The Balcony

by Dorothy Cameron Disney

  It was easy now to comprehend how cleverly Cousin Hoy had worked to implicate Dan in Aunt Amanda’s murder. Without ever raising his voice against Dan Ayres, Hoy had contrived, nevertheless, to throw suspicion in that direction. Dan’s weekly trip to Baltimore had offered him his opportunity. Dan always chose to make the journey along the same back country road and this Hoy knew, just as everybody in the village knew it. In consequence, my great grandfather’s gun turned up eighteen miles from Hieronomo House in a spot where Dan might easily have discarded it. Hoy had been more clever still. By announcing boldly that someone had taken his own car on an unauthorized journey, by anxiously pointing out the rise in the mileage, Hoy had given me at any rate a definite impression that he wasn’t anxious to persecute Dan Ayres and that he personally was fearful someone in the family was guilty.

  “In the beginning Hoy was skilful and cunning,” said Sheriff Glick. “But later there were times when he wasn’t clever in the least. He was much too frightened and alarmed. So many things occurred for which Hoy was not prepared—such as the arrival of you two in the cave while he was in it. That was a moment of real terror. Hoy couldn’t let you escape with Amos’ confession, or with any evidence connecting the murder of Amanda Silver with the death of John Hieronomo. The fight took place, and Hoy was lucky. He managed to get back the confession, and when you two fled, empty-handed, he had a little time. Time enough to transform the cave and make good his own escape. But in one respect he overstepped himself. He had shot Amos with your gun, Dan—a gun he’d stolen from the playhouse. He left the gun beside the body. A little obvious that—few killers leave their own weapons placed conveniently beside their victims. But Hoy was determined to convince me of your guilt. He was determined that I should arrest you.”

  “And you obliged him,” said Dan.

  The silence in the living room had a different quality. The atmosphere became less friendly. Dan was remembering the handcuffs, and I was remembering, too. Our hostess, for all her gentleness, had distinctly the air of one who withheld judgment with considerable difficulty. The Sheriff glanced around the silent group.

  “I told you,” said he, “that I’d caught the killer in the only way I knew. To break the case, to trap the murderer, I had to do two things. I had to lull the guilty person’s anxieties on his own account, which I could accomplish, Dan, by arresting you. God knows you’d done enough yourself to befuddle the issue, and make your arrest seem highly logical.”

  Dan flushed, and I suddenly recalled that our own hands weren’t too clean. We had befuddled the issue by our activities. The Sheriff’s gaze passed on to me.

  “The second thing I needed to accomplish was to make the guilty person anxious about the gold. Make him fearful that the gold was endangered. I left you with the Hieronomos, Anne, and was confident that in talking with your relatives you would mention Daisy Witherspoon. Once the killer got to worrying about the safety of the money, got to wondering whether Amanda Silver had told Daisy the secret of the swinging column, and whether Daisy herself had in mind carrying away the fortune, I thought we’d get some action. Otherwise, Hoy Hieronomo might have waited months, years before he moved toward the gold.”

  “Then you’ve known all along the gold was in the column off the balcony?”

  “Indeed I haven’t,” said Sheriff Glick at once. He shifted position in his chair. “Policemen, Miss Anne, are exactly like other people. A little sharper maybe in observation, a little quicker at drawing conclusions from the evidence at hand. But they’ve got to have the evidence. I felt in the beginning that there was something queer about the balcony—felt that Amanda Silver would hardly step out there merely to beckon an expected visitor around the house. And I was aware of course that someone wanted to distract my attention from the place, else the footprints would not have been swept away.

  “By the way,” the Sheriff hesitated, to say parenthetically, “Hoy admitted that he would never have touched the footprints, had he known that anyone had seen them. But he didn’t know you’d glimpsed them, Miss Anne, and he was extremely anxious to avoid any investigation of the balcony. Late on Wednesday night he crept upstairs and used a broom, and so once again our killer overstepped himself.

  “Now”—Glick smiled a little—“to return to me. Curious as I was about the balcony, it took me several days and hours of careful search to discover the device of the swinging column. Once I did discover it,” he said, and suddenly his voice was grim, “I knew that the gold was the underlying motive for Amanda Silver’s murder, and that someone in the family was guilty. I had no idea, however, who it was.”

  We stared at him.

