THE GIFT of Orma ". Butler | 3A 3 A 43.1% m (A_ 3A 3 A 43.7 m - - - ~- - ~ ~ − − -- - - - -===-- ~ ）. M U R D E R IN THE C E L L A R M U R D E R IN T H E C E L L A R LOUIS E E PPL EY A ND R E B ECCA G A YT ON * NEW YORK 1931 WILLIAM MORROW & COMPANY CopyRIGHT - - - I931 BY WILLIAM MORROW & CoMPANY, INC. Printed in The u. s. A. e.v. Quinn & BoDEN company. Inc. RAHwa Y. N. . ſº * * ſº Chapter VII. VIII. IX. // 2. & º CoNTENTs THE EMPTY CHAIR MAN's ESTATE To-MoRRow’s DINNER A LATE VISITOR FELICE MOVES HER HAND THE THREE QUESTIONS I AM WANTED ON THE TELEPHONE whAT DID GYPSY KNow? ASHES LADY MACBETH RETURNED PRODIGAL MOSQUITOES STING THE SHOT WHAT GYPSY KNEW INIGHTFALL WHAT THE LOST CAT IS FAMOUS FOR AN ORDINARY GENTLEMAN SILVER AND ROMANCE MY FIRST AND LAST VISIT TO THE MINE swigARD's wife CAESAR’s wife STRANGE WATERS CLOSED DOORS LAST CHAPTER PAGE I6 3 I 39 48 62 75 88 98 I IO 126 I35 I48 I63 I74. 189 2OO 2 I 5 230 24. I 254. 268 282 298 M U R D E R IN THE C E L L A R CHAPTER I THE EMPTY CHAIR T is a hard thing to begin this story. It really began, I suppose, with that stilted little note of Felice Cadel's, inviting Ted and me to join them for a week-end at Coalville, where her husband was Superintendent of the mine. That's the logical be- ginning, all right, but somehow I can’t use it. I have to start with the picture of Felice Cadel as she stood there in the door-way on the afternoon that we ar- rived, her dress blowing in the February gale, shout- ing words at us that were inaudible above the storm. She seemed unreal—impersonal and yet significant, like the figurehead of a ship that was destined to travel through strange waters. Ted had been in Coalville several times before, and both Felice and her husband, Cartier, were known to me from the occasions on which we had all met in Pittsburgh to dine together or attend the the- ater; but this was the first time that I had ever set eyes upon this place about which I had heard so much. I had formed rather a romantic image of the little town where Ted and Cartier had had so many good times, and I was looking forward to this week- end with the greatest anticipation of pleasure. But as soon as Ted's little flivver gave an exhausted sort I 2 MURDER IN THE CELLAR of “cheep,” and stopped just inside the driveway that lay back of the house, I realized that a mining town could prove romantic only in the ignorant mind of one who had never seen one. I did wish a little, that the sun could have shone for a minute, or the wind abated long enough to let me get used to the bleak- ness of the scene, and so adjust this particularly igno- rant mind to reality with less of a shock. However, I had come down here to have a good time; it was really a great treat for me to have such a holiday, and I resolved that no one, not even Ted, should suspect that I had gone through a single moment of disappointment. Little did I know that disappoint- ment was destined to be one of the least painful emo- tions that I should experience during the next few days. “Too bad we couldn’t have made the garage, Mouse,” said Ted, cheerfully, springing over the side of the flivver and opening my door with a flour- ish. From his manner I knew that he had sensed my mood, as he always did. “But we’re here, fair lady,” he continued, “in spite of a defective timer and I fear, a defective organism. Maybe it was the lucky mileage that helped poor Lizzie on the last hard miles.” I glanced at the speedometer, and saw five sevens in a row. It was like Ted to try to divert me by a foolish remark like that, and I rewarded his efforts with my broadest grin. “Here's hoping the sevens bring us the good luck,” I returned, as I got out, rather stiffly after the long 4. MURDER IN THE CELLAR alone, like a red faced king in a too-small crown, monarch of all it surveyed. Just then I saw that the back door had opened, and our hostess stood holding it, her dress blowing in the wind, calling something to us that I couldn’t distin- guish in the noise of the gale. Ted labored over to the door with the suitcases, and I followed with the steamer rugs. “I was saying to mind the horrid mud,” screamed Felice when we got near. “But it’s worse if you try to go around to the front door. Did you ever see such weather? But you’ll have to forgive a lot of things! Cartier is still at the mine; I don’t know when he will be back, and the cook disappointed me after I had invited two extra people!” She laughed a little. “But never mind, we’ll have a good time, anyhow.” She directed us through the kitchen, into a wide hall, and thence shooed us upstairs. “Take the first bedroom on the right,” she called after us. “I don’t dare leave this chicken or it will burn. But the Williamses are unpacking up there somewhere; they will direct you.” “I’ll hurry right down and help you,” I said. “But goodness, why didn’t you wire us all not to come? This is Herculean entertainment.” “Oh, I didn’t know Annie was sick until this morn- ing, when I was ready to leave for the mine,” ex- plained Felice. “Then it was too late. Besides, it's all among friends! One of these extra guests is a girl I used to know very well years ago, and I am THE EMPTY CHAIR 5 crazy to see her again and talk over old times.” I think I ought to explain a little about Felice. She and her little boy didn’t live there in Coalville with Cartier. She lived, instead, with his father in their country home just outside of Pittsburgh. It was really the best solution to the problem, for Coalville was no place in which to bring up a child. Dr. Cadel, Cartier's father, who was one of the few men of his profession in a financial position to retire and enjoy a life of leisure at a comparatively early time of life, had urged his son, upon his resignation from the army, to take a short-hour position in Pittsburgh and spend most of his time in the country. But that had not suited Cartier in the least. He wanted real work, and so after many fruitless discussions of the problem, Dr. Cadel had hunted around and remem- bered that he owned this little one-horse coal mine that had never made good, and given it to his son as he would a prescription. “Work on this,” he had said, “and come home to us week-ends, and when you’ve had enough, remember, I need a secretary very much.” No one has ever recorded what Cartier said when he first saw the house and the tree and the railroad tracks and the mines, but he straightened his shoul- ders and stuck out his militant chin; and at the end of the first year, lo and behold, the few stockholders of the mine were startled and elated to receive a feeble dividend. That was the kind of man Cartier was. But it was hardly to be expected that Felice would 6 MURDER IN THE CELLAR be able to endure the place as readily as Cartier. She came from a different kind of stock, for one thing. She was more sensitive, more emotional. She had at one time cherished ambitions of becoming a famous tragedienne, and as an immediate stepping stone to this career she had signed up with a stock company that planned to take the Orient by storm with the production of Shakesperean plays. The storm lasted as far as Honolulu, the first stopping place on the itinerary, and then proceeded to blow up with all of a storm’s intensity and thoroughness. From this embarrassing and distressing predicament of being stranded in a strange country, without anything more tangible than ideals, Cartier had rescued Felice by the simple expedient of marriage. So, although she may have bemoaned the fate of her career as a Shake- sperean actress, Felice certainly could not regret the endeavor, in so much as she would never again be forced to undergo many of the unpleasant experi- ences of stage life, such as eating in railroad lunch cars or not eating at all, and sleeping on benches or in day coaches. Cartier spent every week-end that he could with her and his father; sometimes she came down and visited him, and at other times, when neither plan was feasible, Cartier wired for Ted who had been with him all through West Point and who had been stationed with him in Honolulu, and was probably the best friend he had. I always packed Ted off with alacrity, knowing that he would return in a fresh and jubilant mood. THE EMPTY CHAIR 7 It happens that I am an orphan, and what's more, I did not know a soul in New Castle where we lived, beyond saying good-morning to the milkman, and giving cookies to the small boy next door, but I do have a little sense of the common or garden variety, and the reason that I sent Ted away so cheerfully, was that I know that one woman does not constitute a man's world, and I wasn’t anxious that Ted should realize it, too. Often you will hear people exclaim over the fact that a plain insignificant little woman can make a happy marriage where a beautiful, daz- zling one has failed, but it doesn’t surprise me at all. We plain ones keep on the job worrying, where the beautiful ones don’t give a whoopee. Felice adored Cartier, but when it came to a question of his com- fort or hers, there just wasn't any question. Help- mate was a word that Felice had yet to look up in Webster's. I liked Cartier so much that I felt just a little disappointed in the support that his wife gave him. But it was none of my business, and as he seemed perfectly contented, I never mentioned the subject, even to Ted. When I ran downstairs half an hour later, I found that Felice must have slipped up to her room, for she had changed her dress for an evening gown of scarlet, and over it she wore a white perky little apron such as maids wear in French stage comedies. She was vivid-flame-like, all except those great somber eyes of hers, tragic eyes that never seemed to light up. But she was thrilled with herself, and no wonder. 8 MURDER IN THE CELLAR All alone, she had prepared a meal of which a chef would have been proud. I told her that I had never seen a lovelier table, and she was very pleased. “Wait till Cartier sees and tastes,” she added, placing the flowers a fraction of an inch away from the crystal candlesticks. “He doesn’t believe I can do anything useful.” Well, to be truthful, neither had I, but you had to hand it to her, even though she did put on a show-off manner about the thing that was vaguely irritating. Ted came down presently, in his dinner coat, and fooled with the radio. I wandered out of the kitchen into the hall where the radio was, to watch him. There was a fresh storm blowing up, and I never heard such squeals and squeaks in my life, but Ted got a familiar announcement, and beamed. “There's Station KDKA, Betts,” he told me. “Right from the William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh where I stopped this noon for a minute.” “A minute!” I ejaculated, pretending to be cross. “About half an hour to send a telegram is the worst alibi I ever heard.” Cartier came in before Ted could reply, and the heartiness in his handshake made up for any real or fancied slight that we might have received from Felice. “Gee, it’s great to see you two,” he said, hanging on to both our hands, “and to think we are really going to have a whole week-end to talk!” Then his face dropped. “Only I’m afraid it isn't THE EMPTY CHAIR 9 going to be so nice for you. You see, Felice's cook got tonsilitis and—” I laughed. “Don’t worry about that. Just go to the door of the kitchen and see the efficient young lady who has not got tonsilitis!” Cartier stepped to the kitchen door, and I heard him say, “Why, darling! Did it get a kitchen com- plex?” There was no doubt, after that tone in his voice, but that he loved her, and after all, I thought, giving myself a good mental shake, she was being a pretty fine scout in a bad affair. It would have been hard enough to have had four of us descend on her in this desolate place, where any vegetables except garlic probably had to be imported from Wheeling, the nearest town, but to have an extra couple! Hats off to Felice! Cartier returned and looked much pleased. “Gee, Felice is surely taking the old dayvil stove right by the horns, isn’t she? I guess we don’t starve after all. I’ll run up and change, but the Williamses will be down any minute, Felice says. They are fine— the Williamses—you'll like them. They live in Wheeling, and every once in a while they take pity on my single state and invite me up to a real honest- to-goodness meal. It helps a lot. And oh, by the way,” he paused at the foot of the stairs—“Did Felice tell you there is to be an extra couple at our party?” I nodded. “Yes, but she didn't say who. Any one we know?” IO MURDER IN THE CELLAR “No.” Cartier shook his head, and looked sober for a moment. “I hope they will fit in all right, but to tell the truth, I don’t know a thing about them, except that the girl is a friend of Felice's—used to play with her in some show. The name is Dow, and her husband is an actor or dancer, I’m not sure which. They are touring across the continent to open in a show in Los Angeles and wired Felice to know if they could see her, so of course she told them to stay over night with us.” Relieved that so much explaining was over, he ran on upstairs. It must be explained here, that although it has appeared that way, Ted was not by nature a taciturn man. But he dearly loved a radio, and all the squeal- ing and squeaking of the static must have awakened similar squeals and squeaks in his soul. While Car- tier had talked, Ted had listened politely with a far- away smile on his face, but I knew that he had not heard a word; and as soon as Cartier disappeared, Ted bent to the radio again. I wandered out to the kitchen once or twice, but I was not welcome; Felice refused to share the glory of the dinner party by so much as a placed olive, and I went back and picked up a magazine that was running a good mystery story, and had just dived into its thrills when the Williamses came down. They came down hand in hand as Williamses al- ways do the world over. She was pretty in a meek sort of way, and he wore glasses and carried a foun- tain pen in his left hand vest pocket (not being in THE EMPTY CHAIR II dinner clothes) and was beginning to lose his hair. We all introduced ourselves and while he (Walter was his name) helped fuss with the radio to Ted's extreme annoyance, his wife came over and asked what I was reading. A safe beginning for a Williams to make to a conversation. “The Black Room,” I told her. “Like murders?” She gave a little shiver and wiped her hands daintily on a square of linen from her small beaded purse as though she were trying, like Lady Macbeth, to wash them clean. “I hate them,” she said. “I would much rather read a love story.” “Now I adore murders,” I said, putting down the magazine reluctantly, “and this one is thrilling. I can’t believe in his guilt, but everything, including my common sense, points to a certain person.” “Well, then,” she said eagerly, “it can’t be that person. I know that much about murder stories. The one person your common sense forbids you to suspect is always the criminal.” “That ought to make it very simple in real life for the detectives to find the guilty person,” I said, laughing, “although as far as novels go, I do think you are right.” Little Mrs. Williams laughed, too, and then Felice came in in a great flutter. “The Dows are just driv- ing in,” she explained, “and it’s a good thing, for you can’t fry chicken forever. Where's Cartier?” She called to him shrilly, and then went out, tearing off her apron as she went. These must be fine friends I2 MURDER IN THE CELLAR that now arrived, I thought, for she didn’t allow them to enter by the back door, but directed them around to the front, and I pictured the two pairs of muddy feet that would presently print themselves over the neat rugs. But it was only one pair of feet that entered and those were the elegantly shod ones of Mr. Dow. He had carried his wife and now deposited her as one does precious weight, carefully and gently in the cen- ter of the group. I couldn’t blame him, for she was without exception the most beautiful creature that I have ever seen. I couldn’t tell the color of her hair, for it was hidden under a snug little black hat, but I judged it to be gold, for her eyes were blue and hef face was an exquisite pastel of cream and pink. She was small and slender; her clothes smacked of little shops, and she was absolutely at home at once. She flew to Felice and embraced her. “Darling!” she cried; “aren’t you sweet to have us! I just know we are in the way!” Her husband, slim and blond, and elegant in spite of muddy feet, leaned nonchalantly against the doorway and regarded the scene. “Why, Gypsy,” answered Felice more tenderly than I had ever heard her speak to any one, “I’ve never heard such foolishness. In the way, indeed! I’m crazy to talk to you—we will, later.” Her glance and tone made me feel that later meant when the rest of us should fade from the picture. “Oh, yes,” went on Felice, “let me introduce you, Gypsy. This is Mrs. Williams—in light blue, and the other * THE EMPTY CHAIR I3 in gray is Mrs. Smith. Mrs. Dow and Mr. Dow, everybody. And those radio hounds are the hus- bands.” She nodded over toward the radio where the two men stood, awkward and silly, as men always are in the presence of an especially beautiful woman. Gypsy hardly glanced at us at all. She took off her hat, and her hair, short and straight and black as midnight, fell about her face. I had expected a shower of gold, and the dark hair startled me. “I want to talk, too, Felice,” said Gypsy, smiling. “We have had quite an eventful trip. Our car broke down just outside of Wheeling, and we had to hire a car to get us here. Such a car! And as I am covered with dust and my husband is covered with mud, we shall both dissolve into man’s original state unless we wash. I’ll be with you all in ten minutes.” And without any further explanation or apologies she took her husband by the hand and ran upstairs. I felt as though I had seen the curtain fall on a first act. “Isn’t she lovely,” I sighed to Mrs. Williams, and turned to look at Ted's face for confirmation. But he was back at the radio. Only Mr. Williams echoed my sigh. “Beautiful,” he repeated. When Felice explained to the Dows on their re- appearance that she had cooked the entire meal her- self she was as complimented as the mother of trip- lets. Neither Ted nor I care much about liquors, but we did appreciate the delicate cocktails that Felice had prepared. “They're called Wild Cows,” she I4. MURDER IN THE CELLAR º said, “and you're supposed to act like a wild cow after three of them.” Gypsy had changed to a gown of plain ivory moire and she looked like a waxen candle in a dark room. You see, I am growing rhapsodical, but it is impossi- ble to describe Gypsy merely in terms of what she wore. She had a gay word for every one, but espe- cially for Cartier, I fancied. He did look handsome, for the dark of his evening clothes showed off the tan and gold of his face and hair, and Gypsy had eyes for no one but him. I don’t know why, for she was nice enough to us, but I had the uncomfortable feeling that she had little use for either Ted or me. She went over to Cartier and slipped her lovely slender arm through his. “I am starved,” she announced, “and if I stay close to the host I may get an extra serving.” They led the way to the dining room. I had a brief glance at Felice's face, and I felt suddenly rather sick. Human emotions, unveiled, are not al- ways nice. But I took Mr. Williams by his arm. “It seems to be ladies' night,” I told him. “So I hope you won’t mind.” Mr. Williams cleared his throat. “Charmed, I assure you,” he said. He would. Felice lit the candles and I thought her voice sounded queer. “I had you all mentally seated, but it doesn’t make any real difference. Sit where you please.” She sat down next to Gordon Dow. “Just so that Cartier is at the other end of the table—why THE EMPTY CHAIR I5 —why”—she stopped and gave a shaky little laugh. “It’s a good thing it is nine and not thirteen,” she said. “Nine is one of the lucky numbers, isn’t it? But how did I happen to do such a silly thing?” We all stared down at the end of the table where Cartier sat, Gypsy Dow on one side of him, and on the other side an empty extra chair, the place before it neatly set with silver and crystal. Every one was silent for a moment, more silent than the occasion de- manded. But I suppose that after the lighted room and the hilarity of the cocktails, this seemed a little unreal. However, it was a mistake that any hostess might have made, hurrying to set her table. Then Gypsy sprang up and lifted the cocktail glass that she still held in her hand. “Not unlucky at all —it's luck! I was brought up on the quotation or proverb about it. ‘A place set is a friend met.” So here’s health to the unknown!” “You have it wrong,” said Ted suddenly, quietly, from where he sat beside her. “‘A place at table set in vain—there’s one will not come back again.’” Gypsy's laugh was high. “But wasn’t I smart to make up a new rhyme? Why spoil it? Besides, it’s an excuse for another drink.” Cartier laughed as he filled her glass, and the rest of us laughed with him. But if we could have seen that which sat in the empty chair, bowing its bony neck, and stretching its gaunt lips in ghastly acknowledgment, we would have thrown our glasses from us, and fled screaming, from that accursed house! CHAPTER II MAN's ESTATE AM very glad for the gayety of that dinner. I like to remember Gypsy's laughter, and Cartier’s handsome smiling face as he sat beside her, and Fe- lice's pride in her cooking, and Ted's evident enjoy- ment of us all. The Williamses ate little but smiled a good deal, and I am sure that I wasn’t a bit of a mouse. At any rate, I teased Mr. Williams into a florid state of embarrassment, and I was quite sure, also, that Mrs. Williams didn’t miss a word of it and had as good a time as I had. Right after dinner Felice gave us the cue to the sort of hospitality that she was to dispense, and a nice sort it was, too. She didn’t subdivide our time like an over-zealous realtor; she let us entertain our- selves. “I’m not going to wash the dishes at all, so don’t bore me with offers,” she told us. “Swigard or his wife will do them to-morrow. But I do want to make an elegant dessert that has to stand on ice for twenty-four hours; so I shall get out the bridge table and the cards, turn on the radio, and leave you all to your own devices while I make said pudding. You could talk to me if you like,” she finished, turning what I thought was a pointed invitation toward Gypsy, but Gypsy seemed oblivious. I6 MAN's ESTATE 17 “Oh, for heaven's sakes,” laughed Gypsy, “why bother about eating again, when we’re all so full? Forget it.” “The sad thing about life,” observed Felice philo- sophically, brushing crumbs on to a plate with a lace edged napkin, “is that we are too liable to forget to- morrow’s dinner. But I don’t intend to.” Her husband strolled out into the dining room in time to hear the last remark. “That's all very fine language, darling,” he said, “but it is also necessary to rest a bit so that one won’t be too tired to eat to— morrow’s dinner. I’ve invited every one down cellar to see our movies.” “Those movies of the time when you were sta- tioned in Honolulu, and of our honeymoon?” groaned Felice in mock horror. “With my skirt trailing on the ground and those terrible earrings? Don’t make me witness it!” But she came along with us, easily enough, and we all descended into the basement. The stairs were narrow, and led down from the kitchen, and we were very merry as we filed down in single order. I had looked for a basement that would resemble the ones familiar in my life, full of potato bags and dubious tin cans and stationary tubs, but here was a basement that was a man's estate. To begin with, it was impec- cably neat, and it was completely furnished with all the things dear to a military man's heart. There was a punching bag, and a target for revolver practice, AMMUNITUON FURNACE à TABLE TO Q LAY GUN $ © |til ||||||IH-up PUNC tº ing ©AG "G) (MOVIE SCREEN TARGET PLAN OF CELLAR OF CADEL HQMAE. MAN's ESTATE I9 and a pair of parallel bars, a telephone, and a screen for showing moving pictures. “Cartier simply lives here,” said Felice to us all. “It’s warm in winter and cool in summer and he can shoot at targets with one hand and use the telephone with the other. I keep out per orders. If I touch a single grain of dust I get hallelujah!” “But it's spotless, all right,” I said approvingly. “Swigard lives next door and attends to that,” an- swered Felice carelessly. “He’s our nearest neighbor if you call it near or call him a neighbor. Cartier swears by him. Hi, you, Gypsy Dow, stop vamping my husband and pull up a packing box! There’s a lot of them over there behind the furnace.” I have tried to draw a little plan of the basement so that you can have an idea of what it was like. The cellar steps brought you into the middle of the base- ment, and the furnace was near the center of the room, too, not standing against the wall the way most furnaces do. We all grabbed boxes and moved near the screen, and Cartier turned out the one big light that illuminated the room and began to work the pic- ture machine. “You won't break down and weep with joy over these things,” he apologized. “They may interest you, Betts, because of your husband, but they are likely to be just a lot of scenery marred by faces to the rest of you. However, there are one or two in- teresting bits.” Most of the films had been taken in Hawaii, and I, who have never traveled farther than MAN's ESTATE 2 I voltage is cut at its source. That slows down the cut- ting machines, and when, as to-night, any miners are working overtime to increase their pay there's always a hullabaloo if I happen to want to use my motion picture machine. However, I’ll be through when I’m through.” He went on calmly showing the film, and no one said anything, although I must admit that I felt dis- tressed at the idea of the miners waiting to earn their bread while the rest of us looked at some silly pic- tures. This was a side to Cartier that Ted had never stressed, although I did recall his saying that what had put the mine on a paying basis was Cartier's in- sistence upon military control. “I don’t know what we’d do here without military rule,” went on Cartier, as though answering my thoughts, “for the miners had become so used to run- ning the mill the way they pleased that it was a won- der we had any output at all. Now they are all treated alike, and though some of them kick, I feel that it has been the only possible solution.” The pictures buzzed on in the uncomfortable si- lence, and I know I, for one, was glad when a sharp click announced that the reel was done. Just then the phone rang again. There was more than annoy- ance in Cartier’s face as he answered it. “Yes. That you again, Briel? Sure, I know how you feel about it. That's O.K. Tell those miners that when I get ready to cut off the film I'll do it.” He replaced the receiver and got another film out of the box beside 22 MURDER IN THE CELLAR him. “It’s early yet, not eleven, and I have a rare picture here of the war. It's authentic, even if it is pretty harrowing, and you’ll be interested, I’m sure.” I shook my head as violently as I could; Ted said nothing, and the Williamses looked alarmed at the prospect. Even Gypsy lost her poise, and a look of absolute panic spread over her pretty face. However, no one had time to do anything about it before Car- tier had started the film, and it was too late then. Don't ask me what the movies were like. I just sat there on the edge of the packing box, hanging onto Ted's hand, with my eyes tightly shut. I could hear Felice's voice once or twice when she spoke to Gypsy, who sat the entire time, making little moaning sounds like an animal in pain. I wished she would go upstairs—I had such a strange feeling about the girl, anyway. It wasn’t dislike. Only she seemed to be too excitable to be normal, in fact she was almost uncontrolled in her emotions. When the reel was over, she was plainly on the verge of hysteria, and her husband, Gordon, arose and took her firmly by the arm. As the lights switched on, I could see the cold glint in his eyes. “You come upstairs and play a little bridge and calm down,” was all he said, but Gypsy followed docilely enough. As she passed Cartier she put her hand on his arm. It was a small white hand with plump pointed fin- gers. “Silly of me,” she said in a low tone. I saw Cartier pass his hand across his eyes in a puz- zled sort of way, staring hard at that small white MAN's ESTATE 23 hand of Gypsy's. I don’t think he heard her in his abstraction, but I saw the quick sidelong glance that Felice cast Gypsy, and I was sorry, for I had thought that all the little petty jealousy of the dinner had been dispelled. Then I forgot all about her and Gypsy in the as- tonishment that the Williams man caused me. He was almost as white as the sheet that had shown the film, and he mopped his brow as he followed his wife upstairs. “A little bridge will do us all good,” she was saying calmly. She looked fresh and unshaken, as though she had not just seen four hundred feet of dead bodies and bloodshed. Still, I couldn’t tell, maybe she had kept her eyes shut as I had done. This left Felice and Cartier and Ted and me in the cellar. Felice finished putting away the films and shut them up on an upper shelf of the ammunition closet. “I want to make that pudding,” she said. She didn’t look at us—seemed to address her remark to the wall. “Oh, come,” said Cartier. He went over and put his arm about her, but she pushed him away with a quick irritated movement. “Oh,” said her husband quietly. “All right. I thought it might be rather fun to shoot at targets a little while. But maybe we’d better not.” He turned to Ted. “I’m tired and I’ve not many shells—” “Oh, I brought some,” said Ted. “I feel just like a little practice. Don't be like that, Cartier.” “I don't know how to shoot, anyway,” said I, with 24. MURDER IN THE CELLAR my eye on Felice's flushed and irritated countenance. “Gee, Betts, it is easy as anything,” said Cartier. “We use only .22 caliber revolvers.” He picked up one from the gun table and handed it to me. “Don’t be scared. It isn’t loaded. And honestly, it wouldn’t take a minute for you to learn how to shoot.” I held the gun awkwardly, and laughed. “I don’t mind the shooting so much as I do the danger of being shot at by mistake,” I said. “There isn’t any danger,” Cartier assured me. “You see, the ones who aren’t shooting, go over there behind the furnace, and then they are completely out of the range of the exploded shells. Of course they can’t see, but as each fellow fires a round—ten shots —you can count them and know when it’s safe to come out from behind the furnace. And if that sounds dangerous, why, the fellow who is shooting always calls out when he's through, anyhow. Then you come out and do your stuff. Honestly, there isn’t a thing to it, and you ought to be ashamed to be the wife of a West Pointer and not know how to handle a gun. Felice is a cracker-jack shot.” “Well, Felice is going to make her pudding before she does anything else,” said Felice decidedly, going upstairs. “Do whatever you please, Betts; you can’t play bridge anyhow, for the foursome is made up.” She slammed the door at the head of the stairs. “It would be rather jolly,” I said, looking at Ted. But to my surprise, he shook his head. “Silly idea, you aren’t the type to handle guns, Mouse. Go on MAN's Estate 25 up and help with the pudding or work on that blame radio. Remember, Cartier, besides being the wife of a West Point man, she's also the wife of the leading radio dealer in New Castle, and we ought to conquer that field first.” He grinned, but I knew he meant it, so I smiled at Cartier and handed back the re- volver. * “I think I'll try some other time. You boys can have more fun anyway, without me to keep you back.” “Sorry.” Cartier went over and got out some am- munition. “Good thing you brought some shot, Ted. We're about out, I see.” “Let’s use the .45 instead of the .22,” I heard Ted say, as I shut the door after me as Felice had done. Felice was whipping some cream when I arrived in the kitchen. “Oh, didn’t you stay?” she said rather disagreeably. “Well, I’m just green enough as a cook to have to be alone when I make anything. Can you find something to do in the other room?” When I’m snubbed I usually don’t have sense enough to know it, Ted always says, but this time I did, although I had to laugh up my mythical sleeve. Felice was so jealous that it was pathetic. A little attention from her beloved husband, even to insig- nificant me, and it burned her up completely. I thought to myself that it would be a good idea if she would crawl into the icebox with her pudding for awhile; but I said nothing, managed my best guest- room smile, and went on into the other room. REFRIGERATOR E- ROOPA - * * * TABLE C D E. Vº Vº VA -, KITCHEN DINING ROOM - TOVE - oowººt vº RADto V ("/"Nº) *N Kººt. CN/~) in HALL . LIVING ROONA ; 2. * . pavenport : § & Desk-FEII fRONT PORCH PLAN OF FIRST FLGDR QF CADEL HQMAE MAN's ESTATE 27 (Here is the plan of the first floor, so you can see for yourself what an old-fashioned place it was, and how every room was a life unto itself.) The radio was in the hall, and that was where I spent the eve- ning, but I might as well have been on the third floor, even though all the other rooms entered into it. I didn’t dare intrude on the bridge game which was taking place in the living room, with the usual serious characteristics of contract, so I sought comfort with the radio. The wind wasn’t so violent now, and I thought that I heard the occasional soft hiss of snow against the window. Surely the static must have sub- sided. I turned the dial to where KDKA was, and heard a noise like seventeen peanut whistles. I know rather less about a radio than about a gun, so I turned it off, and went back into the living room for my mystery magazine. Gypsy was taking in about all the tricks while the Williamses looked mutely on. I tiptoed out with my magazine and sat down near the best light to read it. Rather more pleasant, by con- trast, I remember thinking, to sit and read about the murder of a red-haired man who died grinning, than to witness a film of war pictures. Pleasant, because murder stories were stories, while war—well, that is different, even if it did happen thirteen years ago. Once or twice some one who was bridge dummy would stroll through the hall, and after half an hour or so Felice joined me. She seemed ashamed of her temper, and sat down with a conciliatory manner. She fished for a radio station that wouldn’t be a mini- 28 MURDER IN THE CELLAR ature slaughter house of squeals. “I wouldn’t dare disturb Gypsy at bridge,” she said. “It’s just like her, when I haven’t seen her for five years, to come in here and play contract all night. But she's so lucky. She won't stop, and I’m dying to ask her all about herself. There—wasn’t that an announcer then? Funny there is so much static when the storm is about over. This is boring. I wish the boys would come up and make us a drink.” However, I hadn’t heard any announcer—nothing but static. “It’s so late that most stations available have signed off anyhow,” I decided. “I’ll turn this thing off.” Then I stopped, with my hand on the dial. “What's the matter?” asked Felice nervously. “The house is full of noises to-night—it's the wind. What did you hear?” “That's it,” I answered, slowly. “I don’t hear anything. The boys must have stopped shooting.” Felice put her hand over mine and switched off the radio. We listened intently. There wasn’t a sound in the house, except the thick thud of the snow against the window pane, and the wind howling around the cupola. Even the bridge players were silent. “When did the shooting stop, for goodness’ sake?” asked Felice. “They must be putting away their guns. They’ll be up in a minute.” “I don’t know exactly just when the shooting stopped,” I admitted, “but I’m pretty sure that it was before you came into the room. Only I didn’t real- MAN's ESTATE 29 ize it. You don’t get silence at once, you know, the way you do a sudden noise. Silence has to sort of seep into your consciousness.” Felice laughed and arose. “Ted says you’re a mouse, and I say you’re an analytical genius. I never hoped to know one personally. Come on. Let's go down cellar and make the boys come up.” But I caught her arm. “No, leave them alone,” I urged. “They may have something to talk over. They will be up when they have finished.” Felice reluctantly sat down again, and then arose and went over to the window. “It’s snowing like everything,” she said, yawning. “We can sleep till noon to-morrow, if we want to. Cartier's assistant has promised to take full charge. Poor Cartier is tired out, too. Really the boys ought to hurry up here. I wonder what time it is.” She put her hands to the glass and looked out intently. “I see Swig- ard's house all lit up so it can’t be very late. He always goes to bed with the chickens.” As she spoke the house shuddered and shook with the roaring approach of a train. “But it is late,” she declared above the din. “That’s the Northbound one o'clock. I’m going down.” I followed her into the kitchen and as she opened the cellar door a cold blast of night wind swept up. “Whew!” she ejaculated, “I know what they’ve done, the big dummies! They’ve gone out to the garage to look at Cartier's new gym apparatus that just came and they’ve forgotten to close the outside CHAPTER III To-MoRRow's DINNER DON'T know how I managed to get down the first step on that trip down to the basement. I only know I was spared a second step by an event that occurred just as I put out my foot, trembling so in every limb that I could hardly stand. The light that had blazed ahead of me there in the cellar went out suddenly, and total darkness surrounded me. Felice screamed again, and stumbled up towards me, and I heard the approaching sound of voices from the hall. I reached out my hand to help Felice, and by that time the bridge players were at the head of the stairs. “What's happened?” came the fussy, blessedly matter-of-fact voice of Mr. Williams. “Did Felice fall down cellar when these confounded lights went out, or what?” He lit a match and his face appeared above it, concerned and worried. “Oh,” the voice that came from my throat seemed in no-wise mine. “Cartier has been shot—maybe killed. Felice found him.” With an ejaculation some one pushed roughly past us all. It was Gordon. “Let me