Another Woman's House (8 page)

“But that,” said the Governor slowly, “was very important. Wait, Miss Lane. Let's go back to the night of the murder. You were not here and do not know …”

“I saw all the papers. I talked to Tim when he reached England. He knew nothing more than he told …”

The Governor put up a hand in a protesting way. “If you please, my dear. We'll talk about your brother's motives in a moment. Indeed—” again the rather grim and obstinate look settled about his mouth—“indeed we must talk of them. But just now I want you to go back to the story Tim told at the time of the murder.”

“Tim corroborated Webb's testimony,” said Richard. “What has he done now?”

“I'll tell you. Tim came to me yesterday, in the afternoon, late. I remembered his name, of course. He wouldn't say why he wanted to see me—which was just as well. I have a good staff but there are always leaks—at any rate I saw him. He looked rather ill and nervous, sat there twisting his hat and told me a remarkable story. You'll remember his story of the night of the murder.”

“Every word of it,” Richard said. “He was coming here to spend his last week-end before he went to England with his unit. He met Webb Manders on the train. He'd been drinking a little with the other kids. Webb offered to drive him here, but he said he'd walk, thinking he'd sober up. So Webb went off presumably to the Manders' place—and then a short time later came here.”

The Governor was nodding. “Exactly. Webb's story was that he got home, Jack wasn't there, he thought Jack might have come here, and drove back here, passing Tim somewhere along your drive. Tim saw the car; Webb saw Tim in the glow of the car lights but didn't stop.”

Myra had read the newspaper accounts over and over; she had never heard the facts told, like that, and suddenly the black and white newspaper print seemed unreal. It was as if she heard, for the first time, the real background for that dark and ugly happening. Perhaps none of it had actually seemed real until now—except Alice and Alice's house.

But what had Tim said?
What had he done?

The Governor said, “Then, of course, as Tim was walking along the drive, following Webb's car, which, however, had disappeared around the curve and gone on rapidly ahead of him, he heard the shots. He ran toward the house, as you know; got over the wall out there and through the shrubbery and got to the terrace door, over there,” said the Governor jerking his head toward the French doors. “And here was Jack Manders on the floor,” unconsciously, it seemed to Myra, he motioned toward the hearth rug, almost at their feet. “Mrs. Thorne had already gone to the hall at Webb's request to phone for the police. Webb—and this is the crux of the thing—Webb was then bending over Jack. That was the picture according to Tim, then, and Webb agreed in every detail. Room empty except for Webb, bending over his dead brother. Mrs. Thorne in the hall at the telephone. Now then …”

He paused and drank. The room, the whole house waited, as if it had ears, as if it could hear and waited, listening, to compare the words for which it waited with the truth it knew.

The Governor said abruptly, frowning, “Yesterday young Lane changed that picture. Well, I'll show you.” He got up, glanced sharply around the room again as if identifying every detail of its arrangement and furnishings. Then he walked to the other end of the room. There were low bookshelves there with two wide but low windows above them, which were curtained with crimson like the French windows almost directly opposite them. The big man went to the curtains and put his hand on the cord; and looked back at Myra and Richard.

“At the time of the investigation we went over and over the exact layout of this room. I remembered it perfectly yesterday as soon as Tim Lane started to talk. Built out at the end of the house,” he said, gesturing with the hand that held the glass, “hall door in the middle, low bookshelves and short windows here, bookshelves all along that wall, then the French doors and the fireplace near which Manders fell, exactly there. The big point, of course, was that Manders claimed to have been walking along the driveway in the direction of the front door when he heard the first shot. He says he thought it came from this room. He stood on tiptoes and could see through
this window.
Thus, he said, he saw Mrs. Thorne with the revolver in her hand—saw, in fact, the murder.” He paused and looked at the window.

Richard said in a strained, tight voice, “And he lied?”

“Wait,” said the Governor. “Hear me out. He said it was quicker to run around the end of the house than to go along to the front door and back the length of the hall to the library. At least that's what he did. He climbed over that low wall out there, got through the shrubbery and ran up the steps onto the terrace and reached the French doors—there.” Again he moved his hand, gesturing toward the terrace doors. “He said that by that time the shots had stopped; they were in very quick succession naturally; he said that when he entered the room Mrs. Thorne was kneeling beside Jack Manders.”

