At One-Thirty by Isabel Ostrander (adult books to read .txt) 📕

Gaunt had been stooping, feeling about on the floor befpre the chair” in which the dead man sat, and, at the Inspector’s words, he rose, his long fingers slipping for an instant into his waistcoatpocket. He had discovered upon the floor before the chair three tiny hard globules, like irregular pearls.

“I wouldn’t do that. Inspector,” he suggested, mildly. “At least, searching the house won’t do any harm; but don’t question the servants in such a manner that you’ll lead any of them to suspect that you don’t think this was an outside job. If you do, you may defeat your own ends.” He turned to the Coroner. ” You’ll have an autopsy performed immediately, I suppose? I’d like to know at once, if you’ll tell me, what caliber and make cartridge was used.”

“I’ll let you know gladly. You’ll be here all day?”

“Yes. I want to make a more thorough examination of the room now, and then I should like to speak to some members of the family. That robbery theory still looks good, of course. Coroner Hildebrand, if it weren’t for one thing.”

“What’s that?” the Inspector turned sharply from the window.

“The dead man’s face. Look at his expression. Blank horror and craven fear are stamped upon itl”

“Look here, Mr. Gaunt, I don’t see what you can tell about his expression!” Inspector Hanrahan’s voice held a good-natured^ ^asy contempt.

“By feeling the drawn, contracted muscles,” Gaunt said, tersely. He resented bitterly any reference to the handicap nature had placed upon him, yet he realized the justice of the implication.

“It may be only the death-agony, the shock, you know, which has distorted his face,” the Coroner broke in hastily, soothingly.

“Look at him yourself. Coroner Hildebrand. Does he look like a man suddenly attacked without warning, or like one who recognized his assailant, and read his approaching fate in the other’s eyes, but felt powerless to avert it?”

The Coroner was silent, and, with a slight shrug, Gaunt turned away, and bent over the writingtable, his hands playing lightly among the papers and ornaments it contained. From there, he made a circuit of the room, passing swiftly from one article of furniture to another, more as if to orient himself than with any idea of a thorough examination.

Suddenly he paused before a low, swinging lamp of ancient brass, and felt carefully of its jangling pendant ornaments. From one of these, a tiny strand of hair hung, as if caught from the unwary head of some feminine Absalom, in passing beneath it. It was a long strand of but two or three fine silky hairs, and the detective wound them carefully around his finger, then placed them in the vest-pocket with the tiny white globules.

Meanwhile, the other men went about their gruesome task of removing the body to an adjoining room for the autopsy, and Gaunt heard their heavy, subdued tread down the hall. With silent haste, he approached the door and closed it softly, then returned to the library-table in the center of the room, beside which the body of the murdered man had been seated, and opened drawer after drawer, his hands searching feverishly among the papers they contained, as if seeking some object he fully anticipated finding. If Garret Appleton really had known his assailant, and might actually have feared for his life, it was logical to suppose that he might have kept some weapon with which to protect and, if necessary, defend himself. If that weapon should happen to be a revolver, of the same caliber as that with which he had been shot—

The detective’s fingers closed over a cold steel object in the lowest drawer, and with an exultant exclamation he drew it forth. It was a revolver. He placed it hastily to his nose, and sniffed it, then, with a satisfied air, he thrust it into his hip-pocket, and, when the Inspector reappeared, he was fingering and smelling the hangings and pillows of the large, richly-upholstered divan, about which a peculiar heavy perfume seemed to cling.

“Well, I’ve finished here,” he announced. “Fd like to see my client now.”

“Found anything more?” the Inspector asked, with a grin.

“No, nothing. Guess your robbery theory goes. Interviewed any of the servants yet?”

“Yes; and, between you and me, Mr. Gaunt, I think I’m on the right trail. From all accounts, Mr. Garret Appleton wasn’t a very pleasant customer. Dissipated, he was, and overbearing, and a bully. He led his wife and everyone else pretty much of a dog’s life, and about a month ago he drove his valet, Louis, out of the house, and the man was heard to vow that he’d get even. This Louis was a Frenchman, a hot-headed man himself, and he was very friendly with one of the maids. She might have let him in last night, and he, only meaning to rob the master, might have murdered him without premeditation. Of course, this morning, seeing what he’d done, the maid would be afraid to admit he was here. Anyway, that’s my theory. Where are you going?”

“To interview Mrs. Appleton.”

Gaunt found the objefct of his search ensconced in her morning-room, and, if the reaction of her hour of silence and composure after the shock of the discovery of her son’s body, and the ensuing scene in the den, had unnerved her, had brought with it any flood of tenderness and natural grief, there was no evidence of it in her voice or manner, or the steadiness of her hand.

“You have discovered anything, Mr. Gaunt— any clue to the thief who killed my son?”

“Only that he was a most uncommon thief, Mrs. Appleton—that the manner of your son’s death presents some very unusual features. As I have already informed Mr. Yates Appleton, in undertaking your investigation for you, I must make one condition—”

“Your fee—” the elderly lady interrupted him, coidly.

