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- Herausgeber: Al-Mashreq eBookstore
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
The Doorstep Murders by Carolyn Wells is a riveting mystery that will captivate fans of classic whodunits. In this suspenseful tale, a series of chilling murders occur on the doorstep of seemingly unrelated homes, leaving the community in terror and the police stumped. The only clue linking the crimes is a cryptic message left at each crime scene. As renowned detective Fleming Stone investigates, he uncovers a web of secrets, hidden motives, and unexpected twists. Can Stone solve the case before the killer strikes again, or will the doorstep murders continue to haunt the streets? Immerse yourself in this thrilling mystery and test your own deductive skills as you follow the clues.
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Table of Contents
The Doorstep Murders
Chapter 1 - Poker Faces
Chapter 2 - On One Doorstep
Chapter 3 - Carman is Pronounced Dead
Chapter 4 - On Another Doorstep
Chapter 5 - A Beautiful Wife and an Unbeautiful Daughter
Chapter 6 - The Twin Dagger
Chapter 7 - On the Danewood Doorstep
Chapter 8 - The Inspector Gets Very Busy
Chapter 9 - Stimson Checks Up
Chapter 10 - Enter Kenneth Carlisle
Chapter 11 - Rob is Annoyed
Chapter 12 - I Am George Fox
Chapter 13 - More of the Inquest
Chapter 14 - Fox Has an Alibi
Chapter 15 - That Terrible Toothache
Chapter 16 - Carlisle Does Some Deep Thinking
Chapter 17 - Time to Solve the Problem
Chapter 18 - And So It Is Solved
Landmarks
Table of Contents
Cover
The Doorstep Murders
Chapter 1 - Poker Faces
IT was when the village fathers of Connecticut found names for their new settlements by searching the Scriptures that the balmy name of Gilead was bestowed upon a tiny hamlet in the western end of the long state.
Though perhaps no more pious than Canaan or Goshen or Sharon, it was probably no less so, although it had succumbed in some ways to the influence of modern times and many inventions.
One charm, however, it had retained in all its pristine beauty, and that was the village green. Long, oval-shaped, and well-kept as to grass and paths, it occupied the center of the village, and its waving “wine-glass” elms were the glory of the inhabitants, both old and newcomers.
On the outskirts of the little town were country clubs, riding clubs, even a new archery range, but in the heart of the village lay the revered green, and few dared or cared to misuse its shaded walks and comfortable settees. Paths criss-crossed it and the best and finest houses were grouped about it.
About in the middle of its length across the street on the south side was a business block, whereon stood the drug store with its stock of books, toys, and knick-knacks, the post office, the rather imposing Town Hall, and the inn. The last, rejoicing in the frankly ostentatious name of Top Hole Inn, was a long three-storied structure, with much expanse of railed veranda dotted with big wicker rocking chairs.
It was not like an English inn, in fact it was not like an inn at all, being more suggestive of a commodious country home to which additions had been made as circumstances required. Transients took rooms, of course, but families had suites or apartments, to which they returned summer after summer. For though Gilead itself was furiously hot in the dogdays, there were cool spots off toward the lake or up on the hills, which were seemingly left-overs of the Berkshires.
The front doors of the inn opened into a great hall with hospitable fireplace and further relays of rocking chairs. A booking desk in one corner and a green baize bulletin board gave the only effects of hotel life, and fresh dimity curtains and chintz-covered lounges betokened a tidy and tasteful housekeeper.
One of the suites on the ground floor belonged to Dr. Sherrill, a summer resident only, and greatly unwelcome to the all-the-year-round practitioner, old Dr. Forman. But many of Dr. Sherrill’s city patients were summer visitors or householders in Gilead, and, too, the pleasant-mannered physician easily made new friends.
One night, just after the middle of October, he was sitting on the veranda of the inn, awaiting some visitors. He was a firm believer in the dullness that all work and no play is said to contribute to the life of the average human being. And he felt that the average human being’s life is quite dull enough without any additional influences thereto. Wherefore he played as often and as variedly as he could manage it. He was an enthusiastic golfer and tennis player, a keen fisherman, and a good shot, and when the day was done he was always ready for a hand at bridge or a game of poker. And Saturday night, by all the laws of the Medes and Persians, was set aside for poker as religiously as the Druids observed their classic rites.
