X
THE PENCIL
Under Sweetwater's careful guidance, the clock fell slowly back intoplace. It was one of those solid time-pieces which seem to form partof the shelf on which they stand. When it was again quite level, hepointed to its face. The hands stood at half-past nine, just tenminutes previous to the time of my entering the house.
"At what hour did Mr. Leighton Gillespie go out to-night?" he asked.
No one answered.
"Before half-past nine or after it?" urged the coroner, consulting thefaces about him for the answer he probably had no expectation ofreceiving from anyone's lips.
"Leighton's all right," cried out a voice from the library. "I hatehis puritanical ways, but there's no harm in him."
It sounded like Alfred, but the impression made by this interruptionwas not good.
"Will you allow me to state a fact," ventured Miss Meredith, comingimpulsively forward. "If you hope to establish the guilt or innocenceof anyone by the time marked by these hands, you will make a mistake.The clock has been out of order for some days. Yesterday it ran down.I heard my uncle say that it would have to go back to Tiffany's forrepairs."
"Fetch in the butler or whoever has charge of this room," ordered Dr.Frisbie. "Let none of you attempt to speak while he is present. I wishto interrogate him myself and will have no interruptions."
We all drew back, and silence reigned in the spacious apartment which,lit up as for a dinner party, was yet in such a state of disorder thatthe orderly old butler groaned as his eyes fell upon the heaped-uprugs, the overturned chairs, and the great table stacked with finechina and cut-glass taken from the buffet and closets.
"Oh, what shall I do here?" he grumbled. "What would master----"
He did not finish; but we all understood him. The coroner pointed tothe clock.
"When was this wound last?"
The old man stared at the time-piece, mumbled, and shook his head.Then his eyes fell on Miss Meredith.
"I don't remember," he protested. "It has not been running for days;has it, Miss? I have had to use my watch in order to be on time withthe meals. Why do you ask, sir?"
He was not answered. This repeated closing up of every avenue ofinquiry was beginning to tell upon the police.
"Mr. Gillespie looked very sober, very sober indeed, when he found hehad to drink his wine alone," continued the butler, with a melancholyemphasis calculated to draw our attention back to the scene which hadmanifestly made such an impression upon him. "He lifted up his glassand held it out a long while before he drank it. I think he looked ateach one of the young gentlemen in turn, but I didn't care to watchhim too closely, for there was something solemn about him which mademe feel queer, living so long as I have in the family and with everyone of these young gentlemen babies in arms when I came here. He drankit finally, standing. But there was no harm in that glass, sirs, for Ifinished the bottle myself afterwards, and I am well, as you see.More's the pity!"
"Shut up!" shouted an angry voice from across the hall. "You aremaking a ---- mess of the whole affair with your confounded drivel."
The coroner motioned the butler away.
The atmosphere of the house had now become oppressive even to me, andfor the first time I experienced a desire to be quit of it, and wouldcertainly have made some movement towards departure had it not beenfor my dread of leaving Miss Meredith alone with her own thoughts.
Meanwhile the coroner was issuing his orders.
"Dakin, request the gentlemen upstairs to come down again for a fewminutes. Dr. Bennett, the body of your patient can now be moved."
"Ah, here we are again," he exclaimed, as Leighton was hearddescending the stairs.
"Now, if the two other sons of the deceased will attend to my wordsfor a moment I will state that under the existing circumstances I feelit my duty to call a jury and hold an inquest over Mr. Gillespie'sremains. The phial smelling of prussic acid having been found in thedining-room, I shall only require restraint put upon the movements ofthe two sons of Mr. Gillespie who are known to have entered this roomduring the hour when this fatal dose was administered. The one calledAlfred, having remained above, is for the present free from suspicion.I would be glad to show the same consideration to the others; but thefacts demand a severity which I hope future developments will allow usto confine to the guilty party. Mr. Outhwaite, I must request you tohold yourself subject to my summons. Miss Meredith, I advise you tohold no communication with your cousins till this matter shows aclearer aspect."
He was moving off, when Alfred, who had been shifting uneasily underGeorge's eye, stepped up to him and said:
"I don't want any discrimination made between my brothers and myself.I may be quite conscious of my own innocence, but I cannot accept anyshow of favours founded on a misconception. If George and Leighton areto be subjected to surveillance on account of entering the dining-roomthis evening, then I want to be put under surveillance too. For I wasin that room as well as they, searching for a small gold pencil whichI had dropped from my pocket at dinner-time."
This acknowledgment made under such circumstances and against such oddswas calculated to enlist sympathy, and my heart warmed towards the man whoin the heat of anger could strike a brother to the ground, but scorned ata less angry moment to take refuge in a misunderstanding which left thatbrother at a disadvantage.
But the imperturbability of the elderly detective, who at that momentfound something to interest him in the chasing on a Chinese gonghanging from a bracket in the hall, warned me not to be too quick withmy sympathies. Kindly as he beamed upon this favoured object of hisattention, I saw that he took little stock in the generous attitudeassumed by Mr. Gillespie's youngest son; and my attention beingattracted to his movements, I was happily glancing his way when hesuddenly approached Alfred with what looked like an empty tumbler inhis hand.
"Is this the article you refer to?" he asked.
And then we saw that the tumbler was not empty,--that it held a smallobject standing upright in it, and that this object was a gold pencil.
"Yes, that is my pencil," Alfred acknowledged. "But----"
"Oh, I am accountable for putting it into the tumbler," the old manadmitted. "The tumbler was a clean one, Mr. Gillespie. I assure you Iexamined it closely before making it a receptacle for this pencil. Butthe pencil itself--Let me ask you to put your nose to it, Mr.Gillespie."
It was a suggestion capable of but one interpretation. Alfred startedback, his eyes staring, his features convulsed. Then he bentimpulsively forward and put his nose to the object Mr. Gryce held out.With what result was evident from the sudden damp which broke out onhis forehead.