diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/53268-8.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/53268-8.txt | 5400 |
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 5400 deletions
diff --git a/old/53268-8.txt b/old/53268-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 74d3dcc..0000000 --- a/old/53268-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5400 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Murder at Large, by Lesley Frost - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Murder at Large - -Author: Lesley Frost - -Release Date: October 13, 2016 [EBook #53268] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MURDER AT LARGE *** - - - - -Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, MFR and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - BY LESLEY FROST - - Editor of - "COME CHRISTMAS" - -[Illustration: Decorative border] - - - - - MURDER - AT - LARGE - - -[Illustration: Decorative border] - - PUBLISHED IN NEW YORK BY - COWARD-McCANN, INC. - - COPYRIGHT, 1932, BY COWARD-McCANN, INC. - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED - - PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY THE VAN REES PRESS - - - - - MURDER - AT - LARGE - - - - - I - - -Ordway Belknap, ex-Judge of the Magistrate's Courts, and for the present -a detective of amateur standing, and a semi-professional criminologist, -on call at the Homicide Department, leaned comfortably back in an -arm-chair in the den of his spacious penthouse apartment on the East -River--in Gracie Square to be exact. James, the perfect 'man' that -confirmed bachelors dream of one day possessing, entered soundlessly on -the deep-napped carpet, and, in a cotton-wool voice, announced Judge -Whittaker on the wire. - -"Thank you, James," murmured Belknap in a tone modulated to the -atmosphere of the room; while James, with the smooth precision of the -Roxy Orchestra being lowered, sank from view, the den being a floor to -itself. - -Belknap slowly ground out a freshly lit cigarette and meditatively -examined the telephone at his elbow. His face gathered seriousness as a -window gathers steam. He recalled Whittaker's remark of a week ago, made -as they passed at the Club: "I will give you a ring soon on a matter of -life and death. No, I can't go into it now--I'm running." And though in -the meanwhile the matter had slipped his mind he now unaccountably, even -to himself, hesitated to remove the receiver. - -Belknap was a man of fifty-odd, but didn't look it; tall, handsome, with -a firm mouth, burning brown eyes, and thick, lustrous black hair. His -muscles were steel-hard; and his skin always deeply bronzed, winter and -summer alike, for he was one of those elusive and self-styled members of -the Long Beach nature club. He enjoyed motoring down on brilliant days -even in January to nurse a driftwood fire in the shelter of a shallow -dune, basking himself in fire heat and violet ray. - -Sun-bathing is the habit of a solitary; but then, Belknap _was_ a -solitary in more ways than one. He loved the slow, indolent afternoons, -apparently wasted, and with no words spoken. He relished the mingled -smell of olive oil, wood smoke and salt; and the sight, through more -than half-shut eyes, of gulls, and a ship moving up the horizon like the -large hand of a clock, invisibly moving yet seen to have moved. Rodney -Drake would periodically rise like an elongated Pict out of the waste of -sand and gesticulate against the sky. On the open beach the hardy little -Egyptian, name unknown, would squat motionless on his heels over a tin -firebox. - -So it may well have been these lonely watches that fostered the thing in -Belknap that his acquaintances, even friends, called 'queer.' The world -in general certainly considered him puzzling, enigmatic. It found him -definitely uncommunicative, or, when communicative, ironic, which is a -turn of speech that leaves the hearer not much the wiser. His friends -claimed for him a sensitive, reserved nature that shed humankind with -reluctant cynicism for lack of a better method, a cynicism sharpened and -brought to a point through years of close association with the evils and -corruption, hypocrisy and injustice of the courts. He had a way of never -overlooking an opportunity to be bitter at the expense of law and order -as practiced in this enlightened twentieth century. - -And it was the hopelessness of the struggle to keep a modicum of honesty -in the legal system that, Belknap said, had driven him out to play a -lone wolf game tracking the criminal. Too frequently, he claimed, the -innocent paid, or no one paid, while the guilty sat in full view of the -Bench. He was at least determined to give the eager public a few real -captures, if not convictions. In his two most famous cases he had -managed the convictions as well. - -His first, that of Maria Monroe, strangled in her closed Riverside Drive -apartment when it was supposed she herself was in Honolulu, followed -immediately on his resignation from office. In fact what he considered -the bungling of this case had been the last straw that made him yield to -a temptation of long standing. And he was miraculously successful. With -every investigating agency in the City against him, and with an -apparently impregnable alibi to break down, he saw his man through to -the chair. - -But it was the Stanton-Mowbray affair the next winter that saw Belknap's -amazing and unreasonable technique developed to its greatest power. -Stanton was shot at the Villa Bella Night Club in Forty-eighth Street, -West, toward the daybreak closing of an exceptionally wild night. No gun -was found, although the few remaining guests were searched within a few -moments by the police; and even the general direction from which the -shot was fired could not be determined. Some said it had come through a -window, others from close range. The case had lain dormant for months -when Belknap took an interest in it. The chief suspect had been a -certain Colonel Blake, a man of great personal magnetism, strong -political associations and influential friends. The feeling had become -current that he was guilty and that it was being 'hushed up,' that the -law was once more proving inadequate. But in this instance Belknap was -able to give the law a clean slate. Jumping to insane conclusions in the -intuitive manner that was his strongest claim to distinction, he put his -finger on little Violet Mowbray, a musical comedy dancer, who had had a -last-minute invitation as an 'extra' for Stanton's party. Although it -was believed that she and Stanton had thereby met for the first time, -Belknap discovered a weird series of events that put Stanton in the most -blasting light and gave poor Violet a dozen motives for murder. Violet -took her sentence of from ten to twenty years with a quiet protestation -of innocence that moved the courtroom to tears and hysteria. No one -seeing her frail figure led away that dull December day would have said -she could live to see a year of it served. - -Since the weeks when he had kept his name and face headlined, together -with Stanton's and Violet Mowbray's, Belknap had had several months of -comparative quiet. He had given the police some assistance in a few -minor matters, but had really fastened his teeth into nothing worth the -candle. And at the moment he felt particularly in need of violent -distraction. He was surfeited with a week of burning sun; weary of -women; stale with an overdose of detective fiction; and disturbed by a -tendency on the part of his thoughts to take a gloomier turn than usual. - -Yet for some odd reason Whittaker's ring, following the words of their -last meeting, gave him pause. He knew Whittaker as a dangerous person, -_friend_ or enemy, often even more dangerous as the former. Their -relationship had of late been strained. Belknap had all but come to the -conclusion that any intercourse between them, kindly or unkindly, had -been dropped. Then why this matter of life and death? Oh well, curiosity -had killed more than cats. He reached for the receiver. - -"Yes? Oh, Whittaker? Good to hear your voice." (a little overdone that. -Rang false) "Of course, old boy." (Now why was he calling him 'old -boy'?) "I'd be delighted, more than delighted." (Good God, I don't even -mean delighted) "Something thrilling for me to do? You're going to put -me wise? Oh, I see: give me an opportunity to _get_ wise. Of course. Any -old thing for a change.... No, I don't exactly catch your meaning. -You're pleasantly mysterious as usual." (Diabolically so, is what I want -to say, and I will say it one of these days.) "A house full of -criminals? Since when have you been on week-end terms with Sing Sing? -They've never been in Sing Sing? You want me to help you put them there, -is that it? You bet your sweet life. Anything to do with what you let -fall to my ear last week? It has? When do you want me? Dinner tonight. -Thanks most awfully. I'll be there." - -He hung up; but failed to return to the Audubon which lay open on his -knees, an original Folio, given him with relief and gratitude by Colonel -Blake. Instead he relapsed into a brown study and considered a rather -sinister possibility from several angles and in varied lights. - - - - - II - - -Belknap made the distance to Whittaker's Long Island mansion at Blue -Acres in something under an hour. His Dusenberg, long and low-slung, -colored to please his own eye, and fitted with special gadgets for -defence and utility, was also a demon for speed, and even in traffic had -broken many records, largely its own to be sure. He had always driven -himself, and he had often reflected that if he had not been a lawyer or -a sleuth he would have been ticking off mileage at Daytona. Such was his -love of the power and beauty of line of a splendid machine. And he -admired as much as he admired any work of art his brown, thin, muscular -hand on the wheel, one mahogany, the other coffee. - -As he turned into the wide, sweeping drive of Thorngate, he slowed the -car to a crawl, and savored for a moment the view of the Sound, the -lemon and orange sunset beyond it, the peace of the trees and shrubs and -flowers on either side. He listened with one ear to the swish of the -tires in the traprock gravel roadbed, and with the other to the cicadas -making the mad sound of a semi-anęsthetized brain among the oaks. - -Black John, alert and loquacious, opened the door to him, and showed him -immediately to a large, luxurious room on the second floor. Belknap -stood at the long windows, looking down, and shedding, with the deafness -characteristic of his general indifference, John's flow of -well-intentioned chatter as he unpacked and laid out Belknap's week-end -wardrobe. Belknap was so far removed from it as to be unaware of John's -withdrawal. Unaware also of Bertrand Whittaker's entrance. - -"You made the trip in short order, I imagine. How are you, Belknap?" - -"Splendid, thanks. Yes, I came down fast enough. There is nothing to -warrant a leisurely drive on Long Island--until after Shinnecock Hills -perhaps. Before that the sooner it's over the better. You know I am -still forever being surprised that there can be such charming and -secluded spots as this within a stone's throw of these atrocious main -highways. And yours is one of the best, Bertrand." - -"_Isn't_ it, Belknap!" Whittaker's face lighted with pleased vanity. But -it died on the instant. "I shall hate to leave it. More than I shall -hate to leave anything else, I assure you." - -Belknap paused with their lighted cigarette match arrested between them, -and quickly met the eyes he had been studiously avoiding. - -"Leave? Why, when, and where for? Going abroad?" - -Whittaker's immediate answer was a cold smile. He accepted his light and -crossed to a chair. Belknap regarded him intently through puffs of his -own smoke, and being a keen student of men when he cared to be, or found -it necessary, he remarked a new hardness in the hard grey face. -Whittaker was a grey man: iron-grey hair, granite skin, grey-blue eyes, -gun-metal suits, and plenty of grey matter. He was a man too able, too -willfully brilliant, for the cramped position in which he had to work. -So he put the extra energy into deviltry. "That's just what he is doing -now," thought Belknap, "and God help somebody. Somehow I think it's God -help him for a change." But he wasn't prepared for being quite as right -as he proved to be. - -"Not exactly abroad. Though perhaps yes, in a very broad sense. Sit -down, Belknap, and we'll talk, if you don't mind being serious on an -empty stomach. The drinks will be up shortly." - -"Fire away, man, by all means. You are now making things sound, not only -mysterious, but rather important. What's it _to_ you?" - -"It's a great deal to me, I'm afraid. It seems I have short shrift, -Belknap. I'm sentenced to death. The doctors have given me six -months--or 'with luck,' as they put it, an extra one or two." - -"Good Lord! Why I've always thought you one of the fittest. What _is_ -wrong? Whittaker, I'm sorry--too terribly sorry. Is there a thing I can -do?" - -"Yes, there is." A flare of wicked humor came and went in Whittaker's -eyes. "But we'll come to that in a moment. I'm dying of cancer. In a bad -spot. I'm in for pain and a great deal of it; more than I can quite bear -to put up with, I guess. 'Six months to live.' It may sound short enough -to you, but to me it sounds an eternity. Six _weeks_, yes; I might have -kept a stiff upper lip for six weeks. But that's about my limit." - -"You mean--it's suicide?" Belknap asked, and did his level best, in -respect to the situation, not to show a fierce impatience that he should -have been asked in at the death. - -"No-o, not strictly speaking. Though I've always contended suicide is -justifiable in such circumstances. And I purchased a very pretty little -Colt last week for the purpose. But I reconsidered. I've been a man who -made himself felt going and coming; you can testify to that, Belknap. -Then why make this particular exit dull and unromantic, with nothing -more said of it than, 'Mr. Bertrand Whittaker had been suffering from -ill health, and it is thought--etc., etc.' You know the line. So, as -I've said, I didn't shoot. For here was the perfect opportunity to go -the limit with life and death, nothing to lose that wouldn't be gain. In -other words I could leave a bit of a pother behind me--in commemoration. -And, my dear fellow, I've hit on an idea that I doubt even you could -match." - -Belknap's face was a mosaic of varying expression: sympathy of a kind, -eager curiosity, distrust and threatening disapprobation. A man of -Whittaker's evil propensities could do considerable damage if he was -driven, as now, to turn at bay. - -"Think twice, Whittaker," Belknap warned him quietly, "before you -mention your idea even to me. We can drop it here and now. I promise to -ask no questions. Remember a doctor's judgement has been as often -reversed as a judge's! Don't be rash under the first shock." - -"I'm not being rash. This is a certainty, born witness to by my flesh -and bones. The doctors didn't surprise me, to tell you the truth. But I -had rather banked on being tabled, so to speak, and dying under the -knife. No such luck. So it's my six months or my week-end, and I'm going -to make it the week-end. If that fails me I can always fall back on the -pistol. Putting two and two together, do you begin to get my drift?" - -"I can't say I do in the least. I suppose I'm stupid." - -"For a detective I think you are. Well, to call a spade a spade, I -intend to be murdered--with you in attendance to get the murderer. Is -that clear enough?" Belknap, without the flicker of an eye-lash, darkly -concentrated on a point somewhere between himself and the ceiling. -Whittaker examined him secretly and furtively from under overhanging -brows. The atmosphere had a tendency to thicken before Belknap drew -himself back to the necessities of speech. - -"Thanks most awfully," he said with a hard, ironic twist of the lips, -"for this amazing opportunity. It quite takes my breath away. -Undoubtedly I should make a drastic effort to turn your intention, as -one is expected to withhold a man about to leap from the Brooklyn -Bridge. But I admit I'm frankly curious as to details. So before I seize -you around the neck, metaphorically speaking, let's hear more." - -Whittaker's body, from a slight stiffening, yielded to the shape of his -chair. - -"I'm delighted that your first reaction _is_ curiosity, Belknap; for in -that case I feel sure I can eventually enlist your interest in the -bizarre and dramatic elements of the situation. I feared you'd mount the -pulpit, or the bench, or the stand of mere friendship, deliver me a -moral lecture, and ring up your pet specialist for an appointment. In -which event," he added with faint mockery, "I should have resorted to -your rival, Silas Berry. So you see I _am_ determined. And so far so -good. I swear it's been good fun making arrangements." - -"Such as?" - -"Well, for one thing, putting in what I call my supply of ammunition. -Although I have a fair handful of erstwhile, and therefore potential, -murderers on my visiting list, it was another matter to bring enough of -the right sort together to insure a pleasant week-end, and a week-end -that, as you can see for yourself, may be indefinitely prolonged--for -_them_! Several of my favorite respectable killers are in foreign parts. -But I've managed at least eight. Do you want a brief synopsis? Of course -certain of them are familiar to you." - -Belknap tried matching casualness with casualness. He leaned over and -lit a table lamp. - -"May I enquire how many of them are in the house? And how soon we may -expect action? There may easily be a brace of us, Whittaker, before -we're through. A more or less famous detective left floating around on -the scene of the crime might be considered rather a serious handicap." - -And at that moment John, entering with a tray, was responsible for the -startled movement of both men. Whittaker remarked on it as he poured -them each a highball. - -"Apparently certain death hasn't yet quenched my instinct of -self-preservation. Naturally one can't destroy in a week fifty years of -vital energy and will to live." - -"Listen, old timer, are you sure even now that this is the best way out -for you? What about repentance and the Church? Go in for it thoroughly, -I mean, and try for the Heavenly Choir. You're too good a tenor to -waste." - -Whittaker laughed. - -"Too good a devil to waste, Belknap. Better devil than tenor I think. -No, I'm going out in a sputter of fire and brimstone--no candles for -me.... Aha! I hear someone arriving. Possibly Blake. He was motoring in -from Southampton." - - - - - III - - -Standing at the windows, Belknap looking over Whittaker's shoulder, they -saw Blake spring lightly from the seat of his Ford convertible, throw -out his bags from the rumble, spring back, and "zoom" around the corner -to the garage. - -Putting a hand on Whittaker's arm, Belknap brought him roughly about. - -"Why ring Blake in on this?" he asked, and his voice took a deadly -level. His lips also leveled to a straight line, and his teeth showed -white in the slit between. "After all he's _too_ good a friend, isn't -he, of yours, _and_ mine? What's the big idea?" - -"He _is_ a friend, old man, true enough." Whittaker quietly brushed -Belknap's hand from his sleeve, and turned away. "But what are friends, -true or false, to me now? 'Less than the dust.' Besides, Blake is a -crack shot--and a sportsman to boot. Even though you proved so -brilliantly that he didn't shoot Stanton, it was just the kind of -shooting he might have done, you know that. He gives no quarter to men -who run out on debts, or dishonor women. Sort of a knight errant--goes -about saving situations in the nick of time. That he finds it convenient -to use a gun in most cases is not _his_ fault. I can even see him doing -me what he would call 'a good turn,' taking me out after a whiskey and -soda, and putting a hole through me against the garden wall with a -Sorrell-and-Son generosity, 'We mustn't let the poor devil suffer.' Yes, -Belknap, you must admit he's a splendid prospect from my point of view. -I can't help it that you have scruples against sleuthing him." - -"By all that's holy, you are beyond me, Whittaker." - -"If you mean by that that I am beyond the pale, I am. And beyond caring. -There may or may not be a life in death, but that there is death in life -I'm finding out. So what the Hell!" - -"Enough said, Whittaker. We'll leave it at that. I begin to see that it -_is_ 'what the Hell' and then some." Belknap was pacing the floor, his -hands thrust deep in his pockets. He stopped before Whittaker to ask, "I -have a question before we go further. What's the match, that lights the -fuse, that blows up the house that Bertrand built?" - -"A good match, Ordway, soaked in tar, pitch, and turpentine. I publish -my Diary. It's a substantial, well-filled, truthful Diary, packed with -sensations. In a period when confessions and revelations are in such -demand, it seemed a pity not to keep abreast of the times. Hearst gives -me a small fortune for mine, sight unseen, and it goes, in my will, with -whatever else I possess, to my niece Joel--unless, of course, this -week-end makes it useless to her; in which case--" - -"Joel Lacey! See here, Whittaker, you're insane! I've cared for Joel, -and you know it, since she was too young to know the meaning of the word -love. She is incapable of murder. But if she _had_ committed a crime, -and you were letting her down, you would have me to reckon with." - -"Hear, hear! The first threat, and that from my bodyguard. Check it for -Berry's benefit. It happens, my dear fellow, that your estimate of -Joel's character, like that of all true lovers, is mistaken. Joel is a -murderess. Her husband wasn't a suicide. Oh, she had incentive enough, I -guess. And it was hardly a murder in one sense: she challenged him to a -duel but he scoffed at the very idea. So she fired anyway, and came to -me to give herself up. I silenced her. As for letting her in for all -this--well, I needed her. I was short of women for the dinner table. -Otherwise, I wouldn't have bothered with her, for my hopes don't lean -very heavily on her, I can assure you." - -"I should have thought you _might_ be short of women. Who are the -others, by the way?" - -"Romany Monte Video for one. The accident in _The Renegade Lover_, in -which she killed her husband (who was not her husband in private) with a -folding dagger which didn't collapse was not an accident. The dagger -that night was not intended to fold." - -"Bertrand, you're a cad. When did you desert Romany?" - -"Years ago. I didn't desert her. She left me for-- Oh, I can't even -remember, there have been so many." - -"That's no excuse for such betrayal as this. Who else?" - -"Nadia Mdevani. You've met her here once or twice, I think; and of -course know of her in a professional way. Not that there has ever been -anything proved against her, quite the contrary, and yet where there has -been a political murder, here or abroad, during the past ten years, she -has almost invariably been questioned. I should say offhand that she is -probably the tool of a powerful international ring of Governmental -murderers. But her social distinction is unquestioned, her culture and -wit are superlative, and her beauty is a thing to be dreamed of. I can -say to you now, what I would not have said under any other -circumstances, that she and I have been--call it friends, yet I have not -breathed a word to her of what I instinctively know to be true: that she -is a murderer twenty times over." - -Belknap shrugged to cover a strong, irrepressible shudder. - -"You are a braver man than I am, Gunga Din. But then, in a pinch, I've -always known you were. Is that the toll of women?" - -"There's one other. She is not a murderess, but she is a potential one, -for I think she knows that her husband killed a man years ago. Until -lately, when, I am sorry to say, Romany has been having her innings with -him, Neil and Sydney Crawford were hand and glove in a marriage that I -liked to call a marriage. He is a banker;--lives out here at Blue Acres; -respected, indeed loved, by everyone who knows him; and the same can be -said of Sydney. He got inadvertently mixed up with a gang of boys on the -streets of New York, when he was a youngster, and they later proved to -be a gang in good earnest. So when Crawford was sowing his wild oats, -and had run up a card debt far beyond anything he knew his father could -pay, he accepted an honorarium for cutting short the career of a drug -smuggler. It was his wildest oat. He turned over to a very clean leaf; -but I think he would go to any lengths now to save his name for Sydney -and the children. And she would do the same by him." - -"Splendid! Go on. This is too good to be true. It is really such a sweet -reversal of form--expecting the bad eggs to hatch. Isn't that Julian -Prentice out there with Joel? Who did _he_ kill--his crippled -grandmother or something?" - -"Not so bad as that--or I wouldn't have let him engage himself to Joel. -No, he merely drowned a boy who was all but drowning him during the -hazing of freshmen at the University. He pretended cramp to do it. -Everything appeared accidental, and of course sympathy was with Julian -anyway. There is one other, who makes the fourth man--irrespective of -ourselves, and we don't count. Milton Dorn I doubt whether you know. He -is an able surgeon; but he also has a secret laboratory, or operating -room, where he experiments on the conscious flesh to the point, but not -beyond the point, where life still lingers. I should imagine that would -be all you need know about him." - -"Absolutely! My only wonder is that you didn't apply directly to him for -release." - -"I thought of that. But then, as I've said, it's a long row he hoes and -I'm looking for a short one. There, Belknap, I guess that tells the tale -in brief, doesn't it?" - -"No, not altogether, Judge. There is a point on which I need to be -enlightened, with a bright, bright light. Where do I come in?" - -"I thought I had made that clear. You are here to find good sport, but -to be a spoil-sport." - -"I don't mean that, Whittaker." - -"You mean the Diary--why, man alive, it makes something like a hero of -you. My admiration is written all over it. Perhaps it shouldn't be. -_Have_ you committed murder?" - -Belknap laughed. "It's not the time to admit it exactly, is it?" - -A silence fell between them. Belknap broke it with another question. - -"When do you spring it?" - -"I thought I might bring it up at dinner. Unobtrusively. Casualness will -at first bewilder them. The horror of the situation will dawn on them -gradually." - -"Has anyone an inkling?" - -"No one. Except perhaps Nadia. I mentioned to her the other day that it -would be fun to publish my Diary verbatim seeing what a number of things -it contains. Her answer was, that if I proposed doing so I would -probably never live to see it in print. That sounds hopeful. Oh, of -course nothing at all may happen. They may decide to take their medicine -for the old rather than be on with the new. I think that would be my -solution provided I was in their shoes. And then again anything may -happen. Psychologically it's a pretty how-de-do. To throw half a dozen -killers together, even civilized ones (in fact the more civilized the -more interesting), makes for a strange medley." - -"Stranger than you know, I'm afraid. There is an interrelation of secret -currents between your protagonists that is likely to be devastating. You -may not even be the only casualty. What about the police?" - -"Call them in at the drop of the hat of course. The Homicide Department -would be delighted to send Berry along to help you if you suggested it, -I'm sure. Well--what about dressing for dinner?" - -"Suits me." Belknap put a hand on Whittaker's shoulder as they parted at -the door. - -"Whittaker," he said gently, "I don't know what to say exactly. I'll -have to reserve my judgement until later. But again let me say I -sincerely regret the circumstances that have brought us to the present -precarious position. For even I can't see my way to withdrawing now. I -can't forego the chance of so much excitement, if nothing else," he -added, with the flicker of a smile. - -"_Thought_ ye couldn't, boy." Whittaker stressed the shrewd, cunning -accents of his Yankee ancestors. - - - - - IV - - -The luxurious ease, and quiet, well-oiled machinery of service at -Thorngate gave no slightest indication of the worm at its heart. Up the -long, winding, carpeted stairs the servants glided on their errands, -and, in turn, the guests themselves came softly down by ones and twos, -with a gleam of jewels, of colored silk, of white shirt-fronts in the -halls dimly lit with candles. - -Belknap had hastened his dressing in order to be first in the -drawing-room. He felt that at any moment he might be needed in the front -line, and that no time should be wasted under a shower or before a -mirror. His trust in Whittaker was not so perfect as to assure him that -he had been honest in saying no one was in the least aware of impending -trouble. And there was just the chance that someone, being forehanded, -would get away with murder! - -Although he had been in the receiving room, which was also library and -den, fifty times over, Belknap looked it over with awakened interest. -Whittaker, it was apparent, had a leaning toward panelings and oil -portraits, medieval tapestries and deep-napped carpets. Here tapestries -formed the wall covering from floor to ceiling: none of exceptional -value except the Gobelin over the mantel, but all equally lovely in -colors and texture. An impulse, not so odd perhaps under the -circumstances, prompted Belknap to test what lay immediately behind the -surface of woven cloth and, as far as its stretching would yield to his -hand, he found space. He tried it at various points and discovered it -everywhere the same; and he recalled having heard that it was the safest -way to hang tapestries against the rear attack of insects and dampness. -Convenient to know, he thought. He was engaged in trying to locate the -servants' entrance to this interstitial passage when he became gradually -aware that someone else had come into the room. - -He turned about with elaborate sang-froid and met the gaze of a tall, -strikingly handsome woman, who stood quizzically regarding him. She wore -a black sheath gown with crimson accessories that included the oval -nails of tapering fingers and the clear-cut lips of a willful mouth. The -crimson handkerchief tied to her garnet bracelets floated lightly up and -back at every slightest movement of her arm. The cigarette case of -scarlet enamel which she opened with a deft flick of one