Six men played together every Saturday night, and though occasionally one or another was unavoidably absent the game went on regularly. The play was always at the home of Dr. Sherrill, in his cozy sitting room, a colorful place in contrast to his austere and whitely furnished offices. But the doctor sat on the veranda to welcome his guests and his bulky figure comfortably filled one of the big rockers.
Of less than average height, the physician was of more than average weight, and though he preached various diet rules to his patients he observed none of them himself. So, like the aged, aged man a-sitting on a gate, he kept on from day to day growing a little fatter. True, he often formed intentions of cutting out starches and sweets, but as is well known, to-morrow is the day to begin to reduce, and so the doctor kept on waiting for a to-morrow that never came.
More impressive, however, than his rounded figure was his striking face. Red and rosy were his cheeks, crimson his full lips, and his abundant hair and heavy mustache were of the tint known as brick red, though really of a veritable flame color. Not auburn or Titian, but a brilliant, glowing red that made it impossible for the startled stranger, observing him for the first time, to take his eyes off it.
Entirely unashamed of his hirsute coloring, in fact the doctor rather gloried in it; and he twinkled with amusement when, as he expressed it, he knocked somebody galley-west. The galley-west knocking was aided and abetted by his rather light, china blue eyes, which from beneath heavy red eyebrows could glower like a pirate’s. And, though usually mild and even-tempered, Dr. Luther Sherrill, if roused, would glower like a pirate and swear like one, too.
As a man turned in at the inn, Dr. Sherrill rose to greet him. Standing, the doctor showed even more clearly his excess of girth and lack of height. He was garbed in white flannels, which, though sounding simple enough, were really conspicuous because of their exaggerated cut and flare. His tie was of a pronounced green, and a peeping handkerchief matched in color.
Self-satisfaction beamed from his blue eyes and even seemed to radiate from his red hair as he welcomed his guest.
“Hello, Carman, hello, hello. Drop into this chair and wait for the rest. How are you?... Fine, of course… Fine—fine.”
“Fine, yes. Always am. Sorry the season’s so far along. Hate to go back to the city.”
“West later?”
“Yes, after I attend to some matters in New York. Troublesome bits, too. Oh, well, the world’s full of ups and downs.”
John Carman swung into a chair with the same large, free motion he would use in mounting a horse. He had lived much in the West, his was a show ranch though not a dude ranch. And for many years he had been sheriff—of a district in Wyoming where the job of sheriff was not an enviable one. Tall, gaunt, loose-limbed, yet not without a certain grace of movement, he was not at his best in civilian togs. He needed chaps and a few bits of Indian beadwork to give him his picturesque due. Also, a horse under him. His face was rugged, strong, and, unless he willed otherwise, absolutely devoid of expression. His family, especially his daughter, Peggy, read kindness and devotion in that face, but to most people it was as a closed book.
He looked anxious, mentally tired, and the doctor wondered what he was worrying about. But he knew better than to ask. Few asked questions of John Carman.
“Don’t wonder you hate to go,” Sherrill said, conversationally. “Your place is at its best now. Autumn foliage suits your shingled house. I’ll bet Miss Kate hates to leave. Doesn’t she, now? Miss Kate?”
“Kate? Oh, yes, she hates to go from here, but she loves the West. Always ready to go back there. Peggy, too. Though the child has friends here.”
“Peggy? I should say she had! She’ll never want for friends! What a girl! What a girl!”
“Yes, a great girl,” said Peggy’s father, his hard, deep blue eyes softening at thought of his idolized child. The change in those harsh eyes changed his whole face, and the sheriff from Wyoming Bad Lands became a gentle, tender-hearted, fatherly sort, with a smile of general good will.
And then Nichols came. Montcalm Nichols, the well-known criminal lawyer, former judge and onetime district attorney, whose will power and determination had sent more than one evil doer out of the world, either to imprisonment within four walls or beneath six feet of earth. A powerful personality, an obstinate, dictatorial nature, he ruled all with whom he came in contact, or else he broke the contact. He ruled his unattractive, uninitiative daughter, Anne, also his young and more spirited wife, Phyllis.
His second wife Phyllis was not Anne’s mother, who had died years ago. As a result of Montcalm’s tyranny, some said. But even those rumors did not deter beautiful Phyllis Somers from marrying the tyrant, and now, after a year or so, rumor was again busy with hints of marital infelicity.