go down. Girls, go back into the hall. Where is Ted?” I waited, my heart thumping, to hear Felice make that hideous accusation again, in answer to his ques- 31 32 MURDER IN THE CELLAR tion. But she was silent, and a moment later Gordon called from below, “Felice has fainted, I think. Right here on the steps. Damn those lights! If we only had a flashlight or a candle. Anybody know where those things are kept around here?” “There’s a flashlight out in our car in the drive- way,” I managed to say. “But do you think it’s safe to go out?” Gordon and Walter ordered me back into the hall and I stood beside Gypsy and Mrs. Williams while the men carried Felice into the living room and put her on the couch. I could hear their feet stumble against the furniture as they went. None of the women said a word. “The candles—on the dining room table,” I said, suddenly remembering them, and I knew that one of the girls left. I didn’t know which one it was until I saw the pretty harassed face of little Mrs. Williams illuminated by the candlestick she was carrying. I don’t know why, but for the second time I thought of Lady Macbeth in connec- tion with Mrs. Williams—this time in the sleep walking scene. * She placed the candle on the table, still in its crys- tal holder, and lighting another from it, proceeded into the living room. After a moment she reap- peared. “Felice is coming around all right. Oh, it can’t be true that Cartier's dead! But she keeps moaning that she saw him and she knows he is dead. But perhaps he is only wounded. Oh, this is too dreadful to be true!” To-MoRRow's DINNER 33 I think that is what we all think when life takes off its mask, it can’t be true! But I don’t believe there was ever any doubt in my mind, after that first awful scream of Felice's, but that Cartier was dead. I knew, too, what was in the minds of the others, and, although horror and fright seized me, I said as bravely as I could, “Felice thinks Ted shot Cartier by accident, but I don’t believe it. He's too splendid a shot, and too careful a sportsman to forget when he has a gun in his hand.” “Well, maybe Ted went after the murderer,” said Mrs. Williams soothingly, “or else he may be hurt, too.” I think she meant it as a strange form of consola- tion, but it struck me all of a sudden that that might be exactly what had happened. No one could see behind the furnace without going behind it to look, and I was almost positive that Felice had not left the foot of the stairs. Like a flash I turned towards the kitchen, and nearly ran into Walter Williams, whose face appeared gray and drawn above the light of the candle he carried. “We must get some better light,” he said. “Felice is in no condition to be bothered about it, but we can’t find anything in the house except these four candles. They won’t last forever.” “Did you telephone the police or the doctor?” asked his wife. “They can bring lights with them. Heavens, I don’t want you men to leave us alone. Why, the murderer may still be in the house.” To-MoRRow’s DINNER 35 still until we heard the back door slam, and then I ran after him and locked it. The other girls fol- lowed. “But what are you going to do?” asked little Mrs. Williams. “I’m going to make us all a cup of hot tea with brandy in it,” I said. “I’ve got to do something. And if Felice thinks that Ted shot Cartier—even by accident—she isn’t going to want to see me. So-so you comfort her for me, will you?” I couldn’t have said another word, the tears were so close. I grabbed up a candle, pushed the girls gently toward the hall, and went back to the kitchen. The first thing I did was to lock the door that led down to the basement. Then I put on a saucepan full of water and hunted for the tea caddy. Then I looked again at that cellar door. The snow had stopped, but not the wind. It howled about the window and that horrible tree out- side knocked against the pane. I pressed my fore- head against the cold glass and looked outside. There was no moon, and I couldn’t see anything ex- cept the shadow of the tree on the ground as it bent and turned in the gale. The cellar door didn’t keep out the draft of cold air that kept coming under it, and after a minute I took my candlestick, went to the cellar door and unlocked it. I had to know if Ted was still down there—I had to know! All the way down I kept saying, “What if Ted isn’t really gone? What if he's hurt—too hurt to 36 MURDER IN THE CELLAR call me, but I can save him?” I don’t think I really had any coherent ideas, I just kept my mind on the words, and then I was down. It was bitter cold. I cast a glance at Cartier. He was face down, and his sprawling attitude precluded any thought that he was alive. But all the same I bent over and put my hand on one of his fingers. There is a stillness about death that can’t be counterfeited. I had to stand still a minute, afterwards, and hold the candlestick very tightly, but after a moment I got hold of myself and Went On. I looked into every corner of the cellar. I looked inside the furnace, and under the packing boxes with a deadly resolution that I never knew I possessed. Then I came back to where I had started from and had to give it up. Ted wasn’t there, dead or alive; and also, there was nothing that any one could do for him who had been Cartier Cadel. The kitchen looked as I had left it, dark and cold, and the hissing sound from the stove told me before I looked that the water had burned dry. I was just refilling the saucepan when Gypsy came in with a flashlight. “I found this in a drawer in the hall desk,” she explained, switching it off to save it. “Isn't that tea made yet?” “I put in too little water before, and it burned ,” I said, without any hesitation. I think I am honest to the point of fanaticism, but I couldn’t tell her the truth very well, then, could I? She would have thought me crazy, and besides it might have To-MoRRow's DINNER 37 added to the hysteria that I felt was so near the sur- face with her, if she thought that I had, with these hands that were now making tea, just touched a dead man. It would have seemed incredible to me, nor- mally, that I could do such a thing. I changed the subject. “Is Felice conscious?” “Yes,” answered Gypsy, shivering. “Oh, it's all a nightmare. I can’t believe it. Felice wants to go down cellar again, and Gordon won’t let her, of course. Walter ought to be here any minute.” Just as she spoke there came a knock at the back door. Walter's voice called out, “Let us in, will you?” Gypsy couldn't have moved to the door, so I put down the tea strainer, let the two men who appeared, in, and went back to my job. Walter had a big blond Pole with him of indeterminate age, whom I judged correctly to be Swigard. They carried blankets and a lantern, and the man, Swigard, began at once to turn toward the cellar door. “We get him up right away,” he said decidedly. “Maybe no dead.” “He’s dead, all right,” said Walter. “Mrs. Cadel said so several times. She fainted after she had seen him. Besides we can’t touch anything until the cor- oner or sheriff comes. But we’ll go down and see if there is anything that can be done for poor Cartier.” He opened the cellar door, which I had not relocked and spoke to Gypsy and me. “I phoned the nearest doctor—he lives four miles south of the mines, and 38 MURDER IN THE CELLAR Swigard here says that the only road he could take this way is impassable from the mud and ridges. So he’ll have to walk the railroad ties and we had better allow him an hour, even if he started right away.” “Did you call the police, or whatever you do?” I asked. I put the cups on a tray and started in to the other room, beckoning Gypsy to light me with her flashlight. “Yes, I called the sheriff in Wheeling, and he's going to bring some one with him. He said his car was not running, but he would hire one as soon as he could. That's ten miles away, but he will probably be here before the doctor.” I stood in the doorway. “What we should have done,” I said, “was for one of us to have taken Ted's car and gone and gotten the sheriff. The car doesn’t run well, but it does run. Why didn’t we think of that?” Walter looked at me, and then looked quickly away. “I did think of that,” he said, “but Ted's car is gone.” CHAPTER IV A LATE VISITOR LITTLE later I went on into the other room with the tea. There was nothing I could say, and the feeling of thinly veiled hostility about me froze the words in my throat. It did look bad for Ted, certainly, but they had no right to take his guilt for granted. If his car was gone, then Ted must have driven it; only he could even start the rickety old engine. And if he had driven it, he had done so with but one end in mind—to get the one who had killed Cartier! But it was a fine position to be left in—surrounded by people who doubtless considered me as the wife of a murderer or worse, an accom- plice! I had been in the hall during the entire eve- ning. What would have been easier than for me to have kept watch for Ted, or helped him make his getaway? Only—it wasn’t true. But that thought, while it sustained me, did not comfort me. Felice was propped on the pillows on the living room couch, her eyes closed. The two girls sat near her talking in low voices to Gordon, and I judged they had been talking about Ted or me, for they started guiltily as I came in. “I made some tea,” I said, putting the tray on the stand. “I don't suppose 39 4O MURDER IN THE CELLAR any of you feel much like drinking it, but it would do you good.” “Oh, I’m sure it will,” said little Mrs. Williams. She took a cup and offered it to Felice, but Felice shook her head, so she began to drink it herself. Fe- lice's face there in the candle-light was like a dead person's, but there was not a tear stain on it. Her eyes flew suddenly open, and she gave a low moan. “Oh,” she cried, seeing me, “how can—how dare you come in here? This is horrible, horrible!” Her voice was dry and choked. “Felice,” I said, “please don’t accuse Ted of this terrible thing until you have some proof. Men don't go mad—like dogs. Ted loved Cartier. He never, never could have injured him!” I looked around at them all. “I don’t suppose you will believe me, and I can’t blame you in a way, but I would swear to God that Ted is innocent. You’ll see that Ted has gone to get the murderer!” The doorbell rang suddenly, startling us, and I ran out to answer it half expecting, somehow, that Ted's good-natured happy face would greet me. But a tall stranger who reminded me of a big mosquito stood in the doorway, and behind him I saw another man with a shiny badge on his overcoat lapel. “Is this where Cadels live?” asked the mosquito-like one in a shrill unpleasant voice. I nodded, and the men entered, shaking the snow off their feet. “I’m the head of the Detective Bu- reau at Wheeling,” continued the speaker, “and this A LATE Visitor 4I gentleman is the sheriff of the county.” He gave me a sharp boring glance, and then wandered into the next room. The sheriff, a pleasant looking, middle- aged man, with a mustache, was apologetic. “We knocked considerable at the back door, but no one answered,” he said. “I’m afraid we’re tracking up your house with snow. Are you Mrs. Cadel?” “Oh, no,” I answered, leading him into the living room where the detective already was, “the lady on the couch is Mrs. Cadel.” The sheriff nodded to her. “This is very sad news, Mrs. Cadel, and I hope we are going to be of some assistance to you in clearing up the crime. If we are sure it is a crime. Now I wonder if somebody would tell me a few particulars.” He looked toward me questioningly. Felice spoke up sharply. “I would rather you asked one of the men; Mr. Gordon here, or Mr. Williams out in the back part of the house.” Gordon and the sheriff left the room, but the detective continued to stand beside the door and give each of us in turn an awl-like examination. I felt the blood rise to my face, and bit my lip. I had had no intentions of telling the story to any one, but it hurt me to have Felice speak like that. I gathered up the tea cups, and went to the kitchen in silence. Shortly afterwards the doctor appeared, and he lost no time, after he had seen the body and ascer- tained it dead, in telling Felice to go to bed. He gave her a hypodermic and wanted to give the rest of the - F- 42 MURDER IN THE CELLAR women opiates also, but we all refused except Mrs. Williams. “I will take a little whiskey,” said Gypsy, “that will settle me. I hate to start drugs.” “And I’m perfectly all right,” I told the doctor and tried to smile. It wouldn’t help Ted for me to look worried to death. The doctor patted me on the shoulder. “You have grit, my dear,” he said simply. “But you ought to have some sleep, too. I’ll tell you, I’ll leave some sleeping powders here and if you want ’em, there they are. I’ll be back in the morning. Think I’ll sleep at the Hotel to-night.” Walter stopped at my door to tell me that the sheriff had ordered every one to remain here for the next day at least. “He says we live all over the globe, and he can’t spend his time in hunting us up. They want to get all our evidence to-morrow morn- ing, and then Felice will have to go back with the body. I think the undertakers are sending down a coach from Wheeling to-night.” Oh, I thought in anguish, how terrible, how terrible to think of that fine mind, that gallant soul, as “the body.” Where was Cartier whom we had all admired and loved? “So get what rest you can to-night. Of course the house will be well guarded; the sheriff and detective are going to stay here all night. I know how you feel, Betts, we all do. But something will turn up in the morning, and we can’t do a blessed thing now anyway.” “Is—is Felice all right?” I asked him. A LATE Visitor 43 “Yes, she’s in a doze now from the morphine. My wife is going to stay with her. So don't worry. Good night.” He went on down the hall, and I closed my door. I glanced at the sleeping powders and then on a sud- den impulse I shut them into my suitcase, and locked them in. I needed, heaven knew, all the brains I had; there was no use dulling them. Then I got on the bed fully dressed, with the candle burning on the stand beside me, and tried to think what in the world I should do. I had no relations to turn to. Ted had a mother, but for some strange reason he never corresponded with her, except to send her money once in awhile. It always struck me queer that we should send her money, for she evidently could afford to live abroad, and although Ted as a young boy had been used to luxury we were a long way from those days now. But if Ted never bothered his mother, I shouldn't either. I didn't know how much money we had in the bank, but I knew it wasn’t much. We had bought out a radio agency in New Castle, and paid cash for it; that had taken about all of our capital. We had prospects—but they were mostly intangible. Ted had invented a sort of eliminator for static, that could be built and sold at a reasonable cost; it was patented and a reliable firm had offered to handle it for us if we could have the stock ready to turn in by a certain date. Otherwise they would deal with another arti- cle, practically the same idea, but inferior. Ted had 44 MURDER IN THE CELLAR hoped to interest Cartier in it; he had thought that it would make us all rich some day. But now—well, that was the present situation. No friends and no money. Still, nothing would have been bad, if only Ted had been there to face things with me. But to be left alone, among strangers who viewed me with suspicion and distrust—oh, it was unbearable!—Un- thinkable. I got up to go over to the suitcase and seek momentary oblivion, but as I sat there on the edge of the bed I heard a sound that made my heart turn over. There was some one fumbling at my door. I got onto my feet somehow, and with the candle- stick in my hand ready for illumination or defense, I flung open the door. But it was only Gypsy, apolo- getic, shivering, her scarlet bathrobe tight about her. “Oh, Betts, let me in for a minute,” she begged. “Gordon is asleep, and I am so upset.” She was plainly close to tears, and of course I told her to come in and talk with me. “I can’t sleep,” said Gypsy. She opened the little vanity case that she had carried that evening, and spilled out several cigarets on the bedside table. “Smoke, won't you? No? Hope you don't mind if I do.” Nervously she lit a cigaret at the candle flame, and puffed at it. “Oh, what a house party this has turned out to be; battle, murder and sudden death!” Her flippant words shocked me, but I realized that she hardly knew what she was saying. She went on, A LATE VISITOR 45 “Our room is right next to Walter Williams’ and he is walking, walking up and down till I’m nearly crazy.” “Is Felice still sleeping, do you think?” I asked, spreading the satin comfort over Gypsy's bare ankles. “Yes, I peeked in on my way down. The door was ajar, and they are both sleeping. Mrs. Williams is laid out on the chaise longue like a vestal angel. Say, did you notice something?” She leaned forward, her blue eyes on mine. “I’ve noticed a lot, but what in particular?” I asked, starting. Gypsy smiled a little at my start. “Oh, I just meant that we—the rest of us—call each other by our first names, especially since the tragedy. It seems natural. Only nobody calls her anything but Mrs. Williams.” “I hadn’t thought about it,” I replied absently. “Certainly it doesn’t matter.” Gypsy lit another cigaret. “Well, darling, don't be so touchy. I just happened to think of it. And by the way, I want you to know that I, for one, don’t suspect your husband of doing anything wrong. He's quick tempered and all that, but he wouldn’t harm a fly. Probably dashed off after the murderer without stopping to think, and will dash in here again to-morrow with a Northwestern Mounted Police ex- pression, and his man under his arm.” I smiled wanly. “I can’t believe Ted would hurt any one, either, and he loved Cartier more than he 46 MURDER IN THE CELLAR did almost any one else in the world. Only—only things look so bad.” I felt small and helpless, and the law and the world seemed so powerful at that minute that it took every ounce of will power I had to keep back the tears. “Oh, don't worry,” said Gypsy. “I’ve been through trouble myself. It all comes out in the wash.” She arose from the bed; even her least movement was pure beauty. “Your eyes are heavy. Poor kid, I know you are dead tired.” She plumped up the pillow with hands that were surprisingly deft, and tucked the comfort around me. Then she paused and looked down at me, half pityingly, half scornfully. “Pleasant dreams,” she mocked, and I heard the soft click of the door as she closed it after her. I was, in reality, so tired that I was half asleep then, in that dim world where there are neither facts nor dreams, and I felt my eyelids close in spite of the heavy weight at my heart. But just as I was about to doze off I remembered that the candle was still burning. There might be no danger from humans that night, for we were well guarded, but there cer- tainly was danger of setting the house on fire if a draught of wind should blow the candle flame againſst the bed draperies. So I made an effort and aroused myself sufficiently to sit up in bed and reach over for the candlestick to extinguish the flame. My hand en- countered the little pile of cigarets that Gypsy had left, and something else, a scrap of paper that I had A LATE VISITOR 47 not noticed before. Wide awake, now, I examined it, saw that it was a note, and read it. I didn’t question the right or wrong of reading it. I suppose so many things had happened in the last twelve hours that I had grown callous to little nice- ties. At any rate I held the paper close to the flicker- ing light and read: “If you intend to make any trouble, look out! I can make twice as much hell as you can.” I read it over twice, three times, and then I lay back on the pillow, sick and dizzy; the candle, for- gotten, licking a hot orange tongue at the shadows above my head. The words that I had just read danced crazily before my closed eyes, for I knew the handwriting as well as I knew my own. Ted had written that note! CHAPTER V FELICE MOVES HER HAND SUPPOSE I must have slept, for the next thing I knew there came a band of wintry sunshine across my pillow, and I opened my eyes to realize that the heavy something that had haunted my sleep was not merely a dream. The candle had guttered down into wax, but the little note remained. The house was very still. I must have been the first per- son astir. I went down the hall, took a bath and dressed in fresh clothes, but I didn’t feel much better. The sight of Ted's clothes there in the suitcase, his military brushes, even a glimpse of an old checkered sweater that I had always particularly disliked, made me feel as though I couldn't stand things any longer. Of course Felice was in trouble, deep dark trouble, but at least there was no dishonor cast upon her name, and as for the rest of the guests, why there was noth- ing for them to worry about beyond the mere incon- venience of the stop-over, and the fright which we had all sustained, and of course, most of all, the loss of the dear friend. But here I was alone, without friends, among people who suspected Ted of an atro- cious crime. And worst of all, I had in my possession a most incriminating piece of evidence. 48 FELICE Moves HER HAND 49 I didn’t know what to do with that note. I could have burned it, of course, or torn it into bits too small to be decipherable, but if I did that it would certainly look—to me, if to no one else—as though I suspected my husband. On the other hand, if I did turn it over to the police, it might prove Ted's undoing. It seemed to resolve into a question of how firmly I be- lieved in Ted's integrity. And although the note looked bad for him, it might have an innocent enough explanation. The one thing I could not understand was how the note had fallen into Gypsy's possession, for it was most likely that it had fallen out of her vanity case when she had tossed the cigarets onto the table. She might have found the note and meant to shield Ted by hiding it, but this seemed improbable, for I felt strongly that she had taken a real dislike to Ted, in spite of her words of the preceding night. Presently the others began to get up. My watch had stopped during the night, but I guessed it was breakfast time, and it came to me that I had better go down and prepare something to eat. I went out into the cold empty hall, and saw no one, but down at the foot of the stairs was the sheriff fast asleep. He was a curious sight for he had evidently been cold, and had taken Felice's piano drape, a Chinese manda- rin skirt, for a wrap. Over the exotic blue and gold, his mustaches and florid cheeks were innocently placid. I stepped past him gingerly, and went out into the kitchen. I had expected a cold, early-morning kitchen, you 50 MURDER IN THE CELLAR know the way a kitchen appears when you first come down, but I found instead a scene of bustle and warmth. The mosquito-like detective, whose name I found was Stingley, was garbed as a cook in the white perky French maid apron that Felice had worn the night before, and he wielded a saucepan in one hand and a fryingpan in the other. On the stove coffee boiled pleasantly, and the steam of the heat made white windows in the frosty air. It all seemed so home-like, and comfortable that I couldn’t help but smile at the author of it. “Good morning,” I said. I kept my back to the cellar door. “Oh,” said Mr. Stingley, his smile appearing sud- denly under the sharp probiscus of his nose. “You are the early riser, are you?” He said it as though he had been waiting to catch just such a guilty early riser, and I felt quite abashed. “I thought I had better get breakfast,” I said, ignoring his innuendo. “People have to eat, you know. But you have beat me to it.” “Yes, yes,” said Mr. Stingley, deftly breaking an egg into the frying pan, “I have beat you to it.” There was nothing in the world more maddening than the man's manner, but I resolved to ignore it utterly and make him my friend if I could. I cer- tainly needed one. So, moved by an indefinable impulse, I fished into my sweater pocket and drew out the note that Ted had written. No father ever offered his son in sacri- fice with more belief in divine justice than I felt FELIce Moves HER HAND 5 I when I tendered that message to Stingley. “I found this,” I said, giving it to him, “dropped in the hall. It may prove valuable to you—the writing is my husband’s.” Stingley read it carefully, and placed it in his coat pocket. He made no comment. “Want your egg sunny side up?” he asked. Somehow his attitude that the note was unim- portant made me temporarily and foolishly happy, like a child. “I want two,” I told him, “and a big cup of coffee and a lot of toast.” Stingley got out two cups, poured coffee, and asked me to get the cream. I went to the icebox and got the cream, but I saw Felice's pudding that she had made the night before and its effect was sobering. When she and Cartier had laughingly discussed to- morrow's dinner they had not foreseen the dark pos- sibilities of the remark. I placed the cream on the table and began to eat, but found that I didn’t have the appetite I had anticipated. “What day is this?” asked Stingley, suddenly, cof- fee cup in hand. “Why, Saturday,” I answered. “February thir- teenth.” “Then it's pay-day,” said the other impatiently. “And it will be easy enough to check up on the men as they get their pay and see if there is any one missing.” “Oh,” I said. “I hadn't thought about that. Maybe a miner has disappeared.” I was vastly re- FELICE Moves HER HAND 53 I said nothing, committed to a second breakfast, for I was determined that there should not be an extra chair this time and helped make toast and coffee for Felice. After Mrs. Williams had gone upstairs with it, I returned to the kitchen and asked to help with the rest of the breakfast. Stingley regarded me boringly. “Eating another meal?” he said, and laughed shrilly. I couldn't explain about the empty chair without appearing ridiculous, so I tried to laugh too. “It’s more for company, than anything.” “Well,” said the detective, hanging up his damp towel, “eat all the breakfasts you wish, but be ready for examination at nine-thirty, sharp. Mrs. Cadel will testify first, for the train to Pittsburgh leaves at ten-thirty.” “Where—where is the body now?” I asked, think- ing how I too had begun to call Cartier that, and hating myself for it. “At the undertaker's in Wheeling. They will put it on the train there. Oh, here comes that pretty girl and her husband.” Gypsy had reverted to type. Her manner was casual, light, almost flippant. Although I scanned her face earnestly for any sign that she had a guilty knowledge of the note, I failed to find a trace. I wondered if she knew that she had left it behind, or whether it might have been on the table all the time, and she knew nothing about it. “Good morning,” she said to us all, but her eyes 54 MURDER IN THE CELLAR rested longest upon the detective. I think she was figuring him out, whether he was an enemy or a friend. But she needn’t have worried—I never saw but one man in my life who was unmoved by her beauty. “I am starved—is there anything to eat?” She sat down at the table, and then got up and moved to another place. She had inadvertently sat where she had sat on the preceding night. I put on the cof- fee and toast and sat down, also, bearing as best I might the look of supreme disgust which Mr. Sting- ley cast upon me. Gordon was silent, preoccupied, as was Walter. It seemed as though the women of the party did better than the men at concealing their emotions. Immediately after the meal we assembled in the living room, and Felice came downstairs and joined us. She was all in black, and for once she seemed harmonious to the rôle that her ambition had desired —tragedienne. In silence she took a seat on the couch beside Mrs. Williams and Gypsy, and we waited for the investigation to commence. We did not have long to wait. The detective and sheriff soon made their appearance, followed by two men I had never seen before. One was a short, nervous little fellow, with a thin hand constantly hovering over his chin as though he worried about a prospective shave; and the other man was hardly more prepossessing for the cold and forbidding in- difference in which his not un-handsome features were cast. He was taller than his companion, but not FELICE Moves HER HAND 55 much heavier. That both men were ill at ease was apparent, although they went directly to Felice and offered her their sympathy with evident feeling. Walter whispered to me that they were Ramsay and Briel, Cartier's assistants at the mine. After the men returned to their seats, the sheriff arose. He looked embarrassed and worried, but he tried to make it as easy as possible for us. “This sad duty has fallen to me,” he began hesitatingly, “of questioning and examining you all concerning the mystery that hangs over this house. In my many years of service I have never had just such a case to handle, and you will all have to be patient with me, and forgive me if I appear rude or prying. I’m sure we want to find out the truth, and as quickly as pos- sible.” He cleared his throat. “Last night we did everything possible. We notified the Pittsburgh police and also we ordered plain clothes men put at every station and road junction by which the mur- derer might escape. The snowfall made it impos- sible for us to get any footprints except those of Swigard and Mr. Williams which were naturally made when they came and went about the lanterns and phone calls. The doctor tells us that the crime was committed not later than twelve, and the snow- fall commenced about twelve fifteen by all accounts of persons who were up at that hour. Now at what time were Mr. Smith and Mr. Cadel left alone, will some one please tell me?” “It was eleven, I’m sure,” I offered, “for I 56 MURDER IN THE CELLAR glanced at the kitchen clock as I came upstairs. I was the last to come.” “And some shooting went on before the crime, we can presume,” said the sheriff with wrinkled brows. “It would be a great help if we could establish the exact time that the shooting stopped, for I can’t see why we have no footprints, except of the above- mentioned men.” “So the question is,” said Stingley, suddenly, “whether the murderer knew about the threatening snowstorm and took advantage of it to conceal his footprints or whether more naturally he never left this house and had no need to worry about prints in the snow.” We looked at him, startled. There had been so much talk about Ted, or rather so much suppressed talk, that it had never entered my head that one of us might be the real criminal. I dared not look at any of them. But the sheriff continued calmly. “I think you overlook the fact that at least one person went away without leaving footprints—Mr. Smith. We can find traces of automobile tires on the driveway, which seems to show that the murder took place after the snowfall, but we can find no footprints whatever. Now what I want is an account of every one’s where- abouts during the evening. I’ll let Mrs. Cadel come first, if she will, for she has to make a train.” Felice raised her head and spoke in a low flat tone, totally devoid of expression. “There’s not much that FELICE Moves HER HAND 57 I can tell you that will clear the mystery. The houseparty was arranged several weeks ago when Ted was here visiting my husband.” “Ted—you mean Mr. Smith?” asked the sheriff. “Yes.” Felice nodded. Her eyes remained on her hand that lay closed in her lap, motionless. “Was Mr. Smith in the habit of spending week- ends here in Coalville?” “He has spent several. The last time he was here with Cartier they planned a houseparty on the next week-end that Ted could come down, and because they thought the more the merrier, and also because of the kindness that the Williamses had paid my hus- band on many occasions, the Williamses were also invited.” “Did you know Mr. and Mrs. Williams person- ally?” “Very slightly. I had met them once in Pitts- burgh, and that was the extent of my acquaintance with the Smiths, too.” “And how about the other guests?” went on the sheriff. “The Dows? They were unexpected, wiring me the night before we started for here that they were in this country and wanted to see me.” “Why do you say “this country’? Are they for- eigners?” “No, but they have been on the Continent. I knew Mrs. Dow in Honolulu. She played ingénue 58 MURDER IN THE CELLAR rôles in the same stock company that I did, before it disbanded. I hadn’t seen her in five years.” “Did you know Mr. Dow then, also?” There was a moment’s pause. “No,” answered Felice. “By the way,” asked the sheriff, “do you know of any enemies that your husband may have had? Did he ever speak of having trouble with any one of the miners or his assistants?” “Certainly, at times he had little disputes that bothered him, but after the place was under mili- tary régime, it went on more smoothly. I haven’t heard of anything lately at all.” “I see. Then will you please go on with your story, and explain why you came down here without any one to help you. Are you accustomed to do your own work?” “No,” answered Felice haughtily. I could see that this question annoyed her more than any of the others... “I am not. But on the morning I was to leave, the woman I always bring with me had some one phone that she had tonsilitis and couldn’t come. I knew I could get Swigard or his wife from next door to help, so sooner than break every one's plans, I came alone.” “Did this woman you mention, work for your family?” “No, she was just a woman I hired by the day, but I have known her ever since I have been married, and she never disappointed me before.” FELICE Moves HER HAND 59 “You don’t know then, definitely, whether or not it was this woman who phoned,” continued the sheriff, as it seemed to me, most inanely. “No, of course not,” answered Felice, puzzled. “I mean I’m sure it wasn’t Annie who phoned, I know her voice, but I feel no reason to assume that she would have any one call me to deceive me.” “Certainly, certainly,” said the sheriff. “Now, if you will tell me in what order the guests arrived, and the schedule of the evening.” “The Williamses came first on the afternoon train, and then the Smiths arrived in their car, about five, and the Dows came last in a hired car, for their own car had broken down outside of Wheeling.” “All that is proved, too,” said the detective com- placently. I had an amazing dislike for him, and when I glanced at him now, after this uncalled for offering, I was somewhat startled to find that he was looking at me with a queer hard quality in his eyes that was disquieting to say the least. “We had dinner together,” Felice continued, staring at her hand as though it were a crystal in which she saw the past events reviewed, “and after dinner we all went down cellar to see some movies that Mr. Cadel had taken in Hawaii where he served two years after he had graduated from West Point. Also we saw a war film. Then we came upstairs, or at least—most of us did.” 6o MURDER IN THE CELLAR “Now that is very important,” said the sheriff quickly. “Who remained below?” “Let me think. Mr. Smith and Mr. Cadel, of course. Oh, yes, and Mrs. Smith. But she came up just a few minutes after I did.” “Why did the men remain below?” “They were going to shoot at targets.” A silence followed this unconsciously grim remark, then Felice went on in that flat voice, so unlike her usual rich tones. “After Mrs. Smith came upstairs I made an icebox cake. Mrs. Smith was in the hall reading or fussing with the radio, I think, and the Dows and Williamses played bridge in the living room.” “That, so far as you know, was the employment of these various persons until the time of the tragedy?” “Yes.” Felice's voice was as lifeless as the hand that rested on her lap. “Then I understand that you and Mrs. Smith made the discovery of the body sometime around one o'clock. Did you notice by any chance what time the shooting ceased?” “No.” “But one more question, Mrs. Cadel, and I will let you go. I want to ask if there was anything that struck you as peculiar, or out of the way in the con- duct of any of your guests?” The sheriff sat down, and mopped his brow with a large spotless handker- chief. FELICE Moves HER HAND 61 For a moment Felice did not answer, and then she made a sudden convulsive movement with her hand, as though she were casting off a spell. “Yes, there was one thing,” she said in a small furious voice, “I wanted to go down cellar the minute that Mrs. Smith noticed the shots had stopped. If I had—I might have had time to save my husband’s life—I might not have been too late. But she—she-” her voice grew shrill and she pointed one trembling finger at me. “But she would not allow me to go. Twice she told me not to go, she even put her hand on my arm and detained me. Ask her why she tried to stop me! Maybe she can explain it to you!” THE THREE QUESTIONs 63 looked out of another window. There were little groups of them standing about, the women with shawls over their heads, the men, small, swarthy, for the most part, coatless. They were all staring at the house itself as though it were an interesting corpse, and I noticed that the children were timid, and looked out only from the safety of their mothers’ wide skirts. How quickly calamity draws a curious crowd! I supposed we should have no peace even of landscape from now on. Reporters from the papers and min- isters from the churches would have been our lot if this had happened in a city, and even here we would probably not escape. The men returned and the sheriff, opening a little note-book, began on the next name, which happened to be mine. I told him as fully as I could where we lived, Ted's occupation, and the extent of our friend- ship with the Cadels. “As far as you know,” said the sheriff then, “had there ever been any quarrels between your husband and the deceased?” I hesitated, and then that foolish over-frankness of mine answered, “Yes, I know of one. It took place before I married Ted, at the time of our en- gagement. Ted spent a week-end with Cartier in Pittsburgh, and after that their friendship seemed abruptly cut off. Ted never mentioned the affair to me at any time, refusing to admit that there ever had been a quarrel.” THE THREE QUESTIons 65 for the moment. “All right, Mrs. Smith, if you will proceed.” I wrinkled my brow a moment in thought. “I’ll try to get all the questions straight. First how I spent the evening—well, I spent it right here in the hall, working the radio, or trying to. Rather, first I read awhile—” “Name of book?” asked the tireless Mr. Stingley. “It wasn’t a book at all,” I said with some asperity, “it was a magazine, and I was reading a continued mystery story. “The Black Room.’ I think you will find it on the hall table. I finished the installment, and went out to see if I could help Felice, but she didn’t want to be disturbed, so I tried the radio again. In fact I fussed with it on and off all evening, but the static was so bad that I couldn’t get any station, although once I thought I had Los Angeles for a minute, and then lost it.” “You were in the hall, then, for practically the en- tire evening?” asked the sheriff, regarding me ear- nestly. “That is quite a central location, isn’t it? In other words, you would be able to see any one who went out doors, upstairs, or into the kitchen or dining room, wouldn’t you?” “Why, yes,” I admitted. “I suppose so, provided I turned around. As a matter of fact, some one did go out doors now that I come to think of it.” “Oh.” The sheriff looked excited. “Did you— could you say who it was?” But I had to shake my head. “No, although I’m 66 MURDER IN THE CELLAR pretty certain it was one of the men. I don’t know which one. And then, before that, some one went upstairs.” “You mean to say,” said the sheriff incredulously, “that you were so intent on a radio that wouldn’t work, that you didn’t look up to notice who went in and out of the hall?” I had to shake my head again, miserably conscious of my shortcomings. “I had the headphones on, and —and—that's the way I do things,” I finished sor- rowfully, “when I am doing one thing I concentrate only on that. You see, this particular radio is the kind we handle in New Castle, and Ted sold this one to Cartier, and they are usually so reliable I couldn’t understand why this wouldn’t work better, and I wouldn’t give it up—” “Well, go on, then,” said the sheriff. I could tell he was disappointed, and I felt bad. It might make all the difference in the world if I could have told who had gone out doors and who had gone upstairs. But I went on as best I could. “Then you won’t put much stock in what I have to say about the shoot- ing. But I am positive that the shooting stopped a short while before Felice joined me at the radio. “What do you mean by a short while?” “Oh, ten or fifteen minutes. I’m sure, really sure about that.” “She’s sure about that,” repeated the detective witheringly. I would gladly have slapped him. Never before THE THREE QUESTIons 67 or since have I had such a fishwifely longing, but my own knowledge of the inadequacy of my assertion was so overwhelming that the added sarcasm of his unbelief nearly upset me. It was with difficulty that I restrained myself and continued, “That must have been about half-past twelve or a very little later. I think it was twenty minutes or half an hour until Mrs. Cadel noticed the time by the one o’clock train, and immediately afterwards we, or rather she, dis- covered the body.” “Oh, yes, and by the way,” said the sheriff, “would you mind answering Mrs. Cadel’s question as to why you were not anxious to call the men, after you knew that the shooting at targets had ceased?” I hesitated a minute. “No-I will tell you. You see, I didn’t attach much importance to the cessation of the shooting, except that I hoped it would give my husband an opportunity to talk to Cartier alone and broach a matter that was very close to both of us.” “And that?” prompted the sheriff, after I again hesitated. - I had hesitated because a dark unclean thought like a spotted beast had slunk into my mind, and had to be banished. But I went on as well as I could, “Why, my husband has invented a certain appliance for a radio to eliminate static, and he wants to raise enough capital to have it manufactured and mar- keted. But we put all our money into buying the store in New Castle, and neither of us has any one to give us financial aid. So Ted thought if he could 68 MURDER IN THE CELLAR interest Cartier enough to loan us the money, it would be to his good as well as ours. I didn’t want to interrupt the men, if they were talking about this, any sooner than I had to.” “Certainly, Mrs. Smith, I understand,” said the sheriff. “Now have you any ideas as to who the murderer might be?” “No,” I answered, “I don’t know, of course. But I will tell you about one funny thing that happened that no one has mentioned.” And I told him about Mr. Briel calling up from the plant and telling Cartier that the miners were complaining about our using the moving-picture machine. But Mr. Briel spoke up quickly. I liked him bet- ter when I heard him speak, for in spite of his cold visage, his quiet tone carried conviction and dependa- bility. “I don’t believe Mrs. Smith quite under- stands about the situation. I did call Cadel. You see,” he added, turning to the sheriff, “there is a lot of competition among the miners. They get paid according to their output, and some of the men were working overtime last night.” A grim smile passed over his face. “The only reason that I bothered Cadel about it was because I, too, am under strict orders to report anything that goes on at the mine that seems unusual.” The sheriff nodded. “I see. But beyond the usual bickerings incidental to any relationship be- tween employer and employees, have either of you men seen anything to lead you to think that one of 7o MURDER IN THE CELLAR for dinner.” He seemed dreadfully embarrassed, and I saw his wife look at him with a steadfast strained look, a little white line coming about her mouth. “Had you been down to dinner, too?” “Down here? Oh, not for meals, but I had visited him and spent the evening with him several times.” “Thank you. Now, Mr. Williams, if you will just answer the three questions that I am bothering every one with—about the time the shooting stopped and so forth, I would be obliged, and through with you.” The sheriff looked tired and distressed. I think of us all he was the most harrowed by the examination. “I spent the evening playing bridge with Mrs. Dow and her husband and my wife. And—I—er— think it must have been me whom Mrs. Smith saw go outdoors. I went out to throw away a cigar stub.” The mosquito leaned forward and his teeth gleamed beneath his sharp nose. “What—no ash- trays?” he demanded. “Yes, but my wife hates the smell of dead cigars, and I wanted a breath of fresh air.” Walter paused. “And a change of card luck, too.” I happened to glance at Mrs. Williams again, and saw her mouth slightly open, her whole being intent upon what her husband was saying. Walter went on, “I don’t know what time the shooting stopped.” “What time were you out doors?” “Oh, I couldn't say.” Walter looked helplessly at his wife. “Really, I haven’t any idea. About midnight.” THE THREE QUESTIons 71 “About midnight,” repeated the sheriff slowly. “That was the approximate time of the murder, wasn’t it? Did you see any car drive out at that time?” “No, I wasn’t around at the back of the house. I was just out for a few minutes, and noticed nothing unusual.” “Oh,” said Mrs. Williams quickly, “Walter is mistaken about what time he was out. It was early, shortly after we had begun to play. I’m sure. I looked at my watch.” “Thank you,” said Mr. Stingley before the sheriff could reply. “If only more people would look at their watches at crucial moments, it would be a tre- mendous help in our business.” The man was really intolerable, and I gave him a look that I hoped would squelch him. “And to continue, Mrs. Williams,” went on the sheriff, “I wonder if you could tell me who it was that went upstairs.” “It was I,” said she, “I was dummy, and I ran up to powder my nose. Then I picked up a book on my bedside table and glanced at it—and well, before I knew it, I had read a whole chapter, so that the others had to wait for me.” She smiled apologetic- ally, and crossed her hands. “I am such an in- veterate reader that bridge means nothing to me when there is a book around.” “It must have been an engrossing book,” said Mr. Stingley, folding his long legs. “I wish I could find 72 MURDER IN THE CELLAR a book like that in this house. I looked all over and found nothing more exciting than a history of anatomy. What was the name of this book, please? Work’s “Auction Bridge’?” Mrs. Williams looked injured. “‘Silver and Romance,’” she answered sedately. “I hardly think it would interest you.” “Now see here,” said the sheriff, “I’m conducting this investigation, Stingley, and it would greatly oblige me if you would keep still until I’ve done. Then you can ask all the questions you want to.” “But I’m afraid if I wait,” whined the miserable Stingley, “that I’ll forget the most important ones.” “Well, I’ve listened to all your remarks,” returned the sheriff, “and all they show me is that you are fond of wise-cracking. I think you’d better conduct your investigation later.” “Oh, sure, sure,” Mr. Stingley agreed. “Later.” “Did any one beside you and your husband leave the room during the period from the showing of the movies until the discovery of the body?” “No, neither Mr. nor Mrs. Dow left the room, I am sure.” She looked toward the Dows for con- firmation. “Only when Walter went outdoors and earlier when I went upstairs.” Then she colored and shook her head as though confused. “No, I have that wrong, Walter went outdoors first—early in the evening. It was later when I went upstairs.” “That correct?” the sheriff asked me, but I couldn’t remember for the life of me, so I said noth- THE THREE QUESTIons 73 ing, although I had the impression, faint, too faint to be called a memory, that it was a woman who had brushed past me early in the evening, and that it was much later when I had heard the front door close. But I was not positive enough to make such an asser- tlOn. “When did you come back downstairs, then?” the sheriff asked Mrs. Williams. “Just before we closed, a hand or so.” “I can’t remember,” said Mrs. Dow frankly, see- ing the sheriff's eyes upon her. “To tell the truth I was so intent upon the game that I did not notice who went first or at what times they went. I had no idea it would be so important.” There was faint sarcasm in her voice. “It all is important,” replied the sheriff. “And, Mrs. Williams, did you notice when the shooting stopped?” She shook her head in negation. “I haven’t the least idea. The first thing I knew of the tragedy was when I heard a scream, and as the lights went out at that time, I thought perhaps some one had fallen in the dark. We went out into the kitchen and—and after that it is all a nightmare.” “So you saw or noticed nothing unusual?” The sheriff began to turn to the Dows. But Mrs. Williams took her hands from before her eyes and regarded him clearly. “Yes, I think I do. Not exactly suspicious, but strange. At one time when I was dummy and was watching the others play, 74 MURDER IN THE CELLAR I heard voices from the kitchen. You know the kitchen is right next to the living room and the walls are thin. I heard Felice speak to Cartier.” Every one sat forward, and the sheriff looked sur- prised. “What—was Mr. Cadel upstairs then, dur- ing the target practice?” “No, I don't think he was upstairs. She was call- ing down to him. She said, ‘Shall I summon the witnesses?’ And Mr. Cadel called back, ‘No, I haven’t finished yet.’” “That's strange enough, certainly,” said the sheriff, thoughtfully. “It doesn’t make any sense. ‘Shall I summon the witnesses?”—Did you hear Mr. Smith’s voice at all? Or could the voice you heard have been Mr. Smith’s?” “I’m pretty sure it was Mr. Cadel,” said Mrs. Williams. “He had a slight southern accent, having been born in South Carolina, I understand—I didn’t hear anything else. Then I began to play bridge again.” CHAPTER VII I AM WANTED ON THE TELEPHONE LL this time Gypsy had sat on the edge of the sofa, her attitude one of strained nervous ten- sion, but as soon as the sheriff turned to her she changed. I suppose it is the dramatic tendency in an actress that makes her play a rôle to every one, from the butcher’s boy to her most intimate friend, but at any rate, Gypsy now relaxed; she grew haughty; she was the bored and aloof lady of quality. “I spent the entire evening—after the movies were over—playing bridge. Neither my husband nor I left the room for a minute. I don’t think any one of us, in the living room, at least, noticed when the shooting stopped.” “Did you overhear the peculiar conversation that Mrs. Williams says occurred between Mr. and Mrs. Cadel?” “No,” answered Gypsy shortly. Her upper lip curled in amusement. She did not need to add what her face so plainly showed, that she thought the con- versation had been a bit of extemporaneous yellow sheeting. “And have you, Mrs. Dow, anything to add that might help clear up this mystery? Even the least unexplained detail will sometimes help.” The sheriff 75 76 MURDER IN THE CELLAR looked at her earnestly, more earnestly than he had looked at any of the rest of us, but beauty has its own appeal. During the short silence that followed I expected her to tell about the note. I took a tight hold on my self-control and watched her. I thought she hesi- tated. There was a minute when it seemed that she was about to speak, her lips parted and she drew a sharp breath; but if she had intended to divulge the secret she changed her mind, for she said calmly enough, “No, I’m quite sure there isn't anything I can think of. Everything has been said.” I felt baffled, more displeased than relieved that she had not mentioned Ted's note, but the sheriff nodded, satisfied, and his further questioning of Gor- don elicited no further news. Yet it seemed to me that every one was evading the issue. So much had not been touched upon that was really important, that led to so many closed doors. For instance, who could have known the exact moment that the boys would be alone, in the basement? Why had Gypsy seemed so inordinately excited at the sight of the gory war films; why had Mr. Williams turned pale, and his wife been as calm as though she were at a church bazaar? Above all, why had Ted disappeared? That question had been avoided as carefully as the plague, due, no doubt, to my feelings. It was prob- ably discussed enough when I was not present. . . . Why had Mrs. Williams been confused about the re- spective times when she and her husband left the liv- I AM WANTED on THE TELEPHoNE 77 ing room during the bridge game? What difference did it make? Why was it that Gordon had rushed past us to discover Felice when she had fainted, and yet made no attempt to go for help, leaving that more dangerous office to Walter? Why was it that I, only, and that, when I was busy with a radio, had been the one to feel sure when the firing had stopped? No one believed me, but I knew I was right, and I couldn’t understand it myself. But I was positive that the firing had ceased about fifteen minutes or less before Felice joined me in the hall. I should set the time, roughly guessing, at twelve- fifteen or twelve-twenty. That would place the murder after or during the first snowfall. Yet there were no footprints. . . . Oh, there were so many closed doors! Yet the sheriff and detective sat as calmly as graven images, perfectly satisfied that they had all the facts bearing upon the case in their pos- session. Suddenly I realized that nobody—nobody save one who had been through the whole affair could judge of the entire case, for the simple reason that to no six or eight people would the event appear the same. Probably I, Betts Smith, the little mouse, had as good a chance of solving the mystery as any one there, and moreover, I was vitally concerned. If I only could keep my wits about me, I might discover the magic key to the closed doors. Some one had it. There was a squeaking of shoes in the hallway, and I raised my eyes to find Swigard standing there in the doorway, fidgeting with his hat in an embarrassed 78 MURDER IN THE CELLAR way. “You tol’ me to come this morning,” he began reproachfully, but the sheriff motioned him to a chair. “Yes, yes, but I told you I was not quite ready for you yet.” He was going over the data he had se– cured and emphasizing certain points with heavy underscoring. I would have given a good deal to have seen what he was marking. “There seems to be one point on which you are all pretty well agreed— that you don’t know exactly what time the firing stopped.” Every one nodded except me, of course, and I thought that Stingley’s small eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “It is unfortunate that Mr. Smith has disappeared, for he would be able to clear up a good many points for us, but we shall have to strug- gle along without him for the present. It is my the- ory that Mr. Smith went after the murderer, and that he had no opportunity to let any one know where or why he was going. We shall hear from him soon, I feel sure. Mr. Swigard, I guess you can tell us more about Mr. Cadel than any one else can. The first point I want to be sure of is this—was it Mr. Cadel's practice to amuse himself by shooting at tar- gets?” The other leaned forward, his lips moving in an anxious effort to get the question right. It was plain to see that English was not his best point. “Yes, sir, he shoot every night almost. I know—I take care of his guns for him, clean um up and cleanum up house, I AM WANTED on THE TELEPHoNE 79 too. Make bed. Wash dishes. And every day I clean um up guns.” “Don’t you have a wife, Mr. Swigard?” “Sure I got wife.” “Won’t she help you clean house?” “Oh, sure, sure.” The big Pole grinned. “But she sleep late some mornings. I take care Mr. Ca- del’s house.” “How many revolvers or guns did Mr. Cadel have? Was this one of his?” The sheriff held up the .45 that had been found beside Cartier. Mr. Swigard’s ignorance of any difference between guns and revolvers was gratifying. “That his gun,” he said eagerly, looking at the barrel. “See here— ’23. That his school number, he tell me. He mark all his guns like that. Yep. I clean that gun day before yesterday. I clean special, for Mr. Cadel say he have company same like before, and they going to shoot.” “Oh,” remarked the sheriff. “Mr. Cadel had had company before.” Swigard looked puzzled. “But sure, sure. Two— three times. Mister Smitt. They shoot down cellar till real late.” “How many guns did Mr. Cadel have?” asked the sheriff. “Oh, I don't know how many,” said the Pole with a shrug. “He have two guns here at house that I take care of one .22 and one .45. Then he used to 8O MURDER IN THE CELLAR have a rifle but that disappear last winter. He lose it hunting. Then there was the office gun.” “Did the office gun disappear?” asked the sheriff, suddenly, to the mine superintendents. Ramsay shook his head. “No, sir. I saw it this morning in the drawer where we always keep it. We use it at payroll time, and—well, more or less for safety, I suppose.” “Well,” said the sheriff, “the smart thing is to guard these guns we found in the cellar so that they won’t disappear. Stingley, will you take care of them, and wrap them in silk handkerchiefs or some- thing so that they won’t get smeared and any possible fingerprints lost? And, by the way, have we received any answers to the wires we sent out?” “Police are watching all roads and stations,” an- swered Stingley, “and the detective forces in all sur- rounding towns are on the watch.” “Fine,” said the sheriff. He watched Stingley leave and continued, “Swigard, did you ever hear of any of the men who didn’t especially like Mr. Cadel?” “Oh, sure, lots don’t like,” said the other, beaming. “No miners like very good—he too much make um work.” He laughed and then recalling the gravity of the scene, became preternaturally solemn. “Good man, Mr. Cadel. He square boss.” “But there was no one special—I mean—do you know any one who would hate Mr. Cadel and want I AM WANTED on THE TELEPHONE 8I to kill him?” The sheriff was trying his best to word his questions suitably for Swigard’s understanding. But Swigard was horrified. “No, sure, I guess not. No, I don’t know.” The question had fright- ened him, and he was not himself for the remainder of the investigation. “All right, all right. If I ask you questions you mustn't mind. But how about another thing. Why were you up so late last night? Lights were on at one o'clock? You work in mines too. Don’t you go to bed early?” The other looked sullen. “I was up late last night. Play my radio. Good.” I almost gasped. Good? I looked at the sheriff indignantly, but he said nothing more on that subject. “And where were you last evening, Mr. Briel?” “I was at the mine the earlier part of the evening, oh-until—I couldn’t say the exact time, but per- haps these others know when it was I phoned from the office the last time; around eleven, I guess, and then I went home—to the hotel, played the radio for awhile and went to bed. I didn’t see any one, not even my landlady, so I guess it’s no alibi at all.” “Playing the radio,” repeated the sheriff, puzzled. “Every one in Coalville seems to have found it a splendid night for the radio except Mrs. Smith, and she couldn't get a thing.” “Well, the static was terrible,” I protested, “but once I thought I had Los Angeles and called Felice 82 MURDER IN THE CELLAR to listen, but by the time she got there it had faded out completely.” Swigard rose like a great ox, when the sheriff sig- nified that the examination was over. He was sullen, yet baffled. Perhaps he thought he was in danger. At any rate he arose heavily and walked to the door in silence. But he stopped there, “My wife here— she'll cook your dinner.” Then he went out into the kitchen. “I was going to offer you all the hospitality of my Hotel, but you are very lucky in missing it,” said Briel as he arose to go. “If you know anything about radios,” said the sheriff, rising, too, “take a look at this one. You can see it's connected by the same light socket as a bulb would be, and it might be possible that a short circuit would have caused a fuse to blow out.” Briel went over to the radio, but he explained as he went, “No, I don’t think that, for the reason that the storm last night put our dynamo at the plant completely out. We have put it in order this morn- ing, but that's the cause of the lights going out last night all over town. It was quite some storm, you know.” He raised the lid of the radio and regarded it intently. “I’d be glad to fix this radio up for Mrs. Cadel,” he said. “There isn’t much wrong with it.” The sheriff was again busy with his notes, and Briel was busy with the radio, so as none of the others spoke to me I thought I would go up to my own room and think things over. I was going to use my I AM WANTED on THE TELEPHONE 83 head as I never had done before. I’d take all the pitiful little facts in Ted's favor and range them against the strong horrid array of suspicions against him, and see what could be done. I knew that al- though this informal investigation was over, the pri- vate ones to which we would be subjected would be infinitely harder, and especially did I dread the sharp sting of the mosquito's words. I dropped into the kitchen to get a drink of water on my way upstairs and a woman who was standing by the stove turned at my approach. I couldn’t place her at first, the idea that she must be Swigard’s wife seemed too absurd to be true. She was very young, not more than twenty-one, with the dark olive beauty that only very young Italian women possess. I was sure Swigard was a Pole, but there surely was a dif- ference in race between man and wife. The girl’s eyes were like gray-black thunder clouds, the lashes around them as black as jet. When she regarded me, she smiled, and her teeth were beautifully white and strong. “Hongry?” she asked. “Dinner pretty quick.” I nodded and smiled and got myself a glass of water and went off to my room. But the sight of that beauty tied to a great dumb ox like Swigard had set a line of new suspicions whirling through my head. The situation was novel-like; Cartier alone, and lonely in this town in which he could have no personal friends, no social life or entertainment, and then this gorgeous creature so near, doubtlessly 84 MURDER IN THE CELLAR thrown into his company daily. I had better not let my imagination run away with me, but it would be easy enough to deceive a husband like Swigard. He was not even intelligent . . . and then I recalled his lie about the radio being the reason for his staying up so late on Friday night. His lie—was it not also Briel’s? Or was it as the others thought—my lie? Surely I ought to know whether or not I was telling the truth! My head ached with the maze and I sat down on the edge of the bed and regarded the toe of Ted's old bedroom slipper that protruded from the closet. I would have given ten years of my life for ten minutes’ conversation with Ted, right then. I felt that I could save him, if I had the brains, but what I was afraid of was that I didn’t have the brains. I may have sat there fifteen or twenty minutes, thinking, when I heard some one call my name from downstairs. “Mrs. Smith!” It was Stingley, and I obeyed the call most reluctantly. He was waiting for me at the foot of the steps, his cheeks purple with cold, and snow on his boots, as though he had just come in. “You are wanted on the telephone,” he explained. “Oh,” I cried, “I didn't know the phone had been fixed yet!” I tore down the remaining steps like a whirlwind, making for the phone that I had seen in the corner of the hall. But Stingley’s voice stopped Ine. “No, sorry, the call is at the Hotel. This phone I AM WANTED on THE TELEPHONE 85 has not been repaired. You’ve got to hurry. I have a car outside.” So I had to run up and get my wraps and it was five or ten minutes later when we drove up in front of the Grand Hotel. It was a shack, all right, as Briel had said. The porch was a wooden platform without a roof, and nobody had troubled to sweep off the snow. A frowsy American woman in a dirty checked apron met us at the door. “Oh,” she said, looking me over thoroughly, “you're the party who was wanted on the telephone.” “Yes,” I cried, “where is the phone? I hope they haven’t cut off the connection by now!” “No,” said the woman sourly, “but whoever is calling you will have some bill. It’s from Pittsburgh and a regular three minute call costs—” But I didn’t stop to hear. I was over at the desk, clutching the greasy phone close to me, saying into the mouthpiece a breathless, “Hello!” There was no answer, and the tears of disappoint- ment came to my eyes, but after a minute I heard the operator say, “Ready with Coalville. Here's your connection.” Then came Ted's voice, so reassuring, so blessedly his own voice, live and sane. “Betts, that you?” “Y-yes.” I couldn’t have managed asyllable more. The detective stood close beside me, and his nose almost brushed my shoulder in his eagerness to listen in. But I wanted him to hear—hear what Ted should tell, so confident was I that his next words s º * * CHAPTER VIII whAT DID GYPSY KNow? HERE was such evident scorn in the detective’s voice that I answered, “Meet him, certainly.— But I wonder why he is coming by train instead of in his car.” The lobby of the hotel was deserted, and for a minute I felt almost frightened at the strange look that Stingley shot at me, but he only gathered up his heavy coat from the chair where he had dropped it, and said suavely, “Pardon me, Mrs. Smith, but I be- lieve you suggested to him, right now, on the tele- phone, the way he had better return to Coalville.” I gazed at him, astounded. “Why, how absurd! It was—just so natural to say that—” “Of course it was, and even had Mr. Smith taken his car, it might have broken down and prevented him from returning in it. Really, Mrs. Smith, so far, no one has accused your husband of anything. You are the only one who has expressed any doubts of his innocence.” “You know very well that that isn’t so,” I returned hotly. “Every one has insinuated things against poor Ted! Ted isn’t used to drinking and nobody knew that better than Cartier.” 88 WHAT DID GYPSY KNow? 89 “Silence is sometimes the best policy. Let sleep- ing dogs lie.” “You evidently think so,” I cried. “I want to have you explain to me right now why you didn’t mention that note I gave you. It was certainly evi- dence, and if I, as Ted's wife, am willing to have it made public, you certainly should be. I trusted you or I should never have let you know about it.” The man glanced at me briefly and held open the door for me to go out. “I didn’t introduce it as evi- dence publicly,” he said, “but what makes you think that I have not acquainted the proper parties with the information? Another thing, Mrs. Smith, that note is not such a secret as you seem to believe. At least two others beside ourselves know all about the note— and there are only eight of us altogether—ten count- ing Mrs. Cadel and your husband. Come on, get into the car, it’s too cold to freeze here in an argu- ment.” I was lost, on the short drive home, between re- sentment of Stingley, and rejoicing about Ted's home-coming, and we neither of us spoke again. Dinner was on the table when I returned, but for awhile nobody could eat a bite, so excited they all were about my phone call. I repeated the entire con- versation as nearly as I could, and waited for the crowd to rejoice, too, in the explanation of Ted's dis- appearance, but nobody said much. Apparently Ted's words to them seemed like the faintest kind of bluff. They were kind, and sympathetic, but they 90 MURDER IN THE CELLAR acted like hired mourners and I slumped so low men- tally that the rest of the meal was a sketchy affair. I was glad when it was over and I escaped to the hall. The radio stood open and I was surprised to see bent over it the overalled figure of Swigard. He turned as we came in, and smiled at us with many gold teeth. “Nuthin—only lil wire bent. All okay now.” He closed the radio lid, turned on the ma- chine, and we were immediately enchanted to hear the melody, reminiscent somehow of a woman comb- ing out too-long hair, of “What is this thi-i-ing called lo-o-ove?” “Mr. Briel couldn’t fix it?” I asked. : “No, he give up. I fix. Easy, fix.” Swigard was pleased with himself, and his blue eyes turned to- ward his wife who was standing in the doorway, watching. “Now I fix telephone, maybe.” But Mrs. Swigard did not notice him, her dark eyes were fastened on Gordon. A decided flirt, this young girl, but a beautiful one. Even Gypsy faded beside that primitive beauty. Swigard grunted, and turned off the music, brushed rudely past his wife and disap- peared into the kitchen. His wife, after a last look at Gordon followed him. Their voices came, raised, from the other room. I went into the living room, and glanced at the books that lined one wall of the room. There seemed to be nothing, as Stingley had said, more en- grossing than anatomy histories, and “Diseases of the Kidney,” stored there by old Dr. Cadel. “Where is WHAT DID GYPSY KNow? 9I that book you were reading, Mrs. Williams?” I asked after a moment of vain searching. “Or maybe you have not finished it.” “Not quite finished,” said Mrs. Williams, who was tranquilly making French knots on a long scarf; “I’ll get it for you presently.” “Oh, heavens,” groaned Gypsy, “I want to get out of here. Booking dates don’t stay open forever, and we are due to begin rehearsing the end of the week or we’ll lose our contract.” She pulled vexedly at the fringe of her scarf. “And my dressmaker arrives Wednesday to do my spring sewing,” remarked Mrs. Williams. “She is so prompt—comes the middle of February every year, and if I can’t have her then, I just can’t have her. I ought to write her a letter, I suppose. What date is Wednesday, Walter?” Walter considered. “The seventeenth. Gosh, I wish we were through with this mess.” You mustn't think we were a hard-boiled crew who were only mildly bothered by murder. No, it was, I think, partly the horror of the thing that made us react in this way. Personally I felt as though I had plumbed the darkest life could ever offer me, and I am grateful that at that time I did have such a feel- ing of confidence. But when Mrs. Williams said, “Wednesday the seventeenth—” it brought me to with a jar, for that was the date that was marked around with red crayon on the calendar in my little kitchen back in New (ºf 92 MURDER IN THE CELLAR Castle. That was the last possible date that the Bangs Company, the wholesalers of radio accessories, would consider our proposition. Naturally enough, a big firm like that had plenty of similar articles to choose from, and if we could give them no certainty by that date that we had the capital to manufacture the elim- inator, they would not bother with us at all. I little dreamed when I traced the date that it would come to mean so much and worse. My thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of the doctor, with a medical report of his findings, which the sheriff read aloud. There was nothing startling in it—Cartier Cadel had met his death through a bullet wound shot from a .45 revolver. The bullet entered his head above the base of the brain, fired from some distance. It could not pos- sibly have been suicide. The body had been without life for from one to two hours when examined, pos- sibly an hour longer than that. It was difficult to determine. The sheriff had called in a notary and we now all swore that our statements were true. He also mentioned that a finger print expert was coming down on the afternoon train and they would have a rogue's gallery of our fingers by evening. Swigard, passing through the room, tersely re- marked, “Telephone lines are cut outside. That's why she won’t work.” “Never mind, we have a telephone repair man on the way,” said the sheriff. “He’ll be here presently. And if you want my honest opinion, we will find the y WHAT DID Gypsy KNow? 93 ! murderer, when we find out who cut those telephone wires! Storms may put lights out of commission, but they don’t cut wires in two!” There was a grim truth in this that made us all silent, but I did feel relieved to know that a man was on his way to repair the phone which would put us in touch with the rest of the world. It was now about two o'clock. I think that I exam- ined my watch every fifteen minutes, while I sat in the living room listening to the odds and ends of tes- timony that the sheriff was endeavoring to secure and tie up. Vaguely I listened, while he questioned Ramsay and Briel about their whereabouts at the time of the murder. “Ramsay, how did you spend last evening?” he asked. “At home with the wife,” he replied without hesi- tation. “Could you produce any one to verify this state- ment?” “Certainly, Mrs. Ramsay could do it.” “She wouldn't be the first wife to perjure herself for her husband,” interrupted the irrepressible Sting- ley. Ignoring him, the sheriff turned to Briel. “How about you, Briel, you told us that you went to your room and played the radio. Could you prove this?” “I’m not sure whether my landlady was still up when I returned or not,” replied Briel. I was the only one of the women who remained 94 MURDER IN THE CELLAR seated during this rather dull interval. Mr. and Mrs. Williams had retired to their room directly after lunch; Gypsy walked the rooms like a caged panther, and her husband played solitaire with that quiet restraint that struck me as so incongruous with the watchful alertness of his eyes. It was as though his body worked mechanically, and his mind was else- where. Where? Most likely on Gypsy, for he fol- lowed her attentively with his eyes wherever she went. There seemed to be a tensity between them that electrified the air, and I thought to myself, if Gypsy were like a panther, then certainly Gordon, slight and elegant as he was in appearance, was like her trainer. When she walked through the room she avoided his chair, keeping far to the other side, and I noticed that she even avoided looking at him. I suddenly felt stifled by the atmosphere of the room and I made a dash for the kitchen to see if I could find some dishes to wash, or a floor to scrub. Anything, anything to pass away the next hour. Anything, that is, but the solitude of my own room, or the tenseness of the living room. But I had forgotten Mrs. Swigard had possession of the kitchen. There she stood, her slim rounded body bent over a bowl of salad dressing that she was beating. She raised her head at my approach, and I stared at her. Her hand went to her throat at which I was staring and with a muttered excuse she disappeared into the refrigerator room. She came back in a moment, but WHAT DID GYPSY KNow? 95 her neck was now bare. I knew that my eyes had not deceived me, and that she had worn a red necklace that I knew belonged to Felice. I couldn’t be mis- taken in the necklace, for I had seen Felice wear it quite some time ago, and she had commented on it as being one of her favorites. It was an odd affair that she had picked up in Hawaii—real salmon-pink coral with red beads between, odd, but strikingly un- usual. I said nothing to the girl, but turned and went back to the living room. I didn’t know exactly what to think about the incident, for it might be very trifling, Felice might have given the girl the necklace, al- though I doubted it. However, it might, on the other hand, be very important, this necklace, suppos- ing that Cartier had given it to the young Italian woman. But why should he? And I recalled Sting- ley’s comment, to let sleeping dogs lie, and refrained from making any allusion to the matter to the sheriff who was still in the living room, going over his papers. As I entered, he put them all into his brief case, locked it, tucked it under his arm, and went out. “Now is a good time for me to have a little chat with Mrs. Ramsay and Briel’s landlady,” he called from the hall, as he put on his great coat. I sat on, in the silence that seemed to permeate the house, and gazed out of the window at the snow that was fast melting into mud again, and I had one of those flashes of dread that people are prone to call 96 MURDER IN THE CELLAR presentiment, although I always think they are some- thing more than that. A line from Emily Dickinson, sprang through my mind. “Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn Indicative that suns go down;” Something—what was it—made my breathing tighter and I had a feeling that I was in danger. I looked out into the hall. Only the afternoon sun in a broad path across the stairs, filtering in through the high old