Читать книгу The Diamond Cross Mystery - Chester K. Steele - Страница 7

Carroll and Thong, proceeding along the lines they usually followed in cases like this, keeping to the rules which had come to them through the instructions of superior officers, and some which they had worked out for themselves, had, in a comparatively short time, ascertained the name, age and somewhat of the personal history of Mrs. Amelia Darcy, together with that of her cousin, as the detectives called him, though the relationship was not as close as that.

Mrs. Darcy, who was sixty-five years of age, had carried on the jewelry business of her husband, Mortimer Darcy, after his death, which preceded her more tragic one by about seven years. Mortimer Darcy had been a diamond salesman for a large New York house in his younger days, and had come to be an expert in precious stones. Many good wishes, and not a little trade, had gone to him from his former employers, and some of their customers bought of him when he went into business for himself in the thriving city of Colchester.

Knowing that to start anew in a strange town would mean uphill work for him and his wife, Mortimer Darcy had awaited an opportunity to buy the business of a man whom he had known for a number of years and to whom he had sold many diamonds and other stones. This man—Harrison Van Doren by name—had what was termed the best jewelry trade in Colchester. The "old" families—not that any of them could trace their ancestry back very far—liked to say that "we get all our stuff at Van Doren's."

This name, on little white plush-lined boxes, containing pins or sparkling rings, came to mean almost as much as some of the more expensive names in New York. Young ladies counted it a point in the favor of their lovers if the engagement circlet came from Van Doren's. And Mortimer Darcy, knowing the value of that class of trade, had, when he purchased Mr. Van Doren's business fostered that spirit. Mrs. Darcy, on the death of her husband, had further catered to it, so that the Darcy establishment, though it was not the richest or most showy in Colchester, was safely counted the most exclusive—that is, it had a full line of the best goods, be it clocks or diamonds, and it had what, in bygone days, was called a "carriage trade," but which is now referred to as "automobile."

That is to say, those, aside from a casual trade with people who dropped in as they might have done to a grocery, to get what they really needed in the way of jewelry, came in gasolene or electric cars where their ancestors had come with horses and carriage.

So Darcy's jewelry store was known, and though a bit old-fashioned in a way, was favorably known, not only to the older members of the rich families of the place, but to the younger set as well. The pretty girls and their well-groomed companions of the "Assembly Ball" set liked to stop in there for their rings, brooches, scarf pins or cuff links, and very frequent were the rather languid orders:

"You may send it, charge."

It was to that class of trade that Mrs. Darcy catered. She understood it, and it understood her. That was enough. She took a personal interest in the business to the extent of being in the store almost every day, as her husband had been before her, to advise and be available for consultation, whether it was the buying of a gold teething ring for the newest member of the family, an engagement ring for the latest debutante, a watch for "son," attaining his majority, or perhaps new gold glasses for grandpapa or grandmama.

The store was not a large one, and four clerks, one a young woman, with James Darcy and an assistant, who looked after the repair work and made anything unusual in the way of pins or rings, constituted the force. But Mrs. Darcy was as good as a clerk herself, and during the holiday rush she was in the store night and day. This was the easier for her, since she owned the building in which her display was kept, and lived in a quiet and tastefully furnished apartment over the store.

On the death of her husband, she had sent for his second cousin, who at that time was in the employ of a well-known New York jewelry house, and he agreed to come to her.

Rather more than a repair man and clerk was James Darcy. He was an expert jewelry designer and a setter of precious stones; and often, when some fastidious customer did not seem to care for what was shown from the glittering trays in the showcases, Mrs. Darcy or one of her clerks would say:

"We will have Mr. Darcy design something different for you."

"That's what I want," the customer would say—"something different—something you don't see everywhere."

And so the Darcy trade had grown and prospered.

"Well, let's hear what you have to say," said Carroll, after James Darcy had given what the detectives considered was, for the time, a sufficient history of himself and his relative, and had hastily gone over such of the stock as was kept outside the safe. The latter had not been forced open—it did not take long to ascertain that. "Is anything gone?"

"I can't say for sure," answered the young man—he was this side of thirty. His long, artistic fingers were trembling, and he felt weak and faint. "But if there has been a robbery they didn't get much. The safe hasn't been opened, and the best of the goods—all the diamonds and other stones—are in that. Nothing seems to be gone from the cases, though I'd have to make a better search, and go over the inventory, to make certain."

