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No Clue! A Mystery Story

<h2>III</h2> <h3>THE UNEXPECTED WITNESS</h3> In the library Hastings turned first to Judge Wilton for a description of the discovery of the body. The judge was in better condition than the others for connected narrative, Arthur Sloane had sunk into a morris chair, where he sighed audibly and plied himself by fits and starts with the aroma from the bottle of smelling salts. Young Webster, still breathing as if he had been through exhausting physical endeavour, stood near the table in the centre of the room, mechanically shifting his weight from foot to foot. Wilton, seated half-across the room from Hastings, drew, absently, on a dead cigar-stump. A certain rasping note in his voice was his only remaining symptom of shock. He had the stern calmness of expression that is often seen in the broad, irregularly-featured face in early middle age. "I can tell you in very few words," he said, addressing the detective directly. "We all left this room, you'll remember, at eleven o'clock. I found my bedroom uncomfortable, too warm. Besides, it had stopped raining. When I noticed that, I decided to go out and smoke my good-night cigar. This is what's left of it." He put a finger to the unlighted stump still between his lips. "What time did you go out?" asked Hastings. "Probably, a quarter of an hour after I'd gone upstairs—fifteen or twenty minutes past eleven, I should guess." "How did you go out—by what door?" "The front door. I left it unlocked, but not open. At first I paced up and down, on the south side of the house, under the trees. It was reasonably light there then—that is to say, the clouds had thinned a little, and, after my eyes had got accustomed to it, I had no trouble in avoiding the trees and shrubbery. "Then a cloud heavier than the others came up, I suppose. Anyway, it was much darker. There wasn't a light in the house, except in my room and Berne Webster's. Yours was out, I remember. I passed by the front of the house then, and went around to the north side. It was darker there, I thought, than it had been under the trees on the south side." "How long had you been out then, altogether?" "Thirty or forty minutes." He looked at his watch. "It's a quarter past twelve now. Let me see. I found the body a few minutes after I changed over to the north side. I guess I found it about five minutes before midnight—certainly not more than twenty minutes ago." Hastings betrayed his impatience only by squinting under his spectacles and down the line of his nose, eying Wilton closely. "All right, judge! Let's have it." "I was going along slowly, very slowly, not doing much more than feeling my way with my feet on the close-shaven grass. It was the darkest night I ever saw. Literally, I couldn't have seen my hand in front of me. "I had decided to turn about and go indoors when I was conscious of some movement, or slight sound, directly in front of me, and downward, at my feet. I got that impression." "What movement? You mean the sound of a fall?" "No; not that exactly." "A footstep?" "No. I hadn't any definite idea what sort of noise it was. I did think that, perhaps, it was a dog or a cat. Just then my foot came in contact with something soft. I stooped down instinctively, immediately. "At that moment, that very second, a light flashed on in Arthur's bedroom. That's between this room and the big ballroom—on this floor, of course. That light threw a long, illuminating shaft into the murky darkness, the end of it coming just far enough to touch me and—what I found—the woman's body. I saw it by that light before I had time to touch it with my hand." The judge stopped and drew heavily on his dead cigar. "All right. See anything else?" Hastings urged. "Yes; I saw Berne Webster. He had made the noise which attracted my attention." "How do you know that?" "He must have. He was stooping down, too, on the other side of the body, facing me, when the light went on——" Sloane, twisting nervously in his chair, cut into Wilton's narrative. "I can put this much straight," he said in shrill complaint: "I turned on the light you're talking about. I hadn't been able to sleep." "Let's have this, one at a time, if you don't mind, Mr. Sloane," the detective suggested, watching Webster. The young man, staring with fascinated intensity at Judge Wilton, seemed to experience some new horror as he listened. "He was on the other side of it," the judge continued, "and practically in the same position that I was. We faced each other across the body. I think that describes the discovery, as you call it. We immediately examined the woman, looking for the wound, and found it. When we saw she was dead, we came in to wake you—and try to get a doctor. I told Berne to do that." During the last few sentences Hastings had been walking slowly from his chair to the library door and back, his hands gouged deep into his trouser-pockets, folds of his night-shirt protruding from and falling over the waistband of the trousers, the raincoat hanging baggily from his shoulders. Ludicrous as the costume was, however, the old man so dominated them still that none of them, not even Wilton, questioned his authority. And yet, the thing he was doing should have appealed to them as noteworthy. A man of less power could not have accomplished it. Coming from a sound