Читать книгу The Furthest Fury - Carolyn Wells - Страница 5

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Stanhope gave a sigh of content and satisfaction as he reached the pleasant rooms always allotted to him during his visits at Hazel Hill.

Everything was in order for his comfort, and after a little further arranging of his personal belongings, Stanhope sat down by his reading table for a solitary smoke.

He picked up first the magazine he had acquired on the train. It was the Carnival, and he had taken it to himself because he knew it contained an article on Auction Bridge that he wanted to read; and he was now further interested, because he wanted to look over the story by Nevin Lawrence.

He hardly expected to read the story through, but he found his attention caught after a paragraph or two, and read on absorbedly to the end.

“A good writer,” he said to himself. “Clear headed and of an assured style. Must have travelled a bit—seems well informed on Antiquities, especially Grecian art. The way he handles Tanagra figurines proves first-hand acquaintance with them, not merely a study of the Boston Museum collection. I’ll be glad to meet that chap—and he certainly would seem a better man for a club president than an addle-pated kid of twenty-six!”

Stanhope rose and went out on a little balcony that opened from his sitting room, to finish his smoke outside.

He was in his element, for he had a touch of the Sybarite in his make-up, and the wicker lounging-chair, with a soft rug thrown over it, proved a comfortable nest from which to gaze over the moonlighted landscape.

It was about midnight, and the early August moon was at its full. Obscured now and then by a passing cloud, for the most part it shone with nearly daytime brightness, and Stanhope gazed his fill over the green scenery of the foreground and the black darkness of the distant hills.

Hazel Hill, itself only a slight elevation, was nearly a mile from the village, where only a few lights twinkled at this hour. The villagers were of simple habits, and most of the city people summering there also kept early hours. The white spires of three churches showed among the clustering trees, and the stone tower of the Public Library could be dimly seen.

A long black oval was, Stanhope knew, the village green, but the houses on either side were hidden in the trees.

His mind wandered back over the day. And from his subconsciousness emerged a mental picture of a man he had seen on the train. A man of no peculiarity of appearance except his white face. It seemed to Stanhope that he never had seen so white a face on a living being.

Yet it was not from fear or any emotion that the man’s countenance was blanched.

The whole incident now returned vividly to Stanhope’s mind. He had just settled himself finally in his Pullman chair, when he chanced to lift his eyes and saw, just coming in the door, this man, a quiet, ordinary looking citizen, who stopped short as soon as he was fairly inside the car, gazed ahead of him for a moment, regarding Stanhope himself impassively and then, turning, left the car again. He showed no haste, no recognition of Stanhope or anyone else, he just came in and went out. Probably he discovered he was in the wrong car—or perhaps he was not entitled to a Pullman seat at all. But in any case, Stanhope had a distinct recollection of that intensely white face, and he pondered over it.

“Consumptive, I suppose,” he thought; “yet it wasn’t exactly the pallor of illness—more like a freak of nature in giving anyone such a curiously white skin. Good looking chap in his way—rather fine features, but a nervous, twitchy air—must have been an invalid—coming up this way for mountain air, likely as not.”

Then the thinker’s mind drifted to later memories—of the village as they passed through it in the motor, of the fine effect of the rebuilt Gray Porches—why did people choose such pretentious and absurd names of the cottage where the author-man lived, of the cottage where little Gladys lived, and then paused for a time on the glimpse he had had of Love’s Young Dream.

Barker Hazelton, twenty-six, and in love with the dressmaker’s daughter. He realized how it would chagrin Amos Hazelton and his wife, but personally Stanhope felt he wouldn’t care a rap if his son married a sewing woman’s child so long as she was as sweet and dear as that little girl.

He had scarcely heard her speak a dozen words, but her pure, fine face was to him enough guaranty of her desirability.

Well, he would look into all that in the morning; would also get more data as to the business of the golf club presidential election, and use his superior intellect and his infallible judgment and wisdom in adjusting matters and advising his friends, the two Hazelton men.

He put away troublous questions and basked in the moonlight, his whole sensuous nature enthralled by the scenes and sounds and fragrances of the enchanted night. He loved the dank coolness that came from a nearby grove of hemlocks and spruces; the wafts of perfume from the nearer gardens, and the spell of glamour thrown over it all by the round golden moon.

But when he found himself murmuring “Lap me in soft Lydian airs,” he laughed at himself for a maudlin idiot and ordered himself to bed.

Undisturbed by Stanhope’s defection, the moon pursued her course across the cloud-sprinkled heavens, and she had scarcely neared the western horizon when the sun, following the same route, began the day’s journey.

A few of the inhabitants of New Midian were up before the sun was, but not many. Only farmers and milkmen and such workers as could not consult their own pleasure.

