Читать книгу MYSTERY & CRIME COLLECTION - Hay James - Страница 21

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Prepared as he was for surprise, his emotion, when he was ushered into Miss Fulton's room, was little short of amazement. The girl was transformed. Instead of a spoiled child, with petulant expression, he beheld a calm, well controlled woman who greeted him cordially with a smile. Overnight, it seemed, she had developed into maturity.

Wearing a simple, pale blue negligée, and propped up in bed, as she had been the day before, she had now in her attitude nothing of the weakness she had shown during his former interview with her. For the first time, he saw that she was a handsome woman, and it was no longer hard for him to realize why Braceway had been in love with her. He waited for her to explain why he had been summoned.

"I've taken affairs into my own hands—that is, my affairs," she said. "There's something you should know."

"If there is anything——" he began the polite formula.

"First," she told him, "I'd better explain that father ordered me to discuss the—my sister's death with nobody except Judge Rogers. You know who he is, the attorney here. Father and George have retained him. I haven't seen him yet. I wanted to give you certain facts. I know you'll make the just, proper use of them."

"Then I was right? You do know——"

"Yes," she said, exhibiting, so far as he could observe, no excitement whatever; "I was not asleep the whole of Monday night. I narrowly escaped seeing my sister die—seeing her murdered."

Her lips trembled momentarily, but she took hold of herself remarkably. A trifle incredulous, he watched her closely.

"I heard a noise in the living room. It wasn't a loud noise. The fact that it was guarded, or cautious, waked me up, I think. Before I got out of bed, I looked at my watch. It was somewhere in the neighbourhood of one o'clock—I'm not sure how many minutes after one. As I reached the little hallway opening into the dining room, I heard a man's voice.

"He was not talking aloud. It was a hurried sort of whisper. It seemed as if the voice, when at its natural pitch, would have been high or thin, more of a tenor than anything else. It gave me the impression of terrific anger, anger and threat combined. The only thing I heard from my sister was a stifled sound, as if she had tried to cry out and been prevented by—by choking."

She looked out the window, her breast rising and falling while she compelled herself to calmness.

Bristow was looking at her with hawk-like keenness.

"And what did you do?" he asked, his voice low and cool.

"I pulled the dining room door open. From where I stood, looking across the dining room into the living room, I could see the edge of my sister's skirt and—and a man's leg, the right leg.

"That is, I didn't see much of his leg. What I did see was his foot, the sole of his shoe, a large shoe. He was in such a position that the foot was resting on its toes, perpendicular to the floor, so that I saw the whole sole of the rubber shoe."

She put both hands to her face and closed her eyes, holding the attitude for several minutes. When she looked at him again, there were no tears in her eyes, but the traces of fear.

"It seemed to me that he was leaning far forward, putting most of his weight on his left foot and balancing himself with the right thrust out behind him. There was something in the position of that leg which suggested great strength.

"All that came to me in a minute, in a second. When I realized what I saw, the danger to Enid, I fainted, just crumpled up and slid to the floor, and everything went black before me. I don't think I had made a sound since leaving the sleeping porch."

Bristow spoke quickly.

"Miss Fulton, who was the man?"

She overcame a momentary reluctance.

"I'm not sure," she said slowly. "I am not sure. I thought it was either Henry Morley or George Withers."

She turned away. A tremor shook her from head to foot.

"Why?" he asked.

"First, the voice," she replied, her face still averted. "It could so easily have been Mr. Morley's high voice lowered to a whisper; or it might have been George Withers'. When he's angry, his deep voice undergoes a curious change; it's horrid."

"And the second reason?"

"The man wore rubbers." She turned her face toward him. "I had seen Mr. Morley put his on two hours before that."

"How about your brother-in-law?"

"He's a crank on the subject—never goes out in the rain unless he has them on."

"Think a moment, Miss Fulton. Couldn't that man have been a negro—the negro who is now held for the crime? He wore rubber-soled shoes. Could you swear that what you saw was not a rubber sole attached to a leather or canvass shoe?"

"No; I couldn't."

"And the voice? Did you hear any of the man's words? Could you swear that it wasn't the illiterate talk of an uneducated negro?"

"No; I couldn't."

"What made you think of Morley and Withers?"

"Mr. Morley was in a raging temper with my sister when he left me—in connection with money matters. You know about that part of the affair?"

"Yes."

"And George's voice is always like the one I heard. It's like that when he gets—used to get—into a temper with Enid."

Bristow felt immensely relieved. He was so sure of his case against Perry Carpenter that he refused to consider anything tending to obscure his own theory.

"Are you still sure it was Mr. Morley or Mr. Withers?"

"I think now," she answered, her voice hardly above a whisper, "it was George Withers."

"Why?"

"Let me explain again. I lay there, where I had fainted, for hours, until just a few minutes before you answered my call for help. I must have had a terrific shock. When I recovered consciousness, I stumbled into the living room and saw—saw Enid. Her—oh, Mr. Bristow!—the sight of her face, of her mouth, paralyzed my voice.