sleep to the scene of a murder, he had literally picked up these men who had discovered it and who must be closely touched by it, had overcome their agitation, had herded them into the house and, with amazing promptness, had set about the task of getting from them the stories of what they knew and what they had done. Appreciating his opportunity, he had determined to bring to light at once everything they knew. He devoted sudden attention now to Webster, whom he knew by reputation—a lawyer thirty years of age, brilliant in the criminal courts, and at present striving for a foothold in the more remunerative ranks of civil practice. He had never been introduced to him, however, before meeting him at Sloanehurst. "Who touched that body first—Mr. Webster?" he demanded, his slow promenade uninterrupted as he kept his eyes on the lawyer's. "Judge—I don't know, I believe," Webster replied uncertainly. "Who did, judge?" "I want your recollection," Hastings insisted, kindly in spite of the unmistakable command of his tone. "That's why I asked you." "Why?" "For one thing, it might go far toward showing who was really first on the scene." "I see; but I really don't remember. I'm not sure that either of us touched the body—just then. I think we both drew back, instinctively, when the light flashed on. Afterwards, of course, we both touched her—looking for signs of life." The detective came to a standstill in front of Webster. "Who reached the body first? Can you say?" "No. I don't think either was first. We got there together." "Simultaneously?" "Yes." "But I'm overlooking something. How did you happen to be there?" "That's simple enough," Webster said, his brows drawn together, his eyes toward the floor, evidently making great effort to omit no detail of what had occurred. "I went to my room when we broke up here, at eleven. I read for a while. I got tired of that—it was close and hot. Besides, I never go to bed before one in the morning—that is, practically never. And I wasn't sleepy. "I looked at my watch. It was a quarter to twelve. Like the judge, I noticed that it had stopped raining. I thought I'd have a better night's sleep if I got out and cooled off thoroughly. My room, the one I have this time, is close to the back stairway. I went down that, and out the door on the north side." "Were you smoking?" Hastings put the query sharply, as if to test the narrator's nerves. Webster's frown deepened. "No. But I had cigarettes and matches with me. I intended to smoke—and walk about." "But what happened?" "It was so much darker than I had thought that I groped along with my feet, much as Judge Wilton did. I was making my way toward the front verandah. I went on, sliding my feet on the wet grass." "Any reason for doing that, do you remember? Are there any obstructions there, anything but smooth, open lawn?" "No. It was merely an instinctive act—in pitch dark, you know." Webster, his eyes still toward the floor, waited for another question. Not getting it, he resumed: "My foot struck something soft. I thought it was a wet cloak, something of that sort, left out in the rain. I hadn't heard a thing. And I had no premonition of anything wrong. I bent over, with nothing more than sheer idle curiosity, to put my hand on whatever the thing was. And just then the light went on in Mr. Sloane's bedroom. The judge and I were looking at each other across somebody lying on the ground, face upward." "Either of you cry out?" "No." "Say anything?" "Not much." "Well, what?" "I remember the judge said, 'Is she dead?' I said, 'How is she hurt?' We didn't say much while we were looking for the wound." "Did you tell Judge Wilton you knew her?" "No. There wasn't time for any explanation—specially." "But you do know her?" "I told you that, sir, outside—just now." "All right. Who is she?" Hastings put that query carelessly, in a way which might have meant that he had heard the most important part of the young lawyer's story. That impression was heightened by his beginning again to pace the floor. "Her name's Mildred Brace," replied Webster, moistening his lips with his tongue. "She was my stenographer for eight months." The detective drew up sharply. "When?" "Until two weeks ago." "She resign?" "Yes. No—I discharged her." "What for?" "Incompetence." "I don't understand that exactly. You mean you employed her eight months although she was incompetent?" "That's pretty bald," Webster objected. "Her incompetence came, rather, from temperament. She was, toward the last, too nervous, excitable. She was more trouble than she was worth." "Ah, that's different," Hastings said, with a significance that was clear. "People might have thought," he elaborated, "if you had fired her for other reasons, this tragedy tonight would have put you in an unenviable position—to say the least." He had given words to the vague feeling which had depressed them all, ever since the discovery of the murder; that here was something vastly greater than the accidental finding of a person killed by an outsider, that the crime touched Sloanehurst personally. The foreboding had been patent—almost, it seemed, a tangible thing—but, until this moment, each had steered clear of it, in speech. Webster's response was bitter. "They'll want to say it anyway, I guess." To that he added, in frank resentment: "And I might as well enter a denial here: I had nothing