Nothing Can Rescue Me (24 page)

“Might send for the doc, though.”

Officer Beaver had come to the door, and was exchanging whispers with Morse. He was sent to telephone, and Windorp came back to Gamadge with the leash in his hand.

“Perfect noose,” he said, “with the snap end run through the thong. I don't know why her neck wasn't broken.”

“Somebody in a bad hurry,” said Gamadge. “Cut it pretty fine. Miss Wing left me about four minutes ago—that right, Poultney?”

“About right, sir.”

“Murderer was waiting in the closet, caught her from behind as she came along the room. She'd have died in that closet.”

“Yes. You saved this one.” Windorp's eyes questioned him fiercely. “What gave you the idea?”

“I nearly missed it. What I was saying—the murderer had about three minutes to do the trick and get out of this; had to wait until I was in my room, and watch the hall; and I wasn't in my room more than a quarter of a minute before I came back down here.”

“A quarter of a minute is plenty of time to get from one room to another. What brought you here, I'm asking you?”

“My brain actually started working, and it went on working. It's all right, I think, Windorp.”

“All right? We've started all over again. This Wing girl knew something, or she wouldn't have been assaulted with intent to kill; but who assaulted her? Who's the killer?”

“Miss Wing won't be able to tell you that; I don't suppose she has any idea who it was. But as you say,” he added, a faint smile on his lips, “she's out of it now.”

Poultney straightened. “Breathin' quite natural. Looks bad, but she'll be all right except for shock.” He pulled a quilt up over his patient.

“You're to stand by in here,” said Windorp, “and not let a soul through the door till the doctor comes.”

“Miss Wing ought to have a woman with her when she comes to,” suggested Gamadge. “How about one of those maids? They'll look out for her and ask no questions; won't turn a hair.”

“Greta Boyesen's all right,” said Morse. “She's been coming up with the family years.”

“Tell Beaver to get her, then.”

Morse looked out into the hall. A voice which Gamadge had difficulty in recognizing as Percy's, shouted something. Morse raised his own voice, Beaver's replied, and the door was pushed to again.

“I'll stay on the job here,” said Gamadge, “if you'll let Poultney and Morse and Beaver do a job for me.”

Windorp growled: “What job?”

“Er—closing in on the murderer. I want a man posted at the head of the stairs, and one at this end of the hall; and I want nobody on this floor at all from now on. I want Percy, and Mason, and all the rest of them taken down to the drawing-room and kept there.”

“How long?” Windorp pushed out his lower lip.

“Till Miss Boyesen relieves me, and I can come down and tell you who the murderer is. But I won't budge until everybody's in the drawing-room, and the two guards posted here, one at each end of the hall. You can spare Beaver from outside, Windorp; you don't need anybody outside from now on.”

Windorp asked in a controlled voice: “You mean that—about telling who the murderer is?”

“And giving you the necessary evidence. Yes, I do.” Windorp looked long at Gamadge, who returned his gaze with one that seemed to convince the lieutenant of state police. “All right,” he said at last. “Out of here, you two. Morse, I'll want you to get the people downstairs. Poultney, you stay at this end of the hall; Beaver can take the other end. Stop anybody coming up or down. That right, Gamadge?”

“That's right.” He added, as Beaver moved away and he caught sight of the deathly and unconscious face on the pillow, “But are you sure she's going to be all right?”

“Unless she collapses later from shock, and I don't see any sign of it; her heart's as strong as mine is.”

Again, as the three officers went from the room, the inarticulate clamour arose in the hall. Words formed themselves: “You fool, I will see her! You won't say anything—I don't know whether she's dead or alive!”

Miss Greta Boyesen, instructed by Officer Poultney, came into the room, bowed politely to Gamadge, and sat down in a chair beside the bed. She looked at Evelyn Wing with the expression, detached but co-operative, of one asked to lend a hand in an emergency to a job not his own.

“Very kind of you,” said Gamadge.

“The doctor is coming. Officer Poultney says I do not have to do anything.”

“Except tell Miss Wing she'll be all right, and that the situation is under control; if she wakes up, you know.”

