Persons Unknown

  CHAPTER IX

  JOE PATRICK IS DETAINED

  A thrill shook the assemblage. It was plain enough now to what goal wasthe coroner directing his inquiry. The covert curiosity which all alonghad been greedily eyeing Christina Hope stiffened instantly into a wall,dividing her from the rest of her kind. She had become somethingsinister, set apart under a suspended doom, like some newly caught wildanimal on exhibition before them in its cage. Through the general gaspand rustle, Herrick was aware of Deutch slightly bounding and thencollapsing in his seat, with a muffled croak. His wife frowned; cluckingindignant sympathy, she looked with open championship at the suspectedgirl. Mrs. Hope started up with a little cry; Herrick judged that shewas much more angry than frightened. When the coroner said, "You willhave your chance to speak presently, Mrs. Hope," she dropped back withexclamations of fond resentment, and taking her daughter's hand, pressedit lovingly. Christina alone, a sedate and sober-suited lily, maintainedher composure intact.

  But, now, for the first time, she lifted her head and slowly fixed along, grave look upon the coroner. There was no anger in this look. Itwas the expression of a very good and very serious child who regardsearnestly, but without sympathy, some unseemly antic of its elders. Onceshe had fixed this gaze upon the coroner's face, she kept it there.

  In that devout decorum of expression and in the outline of her exactprofile occasioned by her change of attitude, Herrick began once moreto see the youthful candor of his Evadne. Yes, there _was_ somethingroyally childlike in that round chin and softly rounded cheek, in thatobstinate yet all too sensitive lip, and that clear brow. Yes, thusexpectant and motionless, she was still strangely like a tall littlegirl. Where did the coroner get his certainty? By God, he was brandingher!--"Mr. Bryce Herrick," the coroner called.

  The young man was aware at once of being a local celebrity. His evidencewas to be one of the treats of the day. Not even the attack uponChristina had created a much greater stir. He took his place; and, "Atlast," said the coroner, "we are, I believe, to hear from somebody whosaw _something_."

  Herrick told his story almost without interruption. He was listened toin flattering silence; the young author had never had a public whichhung so intently on his words. The silence upon which he finished wasstill hungry.

  The coroner drew a long breath. "We're greatly obliged to you, Mr.Herrick. And now let us get this thing straight. It was one o'clock orthereabouts that Mr. Ingham began to play?"

  They established the time and they went over every minutest detail ofchanging spirit in Ingham's music.

  "That crash which waked you for the second time--do you think it couldhave been occasioned by an attack on Mr. Ingham?--that he may have beenstruck and thrown against the piano?"

  "Oh, not at all. It was a perfectly deliberate discord, a kind ofhellish eloquence."

  "Ah! I'm obliged to you for that phrase, Mr. Herrick." And again he wasasked--"That gesture which so greatly impressed you--do you think youcould repeat it for us?"

  Herrick quelled the impulse to reply, "Not without making a damned foolof myself," and substituted, "I can describe it."

  "Kindly do so."

  "She threw her arm high up, as high as it would go, but at a very wideangle from her body, and at that time her hand was clenched. But whilethe arm was still stretched out, she slowly opened her fingers, as ifthey were of some stiff mechanism--and it seemed to me that it was theviolence of her feeling they were stiff with--until the whole hand wasopen, like a stretched gauntlet."

  "Well, and then, when she took down her hand?"

  "She drew it in toward her quickly; I had an idea she might have coveredher face."

  "And then she disappeared?"

  "Yes; but she seemed to dip a little forward."

  "As if to pick something up?"

  "Well, not as much as from the floor; no."

  "From a chair, then, or the couch?"

  "Possibly."

  "She would, standing at the window, have been some five or six feet fromthe piano, where Ingham sat?"

  "I should say about that."

  "Mr. Herrick, are you absolutely sure that this was not until after theshooting?--this forward dip?"

  "After? No, it was before!"

  "Ah--And directly after the shot the lights went out?"

  "Directly after. Almost as if the shot had put them out."