hand to help -herself with the other, gleamed like smoldering coal. - -He had met Nadia Mdevani several times with Whittaker; and he had -vaguely realized the relationship between them, but had given it little -consideration; except that once he had instinctively withdrawn from a -case in which her name had figured more or less conspicuously. The sense -of her guilt had been conveyed to him on the wings of one of what he -called his wild guesses, and he paid Whittaker the courtesy of letting -well enough alone. As it happened, she had cleared herself easily. - -Looking at her now he realized that she was inwardly disturbed at sight -of him. Perhaps she saw in his mere presence a confirmation of the faint -doubts she might be entertaining with respect to the week-end. But her -poise held perfectly--in fact it was by a shade of its over-emphasis -that he caught the inner tremor at all. - -"Ah, Mr. Belknap!" she exclaimed, in her slow, husky contralto. "How -ni-ice to see you here. Or should I call you Judge Belknap--or Detective -Ordway Belknap? I am never sure of the term to your face. Behind your -back I call you Belknap for short." - -"Let's discard them, all four, and make it simply Ordway, to my face, as -you put it, _and_ behind my back. And may I make it Nadia? Remember -Bertrand is an equally dear friend to us both. You are looking divinely, -Miss Nadia. Black is your color. Although I have seen you when I should -have said the same of red, or white for the matter of that. Red and -white are your contrasts. Tonight you are fused into a single vivid -figure of black. Whistler would have liked you. You have a way, which -most women have not, of lending distinction to a color instead of -letting it create you. You have a like faculty with situations I am -told." - -"I am not quite certain what you may mean by that, or whether it should -entirely please me. But I have sufficient vanity to be flattered by your -recollection of my gowns in view of how little attention you seemed to -give them. Will you have one?" - -She proffered her exquisite box and on his "Thank you, no," crossed to -the hearth where she lifted a crimson-slippered foot to the side bar of -the fender, and for graceful balance (pose, Belknap thought it) laid a -hand against the tapestried wall. It yielded enough to mar her picture. - -"I had forgotten these tapestries are but the semblance of walls," she -murmured. "What a cosy place for rats. Although I suppose it was for the -very purpose of perpetrating the Hamlet act against rats that the space -was originally reserved." - -Belknap was pouring himself a thimbleful of Scotch at the tray standing -in readiness on the divan table. He tossed it off, and turned over the -after flavor on his tongue, as his mind turned over the possible -subtleties of Nadia's remark. She had made it piquant by a twist of -inflection. A Polonius as well as a rat--or so the tone implied. - -"We were speaking of Bertrand," she continued abruptly. "Do you not -consider him a little secretive about the week-end, conveying that there -is a _reason_ why we are here? Why should there need be a reason?" - -"There _should_ be none, Nadia, except our enjoyment of his unbounded -hospitality. But I feel myself, now that you mention it," Belknap -pursued, willing to test where her guards were raised, "that Bertrand -has something up his sleeve. Possibly an announcement; he likes to make -any news impressive. He may have lost his shirt in the Market, or been -left a fortune by his great-aunt Emma in Vermont. You know Bertrand well -enough to know he'd celebrate either with equal pomp." - -He heard the little whispering sigh that Nadia suddenly drew. - -"I hope it's nothing serious," she said, more to herself than Belknap. -Then, quickly: "Is it the Diary?" she asked. - -Belknap hesitated by the fraction of a second. By all accounts Nadia -Mdevani was dangerous. Her intelligence, fearlessness and beauty were -things that might throw dust in any man's eyes. Her ability to 'clinch,' -as she was doing now, with a power greater than her own, and cut her way -free from within, had won her many a hand-to-hand encounter that if -taken blow for blow would have seen her downed long ago. However, -Belknap could see no better way at the moment than to close with her. - -"Yes, it is the Diary," he said quietly; and stood spellbound by the -extreme beauty of her face as the color mounted under the ivory skin, -accentuating the high, molded contours of the bones beneath it. He could -not have said whether she were more angered or hurt. - -"When?" Her low voice held its ground; not by a shade did it show -disquiet. "How much time is granted us to deal with it?" - -He was smitten with admiration at the serenity and ease of her apparent -candor. With veteran coolness she took him on. He could do no less than -to match her play for play. - -"He intends letting the cat out of the bag tonight. But there will be -nothing published for several days." - -"Thank you. I don't know why, Mr. Detective, you are being so kind and -telling me tales out of school." She turned fully toward him and gave -him one of her rare smiles, lifting her drooped eyelids enough to show -two burning high-lights, like two stars under an edge of cloud. "I had -to know how swift the sands were running away. Even you can't speed them -or retard them. And you wouldn't if you could--for you have really seen -me tonight for the first time," she said, with the faint irony he was -beginning to adore because in a more subtle and whimsical way, it -counterbalanced his own. "May I?" She took a flower from a bowl on the -table and broke it short for his buttonhole. At that moment he had -regretfully to turn from her. Whittaker, at his elbow, was presenting -the Crawfords. - - - - - V - - - ORDWAY BELKNAP - O - NADIA MDEVANI O O ROMANY MONTE VIDEO - NEIL CRAWFORD O O MILTON DORN - JULIAN PRENTICE O O HARTLEY BLAKE - JOEL LACEY O O SYDNEY CRAWFORD - O - BERTRAND WHITTAKER - -was the way they sat at dinner. - -Belknap regretted Miss Video on his left. He was one of the few who had -never been properly infatuated with the Romany patteran, as he privately -named her for her continuous flow of inconsequential chatter, and had -therefore never liked her. It was one thing or the other with Romany. -She was a sylph-like creature with enormous eyes, an auburn Viennese -bob, and a disingenuous manner. She 'needed' them, was the way men put -it, first their friendship, then their protection, finally their -passion. You couldn't somehow let her down by disappointing her. They -said she was weak and easily swayed, and each in turn flattered himself -he could strengthen her philosophy against a bitter world (a world he -helped to embitter, if he could but see it that way), and help her get -on her feet. Yet somehow she had never mastered this art of walking -alone! - -Belknap, always irritated by willowy natures, now wished her in Kingdom -Come. He wanted to renew the dangerous but charming intimacies that had -swiftly and strangely sprung up between himself and Nadia Mdevani; and -here would have been his opportunity, with Nadia beside him sending odd -disturbing currents up the arm that almost brushed hers. He felt her -mind being restive and wild, puzzled and angry, and above all keenly -intent on a loophole of escape. If anyone else should succeed in -silencing Whittaker forever it would not be because Nadia had yielded -her designs but because she had delayed long enough to be cunning and -intricate in their workmanship. She even seemed, now that the die was -cast, rather to relish the added risk of having Belknap in the arena -with her. Whittaker, asked for a description of Nadia, would have said -the obvious things about raven locks and snowdrift skin, with eyes too -revealing to go revealed. Belknap, after this evening, would have spoken -of her in terms of a banked fire with a scent of brimstone. With less -than half his exasperated attention given to Romany's innumerable -reasons, centering in jealousy, why she had not been assigned to lead in -_After Midnight_, he glanced surreptitiously at Nadia. Her face, ivory -white and immobile, signified nothing. He wondered whether he might be -mistaken in thinking the atmosphere so heavily charged between them. His -appraising eye passed down the table, appreciating beauty and -distinction where he found it, and paused at Joel--dear Joel, not -beautiful perhaps, but dear looking. Belknap, in his fashion, had loved -her; but for his own bachelor's sake (he was not an unselfish man), as -well as for her youth's sake, he had never spoken of it to her. Looking -unwaveringly ahead into a night that might well be terrible for them -all, he felt a particular pang for her. She was talking _sotto voce_ -with Julian: - -"Hush, dear, people are listening." - -"Then darling, more darling, most darling." - -"Don't, _please_!" - -"I want to see your amber eyes, not the back of a leaf-brown head." - -"Don't say things like that at the table. Speak when you are spoken to." - -"Can't you say something nice to me?" - -She looked around at him, half tearful, half laughing, under her lashes. - -"Oh, my dearest one, is it as bad as all that?" - -"Worse, Joel, much worse." - -Of course it must be a dream, and a very bad one, that Whittaker had -been saying things about cancer and murder and murderers. The more so -when one looked at Whittaker himself, sitting genially, though perhaps -with an extra dash of grey pallor, at the head of his board, lifting his -champagne to touch glasses with Sydney Crawford: "To the lips, to the -eyes." The Stein song again! Would its revival never die? Yet it quite -applied at Whittaker's table tonight. Every woman in her way was as -fair, as vital, as more than willing to play up, as any man could ask. -Even Sydney, with a flash of challenging laughter at her husband, was -returning Hartley Blake's sallies in kind. Sydney was obviously fey -tonight, with a heightened color, brighter eyes, and a recklessness of -sentiment that might mean trouble. Had Neil and Romany failed in -discretion? - -Blake was in his usual excellent form; and it was plain to see thought -his wit of too good a flavor to be entirely spent on a woman, even the -excited Sydney. So he was tossing it by means of a slightly lifted voice -up over his right shoulder at Dorn. Dorn however looked darkly -unresponsive, and, being a man of few words, it seemed probable Blake -would never know whether his delightful flippancies and exaggerations -were being appreciated. Then, suddenly, he knew: - -"As for myself," Dorn remarked to his side-partners in particular, and -to the table tangentially, "I have recently resolved to remain silent -unless I feel that I can definitely contribute something worth while to -the conversation. Time and energy are indiscriminately wasted in the -futile, the repetitive, and the platitudinous. If we could hold our -tongues until they were loosed by the real idea, the absolute necessity -of speech, there would at least be a deal less noise, and quite possibly -a return to the art of thinking which at present is a lost one." - -It was an insulting and uncalled for remark under the circumstances. -Romany, who looked positively crestfallen for a change, perhaps needed a -blunt rebuke (she wasn't suppressed in a day), but Blake, though an -inveterate talker, was a brilliant one. His high color showed such anger -that the control of his first words was surprising. - -"I should not only hold it, Dorn, I should bite it if I were you." - -The silence that fell in the room was deep and ominous. But in it was -Whittaker's opportunity, not only to distract Dorn and Blake, but to -call attention to himself. Here, like Jason, he could cast his stone -among the dragon's teeth. - -"I believe I _have_ a contribution to make to the conversation, to the -evening's pastime, and I hope to posterity." - -Belknap, without looking her way, knew that Nadia stiffened and -straightened at the words. As for the others, their eyes turned to -Whittaker expectantly, but with no premonitory awakening. - -"I had planned letting you learn of what I intend when it had ceased to -be an intention and become an actuality. In other words, you were only -to know of the publication of my memoirs when you saw them in print. But -I really can't resist a little boasting in advance, and I thought I -might read scraps of them after dinner to the assembled gathering, -before we get down to bridge." - -"Oh, how wonderful of you, Uncle Bertrand," Joel exclaimed, eager to -help him, as she thought, tide over the embarrassing moment. "I didn't -know you were writing. You have so many irons in the fire, how _did_ you -find time to do a book? But it must have been pretty good fun, so much -has happened to you." - -"It isn't recent, Joel; it's been written at odd moments over a period -of twenty years. In other words, it's my Diary. But it _is_ packed full -of material, and all sorts of things. Everybody's in it. Oh yes, you are -all there, my dears." - -"You talk like Red Riding Hood's wolf, Bertrand," Nadia said with cold -acidity, and at her tone the first chill, like the first autumn frost, -fell on them all. "Just what do you mean when you say we are in it?" - -"Exactly that, Nadia darling. I hope you are in it to the life, as I'm -sure I am." - -"You mean it is a character portrayal of your friends and foes as well -as a revelation of your own nature--you sinner," she added with bitter -lightness. - -"You express it in a nutshell." - -Blake spoke. - -"By what right does one betray one's friends--even in the cause of -literature; and you will excuse me, Whittaker, if I doubt the literary -merits of your pen." - -"By the modern right of giving the public what it craves and pays for: -the revelation of evil, the worse the merrier. It used to be how I found -the true light; now it is how I went plumb to Hell." - -"How you did perhaps, but not how I did." - -"In most instances one touches close upon the other, I'm afraid. It is a -platitude of course (I ask your pardon, Dorn) to remark that we none of -us can sin alone, but it is true nevertheless. Even the person that -hears the tale of a crime is somehow affected. I feel the need of -clearing my decks, of things heard and committed." - -"I doubt it would earn you a free pass through the pearly gates, -supposing your proposed act comes off. Mark I say proposed." - -"Is that your glove, Blake? You must be able to get gloves at a -discount." - -"My glove, yes, but not concealing the dagger beneath." - -"I'll meet you where and when you please." - -"With Ordway Belknap as your second, I suppose? No, thank you; there are -safer ways." - -"Then make it fast, man," Whittaker cried in a suddenly broken voice as -the dew of intense pain stood out on his forehead and he drooped a -little forward over the table. "The time is short for both of us." - -"Quick, Mr. Belknap," Nadia exclaimed, "Romany is fainting." - -It _would_ be Romany who took things the hardest. - - - - - VI - - -Half an hour later found the atmosphere of the library anything but -comfortable--indeed strained almost to the breaking point. Whittaker's -slow poison was beginning to take effect. Ignoring the ominous rolling -up of clouds, he had quietly but firmly gone ahead with the plan to read -aloud a few pages of the Diary. With malicious casualness he had -suggested the withdrawal of anyone who felt more in the mood for -billiards or bridge: "You know the billiard room, Blake. Do get up a -game if it suits you. There's nothing particularly thrilling about an -old man mumbling over his memories of other days. I merely thought one -or two of you might prefer a moment's pause in the day's occupation that -I could beguile, even if I put you asleep." But, aside from Dorn who had -excused himself directly after dinner with, "Doctors, you know, -Whittaker. Frightfully sorry. I'll try to get back tomorrow," there was -not one that had had the strength to keep away from the spider's parlor. -Though for a moment it had appeared that Belknap might follow Dorn's -example: "Come now, don't tell me you're off, too?" Whittaker's tone -half-mocked, half-threatened him as he stood indecisively in the hall -toying with the door-latch. "Oh no," Belknap had answered with impatient -asperity. "Hardly that! I have a small contribution to make to the -evening's pleasure. It's in the car. I'll be back." He was, in a jiffy, -with several bottles of what he said was '11 champagne, and which, as -Whittaker knew, came from one of the finest cellars in New York. - -But no one else turned even an attentive eye to the gift which Belknap -was arranging with exaggerated care on the tray of crystal-bright -decanters and dark-bright bottles. Curiosity, dread, and sheer -hypnotism, combined to magnetize them into a rigid ensemble about -Whittaker's reading lamp. But it was a brittle, surface rigidity--like -the first thin ice formed over moving water. Beneath it the twisting, -roiling currents of agonized apprehension wore through and disturbed the -dangerous stillness of the room. Nadia Mdevani's puffs at her cigarette -were too brief, and she flicked unformed ash too often. Blake in the -corner ferociously over-shuffled a pack of cards. At the piano Romany's -fingers lacked control, and the snatches of song she attempted lost -themselves in broken pitch. But she had at least recovered from her -faintness, which she had apologetically laid to a week's indulgence in -late hours, and to cocktails for tea at Sands Point. Crawford was -turning the leaves of _The Sportsman_, but with such erratic rapidity -that he must have been unaware of what he saw. Only Julian and Joel, -looking worlds at each other, plus suns and moons and stars, still -seemed a little stupidly blind to what was happening. - -As Whittaker arranged his stage setting--chair and lamp just so, and a -pillow at his back--the ritual of after-dinner coffee proceeded with its -usual calm and efficiency. A robot maid, pretty and slim-figured in -black and white, brought the service, and John passed the cups. He then -quietly opened the windows of the terrace to the warm May night, asked -his master was there anything further, and retired. - -Whittaker cleared his throat; and the sound startled the room as -thoroughly as though it had been a shot. It drew the line at -conversation and movement. Across the stillness Whittaker's first words -assumed an enlarged importance. - -"As I've told you, this is a day to day record of my life for the past -twelve or fifteen years." By a motion of his hand he indicated to them a -thick, flexible, thin-paper notebook, bound in tooled sučde. "Tonight I -am taking a leaf from a day two years ago, June 19, 1929. I recall the -day vividly; and I can quite imagine that Markham does. (We'll say -Markham--the real name needn't figure until we go into print.) - -"'Markham called me early this evening to say he must see me -immediately. I was engaged for a theatre party, and did not wish to -disappoint my hostess, but Markham was obstinate and I yielded. He lives -only a matter of minutes from Thorngate. When he appeared it was more -than obvious that something was wrong. He was pale, his eyes bloodshot, -and his voice somewhere in his shoes. It seems he is being blackmailed -on two counts, an old one and a new one; the new one being a mistress, -and therefore dangerous to his family; the old one being a strange case -of murder, and therefore more dangerous to himself. It is the murder -that I consider worth recounting. - -"'Markham is the son, only son, of old Markham who once broke the bank -at Monte Carlo. There is wildness in the family. The boy grew up -higgledy-piggledy in a part of New York that was rapidly changing from -good to bad and bad to worse. Watched with less than half an eye by a -succession of uninvestigated nurses and governesses, when they could be -afforded at all, Markham naturally and easily became a member of a boy's -gang in the block; and this gang of children grew up to be the real -thing. He was not able to break with them, even if he had cared to do -so. They bled his father by way of him. They led him by gradual stages -into mischief, into badness and into sin. The day came when, owing one -too many grand to some card racketeers working the steamship lines to -Havana, he was ready to accept payment for murder. - -"'A jet-black night in midwinter found him entering an apparently -abandoned shack in a lonely curve of the Hackensack on the barren flats -outside Newark. Nothing for miles but snow-drifted meadows and a black -river turgidly rolling seaward.'" - -"A style worthy of the American Institute," Julian murmured to Joel, -"where vocabulary counts--I mean wordiness." - -"Hush, Julian! Your uncle's a member." - -"That's how I know." - -"'The single room, into which Markham crept upward by way of a loose -floor board, reeked of stale tobacco smoke, soiled clothes, and an odd -sweet odor that he had long ago learned to recognize as opium. Knife in -hand, he settled against the wall near the locked door to await his -victim's home-coming. There were mice about. He identified mice. And a -branch blowing against the window-pane. That was easy. But there was -another sound, persistent and regular--like, like breathing. Breathing! -Good God, it _was_ breathing. The smuggler wasn't abroad smuggling, -according to plan. The cold sweat broke out on Markham's palms and -forehead. Were they each crouching in the dark waiting the other's move? -The next scuttle of a mouse shattered his flesh and bones like a blow. -He was goose-flesh from head to foot, including his scalp which pained -him with its effort to lift his hair.'" - -"You see he thought his goose was cooked," was Julian's next aside to -Joel. Something was at last beginning to take place in Julian. Belknap -saw a little sleepy devil waking in him that might not always prove easy -to deal with. - -"'The man on the bed moved; lay still; shifted again. There was nothing -for it but to strike. He sprang and struck: and drove the little knife -up to his hand in something soft. He was saying tonight that a knife -murder is not so good for the murderer whatever it may be to the -murdered. He says the physical sensations will last him for life: the -scraping of the blade on a bone, its spongy sinking home in a vital -part, the sudden sagging of the body under one's own tensity, and the -last gasping gurgling breath against the face. Markham had never seen -this man's face, never would see it; but he would remember the feeling -of the unshaven chin and the small, fat body; and the smell of sweated -clothes mingling with the warm smell of fresh blood----'" - -"If you don't mind, Whittaker," Crawford said in an inhuman voice, "I -should like a glass of water. May I ring?" He tried to rise, staggered, -and said, "Help me, Sydney." - -It seemed that Sydney had not heard him or was unable to move. She -didn't stir, or move her eyes. But Romany, from a huddled, shivering -figure on the divan, came to life and ran to him. - -"Durian, Neil, my beloved, my only love. What is he doing to you? I -can't bear it. I won't let him do things like this--I don't care--" - -Romany didn't finish--Sydney had heard, and had struck Romany a blow -that threw her against the table. Nadia was laughing terribly as Blake -came across toward Whittaker with murder on his face. - -"Now by all that's holy or unholy, you have overstepped the bounds, -Bertrand Whittaker--" - -Whether he ever reached Whittaker remained in doubt for at that moment -the room was plunged in total darkness. Someone screamed--a woman. There -was a scuffle and a thud. A man groaned. Belknap cried out: "Stay where -you are as you value your lives." They heard him feeling the wall for -the switch, and then there was light. - -In it Whittaker lay back half conscious in his chair, bleeding at the -forehead. The others stood in oddly arrested positions like the players -of ten-step on the count of ten. And the Diary was gone. - - - - - VII - - -As a ditch drains at the opening of a sluice, leaves and twigs sucked -one by one, slow at first then rapidly, down the outward current, the -library drained of guests, silently, furtively, slow almost to the door, -swift as the need to escape the room, the others, and their own -astounding collapse under sudden stress, dragged them away. When the -last of them had disappeared, Belknap, with John's aid, helped Bertrand -Whittaker to his room. They paused at his threshold. For the moment -there seemed nothing to say. Both perhaps felt the effects of a certain, -for them, anti-climax to the evening's events--something rather hollow, -almost something ridiculous, in the situation. Whittaker felt let down. -Belknap ugly and impatient. - -"How's the head?" Belknap asked stiffly. - -"Quite all right, thanks," Whittaker answered with equal stiffness. -"Won't you come in?" - -"No. Not now. There's too much in the affrighted air. Get some sleep if -you can. Though perhaps you think you'll get plenty of that soon enough. -Well, you've started the ball rolling with a vengeance, haven't you? -Satisfied? God, Whittaker, hadn't you better cry quits? It isn't too -late. Tell 'em it was a practical joke; and ask Crawford's pardon on the -side. You see for yourself it isn't going to be so daisy simple. _A_ -murder! We'll be lucky if it's only half a dozen. There was no lovelight -in any one's eyes this evening, except in that poor little goose of a -Joel's. And she went upstairs looking withered. Slice this house from -garret to cellar right now and it would make as pretty a Desire Under -the Elms cross-section as you could find in a day's journey." - -"The desire being to get me, huh?" Whittaker asked grimly. - -"Exactly. If only whoever gets you would just please make a thorough job -of it. Who do you think tried it?" - -"Haven't a ghost; have you? Thought it was going to be the Colonel -somehow. But the blow didn't quite come from his direction. Still, he -may have swung around me in the dark. It was a nasty knock, I think with -metal, but glancing. That's what saved me." - -"Whittaker, you _are_ a cool one. Wish I could match you tonight. But -there are moments when I don't like it. Change your mind?" - -"_Never!_ No, as I said before, if you don't like the game, get out. -I'll find a detective to whom it _will_ be a challenge to the best work -that's in him." - -"And _I_ will never get out. You know that; you know it only too well, -you old reprobate. Filthy as the weather looks ahead, catch me refusing -to go through it, if it's there to go through. Well, while we linger -here the plot undoubtedly thickens. I'd best get a move-on. Good-by--for -the moment." - -"Good-by, and good-hunting," Whittaker said as he turned away, leaning -more heavily on John's arm. Closing his door he murmured "Ah!" on a -breath, meaning, if he had troubled to say all he meant, "Well, well, -see what we have here." - -Romany Video, in a great fluff of feathery negligee, lay face downward, -a vibrant, hysterical puff-ball, on the bed. She was a mere speck of -worried humanity troubling the white waste spaces of Whittaker's -four-poster; but an insistent speck, like a mosquito at a screen. -Whittaker regarded her for a moment with an expression of mingled -amusement, pity, contempt, and the faintly suggestive -what-can-I-do-for-you look certain men always have for a fair damsel in -distress. Thoroughly as Whittaker knew this particular damsel, no -distress of hers would quite leave him indifferent. - -But he took his time. There was no harm ever came in letting a woman -wait--or weep. He said nothing. Sitting on the edge of the bed, as -though Romany were not there, he let John help him exchange his pair of -patent-leather for a pair of pigskin slippers, remove his dinner-coat -and stiff shirt, and slip his green silk dressing-gown over his -shoulders. Romany, properly responsive to the delayed attention, -redoubled her sobbing. - -"Thank you, John. That'll do for now. No, don't bother about my head. -It's hardly more than a mean bruise. I'll call you later if I want you. -Good-night." - -Whittaker, allowing John to depart, silently studied the trembling, -haired-up curls of Romany's dishevelled head. Then, on the click of the -latch, he leaned across and touched her arm. - -"Come, come, little one. What's it all about? You're taking it too hard. -I'm sorry it had to be Crawford to begin with--for your sake. But you'll -get over him, if you have time, as you got over me. As you got over -Blake. How did Blake let you get over him?" - -"Oh, go away, you horrid, mean thing. I can't bear you. Don't _talk_ to -me. Don't you _dare_ touch me." - -"As bad as all that? Dear, dear! You're taking him harder than you took -most of us. You like them good, is that it? Gives you something to do -making them over." - -"You bad man! How can you say such things to me? How _can_ you, after -all we've been to each other? You used never to do anything to hurt me. -And look at you now. What _has_ happened, Bertrand dear? It's such a -cruel world. I can't bear it. I tell you, I can't. I'm going to kill -myself. I'm going to _die_, Bertrand." - -"My dear, for the first time of the hundred and one you've made that -threat, there's a chance of it's coming off," Whittaker said, and said -the one thing in creation that, instead of aggravating them, could have -stopped Romany's hysterics dead in their tracks. Romany was quiet; -desperately quiet. She lifted her head from the foam of maribou and -looked at Whittaker with wide, distraught eyes, and parted lips. - -"What do you mean?" she whispered. - -"What I say," he mocked her whisper by imitating it. "Even if you escape -tonight, Romany (for death, whose name you so often take in vain, is on -the _qui vive_ in the house tonight), you have Durian's death to answer -for." - -Romany screamed, and throttled the scream with her hand across her -mouth. - -"Bertrand! You are going--to tell--_that_? You've written it down as you -wrote about Neil?" - -"I have." - -"Oh, no-no-no-no. Please, no. I don't believe it." - -"Then wait and see. But hope isn't dead yet, Freckles. (Let me see; yes, -there's your one freckle that made me call you Freckles. Remember?) I'll -have to find the Diary, or rewrite it,--unless, of course, I--" - -"Oh, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you." Romany bounced back into her -hair, her maribou, and the rumpled pillows. - -"_Don't_ say that!" he cried dramatically. And Romany caught at a straw. -She sat up again. - -"You care?" she said. "You _do_ care. Oh, Bertrand, _why_ are you making -me suffer so? I don't understand. _Darling_, is it because you're -jealous?" She threw both arms recklessly around his neck and clung to -him with the wild strength of a drowning person. "Did he think his -little Romany had really gone away and left him? Did he think she cared -about all the other mans? Why, his poor little girl only thought the big -man had got tired of her. She did, darling. Truly, she did." - -Whittaker slowly and carefully, with all the force of his hands, -disengaged her arms, but, once disengaged, he found his own of necessity -engaged in holding her. - -"Brat!" he said, on a low, half-laugh, and kissed her lightly. - -"Oh," she breathed with a relieved sigh that rose, softly, from the -bottom of her heart. "It's so long since you called me that. I love it. -How _silly_ of us to quarrel, Bertrand. And be jealous! After all these -years. To think you could ever have been so cruel as to pretend to tell -about Durian to bring me back. Couldn't you have found a pleasanter way, -darling?" - -Whittaker regarded her obliquely through half-shut eyes. - -"What about Crawford?" he asked. - -She had the grace to color. - -"Poor Neil," she murmured. "But that's for him to take care of, isn't -it?" - -"I see it is." She felt him shiver, but misinterpreted it. - -"Happy?" she asked. - -"The Devil has that reputation." - -He felt her take alarm again, with a defensive stiffening. She laughed -shakily. - -"Naughty boy! You're being sarcastic." - -"Am I?" - -Suddenly, Romany sprang away from him and stood trembling from head to -foot, and chattering with uncontrolled and unexpected rage. - -"You are go-go-_going_ to tell." She stuttered feverishly. "You are -going to tell on all of us. You r-really mean it. Don't you? D-don't -you?" - -"Ah, you've figured it out, have you? Yes, I'm telling. How often must I -say it to get it through your pretty head?" - -"You brute! You beast! You--," like a spoilt child Romany stamped. -"You're a hateful, cruel, wicked man. You can't do it. Just you try. No -one will let you. You'll be killed first. You can't do it to me, do you -hear. I'll kill you myself. You've got to leave me alone. Leave me -_alone_. What do you think I killed him for? Because he betrayed me, -didn't I? And what are you doing to me? Betraying me, too. You look out, -Bertrand Whittaker. There's nothing I'll stop at if I'm roused. No, not -even murder." - -Whittaker shed Romany's tantrum as a duck sheds water. - -"Histrionics, baby," he said. "You never can get far away from them, can -you? Fifth-rate quotations from sixth-rate melodrama. Not that I don't -wish you meant your big threat. I do. But if you really mean to kill me, -don't shout about it. The house is listening, if I know the house. Do it -on the quiet. Now run away home to your room, child, and think it over. -I'll drop in later, if I may, and get the results. Pity I haven't the -poor old diary by me and I'd mark you the passages about yourself. -They're quite thrilling. Make you out a sort of Medici, of the -willow-wand variety. You should be honored." Romany swayed. "Don't -faint, my dear, _again_. You do it too often. It's becoming a vicious -habit. The thing for you to do is to get to bed." Whittaker worked her -gently toward the door. "Goodnight--sleep tight--wake up--" - -Romany drew away from him with a shudder. Wrapping her gown tightly -about her with a pathetic little gesture of pride and courage, she flung -a parting shot from the doorway. - -"And don't think you're the only one that can tell tales out of school, -Bertrand Whittaker. I'll match you revelation for revelation if it comes -to the book of revelations. You'll have a tall lot of explaining to do -to the law if I let--." - -She was in the hall, and had dropped her voice. Whittaker failed to -catch a name she gave. - -"Who's that you'll let the world know about?" he shouted. - -Romany put her dust-mop head back into the room. - -"_Just you guess!