Danger in the Dark (21 page)

“We’ll have some coffee in a few moments,” said Jacob Wait. “And it’ll soon be warmer in here. Who killed Shore?”

Nobody, of course, replied, although Gertrude uttered a kind of stifled scream. Wait looked at her disapprovingly, and she stopped with her hand over her mouth.

“Well, somebody killed him,” he said, “and there was no one but you in the house. He was killed because he knew something about the murder of Benjamin Brewer. Isn’t that right?”

Again, and naturally, no one replied. The detective’s eyes were smoldering. He said abruptly:

“I’m going to tell you a few things. There’s only two motives for murder. Three, if you include self-defense. One is for profit. One is because the murderer simply likes to kill. I think we can rule that out here—at least—at least we’ll do so for the moment. Also self-defense—”

He paused very slightly there, but no one claimed that vantage ground. So he went on, hurriedly, as if the things he was saying were things they ought, all of them, to know that he knew. As if none of it would be news to any of them.

He hated talk; but when he had to talk he did so rapidly, fully, volubly.

“Archie Shore was here the night Brewer was murdered. He came to see Brewer—in the hope, he said, of getting a job. He had no money. His son”—he looked at Rowley—“managed to persuade him to leave without seeing Brewer at all. He did promise him to intervene, to say a word to Brewer and to the others and to try to get him—Shore—another job with the Haviland Bridge Company.”

“Rowley!” cried Gertrude sharply. “You did that!”

“Don’t interrupt me,” said Jacob Wait. “I’ve got things to do. So Shore promised to leave. According to Shore himself and his son—” Daphne glanced at Rowley, and he was looking subtly guilty; exactly as he had always looked when he told tales as a child.
What, then, had he told?
Her heart gave a painful leap, and she looked at Dennis, and he, too, had observed that subtle evasion in Rowley’s long, sallow face. He was watching Rowley with hidden tension, waiting for it to come out. “—According to both stories,” said the detective, “Shore was in the act of leaving, was in fact at the door, saying good-by to his son, who stood beside him, when they heard a shot. Owing to the snow and the muffled quality of the shot they couldn’t be sure where the sound came from—whether from the house or from somewhere on the grounds. Or so they say. But they did hear the shot, and both identified it definitely as from a small-caliber revolver—not, for instance, from a forty-five, which would have made considerably more noise. Then, according to their story, they decided it was nothing. Shore went his way, first taking a woman’s coat and hat and veil from the closet off the hall and wearing it. This point was, at his telling, obscure and threw some doubt on the whole story. However, he found a taxi waiting, as you all know, and went away.” There was here a strong feeling of a reservation; of something withheld. The fire cracked as a large lump of coal fell apart, and the detective went on quickly, always with that queer impatience and haste: “At any rate he did leave; was taken into town and disappeared. Rowley—” (He looks so guilty, thought Daphne. He heard the shot and told the police. Is that it?) “—Rowley went back to bed. He did not tell his story of the shot until his father turned up again. His father, as you know, came forward of his own volition the next day; said he was the woman in the taxi and told what I’ve just told you. A story which, when he discovered that his father had returned, Rowley Shore corroborated in every detail. Giving both men, if their stories are to be credited, an alibi for the time of that particular shot. And it is not proved, but it is a strong supposition, that that was the shot that killed Ben Brewer.”

Rowley was looking at the rug. Gertrude, panting and flushed, was twisting her hands and staring from Rowley to the detective and back again.

“According to the taxi driver, he left at exactly one o’clock. He did not hear the shot: his engine was running in order to keep the heater going, and the windows were closed. Thus, if we admit the shot heard to be that which killed Brewer, and the truth of the story Shore told—which his son corroborated with, so far as we know, no collusion—that shot must have been fired about ten minutes to one.”

He paused.

But that was wrong, thought Daphne. Ben had been killed almost an hour before that. It could have been only a little after twelve when she arrived at the springhouse. She had a strong involuntary impulse to speak and remembered that she must not. The detective would say, “How do you know?”