to do with the—this whole lamentable affair!" The silence in which he and Hastings regarded each other was broken by Arthur Sloane's querulous words: "Why—why, in the name of all the inscrutable saints, this thing should have happened at Sloanehurst, is more than I can say! Jumping angels! Now, let me tell you what I——" He stopped, hearing light footfalls coming down the hall. There was the swish of silk, a little outcry half-repressed, and Lucille Sloane stood in the doorway. One hand was at her breast, the other against the door-frame, to steady her tall, slightly swaying figure. Her hair, a pyramid on her head, as if the black, heavy masses of it had been done by hurrying fingers, gave to her unusual beauty now an added suggestion of dignity. Profoundly moved as she was, there was nothing of the distracted or the inadequate about her. Hastings, who had admired her earlier in the evening, saw that her poise was far from overthrown. It seemed to him that she even had considered how to wear with extraordinary effect the brilliant, vari-coloured kimono draped about her. The only criticism of her possible was that, perhaps, she seemed a trifle too imperious—but, for his part, he liked that. "A thoroughbred!" he catalogued her, mentally. "You will excuse me, father," she said from the doorway, "but I couldn't help hearing." She thrust forward her chin. "Oh, I had to hear!—And there's something I have to tell." Her glance went at last from Sloane to Hastings as she advanced slowly into the room. The detective pushed forward a chair for her. "That's fine, Miss Sloane," he assured her. "I'm sure you're going to help us." "It isn't much," she qualified, "but I think it's important." Still she looked at neither Berne Webster nor Judge Wilton. And only a man trained as Hastings was to keenness of observation would have seen the slight but incessant tremour of her fingers and the constant, convulsive play of the muscles under the light covering of her black silk slippers. Sloane, alone, had remained seated. She was looking up to Hastings, who stood several feet in front of Webster and the judge. "I had gone to sleep," she said, her voice low, but musical and clear. "I waked up when I heard father moving about—his room is directly under mine; and, now that Aunt Lucy is away, I'm always more or less anxious about him. And I knew he had got quiet earlier, gone to sleep. It wasn't like him to be awake again so soon. "I sprang out of bed, really very quickly. I listened for a few seconds, but there was no further sound in father's room. The night was unusually quiet. There wasn't a sound—at first. Then I heard something. It was like somebody running, running very fast, outside, on the grass." She paused. Hastings was struck by her air of alertness, or of prepared waiting, of readiness for questions. "Which way did the footsteps go?" he asked. "From the house—down the slope, toward the little gate that opens on the road." "Then what?" "I wondered idly what it meant, but it made no serious impression on me. I listened again for sounds in father's room. There was none. Struck again by the heavy silence—it was almost oppressive, coming after the rain—I went to the window. I stood there, I don't know how long. I think I was day-dreaming, lazily running things over in my mind. I don't think it was very long. "And then father turned on the light in his room." She made a quick gesture with her left hand, wonderfully expressive of shock. "I shall never forget that! The long, narrow panel of light reached out into the dark like an ugly, yellow arm—reached out just far enough to touch and lay hold of the picture there on the grass; a woman lying on the drenched ground, her face up, and bending over her Judge Wilton and Berne—Mr. Webster. "I knew she'd been hurt dreadfully; her feet were drawn up, her knees high; and I could see the looks of horror on the men's faces." She paused, giving all her strength to the effort to retain her self-control before the assailing memory of what she had seen. "That was all, Miss Sloane?" the detective prompted, in a kindly tone. "Yes, quite," she said. "But I'd heard Berne's—what he was saying to you—and the judge's description of what they'd seen; and I thought you would like to know of the footsteps I'd heard—because they were the murderer's; they must have been. I knew it was important, most important." "You were entirely right," he agreed warmly. "Thank you, very much." He went the length of the room and halted by one of the bookcases, a weird, lumpy old figure among the shadows in the corner. He was scraping his cheek with his thumb, and looking at the ceiling, over the rims of his spectacles. Arthur Sloane sighed his impatience. "Those knees drawn up," Hastings said at last; "I was just thinking. They weren't drawn up when I saw the body. Were they?" "We'd straightened the limbs," Webster answered. "Thought I'd mentioned that." "No.—Then, there might have been a struggle? You think the woman had put up a fight—for her life?—and was overpowered?" "Well," deliberated Webster, "perhaps; even probably." "Strange," commented the detective, equally deliberate. "I hadn't thought so. I would have said she'd been struck down unawares—without the slightest warning." <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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