fashioned windows. Suddenly I wanted very much to talk to some one. I didn’t want this silence, this false calm. Hardly knowing what I did, I went out into the hall, over to the radio and sat down before it. I turned on the dial absently. Even a homemaking talk would be desirable. But as I increased the volume of the radio, I shuddered, for some unfortunate choice of stations had drawn to my unwilling ears the slow doleful strains of Chopin's funeral march. I quickly turned off the machine. Whichever way I turned I seemed doomed to more melancholy. But looking again at my watch, I decided that I had just about long enough to change my clothes before train time. How strange, I thought, to realize that this house was practically full of people, for it had already the air of a deserted house. How quickly tragedy marks a dwelling for her own! Who would ever live in it now? Make a home of it, fill its somber walls with voices and laughter? I wished that some pleasant WHAT DID Gypsy KNow? 97 housewife would dismantle all this horror with home- liness, fill the still basement with cupboards of jams and jellies instead of deadly weapons, drown out the ticking clock with children's shrill happy voices! But why dream? I must hurry if I wished to change my gown. I ran quickly up the back stairs, and quietly too, although I did not think of that at the time. There was a door at the head of the steps and before I turned the knob I halted because I heard voices. Furious, intense voices that made my blood run cold. A man and woman speaking to each other. “But I’m going to tell,” said the woman's voice in a still white heat. “I shall tell! You can't stop me.” The man answered her grimly, with a short laugh like the crack of a whip. I’ll find a way to stop you. Don’t forget that.” Then there was silence. It was a moment before I realized that the voices belonged to Gypsy and Gordon Dow. CHAPTER IX ASHES R a minute I did not know what to do. If I opened the door at once, they would suspect that I had overheard them, but on the other hand, if I waited there on the stairs, they might possibly use the back steps themselves, and discover me in the low rôle of eavesdropper. So I concluded that the best thing would be to sneak back to the kitchen as quietly as I could, and use the front stairs. I tiptoed down breathlessly, reached the bottom in safety, and with a little gasp of relief ran—into the arms of Stingley! I don’t know what he was doing there, he had on heavy boots and his great coat, and the snow was melting onto the floor in little rivulets. But there he was, and as he caught my precipitous flight he shot me a glance of needle-like intensity. “Oh, good afternoon,” he said in his shrill voice, “is the little wife all in a hurry because hubby is coming so soon?” “Not at all,” I answered with as much dignity as I could muster, “but I started upstairs for a hanky, and then remembered I had one.” How easy it is for women to offer alibis! Imagine any man at- tempting to get away with such a remark. However AsHEs 99 I don’t think I got away with it very well, for Sting- ley sniffed and didn't answer. I went on into the hall and sat down in a chair that commanded a view of the front stairs. I was as posi- tive as could be that the voices I had heard were those of Gypsy and Gordon, but I was anxious to see who would be the first to come down. I was doomed to disappointment if I expected any one at all, for within the next half hour nobody ap- peared. The upper floor was silent as a tomb. In fact the silence of the whole house was appalling. I heard Stingley once or twice in the kitchen, heaven knows what he was doing—once I thought I heard him clump down the cellar steps. But there was no sense in talking with him. I longed for voices, and conversation, anything to break this awful stillness. But even the radio was shut off to me after my late unpleasant experience. The strange heavy fore- boding that had hung over me all afternoon had par- tially left, but I was lonely, and I was relieved when presently the sheriff came in. His nice pink cheeks shone with exertion, and he brought in an aura of outdoor air that felt good to me, closed in in this way. “I’ve told that mob of foreigners to get back to work,” he said, taking off his things. “Ramsay and Briel have been working like troopers since noon get- ting information for me, but at that the mine has had to more or less run itself. However, to-day is pay- day and Briel has just paid off the men. Nothing IOO MURDER IN THE CELLAR new except that I have sent for the state police, and they ought to be here any minute.” “Is any one missing?” I asked hopefully. “Any of the miners?” “No, not one,” answered the sheriff, sinking into a deep chair gratefully. “They all showed up for their pay, and that's why it ought to be easy to fer- ret the thing out. But the trouble is, almost any one might have done this. There are motives enough to excite a blackmailers' union. Even Ramsay said on the Q.T. that Mr. Cadel was not overly popular with the men—you yourself heard Swigard testify as much. That’s all right, but whom to suspect in about four hundred miners? Briel declares not one of them would have done it, but he is so loyal to the dead man that he won’t admit any one else could be disloyal. So is Ramsay, for that matter. A queer business. I wish I knew more of his—Mr. Cadel's— past life.” “I don't think you would find anything very suspi- cious,” I said. “Of course I didn’t know him, but to hear Ted talk you would think Cartier perfect, I know. A lot of people thought he was high-hat, but that isn't motive for killing him.” The sheriff didn’t answer, only sighed again, and looked out of the window. Some state police in their drab army coats were already outside, and the crowd, with many sidelong glances were scuttling home- wards. It was almost dark, as though the clouds were full of snow, and up and down the tracks little AsHEs IOI lights appeared like low stars. These were the lights from the miners’ shacks. “By the way,” asked the sheriff suddenly, “don’t you think we ought to interview this wife of Swi- gard's?” I had just been thinking of the woman with her dark stormy eyes and her unusual beauty, and this seemed like mental telepathy. “It wouldn’t be a bad idea,” I said. Then I told him about the red necklace. “There probably isn't anything to it. She may have picked it up, or Felice may have given it to her, but she acted queerly about it, and removed it surreptitiously at her first chance.” “Well, if we’re turning over stones, let's turn over stones. I don’t want to omit a single clew. If I fail then—why I can’t blame myself so much. I think I’ll have them finger printed, too, as they have access to the house at all hours.” Stingley came in from the kitchen and confronted us as though we were conspirators. After a long mo- ment during which I felt I must look very guilty, he said. “I’ve got a report on one of the miners named Romas, Chief. It looks kinda bad, too. He has a room with the Kertrockis, and Kertrocki's wife said that Romas’ bed was not used at all last night. She testified that he didn’t come in until this noon, after pay. He was at the house then, so I examined him, and he tripped himself up a dozen ways. First he said he was there—at Kertrocki's, and then when he found that didn’t work, he said he took a long walk, IO2 MURDER IN THE CELLAR and slept all night in a barn. Mrs. Kertrocki said that Romas was often out late, but never before all night.” “Hm—that’s queer, we’ll have to look into that,” said the sheriff. “I want to interview Swigard’s wife. Would you mind going next door and asking her to come over, Stingley?” “Not at all,” Stingley got as far as the door, and then paused to look at me. “Has Mrs. Smith found a new suspect for us?” I can’t give you any idea of how hateful this man’s personality and manner were. He managed to poi- son everything he said with venom. I had never taken such a dislike to any one. The sheriff laughed. “We don’t know yet. Go and get the young lady, and we can find out.” With a muffled exclamation Stingley went out, banging the back door after him, and it was only a few minutes until he was back, Swigard’s wife at his heels, her dark hair half disarranged and her cheeks scarlet with hurry. “Just clean up,” she explained, pulling at her dress with an apologetic air, “and not quite feenished. You want sometings?” The sheriff stood up and motioned her to his chair, and then he wandered over to the window and looked out. He must have been wondering how he could question her without arousing her suspicion, for he could not have forgotten how Swigard had grown sullen and difficult under direct examination. “We got stuck on a few points that I was figuring out,” he AsHEs IO3 3. said at last, turning to her, “and I thought maybe you would be the best one to help us. For one thing, I wanted to know if Mr. Smith was ever here before this week-end.” “Oh, sure, two t'ree times.” Mrs. Swigard nodded her head. “I know, for I cook up lots to eat, and he say he like my cooking. Last time he was here, Mr. Cadel tell me Mr. Smit” come back in two weeks and for me to fix some nice ravioli like I do.” She laughed, showing faultless teeth. “But then, pretty soon, he tell me not to bodder. Mrs. Cadel bringing stylish cook from Pittsburgh.” “I see,” said the sheriff absently, his mind on the more important matter to come. “Now, I wonder, were you in this house yesterday before the company arrived?” “Yes, in morning early. Swigard work early turn and I come over and make up beds and dust.” “I wonder if you heard any automobile in the night? Or anything at all unusual?” Mrs. Swigard shook her head. “No. I hear not- tings. I go to bed early, my door shut, and my room is on the other side of the house from here. First t’ing I know about murder is when my husband come back to house and tell me.” “You mean when Mr. Williams came for him to bring a lantern?” “No-later. When he come back to go to bed.” I saw a little gleam in the sheriff's eye, but his IO4. MURDER IN THE CELLAR voice was matter of fact as he continued, “You went to bed early. Did your husband?” “No, he was out at lodge. Go to lodge every Fri- day night.” “I see. Well, are you not afraid to be left alone? Do you leave lots of lights on till he gets back?” The young woman laughed. “Me? Afraid? I fear nuttings. I go to bed last night after Swigard go to lodge. I leave one little light on.” “This lodge business,” laughed the sheriff. “So all husbands have lodges?” But I did not echo his laugh for my mind was too busy with assimilat- ing what the woman had said. Surely here was a discrepancy! Swigard had not mentioned lodge, had he? He had said he played the radio all evening. Who was lying—and why? The sheriff's voice recalled me. “Now, just one more question, Mrs. Swigard. Please don’t think me rude, but Mrs. Cadel asked me, just before she left, to find out if any one had seen a red necklace that she had mislaid. Perhaps you picked it up in cleaning?” Swigard’s wife looked at the sheriff steadily. “No, sir, I’ve not seen. I will look hard when I clean up.” “That's all, then, thank you.” She arose to go, drawing her shawl closer about her. “I go back and feenish doing my hair and come later to get supper.” Was it imagination, or did she cast a malevolent look upon me as she passed? Stingley in the doorway waited until she had gone AsHEs IO5 out of the house. Then he turned to me. “A red necklace?” He reached into his pocket. “It wasn’t anything like this, was it? Because I found this on the back stairs, right after you ran down this after- noon, Mrs. Smith. Funny you didn’t see it.” There was but one thing left for me to do, escape with what dignity I could muster. I swept out of that room as though I were five feet eleven instead of five feet one, and didn’t stop sweeping regally until I was safe in my own room. Then I sat on the edge of the bed and laughed. It would be funny, positively funny, that man's animosity toward me, if only Ted were here to enjoy it with me. But it wouldn’t be long now. I glanced at my little wrist watch. Four o'clock. I could have printed a kiss upon its crystal face for being so good as to say four o'clock. Only forty minutes to wait, and that was just long enough for me to change my clothes and get all fixed up. I picked out a peach colored dress that Ted par- ticularly liked, and the new black satin slippers that comprised my entire winter wardrobe. Never mind, if the eliminator deal could only go through, I would use them as bedroom mules before the season was over! If–of course—but that was something. There was no one to beg nor borrow from, but as a last resort we might mortgage the store. Mortgage to me had always been synonymous with irate sheriffs and snowstorms, but still we had to get that money IO6 MURDER IN THE CELLAR somehow! If we didn’t, we lost out, and a big op- portunity isn’t going to knock at the door forever. I was busy thinking about patents and radios and all sorts of practical cheerful things, while I dressed. Just the knowledge that Ted would soon be with me made the whole affair the mere nightmare that it was. It was queer that Ted should have disappeared, but he would explain that. A slang expression, none too new, kept recurring to my mind, as I fitted on my hose and slippers and polished my nails. “Laff that off.” We would laff that off. All except Cartier. Poor dead Cartier. I sobered as I realized that it would be up to me to tell Ted. Ted would take it hard. He was a one-man man, there had never been anybody but Cartier, and there probably never would be I slipped on my kimono, and dashed down the hall to the bathroom, locked the door, and began to turn on the water in the bowl. My hair has sort of a nat- ural kink to it, but it has to be encouraged with water to simulate a wave. Then I hastily shut the water off again. There were charred bits of paper in the bowl, only black ashes. But they had only recently been burned. I sniffed the air and there was dis- cernible a faint odor of smoke. But I couldn’t do anything about it. I was resolved not to relate a single other suspicious incident to my friend Stingley. I had been laughed at once too often. I proceeded to rinse out the bowl, and put a wave in my hair. But I must have been pretty well occupied with thought, ASHEs IO7 for it was nearly half past four when I next looked at my watch. I ran back to my room and simply tore into the peach colored dress, flung my hair into some sort of order in less than a jiffy, and flew downstairs. “Isn't it train time?” I demanded of the two men who were still below where I had left them. The sheriff glanced at his heavy old fashioned watch. Every slow movement he made infuriated me. I wanted to dash out of the house and down the steps to the tracks, but I supposed if I did, Stingley would be after me with handcuffs in no time. It was hard—the life of an innocent suspect. “Yes, I guess we can go now,” said the sheriff. “The train is going to stop right in front of the house, and it may be a few minutes late, but we might as well get started.” Then he and Stingley had to find and put on their overcoats and their rubbers and their hats and what- not, and it seemed ages before they were ready. Just as we started out the door Gypsy leaned over the railing. “Is the train in yet?” she asked. She wore a negligee, and her face looked puffy and swollen as though she had been sleeping or crying. Stingley laughed. “We’ll let you in on every- thing. You can hear the story from the hero's own lips pretty soon,” he advised. “But right now we are going to welcome the hero.” . I started to say something, and thought better of it. As a lone crusader I had found I was pretty poor; I had better let Ted fight my battles for me after IO8 MURDER IN THE CELLAR this. Gypsy nodded and disappeared and the rest of uS Went Out. It was dusk now, and cold. Quite a few miners still gathered about the lawn talking to the police. I was so busy resenting the looks that they cast upon me that I didn't notice I had forgotten my galoshes, and my pretty slippers were soaked in a minute or two. I didn’t realize this until later. “Which way does the train come in?” I asked the sheriff, breathlessly trying to keep up with him, lest I be left with the mosquito-like Stingley. “From the north.” The sheriff pointed a fat fore- finger into the dark. “See, I think that is the head- light now.” One of the low stars seemed to be mov- ing, closer, closer. That was the train, then. My heart began to beat thickly. I felt as dumb and stupid and burning with emotion as I did when Ted had asked me to marry him. They had said the train stopped only on signal. What if it didn’t stop? All I could do was stand and watch the light grow larger and larger and brighter and brighter, till it flashed upon us like a bursted rocket and came to a grating halt. In the brilliancy of the sudden light I could not see until after the train had moved off, and then I could see in the dim light the figure of a man in a dark coat moving uncertainly below us where we stood at the top of the steps. In a jiffy I ran down those steps heedless of Stingley or handcuffs, and threw myself upon that dear, dear figure. “Oh, AsHEs IO9 Ted,” I half cried, “it has been so awful! I’m so glad you are here at last!” Then I raised my face to kiss him, and met a pair of stony black eyes. This was a man I had never seen in my life. CHAPTER X LADY MACBETH DIDN'T stop for a second glance. I turned and fled wildly up the wooden steps. I was crying like a baby. But it had been too much; I had stood all that I felt I could endure; I had longed terribly for Ted's support and now it seemed that I would never be able to bear the suspicion of the others and their inaudible but vibrant comments. Another sus- picion had reared its ugly head—for the first time I questioned Ted. It was such an unpardonable thing for him to have done, even if it were a matter of miss- ing his train. I should never forgive him, never! Tears still streaming down my face, I pushed at the door of the house and tried to enter. But the door stuck, and for crying so hard I could hardly see what I was doing. Just then a strong hand took hold of my cold one and turned me so that its owner could get sight of my face. “Crying!” ejaculated Mr. Briel. “What's wrong, Mrs. Smith? Can I help you?” The words were kind enough, but the man’s face repelled me as be- fore, from its very lack of sympathy and interest. But any friend, when one is in need, is a good friend. I pointed down to the foot of the lawn IIo LADY MACBETH III where the men were still congregated. “Ted—my h-husband didn’t come!” I sobbed. “He didn’t?” Briel’s tone was astonished. “Well, that's nothing to cry about, is it? There’s no good in that. Maybe he found he could make better time over the roads. Why don’t we go in the house and trace the call he made from Pittsburgh? There are all sorts of things to do that are better than cry- ing.” To be sure his tone was one that parents use on very small whimpery children, and a rather bored. parent, at that, but it was all I needed apparently, to brace me up, for I produced a hanky, and wiped away the damages. “Let’s go in quickly, then,” I urged, “for I don't want the rest of them to see how disappointed I was.” Somehow I felt as though if any of them suspected how really frightened I was, matters would be worse. The old idea of facing the wild animal and looking it firmly in the eye, I suppose. Briel opened the door and we entered the hall. Here it looked most warm and comfortable, and just the fact that Briel was going to do something to help me, beyond sitting around and asking a lot of ques- tions, was wonderful consolation. I thought of my Great-aunt Sarah, the one friend I can remember having had as a child and an orphan. She was cross and glum, and if I hugged her she pushed me away, but it was always she who had stolen up to my room to bid me good night, and put a cookie under my pil- low and she who had nearly read her eyes out when II2 MURDER IN THE CELLAR I was sick and unable to amuse myself. The other aunts had read me lectures and preached about the milk of human charity, but Aunt Sarah had done things for me, and it was she I remembered. I looked again at Briel and I saw that his chin was reso- lute and determined and that his disinterested blue eyes met mine fairly. He was not a young man, and the work here might have caused him to have lost any warmth of speech that nature had originally endowed him with. At any rate he had been more than decent to me, right from the first. Mr. and Mrs. Williams sat around the fire in the living room, Mrs. Williams at her inevitable hand- work, while Gypsy stared moodily out into the dark. As the front door slammed behind us she started and turned. “Is Ted here?” she asked eagerly. “No,” answered Briel for me, for which I cast him a grateful look. “He must have missed his train. I am going to put in a call to Pittsburgh now.” He threw his coat over a chair and went to the hall. “Is the phone repaired?” he called back. “Yes,” answered Walter, getting up and going to him. “It was fixed late this afternoon by the tele- phone company. The practical and handy Swigard was unable to fix it.” The men's voices receded as they went toward the kitchen where the first floor phone was. “You must be terribly disappointed, poor child,” said Mrs. Williams sympathetically. Gypsy ap- peared too surprised for utterance, her pretty mouth LADY MACBETH II3 still slightly open as it was when Briel first told her the news. “Then where is every one?” she demanded. “I know I heard the train stop.” “It did stop,” I acknowledged forlornly, “and some stranger got off whom I embraced fondly, thinking it was Ted. I don’t know who he was.” “Probably the finger print expert,” said Mrs. Wil- liams, laying her work carefully aside. “I think I will go up and wash my hands. I have no idea just what they do to take the prints, but I want to be all ready.” She went out of the room with a little whir of silken skirts. Gypsy had resumed staring, but this time she gazed at the fire. What pictures danced within the orange flames for her I cannot guess, but she sat so in silence for a few moments before I broke her reverie. “Gypsy,” I said suddenly, “I want to talk to you about that note you left in my room.” Gypsy's wide blue eyes raised toward mine, but I could not read them, so went on, “I suppose you knew that the note was from Ted. Did he give it to you, or did you find it?” Gypsy's brows drew together in bewilderment. “What note? What are you talking about?” “You know—last night,” I said, “when you came into my room to talk. Well, you poured some ciga- rettes out of your vanity case onto the bedside table, and among them was this note. I suppose I shouldn’t have read it, but I did. I have since turned II.4. MURDER IN THE CELLAR it over to the police, as I thought was right, but I’ve wondered since why you never said anything about it to me.” Gypsy sat straight on her chair indignantly. “The reason why I never said anything about it to you was that I didn’t leave it there. What are you trying to pin on me, anyhow?” “Not a thing,” I hastened to say. “The note had nothing to do with you. But you must have left it there—it was among the cigarettes.” “I don’t see that,” said Gypsy hotly. “It may have been on your table all evening.” Well, so it might have been, but that had never entered my head. There was nothing for me to do but apologize. “I’m sorry, then,” I said. “I hon- estly thought you either forgot it or else wanted me to have it, instead of turning it over to the police without my knowledge.” “How silly,” said Gypsy. She lit a cigarette and blew a disdainful puff of smoke. “But you did hand it right over to the police. So it couldn’t have been anything very bad.” Her manner rather incensed me, for in spite of her protests somehow I was certain that the note had not been on my table before she entered the room. “Bad enough,” I remarked just as the front door opened and the sheriff and men entered. “It was a threat against the life of some one.” I had the satisfaction of seeing Gypsy look startled, and I sat back well pleased that I had at least shaken l LADY MACBETH II 5 her self-confidence. Perhaps if she knew that I had heard another threat not four hours ago, directed toward her own self, she would not try to act so dis- interested. The sheriff came in straight for the ruddy fire and warmed his hands. If I had expected antagonism from him I was pleasantly disappointed, for he went out of his way during the entire evening to be nice to me. Briel and Walter came back from the phone, and announced that they had put a tracer on the telephone call and expected to hear from it shortly. I was glad when I found that Briel was to stay to supper for al- though his old indifferent manner had returned and he scarcely spoke a word to me, I felt that I had some one who was faintly disposed to be on my side. There now appeared the gentleman on whose over- coat I had shed tears of joy, he who had arrived on the four-forty train, and whom I now discovered to be the finger-print expert. He was a cold, frugally worded individual who viewed us all as actual or potential criminals. “Who shall I do first?” he asked, after he had taken out his materials. “The idea is to take prints of every one who was in the house,” said the sheriff. “That for a begin- ning, anyway.” So one after another all the mem- bers of the little house party passed before Mr. Blight and obediently pressed their fingers on the II6 MURDER IN THE CELLAR color pad and on the clean sheets of paper he held before us. - “But wait a minute,” said the sheriff suddenly— “some one is missing.” He glanced about the room. There were two missing. Gordon was not down stairs, nor had little Mrs. Williams returned, but as we spoke she came down, her face white and drawn with pain. One hand she held stiffly at her side, wrapped loosely in a handkerchief. “I’m so stupid,” she bemoaned, showing her hand to the sheriff, three fingers of which were badly blistered. “You know I went up to clean up for dinner, and I was so nervous I burned my hand on my curling iron.” The expert looked displeased. “I can’t get a good impression when it’s blistered that way,” he said. “I’ll have to do the fingers that aren’t burned, and then take a full set of the left hand.” Which he pro- ceeded to do. Iran upstairs to call Gordon as Gypsy seemed dis- posed not to bother. Calling his name, I went down the hall toward his room. Just as I reached a door in the back of the shadowy hall—I had no idea where it led to-it opened and there was Gordon. He looked dusty and hot. “I’ve been up in that fool cupola,” he explained. “Quite a view of the coun- try. Is supper ready?” I wondered what he wanted of a view of mud and snow, but I said nothing, and told him briefly that the expert was waiting for him. He followed me down the stairs and had his prints made. LADY MACBETH 117 “Isn’t there a train back to Pittsburgh?” asked the expert, dissatisfied. “I had hoped to get all through here in an hour. I wanted to go out to Breedon”—the suburb where the Cadels lived—“and get prints of Mr. Cadel's fingers and also those of his widow.” “Sorry, but there's no train till ten-thirty to-mor- row morning,” said the sheriff good-naturedly. “You’ll have to put up with us for the night I’m afraid. Unless you want to call up Wheeling and rent a car.” “No, thanks,” said the other with a sour smile, “I guess I’ll stay if you have room for me.” “To tell the truth,” acknowledged the sheriff, “you will have to sleep on this davenport, but I think it’s comfortable enough. I’m bunking with Stingley in the Cadels' room, and there are only three other bedrooms, all taken by the guests. The only alterna- tive to the couch is the Hotel, if you prefer that.” “No, thanks,” returned the other promptly. I got the impression that economy reckoned largely in his calculations. “I may be able to do a little checking up on my prints, and then you want some more finger prints, too, didn't you say?” Supper was then announced and we all trooped into the dining room and had Mrs. Swigard’s excel- lent ravioli and spaghetti. It struck me that this was rather a strange thing—the continuance of the orig- inal houseparty under such grim circumstances. But we had to eat, even though it was a dead man's food that we ate. I thought to myself that if the mur- LADY MACBETH II9 that is we could know it if we would look in the closet. His coat and hat are still there.” “But the odd part is,” said Briel discreetly lower- ing his voice, “that Mr. Smith didn’t register last night.” “What do you mean?” asked the sheriff, his face clouding. “I mean he registered yesterday noon.” “Yesterday noon?” I demanded. “Well, then, they are all crazy. Ted couldn’t have registered yes- terday noon, he wasn’t in Pittsburgh—” then I stopped, confronted by a gigantic realization. “That's true,” went on Briel evenly, not noticing my hesitation. “You people were en route then, weren’t you? So it all looks very peculiar to me. However, we know Mr. Smith is alive and well and sent the phone call, and departed ostensibly for the station. The next thing we are trying to do is trace the taxi that took him. I should have had a writing expert examine the register, too, but I didn’t think of that,” he finished ruefully. “Never mind,” said the sheriff warmly, “any time you are out of a job just apply to me. You'd make an A No. 1 detective. You got a lot accomplished in a short time. But it sure is strange that Mr. Smith registered in anticipation of his visit—if he did. “Queer” is putting this affair mildly.” As for me, I couldn’t say a word. All I could re- member was the half hour that Ted had spent in the William Penn Hotel, ostensibly to send a telegram. I2O MURDER-IN THE CELLAR “Ostensibly”—how I hated myself for using that word! I was getting to be as meanly suspicious as the obnoxious Mr. Stingley. It was all too absurd. My Ted—doing such things—impossible! But the loud overcoat—had Ted bought it in Pittsburgh? He must have had some money with him or he couldn’t have paid his hotel bill. And another thing —how would Ted have money with him? He had planned nothing for the evening except a few hours at the Cadels—could he have had so much money in his dinner jacket without forethought? I checked the thought before it was barely formed. After supper Briel left us; he had to see Ramsay on business concerning the mine, and the rest of us were very poor company indeed. I had dismal pic- tures of Ted in his loud overcoat being traced by an irate police, he knowing less, poor lamb, than the babes in the woods about the whole affair. Gypsy read or stared out of the window, and Gordon had excused himself right after supper on the plea of a sick headache and gone to his room. Walter played Canfield on one end of the couch and his wife made dozens of French knots on the other. As for the poor finger print expert he looked longingly at the davenport, and at his watch, until the sheriff came to with a start and took him over to Swigard’s to finish the prints. “I may be out an hour or so,” he said. “I have several things to do, including getting prints of Romas. Don't worry if I’m late.” With all the state police that I had seen wander -| - | | r LADY MACBETH I2 I past the house from time to time, I felt no concern, nor did the others, but it was a boring evening, and I for one was glad when the little French clock on the mantel struck ten and it was polite to go to bed. My rest the night before had been broken; to-night my heart was heavy, but I was so tired that I felt as though I should sleep anyway. Ibade them good night, took up a book from the table and went out into the hall. As I entered, the back door opened and Mr. Briel came in. “I’m sorry to keep running in,” he said in his rather formal man- ner, “but I am on my way home, and I thought I would stop to tell you that I received word on my tracer of the taxi, and the driver said that he took Mr. Smith direct to the Pennsylvania station. Per- haps your husband took the wrong train. At any rate, I thought you would like to know.” He would have gone out again, but I detained him. “That's awfully nice of you,” I said, smiling. “It is a comforting thought to take to bed with me. I have worried.” I didn’t tell him that it was a fruit- less idea, this one of Briel's that Ted had taken the wrong train, for Ted was too experienced a traveler to take the wrong train anywhere. “But I’m through with worrying from now on. I’m going to get busy and do something. I am going to suspect my best friends till the case is solved.” I hid my seriousness with a mock levity. “Truly.” “I’m glad to hear it,” said Briel. “Things don't accomplish themselves, and you no doubt have a I22 MURDER IN THE CELLAR pretty good chance to get at the inside facts. Well, good night. I hope you rest well.” He lifted his hat, and was gone. He was surely a queer character to find in a mining town. His manner was chilling, yet his actions were kind, his courtesy and English irreproachable. Probably one who had seen better days, I thought with a little grimace. But at any rate I was glad of the news he had brought me. I turned to go upstairs when Briel reopened the back door. He held out to me a magazine, rolled from being in his pocket. “I happened to think you might want to read something,” he said, offering it. I smiled as I took it. “True Experiences.” Hardly what a man like Briel would read, I should think. “Thank you,” I said. I showed him the book I had picked up. “‘Diseases of the Brain’—That's what I would have had to suffer. Won't you stop and talk to the others?” “Stop? No, I have to go back to the hotel and do some work.” His face grew heavy. “The worst part of it is—I keep thinking, ‘Now I’ll ask Cadel about this—” and then,” he finished simply, “I can't.” I felt sorry for the man, and impulsively reached out my hand and took his. “Every one who knew him will miss him,” I sighed. “Well, I won't keep you from your work then, and I will run off to bed.” Briel studied my face. “You look nervous—all in,” he remarked. “You need sleep—but if I were you I wouldn’t be alone too much. Stay with the others, sing, play the radio, and don’t treat the house LADY MACBETH I23 like a tomb. And”—his voice was rather shamefaced —“don’t forget we're all for you.” He went out quickly and a minute later I heard the noise of his engine in the drive. I stood still, listen- ing. The sound of the car was quite audible. Of course on the preceding night there had been a storm and to-night the air was still. Also last night I had had the radio on, and the ear phones for part of the time, at least. Yet, I should have heard some noise in spite of it all. I hastened to the radio and turned it on. I would test whether or not I was as deaf to all the things I should have heard as I was supposed to be. But I failed to hear the car, for when I turned the dial the eerie strains of Ase's Death by Grieg filled my ears. It was faint, superimposed upon some- body’s voice, if you know what I mean. That is, it was as though I had two stations at once, only the death song was quite distinct and over the other. I shut the thing off as quickly as I could for trem- bling, and then I closed my teeth firmly and turned it back on again. “East bids two diamonds, South passes, and West, who has no—” I almost laughed in relief and turned the radio off once more. Stingley stood regarding me and my laugh from the doorway to the living room. “What's so funny around here?” he asked. “Not a thing but my nerves,” I answered him, gathering up my magazine, “and a few odd faces I’ve I24. MURDER IN THE CELLAR seen about,” I couldn't help but add from the landing. - I really felt quite relieved on the whole, after Briel’s visit, for it seemed as though it must have been some trifling accident that had prevented Ted's be- ing here now. He had meant to come—had taken no steps to hide his coming or his destination—so per- haps in the morning we should hear more news. As for the little scare over the radio, what was it all about, anyhow? Heaven knows it never made my blood run cold when I got “What Is This Thing Called Love?” three or more times in succession on the radio. Perhaps sad music was enjoying a belated popularity. I undressed hurriedly, pulled my pillows into a nest behind me, locked my door and began to read. Briel’s taste in literature was certainly lamentable, but there was a soporific quality about the sickly love stories that did me more good than a sleeping powder, and I had barely time to open my window, turn out my light and I was asleep, saved from my panicky thoughts and worries. - I must have been asleep for hours when I was sud- denly awake. Awake the way you get when some- thing unusual has disturbed you. I sat up in bed and listened with my ears and my eyes and with every strained quivering nerve in my body. Yes, there was a strange, a very strange noise outside my door. A stumbling, hesitant tread, such as I had used to im- LADY MACBETH I25 agine, as a child, belonged to a ghost,-blind, re- morseless, unhesitating. My room was very cold, I could not find my slip- pers or bathrobe in my fright, and I could not wait to find a light. I was almost certain that at night there was a dim light left in the far end of the hall near the bathroom. I got cautiously out of bed, the floor like marble to my bare feet, and tiptoed to the door. The steps were now directly opposite the door, and I waited until they were past. Desperately I hoped that the sheriff had returned and heard them, too, those groping, relentless steps . . . Inch by inch I pushed the key and then the knob and held the door open a small bit, so that I had a view of the hall. At first I could see nothing, and then I saw a figure in white turn, as it was almost at the head of the stairs and return the way it had come. I could not see the face, but I knew that it was a woman’s form. Only the attitude struck horror to my inmost soul. For as she advanced toward me she held her right arm rigid, as though she were aiming a revolver at me, yet I could see by the dim light that her hand was empty. It was wrapped in something white, and as the figure drew closer, I saw that it was a sleep walker, and that it was none other than Mrs. Williams. CHAPTER XI RETURNED PRODIGAL HERE seemed to be, for a moment, no one alive in the world, save us two. We must have presented an absurd picture. There I stood, shiver- ing and shaking, clinging