CHAPTER IX
ONLY ONE EYE CLOSED
My first impulse was to rouse the house; my second, to wait for Hunter.To turn loose that mob of half-drunken men in such a place seemedprofanation. There was nothing of the majesty or panoply of death here,but the very sordidness of the surroundings made me resolve to guard thenew dignity of that figure. I was shocked, of course; it would be absurdto say that I was emotionally unstrung. On the contrary, I was consciousof a distinct feeling of disappointment. Fleming had been our key to theBellwood affair, and he had put himself beyond helping to solve anymystery. I locked the door and stood wondering what to do next. I shouldhave called a doctor, no doubt, but I had seen enough of death to knowthat the man was beyond aid of any kind.
It was not until I had bolted the door that I discovered the absence ofany weapon. Everything that had gone before had pointed to a positionso untenable that suicide seemed its natural and inevitable result. Withthe discovery that there was no revolver on the table or floor, thething was more ominous. I decided at once to call the young cityphysician in the room across the hall, and with something approximatingpanic, I threw open the door--to face Harry Wardrop, and behind him,Hunter.
I do not remember that any one spoke. Hunter jumped past me into theroom and took in in a single glance what I had labored to acquire inthree minutes. As Wardrop came in, Hunter locked the door behind him,and we three stood staring at the prostrate figure over the table.
I watched Wardrop: I have never seen so suddenly abject a picture. Hedropped into a chair, and feeling for his handkerchief, wiped hisshaking lips; every particle of color left his face, and he was limp,unnerved.
"Did you hear the shot?" Hunter asked me. "It has been a matter ofminutes since it happened."
"I don't know," I said, bewildered. "I heard a lot of explosions, but Ithought it was an automobile, out in the street."
Hunter was listening while he examined the room, peering under thetable, lifting the blankets that had trailed off the couch on to thefloor. Some one outside tried the door-knob, and finding the doorlocked, shook it slightly.
"Fleming!" he called under his breath. "Fleming!"
We were silent, in response to a signal from Hunter, and the stepsretreated heavily down the hall. The detective spread the blanketsdecently over the couch, and the three of us moved the body there.Wardrop was almost collapsing.
"Now," Hunter said quietly, "before I call in Doctor Gray from the roomacross, what do you know about this thing, Mr. Wardrop?"
Wardrop looked dazed.
"He was in a bad way when I left this morning," he said huskily. "Thereisn't much use now trying to hide anything; God knows I've done all Icould. But he has been using cocaine for years, and to-day he ran out ofthe stuff. When I got here, about half an hour ago, he was on the vergeof killing himself. I got the revolver from him--he was like a crazyman, and as soon as I dared to leave him, I went out to try and find adoctor--"
"To get some cocaine?"
"Yes."
"Not--because he was already wounded, and you were afraid it was fatal?"
Wardrop shuddered; then he pulled himself together, and his tone wasmore natural.
"What's the use of lying about it?" he said wearily. "You won't believeme if I tell the truth, either, but--he was dead when I got here. Iheard something like the bang of a door as I went up-stairs, but thenoise was terrific down below, and I couldn't tell. When I went in, hewas just dropping forward, and--" he hesitated.
"The revolver?" Hunter queried, lynx-eyed.
"Was in his hand. He was dead then."
"Where is the revolver?"
"I will turn it over to the coroner."
"You will give it to me," Hunter replied sharply. And after a littlefumbling, Wardrop produced it from his hip pocket. It was an ordinarythirty-eight. The detective opened it and glanced at it. Two chamberswere empty.
"And you waited--say ten minutes, before you called for help, and eventhen you went outside hunting a doctor! What were you doing in those tenminutes?"
Wardrop shut his lips and refused to reply.
"If Mr. Fleming shot himself," the detective pursued relentlessly,"there would be powder marks around the wound. Then, too, he was in theact of writing a letter. It was a strange impulse, this--you see, he hadonly written a dozen words."
I glanced at the paper on the table. The letter had no superscription;it began abruptly:
"I shall have to leave here. The numbers have followed me. To-night--"
That was all.
"This is not suicide," Hunter said gravely. "It is murder, and I warnyou, Mr. Wardrop, to be careful what you say. Will you ask Doctor Grayto come in, Mr. Knox?"
I went across the hall to the room where the noise was loudest.Fortunately, Doctor Gray was out of the game. He was opening a can ofcaviar at a table in the corner and came out in response to a gesture.He did not ask any questions, and I let him go into the death chamberunprepared. The presence of death apparently had no effect on him, butthe identity of the dead man almost stupefied him.
"Fleming!" he said, awed, as he looked down at the body. "Fleming, byall that's sacred! And a suicide!"
