Читать книгу Murder Runs in the Family - Footner Hulbert - Страница 7

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LANCE flung himself against the locked door. But since it opened towards him, there was no possibility of forcing it out. Like any living creature suddenly finding itself trapped, a panic seized him. He looked wildly around the room in search of a weapon to smash his way free. The luxurious library offered nothing. The door was of heavy mahogany.

Lance was filled with an unreasoning terror of the dead man who shared his prison. It seemed to him that the head of the sinister figure was nodding slightly, as if Jim Beardmore was laughing. Slinging the basket to one side, he turned the table upside down and, standing on it, wrenched violently at one of the legs. He was afraid to look at the dead man and afraid to turn his back on him.

He succeeded in smashing one of the legs off. Running back to the door, he swung the club with all his might against the panels. The crashing blows echoed strangely through the quiet house. Lance kept glancing in terror over his shoulder at the dead man. His efforts were in vain. He only succeeded in bruising his hands and numbing his arms with the force of his own blows. He slung the club aside and snatched up a heavy brass poker that stood at the fireplace. Useless. The poker bent double in his hands.

He leaned against the door, panting. All the time better sense was telling him that this would never do. With a powerful effort of the will he quieted his shaking nerves. He forced himself to go back to the dead man and gaze at him steadily. Beardmore's face was waxen now. He was dead, all right. He would never jeer at anybody again. The dead are harmless.

Lance tried to think things through. What strange coil of circumstances had he gotten himself into? What had brought the arrogant millionaire out here with his basket of lunch? Why had the murderer locked him in with his victim? To try to shift the crime to Lance, perhaps. Not such a bad idea when Lance had been bound on the same errand. A cold sweat broke out all over him as he considered the difficulty of proving his innocence. Perhaps the killer knows all about me, he thought.

Then the thought came to him like a sudden flash of light: Jim Beardmore is dead and Freda is free! Life seemed terribly sweet to Lance then. The only way for him to save himself would be to establish the truth of the matter. With a shiver of repulsion, he started going through the dead man's pockets. They were empty; money, keys, everything had been taken.

Lance reached for the pistol on the floor, but drew back his hand in fright, remembering fingerprints. He examined the weapon without touching it; an old-fashioned revolver of large caliber, with silver and mother-of-pearl mountings. On a silver plate on the butt the owner's name was engraved—James Beardmore. Jim's own gun.

Lance wondered how the revolver could have been placed against Jim's breast without his resistance. A bruise on his temple supplied the explanation. He had been knocked down first. The bullet had gone completely through his body. After some search Lance found it imbedded in the floor near the door. He was then able to piece together what had happened. As he entered the door Jim had been struck by a black jack or some such weapon, and as he lay on his back on the floor he had been shot through the heart. The murderer had then dragged him to the chair. The fact that he had procured Jim's own gun suggested that the killer was some one close to him.

Lance went through the luncheon-basket. It contained nothing but lunch—lobster mayonnaise, a salad, dainty sandwiches, a couple of bottles of champagne, and coffee in a thermos bottle. Service for two! Was it possible that a woman had killed Jim Beardmore? The blackjack is not customarily a woman's weapon. Perhaps there was more than one engaged in it.

A sound outside, or a fancied sound, recalled Lance to a sense of his own terrible danger. He instinctively turned out the lights in the room. He went to the windows. The land fell away at the back of the house, and there was a drop of about thirty feet below him. It might have been possible to make a rope out of the heavy curtains and the dustcloths, but that would take time.

The side window of the bay faced a window of the adjoining room. A space of three feet or so separated them. Possible to step across. To think of it was to put it into effect. Lance threw the sash up to its farthest extent, and standing on the sill, supporting himself by the window frame, leaned over and kicked in the next window. Pieces of the glass shivered on the stone paving below.

Reaching over with his hand, he found the latch and turned it. To raise the sash in that strained position was not easy, but he finally succeeded in moving it an inch. When he could work the toe of his shoe under it, he got a better leverage. He crossed over to the other sill and let himself into a dark room. He felt his way to the door, and turned the handle, with his heart in his mouth. The door was not locked!

But he was afraid of what might be waiting for him outside. He opened the door and stepped back and to one side, gun in hand, half expecting a rush of bodies, or possibly a shot. But all was dark and quiet in the corridor. He slipped out. Down at the far end a window showed a pale rectangle of light. He inched along towards the stairs, instinctively keeping his back against the wall, and trying to look both forward and back. His body struck against the key in the door of the library. Removing it, he dropped it in his pocket with the idea of delaying the discovery of the murder as long as possible.