to the doorknob as the only reality in a world of phantoms, and doing not a thing to save her as she neared the stairs, a perilous old- fashioned flight that led precipitously down. I hadn't, for one thing, the slightest idea of how to manage a sleepwalker, whether it was safe to arouse her at once, or dangerous to do so; but, as Ted often said, my passion for nursing will lead me to attempt anything, and so I got control of myself as best I could, and taking her gently by the arm I led her into my room. It wasn’t an easy thing to do. She is a little woman, but so am I, and I had to use all my strength to turn her from the stairs. But, once in the room, she lay down readily enough on the bed, and I wasted no more time. I found my bathrobe and slippers, and, taking out the key, I locked the door on the outside as noiselessly as I could and fled down the hall on soundless feet. I knocked at the door to the Williamses' bedroom, and waited for an answer. I didn’t dare rap loudly, for fear of arousing the others, so I was relieved 126 I28 MURDER IN THE CELLAR of a child. Walter went to her and gently shook her arm, calling her name as he did so. She awoke at once, her big blue eyes wide. “Where am I?” she asked in terror. She glanced at Walter, and her face paled. “You’ve been walking in your sleep, dear,” he said, patting her, “and Mrs. Smith happened to find you and led you in here. Come on back to bed. But be quiet.” “My goodness,” whispered Mrs. Williams, startled. She put up her hand and felt of her dis- arranged hair. “I never did such a thing in my life before, and I don’t believe I did it this time. If I did, I must be losing my mind, too. Yes, I’ll come right away.” She thanked me again. “I don’t want any one to hear about this,” she added at the door, and I assured her that nobody would. Then they left me, and soon I heard the soft click of their door down the hall. So I went over to lock my door again, and as I did the one o'clock train thundered up, shaking the house with its approach. It had thundered on so last night at this hour. Regardless of what went on it con- tinued as precise as a heartbeat. I locked the door, and got into bed. Then I realized something. That train had not gone on—it must have stopped, for now I heard the accelerated roar as the engine started. I sat up in bed alert, and listened. Yes, the train was gathering speed, and its whistle sounded high and far in the distance. I waited for what I was half RETURNED PRodigAL 129 afraid to hear, but presently did, a great thumping at the front door. I put on my bathrobe again. How- ever, I had no intentions of going down to answer that door alone, and I wondered whom in this house of sleepers I should call. But I needn’t have won- dered. The door across from mine opened just as I unlocked my door, and Stingley slipped around the edge of it as easily as a mosquito, and with as much venom in his look, and joined me. “Some one at the door, isn't there, Mrs. Smith?’” he whispered sibilantly. “The sheriff is tired, so we won’t wake him. In fact I guess you and I are the only two who don’t sleep heavily—you've been navi- gating up and down considerable to-night, haven’t you?” I wouldn't answer him, but nevertheless I was grateful for his company. In fact, at the last minute, my nerve deserted me entirely, and I stood at the head of the stairs and let Stingley go down alone. I was sure it was only more trouble arriving; that was all that ever came to this fated house. But in a second I heard a voice that brought me tearing down those front steps as fast as I could run. It was Ted! Ted! I buried my face in his overcoat —that must be the noisy new one—and hugged him so that he could hardly breathe. But it soon came to me that his joy in the meeting was not so unconfined. “Well,” said he, “this is nice. Where is everybody?” “Sh-h-h!” said Mr. Stingley in a co-respondent I 30 MURDER IN THE CELLAR manner. I could have brained him, for I saw Ted look at us rather questioningly. “I’ll not sh—h at all,” said Ted indignantly. “I’ve got a hell of a lot of talking to do. Where is the gang? Where's Cartier?” Stingley looked at me and I looked at Stingley. Then I replied as diplomatically as possible, “Every one is asleep, dear. Be quiet. Come on into the kitchen and let's have some hot coffee and talk it all over.” f Ted deposited the new overcoat—of a hideous plaid—on a chair and put his hat—also new—on top of it. “Well, I don’t mind if I do,” he said gruffly, “but I think this is a funny kind of joke.” Stingley had evidently taken himself to be in- cluded in the party, for he came along with us, and it was a good thing he did, for I couldn’t have made coffee to save my life. All I could do was to sit at one end of the kitchen table and stare at Ted sitting at the other. But Ted was huffy and not himself. He twiddled at a cigaret. “Gosh, what a train that last one was,” he ejaculated. “Its stopping tactics were those of a fox terrier on a jaunt. Were you worried when I didn’t come this afternoon, or were you pleased?” “Oh, Ted,” I said, remembering my state of mind. “I was terribly worried, dear. What happened?” “Say, introduce me to your friend,” said Ted irritably. “Here I find you and a strange man to— gether in the middle of the night, and you entertain RETURNED PRODIGAL I31 me like an Enoch Arden. All the same, I would like to know his name.” “Oh, certainly,” I stammered. “This is Mr. Stingley.” “How do you do?” The two men eyed each other like a couple of stray cats. “I don’t remember that you were on the house- party,’” said Ted. “Were you invited to supplant me —or something?” This wasn’t like Ted at all. “Oh, dear, he-he is a detective,” I cried, and it was all out. “Don’t be too startled, Ted, but Cartier—was " “Was what?” said Ted with a laugh. “Arrested for intoxication? Serves him right for the way he got me plastered.” Stingley put on the coffee pot with a bang. “The matter is that Mr. Cadel was shot Friday evening, and I am on the case.” Ted's face whitened slowly as he got the impact of the words. “Cartier shot?” he repeated. I nodded. “Oh, it’s been awful, Ted. He's dead.” “What—” Ted's jaw dropped, “Don’t tell me Cartier shot himself—” I had to answer him. “No, Ted. Cartier was murdered Friday night.” Ted ran his hand through his rumpled hair, and looked at me as though he thought I was insane. “You’re fooling,” he said abruptly. “No, dear,” I answered, and the tears in my eyes I32 MURDER IN THE CELLAR must have convinced him, for he suddenly put his face down in his hands. “It is a nightmare,” he said, his voice muffled. “These things don't—they can't happen! It's not true—” “Dear,” I said, “it is true, but when we found you and your car both gone, we thought, or rather, I thought, that you had gone after the murderer. Tell us that that is true!” But Ted only shook his still bowed head. “I can't tell you what is true—and that is before Heaven! My car gone—Cartier shot—I disappear? And I can say for explanation—absolutely nothing!” “Coffee's ready,” announced Stingley, pouring some into a cup. “It may clear your head.” “No,” said Ted, looking at it. “God, this is terrible!” “The thing to do, Ted,” I said bravely, “is to tell all you know about this dreadful thing at once; then maybe we can straighten it out.” “You can tell it now,” said Stingley hopefully, “or you can wait until to-morrow and tell it under oath.” Ted turned toward him savagely. “If I tell it a hundred times under oath or not, it will be the same, sir. I do not lie. There isn’t much to tell,” he con- tinued, more calmly; “Cartier and I were down cellar shooting at targets with one hand, and drinking high- balls with the other. I was just wondering whether I’d be able to shoot my next turn, when bingo—I suddenly woke up in a Pittsburgh hotel with an awful RETURNED PRODIGAL I33 headache. That's all I know. Oh, yes, and I found I had two hundred dollars in my pocket.” “Oh, you did?” asked the detective. “May I see them please? Were you in the habit of carrying so much money about with you?” “Hardly two hundred dollars in a dinner suit, if I had it,” answered Ted, reaching in his pocket. “Here’s what is left after I bought a hat and overcoat —the cheapest I could get—and paid for my hotel and my fare.” The detective examined the bills closely, and checked them with a piece of memorandum in his pocketbook. “This is strange—these are marked the same as the office money— Let's see, Mr. Smith, did you need money?” Ted smiled grimly. “I did and do, but a lot more than two hundred dollars.” “Oh, dear,” I cried, suddenly, “why didn't you come home when you phoned you would?” “I did take the train that gets in here at four forty, but I was half sick and so worn out that I must have fallen asleep and gone past this place before I awoke. I got out at some dinky little station and waited three hours until the first Northbound train should arrive.” He pushed his untasted coffee away and stared bit- terly at the wall. “I wish I hadn’t come back at all. Old Cartier!” He shielded his eyes with his hand. “By the way,” asked Stingley, “was it you or Mr. Cadel who left the cellar door open?” I34. MURDER IN THE CELLAR “How should I know?” answered Ted, not looking at him. “But you must have,” persisted the other. “It was found wide open.” “Well, I suppose Cartier and I just forgot to close it when we went out, or else we couldn’t find the knob.” “But Cartier didn't go out,” replied Stingley, slowly; “his body was found face down, shot from behind, at the foot of the cellar steps.” CHAPTER XII MOSQUITOES STING DON'T think either of us slept much that night. I know that in the morning there were circles under Ted's eyes and also under mine, although we both politely assured each other that we had had a very good night's rest. I felt our estrangement deeply. Somehow I had never dreamed that things would be like this. Ted apparently hadn’t the faint- est idea as yet that he was suspected of the murder, and for some reason I couldn’t seem to tell him. I had pictured us together, making the burden lighter by sharing it. We dressed in a silence that I dared not break. Every one at breakfast greeted Ted politely but not cordially. Stingley had evidently told them a little of Ted's story, and naturally enough it had prejudiced them. The finger print expert was the only one who talked to poor Ted and then it was all about trains. He was most anxious to get away, and I suppose that the davenport had not been sufficiently overstuffed for a city dweller. “Did you get the other prints?” I asked him. He gave a queer glance at the sheriff. “Yes,” he said, shortly. I wondered at his manner, but soon forgot it, for immediately after breakfast the sheriff I35 136 MURDER IN THE CELLAR called Ted to the living room to get his testimony under oath. Well as I knew Ted, I couldn't help but wonder if he would give his story in a little more detail this morning. It had sounded bare, to me, as though he were keeping back something. Though it might be true in outline, as I believed, there was something vital missing, the something that gives any recital the final air of verity. “Well,” said the sheriff, jovially, “now that our chief witness is back I imagine that the Wheeling de- tective bureau will be dispensed with. Tell us the whole story, Mr. Smith.” He settled back in his chair with an air"of great content. Nobody said anything for a minute and Stingley gave a kind of snort. “You arrived late last night?” asked the sheriff, as Ted was silent. “Yes, sir,” answered Ted. “I took the train from Pittsburgh all right, but I fell asleep and forgot to have the train stopped on signal.” “It stopped on my signal,” said the expert in finger prints. “I was asleep,” said Ted, “so it didn’t do me much good. As soon as I awoke I got off at some small station and waited there several hours until there was a northbound train.” “Wait a minute.” The sheriff had forgotten to swear in his witness. After this was done, he con- tinued. “What was the name of this station, please?” Mosquitoes STING 137 “I don’t know,” said Ted. “I didn't see any name anywhere or any one to ask and I just waited. It was only a shed, anyhow.” “Then you signaled a train?” Ted nodded. “Yes, sir.” “But how did you know there would be any train?” asked the sheriff. “I knew there must be one,” said Ted, “for I have visited here before, and had often heard the one o'clock train roar past the house.” “I see.” The sheriff looked serious. “Now, Mr. Smith, you were and are a very material witness to this crime. Perhaps only you will be able to solve this mystery. I won’t ask you more questions; just tell your own story in your own way, of what hap- pened from the time when you and Mr. Cadel were left alone in the basement until the time when you returned last night.” Ted's face took on a drawn look. “I’m afraid you will be disappointed, but I’ll tell you all I can. Cartier and I began to shoot at targets as soon as the women left. I am not in such good practice as he, so he allowed me several extra turns. One of us would stand behind the furnace while the other shot. Also we had a few drinks. Well, we were about through, and Cartier was taking his turn while I waited for him to finish and then”—Ted hesitated—“that’s all I remember until I woke up in the William Penn yesterday morning.” “What?” cried the sheriff, sitting upright. “Is 138 MURDER IN THE CELLAR that all you have to say? Are you telling us the whole truth?” He spoke without thinking, in his disappointment, but Ted's face flushed as he answered, “Yes, sir, I am speaking under oath.” “Well, I’ll be blasted.” The sheriff sat back and drew a long breath. “I thought our troubles were over with your arrival but here we have a fresh car- load of mystery.” He studied for a minute and his honest face was distressed. “Well, go on, go on.” “As I say I woke up in a strange room in a strange bed, and the first thing that met my eye was a Gideon Bible. So I knew I was in some hotel, but I didn’t know which one until I called the office and found out. I didn’t know what to think. I’d never been drunk before. It didn’t seem like much of a prac- tical joke, for I had and still have a lump on my head as big as a large walnut, but what else could have happened? I called the room clerk again and asked under what name the room was engaged, and when he told me I had another shock.” “Why? What was the name?” “My own name—Edward Smith of New Castle.” “Well, that's not so strange, is it?” “It surely is.” Ted looked the sheriff straight in the eye. “Because I swear I didn’t register at that hotel, and moreover the writing is not my own.” “When did the clerk say you registered? Did he remember you?” “No, he didn't remember me, so many people Mosquitoes STING I39 come and go in the daytime. He said I registered about noon. The night clerk doesn’t remember either. I seem to be the sort of man that people for- get.” Ted tried to smile, but the sheriff was serious. “That is more important than you think. Very important. But, Mr. Smith, how did you and your wife drive down here? Did you not come through Pittsburgh?” “Yes, we did.” “And at what time did you leave New Castle?” “Around ten-thirty or so.” “Then,” said the sheriff quietly, “while I believe you when you say that you did not register at the hotel, still it would not have been a physical impossi- bility for you to have done so, now would it?” “Why, I suppose it wouldn't. As a matter of fact I was in the William Penn Hotel about noon. I sent a telegram.” The sheriff's lips were compressed. “Could you get the person you telegraphed to, to wire us regard- ing this?” Ted looked bothered. “If you could wait for a day or so, I shall get an answer. But if you like—the name of the party I wired was Mr. B. H. Bangs of the Bangs Mercantile Company.” The sheriff made a notation of the fact and con- tinued, “Now about luggage?” Ted began, “I had no luggage, naturally, and no clothes except the Tuxedo I was wearing, but I dis- covered I had two hundred dollars in my pocket. I I4O MURDER IN THE CELLAR gave what was left after paying for the coat and hat and various bills to Mr. Stingley last night.” “Yes, and I find they are part of the office money, all of which, I understand, is marked at the bank before drawn, as a routine Mr. Cadel installed when he first took over the mine. You understand, Mr. Smith, that some one has evidently made a net out of whole-cloth to implicate you. That is, if you are telling us the truth. We have to be impartial and judge the facts. The matter of the room and the registration is peculiar—if it is false evidence, it is too false for a smart criminal to have conceived, and . if it is true evidence against you, you have been re- markably foolish.” “Find out who knocked Ted out and you’ll find the murderer,” I said, angrily. “He has got a bump on his head, and you can’t think he did that to him- self!” The sheriff's expression was stern as Ted said noth- ing further. “Stranger things have happened, but at any rate there are several things I would like to see to myself in Pittsburgh,” went on the sheriff, “and I want to deliver this .45 revolver and the death bullet to the ballistic expert, so I guess,” turning to the finger print man, “I’ll just go along to town with you and I can bring back your complete report with me when I return this evening. Can you have it ready by then?” The man agreed. “We will have to start in about half an hour then, chief.” Mosquitoes STING I4 I “That's all right. There are only a few more questions I should like to ask Mr. Smith. One is, did you notice at any time—early or late—the sound of a car being driven in at the back?” “A car? No, sir, I didn’t. But that isn’t strange, even if there had been one.” Ted lit a cigarette, and inhaled deeply. “One thing I did notice, though, when I come to think of it—” He paused and wrin- kled his brow in study. “And that?” prompted the sheriff eagerly. “The least detail sometimes helps.” Ted's face cleared. “I guess I’m mistaken, or per- haps I have just made it up unconsciously since I heard about the crime. But seems to me Cartier's last few shots were very slowly spaced.” “What do you mean by spaced?” asked the sheriff with interest. “When you shoot at targets, there is a certain ratio of time between shots. That is, for instance, I shoot with as regular intervals between shots as Cartier did, but the intervals between my shots were longer. He was an unusually rapid shot, he did everything more quickly than I did. And it seems to me now, that he was shooting more slowly that last round, al- though at the time I didn’t particularly notice it. So maybe this is all rot, and maybe the effect of the liquor. I was feeling so queer that I had just de- cided it wouldn’t be safe for me to try another turn.” “I think it's a very good point you have brought out, Mr. Smith.” The sheriff nodded his head in I42 MURDER IN THE CELLAR satisfaction. “Very good. And were—how many shots were fired, could you say?” “Oh, I don’t have any idea of that. He wasn't through, though, for if he had been, I would have been out, and I was still sitting on the packing box the last I remember.” “Queer business,” remarked Stingley suddenly, tapping his pipe against the sole of his long shoe. I had never seen him look so serious. “But the queerest part of it all is my disappear- ance,” said Ted. “I don’t see how I could have driven away in my car.” “I suppose it drove itself away,” suggested Sting- ley. “We’ve got a long way to go,” sighed the sheriff. “Unless we believe in evil spirits and lay the crime to their door.” “There's certainly an evil spirit in this affair,” assented Stingley grimly. “But it was one who used doors and windows and means of transporta- tion.” “Anything further, I wonder?” mused the sheriff, about to get up. “Because if there isn’t I ought to be starting.” As there didn’t seem to be much else to be dis- cussed right then, save the ever-present mystery of the murder itself, the sheriff and the finger print man departed. It had begun to rain now, a cold sleety rain that licked long rapacious tongues hun- grily against the window pane. I stood watching Mosquitoes STING I43 until the train appeared and started again with the men, its plume of smoke white in the mist. I wished I were on that train, too—and then I shook myself and turned back to the others. We were all in it, and we might as well make the best of it. “Let’s do something to pass the time,” I suggested. “Cards or games or anything. If we don’t we’ll go mad.” Gypsy looked up languidly. “Not I,” she said, “I’m all in.” Her husband looked at her intently, and then said, “How about rehearsing our lines, Gypsy? Come on upstairs with me.” I was amazed at the sudden change in Gypsy's face. It blanched and she gave an exclamation that she tried to stifle. “Oh, rehearse down here,” she said quickly, trying to laugh. “We will entertain the gang.” “It wouldn’t be much entertainment. Come on upstairs,” repeated Gordon with that quiet insistence that seemed to dominate Gypsy so completely. She hesitated a minute, and then obediently followed him upstairs. “Walter, you need some air,” said Mrs. Williams briskly. “Would you mind if we walked about the house?” The detective laughed. “If you want to walk out in this pouring rain, you may. Just within the grounds, though. If you want anything just holler to one of the police.” I44. MURDER IN THE CELLAR The Williamses disappeared to get their wraps, and Ted and I and Stingley were left alone. “We might play three handed bridge,” I suggested for- lornly. Under a pillow my hand sought Ted's. But Ted paid no attention, and after a moment I withdrew my hand. “Don’t all speak at once.” “I think I’ll run upstairs and shave,” said Ted, “leaving you two to your own devices.” He got up and went up the stairs, walking stiffly, like a man in a trance. - But I was determined not to be downed. “How about a little game of ‘Rummy’? I’m an expert at that.” “You may be expert at many things,” said Stingley with a queer glance at me. “However, I have to do some more work. Why don’t you play the radio? Have you lost your taste for that since the night of the murder? You certainly kept at it strenuously then.” I winced under the sarcasm but it was hardly worth while to quarrel with the man. He was childishly transparent in his dislike of me, and I wondered what I had ever done to make him hate me so. “That's my business,” I said rashly, “and if you like radios so well, play it.” Inwardly I hoped he would run into a streak of funeral marches as I had done. “Now let me tell you something—” began Sting- ley, when Briel appeared from the kitchen. “Is the sheriff here?” asked he. Mosquitoes STING I45 “Gone to Pittsburgh,” announced Stingley. “What's up?” “Romas still hasn’t shown up,” began the other with a worried look, but stopped at Stingley's up- raised hand. “What—” “When you have any disclosures to make, make them to me confidentially,” said the detective in his most acid manner. “I’m sorry,” said Briel. “I thought after last night that Mrs. Smith would know.” “You may as well tell it all now,” grumbled Stingley. “I don’t suppose it matters so much. It's the principle of the thing.” Briel's lip curled a little. “When the men went to get Romas’ finger prints last evening, he had left town.” I sprang up joyfully. “Oh, he had? That looks pretty bad, don’t you think?” “Don’t hang the man,” said Briel, with a quiet smile. “He has been talking about leaving for a long time, and in fact, told me about it a month or more ago. But his actual departure was sudden enough. Maybe we scared him with our quizzing.” “He won’t be hard to trace,” said Stingley con- fidently. “I bet we have him before nightfall. This one-horse town has only two trains and if he didn't take those he must have walked. So-" “You didn’t find the murderer,” I reminded him, “and there were only two trains that day, too.” I46 MURDER IN THE CELLAR “Oh, you think you’re smart to label everything mystery,” sneered the detective. Briel looked from one of us to the other in aston- ishment. We might have been two little children squabbling. “I have a right to say what strikes me as funny,” I observed, coolly. “‘Funny!’”Stingley snorted. “Everything looks “funny’ to this young lady. It was “funny’ when she found out that her husband and his car had dis- appeared and it was “funny’ when a servant girl wore some red beads and “funny’ when the radio was bad and “funny’ when a murder isn’t solved the same minute as it’s committed.” “Yes, I do!” I snapped. “And it’s funny that you aren’t excited when a miner disappears. And I’ll tell you something else that seems funny to me”—I went quite close, and I remember thinking that this surely could not be Betts Smith, talking like this, like a common fish-wife, yet somehow my voice went on shrilly—“and that is that this Ramsay has never been in this house except when he was dragged in on the morning after the crime to testify. He hasn’t shown decent respect, even! Yet you think nothing of that, but go ahead concentrating every bit of energy on pinning the murder on my husband! It's an out- rage!” I paused, quite exhausted. Briel’s face was cold and distant, and whatever little approbation I had won was now lost. “Mrs. Smith, please remember what you are saying! Mr. Mosquitoes STING I47 Ramsay has worked night and day to keep the mine running. He's worked harder than I have. I think he's not slept in thirty-six hours. He hasn’t been here for the simple reason that he hasn’t had time. I am sure he does not lack respect for the man he worked for and admired.” I hung my head, conscious of the rebuke, and went over to the window where I need not catch Stingley’s eyes upon me, full of triumph. Through tears I watched the brown river that wound sluggishly through the valley like a gorged muddy serpent. The men's voices came to me from afar, as I strug- gled for self-control. Then my attention was caught sharply, by the amazed note in Briel’s voice. “What?” he demanded incredulously. “What did you say, Mr. Stingley?” I turned to see him gazing perplexedly at Stingley while that gentleman leaned negligently against the door and twiddled his key ring, like an actor sure of his audience. He watched me out of the corner of his eye. “Why, I just remarked,” he said slowly, “that the funniest thing of all is that some one visited the scene of the crime that same night—after the murder was committed.” CHAPTER XIII THE SHOT & Cº. HAT” I gasped. “Just what I said,” insisted Stingley. “I have proof that the murderer visited the scene of the crime sometime after the murder was—” he halted suddenly. “Unless—didn’t Swigard bring lanterns with him?” “Yes,” I said impatiently, “but tell us about what you just said. How are you sure that the murderer came back later?” * But for a minute Stingley did not answer me. He had a line of questions of his own. “And the lights in the house went out after—not before—the murder was committed.” “Yes.” I can see now how stupidly I fell into the trap. “Then,” went on Stingley triumphantly, “it is just as I thought. Some one—and I think it was the one who committed the murder, as no one else would have had the nerve to walk about so unconcernedly with a dead body that near—visited the cellar after the crime, after the lights were out, and carried a candle with him that dripped grease all over the floor.” So long ago did that evening seem that at first I 148 sº THE SHOT I49 did not realize the import of what Stingley said, and was as bewildered as the others. “Just what I’ve always claimed,” went on Sting- ley, “that whoever did the murder was at no time very far away from the house, and has been able to have access to the place at any time.” “That rather clears Ted then,” I said absently, although I was beginning to feel nervous. If any one could prove that it was I who had prowled about down cellar in the dark with a candle, it wouldn’t look so good for me. “But how do you know the spots of grease weren’t there before the murder?” Silly question, but I was busy wondering whether I should tell about my expedition or not. “Because that place was kept clean by Swigard for a man who insisted upon neatness. Didn't you notice, Mrs. Smith, how clean the cellar was? And would Swigard have left candle grease all around on a day that he especially desired to have things ship-shape?” “But this all doesn't prove anything,” I said rather wildly, for I saw fully by now, how serious this would look if proved against me. “Yes, I think it does,” said the detective thought- fully. “It proves that one of those left behind, dur- ing the time that Mr. Williams left to get Swigard was the murderer!” “I don't see any proof” scoffed Briel, with a glance at me. My cheeks must have been white. I5O MURDER IN THE CELLAR “The lights remained out all night. Couldn’t some one have gone down cellar then?” “Not very easily, for the sheriff and I guarded the place. Only thing is, why did this person revisit the basement?” “Maybe he left something,” said the assistant superintendent, smiling. “That's rather a wild goose chase, Mr. Stingley, if you don’t mind my saying so.” “I don’t mind anything,” growled the other, “ex- cept the density of the human mind to see anything that is not obvious.” He scowled in silence for a minute. “I’m sure I am right. And this narrows the possible murderer down to a few persons—those in the house while Williams and Swigard were absent.” “And those—” prompted Briel. “Mrs. Williams, Mrs. Dow, Mrs. Smith and Mr. Dow,” answered Stingley glibly. “Oh, yes, and Mrs. Cadel, although she doesn’t count, really.” At the implication of the others, I made up my mind to hold to my course, right or wrong, and tell all the truth. “You don’t need to worry about who went down cellar,” I said, “for I went down to see if Ted were there, hurt.” “What are you talking about?” It was now Sting- ley's turn to look puzzled. “I went to look for my husband,” I answered, in- wardly trembling. “I thought he might have been shot too, and too injured to call for help. I didn't plan on it—I just went.” THE SHOT I5 I “Do you mean to tell me, Mrs. Smith,” whined the Mosquito, “that a timid woman like yourself would go down cellar in the darkness, where a mur- der has just been committed—all alone?” “That's the truth,” I said, bobbing my head ear- nestly. “Oh, Lord,” groaned Stingley, “this woman even suspects herself! But whom are you hiding, Mrs. Smith? I don’t for one minute believe your story. But you know who did go down there!” “That's the truth,” I said again. “I went down myself.” But Briel looked at me with a sort of begrudging admiration in his eyes. “I believe her,” he said. “She’s plucky as they make them. She wouldn't stop at anything.” His praise called forth a blush and a desire to weep —for while I could stand sarcasm, kindness seemed a little too much. I turned and made for the stair- case, and Stingley went right along with me. “See here,” he said, somewhat abashed after Briel’s quiet acceptance of my story, “don’t be offended at me, Mrs. Smith. I have to look at every one with impartial eyes, you know.” “I wouldn’t mind that,” I said, looking at him fairly, “because that is a thing I admire—imparti- ality. But it seems to me—” I paused and put a hand to my throat. “Listen, what was that?” I whispered. From the second floor had come the sharp report I 52 MURDER IN THE CELLAR of a revolver, and unconsciously I pulled at Sting- ley's sleeve. Then without another word, I turned and ran upstairs, Stingley close at my heels. Upstairs in the hall it was strangely quiet. Gypsy was standing just outside my half open door, listen- ing too, her face white. “What was that?” she said in a half whisper, as though she were afraid the sound of her voice might direct a shot toward herself. “Didn't you hear it?” “I certainly did,” said Stingley from between his teeth and he whipped out a small business-like auto- matic. He advanced cautiously down the hall. “Stay back there, you,” to us. But I paid no attention. A thought had struck my mind and I walked—somehow—to the bathroom door and tried it. It was locked. Then I rapped. No answer. I knocked again. “What is it?” called Ted's familiar voice, irritated. “I’m shaving—I’ll be out in a minute.” Then for the first time in my life I fainted. When I came to, Ted had my head on his arm, and Gypsy was holding smelling salts to my nose. “Silly mouse,” said Ted. “What happened to you?” “I thought—maybe some one had shot you,” I whispered faintly. “Maybe,” said Stingley, who was regarding me fixedly. “Or maybe she thought you had committed suicide, Smith. Guilty conscience, and all that, and the easiest way out, you know.” Ted's arm that had been so kind about my shoul- THE SHOT I53 ders stiffened and he sat me up firmly. Again he had withdrawn from me. “How silly,” he said in a voice unlike his own. “I should think, knowing the friendship that existed between Cartier and myself that no one—much less my wife—could possibly sus- pect that I have a guilty conscience. I should think if any one found me, standing over Cartier's body, with a smoking gun in my hand, they would know that I would lay down my life—would have laid down my life”—he corrected, “for him. But in- stead of that every one seems to think I was the one most liable to have committed the crime. God, I wish I could find the murderer!” “What I’m interested in just now is who fired that last shot?” said Stingley. “What shot?” asked Ted. Stingley stared at him in surprise. “Didn’t you hear that report a minute ago? I guess whoever did it is scared off by the commotion, but unless it was a little extemporaneous rifle practice, some one else in the house has received a bullet.” I shuddered, and Gypsy grasped my hand in sym- pathy. “I had just gone to your room to look for you to come and hold the prop book for me, when I heard it. There is no one on this floor except Gordon and Ted and I.” The detective came back from Gordon's room. “All serene in there, and he didn't hear the shot. I certainly heard it with my own ears, but I can’t find any gun or traces of a gun. The Williamses are out- I54. MURDER IN THE CELLAR side—just looked out, and they are walking yet, and no one is hurt. Queer, isn’t it?” I retired to my own room, and lay on the bed, still feeling rather weak and shaken. I could hear the others open and close doors, and their voices rose and fell as they went up and down the hall. Then they trailed downstairs, unable to find any gun or traces of a gun having been in the house. “But remember this,” I heard Stingley say as he passed my door, “there certainly was a shot fired, somebody is lying.” Somebody was lying, I thought wearily to myself. Every one was! Every one except me, and as every one else thought I was the principal liar, that didn't help matters. From reading so many mystery stories I had come to know a great deal about so-called “motives,” and there wasn’t any lack of motives among our crowd. Jealousy was one, and revenge was another, and money was a sordid third. As for opportunity—almost any one of us might have had a chance to kill Cartier. It looked much more probable that the real murderer was one of us—right here, brushing elbows with us, eating meals with us . . . It was all beyond me and made my poor head whirl. It whirled so badly and I felt so faint that I groped over on the bedside table for the smelling salts that Gypsy had used to revive me. But she had not left them, and I stumbled up and over to her room, knocking first at the half open door. But no- body answered, so I went in and looked for the little THE SHOT I55 green bottle, which was nowhere to be seen. So I went back to the hall and called downstairs, “Gypsy, where are those smelling salts of yours?” She was at the piano, playing, and broke off to hear me. “Oh, they weren’t mine. They are Mrs. Williams'—right on the bureau or whatnot there. Shall I come up and get them?” “No, please don’t,” I begged. “I’m fine, only I thought I would sniff some lavender and wake my- self up. I’m feeling better.” Gypsy laughed and went on with her playing. She played very well, although it was only light music, and I stood there a minute listening, and then went into Mrs. Williams’ room. - All traces of the makeshift bed had disappeared. I went straight over to the bureau. There were no smelling salts there, and I was about to give it up, when it occurred to me that Gypsy may have meant the washstand that stood on the other side of the room, when she said, “Whatnot.” Sure enough, there stood the little green bottle, and I reached to take it, but in doing so I knocked off a can of talcum that went sprinkling itself over the floor. I went to my own room, got a dust cloth, and re- turned to repair the damages I had made, and care- fully wiped up the powder that lay on the floor and under the edge of the curtain that covered the lower half of the stand. As I lifted the edge of this cur- tain I saw something that cleared my head better than any smelling salts could do. Mrs. Williams had 156 MURDER IN THE CELLAR used this part of the stand to keep her slippers, and what I saw, wedged in behind them, was a book. This must be the book that Mrs. Williams had been so engrossed in on the night of the murder, and which, when I asked for it, she had said she was not finished with. Certainly she took great pains to con- ceal it. Rather indignantly I pulled it out, and opened it. What was in this book that made it so entertaining? Certainly not its milk and water title of “Romance and Silver” or whatever it was. I hated this type of book. I glanced at the cover which was dog-eared and shabby, and then I looked again. Surely this was a peculiar book to hide in one’s room—it was not “Romance and Silver” at all. It was “Homicidal Insanity.” A doctor’s treatise. That was startling enough, to be sure, but even more startling it was to find that the first few pages of the book were missing, torn out crudely. I dared not linger longer with the book in my hand, so I mem- orized the publishers, and the name, and replaced it carefully, dusting up the powder with the greatest care that Mrs. Williams might not suspect that I knew of the presence of the book. But when I recalled the burnt papers in the lava- tory bowl, the fact of the missing portion of book became more significant than ever. If any one wished to burn paper it would hard to do so with- out attracting attention—I c 'erstand why she had found it impossible to us. the fireplace in the living room or the cellar 1. . .e. But why THE SHOT I57 should she wish to burn the