Hunter watched him grimly.
"How long has he been dead?" he asked.
The doctor glanced at the bullet wound in the forehead, and from theresignificantly to the group around the couch.
"Not an hour--probably less than half," he said. "It's strange we heardnothing, across the hall there."
Hunter took a clean folded handkerchief from his pocket and opening itlaid it gently over the dead face. I think it was a relief to all of us.The doctor got up from his kneeling posture beside the couch, andlooked at Hunter inquiringly.
"What about getting him away from here?" he said. "There is sure to be alot of noise about it, and--you remember what happened when Butlerkilled himself here."
"He was reported as being found dead in the lumber yard," Hunter saiddryly. "Well, Doctor, this body stays where it is, and I don't give awhoop if the whole city government wants it moved. It won't be. This ismurder, not suicide."
The doctor's expression was curious.
"Murder!" he repeated. "Why--who--"
But Hunter had many things to attend to; he broke in ruthlessly on thedoctor's amazement.
"See if you can get the house empty, Doctor; just tell them he isdead--the story will get out soon enough."
As the doctor left the room Hunter went to the open window, throughwhich a fresh burst of rain was coming, and closed it. The window gaveme an idea, and I went over and tried to see through the streaming pane.There was no shed or low building outside, but not five yards away thewarehouse showed its ugly walls and broken windows.
"Look here, Hunter," I said, "why could he not have been shot from thewarehouse?"
"He could have been--but he wasn't," Hunter affirmed, glancing atWardrop's drooping figure. "Mr. Wardrop, I am going to send for thecoroner, and then I shall ask you to go with me to the office and tellthe chief what you know about this. Knox, will you telephone to thecoroner?"
In an incredibly short time the club-house was emptied, and beforemidnight the coroner himself arrived and went up to the room. As for me,I had breakfasted, lunched and dined on horrors, and I sat in thedeserted room down-stairs and tried to think how I was to take the newsto Margery.
At twelve-thirty Wardrop, Hunter and the coroner came down-stairs,leaving a detective in charge of the body until morning, when it couldbe taken home. The coroner had a cab waiting, and he took us at once toHunter's chief. He had not gone to bed, and we filed into his librarysepulchrally.
Wardrop told his story, but it was hardly convincing. The chief, a largeman who said very little, and leaned back with his eyes partly shut,listened in silence, only occasionally asking a question. The coroner,who was yawning steadily, left in the middle of Wardrop's story, as ifin his mind, at least, the guilty man was as good as hanged.
"I am--I was--Mr. Allan Fleming's privat
e secretary," Wardrop began. "Isecured the position through a relationship on his wife's side. I haveheld the position for three years. Before that I read law. For some timeI have known that Mr. Fleming used a drug of some kind. Until a week agoI did not know what it was. On the ninth of May, Mr. Fleming sent forme. I was in Plattsburg at the time, and he was at home. He was in aterrible condition--not sleeping at all, and he said he was beingfollowed by some person who meant to kill him. Finally he asked me toget him some cocaine, and when he had taken it he was more like himself.I thought the pursuit was only in his own head. He had a man namedCarter on guard in his house, and acting as butler.
"There was trouble of some sort in the organization; I do not know justwhat. Mr. Schwartz came here to meet Mr. Fleming, and it seemed therewas money needed. Mr. Fleming had to have it at once. He gave me somesecurities to take to Plattsburg and turn into money. I went on thetenth--"
"Was that the day Mr. Fleming disappeared?" the chief interrupted.
"Yes. He went to the White Cat, and stayed there. No one but thecaretaker and one other man knew he was there. On the night of thetwenty-first, I came back, having turned my securities into money. Icarried it in a package in a small Russia leather bag that never left myhand for a moment. Mr. Knox here suggested that I had put it down, andit had been exchanged for one just like it, but I did not let it out ofmy hand on that journey until I put it down on the porch at the Bellwoodhouse, while I tried to get in. I live at Bellwood, with the MissesMaitland, sisters of Mr. Fleming's deceased wife. I don't pretend toknow how it happened, but while I was trying to get into the house itwas rifled. Mr. Knox will bear me out in that. I found my grip empty."
I affirmed it in a word. The chief was growing interested.
"What was in the bag?" he asked.
Wardrop tried to remember.
"A pair of pajamas," he said, "two military brushes and a clothes-brush,two or three soft-bosomed shirts, perhaps a half-dozen collars, and asuit of underwear."
"And all this was taken, as well as the money?"
"The bag was left empty, except for my railroad schedule."
The chief and Hunter exchanged significant glances. Then--
"Go on, if you please," the detective said cheerfully.
I think Wardrop realized the absurdity of trying to make any one believethat part of the story. He shut his lips and threw up his head as if heintended to say nothing further.
