Читать книгу Murder Runs in the Family - Footner Hulbert - Страница 6

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LATE that afternoon Lance returned to the neighborhood of the Beardmore Linen Mills. In addition to the ornamental grounds surrounding the mills, the Beardmores had purchased a large tract of land opposite and had presented it to the city to be used as a park for the benefit of their employees and the public generally. Naturally it had been given their name.

Lance found a bench inside the park that was sufficiently screened from view, yet afforded a good point of reconnaissance. The handsome little building housing the offices of the firm faced him, with the ornamental pool between it and the street. Tall cypresses rose at each end of the pool, with brilliant beds of late-blooming flowers in the foreground. Behind, partly screened by trees, were the wide-spreading buildings that housed the thousands of looms. The whole plant was one of the show places of the state.

Shortly before the whistle blew the same green limousine that had carried Jim Beardmore earlier in the day drew up before the offices. Lance smiled with grim satisfaction. His man was still at work. Lance engaged a passing taxi-cab and ordered the driver to wait a little way up the street. Sitting in the back seat, he watched the limousine through the front window. There was a deep furrow etched between his brows, and his eyes had the awful steadiness of the man who is possessed by a single idea.

The street became crowded with the home-going employees of the mill, and emptied again before the limousine moved. When Jim Beardmore finally came out of the office building Lance's eyes fastened on him searchingly. Even at the distance it could be seen that Beardmore felt pretty good. There was a spring in his walk, heavy as he was, and a complacent smile about the corners of his thick lips. The flower in his buttonhole, the slight swagger, suggested a rendezvous with a woman, and Lance's eyes grew hot as he took it in.

The limousine headed downtown, with the taxicab following. Beardmore stopped at Murdoch's, Lounsbery's fashionable leather store. The limousine moved on, and Lance, paying off his taxi, watched from across the street. He saw Beardmore appear within a window of the store and point to an expensive luncheon-basket that was displayed there. It seemed like an odd sort of purchase for him to make. Lance was still more surprised when he came out of the store carrying the basket, instead of having it sent home.

Beardmore did not hail a car, but walked around a couple of corners and disappeared within a handsome building on Harrison Street. This building had a semi-public look, but it was neither a hotel nor an office building. Lance put it to a postman who was passing on his last round.

"Say, George, what building is that?"

"The Lounsbery Club, fellow. All the big bugs belong to it."

Lance concealed himself within the mouth of an alley opposite, and watched the club. A long time passed, but the fixed gray eyes showed neither weariness nor boredom. The street gradually emptied as people sought their dinners. The windows began to light up.

It was almost dark when Beardmore came out of the club again. He still carried the luncheon-basket. His festive air was slightly accentuated as if he had had a few drinks inside. He disregarded the taxi-drivers who eagerly bespoke his attention, and turned down to the Civic Center, where he boarded a trolley car marked "Morrell Park."

Lance followed. The car was crowded, and the young man was safely hidden on the back platform. His intent gaze missed nothing. He saw, from the way that Beardmore carefully set the basket between his feet, that it was heavy. Where was the rich man going in a plebeian trolley car with a basketful of lunch?

As one person after another left the car, Lance realized that he must eventually be discovered. He dropped off at the next stop and waited for a taxi to come along. He instructed the driver to follow the car. More and more people got off, but Beardmore remained sitting stolidly in his corner. City gave place to suburbs and suburbs to the open country. Beardmore was the last passenger left in the car.

He rode to the terminus of the line. Lance stopped his taxi a couple of hundred yards short of the car, and paid the driver. Beardmore was walking on over the country road carrying the basket. It was quite dark now, but an occasional electric light enabled Lance to keep him in view. He was not the kind of man who looked over his shoulder. Too sure of himself. Lance followed, taking advantage of every bit of cover that offered alongside the road.

All this country was unfamiliar to Lance. As far as he could judge, it was pleasant rolling land. Many of the heights were crowned with fine country houses. They met nobody.

Suddenly Beardmore disappeared. Lance, in his anxiety, ran ahead. At the point where he had last seen his man there was a gateway to one of the estates of the neighborhood. "Fairfield" was painted upon it. Lance listened with bent head, and presently distinguished Beardmore's heavy tread crunching the gravel. With a grim smile he followed him through the gate.

Inside, the trees met overhead, and it was as dark as a windowless room. Lance, walking on his toes, followed his man by the sound of his steps. It was quite a considerable park, with dense woods and open glades no doubt very beautiful by day. Finally a wide space opened up with the house in the middle.

It was an immense, extravagant house with long rows of pillars and a balustraded roof, more fitting to serve as the palace of a duke than as the home of a plain American. Even by night the place had an indefinable air of neglect, as if it had been abandoned before it was finished. No light showed anywhere in the endless ranks of windows. The solitude was complete.

