Читать книгу The Alster Case - Rufus Gillmore - Страница 4

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I secured my hat and coat and hurried through the outer office without responding even to Miss Walsh’s questioning look. Too late, I realized how she would have rejoiced at the news. But on me now was the additional agitation of one suddenly thrust into new authorities and the hope that in these I might so conduct myself as to secure the favor of Miss Beatrice Alster. It was she—and she alone—who occupied my mind to the exclusion of all others; and I hastened to her side with a nervousness that I was greatly put to it to subdue.

Miss Alster’s late residence was on one of the streets in the seventies, just away from Madison and Fifth Avenues, a four-story brownstone front, not to be remarked from the twenty similar in the block except by its number. As I turned into the street I looked for a crowd before the door. There was no crowd. On the opposite side of the street were one or two groups of men engaged in conversation; as I approached the steps two men, idling there, looked me over, but apparently Miss Alster’s death had not provoked the sensation I expected.

A policeman in uniform opened the door and stopped me rudely as I attempted to pass him.

“Reporter? Here, you! This don’t go. See!” He stopped me with one arm while the other held to the door.

I explained, giving my name, my business, and the purpose of my visit, but he obstinately refused to permit me to pass until I identified myself by my card, by letters, by the initials in my hat and by the name tag in my clothes. Evidently he had been given strict orders to keep reporters at bay; and this—my first fury at my own delay gone—pleased me mightily.

A deathly silence reigned over the house. I could not make up my mind whether the slow, muffled footsteps that seemed to start up, stop, and start up again, now on this floor, now on the floor above, now at an indeterminable distance or nearness—I could not decide whether they were real or a fiction of my over-excited imagination. I stood dumbly in the front hall for a long time, hesitating, the dread of the house of the dead upon me, a great fear of making some blunder or not showing sufficient control and authority acting like paralysis upon me. A slight stir behind me broke the spell. I turned. The policeman stationed at the door was staring at me questioningly. After a hasty glance into the reception room at the right, which proved to be unoccupied, I went quietly upstairs.

Miss Alster had occupied that entire second floor and, doubtless, her body now lay in one of its rooms. I took a long breath as I observed that all the doors were closed. Softly, quickly over the padded carpet, past all these doors, I slipped, never stopping until my foot was on the next staircase and I had taken a firm hold of its banister.

Thud! Thud! Thud! As I paused to glance apprehensively back one of the doors opened. A pair of eyes fell straight and searchingly upon me. With a loosening of the heart I recognized that they were gray, that they were a man’s eyes, that was all, then the door was closed.

Thud! Thud! Thud! Was it the muffled footsteps of this man that I heard without being able to locate? How could he have heard my quick, soft movements along that hall so as to open the door and look straight at me? With a shudder I slipped up the stairs.

Here, as below, all the doors were closed. I had never been on this floor before. I stood undecided as to which room to turn. I listened and could make out nothing except that occasional thud, thud, thud, which seemed to seek me out through the dead silence and to beat on my head as on a muffled drum. I stood there in that upper hall waiting, listening, hoping for other sounds until my heart seemed to stop beating, then the door of the front room on the left opened and Agnes, Miss Alster’s Irish maidservant, stepped out.

Her usually calm face was flushed; she was so flustered that she failed to observe me; she closed the door and stood holding its handle as against some one chasing her, or at least as if against one whom she did not wish to follow her. And, when she finally looked up and noted my presence, she did so with a smothered exclamation of relief. Before I could speak she put a cautioning finger to her lips, listened a moment, and then led me to the room farthest away, closed the door and turned agitatedly toward me.

“ ’Tis a madhouse, a madhouse, a madhouse here to-day!” she exclaimed, hysterically wringing her hands. “The old fiend dead, God rest her soul, and the young fiend loose and carrying on till we’re all at our wits’ ends, and not a man about to lean on! Oh, Mr. Swan, if you’d been through what I have this lovely morning!” She put her hand on my arm and seemed about to cry. “Not a friend in the world—for all their riches, not a friend in the world—it’s a lesson to us—not a soul has been near them—everyone gone except me and Alice—could you blame me for leaving? Not a man around these two hours, except the policeman at the door, and me standing the brunt of it all—and me—” she choked off.

I took her by the arm and led her to a chair. I gave her a little time to control herself. Then I thought of the butler. “But where’s Keith?” I asked her.

“The blackguard!” She forgot her woe in her resentment. “Where would he be the once we need him? Gone, like the bad rubbish I said he was. From the minute I first set eyes on that man I knew him for what he was, a villain if ever I saw one. If the old fiend had ever seen his carryings on with the young fiend as I have!”

“You mean with Miss Linda?” I asked amazed.

“Sure, ’twas scandalous! A butler making signs to her whenever he wanted to talk with her, whispering soft nothings into her silly young ears in this hall upstairs when he thought no one was watching, and then leaving like the sneak and the coward he is just when the young fiend needed him! What would you think of just the scrapings of a man like that?”

Keith, the butler, carrying on a surreptitious flirtation with Linda Alster! Headstrong as that pretty young woman was, I could not believe it. I set it down to Agnes’s prejudice. I led her away from the subject by inquiring as to just how and at what time Miss Alster’s body had been discovered.