The pretty village was quiet, placid and serene, the white houses and the green shutters unmoving and motionless as they accepted the kisses of the intrepid sun.

And then the day began. One front door after another was flung wide. One window shade after another was rolled up. Smoke came from the chimneys, dogs began their joyous barking and baker’s carts moved along the roads.

Practically speaking, there were no streets. The road each side of the Green was the residential section, though from it two or three side lanes branched forth. One of these contained the tradesmen’s shops or markets, and another was the one on which stood the rambling, much-added-to structure now known as Gray Porches.

The cottage Nevin Lawrence lived in was next to this, but was perhaps three hundred feet distant, and between the two, but much farther back from the road than either, was the cottage of Miss Lizzie Busby, far better known by her nickname of Busybody Busby.

As an astute reader may surmise, this was because of a certain feeling of intense interest in the affairs and doings of her fellow mortals and unceasing efforts to gratify that interest.

Miss Busby was a music teacher, and report had it that she didn’t need the money, but pursued that calling because of the insight it gained for her into other people’s homes.

So, on this fine morning, Miss Busby opened her front door and stood out on her tiny front porch to follow the example of a certain renowned lawgiver, and view the country o’er.

She had a good view, too, for her house, though far back from the street was on a slight eminence which gave a satisfying command of the doings at Gray Porches and a fair knowledge of events at the Woodbine, as Lawrence’s cottage was called.

At the larger house, Busybody Busby could see the maids spreading breakfast tables on the verandas, adjusting awnings, and taking rolls from the baker’s boy.

Not very thrilling this, but there had been some new boarders arriving last night, and Busybody was alert to watch for their appearance.

Woodbine cottage looked as usual, the well-behaved, smoke issuing from the chimney in true spirals, and Emma Lily, the capable housekeeper, appearing now and then at the back door, on breakfast matters intent.

Satisfied generally, Miss Busby sniffed the air, stepped down to look at the geranium bed, and then repaired to her own breakfast table, which she laid and furnished herself, and which stood near a window commanding a gorgeous view of both houses.

Up to date was Miss Busby and enjoyed her electric coffee pot and toaster, while awaiting any moving picture of humanity that might unroll before her eyes.

This morning she seemed a bit preoccupied. She poured out her coffee and buttered her toast with an air of abstraction and three times during the performance she rose and stood again in her front doorway for a moment.

The guests were taking their places at the tables on the boarding house verandas and were saying to one another how delightful it was to breakfast out of doors in this fine August weather.

At the cottage, Emma Lily was sitting on the back steps, idly twisting her apron corners, yet with an air of alert expectancy.

Miss Busby easily read this to mean that breakfast was all prepared, but the family had not yet come down stairs.

Another glance at Gray Porches and she went back to her coffee.

Ben Gray and his also experienced wife were versed in the psychology of boarders, though they would not have used that word to designate the fruit of their many years’ experience.

But they had found out that a wholesome, well cooked simple breakfast took on a hundred per cent, added charm if served on a vine-clad veranda, at small and carefully appointed tables.

And as this principle was the keynote of their whole ménage it was not surprising that they always had their rooms filled, and that accommodations were booked months and even years ahead.

The newcomers, six of them, were put at one table, and the waitresses heard anew the exclamations and enthusiastic praises of the place and the conditions.

The new arrivals numbered among them the three ladies who came up on the train with Stanhope, and a middle aged pair from Boston with their intellectual daughter.

The Boston family, Endicotts, it being their second summer there—at once assumed an air of proprietorship in the table, and learning the names of the others, assured Mrs. Trent, the oldest, of their willingness to help and advise regarding walks, drives and such matters. To the other two, Miss Lowe and Miss Hemingway, Mr. Endicott offered the intelligent companionship of his daughter, and though the New York women were not entirely overcome by the honor of Endicott attention, they graciously responded and the new table-full of people promptly became a sort of family affair, as did all the tables on the Gray Porches.

“New Midian is a beautiful village,” said Lura Endicott, with the air of issuing an ultimatum, “and it is picturesque, too, but to me its greatest charm is its air of peacefulness and courteous calm.”

“One does notice that,” agreed Mrs. Trent, glancing out on the shade street, and letting her gaze stray to the two nearby houses. “Who lives in that white house, back from the road?”

“Miss Busby,” Mr. Endicott replied, and began to remark upon that well-known and estimable lady’s characteristics.

“She’s ubiquitous,” he said, smiling, “you’ll see her everywhere—there she is now—” for at that moment Lizzie Busby made a trip to her front porch.