Gamadge, with a last anxious look behind him, departed, wondering through what failure of intelligence or fortune Miss Boyesen was not a trained nurse. Poultney and Beaver were at their stations, the length of the dusky hall between them; he passed Beaver, went down the stairs, and entered the drawing-room.

Windorp had placed Sergeant Morse in the dining-room archway, and had lined up the party, as for official inspection, on the sofa, and a settee. They faced the east windows; Corinne Hutter, Mason, Mrs. Deedes, and Susie Burt, with Percy at the extreme right of the line, half turned from them all. He sat with his arm and hand hanging over the end of the sofa, looking out of the side window nearest him—perfectly controlled now and sombre. Perhaps he had heard that the doctor was coming, and had had his racking doubt settled for him at last. Macloud, on the piano bench far to the rear, leaned back with his arms outstretched along the closed lid. Gamadge had seen him look like that in a court-room, while awaiting the return of a jury with their verdict.

“Here's Mr. Gamadge,” said Windorp, who stood with his back to the windows, facing his audience. “We'll hear what he has to say. If I did as I feel, I'd have every one of you locked up until Miss Wing was able to talk—if she ever is able. But she'd be dead and gone now if it wasn't for him, so I guess we'll let him tell how he got the idea where she was and what had happened to her.”

Gamadge seemed to prefer to talk sitting down. He looked about him, pulled a straight-backed chair, the first he saw, towards the left-hand end of the line, and sat down half facing it. He crossed his knees and leaned forward, supported by an elbow.

“This case,” he said, “revolves about the character and personality of Miss Evelyn Wing; a proud spirit, as Mr. Percy describes her, forced by necessity to sacrifice that pride and many other things of value to her. I dare say she often felt that in small matters she was sacrificing her self-respect; but that it could do no great harm to humour the whims of poor Florence Mason.

“I was impressed by the fact that there has been no attempt by anyone to implicate Miss Wing in the murders of Sylvanus Hutter and Mrs. Mason. What evidence there happens to be against her was provided by herself; her walk in the garden yesterday, her loss of a sales slip which proves that she purchased navy-blue slacks.”

Percy's fingers moved a little; Mrs. Deedes drew a gasping breath.

“As for the accusation that she had tampered with Mrs. Mason's novel,” continued Gamadge, “that brings us to the first of the paradoxes in this most curious case. An attempt to discredit her results in her being made Florence Mason's residuary legatee, and has even now resulted in making her the owner of Underhill.

“But an hour ago she was attacked with intent to kill. The murderer, who had been about to visit me—we may suppose with a similar intent—had been obliged to give up that attempt because Miss Wing was with me in Hutter's room. The murderer passed straight from my bedroom to Miss Wing's, hid in the closet there, and assaulted her when she came in; afterwards taking the opportunity of a few moments to slip away. A fearful risk; and as I dashed from my room to Miss Wing's I knew why it had been taken. One of us, Miss Wing or myself, must die; and one of us would do. If I died, whatever case I had prepared against Miss Wing would die with me, and if she died that fact exonerated her from responsibility for the other deaths, and nullified my evidence, which could only be circumstantial—since she was innocent.

“And why must Miss Wing be exonerated at all costs? Because if she were to be convicted of the crime of murdering Florence Mason, she could not inherit under Florence Mason's will.”

Gamadge paused, and let his eyes rest on the intent faces before him. Mason's was dreadfully pale, Mrs. Deedes's drawn and frightened, Susie Burt's a terrified mask spotted with make-up. Corinne Hutter, her bit of sewing in her hands, leaned forward, frankly absorbed; Percy alone showed no interest. He was thinking of other things, or seemed to be. Gamadge went on:

“Underhill. It runs through this case, an ever-recurrent name, constant as the rush of its stream. I knew that its inclusion in Miss Wing's legacy must have significance, but why was it left her? It has no youthful associations for her; and I should think few happy ones. Her future interests do not lie here. Why should she be expected to strain her resources—strain them increasingly, I suppose, as time goes on—to maintain this isolated house and property? Mrs. Mason told me she wanted it; others, I found, wanted it more.