Another person was suddenly in the room—two other people. Alice, in a thin white dress leaning over a huddled figure of a man on the hearth rug. A thin white dress, Richard had said, with blood on the front of it.

Richard, of course, remembered every small detail. To Myra it had a new and poignant clarity. Jack Manders was a man, not merely a name in black and white. Yet she had known him slightly; she could remember even now his florid, rather heavily handsome face, his curly black hair, barely touched with gray, his easy smile. He'd been a tall man, heavy, good-natured, popular with men. Apparently he'd had no enemies. Why should anybody shoot him? The only conceivable motive was the one they had attributed to Alice.

Richard moved, reached for a cigarette, held it in his hand and forgot to light it. The Governor went on, very precisely, “Webb's story was that he thought first of a doctor; he hoped Jack was not dead. He told Mrs. Thorne to go and phone for the doctor and she got up and went into the hall to do so. And then he knelt down beside his brother and was trying to find a pulse when he realized that Tim had come to the French doors too, and was standing there staring at the scene. You remember all this, Thorne. But I have to recapitulate in order to explain to you …”

“Go on,” said Richard.

“Well, then. According to Tim's (and Webb's) original testimony Tim said, ‘What is it? What's happened?' or words to that effect; Webb replied that Jack was killed. He then told Tim they must get a doctor and the police. He did not then accuse Mrs. Thorne—which now is very important. He did not, in fact, accuse her until after Tim and Mrs. Thorne had both been questioned and both were on record with their first, and, as a matter of fact, in both cases, fixed testimonies. Neither Tim nor Mrs. Thorne changed a word that was important after that first inquiry—until yesterday.”

He paused for an instant again. Strangely, in that instant, the blue paneled walls, the yellow daffodils, the red curtains, seemed clearer and sharper. Every detail of the room seemed to pick itself out with a clarity and poignancy that were almost painful. Richard's hands were rolling the little white cigarette, twisting it; bits of tobacco fell to the hearth rug.

The Governor said, “Obviously Tim did not realize when he first put himself on record that there was any question of Mrs. Thorne's being accused of the murder. He ran into the hall, found her collapsed at the telephone, took her into the dining room to get her out of the way. It was the nearest room. The police came; they got his statement. Well, the point is, as I told you, the original first picture is changed in an important factor. Some of it remains the same. Mrs. Thorne was at the phone, Jack was dead, there before the fireplace. Webb was in the room. But Tim now says that when he reached the terrace door—wait, I'll show you.”

Barton had pulled the curtains together. Now, with a sweep, the Governor opened the heavy crimson curtain. “Webb was not bending over Jack. He was instead in the very act of opening this curtain.”

Richard said nothing. The Governor turned and the two men looked at each other across the room, for a long moment. Then the Governor said, “You see what this means.”

“Yes,” said Richard. His voice was strange, flat and harsh; not like Richard. “Yes.”

“It means,” said the Governor, “that Webb Manders on the driveway outside these windows
could not
have seen what he claimed later to have seen.”

The cigarette crumbled up in Richard's hands, He said, “Webb decided instantly to accuse Alice.”

“Yes. Tim says that Webb released the curtain and came, running, to bend over Jack. Tim entered the room. The rest of the story is exactly the same, except in that one detail. But that detail proved Webb had lied.” He released the cord of the crimson curtain and came back toward them. “Now, then. First I had to examine young Lane's motives in coming to me with this extraordinary story. And his good faith—or lack of it. I did not know whether or not to believe him. I questioned him; he said he had forgotten the incident of the curtain. I found it difficult to believe that he would have forgotten it. Yet he stuck to the new version of his testimony with such earnestness that I could not fail to test its truth—as I did. I sent for Webb Manders.”

He put his glass on the table and sat down and with his hands on his knees looked up at Richard. “I sent for Webb. I kept young Lane waiting. I saw Webb alone. In the interval I had time to think the thing over; it seemed to me that if there was a word of truth in young Lane's present story, there was only one way to extract it from Webb. When Webb arrived I told him flatly that I had evidence to the effect that the curtains had been closed when he claimed to have seen into this room. I made it strong. I told him that this being the fact, the case was automatically re-opened for investigation and that”—the Governor's voice was hard and sharp—“since he had perjured himself, it might go easier with him later if he'd admit the truth then and there. He saw at once that he himself would be suspect, in the event of a new investigation. He saw, in fact, the whole picture. And, to my surprise, I must say, admitted it to be a fact. Tim was telling the truth.”

