Mary Roberts Rinehart & Avery Hopwood (20 page)

Miss Cornelia handed the paper to Anderson silently. But her eyes were
bright with pardonable vanity at the success of her little piece of
strategy.

"A thumb-print," muttered Anderson. "Whose is it?"

"Doctor Wells," said Miss Cornelia with what might have been a little
crow of triumph in anyone not a Van Gorder.

Anderson looked thoughtful. Then he felt in his pocket for a
magnifying glass, failed to find it, muttered, and took the reading
glass Miss Cornelia offered him.

"Try this," she said. "My whole case hangs on my conviction that that
print and the one out there on the stair rail are the same."

He put down the paper and smiled at her ironically. "Your case!" he
said. "You don't really believe you need a detective at all, do you?"

"I will only say that so far your views and mine have failed to
coincide. If I am right about that fingerprint, then you may be right
about my private opinion."

And on that he went out, rather grimly, paper and reading glass in
hand, to make his comparison.

It was then that Beresford came in, a new and slightly rigid Beresford,
and crossed to her at once.

"Miss Van Gorder," he said, all the flippancy gone from his voice, "may
I ask you to make an excuse and call your gardener here?"

Dale started uncontrollably at the ominous words, but Miss Cornelia
betrayed no emotion except in the increased rapidity of her knitting.

"The gardener? Certainly, if you'll touch that bell," she said
pleasantly.

Beresford stalked to the bell and rang it. The three waited—Dale in
an agony of suspense.

The detective re-entered the room by the alcove stairs, his mien
unfathomable by any of the anxious glances that sought him out at once.

"It's no good, Miss Van Gorder," he said quietly. "The prints are not
the same."

"Not the same!" gasped Miss Cornelia, unwilling to believe her ears.

Anderson laid down the paper and the reading glass with a little
gesture of dismissal.

"If you think I'm mistaken, I'll leave it to any unprejudiced person or
your own eyesight. Thumbprints never lie," he said in a flat,
convincing voice. Miss Cornelia stared at him—disappointment written
large on her features. He allowed himself a little ironic smile.

"Did you ever try a good cigar when you wanted to think?" he queried
suavely, puffing upon his own.

But Miss Cornelia's spirit was too broken by the collapse of her dearly
loved and adroitly managed scheme for her to take up the gauge of
battle he offered.

"I still believe it was the Doctor," she said stubbornly. But her
tones were not the tones of utter conviction which she had used before.

"And yet," said the detective, ruthlessly demolishing another link in
her broken chain of evidence, "the Doctor was in this room tonight,
according to your own statement, when the anonymous letter came through
the window."

Miss Cornelia gazed at him blankly, for the first time in her life at a
loss for an appropriately sharp retort. It was true—the Doctor had
been here in the room beside her when the stone bearing the last
anonymous warning had crashed through the windowpane. And yet—

Billy's entrance in answer to Beresford's ring made her mind turn to
other matters for the moment. Why had Beresford's manner changed so,
and what was he saying to Billy now?

"Tell the gardener Miss Van Gorder wants him and don't say we're all
here," the young lawyer commanded the butler sharply. Billy nodded and
disappeared. Miss Cornelia's back began to stiffen—she didn't like
other people ordering her servants around like that.

The detective, apparently, had somewhat of the same feeling.

"I seem to have plenty of help in this case!" he said with obvious
sarcasm, turning to Beresford.

The latter made no reply. Dale rose anxiously from her chair, her lips
quivering.

"Why have you sent for the gardener?" she inquired haltingly.

Beresford deigned to answer at last.

"I'll tell you that in a moment," he said with a grim tightening of his
lips.

There was a fateful pause, for an instant, while Dale roved nervously
from one side of the room to the other. Then Jack Bailey came into the
room—alone.

He seemed to sense danger in the air. His hands clenched at his sides,
but except for that tiny betrayal of emotion, he still kept his
servant's pose.

"You sent for me?" he queried of Miss Cornelia submissively, ignoring
the glowering Beresford.