But as the quiet and calm of Pompeii before the eruption of Vesuvius, as the quiet and calm of Sodom and Gomorrah before their destruction, as the quiet and calm of San Francisco before the earthquake, so was the peace and happiness of New Midian about to be jarred to its foundations by a tremendous shock.

Even as Miss Busby stepped out of her front door into the morning sunlight, a running, shrieking figure appeared from the door of the Woodbine cottage, and fled blindly, stumblingly across the lawns toward Gray Porches.

Screaming inarticulate sounds, waving her arms frantically, Emma Lily, the servant of Nevin Lawrence’s house came nearer until the Gray’s boarders could see her white face, working in a very convulsion of agony and terror.

“What can be the matter?” cried Mr. Endicott, starting from his seat. But Ben Gray was before him and ran down the steps to meet the hysterical woman.

“They’re dead—they’re killed!” she shrieked, clutching at the sleeve of Ben Gray. “Come over, come right over—”

Taking her by the arm, he strode along by her side and said no word as she babbled on:

“Killed—dead—oh, my soul; what does it mean!”

“Both of whom?” said Gray, in dazed tones, though he had no doubt she meant Nevin Lawrence and Mrs. Sayre.

“Yes, murdered in their beds—oh, hurry!”

“Be quiet, Emma Lily. If you can’t be quiet, at least, be as quiet as you can. Oh, here you are, Miss Busby!” for running true to form, Busybody was close at their heels. “Now, don’t ask a question, just take care of this woman and make her shut up her howling, while I go in and investigate.”

Gray was already at the door and burst into the house and up the stairs.

As owner of the house, Gray was familiar with the rooms, and as he paused at the open door of the first bedroom, he saw a still figure stretched on the floor. A woman’s figure, clad in a nightdress and a yellow silk Kimono. She lay on her side in a crumpled heap, just inside the door. Her arms were flung above her head and forward, as if she were reaching for something.

Gray stooped and saw at once she had been shot through the heart, evidently as she was about to cross her threshold. It was Mrs. Sayre, and with a gaze of pity and wonder, Gray went on to the room of Nevin Lawrence.

“Both of them,” the maid had said, and truly, for a second tragedy met his eyes.

Lawrence’s body lay on his bed, contorted, as if he had died in a spasm of mortal agony.

Ben Gray was overcome; strong, phlegmatic nature though he was, these two shocking sights completely unnerved him and he ran downstairs and out into the air. The two women were on the porch, Emma Lily hysterical and garrulous and Miss Busby alertly curious and receptive.

“They’re dead—both of them,” Gray said, excitedly. “Don’t go up there, anybody—we must keep everything clear for the detectives—it’s murder, you see. But I think I’d ought to call a doctor first—gee, I never was mixed up in anything like this before!”

One of the most experienced of the New Midian citizens, Ben Gray was up against a new proposition. He was honestly anxious to do his duty, but except in a general way he was ignorant of what he should do first.

He strode back into the living room of the cottage and telephoned Doctor Duncan, who promised to come at once.

“Whew!” Gray said, wiping his forehead, “I can’t seem to think! First off, I knew I must send for a doctor, and now I’ve got to go back and tell my folks. The women’ll go plumb crazy! And I’m so sorry—but it don’t seem right to take time for that now—who could have killed that fine man? And his sister! such a sweet, gentle lady—look here, Emma Lily, what do you know about this?”

“Nothing, nothing, Mr. Gray. I got the breakfast as usual, and when they didn’t come down—and didn’t come down, why, I went up—and I just only glimpsed ’em, and I ran out for you or somebody. It was too much for me to bear alone—” she broke off sobbing.

“I should say so,” and Lizzie Busby put a soothing arm round her. “You come along home with me, Emma Lily—”

“No,” countermanded Gray. “You stay right here, Emma Lily. You needn’t go upstairs, but you lock up the back of the house good, and you stay here in the front hall and don’t you let a soul in except the doctor when he comes, and then the police or whoever he sends for.”

“The police!” cried the two women at once.

“Sure! This here is murder in the first degree! I know about these things, and I know we gotta keep the rabble out. Now, mind, don’t you let anybody in, no neighbors or no curious prying peepers. Of course, Constable Clary, if he gets here before Doc. Duncan, which he’s quite likely to do. My, how’ll I tell all my people?”

Overburdened with his responsibilities, Ben Gray went back to Gray Porches and addressed the groups still breakfasting on his verandas.