"Well, let that go for the time. How'd you find things when you came downstairs? What happened during the night? Any of the doors or windows forced?" and the detective fairly shot these questions at Darcy,

"I think not. The front door was locked, just as it is now. I went out the side one. That was locked with the spring catch from the inside."

"Wasn't it bolted?" came sharply from Thong.

"I didn't notice about that. You see, I was all excited like—"

"Yes," assented Thong.

"There's a bolt on the door!" Carroll snapped.

"Yes, but Mrs. Darcy may have slipped it back herself. She was down first, though why, I can't say. She seldom came down ahead of me, especially of late years. I generally opened the store. The clerks report at eighty-thirty—there's some of 'em now."

More knockings had sounded on the front door, and the faces of two young men peered in through the misty glass, the crowd having made a lane for them on learning that they worked in the place of death.

"Let 'em in, sure!" assented Thong. "We got to talk to all of 'em!

Let 'em in!"

Darcy did so, Mulligan helping him keep back the crowd of curious ones.

"Here comes Miss Brill," said one of the men clerks to Darcy. "What's the matter? Is Mrs. Darcy—?"

"Dead! Killed, I'm afraid! The store won't open to-day, but the police want to see every one. Oh, Miss Brill, come in!" and he held out his hand to the one young woman clerk, who drew back in horrified fright as she saw the silent figure on the floor.

"Oh—Oh!" she gasped, and then she went into hysterics, adding to the excitement and giving Mulligan a bad five minutes while he fought to keep the crowd from surging in.

But when Miss Brill had been carried to a rear room and quieted, and when the shades had been drawn to keep the curious ones from peering in, the questioning of Darcy was resumed.

"Did you come directly down to the store from your room?" asked Thong.

"Yes. As soon as I awakened."

"Where is your room?"

"In the rear, on the second floor—the one next above. Mrs. Darcy has her rooms in front. Then come those of her maid, Jane Metson. Sallie Page sleeps on the top floor where the janitor's family lives, and he, of course, sleeps up there also."

"I see," murmured Carroll. "Then you came downstairs and found Mrs.

Darcy lying here—dead?"

"I wasn't sure she was dead—"

"Oh, she was dead all right," broke in Thong. "No question about that. Did you hear anything?"

"Only the watch ticking in her hand. First I thought it was her heart beating."

"No, I mean did you hear anything in the night?" went on the detective. "Any queer noise? It's mighty funny if there was murder done and no robbery. But of course she might have heard a noise if you didn't, and she might have come down to find out what it was about. She might have caught a burglar at work, and he may have killed her to get away. But if it was a burglar it's funny you didn't hear any noise—like a fall, or something. How about that, Mr. Darcy?"

"Well, no. I didn't exactly hear anything. I went to bed about half past ten, after working at my table down here awhile."

"Was Mrs. Darcy in bed then?" Thong asked.

"I couldn't say. She had gone to her apartment, but I don't have to pass near that to get to my room. I came straight up and went to bed."

"At ten o'clock, you say?"

"A little after. It may have been a quarter to eleven."

"And you didn't hear anything all night?" Carroll shot this question at Darcy suddenly.

"No—no—not exactly, I did hear something—it wasn't exactly a noise—and yet it was a noise."

"What kind of talk is that?" demanded Thong roughly. "Either it was a noise or it wasn't! Now which was it?"

"Well, if you call a clock striking a noise, then it was one."

"Oh, a clock struck!" and Thong settled back in his chair more at his ease. His manner seemed to indicate that he was on the track of something.

"Yes, a clock struck. It was either three or four, I can't be sure which," Darcy replied. "You know when you awaken in the night, and hear the strokes, you can't be sure you haven't missed some of the first ones. I heard three, anyhow, I'm sure of that."

"Well, put it down as three," suggested Thong. "Was it the striking of the clock that awakened you?"

"No, not exactly. It was more as if some one had been in my room."

"Some one in your room!" exclaimed both detectives. They were questioning Darcy in the living-room of Mrs. Darcy's suite, the clerks being detained downstairs by Mulligan. The county physician, who was also the coroner, had not yet arrived.

"Yes, at first I thought some one had been in my room, and then, after I thought about it, I wasn't quite sure. All I know is I slept quite soundly—sounder than usual in fact, and, all at once, I heard a clock strike."

"Three or four," murmured Thong.

"Yes; three anyhow—maybe four. Something awakened me suddenly; but what, I can't say. I remember, at the time, it felt as though something had passed over my face."

"Like a hand?" suggested Carroll.

"Well, I couldn't be sure. It may have been I dreamed it."

