Читать книгу Under Three Flags - Bert Leston Taylor - Страница 14

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Having allowed Ashley to digest the food for thought furnished by the detective, the latter resumes his story:

“Upon my return from Ashfield I called upon Cyrus Felton, found him at his residence and interviewed him in his library for fully an hour. When I introduced myself as a detective he started visibly. In place of the extreme agitation which characterized his testimony at the inquest, he betrayed a nervousness rather peculiar, to say the least, in one whose knowledge of the crime embraced only what he related to the coroner.

“I questioned him minutely, avoiding any direct query that would be likely to arouse his suspicions. To my question, ‘When did you last see Mr. Hathaway?’ he replied that it was on the afternoon of Memorial Day, when the Grand Army post marched to the cemetery.

“‘And before that—when?’

“He hesitated a few moments and answered that he had last talked with the cashier several days, probably a week, before the tragedy.

“‘Your relations with Mr. Hathaway were always of a friendly nature?’

“‘Eminently so.’

“The answer was straightforward and the look that accompanied it was open and direct, the only one, by the way, during the entire interview. Of course I was not at the time aware of the unharmonious interview which, as Miss Hathaway reported to you, occurred at her father’s house on the evening preceding Memorial Day. Lie No. 1, conceding that he told the truth about the note which he received from the cashier on the evening of the tragedy.

“‘Now, this revolver of Mr. Hathaway’s, what sort of a weapon was it, Mr. Felton?’ I asked. He gave me a half-startled look and I fancied that his gaze strayed for an instant to the safe set in the wall of his library. It flashed upon me that the lost gun was concealed behind the steel door of that same safe.

“‘The revolver,’ he said, in an absent sort of way; ‘oh, it was an ordinary affair, 32 caliber, I believe they called it, nickeled and with a pearl handle. I had often seen it lying in Mr. Hathaway’s drawer, but so far as I know it was never used.’

“‘Would you recognize that revolver if you should see it again, Mr. Felton?’

“‘I don’t know as I could positively identify it. Revolvers are so much alike, are they not?’ I nodded, and again his eyes shifted toward the door of his safe.

“Well, as I say, I talked with him for about an hour, most of the interview dealing with the forgery case of two years ago, in which our mysterious friend, Ernest Stanley, figured as the principal. But of that more later.

“It was about 5 o’clock when I called at Felton’s house, and the supper bells of the neighborhood were ringing when I left. Instead of going to the hotel I struck down a side street to the river road, for a smoke and a stroll, and a chance to run the Hathaway case over in my mind.

“Half a mile below the village there is quite a stretch of road without any houses along it. The cemetery is on one side, the river on the other. I was sprawling on the stone wall that skirts the city of the dead and looking toward the village, when I saw a figure rapidly approaching. ‘Cyrus Felton or I’m a goat!’ I exclaimed, and rolled out of sight behind the wall. My eyesight is keen and I could not mistake the tall, lank form of the bank president. ‘What the deuce is he doing down this road at an hour when he should be peacefully eating his supper?’ I wondered.

“When Felton passed around the bend in the road I sprung over the wall and followed at a cautious distance. He looked around once or twice, and I had to dodge behind a tree each time. Suddenly he stopped and walked out upon the bank of the river, while I again took up a position behind my friendly stone wall.

“Our banker walked to the edge of the river, and, with his hands clasped behind him, stared at the water, now and then casting a look up and down the road.

“‘Heavens! Is he going to commit suicide?’ I thought. Surely my mild catechism had not driven him to such an extremity. My fears were shortly allayed. He suddenly thrust his hand into his coat pocket, and, withdrawing some object, hurled it into the stream. It sunk with a small splash. I was too far away to more than guess what the object was. Felton remained on the bank for several minutes, gazing at the surface of the river, then suddenly wheeled and started toward the village. As he passed me I fancied he looked a bit more relieved in mind.

“After he was out of sight I walked over to the river and marked as near as possible the spot where he had stood. The river at that point is deep, and I fear that the bottom is muddy, as the stream makes a sharp bend and spreads into a broad lagoon, with little or no current.”

“You intend to go a-fishing?” queries Ashley.

“At daylight, if we can get a boat of some sort.”

“And if our search is rewarded by the finding of a revolver—the revolver—what then?”

“Then I think we shall have a case against Cyrus Felton stronger than we shall make out against any one else. I can see by your face that you are only half convinced of that fact,” continues Barker. “You are more inclined to suspect the younger Felton than the elder, eh?”

“Well,” argues the newspaper man, “in the case of Ralph Felton there is a motive, an evil temper, and what is usually regarded as confession of guilt—flight.”

“Good. Let us look over young Felton’s case,” says the detective. “Ralph Felton, we know, is possessed of an evil temper and a disposition to bullyrag a young lady who is sensible enough not to love him. We know also that he gambles with traveling men who put up here, and drinks more or less. As the good people of this town regard Ralph as a model young man, his indulgence in cards and wine on the quiet shows a broad streak of deception in his character.

