No Clue by James Hay (e book reader free TXT) 📕

real thing: I've an idea you could tell me more about what happened on the lawn Saturday night."

After his involuntary, immediate start of surprise, Wilton tilted his head, slowly blowing the cigar smoke from his pursed lips. He had a fine air of reflection, careful thought.

"I can elaborate what I've already told you," he said, finally, "if that's what you mean—go into greater detail."

He watched closely the edge of the detective's face unhidden by his bending over the wood he was cutting.

"I don't think elaboration could do much good," Hastings objected. "I referred to new stuff—some fact or facts you might have omitted, unconsciously."

"Unconsciously?" Wilton echoed the word, as a man does when his mind is overtaxed.

Hastings took it up.

"Or consciously, even," he said quickly, meeting the other's eyes.

The judge moved sharply, bracing himself against the back of the chair.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Skilled in the law yourself, thoroughly familiar, with the rules of evidence, it's more than possible that you might have reviewed matters and decided that there were things which, if they were known, would do harm instead of good—obscure the truth, perhaps; or hinder the hunt for the guilty man instead of helping it on. That's clear enough, isn't it? You might have thought that?"

The look of sullen resentment in the judge's face was unmistakable.

"Oh, say what you mean!" he retorted warmly. "What you're insinuating is that I've lied!"

"It don't have to be called that."

"Well, then, that I, a judge, sworn to uphold the law and punish crime, have elected to thwart the law and to cheat its officials of the facts they should have. Is that what you mean?"

"I'll be honest with you," Hastings admitted, unmoved by the other's grand manner. "I've wondered about that—whether you thought a judge had a right to do a thing of that sort."

Wilton's hand, clenched on the edge of the desk, shook perceptibly.

"Did you think that, judge?" the detective persisted.

The judge hesitated.

"It's a point I've never gone into," he said finally, with intentional sarcasm.

Hastings snapped his knife-blade shut and thrust the piece of wood into his pocket.

"Let's get away from this beating about the bush," he suggested, voice on a sterner note. "I don't want to irritate you unnecessarily, judge. I came here for information—stuff I'm more than anxious to get. And I go back to that now: won't you tell me anything more about the discovery of the woman's body by the two of you—you and Webster?"

"No; I won't! I've covered the whole thing—several times."

"Is there anything that you haven't told—anything you've decided to suppress?"

Wilton got up from his chair and struck the desk with his fist.

"See here, Hastings! You're getting beside yourself. Representing Miss Sloane doesn't warrant your insulting her friends. Suppose we consider this interview at an end. Some other time, perhaps——"

Hastings also had risen.

"Just a minute, judge!" he interrupted, all at once assuming the authoritative air that had so amazed Wilton the night of the murder. "You're suppressing something—and I know it!"

"That's a lie!" Wilton retorted, the flush deepening to crimson on his face.

"It ain't a lie," Hastings contradicted, holding his self-control. "And you watch yourself! Don't you call me a liar again—not as long as you live! You can't afford the insult."

"Then, don't provoke it. Don't——"

"What did Webster whisper to you, across that corpse?" Hastings demanded, going nearer to Wilton.

"What's this?" Wilton's tone was one of consternation; the words might have been spoken by a man stumbling on an unsuspected horror in a dark room.

They stared at each other for several dragging seconds. The detective waved a hand toward the judge's chair.

"Sit down," he said, resuming his own seat.

There followed another pause, longer than the first. The judge's breathing was laboured, audible. He lowered his eyes and passed his hand across their thick lids. When he looked up again, Hastings commanded him with unwavering, expectant gaze.

"I've made a mistake," Wilton began huskily, and stopped.

"Yes?" Hastings said, unbending. "How?"

"I see it now. It was a matter of no importance, in itself. I've exaggerated it, by my silence, into disproportionate significance." His tone changed to curiosity. "Who told you about—the whispering?"

The detective was implacable, emphasizing his dominance.

"First, what was it?" When Wilton still hesitated, he repeated: "What did Webster say when he put his hand over your mouth—to prevent your outcry?"

The judge threw up his head, as if in sudden resolve to be frank. He spoke more readily, with a clumsy semblance of amiability.

"He said, 'Don't do that! You'll frighten Lucille!' I tried to nod my head, agreeing. But he misunderstood the movement, I think. He thought I meant to shout anyway; he tightened his grip. 'Keep quiet! Will you keep quiet?' he repeated two or three times. When I made my meaning clear, he took his hand away. He explained later what had occurred to him the moment Arthur's light flashed on. He said it came to him before he clearly realized who I was. It——

"I swear, Hastings, I hate to tell you this. It suggests unjust suspicions. Of what value are the wild ideas of a nervous man, all to pieces anyway, when he stumbles on a dead woman in the middle of the night?"

"They were valuable enough," Hastings flicked him, "for you to cover them up—for some reason. What were they?"

Wilton was puzzled by the detective's tone, its abstruse insinuation. But he answered the question.

"He said his first idea, the one that made him think of Lucille, was that Arthur might have had something to do with the murder."

"Why? Why did he think Sloane had killed Mildred Brace?"

