The Mystery of the Hidden Room E-Book

Marion Harvey

• Herausgeber: Jovian Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 421

Beschreibung

A classic mystery/detective story in the Sherlock Holmes tradition, the hidden room suggested by the title of this book does not remain a mystery for very long as the book progresses. Written in the first person, the husband of his (Carlton Davies) former lover is found dead one night at the stroke of midnight, and Davies finds his ex-lover standing over the dead body immediately after the shot was fired, with a gun in her hand. It was no secret that she never truly loved her husband, who had blackmailed her into marrying him. The jury ships Ruth to prison, and the stage is set for Davies to locate the right detective for the case, and for a series of events with twists and turns and surprises that will keep the reader guessing who was responsible for this murder.

Leseprobe

THE MYSTERY OF THE HIDDEN ROOM

Marion Harvey

JOVIAN PRESS

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Copyright © 2017 by Marion Harvey

Published by Jovian Press

Interior design by Pronoun

Distribution by Pronoun

ISBN: 9781537823850

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER XXXI

CHAPTER XXXII

CHAPTER XXXIII

CHAPTER XXXIV

CHAPTER XXXV

CHAPTER XXXVI

CHAPTER XXXVII

CHAPTER XXXVIII

CHAPTER XXXIX

CHAPTER I

~

THE NOTE

I HAD INTENDED SPENDING THE evening at the Club; but after my solitary meal, I found that I was too tired to care to leave my own inviting fireside. Drawing up a chair before the open grate in my library, for the October night was chill and the landlord had not sufficiently relented to order the steam-heat, I settled myself comfortably with my book and pipe. The story I had chosen was a murder mystery, extremely clever and well-written, and so engrossed did I become that I was entirely oblivious to the passage of time.

The entrance of my man, Jenkins, brought me back to my surroundings with a start to find that the clock on the mantel was chiming eleven. A little impatient at the interruption for I had not concluded the story, I grew sarcastic.

“What is it, Jenkins? Have you come to remind me that it is long past my bed-time?” I inquired.

Jenkins’ face grew longer if such a thing were possible in a countenance already attenuated by nature into the semblance of perpetual gloom, and shook his head with a grieved air as though he considered my remark an aspersion upon his knowledge of his duties as a valet.

“A man who claims to be Mrs. Darwin’s chauffeur, sir,” he replied in a tone that indicated that he at least would not be responsible for the veracity of the statement, “has just brought this note. He says that he will await the answer below in his machine, sir.”

He extended an unaddressed white envelope with a funereal air. The note was from Ruth. The message was brief and to the point.

“Will you return at once with my chauffeur? I need you.”

“My hat and coat, Jenkins,” I cried, flinging aside my jacket. “You need not wait up for me. I have my key,” I added.

I could have descended the stairs a half dozen times before the elevator finally arrived, or so it seemed to my impatience. The moment we reached the lobby I was out of the elevator and down the steps into the waiting motor before the boy had recovered his wits sufficiently to follow me to the door.

The chauffeur evidently had his instructions, for I was hardly within before the machine was speeding toward the Drive. My bachelor apartments were situated on 72nd Street, just off the Park, and I knew we could not cover the distance to the Darwin home on the outskirts of Riverside Drive in less than twenty minutes, even at the rate at which we were traveling.

I had stuffed Ruth’s note into my pocket as I left. Mechanically I drew it forth and tore it to shreds, flinging the scraps from the window. Letters are compromising things.

What had possessed Ruth to commit herself to writing after the compact we had made to have no further communication with each other! It was she who had suggested that we become as strangers, and I could only read in this sudden appeal and the haste with which I was being whirled toward her some dread calamity. Nor was my anxiety lessened by the fact that I was hopelessly in love with her. Yes, hopelessly, I speak advisedly, because she was another man’s wife, and while that man lived she would be true to him although he deserved it less than anyone I knew.

To think that a few short months ago Ruth and I had been engaged! If I had had my way we should have been married at once without any fuss, and so should have avoided the trouble that befell us, but Ruth wanted a trousseau and a big wedding, so like many a better man before me I humored her to the extent of promising to wait another month.

Did I say a month? Six have passed and I am waiting yet, while Ruth has had her wish, for her wedding was a sort of nine days’ wonder, Philip Darwin having long been voted by his feminine friends as “the type of man who never marries, my dear.”

In letting my bitterness run away with my discretion, I have begun my story at the wrong end, giving a false impression of the facts of the case, for I never once dreamed of blaming or censuring Ruth for the misery that her decision cost me.

Two weeks before the date set for my wedding, Ruth came to me with tears in her eyes, and laying the ring I had given her upon the table begged me if I loved her never to see her again. I was decidedly taken aback, but I retained sufficient presence of mind to laugh at her and to request her not to be absurd. She was not to be diverted, however, nor would she say anything beyond a reiteration of the fact that if I loved her I would be willing to obey her without questioning her motives.