But Beresford would be ignored no longer. He came between them before
Miss Cornelia had time to answer.

"How long has this man been in your employ?" he asked brusquely, manner
tense.

Miss Cornelia made one final attempt at evasion. "Why should that
interest you?" she parried, answering his question with an icy question
of her own.

It was too late. Already Bailey had read the truth in Beresford's eyes.

"I came this evening," he admitted, still hoping against hope that his
cringing posture of the servitor might give Beresford pause for the
moment.

But the promptness of his answer only crystallized Beresford's
suspicions.

"Exactly," he said with terse finality. He turned to the detective.

"I've been trying to recall this man's face ever since I came in
tonight—" he said with grim triumph. "Now, I know who he is."

"Who is he?"

Bailey straightened up. He had lost his game with Chance—and the
loss, coming when it did, seemed bitterer than even he had thought it
could be, but before they took him away he would speak his mind.

"It's all right, Beresford," he said with a fatigue so deep that it
colored his voice like flakes of iron-rust. "I know you think you're
doing your duty—but I wish to God you could have restrained your sense
of duty for about three hours more!"

"To let you get away?" the young lawyer sneered, unconvinced.

"No," said Bailey with quiet defiance. "To let me finish what I came
here to do."

"Don't you think you have done enough?" Beresford's voice flicked him
with righteous scorn, no less telling because of its youthfulness. He
turned back to the detective soberly enough.

"This man has imposed upon the credulity of these women, I am quite
sure without their knowledge," he said with a trace of his former
gallantry. "He is Bailey of the Union Bank, the missing cashier."

The detective slowly put down his cigar on an ash tray.

"That's the truth, is it?" he demanded.

Dale's hand flew to her breast. If Jack would only deny it—even now!
But even as she thought this, she realized the uselessness of any such
denial.

Bailey realized it, too.

"It's true, all right," he admitted hopelessly. He closed his eyes for
a moment. Let them come with the handcuffs now and get it over—every
moment the scene dragged out was a moment of unnecessary torture for
Dale.

But Beresford had not finished with his indictment. "I accuse him not
only of the thing he is wanted for, but of the murder of Richard
Fleming!" he said fiercely, glaring at Bailey as if only a youthful
horror of making a scene before Dale and Miss Cornelia held him back
from striking the latter down where he stood.

Bailey's eyes snapped open. He took a threatening step toward his
accuser. "You lie!" he said in a hoarse, violent voice.

Anderson crossed between them, just as conflict seemed inevitable.

"You knew this?" he queried sharply in Dale's direction.

Dale set her lips in a line. She did not answer.

He turned to Miss Cornelia.

"Did you?"

"Yes," admitted the latter quietly, her knitting needles at last at
rest. "I knew he was Mr. Bailey if that is all you mean."

The quietness of her answer seemed to infuriate the detective.

"Quite a pretty little conspiracy," he said. "How in the name of God
do you expect me to do anything with the entire household united
against me? Tell me that."

"Exactly," said Miss Cornelia. "And if we are united against you, why
should I have sent for you? You might tell me that, too."

He turned on Bailey savagely.

"What did you mean by that 'three hours more'?" he demanded.

"I could have cleared myself in three hours," said Bailey with calm
despair.

Beresford laughed mockingly—a laugh that seemed to sear into Bailey's
consciousness like the touch of a hot iron. Again he turned frenziedly
upon the young lawyer—and Anderson was just preparing to hold them
away from each other, by force if necessary, when the doorbell rang.

For an instant the ringing of the bell held the various figures of the
little scene in the rigid postures of a waxworks tableau—Bailey, one
foot advanced toward Beresford, his hands balled up into
fists—Beresford already in an attitude of defense—the detective about
to step in between them—Miss Cornelia stiff in her chair—Dale over by
the fireplace, her hand at her heart. Then they relaxed, but not, at
least on the part of Bailey and Beresford, to resume their interrupted
conflict. Too many nerve-shaking things had already happened that
night for either of the young men not to drop their mutual squabble in
the face of a common danger.