pages at all? There cer- tainly could be no stigma attached to having in one’s possession any book, and moreover, I doubted that this book was hers. It seemed more likely that “Homicidal Insanity” belonged to old Dr. Cadel's library downstairs, and that she had run across it by accident. But that there must have been something of great importance in those first pages seemed cer- tain. I resolved to wire the publishers that very afternoon. It would be at their office in the morn- ing and I might receive a copy of the book the day after, if I was fortunate enough to find that the book was still in print. I did not want to stay a minute longer than was necessary in that room, so grabbing the smelling salts in my hand, I was just about to leave when a sudden laugh from down the hall made me start. I had been so sure that I was the only person on that floor, that for a second I thought I must be hearing things. But the laugh came again, and as I looked down the hall I saw the door to my room swing open and Mr. Briel COme Out. He was in nowise discomfited to see me stand there watching him, but beckoned to me when he saw me. “Come here a minute, Mrs. Smith,” he called, “and see what I have found.” I approached a fid looked at him wonderingly. What had he been doing in my room? Had Ted sent him up for something? For answer he opened his hand and there on his palm lay a torn bit of yel- 158 MURDER IN THE CELLAR low rubber which I had no trouble in recognizing as part of a toy balloon. “What in the world—” I began, turning it over. “That's your revolver shot,” said he, laughing again. “Your husband was rather upset when he came down, and so I came up to investigate, and with his permission searched your room. You see, I figured that the shot must have come from either your room or the one occupied by Mr. Stingley and the sheriff, so I first went into that room and—” “But why,” I began again, still wondering, “did you think the shot must have come from one of those two rooms? It seemed to come from the second floor in general.” “Because,” answered Briel rather impatiently, “no one heard the shot except those who were right in that vicinity. You and Mr. Stingley and Mrs. Dow all heard it—but Mr. Smith in the bathroom, right next door, and Mr. Dow down the hall did not hear it. None of those on the first floor except the ones at the foot of the stairs—you and the detective heard it. So, as I say, I went over the sheriff's room very carefully, looking behind furniture and in the closet and found nothing. I didn’t open any drawers or look closely into hidden recesses because there had been so little time that no one would have had a chance to more than drop a weapon before you and Mr. Stingley were up here. Then I went into your room and found nothing either, but I had a feeling that as long as Mrs. Dow was the only one upstairs THE SHOT I59 besides the two men who heard nothing, she must have fired it, and after a minute's realization, I found out that she did fire the shot.” “Why, Mr. Briel,” I said, “I thought you said that this balloon—” “That's just it. Mrs. Dow was in your room for something or other and she stepped on this unavoid- ably, and it exploded. She may or may not have known the cause of the shot, but she evidently didn’t wish to be caught in your room. It was on the floor in the closet.” “Yes, I can see how one might step on a balloon and cause it to explode without knowing it. It would sound like a shot, only not so loud. But I wonder why Gypsy was in my closet—she said she came to my room to call me, but she didn’t mention the fact that she was inside my room.” I was displeased, not- withstanding the fact that I had just been doing a little private investigating of my own in Mrs. Wil- liams’ room. “She wanted something, powder or a lipstick, I suppose. Nothing to that,” Briel said carelessly. “Well, I must take this down and show it to the others.” “Funny Gypsy didn’t say what had happened,” I continued. “She let us all worry so.” “I don’t believe she realized what happened,” answered Briel. “It was dark in your closet. I used a flashlight to look with.” It still seemed odd that Gypsy should have been I6o MURDER IN THE CELLAR groping about in my dark closet, but I let the matter pass without further comment, relieved that there had been nothing more dangerous in the house than a baby’s balloon. “I did hear Mrs. Cadel say that she used our room for the baby when she brought him down weekends, sometimes, but I didn't notice any balloon on the floor in there, and seems to me I would have, if it had been there right along.” “I’ll go back down,” said Briel after a minute. “You look under the weather, Mrs. Smith. You’d better lie down. Is there anything I can do for you? I’m glad you see that this one scare was foundless, anyway. As soon as this is over you should go to some quiet place and have a good long rest.” “I guess I will,” I said grimly. “A good long rest in a jail will be about my lot, if we don't get this mystery soon cleared up. Everything—even re- volver balloons come from my room, and if Ted isn’t arrested I’m likely to be. And oh, if I could only get out of this house and do something!” “Even if you are arrested as a witness or some- thing,” said Briel, not unkindly, “you can get out on bail, can’t you?” “Bail!” I echoed bitterly. “Where would I get bail? We don’t have anybody to raise it for us; we are as alone as the babes in the wood! No, if Ted and I are arrested we just stay put, that's all, and I feel as though every minute were valuable. I’ve found a lot of clews and things—if I could get out 162 MURDER IN THE CELLAR “But how does that—” “Just a gambler's chance that you might acci- dentally discover the true murderer if he is still around and solve this damned mystery—pardon me, Mrs. Smith, but the matter is very vital to me. It’s to my advantage to have it solved and the sooner the better. So if you think you can do any good—I want to help you. The bail will not be large, and I do want you to let me assist you in any way possible.” There was earnestness in his eyes, and I put out my hand. “Well, I’ll do my best,” I assured him. “It’s a bargain, then. If necessary you bail me out, and I’ll get your mill in order! But I doubt if I could do anything of any importance, in or out of this dreadful house.” “Well, one never knows till one tries,” said Briel, shaking my hand. “You know the story of the mouse and the lion.” I wondered what he meant by the lion, although I was quite sure I was the fabled mouse in his esti- mation, and I felt rather proud that I had so im– pressed this cold, distant man. Our hands were still joined in the pledge of mutual aid, when Ted came slowly up the stairs. 164 MURDER IN THE CELLAR premises that I acted for the next twenty-four hours. We had not had any dinner. Swigard had cooked the breakfast, telling us that his wife was ill and she would get dinner if she were able; if not, for us to forage in the pantry and he would be on hand to get supper, but he had to work during the noon hour. Now it was about four o’clock, judging by the dark- ness that had gathered, and a colder bleaker after- noon twilight I never witnessed. The storm had in nowise abated in violence, only now instead of rains there came a sharp snow that bit viciously at the house with sharp white teeth. It was very chilly there in the upper hall, and my thoughts grew darker and colder with the atmosphere. I decided that if Ted wanted to be so independent and mean, I would not take him in my confidence either. I had decided on a course of action. I must wire to the publishers about the book I had discovered in Mrs. Williams’ stand, and I would also-if Ted would ever clear out of our room—hunt through my closet to find out what could possibly be of any interest to Gypsy in there. I was a little dampened in this latter resolve by seeing Gypsy come slowly upstairs and, hardly speak- ing to me, go into her own room, but I could and would send the telegram. So I proceeded to go down to the hall, and sitting at the desk, scrawled off a few words to the publishers, asking that the book be sent C.O.D. to me at this address. I went over, then, to Stingley, who was losing at solitaire (with WHAT GYPSY KNEw 165 a huge cigar in his mouth and a scowl on his brow), and showed him the message. I thought he might object, but he only threw me an irritated look, nod- ded permission, and went on trying to put a black nine on a black ten in defiance of all rules. Then I gave the paper to Briel, and some money, and asked him if he would send it that evening. He agreed without comment, and pocketed it. Just then came the furious roaring of the train above the storm, and the old house shook and shud- dered. All of us who could get to the windows rushed there and looked out. We had got to the point where we expected that every train would bring us some sort of startling news. But only the sheriff, bundled up until he looked like Tweedledum ar- rayed for battle, appeared trudging up the steps from the train. We had the door open for him and I was: glad it was warmer down here than it had been up in the hall, for the poor man looked frozen. He gave a grateful little grunt of satisfaction at the warmth. “Golly!” he said, as he kicked off his arctics and divested himself of his greatcoat. “It was a terrible temptation not to stay in that nice warm hotel, let me tell you. If you all weren’t such desperate characters—” his mustaches lifted as he smiled. We were all grateful to him for this little pretense of lightness. After all, what could we do? Hour after hour we were forced to live in the same house and eat together and talk together, and I think the sheriff was a wise man to make us feel as though I66 MURDER IN THE CELLAR all the unpleasantness was mere trivial red tape. Ten minutes later he was snug before the fire, while Mr. and Mrs. Williams, Gordon, Stingley, Briel and I gathered as close as we could. “I’ve got here,” announced the sheriff, “enough evidence to incriminate you all. Trouble is, I’ve too much.” Stingley snapped his mouth shut as though he would snatch it all up in one bite and take more, but he waited to see what else the chief had to say. “Where's young Smith?” asked the sheriff, look- ing around. “I’ve some good news for him. The registration he made—or is alleged to have made, is in an assumed writing. I took the liberty, Mrs. Smith, to take this little memorandum card out of your husband’s pocket, and took it up to town with me, and the writing expert declares there is not the faintest resemblance. Not even a tried resemblance. Where is Mr. Smith?’” “He’s upstairs,” I replied. “Shall I call him?” “Oh, don’t bother now. But he’ll be glad to hear that point in his favor. Talk about circumstantial evidence—men have been in jail for less than has fallen to that lad's share, but I always say, “circum- stantial evidence is often manufactured evidence,” and I look around. Yes, sir, I look around a bit.” He now opened a fat brief case that he carried and took from it a sheaf of papers. “I delivered the gun and bullet to the ballistic expert, and here I have the finger prints and data about you people.” “That's interesting,” I said curiously, wishing I I68 MURDER IN THE CELLAR her room that she didn’t want any dinner, so the rest of us made as good a meal as we could under the cir- cumstances without waiting any longer. Right after supper I went out to the hall, located a dance program, and was just beginning to be happy for the first minute that day when Stingley came up and shut off the machine. “Rather bad taste, don’t you think?” he said in explanation. “What if Mrs. Cadel should come in unexpectedly, how would she feel to hear jazz music in a house of death?” “I don’t know how she’d feel,” I snapped, realiz- ing there was something in what he said, “but I know how I feel. If something happy doesn’t occur soon, I shall go stark staring mad!” I was rather surprised that Ted hadn’t come down, but not any more than I had been at all his late actions. If he had turned sulky, let him remain sulky. Who cared? And when Mrs. Swigard just then came out into the hall and asked me if she should keep dinner warm for Mr. Smith, I said no, she didn’t need to. Let him starve, I thought, it might make him more docile and agreeable. Mr. Stingley found a station more suitable to his idea of decorum, and we all sat around the fire and listened to it. There were sopranos in high C and basso profundos in low G and various other musical curiosities such as every radio station specializes in. No one enjoyed the music, but it was better than talk- ing, and music furnishes an excellent opportunity for WHAT GYPSY KNEw 169 thinking. I was thinking about upstairs, and al- though my eyes are not green, there was quite a little of the green light of jealousy in them if any one had noticed. It did look rather strange, Gypsy staying up there too. Was it prearranged? I had been quite sure that Gypsy did not like Ted, but that may have been be- cause she endeavored to conceal it. If Ted were his own self, I should not have given the matter a second thought, but he had been so cold to me, so strange, that perhaps he had fallen in love with Gypsy on first sight. I even had the horrid suspicion that the two might be conspirators, but I banished that as un- worthy even of jealousy. Gordon didn’t seem to be in the least concerned and he probably knew his wife better than I ever would, or Ted either. He had all the complacency, certainly, of a trainer of wild animals, sure of the strength of his whip and the crack of the pistol. But I had no such complacency in my power over Ted, and I wasn’t going to sit there and listen to “Hark, hark, the lark!” for another trill. I slipped past the group who were all (save Walter, who was dialing the thing), getting tired of radio music and seeking other occupations, and went upstairs. I went softly, for I wanted to be an eavesdropper, yet there seemed to be a need for soft walking and low voices. Perhaps all houses in which death—even peaceful death—has recently occurred have that atmosphere. Upstairs, at any rate, all was quiet. It was colder 17o MURDER IN THE CELLAR up there than ever, and I shivered a little and went to my door to get my sweater. I don’t know why I hesitated at the threshold. But I decided if Ted preferred his own company to mine he should have it. That, also, was one of the tenets of our mar- riage, a tenet that had held so far like beautifully true and riveted steel, but that now seemed made grossly for such an occasion as this. We must never intrude. We must never pry. Of course I knew various things of Ted's early life, of his mother and his boyhood, and he knew all of my life with the three old aunts. But I never asked, and Ted never queried. It had been a free, lovely companionship, too perfect to last. It was a good thing that I put up my head, or the tears would have brimmed over and fallen. I decided it would be a good excuse to go down and ask Gypsy for a wrap. That would give me a chance to talk to her and find out what she knew—I had never forgotten that mysterious conversation on the stairs. And I would also discover if she and Ted had been together during the evening. I knocked at her door, and at first no one answered, but after a minute I heard a chuckle, there is no other word for it, and a quick movement like a panther spring, and Gypsy had snatched the door open. I was amazed at her appearance. Her black hair hung in wisps about her lovely face—but how could I call it lovely now with that look upon it—a gleeful, un- holy look? Her dress was in disorder and she con- WHAT GYPSY KNEw 171 cealed something behind her. “Oh, it's you, is it?” she said, upon seeing me. “I thought it was Gordon. I have such a good joke on Gordon. Wait till he comes up,” and she bent low with laughter. I thought at first she was mad, and turned to go, but when she leaned over I saw what she had in her hand, and understood her strange behavior. It was a bottle of whiskey. “You’re a nice one,” I said, “giv- ing yourself a party and not inviting any one to it.” Suspiciously, Gypsy edged around, trying to keep the bottle between herself and the bed. “What do you mean, a party?” she asked. Finally she sat on the bed and stuffed the bottle under a pillow. “You might ask me if I would have a little drink,” I hinted. “I’m not going to ask any one except me,” said Gypsy, with another wild laugh, “but I’m going to have another right now.” So saying, she tipped the bottle up and drank. I suppose it's all the same whether a man drinks or woman drinks, and heaven knows I’ve seen plenty of feminine hands clasped about fragile glass stems, hands that showed breeding and elegance. But somehow, I can never see a woman drink, any more, without remembering that hand of Gypsy's, fat and white with its too-pointed fingers, clutching the neck of the bottle greedily, as she drank from it. That picture overshadows all the rest. I said nothing, and when presently she offered me the bottle I made a brief pretense of tipping it too. But I think it would 172 MURDER IN THE CELLAR have choked me had I swallowed any of it. It was only the knowledge that now or never was my chance to discover what Gypsy knew of well, yes, of the crime, for I was convinced that she knew something —that held me there and gave me the ability to carry on the amazing conversation which we presently held. “Not bad,” I remarked indifferently, as I gave her back the bottle. “No, it isn’t bad,” said Gypsy solemnly, “it’s good. Good for my nerves. Try to make Gordon think that! The only reason he's left me alone to-night is because he thinks he had taken all the bottles away. But Li'l Gypsy gypped him.” She laughed inordi- nately at her own wit. “I hid this one—guess where?” I shook my head. “There's an old box of playthings in your closet. And I had this hidden at the bottom. He never found it, and I hope it will last till I get out of this hole. It will if I’m careful.” She looked at the bottle anxiously and took another drink. “Well, people say we’ve got all eternity, but I’m for this side of it.” I paced up and down the room, and once I went to the door and opened it a crack to listen. The radio was still going. But the upper hall seemed quiet enough. “Sure, you’ve got the right idea,” I told her. “You’re too pretty to waste your life sitting around listening to radios.” I was saying anything WHAT GYPSY KNEw I73 that came into my head, half wild to know how to bring the conversation to the desired end. “Oh, I’m pretty good looking,” admitted Gypsy carelessly, lighting a cigarette. “Only I don’t give a whoopee for men. They’re all stuck on me, and I’d give 'em all up for a pint of Bourbon.” “I know they’re all crazy about you,” I said quickly, “that’s why I came upstairs. I had a sort of idea that you might be vamping my husband—he's up here too, you know.” Gypsy raised her eyes and stared at me. Then she began to laugh. I thought she would never stop. She laughed till she choked horribly, so that I had to slap her on the back before she could get her breath. “What's so funny in that?” I demanded as soon as she was quieter. “Ted isn’t a cripple or anything. Lots of other pretty girls have flirted with him.” Gypsy wiped her eyes and reached under the pil- low for the bottle. “Oh, it isn’t that,” she said, still red with mirth, “only, why in the world would I flirt with Ted Smith? Wasn’t I married to him for almost a year?” CHAPTER XV NIGHTFALL DON'T know how I got enough strength to put out a hand and stop that bottle from going to her lips, but I wrenched it out of her hand. “You’ve said enough to warrant you're saying more,” I whis- pered. I couldn't talk. “Now tell me the whole story.” “Didn’t you even know your hubby had been mar- ried before?” asked Gypsy. “The poor fish. Didn't have the guts to tell you.” She lit another cigarette in lieu of the bottle. Evidently she was used to hav- ing it taken forcibly from her, for she made no fuss. “I knew,” I managed to say through dry lips, “that Ted had had a very unhappy experience in his life with some woman. I—I never inquired what it was. He said it would never affect me, and it made him unhappy to talk about it.” “That's just like him,” said Gypsy contemptu- ously. “He never would admit that we were legally married, just because he was a little bit—well, under the weather when it happened. And his mother got it annulled so that crossed it off his mind, maybe. But what I needed to cross it off my mind was the tune of fifty grand.” She scowled. “And I only got ten. But my lawyer said you can’t get blood out of I74 NIGHTFALL I75 a stone. That was my mistake, thinking because Ted went to a swell school and wore swell clothes and talked like a millionaire, he must be one. He was far from it, and I guess it took all his mother had saved up to pay the lawyer's fees and settle with me. Anyhow she's lived abroad ever since. I guess it's cheaper over there, maybe because of the price of eggs, and maybe because of the—gentlemen.” Gypsy gave an expressive wink, the depths of whose innuendo I did not plumb. “This happened when Ted was at West Point?” I asked. At least it was now clear to me why Ted re- fused to ask his mother for financial aid, and why he had always a kind and loving word for one whom it had seemed to me had washed her hands of her only SO11. Gypsy crushed her cigarette under the slightly trodden heel of her slipper and cast a longing glance at the bottle. But I kept it tight in my grasp. “No, before that, when he was at Prep school. He was only a kid. I was dancing at the Night Life Café, then, and he used to come in almost every night he got off to watch me.” She half closed her eyes in recollection, and I too could picture the allure she must have had for a young ignorant boy in his teens, her beauty standing forth all the more clearly in the murky atmosphere of a cheap café. “Ted wasn’t the only guy I could have had. What a chump I was! Why he—the other one— was worth a lot of money and he was nuts over me. 176 MURDER IN THE CELLAR But I guess I fell for Ted's Ritzy manner and he thought I was so sweet and girlish. A girl likes that for a change after a lot of old drummers have whis— pered their love songs in her ear!” Gypsy's tone was bitter. “But believe me, if I had it to do over again—! Only it's too late now.” “Because you're married? Why is it too late, and whom are you talking about?” “Him.” Gypsy pointed a white fat finger toward heaven. “The one that’s dead—Cartier.” “Was Cartier—” I gasped, “was it Cartier who was Ted's rival at Prep school? Was he in love with you?” “I’ll say he was. I heard he didn’t speak to Ted for years afterwards.” “That's not true,” I said, hotly; “the boys went to school for years after that and spent two years in Honolulu together. It was seven years later that they quarreled—and then—” it all came to me with amazing clearness, “it was because Ted was engaged to marry me. I guess Cartier didn’t think Ted ought to marry, that he didn’t have very good luck with his marriages.” “I don’t know about that, and I don’t care,” said Gypsy, shrugging her shoulders, “but I do know that Ted and I certainly got married.” She paused, pur- suing some line of thought, and went on in great ani- mation. “Well, one night, you see, we’d had a slick party. This school Ted went to had an honor system, and an honor system is where the fellows can get NIGHTFALL 177 away with murder if they want to, by saying they are at an uncle's or in bed or something. Right after I did my turn, Ted said he’d hired a car and we would all take a long drive, and for me to get a girl friend for Cartier. So I got Mabel. A swell little toe- dancer, always discounting those muscles that that line of dancing brings onto you.” She surveyed her own shapely limbs in satisfaction. “Well, see, the kid—that's what I always called Ted—didn’t drink a drop. I never could make him, and he was like a wet blanket on a party. But I told him this night, if he didn’t be sociable, I was off him, and he could have Mabel and I’d take Cartier. Gee, I felt like a wild time that night anyhow! So off we started, drinking a little from time to time. Funny how tight a person can get, drinking out of a bottle, and yet it don’t seem much to take at the time. You take a sip and then another, and the first thing you know you’re well oiled! We stopped along the road and got some sandwiches and Ted kept on at the bottle; after he’d had a few drinks he was as flip as they make 'em. Cartier was driving, and he hated this Mabel. He kept on saying he wanted to change and take me. I said, ‘You can’t do that. I’m Ted's girl. We want to get married, don’t we, Ted?” and Ted kept on say- ing ‘No.” That's about all he could say, by now.” Gypsy laughed. She was getting sober, I saw, and not so offensive, but simply garrulous. “When Car- tier saw I meant to stick to Ted he got in a devil of a mood, and the first thing I knew he stopped at some 178 MURDER IN THE CELLAR all night garage in the little one-horse town we were going through, and asked the man something. He had gotten out of the machine, and we couldn’t hear what he said, and nobody cared. Ted was asleep, and the liquor was gone, and Mabel and I were dead tired. But Cartier came back, grinning, and got in, and drove along until he reached a cross roads, with a house at one side. Then he got out again, and knocked at the door, making a terrible racket, and pretty soon a sleepy old guy comes to the door hold- ing a lamp. He was in a nightshirt and looked scared to death. You’d have died laughing! Cartier says, “There’s a young couple here that wants to get mar- ried,” so the old guy woke right up then and put on some clothes, and we all trooped inside and got mar- ried.” “But how about a license?” I asked. “And Ted certainly did not want to get married, did he?” “Oh, he didn’t know what it was all about. The old man got out some hard cider and we give him a big shot of that and he went right through the cere- mony like a lamb. Then afterwards he felt pretty sick and wanted to go to sleep on the horsehair sofa. Such a bridegroom as he was! But we yessed him out of that mood. The old fellow waved us good-by from the parlor window. I think he was a great old fellow, but I heard afterwards that he got pinched about a year later for marrying every Tom, Dick and Harry that asked him to. It was a shame for he sure treated us fine.” I8O MURDER IN THE CELLAR never gave the blame to Cartier as he'd ought to have done. Gosh, I never meant him no harm.” A sudden light broke through the darkness. “Gypsy,” I said earnestly, grasping her arm, “Ted must have written that note to you!” “What note?” It had entirely escaped Gypsy's mind. “That note I found on my table, that must have dropped out of your vanity case. It said, something like this, “If you are planning on starting anything, remember I can make twice as much hell as you can.” » “But I tell you Ted never gave me any note. I didn’t speak two words to him that evening. I didn't want any one to know we had ever even met; only he kind of gave the thing away when he showed he knew that quotation about the extra place at the table.” “Then he must have slipped the note in your van- ity purse when you weren’t looking. He was seated right next to you at the table, you know.” “Maybe he did. I didn't see it.” Gypsy's eyes had clouded and her head was heavy. “But who cares? And then all this trouble came on about Car- tier. Let me tell you it's a good thing you have that note—it might put Ted in the electric chair.” “I gave the note to Stingley,” I said grimly. Oh, if Ted had only confided in me, all this would have been avoided! “I wonder,” I added, “if Felice knew that you and Cartier were old friends. Had you ever NIGHTFALL I8I told her about this experience when you were in the same company?” “She did not. It was years later that we played in the same company, before she married or even knew Cartier. Why, I’ve been married twice since then, and it slipped my mind, there wasn’t anything to it— not even much cash. And you see, Cartier didn’t recognize me at all—that was the good joke.” “Why was that? Because it's so long ago?” “I suppose so, and then my hair is dyed black now—” “Dyed!” I repeated, and yet that half explained her somehow startling type of beauty. She was so evidently made for a blonde. “Yes, I had to after I married Gordon.” She ran her hand over the midnight colored hair. “He being blonde too, we needed more contrast in dancing, and I honestly think I look better this way. Blondes are so common.” I got up from the bed and relinquished the bottle into her eager hand. “What a queer tangle it all is,” I thought to myself, “there are enough motives to supply an army, on the surface, yet I believe you, Gypsy, that Cartier didn’t recognize you. I’m glad you told me; why didn't you tell me before?” Gypsy didn’t speak for a minute, and then she carefully put the bottle on the floor beside her and lay at full length on the bed. Even thus, she was beautiful, and the svelte graceful lines of her lithe NIGHTFALL 183 make up with Ted. I can see so many things have been worrying him, and I just didn’t understand.” Gypsy gave me a look of wonder. “Well, so long as you don’t drag me into it too much, it's all right. And I guess Gordon won’t do anything. He’s a lion with his claws drawn.” She gave a cryptic smile. “Well, so long. Think I’ll take a nap. No hard feelings, I hope?” “No hard feelings,” I replied. I went out and closed the door softly behind me. I hated to leave her like that, but perhaps a little nap would help her to feel better. I wondered why Gor- don had cared so tremendously as his voice on the stairs had seemed to show, whether or not Gypsy told me of her marriage to Ted. Surely it was not just a matter of the contract. There was still a lot that I didn’t know about Gypsy and probably I never would know. Her seeming frankness had not entirely dis- armed me. But one thing I did know, and that was that I would not breathe a word of all this to Ted. At first the idea of my Ted having had a former wife had horrified me, but after I understood what a helpless victim of circumstance he had been, I forgave him. I wondered if he had forgiven Cartier as easily as that. Cartier was more of a man of the world than Ted and the whole business might easily have been avoided if Cartier had not taken matters into his own hands. And what iron determination the man had had! I tried to stifle the little feeling of resentment I84 MURDER IN THE CELLAR that arose at the thoughts of how Cartier had handled the matter, and went on down the hall toward my room. I wasn’t worried about Ted not loving me— no, not after that savage little note he had written poor Gypsy. He had probably thought that she would expose all the old scandal, that no doubt rankled yet, and he had resolved to stop her before she spoiled our happiness. Poor Ted, I understood everything, now, even his queer actions, due to his troubled mind, and I could hardly wait to see him. I pushed at our door, but it refused to budge, it was locked. Then I rapped and said in a low voice, “It’s me, dear, let me in.” But there was a dead silence, and I became con- scious of something else. I think I mentioned how cold the upper hall was, and now I noticed that the cold proceeded from under the door to our room— the same cold, chilling blast that had come from the basement on the night of the murder. Not cold from unbuilt fires but the cold from midwinter night air. Panic-stricken, I knocked again and again, forget- ting to be quiet, and I shook the handle of the door and rattled it. I called Ted's name and knocked again, but no one answered. Only the soughing of the wind under the door. Then for a moment I was so cold that I could not move. Downstairs the radio jarred on noisily with a whine or two of static, and Gypsy's door down the hall rattled a little with the wind. Only these noises, and the sound of my own voice to break that fright- NIGHTFALL 185 ful stillness. I tried to go to the stairs and call for help but I couldn’t move. My dry throat finally quavered a weak, “Help!”—and there was Stingley, so close that he must have already been on the stairs when I called. “What is wrong, Mrs. Smith?” he asked, eyeing me as I leaned against the wall, one hand still on the doorknob. “I can’t get the door open,” I managed to say, “and nobody answers me when I call.” “Probably he is asleep,” said Stingley, sensibly. “The window is open, anyway. Feel the draft?” I nodded. “But I’ve made a lot of noise, and no- body answers.” Stingley tried the door and called Ted's name sev- eral times. But the silence prevailed. “I guess I’ll run down and get a screw driver and remove the lock. No use in smashing the door. I bet he's just fast asleep.” Stingley started to move off. “Oh, let me come with you,” I cried. “I don't want to be left up here alone. Please.” Stingley waited for me and we went down the back stairs. Once he asked me what I had been doing upstairs so long if I had been unable to get into my room, and I told him that I had been talking to Gypsy. He looked at me strangely, but said nothing, and in fact I was so used to having him look at me as though I lied whenever I uttered the simplest truth that it didn’t bother me. My mind was too 186 MURDER IN THE CELLAR taken up with what might happen in the next fifteen minutes. Fortunately there was no one in the kitchen and we got a screw driver out of the kitchen table drawer and returned to the second floor without encountering a single soul. In silence Stingley loosened the screws from the door hinges and the door trembled and fell back. I pushed past him but it was dark in the room and I could not see, until Stingley's flashlight threw a round eye on the bed and I saw that it was empty. I was relieved—I don’t know what I expected to see on that bed. The eye turned slowly around the room, looked into dark corners and empty chairs, and finally found the light switch, and Stingley pressed it. Then we saw clearly that there was no one in the TOOm. Stingley quietly waſked around the room and glanced into the closet, while I stood still, my hands clasped tightly together, my eyes fastened on the empty window that stood half open. Finally I said, “He—he must have gone out of the window.” Stingley looked toward it. “Of course. There's a very convenient trellis there, too. But how did he get past the guards? There are several in the yard and others along the road. I swear the man gets in- visible at times. By the way, how long is it since your husband went upstairs?” I figured back. “Oh, several hours. Longer, maybe. He went up before the afternoon train came in.” NIGHTFALL 187 “And now it’s past nine o'clock. Funny, his coat is still on the rack downstairs.” “Which coat?” I asked. “He bought a new one in Pittsburgh, and that’s still in the closet unless he wore it.” Stingley shot me a quick glance. “Well, guess I’ll check up that little matter.” First, however, he went over to the window and leaned out. “Hello, there, Jake. Everything all right?” A gruff man’s voice answered from the ground below, “Everything is o.k.” “All right.” Stingley withdrew his head, shivered and shut the window. “Boy, it's icy! And the sleet is still falling. Makes it hard to tell anything about footsteps—in fact, you can’t. Well, let's see what can be done.” He went again to the closet, opened it and I ran over and looked past his shoulder. There hung the new cheap overcoat and a tan hat. “Coat and hat are here,” said Stingley in disap- pointment. “Did he have two hats?” “He had a gray Fedora,” I answered. “That’s downstairs. I saw it as I came up.” “You must keep pretty close tab on all our hats and coats,” I said. “That's my job.” Stingley's voice was muffled from the closet. He fumbled about on the top shelf beneath my hats and scarfs. Then I heard a new note in his voice. “Well, I’ve found something, any- how. Here's another thing your husband forgot be- sides his hat and coat.” - I88 MURDER IN THE CELLAR “What?” I cried, staring at him. Then my eyes fell on what he held in his hand. “His .45 revolver,” answered Stingley, grinning. “Another gun to go to the ballistics man—after I’ve had a look at it.” 190 MURDER IN THE CELLAR “He had a real gun. He liked to hunt, but he did not own a revolver. He thought they were danger- ous to have lying about the house.” “They certainly proved so in this case,” said Sting- ley, wrapping the gun in his handkerchief. “Well, anyway, this gun is going to the ballistic expert, too, as fast as I can get it there. You are just full of alibis, Mrs. Smith. Now where and why and what about this jaunt number two, that your husband has just engaged upon? Is he in the habit of taking mid- night walks? I suppose you will say he is.” For answer I went over to the empty window, through which the icy blast still drove, and closed it. “He’s gone after somebody,” I said. Stingley said, “He is always going after somebody. It’s an admirable habit, if only he would learn to bring back that somebody with him. This trip espe- cially—” He sighed and continued his search of the room. But he found nothing more. He didn't need to find anything more, it seemed to me that he had found quite enough. Not that I believed for a minute that the revolver was Ted's. But it certainly had not been in my room when I first arrived. Cartier had been shot with a .45 revolver. Whose was this? It looked very much as though the murderer were still in the house, and that for some reason he was determined to place the blame on me and Ted. And there I was cooped 'up with this unknown person, the way a live chicken is placed in the cage with a snake. It might be a WHAT THE Lost CAT is FAMoUs For 191 matter of days or minutes before the snake struck. I had about as much chance as that chicken. I waited to see if Stingley would find anything else, and as he didn't, I went out of the door and downstairs. I might be a suspected murderess or an accomplice, but I was nevertheless a wife, and what troubled me right then was how in the world Ted could escape pneumonia if he had gone out on a night like this without a hat or coat. I looked in the hall closet and there hung Ted's old overcoat and hat, just as he had left them when we first came. I glanced into the living room whence came the sound of more genuine laughter than I had heard in a long time. Gordon Dow was giving some spiel or other and the whole crowd with the exception of Gypsy, Stingley and me, was listening with huge ex- joyment. There wasn’t