One of them, Laura Bowman herself, came flying out to meet me--or rather, it seemed, to stop me, with a face of dismay.
"My mother"s here, Mr. Boyne!" Her hand was clammy cold; she"d been warned of me and my errand. "I don"t want to take you through that way."
I stood pa.s.sive, and let her do the saying.
"Around here," she faltered. "We can go in at the side door."
We skirted the house by a narrow walk; she was leading the way by this other entrance, when, spread out over its low step, blocking our progress, I saw a small j.a.panese woman ripping up a satin dress.
"Let us pa.s.s, Oomie."
"Wait. We can talk as well here," I checked her. We moved on a few paces, out of earshot of the girl; but before I could put my questions, she began with a sort of shattered vehemence to protest that Thomas Gilbert"s death was suicide.
"It was, Mr. Boyne. Anybody who knew the scourge Thomas had been to those he must have loved in his queer, distorted way, and any one who loved them, could believe he might take his own life."
"You speak freely, Mrs. Bowman," I said. "Then you hated the man?"
"Oh, I did! For years past I"ve never heard of a death without wondering that G.o.d took other human beings and let him live. Now that he"s killed himself, it seems dreadful to me that suspicion should be cast on--"
"Mrs. Bowman," I interrupted. "Thomas Gilbert"s death was murder. All persons who could have had motive or might have had opportunity to kill him will be under suspicion till the investigation clears them of it.
I"m now ascertaining the whereabouts of Ina Vandeman that evening."
A shudder went through her; she looked at me feelingly, twisting her hands together in the way I remembered. Despite her distress, she was very simple and accessible. She gave me no resistance, admitted her absence from the Thornhill house at about the time the party was ready to start for San Francisco--Edwards, of course. I got nothing new here.
She seemed thankful enough to go into the house when I released her.
I lingered a moment to have a word with the little j.a.panese woman on the step.
"How long you work this place?"
"Two hours af-noon, every day," ducking and giggling like a mechanical toy.
Just a piece-worker, not a regular servant.
"Pretty dress," I touched the satin on the step. "Whose?"
"Mine." Grinning, she spread a breadth out over her knees. "Lady no like any more. Mine." It was a peculiar shade of peac.o.c.k blue; unless I was mistaken, the one Mrs. Bowman had worn that night at Tait"s.
"h.e.l.lo--what"s this?" I bent to examine a small hole in the hem of that breadth Oomie was so delightedly smoothing.
"O-o-o-o! I think may-may burn"m. Not like any more."
There was a small round hole. Just so a cigarette might have seared--or a bullet.
"Not can use," I said to Oomie, indicating the injured bit. "Cut that off. Give me." And I laid a silver dollar on the step.
Giggling, the little brown woman snipped out the bit of hem and handed it to me. I glanced up from tucking it into my pocket, and saw Laura Bowman"s white face staring at me through the gla.s.s of that side entry door.
A suggestive lead, certainly; but it"s my way to follow one lead at a time: I went on to the Thornhill place.
Everybody there would know my errand; for though, with taste I could but admire, Ina had put no name of any member of the family on her list, she of course expected me to call on them, and would never have let her sisters leave the country club without a warning.
The three were just taking their hats off in the hall when I arrived. I did my questioning there, not troubling to take them separately. Cora and Ernestine, a well bred pair of Inas, without her pep, perhaps a shade less good looking, made their replies with none of the usual flutter of feminine curiosity and excitement, then went on in the living room. Skeet of course was as practical and brief as a sensible boy.
"I don"t know whether she"s fit to see you," she said when I spoke of her mother. And on the instant, Ina Vandeman"s clear, high voice called down the stair,
"Bring Mr. Boyne up--now."
Skeet stepped aside for me to pa.s.s. I suppose I looked as startled as I felt, for on my way to the house, I had seen Mrs. Vandeman drive past toward town. I stood there at a loss, and finally said aimlessly,
"Your sister thinks it"s all right?"
"My sister?" Skeet wrinkled her brows at me, and glanced to where the twins were in sight in the living room. "That was mother herself who called you."
All the way up the stairs, Skeet following, I was trying to swing my rather heavy wits around to take advantage of this new development. So far, Ina Vandeman"s voice, imitated by Barbara Wallace, and recognized by Chung and Jim Edwards, possibly by Worth, had been my lead in this direction. If more than one woman spoke in that voice--where would it take me?
I"d got no adjustment before I was ushered into a large dim room, and confronted by a figure in a reclining chair by the window. Here, in spite of years and illness, were the same good looks and thoroughbred courage that seemed to characterize the women of this family. Mrs.
Thornhill greeted me in Ina Vandeman"s very tones, a little high-pitched for real sweetness, full of a dominating quality, and she showed a composure I had not expected. To Skeet, standing by, watching to see that her mother didn"t overdo in talking to me, she said,
"Dear, go down stairs. Jane"s left her dinner on the range and gone to the grocery. You look after it while she"s away."
When we were alone, she lay back in her chair, eyes closed, or seemingly so, and made her statement. She"d been in her daughter"s room only twice between the reception and that daughter"s going away.
"But the room was full of other people," a glimmer between lashes. "I could give you the names of those others."
"Thank you," I said. "Mrs. Vandeman has already done that. I"ve seen them all."
"You"ve seen them--all?" a long, furtively drawn breath. Then her eyes flashed open and fixed themselves on me. Relief was there, yet something stricken, as they traveled over me from my gray thatch to my big feet.
"Now, Mrs. Thornhill," I said, "aside from those two visits to your daughter"s room, where were you that evening?"
A slow flush crept into her thin cheeks. The unreadable eyes that were traveling over Jerry Boyne stopped suddenly and held him with a quiet stare.
"I understood it was my daughter"s movements on that evening you wished to trace, Mr. Boyne," she said slowly. "It would be difficult to trace mine. Really, I had so much on my hands with the reception and inefficient help--" She broke off, her eyes never leaving my own, even as she added smoothly, "It would be very, very difficult."
There is an effect in cla.s.s almost like the distinction of race. These women spoke a baffling language; their psychology was hard for me. If there was something hid up amongst them that ought to be uncovered by diplomacy and delicate indirection, it would take a smarter man than the one who stood in my number tens to do it.
"Mrs. Thornhill," I said, "you did leave the house. You went to Mr.
Gilbert"s study. The shot that killed him left you a nervous wreck, so that you can"t hear a tire blow-out without reenacting in your mind the scene of that murder. You"ll talk now."
"You think I will? Talk to you?" very low and quiet, eyes once more closed.
"Why not? It"s got to come; here in your own home, with me--or I"ll have to put you where you"ll be forced to answer questions."
"Oh, you threaten me, do you?" Her eyes flashed open, and looked at me, hard as flint. "Very well. I"ll answer no questions as to what happened on the evening of Thomas Gilbert"s death, except in the presence of Worth Gilbert, his son."
My retirement down the Thornhill stairs, made with such dignity as I could muster, was in fact, a panic flight. Halfway, Cora Thornhill all but finished me by looking out from the living room, and calling in Ina Vandeman"s voice,
"Erne, show Mr. Boyne out, won"t you?"