"I stood on the porch and tried to scream, but at first I couldn't. I only gasped and choked. I started down the steps, reached the bottom, and then found I could make myself heard. I ran back up the steps and stood there shrieking until I saw you coming. I suppose nobody had seen me go down the steps."

"But that hasn't anything to do with Mr. Withers?"

"Yes—yes, it has. When I went down the porch steps, I saw something lying in the grass, on the upper side of the steps, the side toward your house."

She slipped her hand under one of the pillows.

"It was this."

She handed to Bristow an open-faced gold watch. He read on the back of it the initials, "G. S. W."

"It's George Withers' watch," she said, "and, when I found it, he had not been on this side of Manniston Road, according to the story he told you and the chief of police."

Bristow was thinking intently, a frown creasing his forehead. He was wishing that she had not found the watch. He reminded himself of the hysterical condition she had been in the day before. Perhaps, after all, this story was nothing but an unconscious invention—a fantasy which she thought to be the truth.

"Why did you refuse yesterday to tell me this; and why do you volunteer it now?" he inquired, holding her glance with a cold, level look.

"I'm afraid you won't understand," she answered, a little smile lifting the corners of her mouth, a smile which, somehow, still had in it a great deal of sorrow. "Yesterday I was still under the influence of the way I had lived all my life, subjugated, as it were, by the fact that my older sister was my father's favourite and by the further fact that my sister's personality was stronger than mine—at least, I had been taught to think so.

"I don't want you to think I didn't love my sister. I did; but it made a cry-baby out of me. I always relied on others—do you see? But now, that influence is gone. I'm my own mistress; and I know it. I can and must do what strikes me as right."

Bristow, close student of human nature that he was, did understand. There flashed across his mind a passage he had read in something by George Bernard Shaw: that nobody ever loses a friend or relative by death without experiencing some measure of relief.

"Yes; I see what you mean," he assented; "its an instance of submerged personality—something of that sort."

"Mr. Braceway is working with you, isn't he?" she asked suddenly.

"Why, yes," he replied, surprised.

"I thought," she continued, "that what I had seen would be of service to you and him. And I can't understand why father and George want all this secrecy. One would think they were afraid of finding out something—something to make them ashamed! What I want is to see the guilty man punished—that's all."

He recalled Braceway's statement that he had been engaged to marry Maria Fulton. Could it be that she still loved him, and that the engagement to Morley, her helping him financially, had been all a pretense, the pitiful product of pique toward Braceway to show him she cared nothing for him? And now she wanted to help Braceway, not Bristow?

He decided to ignore that part of the situation. The obvious incrimination of Withers gave him enough to think about. He was sorry it had happened. He did not believe there was the shadow of a case against him.

He rose and handed the watch to Miss Fulton.

"No," she objected; "I don't want it. You and Mr. Braceway, perhaps, will make use of it."

He hesitated before putting it into his pocket.

"Why did you send for me, Miss Fulton?" he asked, after thanking her for doing so. "Why me instead of your lawyer, Judge Rogers?"

"He would have forbidden me to talk," she answered simply; "and I wanted to talk. I refuse ever again to carry around with me other people's secrets. It's too oppressive."

"Have you told this to anybody else?—or do you intend to?"

"No; nobody; and I won't."

"Now, one thing about Mr. Morley: do you think he has stolen money—from his bank, for instance?"

"Why, no! He was speculating—and losing. I'm glad you asked about him. I shall never see him again—never!"

Bristow left her with the assurance that he and Braceway would make the best possible use of her theory and the facts she had adduced. He walked slowly back to his bungalow, his limp more pronounced than usual. He felt physically very tired.

But of one thing he was still certain: the strength of his case against Perry Carpenter. He chose to stick to that, much more stubbornly than Braceway had refused to consider minutely the exact situation of Withers in regard to the crime. If Withers had murdered his wife, circumstances were now ideally in his favour. The two men, unusually brainy, quick thinkers, who were recognized by the police and the public as able to bring punishment on the guilty man, had other and opposing theories—theories which they were resolved to "put over," to substantiate. As matters stood now, the story Bristow had just heard was hardly a factor. The detectives were busy with ideas of their own.

Maria Fulton, after the lame man had left her, lay back against her pillows and looked out the window with misty eyes. Counteracting the sorrow that had weighed upon her for two days, was her speculation as to how Braceway would receive the facts she had revealed.

Would he see that her course was one which she intended to be of help to him?—that, not knowing how he would treat a direct message from her, she had sent it to him through another?—that she desired, above all things, his success in the investigation?

"When I spoke to this man of Sam Braceway, my whole manner was a revelation of how I felt—a frank declaration! And, of course, he will tell him. If he doesn't——"

She called Miss Kelly.