  “I had no clue to the guilty person,” said the Sheriff. “None. It was someone in the family. But who? Who had killed Amanda Silver?”

  I saw then that the Hieronomos themselves, the tight-knit, stubborn and fanatically cautious family group, had been responsible for his confusion. Secretive every one of them, keeping to themselves facts and suspicions that should have been disclosed. Aunt Patience and Uncle Richard had certainly held their tongues when they should have spoken.

  “Certain members of the family,” said Sheriff Glick, “were much more interested in the missing fortune than in solving Amanda Silver’s murder. There’s no doubt of that. Take Patience and the golden pitch pipe. She recognized it instantly, knew that Daisy Witherspoon had been in the house—her sister’s guest—and she didn’t say a word. Why? She wanted to find the answer for herself, and then decide what to do, what to tell the law and when.

  “Take Richard. He actually knew that Amanda had located, his father’s fortune, and planted a couple of blundering actors in the house to spy on her. They didn’t know what they were watching for—Richard didn’t ever tell them—but they watched anyway and naturally discovered nothing. Richard persevered. Even after the murder he kept quiet about the gold—he wanted to find the treasure trove himself, and then decide on his next step. He didn’t peep about the gold but he did tell me a story that convinced me he was far too dim-witted to commit any murder. But that left me with Patience, Hoy and even with the shrinking Lucy. Sometimes those sweet and martyred little souls will commit appalling crimes.”

  The Sheriff had been talking very rapidly. Suddenly he paused. His face became wry and sad. He looked not at us but at the glowing fire.

  “Now we come to Amos. I never for a moment thought that Amos had killed Amanda Silver. Nevertheless, where Amos was concerned, I made one of those mistakes that haunt policemen all their lives. I knew that the Negro had something on his mind, that he was scared, but I misinterpreted the reasons for his fear. I thought Amos was involved with you two, that he was protecting you.” Glick kept on looking at the fire. “The gold itself—the fact that it was hidden in the column— didn’t mean to me that John Hieronomo had been murdered. I didn’t know the earlier story, I had no hint of it—no hint that the seeds of Amanda Silver’s murder were planted twenty-five years ago. I thought the old man had died by accident, and I thought that until it was too late to save Amos.”

  “You wouldn’t take us to the cave,” Dan remembered. “We talked and argued, Anne and I, and you wouldn’t budge. You . . .”

  “I went to the cave,” said Glick, sharp and impatient, “the instant I heard your story. Went while the deputies were transporting you two to the house. Even so, I wasn’t quick enough. Hoy Hieronomo had already got away, had already had a chance to rearrange the cave. The later return of mine with you was play acting—a necessary bit of play acting. If I were to convince the killer that he was not in danger, you had to believe that you were in real and imminent danger. You had to believe that I was an unjust and hideously mistaken man.”

  “I suppose,” said Dan reluctantly, “you were right, at that.”

  I too perceived somewhat unwillingly that the Sheriff’s way—hard as it had been on us—had probably been the only way to capture Hoy Hieronomo. Confident that he had misled Sheriff Glick completely—with his own eyes Hoy had seen
Dan go off in handcuffs—and worried about the safety of the fortune, the little man had slipped off his train and returned to Hieronomo House. Except for Sheriff Glick, Hoy might have delayed that return indefinitely.

  Hermine Ayres maintained a noticeable silence. Where Dan was affected, his mother’s usually soft and tender heart became hard indeed. She sought for some flaw in the Sheriff’s story, for some omission. She thought of something finally.

  “It isn’t clear to me,” said she, “why Daisy behaved in such a peculiar fashion. If she didn’t have John Hieronomo’s money why did she run away twenty-five years ago?”

  “Daisy Witherspoon,” said the Sheriff soberly, “thought from the very first that the family had murdered John Hieronomo. With no proof whatever, she was convinced that the accident had been arranged to prevent the marriage. All she actually knew was that John Hieronomo was mortally afraid of something. She didn’t realize that his mind was in any way affected; she was too young and too naive. But even in her inexperience, Daisy leaped to one correct conclusion—she knew that the accident was no accident at all.”

  “Why didn’t she stay and fight it through?”

  “She was afraid herself,” said the Sheriff. “Afraid of the Hieronomos. They disliked her and she knew it. She was young and foolish. So far as that goes she is foolish still. You must remember too that she had no proof. She took the easiest way. She’d arranged the details of the wedding trip—she and John Hieronomo were sailing around the world—she had the tickets in her purse. She used one, and cashed in the other. She sailed alone.”