All of which was folly to my way of thinking, and being very much in love, I refused to be disposed of in any such high-handed fashion, particularly as I felt that as her affianced husband I was entitled to some say in the proceedings. Never in the course of my life before had I been called upon to plead so skillfully, and plead I did; for it was more than my life I was fighting for, it was our love, our happiness, our future home. Gradually I wore down her defenses and finally she sobbed out the whole pitiful story.

Her brother, her adored and darling Dick, whom she had mothered almost from the time that he was born, had fallen of late under the influence of Philip Darwin, director of the bank of which her father was president and Dick assistant cashier. Handsome, spoiled, the boy had been flattered by the attentions of the older man, who explained his interest on the ground that Dick reminded him strongly of what he had been ten years before. Under his tutelage, then, the boy early became a devotee of the twin gods of gambling and of drink.

Two nights before in a questionable gambling den to which Philip Darwin had taken him, Dick, his temper inflamed by the strong liquor he had been drinking, quarreled with his neighbor, accusing him of trying to cheat. The fellow, a big, powerful chap, made for Dick, who pulled out a pistol which Darwin had given him, and fired. His opponent went down like a log, and as the man fell, Darwin extinguished the light. In the confusion that ensued the older man got the boy away to his home, where Dick gathered some things together and with the connivance of his father left for the West.

Of course the affair came out in the papers, I recalled it as Ruth spoke, and the police were on the hunt for the unknown assailant of the dead man. Fortunately for Dick, both he and Darwin attended these places in disguise and a trip West for the scion of a wealthy family was no unusual event, hence his absence from social circles was easily accounted for, and Ruth and her father were merely waiting for the furore to abate before sending for the boy, when Darwin exploded a bomb in their midst.

He had always admired Ruth, he had always wanted to make her his wife. She had spurned his love and he had accepted defeat stoically. But now things were different. Her brother was wanted by the police for murder. The police, to be sure, didn’t know it was her brother that they wanted but he, Philip Darwin, was quite willing to supply them with the information unless Ruth agreed to become his bride.

“What was there for me to do, Carlton, but to acquiesce?” she had ended with a sob. “Philip Darwin is an implacable man. And even if Dick eluded the police, think of the disgrace for Daddy and for me. It’s terrible enough that he should have killed a man, but that he should become a hunted thing, my little brother—! No, no! I’d rather sacrifice my love than have that happen!”

I remained silent, for I could think of no argument that would suffice to meet the situation, and taking my apparent immobility for acceptance, she continued: “It’s a big sacrifice, dear, I know, but you will bear it bravely for my sake, because—because there is more in life than love alone and it’s the honor of my name that is at stake.”

In the face of her sublime unselfishness I felt that I could do no less than prove myself as noble as she deemed me. I agreed, therefore, to give her up and when she said we had better not meet again I consented dumbly, comprehending the wisdom of her decision even while my heart rebelled against its enforcement.

When she had gone my resentment flared full and strong, but curiously enough not against the one who had been the chief cause of the ruin of my happiness. I felt only pity, a profound and sincere pity, for the misguided boy who had committed the crime. My anger blazed toward that man who by his foolish adoration of his only son had spoiled and indulged the boy to his own undoing. What right had any man to bring up a son in that fashion? How dared his father let him loose upon the world without teaching him the first principles of self-restraint?

It was not Dick but Mr. Trenton who was to blame for the boy’s act. Almost from the moment that he could make his wants known the boy had been given to understand that what he wanted was his for the asking. Everyone in the home had to give way before him. He was never crossed and never denied. Small wonder that when he grew to manhood he should expect the world to give as much and more than his father had done, that when he ran across temptation he had no moral strength to resist, and that he became an easy prey to a man of Philip Darwin’s type.

Here my thoughts veered abruptly to the man who would soon become Ruth’s husband and for a moment I saw red. Ruth, pure, sweet Ruth, married to that vile wretch! I could not endure it.

I had actually grasped my hat and was on the point of hastening to her home to plead with her not to sacrifice herself in so dreadful a manner, even if she never married me, when I paused, for the horrible alternative flashed across my mind. With a groan I returned to my library where the remainder of the night I wrestled with what to me seemed the only solution to the problem, the instant and speedy death of Philip Darwin.

By morning I was saner. There was not much use in jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire, and besides what did I know of Philip Darwin beyond the fact that he had been the one to lead Dick astray? For ought I knew to the contrary he might make Ruth a very good and devoted husband. There were hundreds of cases on record where a man had been reformed and steadied by marriage.

Though all this philosophizing by no means alleviated the pain in my heart, still it helped to allay the fever in my tortured brain, and from that time on I resolutely put Ruth from my mind and plunged into my work in an effort to forget.

