"Susan"s a wonder," continued Jimmy, taking heart now his Rubicon lay behind him. "Most girls would have thrown a fit. But Susan seems to feel there"s a lot to Mr. Young, in spite of all that rotten side of him. She saw right away he believed that about her, and so he couldn"t be blamed much for getting sore. Anyway, he must have a white streak in him, for Susan talked to him--the way she can--and he soon realized he was in all wrong. But the _reason_ he was in wrong--that"s what finished things between Susan and Mr. Phar! I guess you won"t blame me for wanting to punch his head."
"No," I threw in; "I shouldn"t blame you for wanting to punch mine!"
"Give us the reason, Jimmy," insisted Phil, his grave, Indianlike face stiffened to a mask.
"Mr. Young didn"t get that lie from Mr. Phar," admitted Jimmy, "but he did take it straight to him, when he first heard it, thinking he ought to know."
"Good G.o.d!" I cried. "Do you mean to tell me Maltby confirmed it?"
"Well," Jimmy hesitated, "it seems he didn"t come right out and say, "Yes, that"s so!" But he didn"t deny it either. Sort of shrugged his shoulders, I guess, and did things with his eyebrows. Whatever he did or didn"t, Mr. Young got it fastened in his head then and there that Susan----"
But this time Jimmy simply couldn"t go on; the words stuck in his throat and stayed there.
Phil"s eyes met mine and held them, long.
"Hunt," he said quietly at last, "it"s a fortunate thing for Susan--for all of us--that I have long years of self-discipline behind me.
Otherwise, I should go to New York to-morrow, find Maltby Phar, and shoot him."
Jimmy"s blue eyes flashed toward Phil a startled but admiring glance.
"What do _you_ propose to do, Hunt?" demanded Phil.
"Think," I replied; "think hard--think things through. Wednesday morning I shall leave for New York."
II
My prophecy was correct. Wednesday, at 12.03 A. M., I left for New York, in response to the shocking telegram from Lucette. I arrived at Gertrude"s address, an august apartment house on upper Park Avenue, a little before half-past two, dismissed my taxi at the door, noting as I did so a second taxi standing at the curb just ahead of my own, and was admitted to the dignified public entrance-hall with surprising promptness, considering the hour, by the mature b.u.t.tons on duty. b.u.t.tons was a man nearing sixty, at a guess, of markedly Irish traits, and he was unexpectedly wide-awake. When I gave him my name, and briefly stated the reason for my untimely arrival, his deep-set eyes glittered with excited curiosity, while he drew down deep parallels about his mouth in a grimacing attempt at deepest sympathy and profoundest respect. I questioned him. Several persons had gone up to Mrs. Hunt"s apartment, he solemnly informed me, during the past two hours. He believed the police were in charge.
"Police?" I exclaimed, incredulous.
He believed so. He would say no more.
"Take me up at once!" I snapped at him. "Surely there"s a mistake. There can be no reason for police interference."
His eyes glittered more shrewdly, the drawn parallels deepened yet further as he shot back the elevator door....
It was unmistakably a police officer who admitted me for the first and last time to Gertrude"s apartment. On hearing my name he nodded, then closed the door firmly in the face of b.u.t.tons, who had lingered.
"He"s been warned not to tip off the press," said the police officer, "but it"s just as well to be cautious."
"The press? What do you mean?" I asked, still incredulous. "Is it a New York custom for police to enter a house of mourning?" I was aware as I spoke of repressed voices murmuring in an adjoining room.
"I"m Sergeant Conlon," he answered, "in charge here till the coroner comes. He should make it by seven. If you"re the poor lady"s husband, you"ll be needed. I"ll have to detain you."
As he ended, the murmur ended in the adjoining room, and Lucette walked out from it. She was wearing an evening gown--blue, I think--cut very low, and a twinkling ornament of some kind in her hair. She has fine shoulders and beautiful hair. But her face had gone haggard; she had been weeping; she looked ten years older than when I had last seen her.
"What is it? What is it?" I demanded of her. "I know nothing but your telegram!"
"Looks like murder," said Sergeant Conlon, dry and short. "I wouldn"t talk much if I was you, not till the coroner gets here. I"m bound to make notes of what you say."
For the merest hundredth of a second my scalp p.r.i.c.kled, my flesh went cold; but sheer incredulity was still strong upon me; it beat back the horror. It was simply not real, all this.
"At least," I managed, "give me facts--something!"
Then unreality deepened to utter nightmare, pa.s.sing all bounds of reason. Lucette spoke, and life turned for me to sheer prattling madness; to a gibbering grotesque!
"_Susan_ did it!" she cried, her voice going high and strident, slipping from all control. "I know it! I know she did! I know it! Wasn"t she with her? _Alone_ with her? Who else could have done it! Who else! _It"s in her blood!_"
Well, of course, when a woman you have played tag with in her girlhood goes mad before you, raves----
How could one act or answer? Then, too, she had vanished; or had I really seen her in the flesh at all? Really heard her voice, crying out....
