Читать книгу MYSTERY & CRIME COLLECTION - Hay James - Страница 11

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The chief and his assistant were received by Miss Kelly, the trained nurse. Bristow wasted no time in what he considered to be the crucial search for more evidence. In speaking to her he exercised all his persuasiveness, all the suggestion of power and authority that he could force into his voice and expression. And yet, he gave her, as he had given Mrs. Allen, the impression that he deferred to her and prized her opinions.

"Isn't there something you can tell us?" he asked, holding her glance with his own.

"What do you mean?"

She was a strong, capable-looking woman of twenty-six years or so.

"Like every good citizen," he answered smoothly, "you want exactly what we want, a clearing up of all this muddle. I thought, perhaps, there might be something you'd heard or seen. Isn't there?"

"No; nothing, sir," she returned, true to her professional teaching that a nurse is forbidden to reveal the secrets of the sickroom.

"You'll be called as a witness at the inquest," he hazarded, and was rewarded by a look of uncertainty in her eyes. "Your duty to the law is above everything else," he added.

"I've heard Miss Fulton say only one thing," she admitted reluctantly. "She's said it several times while under the influence of the sedatives she's had."

"What was it?"

"Nothing that made any sense. It was, 'When he—say—I—asleep.' There were long pauses between each of the words. She said it four or five times. But she hasn't said anything since she waked up."

"How long has she been awake?"

"About fifteen minutes. Mr. Morley saw her five minutes ago, but he wasn't in there more than a minute or two."

"Morley's seen her a second time!"

"Yes; but each time she hasn't wanted to talk to him. The truth is, she drove him out of the room."

"You didn't hear what they said?"

Miss Kelly drew herself up indignantly.

"I wasn't in the room," she said coldly. "Of course, I didn't hear."

Bristow apologized for the implication that she had overheard intentionally.

When he and Greenleaf were shown into Miss Fulton's room, he had made up his mind in lightning-like manner that what she had said in her delirium, meant: "When he (her father or the police) asks me about last night, I shall say I was asleep all night." It came to him like an intuition, without his even trying to reason it out; and he decided to act on it.

They found Maria Fulton propped up against pillows in the bed. Although her pupils were still enlarged by the sedatives she had had, she was plainly labouring under the stress of great emotion.

Bristow was pleased by that. It would make it easier to learn what she knew. It is difficult, he reflected, for a person under the partial effects of a drug to lie intelligently or convincingly.

He and Greenleaf, taking the chairs that had been placed near the bed by Miss Kelly, regretted the necessity of their intrusion.

"Oh, it's all right," Miss Fulton said petulantly. "I know it's essential. Dr. Braley told me so."

Bristow studied her intently. He saw that Mrs. Allen had been right. Maria Fulton was a dissatisfied, peevish woman. She had the heavy, slightly pendent lower lip that goes with much pouting. There was the constant trace of a frown between her eyebrows, and in the eyes themselves was the look of complaint and protest which the "martyr-type" woman always shows.

She was of the infantile, spoiled class, he decided, one who, remembering that her childhood tears and fits of temper had always resulted in her getting what she wanted, had brought the habit into her adult years. He noted, too, that her gorgeous ash-blond hair had been carefully "done," piled in high masses above her petulant face.

"There are just a few questions which we thought it imperative to ask you," he said, trying to convey to her his desire to be as considerate as possible. "We shall make them as brief as we can."

Miss Fulton plucked impatiently at the coverlet, but said nothing.

Bristow, acting on his belief that life with this girl must always be more or less stormy, took a chance.

"Now," he said, fixing his keen glance upon her, "about this quarrel you and your sister had yesterday?"

She frowned and waved her right hand in careless dismissal of the subject.

"Oh, that," she said, "didn't amount to anything."

"What was it about?"

"I really don't know. You see, my sister and I didn't get along very well together."

Bristow put out his hand, and Greenleaf handed him the ring that had been found in Morley's room at the Brevord.

"This ring," he said; "whose is it?"

She sat up straight and gasped. Her pallor grew. Even her lips went thoroughly white.

"Where did you get that?" she asked huskily.

"It doesn't matter. Whose is it?"

"It—it was my sister's," she said, almost in a whisper.

"Do you know who gave it to Mr. Morley?"

She stared, speechless, at Bristow.

"Don't you know?" he persisted.

"Yes," she said with obvious effort; "I—I lent it to him."

"When?"

"Yest—last night."

"Why?"

She tried to smile, but her features were moulded more nearly to a grimace.

"Mr. Morley and I—and I—have been engaged," she laboured to explain. "He said he wanted to wear it for a while just because it belonged to me."

"But he knew it didn't belong to you, didn't he?"

"I suppose," she corrected herself, "he meant he wanted to wear it because I had worn it."

"I see," commented Bristow, and added very quickly: "How much of your sister's jewelry is in this house now?"

Miss Fulton stared at him again, and did not answer.

"Can't you tell me?" he urged. "How much?"

