Читать книгу The Tapestry Room Murder - Carolyn Wells - Страница 7

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WHEN Sergeant Cram arrived at Twin Towers the next morning, he was met by Bingham, who asked him to join him in a conference in the study on the second floor, where Homer’s business matters were always attended to.

“You’ve had breakfast?” asked the detective, as they went up the stairs.

“Oh, yes, I was up early.” He ushered Cram into a pleasant room, where Cale Harrison sat at his desk.

Another and more elaborate desk was obviously the dead man’s, and at this Bingham sat down, after offering Cram a near-by chair.

“I have decided,” Bingham said, “to take the helm myself. I don’t mean in any officious or presumptuous way, but I feel somebody should take charge and as Gaylord Homer’s near friend and chum, I think I am the one to do so. For the moment, at least. When it transpires that there is an executor or an inheritor, I will turn over to him a full report of all I have done and all the responsibilities I have incurred. But in the absence of such an authority, I feel myself justified in keeping an eye on developments as they occur.”

Cram looked at the speaker a little dubiously, but said nothing.

“The lawyer, Mr. Crawford, will come here this morning, and he may give us such information as will excuse me from any further duty. But until that occurs I propose to take charge.”

“I can see no objection to your plan, Mr. Bingham. I assume Mr. Harrison also agrees to it?”

“Yes—oh, yes,” said Cale Harrison, earnestly. “I am merely a secretary, and I would wish for someone to whom I may report. I shall continue to do my work as usual, until I receive other orders from someone in a position to give them.”

“This is the office of the late Mr. Homer?” asked Cram, looking about the room.

It was directly above the Tapestry Room on the first floor, and though equipped with office furniture, with desks and filing cabinets and a good-sized safe, the pieces were all evidently made to order of choice woods and were of fine workmanship. Also there were valuable pictures and lamps, and the desk fittings were of the finest variety. Those on Homer’s desk were of carved jade, while Harrison’s were of beautiful bronze work.

“Yes, it is the office,” answered Harrison, “though always called the study. But all business matters are looked after here. Mr. Homer was methodical and systematic in his business. You will find his papers and accounts in perfect order, I am sure.”

“Doubtless, oh, yes, doubtless,” said Cram. “Of course, the papers must be gone through, but it will be well to wait for the lawyer’s arrival.”

“I think so,” agreed Bingham. “Now, Mr. Cram, what we want to talk over, Harrison and I, is the—er—the crime itself. Are you willing to say what you think as to—as to the identity of the criminal?”

“You put a difficult question, Mr. Bingham.”

“But you saw the whole affair, that is, as much as anybody could see, what do you think?”

“I have a very decided opinion, and it is that the murderer is someone who came in from outside, and who——”

“There is an old proverb, Mr. Bingham, about the wish being father to the thought. May I suggest, that you strongly hope that the murderer did come in from outside, and that is the ground for your opinion?”

The color flew to Ted’s cheeks and brow, and the sympathetic Harrison also looked embarrassed and distressed.

“I have other grounds,” Ted said, struggling to retain his composure, “I know perfectly well that no one in our party of friends here could have done such a thing. I know the servants are beyond suspicion. Therefore the doctrine of elimination points beyond doubt to an outsider.”

“Elimination is a fine thing,” Cram returned, “but your knowledge and belief is not sufficient to eliminate the people in the house.”

“You don’t mean you suspect any of us!” exclaimed Harrison, in his scared way. “You can’t, it’s impossible!”

“Mr. Harrison, that has yet to be determined. I am quite ready to admit we have a deep problem before us, but it cannot be solved by surmise or suspicion, nor yet by belief and faith. We must have evidence and testimony. They must be sifted and proved. Reliable and trustworthy witnesses must be heard and their stories listened to with care. It is too soon to point the finger of suspicion at anybody. Even if circumstances seem adverse, there may be extenuating conditions, there may be misleading facts. So, I cannot hazard an opinion at present as to the identity of the criminal, but at the inquest this afternoon, there may be facts brought forward and evidence given that will be significant if not decisive. Now, since we are here, I will put a question or two myself. Mr. Harrison, you mentioned a will of Mr. Homer’s but you said it was not drawn up by his lawyer. Will you tell me further of that?”

“Why—it was this way. Although conventional and of normal habits in most ways, Mr. Homer sometimes broke loose and became a law unto himself. In the matter of a will he did so. He had never made a will, but when he did conclude he wanted one he made it himself. He bought a book entitled, ‘Make Your Own Will,’ and he read it thoroughly and then made his own will.”

“Where is that will?”