But as Kate Carman declared, an angel from heaven couldn’t live with that Nichols man, he was simply insufferable.
Yet others disagreed with this dictum and opined that Phyllis Nichols was very far from being an angel and that the shoe was on the other foot.
In appearance Nichols was a man of culture and intellect. Well-groomed, well-dressed, always courteous, good-looking and good-natured, he concealed his iron fist in his velvet glove, but held it ready for instant use.
He ran up the inn steps and took a chair beside the railing.
“Good to be here early,” he said, smiling. “I love to see the citizens stroll by. Almost like Shepheard’s at Cairo.”
“Not a bit like it,” contradicted Carman.
“No, not really,” Nichols agreed. “I didn’t mean it, of course. And yet, why isn’t it the same? We sit here, on a piazza, there on a terrace, but in both cases we watch the populace throng by—with a due regard for the difference in numbers—”
“Yes,” laughed the doctor, “a slight variance that way, slight. Say, here three pass in ten minutes, there, three thousand in the same time.”
“About that,” Nichols nodded. “But that’s merely a difference in degree, not in kind.”
“And there’s no difference in kind?” asked Carman, his blue eyes twinkling.
“No,” declared Nichols, “not a bit. Both lots are human beings, full of human vanities, foibles, frailties, and crimes.”
“Full, too,” Carman added, “of generous impulses, kind hearts, and sacrificing souls.”
“One half of one per cent. of those,” Nichols sneered, “and the rest my selection. A crowd is a crowd, Carman, and their hidden motives are seldom good ones.”
“Glittering generalities,” said Sherrill, lightly. “An utterly futile argument. Your statements, gentlemen, are incapable of proof, and I refuse to listen to any more of them. Thank goodness I see three black crows approaching and they are right welcome.”
One short, straight path cut off a segment of the western end of the long green. At the southern outlet of that path was the inn. At the northern end of the same path, across the road, was the home of Antony Dane. And along that path, nearing the inn, came Dane and his two nephews, Bob Phillips and Guy Lawson.
Dane was the richest man in town, and was thought by many to be the finest as well. But not everybody agreed to the second argument. A big man, with an especially large face. One of those faces that seem to be just a plump oval of flesh with some features hastily tucked in. Smooth-shaven, but with crisply curly gray hair that was always in place, and, on a woman, would have seemed to be a very well-done marcel. His eyes were gray, too, and shrewd, with quick glances of interest or disapproval, as quickly fading to indifference.
The two young men on either side of Antony Dane were, like their uncle, in dinner clothes, and all three carried light-weight topcoats over their arms.
Dane was punctilious in matters of etiquette and inexorable in matters of routine. It was his habit to have his two nephews with him always at dinner Saturday nights, and important indeed must be another engagement that would prevent their attendance. Young Phillips, who lived with his uncle, was free to dine where he liked the rest of the week, but Saturday must be observed. Guy Lawson, the other nephew, lived at the other end of the green, but he, too, was invariably his uncle’s guest Saturday nights at dinner.
Then, after dinner, the three went over to Dr. Sherrill’s for the inevitable poker game, which lasted until midnight or a bit later, and then the young men were free for another week.
Not that they chafed at this arrangement, but they sometimes wished Dane had chosen some other evening, for Saturday was by way of being a general gala night and they were popular with the younger generation.
As different as day and night, Phillips, the one who lived with his uncle, was known as Rosebud Rob, and the nickname carried with it no hint of effeminacy. It came about because Bob was seldom seen without a rosebud in his buttonhole, a whim that had become a habit because of the chaff it had called forth.
Bob was a little inclined to be perverse, and loved to do what was not expected of him. Also he had sudden and determined impulses to take important steps, to get married, to go abroad, to become an aviator—all such undertakings—but invariably his inclinations faded, his purposes fizzled out, and he never did any of the things. His uncle laughed good-humoredly and let the lad go his own way. The two lived alone in the big house, with a lot of servants, and not infrequently guests.
Antony Dane sometimes declared he was a connoisseur of comfort and an epicure of ease. This was true; he arranged his home and appointments with an eye single to his own physical comfort, which, incidentally, included Bob’s. Guy Lawson, the other nephew, could have lived at Danewood also, but he said the life there was too sybaritic for him. He preferred a little more sitting up straight, as he called it, and he had rooms with a kindly, capable woman in her pleasant house at the other end of the green.