"Because she had been the cause of Lucille's breaking her engagement with Berne—and Arthur knew that. Arthur had been in a rage——"

"All right!" Hastings checked him suddenly, and, getting to his feet, fell to pacing the room, his eyes, always on Wilton. "I'm acquainted with that part of it."

He paid no attention to Wilton's evident surprise at that statement. He had a surprise of his own to deal with: the unexpected similarity of the judge's story with Lucille Sloane's theorizing as to what Webster had whispered across the body in the moment of its discovery. The two statements were identical—a coincidence that defied credulity.

He caught himself doubting Lucille. Had she been theorizing, after all? Or had she relayed to him words that Wilton had put into her mouth? Then, remembering her grief, her desperate appeals to him for aid, he dismissed the suspicion.

"I'd stake my life on her honesty," he decided. "Her intuition gave her the correct solution—if Wilton's not lying now!"

He put the obvious question: "Judge, am I the first one to hear this—from you?" and received the obvious answer: "You are. I didn't volunteer it to you, did I?"

"All right. Now, did you believe Webster? Wait a minute! Did you believe his fear wasn't for himself when he gagged you that way?"

"Yes; I did," replied Wilton, in a tone that lacked sincerity.

"Do you believe it now?"

"If I didn't, do you think I'd have tried for a moment to conceal what he said to me?"

"Why did you conceal it?"

"Because Arthur Sloane was my friend, and his daughter's happiness would have been ruined if I'd thrown further suspicion on him. Besides, what I did conceal could have been of no value to any detective or sheriff on earth. It meant nothing, so long as I knew the boy's sincerity—and his innocence as well as Arthur's."

"But," Hastings persisted, "why all this concern for Webster, after his engagement had been broken?"

"How's that?" Wilton countered. "Oh, I see! The break wasn't permanent. Arthur and I had decided on that. We knew they'd get together again."

Hastings halted in front of the judge's chair.

"Have you kept back anything else?" he demanded.

"Nothing," Wilton said, with a return of his former sullenness. "And," he forced himself to the avowal, "I'm sorry I kept that back. It's nothing."

Hastings' manner changed on the instant. He was once more cordial.

"All right, judge!" he said heartily, consulting his ponderous watch. "This is all between us. I take it, you wouldn't want it known by the sheriff, even now?" Wilton shook his head in quick negation. "All right! He needn't—if things go well. And the person I got it from won't spread it around.—That satisfactory?"

The judge's smile, in spite of his best effort, was devoid of friendliness. The dark flush that persisted in his countenance told how hardly he kept down his anger.

Hastings put on his hat and ambled toward the door.

"By the way," he proclaimed an afterthought, "I've got to ask one more favour, judge. If Mrs. Brace troubles you again, will you let me know about it, at the earliest possible moment?"

He went out, chuckling.

But the judge was as mystified as he was resentful. He had detected in Hastings' manner, he thought, the same self-satisfaction, the same quiet elation, which he and Berne had observed at the close of the music-room interview. Going to the window, he addressed the summer sky:

"Who the devil does the old fool suspect—Arthur or Berne?"

XIV MR. CROWN FORMS AN ALLIANCE

"If you've as much as five hundred dollars at your disposal—pin-money savings, perhaps—anything you can check on without the knowledge of others, you can do it," Hastings urged, ending a long argument.

"I! Take it to her myself?" Lucille still protested, although she could not refute his reasonings.

"It's the only way that would be effective—and it wouldn't be so difficult. I had counted on your courage—your unusual courage."

"But what will it accomplish? If I could only see that, clearly!"

She was beginning to yield to his insistence.

They were in the rose garden, in the shade of a little arbor from whose roof the great red flowers drooped almost to the girl's hair. He was acutely aware of the pathetic contrast between her white, ravaged face and the surrounding scene, the fragrance, the roses of every colour swaying to the slow breeze of late afternoon, the long, cool shadows. He found it hard to force her to the plan, and would have abandoned it but for the possibilities it presented to his mind.

"I've already touched on that," he applied himself to her doubts. "I want you to trust me there, to accept my solemn assurance that, if Mrs. Brace accepts this money from you on our terms, it will hasten my capture of the murderer. I'll say more than that: you are my only possible help in the matter. Won't you believe me?"

She sat quite still, a long time, looking steadily at him with unseeing eyes.

"I shall have to go to that dreadful woman's apartment, be alone with her, make a secret bargain," she enumerated the various parts of her task, wonder and repugnance mingling in her voice. "That horrible woman! You say, yourself, Mr. Hastings, she's horrible."

"Still," he repeated, "you can do it."

A little while ago she had cried out, both hands clenched on the arm of the rustic bench, her eyes opening wide in the startled look he had come to know: "If I could do something, anything, for Berne! Dr. Welles said only an hour ago he had no more than an even chance for his life. Half the time he can't speak! And I'm responsible. I am! I know it. I try to think I'm not. But I am!"

He recurred to that.

"Dr. Welles said the ending of Mr. Webster's suspense would be the best medicine for him. And I think Webster would see that nobody but you could do this—in the very nature of things. The absolute secrecy required, the fact that you buy her silence, pay her to cease her accusations against Berne—don't you see? He'd want you to do it."

That finished her resistance. She made him repeat all his directions, precautions for secrecy.

"I wish I could tell you how important it is," he