“Sure, Mr. Swan, I’ve told that so many times already ’tis dead on my tongue. There was the doctor, the police, the man that’s to buy the house, the—”

“The man that’s to buy the house!”

“Either that or else he’s a friend of the family or else—but didn’t he tell me he had been sent for to look over the house, and haven’t I run into him everywhere looking it over, counting the closets and trying the windows and the doors as if to cheapen it when we came to sell. And yet I liked the old duck; he acted like he knew his business, I’ll say that for him, and he—”

“But Miss Alster never said anything about wanting to sell the house.”

“The old fiend! Sure, and don’t you know her? She was always surprising them she took close to her, not to say disappointing them. Take Miss Linda, see what she’s made out of her. Taking one up like a nurse and dropping one like—like an empty tin can! Sure, I knew she would never come to any good end, God rest her soul!”

Gradually I got from her the details of how and when the body was discovered, though with many digressions not necessary to this story. It appeared that Miss Alster had been a martinet for having breakfast served at eight-thirty every morning and was always down herself a few minutes before that hour, making sure that her nieces and servants alike should be on time. At eight this morning Keith, the butler, not having appeared to prepare the table, Alice, the cook, went up to call him, Agnes refusing to do it. Alice came back with the news that his bed was empty and had not been slept in. The two maids debated the matter and agreed that neither cared to break the news to Miss Alster, because Keith was one of her latest proteges and she would be furious. Eight-thirty arrived and Miss Alster had not come down. There had been some gossip between the maids as to how Miss Alster would take his absence, stopped suddenly by the entrance of the two nieces. They appeared as astonished at Keith’s disappearance as the servants were. There were questions; the four women grew more and more alarmed as the minutes passed and Miss Alster also failed to come down. At last all four went up together and knocked at her door. There was no answer. They listened and could not hear her stirring. They tried the door and found it locked. Then they all fled downstairs.

Here they talked over in hushed whispers what might have happened until not one of them dared to go upstairs again. Finally Miss Beatrice telephoned for the family physician. He came with a locksmith and the women trooped upstairs behind them, Miss Beatrice in the lead. The locksmith opened the door, discovering the lights still to be burning wanly. He and the doctor led the way in, followed by all four women. Miss Alster was in her living-room, fully dressed, lying back in a chair as if she had fallen asleep. They spoke to her and she neither answered nor moved. The men went over to her, waving the women back, and screening her from their sight with their bodies. Then Miss Linda screamed. She had seen the pool of blood lying behind her aunt’s chair.

According to Agnes, Linda had rushed screeching from the room, refusing to allow Beatrice to comfort or to come near her. Agnes followed her upstairs to her room, where Linda locked the door and declared that she never wanted to see Beatrice again. Beatrice knocked at the door and Linda called to her to go away, flew into one of those dry, hysterical tantrums that caused the servants to call her “the young fiend.” She attempted to get her hat and coat and leave the house, but Agnes managed to prevent her by telling her that she would be arrested if she left before the coroner gave permission. Not until her passion wore itself out had Agnes been able to bring Beatrice and her together. And ever since—

“But I thought that Beatrice was the only one that could do anything with Linda when she had one of these fits,” I objected.

“Sure, the devil in the old one has found a lodging in the young one. Since this morning she has that hate for Miss Beatrice that would do credit to the old fiend herself.”

“Don’t expect me to believe that Miss Alster really hated Beatrice!” I protested scornfully, rushing to Beatrice’s defense.

“And what do outsiders like you know about the people of the house and how they feel toward each other?” Agnes crossed off my scorn with her own. “Have you never seen that Miss Linda has her fits and tantrums, but that Miss Beatrice is the one with a will of her own? Maylike you have never heard of all the attempts of the old fiend to break it? How would you, being new to the family and yet under the old fiend’s spell?”

I had nothing to say. I thought better of my attempt to change her opinion.

Agnes rose from her chair, her anger that of a good servant whose word has been questioned. “Maylike you’ll be saying those two girls is friends,” she derided with a roused servant’s contempt. “Maylike you’ll be dreaming that this trouble has brought them together. Maylike you’ll be denying that Miss Linda threw a book at my head, that she threatened to kill me if I stayed in the room.” She flung open the door.

In the hall outside stood a short, square-shouldered, slightly corpulent yet athletic-looking man of about forty-five. He had a massive, powerful-looking head with a good thatch of wavy hair and a short-cropped sandy mustache. He looked like a business man, a broker, or the executive of some big business downtown, who, having steered it to a prosperous destiny, was now concerned in finding a fitting home or investment for his money, and his eyes were fixed upon the ventilator high on the wall as if appraising its use and value. He completed his inspection before acknowledging our presence with a slow, negligent glance from his gray eyes.

Agnes nodded toward him to indicate that he was the man whom she had mentioned and appeared quite unconcerned that he should have been near while she was revealing family secrets. She turned back toward me and went on with the burden of her argument.