_ And I hope you die of fright," she hissed, and, -turtle-wise, withdrew the head. - - - - - VIII - - -Julian, in dressing gown and slippers, sank back in the deep arm-chair -before the fire burning in his room, and gave himself up to being -downright worried. The situation at Thorngate seemed to him bewildering, -terrifying, and positively insane, by turns. Obviously there was far -more real trouble in the wind than the immediate problem of his own -predicament, though heaven knew that was bad enough, largely because of -Joel. However he was in a sense relieved and glad that Joel was to know. -He had never yet been able to figure out a way to tell her about -himself, but now this came along to settle the matter for him: she was -bound to know, willy-nilly. - -Why, _why_ had he ever told Bertrand Whittaker of all people? No one -would have ever been any the wiser if he had kept his mouth shut that -warm evening last summer when his conscience was eating him alive, -together with the mosquitoes, and he had asked Whittaker what to do -about it. Whittaker had said, "Oh, forget it, boy. It won't do you, or -Roger Dane, or Roger's family any good to come out with it." Then why -was Whittaker so thoroughly airing it now? Or was he? Perhaps he -considered Julian's hot-headed crime of too light a weight to bother -with in his gruesome Diary. But Julian felt that it was playing ostrich -on his part to rely on such a hope. For a man is known by the company he -keeps. And it began to be desperately certain that the house was full to -the gables of murderers in one degree or another. Both Blake and Dorn -had been too quick on the rise to speak well for themselves. Romany -Monte Video and Neil Crawford had blown to bits under a little pressure. -And the Diary had been of sufficient importance for someone to have -already attempted murder for its sake. Murder to cover murder. What a -weird and preposterous household it was proving to be. What was Bertrand -Whittaker's motive in assembling it unless he was playing a losing game -with death? If Crawford were not so chicken-hearted he would have -avenged tonight's dreadful betrayal before now. He might get around to -it yet. Some of the rankest cowards in an open fight have been known to -be excellent stabbers-in-the-back. And if everyone else had a secret -murder in his past, whoever got away with the Diary was getting a -wonderful thrill--probably reading it now by flashlight in a cupboard or -under the shrubbery (one of Julian's most persistent fears was that -Dorn, instead of having gone straight up to town, was haunting the -grounds with murder in his heart), trembling at every creak of the floor -or rustle of leaves. - -Whittaker's chances of seeing his scheme through appeared slim enough to -Julian: but even should he fail to see a rewritten version of his Diary -in print, he had already, by one evening's work, made a rotten mess of -at least six lives. Neil and Sydney and Romany could no longer ignore -their situation; whatever was between them would from now on be an open -wound. Belknap would have definite proof of at least one crime and the -criminal behind it. Whether, in view of the preposterous and unfair -circumstances, he would decently ignore Crawford's guilt was a doubtful -question. Romany had fainted dead away when the Diary was first -mentioned, and later had lost her head and confused the names of Neil -Crawford and that lover of hers, with the crazy name of Durian, who had -been accidently killed in one of her plays--why, of _course_, he -_hadn't_ been accidentally killed, that was just it. What a fool he was -not to have thought of it before? So now he had three murderers -accounted for: Crawford, Romany, and himself. As for Nadia, she looked -the part of a poisoner to the letter. Dorn had clearly run away from -something. With Blake it probably all depended on your definition of a -duel. - -But then there was Joel! Something must be wrong with his whole -figuring, or Joel wouldn't be where she was. Surely Whittaker wouldn't -include an innocent niece in a crime wave unless there were others as -innocent to make it proper. Julian smiled at his own charming conceit. -But it might be that Whittaker was so intent on crushing the alliance -between himself and Joel that he was taking drastic measures to acquaint -Joel with her lover's villainy. He _must_ see Joel. He must see her -before things developed beyond anyone's control, as they were rapidly -doing. - -He jumped to his feet and almost out of his skin at a tapping on an -inner door of his room that led God knew where. Should he lie low and -gaze hypnotized at the door knob, or shout boldly "Come in," or open the -door suddenly and take the intruder off his guard? Julian had by now -strung himself up to such a pitch that his own murder wouldn't in the -least have surprised him. Before he could decide on a course of action -the door quietly opened and Joel appeared in a flowing blue robe. All -his breath deserted him at the vision of her in his room. - -"Joel!" he whispered. - -"Yes, dear, I'm on the other side of the door, with the key on my side. -Must be more plot in that, don't you think? If we fall any deeper into -trouble than we have fallen already--I mean if it comes to calling the -police or something--there'll be a scandal about the connecting door -between the rooms of Mr. Julian Prentice and his fiancée. Fiancée my -eye, it will suggest! And if, hearing a shot, we should dash into the -hall, it would add that we were seen emerging from the young gentleman's -room, in negligee, at--" she glanced at her wrist watch--"at 12:30 A.M. -The fact that I am marking the time, with you as witness, may prove -frightfully important. It _is_ late, isn't it?" - -"Very, yes." Julian's over-emotion at Joel's nearness showed itself in -understatement and a boyish stiffness that made Joel love him beyond -anything. "Come and sit here, won't you? While I stir this fire. What -_are_ you doing out so late, dear heart?" - -"I did a little listening and snooping in the halls and found everybody -else doing likewise. So I naturally can't sleep. The house is fairly -creeping, Julian. I wish it would get to its feet and walk off. Perhaps -in the sense of very strong cheese, it will eventually. Oh dear, I'm so -tired, and therefore a little silly, as you see, darling." - -"I don't wonder--that you're tired I mean. Here, put your feet on this -cushion and let me warm your hands that are so cold. Tell me, Joel, what -do you think your uncle is up to; what is he doing to everybody, -including himself?" - -"I don't know; truly, Julian, I don't know, and I don't care what he is -doing to himself and all the others but us. But I do care dreadfully -what he does to you and me, and I have come to see whether we can't, you -and I, pass a magic wand over ourselves to keep out his evil genius and -whatever it's leading to. That we may even begin to do it, I realize I -must be very brave and tell you about myself. We can't in the face of -things leave any stone unturned between us." - -Julian looked up at her with a swift, tender smile. - -"Now you are going to tell me _you_ have committed murder, too," he -said. - -"Julian, be still; don't be amused. Yes, I am going to tell you that I -have committed murder. I have. But listen, please; don't laugh that way. -I can't bear it." - -"Darling, I can't help it. Oh my God, I was just coming to tell you -about my murder before you should hear about it from another, or read of -it in a tabloid, or have it sprung upon you when I am cross-examined. -Joel, we are in for a very great deal of horridness--worse than we -realize." - -"Not worse than _I_ realize," she said, with inexpressible weariness. -"Julian dearest, you must listen to me; and then," she smiled faintly, -"I will hear about your murder." - -He put her hands to his lips. - -"_Don't_," she said, drawing back. "Perhaps you won't feel that way when -I've told you. After all if you have killed one--husband--." She found -it almost beyond her to say the word. - -"Joel, you didn't kill Jerry. You didn't, you didn't. Say it, I tell -you. Say you didn't." - -"I did. But it wasn't quite a murder, really it wasn't. Listen, Julian, -stop crying. I swear to you it wasn't altogether a murder." - -"I don't know what you mean 'not altogether a murder.' Murder is murder, -you can't get away from that." Julian's tone was low and dull. "Joel, I -can't bear it." - -"I should have thought being in a glass house you wouldn't throw -stones," bitterness had crept into her voice. - -"Mine was self-defense--in a way it was." - -"And mine was an affair of honor--in a way it was. I am going to tell -you the whole story. It's our only hope, Julian--for us both to tell -everything. - -"Jerry and I had been in love, really and terribly in love, for several -years. It was after we knew Junior was on his way that we married. Oh, -not because we _had_ to. It was Jerry's idea that we'd call that our own -private marriage, if we found that we could have one, and then accept -the necessary legalities for its sake. You see what I mean. I thought it -a sort of romantic super-modernism, a beautiful way of counting out the -world. Don't laugh at me, Julian; for the laugh _was_ on me. The first -shock came when we knew. He said, 'I wonder whether we really _need_ to -go through the outward form!' Puzzled, but no more, I said, 'Of course, -don't you think so?' and his answer was, 'Just as you say, of course.' -'As _you_ say,' note that. It took me months of increasing pain to -realize that it wasn't romance for him, but a way of keeping free -himself while achieving a son. - -"Well, I thought it all out; and it seemed to me I had been deceived as -surely as any girl in melodrama. After all it's six of one and half a -dozen of the other, the old Tess of the D'Urberville way and the modern, -talking-it-all-out way, isn't it? Instead of the enraged father and -brother going on the warpath (fathers and brothers have been made to -feel gun-shy these days) the woman herself, whose boast is that she can -take care of herself, should have more than the theoretical right to do -it. She should be able to fight it out to the death. Call it a new form -of dueling if you like. So I went to work to clear my honor. That's what -it amounted to. I had ceased to care, to love him, of course, or I -suppose I couldn't have done it. I took shooting lessons at the 79th St. -Armory. _He_ had been a good shot since the War. Then I challenged him, -coolly and seriously. I meant it. I named the hour, and the spot (in -Central Park), and said he could name the day." - -"_Joel_, what did he say!" - -"He laughed. I suppose I should have known he would. But I was made -blind angry by it. So I went for a gun and--ended it all." - -"How did you get away with it?" - -"I didn't intend to. But I had taken his pistol from the drawer--and -that, with the position in which he lay, pointed to suicide. It was -never finger printed. Our friends claimed we were the most devoted -couple they knew. I went to Uncle Bertrand immediately (he was Judge in -our Precinct at the time), but he persuaded me, wrongly I know now, to -keep silent; he said Jerry had it coming to him. But I wish I'd just run -away from him instead." Joel was crying with eyes wide open. - -"Oh, Joel dear, you poor extraordinary child. I would have killed him -for you." - -"Perhaps, but you weren't around in those days; and besides, it was the -feeling of defending my own name that made me do it. I wouldn't have -brooked a _man's_ defending me." - -"Now that I've got to do something about your uncle, what would an extra -murder more or less have mattered?" - -"Julian," she said quickly, "you can't stop my uncle if he is bound and -determined, even by killing him. He would have a way of getting around -his own murder, if it took his ghost to do it." - -"I won't try murder, sweetheart. But I am going to have a talk with -him--_tonight_." - -Julian stood up and bent over to kiss her. - -"I'll be back soon, I promise. Don't you move." - -"Julian, please stay. I don't want to be left alone in this awful -house." - -But the door had closed behind him. - - - - - IX - - -And down the corridor Neil Crawford closed another door behind himself -and Sydney. Their eyes met with a bleak and hopeless questioning. - -"Oh, Neil," she breathed. "What are we going to do?" - -"What am _I_ going to, you must say, Sydney. Remember, my dear, you are -not in this. And remember that whatever I do or don't do will be -entirely governed by my love for you and my desire to _keep_ you and the -children out of it." - -"You _can't_ keep me out of it, Neil, even if you wanted to. That is the -way, with things relating to one or other of two people who are closely -united, both are in them for good or bad. So I'm in this with you to the -very last--that is, if--if--" - -"If I want you?" He took her shoulders in either hand. "Is that what you -are trying to say? You know I want you. You know I love you, that I -never have loved, never will love, anyone but you. I can't help myself. -We were made in patterns that match, like a jig-saw puzzle. We wouldn't -match anyone else, no one else would match us." - -She did her best to control the wave of feeling that made her draw free -of him. - -"She doesn't feel so, Neil, or think you do. She loves you; and said it -tonight too definitely to make me feel you have not returned in kind. -Neil, where are our promises?" - -"My God, Sydney, since when were you such an innocent as to think -promises were anything more than baubles, pretty but--but vain. The -promises to love forever until death do us part--" - -"Keep still, Neil! You know as well as I do that those aren't the -promises I am thinking of. Besides, we never made those particular -promises. But we did promise we weren't going to go living around with -other people unless we _meant_ it--meant it down to the ground, do you -hear me?" She was trying to keep her voice under control, but it would -rise spasmodically. "And here you seem to have done just that." - -"I wasn't just living around, Sydney. You know me well enough to know -I'd be fastidious about such things. Romany and I got into it somehow, -quite naturally. Why can't women realize how little such things mean to -a man, and to some women. She's one of them. We've never spoken of love; -do you hear that?" - -"Neil, how silly to say such a thing, when by its very nature love is -somehow involved. In the very essence of it--your winnowing of the -physical from the spiritual--it is the ruin of all idealism. Someone we -know, who was it, was saying the other day that the trouble with the -younger generation is that it lacks guts. You are exactly what he meant, -Neil." - -"Don't be vulgar about it, Sydney. Vulgarity doesn't suit you. Only the -sophisticated can get away with it. Your delicacy is one of the reasons -I care for you. And I _do_ care. You can't say I don't love you, or you -me. Can you say it?" - -"Which only makes it frightfully much worse. And don't lie to me. She -couldn't have written you a letter like that if you hadn't used love, in -one form or another, toward her. Don't quibble about the meaning of the -word love." - -"What do you mean 'such a letter'?" - -"I saw a letter on your desk, Neil. I had to read it, you can see that." - -"Then you got just what was coming to you, Sydney. Even a wife, a wife -least of all, doesn't read a man's private correspondence unless she -wants to get hurt." - -"All right! Say it if you will. It can't make matters any more terrible -than they are. I saw the address on the envelope (I knew she had been in -Hollywood this spring), and in a flash I remembered that--that night. -It's asking too much of human nature to ask it to turn its back on the -truth at such a moment. And you can't say it isn't better to know the -truth at whatever cost to us both." - -"If you think so, yes." Crawford's anger died as he saw her face change. -"Oh, Sydney, don't look at me like that. I'm sorry. I'm _so_ sorry." He -tried to take her hands and failed. "And now this other thing to hurt -you. I can't endure it." - -"This other is bad, yes. But not really bad, my dear, as compared to my -trust and respect, trust in you and self-respect, splintered to atoms -overnight. Bertrand Whittaker can do his worst, can put you behind bars, -and me talking to you through bars, but it won't be a patch on the edge -taken off what we have been years in building. Marriages aren't built in -a day. There must be something wrong with me and my dreams, I suppose. -Before we left home tonight I happened to pick up a picture of Bunny, -and realized it was the one that had been in the town house all winter, -watching you--watching you--," she trailed off helplessly. "I seem so to -confuse illusions and realities." - -"Don't confuse them. Don't have illusions. Yet that's why I love you, -for the image you make of a perfect life. But it can't be lived, Sydney. -It can't." - -"_Our_ chance is gone, if that's what you mean." - -"I don't see how it affects us in the least if our love remains to us. I -have never told her I loved her." - -"How charming for her!" - -"That wasn't what she wanted. She understands. I'm not the only one for -her. It isn't as if she were-- She can take care of herself." He paused. -"Oh, I wouldn't mind if she were dead if it would do us any good." - -"Neil, hush! Nothing, not even our own deaths, could do us any real good -again. How can you think wrong will right wrong?" - -"I don't know. I don't know how I think a lot of things I'm thinking. -For instance, Bertrand Whittaker must be stopped dead in his tracks. He -can't be allowed to do this to Bunny's life, or yours, or mine either. -I'll kill him first. The past is over and done with and he has no right -to revive it." - -"The past is over; yes, the past is done with. She said she had your -picture and Bunny's on the dresser before her. Listen to that--_Bunny's_ -picture. What's Bunny to her under the circumstances, I'd like to know, -that she should be able to make free with her picture: stepchild, love -child or godchild? I don't suppose any of them fit, but they sound so -refreshingly shocking it's fun to use them." - -"_Stop_ making a scene, Sydney! I didn't think you had it in you to make -scenes and say such wild, bitter things. I can't _tend_ to a scene now. -Can't you _see_ I can't?" - -"When did it all begin, Neil? Don't say it began in the common -old-fashioned way at the common old-fashioned time. Don't say it began -when Bunny was coming." - -"Of course it did. When did you think it would have begun? You didn't -expect me to be a monk, did you? Sydney, let's stop talking, please; and -think about what's got to be done. What do you say we clear out of the -country and make a fresh start. Australia or somewhere." - -"A fresh start! How devastating it sounds--to start over after eight -years. It can't be done, and the soul still live. As if one were told, -after a terrible day of sled-pulling in an Arctic storm, that one had to -retrace one's steps without rest or food. It couldn't be done, and the -body live. That's how I feel." - -"Sydney, quiet. Quiet, dear, you must stop. And help me plan. I must -find Giordano. I see it clearly. I must find him tonight. He will deal -with Whittaker." - -"Oh no, no, no, no. You mustn't get in touch with those men again. You -are finished forever if you try that. Neil, don't do anything rash. I'll -talk to Bertrand the minute I have a chance. He will listen to reason. -You know we have always said the day might come, and we promised to keep -our heads. Our promises again! She said the rain where she was made her -remember your night rains. Neil, Neil! what does that do to our rains, -our trains, our meteorites, our--our--." She was sobbing now with a -desperate tearless exhaustion. - -"Nothing. Nothing. It doesn't do anything to them, dearest one. We have -our love. With Romany, as we agreed, it was all just a symbol. Do you -hear me, Sydney? Stop crying. Stop it. I have something that has to be -done. _Stop it._" - -He went to the telephone on the stand between the beds. She screamed. - -"Keep away from that telephone, Neil. Can't you see what frightful -things may be going to happen in this house tonight. A call can be -traced--you mustn't _touch_ a telephone." - -She sprang toward him; but he had lifted the receiver and she couldn't -struggle or argue with him against the ear of the operator. The number -he gave was AUdubon 2-1801. It answered. - -"Hello. Crawford speaking." Then he never _had_ been out of touch with -them. "Pick up Disuno if you can find him. If not, one of the others. -The address is Bertrand Whittaker's, Blue Acres. Outside the park gates -at three." - -Neil hung up. - -"You have made the mistake of your life, Neil Crawford. If a breath of -what you have just done reaches the police it's all over but the -shouting, Bertrand or no Bertrand." - -"And it's certainly all over if I do nothing. No, this is going to be -Whittaker's life or mine." - -"Ordway Belknap may be here for a purpose." - -"They have foiled better men than Belknap." - -"You have been with them ever since?" - -"You didn't for a minute imagine I could have been anywhere else did -you? Once with them always with them as far as the underworld is -concerned. They never release us." - -"And you never told me how it has been with you!" - -"You couldn't have helped in the least. I've saved Giordano from the -chair twice over. And Disuno hasn't hide nor hair that he doesn't owe to -me. Now I need them, that's all. And you, my dear. And always you." - -He took her in his arms now, but she was strangely unresponsive. For her -the living spark of whatever it was that had existed between them, -whether love is the word to call it or not she had never known anyway, -was as snuffed out as though it had never been. - - - - - X - - -Belknap entered his room just before dawn and turned up the light. Nadia -stood against the wall inside the door, both hands at her throat, her -breath coming in gasps. Her face in the sudden light was as pale as the -under side of willow leaves before a storm, or after. Here it seemed -that the storm must have passed a moment since. - -Belknap sprang to her and seized both her wrists in one vice-like grip. - -"Nadia! you haven't done it?" - -"No, no, I haven't done _it_, as you call it," she whispered. - -"What _have_ you been doing then?" - -"I have been running, my dear detective; don't you see that?" She tried -to laugh. - -"Why? What from? I thought nothing could ever frighten you. Once and for -all, Nadia Mdevani," he continued as her eyes fell before his, "I ask -you to keep out of this. Can't you begin to see what I am here for? I am -here for game, and you are not fair game. Or perhaps it's that you are -too fair." His voice wavered. "Anyway, keep clear." - -"I can't, Mr. Belknap. On my soul, I can't. There is too much at stake. -If I were the only one. But I am not." She handed him a slip of paper -that had been crumpled in her hand. - -He took it to the table, and smoothed it under his palm. - -"Did you follow instructions?" he asked, in a low voice. "Is that what -the running was about?" - -"No, no. I didn't do it, on my word of honor." Then her eyes suddenly -lifted wide open. "There is someone in the hall behind me. Do you hear?" -Her body was stiff, her face frozen. - -"No," said Belknap, matching the softness of her voice. "But it seems -quite possible. It _would_ be strange if you and I were the only ones -abroad in the house tonight, wouldn't it?" - -"Yes," she whispered. They stood motionless. "It is going downstairs. Oh -my God, it will find it. Do something, Belknap. Quick, destroy that -paper, if you love me!" - -A long, long scream penetrated the house from corner to corner, like a -knife thrust. And then the silence fell again. Nadia drew a deep, -shuddering breath, and when she spoke her voice was stronger. - -"Perhaps you had better go down, Mr. Belknap. Something seems to be -wrong." - -"Something does. You may come with me if you care to." - -They went down and to the door of the library where there was a light. -Sydney Crawford stood over a body lying crumpled on the floor. The body -was Hartley Blake's, and was stabbed so well and so often as to have -watered the rug thickly with blood. - -Sydney, with stricken eyes, met Belknap's gaze. - -"I found this," she said. "I'm sorry to have screamed, but it was a -little unexpected." - -Belknap turned on his heel and rang the service bell. He crossed to the -telephone on Whittaker's desk and lifted the receiver. - -"Sit down, Mrs. Crawford. You, too, Miss Mdevani. Don't look at the -body. I shall have the police here in a moment. But perhaps I can help -you, Mrs. Crawford, if you have anything to say to me before they -arrive. I shall undoubtedly be on the case, since I have had the -misfortune to be at Thorngate this week-end--(Police Department? Ordway -Belknap speaking. You may or may not know my name. I am up at Judge -Whittaker's place. Yes, Whittaker. There has been a murder committed -here during the night. Body just discovered. You had better send up a -sergeant with a few men. The guests, I am afraid, will have to be held. -Pick up a doctor of course. Right you are.)" - -He hung up, and crossed to the divan for a lounging robe which he flung -quickly and deftly over Blake's body. - -"Blake's dead," he said to Julian and Joel who had just put in an -appearance. "The police are on their way. Meanwhile, if you will excuse -me, I shall look the ground over. Seems to have been an impulsive -affair," he continued, "with the knife left behind." He picked up the -long, thin, bronze paper-knife, which lay, stained with blood, a little -to the left of the body. There was also a woman's lace handkerchief, -which Belknap offered to Sydney. - -"That is not mine," she said quietly. - -"Just as you say," Belknap replied, thrusting it into his pocket. "We'll -soon know whose it is." - -John came to the door. - -"Did you want me, sir?" - -"I did, John. Will you round up everyone in the house, including the -help. There has been a murder. Colonel Blake. The police will want you -all for questioning. Not that most of you aren't here already," Belknap -smiled at the room. Crawford had come in on Julian's heels. Romany and -Whittaker, however, were still absent. - -Belknap bent to the body and examined rapidly and thoroughly. - -"There's the off chance we might find something, Mrs. Crawford," he -remarked. "If Blake, under cover of darkness, returned for a cachéd -Diary and met his death because of it, the murderer may not have had -time to relieve him before you, or shall we say I, appeared." - -Sydney made no answer; but her two lovely hands lifted from her lap in a -little helpless gesture of futility. - -"It is quite obvious," Julian said unexpectedly, "that you intend to -make Mrs. Crawford responsible for Colonel Blake's death, Mr. Belknap. I -feel called upon to ask you to keep your suspicions, even such proof as -you may have, until a moment more in keeping with judicial etiquette." - -Belknap flushed darkly. - -"Don't be too hard on our detective, Mr. Prentice," Nadia cried. "He -does not suspect Mrs. Crawford of this ghastly affair, but he very much -wishes he did. And the wish has been father to the possibility. He -really suspects me. Therein lies the difficulty." - -"Spare the noble gesture, Nadia." Whittaker was standing in the door. -"_I_ suspect you myself when you go altruistic. Ah, Belknap! in your -element I see! I can't believe it. Blake murdered! That it should have -happened in my house. Terrible! John said he was unable to rouse Romany -with his knock, so I sent one of the maids to her room. And I gave -orders for the servants to wait in the hall. Does that meet with your -approval, Belknap? I shall sit down, if I may. Last night and this -morning, taken together, are more than is good for me." - -As he sank heavily into a chair there was a windy bustle at the front -door, a careless, strident laugh, and a stamping of feet, that in its -sincere disrespect for the traditions and restraint of Thorngate, -announced the arrival of the police. Belknap stepped toward the library -door. - -"This way, Sergeant. We have been waiting for you." - -"Don't Sergeant me, Belknap," came a pleasant, resonant answer from the -hall; and a man of medium stature, with clear, blue eyes and gold-bronze -hair, faced him in the doorway. "Your humble servant. It's nice to see -you again. I'm only sorry for one thing, that you have the jump on me as -usual." - -"Berry! Why, land alive, where did _you_ come from? Don't worry about -being a step behind me. There's going to be plenty for both of us. Come -in. Whittaker, you know Lieutenant Berry. There's only one other in the -room important enough for you to meet at the moment. Berry, this is -Colonel Blake. Colonel, Lieutenant Berry has come to see what he can do -for you." Belknap indicated the body with a motion of his hand. "You -brought a doctor? It will be convenient to know about when death -occurred." - -"Yes. Doctor Giles is here. Giles," he called. "Get on the job, will -you? Come along in, Sergeant. This is Sergeant Stebbins, Ordway Belknap; -Belknap, Sergeant Stebbins. Now, old man, what's the story? The sooner -we catch the scent the better. When did you arrive?" - -"Before the trouble began. That may help us, and it may not. What do -_you_ say, Whittaker? Shall I--" - -John's voice was heard in the hall. - -"Oh, Judge! Lily has fallen downstairs. I think it's a faint, sir." - -"Pick her up," said Whittaker. - -John and two cops between them lifted her to the library couch. - -Berry glanced at her. - -"If the superstition that the object last beheld leaves its mark branded -on the face I should say your Lily had been seeing things! Where has -_she_ been?" - -"To the room of one of the guests," Belknap said. "Perhaps we'd better -take a look." - -But Lily opened both eyes and gazed glassily at the ceiling. - -"Miss Romany's stiffer'n a post," she said. - - - - - XI - - -"Sergeant," said Belknap quickly, "will you and Berry go up to Miss -Video's room? John, show them up. You may begin to notice there's -something damn wrong with things around here. There _is_. And I must -have a word with the Judge alone. He's the one to bring it to a -standstill--if there is still time." - -He seized Whittaker by the arm and half led, half pushed him into the -dining-room. Berry and Stebbins made the stairs three at a bound. Julian -dragged Joel onto the terrace outside the windows. - -"Julian--_darling_," Joel protested, "_please_ leave me alone. I must go -to bed. I'm ill, really I am; and so is poor Uncle Bertrand. Didn't you -see how frightfully he looked?" - -"Now don't poor your Uncle Bertrand in front of me, Joel. If you begin -sticking up for him now that he's in such a pickle you and I part -company. He's downright responsible for the whole mess. And don't you -dare talk about going to bed either. I've _got_ to talk to you--to you -or someone else--or I'll simply burst. And I refuse to burst in front of -Belknap. You must spare me that, dear. Now listen to me." His voice fell -almost to a whisper. "I've got a clue--a _clue_, do you hear me? A -tangible clue! Darling, _don't_ shut your eyes. Look." - -Julian produced a little square of fool's cap with letters as -unintelligible to Joel as hieroglyphics typed across it. Joel feverishly -rubbed out its network of wrinkles and squinted at it as though she were -near-sighted. - -"Oh, Julian, I don't want to know about this. Don't let's get mixed up -in it. Let's run away, do." - -"_Run away!