Forget! How much had I forgotten in the six months that had passed? Not one single detail had escaped my memory and it all came back with tenfold force for having been thrust out of sight so long. With a groan I buried my head in my hands.

How long I remained thus oblivious to time and space I do not know. The chauffeur’s voice brought me back to a realization that we had arrived at our destination. I alighted and as he backed the car down the drive I paused a moment before ascending the steps to try to distinguish something of this home whose mistress Ruth had become.

It was very dark, a dull, cloudy night, and all I beheld was a great black bulk looming before me like some Plutonian monster, harbinger of evil, and the soughing of the wind in the branches of the nearby trees gave me such a feeling of superstitious dread that I raced up the steps and rang the bell as though in fear of my life.

CHAPTER II

~

THE SHOT

THE DOOR WAS OPENED FOR me by Ruth herself, who drew me within, and locked it behind me. Then with a finger on her lip, she led the way in silence to the drawing-room, seeming to breathe only when the door of that room was closed against further intrusion.

“What is it, Ruth?” I asked, more and more alarmed by all this secrecy coming on top of my own foolish fears.

Instead of answering she drew me down beside her on the divan and touched with her fingers my graying temples.

“Did I do that to you, Carlton?” she murmured, brokenly. “Oh, my dear, I wonder you had the courage to forgive me!”

“Ruth!” I cried sharply and at the misery in my voice she slipped to her knees and buried her face in her arms.

“Forgive me,” she sobbed. “I should not have let myself go, but sometimes I feel I must go mad, alone night after night in this great silent house with only that horrible secretary of Phil’s for company!”

“Hush,” I returned, drawing her to me, but she pushed me from her and raised her head in a startled way.

“Listen!” she whispered, holding up her hand. “I thought I heard someone prowling around.”

More to satisfy Ruth and ease her fears, for I had heard no sound, I went to the door and flung it open. But the dimly lighted hall was empty save for the wavering shadows that lost themselves in the gloom of the stairwell. The utter silence and loneliness of the great house gave me an eerie feeling, and I was glad to close the door and return to Ruth.

She had regained command of herself and was once more seated on the divan. As I approached she questioned me with her eyes. With a shake of the head and a reassuring smile, I resumed my place beside her.

“I thought I could stand it,” she said, after what seemed an interminable interval, “but you don’t know what I have had to put up with. No, Carlton, please!” for I had caught her to me in my desire to shield her from all harm.

“Forgive me,” I returned humbly, rising and pacing the long room, “but I can’t bear to hear you say such things when I love you so!”

“I know, Carlton. I won’t grieve you that way again. It was for another reason that I asked you here.”

She was so long, however, in telling me that reason that I had time to study her more closely, and my heart grew ever more bitter as I saw how thin she was and how the lines of suffering had gathered on her white brow and around her sweet, drooping mouth. Verily I cursed the day that Philip Darwin had crossed Ruth’s path, and if he had entered the room at that moment I honestly believe I should have killed him.

She must have read my thought for she cried out sharply, “No, no, Carlton, not that!” and when I flushed she added more quietly, “Won’t you come and sit beside me, please?”

When I had complied with her request, she lowered her voice until it was the merest thread, at the same time looking around her as if she feared the presence of someone else in the room.

“You know I have a feeling that Mr. Orton, Phil’s secretary, is always hanging around listening and spying upon me. Ugh, he makes me shiver with his prominent, near-sighted eyes, his eternal humility and mock grin. He reminds me of Uriah Heep in David Copperfield. I suppose I’m foolish, but I’ve been alone so much of late.”

“But, Ruth, I thought your father lived here with you?”

“Yes, he did, but two weeks ago the doctor told him to take a vacation and he has been visiting friends out of town. I expect him home to-morrow or the next day at the latest. Then I shall be all right again.”

She clasped her hands in her lap and strove to keep back the tears.

“Ruth, dear,” I said, taking her little trembling hands in both my own, “why did you send for me? Surely there is something I can do!”

She smiled faintly as she gently withdrew her hands and reclasped them in her lap. “It was for your sake I sent for you,” she said, simply.

“For my sake?” I asked puzzled.

“You’d think that I had caused you enough suffering without adding needlessly to your sorrow,” she continued, as if to herself. “Oh, Carlton,” turning suddenly toward me, “forgive me, but I did a very foolish thing last night. I was so lonely and dispirited and nervous with hearing Mr. Orton prowling around and seeing him appear suddenly from shadowy corners that I locked myself in my room and poured out my heart to you.”

“Ruth, darling!” I murmured.

“It was foolish, Carlton, nay more, it was imprudent, and realizing this last fact I tore up the letter and threw it in my waste basket. I would have done better to have kept it, for to-night about ten-thirty, when I was on the point of retiring, Mr. Orton knocked on my door and said that Phil desired my presence in his study.”