“His inclinations toward gayety were not cultivated in his native town. Previous to a twelvemonth ago four or five years of his life were spent in New York, Chicago and other cities. His occupation during a share of that time was that of representative and selling agent for the granite company in which his father is the principal stock owner. He was apparently wild and reckless, for a year ago he returned to Raymond and through the efforts of his father was given the position of bookkeeper in the bank, a position which does not usually pay much. It would appear that the elder Felton had enacted the role of the prodigal’s father.

“While Ralph Felton was ‘down country’ he fell in love with a pretty face, and upon its possessor he squandered all his means and more. When Ralph returned to Raymond the woman wrote to him demanding money and a fulfillment of pledges. The former he had not; of the latter he had no thought, as he had become desperately enamored of Helen Hathaway. Unable to obtain satisfaction by a correspondence, the woman visited Raymond the afternoon of Memorial Day, registered as ‘Isabel Winthrop,’ and sent word to Ralph that a lady desired to see him. He went to her. The interview between the pair was not harmonious. Sounds of a quarrel came from the room, and once or twice the word ‘money’ was used. Half an hour or so from the time he entered the hotel Ralph left with a flushed countenance, first pledging the clerk to say nothing of his feminine caller.

“He has essayed promises with her, but something substantial is demanded to back them up. He must have money, but where is it to be secured? No use to apply to his father, that he well knows. The more he racks his brain the more desperate becomes the situation. Then a wild thought comes to him. The bank! There must be a large amount of money in the safe. The county bonds mature the next day. He knows, we will assume—perhaps the knowledge is accidental—the combination of the safe.

“Ralph returns to the hotel, and, with a calmness born of a desperate resolve, informs ‘Isabel Winthrop’ that he has arranged for the needed funds, and reiterates his promises for the future. As dusk comes on he leaves the hotel unobserved by the clerk, goes to the bank, opens the front door and locks it behind him, and proceeds to the cashier’s office in the rear, wherein open the doors to the vault.

“As with a trembling hand he twists the combination of the vault he hears the sound of a key in the outer door. He springs to his feet and casts a startled glance about him. There is no egress from the room save by the way he came. Ah! The closet! He secretes himself in the dark closet at the farther end of the room, and at that instant Roger Hathaway enters.

“‘The cashier,’ murmurs the prisoner in the closet, as through the partially open door he watches Hathaway light his desk lamp. ‘He has dropped in to get some papers and will soon be gone,’ thinks Ralph. But to the latter’s despair the cashier opens the vault, takes out the big ledger, and settles down apparently to an evening’s work.

“Here is a nice predicament, but there is nothing to be done except wait until the cashier finishes his evening’s work and goes home. Half an hour or more goes by. The closet is dusty and Ralph is seized with an irresistible desire to sneeze. The explosion, a half-smothered one, occurs, and the cashier looks about him in surprise and wonder. But he continues his work. Suddenly Felton sees him seize a pad of writing paper, scratch off a brief note and leave the room to find a messenger. Has the cashier suspected the presence of some person in the bank besides himself and has he taken this means to summon assistance? As this thought flashes upon him young Felton becomes desperate, but as he watches the face of the cashier, who returns calmly to his writing, he convinces himself that he is mistaken.

“Again that cursed inclination to sneeze, which in vain he attempts to smother. This time there is no mistake. The cashier rises to his feet and glances about the room in alarm. His eyes finally rest on the partly opened door of the dark closet. Hathaway is a man of nerve. He opens the right-hand drawer of his desk, takes out and cocks his revolver and walks deliberately toward the closet.

“All this is seen by Ralph, and his plan to rob the bank is succeeded by a desire to escape from the building unrecognized. To accomplish this the cashier must be overpowered. So when the latter flings open the closet door the man within reaches out, grasps the revolver arm and draws the cashier into the darkness of the closet. Then ensues a fierce struggle, for Roger Hathaway, though old, is still a powerful man. This would account for the old ledgers that were toppled over into the office, and for the marks on the body of the murdered man.

“During the struggle the revolver is discharged and the bullet enters the cashier’s heart. The doctors in the case tell me that the course of the bullet was such that the leaden missile might have come from a pistol discharged during such a struggle as I have described. But to continue:

“Ralph Felton draws the limp form of the cashier out into the office and lays it upon the floor. A moment’s examination shows him that the man is dead, and he realizes his frightful position. Then the thought occurs to him that, if he carries out his original plan of robbing the bank, the crime will be ascribed to burglars. So he fills his pockets with what money and securities are in the safe, closes the door to the cashier’s office behind him and leaves the bank, with the front door unlocked or ajar.”

“Unless—” interrupts Ashley.

“Unless what?”

“Unless,” says the newspaper man, leaning back in his chair and blowing a cloud of smoke ceilingward—“unless Ralph Felton, when he rose from his examination of the body, was suddenly confronted by his father, who had come to the bank in response to the summons sent by the cashier!”