_ Me? Why it's the chance of a life-time to make a reputation -for myself. You aren't going to be the kind of wife that asks her -husband to sacrifice himself for her on the eve of establishing his -career, are you?" - -"No-o--only I'm afraid of it, like a bomb. I'd rather somebody else -handled it. Let's take it to that sergeant, or Mr. Belknap, or -Lieutenant Berry. Perhaps it's really important." - -"_Perhaps_ it's important. I like that. It _is_ important. It's a code -message. A _code_. And codes are my middle name. Didn't you know that, -darling? Good in arithmetic, fair in geography, poor in deportment, rank -in spellin'; but perfect in codes. I know as much about codes as that -Philo Vance man knows about all other subjects put together. I have an -idea he crams, while I have made codes my life work. Began in grade -school behind those old desk tops we used to have, do you remember, when -what was learned on top was nothing to what was learned under cover." - -"Oh, Julian, do stop fooling. If you get into one of your fooling moods -there'll be no keeping even these murders serious. For heaven's sake, if -you know so much about codes, don't keep me in suspense." - -"It's a difficult code, Joel. One of the toughest. That Japanese thing -they used during the War. But I've figured it. Listen. 'Blake has been -tapping the STC wires. This week-end is your chance. Get him.'" - -"Addressed to whom?" - -"_Addressed_, stupid! You didn't think they'd write a code and address -it, did you? If it came here at all it came by messenger, of course. But -it's unlikely it came here. Whoever received it brought it with him." - -"And if we knew who received it, it would at least settle Colonel -Blake's murder, wouldn't it? Oh, Julian, you _are_ clever. Where did you -get it?" - -"On the stairs as I came down." - -"Julian, it's a wonder you're alive! To think _you_'ve been the first to -pick up a clue with all these great detectives about. And where were you -all night? I waited and waited--and worried and worried-- Why didn't you -come back?" - -"Joel, I'm so sorry. Truly I am. But do you know what I did, dearest? I -went to sleep." - -"To _sleep_?" - -"To sleep, that's what I said." Julian came to his own rescue before her -tone of reproach. "What's so funny about that? I was tired. I went to -your uncle's room and he wasn't there. So I waited. I dropped off on the -lounge. He never came back as far as I know. When I woke it was all -hours. I'd heard nothing. And coming out into the hall I was welcomed by -Mrs. Crawford's reveille." - -"Julian, how _can_ you say such things. When I'm feeling so terribly, -too. _Do_ make me rest somehow, dear. My head--my eyes-- No, there isn't -time for it, I know. We must take your wonderful clue to Mr. Belknap." - -"Not Belknap, sweetheart. Never Belknap. He has the fanatic's eye and it -doesn't appeal to me. Perhaps Berry, sometime. I rather cotton to Berry. -But for the nonce I hunt alone. I might accomplish miracles with a dash -of luck. You must realize I have a deductive mind--as well as a -_se_ductive, darling." - -"_Please-- Don't._ I can't play with you. We must go--" - -Go where was settled on the instant by what Julian would have sworn were -two shots in rapid succession, which rang out in the interior of the -house. Two policemen, guns in hand, breath shortening, came scuttling -around opposite corners of the house. - -"Prisoner's Base or Run Sheep Run?" asked Julian delightedly. "Or just -plain catch-as-catch-can?" he added, springing ahead of them into the -library. Nadia sat alone in the room--with Blake's body almost at her -feet. Her head lay back on the divan top. A lighted cigarette hung -between very red lips. She had taken time out to make up. There was not -the flicker of an expression in the more than usually mask-like face. -Nor did it unbend as Belknap opened the dining-room door, asking for -Doctor Giles. - -"Quick. I'm afraid they've got Whittaker. Where in Hell are the police?" - -Whittaker lay huddled over the table, his face in his arms. Dr. Giles' -hasty examination showed that he had been shot from behind. The bullet -had entered below the left shoulder blade, passed through the heart -(death being instantaneous), and lodged in the table, splintering the -wood deeply. Berry remarked on the last. - -"Close range, that," he said. "Are you _sure_ there was no one else in -the room, Belknap? Could someone have slipped in behind you both?" - -"It seems very unlikely. I should have said the shot came from the -direction of the library. But I myself was facing that particular door." - -"There were two shots fired," said Julian. - -"I beg your pardon, Mr. Prentice." Belknap was short in his speech. -"There was one shot fired as you can see." - -"Not necessarily. Every shot doesn't hit its mark." - -"Granted. But that will be ascertained in due course." - -Sergeant Stebbins had been a strong and silent man since his arrival. A -square-headed, ruddy-cheeked, heavy-jowled man, he gave the appearance -of being a stone wall instead of a hurdle to anyone who didn't take him -cautiously. And something in Belknap's last remark seemed to have set -his back up. - -"Due course!" he rumbled. "Due course! I guess that's what's been the -whole trouble around here. You've been taking your time, haven't you? -Due course! In all your fancy detective work, Mr. Belknap, haven't you -caught on that when it's one murder you act quick, when it's two you -jump into it, and when it's three greased lightning shouldn't have a -look-in. I'm sorry to say it, but I think there's been criminal -negligence, Detective. Three murders in as many hours is rather a record -in _my_ observation, and under your very nose, so to speak. It's clearly -my duty to put everyone in the house under arrest. You're damn lucky I -don't include you. Now we'll get down to brass tacks. A little examining -of witnesses won't come amiss. Who was in the library when the Judge got -his?" - -"I was; and I was there alone." Nadia was contemptuous. - -"I thought so, lady," Stebbins said. "You look the kind. We'll begin -with you. The rest of you can clear out of here; and wait your turn in -there." He signified the library with a twist of his thumb. - -"One minute, Sergeant," Belknap coldly interceded. "My impulse of course -is to pick you up by the neck and throw you out, your silly nickel badge -to the contrary. But, strange as it may seem to you, I have a positively -fiendish desire to get to the root of this succession of violent crimes -that have spoiled a good week-end. That I happened to be present in an -unofficial capacity may be a misfortune in a sense. Privately speaking, -it is. But it has also given me certain angles of an extraordinary -situation that you could never arrive at if you questioned yourself blue -in the face. Whether or not you may wish to take advantage of what I -have to offer is _another_ question. I assure you it will be perfectly -agreeable to me to paddle my own canoe, and let you paddle yours." - -"Hold on, boys," Berry interrupted quietly. "My dear Stebbins, you and -Belknap had better get together on this. I'm sure we're all determined -upon clearing things up as rapidly and expeditiously as possible. You -and I naturally recognize that Mr. Belknap is in a most embarrassing -position; and it is more than decent of him to remain on the case. But -since he has agreed to throw in his lot with us, I think _we_ should be -open to the charge of negligence if we refused his evidence, don't you? -Besides, you can appreciate that he and I are birds of a feather and -must work the same airways. So losing him, you lose me." - -Stebbins grumblingly changed his tune. "Have it your own way, Mr. Berry. -Have it your own way. I'm sure Mr. Belknap has valuable material to -contribute--only the sooner he comes across with it the better, and -safer, for all concerned." - - - - - XII - - -"Keep your opinions until they are called for, man," Belknap said -curtly. "Or until you know something of the lay of the land." Swinging -on his heel he made an imperious, inclusive gesture that swept the room -clean of momentarily irrelevant persons. - -"Clear out of here," he ordered. - -As the door closed on the retreating group, that tried to make its exit -with dignity, but somehow failed to convey better than the appearance of -a disorganized partridge brood scuttling into a thicket, Belknap -returned to Berry and the Sergeant. - -"Now," he said, "let's you and I start from scratch. I'll concede you -that much. I'll throw down what I've seen and heard to date. After that -I make no promises." He smiled with a bleak mockery. "There are -conclusions and conclusions--_and_ conclusions. And what I may make of a -given detail may differ widely from what you make of it. Then again, it -may not: 'great minds,' they say.-- However that may be, don't let's -make a girls' dormitory of it and hang confidences around each other's -necks. I've always played, and always will play, a lone wolf game. I'm -an Akela or nothing. So you'll have to--" - -"We will, Belknap, we will. Don't worry about us." Berry interrupted -gently, trying to conceal a faint embarrassment. "What's to do now is to -get going, isn't it? Before your friend's body here has gone cold. -Quick, Belknap, snap into it. Every second may count." - -Belknap regarded Whittaker with a swift, half-averted glance, and a -spasm of pain twitched the taut little muscles drawn slantwise across -his square jaws. - -"God be merciful to him," he said in a lowered key. "Though he doesn't -deserve it, I fear," he added, hardening instantly, as a man does who -dislikes being caught out with an emotion. "First of all, you must know -he is largely to blame for the argument I expect he's having with St. -Peter. I won't waste precious time going into the story now. It's rather -complicated. The point you need to know for a starter is that he did a -sneaking, low-down thing last night that set the house completely by its -ears, where it still is. Under cover of reading us a bit of original -manuscript to amuse us, he made it a passage from his Diary that -disclosed--names withheld, but entirely obvious--one of his present -guests as an erstwhile murderer. (Neil Crawford, the man in evening -dress.) What made matters more acute was that he had claimed, at dinner, -that the Diary was on the eve of being published, real names given, his -own included. I doubt the truth of the claim somehow. But we can check -it. Be that as it may, there has been no congeniality or conviviality in -our midst for the past eight hours, as you can well imagine. I had had -an inkling there was trouble in the wind. In fact the Judge had given me -to understand he was out for blood." - -"Wanted you to keep an eye on Crawford in case of--of reprisals, is that -it?" Berry, as he threw out the question, was rapidly taking notes. He -was a methodical man, Berry, and, though he had an excellent memory, -refused to depend upon it. - -"Something of the sort." - -"And when did the first storm warnings occur?" - -"Immediately," Belknap continued, pacing the room restlessly. "And it -was right there I somehow made my first blunder. And having lost the -trail once I'm afraid I've blundered often. In fact, as I see it now, I -probably made a serious error even earlier when I let one of the party -slip away without even getting out orders to have his trail picked up. A -man by the name of Milton Dorn left directly after dinner last -night--though I'm sure his first intention had not been to leave before -morning. Doubtless there's nothing more in it than that he foresaw -bothersome complications; but he's someone to look up." - -"Just to get back to what happened after the old man came clean about -this guy Crawford," Stebbins growled, with a distrust of your famed -detective that was slow to be appeased. "What about it?" - -Belknap's invulnerable self-complacency affected Stebbins and Berry in -totally dissimilar fashion. It stirred in the Sergeant a confused, -stubborn rage, such as the English peasant feels for the arrogant -huntsman heedlessly taking his fences, even though the hunter does no -actual damage. While Berry, understanding Belknap's natural pride, and -realizing all that nourished it, only wished that a man of so great a -professional stature should know the meaning of humility. "Perhaps the -day will come," Berry thought in passing, "when he will come a cropper -in a case of importance, and, bowing his head, will bow his heart." - -"I was coming to that," Belknap was saying. "Forgive my lack of speed -and clarity in presenting the facts. My own thinking leads me astray. -Each item, as I check it for your benefit, gives me pause to reconsider. -To go back: Whittaker read his Diary. Suddenly, at a bad moment in the -gruesome tale, Crawford gave himself away, if that were needed, by a -call for water and help from his wife. Apparently she was so bewildered -by the catastrophe that was falling upon the family she let another -catastrophe present itself head over heels. For she delayed going to her -husband long enough to allow his mistress--that little red-haired minx -you've just seen upstairs--fall about his neck and prove how _they_ -stood. _Also_ if proving was necessary. But it brought Mrs. Crawford to -her senses, and _she_ was knocking Miss Video into a cocked hat when -Colonel Blake seemed to consider knocking the Judge into one. Then the -lights went out. They _would_! Well, instead of going to the Judge's -rescue, which I guess is what I should have done, I spent my time -reinstating the lights. They showed, when they came on, rather a mess. -Whittaker was pretty well floored by what must have been a blow with -intent to kill. Mrs. Crawford and Miss Video were looking murder at each -other. Crawford appeared about to die of heart failure." - -"Who stood where?" - -"The 'foreign lady,' as you call her, Sergeant, was nearest to the -Judge. Blake seemed not to have reached him. Though he may have been on -the spot and retreated. The rest were as they had been, as far as I can -recall." - -"Gosh-all-hemlock! Pretty good pickin's, eh?" Stebbins, flushed with -excitement, was forgetting the chip on his shoulder. "What next, Mr. -Belknap?" - -"Little enough for awhile. _Too_ little. It was ominous. There was -nothing much _I_ could do, really. Every one went to bed, or pretended -to. I think they would have gone home, to a man, last night, but were -downright ashamed to suggest it. Or perhaps they felt, as I did, that -with morning a bad dream might vanish. Perhaps it's the best excuse I -have to offer for not proving much good in the crises. I assisted -Whittaker upstairs, and suggested he apologize to Crawford and clear the -air. I said he was getting the house into all sorts of a pickle--to say -nothing of the real danger to himself. But he was in a mean mood. He had -been ill lately and not himself. I'll tell you about that later, too. -Anyway, he stuck to his guns. He wasn't badly hurt, though might have -been. A slight head wound that someone will have to account for along -with everything else." - -"Did _he_ have any ideas?" - -"None. We discussed the loss of the Diary. But that didn't seem to worry -him much, either. I imagine the threat of printing it was merely a ruse -to drive his point more terribly home to Crawford. Poor Crawford." - -"Poor Crawford!" Stebbins snorted. "Haven't you eyes in your head, -Belknap? Why, I've had that dress-suited fellow spotted from the minute -I came in here. I'll have _him_ on toast in a jiffy. A little rough -stuff and he'll--" - -"Loss of the Diary?" Berry asked, having caught up on his notes, and -ignoring, as did Belknap, the fact that Stebbins had spoken. "What do -you mean?" - -"What I said. It disappeared during the fracas. Not that it matters -much. I can retail you enough of what was said of Crawford to see him -convicted hands down, if that's the count we want to get him on. -Somehow, I think it isn't." - -"We'll see. And after you all withdrew--what then?" - -"Nothing, my dear Berry. I was a night-hawk; more so than usual, though -at my best I'm up and about most of the night. Rotten sleeper. Always -was. Possibly the most telling bit of evidence I picked up during my -sleepless walking was what I'm convinced was a glimpse of the departed -Dorn. From an upper window I saw a figure I'd swear was his run along -below the terrace wall and into the shrubbery at the north corner. It -moved with extreme rapidity and a lightness of footing that made me -almost uncertain I saw more than a shadow. But for a twig that snapped -as he vanished I would have let him pass as shadow. I went immediately -down, and around by the opposite side, with intention of circumventing -him, but, though I remained concealed in a niche of the north wing for -at least half an hour, he never materialized." - -"So that was that. Interesting, but not particularly helpful. Who else -did you cross footsteps with during the night?" - -"With several. Every one had dragged anchor and was adrift. Miss Video -spent a few moments in Whittaker's room. I believe he found her there -when he went up. And she seems to have enticed him to return the visit. -For Mr. Prentice, the young man in negligee, spent most of the night -asleep in Whittaker's room waiting for the absent to return. _He_ may -have had designs on the Judge." - -"Or the Judge on Miss Video? What about Crawford?" - -"Never saw him. What became of him I haven't a notion. Probably was the -one person to go quietly to bed, having a wife to see that he got tucked -in. I bumped into Miss Lacey in the library, quite late. Said she was -after a bracer, and looking for her fiancé. She's engaged to young -Prentice. And she's Whittaker's niece, as you doubtless know. I saw her -to her room, as she was in a state of nerves. And, soon after, I decided -the tenseness of the situation had eased, for the time being at least, -and turned my back on it. But I'd hardly entered my room when Miss -Mdevani came on a visit. She was quite incoherent, but before I could -begin to make head or tail of what about, we picked up the first death -broadcast. Mrs. Crawford had found the Colonel. Says _she_ was looking -for her husband, which leads one to believe he wasn't in bed after all, -as do the clothes he's wearing. Or else she's trying to cover _her_ -tracks." - -"You don't think your Miss Mdevani was--fresh from the kill, so to -speak? Her manner might suggest it." - -"I've thought of it, of course. Who wouldn't? But--well, with Miss -Video's death, and the Judge's, I've rather discarded her. I feel the -three are the work of one. A woman is seldom a good wholesale murderer." - -"Granted. But she's tarnation clever. Her record isn't savory, as we all -know. Though I admit the motives, such as we have, don't fall her way. -This man Crawford has motive enough for a couple--perhaps even the -third, for if he wished to destroy the Diary, as he conceivably would, -and Blake was the first to nab it, Blake might have to die. Yes, it -looks black for Mr. Crawford. What do you say, Sergeant?" - -"My feeling exactly. It looks mighty black for Mr. Crawford. Him that -kills once can kill again and kill easier. Come on: let's catch him cold -before he clears out. And before there's any more shooting. One, two, -three murders--" - - - - - XIII - - -The words were scarcely spoken when the air was again split by gunfire. -A very sharp report came from somewhere: the yard, the basement, or the -servant's wing. It acted as a signal for a pell-mell return of the -others from library to dining-room. - -"If that was in the kitchen," Julian, who led the re-entry by a yard, -said with solemn severity, "it looks to me as if they'd invaded neutral -territory and something _should_ be done about it." - -Sergeant Stebbins, who seemed to have a keener ear for direction, -hurriedly threw up the window on the view, and shouted in the stentorian -accents of the law: - -"Say, what's the shootin' all about, idiots? Haven't you no restraints? -What'd you see, a jack-rabbit?" - -"We wasn't shooting, sir," a distant voice came up as through a funnel. -"There's somebody way back down in under the porch. Guess they fired -accidental-like." - -"Accidental Hell! Go get 'em." - -Apparently there was an attempt to obey his order to the letter, for it -was only a matter of seconds when, to judge by the firing, a regular -battle was in progress. - -"Hi, wait for me!" Sergeant Stebbins, bristling with zealous duty, -turned on the room. "You folks stay where you are if you know what's -good for you. I guess we've grounded him--and sooner than I thought by a -darned sight." - -"Dorn!" Julian exclaimed. "Well, it only goes to show that the first -hunch is generally the right one." - -Joel was leaning weakly against the sideboard and sobbing in little -gasping breaths like a spent runner. She held her head between her hands -to close her ears against the racket. - -"I can't stand any more. I can't. Oh, I can't stand it. Turn that -shooting off. Turn it off!" she cried. - -"It isn't the radio, darling," Julian said quietly, putting his arm -about her shoulders. "Though I admit it sounds like the Colt Revolver -hour or something. What you think is static is being produced off stage -by the housekeeper and that maid Lily who are rapidly losing their -inhibitions in the pantry. Listen, dear, I _do_ want to see what's going -on." There was a fresh burst of gunfire. "Please can't I go to the -lattice and be a Rowena to your Ivanhoe?" - -"Oh, go along. Go away. I don't care what you do. _Julian_, don't go -near that window. You'll be killed." - -But Julian had taken her first words at their face value. - -"A lot of ammunition used and nothing done," he announced from a daring -stand in full view of the lawn. "That man Dorn will have time to dig -himself out under the house and make a dash for it by the front gate. -The sergeant has drawn off all his men from the western front to cope -with this unexpected offensive; and I'm sure it's an un-Sound move. Did -you get that one?" - -"_Stop_ it, Julian! If you're the kind of man that can pun at such a -moment as this you aren't fit to marry. And I never _will_ marry -you--never, never,--_Come_ away from that window." - -"Don't worry, the firing's all in the wrong direction so far. The police -are waiting to see the whites of their eyes. And that's going to need -television, considering where the enemy is in hiding." - -Sergeant Stebbins apparently thought so too. The disturbance came from -under the porch of the servants' wing, and from the floor of the porch -to the ground, a drop of eight or ten feet, a fine-meshed lattice -enclosed a garden tool-room and formed a walled passage to the basement. -Its outside door was closed, undoubtedly barricaded. Stebbins had tried -the basement approach and found it closed and sealed. But he had decided -on squeezing tactics. Two of his men, stationed in the cellar, were to -burst through the inner door at the moment of a supporting attack from -the yard. - -Without warning Sergeant Stebbins gave his two-shot signal. And the din -was on. Julian, really pale, stepped back and held his hand across his -eyes. - -"Shiver my timbers!" he said, with a deep, trembling shudder. "God help -whoever it is. He has pluck." - -The smell of gunpowder had sifted into the room. Underfoot the sounds of -the splintering door were somehow more affecting than the actual shots. -The tensity and misery of the five in the dining-room were reaching an -unbearable pitch. The loss of the restraining influence, though not a -happy restraint, of Belknap and Berry, who had gone to the front as -staff officers, was tending to break down such morale as had existed. -Joel was moaning as if she had been wounded. Sydney Crawford, with -staring eyes, was gripping Neil's arm between her two hands until every -knuckle showed white. Neil was shivering from head to foot as a man -shivers after too long a swim in cold water. - -Suddenly it was the silence, crashing back into place, that seemed -deafening, like lightning-cut cloud meeting in thunder. In it, Nadia -Mdevani, who had appeared to be holding her nerve, lost it. She pointed, -as if at blood. - -"Look! In the name of Christ, look there. There's what spelled Bertrand -Whittaker's death." - -It was a figure eight in the form of two overlapping holes bored in the -paneling of the wall at the height of a man's head. Freshly cut: there -was a faint salting of sawdust on the hardwood floor beneath. - -It took Joel to break the stillness in the room. With a face like a -death-mask she gazed at the dark spot on the wall. - -"I know now," she said. "I know who killed Colonel Blake and Romany and -Uncle Bertrand. But it can't be true. It can't be true that--" Julian -didn't let her finish. He crushed his hand over her mouth as Belknap -came in from the butler's pantry, with the sergeant and Berry. - -"Hush! you little fool. Don't go saying things. Don't _you_ be -responsible for hanging somebody. Let Mr. Belknap take care of that." He -shook her desperately. "Whatever you know or think, keep it to yourself, -do you hear? _Do_ you? Don't let 'em get it out of you." - -But Belknap had heard enough. - -"What's this you know, Miss Joel?" he said. "Come now, out with it. No, -don't cry like that. I'm sorry. What's the trouble, Miss Mdevani?" He -turned to Nadia as Joel collapsed. - -"You should have been barred from detective work on account of your -eyes," Nadia said. "Look." - -"Aha-a-a? So that's the way the wind blows? We'll investigate directly. -We have another matter to deal with right now. All right, Sergeant, -there's your man." He indicated Crawford. - -Stebbins went to Crawford and touched his arm. - -"I place you under arrest, Mr. Crawford, charged with instigating the -murder of Judge Whittaker. Your hired accomplices have confessed." - -Crawford looked dazed. Then he swung on Stebbins. - -"They have _not_ confessed," he said. "For they did not kill Whittaker. -If this is what is meant by third degree, you can do your damnedest. -They are as innocent of this crime as you are. You can do your worst to -me; but not to them." - -"The worst has been done to them I'm afraid," Berry said quietly. "They -are both dead. They told us to tell you the account is squared. Whatever -that may mean. So I guess you have to go along with us. That gives us -_one_ of our men, Sergeant. Now what's this hole-in-the-wall business, -Belknap? Neat work on your part, Crawford? You had things