For some moments he hesitated at the mouth of the corridor, dreading to trust himself in the comparative lightness of the great hall. But delay was dangerous. He started down the stairs a step at a time, pressing against the wall. The silence of the place was absolute, and his confidence increased. An instinct told him that the house was empty now, and he went down the last few steps boldly.

At the bottom of the steps his heart suddenly turned to water with fear, for he heard the roar of an approaching squad of motorcycles. He ran to the front door. He was too late. They were arriving outside. Through a window he saw them dismounting—half a dozen motorcycles followed by a big police truck full of men. They ran up the steps. Lance had but just time enough to shoot a bolt in the big door. They heard the sound and flung themselves against the door. Lance retreated from it.

For the second time the panic of the trapped creature gripped him. Why hadn't he let himself down from the window? He ran blindly into the corridor on the right, opening this door and that, seeking a way of escape. But whenever he approached a window he saw police outside. They were surrounding the house, throwing their lights along the walls. A driveway ran all the way around the house, making their job easier.

Lance, blocked at one end of the house, ran blindly back through the corridor. As he crossed the great hall a mighty blow was delivered on the door, that shook the whole house. They had improvised a battering-ram. The sound lent wings to Lance's feet.

At the next blow the door went in with a crash. Men ran in. Somebody found the light switch and the central hall was flooded with light. Lance, in the side corridor, opened a door at random, and darted into a room. There was no key in the door to lock it behind him. It was a dining-room. He fell over a chair. The sound was heard, and a shout was raised behind him. Running feet pounded along the corridor.

The dining-room had another door. Lance flung himself through it. A swing door; pantry inside. Through an archway he collided with the rail of a stair. He ran up. There was a door at the head of the stairs, and this one had a key in it. He turned it, and leaned against the door, panting.

He was at the end of the upstairs corridor. At his right hand was the same window he had seen before. Through it he could see a motorcycle policeman in the driveway below, turning his headlight this way and that on the building. No escape that side.

His pursuers were throwing themselves against the door he had locked. Fortunately for Lance, they were in a cramped space at the head of the stairs. Lance ran back through the corridor to the central hall. Nobody had come up the main stairs yet. It was an ordeal to face the lighted gallery, but he had no choice, for they must soon break through the door behind him.

He dropped to all fours and crawled around the gallery, keeping as far as possible from the balustrade. He could hear voices below. He was seen, or heard, for a shout was raised, and men started up the stairs. Lance rose to his feet, and ran like a deer through the far corridor. He felt that he was coming to the end of his rope now.

He opened a door at the end. It had a key in it. He slammed it shut and locked it behind him. He was in a bedroom. It was merely exchanging one trap for another. A corner room. The back windows opened on the sloping roof of a porch. Lance raised one of the windows softly. Over the edge of the porch he could see the reflected radiance of a headlight, but the light itself was invisible.

When his pursuers threw themselves against the door of the bedroom he climbed out on the roof. His last stand, he told himself, for there was a policeman waiting in the drive below. There was a tall tree growing at the edge of the porch, with one long branch overhanging the roof. It offered a desperate chance, and Lance took it. He sprang for the branch, caught it, and drew himself up.

He worked his way in to the trunk of the tree, and sat on the branch, embracing it. He could see the police-man now, turning his light this way and that, and watching. Presently two men appeared at the window of the bedroom Lance had quitted. They had flashlights which they threw around. The lights did not pick up Lance, but the policemen saw the tree and guessed which way he had gone. They called to the man below. Had he seen anybody? No. Then their man was in the tree. They climbed out on the roof. Lance edged around to the far side of the tree trunk, and crept out on another long branch. The trees grew thickly on this side. When his branch began to sway under him dangerously, he leaped for a branch of the next tree and caught it. He gained the ground by way of the trunk of the second tree, still unseen, and set off running, stumbling over the rough ground, dodging the trees. He was heard, and the three policemen came after him.

He turned sharply to the right, and after running a few steps crouched in the shelter of a thick bush. The three men charged by, all unaware of him. He rose and crept softly in the other direction. Silence was of more importance to him than speed. Presently he heard his pursuers running back.

He struck a path, and turned into it in the direction away from the house. In a hundred yards it ended at the shore of an ornamental lake winding away in the dark amongst the trees. There was a small boat tied to the bank, with oars in it. Lance was an oarsman and he knew he could make twice as good time in the boat as they could follow through the pathless woods. He untied it and pushed off.

At that moment a policeman came running down the path and shouted. Other men answered him. Lance rowed swiftly away in the dark. Forever afterwards the slightly stale smell of a fresh-water pond was associated in his mind with the events of that night. He could see the Great Bear over the tree-tops, and the North Star, and he noted that his course was sou'-sou'-east. Not that it did him any good, for he was totally unacquainted with the neighborhood. His pursuer was crashing through the bushes alongshore. Lance gained on him rapidly.

