Читать книгу The Door of Death - Samuel Shellabarger - Страница 6

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Let me here pay homage to the high spirit and self-control displayed by Eleanor Graham on this and other occasions of the grim adventure in which we were both destined to participate. Whatever her faults, they were not of weakness. She was one of those who meet the challenge of emergency like steel to flint, and are best appreciated in moments of stress. Now, white but rigid, she faced the situation, and in part took charge of the immediate steps necessary.

First, the servants were roused and the house searched, including the separate wing reserved for Mr. Ballion’s collections, to which the locked doors communicated. But nothing gave evidence of any intruder. It appeared also that none of the servants, including the housemaids, a cook, and the man, Hasta, had been away from Greyhouse that evening. Frightened and incoherent, they all bore witness to this. When I asked if Mrs. Ballion locked the door of her room at night, Eleanor replied that she did not. There was an electric bell communicating with her own room in case Celia needed anything; and on this account the door was left unfastened.

“It’s significant,” I observed, “that she did not ring to-night.”

“Yes,” returned Eleanor, and I was aware of her constraint, “it’s indeed significant.”

“Mr. Ballion then does not occupy the same room as his wife?”

“No, he does not.”

“There is nothing further we can do,” I said, “but telephone him. I remember your mentioning, didn’t you, that he was in town.”

“Yes, for the theater. But,” she hesitated a moment, her eyes avoiding me, “I’m not certain of his address. Perhaps Celia knew. He doesn’t, as a rule, care to be disturbed by messages.”

I remembered that Francis Ballion belonged to a number of clubs, where he might or might not be found. There were also a score of possible hotels, and it was not an hour of the night for telephoning at random.

“You might try Carl Ballion,” suggested Eleanor, and gave me his number.

It was only after some minutes of prolonged ringing that a drowsy voice answered—a voice, however, sharpening suddenly. I could imagine the keen, handsome face of Ballion, as I had seen it yesterday, intent above the receiver. He greeted my report with subdued exclamations.

At length, “No, I don’t know where Francis is. I’ll try the Rackets Club. You suggest there was violence used—are you sure?”

“Practically.”

“Then it’s a question for the police. Though I don’t know about that. Francis would hate publicity—in case, that is, you are mistaken. Perhaps we’d better wait—or no, what do you think of Norse?”

“Rae Norse?”

“Yes, of the detective service.”

“Right!” I approved; “he’s an intimate friend of ours and would be discreet.”

“Then I’ll find him and Francis, if possible,” went on the quick, decisive voice. “At all events, I’ll be at Greyhouse within an hour. Hope Eleanor’s standing it. I can’t tell you, Ames, how thankful I am you are there.”

He was better than his word, but the time seemed long before a car with three men drove up to Greyhouse. At the sound of the horn, I had gone out to meet them. One was Carl Ballion, the other Norse, and the third a heavy-set man, who I learned was a subordinate of Norse’s. Francis Ballion had not been found then. There seemed to me a shadow on Carl’s face as he emerged into the light of the door.

Having been recently preoccupied with the portrait of his brother, I noticed for the first time a resemblance, the boldness of feature and grace of carriage; but Carl was younger and slightly taller. He gave the impression besides of the well-knit compactness of muscle that goes with an athlete. He had the most expressive eyes and mouth I have known, fairly instinct with energy and alertness of mind.

At first glance, the appearance of his companion was in direct contrast; and because a good part of this record deals necessarily with Rae Norse, it is worth pausing to look at him, as he stood near Ballion. He always reminded me, in a sort of droll combination, of two utterly opposed historical figures—John Paul Jones and the composer Mozart. He was slight and appeared delicate, but had a sort of game-cock independence in his way of carrying himself. Except in moments of action his manner was pensive, even languid. At times I could imagine him dreaming mystically, and at others in a cocked hat on the quarterdeck. He was a person of most amazing variety, but I should say that the dominant trait was a look of girlish sensitiveness which has been the undoing of a great many. Having once at an athletic club boxed with Rae Norse, I never afterward let it deceive me.

“Good morning, Ames,” he said, “I fancy you’re glad we’re here.” The warmth of my assent evidently amused him, for he smiled expressively to Carl Ballion.

“How’s Eleanor?” asked the latter; and when I had reassured him his face brightened. “We might as well go in,” said Norse. “It’s too dark for looking around outside. But you, Tom,”—this to the subordinate—“you watch the driveway and walks in front and about. Don’t permit any one to confuse whatever footprints there are. And when it’s light enough, make tracings of anything you find with note of position. You’re good at that.”

