Читать книгу The Doorstep Murders - Carolyn Wells - Страница 5

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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.”

“All assassins are cowardly,” declared Miss Kate. “But I can’t understand his being stabbed. Can you, Peggy.”

“Oh, Aunt Kate!” The girl gave way to the sobbing she could no longer control. “What difference how he was killed since he is killed? Oh, Daddy, dear Daddy, I loved him so!”

“Why are you so surprised at the fact that he was stabbed?” Dr. Sherrill asked of the older woman.

“Why—Oh, I don’t know. But you see, there was George—”

“Aunt Kate,” Peggy spoke up sharply, “I don’t think you ought to mention any names—I mean to accuse anybody. Wait till they question you. I am questioning her,” Sherrill said.

“I know it, but you have no right to. Only a coroner or sheriff can do that.”

“Well, they will be here soon, and I really think it would be better for you two to tell me all you can about this thing. Was your father in fear for his life, Miss Peggy?”

Peggy Carman looked at him. She was a fearless, independent girl, afraid of nobody, but this sudden blow had seemed to change her to a frightened, trembling child, and she found she could not keep up the brave composure she had shown at first.

And then, as she looked, her sense of relative values came back to her. Was she, Peg Carman, afraid of this ridiculous-looking person, this red-headed, red-mustached, red-eyebrowed caricature of a man?

She drew herself up to her full height, for she had risen and was pacing the long room, and standing still, in front of him, she spoke to Dr. Sherrill.

“I don’t know all about the way police handle a murder case,” she said, “but I do know they handle it themselves. You are a doctor, and it is your duty to ascertain the cause of death, and see if you can be of any help. But that ends your work in the matter. You are not the coroner or the sheriff and you are acting as if you were one or both. I refuse to answer your questions for you have no right to ask them. When the proper men come I will tell them anything I know.”

“Bully for you, Peg,” came a voice from the hall doorway, and Peter reappeared, properly groomed and dressed. “Don’t take any offence, Dr. Sherrill; my sister is quite right, and I think you know it. Now, all come to breakfast. We must eat, even if Father is dead. Come along, Doc, some hot coffee will do you good.”

The doctor agreed to this, and they all went to the bright and attractive breakfast room, where crisp waffles and honey accompanied bacon and eggs.

Miss Kate could eat nothing, but Peter and Peggy made such a good breakfast that Dr. Sherrill began to think their appetite was due in part at least to nervousness.

They were moody, too, now in silent despairing sorrow, and again, giving way to a forced gayety of demeanor that puzzled the doctor.

Kate Carman was recovering her calm and she began to make arrangements that were both wise and sensible.

“If we cannot move the body,” she said, “until the coroner comes, we must put a screen around it. Let them take that large screen over there, the big fourfold one, and put it on the porch so it will hide him from the callers. For I know as soon as this is noised abroad many people will come here.”

“Also,” she went on, “let somebody—that constable, I suppose—stay by to keep guard. But let him send all would-be visitors around to the side door. Allow no one to use the front porch at all. There may be footprints or finger marks, you know.”

“There are none,” Dr. Sherrill said. “I looked carefully. But your suggestions are good ones, Miss Carman, and I advise you let your servants carry them out. I am sorry you refuse to tell me your suspicions or let me know of Carman s enemies. He was one of my best friends and I want to be all the help I can in this matter.”

“I haven’t refused to talk to you; it is Peggy who did that,” said Miss Kate, her large eyes turning to her niece with a glance of reproach. “I only said I couldn’t understand his being stabbed.”

“Do explain that,” urged Sherrill. “Why do you say that?”

“You ought to know yourself. Where are your wits? John was a Western man, a ranchman, a cowboy, and sheriff out there for a long time. Now, do you not suppose he had enemies out there? He made them, of course, by doing his duty. That he always did. But he had to punish evil doers, and naturally they often vowed revenge. But you must know that those Western desperadoes are gunmen; they do not stab people. Every man jack of them is familiar with all kinds of gun play, but I don’t believe one of them would kill with a dagger. That’s my quandary. How could any of those men whom John arrested and had convicted and sentenced come here after him and kill him the way he was killed? I don’t mean they couldn’t do it; it might be possible, but highly improbable. Whereas, to be shot with a gun by some one of those vindictive creatures is just what my brother really expected, sooner or later. And I daresay, Dr. Sherrill, he has told you this himself.”

“Well, Miss Kate, he did hint at it, but I pooh-poohed the idea, of course, and he didn’t harp on it.”

“No, John wasn’t the sort to harp on things. But it was shooting he expected, not stabbing. Who could have done it? John had no enemies but those men I speak of.”

“He must have had one enemy who chose the dagger rather than the gun,” Dr. Sherrill said, “and we must find out who that was.”