  That the Hieronomos were seeking her, that all of Mount Hope believed she was in possession of Greatgrandfather’s fortune, Daisy Witherspoon had not learned. When she left Mount Hope, she had quite deliberately wiped the Hieronomos from her thoughts and taken definite steps to close that chapter in her life. She had solved her problem as a child would solve it—covered up her tracks and carefully put herself out of reach. She had left her boat and lingered in the Orient several years, teaching music. She had been young and gay then, and the existence had been pleasant, easy. But when Aunt Amanda’s detective agency located her, Daisy Witherspoon, no longer gay and young, was once again in New York; actually she was discovered with little difficulty. She had resisted any return to Mount Hope until Amanda Silver had held out to her a promise of a dower right in John Hieronomo’s fortune. That had brought her, but again—when trouble came—she had gone into hiding.

  “She didn’t know who had killed Amanda Silver,” explained the Sheriff. “I don’t believe she cared particularly—she was too indignant and resentful over her treatment as a guest. Amanda hadn’t expected that Daisy would arrive until Thanksgiving Day, but Daisy—eager to obtain her money quickly—showed up a full week early. Amanda took care of that by installing Daisy in her bedroom and insisting that there she stay, unseen by anyone. Daisy was not to be allowed to interfere with Amanda’s plans. She was determined to break her news all at once on the anniversary of her father’s death.”

  The Sheriff rose and walked to the window. Slowly and almost imperceptibly the sky was lightening, and in the East was a faint, vague promise of rosy color. Dan leaned over and snapped off a lamp. Sheriff Glick gazed at the freshening world and then he turned around.

  “Glenn Hieronomo has gone to Boston, Miss Anne. He asked me to give this to you.”

  Glenn’s note was written on a crumpled scrap of paper. Five words composed it.

  “Good luck, Anne, and good-bye.”

  There was in the brief message nothing of his own heartbreak and his own despair, no mention of the fact that the conclusion of our case had brought to him cruel tragedy. I passed the note to Dan, and he read it through. He held my hand a little closer, but he didn’t speak. There was nothing for either one of us to say, and little to do except to hope that time would heal Glenn’s grief, assuage his wound. Time and work. He had his studies, he had his youth, he had the sorry comfort that his father would never stand in open court as a convicted murderer.

  I knew that my merry, red-haired second cousin and I would not meet again. I had possessed a friend who had gone away forever. Dan must have known that too. He carefully folded the little scrap of paper and gave it back to me.

  “You’ll want to keep this, dear,” he said.

  Sheriff Glick moved from the window and picked up his coat. He paused to drain his coffee cup, and admitted that he needed about a month of sleep.

  “The rest of the Hieronomos,” he remarked, as though it were an unimportant footnote, “Patience, Lucy and Richard, will be back in town some time tomorrow—or rather I should say some time today. Within the next few hours. They mean to hold a conclave over John Hieronomo’s fortune, decide how it’s to be shared, how the taxes are to be paid and all the rest of it. Daisy tells me that she will be represented by a lawyer. But I imagine, Miss Anne, that the family will expect you to be present.”

  “I don’t want to go,” I said without an instant’s hesitation.

  “You aren’t going, dear,” said Dan to me. And then, as I raised startled eyes, he said, “You’ve got a much more important date to keep with me today. At the Methodist parsonage. About noon, I think. I hope that we can be started toward the Adirondacks by three o’clock.”

  “Lake Placid for skiing?” I asked.

  “Lake Placid,” said Dan, “for a honeymoon.”

  I felt his mother’s arms around me, I felt her soft lips brush my cheek. I saw the sudden mist of tears in her eyes before I understood that Dan had proposed to me—and in public. A moment later Hermine Ayres had vanished. Sheriff Glick went next.

  Dan and I stood in the doorway until his tall figure swung out of sight. Then we stepped outside into the fresh and radiant dawn. Together we sat down on the steps to watch the sun come up in flaming glory. The air was chill and cool, but we didn’t notice that. Some time later—the lovely color had faded from the sky— Skipper found us there. The little dog barked happily, and then impatiently, and presently took himself into the house in search of a bright red ball. We kept on sitting there.