"But what did it feel like?" insisted Thong.

"Well, like a cloth brushing my face more than like a hand—or it may have been a hand with a glove on it. Yes, it may have been that. Then I tried to arouse myself, but I heard the wind blowing and a sprinkle of rain, and, as my window was open, I thought the curtain might have blown across my face. That would account for it I reasoned, so—"

"Yes, it may have been the curtain," said Thong, slowly. "But what did you do?"

"Nothing. I lay still a little while, and then I went to sleep again.

I was only awake maybe two or three minutes."

"You didn't call Mrs. Darcy?"

"No."

"Nor the servant—what's her name? Sallie?"

"No. There wasn't any use in that. She's deaf."

"And you didn't call the janitor?"

"No. I wasn't very wide awake, and I didn't really attach any importance to it until after I saw her—dead."

"Um! Yes," murmured Carroll. "Well, then you went to sleep again.

What did you do next?"

"I awakened with a sudden start just before six o'clock. I had not set an alarm, though I wanted to get up early to do a little repair job I had promised for early this morning. But I have gotten so in the habit of rousing at almost any hour I mentally set for myself the night before, that I don't need an alarm clock. I had fixed my mind on the fact that I wanted to get up at five-thirty, and I think it was just a quarter to six when I got up. I was anxious to finish the repair job for a man who was to leave on an early train this morning. He may be in any time now, and I haven't it ready for him."

"What sort of a repair job?" asked Carroll.

"On a watch."

"Where's the watch now?" and the detective flicked the ashes from a cigar the reporter had given him. Daley was down in the jewelry store, interviewing the clerks while Darcy was on the grill up above.

"The watch," murmured Darcy. "It—it's in her hand," and he nodded in the direction of the silent figure downstairs.

"The watch that is still ticking?"

"Yes, but the funny part of it is that the watch wasn't going last night, when I planned to start work on it. I forget just why I didn't do it," and Darcy seemed a bit confused, a point not lost sight of by Carroll. "I guess it must have been because I couldn't see well with the electric light on my work table," went on the jewelry worker. "I've got to get that fixed. Anyhow I didn't do anything to the Indian's watch more than look at it, and I made up my mind to rise early and hurry it through. So I didn't even wind it. I can't understand what makes it go, unless some one got in and wound it—and they wouldn't do that."

"Whose watch is it?" asked Thong.

"It belongs to Singa Phut."

"Singa Phut!" ejaculated Carroll. "Crimps, what a name! Who belongs to it?"

"Singa Phut is an East Indian," explained Darcy. "He has a curio store down on Water Street. We have bought some odd things from him for our customers, queer bead necklaces and the like. He left the watch with my cousin, who told me to repair it. It needed a new case-spring and some of the screws were loose."

"How did Mrs. Darcy come to have the watch in her hand?" Carroll demanded.

"That I couldn't say."

"What sort of a man is this Indian—Singa—Singa—" began Thong, hesitatingly.

"Singa Phut is a quiet, studious Indian," answered Darcy. "He has not lived here very long, but I knew him in New York. He has done business with me for some years."

"Is he all right—safe—not one of them gars—you know, the fellows that use a silk cord to strangle you with?" asked Thong, who had some imagination regarding garroters.

"Not at all like that," said Darcy, and there was the trace of a smile on his face. "He is a gentleman."

"Oh," said Carroll and Thong in unison.

There came another knock on the side door downstairs. There was less of a crowd about now, and Mulligan did not have to keep back a rush as he opened the portal.

"Dr. Warren," reported the policeman, calling upstairs to Carroll and

Thong.

"The county physician," explained Carroll. "Better come down and meet him, Mr. Darcy. He'll want to ask you some questions. Then we'll have another go at you. Got to ask a lot of questions in a case like this," he half apologized.

"Oh, sure," assented the jewelry worker.

"Doc Warren, eh," mused Thong to his partner, as Darcy preceded them downstairs. "Now we'll know what killed her, and we'll have something to start on—maybe."

"I think we've got something already," observed Carroll.

"Oh, yes—maybe—and then—again—maybe not. Come on!"

"Morning boys! Nice crisp day—if you say it quick!" cried the county physician, as he shook the rain from his coat and tossed his auto gloves on a shiny glass showcase. "Second time this week you've got me out of bed before my time. What's the matter, if they've got to have a murder, with doing it in the afternoon? I like my sleep!"

He was smiling and cheerful, was Dr. Warren. Murders and autopsies were all in the day's work with him. He had been county physician for a number of years.