“My fee has nothing whatever to do with it. That can be arranged later. My condition is that of absolute confidence. My questions must be freely and fully answered, with no quibbling, no half-truths. If I ask you to go into family history, your common sense will tell you that it is through no idle curiosity, but a necessary measure, if I am to help you. I need not tell you that any communications will be strictly confidential.”

“I am quite prepared to answer any questions you may ask, Mr. Gaunt; although I cannot see what bearing family history, as you call it, may have upon a case of robbery and murder so obviously perpetrated by a common thief.” Mrs. Appleton ‘s voice was steady and frigid; but there was an underlying note of uneasiness not lost upon the quick ears of the detective.

“You must allow me to be the best judge of that,” he returned quietly. ” Mrs. Appleton, how long has your son been married?”

“Three years.”

“And his wife, before her marriage, was—”

“A Miss Ellerslie—Miss Natalie Ellerslie.”

“Of New York?”

“No, of the South; from Louisville, Kentucky.”

“And, since his marriage, he and his wife have lived here?”

“Yes, in this house. My husband built and gave it to them for a wedding-gift.”

“Mrs. Appleton, in your opinion, was your son’s married life happy?”

“Quite the reverse. Understand, I am not defending my son. He has not been a model husband by any means; but the blame for that lies with his wife alone. You know, you must have heard, what these spoiled penniless Southern beauties are. Had my son married a woman of the world, a woman of his own set, I may say his own station, she would have known how to make him happy, to hold his interest. But I fail to see what all this has to do with his murder.”

“She is beautiful, then, young Mrs. Appleton?” Gaunt asked quietly, ignoring her last remark.

“She is considered so.” The older woman’s tone was bitter. “A certain blond, doll-like type of prettiness.”

“And you disapproved of this marriage?”

“Most heartily, I recognized its unsuitability from the first. And you see how it has ended!”

“But, surely, my dear Mrs. Appleton, you do not consider the fact of your son’s marriage to be in any way connected witJi his death?”

There was a pause, and the detective could hear her rapid breathing, her effort to regain her iron control of herself. At length she spoke:

“I do not, Mr. Gaunt. I have been unable, since you started this line of inquiry, to connect it with the matter in hand.”

“I am simply trying in my own mind to comprehend the relations the members of your son’s household bear to one another. He and his wife were unhappy. Was that due in part, do you think, to the presence of your daughter-in-law’s sister?”

“In great part. I see that you fully understood the significance of the scene in the den, beside my son’s body this morning. Barbara Ellerslie is an interloper. She made her home here in my son’s house, at her sister’s invitation, and she has been the cause of many unpleasant, disgraceful domestic scenes, humoring Natalie, aiding and abetring her in her senseless quarrels and accusations against Garret, and constantly stirring up strife between them. My son could not oust her; for Natalie would not give her up. Naturally, Barbara made herself indispensable to her sister, in order to enjoy the advantages, social and otherwise, of living here, instead of in the dull, shabbygenteel surroundings of her Southern home.”

“Miss Ellerslie spoke just a little while ago of there being a reason why young Mrs. Appleton’s strength should not be overtaxed just now. Am I to infer that—”

“Natalie will in a few months become a mother.”

A silence followed the terse statement, a silence in which the concentrated bitterness, and thwarted impotent hatred, expressed unconsciously in the tone of the few words, sank deep into the detective’s mind. It told him volumes, which before he had only suspected, and cleared the way before him.

‘tMrs. Appleton, your younger son’s name has been in the papers lately, in connection with some effort to break a will. I can, of course, learn all about it in detail by having my secretary look over my newspaper files, but I prefer to hear about it from you. Will you give me the particulars?”

There was a stiff, silken rustle, as the lady moved restlessly, uneasily, in her chair, and then a new sound smote upon the detective’s ears; a sharp, staccato tattoo. Mrs. Appleton was nervously tapping the broad mahogany arms of her chair, with the rounded tips of her finger nails. At last, she spoke quickly, imperiously; but the pause after his question had been so lengthy as to rob her words of their desired significance, and betray her real state of mind—her reluctance to discuss the new topic he had introduced.

“Mr. Gaunt, my son’s murderer may be making good his escape, may be getting forever beyond our reach, while you are wasting time by delving into wholly extraneous matters. The matter of my late husband’s will can have no possible connection with my son’s murder.” ITie cold, forbidding voice trembled at the end with suppressed anger and latent agitation.

Gaunt shrugged.

“Then, you will not tell me?” he insisted. “You will permit me to use your telephone? I must get my secretary on the wire.”

There was an exclamation of annoyance from Mrs. Appleton, and the nervous tapping on the chair-arms quickened for a moment, then ceased abruptly, as, after a moment’s pause, she spoke:

“Of course, if you insist, Mr. Gaunt, I will tell you. It is nothing but what all the wprld knows, and it is a maddening waste of time; but I presume you must pursue your own method. My husband was an old-fashioned man, and the mode of life adopted by our two sons