She turned her head from him and looked out of the window.

"None of it," she replied finally. "I had Miss Kelly look for it. It's all—gone."

"Why did you have Miss Kelly look for it? What made you suspect that it was gone?"

She turned to him and frowned more deeply, angrily.

"It was, I suppose," she said shortly, "the first and most natural suspicion for any one to have; that, since she had been killed, she had been robbed. It was the only motive of which I could think."

"Yes," he agreed pleasantly, handing the ring back to the chief; "I think you're right there."

He was silent for a full minute while the girl in the bed plucked at the coverlet and eyed first him and then Greenleaf.

"Miss Fulton," he demanded more sharply than he had yet spoken, "did you see or hear anything last night in connection with this tragedy, the death of your sister?"

"No; nothing," she answered, her voice now approaching firmness. It was a firmness, however, that was forced.

"How do you explain that?"

"I went to bed before my sister returned from the dinner dance, and I had taken something Dr. Braley had given me that breaks up the severe coughing attacks to which I am subject and that also puts me to sleep."

"Makes you sleep soundly?"

"Very."

"It was a hypodermic injection, wasn't it?"

"Yes."

"And you took it—administered it to yourself?"

"Yes."

"Do you know what it was?"

"Yes; morphine."

"A sixteenth of a grain, wasn't it? That's what is always given to tuberculars to prevent violent spells of coughing, isn't it?"

She hesitated, but finally assented.

"But that's very little to make one sleep so soundly, that one couldn't hear the cries of a woman being murdered and all the noises that must have accompanied the attack upon her. Don't you think so?"

"But, you must remember," she said tartly, "I'm not accustomed to taking morphine. Anyway, that's the way it affected me."

"You heard absolutely nothing and saw nothing until you discovered your sister's body at ten o'clock this morning?"

"That's true. Yes; that's true." She looked out of the window, paying him no more attention.

Bristow, in his turn, was silent. Greenleaf took up the inquiry:

"Several times today, while you were asleep or delirious, you said the words: 'When he—say—I—asleep,' Can you explain that for us, Miss Fulton?"

Her pallor deepened. This time terror flourished in her eyes as she turned sharply toward Greenleaf.

"Who says I said that?" she demanded, husky again.

"Things are heard pretty easily in these bungalows," he said. "One of my men heard it."

"Oh, I understand," she replied, a hint of craftiness creeping into her voice. "No; I can't explain it. One can't often explain one's ravings."

"It merely suggested something that we had thought impossible," Bristow interjected soothingly: "that you might have wanted to deny having heard something which you really did hear; that you were protecting somebody."

"Oh," she said angrily, "that's absurd—utterly."

"Quite," lied Bristow suavely. "That was what I told Chief Greenleaf." Then, with sharp directness, he asked her: "Who do you think killed your sister?"

"I don't know! Oh, I don't know!" she cried shrilly, more than ever suggestive of the spoiled child.

"It must have been some burglar. She was very popular, everybody said. She had no enemies."

"None at all?"

"None that I know of."

"But Mr. Morley didn't like her, did he?"

"No," she said slowly. "He didn't like her, but you couldn't have called him her enemy."

Bristow moved his chair toward her several inches.

"Miss Fulton," he asked, "you and Mr. Morley are engaged to be married, aren't you?"

"No!" she surprised him. "No; we're not!"

He did not tell her that Morley had said they were.

Greenleaf was now clearly conscious of what he had vaguely felt while listening to Bristow's questioning of Withers: the lame man had the faculty of seeming entirely inoffensive in his queries but at the same time putting into his voice an irritating, challenging quality which was bound to work on the feelings of the person to whom he talked. He had begun to have this effect on Miss Fulton.

"I understood," he informed her, "that you were—er—quite fond of each other."

"Not at all! Not at all!" she denied with increasing vehemence. "I'm not engaged to him now. Nothing could induce me to marry him!"

"Mr. Morley declared this morning that you and he were to be married."

She caught herself up quickly, anger evident in her eyes, and at the same time, also, a look of caution. Bristow decided she wanted to tell nothing, to give him no advantage, no actual insight into the clouded situation.

"I see what you mean," she said. "We were engaged, but I finally decided that our marriage was impossible—because of this—my illness."

"And you told him so?"

She thought a long moment before she answered:

"Yes."

"When?"

"Yesterday."

"Then, when did you give him—let him have Mrs. Withers' ring?"

She showed signs of weakening.

"Yesterday," she declared. "No! Last night, I've already told you."

"And why did he want the ring last night when you had broken with him earlier yesterday?"

His subtle irritation of her by his manner and tone had unstrung her at last.

"I don't know," she cried, hysterics in her voice. "Oh, I don't know! Why do you ask me all these foolish little questions?" She tore unconsciously at the counterpane, her fingers writhing against one another. "Please, please don't bother me any more! Leave me! Leave me now, won't you?"