“I don’t know, but I think it is in the book. You see, the book had a pocket in the back cover, and that pocket held a blank will. I mean a will with the preliminary matter already printed, and then various blanks for any legacies the testator desired to record. Mr. Homer showed me the book and the blank will when he bought it, and since then I have often seen him poring over the book.”

“In this room?”

“Sometimes. But more often as he sat down in the Tapestry Room. He always sat there after dinner for a time, and he kept the will book down there.”

“On the bookshelves?”

“Usually on the table, or carting it round in his pocket.”

“The will must of course be found. Do you know the gist of its contents?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“All right, it doesn’t matter. The book will, of course, turn up.”

“Oh, yes. It will be found among his things somewhere.”

“Mr. Homer was a rich man?”

“I—really, sir, I couldn’t say. Mr. Crawford will tell you all such details. I’m only a secretary, you see, and I hesitate to make statements.”

Cram thought to himself that Harrison hesitated to do almost anything at all, but he asked him no further questions at the time.

“I can tell you that,” broke in Bingham. “I see no harm in saying that Gaylord Homer was a rich man. He inherited a pile from his father, and he has judiciously invested it until it has about doubled itself. I know this from what he has told me himself. Never a braggart, he has often expressed a satisfaction that he had the wherewithal to gratify his tastes for books and art objects.”

“And do you know who was to be the beneficiary under his will?”

“I do not. I didn’t know he had made a will, until Harrison told of it. I often said to Gaylord that he ought to make one, but he only laughed and said he was good for many years yet.”

“Then he had no apprehensions, no fears of any enemy coming in to do him harm?”

“Not that I know of. Yet who can tell about his friends? Homer was not one to babble, and for all I know he may have had a dozen enemies who wanted to kill him.”

“You’re a bit transparent, Mr. Bingham.” Cram smiled a little. “You don’t want any of your friends in the house suspected, so you invent these enemies.”

“Not quite fair, Mr. Cram,” said Harrison, his voice steady enough, but his fingers twitching nervously. “Of course, none of us wants suspicion to rest on anyone in the household, if there is an enemy outside who may have done this thing.”

“That’s natural enough,” said Cram, quietly, “but I’m going downstairs now, and before I go, I want to advise you two men not to talk the matter over too much with the others. It’s wiser to keep your own counsel for the present.”

“Old fossil!” exclaimed Ted, as the detective disappeared downstairs. “He’s mid-Victorian! I’d like to get an up-and-coming detective who could ferret out some unknown enemy of Gaylord’s who sneaked in and killed him.”

“So should I,” and Harrison glanced furtively at Bingham. “But, you must realize, Mr. Bingham, there was no way an outsider could get in.”

“Why not?”

“Because we were all in the hall or lounge or Tapestry Room when the lights went out. No outsider could have come in a dark house and made his way to the Tapestry Room in the dark and committed the murder in the dark and got out again, in the dark, without being heard or seen by some of us.”

“I know it doesn’t seem likely, but, hang it all, Cale, it must have happened, for you know as well as I do that neither of those girls stabbed Gaylord!”

“Yes,” Harrison sighed, “I know it, but can we make the police believe it?”

“We must,” and Ted banged his hand down on the desk before him. “I’m going down and dog the footsteps of that Cram person. I shan’t let him put his rotten stuff over!”

Cale Harrison watched the other man as he swung out of the door and down the stairs.

The secretary was a personable man, fair-haired, blue-eyed and of good complexion. He was neither a prig nor a sissy, yet he lacked a firmness of speech which gave him the effect of lacking firmness of character. This was not the truth. Cale Harrison had a strong will and a quick, sane power of judgment. But his environment as a child had made him shy in manner and over-modest as to his own attainments.

Gaylord Homer had noticed this, and in his good-natured way had tried to uproot it.

“You haven’t a vice,” he had once said to Cale. “Now I don’t want you to cultivate wickedness, but take it from me, a chap too goody-goody can’t get along in these hectic days.”

The remark had settled into Cale’s mind, and he had thought it over many times. Although in some ways he had scorned Gaylord Homer, in other ways he had greatly admired him. For Harrison was a close observer, and he had long since come to the conclusion that a small portion of vice, of some wild sort, ought to be his.

Also, not being entirely above human curiosity, he was impatient to know what legacy his employer had left to him in that home-made will of his.

For a substantial sum had been promised, and Gaylord had worked hard over the precious document.

On an impulse, Harrison began to look through the drawers of Homer’s desk in an attempt to find the important will book and will.

Engrossed in this pursuit, he was startled at the entrance of Lawyer Crawford and Detective Sergeant Cram.