Lawson was about thirty-five, six years older than Phillips, and far less of a society man. Rather of the patient, plodding type, and deeply interested in his chosen profession of architecture. He easily made enough from this to support himself, both by drawing plans and by writing articles for the journals. But he spent much time in evolving marvelous ideas for edifices of great beauty which never did and never were intended to materialize. Quiet, undemonstrative, even absent-minded, Guy kept his way an even tenor for the most part; the exceptions being, when the mood took him, to spend wild evenings at a dance hall or road house in company with hilarious companions. Such gayeties seemed to refresh him, and as their effect lasted for some weeks they were not of over-frequent occurrence. His uncle did not disapprove, but rather encouraged the pleasure seeking.
A fine-looking chap, Lawson was, even picturesque, by reason of his very white skin and very black hair. He wore also a small pointed black beard and a black mustache, so, with heavy black eyebrows above deep-set gray eyes, his face was a model for an artist. But he was entirely free from personal vanity, and proved this by a gold cap on an eye tooth, a jarring note that anyone who cared for appearance would have avoided. Of average size and strength, good at outdoor games and a perfect dancer, Guy was a general favorite and was beset with invitations, which he independently accepted or did not, as he chose.
He always enjoyed the Saturday-night poker party and also liked going to his uncle’s to dinner first. He sometimes said that Uncle Antony was all right but a little of him went a long way. How Bob could stick it to live there he couldn’t understand.
Yet Bob Phillips was well satisfied. His business ventures were spasmodic and unsuccessful, so as a rule he was taken care of by his uncle between engagements. Dane didn’t care, however, so long as Bob caused him no inconvenience, and in general the three relatives were harmonious.
To-night, as they crossed the green, laughing and chatting, they seemed all of an age and almost like three college lads out for a lark.
“Hurry up,” called out Dr. Sherrill, as they neared the inn. “It’s getting late in the season. Not many more of these orgies of ours. Come on in, we must lose no time.”
He led the way, and all six of the men went along the veranda to the door which opened directly into the doctor’s suite.
The sitting room, made ready for them, had its large center table cleared and set out with cards and chips. The lights were just right, the wood fire glowed pleasantly, and satisfactory chairs were in place.
The play began shortly, and went on, with varying fortunes to one or another with the fall of the cards.
“It’s the last of these parties for me,” said John Carman, in an interval of rest and refreshment. “I’m going for good the early part of next week. You’ll have to carry on without me.”
“Oh, no!” exclaimed Phillips, in a tone of dismay. “Not that I’m broken-hearted over your loss, old man, but I don’t want to lose Peggy from our midst.”
Carman looked a bit annoyed at this informal reference to his daughter and returned, a little stiffly:
“Oh, the girl’s glad to go. She’s rather fed up with this imitation country life. She longs for the ranch and the horses.”
“I want free life and I want fresh air, and Lasca, down by the river Dee, or wherever he was,” quoted Montcalm Nichols, gayly.
“Down by the Brandywine, wasn’t it?” asked Dane, looking idiotic on purpose.
“No,” said Guy, seriously, “it was down by the Rio Grande,” and they all chaffed him on his erudition.”
Quiet and unannoyed, Lawson went on: “Sudden decision, Carman? I thought you were staying through October.”
“I did intend to, but some matters have turned up that must be attended to. I may have to return here for a few days—and maybe not.”
He left the situation thus in the air, and they all picked up the cards again.
It was well after midnight when Phillips made the first suggestion of going home.
“I thought,” his uncle said, “we’d stay a bit later to-night as it’s getting toward the end of the run.”
“You can,” Rosebud Rob returned, fingering the small pink blossom yet fresh on his lapel. “But I’ve the very devil of an ulcerated tooth, and I’m going to slide.”
“Why didn’t you yell sooner?” asked the doctor, sympathetically. “I’ll fix you up.”
“No,” said Bob, determinedly, “I’d rather go home. I’ve drops there the dentist gave me. He’s treating it. It’s something fierce, but I won’t mix the prescriptions. You can jolly well stay awhile, Uncle Tony. I’ll just run along.”
“Oh, well, we’ll have one more round or so,” agreed Dane.
