Read Ebook: No Clue!: A Mystery Story by Hay James

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Ebook has 873 lines and 28860 words, and 18 pages

ved her head forward, to study him more closely. "You know he's guilty, don't you?"

"I'm certain Mrs. Brace figured in her daughter's murder," he said. "She was concerned in it somehow. If that's true, and if your father approached neither her nor her daughter yesterday, it does seem highly possible that Russell's guilty."

He turned from her and stood at the window, his back to her a few long moments. When he faced her again, he looked old.

"But the facts--if we could only break down Russell's alibi!"

"Oh!" she whispered, in new alarm. "I'd forgotten that!"

All the tenseness went out of her limbs. She sank into her chair, and sat there, looking up to him, her eyes frankly confessing a panic fear.

"I think I'm sorry I told you," she said, desperately. "I can't make you understand!" Another consideration forced itself upon her. "You won't have to tell anybody--anybody at all--about this, will you--now?"

He was prepared for that.

"I'll have to ask Judge Wilton why he acted on Mr. Webster's advice--and what that advice was, what they whispered to each other when you saw them."

"Why, that's perfectly fair," she assented, relieved. "That will stop all the secrecy between them and me. It's the very thing I want. If that's assured, everything else will work itself out."

Her faith surprised him. He had not realized how unqualified it was.

"Did you ask the judge about it?" he inquired.

"Yes; just before I came in here--after Berne's collapse. I felt so helpless! But he tried to persuade me my imagination had deceived me; he said they had had no such scene. You know how gruff and hard Judge Wilton can be at times. I shouldn't choose him for a confidant."

"No; I reckon not. But we'll ask him now--if you don't mind."

Willis, the butler, answered the bell, and gave information: Judge Wilton had left Sloanehurst half an hour ago and had gone to the Randalls'. He had asked for Miss Sloane, but, learning that she was engaged, had left his regrets, saying he would come in tomorrow, after the adjournment of court.

"He's on the bench tomorrow at the county-seat," Lucille explained the message. "He always divides his time between us and the Randalls when he comes down from Fairfax for his court terms. He told me this morning he'd come back to us later in the week."

"On second thought," Hastings said, "that's better. I'll talk to him alone tomorrow--about this thing, this inexplicable thing: a judge taking it upon himself to deceive the sheriff even! But," he softened the sternness of his tone, "he must have a reason, a better one than I can think of now." He smiled. "And I'll report to you, when he's told me."

"I'm glad it's tomorrow," she said wearily. "I--I'm tired out."

On his way back to Washington, the old man reflected: "Now, she'll persuade Sloane to do the sensible thing--talk." Then, to bolster that hope, he added a stern truth: "He's got to. He can't gag himself with a pretended illness forever!"

At the same time the girl he had left in the music room wept again, saying over and over to herself, in a despair of doubt: "Not that! Not that! I couldn't tell him that. I told him enough. I know I did. He wouldn't have understood!"

HENDRICKS REPORTS

In his book-lined, "loosely furnished" apartment Sunday afternoon Hastings whittled prodigiously, staring frequently at the flap of the grey envelope with the intensity of a crystal-gazer. Once or twice he pronounced aloud possible meanings of the symbols imprinted on the scrap of paper.

The belief grew in him that out of those pieces of words would come solution of his problem. The idea was born of his remarkable instinct. Its positiveness partook of superstition--almost. He could not shake it off. Once he chuckled, appreciating the apparent absurdity of trying to guess the criminal meaning, the criminal intent, back of that writing. But he kept to his conjecturing.

He had many interruptions. Newspaper reporters, instantly impressed by the dramatic possibilities, the inherent sensationalism, of the murder, flocked to him. Referred to him by the people at Sloanehurst, they asked for not only his narration of what had occurred but also for his opinion as to the probability of running down the guilty man.

He would make no predictions, he told them, confining himself to a simple statement of facts. When one young sleuth suggested that both Sloane and Webster feared arrest on the charge of murder and had relied on his reputation to prevent prompt action against them by the sheriff, the old man laughed. He knew the futility of trying to prevent publication of intimations of that sort.

But he took advantage of the opportunity to put a different interpretation on his employment by the Sloanes.

"Seems to me," he contributed, "it's more logical to say that their calling in a detective goes a long way to show their innocence of all connection with the crime. They wouldn't pay out real money to have themselves hunted, if they were guilty, would they?"

Afterwards, he was glad he had emphasized this point. In the light of subsequent events, it looked like actual foresight of Mrs. Brace's tactics.

Soon after five Hendricks came in, to report. He was a young man, stockily built, with eyes that were always on the verge of laughter and lips that sloped inward as if biting down on the threatened mirth. The shape of his lips was symbolical of his habit of discourse; he was of few words.

"Webster," he said, standing across the table from his employer and shooting out his words like a memorized speech, "been overplaying his hand financially. That's the rumour; nothing tangible yet. Gone into real estate and building projects; associated with a crowd that has the name of operating on a shoestring. Nobody'd be surprised if they all blew up."

"As a real-estate man, I take it," Hastings commented, slowly shaving off thin slivers of chips from his piece of pine, "he's a brilliant young lawyer. That's it?"

"Yes, sir," Hendricks agreed, the slope of his lips accentuated.

"Keep after that, tomorrow.--What about Mrs. Brace?"

"Destitute, practically; in debt; threatened with eviction; no resources."

"So money, lack of it, is bothering her as well as Webster!--How much is she in debt?"

"Enough to be denied all credit by the stores; between five and seven hundred, I should say. That's about the top mark for that class of trade."

"All right, Hendricks; thanks," the old man commended warmly. "That's great work, for Sunday.--Now, Russell's room?"

"Yes, sir; I went over it."

"Find any steel on the floor?"

Hendricks took from his pocket a little paper parcel about the size of a man's thumb.

"Not sure, sir. Here's what I got."

He unfolded the paper and put it down on the table, displaying a small mass of what looked like dust and lint.

"Wonderful what a magnet will pick up, ain't it?" mused his employer: "I got the same sort of stuff at Sloanehurst this morning.--I'll go over this, look for the steel particles, right away."

"Anything else, sir--special?"

The assistant was already half-way to the door. He knew that a floor an inch deep in chips from his employer's whittling indicated laborious mental gropings by the old man. It was no time for superfluous words.

"After dinner," Hastings instructed, "relieve Gore--at the Walman. Thanks."

As Hendricks went out, there was another telephone call, this time from Crown, to make amends for coolness he had shown Hastings at Sloanehurst.

"I was wrong, and you were right," he conceded, handsomely; "I mean about that Brace woman. Better keep your man on her trail."

"What's up?" Hastings asked amicably.

"That's what I want to know! I've seen her again. I couldn't get anything more from her except threats. She's going on the warpath. She told me: 'Tomorrow I'll look into things for myself. I'll not sit here idle and leave everything to a sheriff who wants campaign contributions and a detective who's paid to hush things up!' You can see her saying that, can't you? Wow!"

"That all?"

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