“You obeyed?”

“Yes,” she answered wearily. “It is only one of the many indignities I have had to endure. So I followed him to the study and there on the table the first thing I laid my eyes on was my letter—all those scraps pasted together on a larger sheet. Think of it, Carlton!”

But I couldn’t think. The petty sordidness of it was beyond me. I could only stare at her and speak a name below my breath. Orton was what I said.

“Yes, he had found the letter. He examines my waste basket every day it seems,” she continued, bitterly, “in hopes of finding just what he did find this morning. An unfaithful husband is always sure to be suspicious of his wife, and her moral superiority is equally sure to gall him.”

“I am not going to tell you what Phil said,” she went on presently. “I couldn’t, for most of it passed me by. But when he spoke of revenging himself upon you, of ruining you and breaking you, then I decided it was time to act. He told me he was going out, so I sent my maid with the note and instructions to my chauffeur. I had to warn you, to put you on your guard that you might be able to fight any rumors which he may spread. But, Carlton, please promise me that you will keep out of his way. Please, for my sake!”

She clung to me as I shook my head impatiently. “It would only make it harder for me, Carlton!” she pleaded.

“Never mind me, Ruth!” I said almost angrily. “Think of yourself for a few minutes. Why don’t you get a divorce or at least a separation? You have more than enough grounds.”

“No, no. He would take it out on Dick. Don’t you see he has me in his power?”

It was useless to try to influence her, especially as I could well appreciate the justice of her remark. I slightly cursed Philip Darwin for a blackguard, and then turned the conversation into a side channel.

“Ruth, do you think you could get that letter for me?” I asked.

“Why, Carlton?”

“Because it is a powerful weapon to hold over you if he should ever decide to cast you aside.” Seeing that this had no effect upon her, I added—would that I had cut my tongue out ere it had uttered those words! “because he can use it as a weapon against me.”

Instantly she was on her feet. “He put it in the drawer of the table in his study. Stay here, dear, while I see if I can get it.”

She opened the door of the drawing-room and crossed the hall to the study. The drawing-room occupied about one-third of the lower floor of the main wing and lay to the right of the entrance hall, while the study was its exact counterpart on the left, so that the door of the study was directly opposite the door of the drawing-room which was now open before me.

I saw Ruth try the door of the study and as it yielded to her hand she advanced timidly into the room, leaving the door barely ajar behind her. My view being thus effectually cut off I strained forward in an endeavor to catch the slightest sound, but was only rewarded by the most profound stillness, through which there presently echoed and re-echoed the voice of the old clock in the hall proclaiming the midnight hour. Then, as if that ancient time-piece had been the signal previously agreed upon, there rang through the house from the direction of the study the sharp report of a pistol, followed by silence, absolute, profound!

A moment I remained petrified, then with a bound I gained the study door, my one thought for Ruth. But on the threshold I stood rooted to the spot by the sight that met my eyes!

In the patch of light cast by a small lamp upon the study table, lying back in his chair with a sardonic grin on his face and an ever-widening stain upon his shirt front, was Philip Darwin, while beside him as if turned to stone, stood Ruth with a pistol in her hand!

CHAPTER III

~

THE POLICE

“Ruth!”

My cry startled her. Dropping the pistol and flinging out her arms, she laughed hysterically and stumbled toward me. Something in my face, perhaps the horror I could not help revealing, arrested her before she reached me.

“Carlton! Surely you can’t think I killed him!” she cried. “It—it would be too monstrous!” And with a fluttering sigh she sank in a heap on the floor.

Tenderly I gathered her limp form in my arms and was on the point of bearing her from the room when suddenly without any warning the study was flooded with light and Philip Darwin’s secretary was standing obsequiously before me.

“Shall I telephone for a doctor, Mr. Davies? And for the police?” with a glance at his erstwhile master.

At mention of the police I frowned though I knew of course that their presence was inevitable. But there was no need to bring them buzzing about our ears any sooner than was absolutely necessary.

“A doctor, yes. The police can wait,” I said abruptly.

“Just as you say, Mr. Davies,” he returned with a leering smile. “I’ll call Dr. Haskins.”

He stepped to the table and picked up the phone and while he summoned the doctor I looked at him more attentively. He was just as Ruth had described him and instinctively distrust of this pale-faced secretary arose in my mind, distrust of him and his pussy-footing ways. I had not heard him enter the room behind me. For ought I knew to the contrary he might have been in the study when the shot was fired, sulking among the shadows in the corner while awaiting a chance to kill his employer. But then how in the name of all the gods had Ruth come by the pistol!