Sergeant Conlon"s voice came next; short, dry, businesslike. It compelled belief.
"I"ve a question or two for you, Mr. Hunt. This way; steady!"
I felt his hand under my elbow.
Gertrude"s apartment was evidently a very large one; I had vaguely the sensation of pa.s.sing down a long hall with an ell in it, and so into a small, simply furnished, but tasteful room--the sitting-room for her maids, as I later decided. Sergeant Conlon shut the door and locked it.
"That"s not to keep you in," he said; "it"s to keep others out. Sit down, Mr. Hunt. Smoke somethin". Let"s make ourselves comfortable."
The click of the shot bolt in the lock had suddenly, I found, restored my power of coordination. It had been like the sharp handclap which brings home a hypnotized subject to reason and reality. I was now, in a moment, not merely myself again, but peculiarly alert and steady of nerve, and I gave matter-of-fact a.s.sent to Sergeant Conlon"s suggestions. I lit a cigarette and took possession of the most comfortable chair. Conlon remained standing. He had refused my cigarettes, but he now lighted a long, roughly rolled cigar.
"I get these from a fellow over on First Avenue," he explained affably.
"He makes them up himself. They"re not so bad."
I attempted a smile and achieved a cla.s.sic reaction. "They look--efficient," I said. "And now, sergeant, what has happened here? If I"ve seemed dazed for the past ten minutes, it"s little wonder. I hurried down in response to a telegram saying my wife.... You know we"ve lived apart for years?" He grunted a.s.sent.... "Saying she had died suddenly. And I walk in, unprepared, on people who seem to me to be acting parts in a crook melodrama of the crudest type. Be kind enough to tell me what it"s all about!"
Sergeant Conlon"s gray-blue eyes fixed me as I spoke. He was a big, thickset man, nearing middle age; the bruiser build, physically; but with a solidly intelligent-looking head and trustworthy eyes.
"I"ll do that, Mr. Hunt," he a.s.sented. "I got Mrs. Arthur to send you that telegram; but I"ll say to you first-off, now you"ve come, I don"t suspect you of bein" mixed up in this affair. When I shot that "It looks like murder" at you, I did it deliberate. Well--that"s neither here nor there; but I always go by the way things strike me. I have to." He twirled a light chair round to face me and seated himself, leaning a little forward, his great stubby hands propped on his square knees.
"Here"s the facts, then--what we know are facts: It seems, Mrs.
Arthur--she"s been visitin" Mrs. Hunt for two weeks past--she went to the opera to-night with a Mr. Phar; she says you know him well." I nodded. "Durin" the last act of the opera they were located by somebody in the office down there and called out to the "phone--an accident to Mrs. Hunt--see?--important." Again I nodded. "Mrs. Arthur answered the "phone, and Doctor Askew--he lives in this house, but he"s Mrs. Hunt"s reg"lar doctor--well, he was on the wire. He just told her to hurry back as fast as she could--and she and Mr. Phar hopped a taxi and beat it up here. Doctor Askew met them at the door, and a couple of scared maids.
The doc"s a good man--big rep--one of the best. He"d taken charge and sent on the quiet for us. I got here with a couple of my men soon after Mrs. Arthur----"
"But----"
"I know, _I_ know!" he stopped me off. "But I want you to get it all straight. Mrs. Hunt, sir, was killed--somehow--with a long, sharp-pointed bra.s.s paper-knife--a reg"lar weapon. I"ve examined it. And someone drove that thing--and it must"a" took some force, believe _me_!--right through her left eye up to the handle--a full inch of metal plumb into her brain!"
I tried to believe him as he said this; as, seeing my blankness, he repeated it for me in other words. For the moment it was impossible.
This sort of thing must have happened in the world, of course--at other times, to other people. But not now, not to Gertrude. Certainly not to Gertrude; a woman so aloof, so exquisite, self-sheltered, cla.s.s-sheltered, not merely from ugliness, from the harsh and brutal, but from everything in life even verging toward vulgarity, coa.r.s.e pa.s.sion, the unrestrained....
"That"s the way she was killed, Mr. Hunt--no mistake. Now--who did it--and why? That"s the point."
At my elbow was a table with a reading-lamp on it, a desk-set, a work-basket, belonging, I suppose, to one of the maids, and some magazines. One magazine lay just before me--_The Reel World_--a by-product of the great moving-picture industry. I had been staring--unseeingly, at first--at a flamboyant advertis.e.m.e.nt on its cover that clamored for my attention, until now, with Conlon"s question, it momentarily gained it. The release of a magnificent Superfeature was announced--in no quavering terms. "The Sins of the Fathers" it shrieked at me! "All the thrilling human suspense"; "virile, compelling"; "br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with the kind of action and adventure your audiences crave"; "it delivers the wallop!"