“I want to go soon,” Lawson told them. “I—I’m—”
“I know,” laughed Bob. “Guy’s going to a night club! I can always tell by his apologetic air!”
“Well, what if I am?” and Lawson braved the shouts of the crowd. “Why shouldn’t I? Anybody want to go with me?”
“I’d go in a minute but for this nuisance,” Bob declared, his hand clasping his swelling cheek.
No one else volunteered to go, but Dane said, “Oh well, I guess we’ll call it a night, then.”
“Yes,” agreed Carman, “I’m for getting along. And I may be up here a week from to-night. If so, I’ll sit in.”
“Your important business be settled up by that time?” Lawson asked, casually.
“I hope so. But it means communications with my Western office—”
“Western communications corrupt good manners,” sang out the irrepressible Bob, and Carman nodded a smiling assent.
There was more or less chaff and some handshaking and good-nights, and then Dr. Sherrill opened his front door and stepped out on the veranda with his guests.
A beautiful night, clear and cool, no moon, but myriads of bright stars. Lawson, always with an eye for the beautiful, stood looking across the green to where the village church raised its white Colonial spire.
“How a church does add to the scenery,” said Phillips, noting the other’s gaze.
“Yes,” Guy said, “but it’s all fine. The green with its trees, and the houses beyond, and the hills for a background, and the white road disappearing in the distance—”
“In the general direction of the Small Hours Club, as you may say,” put in his uncle.
“Yes, in that general direction,” Guy laughed back, “and for me it’s a specific direction, which I shall proceed to follow. Good-night, everybody. Good-night, Uncle Tony. Hope your tooth lets up, Bobs.”
They all trooped down the steps and stood in a group for a minute as Lawson whistled for a taxicab.
For Gilead, though an old town, was modern enough in some ways, and if it possessed but few taxicabs they were good ones and available when wanted.
A cheerful-looking red one drew up to the curb, and as Guy got in he said to the driver, “Stop at the drug store first, and then out to the Small Hours Club.”
“Happy days,” Bob called out, and immediately betook himself across the green to his uncle’s house.
“I’ll walk around the long way,” Antony Dane said to the other two men.
“Come on,” Carman invited. “Want to stop in at my house?”
“No, not to-night. Pretty late.”
“Go on around with me,” Nichols put in. “I’ll be lonesome.”
The short path across the green from the inn to Dane’s place was only a few moments’ walk. But to go round the whole length of the green meant fifteen or twenty minutes at least. Going to the right, when leaving the inn, one passed first the post office, then the Town Hall, then the drug store, and on the next block arrived at Carman’s home.
All this on the south side of the green. Turning around the end of the long oval, a pedestrian would pass the house where Guy Lawson lived, and several others, all pleasant and attractive homes. Then rounding the end, one went along the north side of the green, where the finest houses were to be found. This main road along the green showed, for the most part, darkened homes, and at one of them Nichols and Dane parted company. This was Nichols’s house, an imposing affair of turrets and gables.
“Come in,” he said, hospitably, but Dane declined, saying it was late enough to be bedtime.
Alone, then, the last of the three home goers, Antony Dane reached his own beautiful and comfortable rooftree and went up the front steps.
Chapter 2 - On One Doorstep
ON Sunday morning a farmer came into Gilead with his load of milk cans. Few in the village chose bottled milk, however fine, if they could get milk from old Preedik. He had supplied the people for generations, and sometimes pointed with pride to grown men who as babies had thrived on his pure and fresh milk. When the onward march of progress had forced him to discard his old horse and older wagon he had acquired a motor vehicle of sorts and now rattled into town instead of lumbering in.
Eliphalet the man had presumably been christened, but Liff he was called by everybody. Long and gaunt, he was a typical farmer, though his face was remindful of the prophets as painted by the great artists; Isaiah for choice, but his prosaic costume spoiled the full resemblance.
It was Preedik’s habit to come into town singing a hymn, and on this particular Sunday morning he was rolling forth the sonorous melody of,
’Twas on that dark, that dreadful night,
When powers of Death and Hell arose.
This was far from cheerful, it must be admitted, but after all it was not quite so depressing as his other favorite:
Hark, from the tombs a doleful sound;
Mine ears, attend the cry.
Ye mortal men, come view the ground
Where ye must shortly lie.
But owing to repeated and emphatic requests from would-be sleepers, Liff had been induced to cut short his musical efforts as he arrived at the first of the houses of the village.