  "Now, Mr. Herrick, you have testified that from, as you say, the vagueoutline of the hair and shoulders and the slope of her skirts, and fromthe fact that when she raised her arm there was a bit of lace, orsomething of the kind, hanging from her sleeve, you were perfectly surethat this shadow was the shadow of a woman. Yet you still could not inthe least determine anything whatever of her appearance. That I canquite understand. But didn't you gather, nevertheless, some notion ofher personality?"

  Herrick avoided Deutch's eye. He said--"I don't think so."

  "That extraordinary movement, then, did not leave upon you a verydistinct impression?"

  "In what way?"

  "An impression of a lady not much concerned with social constraint oremotional control; and of a very great habitual ease and flexibility inmovement."

  Herrick managed to smile. "I'm afraid I'm no such observer as all that.Perhaps any lady, within sixty seconds of committing murder, is a littleindifferent to social constraint."

  The coroner looked at him with a slight change of expression. "Well,then, let us put it another way. You would not expect to see yourmother, or your sister, or any lady of your own class, make such agesture? No? Yet you must often have seen an actress do so?"

  "That doesn't follow!" Herrick said. His flush resented for Christinathe slur that his words overlooked. And suddenly words escaped him. "Youanswered the previous question yourself, remember! Be kind enough not toconfuse my evidence with yours!"

  The coroner studied him a long time without speaking, while the youngman's color continued to rise, and at length came the comment, "I'm notfalling asleep, Mr. Herrick. I'm only wondering what charming influencehas been at work with the natural appetite, at your age, for discussingan actress."

  "Ask me that later, outside your official capacity," said Herrick hotly,"and we'll see if we can't find an answer!"

  "Mr. Herrick, why, on the morning after the murder, did you take downMiss Hope's photograph from over your desk?"

  "Because, never having met Miss Hope, it was a photograph I had no rightto. I took it down when I learned the identity of the original. I didn'twant its presence to be misconstrued by cads."

  "Thank you. That will do. Hermann Deutch, if you please."

  Herrick retired, ruffled and angry at himself; and Deutch, in passinghim, cast him a clinging glance, as of a fellow conspirator, that hefound strangely indigestible. At Christina, he could not look.

  It did not take the coroner two minutes to make hay of Mr. Deutch. Not,indeed, that he was able to extract any very damaging admissions. Thesuperintendent said that he was wakened by his wife, who had herselfbeen wakened by the 'phone. He had held the before stated conversationwith Mr. Bird, and, not being able to get the elevator, had walkedupstairs, being joined in the office by a policeman. The rest of hisproceedings were unquestionable. But the coroner, an expert incaricature and bullying and the twisting of phrases, by making himappear ridiculous, managed to make him appear mendacious; this was theeasier because every now and then there was a slip in the sense of whathe said, as if he had forgotten the meaning of words; he certainlyperspired more than was at all persuasive; he soon began to stumble andto contradict himself about nothing; his slight accent thickened and, ina syntax with which his German tongue was habitually glib, but notaccurate, he was soon making errors laughably contemptible to a publicthat presumably expressed itself with equal elegance in all languages.So that presently, when he was sufficiently harrowed, the coroner drewfrom him an admission; not only had Ingham frequently entertained ladiesat his supper-parties, but complaints had been made to Deutch by varioustenants, and these complaint
s he had not transmitted to the owners ofthe apartment house. The most searching inquiry failed to connectChristina with these parties, but the inference was obvious.

  "I didn't,"--Mr. Deutch burst forth--"keep 'em quiet any because she wasthere. She wouldn't have touched such doings, not with the sole of herfoot. But I didn't want the gentleman she was engaged to should be putout of the house when I was running it, after her recommending it tohim, on my account!" His eyes and his voice were full of exasperatedtears. "He'd have told her one lie and yet another and another, andshe'd have believed him, and he'd have wanted her to fight me. Not thatshe would. But he was fierce against her friends, any of 'em. And Ididn't want she should have no more trouble than what she had with himalready."

  "Very kind of you. Nature made you for a squire of dames, Mr. Deutch.Miss Hope, now,--you are a particularly old friend of hers, I believe.And I understand you would do a great deal for her."

  "I'd do anything at all for her."