"Go on," I urged. If he could clear himself he must. I could not go backto Margery Fleming and tell her that her father had been murdered andher lover was accused of the crime.
"The bag was empty," he repeated. "I had not been five minutes trying toopen the shutters, and yet the bag had been rifled. Mr. Knox here foundit among the flowers below the veranda, empty."
The chief eyed me with awakened interest.
"You also live at Bellwood, Mr. Knox?"
"No, I am attorney to Miss Letitia Maitland, and was there one night asher guest. I found the bag as Mr. Wardrop described, empty."
The chief turned back to Wardrop.
"How much money was there in it when you--left it?"
"A hundred thousand dollars. I was afraid to tell Mr. Fleming, but I hadto do it. We had a stormy scene, this morning. I think he thought thenatural thing--that I had taken it."
"He struck you, I believe, and knocked you down?" asked Hunter smoothly.
Wardrop flushed.
"He was not himself; and, well, it meant a great deal to him. And he wasout of cocaine; I left him raging, and when I went home I learned thatMiss Jane Maitland had disappeared, been abducted, at the time mysatchel had been emptied! It's no wonder I question my sanity."
"And then--to-night?" the chief persisted.
"To-night, I felt that some one would have to look after Mr. Fleming; Iwas afraid he would kill himself. It was a bad time to leave while MissJane was missing. But--when I got to the White Cat I found him dead. Hewas sitting with his back to the door, and his head on the table."
"Was the revolver in his hand?"
"Yes."
"You are sure?" from Hunter. "Isn't it a fact, Mr. Wardrop, that youtook Mr. Fleming's revolver from him this morning when he threatened youwith it?"
Wardrop's face twitched nervously.
"You have been misinformed," he replied, but no one was impressed by histone. It was wavering, uncertain. From Hunter's face I judged it hadbeen a random shot, and had landed unexpectedly well.
"How many people knew that Mr. Fleming had been hiding at the WhiteCat?" from the chief.
"Very few--besides myself, only a man who looks after the club-house inthe mornings, and Clarkson, the cashier of the Borough Bank, who met himthere once by appointment."
The chief made no comment.
"Now, Mr. Knox, what about you?"
"I opened the door into Mr. Fleming's room, perhaps a couple of minutesafter Mr. Wardrop went out," I said. "He was dead then, leaning on hisoutspread arms over the table; he had been shot in the forehead."
"You heard no shot while you were in the hall?"
"There was considerable noise; I heard two or three sharp reports likethe explosions of an automobile engine."
"Did they seem close at hand?"
"Not particularly; I thought, if I thought at all, that they were on thestreet."
"You are right about the automobile," Hunter said dryly. "The mayor senthis car away as I left to follow Mr. Wardrop. The sounds you heard werenot shots."
"It is a strange thing," the chief reflected, "that a revolver could befired in the upper room of an ordinary dwelling house, while that housewas filled with people--and nobody hear it. Were there any powder markson the body?"
"None," Hunter said.
The chief got up stiffly.
"Thank you very much, gentlemen," he spoke quietly. "I think that isall. Hunter, I would like to see you for a few minutes."
I think Wardrop was dazed at finding himself free; he had expectednothing less than an immediate charge of murder. As we walked to thecorner for a car or cab, whichever materialized first, he looked back.
"I thought so," he said bitterly. A man was loitering after us along thestreet. The police were not asleep, they had only closed one eye.
The last train had gone. We took a night electric car to Wynton, andwalked the three miles to Bellwood. Neither of us was talkative, and Iimagine we were both thinking of Margery, and the news she would have tohear.
It had been raining, and the roads were vile. Once Wardrop turnedaround to where we could hear the detective splashing along, wellbehind.
"I hope he's enjoying it," he said. "I brought you by this road, so he'dhave to wade in mud up to his neck."
"The devil you did!" I exclaimed. "I'll have to be scraped with a knifebefore I can get my clothes off."
We both felt better for the laugh; it was a sort of nervous reaction.The detective was well behind, but after a while Wardrop stood still,while I plowed along. They came up together presently, and the three ofus trudged on, talking of immaterial things.
At the door Wardrop turned to the detective with a faint smile. "It'sraining again," he said, "you'd better come in. You needn't worry aboutme; I'm not going to run away, and there's a couch in the library."
The detective grinned, and in the light from the hall I recognized theman I had followed to the police station two nights before.
"I guess I will," he said, looking apologetically at his muddy clothes."This thing is only a matter of form, anyhow."
But he didn't lie down on the couch. He took a chair in the hall nearthe foot of the stairs, and we left him there, with the evening paperand a lamp. It was a queer situation, to say the least.