He entered the great hall in front of us, and looked about him. I could see that he also was impressed by its size and beauty. “A Sargent,” he said, pointing at once to the portrait; “your brother, I believe?”

Carl nodded.

On fire with curiosity to hear the result of his search, I asked if Mr. Ballion had been found.

“Yes and no,” he answered with a trace of concern. “He is stopping at the Rackets Club, but hadn’t come in when I ’phoned.” The effort at nonchalance in his voice seemed rather to emphasize than veil the fact that it was four in the morning.

Norse avoided the topic. “Before we go further,” he said to me, “give us your account. And by the way, what is the name of that fellow who met us at the door?”

“Hasta,” returned Carl.

“A Spanish name... All right, Ames, give us your story.”

I told him what I considered salient in the chronicle of that long night, but all the while I saw that his eyes rested on the portrait; and all the while I would have thought that he scarcely heard, were it not that he asked me an occasional sharp question.

“You say that you considered her unbalanced?”

“Yes—but not insane.”

“You believe then that the cause of her fear may have been real?”

“I’m perfectly uncertain on that point,” I said truthfully.

And again: “Miss Graham heard these footsteps you describe?”

“The sound was so brief that it was merely an impression on the part of both of us.”

“Two impressions,” mused Norse, “become impressive.”

And again: “Why do you believe death came by strangling rather than heart failure, due to some nervous attack? Be careful about this.”

I outlined the symptoms bluntly, though somewhat reproached by the horror in Carl Ballion’s face: the position of the tongue between the teeth, the slight protrusion of the eyes, ashen color of the skin, etc.

“But I thought,” interjected Carl, “that in such cases there was rather a suffusion of blood in the head.”

“Not necessarily,” I answered. “It may be one extreme or the other.”

“And her throat?” asked Norse.

“A slight mark, as from the tightness of a collar. It is hardly apparent now.”

“But surely,” insisted Ballion, “there would be more than that—some trace of fingers, or if a cord were used, a ridge beneath the skin.”

“No,” I maintained, “this would not inevitably occur if the strangling instrument were removed immediately after death, and provided this instrument were especially fitted to its purpose.”

“What do you mean?” asked Norse.

“I mean a contrivance which would exert sudden and violent torsion.”

“You believe such an instrument was used?”

“I do, and that whoever used it was an expert.”

“Very well then,” said Norse, “we can begin investigations.”

Carl Ballion, however, excused himself on the ground of wishing to see Eleanor; and once again, as he left us, I felt that droop of spirit which a person in my position had no right to call jealousy. It was I, therefore, and the butler, Hasta, as guides, who accompanied Norse on his inspection.

To my surprise, he did not immediately proceed to the fatal room. His movements may be described as a spiral, beginning at the widest circumference and gradually narrowing to a center. He first examined the various means of entering or leaving Greyhouse; asked questions about the front, or hall door, whose chains Eleanor and I had found correctly in place; visited the two service entrances and noted, as we had done, that each inside bolt of stout iron was driven deep in its socket. Every window fastening was also properly latched. We then turned our attention to the doors of the library.

I say doors advisedly, because they were double, each of massive oak and each with a separate key. They were kept locked during Mr. Ballion’s absence, and their keys, of which he retained duplicates, were entrusted to his wife. It was with them (found, by the way, apparently unmolested in the drawer of her dressing-table) that we had opened the library during our first search.

This room, if it could be called one that more nearly resembled a medieval audience hall in height and size, seemed at first glance to be without other means of entrance than from the house. Constituting in itself an almost separate wing, it was lighted and ventilated from above very much in the manner of an enormous studio. Upon closer survey, however, a door, or rather crevice, was noticeable in the outer angle of the apartment, which opened evidently on the garden. I fancy that no exit more strange has ever been designed; for, apart from its situation as a section of the angle itself, apart also from its height and relative narrowness, this aperture could be used only to leave but not to enter the room.

So much was plain. The door was without knob and provided only with a keyhole. But when, upon not finding a key, Norse went outside and around, he discovered that the door on that side was blank.

“Now what,” he mused on returning, “can be the use of it!”

He took out his pocket torch for a closer examination and threw a circle of light upon the threshold, bringing into prominence a slab of stone about three feet square, set even with the floor. On it was carved what appeared to be a woman’s face. But what this symbolized remained as enigmatic as the rest.