“A terrible thing has occurred next door,” he said, simply, his sorrowful eyes roving from one face to another, as the guests turned to look at him. “Mr. Lawrence and Mrs. Sayre have both been killed—murdered—don’t ask me any questions, for that’s all I know. I have sent for Doctor Duncan, and he will bring the constable and they will take charge. You all know these dear people,” his voice choked a little, “except maybe, you who only arrived here yesterday afternoon. To you,” he turned to the table of the newest guests, “I will say that Mr. Lawrence was one of our most looked up to citizens and his sister, Mrs. Sayre, one of the gentlest and most courteous ladies in our village society. I—I can’t say any more—” and with a sudden gasp of emotion, Gray went into the house.

Now the summer boarders, at the best run and finest named boarding houses, are not all and always entirely above the vulgar vice of curiosity, and several of those at Gray Porches couldn’t resist the impulse to stroll over toward Woodbine cottage. They would have made for the Busby house, but Ben Gray had said that Miss Busby was with Emma Lily; the latter always well known as a “character” and now elevated to the position of a heroine.

Only the older habitués of Gray Porches took this course, the newer ones and those not well acquainted with the victims of the tragedy, remaining on the porches, and secretly angling for the rocking chairs that commanded the best view of impending events.

* * * * * * * * *

“I think we would better go right home at once,” Mr. Endicott informed his wife, but so absorbed was she in watching the arrival of two cars that came swiftly to the Woodbine cottage that she made no reply.

The cars brought the doctor and the constable, and they went into the cottage and forbade anyone else to enter unless summoned.

But in less than five minutes they called Emma Lily to their aid.

“What do you know about all this?” the constable said, glaring at her through his glasses.

Zeb Clary, like many another village constable, was the victim of greatness thrust upon him. He was no more fit to be a constable than any of his fellow citizens, but at least he was equally fit. He had shrewd common sense and fair judgment, and few in New Midian had more.

But of experience in these matters he had none, and he deemed the proper procedure with a witness, especially a woman witness, was to intimidate.

“Come now, what do you know about it all?” he repeated, and his brusque, even rude manner roused Emma Lily’s ire.

“I don’t know nothing about it,” she declared, quite undaunted by his menacing glances. “I waited breakfast so long that I got werrited, and as I couldn’t seem to make ’em hear by ringing a bell or by calling—I came up here—”

“Why did you come up? Did you know they were dead?”

“Listen at the man! Course I didn’t know they were dead—how could I? But when they wouldn’t answer my yelling and screaming, why, naturally I came up here. Good land, Zeb Clary, don’t stand there making up fool questions! Get busy. Do something—”

“All necessary will be done, Emma Lily,” Doctor Duncan put in mildly; “what Mr. Clary wants to know, and I do, too, is how you found them. Just as they are now?”

“Sure, just as they are now—you don’t suppose I moved ’em, do you?”

“Then it looks as if Mr. Lawrence had been shot first, while asleep in bed, and that Mrs. Sayre, hearing the shot, had run from her room, and had herself been killed as she reached the doorway.”

“Shot, was they?” asked Emma Lily, in an awestruck voice. “Who did it?”

“We don’t know. Have you any idea?”

“Land, no. Where’s the pistol?”

“We can’t find any—”

“See here, Doc.,” Clary broke in, “that ain’t the way to go about it. This here woman is a witness—what we want is her story.”

“Oh, she hasn’t any story to tell, have you, Emma Lily? Did you hear any shots in the night?”

“Land, no! I’d a been scared to death myself if I had.”

“Where do you sleep?”

“In the extension—the wing. It’s all shut off from this part of the house. They might fire a volley in here and I’d never know it.”

“Both were shot at very close range,” the doctor went on, making notes as he talked. “Both were killed, probably, near the same time. I should say death took place about six or eight hours ago. It’s difficult to tell more exactly. As I see it, Mr. Lawrence was awakened by someone in his room, probably a burglar—I daresay he has some valuables—and killed before he could even get out of bed. Then, Mrs. Sayre, hearing her brother’s cries, rose from her bed, flung on her dressing gown and started to his aid, when she was met by the man and shot also. It may be she was killed only to prevent her revelation of the criminal.”

“Yes, yes,” agreed Clary, “that’s just as I see it. The dastardly villian done for ’em both and then made a getaway. Anything missing, Emma Lily?”

“I haven’t looked about yet—somehow, I can’t feel to go messin’ round among their things. Must I?”

“Well, it’s gotta be done, sooner or later,” Clary stated, looking judicially at her, “and, you see, nobody knows any more about their belongings than you do, most likely. Jewelry, now, hey?”

“They didn’t have so very much,” the woman replied; “Mr. Lawrence, now he had a pearl tie pin—I don’t see it,” she added, after a hasty glance among the appointments on the dresser.

“A real pearl?”

“Yes, and a fine one, I’ve heard him say. Anyways, it’s gone. He always stuck it in this here little round cushion, and it ain’t here now.”