“Oh, oh,” Harrison said, “beg pardon come in, be seated.”

There was no reason for this embarrassment, for the secretary always had free access to his employer’s papers.

As always, his shyness brought about an air of bravado, of superciliousness, and he covered his confusion by an overdone carelessness.

“Oh, here you are,” he said, dropping the papers he held. “How are you, Mr. Crawford?”

Crawford responded duly and paid little attention to Harrison’s nervousness. For he knew the secretary well, but to Cram this flustered manner was peculiar, even suspicious.

“I was looking for Mr. Homer’s will,” Cale went on, “I don’t know where it is.”

“He never made any,” said Crawford, promptly.

And then Harrison had to tell him of the will book and the will that Gaylord Homer had drawn up for himself.

“Ridiculous!” the lawyer exclaimed. “There’s no sense in such a thing! Why shouldn’t I have drawn his will, as I attended to all his other legal business?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Crawford,” Harrison said, looking helplessly at him; “only I do know that is what Mr. Homer did, and the will must be around somewhere.”

“What were the terms of the will?” stormed the lawyer.

“I—I don’t know—exactly.”

“You know a lot about it, Harrison, and it is your duty to tell,” Cram informed him.

“Is it, Mr. Crawford?” asked the vacillating secretary.

“Yes, I think so. Though of course the will must be found. Who was the principal beneficiary?”

“A—a lady.”

“Who?”

“Miss—Miss Kittredge.”

The detective made a half articulate noise in his throat, which, however, was more intelligible than the “Ah,” of Lawyer Crawford.

While the three men in the study set up a determined search for the will, the lady who, as Harrison said, was the chief beneficiary, was taking part in what for lack of a more descriptive term may be called a scene.

Diana, with Marita and Bobbie Abbott, sat in the lounge, and though the conversation had at first been conventional and courteous, it was now becoming more and more personal.

Bobbie had brought about the climax when she said, “Of course neither of you girls could have done such a thing, but who did kill Gaylord?”

Marita’s temper, always inflammable, burst into flame at this, and she exclaimed:

“That’s the same as saying that either Diana or I must have done it! And I hereby declare that I didn’t do it.”

Though possessing plenty of self-control, Diana let it go to the winds at this speech.

“I must certainly declare also that I didn’t do it!” Diana said, in a cold cutting voice that somehow seemed to carry more weight than Marita’s hasty speech.

“Of course you did, Di,” Marita cried; “I didn’t, and there was no one else.”

“I think my statement must be believed before yours,” Diana said, slowly. “I am in the habit of speaking the truth.”

Her eloquent pause was more scathing than any denunciation could have been.

Marita flew into a fearful rage, and so wildly did she gesticulate and so madly pour forth her words that she was like a whirling dervish.

Frightened, Bobbie tried to catch Marita, to calm her, but the angry girl flew at Diana and attempted to strike her, screaming out anathemas in Spanish that were understandable only from their accompanying gestures.

Diana coolly grasped the outstretched hands, and said, contemptuously, “Don’t be a fool, Marita. Stop this nonsense!”

The clear, incisive tone, more than the words, checked Marita’s ebullition of wrath, and she cowered a little, though casting venomous glances at Diana.

“If you didn’t kill Gaylord,” Diana went on, “you’ll make everybody think you did by such actions. Now, behave yourself.”

This stirred up Marita afresh, and she was about to begin a new tirade, when Wood appeared at the doorway with a stranger.

“This is Mr. Moffatt, ladies,” Wood said, urbanely. “I will call Mr. Harris.”

The butler went upstairs, and Diana took charge of the situation.

“I am Miss Kittredge,” she said, with a touch of hauteur in her calm tones. “This is Mrs. Abbott and Miss Moore. I suppose you are Mr. Moffatt, the cousin of Gaylord Homer?”

“Yes,” he said, in a low, pleasant voice. “I was told of the—er—trouble last night, and I came as soon as I could this morning. May I—would you tell me some of the particulars? Was Gaylord still calm and perfectly composed?”

Diana answered him.

“Yes,” she said, “Gaylord was killed, stabbed to death. The police are in charge here and will, I dare say, see you at once.”

The visitor looked dazed, not only at the news given him, but, it was plain to be seen, at the manner of this beautiful but strange girl.

Marita was huddled on the couch, her face turned away from them, and her shoulders heaving with deep sobs and occasional moans.

Bobbie, still scared over the fuss between the two girls, was also interested in the stranger. It wouldn’t be Bobbie Abbott, if she were not interested in any man who came within her ken.