ready for -business, I see." - -"There must be some entrance to the space between the wall and the -tapestry of the library," Belknap said. "We'd better call John." - -John came. He showed them a thin door within a door--a long, narrow, -hinged panel that formed a door jamb in the dining-room-library doorway. -Belknap went through it. No one spoke. When he returned he carried a -Colt twenty-two in his handkerchief. He went directly to Nadia. - -"I would offer you this back," he said in a low voice, "but we shall -need it. I'm truly sorry." - -"Don't worry in the least." She looked him straight in the eyes. "It is -mine, yes. I missed it when _I_ needed it last night." - - - - - XIV - - -Late in the afternoon a 'London' fog had crept up from the Sound, and -smothered in its furry, suffocating waves, Thorngate was sinking into -depth below depth of depression. Julian asked weren't there seven levels -of Purgatory because if so they must be about six down at five o'clock -and rapidly approaching the bottom. It was the total lack of headway -made by the investigators, and the apparent helplessness of the law, -that tripled and quadrupled the early gloom of the second night. Hours -upon hours of questioning and cross-questioning by Stebbins, Belknap and -Berry in turn had gathered no really tangible results. Yet the steady, -unremittent grilling went on--and on and on and on, as Julian said, like -the tail of Christopher Robin's mouse. - -Julian was unquenchable. During his own brief appearance in the witness -box--an uncomfortable, straight-backed chair at one side of the -dining-room table, the dining-room being the temporary seat of legal -authority--he had played a combination of clown and dunce, to the rage -of Stebbins, the scorn of Belknap, and the amusement of Berry. For -Julian had at last made up his mind to throw in his lot, and his clues, -with Berry's, as soon as he could isolate Berry. And it was for this he -was managing to keep his own counsel. He wasn't casting bread on the -troubled waters for that Savonarola Belknap, or Stebbins, to pick up and -grow fat upon. But he _did_ feel that he perhaps shouldn't rate a whole -investigation to himself, seeing it was his first. It would be -positively presumptuous to suppose he had a chance to make a coup (not -that he didn't suppose it just the same) against such a field of stars. -Belknap might even be called a first magnitude. - -So when Stebbins was severe with him, chronically severe, he took refuge -in an india-rubber persiflage. - -"Miss Mdevani saw you on the stairs at 4:30 A.M. What did you say you -were doing about that time?" - -"I swear I was doing nothing whatever about it. Time is one of those -things you save time by leaving to its own devices." - -Stebbins huffed and he puffed; Belknap cleared his throat; Berry smiled. - -"I said what were you doing in the hall at 4:30 A.M.?" Stebbins' voice -did all the things Stebbins would have enjoyed doing. - -"I had put my shoes out at 11 P.M., and I thought they might be back by -four." Julian was examining the end of his tie. - -"Contempt of court, Julian," Belknap said. "Come now, boy--" - -"You leave him to me," Stebbins thundered. "I'm talking to him, Mr. -Belknap. Now, Mr. Prentice, will you repeat that again about you and -Miss Lacey?" - -"The others must be tired of hearing it; but if you want it, I'm never -tired of saying it." Julian struck a sentimental attitude. "I love her." - -Stebbins blushed. - -"I'm asking you what went on in your room--I mean what was Miss Lacey -doing in your--I mean-- Oh, get to Hell out of here. I'll call you again -when I need you. Bring in Crawford." - -'Bring in Crawford!' All afternoon the word had periodically come out: -'Bring in Crawford,' and at each call Crawford, more shattered, more -bewildered, more desperately ill with weariness and anguish, was led in, -only to come out again to a stark and tragic Sydney who, between rounds -as it were, tried mechanically to warm his hands with her colder hands. - -Stebbins decidedly had it in for Crawford. Naturally he was prejudiced -by a nasty little battle that had left him two badly wounded men. - -"What was Judge Whittaker's Diary to you? You needn't answer. I know. -And we'll get you for that anyway. Where is the Diary now?" - -"I don't know." - -"_Answer_ me." - -"I don't know." - -"When you killed Blake to get it what did you do with it?" - -"I didn't kill Blake." - -"What were you doing at 3 A.M.?" - -"I was down at the Turnpike." - -"After killing Blake." - -"I told you I didn't kill Blake;" with infinite weariness. - -"Were you in Miss Video's room at 2:30?" - -"No. She was with someone else." - -"Who?" - -"I don't know. I heard voices and didn't knock." - -"What _did_ you do?" - -"Saw to the basement door for admitting my men." - -"Taking time to dispose of Blake." - -"I didn't kill Blake." - -"Does your wife know of your relationship with Miss Video?" - -"She does." - -"Since when?" - -"A few days ago." - -"Did you quarrel?" - -"Not exactly." - -"Did you suggest putting Miss Video out of the way?" - -"I don't know what you mean." - -"Did you say, 'It's Bertrand Whittaker's life or mine'?" - -"I did. I have not denied my intention to kill Whittaker." - -"When did you admit your men to the house?" - -"They were never in the house." - -"Are these the gloves with which you filched Miss Mdevani's pistol and -handled the paper knife against Blake?" - -"I didn't kill Blake." - -And so on, over and over, with Crawford's voice dull and monotonous. But -driven and hounded as he was he never yielded a point beyond his -admission of an old murder and an intended one. But, as Stebbins said to -Berry, it was merely a matter of time before they had a full confession -from Crawford: he was the kind that eventually succumbs to third degree -methods. And Stebbins was the one man sure of the way the wind blew! - -He treated Nadia on the other hand with due respect, as they did all -three. Stebbins obviously feared her. Berry sat gazing at her, -spellbound. Belknap looked anywhere but at her, paced the floor, threw -spokes in the wheels of Stebbins' questionnaire, and put up defences -that, in his blindness to them, he apparently thought were as invisible -to others. - -"Your handkerchief, Miss Mdevani?" Stebbins produced the handkerchief -found by Belknap. - -"Mine." - -"That handkerchief," Belknap interposed impatiently, "was on the library -floor when I helped Whittaker to his room at 11:30." - -"This is the first we have heard of it," Stebbins snapped. - -"I haven't the least idea when I dropped it," Nadia went on, ignoring -the interruption. "Possibly it was when I found Blake, about 4:30." - -"_You found Blake?_" Stebbins pounced on her. - -"I did." - -"And why didn't you notify someone immediately?" - -"There was scarcely time. Mrs. Crawford did it for me." - -"Where were you when Mrs. Crawford screamed?" - -"In Mr. Belknap's room." - -"You had gone to tell him?" - -"I don't know. I don't think so." - -"Had you heard anything on _your_ rounds? The way trails _didn't_ cross -last night beats everything." - -"I heard that rat in the library walls--you recall my mentioning him, -Mr. Belknap? His teeth turn out to have been a tool called a gimlet." - -"Is this your pistol?" - -"It is." - -"When did you have it last?" - -"It was on my dresser when I came down to dinner." - -"Have you a permit?" - -"I have. I have carried a weapon for years. A lone lady, you know," she -smiled. - -"Why did you leave it on your dresser?" - -"I had taken it from my handbag when I was fishing for my lipstick. I -neglected to return it." - -Belknap stood directly in front of her, his hands thrust deep in his -pockets. - -"I saw it there myself not later than one-thirty, or two. Your window -was open to the balcony. It was when I went to close it that I saw the -figure on the terrace which I am willing to swear was that of Dorn." - -"You are forever ringing your Milton Dorn in on this, Belknap. For God's -sake produce him." - -"My scouts are out," Belknap said with suave contempt. "The report comes -that he never has returned to town. So far, so good. I think if you -would dwell a moment on this phase of the case you would find the house -bore me out in saying Dorn left here last night in a strange state of -perturbation. He looked like a man about to lose sane control of -himself." - -"I think you make a good point, Belknap," Berry spoke. "In many ways the -whole campaign has the earmarks of the inspired scheme of a maniac, -conceived and executed with that type of brilliance. We must at least -leave no stone unturned in the hunt for Dorn. That's enough of you for -the present, Miss Mdevani. Now let's have a crack at Miss Lacey, -Sergeant. In a moment--time out for drinks." - -It was a terrified and incoherent Joel that faced her three -interlocutors--more terrified than seemed quite called for under the -circumstances, bad as the circumstances were. Horror was to be expected, -and fear of a sort perhaps, but not stark terror. But Joel was the -victim of a terror that alternated moments of intense shivering with a -rigid paralysis of movement. She bravely tried to control herself, and -sat sipping the brandy Belknap had poured for her and smiling -mechanically. Berry was extremely kind. - -"Will you tell us, Miss Lacey, as clearly and consecutively as possible, -the story of your night last night? There is no slightest wish on our -part to hurry or confuse you. We need your help in settling an affair -that _has_ been tragic and is likely to be more so unless we do -something about it. Will you describe to us the way you spent your time -between 10:30 last night, when I understand you retired, until 4:30 this -morning when Colonel Blake's murder was discovered?" - -Joel, in broken snatches, told them of how she had gone to her room in a -perturbed state of mind--puzzled by her uncle, bewildered at the -startling rapidity with which a dangerous situation had fallen out of -the blue, and inwardly shaken by a tale of murder that had struck home -to one of their own number. - -"Did the fact that your uncle read a passage of this Diary relative to a -crime actually committed by Mr. Crawford mean that he might equally well -have touched on crimes of others present? Or do you think he was -choosing this way to cruelly pay off a score against Crawford?" - -Joel drew a deep breath and looked quickly at Belknap. - -"I think it must have been a personal question between my uncle and Mr. -Crawford," she said firmly. - -Belknap appeared deaf to question and answer. Joel shuddered a little -and dropped her eyes. - -"Thank you, Miss Lacey. There seems to be mutual agreement on that -point. You went to your room, you say. What next?" - -She had prepared for bed slowly, for there was no hope of sleep and she -wished to fill the time. She had stood at the window, walked the floor, -sat by the fire. She thought, and thought; about shoes and ships and -sealing wax, but about sin in particular, and finally about sin in the -abstract. - -"That'll do," said Stebbins curtly. He had been bothered by the way all -his witnesses were inclined to wander off the beaten track into -philosophizing and psychologizing. "Go on with the story." - -Then the idea of going directly to her uncle had occurred to her. At -least she might find out why he was in this cold, bleak, inhuman mood. -It might be he was facing a dilemma that was slowly but surely cornering -him. Put in a corner for badness Bertrand Whittaker always went from bad -to worse. This was worse. - -She had crept out and along the hall--last night's atmosphere had called -for creeping--and was about to tap on her uncle's door when she heard -voices within: her uncle's and Romany's. Joel turned swiftly and slipped -into a darkened doorway; and Romany had made her exit with a last -dramatic fling over her shoulder. "All right, Bertrand, I'll match you -revelation for revelation if that's your game. There are several of you -due for a fall if I let so-and-so out of the bag. And I'm going to let -her out." Joel had caught so-and-so's name and promptly lost it again in -the frightful medley of subsequent events. She hoped it would come back. -It was troubling her with a feeling of its vague familiarity. - -Romany had disappeared, and no longer wanting a scene with her uncle, -Joel had returned to her room and knocked on Julian's door to ask for -comfort and sympathy. She and Julian had discussed pros and cons, thises -and thats, until Julian felt it was his turn to try to pour oil on -Whittaker. He had left her sitting alone and desolate--promising a quick -return; but he had never come back. - -And very late, feeling badly in need of a bracer, she had summoned the -courage to venture down to the tray of liquors in the library. - -Here Joel paused in her slow, hesitant narration and trembled -uncontrollably from head to foot like a spent runner. - -"What's troubling you, Miss Lacey?" Berry asked gently. "Did something -happen in the library? Come now, what was it?" - -"No, nothing happened exactly. I'm easily frightened I guess." - -"You were frightened?" - -She seemed unable to answer, and turned an appealing glance toward -Belknap. - -"I came in from the dining room when Miss Lacey was there," Belknap said -in a low voice, holding Joel steady with his eyes. "She was hysterical -and overwrought, but it hardly seemed surprising considering the general -tension of the household. It appears I was wrong. Can't you tell us what -upset you, Joel dear?" - -"You--came in from the dining-room," she whispered, her face colorless. -"I was tired and nervous, that's all. You startled me dreadfully. -Nothing more." - -"You are sure, Miss Lacey?" - -"Absolutely sure. Of course. Mr. Belknap was so kind as to see me to my -room. I was doing my best to fall asleep when Mrs. Crawford screamed." - -This was the most they could win from her--even when Stebbins insisted -on a turn of the screw. She became stony and expressionless under -pressure and they dared not urge her for the time being, though they -felt she was decidedly withholding something of real importance. - -"You had better go and try once more for a little sleep, Miss Lacey," -Berry said. "We all need it," he added with a weary sigh. "What do you -say we call it a day, boys? Can I have a word with you, Belknap? _What_ -a fog!" - -Belknap had been unable to guess which way the cat was jumping as far as -Berry was concerned. He had not shown his hand in the least; and as for -his face it was the perfect detective face, charming but expressionless, -bland and open, but with as much depth as a plaster cast. It was only, -as Julian remarked to Joel outside, when you took the trouble to meet -his eyes squarely that you positively jumped, as if you had caught the -eyes of your ancestral great-great-great somebody-or-other rolling at -you from the wall. A secret chamber, and holes where the canvas should -be! In Berry's case that must mean something--if nothing more than that -he was seeing more than he let on. It was certainly one of the first -reasons why Julian was intending to take matters up with him alone. - -Berry had so far only shown an interest in funny little irrelevant, or -seemingly irrelevant, details. His total contribution to the afternoon's -entertainment had been sudden pesky interruptions, at inopportune -moments, when he insisted upon shelving the important point at issue for -the sake of what was a minor matter to Belknap and a very, very minor -one to Stebbins. Stebbins saw things in black and white. Belknap was -more willing to consider the shadings, but he had had to admit that a -great many of Berry's nuances escaped him. Berry's "pardon-me" was a -vague murmur about an Achilles heel--that one never knew in what out of -the way spot the weakness might turn up. Best to probe them all with -your spear thrust. - -For instance, there was the sprinkling of the few dried carnation petals -fallen across Romany's rumpled hair and pillow--Stebbins had them now in -a cup at his elbow, somehow pathetic, as if they had been her ashes. -Romany, as she was discovered by Lily, and later examined by Berry and -Stebbins, was a little heap of pink maribou dressing gown on her -bed--her face ivory white under her amber hair--theatrical and unreal: -"Call it _La Mort du Cygne_, or, better still, _She Who Gets Slapped_," -Julian had said, standing in the doorway of her room that morning. She -had apparently been unexpectedly seized and held firmly, there was -little sign of struggle, by two hands, with the thumbs pressing deeply -at the base of the throat where there was a faint congestion and -discoloration. There was only the one material clue: the carnation -petals. And that seemed immaterial, since there was a bowl of carnations -on the bedside table, which made it more than likely she had been -holding one for its scent. Or was it possible the murderer had his -sentimental moments! - -But Berry made harpstrings of those petals and played on them in and out -of season. Had anyone worn a lapel flower the evening before? Everyone -was agreed that Dorn was wearing one--but they were equally agreed it -was a gardenia. Belknap himself was positive on this point, although -some of the others lost their certainty. Belknap also said _he_ might -have been wearing one himself; he exchanged glances with Nadia. - -"Next time you offer me a flower for my buttonhole, Miss Mdevani," he -said in a gently bantering tone, "don't let anyone's presence deter you. -I should be charmed to have one from your fair hand." - -"It will be freshly plucked," she answered him, her eyes very bright, -high color on her face. - -"No innuendoes!" Berry had cried. "You two need a moor and a moon. -Remember this is a court of law." - -"I am not likely to forget it," she said. "But, dangerous as it is to -me, the moor and the moon would be more so," and she tilted her chin at -Belknap. - -This had been a temporary fade-out of Berry's interest in the carnation. -But he had returned to it often, as he had to other apparently illogical -and tiresomely remote incidents. It had the effect, however, of whetting -Belknap's appetite for enlightenment: had Berry a theory, or no theory; -was he throwing dust to cover what he considered the crux of the whole -business, or was he merely floundering in a waste of motives, unable to -take the bull by the horns? Certainly it was time the two of them went -into a huddle and exchanged views, even if the views were limited. - -So it was with great expectations that Belknap answered Berry's -proposal. - -"Yes, let's go into retreat. I have a little to say myself." - - - - - XV - - -"Nadia!" - -"Mr. Belknap! God rest you merry gentleman!" Belknap had approached -Nadia where she stood alone, in an alcove of the great East Room. She -had been trying to concentrate on a specimen of modern French art. The -fog pressed a whited face against the windows near her. - -"Your mood is a difficult one, Nadia. I want to talk to you." - -"Let nothing you dismay." - -Belknap threw out his hands in a helpless gesture. - -"You're not kind," he said. "Shall we go outside?" - -"No, _thank_ you. Remember your Mr. Dorn." Her dim smile, secretive, -came and went. - -"Come now, what would you have had me do? Tell them about the code--or -have you conveniently forgotten the message? By the way, did I give it -back to you? I haven't been able to find it." - -She whirled on him. - -"Didn't you destroy it?" - -"Perhaps. I can't remember. Mrs. Crawford rather upset our tźte-ą-tźte." - -Nadia looked him critically, menacingly, up and down from chin to brow -and brow to chin. Her nostrils quivered; her cheeks sucked in; her eyes -narrowed to shining cracks. - -"There are moments when I suspect you of double dealing, Detective. You -may be out to get me after all, and are finding the back-handed method -the cleverest. (_Damn_ the O'Neill reiteration of that fog horn!)" - -In a flash he saw the single frayed thread by which she held her nerve. - -"That is not true, Nadia, and you know it." Belknap returned her look -with one as piercing and equally cruel in its way. "Guilty or not, it's -all one to me. But I _am_ out to get you. Yes, I want you." - -Her look was filmed with another, a softer one. - -"You--want me. What does that mean? Is 'want' the word you intend?" - -He admired her frankness; though he hated the woman of it, that must -always have the facts sugar-coated. He was hard to her. - -"That is the word I meant. Want. Are you suggesting that overnight it -should or could be anything else?" - -She gave an odd little sigh. - -"That's that," she said with a faint shrug of her lovely shoulders. -"Only there is so much want and so little--of the other." - -"Possibly. My impression is we wouldn't need much of the other." - -Because he didn't touch her, they were both being hurt by the desire to -touch. She flinched a little before the brutal magnetism of his eyes. -She felt gutted by them as by a fire; and shuddered her whole body to -shake herself free, as a dog shudders rain. - -"We won't talk of it now," she said restlessly. - -"We must take advantage of the time that remains to us." - -"Meaning by that that my hours are numbered?" She threw him a quick -sidewise glance under a curve of her lashes. "Don't you _truly_ think -your studied lack of interest in me will get me off? Really, that's -altogether too modest!" - -"You are unfair, my dear. I am doing my best for you." - -"Go on. Say it: 'without belief.'" - -"Belief! Belief in what? Your innocence? God in His heaven, you didn't -imagine your love potion as strong as all that, did you? Let's be -honest. We can afford to be, you and I. It takes courage, but courage is -the coin of our particular realm." - -"Who is to be honest?" - -"Both of us, beautiful." - -"You begin." - -"Ladies first." - -"What you crave, I suppose, is a full confession, brief and to the -point, omitting details. Mr. Belknap, I could almost think you are -making love to me (oh, using the word lightly, don't be alarmed!) to -acquire information to be used against me. It may be you are regretting -your gestures in my favor. Are you worrying about the reputation of -Detective Ordway Belknap?" - -"Hardly so late in the day. It's been already thrown to the dogs. I have -an intense distaste for attitudes or I should say I had thrown it at -your feet, cold heart." - -"Not so cold as you might think perhaps," and there was a tremor below -the voice. "I seldom meet a man I feel is my match or better. I had -hopes of you. You disappoint me." The acrimony crept back. "To give me -to understand that you pass up a brilliant display of your methods when -you fail to put your finger on me doesn't speak well for yourself, John. -Even Sergeant Stebbins admits I'm too easy to be right." She had the -audacity to look mischievous. - -"Stebbins be damned. It's just his bull-headed sort than can't see the -obvious for dust. Nadia, you're beating around the bush most -successfully, but though I like to hear you play with words let's clear -the decks. And then my congratulations. Three in an evening is a jolly -good bag." - -"Mr. Belknap," she said with a sudden hard seriousness, "I have killed -no one at Thorngate--neither Blake, nor Romany, nor my beloved Bertrand. -Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Desperate as my case may look the -fight isn't over yet. It's just begun. I expect to produce a murderer to -take my place, and I believe I have my man, using the word to cover the -female of the species, under surveillance." - -"Confide in me?" - -"No-o-o, I think not. Finder's keeper's, until--oh well, until." - -Belknap's dark face darkened another shade. Even _his_ control was -wearing as sharp and thin as an edged tool. This futile fencing with -Nadia Mdevani, taken with the savage unaccountable ache she stirred in -him, was trying his last ounce of endurance. Yet there seemed to be no -other way with her unless it were to eat humble pie; and be damned if -he'd bend his nature for any woman. - -"You and Miss Lacey appear to know it all." His tone harbored scorn at -the root of its being. "I should say it was about time you did something -about it." - -Nadia looked serious. - -"There _is_ something troubling Joel Lacey," she said. "But she is -keeping it well to herself, in spite of you and that Sergeant Stebbins; -and even me. For I've been hot on her trail. I should say it was loss of -nerve and not lack of knowledge that is holding her tongue-tied. Perhaps -she'd _better_ let well enough alone. Do you know, dear man, there are -times when terror rises in me like a cold fountain. Not that I'm afraid -of death exactly; but I don't relish it just around every corner. Did -you see 'Outward Bound'?" - -"Yes, why?" - -"Nothing much. Only those blind ships blowing down there in the fog -reminded me of it. Who will be next, Mr. Belknap?" - -"You take it for granted there _will_ be a next." - -"Don't you?" her eyes were steady on his. - -"Then perhaps it is my duty to see you under lock and key. You don't go -so far as to deny I could command your arrest, do you? There is that -Berlin-Viennese Murder Ring to account for." - -"You know too much," she murmured with serpent softness. "Did Bertrand -_tell_ you more than he knew? Or did he write it?" - -"Meaning?" - -"Exactly what you care to have it mean." She paused. "Are you asking for -it--my arrest?" There was no slightest trace of apprehension in her -manner. - -"No; not exactly. I'm asking for something far more necessary to my -peace of mind." He took her wrists suddenly and drew her towards him. -"Kiss me." - -She twisted her hands free and turned away. But her lips were drawn a -little, and her face very white. - -"I think not," she said. "The Devil's in it I know, and Bertrand -Whittaker. Possibly Cain, Orestes, Brutus, Hamlet's mother and a few -besides. But let's keep Judas out of it if we can." - - - - - XVI - - -Stebbins had departed. Headquarters needed him. And he had gone, warding -off with both arms a hornet's nest of reporters all down the drive to -his parked car. He said he'd be back if he was wanted, or something -turned up in the way of evidence. For all the help he was he might as -well stay away, Julian said, but perhaps he was good camouflage. The -house did somehow feel a little more exposed without him; although he -left a substantial guard. - -There was a tense, uncomfortable, haphazard meal in the nature of a -buffet supper. The kitchen was so disorganized it was a miracle anything -like food came out of it. No one was on the best of speaking terms with -anyone else--unless perhaps Julian with Joel, and she was too distressed -with weariness and fear to know what he was saying. So he had resigned -himself to sitting near her where she lay on the library divan, her -tear-darkened lids closed over her tired eyes. He tried to figure rhyme -or reason into the events of the twenty-four hours. He traced patterns -and followed clues to where they disappeared in storm and mist. He tried -flying below the clouds, tried to get above them, and failed to make it -either way. For all he knew he was flying upside down. And yet his mind -seemed lucid, even brilliant. It was extraordinary how nearness to Joel -had the power to heighten and stimulate whatever he was doing, talking, -thinking, feeling, dreaming. If she now and then failed to catch his -innuendoes, the stupid darling, yet it was her very presence that made -him even half-way witty. And, if she didn't quite understand music as he -understood it, it was her closeness to his shoulder at a concert that -lifted him beyond the appreciative to the creative listener. He leaned -over now and kissed her cheek gently, not to disturb her. - -He very much wished she would tell him what had been so upsetting her -since she had seen that black figure eight in the wainscoting. Not that -it wasn't a strangely sinister and upsetting discovery--even Julian -couldn't control a shudder at the thought of it. But Joel's upset -condition had been chronic. It was just because she claimed it would -upset her more to talk of it than to try to forget it (oh, if she only -_could_ forget it!) that he had decided not to urge her. Besides, she -had said it was all a frightful nightmare, utterly impossible and false. -She must, simply _must_, put it out of mind. - -Julian, though, had been having a few weird and outrageous ideas -himself; and he would have liked nothing better than to compare notes -with Joel. Dorn was troubling him like a ghost or a vampire. The least -stir of the curtains, the quietest footstep, went through his body with -a needle-thrust of exquisite horror. Perhaps Belknap had not been alone -in having a fleeting glimpse of the man--if man he still was. To Julian -to be insane was to be inhuman. Something _had_ happened when Joel was -in the library, Julian felt convinced of that. By signs of a strained -understanding between her and Belknap he came to the conclusion they -both knew what it was. He could almost have said they shared a guilty -secret, as if they were shielding someone, against the rules of the -game. Why in the name of heaven should they shield Dorn? He might have -been a friend of Whittaker's, but as far as Julian knew Joel had -scarcely met him; and Belknap, the night before, had shown a positive -dislike for him. - -It might be Mrs. Crawford they were combining to protect. There seemed -to be an all-around conspiracy to spare Sydney. Well, who could wonder, -really? After Whittaker's unspeakable betrayal, and Neil's and Romany's, -and the thought of the Diary with its ghastly story ever appearing in -print, who could blame her for getting her hands on the Diary if it -meant Hartley Blake's life--for revenging her honor if it meant Romany's -life--or her husband's honor if it meant Whittaker's? Or perhaps Belknap -and Berry were closing in on Sydney obliquely, by way of pressure -brought to bear on Neil. _That_ might break her to admission. Although -the way she looked tonight, coming and going from the room where Neil -lay ill and delirious, nothing short of death would break her. - -They had been hard on Neil Crawford--unnecessarily so, Julian thought. -Though even if someone had been ahead of his assassins in the case of -Whittaker, as Crawford insisted, he supposed the law could do something -about the mere fact of intended murder. And Crawford, as well as his -wife, had reasons for wishing Romany and the Diary disposed of. When it -came right down to it any one of them might have killed Whittaker. But -how thankful one was, Julian drew a deep breath, to have it done for -him. He even wondered if there mightn't now be a chance for some of them -to wiggle out scot-free--with the past still a closed book. One thing -about Belknap he had to admit was jolly decent--and that was his not -stressing what must have been as obvious to him as to the others, -perhaps more obvious: namely, that Whittaker's intention had been to -make a clean sweep of his guests. Not only was Belknap being discreet -with regard to the content of the Diary, but he was actually -soft-pedaling it. No doubt wholly in consideration of Nadia Mdevani as -usual! But in this instance he was benefiting others than Nadia. And -Julian for one was deeply grateful. - -Again, who had killed whom? Who had chased whom around the walls of -what? However you looked at it any one could have killed every other -one. And quite possibly victim could have killed victim--perhaps -two-thirds of the murderers were among the murdered. Which could lead to -conjuring in terms: victor-victim, or victim-victor. Blake may have -killed Romany, Romany Blake. Even the doctor was unable to tell which -had died first--the times had apparently so nearly coincided. Or -Whittaker could have killed both. The one proven fact was that neither -Blake nor Romany could have killed Whittaker. It was hoped there would -be one more fact settled with the matching of markings on the bullet and -pistol. _The_ bullet. Julian was still bothered by the question of his -two shots. One must have been an echo. - -And _had_ Nadia Mdevani fired her own weapon? She had been found in the -library--its only occupant. But she gave the appearance of not having -stirred for hours. Perfect acting. But it would take superhuman agility -to have cleared the wall-space and become rooted to the couch before he -had sprung in from the terrace outside. And why had she left her gun -lying around? Perhaps she thought nothing would be discovered before she -returned in quiet to dispose of it. No, that wouldn't do: she herself -had spotted the holes. The margin between being innocently honest and -too honest because of guilt is so slight it would take a wiser and more -practiced analyst than Julian considered himself to be to gauge it. Here -again he had hope of Berry. And it was clear Berry was not particularly -inclined to Nadia's guilt. He seemed to have other fish to fry. What -fish? - -For if Nadia, Sydney and Crawford, by a bare chance, were all innocent, -who was left? Joel, himself,--and of course that mysterious Dorn. Why -couldn't they find Dorn? Talk about the ineffectiveness of the police! -The one thing you'd think they might accomplish would be the finding of -a human being who had had less than twelve hours' start. Particularly if -he was, as began to seem more than likely, hanging around Thorngate. If -it wasn't for this blasted fog he'd go hunting himself, even if it meant -a hand-to-hand encounter. Anything was better than waiting for Dorn to -move. What was that noise now--like a finger-nail on glass? A twig -rubbed on the window by the wind? But there wasn't a wind. Wind and fog -don't go hand in hand. The thing to do was to find Berry and get down to -work. It was this terrible inactivity that was beginning to tell on his -nerves. - -He hated to leave Joel, even for a moment. Looking at her sad, white -face as she lay there sleeping (she had fallen into a restless sleep) -his heart ached for her. Forgive her her murder! He had scarcely thought -of it since she had told him of it. He would protect her against the -past as well as against the future. He prayed the future had nothing -worse in store for her. He touched her hand. - -"I _will_ come back soon this time, my darling," he whispered. - -Joel stirred, shifted. Her lips moved, though her eyes were closed. She -whispered something, and Julian bent down quickly to listen. - -"Violet Mowbray, that's the name. You see I _did_ remember. -Violet--Violet--Violet--" She trailed off into indistinguishable sounds. - -Julian waited, hoping she might, while she was about this opportune -sleep-talking, give away more important matters. But she didn't speak -again, and Julian, pleased as Punch anyway with what she had revealed, -went off to find Berry. - - - - - XVII - - -Then, very suddenly, Joel woke up. She came wide, staring wide, awake. -The library was dark. It hadn't been dark when she fell asleep. -_Something_ had waked her. Was it the snapping of the electric switch? -Was it the closing of a door--the door must be shut for there wasn't a -glimmer of light? Was it the Presence by its mere presence? For there -_was_ a Presence. As sure as death there was Someone in the room with -her. She could almost, her nerves were so tense, so painfully sensitive, -tell exactly at what spot the Someone was. Her nerves were like the -antennę of a beetle or the searchlight rays of a battleship, reaching -out and feeling It somewhere between her and the terrace windows. She -couldn't move her eyeballs in that direction--not that she could have -seen It if she had. But without hearing It she knew It moved, and -without hearing It she knew It breathed. Her flesh experienced such a -pain of terror that it stung even the inner membrane of her nostrils, -like intense cold, and brought the tears of intense cold under her -eyelids. If she could scream or move! But she was incapable of either. -Except for the waves of fear that went over her in pain, her body was -detached and subject to no sweating exertion of the will. Her brain -alone was active, in a strangely shrunken but vivid way. Like a little -cornered rodent, very small but very much alive, it tore quivering about -in a tiny brightly lighted trap. It had static, feverish, stricken eyes -and it ran up one side of its cage only to fall back and hysterically -attempt the other. If something would mercifully happen--instantaneous -death instead of waiting for it in a condemned cell. - -She remembered! How much she remembered, in flashes, with the clarity of -flying bird shadows on sunlit snow; and in bitter irony watched herself -remembering, realizing it was what one conventionally did during -numbered seconds. There was that terrible hanging story of Ambrose -Bierce's when you didn't know until the last sentence that the whole -action took place in the man's mind between the tightening of the noose -and the extinction of life. She herself had had a somewhat similar -experience on a bobsled run on an icy hill that led across a river at -the foot, when it became certain that a skid on a turn was going to -throw them clear of the bridge into the gorge. Her soul had deserted the -doomed ship and calmly watched the end of her body. That she lived -through it wasn't by her soul's grace! Hadn't she heard of a -preposterous religious notion that dying a violent death, smashing up -the body, meant the soul was a long time making Heaven, being slow to -extricate itself from the flesh? Why, at this moment her spirit had -walked out on her and was leaving her body to encounter the dreadful -thing unattended. _Too_ dreadful--she fled it down the nights and down -the days. - -She remembered climbing a big maple when she was a child--a maple in -autumn leaf--and being drowned in a wave of pure, translucent color, and -lost to the world until she emerged on the crest of the wave to a new -world, seen from a great height, and by new, color-stained eyes. She -remembered, as a test of courage, being made by her father to traverse a -grove of pines alone at night and being frozen stone cold by the -approach of what proved to be pastured cattle. Uncle Bertrand was -sending them all through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. How few of -them--_It moved!_ Her mind sprang from this hiding place of memories and -fled precipitously to crouch in an opposite corner: she remembered a -cool summer evening when she and her girlhood friend raced around the -block on bicycles, and the horror that burst between them when a monster -car, in the days when cars were few and monstrous, caught Margaret, and -instantly killed her. She remembered picking English cowslips, unlike -our American cowslip, in a Gloucestershire meadow, when she wore a pink -muslin dress with white polka dots, and the yellow flowers with their -imperishable, indescribable scent drew her on like Persephone from field -to field. She remembered being dragged screaming from her first moving -picture, a silent picture except for the gun fired point blank at her by -a Western desperado in a close-up of face and gun-muzzle. If she could -scream like that now! She screamed inside until her throat ached--and -not a sound came. She sprang to her feet and fled to the door, -stumbling, falling, stumbling--and yet she had not moved by the fraction -of an inch. Her mind, unable to face things, again escaped. She -remembered spearing for suckers on a spring night, wading up a wide, -slow brook, and the way they were all, with spears unlifted, fitfully -illumined in the light of oil-soaked torches. She remembered the day on -the beach at Shelter Island when Jerry had said, "Your wedding, you -mean" to her "Is this making two ends meet, when you spend more money -than we possess, always to be my funeral?" She remembered her -black-and-red anger when he had laughingly mocked her; "Come now, my -dear, I admit you're a sweet bluffer, but for God's sake don't try being -European with me. A duel? I know you too well. You haven't the lightness -of touch to get away with it." Jerry! She mustn't think of Jerry now or -she would find herself between two fires--this new outer terror and the -old inner one. Jerry's face as-- - -Oh my God, It moved again! Too close this time for _any_ escape. Of -course It knew she was there. That's what It was here for. Where was -Julian? Why had he left her? The last image of her open eyes had been of -Julian sitting near her--the last image of her mind's eye had been of -him still leaning over her, watching her drift into sleep. For one flash -she considered It as Julian. No-no-no-no-no. _No_, he may have been a -murderer once, but he wasn't doing this to her now--he wasn't, he -wasn't. It was--was the one she knew had killed the others: Blake, -Romany, her uncle. It was-- And then, with relief not even to have to -_think_ the name, she suddenly yielded, and gratefully drank in the -faint sweet odor of a cloth that was thrown across her face and bound at -the back of her head. The little rodent, with its petrified eyes and -thudding heart, couldn't have stood the thudding, as of a motor too -powerful for the body, another conscious second. - - - - - XVIII - - -Detective Lieutenant Silas Berry of the New York Homicide Squad was -fine-tooth-combing Romany's room for possible clues. - -"Mr.--Inspector--Lieutenant Berry." Julian was inclined to -embarrassment. "Can you spare me a few minutes? I want to talk." - -Berry laid his magnifying glass on the dresser. - -"Nothing would please me more, boy," he said cheerfully, folding his -arms and leaning against the bed post. "As you have undoubtedly -observed, we detectives just sit around waiting for someone to be kind -enough to confess and save our faces with a critical public. What's on -your mind? I think it was you, Prentice," he continued without -interruption, "who thought there were two shots fired at Whittaker this -morning. Not that he didn't deserve a dozen to judge by the shambles -he's made of the place by that betrayal of poor old Crawford. Are you -still of the same opinion about those shots in spite of Mr. Belknap's -equal certainty to the contrary?" - -Julian was filling his pipe with unsteady fingers in an effort to cover -his excitement and pleasure at Berry's tone of easy, natural -camaraderie! - -"Yes, Mr. Berry. I am. But I admit my willingness to be proved mistaken -by anyone but Mr. Belknap." - -"I've remarked that you and Mr. Belknap don't exactly see eye to eye." -Berry's lips twitched in a half-smile. "Or is it that you've sighted -identically, to the point of interference--had _you_ hit on the Dorn -solution too? You don't fancy such a formidable rival, is that it?" - -"Perhaps. Yes, Dorn was my original suspicion, and begins to look like -my last. Do you really think he's Mr. Belknap's, though? Isn't Mr. -Belknap afraid of the woman in the case?" - -"You mean Miss Mdevani, I suppose. Hold on now, you shouldn't be asking -_me_ questions, young man." Berry caught himself up. "You're here to -answer them. Don't misunderstand me and think I'm taking you on as a -Watson." - -But severe as the tone was, a quick glance at Berry's face revealed a -twinkle behind it, and Julian was thrilled down to his bootstraps at the -intimate badinage. - -"I promise not to flatter myself too much, Mr. Berry," Julian smiled -shyly. "Now about those shots, sir,--and then I have a clue or two I've -been hoarding just for you. I heard two shots, unless my hearing had -gone double. I _was_ tired, but I hadn't been drinking. However, I'm -wrong by the facts; the Colt had been fired but once. So my testimony -doesn't signify." - -"Amateur reasoning, Prentice. Try to figure out why after you go to bed -tonight--I hope you are _going_ to bed--and the effort will put you to -sleep better than sheep-counting. Or come and tell me if you _do_ find -the nigger in your wood pile. All right, give us your clues. I'm all -excited." - -Julian produced his slip of thin white paper with its cryptic message. - -"You see Colonel Blake was tagged and numbered," he said. - -"I'm surprised you knew the code. Very keen of you. Where did you find -this?" - -"On the stairs, after Mrs. Crawford screamed." - -"Is that the sum total of your knowledge of its antecedents, birthplace, -and purpose in life. Then we're about as well off as we were a month -ago." - -Julian looked quenched. - -"Can't it be traced?" he murmured. - -"What with--a stencil? Never mind. Don't let it worry you. Oh, I'll -_keep_ it," he added, as Julian extended a hand. "Our friend Stebbins -will enjoy it. _If_ I show it to him. He hasn't a flare for motives, but -he eats up clues. Have you others?" - -"No, not exactly. But I thought I'd better mention that Miss Lacey just -remembered the name she was trying to recall. _You_ know, the name -mentioned by Romany. It's Violet Mowbray. Does it mean a blessed thing -to you? It doesn't to me." - -Berry's eyes were intent on the pattern in the rug. Again Julian could -make nothing of his face. Then Berry clicked his tongue, with a sound -like a miniature gunshot, and for the startled Julian it registered the -click of an idea. - -"Uhmmm?!" Berry prolonged the interrogatory exclamation with exaggerated -softness. "Very strange. In fact, _very_ strange. Thank you, Prentice. -You _are_ contributing your bit at last. It fits. It jolly well fits. -Which is what I'm looking for, you know--things to fit _my_ preconceived -idea. There are two ways of working this detective racket, son--theory -first and theory last. Mine's first. I make my facts fit the crime.-- -Hello, Belknap. Come in. Prentice and I are having a truth party. Or -rather he's come across with a little truth after keeping it back all -afternoon. But I'm being lenient with him because he claims it's all due -to my charms. He saved up just to give me a few pointers. Aren't you -jealous?" - -"Rraather." Belknap always went his English ancestors one better in -accent whenever his dignity was endangered. "Shall I retire?" - -"By no means. I'm sure even the untutored Prentice will agree that in -matters of codes and Violet Mowbrays three heads are better than two. -There's no such thing as too many detectives, is there?" - -"Violet Mowbray!" Belknap showed sudden and marked interest and for a -man who rarely showed any it _was_ remarkable. He closed the door. "What -about Violet Mowbray? I thought I had her under lock and key. Is she -abroad?" - -"We don't know. It was the name Miss Lacey couldn't remember and has -remembered." - -"Let's see. How was it Miss Video mentioned her. 'Revelation for -revelation, with Violet Mowbray thrown in?' Was that it? It might mean -anything. After all, Violet Mowbray did have a past. However, we'd -better look into it." - -"Yes, Miss Lacey wasn't the only prowler last night." Berry squinted at -Julian, who stood looking bewildered but pleased at the response to at -least one of his hopeful suggestions. "The remark may have meant more to -another than it did to her. And it can do no harm to look up Violet, -poor girl. One of your cruel cases, Belknap. Brilliantly executed, of -course, and justified in consequence I suppose, but sinfully cruel. I'm -surprised she's living. Though this doesn't prove she is." - -"It _was_ a sad affair. I regretted it myself. But Blake was a close -friend, and I saw my way to be able to clear his name. Shall I give the -prison a ring? One of us could see her tomorrow--or we could send a man -out." - -"Do. But cast your mind's eye over this before you go." - -Belknap took the coded message, scarcely glancing at it. - -"Oh yes. I wondered when I'd see this again. Where did you find it?" - -"Prentice recovered it on the stairs." - -"I must have dropped it there. I really hadn't wanted to enter it as -evidence unless it was necessary. Particularly since I am convinced it -has no bearing. I received it from Miss Mdevani. She was in a trap, as -you can see. She brought me this to show me in how desperate a trap. It -was to her advantage under the circumstances, to prevent murder here -last night. Though if it had been just between the two of them with the -world well lost I'm sure she would have blown Whittaker's brains out and -considered he escaped lightly for his damned treachery. Mind, I'm -holding no brief for her character. This would rise up to deny me." He -smiled ironically, lifting the paper at them. "She is no angel. But I -shall have to be shown about the present case. If you think, on this -account, I shall be less help than hindrance to you and Stebbins I shall -gladly withdraw, with no hard feeling, I promise you." - -"Not for a minute, old man. Don't dream of deserting me and the ship. In -fact I wouldn't, I _couldn't_, get on without you. I'm not as -cold-blooded as you; and I don't in the least relish being left alone by -night, in a fog, with the rats either dead or deserted. No, I guess I -could bear up as far as that's concerned. But I _do_ look to you to -provide the missing link to what seems to me a pretty bad tangle. Which -reminds me I have an important question to put to you. Run along, -Prentice, will you, like a good fellow? The powers that be want to -confer." - -Julian, having just congratulated himself on the fact that they seemed -to have completely forgotten him, was sadly disappointed. He left them -with their heads together. - - - - - XIX - - -Yes, Belknap and Berry at last had their heads together in peace and -quiet--if being cheek by jowl with a tongue in each could be said to be -having their heads together. Greek was meeting Greek, and, with -reservations (decidedly with reservations!), they put their cards on the -table. - -It was a _kind_ of peace and quiet in which the two men conversed. -Nothing, thought Berry, had ever seemed to him more hollow-still than -Thorngate that Saturday evening: fog outside, and illness, depression, -and possibly guilt inside. Like the central vacuum of a cyclone it -seemed to augur as much trouble ahead as behind. He wished for a moment -that he and Belknap had let Sergeant Stebbins carry out his obstinate -desire, which had been to run the whole lot down to the Blue Acres -lockup for the night. It had really been because he relished the thought -of catching somebody red-handed that he had joined in Belknap's quiet -but determined resistance to the idea. Belknap's claim was that the -scandal in society was bad enough as it was without herding several -prominent and supposedly honorable ladies and gentlemen into prison as -if they were one and all guilty of murder. It was hardly likely they -_were_ all guilty, and the danger of injured innocence was not fair to -risk. - -But Stebbins would undoubtedly have had his way about the arrested -Crawford, whom he had proved backwards and forwards to his own -satisfaction guilty of Whittaker's murder, if Crawford had not chosen an -opportune moment to collapse and be put to bed. Even the hardened -Belknap had shown a gleam of sympathy for the prostrated Crawford and -asked if someone hadn't a sleeping drug. It was Nadia Mdevani who -produced the little red bottle from her vanity bag, poured a few -half-inch capsules into her cupped hand, and re-poured them into -Belknap's, who transferred them to Sydney Crawford's. - -"I couldn't survive without these," she had said. "They're harmless -enough--allanol or luminol, or one of those things." - -So every living soul that had been dining at Thorngate the night before, -always with the exception of Dorn, was still there. It was this fact of -his absence that brought Dorn uppermost in the Belknap-Berry discussion. - -"No report on Milton Dorn?" Berry asked. - -"None of any exact value to us. But one of your men has unearthed a -hidden room at the back of his Eighty-fifth Street office, and in it -several human specimens in varying degrees of dissection. None of these -can hope to endure, but none have been dealt the finishing stroke of the -knife. The press is hot on _that_ scent, as you can well imagine. And of -course nothing will satisfy it but that Dorn is guilty of our three -murders and a few besides. I wish I felt as sure of the three as of the -few besides." - -Berry shivered. - -"You say that's all of no value to us? I should think as a mark of -character it might shed light on the situation. However, it's useless to -jump to conclusions. _Our_ whole case against Dorn is summed up in his -disappearance, added to your possible glimpse of him." - -"Perfectly true. My answer referred merely to the fact that he himself -has not been traced, much less located." - -"I see." Berry stroked his chin and glanced up at Belknap with one eye -shut. "You're not in too good a humor, old man. Stuck for an answer? -Don't tell me!" - -"I guess I am, Berry. I'm mired." Belknap smiled slowly, but failed to -quite meet Berry's open eye. "The trouble being I haven't a flare about -this business. And unless my instincts are at work I flounder. I'm not -good with a magnifying glass, I must admit." And Belknap made a thrust -of his head at the glass on the table. - -Berry laughed. - -"Neither am I, really," he said. "I bow to convention. I know you don't. -But neither are my instincts particularly violent. A little luck, some -thinking, and an enormous amount of hard work have got the poor boy -where he is today. Don't disparage him. A glass like this is a pretty -little tool of the trade. Boys like Prentice like to see a detective -without one as little as they like to see a naturalist without a -butterfly net. I'm a detective, you see; you're a genius. That's the -difference--and oh, the difference to me! Gee, that rhymes, -Belknap--internally." - -It was true that on the face of it Belknap's reputation exceeded Berry's -because of the 'hunches' that made him spectacular. Yet Berry, for just -the reason that he lacked them, perhaps averaged a greater percentage of -successes than the older man. Whereas Belknap's failures, according to -the fortune of heroes, passed unrecorded or were forgotten overnight, -Berry's went down in history. - -Berry had recently written finis at the end of a slow, grueling, -painstaking case, begun five years before--having of course had his hand -in numberless affairs, successful and unsuccessful, in the meantime. The -Star Diamond robbery round-up, seen in a bird's eye view from beginning -to end, was a masterpiece of intricate workmanship and cunning design, -with Berry the spider. But it had been too much to expect a fickle -public attention to remain riveted to a five-year hunt that led around -the world and back again. And what newspaper would take the time to -review it at sufficient length to bring out its pattern in bas-relief. - -Belknap, on the other hand, seldom was interested in crimes at their -birth. They had to pull themselves together, assume character, even -become aged and ripened in the detective cellars, before he woke up to -them. Then suddenly with the warp and the woof before him he saw the -flaw, the weak thread, and unraveled the whole in a breath. Belknap had -a certain contempt for Berry's methods, though a sincere respect for his -achievements. - -"I'm not so sure about the luck in your case, Berry," he said -generously. "I'm afraid there's always been far too much of it with me. -I'm _not_ a hard worker. And as for thinking, it happens in wedges of -intuition driven in between sleeping and waking. I have damn little to -do with it. That's why I'm up a tree now. I haven't had a good sleep -since the returns on these murders of ours began to come in." - -"You don't look it. And unless I miss my guess we've got a bad night -ahead of us. So let's run over our lists to date and not leave the -household too long on its wild lone. Who are there to be considered? Mr. -and Mrs. Crawford; Prentice and his girl-friend; Miss Mdevani; and this -missing Dorn. And _that_ leaves out of account the quite possible -possibility that Blake killed Miss Video, or _vice versa_, or that -Whittaker killed both. Violet Mowbray's name may be a stepping-stone and -it may prove just another stumbling-block. What really interested me in -Miss Video's remark was the 'revelation for revelation' bit. Did she -mean that because Whittaker was exposing her lover Crawford she was -going to pay him off? For what she _could_ have meant was that if you -are exposing _me_ I'll get even with a story about you and Violet -Mowbray. In which case it would bear out a little suspicion of mine -about that Diary you people seem so anxious to forget. Perhaps the Diary -had 'em _all_ in it--not merely Crawford. Whittaker may have been -letting fifty-nine cats out of the bag instead of one. He was an old -scoundrel, Whittaker, by accounts. If that was so, with most of those -here having interrelated parts, what more likely than the only way for -any one of them to come clean was to wipe out every other one, and the -Diary with 'em." - -Belknap carefully regarded a thumb-nail, pausing before he spoke. - -"Astute reasoning, Berry. You're uncannily warm, you'll be pleased to -know. I haven't had a good opportunity to explain to you the method in -this madness, if there is any. Such as it is, it's Whittaker's. The poor -devil, though I swear I can't be as sympathetic as I should be, was -dying of cancer, and witness his bright idea of a way to shorten the -sentence. He called me in at the last minute to watch it done--too late -to more than expostulate and then resign myself to what I thought was -going to be rather a gruesome lark, and has proved far too much of a -good thing. I assure you I didn't anticipate a shambles! I've kept this -item for your ear alone because--well, _you_ know the police. Can't you -picture that damned sergeant hot and bothered on the trail of a lot of -stale crimes when the time is too short for the new? What do you say -about it?" - -Berry walked across and threw up a window. "Bad night," he said, and -spit. He knocked the ashes from his pipe on the stone outer sill, closed -the window deliberately, and came a few steps back, refilling his pipe -as he came, and keeping his eyes on that. - -"You've let me do quite a bit of feeling around in the dark, haven't -you, boy? Oh, I don't exactly blame you. After all, it was your case, -not mine. There's a catch-as-catch-can element between us I guess we -can't avoid. And aside from that I agree with you that it would be -rather low-down to allow your friend the Judge to blight the careers of -his criminal friends because of certain age-old professional secrets -between them. For I take it that's what you're trying to tell me." - -"I am, exactly. But now that you _are_ enlightened what good is it to -you? It's been of little help to me to know that the Miss Laceys and Mr. -Prentices have their pasts. Can you see either one of them with any of -last night's blood on their hands?" - -"Not particularly. But we've both had our tragic experiences with gentle -creatures who have spread the veil of innocence over a positive welter -of sin. No, given your tale of what Whittaker had set out to do, and has -done to a T, the matter boils itself down to a neat psychological one. -We're unable to budge with the circumstantial evidence; unless the fact -that all the circumstantial points directly at your foreign lady, Miss -Mdevani. But I, for one, feel it's planted on her. I gather it strikes -you the same way? However, we can't afford to eliminate her. As far as -everyone is concerned we only have their sworn word as to how they spent -last night: Miss Lacey in Mr. Prentice's room, for the most part; Mr. -Prentice in the Judge's, except when he wasn't; the Judge in Miss -Video's, you think; Mrs. Crawford in her own; Miss Mdevani very much out -and about--and yet not seen until her visit to you; Mr. Crawford further -out and about but not seen because of the assignation with his wops. The -few instances in which we can check their stories we find them quite -uncommonly truthful. You saw Miss Lacey when she says she came to the -library for a drink. Mrs. Crawford saw Mr. Prentice as he came from the -Judge's room, when she was on her way down to find her husband and found -Blake instead. No one saw Blake. You kept moving and saw damn -little--unless you _did_ see Dorn. I wasn't in the picture until after -two of the important episodes, and too far afield to get much out of the -third. You were actually present at the third, and a lot of good it did -you. Which reminds me. I just want to check that shooting with you -again. It bothers me. One shot, you say, from the direction of the -library wall, in other words from the holes therein. Prentice _does_ -insist on two." - -"There was one shot," Belknap said with controlled quietness. "I should -think it would be unnecessary for me to repeat myself. But there _have_ -been cases of simultaneous, or all but simultaneous, shots that might -deceive one, more particularly the person nearest the scene of action. -Do you suggest it might have been something of that sort? Miss Mdevani -in the wall, and Crawford or his hired man in the pantry, shall we say?" - -"My idea in a nutshell. You see this is what I found to make me such a -nuisance on the subject." - -Berry produced the bullet of a 22 calibre Colt automatic from his vest -pocket--a bullet apparently identical to the one found in the table that -morning. - -"May I inquire?" Belknap asked gravely, taking the pellet on the palm of -his hand and crossing it from one to the other. - -"In my meticulous, persnickety way," Berry said with his little twisted -smile, "I made a cleaner sweep of the dining-room tonight than you and I -and the Sergeant did this morning when working in unison." Berry had -been known to strip a freshly papered wall in his thoroughness! "And -this article is the net result. Found _in_ the sideboard--you noticed -that Chippendale thing between the windows--inside, deep in the back -board, with the doors closed and no hole in the doors. Meaning the doors -were standing open when the shot was fired, which, incidentally, means -nothing." - -"Exactly; nothing at all. And of course it may have been in hiding there -for years, the relic of some earlier shooting picnic at the Whittaker -mansion! But I congratulate you on the find, for it _is_ a find. We must -get it to the ballistician, who has Exhibit A, and let him determine -which, if either, came from our captured weapon. We know only one shot -could have come from it." - -"Certainly. I'll take charge of it. You get in touch with Miss Mowbray. -I'll continue with Miss Video's room while I'm about it, and you go mix -with the gang. The more I hear about them the less I like them -unchaperoned. See you later." - -On either side the door each drew a long breath that being translated -meant "I guess I gave him my _facts_ fair enough. Conclusions? _No._" - - - - - XX - - -Sydney had been wandering the house like one possessed. From her room -where she stood inanimate motionless beside Neil's bed, to the East Room -where she mechanically extended her hands to the fire Nadia had herself -built on the enormous hearth, to the kitchens where she blindly prepared -things for Neil's comfort, she made the rounds with frozen face and -rigid body. The spirit was stricken--only the form of Sydney went on -living and doing. Meeting far too many emotional crises within far too -short a space of time had destroyed her receptivities; whether -temporarily or permanently remained to be seen. - -Nadia was in the East Room, smoking furiously, picking up and laying -down bric-a-brac, books, pictures, a glass of water, with indiscriminate -and hasty distraction. Seeing the ghost of Sydney pass through for the -sixth time her nerves were stung to remonstrance. - -"For Christ's sake, what's the matter, Mrs. Crawford? One would think -you were the only one in trouble around here. Is it as bad as all that -with your husband? Can't he buck up?" - -Sydney halted in her tracks and stood gazing straight through Nadia, -through the walls, through the outer fog, for several seconds. - -"He's worse," she said in a dragging voice. "I don't understand it." - -"I'll come up with you." Nadia's bomb of angry impatience burst in air -and came softly down. "There may be something I can do." - -Again there was an appreciable interval before Sydney answered, her eyes -distantly intent, as though, a creature of another world, she listened -for echoes of this. - -"You may come," she murmured. - -They went up together to the Crawfords' room, passing in the lower hall -a policeman sitting bolt upright in a straight-backed chair against the -wall near the door. A high-low light was turned low above the -mirror-table beside him. It was all the light for the hall and stairway. -At the head of the stairs another policeman, equally immobile and -disinterested, sat in a straight-backed chair against the wall. - -"It feels like a hotel after 2 A.M., or a funeral parlor at midday," -Nadia cried at Sydney. "Let's turn up the lights and dance on the -graves--throw a celebration with horns and cymbals." - -But Sydney was deaf to her. And even Nadia's bitter laughter died away -when she had taken one look at Crawford, felt his pulse, and listened to -his breathing. There was a horrid whitish edge of something, like dried -foam at a tide-mark, along his upper lip. The lids of his eyes were -neither up nor down, but remained fixed half across the pupils. His -Adam's apple shifted a little, spasmodically. Nadia swung on Sydney. - -"You little damn fool," she hissed. "What do you think you're -doing--playing with death? As if we hadn't had enough of it about. Did -that frightful idiot of a Dr. Giles go off duty?" - -"What's the matter?" Sydney asked stonily. - -"Did you give him the sedative I gave you?" - -"What?" - -"I said, _did you give him the sedative I gave you_?" - -"I did." - -"What else?" - -"I don't know. Some tea, I think. And bicarbonate. And--and water of -course." - -"Is that all?" - -"I don't know. I tell you I don't know. What are you driving at? Answer -me! What do you mean?" - -"Keep quiet." - -"Are you trying to make out I've--?" - -"_Shut_ up, or I'll make you." - -Sydney Crawford's eyes seemed to return at last from the cosmic -universe. They contracted and shivered to points of horror. Everything -about her, from her clinched hands to her vivid chalk-white face, put -itself headlong into one word: - -"_Murderer!