Richard started to speak and stopped. The Governor's eyes were very shrewd and very keen. He watched Richard and said rather slowly, “There is no doubt that it is the truth. I took Webb by surprise. He could not, or, at least, did not, think of a way out of it; and it is a fact that truth is a powerful weapon. In my experience in criminal trials there is often a psychological moment when the sheer weight of truth operates. It did in this case. To make it short, he signed a confession of perjury before he left my office.”

“That means,” said Richard, “that he did it purposely. He decided to accuse her; he arranged the curtains to fit the story he decided to tell.”

“That's right.”

“Why? How could he have deliberately planned to send her to … ?” Richard stopped and the Governor finished, “… to the chair. It was a frame. Nothing more or less. Webb says he did it because he believed in her guilt. Because he saw that his brother was dead. Because he wished to make it absolutely impossible for her to escape conviction. He said—then and yesterday—that he waited for a few hours before he accused her because she might confess. When she didn't he accused her, because he believed she was guilty. I think,” said the Governor heavily, “that he might be honest enough about that. Provided, that is, he did not shoot his brother himself. As I said, his own position as a possible suspect was an inducement to his confession of perjury. He knew his danger, had known it all along, and hoped to induce a more lenient view on our part.”

“It could have cost …”

Again Richard stopped. Again the Governor finished for him. “It could have cost her life. But if he is honest in saying that he sincerely believed in her guilt, that is a comprehensible motive for his accusation of Mrs. Thorne, both because Jack was his brother and he may have wished to avenge him, and because of his own sense of justice. If actually
he
killed his brother, then it is even more easily understood as a motive for his lie for Mrs. Thorne's conviction would automatically save Webb.”

“Did he do it?”

The Governor did not reply for a moment and, when he did, his manner had changed. Up to then, except for the extremely searching look in his eyes when he watched Richard, his manner had been open and candid; there was now a certain reservation. Yet his words were frank enough. “I don't know. I'm inclined to believe not. Yet certainly we are right up against the whole question again. If Mrs. Thorne didn't kill him, who did?”

Suddenly Myra wondered if Richard too had sensed that rather ominous change in the Governor's manner. She thought that he had, for Richard's own face seemed to close up. His voice, too, had a certain reservation. He said, “There were not many suspects.”

“No,” said the Governor so deliberately that there was a kind of indefinable significance in his tone. “No, there were not many suspects. I should say there are not many suspects.”

After a moment Richard said almost as deliberately, “Along what lines will the investigation proceed?”

“The usual lines, I should say.” Again there was an element of reservation, almost of evasion, in the Governor's manner; yet again his words were prompt and apparently frank. “Opportunity, means, motive.”

“I see. Presence in or near the house, possession of the gun …”

“Your gun,” said the Governor.

“My gun,” agreed Richard. “But what about a motive? Has anything new developed in that direction?—If I may ask?”

“Certainly you may ask,” said the Governor. “There is nothing new. Indeed, there was never a proved motive to attribute to Mrs. Thorne. The obvious one, indeed, the only one that seemed logical at the time was, well, an affair, a very serious affair, between them and a quarrel. As you'll remember there were instances which seemed to support that theory. Oh, it's true, there was never a letter, a scrap of paper, a witness of anything that was”—he cleared his throat and seemed to substitute words—“a witness of any particular value or significance. But there were, as I say, instances. He was an intimate friend; he was frequently seen with your wife and with you; he was a constant visitor here at your house.” He put up his hand as if to prevent Richard's speaking, and added quickly, “Oh, I realize that this could have been the most ordinary and innocent of friendships. There was nothing to suggest anything else except the circumstances of the murder itself. His presence here at night when you were away seemed, in view of the murder, very significant. Webb's false testimony to the effect that he had seen the murder seemed to clinch it. Yet actually it could have been exactly as she said. Jack had strolled over here simply because he was alone, because he wanted to chat, he wanted a book to read. It was Webb's testimony, Webb's perjury, that gave the fact significance.”