Beardmore left the road and struck straight across the grass like one well accustomed to the place. Lance, fearing to expose himself, hung back in the shadow of the trees. He was able to follow Beardmore's movements by the big white basket he was carrying. He saw the basket mount the front steps of the house, hesitate for a moment, and disappear inside. Lance ran across the grass. No lights came on inside the house.

In front of the house Lance showed his first moment of irresolution. He prowled up and down. He was not eager to enter that dark doorway. Too much like a trap. Better wait outside until his enemy reappeared. Lance settled himself in a corner of the terrace commanding the front door.

But he could not remain still. Judging from the food he had brought, Beardmore expected to remain in the house all night or longer. And it was obvious that he was up to some devilment. Lance hovered uneasily around the door. The question was, how to get in? If he pounded or rang, it might bring his enemy to the door—or it might merely enable him to escape. Above all Lance wanted to find out what he was up to. Lance tried the handle of the door, not expecting any result. To his astonishment, the door opened. He went in, closing it softly behind him.

Inside all was dark and still. He could not hear Beardmore's heavy tread, nor any other sound. His hand encountered a heavy oak chair, and he instinctively crouched behind it. It was possible that Beardmore was within a yard's distance, perhaps, watching him.

Gradually his eyes became a little accustomed to the darkness. It appeared that there was a gigantic window in the back of the house, and enough light came through it to show Lance that he was in a sort of central hall that ran up to the roof and had several galleries running around it. A noble stairway went up at the back to a broad landing under the window, where it divided.

One by one Lance spotted the possible hiding-places in the hall, and satisfied himself that Beardmore was not concealed in any of them. There was not a sound through the house. The millionaire had disappeared like a stone dropped in water.

Corridors opened right and left out of the hall, and Lance cautiously explored them. On the left-hand side he softly opened several doors, only to get a glimpse in each case of big formal rooms filled with shrouded furniture. On the other side of the house, the same.

He started up the stairs a step at a time, gun in hand. Always peering and listening. He couldn't understand why Beardmore should keep himself so quiet. The house was his; or at any rate he possessed a key to it. But the silence and darkness were those of the grave.

On the next floor there were likewise long corridors on the right and the left. Lance went up the right-hand branch of the stairs. On this side nothing. He passed around the gallery, and as he looked into the corridor on the other side, he stiffened. Under the first door on the left showed a crack of light.

His first feeling was one of relief. Light suggested everything that was normal and living and human, and nightmare terrors evaporated. Jim Beardmore was behind that door. Lance smiled grimly and approached it.

For a moment he paused outside, debating the best way to act. The most direct way was surely the best. He suddenly turned the handle with his left hand, and stepped over the threshold with his gun ready.

A long room ending in a bay at the far end; a library lined with books. Brightly lighted. It contained only a few comfortable pieces of furniture covered with dust-cloths. And Beardmore was there. He sat in a chair at the other end near the windows, his back turned to Lance. Not wanting to shoot him in the back. Lance spoke brusquely.

"Beardmore!"

The man never moved, and in that instant Lance realized that he was dead.

The young man's eyes goggled with horror, his pistol hand shook like a leaf, a fine sweat broke out on his forehead. He had entered the house not more than three minutes after Beardmore, yet in so short a time the deed was done! Quick work! The murderer could not be far away. Still in the room, perhaps. Lance's eyes darted, looking for possible hiding-places. The room had no other door but the one he had entered by. He closed it to guard against surprise from that side. In a moment he had got a grip on himself. The murderer was not in the room. Lance approached the body. All his feeling of enmity left him. Beardmore's head had fallen a little forward and to one side, as if he had dropped into a doze. The hues of life had not yet faded from his coarse face.

A gun was lying on the floor at his feet. Lance took note of powder burns on the breast of his coat, and for a moment he thought it a case of suicide. But the ridiculous luncheon-basket lying on a table near by gave the lie to that. No! Somebody else had done Lance's work for him. He dropped his gun in his pocket. Meanwhile a dark wet stain was spreading through the breast of Beardmore's jacket.

Lance suddenly bethought himself of his own hazardous situation; he looked around him nervously. Where was the murderer? Had they passed each other silently in the dark house? How to get out, himself, now? Was the other lying in wait for him in the corridor?

As he glanced towards the door of the room he suddenly congealed into ice. The handle was slowly turning. He drew his gun and instinctively dropped on one knee, partly covered by the table. The door opened, slowly, slowly, just an inch or two. Lance waited.

It opened no farther. A man's hand appeared around the edge of the door—a hand in a brown glove, the cuff of a gray homespun suit showing above. He was fumbling for the key. Lance suddenly understood his intention and leaped to his feet with a shout. He ran for the door, but the room was long. The hand pulled the key out and slammed the door. Lance fired a shot through the door. It was no good; the key had turned.