Which brought me back to the realization that I was still holding her unconscious form in my arms. I must carry her upstairs to her room. Yet I disliked intensely leaving the secretary alone with the dead, fearing I knew not what perversion of justice, dreading also that he might take the opportunity to summon the police before I was ready for them.

I glanced around the study and was relieved to find that the room possessed only one door, that by which I had entered, whose key was still in the lock, but on the inside. Ordering the secretary to lead the way to Ruth’s apartments, I closed and locked the door of the study behind me, and pocketing the key followed him up the broad staircase.

Hardly had I laid Ruth upon her bed when a sharp ring startled me, and I glanced apprehensively at Orton. Could it be that others besides ourselves had heard the shot?

“No one could hear anything. The grounds are too extensive,” he said, answering my unspoken thought. “That must be the doctor. He lives only a short distance from here.”

Much as I disliked him I could have blessed him for those words, for already the plan to keep the police from questioning Ruth that night was simmering in my brain.

“Bring him here at once,” I commanded, and Orton slipped noiselessly from the room.

I heard him opening the front door, heard the sound of voices apparently in consultation, and then the doctor’s step upon the stair. I had expected an old family physician. The man who stepped briskly across the threshold was small and slight, almost a boy in years, yet having an air of knowing his business to perfection. Without ostentation, and also without asking needless questions, he examined Ruth quietly and attentively while I explained that she was suffering from the shock of having discovered her husband’s murdered body.

“And, Doctor, could you not give her an opiate to insure a perfect night’s rest,” I added in a lower tone.

He gave me a swift appraising glance from his keen eyes, then as if satisfied, nodded to himself.

“Yes, I think you are right. It is far more important to save her reason than that the police should have the satisfaction of questioning her.”

As he administered the dose to the now conscious girl I mentally decided that there was not very much that escaped this young doctor’s observation.

“Is there no one to stay with Mrs. Darwin?” he inquired in a dissatisfied tone. “Where is her maid?”

“She sleeps in the servants’ wing, Dr. Haskins,” replied Orton.

“Go and get her,” ordered the doctor briefly.

When the maid arrived on the scene, only half awake and very much tousled as if she had flung on her clothes without regard to appearance, the doctor bade her establish herself in the boudoir. Then satisfied that there would be someone within call in case of necessity, he asked to be conducted to the scene of the tragedy.

“You have notified the police?” questioned Dr. Haskins as we descended the stairs.

“No,” I replied. “I waited to hear your verdict first.”

“Better send for them at once,” was his reply.

“I will do it, Dr. Haskins,” put in the secretary eagerly.

As Orton moved to the hall phone I inserted the key in the lock of the study door and opened it with some trepidation, remembering what lay within. I had forgotten to turn out the lights and as we entered from the semi-obscurity of the hall, the chair and its horrible occupant seemed literally to spring out at us as we approached. To the doctor death was a familiar sight, but I could not bear to watch him as he probed the wound with skillful fingers, so I turned away and desirous of having something other than my thoughts to occupy my mind, I took cognizance for the first time of this room where the crime had been committed.

The study, as I remarked before, lay to the left of the hall and like its counterpart, the drawing-room, it was exceedingly large, a good forty feet in length at the very least. Again, like its counterpart, the side opening upon the garden was a series of French windows hung with velvet draperies of a rich brown that harmonized perfectly with the luxurious appointments of the room. Whatever one might say for his morals, one could certainly find no fault with Philip Darwin’s taste in furnishing his study. It was the den of a sybarite, not the conventional study of the modern business man. The only jarring notes were supplied by the mahogany table directly in the center of the room, at whose head stood the chair in which the dead man lay, and by an immense safe let into the narrower wall, whose highly varnished surface reflected Darwin’s face as clearly as any pier-glass would have done.

For a space I stood gazing at the safe, wondering what any man would want with such a gigantic contraption when I became conscious of the reflection of the doctor’s occupation. With a feeling of nausea I swung away toward the windows when, struck by a sudden idea, I hastily examined them. It had occurred to me that while we were standing idle the murderer had probably made good his escape through one of them, since there was no other means of egress which he could have used with impunity. Imagine then my feelings to find that the windows were not only locked, but were also supplied with burglar alarms, which precluded beyond the shadow of a doubt their recent use by anyone intent upon escaping from the study!

With dwindling hope I tried the safe and finding that locked also, I returned to the table, where despite my aversion I could not help glancing at the man who, living, had destroyed my happiness and who, dead, was about to bereave me of all hope as well.

I had known Philip Darwin very slightly, a mere bowing acquaintance, so that it was a distinct shock to me to discover that he was so fine-looking a man. I had always accounted him handsome in a bold, dashing way, with his dark hair, his gold eyeglasses, and his neatly trimmed coal black Vandyke; but, death, that dread visitant that plays such queer tricks upon us mortals, had ennobled his countenance and rejuvenated him by wiping away all traces of the dissipation which of late had coarsened his features and left its marks beneath his eyes and around his mouth. Had it not been for that red stain which seemed to mock me as I gazed, I would have said that he was merely asleep, so gracefully did he repose in the big chair, the left hand holding a small handkerchief upon his knee, the right flung out across the arm of the chair.

Just then I noticed that the doctor was gravely regarding the pistol as it lay on the floor beside the chair, and recalling where I had last seen it, I hesitantly asked the question whose answer I knew before the words had left my lips.

“Is there any possibility of suicide?”

“None at all,” replied Dr. Haskins. “He has been shot through the left lung and death occurred from internal hemorrhage. The absence of powder stains and the fact that the bullet entered at an angle preclude the idea of suicide.”

“Then Mr. Darwin was not killed instantly?” I asked.

“No. I should judge that he had lived at least twenty minutes after the shot was fired.”

It could not have been more than twenty minutes, or at most, a half-hour since I had heard the report that had turned my world so suddenly upside down! Had he then been alive when I carried Ruth from the room? Had I locked him in to breathe his last alone, when perhaps I might have saved his life? The thought was too horrible to contemplate!

“Doctor!” I cried. “You mean he has only just died? That something could have been done to save him?”

The doctor looked at me in some surprise. “Nothing could have been done to save him,” he answered quietly. “From the condition of the body——”

But we had no time for further discussion for a great pounding had ensued at the front door and in a few moments Orton returned with the police. There were five of them, the Sergeant and his two men and a couple of detectives from the Central Office, and they made an imposing array as they entered the room.

The Sergeant, a mild-looking man, nodded to us pleasantly enough, deplored the necessity which had brought him to the house, and ordered his men to guard the premises and to permit no one to leave the place under any circumstances, while the detectives made the rounds of the room, examining everything from the carpet to the ceiling.

“I do not believe I can be of further use,” said Dr. Haskins. “Let me know when the inquest is called and I shall be glad to give my testimony.”

The Sergeant took down his name and address, and, when the doctor was gone, turned to me and asked me who I was. I mentioned the name of the brokerage firm with which I was connected and of which I had the honor of being the junior partner. The name of that firm was a well-known one throughout the city and its effect upon the Sergeant was instantaneous. Glancing at me with marked respect he asked me to give him an account of the affair. It was precious little that I could tell him, however. I had been in the drawing-room, had heard the shot, and on rushing in had found Darwin dead.

While the Sergeant was transcribing this information in his notebook the younger of the two detectives, who had been glancing over the objects upon the table, spoke up.

“It was an inside job, then, Sergeant. The windows are all locked and anyone leaving by the door would have encountered this gentleman coming in,” and he looked at me very suspiciously indeed.

The worthy Sergeant scratched his chin and looked perplexed. Then his eye fell on Orton standing meekly in the doorway.

“Hello, where the devil did you come from?” he asked.

“I—I’m the man who sent for you, who just let you in,” he stammered, whether from fright or awe I don’t know. “I’m Mr. Darwin’s secretary.”

“I see. What do you know about this affair?”

He was opening his mouth to say I know not what when he caught my eye. I was determined that Ruth should have a night’s rest if I had to go to jail as the consequence.

“I heard the shot and when I entered the room Mr. Davies was looking at the body,” he said with a malicious glance in my direction.

I could have laughed aloud as the Sergeant regarded me from beneath frowning brows. I was a prominent man and he dared not risk a false arrest.

“Are you the only two people awake in this house?” he inquired, to gain time.

“Mrs. Darwin heard the shot but she was prostrated by the news and the doctor does not wish her disturbed until morning,” I said, purposely giving the wrong impression by my statement.

Again the Sergeant’s troubled glance rested upon me. “What are you doing here at this time of night, Mr. Davies?” he asked abruptly.

“I came here on important business,” I answered.

At this juncture the older detective whispered something to the Sergeant and handed him a paper he had taken from the table drawer.

“Mr. Davies, I am under the painful necessity of keeping you under surveillance until the arrival of the coroner. You will remain in this house until that time.”

I bowed. “Then you have no objections to my retiring?” I asked.

“None at all, Mr. Davies. Gregory,” he called, and when the burly policeman appeared in the doorway, “You will accompany Mr. Davies to his room and see that he does not attempt to leave the house.”

“Very good, sir,” saluted the policeman.

“Good night, Sergeant,” I said. “I am sorry to put you to so much trouble.” Then I touched Orton upon the shoulder. “If you will be so kind I should like to be shown to a vacant room and might I borrow a suit of pajamas?”

I linked my arm through his and forced him to accompany me upstairs. By dint of hinting that he had no way of proving that he was not in the study at the fatal moment and that my word had far more weight than his, should I choose to cast suspicion upon him, I frightened the cowardly fellow into promising to keep his knowledge to himself for that night at least. That the police were bound to learn that Ruth was also in the study was inevitable, but at any rate I should have gained her a few more hours of freedom, for whichever way I looked at it the case was black against her.

CHAPTER IV

~

THE INQUEST

WHEN I AWOKE THE SUN was pouring into the room and my watch pointed to eleven o’clock. After hours of pacing the floor in utter anguish of spirit while the specter of murder stalked hand-in-hand with innocence and love, outraged nature had asserted herself and I had found respite in oblivion. But now the weary round of thoughts must be taken up again and it was with a sigh of relief that I obeyed the summons to present myself in the study where the coroner was holding the inquest.

The body had been removed and in the chair where it had so lately rested reposed the coroner with his papers spread out on the table before him. I noticed that he had taken the chair from the head of the table and had placed it around the corner on the right side, facing the direction of the door instead of the safe.

In the corner opposite the door sat the younger of the two detectives who had accompanied the Sergeant to the house the night before. Beside him was Orton, looking pale and dispirited, while huddled in the adjacent corner like a herd of frightened cattle stood the servants, their eyes fastened upon the coroner, watching his every movement as if in terror lest they be accused of having murdered their master. Grouped around the table but slightly behind the coroner sat the jury, and I was glad to note that the coroner had had the good sense to pick a fairly respectable set of men to judge the case, from which I argued hopefully that the gray-haired, heavy-set gentleman in charge of the case might possess a modicum of intelligence and a keener brain than the average coroner.

Back of the jury stood Dr. Haskins, in conference with a rotund individual whom I assumed rightly to be the coroner’s physician. Beyond the doctors sat the assistant district attorney, surrounded by the very few newspapermen who had got wind of the affair and had insisted upon being present.

Passing the jury I seated myself near one of the windows beside a man whom I recalled having seen, but whom I could not at the moment place, and looked around in vain for Ruth. Evidently Coroner Graves (I obtained this information from the man beside me) intended to spare her as much as possible, for which consideration I thanked him from the bottom of my heart.

They must have been awaiting my presence since I was no sooner seated than the coroner called on Doctor Haskins to give his testimony. The doctor repeated what he had previously told me, that Philip Darwin had been shot through the left lung, that death had resulted from internal hemorrhage, and that the victim had lived at least twenty minutes after the bullet had penetrated his body. Asked if he had examined Mr. Darwin immediately upon his arrival, the doctor replied that he had first attended Mrs. Darwin and that it must have been ten or fifteen minutes later that he had entered the study. He had found Mr. Darwin lying back in his chair with a smile on his lips, one hand closed over a handkerchief, the other hanging limply over the arm of the chair. From the condition of the body he must have been dead from twenty to thirty minutes. Also there was a small abrasion on the little finger of his left hand, as if a ring had been violently removed. Questioned as to whether he was the family’s physician, he said no, that he only knew Mr. Darwin by sight and had probably been summoned because he was the nearest doctor.

This evidence was partially corroborated by the coroner’s physician, who added that he had made a post-mortem examination and had extracted the bullet, which had narrowly missed entering the heart. From the nature of the wound it would have been impossible for him to have shot himself, and the absence of all powder stains pointed to murder rather than suicide.

Then he continued, with a slightly commiserating look in Dr. Haskins’ direction: “You have heard Dr. Haskins’ testimony, your honor, that the victim lived twenty minutes after he was shot, and that at the time that the doctor examined him he had already been dead from twenty to thirty minutes. This last statement is correct. The post-mortem examination proves conclusively that Mr. Darwin died at midnight or shortly thereafter. From questions that I have already put to Mr. Orton I have learned that the shot was fired as the clock finished striking twelve, therefore since that was the only shot fired Mr. Darwin must have died immediately, or at the best, must have lived only five minutes, for Dr. Haskins was in the study by twelve-thirty.”

“But,” interrupted Dr. Haskins, “the nature of the wound is such that instantaneous death could not have possibly occurred.”

“Please do not volunteer information unless you are being questioned,” returned the coroner with some asperity. He turned to his physician, “You were saying, Doctor?”

Dr. Haskins shrugged his shoulders at the coroner’s words, while his boyish face flushed angrily at the rebuke, and he walked away from the table, but turned to listen as the physician took up the cudgels again by answering the query he had propounded.

“Dr. Haskins is young in his profession and this is his first criminal case, hence his natural inference that because in his medical books such a wound should produce such results, therefore it must be so in practice,” said the coroner’s physician, with pompous superiority. “Now as a matter of fact where one man will live an hour another will survive only a few minutes, depending on the life each has led. Now Mr. Darwin, I have been told, led a very fast life, which probably accounts for his quick demise. After all, you see, it’s a question of fitting your facts to the circumstances of your case and in this instance no other conclusion is possible.”

I could see that Dr. Haskins was not at all convinced, and I set it down to professional jealousy and his desire not to be outdone by the coroner’s physician. I can imagine that that “is young in his profession” rather stuck in his gorge.

When the physician had seated himself the coroner took up the bullet and called the detective, to whom he handed it along with another object that had been lying upon the table. Whereupon the detective took a step forward and held up the object for our inspection. It was a long-barreled thirty-eight caliber revolver, just the sort of weapon a man would keep in his house for use against burglars, since it insured a fair chance of more accurate marksmanship.

“This revolver, gentlemen,” said the detective, speaking to the jury, “was found on the floor beside the chair in which the victim lay. As you can see for yourselves,” here he broke the pistol, “it is fully loaded with the exception of one chamber, which has recently been discharged. The bullet extracted from Mr. Darwin’s body corresponds in every respect with the bullets remaining in this pistol. Therefore I have no hesitation in stating that the deceased was killed with this weapon in my hand.”

He passed the revolver and the bullet to the jury, adding that Mr. Darwin had been standing when he was shot, and that as he had been engaged in writing the moment before, the inference was plain that he had risen to meet the person who killed him.

“What makes you certain he was standing when he was shot?” inquired the coroner.

“The carpet, if you’ll notice,” replied the detective, whose name, by the way, was Jones, “has a very heavy pile. The marks made by that arm-chair as it was pushed back from the table were apparent to me when I examined the carpet around it. Now Mr. Darwin had been writing, for we found a half-finished word on the paper before him, and must therefore have been seated in the chair. Hence the only person who could have produced those marks in the carpet was the victim himself, and they could only have been made if, as I said, he had risen suddenly to meet his murderer, who was evidently known to him, since Mr. Darwin was smiling when he was killed.”

There was a murmur of admiration for the clever way in which he had deduced his statement, and the man beside me softly clapped his hands as he whispered to himself, “admirable, marvelous. Upon my soul I could not have builded better had I tried.”

The thought came to me that my companion might be a detective also, and that he was delighted with the intelligence displayed by his professional brother, but I had no time to nurse idle speculations, for Jones had resumed his seat, and I expected the coroner to make an attempt to discover the ownership of the pistol. To my surprise he ignored that point and turned his attention to the servants.

The butler, who was the first servant called upon and who was a vigorous old man about sixty years of age, gave his name as George Mason and stated that he had been in his position for thirty years. I saw the coroner’s face clear at this statement, for surely a man who had been the family retainer for so long a time could be relied on not to pervert any knowledge he might possess of the events of the previous night. The coroner should have recalled that though not given to perverting justice old family servants have a faculty for forgetting what they would rather not explain.

“I understand that it is your duty to secure the house at night,” began the coroner.

“Yes, sir.”

“What time do you usually lock up?”

“When Mr. Darwin left the house for the evening, sir. Or if he was away, as he sometimes is, for days together, it would remain locked while he was gone. That is, it was that way before his marriage, sir. Now I lock up when Mrs. Darwin goes upstairs.”

“What time did you close the house last night?”

“At nine-thirty, sir.”

“You are sure you locked all the doors and windows securely?”

“Oh, yes, sir, everything except the study, for to my surprise Mr. Orton was in there and said he’d lock the windows himself, sir.”

“Why did Mr. Orton’s presence in the study surprise you?”

“Because Mr. Darwin always keeps the study locked, sir. I have a duplicate key to let the maid in to clean, sir, and it was my custom in my rounds at night to knock on the door. If I got no answer I went in to see that everything was all right, sir.”

“How long has Mr. Darwin been in the habit of locking his study?”

“A good many years, sir, ten or more.”

“For what reason?”

“I do not know, sir.”

“Did Mr. Orton explain how he came to be in the study?”

“No, sir. When I found him there I withdrew at once.”

“After that, what did you do?”

“I saw to it that all the servants had left the main wing and closed the door into the servants’ wing. When that door is closed it is impossible to hear what goes on in the main part of the house, sir. We went to bed and did not know the master was dead until Mr. Orton informed us this morning, sir.”

“I see. This applies to all the servants, you can swear to that?”

“Yes, sir, to all except the valet and Mrs. Darwin’s maid. They do not leave the main wing until dismissed for the night.”

“Who opened up the house this morning?”

“The police, sir.”

The coroner looked inquiringly at the detective, who answered promptly: “Nothing had been tampered with. The burglar alarms on the windows were all intact and the front door was double-locked when the doctor arrived.”

The coroner turned once more to the butler. “When did you last see Mr. Darwin alive?”

“Yesterday about six o’clock, sir. He was just going out.”

“Then he was not home for dinner?”