“The door’s always like that, sir,” volunteered Hasta. “It’s never been opened that I know of.”

“It hasn’t?” returned Norse placidly, and bent down to look closer. “It hasn’t? Well, perhaps not.”

But evidently something puzzled him, for he turned to look again as we left the room.

There followed an inspection of the upper floors and particularly of the hall upon which my bedchamber opened, and which ended, as I had assumed, at a flight of service stairs.

Then only, when this was finished, did he enter Celia’s room, still brilliantly lighted as Eleanor and I had found it. She and Carl Ballion were standing by the bed when we rejoined them, his face unusually softened by a look of deep sorrow. He turned away. “She was a very lovely woman,” he said abruptly. “She could not have harmed any one. Poor, gentle Celia!”

At this moment I noticed a peculiarly seraphic expression on the features of Norse. Doubtless he was moved as I at the presence of tragedy; but of a sudden I grew conscious that his look centered on the figure of Hasta, who stood uncertain at the threshold. And if I have ever seen a distressful countenance, it was there. His eyes were on Eleanor and Ballion as they stood above the body. He had the appearance of one who would have liked to compose his features and cannot, whose mask is off. His face was putty-colored, his hands twitched. In another instant, he had stepped back again into the hall. Then I saw the seraphic-sensitive yield place in Norse’s eyes to a glint of cold steel.

He gave no other indication of his thought, however; but began a thorough examination of the room. I noticed that he gave particular attention to the bedposts and woodwork; but from the blankness of his face I judged that he had found nothing.

“We’ll have to wait,” he muttered, “for what Tom Roose may find outside—and also for daylight. There seems to be nothing here. Quite so,” he nodded in reply to a question from Eleanor, “you may cover the body.”

Now, whether it was that our search had neglected the drapings of the bed, or that it had been concealed beneath a fold, I do not know; but when Eleanor drew taut the covering, a dark object slipped to the floor which gave a new turn to affairs and became the essential link between that night and what followed. Eleanor, bravely absorbed in her ministrations, was unconscious of it; but hardly had it fallen before Norse with a sharp intentness had snatched it up. For a moment I did not recognize what he spread out on his hand beneath the light. Then I saw it was a glove, a man’s glove of thick brownish leather. Mechanically he undid the clasp, for it was fastened, and spread open the cuff. I heard a quick intake of breath. By this time, Carl Ballion and I were at his side, and craning over we saw two initials stenciled within. They turned fiercely vivid.

The initials were: F. B.

In the revulsion that followed I felt sick, physically sick, as thought unleashed sprang to an apparent yet monstrous conclusion. The air of the room seemed foul and poisoned. I could read my own dismay reflected on the features of Ballion and of Eleanor, who now joined us. Only the face of Norse retained its usual calm, though I saw his lips tighten.

“So,” he remarked, “and can any one tell me if he has ever seen a glove like this in the possession of Mr. Ballion?”

Neither Carl nor Eleanor answered.

“You don’t have to speak,” continued the other, “though obviously your silence means yes. You will have to testify later at all events.”

It was Eleanor’s voice that broke the pause. “Of course, there’s no use putting off. He wears that kind. The glove is Francis Ballion’s, I think.” Then faintly: “I’m going to my room for a while. Would some one mind helping me? I believe...”

Then I realized fully how great her strength had been.

One of the servants, whom I knew later as Anne Roderick and long devoted both to her and Celia, took charge of Eleanor at the door of her room.

“She’ll be right enough in a moment,” whispered Anne. “She’s like that; she never gives up.”

But I confess that for me also the splendid, tapestried room had become terrible, and it was only the spur of pride that enabled me to return there with Carl Ballion.

We found Norse still examining the glove, his face more placid than ever.

“It’s a most interesting thing,” he observed, “a pearl of a thing! Apart from other remarkable features, it’s curious that any one capable of such neat crime, who leaves not a trace, kills like an adept, should deposit a glove and initials, a calling-card, as it were, by the side of his victim. Almost too good to be true!”

But what the “other remarkable features” were, he did not vouchsafe.

There came a ringing of the telephone outside. Norse answered it, and I could hear his voice in brief conversation: “He’s there, eh? You’ve informed him? Very well.”

Upon reëntering, he met the question in Carl’s glance. “Your brother’s just returned to his club. He’ll be here presently.”

The shadow deepened on Ballion’s face. Somewhere a clock struck five.