And this man looked attractive. His tall, gaunt form and lean, rugged face gave somewhat the effect of a modern Forty-niner, though his apparel was modish and his manner courteous and suave.

So Bobbie had to get into the game.

“The inquest will be this afternoon,” she vouchsafed, adding, “but I suppose you knew that.”

“No, I didn’t know it before Moffatt said. Will it be held here?”

“Why, yes, I suppose so,” Bobbie spoke uncertainly, but neither of the others volunteered any help.

And then the three men from upstairs came down, and Harrison stepped forward and greeted the visitor.

In his nervous, embarrassed way, he introduced the lawyer and the detective, and then, to his great relief, he was ignored and Mr. Moffatt became the center of attention.

“You are a cousin of the late Gaylord Homer?” Cram asked him.

“A second cousin,” was the reply. “Our fathers were cousins.”

“You were intimate friends?”

“No,” Moffatt said, settling back in his chair, “not intimate friends, but always friendly. I came here to see Gaylord once or twice a year, but our tastes varied widely and while we were not uncongenial, we had little in common. Also,” he smiled a little, “I am a proud man, and I was unwilling to seem as if I was sponging on my cousin for entertainment or hospitality.”

“I see,” said Cram, nodding his head. “And when did you see Mr. Homer last?”

“About two or three weeks ago, I was up here and staid over night. We had a pleasant visit, rather more so than usual, and Gaylord asked me to come again in the summer time, in July, he said. I promised to do so.”

“You live in New York?”

“Yes, in rooms in Thirty-eighth street. I have lived there for years.”

“Can you help us in any way? You see, Mr. Homer was stabbed by an unknown foe. Can you think of any enemy he had who would do such a thing?”

“No, I can’t. You see, I knew very few of Gaylord’s acquaintances and he knew few of mine. But he must have had a fierce enemy to do such a thing as that!”

“Indeed, yes. Do you know of other relatives he had?”

“I think I am the only one of his kin. I have heard him say so many times.”

“And do you know anything about his intended disposition of his property?”

“Not a thing. Some years ago, he said he would leave me a small bequest. But I never counted on it, partly because it is my habit never to count on anything until I get it, and partly because Gaylord was younger than I and would probably outlive me. Moreover, I am not in need. While not wealthy, my wants are simple and I can supply them myself. But I am overcome at the tragedy of his death. I want to do anything I can to help. I mean in tracking down the wretch who killed him and bringing him to justice. Please command me, Mr. Cram, and I will do anything I can to aid you.”

“Are you not in business?”

“Oh, yes, I am a real estate agent. But my time is my own, and I repeat, if I can help, I will willingly do so.”

“You know the Tapestry Room?”

“Surely. I’ve been here frequently, you know.”

“It was there Mr. Homer was sitting when he was stabbed.”

“Sitting there? Alone?”

“There were guests all about the house. It was what we call the dark time. You know what I mean?”

“Oh, yes, I remember now, when I was here last, the lights went off soon after dinner and then flashed on suddenly after a few moments.”

“Exactly. It was during those few moments that the tragedy occurred.”

Moffatt pondered this.

“Then,” he said, “do you mean he was struck down in the darkness? Or were there candles or something like that?”

“No, there were no candles lighted. The blow must have been dealt in the dark.”

Again Moffatt seemed to think deeply.

“That would seem to indicate that someone in the house did it.”

“It would seem so,” agreed Cram. “Do you remember a very handsome dagger Mr. Homer had, a treasure, really?”

“A dagger? No, I don’t think I remember it. Where was it kept?”

“Where, Mr. Harrison?”

“It always lay on the mosaic table in the Tapestry Room. It must have been there when you were here last, Mr. Moffatt.”

“Doubtless it was, but I’ve no recollection of it. That’s what I meant when I said my cousin and I had not the same tastes. I never cared for those curios and bits of bric-a-brac that he so loved. I am an outdoorsy man, and I love all outdoor sports. Gaylord loved his books and his collections.”

“Well,” Cram went on, feeling that this cousin was entitled to the facts of the affair, “the dagger lay on the table and was picked up and used by the murderer.”

Moffatt gave a little gasp and then apologized.

“Forgive me,” he said, “I suppose, sergeant, these things are every day matters to you, but to me it is a shock. Have you any idea of the identity of the man?”

“The inquest will be held this afternoon. I assume you will attend it.”

“Yes, of course. Can I be put up for the night, or shall I go back to the city?”

“As you like, Mr. Moffatt. There are rooms enough, perhaps you would better stay.”

“Then I assume Mrs. Perkins will make me comfortable. I came unprepared, but I will telephone for my man to bring me a bag.”