_" - -And Nadia Mdevani was looking all too ready to be one when Julian, -standing in the door, interrupted them. - -"Don't tell me anything's wrong," he said with a thin sarcasm. - -Poised against each other as the two women were, it took them both -several breaths to withhold their momentum and divert it to new -channels. Nadia was the first to recover. - -"We need a doctor, Mr. Prentice," she said quietly. "And we need him -soon." She threw a glance in Crawford's direction and, in a low voice, -risked more: "I've seen a few poisons in my day, and this _is_ a poison! -Arsenic. You know how rapid that is." - -Sydney sprang toward Julian. - -"Don't go, Mr. Prentice! I tell you if you go--" - -But Julian had fled; down the corridor, down the dim stairs, and out -into the fog. They heard the door close loudly behind him. Sydney -dropped her hands loosely, resignedly, at her sides. "That's that," she -said quietly. "Not that it really matters. I am completely at your -mercy, Miss Mdevani. You may think it makes a difference. It doesn't. -There are others now who care as little as Bertrand Whittaker cared." - -Nadia looked her up and down with cold contempt and a colder pity. - -"Don't worry, Mrs. Crawford. Your time is not yet. Not _quite_ yet." She -pushed back her shining ebony hair with her two hands. "It appears I -must be the one to do it at that--the chosen of the Lord. For the -mortification of the flesh." She was speaking to herself, not to Sydney. - -Crawford shifted a little, and moaned. - -"I am in pain," he said. "Sydney." - -"Yes?" Sydney neither stirred, nor looked toward him. - -"I am in pain." - -"I'm sorry." - -"Is something wrong?" he asked. - -"Yes, something is wrong." - -Neil seemed to be considering that. Beads of perspiration stood out on -his forehead, and on the backs of his hands lying weakly on the -coverlid. His dry lips thinned perceptibly. Then, on a breath, he only -said again: - -"Sydney." - -"Yes?" - -"Sydney." - -"I said, what is it?" - -"It's up to you, Mrs. Crawford," Nadia cried softly. - -"What do you mean?" - -"Sydney." Crawford's monotonous, sad repetition of her name was the -tragic undertone in the room. - -"Be quick about it," Nadia screamed in a whisper. - -"I tell you I don't know what you're talking about." - -"Sydney." - -"You know as well as I do what I mean." - -"Sydney." His voice was weaker. - -The effort by which Sydney moved her limbs and went to Neil's side was -painful to watch, like the first steps of a Frankenstein conception. She -bent over him a little and laid her hand across his eyes. - -"It's all right, Neil. There is nothing wrong. I didn't mean there was. -It has been so hard for you. So bad I can't remember how bad. If I -remembered I'd die. Perhaps you are remembering. Don't let it kill you, -dear. For you and I have so much to do. We are going to go on from where -we laid our story down--was it a year ago? I'm sure we can find the very -page, paragraph and sentence where we left off." - -Neil smiled. It was the smile of a blind person, sweet and helpless. He -moved a little nearer Sydney, and lay perfectly still. How long the -three in the room remained speechless and motionless it would have been -hard to say. It was Belknap who disturbed two of them; the third was -beyond all further disturbance. - - - - - XXI - - -"What have we here--a séance?" Belknap asked from the door. - -Nadia quivered and shrank back against the wall as she turned to face -Belknap. Her hands, with spread fingers, formed a spidery white pattern -against the room's daring modernistic wall-paper of black shot with -gold. Her eyes wavered, and Belknap saw them consider the open window -leading to the roof of the porte-cochčre. - -"Mr. Belknap!" she breathed. - -"Your humble servant." Belknap closed the door, turned its key and -pocketed the key, and crossed to the bed. - -"What's ailing our friend Crawford?" - -He thrust Sydney Crawford aside with an arm that would have brooked no -interference had there been any. He looked down at Crawford; then bent -over him; and then, quickly, felt for the heart. His face darkened. - -"This man is dead," he said, straightening and turning toward Nadia -Mdevani. - -"Thank God!" Sydney cried, and Belknap swung to her. - -"Another Strange Death of President Harding, is that it?" - -"That's for you to say, Mr. Detective," Sydney answered with unexpected -fire. "But this is the second time today you have accused me of murder; -and I should have thought, unless you can make your point better than -you made it this morning, you might exercise a greater professional -restraint." - -By a blazing light in Sydney's transparent face it was clear things no -longer mattered a tinker's dam: life, death, love, hatred were all one -to her, which was nothing. Belknap regarded her with merciless, puckered -eyes, and turned again to her husband. He touched a light forefinger to -the powder on Crawford's corroded lips. - -"Poison is my guess," he said. "We'll find out where it came from soon -enough. You've run it too close, Miss Mdevani. I shall have to examine -the remainder of that sleeping drug you so kindly offered. _If_ it's -still in your possession. Hmmm! No you don't, lady--stand where you -are." - -"I'm sorry to have frightened you," Nadia drew back and spoke with slow -venom. "I merely thought to assist you. You'll find it in the middle -compartment of my handbag." With her eyes she indicated the bag on the -dresser. "Are you--alone?" she added. - -"Quite alone, Miss Mdevani. But not for long I assure you." Belknap went -to the telephone: ("Operator, give me 40. Thanks. Police Headquarters? -Give me Sergeant Stebbins. Oh, that you, Stebbins? You'd better come up. -Your catch has gone the way of all flesh--which, in this house, means he -has been murdered. But I have a good substitute. So come along and help -me. Right.") He hung up. - -"Where is Mr. Berry?" Nadia asked. - -"Doing research work." - -"I should like to see him, if I may." - -"You should? Why? My opinion is that I make a better father confessor." - -"I'm sure of it. I prefer a layman that's all--as safer in the long -run." - -How he admired her Custer stand. He knew, if she didn't, that she was -literally at the end of her rope. He hadn't a doubt in his mind that her -bag contained the poison. This poisoning business was always such a -risky affair. He felt convinced that in the excitement she had neglected -to exchange the contents of the bottle. Yet she was boldly facing it out -to the last ditch. It was proving a gallant fight, if a criminal's fight -can be called gallant. And, admiring her, he wanted her more than ever. -His eyes absorbed her as she stood there slim and taut, outlined in the -light that, being shielded from Crawford, fell directly upon her. She -wore a clinging dress of bitter-sweet red. It shaped her narrow hips, -her lovely forward drooping shoulders. There were slippers to match the -dress; coral in her ears; a half dozen barbaric coral bracelets high on -her arm; a large bloodstone ring on her index finger. She seemed not so -much savage as heathen, a descendant of Attila. It was a thousand -pities, Belknap thought, to have her broken in this sordid fashion: law -courts, disgrace, and, short of death, a prison. How much more fun to -break her himself, in a man's way. But it was too late now. The cards -were stacked against her, and he didn't need her enough to follow her -lead to Hell. He drew a breath and relinquished her. - -"That's quite possible. Safety is not a term you and I have conjured -with." - -"Hardly. We have never pretended to be anything but dangerous to each -other. And this was scarcely the moment to have drawn in our horns. But -that shouldn't destroy our relationship, should it? For I believe it was -you who first made a claim to courage. You put it rather neatly, I -remember, calling it the coin of our realm." - -Again her irony, and he flushed. - -"I was flattered, my dear, when you challenged me to catch you at one -murder." (God, he thought to himself, what kind of a grip has this woman -got on me that I should stand here arguing, with a corpse on the bed -between us!) "I have ceased to be flattered. Four is far too simple a -problem; particularly when you let yourself be tripped up in the fourth -act." Belknap was opening her bag. He held up the little red bottle for -reflections. "Your stop-light," he said with his cruel, side-wise smile. - -"Your play on words, sir, is one of the most delightful things about -you. I see it doesn't fail you under trying circumstances." Nadia's -color was up. She was positively enjoying this linguistic sword play. -Belknap hated himself for having let himself be snared into it. She was -playing for time. Exactly what good it would do her he failed to see. -But the furtive half-eye she gave to the door, the furtive half-ear she -gave to what might be happening outside, meant she was biding an -opportunity. And something was at last happening outside. Suddenly the -door of the lower hall was opened and closed repeatedly and vehemently. -There were loud voices, and someone in a querulous rage was insistently -keeping the upper hand. There was a scuffle on the stairs. Belknap went -to the door, and paused with the key in his hand. He looked quickly at -Sydney's quiescent figure lying curled up at Crawford's feet--she had -fallen into a deep sleep, or perhaps a faint, at some moment of the -conversation; how little attention had been paid her!--and then back at -Nadia. - -"Quick, dearest," he whispered, "go by the window! Forgive me, it's the -best I can do." He was surprised at his own words. But her shuddering -tremor at the approach of the others had been the last straw. He -couldn't go with her but he could let her off. - -"Thank you," she answered gently. "I am not running away. I have never -run even when guilty. Is it likely I should try it now?" - -Without replying, and with an angry twist of his arm, he turned the key -in the lock and flung the door wide. - -"Come in, Stebbins. You too, Berry. I want one of you. And Miss Mdevani, -I understand, wants the other." - -"I do, Mr. Berry." Nadia stepped forward and stood near him. "I hereby -place myself wholly in your charge. Whether I am guilty or innocent of -all of which I am accused has yet to be determined. Until it is -determined I am confident you will extend me fair play. Mr. Belknap, I -regret to say, is now as assured of my guilt as he recently claimed to -be of my innocence. Such variable winds cannot fail but be ill winds for -one in my delicate position." - -"Cool and tricky!" thought Berry, putting the room to a quizzical -scrutiny. "What a perfectly worded appeal. No male could resist it." -Aloud he said, "I promise you will receive every consideration justified -by the circumstances." And, to Belknap, "I see we _did_ leave them too -long alone. The tally mounts! But I take it we have reached the end of -the trail. My congratulations. I _thought_ you would come across, and -I'm sincerely glad--" - -The disturbance on the stairs had moved up and now suddenly intruded -itself. Julian Prentice proved to be at its center--pale, disheveled, -his tie twisted, his hair up-ended, Julian struggled feverishly with a -veritable regiment of cops. His captors were so intent on their prize -and on his retention that it would have taken a dozen murders to have -shaken their concentration; such is the Force's strength of character! -In spite of everything, even his own nature, Belknap had to smile. - -"Who's this you've got? I figured the least you could be doing was -bringing in Milton Dorn. What's Prentice been at to so rouse your -righteous wrath?" - -"Tryin' to escape, sir. Ran his car right off'n the premises. We did -have a chase, sir! He was doin' seventy in the fog. It was as good as -suicide, sir." - -"A verdict of suicide would be a relief. Come, come, boys, hands off. -Can't you see you're bothering him? Where were you heading, Prentice, -for Times Square?" - -Julian, standing free at last, shifted his gaze distractedly from the -vibrant, defiant figure of Nadia Mdevani, to Silas Berry standing like -an off-stage critic, to Ordway Belknap who looked a general with the -puppets at his disposal, to Sydney Crawford lying crumpled and -desperately pathetic across the feet of the still form on the bed, and -suddenly he trembled uncontrollably from head to foot. - -"Where is Joel?" he cried in a high, piercing voice that froze the room. - - - - - XXII - - -From this moment Thorngate, house and grounds, was pandemonium let -loose. - -It was clear that the first thing to be done, when it became certain -that Joel Lacey was really among the missing, and had last been seen -sleeping on the library couch, was to institute a searching party. -Because of the numberless recruits, three groups were formed--two taking -the great outdoors and one the sliding panels and the secret attics. The -way the police, Belknap groaned, came scurrying out of corners, like the -Hamlin rats to the piper's pipe, at news of a safe and sane hunt, when -there was never one of them underfoot when he was needed to block a -murder, made one positively ill. Not that the hunt wasn't important. But -the bare chances of _finding_ Joel Lacey, much less finding her alive, -seemed so slight in view of the thoroughness of the earlier crimes. - -In the midst of it all, behind and before, to right and to left, came -Julian. Julian joined first one searching party, then another, urging, -beseeching, cursing, cajoling, diving into a closet or under a bush as -the case might be. Julian was every which way. Julian was at sixes and -sevens. Julian had gone berserk. Losing Joel, Julian seemed to have lost -whatever of value he had recently possessed: his boyish philosophy, such -as it was; his sense of humor, which hadn't been bad; his kindly, -inconsequential wit which had served rather to balance the household -during the late unpleasantness. These had vanished in thin air. Instead -here was a frantic, unreasonable, hysterical, bothersome young man who -dogged everyone's footsteps like a spoilt child, stubbornly refused to -remain even passably steady, and flung wild and outrageous accusations -about like so much confetti. No one escaped his fury or his suspicions. -Even his idol Berry took a raking over the coals that under normal -conditions would have been unpardonable. But when Julian burst into -tears at the end of his peroration Berry let that be the end of it. - -Julian said no one was _trying_ to find Joel; he said Nadia Mdevani had -cremated Joel in the furnaces and they must sift the ashes for her -bones; he said Milton Dorn was murdering her by unspeakable degrees in -some god-forsaken hole-in-the-wall where her screams would never be -heard; that Belknap, Berry, and Stebbins had whisked her off to some -Inquisitorial chamber where their minions were torturing a statement -from her. He said the whole investigation from A to Z had been stupidly -handled (he said it very loud and clear, and embellished it with bad -words); that a lot of helpless and innocent people had been kept in a -house which had a chronic disposition to murder, where they had been -nipped off one by one like sheep by wolves; that Thorngate was proving -no better than an Island of Dr. Moreau, only worse, because it was human -beings instead of rabbits being experimented with; he said-- - -But this was going one further than the harassed Belknap could quite -tolerate. He thrust Julian gently but firmly from the East Room into the -hall, saying, as he closed the door on him: - -"Go along, Prentice. I'm sorry. We're doing all we can, and the best -possible. I have even got in touch with Headquarters again and have -asked them to send an extra man or two. I admit things are pretty damn -thick, but you aren't thinning them out. So beat it." - -And Belknap turned back to continue, with Berry and Stebbins, the heated -interrogation of Nadia Mdevani by which they hoped to run her to earth -by her own admission, and so, clearing the decks of legal red-tape, -hasten and simplify her path that led but to the grave as best you -looked at it. For, admitted or not admitted, denial could no longer -stand against a sealed order to kill Blake, a gun left lying on the -scene of Whittaker's murder, and a poisoned sleeping drug administered -to Crawford. This last, in a brief preliminary test, Belknap had proved -to be arsenous oxide; anyway arsenic in one of its forms. - -They had of necessity quickly abandoned all attempts on Sydney Crawford. -Not that she stood above suspicion, hardly that (Stebbins had even taken -it upon himself to arrest her willy-nilly), but Sydney, passing from one -phase of excessive shock to another, was now wandering the house like a -modern Ophelia, modern in that nothing she said bore the least -resemblance to her predecessor's soliloquy. She said cruel, bitter, -terrible things to the walls and the ceilings in a hard, glinting voice: -"I'll call up Victor and tell him his Daddy's dead. He'll remember it -for life if he's fetched out of bed to be told." "The place to stab a -man with a paper knife is between the fourth and fifth vertebrę, I mean -ribs. I've found _that_ out." "Well, Romany, if it's true that the first -two of a triangle to die make the couple in Heaven, _you_ should worry -now. You've got him." Until she changed her tune a little there was no -use bothering with her, for questioning or pressure brought to bear -might push her beyond this ragged edge of insanity. - -No danger of insanity in Nadia Mdevani's case! But apparently no danger -either of obtaining any satisfaction from her. Wanting a confession from -her was one thing--obtaining even a modicum of it was another. Nadia sat -limply, almost unconcernedly, in a deep chair before the East Room fire, -and, never lifting her eyes from a bemused contemplation of the flames, -refused to yield a hair's breadth of vantage to her tormentors. The -ground they covered with her was the old ground covered in the morning, -but, though her three examiners bore the same names that they had then -born, they were three men of different attitude and temper. Each blaming -himself secretly for an earlier male to female softness, that had -perhaps been responsible for the extra hot water they were now in, was -now out for blood in earnest, beauty or no beauty. It angered them that -she seemed not to notice a difference. Quite as collected, equally as -cool, as during the morning's session on the stand, she shed their -individual and concerted attacks. - -Yes, she had received the order regarding Colonel Blake. No, she could -not say when, or from whom. That was for them to find out--_if_ they -could. Yes, she had taken it to Mr. Belknap. Why? She didn't exactly -know; an impulse. Perhaps a wily way to further the intimacy between -them! Here she threw a little whimsical smile in Belknap's direction. If -he saw it he gave no sign. She said she intended telling him she had not -obeyed orders--even though Blake lay dead at that moment on the library -floor. She had intended asking his protection, such protection as a man -of law and justice, power and respect, can give a woman of doubtful -antecedents. The sarcasm, if there was any, was ever so slight. - -What _had_ she been doing during the hours before consulting with Mr. -Belknap? Oh-my-God, her weary tone of telling and retelling implied, -what a twice and thrice told tale to repeat. She had gone to her room -and been restless. Naturally; no one else had claimed to be anything -_but_ restless last night, and she wouldn't profess to be any exception -to the rule. She had read a little, and then done a bit of -reconnoitering-- Oh well, _call_ it prowling. What difference did it -make? She had been made aware, putting the two of his absence from his -own room and the two of his voice in Romany's together, that Bertrand -Whittaker was paying a visit. And that couldn't be said to have made her -any the less upset. Not that she would have called him one of your -story-book lovers; but this evening she needed him to be his own best -friend with her in his own behalf. Her new distrust of him, a blend of -anger, disrespect and fear, rising from his cat-and-mouse play with his -Diary, was running her blood up close to killing heat. Romany was rather -a last straw. She had returned to her room for her Colt, to find it had -disappeared from the dresser; and had gone on down for a drink to -restore her equilibrium. Again her smile. It was then she had remarked -the gnawing of a rat in the wainscoting--a persistent rat, Mr. Belknap; -a purposeful rat; one intent on going places. She had left him working -his way through, and had gone for a long cooling-off stroll, down to the -water and back. What a night! What a moon! - -Stepping back over the low sills into the library, and crossing the dark -room to the door dimly blocked in by the hall light, her foot had -encountered something soft and humpy. By that seventh sense that comes -to one's aid at such moments she knew it for a body. She had her own -pocket flash. Turning it up she discovered Blake. The message she had -received was illumined in red letters. She was on the point of -destroying it when Belknap occurred to her mischievous mind! It was Mrs. -Crawford who had interrupted their exciting tźte-ą-tźte. - -Romany? The first she had seen of Romany last night was this morning -when, with the others, she had seen her dead. No, it wasn't Romany she -would have killed under the spur of jealousy--if they wanted to name it -jealousy--but Whittaker. _Another_ reason for killing Whittaker, whom -she hadn't killed. Not even in his case was she guilty, much as she had -intended being. Someone had been ahead of her. Someone who had planted -her gun with one shot fired from it--and in using another gun had had -the misfortune to have to fire twice in order to get the victim cold. - -The three men exchanged glances of unmistakable surprise and shock. This -was new testimony on Nadia's part, though not altogether fresh, and an -entirely new explanation of it. But Nadia never showed by as much as a -shifted finger that she realized the importance of what she had just let -fall. - -"Two shots!" Berry said. - -"I said two shots." - -"You agree with Prentice?" - -"I do." - -"Why haven't you said so before?" - -"I had my reasons." - -"You knew something?" - -"If you care to put it that way." - -"You suspected and were afraid?" - -"I suspected. I was not afraid." - -"Your explanation of the two shots--whether true or false--is amazingly -clever." Belknap was deeply respectful. - -"Thank you." - -Stebbins interrupted angrily. - -"And what about your amatol turning out to be arsenic. Got as clever a -way out of that, lady?" - -"I don't need it--and wouldn't take it if I did. It's self-explanatory. -Oh, you detectives!" Nadia threw back her head and laughed suddenly, -weakly, brokenly. "If you want to send me to eternity for Crawford's -murder you are welcome to do it that I may have the last laugh on you -with the Devil in Hell. He'd understand." - -She covered her face with her hands. It was impossible to be certain -whether she was laughing still, or crying. - -"Get out of here, you two," Berry said quietly to Belknap and Stebbins. -"I want a word with Miss Mdevani alone." He herded them unceremoniously -toward the door. - -"We've got under her skin," he added under his breath. "I think with an -extra hint or two that I have the means to convey (remember she's not -new to me) we'll have her where we want her in half a jiffy." - -He shut the door carefully and returned to Nadia. - - - - - XXIII - - -It was a defeated Nadia Mdevani who emerged from what proved to be a -prolonged interview with Lieutenant Berry. If, before it, she looked -worn and troubled, her will had at least remained indomitable. If her -voice had flagged, her eyes lost their challenge, yet she had always -managed to convey an impression of impregnable right shall be might. Now -she had yielded everything, to all appearances, and came carrying her -weapon by the blade and laid across her forearm for the victor to accept -the hilt. Her face was haggard; her unquenchable color quenched; her -feet scarcely lifted; she twisted her clasped hands together as though -they were manacled. When she spoke it was in a voice not her own, a -voice in which despair had even surpassed weariness. - -"Very well, Mr. Berry," she said. "I understand perfectly. I shall make -no attempt to escape, I swear. I am not the kind. When I am beaten in -fair play I am as willing to dance to the music as I am when I win and -the tune is gayer. I only ask one favor before I go with you. May I have -a few words with Mr. Belknap in private? That is, if he will condescend -to have a few words with me. He may even put me to the indignity of a -search for concealed firearms if he so desires." There was a flicker of -the old Nadia as she looked up at Belknap on the last words. - -Belknap and Berry exchanged glances, and there was a faint nod of -acquiescence on Berry's part. It didn't escape Nadia. She smiled dimly. - -"Thank you, Mr. Berry. I will not transgress your orders, on my honor." -With a little characteristic shrug of a shoulder she motioned Belknap to -follow her. She led him into the library, and, closing the door, leaned -against it as though she had reached the farthermost limit of endurance. -Her drooping figure, her shattered face, so pierced Belknap with their -utter resignation that before he could trust himself to speech she had -spoken. - -"The Chamber of Horrors," she murmured with a dim twitch at the corners -of her sad mouth. "Do you object to seeing me here? It is here we truly -met for the first time. Do you remember last night, the things we said, -and the things we left unsaid? Don't let's leave anything unsaid -tonight. Oh, I'm sorry to be so pathetic and so obvious." She half -lifted her eyes to him and let them fall away, but he had a glimpse of -the pride in them struggling to master an emotion he dared not name. - -"Don't apologize," he said roughly. "What did he do to you? I'll kill -the bastard." - -"Oh, my dear, what didn't he do! But never mind that. I don't have to -tell you about it, you can see for yourself what I have come to. I am -ashamed. I had so fully intended to go down, if I had to go down, with -flags up--denying, denying, denying--and here I am, not only