“That would give,” said Wait thoughtfully, “about ten minutes for the two Shores to talk of the thing, for Archie to get the coat, hat and veil and walk through the snow along the drive to the gate. He intended, he told us, to walk into town and did not want to be recognized by the fellow at the station; He did not admit that he was afraid that that shot meant murder or even any kind of trouble; he would not admit that he had any suspicions at all about it. He would not admit, either, that he or his son tried in any way to discover just what had happened. Which seems wrong,” said Jacob Wait dryly, looking once at Rowley. “However, he did leave at that time. And he did return the next day, altogether uninvited. We did not discover the identity of the woman in the taxi; we probably would have, given a little more time. But Archie Shore did not wait to be discovered. He returned of his own volition, told us this not entirely to be credited story and took up his residence here in the house, apparently on the most peaceful terms with you all—this in spite of the fact that, by all accounts, he was not welcome and had not been welcome for a period of years. So—what did he know?”

He paused, and no one spoke.

“What did he know?” repeated the detective impatiently. “There was something. Something that made him, when he knew of the murder from the papers—or if he knew of it by other means—certain that he himself would not be accused of murder. Something that safeguarded him, something that, if he were arrested by any chance and charged with murder, he could produce as evidence to free him. He would not have run the risk of returning otherwise. Thus it must be evidence leading to the murderer. And it must be evidence for which you—all of you—one of you—were willing to pay. Otherwise you would not have permitted him to remain. Otherwise you would not have offered him money.” He did look then directly at Amelia. And Johnny made a helpless motion and cried, “There, Amelia. I told you all not to talk so loudly. They heard—there were policemen every where—”

The detective glanced at him, too, impatiently. “Certainly,” he said. “Why do you suppose they were here? To play games? Now then, what did he know? You may as well tell me, you know. Did he see the murder? Did he investigate after he’d heard the shot? Did he go up the little path to the springhouse and—”

“Springhouse?” cried Amelia violently.

“Certainly, springhouse,” said the detective, looking at her as if he hated her. “Brewer was actually murdered in the springhouse. We’ve known that for some time. That,” said the detective, “and some other things.—Oh, there you are. Put the coffee on the table. And bring enough cups for all of us.”

“I HAVE THEM, SIR
,” said Laing. Looking pale and frightened, and clad hastily in trousers and sweater, evidently pulled on over pajamas, with a woolen scarf tied around his throat, he came into the room, hesitated while Johnny cleared a space on the table, and then set the tray down. His hands shook as he began pouring coffee, and he darted quick, worried glances about the room—at Amelia, at the detective, at the fire. At the fire tongs on the floor, which he avoided carefully as he began to pass the coffee.

Jacob Wait looked at one of the policemen.

“Did you question him?” he asked, nodding toward the old man.

“Yes, sir. No go. But the housemaid—Maggie—the one with the cold—”

Wait nodded impatiently.

“Well, we got something sort of queer out of her.”

“What?”

The policeman—the one they called Braley—was over-conscientious.

“Do you—shall I—” He indicated with a dubious gesture the circle of listeners.

“Go on.”

“Well, this housemaid, this Maggie, didn’t want to talk, but we—we got it out of her, sir, we got it out of her.”

“What?”

“About the hammer, sir.”

“The—” Jacob Wait stopped short, gave the policeman a long look and said, “What hammer?”

But he was killed, thought Daphne, with the fire tongs.

“The hammer in the linen closet, sir,” said Braley with ingratiating eagerness. “She found it. She found it yesterday morning. It belonged in the tool chest in the basement. She found it in the linen closet yesterday morning, and she took it to the basement and put it away.”

“Oh,” said the detective. “Well. If she put it away—”

“Oh, that isn’t all,” said Braley. “She put it away, and during the afternoon she went to the linen closet again for something, and there was the hammer again. Right where she had found it before.”

“Did she know who put it there?”

“She said she didn’t know anything about it, sir. Not anything at all.” He looked a little rueful, as if the force of Maggie’s disclaimer had made a deep and not very pleasant impression. “I’m bound to say I believed her, sir.”

“Did she leave it there in the linen closet?”

“No. Oh no, she put it away again.”

“Are you sure she’s telling the truth?”

“Yes, sir. At least she was very reluctant. If I do say it myself, we had to handle her adroitly.”

“Huh,” said Jacob Wait shortly. “That’ll do, Braley. I’ll see her myself.”