"Hum, yes! quite an old lady," he mused as he took off his coat, which Carroll held for him. The doctor rolled up his shirt sleeves and stooped down. "Head's badly cut—let's see what we have here. Let's have a light, it's too dark to see."

One of the clerks switched on more electric lights, and they glinted and sparkled on the silver and cut glass. They flashed on the white, still face, and the gleams seemed to be swallowed up in that red blotch in the snowy hair.

"Um, yes! Depressed fracture. Bad place, too. Shouldn't wonder but what it had done the trick. Might have been from a black-jack?" and he glanced questioningly at the detectives.

Carroll shook his head in negation.

"That'll crack a skull, but it won't draw blood—not if it's used right," and he brought from his hip pocket one of the weapons in question—a short, stout flexible reed, covered with leather, the end forming a pocket in which was a chunk of lead.

"I'll gamble it wasn't one of them," said Carroll.

"Maybe not," assented the doctor. "Let's look a bit further."

He glanced at the floor about the body, peered around the edge of a showcase, underneath which there was a space for refuse—odds and ends, discarded wrapping paper and the like—a place into which neither of the detectives had, as yet, glanced. Dr. Warren uttered an exclamation, and drew out a metal statue, about two feet high.

It was that of a hunter, standing as though he had just delivered a shot, and was peering to see the effect. The butt of his gun projected behind him, and as Dr. Warren moved the statue into the light of the jewelry store chandeliers, they all saw, clinging to the stock of the gun, some straggling, white hairs.

"That's what did it!" exclaimed the county physician. "I'll wager, when I try, I can fit that gun butt into the depression of the fracture. The burglar—or whoever it was—swung this statue as a club. It would make a deadly one, using the foot end for a handle," and Dr. Warren waved the ornament in the air over the dead woman's head to illustrate what he meant.

"Don't!" muttered Darcy in a strained voice.

"Don't what?" asked the physician sharply.

"Use the statue that way."

"Why not?"

"Well—er—I—we were going to buy it for our new home. But now—Oh, I never want to see it in the house! I couldn't bear to look at it—nor could she!"

"She? We? What do you mean?" asked Carroll quickly. "Say, do you know something about this killing that you're keeping back from us?"

He took a step nearer Darcy—a threatening step it would seem, from the fact that the jewelry worker drew back as if in alarm.

"No, I don't know anything," said Darcy in a low voice.

"Then what's this talk about the statue—not wanting it in the house—whose house?"

"The house I hope to live in with my wife—Miss Amy Mason," answered Darcy, and he spoke in calm contrast to his former excitement, "We are going to be married in the fall," he went on. "I had asked Mrs. Darcy to set that statue aside for me. Miss Mason admired it, and I planned to buy it. We had the place all picked out where it would stand. But—now—"

He did not finish, but a shudder seemed to shake his frame.

"It would be a rather grewsome object to have around after it had killed the old lady," murmured the reporter. "But are you sure it did, Doc?"

"Pretty sure, yes. I never make a statement, though, until after the autopsy. No telling what that may develop. I'll get at it right away. I guess you remember that Murray case," he went on, to no one in particular. "There they all thought the man was murdered, when, as a matter of fact he had been taken with a heart spell, fell downstairs, and a knife he had in his hand pierced his heart."

"That wasn't your case, Doc," observed Carroll.

"No, it was before my time. But I remember it. That's why I'm saying nothing until I've made an examination. Better 'phone the morgue keeper," he went on, "and have them come for the body."

"Have you—have you got to take her away?" faltered Darcy.

"Yes. I'm sorry, but it wouldn't do—here," and the doctor motioned to the glittering array of cut glass and plate. "You won't keep the store open?" he inquired.

"No. I'll put a notice in the door now," and Darcy wrote out one which a clerk affixed to the front door for him.

"Well, that's all I can do now," Dr. Warren said, after his very perfunctory examination. "The rest will have to be at the morgue. Got a place where I can wash my hands?" he asked.

Darcy indicated a little closet near his work bench. Dr. Warren soon resumed his coat, accepted a cigarette from Daley, slipped into his still damp rain-garment and was soon throbbing down the street in his automobile, having announced that he was going to breakfast and would perform the autopsy immediately afterward.

Soon a black wagon rattled up to the jewelry store, bringing fresh acquisitions to the crowd, which persisted in staying in spite of the rain, which had now changed from a drizzle to a more pronounced downpour.