“It had become evident to me from my first talk with Florence Mason, and later from the remarks of others, that Florence had a secret counsellor; one with great influence, greater influence than any servant could have, one whom Florence trusted as she trusted no one else among her friends. That person had already convinced Florence that Miss Wing had not tampered with the novel; was it possible that that person had forced Underhill into Miss Wing's legacy? And had that person actually preferred to kill Miss Wing rather than lose the chance of acquiring Underhill through her?

“But how, I asked myself, could the murderer acquire Underhill if Evelyn Wing were dead? Mrs. Deedes is her cousin's natural heir, and there is no reason to suppose that she would hand Underhill over to anyone else. I could only imagine some agreement between Evelyn Wing and the unknown. Miss Wing may in all innocence have mortgaged her future to this supposed friend, or may have made a will in the friend's favour. At any rate, I was sure that it must be someone whom she would never suspect of murder, and who had, or pretended to have, a heavy claim upon her.”

Mason spoke hoarsely. “Underhill in itself doesn't mean a thing to me. I only want a farm—a place to breed horses and make a living. You're all wrong, Gamadge; it was the money—the money. Hutter was killed too.”

“Hutter was killed too.” Gamadge turned his head to look out at rolling hemlock forest and a clearing, wintry sky. “Hutter was killed so that Mrs. Mason's residuary legatee should have millions; millions beside which Underhill and its upkeep would seem a trifle to be given away to a deserving applicant. The Hutters acquired this land a century ago, cleared it, farmed it, built and rebuilt the house. A Hutter left the place and made money; there was a feud, how deep, how mortal, we don't know; but Nahum's daughter lived here in wealth, and Joel's only child sat day by day in the village library in Erasmus, and refused an annuity of five hundred dollars a year.” He turned his head to look at Corinne Hutter. “You had time for brooding, Miss Hutter,” he said; “but it is not well to brood.”

“What are you talking about?” Astonished, she half rose; her narrow chin drew back, her large and high forehead under its line of black hair dominated all her features but the bright round eyes.

“About your obsession—Underhill.”

“You mean I killed my cousin to get this place? You mean I thought I could get it from Evelyn Wing? It doesn't make sense.”

“I have offered a theory.”

“You must have gone right out of your head.”

“Sit down and let me tell you how I worked up to it.”

She gave him the oddest, quizzical look, and sank slowly down on the settee. “I guess you could talk yourself into almost anything,” she said, “but what's the use of it? Nobody will believe you.”

“Let me try to make them believe me. I must begin by saying that from the very first, subtle and cautious as you were, you betrayed yourself in one respect—you wouldn't allow a breath of suspicion to fall on Evelyn Wing. Of all the people in this house I could say then, and I say now, that you alone were definitely shielding someone—
at the expense of others
.”

She seemed about to speak, but thought better of it; gave him that curious, inquiring look, and was silent.

“You were about to say something?” he asked.

“I was about to say that I never heard such nonsense. If I wanted Underhill I could have asked Cousin Florence to leave it to me. I refused.”

“You refused five hundred a year. Mrs. Mason would never have left you Underhill; never in the world. And even if she had been willing to leave it to you, would you have cared to wait for it until you were perhaps twenty-five years older? Florence might have had a long life. And now we come to the second paradox in the case, and its greatest irony; by disinheriting you, Florence created the only human being she could trust.”

For the first time Percy moved; he turned his head to look at Gamadge, who responded to the look by repeating his words in emphasis:

“The only one she could trust. She loved many, but she could only put faith in the one who had nothing to gain from her, during her life and after her death. That's what Nahum Hutter taught his children to believe of human nature; I've heard him doing it, and my flesh crept.”

“I wouldn't have his money,” said Corinne.

“You would have it, but not a mere insulting crumb of it, tossed to you by his children. A long time ago you began to work out schemes for acquiring Underhill; a long time ago you dreamed of tearing up every brick in that formal garden. At last you found a way, since you had found a person whom you could practise upon. You began the campaign by tampering with Florence Mason's script.”