much point to the comedy, just foolish running monologue, but every once in a while Gordon would stop, with a worried look, put out his hand the way a person does to see if it's start- ing to rain, and then go on. The business was part of his show, I imagined, and it showed me a new Gor- don. I had never pictured him as a comedian, but he was one of the cleverest I have ever seen. I appre- ciated, too, how difficult it must be for him to play the clown and entertain us all when he had the sort of life to face that must be his, having Gypsy as a constant companion, never knowing whether she would be her lovely smiling self or the other hag- like creature of which I had just had a glimpse. I I92 MURDER IN THE CELLAR had waited in the hallway and I joined in the general applause that greeted the act. I can’t say that I was terribly worried about Ted. I was more worried about the effect that this second disappearance would have on the others. The sheriff noticed me standing there and urged me to sit down, a smile on his kindly face. But I shook my head. “Listen, everybody,” I said. I didn’t want Stingley, whose approaching footsteps I now heard on the stairs, to have the first chance to tell the story. “Ted has found an impor- tant clew or else has some new information and is off again. He went out of his room via the trellis and we must all wait up to see what news he will bring back with him.” “Has Mr. Smith disappeared again?” asked the sheriff. “He must be suffering with amnesia,” he added, for that, perhaps, was the kindest way to look upon it. “I don't know,” I stammered. “He’s just gone, and didn’t leave any message.” The sheriff expressed openly what the others were thinking. “But when I asked you where he was— when I came in—you said he wasn’t feeling very well and didn’t care for his dinner.” “I know.” How could I explain about the quarrel of unspoken words and my desire to let Ted strictly alone? All I could do was shake my head forlornly. “But I needn't have said for sure. I never dreamed he would leave the house.” Then I brightened up. WHAT THE Lost CAT is FAMoUs For 193 “Maybe he hasn’t left the house, and the window was left open for a decoy. Why don’t we search the house? The cupola isn't explored and—” “I’ve been all over the house,” said Stingley over my shoulder. “Mr. Smith is not in this house. Also, you forget the door was locked on the inside.” I turned eagerly to the others. “But Ted has just got over the flu, and neither his hat nor coats are missing. Surely, no one would venture out on a night like this without a wrap of some sort, and espe- cially not a sick man.” Stingley strode past me to the sheriff. “Sheriff, I tell you we have a smart fellow on our hands, and the next time I see him I’m going to nail him.” The sheriff shook his head. “I don’t have any idea that that young man is guilty.” Stingley smiled. “Of course I’m not infallible, Chief, but the actions of Mr. Smith are darned funny, to say the least. He has everything so thought out in advance. Talk about premeditation. . . . Do you know how he made his escape?” “By the trellis, Mrs. Smith said,” said Mrs. Wil- liams. “When I was walking out to-day I noticed a heavy vine right outside that window.” “Certainly that is how he got down to the ground. But he could hardly hope to escape when the grounds are thoroughly guarded with state police. Imagine a coatless, hatless young man on a February night among three or four special police! No, he had a pretty smart idea.” I94 MURDER IN THE CELLAR “Well, tell us,” said the sheriff impatiently. “You aren’t keeping the secret for him, are you?” Stingley cast him a bitter glance. “Nope. But I want you all to realize what a clever crime-man he is.” Stingley had encountered my eye, and the stronger word died away. “Mr. Smith escaped be— cause he had on an old army overcoat and hat of Mr. Cadel’s. The state police thought that he was one of them in the gloom—the uniforms are so similar. He waited for a chance when there was no one di- rectly below, got down the trellis and walked away like a special police.” He paused triumphantly. Gordon shook his head and glanced out of the window. Mr. Williams turned pale, and Mrs. Wil- liams looked more determined to be calm than ever. “But where did he get the coat?” she asked. “Out of the closet in his room. Cadel has quite a few suits hanging in there. And how do you suppose he knew that the coat and hat were in there unless he had planned out the whole affair and the effected escape, weeks in advance?” I could contain myself no longer. “I don’t see what difference that makes. Of course he knew it was there. He always had that room when he visited here before,” I said hotly. “Anyhow, it's absurd to say that any one could have planned an act out weeks ahead, even to knowing the sort of uniform that the police would wear!” “It could be studied out easily enough,” returned Stingley, “by a clever criminal. I think this is the WHAT THE Lost CAT Is FAMoUs For 195 perfect crime,” he added, strutting about. “I’ve al- ways heard about it, but I little dreamed I should be the one to solve it. And ten thousand, besides the glory.” “Oh, you’d be just the one,” muttered Gordon, “to solve a perfect crime. You're just the typeſ” The sheriff whistled and regarded the worn toe of his shoe. “You have searched the whole house, you say?” “I have,” answered Stingley, not ceasing his strut- ting, “from the cupola down to the basement.” At the reference to the cupola I half expected to see Gordon start, but his eyes never wavered from the window where all he could see was the firelight dancing on the black pane. The sheriff sighed heavily and arose. “Then I guess one of us will have to look into this, Stingley. You stay here with these people, I’ll get the boys out.” He went out the back door and the rest of us re- mained, perforce. “I wish I could get out and search,” I said savagely. “Shut up in here all the time is getting on my nerves!” “That's what your husband evidently thought,” said Mrs. Williams with a little laugh. I searched her face for rancor, but could find none in the blue eyes she innocently turned toward me. “But what I say, is this—let the law take its course.” She folded up her needlework. “I think I’ll go to bed now. Are the rest of you going to wait up for Mr. Smith?’” 196 MURDER IN THE CELLAR Again I looked at her to decide whether she was being unpleasantly sarcastic or just unconsciously blundering. I decided on the latter. “I shall sit up for Ted,” I announced. “And I bet that when he does come we will all learn something.” “I’ll sit up with you,” said Gordon quietly. He went over to the bookcase and selected a volume. “You know I am having a great time reading. I never have a chance to read when I’m on the road, and as for a library full of books—that is a luxury!” “They are all rather antique,” I replied absently. “I suppose that is because at the time when Dr. Cadel occupied the house he filled it with his selections, and no one has bothered to keep it up to date since.” “I don’t mind that,” said Gordon with his quiet smile. “I’m reading Black Beauty now and I enjoy it more than I ever did.” He took the book near the fireplace and settled down to read. “Well,” said Mrs. Williams from the doorway, “I think I will retire. Aren’t you coming, Walter?” Walter glanced at his watch. “Not for a little while, I think. They say there is a splendid opera program coming in from Chicago at eleven, and I’ll wait and get it.” “Good night, everybody,” said Mrs. Williams, smiling at us all. We heard the sharp click of her high heels on the stairs. Walter turned to me. “I’m a radio fan since I’ve tried this one of yours, Betts,” he said enthusiasti- cally. “I’m going to buy one, too, when I get out WHAT THE LosT CAT Is FAMoUs For 199 from the head of the stairs, her face above her blue negligee anxious and drawn. Then as her eyes took in the almost collapsed figure of her husband she ran down breathlessly. “Turn that dreadful music off at once! Don’t you see what it is doing to poor Wal- ter?” She put her arm about him and patted his tense shoulder. “There, there,” she said soothingly as to a child. Gordon turned off the dial, and then switching it back on, found a new station. We were all relieved to hear a popular tune. “See—it’s nothing,” he said. Walter looked up, a little calmed, but just at that moment a terrific knock sounded at the front door. “What's that?” he gasped. “One of the guards, I expect,” said Stingley. I couldn't help but notice how pleased with himself Stingley looked, a smile of complacency on his thin face. Again the loud knock came, and Gordon strode to the door. “What the devil—” he said, opening it. A gust of snow blew in and beyond it stood Ted with the sheriff, covered with sleet, and dangling a piece of broken rope. There was a broad grin on his face. “The cat has come back,” he said triumphantly, and waved the rope at us all. AN ORDINARY GENTLEMAN 2OI actual arrest at any time, and the other reason was that my clew would be totally lost if I delayed.” “What clew?” asked Stingley, indolently, tapping his long foot against the fender. Ted looked at him severely. “The clew of my car. Seems to me that for a bunch of detectives you are all wet. That car of mine was the most impor- tant clew of all and you ignored it. I suppose you thought it had registered itself at some swell garage the way I registered myself at a hotel, eh?” The sheriff could not help a smile, which he hid in his mustache. “Hardly seemed reasonable, did it? Well, Mr. Smith, we have not neglected that car of yours. We have hunted for it in every garage in Pittsburgh, and it is not there.” “I didn't expect for a minute that it would be,” returned Ted. “How could it? I drove that car from New Castle here and I know very well just how far and how fast it will go, and I told you so. It has a defective timer and I couldn’t even put it in the garage the night we arrived. It had to be coaxed along, and it needed a special cleaning before it would go any further. I had intended to have a mechanic come up from Wheeling and go over it be- fore I ventured home. No, sir, I knew that car of mine was somewhere around here—within a radius of a very few miles.” “You have a good idea there,” said the sheriff thoughtfully. Ted was pleased and went on, “Also, after I had 2O2 MURDER IN THE CELLAR thought it out that far, I got another idea. Yes, two in one night,” he added, seeing Stingley's mouth open; “quite an event, wasn’t it? But here's the dope. Nobody had heard a car start. That may have been because of the noise we were making, and it may have been because—of other things. But when I thought it over, I decided that there hadn't been just my car, which I, in a drunken stupor, could not have driven; there must have been another car, out in the main road, to tow my car along. This would account for the fact that we didn’t hear any noise. But no one could tow a car very far without some one to steer the towed car. Maybe it could be managed on a country road with no traffic, but imag- ine trying to forge through a town with a swinging, swaying car after you on rope length! It would be impossible. So while the rest of you were down stairs, I thought out my plan, and decided that if I put on an old army coat of Cartier's, and managed to get down the trellis without being seen, I would be pretty safe. It was dark enough so that the slight dis- similarity in uniforms wouldn’t be noticed. I waited until the guard had passed the window and then I got down the trellis. I had many a moment, let me add, when I wondered just how strong that trellis was, too! There wasn’t any one at the side of the house and I walked around as naturally as I could, passed a guard who didn't notice me particularly, and as there was nobody at the back of the house I went on down the driveway and out onto the main road. I 2O6 MURDER IN THE CELLAR card table, and spread out before him various papers and finger-print reports, and commenced to check them over. From a distance I watched him, fasci- nated. “Here we are, down again,” said the voice of little Mrs. Williams, apologetically. “Poor Walter is too upset to sleep and I thought I’d better get dressed and come down and make him a hot chocolate.” “I tell her I’m all right,” said Walter sheepishly, “but she insists upon treating me like a baby.” Nev- ertheless he looked pleased, and sat down beside me on the couch while his wife busied herself in the kitchen. The sheriff sat down in front of his typewriter and stared at it. He seemed almost afraid of it. He sighed and attacked the pile of little cards before him, tapping out the letters impressively with his fat fore- fingers. There was already a little stack of cards that he had had done for him in Pittsburgh, but he ex- plained that his train had left too early for the ste- nographer to finish them all. “I’ve got you cata- logued, neatly as you please, a card to each person. It's my own idea, but it will help, I think. Funny how facts look—irrelevant facts, when they’re all put together like a little puzzle.” “Oh, please, let us see some of them,” begged lit- tle Mrs. Williams, coming close, her cheeks flushed from the stove, “it would be so interesting!” The sheriff looked at her sharply. “I couldn't do that,” he said, shaking his head; “I’m afraid I’ve let AN ORDINARY GENTLEMAN 2O7 you people into too many professional secrets now.” He laughed. “But I’ll tell you—you can each exam- ine your own card. How will that be? Of course, every fact on the cards is sworn testimony, and none of it is new to you, but somehow things look differ- ently, put together like this.” He handed us our separate cards. “This will help the big detective get the gist of the matter at once.” He sighed deeply, and I pitied him, knowing how insignificant he would appear in the presence of the big detective. I read my card with slight uneasiness, but found nothing new or startling. As the sheriff had said, these cards held only the résumé of testimony. The only arresting note was this: “Visited the scene of the murder within a half hour of the discovery of the body, ostensibly to find out if her husband was still there.” That looked peculiar, and would probably look more than that to the new detective, but it was the truth. “Walter,” said Mrs. Williams suddenly, “I be- lieve I am reading your card by mistake. Anyhow this says, “went outdoors to throw away a cigar stub? —and that doesn’t sound very much like me.” She laughed. The sheriff laughed, too. “Sounds more like you if it said “Sat and made 8,593 embroidery knots.’” To me, however, those strange unaccountable flashes of another personality within Mrs. Williams’ quiet exterior, seemed even more like her than the embroidery complex. I remembered the way she had 2O8 MURDER IN THE CELLAR walked in her sleep, her arm outstretched as though she were holding a revolver. And this determination and resolution, so often seen on her face, was strangely incongruous in one so timid and mild. After we had given back our cards, and the sheriff was clicking away busily on his typewriter, the Wil- liamses took themselves and their hot chocolate up- stairs. I didn’t remember having seen Gordon leave the room, but he had, and the sheriff and I were now alone. Gordon walked softly, with the tread of a professional dancer, light and graceful, and it was always difficult to notice his approach or disappear- ance. The sheriff and I sat for some minutes in a silence broken only by the click of the keys and the occa- sional soft plop of a fallen coal in the grate. Finally I said, “I think that is a very good idea of yours, sheriff, to have us all indexed on cards. It will give the whole affair a concise appearance, like a stated problem to be solved. But I am wondering if this new man, even with all your excellent help, will be able to solve this dreadful problem.” The sheriff rubbed his chin reflectively. “It may appear that the testimony is concise, as you say, but it really isn’t. There are a good many holes. And as to some of our chief witnesses—what shall I call them?—I don’t know anything. Take Mrs. Cadel, for instance, she's been away the whole time, and I haven’t hardly a thing about her. Not even her age.” AN ORDINARY GENTLEMAN 2 II and the sheriff answered it, and admitted two peo- ple, a man and a woman. For a minute I did not recognize them, and I heard the sheriff say, “And how are you, Mrs. Ramsay?” Somehow I had never contemplated a Mrs. Ram- say, and I stared at her almost rudely. She was not much to look at-if her husband was nervous and thin, she was even more nervous and thinner. She wore a mangy stole and a down-at-the-heel coat, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Ramsay’s taste in women had not sadly deteriorated since the days when he was known as the son of a well-to-do plan- tation owner. “How are you, how are you?” asked the sheriff hospitably. “Now it was nice of you to come out on such a bad night.” “We drove,” said Ramsay hesitatingly. “I thought, maybe the Cadels were back—I wanted to see Dr. Cadel.” “No,” said the sheriff, waving them to chairs be- side the fire, “they don’t get in until to-morrow. But we are glad to see you—we're pretty dull company these days. This is Mrs. Smith, Mrs. and Mr. Ramsay.” We all bowed vaguely, not looking at each other, and the couple seated themselves near the fireplace. “We’ve been to Wheeling to-day on an errand,” offered Ramsay, “and we thought we might stop in here on our way home.” I eyed him keenly, and wondered whether or not AN ORDINARY GENTLEMAN 213 here. It was safer in case of theft, although we al- ways were armed at the office.” “Did Briel get the last payroll?” “Yes, he did, and put it in the safe. I saw him.” “One more thing—were you and Briel the only ones who knew the combination to the safe?” The sheriff jotted down something, goodness knew what. “No,” answered Ramsay eagerly. “Mr. Williams knew the combination—he had helped with the pay- roll several times when Mr. Cadel and Briel were absent or ill. He is free Saturday afternoons, you know. And—and Mr. Smith knows the combina- tion—or at least he was in the office on several occa- sions when Mr. Cadel had used the safe, and I’ve seen Mrs. Cadel open it several times.” “Well,” said the sheriff, “all I can say is that any one who can make head or tail out of this mess de- serves a silver loving cup, and I will gladly furnish it.” He made a little pile of his cards, and put an elastic band about them. “Every one has got himself into a fine mess, and it’s a wonder you aren't all in jail.” He laughed a little, grimly, and put the cover on his machine. “Anyhow these finger prints will help-they don’t lie.” He looked over the expert's sheets rapidly and then, his face changing, pawed them over again. “Well, what in the name of all that's good and holy—” he muttered. Slowly he went back through the papers, examining each one carefully. The rest of us watched him, not daring to speak or interrupt his search. Then he pulled a great 218 MURDER IN THE CELLAR Cadel. My husband already told you that he can't even hold a gun, let alone shoot one.” “How about you, Mrs. Ramsay?” asked Stingley. The woman darted him a venomous glance. “I’ll show you sometime. I was raised on a ranch and I cut my teeth on a .45.” “By the way,” went on Stingley, draping his long form against the doorway, “it was awfully nice of you people to pay us a little visit—on such a bad night. Isn’t this the first time you’ve been over this way since the morning Mrs. Cadel left?” “We wouldn’t have come now except to see if Dr. Cadel had come yet,” replied Ramsay. They were at the door. “This is none of our concern. Stay away from trouble till it troubles you is my motto. Good night.” He banged the front door after him. “He doesn’t seem very fond of us,” said the sheriff. Stingley gave a mean little smile. “He’s hated me like poison ever since I got him mixed up with some bootlegging scheme a few months ago.” “Does he drink, or was he just dealing in liquor for the money?” asked the sheriff. “He doesn’t look like a drinking man.” “Doesn’t he? Well, that's his main trouble. Booze. That's why his family put him out, and why he never stays in one place long. He thinks if he goes to some place where no one knows about him he will be able to break the habit. But he never will now.” Stingley frowned. “He’s gone too far. SILVER AND Romance 219 That wife of his is his best bet. He met her at some ranch where he was working for a few weeks and married her. Or I bet she married him, that’s more like it.” “You’re giving me information,” said the sheriff, well pleased, rummaging through his cards. “I had very little information about the fellow, but it’s obvi- ous enough now. He’s just a common type.” “Not so common,” said Stingley. “When I ar- rested him that time he was ready to kill me, and would have, if I hadn’t got the gun first.” “But his wife said he didn’t know how to shoot!” I exclaimed. “He wasn’t trying to shoot me,” said the detective wryly, “his sweet idea was to hit me over the head with it. But he was crazy drunk, that's all.” “Strange that Cartier would have tolerated a man like that around him,” remarked Ted. “He has more brains than Briel ever dreamed. about,” said Stingley, lighting a cigarette, “and you know how Mr. Cadel liked to work things—and people—up. He figured that he would make a man out of Ramsay, one who would be well able to take care of the financial side of the mine. But he had a fat chance.” “How does it happen that you know so much about this man Ramsay?” asked the sheriff curiously. “Oh, I run down here every little while to keep my eye on the miners and so forth,” said Stingley pompously, “and I happened to have this fracas with 22O MURDER IN THE CELLAR Ramsay, and looked into the gentleman's ante- cedents, that’s all.” “I don't think so much of this rope clew after all,” went on Ted dejectedly. “It wasn’t worth getting arrested for.” “Oh, I’d have arrested you sooner or later,” re- marked Stingley. “Your case looks queer, even sunny side up.” “But why wasn’t the clew much of a clew?” I asked Ted later, up in our room. “I should think it would be the most important factor in the case. Did you know, dear, about this reward that Dr. Cadel is offering for the solution of the murder case? Ten thousand—why, if we had—” “Don't!” Ted put up his hand, and turned his face away with an expression of disgust. “Yes, I know about it, Mouse. But—did you ever read that story by W. W. Jacobs called “The Monkey's Paw’?” “No,” I answered. “What about it?” “Why, in the story, this good old man and his wife have a curious relic left with them by a major who had served in India and had collected a lot of folk lore—and this so-called magical dried monkey’s paw, that was supposed to grant three wishes to every owner. The poor old couple forgot about it being in the house, and the woman happens to wish that she had two thousand pounds—they are in need of the money and the little that their only son makes in the factory hardly supports them. That very afternoon, a man approaches them and tells them that their son 222 MURDER IN THE CELLAR “Well, I don’t want any of his money,” said Ted angrily. “I don’t like that man.” “Why?” I asked. “Do you—suspect him?” “I dislike him because”—Ted paused and his face darkened with anger—“because, if you will know, I saw him there in the hall holding your hand like a great love-sick calf.” I laughed then, for the first time in several days. “You can’t be jealous,” I protested. “It’s too silly. We were just sealing our pact—about my helping him get the mine back on its feet if he would bail me out should I need it.” Ted relaxed. “Betts, your metaphors are terrible. But anyhow, it’s a case of “I do not like thee, Dr. Fell—" with me concerning that Briel chap. Prob- ably I’ll let him bail me out when I get too wild at being shut up here—but I don’t think so.” “Oh, Ted,” I cried, my mind again reverting to the well-rope, “why wasn’t that rope the evidence we all hoped it would be?” “Because it was accessible to any one. Just as Ramsay said, he had taken the bucket out to clean the well. The well lies out back of his house and there beside it lay the bucket and part of this confounded rope. He may have cut off the piece himself—or any one else may have done so.” “Maybe Ramsay did do it,” I urged. “Aren't criminals ever obvious? Do they always commit crimes with other people's weapons? If I wanted to SILVER AND ROMANCE 223 shoot some one I would not go hunting for some- body’s gun—I’d grab the first one I found.” “I wish every one were as obvious,” said Ted gloomily, unlacing his shoes. “But a smart criminal and a really stupid one often inadvertently use the same methods—which complicates matters.” The next morning we met at breakfast. Mrs. Swi- gard still looked sick, as she served us our breakfast in glum silence. “Husban’ go to Wheeling,” she explained without her usual smile, as we greeted her with “Good morning.” “He promise to be back soon.” But when we pressed her further—or rather, when the sheriff did, she refused to answer, and burst into tears, withdrawing into the kitchen. Stingley regarded her keenly. “She has some- thing on her mind,” he said, gulping his coffee. “Excuse me,” and he too disappeared into the kitchen. This, however, was entirely too much for my curi- osity, and as soon as I could, I excused myself from the table and went upstairs. I was impatient when Ted called after me, and didn’t even reply. What I was anxious to do was to get upstairs and listen at the back hall door to the conversation that I was sure was going on in the kitchen. I found the back hall door closed, and opened it cautiously and stepped within the narrow landing, drawing the door to behind me. The kitchen door Silver AND RomancE 225 as my eyes grew accustomed to the light that crept in through the closed shutters I saw that this room was a storing house of unwanted furniture. There were several small tables, a horsehair couch, a broken water pitcher set, a great many books. Everything was covered with heavy dust. Everything—save, as I peered closely, a chest of drawers that was crammed in behind a mattress spring. On that chest of drawers the imprint of a hand stood out boldly on the dust. Being careful not to disturb the print itself I moved closer and examined it, pulled out one of the drawers and found what Gordon Dow had so labo- rously hidden from his wife. Two or three bottles of gin and whiskey! Much disappointed, I emerged from the cupola, and descended the stairs, and re- gained my own room, where I had to smile at the sight of my face adorned rakishly with cobwebs and dust, and a smutty streak across the bridge of my In OSC. It had been my custom to make up my bed and dust my room every morning. Mrs. Swigard did this task for the others and would have done it also for me, but I preferred to take care of my room my- self. Also, it gave me something with which to fill this dreadful lack of activity to which I was so un- used. - But I did not get very far this morning. I had no sooner washed my face, and made the bed, and was just starting to dust the furniture, when I heard a 226 MURDER IN THE CELLAR loud sound of voices downstairs, intermingled with the slamming of doors. I ran halfway down the steps and discovered that it was the arrival of the Cadels that had set our quiet prison in all this com- motion. I waited by the railing, not knowing whether to greet Felice or not. I knew so well how she regarded both Ted and me. Not that I held the least resentment toward her. Poor girl, she looked as though she had spent these three days in greater torment than I had! Her face was white and hag- gard and her great eyes more tragic than ever, as she stood there beneath me, talking to her father-in-law. But when I glanced at him, I forgot my sympathy for her in greater sympathy for him. I never saw a man in more visible suffering. He could not have been very old, but he carried himself like a man of eighty, his eyes were dark-circled, and his mouth pale and tremulous. I wondered that he was alive at all. They stood there in the hall with the sheriff con- versing earnestly, the detective hovering about like a zealous mosquito. I remained where I was until I heard Felice and her father-in-law go out the back door, and heard a car drive away, and then I ran quickly down the remainder of the flight. “What's wrong?” I asked the sheriff as I came upon him pacing the living room floor. “Aren’t the Cadels going to stay?” “Not a thing is wrong,” said Stingley jubilantly. But the sheriff’s mustaches dropped in a melancholy way, and Ted and the two women who sat in a dis- 228 MURDER IN THE CELLAR Ted cast him a grateful look. “Thanks a lot, sheriff. I understand perfectly how it is. By the way, did the Cadels go straight back to Pittsburgh?” “They went to the Grand Hotel to make reserva- tions for to-night. They don’t wish to stay under this roof any longer than necessary, and you can’t blame them. Besides, there isn’t much room. They will be back shortly, as soon as they have found out about their rooms.” “I see.” Then I fairly danced to the hall to get my wraps. “And we can go out doors now—is it all right?” Ted half arose, and then sat back again. “What's the hurry, Mouse?” “Yes, you may go,” said the sheriff, smiling tol- erantly. “Got a date?” But as I went into the hall, the doorbell rang. I answered it, and there stood a small boy. “Here's a telegram for Mrs. Edward Smith,” said the urchin. After I had signed the paper he handed me, I stood staring at the yellow envelope. Then still stupidly wondering, I opened it and read the mes- sage. It was from the publishers to whom I had sent the wire yesterday about the book on Homicidal Insanity. It was brief and disappointing. “The book referred to is now out of print. We shall be able to procure a copy for you through a New York dealer if you will wait a few weeks. Kindly advise, etc.” So here was another blank wall. I read the mes- SILVER AND Romance 229 sage over again with even keener disappointment. I was still standing there when little Mrs. Williams came into the hall and with a pretty smile handed me a bright colored book. “Here is “Silver and Ro- mance,’” she said. “I’m sorry I’ve been so slow in reading it, and I do hope you enjoy it as much as I did.” My FIRST AND LAST WISIT To THE MINE 233 had expected to see something rather fine in the way of an office, but here was only a low red board build- ing squatted beside the dark coal hillocks like an old hen mothering an alien flock. Stingley shut off the engine and helped me out. As he did so, Mr. Briel opened the office door. “This must mean that the Cadels have arrived,” he said, meeting us. “And they have had the wisdom to give you more freedom. But where are the others?” “Lazy,” I replied, with a laugh. “So I'm going to do my exploring alone.” “She wants to go down into the mines,” said Sting- ley. “Isn’t that against the rules?” Briel shook his head thoughtfully. “Well, I shouldn’t advise Mrs. Smith to go; with so many men not working, we’ve had a hard time to keep running, and there isn’t any regular elevator operator.” “Is it necessary to have one?” I asked, eying the elevator suspiciously. I didn’t feel much desire to go down in the thing after all. It seemed a sketchy. affair, operated, evidently, from a little booth ele- vated some distance above the ground, and the ele- vator itself had no railing to hang on to, nothing indeed, except a few ropes that went through the middle of the platform, a cross beam slightly above, and a great deal of dark emptiness below. But before Briel could answer, Stingley evinced great excitement. “Here come the Cadels,” he whis- pered to Briel, as a great limousine drew up behind 236 MURDER IN THE CELLAR the earth,” said Felice. “You know, I’ve always wanted to, but never have gone.” It seemed rather odd that she, as wife of a mine owner, had never been down, but I said, “Well, why don’t you come with me, then?” “Maybe I will,” declared Felice. She walked over to the shaft and looked down. “But it’s a long, long drop.” Dr. Cadel came back out of the office and strolled over to us. “How does it work?” he asked Briel. “Is it safe? Isn’t this a new kind?” “Safe as any of them,” answered Briel. “We’ve had it several years and no fatalities.” “It has been at least three years since I was here,” said the doctor. “I am too snug at home to move. Growing old, I guess, and it seems a bother to trouble with anything.” “Old!” protested Felice vehemently. “Hardly. Don't talk foolishness, Father. Why not come down with us?” Dr. Cadel shook his head. “I have some papers of Cartier's that I want to go over—you young folks go ahead.” “To tell the truth,” said Briel, “there is no reason for any one going. You’ll be disappointed. In the first place, we have hardly any miners left after the panic, and in the second place a coal mine is as dreary a place as you’d want to be found in. However— I’ll see if Ramsay will run the elevator.” He dis- appeared into the office to return in a few minutes MY FIRST AND LAST Visit To THE MINE 237 with Ramsay, who looked white and sick in the bright morning light. “Oh, you will operate the elevator?” asked Sting- ley with a malignant glance at him. Ramsay nodded without answering, and went over and climbed the steps that led to the operating booth. “I’m ready when you are,” he called down presently. Stingley got onto the platform that shook slightly under his weight and I got on, too. I hooked a finger into Stingley’s coat sleeve. “Scared, eh?” he said, pityingly scornful, and then looked off down the road to where I saw a rapidly approaching machine. “Who is that in such a hurry?” “Perhaps it's Romas,” I said, above the noise of the machine, for it was tooting away at a great rate. I had never given up the forlorn hope that Romas might be the scapegoat of all our troubles. “Do you suppose it is?” Stingley shaded his eyes with his hand. “I don’t know—he's due any minute. He was only in Wheeling.” Above us Ramsay’s white face stared down as he waited for our starting signal. Dr. Cadel had re- turned to the office and Felice still stood apart, watching us strangely. Briel, on his way to the ele- vator shaft halted beside her. “Aren’t you coming?” he asked. She shook her head. “I had forgotten—” she be- gan, and then broke off. “No.” Briel nodded and got onto the platform beside 238 MURDER IN THE CELLAR Stingley and me. He glanced up at the booth above. Just as we started, Stingley, without any warning, jumped off and ran over the frozen ground to the driveway where the automobile had stopped. Three men were just getting out. “I knew he would never be able to resist the temp- tation to see who was in that car,” I said to Briel as the elevator began its descent. “He and I both have a deep passion for everything in the way of clews, so I can hardly blame him his emotion. I have a hunch, anyhow. I was afraid to come down on this thing, but it isn't so bad after all. I was afraid we would plunge down—” But the words froze on my lips, for we were beginning to plunge! The ele- vator was dropping with a horrible velocity that could hardly be the usual mode of descent, and a glance at Briel's white, frightened face showed me that there was no doubt of our danger. He turned a livid face toward me, and grabbing me about the waist with one arm, caught at a rope that went through the center of the platform. For the moment I was more paralyzed with fear at what Briel was about to do than at the drop of the elevator. His face had aroused unreasoning fear in me, and I was afraid he was going to throw me off the elevator. But there was no use in trying my puny strength against his giant arm that held me in a vice-like embrace, and as soon as the clouds that darkened my frightened senses cleared somewhat, I realized that the elevator had stopped its terrible drop and was CHAPTER XX swigARD's wiFE ILL RAMSAY, white and shaken, stumbled down out of the operating booth. “Oh, my God,” he gasped, “I—my hand slipped on the con- trol and I thought I'd killed you! You're all right, you’re safe!” “No fault of yours that we're safe,” said Briel shortly. “Get in the office and try and sober up. You're a disgrace to the mine. And stay away from the elevator, you’re liable to fall down yourself.” He gave me a meaning look, as Ramsay left us, but it seemed to me that the other's fright was sincere, and that the shock had already sobered him com- pletely. We entered the little room that served as office, and I prayed fervently that I looked more collected than I felt. I found the interior of the building no more imposing than the outside. There were two desks and a typewriting table with a rickety machine on it, a small iron safe, a few maps and calendars on the unpainted walls—that was all. Around one of the desks was gathered a little group; Dr. Cadel, with his handsome white head and alert dark eyes sat in the desk chair, and beside him sat Stingley, an important look on his thin face, his long legs out- 24I 242 MURDER IN THE CELLAR stretched. On the doctor’s other hand sat Felice, and in front of them stood a state policeman, and Swi- gard, brutishly sullen, his great hand still grasping the arm of a small man who was presumably Romas. Once, when I was in school, I had had a great fancy for character analysis by reading the features, and looking at the group before me, I wondered if it would not be possible for one clever enough, to read what lay behind those different eyes and mouths. Romas was small, quick and dark, where Swigard was huge, slow and blond. That Romas was ill at ease was apparent, and the cut on one side of his fore- head did not add to his appearance, picturesque though he was in corduroys and a bright red handker- chief. One thing I noticed in particular—he looked anywhere but at Swigard, whereas, on the other hand, Swigard looked nowhere but at him. The scene was reminiscent of that of a great animal with its captured small prey. But no one seemed to be paying much attention to Romas. Dr. Cadel had a pile of papers before him. “This is all, then?” he asked Stingley. I saw that what the doctor had was Sheriff Nicholson's memo- randa and cards. “Yes, all except one set of fingerprints that were-- that are missing,” answered Stingley. “But we can get a copy of those from Mr. Blight. I’ll wire him to send them down at once.” “Wait a minute,” said Dr. Cadel, slowly. “Is SwigARD’s WIFE 243 there a train this afternoon? Couldn't this finger- print expert come