  "I see." All that was crouching in the coroner coiled and sprang. "Evento committing perjury for her, Mr. Deutch. Even to concealing a murderfor her sake?--Silence!" he commanded Christina's friends.

  In the sudden deathly stillness Deutch lifted his head. He looked at thecoroner with the eyes of a lion, and in a firm voice he replied, "Say,when you speak like that about a lady, Mr. Coroner, you want to look outyou don't go a little too far."

  "I am about to call a witness," said the coroner, with his cold laugh,"who will go even farther. Joseph Patrick, please!"

  Joe Patrick was the night-elevator boy.

  People stared about them. No witness. The coroner's man came forward,saying something about "telephoned--accident--get here shortly."

  "See that he does,--The day-elevator boy in court!"

  Disappointment reigned. After the glorious baiting of one whose racewent so long a way to make him fair game, almost anything would havebeen an anti-climax. There now advanced for their delectation a slim,blond, anemic, peevish youth, feeble yet cocky, almost as much like afaded flower from a somewhat degenerated stalk as if he had been nippingdown Fifth Avenue under a silk hat, and whose name of Willie ClarenceDodd proclaimed him of the purest Christian blood. Yet the stare of theassembly wandered from him, passed, grinning, where Deutch sat withhanging head, and settled down to feed upon the pallor of Christina'scheek. Herrick rose suddenly, displacing, as it were, a great deal ofatmosphere with his large person, and stalking across the room, pulledup a chair to Deutch's side. If he had clasped and held that plump, thattrembling hand, his intention could not have been more obvious.Christina turned her head a little and, with no change of expression,looked at him for a moment. Then she turned back again to WillieClarence Dodd. That gentleman, ogling her with a canny glance, affablytipped his hat to her, and she bowed to him with utter gravity.

  Mr. Dodd was a gentleman cherishing a just grudge. By the accident ofbringing him into day-service instead of night-service, when there was amurder up her sleeve, Fate had balked him of his legitimate rights inlife. Notoriety had been near him, but it had escaped. Mr. Dodd'sself-satisfaction, however, was not easily downed. He had still a cardto play, and he played it as jauntily as if doom had not despoiled himof his due. He smiled. And he had a right to. The first importantquestion asked him ran--"On the day after Mr. Ingham's return fromEurope--the day, in fact, of his death--did Mr. Ingham have anycallers?"

  "Yes, sir. He had one."

  Interest leaped to him. He bloomed with it.

  Apart from interruptions, his story ran--"Yes, sir. A lady. Quite agood-looker. Medium height. Might make you look round for a white horse;but curls, natural. Very neat dresser and up-to-date. Cute little feet.She wouldn't give her name. But not one o' _that_ sort, you understand.She came up to me--the telephone girl was sick and I was onto herjob--and she says to me, very low, as if she'd kind of gone back onherself,--'Will you kindly tell Mr. James Ingham that the lady heexpects is here?' He came down livelier than I'd ever known him, and shesaid it was good of him to see her and they sat down on the window-seat.That's one thing where the Van Dam's on the bum--no parlor. I was reallysorry for the little lady--no, not short, but the kind a man justnaturally calls little--she was so nervous and she talked about as loudas a mouse; I guess he felt the same way, for he says, 'Won't you comeupstairs to tell me all this? We shall be quite undisturbed,' he says.And while they were waiting for the elevator--the hall-boy wasn't muchon running it--she says to him, 'You understand; I don't want to getChristina into any trouble.' And he says, 'Of course; that is all quiteunderstood.' In about half an hour down they came together and he hadhis hat. He wanted to send her off in a cab, but she wouldn't let him.The minute she was gone he says to me, ''Phone for a taxi!' They didn'tanswer, and he says, 'Ring like the devil!' It hadn't stopped at thedoor when he was in it and off."

  "You couldn't, of course, hear his direction?"

  "Nop! He got back about six--chewing the rag, but on the quiet. Went outin his dress suit about seven-thirty. I went off at eight."

  He was dismissed, strutting.

  "And now let us get down to business. If you please," said the coroner,"Miss Christina Hope."