The morning was so bright and clear-cut that everything stood out in its own color. The church was of a dazzling white, the trees of the most brilliant red and gold and russet, the sky was the deepest, purest blue and the numerous flower beds were bright with scarlet salvia and yellow goldenglow. An average artist painting the scene would doubtless have toned it down to pastel shades, for only a genius could have reproduced those true values without having his picture look like a chromo.
But color schemes and scenery meant little to Liff Preedik, who had seen that same bit of composition every day for half a century. He glanced at the church for the sole purpose of seeing how belated he was this time.
The church, of true New England type, had a beautiful portico supported by noble pillars and crowned by a gabled roof. The steeple, not spire, had three super-imposed divisions—a great square one and two diminishing smaller ones of octagon shape. The square tower, railed around its top, showed four clock faces to the four winds of heaven. Enormous dials they were, and kept in most perfect order by the diligent and faithful sexton.
And the one that faced Liff Preedik informed him that, as usual, he was about half an hour late. Seven-thirty it was, and seven was his appointed hour.
A grunt of resignation was his reaction to this, for he knew the church clock was always right, and he knew, too, that he was always late.
He stopped first at the inn, and what with delivering his goods and making a few casual observations on the weather, it was quarter of eight when he made his next stop, at the drug store. Here he was berated, for the men must get to work making ice cream, but his broad shoulders failed to bow beneath the storm of good-natured abuse, and he set out the milk cans with the air of one conferring a favor.
The next port of call was John Carman’s house. It was nearly eight o’clock when his motor truck rattled in at the entrance gate and hurried around toward the kitchen quarters. A fine home it was, the gray shingled house set among tall shrubbery and taller trees, and made gay by beds of autumn flowers. But as Preedik turned round the curve of the drive his sharp eyes noticed a strange sight on the front porch. It seemed to him a man lay there, fallen, crumpled up in appearance, and of sinister portent. He stopped his car while he looked again, and then jumping from his seat he ran to the porch. He had not been mistaken. John Carman lay there and John Carman was dead.
Preedik’s first impulse was to ring the front doorbell. But he thought better of that and hastened, instead, around to the back door.
The cook was waiting for him, grumbling at his tardiness. The housemaid at her side looked in amazement at the milkman who brought no milk in his arms.
“Where’s Mr. Carman?” Preedik said, shortly.
“In bed, I suppose,” returned the cook; “where’s the milk?”
“No matter for a moment. Who’s up and about? Anybody?”
“No, nobody of the family.” The cook sensed his serious intent. “Why, what’s the matter with you?”
“Matter enough. Mr. Carman’s out on the front porch—Is there a man here?”
But Murray, the butler, overhearing the discussion, appeared just then. “I’m here,” he said. “What’s this you’re saying?”
“Bad work, Mister Murray. Your boss is out on the front steps—dead.”
The cook and the housemaid promptly screamed, but Murray shut them up at once.
“Be still, you two,” he said, gravely rather than angrily. “Come with me, Preedik.”
The two men went through the silent house and out at the front door. True enough, John Carman lay there in an ungainly heap, and beyond all doubt dead.
The front door had been closed until Murray opened it, but the screen door of green painted wire was held open by the body of the dead man.
The butler was white-faced and trembling, but he kept his poise, and said, “What must I do? Call Miss Kate?
“Lemmesse,” mused Preedik. “I don’t believe I’d do that. Not right now. But you see this ain’t my job. I’ve got my work cut out for me. I got to go on with my milk—there’s babies waitin’ for their breakfast. You better scoot up to the inn and get Dr. Sherrill down here. I’d say Doc Forman, but he lives so fur away. So, you bring Sherrill back with you, and then he’ll know just what’s to be done. ‘Course, he’ll call the constable and all that, but he’ll know. I don’t. And he’ll most likely tell the ladies, and he’ll take charge generally. You get him.”
“And leave—Mr.—leave that there, alone?” Murray stammered as he glanced at the shape on the floor.
“Oh, Lord, no. And I s’pose them wimmen are no good. Well, I’ll stay here while you run to the inn. But for the land’s sake hurry back. I must be for gettin’ on.”
So Murray hastened the block and a half to the inn and had the doctor awakened and told him his news.