The high, shrill quality of her tone brought Miss Kelly into the room.

"I think," the nurse said, "you gentlemen will have to put off further conversation with Miss Fulton—if you can. The doctor said she was not to be subjected to too much excitement."

They already had risen.

"We've very much obliged to you, Miss Fulton," Bristow said in his pseudo-pleasant way. "It may be useful to us to know about you and Mr. Mor——"

He was interrupted by a cry from the girl. Without the slightest warning, she had lost the last shred of her self-control. She began to beat on the covering of her bed with clenched fists. He could see how her whole body moved and twisted.

Greenleaf, startled by the girl's demeanour, moved further from her. Bristow stood his ground, watching her closely.

She glared at him with the wild look that frequently comes to the hysterical or neurotic woman's eyes. She did not seem to be suffering. She was angry, carried away by her rage, and giving vent to it without any attempt at restraint!

In two or three seconds she had become suggestive of an animal, her nostrils distended, the upper lip drawn back from her teeth. Bristow, going beyond surface indications, estimated her at her true worth: "Too much indulged; overshadowed, perhaps, by some older member of the family; but capable of big things, even charm. She's far from being a nonentity. She may help me yet."

He regarded her calmly, and smiled.

"Don't mention him to me again!" she screamed. "I won't have it! I won't have it, I tell you! I never want to see him again—never! Don't speak the name of Henry Morley in——"

But Miss Kelly had quickly motioned them out and closed the door. Even on the outside, however, they could hear her shrill, whining protest against any mention of Morley.

"Now!" said Greenleaf as they went through the living room. "What do you make of that?"

They left the house and stood on the sidewalk outside.

"Not much," Bristow replied, thinking deeply. "What with Withers throwing a fit, and then this girl having, or shamming, hysterics, it's disappointing. But here's a question: what has Morley done since last evening to make her hate him—at least, to make her look frightened when his name is mentioned to her?"

"What do you think?"

"I should say murder, or something just a little short of murder—wouldn't you?"

Greenleaf looked his bewilderment.

"No," he objected. "I don't believe she'd protect him if she knew he'd killed her sister."

"Not if she knew, perhaps," Bristow pursued ruminatively. "But if she suspected, merely suspected?"

The chief did not answer this. He was clinging now to the theory of Perry's guilt. It seemed to him the easiest one to prove.

"By the way, Mr. Bristow," he suggested, "wouldn't it be a good idea for us to search the yard and garden back of this house?"

"What for?"

"There's always the chance that the murderer, in running away, dropped something, even a part of the plunder. Then, too, remember the buttons."

"Yes; I see what you mean, but it's getting late now. The light's none too good—and I'm tired, chief, tired out. Suppose we let that go until tomorrow—or you do it alone."

"No; I'll wait for you tomorrow. We can do it together."

"Oh," Bristow asked, as if suddenly remembering an important item, "what kind of shoes is Perry wearing?"

"An old pair of high-topped tennis shoes—black canvas."

"Rubber soles?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry," observed Bristow. "That's another complication. Morley wore rubbers last night. Either he or Perry might have made that footprint on the porch."

"How about Withers?" Greenleaf advanced a new idea. "He didn't tell us anything he did after seeing Campbell leave here last night."

"That's true. You'd better see him tonight. Ask him about that; and find out what time he returned to the Brevord. If you don't get it out of him tonight, you probably never will. By tomorrow, his detective, Braceway, will be on the scene, and the chances are that Withers will talk to him and not to us—that is, if he talks at all."

"Then I'll see you in the morning?"

"Yes; any time. I'll get up early. But, if you get anything out of Withers tonight, telephone me—or if your man Jenkins reports on his search for the fellow with the gold tooth."

"O. K.," agreed the chief, and swung off down the hill.

Bristow, whom he had left absorbed in thought, turned after a few minutes and went back to the door of No. 5. Miss Kelly answered his ring.

"I'm sorry to disturb you," he said, his smile a compliment, "but there's something I'm very anxious for you to do for me. Will you clean Miss Fulton's finger nails as soon as you can? And I want you to keep everything you get as a result of that process."

"Do her nails!" The nurse was amazed.

"Yes; please. I'll explain later. And another thing: don't cut the cuticle. Don't bother with that at all. Just get what's under the nails. You'd better use merely an orange stick, I think. Will you do that for me carefully—very carefully? It's of the greatest importance."

Miss Kelly finally said she would.

He went back to his own porch and sat a long time watching the last, fading rays of the sunset.

But he was not thinking about the landscape.

"This man Withers," he was reflecting, "and his getting this detective, Braceway. Let me think. I mustn't look at these things in the light of my theories only. Too much theorizing is confusing.

"I want to get the angle of the ordinary man in the street. How would it look to him? Why, this way: either Withers is on the level and wants to do everything possible to have the murderer caught—or he's smart enough to employ Braceway in the knowledge that neither Braceway nor anybody else can get anything from him that he doesn't want to tell—I wonder."