invaluable,” said Mark Drew with a strange smile.

  “Come, come!” broke in Barnes. “Let’s get on. You heard the cry?”

  “Miss Tellfair ran out of the room,” went on Carlotta Drew.

  “I started to,” corrected Mary Will, the color rising in her white cheeks. “But you held me back. You clung to me.”

  “I tell you I was beside myself. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  “You take it up,” suggested Barnes to Mary Will.

  “I managed to get away,” Mary Will said, “and ran downstairs. I looked in the library; it was empty. The dining room door was open. I went in—”

  “You were, then, the second person to enter the room?”

  “Very likely.” Mary Will’s voice was low now—little more than a whisper. “I thought the room empty at first. The window stood open. I went round the table, and there—on the floor—I saw him—Mr. Drew.”

  “Yes—go on.”

  “I—I screamed and ran from the room.”

  “Ah, yes!” said Barnes. “Did you by any chance see a weapon of any sort—a knife, perhaps—near Mr. Drew’s body?”

  “I scarcely looked,” answered Mary Will, her lovely eyes full on the detective’s face. “I was so frightened, you understand—”

  “Of course, of course. No matter,

  Barnes said. “You screamed and ran from the room.”

  “Yes. In the doorway I met Mrs. MacShane. Mrs. Drew was coming down the stairs. She followed Mrs. MacShane into the dining room. In a moment she, too, screamed—and I believe she fainted in Mrs. MacShane’s arms.”

  “It was almost a faint,” said the old woman.

  “Miss Tellfair, please,” Barnes insisted.

  “I knew where Mrs. Drew kept a bottle of smelling salts,” Mary Will continued. “She had used them on the boat, and I’d packed them for her. I ran up and got them and brought them down. That’s—that’s all, I think.” I fancied that Mary Will was near a faint herself.

  “And now, Mrs. MacShane,” said the detective, “we’ll listen to you.”

  “Officer—my story’s soon told,” said the old woman. “I hears the cry, and bein’ busy with dinner, ordered at the last minute, as ye might say, I didn’t pay no attention. I’m no cook, I’m a caretaker, an’ I was doin’ the cookin’ as a favor to poor Mr. Drew, who sint me the word by wireless today, I havin’ looked after the house while he was away. ‘Sure,’ says I, ‘that’s a keen cry, an’ a bitter one, but my business is here.’ Thin I got to thinkin’, so I took a minute to come trottin’ in; after that it was as the young lady says. I found what I found … poor Mr. Drew—God rest his soul!”

  The quick eye of Barnes once more traveled around that little group.

  “Doctor Parker, I believe, was lost in the fog at half past seven on his way to the house,” he said. “That leaves nobody but this stony-faced Chinaman. I’d as soon go out in the Sahara Desert and have a chat with the Sphinx as question one of ‘em. Come here, you!”

  Hung Chin-chung stiffened, and a dignity that was ever part of him shone from his strange eyes as he crossed the room and stood before the detective.

  “What’s your name?” roared Barnes. He was one of those Americans who believe all foreigners are deaf.

  Hung stared at him in amiable contempt.

  Mark Drew spoke up. “If I may make a suggestion,” he said, “Hung was almost one of the family. He was my father’s body-servant, for twenty years his best friend, and in these later years, I am afraid, his only friend. Hung’s name, Chin-chung, means completely loyal, and he was all of that. He has never been known to refuse any request my father made of him, and I am sure my father was extremely fond of him. So was Hung fond of my father, and I am very much mistaken if, despite the lack of evidence in his face, Hung is not the sincerest mourner among us here tonight.”

  The Chinaman bowed.

  “It is sweet indeed,” he said in precise, perfect English, “if I have found such honor in the eyes of my employer’s son. You are a policeman,” he added, turning gravely on Barnes, “and you wish to know of my movements in this house tonight. When the matter under discussion was in progress, I was in my room, whither I had gone with my master’s permission. This young man—” He nodded toward me. “—was in the room when that permission was granted.”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “I am no butler,” Hung went on. “But we had only today arrived from China, and there was not yet time to engage a servant of that class. Mr. Drew had asked me to serve the dinner tonight, and I had agreed to do so, as I agreed to all his wishes, always. I was in my room making certain changes in my attire, that I might bring honor to my master and my master’s house in the eyes of his friends.”

  “Did you hear anything?”

  “My room,” said Hung, “is on the fourth floor, at the rear. No sound of any disturbance reached my ears. I came down, prepared to serve dinner, and found the house in an uproar. My master, who was as dear to me as the bones of my honorable ancestors, was dead beside the table where dinner was prepared.”

  “There’s a back stairs?” suggested Barnes.

  “Ah, yes,” replied Hung, “a back stairs, leading through the kitchen of Mrs. MacShane. If I had passed that way—”

  “He didn’t,” said the old woman. “I never left the kitchen from five this afternoon till I come in here. I saw nothing of Hung. He speaks the truth.”

  Barnes stood staring at Hung through his vivid little eyes, but the eyes of the Chinaman gave back no answering gleam. Still the detective played with the pack of white cards in his hand.

  “We’re getting nowhere,” pouted Carlotta Drew. “I must say I feel faint and weak. Surely we may be excused now.”

  “Not yet!” snapped Barnes. “I’m sorry
. I believe you’ve had no dinner. If Mrs. MacShane here could make us all a cup of coffee—?”

  “I can that,” said Mrs. MacShane.

  “Go and help,” said Barnes to Hung, and the latter, after a moment of open defiance, turned slowly on his velvet-shod feet and followed the old woman to the kitchen.

  Barnes stood in deep thought, looking from one to another of the group that remained. His eye as it met mine was cold and calculating, and I knew that if he could fix a semblance of guilt on my head, he would do it.

  A man prominent in San Francisco life was murdered. There would be an outcry in the newspapers, and an arrest must be made to save the face of the police—the guilty man if possible; if not, someone who seemed guilty.

  “Let’s go back,” he said with sudden decision. “Henry Drew was giving a birthday party tonight. I noticed, Mr. Drew, that when you saw the cake with the fifty candles you appeared surprised. I take it this was not your father’s birthday.”

  “It most certainly was not,” Mark Drew replied. “If you will consult the family Bible in the library, you will find that my father was born not in December, but in March. He was sixty-nine years old last March.”

  “Sixty-nine,” mused Barnes. “Yet this was somebody’s fiftieth birthday—somebody Henry Drew thought highly enough of to honor with a party. Whose birthday was it? Mrs. Drew—do you know?”

  “I do not,” said Carlotta Drew. “My husband confided few of his affairs to me.”

  “Yes? Well, I guess we can take it for granted that the person in whose honor the party was given was to be among the guests.” Barnes held up the little pack of white cards. “I’ve got here the place cards for the party, which I gathered up from the table.” Ile began to read. “Mr. Winthrop—you’re not fifty. Miss Tellfair—I don’t need to ask. Doctor Parker—er—how about you?”

  “Not guilty,” Parker said. “It’s not my birthday, and Mr. Drew wouldn’t have given me a party if it were.”

  Barnes held up another card, and for a long moment gazed at the face of Carlotta Drew. He must have seen the lines and wrinkles that even the best of makeups could not completely hide.