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Show VSs-J;, ISABEL WAIT -4 THE STORY SO FAR: Judy Jason, who Is telling the story, receives an anonymous letter enclosing $800 and asking ask-ing her to bid for an abandoned church to be auctioned the next day. After the auction the body of a man Identified as Roddy Lane is found in a chest in the basement of the church, but disappears a few hours later. To make matters worse, the telephone wires have been cut and the bridge to the mainland blown up. Victor Quade finds a golf club near the chest. The fish shed burns, apparently killing an old man named Brown who is supposed to have lived there, and Uncle Wylie's pipe is found near the demolished de-molished shed. Now continue with Judy's' story. CHAPTER VII Potter offered to drive as many as could crowd into his car down to the wrecked bridge, and the rest of us started for the inn. Victor whispered whis-pered to me to search the absentees' absen-tees' rooms for that square diamond. "Too valuable to be left. Quincy says." I felt glad he trusted me to do it. I got a look into nearly every room not thorough, of course, but a glance in the most likely places. Uncle Wylie bumped into me on the stairs. "Seen my pipe, Judy?" He fished futilely from pocket to pocket, and then went on down to the kitchen to hunt. I followed him down to the kitchen. kitch-en. Aunt Nella began hissing at him right before Lily Kendall, who'd gone out to talk with auntie because she didn't want to be alone. Uncle Wylie went down to the ruins of the old shed. He was lifting the shawl when I called to him not to touch anything. Then he just walked around, eyes on the ground, hunt ing for the pipe Victor had in his pocket. I hadn't told him about it, because I didn't want to alarm him too much with implications; he'd know soon enough. But now I started start-ed after him, only to see the car coming back. They'd tossed a coin to see who'd be left behind. Albion Potter was chosen, but he seemed so reluctant to stay alone that the preacher volunteered. vol-unteered. As to the bridge itself, it just wasn't any more, that's all. The old wooden planks had been blown to splinters and washed away by the swirling waters below. You see, it had to be a time bomb, Victor had explained; or else have one of the cars stop and someone some-one get out and set off the dynamite dyna-mite fuse, or whatever was used. And the cars didn't stop. No one got out. "But why couldn't someone from Rockville have blown up the bridge right after we crossed?" somebody asked. (I was told about this afterward.) after-ward.) That, of course, was possible on account of the darkness. Or it might have been one of those at home on the Head that evening Hugh or Mr. Quincy or Victor Quade or Lily or Aunt Ella or I. I felt I could eliminate my aunt, Mr. Q., Victor Quade and myself. After all, I was only sure of myself! The general concensus was that either Mr. Brown had blown the bridge after killing Roddy, or vice versa. Only after the identification of that charred, grisly corpse could one be sure. Victor said: "Let's try to help one another. Shall we sit on the porch? Judy, go get your uncle." So I called Uncle Wylie, who came slowly back, looking rather sheepish sheep-ish before his guests, sitting in the hammock, the porch rockers, and even on the steps. Up panted the minister. Had he, too, gotten cold feet? Said he'd get his field glasses and could see anyone approaching, from the inn piazza. We were still at a standstill. Although so early in the morning, morn-ing, the air was warm. A land breeze had sprung up, which was rapidly dispersing the fog. At Victor's request I got Aunt Nella to join us. "You'll only get clam chowder for lunch," she scolded, untying her blue checkered apron and taking the chair Hugh Norcross brought her. "Go ahead with the third degree. Only I didn't set the fire and neither nei-ther did Wy my husband. Here's his pipe." Bless her! as Victor would say. She held up an old corncob corn-cob I'd never seen my uncle smoke in my life. Wylie Gerry flushed. "That's not the one, my dear. Mine is a little briar. Had it in my pocket when I went to town. Smoked it all the evening down to the plumbin' shop with the boys until" he contemplated contem-plated his shoes a minute and then looked Quade squarely in the eye. "Wait a minute," