Читать книгу Under Three Flags - Bert Leston Taylor - Страница 11

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“Good afternoon. Will you walk in?”

“Thank you. I will detain you but a short time.” Jack Ashley follows Miss Hathaway into the half-lighted drawing room, accepts the offered chair and seats himself beside the big bay window. She sinks quietly into a chair opposite him and glances at the bit of pasteboard in her hand.

Ashley has seen Louise Hathaway at the inquest and has remarked that she is an unusually attractive woman. And now, as his glance for an instant sweeps over her, he votes her superb.

Brief as is his admiring gaze, it is critical. It rests upon the twined mass of golden hair, drifts over the face to the long white throat and the strong shoulders, thence to the faultless figure and sweep of limb. She is as different from her sister Helen as the placid morning is unlike the beauteous night. Louise is the morning. There is a strong sunlight in her glorious blue eyes, but now they are shadowed by the grief of the last few days.

She lifts her eyes from the visiting card. “You are a reporter,” she says, with a shade of weariness in her voice.

“I have the honor of representing the New York Hemisphere. I do not desire to cause you any annoyance, but there were some matters not brought out in the inquest which I wish to investigate.”

“And you have come all the way from New York for this?”

“No; I have been spending my vacation in Raymond, and, of course, when the news of the tragedy reached our paper I was instructed to look after it. I know that the errand on which I have come must be a painful one for you to discuss, but I assure you that I have more than a reportorial interest in the case.”

“Yes?” She looks at him inquiringly.

“You must be aware that the case is an unusual one,” he goes on. “My interest in it has grown into a determination to run down and bring to justice the slayer of your father.”

He tries to read in the glance she gives him a trace of gratitude, of approval. Failing, he decides that Louise Hathaway is an extraordinary young woman.

“Have you discovered anything—anything that the local authorities—they are so stupid—have overlooked?” she asks, and he fancies there is something of anxiety in the calm, slow tones of a very musical voice.

“Yes,” he replies. “We, the detective and myself, are engaged on several clews. But it is necessary that we should be in possession of every bit of knowledge obtainable concerning all the persons who have any bearing, near or remote, upon the case.”

Miss Hathaway turns upon Ashley a pair of blue eyes in whose depths he can read naught but purity and honesty. “I fear I can tell you little,” she says.

“Derrick Ames—”

“Is innocent,” she interrupts.

“I am of the same opinion. Derrick Ames and your sister were lovers?” She nods.

“Your father, I am told, strongly opposed the young man’s attentions. There was a more favored suitor.”

Miss Hathaway regards him with mild surprise. “You knew then—”

“What I have come to ask you about more particularly,” finishes Ashley, unblushingly, regarding his digression from the truth as a bit of diplomacy.

“I was not very well acquainted with him,” avers Miss Hathaway, “although we have lived in the same town nearly all our lives. But father regarded him as a model young man, and until lately encouraged his attentions to Helen in every way.”

“Now, who the deuce is she talking about?” wonders Ashley, who has simply chanced it in his assertion that there was a more favored suitor than Derrick Ames.

“I never fancied him, and Helen disliked him exceedingly,” continues Miss Hathaway. “But the more she discouraged him the more persistent he became. One night Helen came to my room in tears. They had had a fearful scene, she stated. She should marry him or none, he had declared, and had made all sorts of wild threats.”

“I did not know he was such a desperate character,” remarks Ashley tentatively.

“I do not believe the people of this town knew what his true character was. Helen said he seemed to have torn off the mask that night and that his face was that of a demon. He was wild with rage and left the house with curses. I sometimes think—” Miss Hathaway pauses and her face wears a troubled expression.

“What on earth does she think?” meditates Ashley, who is becoming a trifle bewildered.

“I sometimes think it was his hand that struck down our poor father. But then he could have had no motive, and there was in my eyes a reason for his action which other people could not surmise.”

“And yet that action seemed unexplainable?” hazards Ashley.

“To others, yes. It seemed perhaps a confession of guilt. But after what Helen told me I firmly believe that he has gone to search for her. And when he and Derrick Ames meet, I shudder to think of what may happen.”

Ashley sees the light at last. So Ralph Felton was the favored suitor—Ralph Felton, whom nearly every one in Raymond regarded as a model young man, and who, despite his unaccountable flight, found plenty of people willing to explain it in a dozen charitable ways.

“You say that until lately Mr. Hathaway regarded Felton’s attentions to your sister with favor. Had he any reason for suspending his approval?”

“I imagine so. During the last month or so he rarely spoke of him, and once, when his name was mentioned at table, he frowned.”

“I suppose you know that the case looks black against Ames; that not half a dozen people in the town have a good word to say for him?”

“I do not care what is said against Derrick Ames. I am sure that he is innocent of any connection with my father’s death. What he was to others I cannot say, but in the eyes of Helen and myself he was a noble-hearted young man, incapable of an unworthy thought or act.”

“She pleads for him as if for a lover,” thinks Ashley, regarding with admiration the girl before him. The flash in the blue eyes and the flush in the cheeks tell of warm sympathies and a loyal heart.

“Your sister never intimated to you the likelihood of an elopement?” Ashley inquires.

“Never. Had she a thought of such a thing I should have known it. We kept nothing from each other.”

“You knew that they met clandestinely?”

“I did.”

Ashley shifts the line of questioning to return to it at a more favorable opportunity. It is apparent that it is becoming painful to the girl.

“What were the relations between your father and Mr. Felton—the elder Felton?”

“Almost wholly of a business nature.”

“They were friends?”

“Yes. I had noticed, however, that during the last few weeks they did not meet as often as before.”

“Was Mr. Felton at your house within a short time previous to the murder?”

“He was here the evening before it.”

“Anything out of the ordinary in the visit?”

“Nothing, except that Mr. Felton appeared to be angry.”

“Will you make an effort to recall what happened on that particular evening?” Louise is thoughtful for a few moments.

“I fear I can recall but little,” she replies slowly. “I was passing through the hall on my way upstairs, and as I stepped by the library door I glanced in. Father was sitting in his desk chair and Mr. Felton was standing near the door, with his hat in his hand.”

“Did you hear any of the conversation?” queries Ashley, with the keenest interest in the new scent.

“Let me see—yes; I remember Mr. Felton said: ‘I can’t and I won’t!’ I think those were his words.”

“Did he appear to be excited?”

“Perhaps so. He spoke very loudly.”

“And your father’s reply—did you hear that?”

“Yes; I remember I paused an instant from curiosity. Father said, and I recall that his voice sounded rather harsh: ‘Then there is but one alternative.’ Then I went upstairs to my room. A few minutes afterward I heard the front door slam. Father did not retire until several hours afterward.”

“It was not his practice to do so?”

“No; he usually retired early. I don’t see what this has to do with the mystery—but then I am not a detective or a newspaper man.”

“It may have much to do with it,” murmurs Ashley. Miss Hathaway looks at him inquiringly.

“What do you think?” she asks.

“Candidly, I don’t know what to think,” he confesses.

“Will you permit me to turn inquisitor for a few moments?” Miss Hathaway requests. “There are one or two questions I should like to have answered.”

“I will answer a thousand,” replies Ashley cheerfully, as he meets the direct gaze of the young lady.

“Is there any evidence against Derrick Ames, other than was brought out at the coroner’s inquest?”

Ashley notes the anxiety in the voice and hesitates. It may be cruel, but it also may be profitable, so he replies slowly to Miss Hathaway:

“I regret to say that there are a great many things about Ames’ movements that will have to be explained away.”

Miss Hathaway covers her face with her hands. A less keen observer than Ashley could note the hopelessness in the face that she finally lifts.

“But you said that you believe him innocent,” she exclaims, almost eagerly.

“I said so, surely,” admits Ashley. “But in order to prove his innocence it will be necessary to produce him.”

A silence. Miss Hathaway’s troubled gaze is fixed upon him. His quick brain has been working and he has arrived at a conclusion. “This woman believes in the possibility of Ames’ guilt and she has some reason other than the evidence that has been produced. Ah, why didn’t I think of that before?”

“Miss Hathaway,” says Ashley, speaking deliberately, “you said a moment ago that you would do anything to assist me in tracing the slayer of your father.” She nods.

“Then will you show me the letter which you received from your sister upon her arrival in New York?”

If Ashley expects any result from this haphazard question he is assuredly not prepared for what really happens. Miss Hathaway’s face turns ashen and a great fear springs into her eyes. She rises to her feet, her hands clenched.

“Who told you I received a letter?” she demands in a trembling voice.

“We newspaper men have many means of obtaining information,” replies Ashley.

“Mr. Ashley,” the girl says—she is quite calm now—“I appreciate your efforts fully and thank you for them. God grant that they may be crowned with success. As for my sister’s letter, I cannot show it to you, as I have destroyed it. Its contents I shall never reveal.”

“I shall hope to see you again before I leave Raymond,” remarks Ashley, as he rises to take his leave; for the interview has reached its natural limits.

“I am at home to you at any time,” responds Miss Hathaway, acknowledging gravely his pleasant adieu.

As Ashley saunters back to the hotel his mind is in a more bewildered condition than at any other time since he has begun work on the Hathaway case.

“Now that I am in it, I shall stay, if it occupies the rest of my natural life,” he determines. “What a magnificent young woman! Fortunate that I am not susceptible, else I should already be idiotically in love with this queen of the morning, whose sad blue eyes haunt me still, in the words of the old song.”

Oh, the self-sufficiency of youth!