“Sure, sir, go in. Go in and see for yourself, if you don’t believe me,” she exclaimed. She pointed toward the room at the front of the hall and ran downstairs.

I hesitated. Agnes had convinced me that there was trouble between the two nieces. I had known them only a few weeks, had seen neither more than a half a dozen times, and gravely doubted my capacity for serving as a peacemaker. And yet if Beatrice needed aid! If I could only believe that my presence would not be an intrusion!

I heard Linda’s voice raised in anger, and this prosperous-looking business man seemed interested neither in that nor in me, nor in anything except the mopboard and the doorframes in the hall.

“There’s a closet and an open fireplace in that room, I presume?” he said finally, acknowledging me with a smile that I found peculiarly ingratiating; and then, with a good nature quite as winning, “Don’t you think it would be better if you went in as the maid suggested?”

Before I could protest he took me by the arm, led me to the door, knocked, and, upon receiving permission, ushered me quietly into the room. I had a short view of him, smiling beneficently after me as he closed the door between us, and then I faced the dreaded duty before me.

It was as Agnes had declared. One glance sufficed to settle that. In chairs on opposite sides of the room sat Miss Alster’s two pseudo nieces, their eyes avoiding each other. It was Beatrice who greeted me, holding out her hand without rising from her seat, and with a slight lightening of her lovely dark face that made my heart catch. Linda, her pretty blonde head supported by one hand, continued staring at the window, oblivious of me, conscious apparently only of some hot difference of which she still nursed the grievance.

“I—I don’t intrude?” I couldn’t help asking, looking, however, not at Linda but at Beatrice.

She shook her head. After a moment Linda turned around toward me as if I had addressed her, her blue eyes snapping.

“Not as long as you don’t attempt to tell me what I ought to do,” she said with a petulant toss of her head. She seemed about to say more, but stopped at a look from Beatrice.

“Remember, Linda! Remember your promise to me,” warned Beatrice in a voice that trembled a little.

“I can be trusted quite as much as one I’m not naming,” retorted Linda, and I saw Beatrice take the affront to herself, blush and become silent as if fearing to provoke her further.

I stood there, attempting to divert them from their difference by making some inane lead about the weather.

Suddenly Linda interrupted me in the midst of a sentence. “Beatrice says it is necessary for me to remain here to preserve appearances for her—is it?”

“Yes, but quite as much to preserve appearances for yourself.” I stared at her in amazement

“I don’t care anything about appearances. I want to go. I want to leave this house and all its terrible people forever. I never want to see any of them again.” She rose and ran to the window, pulled the drawn curtain aside and peeked out.

“You can’t. You can’t go until the coroner has given you permission without laying yourself open to suspicion.”

“Suspicion? Suspicion of what?” She dropped the curtain and turned angrily toward me.

What could I say? I made a gesture threatening more than I cared to put in words and saw her eyes slowly leave me, travel to Beatrice and dwell upon her coldly. “Is that why you’re staying, Beatrice, dear?” I heard her ask scornfully.

“Linda! Remember!” was Beatrice’s only reply.

Linda seemed thoroughly to enjoy her discomfiture. She returned to her chair and her manner relaxed. “Do you know anything about the will?” she suddenly asked me.

“Linda, what does that matter?” interposed Beatrice.

“Everything to me, if you do pretend it doesn’t to you,” retorted Linda. “Oh, I’ll keep my agreement with you now, no matter how the will reads, but there’s one thing I must know. Oh, what a fool I am!” She whipped suddenly toward me. “Mr. Swan, you’re a lawyer, tell me. If Beatrice solemnly promises to give me half what she inher—”

But that question was never finished. Beatrice had risen from her seat, crossed the room and stood glaring down into Linda’s eyes with an intensity before which she quailed. Linda stopped talking, stared boldly back for a few moments, then shuddered and changed her seat. There was real fear in her action, though she sought to cover it with a hollow, ineffective laugh. And then came a knock on the door.

I turned. Had that door been ajar all the time since my entrance? Then it swung open and the man who had led me in ushered in a stalwart white-haired man with a white mustache and a distinguished manner, whom I recognized instantly as General Alster. I had seen him often on the platform at political rallies and at public mass meetings where great reforms were agitated, but I had never dreamed that he was related to Miss Cornelia Alster as his first words indicated.

“I ventured to come here the moment I heard the sad news and the man outside insisted upon my coming right in,” he stated. He advanced past me toward the girls, who had risen, forgetting their difference in their astonishment at seeing him. “Are you the children?” He gave them each a hand. “Why, you’re quite as pretty near to as at a distance—both of you. Don’t blush, I’ve seen you often in your aunt’s box at the opera and wanted to meet you. Nothing except the absurdly strained relations between me and my cousin could have kept me away. But now—”

I looked at the door. It was closed tightly. Probably it had been closed quite as tightly after my own entrance. I remained a few minutes, unnecessary, unnoticed and uncomfortable, watching the courtly old general making friends with the two girls, then, with murmured excuses, I slipped out of the room.

The man whom I had suspected of eavesdropping was nowhere in sight and the noise in the lower hall told of the arrival of a number of people. I hurried downstairs to learn what this meant.