Jacob Wait jerked his head toward the door. Braley choked and vanished.

The cup which Laing was passing to Amelia rattled thinly on the saucer and stopped as Amelia’s beautiful hand took it. The fragrance of the hot, black coffee filled the little room. The detective said, addressing a plain-clothes man, “See that the tongs are taken care of. Get me an analysis as soon as possible.”

The plain-clothes man, wrapping the tongs as carefully as if they were thin glass, instead of bronze so hard that it had killed a man, went away. Jacob Wait said, “I’ll take some coffee. Thank you. Know anything about this hammer, Laing?”

“No, sir,” said Laing, his voice trembling a little. He went on, passing coffee, without adding to his denial.

But Archie Shore had been killed with fire tongs, thought Daphne again. And the hammer …

“Premeditation,” said Jacob Wait and drank some coffee, leaving the word hanging in the air with all its grisly connotations.

They were all inexpressibly grateful for the coffee.

Johnny stirred sugar and said suddenly to the detective, his blue eyes harassed, “Mr Wait, what about the springhouse—did you really mean that Ben was murdered there and not in the house?”

“Yes,” said Jacob Wait and finished the steaming coffee he held and took more.

“But how—are you certain, Mr Wait? He—it seems so strange—”

Amelia thought so, too, apparently, for she looked more witchlike than ever and said abruptly, “If Rowley and Archie heard the shot and were standing in the door at the time, they must have known the sound came from the springhouse.”

“We asked that,” observed Jacob Wait. “How about it, Mr Shore? Do you want to change your testimony?”

Rowley looked into his coffee cup and said “No” sullenly.

“You did hear the shot, though?”

“Yes. I told you that.”

“But you didn’t think of it coming from the springhouse?”

“No.”

“You didn’t go up to the springhouse and look?”

Rowley looked up suddenly and angrily. He said, “What are you trying to make me do? Confess? Well, I won’t. I didn’t kill him. I have an alibi. I mean, I—I had an alibi. For the time when the shot was fired.”

“But,” said the detective in a businesslike way, “it took two people to move the body of Ben Brewer—dead, then, or dying—from the springhouse to the house. I’m not sure of the motive for that, but I think I know. One person could not have done it; thus the murderer had an accomplice. An accessory after, and in all likelihood before, the fact. Now get this: I know how and why you—all of you, as a family—hated Brewer. I know that you had fought him for a year. I know the things you were doing to oust
him
from the company.”

“We didn’t murder him,” cried Gertrude shrilly. “We didn’t murder him. And our hatred was justified, for he was ruining us. Another year of his management and the Haviland Bridge Company would have been bankrupt. Ask anyone. He was taking the very bread out of our mouths. The thing my father worked his whole life to build up was being steadily torn down by this—this interloper. He was not responsible—he—”

“Can you prove all this, Mrs Shore?”

She stopped in full flight; her eyes glittered and she said, “Certainly. It is not my opinion alone. We have often thought that he—”

“Gertrude!” said Amelia softly and tenderly. Gertrude gulped and gave her a startled look, and Amelia said gently, “My sister was extravagantly fond of our father, Mr Wait. She felt, as you seem to know, that Mr Brewer was a danger to the welfare and progress, the continued existence indeed, of the Haviland Bridge Company. Her feelings, however, were not so violent as to—Well, dear me, I assure you we wouldn’t have been obliged to resort to murder. There would have been—if the need arose—other means of removing Mr Brewer.”

“Such as,” said Jacob Wait, “having him committed to an asylum for the insane?”

Two points of light gleamed suddenly in Amelia’s deep-set eyes. She put a slim, beautiful hand to the net cap she wore and pulled it a little looser about her throat. Gertrude’s eyes were bulging like blue marbles.

Amelia did not, however, betray herself in words. He waited for her to do so, and as she didn’t, and as Gertrude was mesmerized into silence, he said, “You have been trying to do that for months, Miss Haviland. Don’t trouble to deny it, for we know it. Even after he became engaged to your niece you kept on—we found a list of things which you thought ought to be called eccentricities and which you had prepared to present to the stockholders in the hope of their making a petition to the medical commission.”