Sherrill stared at the messenger, his fiery red hair tousled and his blue eyes blinking under the bushy red eyebrows. But he sensed the message and sent the man away with the word that he would get to the Carman house as quickly as possible and instructions to touch nothing until he came.
Meantime, though Liff Preedik had touched nothing, he had looked keenly about the porch for clues, being versed in the proper procedure as set forth in up-to-date fiction.
But his findings amounted to just one item. He saw, protruding from the back of John Carman, the hilt of a dagger. It seemed to be of metal, ornately chased and deeply driven in.
Murray returned, somewhat recovered from his first nervousness, and ready to assume his rightful place as head of the household staff.
“He’s coming,” he said, briefly, “and you can get along.”
Preedik hated to go, but he had his route to cover, and he dared not delay.
“You can come back when you’re through your list,” Murray said, noticing his hesitation and rightly reading its cause.
“Yes, I will. Who ever done this thing?”
“I don’t know. It’s terrible. I can’t rightly get my thoughts straight.”
Preedik rattled out at the gate and soon afterward Dr. Sherrill appeared. He found Murray keeping guard over the body, and several other servants looking out at the front door or peeping from the windows.
Without a word, and with an assured touch, the doctor felt of the body, turned it over and scrutinized it from all points.
“Stabbed in the back,” he said at last, though this fact was obvious. “Must have been just entering the house. See, there’s his keys on a key ring not far from his hand. Was the door locked?”
“Just as always, sir,” Murray replied. “When Mr. Carman came in with his latchkey, he always closed the door and shot the bolt. This morning—just now, when I opened the door—the bolt was not on, but the door was fastened, of course.”
“He hadn’t used the key,” Sherrill said, “or the door would have been ajar. Must have been struck down just as he started to unlock it.”
“What—what shall we do with him, sir?” worried Murray. “The ladies will hear our voices and be coming down. Can’t we take him inside—”
“No, not till we can get the police here. And I suppose not till we can get the county coroner. In this God-forsaken neck of the woods, of course there’s no proper police. The constable is a blockhead. I don’t know the sheriff, do you?”
“No, sir. We’ve had no trafficking with the police, sir. Must we leave Mr. Carman here long?”
“Well, we’ll have to get somebody. Where’s the telephone?”
“In the library, sir. But there’s an extension in my pantry—if you used that, the ladies wouldn’t hear you.”
“You’ve got brains, my man. I’ll do that, and then let the maid servants get the ladies up. They’ll have to be told, and you’d better have coffee ready for them. But you stay here while I telephone. We can’t leave this place unguarded. I’ll stay around here, for though there’s nothing can be done for Mr. Carman, the ladies may need my services. And there’s a young man, a son, isn’t there?”
“Mr. Peter, oh, yes. He’s home now. I suppose he’s asleep. Breakfast is at ten Sunday mornings. They all sleep late.”
The doctor went round the house to the rear door, and then, finding the butler’s telephone, called up the village constable, Mark Roper, whom he had already characterized as a blockhead.
The man, when he came, gave every indication that the doctor’s diagnosis of his character had been correct. Roper was a typical country yokel of the inefficient, ignorant sort usually picked for constables. But he did not show the further disadvantage of pretending to knowledge or importance; he merely stood helplessly asking Dr. Sherrill for advice.
“What are your orders, man?” cried the doctor. “What are you supposed to do in a case like this?”
“I never had a case like this,” whimpered the arm of the law, turning shudderingly away from the huddled form on the floor.
“Well, you’ll have to hump yourself and do something,” Sherrill told him. “We’ll get the sheriff, of course, and the coroner, but until they can get over from the county seat you’ll have to carry on.”
“Can’t you get the state troopers?” suggested Roper, hopefully.
“Yes, likely. We’ll have to try, for you’re sure a weak sister. But you’ll have to stand guard here till somebody comes—”
“What’s the matter, Sherrill? What’s going on here? Oh, my God!”
The speaker stepped out through the front door and gazed in horror at the sight he saw.
It was Peter Carman, the adopted son of the dead man, and almost a stranger to the doctor, and indeed to the citizens generally. He was seldom at home, and when he was he kept himself to himself.
Dr. Sherrill eyed him closely as he stood gazing at the dead form of his father by adoption. The young man was about thirty, with crisp black hair, very curly, and black eyes that darted about in nervous fashion. His cheeks were red and his lips were full and just now were quivering.