The little narrow lake was only about quarter of a mile long. At the other end Lance found another boat drawn up, and his heart sank. He couldn't stop to investigate. The path began again. He followed it, warily peering ahead.

As soon as he left the lake he heard footsteps in the winding path behind him, and the cold hand of fear was laid on his breast. Not the policeman, because he could still hear him floundering through the bushes in the distance. Soft padding steps behind him. When Lance stopped the sound ceased; when he started it recommenced. Fear of the unknown made Lance's skin turn clammy.

In a moment or two he saw lights through the trees and left the path. The footsteps behind him turned aside when his did. The woods ended abruptly, and a wide, flat field stretched before him. There was a main highway on the other side of the field, with cars running to and fro in it. These were the lights he had seen.

Lance was a runner, and he instinctively trusted to his legs. He sprang away across the field. He had not taken half a dozen steps when he collided with an invisible wire fence which yielded under the impact of his body, and, tautening, flung him violently back on the ground. Before he could recover himself his pursuer had dropped on him and was kneeling on his chest.

A man of flesh and bone like himself, Lance was no longer afraid of him. He regretted that he had run. It was a heavy man whose knees crushed Lance's ribs and hindered his breathing. He had a soft hat pulled down over his eyes, and the lower part of his face was hidden under a cloth. Lance struggled with all his might, but he was at a hopeless disadvantage.

Once, as he flung a hand up, he struck the man's watch, and a tinkling sound issued from it. A repeater. Lance was to remember that sound. The man raised his right hand with significant action and brought it down with terrible force. Lance heard the blow on his own skull. His senses reeled. The blow paralysed a nerve center. All the strength ran out of his limbs. He was as helpless as a log of wood. It was like a nightmare. Yet he remained conscious. While the man's hands ran over Lance's body, feeling in his pockets, he was muttering in a low, toneless voice: "What luck! What luck! What luck!"

He pulled out Lance's gun. "Christ! what a piece of luck!" he muttered. He gave Lance a shake. "Can you hear me? This is too good to keep! I'm going to shoot you with your own gun and leave it beside you! They will call it murder and suicide!"

"So this is the murderer!" thought Lance.

The shot was never fired. A sound from the direction of the woods caused the man crouching on Lance's body to turn his head sharply. Another figure ran out from amongst the trees. The man sprang up from Lance and turned to face the newcomer. Lance found strength enough to drag himself away through the grass.

He instinctively headed for the shelter of the trees and the undergrowth. Behind him he heard the sounds of a furious quiet struggle. Lance crawled into the middle of a bush, and lay there until he could recover more strength.

There was a shot from the struggling men—then silence. Lance heard the survivor running to and fro in the grass, cursing frantically under his breath, looking for Lance, no doubt. Other men could be heard running up by the path through the woods. The man ran away.

Lance was able to stand now, and he lost no time in putting space between himself and the men who were coming. He ran along in the shadow of the edge of the woods. As the footsteps drew closer he struck into the woods and went down on all fours, feeling the ground in front of him, and creeping ahead a foot at a time to avoid making any sound. He gradually lost the other men.

After a considerable time he came to a fence, and climbing it, found himself in a rough cart track, with the woods on one side and a field on the other. He followed the track past a dark and silent farmhouse, and finally came out on a main highway.

He dared not take to the highway for fear of being picked up by the lights of the cars that occasionally passed back and forth, but made his way through the fields parallel with the road, climbing the fences as he came to them. The reflected light in the sky showed him in which direction the city lay.

From the city a big police car came roaring down the highway at sixty miles an hour, bearing reinforcements to the searchers. Other cars followed it, filled with reporters, perhaps, or mere curiosity-seekers. Lance gave the road a wider berth. Coming to a cross-road, he skirted that, making a detour around the city so that he could enter it from a different quarter.

After a long walk he came to another highway, and eventually to the terminus of a trolley line, not the same line that he had left town by. A car was waiting, ready to return. Lance put his clothes in order as well as he could, smoothed his hair, wiped the mud off his shoes, and boarded it. Nobody took any particular notice of him.

As the car filled on its way in to town his fears died down. When he got off at the Civic Center and lost himself amongst the crowds on the sidewalks, a delicious sense of safety filled him. After all, nobody in the vicinity of the murder had had a close look at him, except the murderer, and he was in no position to denounce Lance.

He was astonished to discover from the street clocks that it was not yet nine o'clock. Only two hours since he had left town! It seemed as if the events of half a lifetime lay between. Pausing in front of a lighted store window and examining himself in a mirror, he saw that he looked much the same as usual; a little strained about the eyes, perhaps. It was hard to believe that a man could be so little changed.