down in person?” “Yes, there’s a train at four forty,’” said Stingley. “But I think Blight has taken every one's finger prints, hasn't he?” “On careful reading of these notes,” went on Dr. Cadel, “I came across gaps, that cannot be bridged by facts within our possession, and then again, there are other spaces that can be. For instance, I believe as yet, you have no prints of this man here—” he indicated Romas. “Is that not so?” Stingley nodded. “He had disappeared when we went to get them that night. All right, let's have this expert, Blight, come down in person. That would be a good idea.” The doctor smiled. “You see, when I was a prac- tising physician, I made my diagnoses in a manner similar to this. I lined up the steps in a case, those that I knew, and also the unknown factors. Some had to be solved by intuition; others, and most of the others, by nothing but good hard study.” “You’re quite right, sir,” said Stingley. “I’ll put in that call at once.” He hesitated, and then gave the doctor a look of admiration. “Excuse me for saying so, but you'd have made one swell detective if you hadn’t been misled by this doctor business.” While he was telephoning, Dr. Cadel turned over the pages of the sheriff's notes in silence. I recalled the damaging evidence of my own card as to why I SwigARD’s WIFE 245 bered that sudden plunge downwards and the look of fear and courage that had shone on Briel’s face as he grasped me. The sheriff and Ted were waiting at the house for us. When we had all gathered in the living room Stingley was sent for Mrs. Swigard. It was only a few moments until he returned with her. She had evidently come in a hurry, for she had hastily thrown a shawl over her pretty head, and it was almost pathetic to witness the struggle between anxiety to see what awaited her and fear of what she should confront. When she was nearly at the door she must have caught sight of the massive head and shoulders of her husband against the window, and I saw her raise her hand to her throat. It took all the kindly sheriff's powers of persuasion to make her enter, and once inside, she hung her head and would not look at us. Dr. Cadel pretended not to notice. “You’ll par- don my intrusion into the affair of the witnesses, sheriff,” he said, “but I feel that this mystery must be cleared as soon as possible—for the sake of every one. There is some one here who must have at least knowledge of the crime—and of course,” he added, gazing about—“I do not mean by “here’ in this very room, but I mean among those who were sworn in and gave their testimony. Now if we can just clear up a few more points, surely, we will have our goal in view.” The sheriff looked troubled. “That's been the 248 MURDER IN THE CELLAR to me with a smile as I put down Swigard’s testi- mony with trembling fingers. “You see, as well as any of us, Mrs. Smith, that that explanation is the simplest—the viewpoint that a naïve mind would take. But I fear it is something belonging neither to land nor sea.” Then he continued to Swigard. “Why then, if you think Mr. Smith did the murder, did you run after Romas?” He had asked the question so simply, so suddenly, that one could almost hear the lumbering of Swi- gard’s mind as he tried to evade the issue. Then he stopped trying and said, “I get this man for my own reason.” At the words, the briefest of glances passed be- tween Romas and Mrs. Swigard, and the former's lips twitched in a smile. A futile sort of smile, that said—“You see, what is the use?” Dr. Cadel raised his eyebrows. “Why, Swigard, what have you got against Romas? Too good a coal cutter, eh?” “Yeh, too good,” snarled Swigard, with a black look at the smaller man. I sat forward to see what would happen next, but the doctor's face showed only disdain and he con- tinued, “Well, we won’t go into personal relations, Swigard. What I really want from you is a true account of where you were and what you did the night of the murder.” “I go to lodge,” began Swigard, but the doctor's fist came down on the desk like a cannon shot. SwigARD's WIFE 25 I from her head, and her beauty as she faced us, was startlingly reminiscent of the painting of the Magda- len. “He—he’—she turned toward Romas and her voice was tender—“he no tell you. He keep it locked in his heart. But I tell you all.” She stopped, bowed her head, and then with resolution continued, “But I shall have to tell other tings too, you see. I marry very young to Swigard here—my mother just over from ol’ country tink it best to marry girl when she young, fourteen years ol’. You know that is not good. What can so young a girl know about love?” She turned piteously to Dr. Cadel. “I say nothing mean about Swigard. He ver’ good husban’ for some woman—only not for me. But I try hard—oh, so hard—to make him happy. Perhaps if we had had children— Then I meet Romas.” Her face took on a light that made me almost dim my eyes before its brilliance. “You see, he is my own people and I love him.” Her face sobered. “And we decided, Romas and I, we love too much, never to see each other. Romas has no home, no people and I have no children; we tink we leave and go to the ol’ country together. There no one will know and we be happy. I can no get a divorce because of my religion, you see. We plan to go as soon as Romas make enough money. Pretty soon he tell me this week he will have enough. All our plans are made long ago. Friday night is my husban's lodge night, so I plan to meet Romas then SwigARD’s WIFE 253 Swigard call and call and tell me poor Mr. Cadel has been killed.” Her face whitened but her eyes clung desperately to Dr. Cadel’s. “So you see now, Romas had noting to do with it.” CHAPTER XXI CAESAR’s wife HERE was a grim silence. Certainly it did not seem that Romas was cleared, by any means. A smile, that was half mockery, played about Dr. Cadel's handsome mouth. He shook his head gravely, then, “Mrs. Swigard,” said he, “this mur- der was committed between twelve and one. Prob- ably before the snow fell, for they found no foot- prints. Are you still sure that you left Romas at eleven or was it later?” - The girl’s face changed and she grasped at the back of a chair. Then she shook her head. “Yes, maybe I was wrong. I think—I tink I heard the clock strike more than eleven times, maybe it was twelve o’clock.” There was a great roar as Swigard bounded for- ward and clasped her wrist. I feared bodily assault, and so did Romas, for the latter thrust himself reck- lessly between the two, although his slight weight would have been nothing against the bull strength of Swigard. Swigard paid him no attention, save to thrust him away with a blow that knocked the fellow to the floor. “No, you lie, you lie!” Swigard was saying, to his wife, between tightly clenched teeth. “You—you bad woman! You lie, you throw your 254 CAESAR’s WIFE 255 soul to hell to save your lover! You know you come home at eleven—you must not tell such a ting to save Romas. Bah! Other ways you lie—not this way, for I know!” He turned to the rest of us, and struck his chest. “I find out, you see, some one tell me what sort of woman I have loved—I find out that she go to meet a man, plan to make fools of me. So —after I say I go to lodge, I come back—I hide in the dark room behind a chair, and wait—one hour, two hours—then I see my wife come home. She come home like all bad women must. Bah! Who wants them? She no see me, she cry much, and go up to her room. First It'ink I kill her—then I think why wash my hands in blood? I can no kill woman I have loved once. I sit up and tink over it all till pretty soon Mr. Williams come in and tell me about Mr. Cadel. You no believe her, Doctor, when she say she with her lover till twelve. I know she lie.” “You think, Swigard, that Romas killed my son?” asked the doctor quietly. “No, I think Mistar Smitt' kill—” answered the other, “only maybe you can make Romas to tell you about it. Maybe he see Mr. Smitt' run away. May- be he help Mr. Smitt'—no one know.” Romas had gotten to his feet and now stood against the wall. “No, Dr. Cadel, I tell the truth —now you know all the truth—I know nothing of your son's death.” The Italian girl was weeping, holding her bruised wrist where her husband had grasped her so savagely. 258 MURDER IN THE CELLAR necklace?” said the doctor. “Why, Felice, you told me you treasured it more than a diamond one.” She put her head back defiantly and answered, “Yes, Father, I did prize it highly. There's no use lying about it, I gave it to this woman. You don’t know the circumstances, Father. I had intended to replace it.” “But why should you give Mrs. Swigard the neck- lace?” “She had done me a great favor,” answered Felice in a low voice. “Can't we discuss this later, Father?” Dr. Cadel bit his lip and rose. “Certainly. Now, Felice, if you will hand over the account books, I think I have everything here that I need. Will you type your notes, Mrs. Smith? I hate to bother your good nature further.” “It will be no trouble at all to type them,” I answered. “I’ll do it now.” I went over to the table where the sheriff's typewriter was. Thus I was near the door, and I heard Felice say in a low voice to her father-in-law as they stood there, “There isn't any sense in worrying about any old account books. I can assure you that Cartier was never blackmailed or terribly in debt.” “Do not close so many doors, Felice,” said Dr. Cadel softly. “Their echoes do not ring well in the ears.” He gave her a swift keen glance. “Give me your own account book, and I’ll look further for Cartier's books.” “I can’t find my book,” said Felice desperately. CAESAR’s WIFE 259 For the first time since the murder of her husband, I thought her on the verge of tears. “It is gone.” Before she could say more, her father-in-law led her out of the room. He turned back to say, “Sheriff, will it be all right for Swigard and his wife to go home?” The sheriff nodded. “And Romas can go back to his boarding house any time.” He glanced at the guard significantly. After they had gone I found some typing paper and commenced to work. I soon forgot Stingley and the sheriff in my absorption in the notes. They were conversing softly in the corner, but I paid them no attention. My concentration was broken, however, by the sudden entrance of Briel and Ramsay. Ramsay’s step was uncertain, his face flushed, and as he entered he lunged against the door. “Drunk again, eh?” said Stingley, looking at him in scorn. Indeed it was quite evident that he was. The sick- ening fumes of liquor filled the room. “Drunk again, eh?” said Stingley. “What business is it of yours?” replied Ramsay, going toward him. “Insulting me again, are you?” said the detective, and he thrust his thin ugly face close to Ramsay’s. “Let me tell you, for your own sake to shut up. You talk too much. I haven't forgotten that you once tried to kill me.” - 26o MURDER IN THE CELLAR “You low—” began Ramsay in a voice of white- hot rage, and took a step forward, but Briel got be- tween him and Stingley, his burly form squared. “I think you are forgetting Mrs. Smith,” he said, “and you're talking a lot of rot, both of you. Keep still!” “Let Ramsay go ahead and talk some more,” cried Stingley in excitement. “I’ve got witnesses now to show that he has threatened my life, and he can’t get away with it!” “I said to keep still,” said Briel between his teeth, eying him fiercely. “You’re not going to let what a drunken man says keep you awake at night, are you? You know very well that Bill Ramsay isn't himself. Forget it!” I couldn’t type for thinking what sort of ruffians were they, anyway? Stingley had looked every jot as ready to kill Ramsay as the latter had looked will- ing to kill him. I shuddered again at the remem- brance of that horrible drop in the elevator and what had so nearly been the end of Briel’s and my life. I tried to recall all those who had been near the ele- vator at the time I had volunteered to go down into the mine. Ramsay, in his state of intoxication, I could consider as nothing but the tool of some stronger mind, and Stingley, who had jumped off at the last minute, seemingly accidentally. Seemingly —but he had intended to go right along, had stood beside me when my own courage failed. There had been Felice, too, who hadn't gotten on at the last, CAESAR’s WIFE 261 but that was too absurd. She had forgotten some- thing—was that the something that her father-in-law had suggested when he whispered in her ear? It was all a dreadful tangle, full of sinister threads; I had little heart to unravel it any further. And what if Briel had not been with me? How would I have known about any emergency cord? I couldn’t help remembering how Stingley had been anything but friendly to me the entire time, and how he had tried to have Briel run the elevator and not accompany me. I was glad to have this trend of thought broken by Ted's coming over to me and taking my arm. “Mouse, there are a few things I would like to dis- cuss with you alone. Let's go upstairs where we shall be undisturbed.” As we reached the head of the stairs I heard a sound of weeping from Gypsy's room, and I looked at Ted inquiringly. “Is she ill —or—” Then it struck me that perhaps what had happened during my absence was that Gypsy had told every one about her mock marriage to Ted. “Ted,” I said, squeezing his arm, “I know all about you and Gypsy, and it doesn’t make any difference. Only now I understand, poor boy, everything a lot better than I did!” A look of relief passed over Ted's face and he tightened his hand over mine, but as we entered our room and closed the door, he shook his head. “Of course I’m glad, Mouse, that you know about it,” he said simply, “and I would have told you long ago, only I was afraid it might make you unhappy, and 262 MURDER IN THE CELLAR as far as such a thing ever affecting me—well, it just didn't. So I felt you need never know, but what has happened now, is this.” Sitting on the edge of the bed, Ted told me that after Stingley and I had left, Gypsy had begun to act very strangely. It was most evident that she had been drinking, for she made slurring remarks about every one and talked about the murder in a flippant way that was displeasing, although no one pretended to notice her except Gordon. Gordon tried his best to get her upstairs but she resisted and finally when as a last refuge he urged her to come up with him and study the lines for their play she had made a dreadful scene. “Study my lines!” she had screamed, then turned to the others in the living room. “That's good, that is. Do you know what he will do? He knows that I need a little drink now and then, just as a matter of health, but do you sup- pose that he will let me have it? I’ll say not! Tries to scare me to death! But I’ve pulled his claws, and I’m not scared of him any more!” With that she snapped her fingers in his face and was gone. Gor- don after her. “And that’s all we know,” finished Ted seriously. “I don’t think for a minute that Gordon would hurt her. He just loves her enough to want to get her away from drinking at any cost. She-she is rather terrible when she has been drink- ing.” I shuddered and said nothing. Then, as the thought struck me like an arrow out of a bow, I CAESAR’s WIFE 263 grasped Ted's hand and pulled him helter-skelter down the stairs. I ran into the living room, caught the sheriff by his coat collar and scared the good man out of several puffs of smoke. “Listen,” I cried, “I know what Gypsy meant when she said that she had pulled Gordon's claws! And I know whose gun it was that was found in our closet. That's Gordon's gun, and Gypsy put it there herself!” “Wh-what?” asked the bewildered sheriff, spin- ning around. “That's no way to jump at an old man —you'll give me apoplexy.” “Maybe it will,” I cried, excitedly, “but it ex- plains that unknown revolver—that extra .45! And it explains to me a lot of other things. On the night of the murder Cartier showed a reel of war films— all gory with shooting and guns and Gypsy almost went wild. Probably she is one of those persons who are naturally gun-shy, and although it sounds brutal, I imagine Gordon kept the revolver to calm her down with when—when she needed it. This idea of mine may be all wet, but everything seems to fit to— gether so well. You remember, sheriff, that it was the same day we found the gun that that mysterious revolver shot was heard upstairs, which Briel said later was caused by the explosion of a toy balloon. I happen to know that there is a box of toys in my room, and I imagine when she went into my room to hide this gun from Gordon, stepped on the balloon. It would be light, you know, and as it was dark in my closet she might very easily have trampled on it with- CAESAR’s WIFE 265 have admitted owning it. No one blames you for heaven’s sakes! We’re supposed to tell everything we know to clear up this mess!” But I was convinced by the silence of the others that I had brought grave suspicion onto poor Gordon, and for the next few hours nothing could drive me from the foot of the stairs where I sat, waiting to waylay Gordon the very moment he should reappear, and make a clean breast of the whole matter. I sup- pose that ordinarily I would not have been so hys- terical about it, but the fright in the morning had upset me more than I realized. I didn’t dare to tell Ted about it, for one thing, lest he make a great ado and spoil the chance to discover who had instigated the near-fatality, and yet it took super-human effort to keep from blurting it all in the first sympathetic ear that I should find. Several times Mrs. Williams came out and tried to persuade me to join them in the living room, and pointed out that it was quiet upstairs now, and Gordon had doubtlessly got Gypsy calmed down and perhaps asleep, but I thanked her, and shook my head. I was determined to see Gordon myself and tell him what I had said, so that at least he would not be unprepared. Perhaps this little thought in itself showed that I was not so positively certain of his innocence as I thought, but at any rate I stuck to my post all afternoon. It was nearly half past three or so when the door- bell rang and I started up nervously. Ted was with 266 MURDER IN THE CELLAR me, and he went to the door. It was only the mail- man, but Ted's first words surprised me. “Mail for us,” he exclaimed, looking it over. “A package for you, Mouse, that feels as heavy as a con- densation of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Here, take it quickly, before I faint with fatigue! And lots for Felice, and a letter for me, thank heavens!” “A package for me?” I asked incredulously. “Why, nobody knows we are here, do they? Why all this mail?” Ted laughed and shook his head, handing me the parcel. Then I saw that it was from the Weick Pub- lishing Company and I groaned. “You’ll thank me for this,” I said, “it’s another instance of my extreme sagacity.” Ted turned absently from the perusal of his letter. “What is it?” I looked at the thick tan volume before me with great distaste. “Oh, I found an old book up in Mrs. Williams’ room that looked as though the first eight- een pages had been torn out on purpose. It was a book on homicidal insanity. I thought there might be some reference in it that she had destroyed, and so I sent away to the publishers to inquire about it. This morning they wired back that they had no copies of it, but they must have put on their spectacles and looked again, for here it is—ugly old thing!” I glanced at the bill and shuddered. “Fifteen dollars —oh, Ted, can’t we return it?” Ted didn't answer, still absorbed in his letter. So CAESAR’s WIFE 267 I turned to the pages that I had found missing in the other volume and glanced through them, only half curiously. It looked dry enough. “Dementia prae- cox . . . Hereditary Insanity . . . Homicidal In- sanity, Instances of . . .” Then I gave a sharp little exclamation, and bent closely over the book. Ted dropped his letter and leaned over my shoulder, to read what I pointed to with shaking finger. It was a footnote on page sixteen printed in small type, and read as follows: “Also, see Case 598, in Vol. III of Hereditary Insanity by Dr. D. R. Albright of Wheeling, W. Va. . . .” “Among the more severe cases I have personally observed, there was the case of W. W., a man who had lived a perfectly normal life, was respected in the community and admired by all for his soberness and integrity of living. On the afternoon of May 3rd, 1897, this man returned to his home after his working hours were over, went up to the bedroom where his wife and her new baby son were in bed, and calmly shot his wife to death. There were in this case (as in case 247) no other in- stances of insanity in his life; nor did he at the time or later give any reason for his senseless, inhuman act. It must be noted, that although his own grand- father had been insane, W. W. had no knowledge of the fact, it having been carefully kept from him. He never regained sanity and died, raving mad, five years later in an asylum.” STRANGE WATERs 269 Let’s go down cellar and burn this book, and you tell me all you can about which one of the Williamses is the more likely to know about this.” “Oh, I’m glad we won’t have to do anything about it,” I said. “How dreadful it must be to have a thing like that hang over your head—to wait and wait for the insanity to crop out in yourself!” “It would be enough to make a sane man crazy to think of it,” agreed Ted soberly. “But some way, I don’t think it’s Walter that knows.” “Neither do I,” I said as we went out into the kitchen. The kitchen had the same desolate look that it had worn the night when I had gone down the cellar stairs to see if another body lay beside Cartier's, and I grasped Ted's arm a little tighter, glad and thank- ful to have him safely with me. Neither Swigard nor his wife had been near the house that noon, and those who had eaten, had gone to the icebox and for- aged for themselves. Neither Ted nor I had realized that we had missed a meal. As we went cautiously and quietly down the basement steps I whispered to Ted the things that made me think it was Mrs. Wil- liams who suspected about the secret of Walter's in- heritance. “You see, Ted, she lied and got mixed up in her testimony as to whether it was she or Wal- ter who was absent from the living room at about the time that Cartier was killed. I suppose she found the book in Dr. Cadel’s library and hit upon that STRANGE WATERs 273 good place to bring up a baby. But I’d bet money that he made Felice live within his income, and I happen to know that wasn’t so much, either.” In fine scorn I showed Ted a page. “But look at her housekeeping expenses alone. Groceries . . . $300.00. House cleaning . . . $200.00 . . . How perfectly absurd! Why, two hundred dollars would clothe me for a year and include the house cleaning.” Ted looked at me. “Betts, how much do you spend on your clothes, anyway?” “Don’t ask, kind gent,” I laughed. “Anyway, I get by with you, don’t I, dear? And that's all any wife can ask.” “Let’s go back upstairs,” said Ted, giving me a swift kiss. “You know you please me, Mouse. And by the way, that finger print man comes on the four- forty train, and it’s about due.” Ted looked within the furnace to see that every- thing was all right; then, with the red book hidden under his coat, we went upstairs. At the head of the stairs Gordon met us with a look of suppressed ex- citement. “Go on down again,” he said. “Right back down.” “What the ” began Ted belligerently, but Gor- don gave him a push. “This is an experiment,” he said. “Something I should have tried out a few days ago, but forgot it till a minute ago. Go on back while I try it out to see if it works.” Ted and I both returned reluc- tantly. “Wonder what he's going to try again,” said 274 MURDER IN THE CELLAR Ted wonderingly, “and what we’re supposed to do?” “I hope he isn’t going to try any experimental shooting,” said I, with a nervous laugh. We could hear people move about over our heads and then all was quiet. Gordon called down to us, “Now count ten to yourself very slowly, and then say in your usual voice, ‘Not finished yet.’” Ted and I stood there awkwardly and counted a slow ten. Then Ted said, “Not finished yet.” “Louder,” roared Gordon down the stairs. “Try it again.” “And funnier,” muttered Ted under his breath, but nevertheless did as he was told. “Not finished yet,” he repeated. | Then the door to the kitchen opened and Gordon's face appeared. “Come up,” he said triumphantly, “it worked.” Behind him stood the sheriff and Mr. and Mrs. Williams. “So that explains that,” she was saying in her precise little way. “Tell us all the mystery,” I begged. “What's it all about?” We trooped into the living room and Gordon took the floor. “It really ought to be demonstrated,” he began, but Ted growled, “Not by us, in that cold cellar.” “You were in the cellar to start with,” answered Gordon. “Well, the other day when that testimony of Mrs. Williams about the conversation she had overheard the night of the murder was repeated, I 276 MURDER IN THE CELLAR Well, to continue, you either shook your head, or else the radio drowned you out, and just at that time Cartier from the basement answered a question that had been asked of him by Ted—if he were finished firing that round. See? ‘Not finished yet,” Cartier said, and that’s what Mrs. Williams heard that made her think Felice and Cartier were talking together. That’s my explanation—it may sound far fetched, but it's readily possible, and I bet that’s what hap- pened. The living room is next to the kitchen and right over the basement, and so Mrs. Williams could have heard both remarks.” “Maybe so, but who cares?” said Ted airily. I looked at him. I had never seen him so arrogant. He was full of high spirits like a little boy with a wonderful secret. “Boy, you’ve got enough to ex- plain about that gun of yours without going into extemporanea.” It was really the easiest way to broach a difficult subject, but I had a moment’s worry before Gordon answered in his usual quiet way, “I know it. I’ve been waiting for some one to mention it, but I hardly knew where it was—or who had used it, and under these circumstances I thought it better to let nature take its course. I have a .45 that’s been missing since yesterday, but I had it in my possession until then. It wasn’t loaded, and I can swear that it hasn’t even been used for years. It must be in sad need of clean- ing. I brought it along with me because—well, I haven’t any desire to wash the family linen in public, STRANGE WATERs 277 but I hope you will understand if I simply say that there are times—when Gypsy gets a little tempera- mental and we’re on contract and have work to do— when I can’t get her to settle down and listen to rea- son unless I make her feel that I am the boss. And it's a sad truth that the only thing under God’s heaven that she's afraid of is a gun. I’d rather die than hurt her, but to hold her in dread works won- ders with her. She's a lot better than she used to be —hardly drinks at all—” he lied bravely, “but her insane fear of seeing a weapon in any one's hands is better than any Keeley cure ever invented.” “That's all right, we understand,” said the sheriff kindly. “We are checking up on the gun anyway, and it won’t be hard to prove that it either has or hasn’t been used recently. So don’t worry about that part of it, Mr. Dow.” Gordon gratefully thanked him and left the room. The rest of us were silent, embarrassed and sorry for Gordon and Gypsy. It was a relief when the four- forty made its approach known down the track, and the sheriff went out to meet Mr. Blight. It was not long before that fingerprint expert arrived, his stony black eyes at once regarding with disfavor the hard davenport on which he had reposed that one night. “This house is cold,” he said testily after he had greeted us. He hung up his coat in the hall and went toward the fire. “I think I shall sleep at the hotel to-night. All my expenses will be covered by Dr. Cadel I trust.” STRANGE WATERs 279 lines. But it would prove a bit more difficult if the accident occurred after the incriminating evidence had been secured. Even in that case, however, it could be done by an expert.” “It could be done?” repeated Walter leaning over the table. “It would not be a definite hide?” “Oh, certainly not,” answered the expert. “There would be enough of the old lines remaining to give us the story.—All right, Romas, I’ll take your im- pressions first.” He was then sent back to Kertrocki's, where he was to be kept under troop surveillance. “Now,” said Mr. Blight at length, spreading his materials before him, “if I could be left alone for about an hour I'll have most of the data ready for you, sheriff.” Felice had joined the group, but she spoke to no one. She looked stormy, sullen, her somber eyes like swollen seas. The sheriff started to leave the room, but came back to the card table. “Did you bring that set of impressions that I told you were missing?” “Oh, yes.” The man searched through the pages in his brief case. “I always keep several copies of all the prints I take. This one belonged to—” the sheriff tried to keep him silent but it was too late— “Mrs. Williams, didn’t it?” He handed a page to the sheriff. “Why, Walter Williams!” said Mrs. Williams. She flung him such a look as I had not thought her capable of, and then with compressed lips she left the 28O MURDER IN THE CELLAR room. Ted and I exchanged a glance in the uncom- fortable silence that followed. “I’m terribly sorry, sheriff,” mumbled poor Wal- ter. “You know that night when you let each of us look at our own cards, and my wife and I got ours mixed? I happened to see on her card that the fact that she had burned her hand before the prints were made looked bad for her, and so I–” he turned and left the room, too. “Oh, Lord,” groaned the sheriff, “if people would only stop trying to hide other people's guilt and making things look a lot worse, I wouldn’t mind being a sheriff. But this sort of thing—and it hap- pens all the time—is driving me crazy.” “Come on, everybody,” I said, to change the sub- ject, “and leave Mr. Blight to get his work done. Let's go out into the hall.” “As it is,” remarked Mr. Blight dourly, with a glance at his wrist watch, “I shall have to take all these things to the hotel with me and complete my work there. It is hard to concentrate in all this con- fusion.” Ted paid him no attention. “I’m hungry,” he complained. “Can't one of you girls cook any- thing?” “I suppose you mean me,” said I, aggrieved. Fe- lice was still sulking, Mrs. Williams had retired heaven knows where, and Gypsy was still in her room. But although I pretended to be cross, I was glad of a chance to get out of the atmosphere of the STRANGE WATERs 281 hall and be alone. It had been a crowded hectic day for me, and I needed solitude. I switched on the light in the kitchen, and began to assemble a sketchy meal. I lit the fire and then going over to the sink I reached underneath it for a pan I needed. Just as I stood up, I happened to look at the little window above the drain board. A woman’s face was staring at me, so distorted with malevolent hatred that for a minute it did not seem human. Yet it was somehow familiar to me. I re- mained motionless, still half crouched and the face continued to stare at me. Then suddenly it was gone. Only the lights of the kitchen were reflected on the dark pane, and my own eyes stared back at me, hor- ror-stricken. Closed Doors 285 With Dr. Cadel as pilot the men half helped, half carried Stingley to the living room and laid him on the couch while the doctor examined the wound. “Only a scalp wound,” he said briefly. “No harm done, but it was a close call. These scalp wounds bleed like the devil.” I brought water and towels and I spoke sharply to Felice who was leaning weakly against the wall in the hall. “Go on and get some whiskey. There’s some up in Gordon's room, in the bottom of the box in the closet.” I didn't care whether Gordon heard or not. Felice obeyed and ran upstairs, and down again in no time, with a half empty bottle of whiskey. “Here,” she gasped, thrusting it into my hand. “Did you tell Gypsy what happened?” asked Gor- don. “The shot must have frightened her.” “She wasn’t in her room,” said Felice. “Oh, oh, the murderer is still around! We’ll all be shot sooner or later. It’s some dreadful scheme to kill us all! 22 The doctor turned from the couch sternly. “Keep still, Felice;—you fellows,” (to the men) “had bet- ter go out and try and find this would be assassin. You're not afraid, are you?” His lips turned back in a sort of sneer as he went on with his work. Sting- ley was almost fainting now from shock and loss of blood. At the doctor’s words, the sheriff and Briel and Ted went out of the room at once, but Gordon turned and went upstairs. “If I only had my bag,” mut- 292 MURDER IN THE CELLAR she has had a special spite against him. She wanted to throw a good scare into him.” “Throw a good bullet, you mean,” growled the detective, but he seemed to feel better. “Let’s have a cup of tea—thanks, Mrs. Smith. Oh, I guess the old girl was more excited than murderous. But I have a nasty headache.” “By the way,” said Felice suddenly. “Sheriff, I want to explain about that red necklace, so that Mrs. Swigard can wear it with a free conscience. Father said I was very silly to act so mysterious about it. The truth was that my allowance didn’t always cover my wants, and yet Cartier was very particular that I live within it as far as luxuries went. So when I wanted a new gown or something that I really didn’t need, I use to put down in my account-book that gro- ceries or cleaning or wall-paper came to exactly twice what it really did, and with the surplus I bought the things I wanted. Of course it wasn’t very honest, but lots of women do that. Cartier never fussed about household bills. And Mrs. Swigard here always backed me up in case he inquired about the unusual size of the bills.” Briel arose from the table. “If you don’t need me, Sheriff, I think I’ll run along,” he said. “It’s been a hard day.” His eyes met mine briefly. The near tragedy at the mine had made us both more on edge than we knew. “Good night, everybody.” Good night everybody was the way we all felt. Felice helped me dry the dishes and then put on her 296 MURDER IN THE CELLAR tiously I looked up as the steps drew nearer, and saw to my relief that it was only Gordon coming down from the cupola. He was still dressed, and he car- ried a large paper parcel in his hand. He disap- peared into his room, and I suppressed a desire to snicker. When the cat was away the mouse would play with the cat’s catnip, would he? At least Gor- don wasn’t going to let any good whiskey age in the cupola. I, too, went to my room and crept into bed without awakening Ted. My brain was in a whirl, and I was now so wide awake that I couldn't do anything but think. It’s a strange thing how I can work things out at night. As a school-girl I used to solve the most difficult algebra and geometry questions lying awake in bed. When I am consciously wide awake, my brain func- tions slowly, and then, just as I begin to drowse off to sleep, the solution of my problem will come to me in a great illuminating flash. And now, this thought came to me as though a search light had been played upon it. Why had no one ever questioned Briel as to the names of the miners who were working at the mine the night of the murder—Friday night? It had been a grave oversight, surely, for among them might be a possible suspect for the crime. I decided that the first thing in the morning I would ask the sheriff to have Mr. Blight get finger prints of all of them, and then, when the guns came back from the ballistic ex- 306 MURDER IN THE CELLAR open and in came Briel carrying the office receipt book. “Here it is, sir,” he said, handing it to the doctor. Our faces must have shown surprise for he looked at us curiously. The doctor and sheriff glanced at the pages. “Yes,” said the sheriff in a queer voice. “Romas, Giuseppe, Baruck and Mysopak each received money for overtime work Friday night.” Romas looked about. “Where are these other men?” he asked. “They can tell you I did not work late Friday night.” “Briel,” said the sheriff slowly, “why did you lie about the paycheck business? None of these men worked Friday night, and you know it. Each one except Romas said that the voltage was good that night, and we know that it couldn’t have been good with a motion picture projector in operation. Romas told the truth and said he did not work at all. Any miner will accept extra money and ask no questions— no one knows that better than you, but I want to know why you did this?” Briel carefully put out the cigarette he was smoking and was silent a moment before he answered. “I had hoped this wouldn’t be found out,” he said quietly. “Yes, I know these men didn’t work overtime Fri- day. But if you would allow me to go back to the hotel for some evidence—evidence that I’ve been hoping against hope I should not have to use—I can show you the whole solution.” The sheriff hesitated, but Dr. Cadel said, eagerly, 3IO MURDER IN THE CELLAR ing the paper. “And I thought he might be shelter- ing some one.” He read it aloud. “I can’t get out, I guess I’ve stalled around too long. At any rate Cartier Cadel is dead, too, and that's one good thing about the whole works. I wanted to kill the dirty dog the min- ute I saw him, coming in here, taking over a job that was mine. It wasn’t the Cadel mine—it was the Briel mine, and I lived for it, and then this yellow rich man’s son, who knew about as much about mines as a six-year-old child comes in and takes it away from me all because his father happens to own the place. I wanted to kill him and put the blame on his pretty little boy friend Ted Smith, so that I could stall for time, and then scram. But too many noses were stuck into things and so I guess this will show you I have made a getaway but not exactly what I intended.—Briel.” Dr. Cadel led the weeping Felice from the room, and I pulled Ted upstairs. “Oh,” I said, half cry- ing, “it means we’re free, and we can leave this ter- rible place, and be ourselves again—not suspected criminals.” “It’s too bad I couldn’t have had the pleasure of pulling the trigger on that fine job Briel just finished on himself,” said Ted through grim lips. Then he relaxed and put his arm about me. “How fast can you pack, Mouse?” university of Michigan 015 003 Us SEP 28 1937 Ltd rt A R Y ||||||||| Jr. / |- |- |- |- |- - - |- （ ） |- - - | | |- - |- |- |- ſ. ſ. |--. |×|- - - - -