“What happened to him?” he said, in an almost inaudible whisper. “Who did it?”
“Who did what?” Dr. Sherrill flung at him. For the dagger in the man’s back was scarcely visible from where Peter stood, and the doctor sought to trap him.
“Don’t be silly,” young Carman said, looking contemptuous. “Of course, I see he was stabbed, I see the end of the dagger hilt. And I know he had no heart disease, or any reason to drop dead from disease. You know that, too, Dr. Sherrill.”
“Yes,” the doctor said, changing his tone, “yes, he was stabbed by some enemy. Now, will you tell his sister and his daughter, or would you rather have me do it?”
“Oh, you do it, will you? I couldn’t!”
“Very well. Shall I go inside? Will you ask them to come to me as soon as they will?”
“The servants will do that. Martha is maid to both of them. She will fetch them. What are you going to do? I mean who will find out who did it, and all that sort of thing?”
“You don’t seem awfully cut up about it,” observed the doctor, looking curiously at the young man.
“Well, it isn’t my way to make a fuss,” he returned, speaking slowly; “and, too, it isn’t altogether unexpected. My father had many enemies, and he fully realized that he lived in danger of his life.”
“Hey? What’s that?” broke in the blockhead constable. “Had enemies, did he? Who were they, now?”
Peter Carman looked at the inquirer. After a brief scrutiny, he turned on his heel and went back into the house. He stood a moment in the doorway, saying, “When the authorities come, I shall be ready to talk to them.”
Then he disappeared.
“Stuck-up cuss,” said Roper, disinterestedly. “Land knows, I’ll be glad when they come. I don’t want to mix in this thing.”
“Why not? You’re a nice constable, shirking your duty like that!”
“Oh, now, Doc Sherrill, look here. You know’s well’s I do, there’s lots of police chaps that’ll just love to get hold of this case. Well, what I say is, let ’em have it. Let ’em try to find out who killed Mr. Carman. They won’t find out, you know—”
“Why won’t they?”
“Not brains enough. I ain’t got brains enough, you ain’t, Sheriff Gorton, he ain’t, and Coroner Flint, he ain’t. This here’s a case—a big case. You’ll see.”
The doctor began to revise his opinion of this man to some slight degree. If a man recognized his own lack of brains it was a pretty good sign that he had a little.
But Sherrill felt he must go indoors and attend to his trying ordeal of telling the women of the family what had happened. He half hoped that the maid had already told them, but he went into the library and sat down there.
It was a fine room: well proportioned, well furnished, and having an atmosphere of bookishness and comfort both.
Not hifalutin books, he decided, after a glance at the shelves, but popular, readable books that betokened an astute, avid mind rather than great erudition. He had been in the house before, but mainly on professional calls, and had never been left alone there.
Murray appeared and asked him to stay to breakfast with the family. This invitation the doctor held in abeyance, uncertain whether he would wish to stay after the coming interview.
Soon Miss Kate Carman appeared, and, following immediately, the daughter, Peggy, a beautiful girl, who looked a lot like her father.
Miss Kate was beautiful also—of the dark-eyed, white-haired type of beauty, but the eyes were large and soft and brown, and the white hair was short, with blustering curls over her ears. She wore a trim tailor-made gown, and her manner was abrupt but entirely composed.
“Tell me everything,” she commanded, taking a seat on a chair with a stiff upright back, and looking directly at the doctor.
Peggy, also composed, but with a white face and trembling lips, sat near her aunt, and spoke no word. She, too, had brown eyes and soft brown hair, and was usually a spirited sort, but now the spirit seemed to have departed. She looked hopeless and helpless as she gazed at Dr. Sherrill.
And for once the doctor was at a loss. He had a fine bedside manner, he knew just how to break the news to a weeping family when hope must be given up; this sudden duty that had become his to do seemed an impossible feat.
“How much do you know?” he said to Miss Kate, in response to her demand.
“Nothing at all, but that my brother is dead. I made Murray tell me that much. Was he—was he killed?”
“Yes, Miss Carman,” and the doctor found it a bit easer now that the tale was begun. “He was, we judge, just about to open the door with his key when he was stabbed from behind—”
“Stabbed? Oh, no! Wasn’t he shot?”
“No, he was stabbed with a dagger. In the back, by some cowardly assassin.”