More reporters came, and Daley fraternized with them, the newspaper men aside from the police and Jim Holiday, a detective from Prosecutor Bardon's office, being the only people admitted to the shop, when the clerks had been sent home.

The morgue keeper's men lifted the fast stiffening body and were about to place it in the wicker carrier when Carroll, who was watching them rather idly, uttered an exclamation.

"What's up?" asked Thong quickly. He had been strolling about the shop, and had come to a stop near Darcy's work table—a sort of bench against the wall, and behind one of the showcases. The bench was fitted with a lathe, and on it were parts of watches, like the dead specimens preserved in alcohol in a doctor's office. "What's up, Bill?"

"Look!" exclaimed Carroll, pointing.

The men from the morgue had the body raised in the air. And then, in the gleam from the electric lights there was revealed underneath and in the left side of the dead woman a clean slit through her light dress—a slit the edges of which were stained with blood.

"Another wound!" exclaimed Daley, his newspaper instincts quickly aroused by this addition of evidence of mystery. "This is getting interesting!"

"It's a cut—a deep one, too," murmured Carroll, as he drew nearer to look. "Wonder what did it?"

"Shouldn't wonder but it was done with this!" and Thong held out, on the palm of his large hand, a slender dagger, on the otherwise bright blade of which were some dark stains.

"Where'd you get it?" demanded Carroll.

"Over on the watch repair table."

Darcy gasped.

"Is that your dagger?" snapped Carroll at the jewelry worker.

"It isn't a dagger—it's a paper-cutter—a magazine knife."

"Well, whatever it is, who owns it?" The words were as crisp as the steel of the stained blade.

Darcy stared at the keen knife, and then at the dead woman.

"Who owns it?" and the question snapped like a whip.

"I don't! It was left here by—"

There was a commotion at the side door, which had been opened by

Mulligan in order that the men might carry out the body of Mrs. Darcy.

There was a shuffling of feet, and a rather thick and unsteady voice

asked:

"Whash matter here? Place on fire? Looks like devil t'pay! Let me in. Shawl right, offisher. Got a right t' come in, I have! I got something here. 'Svaluable, too! Don't want that all burned—spoil shings have 'em burned.

"'Lo, Darcy!" went on a young man, who walked unsteadily into the jewelry store. "Wheresh tha' paper cutter I left for you t' 'grave Pearl's name on? Got take it home now. Got take her home some—someshing—square myself. Been out al'night—you know how 'tish! Take wifely home li'l preshent—you know how 'tish. Gotta please wifely when you—hic—been out al' night. Wheresh my gold-mounted paper cutter, Darcy?"

"Harry King, and stewed to the gills again!" murmured Pete Daley.

"Wow! he has some bun on!"

"Wheresh my paper cutter, Darcy?" went on King, smiling in a fashion meant to be merry, but which was fixed and glassy as to his eyes. "Wheresh my li'l preshent for wifely? Got her name all 'graved on it nice an' pretty? Thash what'll square wifely when I been out—hic—al'night. Wheresh my paper cutter, Darcy, ol' man?"

Silently the jewelry worker pointed to the stained dagger—it was really that, though designed for a paper cutter. The detective held it out, and the red spots on it seemed to show brighter in the gleam of the electric lights.

"Is that your knife, Harry King?" demanded Thong.

"Sure thash mine! Bought it in li'l ole N' York lash week. Didn't have no name on it—brought it here for my ole fren', Darcy, t' engrave. Put wifely's name on—her namesh Pearl—P-e-a-r-l!" and he spelled it out laboriously and thickly.

"My wife—she likes them things. Me—I got no use for 'em. Gimme oyster fork—or clam, for that matter—an' a bread n' butter knife—'n I'm all right. But gotta square wife somehow. Take her home nice preshent. Thatsh me—sure thash mine!" and carefully trying to balance himself, he reached forward as though to take the stained dagger from the hand of the detective.

"You got Pearl's name 'graved on it, Darcy, ole man?" asked King, thickly, licking his hot and feverish lips.

"No," answered the jewelry worker, hollowly.

Then Harry King, seemingly for the first time, became aware that all was not well in the place he had entered. He turned and saw the body of the murdered woman as the men from the morgue Started out with it. He started back as though some one had struck him a blow.

"Is she—is she dead?" he gasped. "Dead—Mrs. Darcy?"

"Looks that way," said Carroll in cool tones. "You'd better come in here and sit down a while, Harry," he went on, and he led the unsteady young man to the rear room, while the men from the morgue carried out the lifeless body.