"Probably the Doctor," murmured Miss Cornelia uncertainly as the
doorbell rang again. "He was to come back with some sleeping-powders."

Billy appeared for the key of the front door.

"If that's Doctor Wells," warned the detective, "admit him. If it's
anybody else, call me."

Billy grinned acquiescently and departed. The detective moved nearer
to Bailey.

"Have you got a gun on you?"

"No." Bailey bowed his head.

"Well, I'll just make sure of that." The detective's hands ran swiftly
and expertly over Bailey's form, through his pockets, probing for
concealed weapons. Then, slowly drawing a pair of handcuffs from his
pocket, he prepared to put them on Bailey's wrists.

But Dale could bear it no longer. The sight of her lover, beaten,
submissive, his head bowed, waiting obediently like a common criminal
for the detective to lock his wrists in steel broke down her last
defenses. She rushed into the center of the room, between Bailey and
the detective, her eyes wild with terror, her words stumbling over each
other in her eagerness to get them out.

"Oh, no! I can't stand it! I'll tell you everything!" she cried
frenziedly. "He got to the foot of the stair-case—Richard Fleming, I
mean," she was facing the detective now, "and he had the blue-print
you've been talking about. I had told him Jack Bailey was here as the
gardener and he said if I screamed he would tell that. I was
desperate. I threatened him with the revolver but he took it from me.
Then when I tore the blue-print from him—he was shot—from the
stairs—"

"By Bailey!" interjected Beresford angrily.

"I didn't even know he was in the house!" Bailey's answer was as
instant as it was hot. Meanwhile, the Doctor had entered the room,
hardly noticed, in the middle of Dale's confession, and now stood
watching the scene intently from a post by the door.

"What did you do with the blue-print?" The detective's voice beat at
Dale like a whip.

"I put it first in the neck of my dress—" she faltered. "Then, when I
found you were watching me, I hid it somewhere else."

Her eyes fell on the Doctor. She saw his hand steal out toward the
knob of the door. Was he going to run away on some pretext before she
could finish her story? She gave a sigh of relief when Billy,
re-entering with the key to the front door, blocked any such attempt at
escape.

Mechanically she watched Billy cross to the table, lay the key upon it,
and return to the hall without so much as a glance at the tense,
suspicious circle of faces focused upon herself and her lover.

"I put it—somewhere else," she repeated, her eyes going back to the
Doctor.

"Did you give it to Bailey?"

"No—I hid it—and then I told where it was—to the Doctor—" Dale
swayed on her feet. All turned surprisedly toward the Doctor. Miss
Cornelia rose from her chair.

The Doctor bore the battery of eyes unflinchingly. "That's rather
inaccurate," he said, with a tight little smile. "You told me where
you had placed it, but when I went to look for it, it was gone."

"Are you quite sure of that?" queried Miss Cornelia acidly.

"Absolutely," he said. He ignored the rest of the party, addressing
himself directly to Anderson.

"She said she had hidden it inside one of the rolls that were on the
tray on that table," he continued in tones of easy explanation,
approaching the table as he did so, and tapping it with the box of
sleeping-powders he had brought for Miss Cornelia.

"She was in such distress that I finally went to look for it. It
wasn't there."

"Do you realize the significance of this paper?" Anderson boomed at
once.

"Nothing, beyond the fact that Miss Ogden was afraid it linked her with
the crime." The Doctor's voice was very clear and firm.

Anderson pondered an instant. Then—

"I'd like to have a few minutes with the Doctor alone," he said
somberly.

The group about him dissolved at once. Miss Cornelia, her arm around
her niece's waist, led the latter gently to the door. As the two
lovers passed each other a glance flashed between them—a glance,
pathetically brief, of longing and love. Dale's finger tips brushed
Bailey's hand gently in passing.

"Beresford," commanded the detective, "take Bailey to the library and
see that he stays there."

Beresford tapped his pocket with a significant gesture and motioned
Bailey to the door. Then they, too, left the room. The door closed.
The Doctor and the detective were alone.

The detective spoke at once—and surprisingly.