confessed -to murders, but confessed to murders I never committed. What irony, what -bitter irony!" - -"You confessed?" he cried softly, and taking her two arms in his two -hands he drew her unresistingly forward into the room. He drew her to -the light where he could see her face. "Nadia, tell me that is not -true." - -"It is true. There comes a time in these affairs when it is easier to -admit than to deny, or rather, when one becomes careless and callous of -the consequences of guilt. Will someone stop that damned youngster -breaking his heart out there! I _can't_ tell him where his girl-friend -is because I don't know, I don't know, I don't know," she screamed; but -the scream, from sheer exhaustion, scarcely rose above a whisper. - -"Hush, dear! Don't let him worry you. He has lost his head too -dreadfully. And you mustn't confess, you _mustn't_, do you hear? Even if -you killed the lot, don't admit it--_ever_." - -"What else can I do? You have me on so many counts. There's no use -standing up against circumstantial evidence forever--even if it's -planted evidence, as this happens to be. I could never prove it. And the -way I feel now the sooner things are over the better. I'm tired, tired -out. I'm rapidly joining that Mrs. Crawford in her state of detachment -and disenchantment. How beautifully she's behaving now, not a trace of -agony or hysteria; not because she's thought it out, it isn't philosophy -with her, but because she's died and remained alive. It leaves one with -a jolly nonchalance. Well, short of one barb that persists in hurting me -like Hell, I promise you I can go to the chair without a flicker." His -hands still held her and had unwittingly tightened on her arms. She -looked down at them. "_You're_ hurting me rather," she said gently. - -"I'm sorry." He relaxed his hold but did not release her. "Tell me, what -is the pain?" He knew, but he wanted to hear. They both trembled. - -"I can't say it." - -"Yes, you can. There should be nothing left, as you say, that you and I -cannot say to each other. We have been through too much, we have seen -too much, ever to let pride interfere between us again. And you can -depend upon me to the end of creation. I'll never let them distress -you--never, never, never." - -"As if I hadn't been distressed!" - -"I know. And I have been one of the worst. I'm sorry, so terribly -sorry." - -"_Don't._" - -"Don't what?" - -"You know." She lifted her eyes, steadily at last, to meet his, and he -saw their depths below depths of suffering. - -"Tell me," he insisted. - -"I love you." - -"Say it again." - -"I love you." - -Suddenly they clung together. And all the time his mind whirled against -itself. How in God's name, at his time of life, could any woman be doing -this to him! Perhaps even now she was tricking him for a way out for -herself. But he felt her shivering against him, felt her lips, and knew -that was not true. For, together with her love for him, he felt an -overwhelming despair in her that frightened him--as though she fully -intended to go through with her mad confession. It was mad to have -admitted anything! It was going to make his efforts to save her almost -hopeless. - -"We mustn't," he said huskily, trying to hold her off and only holding -her closer. "We have other things to think of. It's desperate. They're -waiting for us. In the first place you must retract whatever you have -said, and we'll try to clear you in the courts. Failing that, we'll make -a get-away--Timbuctu or the Gold Coast, it makes no difference to me. -I'm as tired of the game as you are." - -"No--no--no," she protested. "I won't let you do that, ever. Oh, my -dear, I didn't mean to tell you how much I cared. Truly I didn't. I only -meant to say good-bye to you. I couldn't deny myself that. I don't -understand how this other happened. I suppose because we both cared. I -hadn't an idea you did. You have been considerate in some ways, yes, but -not really kind. But now I see what it's been for you. You have been -fighting it too, as I have. How cruel to know at the very moment of -separation. For it _is_ good-bye. It can't be anything else, for either -of us. Please, no--don't, don't, don't kiss me. I can't bear it." - -"Be still. We are going to get you off, dear heart. You must be brave, -that's all; and help me." - -"No. I am not going to let you _try_ to get me off. We have you to think -of now. Not me any longer. I am beyond being worried about. I never -expected to escape the fruits of my sins as long as I have. That I -happen to die innocent is a queer twist of fate, nothing more. I would -have died really guilty of something within a month--a year. Who knows? -And I've put up a good battle, as battles go in this world. I have just -got around to surrender. I'm through. So it's fare thee well, dear, -forever and ever, instead of--of 'they lived--.'" Her voice broke. - -"_Stop_ it!" He shook her fiercely. "Pull yourself together, Nadia. For -God's sake, don't stand here talking sentimental nonsense. What we have -to do is _plan_. The enemy is outside that door; can't you realize that? -We'll have to have every ounce of our wits about us to fend them off. -What did you admit? Tell me that." - -"Everything. Every murder. What was the point of haggling over an extra -one or two. And, what's more, I'm sticking to it, darling." She drew a -deep breath. "It's the only solution. Believe me, it is. Nothing in the -wide world, including death twenty times over, could make me let you -undertake your wild scheme for us. My dear, you are a great man, a -strong one, an esteemed one. I am a wretched little criminal--clever, -yes, but wretched all the same. Do you think loving you, worshiping you -as I do, I could dream of letting you face downright ruin for my sake? -It isn't to be thought of." - -Nadia stood back and lifted her face to his. Her eyes were wide open, -lucid, adoring, and, to him, the mirrors of love and integrity. Then, as -she gazed at him, the tears, the first he had ever seen her shed, and he -had thought her incapable of tears, welled up and fell quietly across -her cheeks. - -"I love you, don't you understand that? Don't you understand what love -means? I couldn't let you hurt yourself for me. The very fact of my love -for you makes it absolutely imperative I never retract a word I have -said to them. For my confession puts me out of harm's way and so puts -temptation out of yours." Her little smile came, tender now. - -Belknap walked away from her and back, restlessly. - -"Nadia," he said slowly, "I have things to say to you I never intended -saying. But I see I must be honest with you to bring you to your senses. -You have got to be shocked into fighting if we are going to save -ourselves for each other. Which is all that's left that matters--our -having each other--isn't it?" - -"It is," she whispered breathlessly, a hand at her throat. - -"Then you will understand and forgive, for that reason, and for another, -almost as important, that you are no better than I am. We are birds of a -feather and can properly appreciate each other," he added with a grim -laugh. - -"What do you mean?" - -"I mean we are equally criminals, Nadia. In this case I happen to be the -worse one of the two. I've killed five people (that is, if Joel Lacey is -dead yet) since four o'clock this morning. Rather a record, isn't it? Do -you know, there have been times when I was sure you guessed, _more_ than -guessed. And on top of it I have made you confess to the whole show, -which was also plotted. _I_ planted that circumstantial evidence upon -you, dear. Couldn't you see? I was intent on beating you at your own -game. God, what a beautiful job I made of it! One of my best. And now to -have it busted up by a slip of a woman. Not that it isn't worth it,-- -Nadia, don't _look_ at me like that. You're _not_ looking at me. What -_are_ you--" - -The dining-room door behind Belknap had stood ajar by the shadow of an -inch. It was now thrown open and Stebbins and Berry advanced on Belknap. - -"Hands up!" Stebbins thundered. - -"It's hands up, Belknap," Berry said. "Thank you, Miss Mdevani. That was -splendidly done. You acted--" - -Berry should have saved his congratulations. As Belknap raised his hands -he drew his pistol from his shoulder holster, and, though he would never -have had the extra second to swing on his captors, he did have the split -fraction of a second to fire straight before him. The shot of his 38 -calibre police revolver was deafening. Nadia, shot directly through the -breast, put her two hands where the bullet had entered, and without a -sound fell in an uneven heap at Belknap's feet. - - - - - XXIV - - - _He knocked the pistol out of his hand, small room was there to strive - ''Twas only by favor of mine,' quoth he, 'ye rode so long alive._' - -The game was up. Almost on the instant that the shot was fired Berry -struck down Belknap's hand and twisted the gun from him. There was no -flicker of resistance on Belknap's part. Nor would there have been the -chance of any if Stebbins had had his way. For the Sergeant was a prey -to impulsive rages and quick on the trigger. If Berry, in tackling -Belknap, had not had a strong arm for Stebbins, Belknap would have -joined Nadia Mdevani in the dust. - -"No!" Berry cried sharply. "Not that way. Shooting's too good for him. -And we want the dope." - -Stebbins, like copper wire, cooled off as rapidly as he had heated. - -"I'm sorry," he growled. "It's just that it's rank cold-blooded murder -to shoot a lady down like that." - -Berry had to laugh. - -"Not his first one, Sergeant; you should be used to 'em. Come on, lend a -hand." - -They bound Belknap, securely. No more playing with fire. And a swift -body-search from head to foot revealed several damning articles of -trade: Whittaker's Diary in an inner pocket; several varieties of poison -in neatly labeled pill-boxes; a pair of sučde gloves; a very exquisite -six-inch dagger with an inlaid handle of silver and lapis; a kit for the -designing and manufacture of keys; a veritable armory of revolvers, six; -a cunningly contrived combination tool that in its various -transformations became a screw-driver, a hammer, an auger and bit, a -saw, and God knows what else. - -"By the way," Berry shouted suddenly, as he was arranging the articles -in an orderly row on the divan table, "where's Joel Lacey?" - -"Oh yes, of course," Belknap murmured quietly, coolly, and as if to -reprimand Berry for his raised voice. "You _would_ want to know. Well, -dead or alive, you'll find her in that strong-box over yonder. Top -left-hand drawer, so to speak! If you ever knew the combination it isn't -the same now. I changed it." - -"To what?" Berry cried desperately from where he already stood beside -the great door of Whittaker's wall-safe. "Quick!" - -"9031." - -Berry fumbled stupidly with the locks. The terrible speed of events -during the past few hours, together with the excited, thrilling -knowledge of his own scoop (it had been his idea to put Nadia up to her -piece of acting, which he had to admit had been beautifully done on her -part) had reduced the still ingenuous Berry to a trembling, weakened -condition of hand and eye. Stebbins, whose emotional flights limited -themselves to rage and suspicion, took the job from him. Under his -stolid fingers the blocks fell quickly, expertly into place. And, on the -final number, the heavy door sprang. The two men slowly swung it back. - -Joel was there. She lay in a tumbled, cramped heap among a litter of -papers on the safe bottom. There was no least sign of life--and there -was an odor of chloroform. From her attitude it appeared unlikely she -had ever regained consciousness since being thrown into the airtight -compartment. They lifted her to the couch. Belknap kept his eyes -averted. - -Julian chose this particular moment to appear. He was shouting something -about the doors of the wine cellars being locked and no keys to be -found-- He stopped, looked, and, in another flash, was on his knees -beside Joel, his arms around her, calling her name. It took Berry every -ounce of extra strength to tear Julian free and fling him away on the -floor. - -"_Keep off_, you fool. Give the child air. She is dying for lack of -air--just that." - -Berry, with Stebbins' clumsy help, rendered such first aid as one gives -the drowning. Julian hovered near them muttering a frantic rigmarole of -endearments for Joel, and ugly curses for humanity in general, Berry in -particular. Two policemen, large and unresponsive, kept a firm guard on -Belknap who sat stone-motionless, apparently absorbed in his bound hands -lying limply before him on the table. He remained breathlessly still, -until at last--it seemed forever--Joel, almost invisibly at first, and -then visibly, drew a breath, stirred, and faintly stiffened with renewed -life as a Japanese pulp flower opens to water. Then, in unison with her, -Belknap too breathed, stirred, shifted his position. Berry saw, and as -he quietly lifted Joel into Julian's arms, felt a pang of sympathy for -the great man he had so long admired and envied. How are the mighty -fallen. But he had only to look at Joel's face, and Julian's, to lose -every iota of it. - -"Here, boy, carry her upstairs. Wrap her up good and warm; and give her -some hot brandy, if you can find any. She'll be as right as rain in no -time, mark my words for it. And, what's more, it's going to be plain -sailing for you two from now on. Remember that, and don't worry." He -tapped the Diary with a meaning forefinger. "It's a closed book; you -know what I mean. Easy there, don't fall." He turned to question -Belknap. - -"Now come across, Belknap. _Talk._ Or shall we run you up to town for -that? Room 27 at Headquarters is a fine place to talk. As you should -know." - -Belknap, examining his folded hands with meticulous interest, spoke -sidewise through a lifted corner of his mouth. - -"Can the rough stuff, Berry. It won't get you anywhere with me, as _you_ -should know. What's eating you? Curiosity? Yes, I killed 'em. Do I -_have_ to say it? Oh, don't let it worry your poor weak intellect that -you haven't the right man. You have. How many did I murder? I lost -count. You add 'em up. And don't for God's sake ask me why. Why the -Hell! Look in that rotten little Diary there. It'll tell you why and -then some. _One_ of us had to wipe out the litter before it hatched; to -make his world safe--for crime. I got in my licks first, that's all." -Belknap would have made a waving gesture with his right hand but was -checked by its anchorage to his left. "Let's clear out of this," he -cried. "I expect you're champing at the bit to drag me at your chariot -wheels through the streets of Rome. Well, do it and be damned. Only get -it over." Belknap's eyes, a little sunken in their heavily shadowed -sockets, gleamed feverishly. The lines in his face had deepened. He -looked his age. "When, may I ask, did _you_ catch the cat out of my bag? -I hadn't a notion I'd let it out. Thought I had it pretty well sewed in. -Like the Little Red Hen you must have left a stone in its place. Or -_she_ did, the vixen. I should have marked the extra weight. _Christ_, -the mess I've made of the perfect crime; all in my best tradition. And I -had it on toast but for playing with fire. The utter fool I was to take -her into my game when I already had her so neatly fitted to my boots. -Just as I fitted Violet Mowbray to Blake's, and Durgin to Allan Galt's, -and Thane to-- Take her away," he shouted suddenly, hoarsely, half -rising to his feet. "In God's name why leave the carrion about! Get her -false face to Hell out of here or I'll--" - -Berry came close to Belknap. His face was white. He gripped the sides of -the table between them till the knuckles of his hands shone; and in a -level, hard voice spoke into Belknap's eyes and teeth. - -"Keep quiet, and listen to me for a change! You'll take a page from _my_ -book now. I'm not a proud man, or a boastful one, Ordway Belknap, -one-time Judge, and _one-time_ detective, but this here is a haul of -mine, and you know it. For once in a lifetime _I_ had a hunch. From the -crack of the whip this morning I had you on the list. As a _guest_ in -this house last night. Don't you see what a difference that makes in the -point of view? You came here too early for safety, my boy, and you're -leaving here too late. It may be true I didn't downright suspect you -until Mdevani and Lacey caught onto something at sight of your black -number on the wall. But then it took a psychologist (and that's my -strong point) to figure why they were keeping their mouths shut. One was -scared of her life of you; and the other cared about you. Right? After -that I found the extra bullet. And I knew right then, as well as you -did, that neither would fit the Mdevani weapon. We'll prove tomorrow, -when it won't matter a hoot, that they both fit this little gun of -yours." Berry picked up Belknap's 22 and dropped it again with a clatter -that echoed in the tense stillness of the listening room. Berry was -decidedly working himself into a heat. "Then Lacey remembered the -Mowbray name--and I saw why the poor little actress had to be bumped -off. She was the only one of your morning's bag I had to find your -motive for. Blake had to go because he was so much a part of your most -recent legal crime. Yours and the Judge's." - -"Bit off there," Belknap hissed, his face dark and threatening, close to -Berry's. "I can't have you _imputing_ motives. I collided with him in -the dark last night. He knew what we both were after--and that _I_ got -it. So I got him." - -"Aha! That's the way the wind blew, is it? And after that you strangled -the baby doll--" - -"Before, as it happens." - -"Well, _before_. A Hell of a lot of difference it makes when you did it. -Too bad I had to come barging in just about then, before you'd finished -off your Damon and Pythias friend. Guess Whittaker threw his dice so -you'd play the villain's part all along. He had it in for you, to my way -of thinking. Clever idea your wall-hole and the planted gun. But a bit -out of the reckoning that your first shot missed. However, I'd have got -you anyway, one shot or two. The holes, by the way, reminded your -girl-friend that she'd once interrupted your investigation in this room -at an embarrassing moment. _She_ lit the Murad, I understand. Miss Lacey -was also reminded that you mysteriously emerged from no man's land when -she was here in the night. Whereupon it ceased to be no man's land. And -don't think I missed the little by-play when you tried to convince Miss -Mdevani she hadn't done what she knew she did--put that carnation in -your buttonhole. She was too keen to try that kind of trick on. I don't -know when you made up your mind to lay the whole pack of crimes at her -door. But I suppose you rifled her room of her gun and handkerchief for -the express purpose. Damn lucky for you she came across with the Blake -order for you to sprinkle about. _And_ the drug for Crawford, for you to -exchange _en passant_. God, you're a beast. Worse than they come. Why -Crawford? Just because it clinched the case against her? His death to -insure hers? And all the time making eyes at the woman you were playing -for a sucker. Well, don't ever kid yourself you succeeded in putting it -over on her. She was watching you cut your own throat. Only wasn't -helping give you away until she had to. Until it was your life or hers. -But with you determined to make it hers she still had enough guts left -to outplay you. For she _has_ outplayed you. Dead as she lies on that -floor, God rest her soul, she's better off than you are. No, Dorn was -your best bet for a double if you had to have one. You should have stuck -to someone who couldn't defend himself." - -"Defend himself!" Belknap laughed ferociously, breathing hard. "Dorn -defend himself! It is to laugh! About as much chance of his coming back -to--" - -And Milton Dorn came back. Above the strained, ugly, mounting voices of -the two men pitched against each other came the crash of the -window-doors to the terrace, burst forcefully open. On the sill, -exaggerated and unattached against the swirling mist, stood two of -Stebbins' uniformed guards with a sagging body slung between them from -the knees and armpits: like some strange inhabitants of Davy Jones' -locker bringing back to earth a victim too horrible for even the sea to -swallow. - -"Sorry," growled one of them apologetically, dimly conscious of the -startled horror in the silenced room, "we found this in the old well -down back. Thought you might need it, Sergeant. So we brought it along -up." - -The man's recourse to the neuter in referring to his burden all too -vividly indicated its lifelessness. Not that it could have possibly been -otherwise. Its face was crushed out of human shape. The head fell back -and off to the side, loosely, as though the neck were broken. The -covering of one leg was savagely torn and the flesh from thigh to knee -bared to the bone. The clothing was stiff and ungainly with congealed -blood. - -"Speak of the Devil!" Belknap whispered. - -"Dorn, I take it," Berry said with super-gentleness. He forced an odd -laugh. "Say, you boys, next time you make a visit with that kind of -visiting card, come to the front door--and ring. I don't like stage -entrances. Another of yours?" he asked, turning to look at Belknap, -through narrowed eyes, as no man looks at a man. - -Belknap smiled. - -"How _did_ you guess it, Lieutenant? Yes, number one. I had to scotch -him on the spot last night when he was trying to slip from under. -Couldn't take any chances on how much he knew. Talk about your blind -witnesses! None of 'em even saw me take my little trip to fetch -something from my car last night. Went out on Dorn's heels, too." - -"That'll do from you," Berry said. "Not another word. We've had enough. -Take him to Glory for me, men. Sergeant," he added to the stupefied -Stebbins, "will you give them a ring in town and say we're on our -way--with the goods. _Broad_cast it. Tell them to be ready with the -racks and boiling oil. And clean up this mess as best you can when my -back's turned. Run the bodies down to the morgue in the morning. -There'll be autopsies, I suppose, though God knows they aren't needed. -Come along, you," he said, as Belknap rose unsteadily to his feet. - -But Belknap, with a quick, vicious movement of his bear-like shoulders, -thrust his jailors aside, and bent over the motionless, shrunken form of -Nadia Mdevani. Even, bending down and using his two hands as one, he -turned her face uppermost. It was an exquisite and clear-cut face, very -quiet, very perfect, like a medallion or cameo face. And as devoid of -expression. Suddenly Belknap straightened, threw back his head, and -laughed wildly, breaking into a snatch of song: - - "_'She was my woman, - But she done me wrong._'" - -"Shut up, Belknap," Berry shouted. "Don't go playing the sentimental -fool so late in the day. I guess _she_ could have sung that song as it -should be sung. And meant it." Pushing Belknap roughly toward the hall -door, Berry turned back to give his final orders. "By the way, Sergeant, -I believe there are a few left-overs straying about the house. I -wouldn't care to sleep here myself and it's likely they wouldn't. You'd -better round 'em up and take 'em places. There's that John, and the girl -named Lily, I believe. And of course Mr. Prentice and Miss Lacey and -Mrs. Crawford--" - -"You are most thoughtful, Lieutenant Berry." Sydney Crawford, in hat and -cloak, descended the stairs toward them. "But don't have me on your -mind. I'm just leaving--and I have my car." She was about to pass them, -and paused. "Thank you, Mr. Belknap," she said, stiffly, her glazed eyes -rigidly avoiding him, "for a thrilling week-end. And for my precious -life which it is a joy to be able to dispose of as I please. Goodnight." - -Berry forever after wished he had obeyed his immediate impulse to detain -her. It might have made the difference between another life and death. -For, three days later, her body came ashore above Greenwich. It was the -only death directly connected with that memorable week-end at Thorngate -that was entered on the records as suicide. - -But Berry, although it was with a strong feeling of apprehension and -pity that he watched her go toward the garage, escorted by a kindly and -gallant policeman, was more than anxious to reach town and deliver up -his capture. He drew on his gauntlet driving gloves, accepted a light -for his fag from the respectful hand of Sergeant Stebbins, slipped -behind the wheel of his old Stutz, and circled out of the Thorngate -drive cold on the stroke of midnight. - - -The following entry from the Diary of Judge Bertrand Whittaker, was -incorporated verbatim in Berry's written report of the preceding case -given next day to Berry's friend and chief, Inspector Thomas O'Donnell, -of the New York Detective Bureau: - - April 29th '31--Ran into O. B. at the club just now. Saw him before he - saw me. And the very look of him gave me the inspiration I've been - praying for. What with revising my will yesterday, and buying that - little gun this morning, I haven't been in too good a humor. Not that - I mind dying-- Oh, I've said it too often. Too many denials make an - affirmative! No, but death is the least part of it. It's the wait, and - the pain. God, the pain! It took me three shots of morphine to pull me - through a spell last night. And, as I've also said before, the way - around the wait and the pain is suicide. But a tame route. And - unsavory. Certainly without thrill. I want thrill. I love it in my - fashion as much as B. ever did. I simply haven't his genius for - devising it. How he has devised excitement for the two of us! When he - deserted the Bench for the sole purpose of entering into a destroying - pact with me, he the detective and I the judge, I couldn't have - foreseen in my wildest moments how positively dangerous and evil he - was going to make our lives and our relations to each other. We've - gone so far with our false witnessing and our false condemning that we - are becoming terrified of each other and of our too great knowledge of - sin. It's the only way I can explain the ugly reserves and distrusts - that have lately been thrusting between us. I've been sorry. It's - spoiled the play. But I hardly wonder. Our two last cases, - particularly the Stanton-Mowbray-Blake, skimmed too close to - destruction to be altogether pleasant. Perhaps it was the thought of - the guillotines we hold over each other's necks, together with a - glimpse of his too handsome wicked face (proximity to him has always - had the power to rouse in me such black magic as I possess), that - drove the dart of my new scheme between my cerebrum and cerebellum. - - I have kept a fairly accurate record of our twenty-odd cases since B. - and I went into partnership. Eleven of them led to executions--that - is, in each, a man or woman paid with death for a crime they never - committed. Yet, of those eleven, eight _confessed_. The most - diabolical thing about B.'s power is that he can subtly instil his - victims with the exhausted and driven conclusion that to admit is the - most painless way out. In some instances I even think his hypnotic - force is so great that the person actually _believes_ himself guilty. - Anyway a judge can certainly do no less than impose the death penalty - on a confessed murderer, can he now? - - The publication, or threatened publication, of these Arabian Nights' - entertainments--together with odds and ends of undiscovered murders - committed by various friends and relatives--should not only make good - sensational reading, but should bring about an upheaval that might - quite conceivably be climaxed by my own murder. _That's_ my fresh idea - of an escape expressed in so many words! And however you look at it, - it's such a gay, pleasant, bad game--and so worthy of my associations - with B. - - And the Devil said to Mr. Legree, - "I like your style, so wicked and free - Come sit and share my throne with me--" - - Yes, I'm all for trying it. And I even dropped B. a hint of something - in the wind as I passed him by. I think he took alarm. I'll give him a - ring, in a few days, when my plans have matured. It'll take a bit of - planning. There's the rounding up of half a dozen spicy criminals. - Nadia Mdevani is number one. - - My mind's whirling with ideas! I can begin to see so many little - twists I can give the affair--ironic, comic, naughty. An especially - nice one for B. himself. It's going to be jolly interesting. And a - good death knell to set the wild echoes flying! - - - - - Transcriber's Notes - - ---Copyright notice included from the printed edition--this e-text is - public domain in the country of publication. - ---Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and - dialect unchanged. - ---Only in the text versions, delimited italicized text in _underscores_ - (the HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.) - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Murder at Large, by Lesley Frost - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MURDER AT LARGE *** - -***** This file should be named 53268-8.txt or 53268-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/2/6/53268/ - -Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, MFR and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive -specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this -eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook -for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, -performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given -away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks -not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the -trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country outside the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and - most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no - restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it - under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this - eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the - United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you - are located before using this ebook. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The -Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org - - - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the -mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its -volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous -locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt -Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to -date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and -official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -For additional contact information: - - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - |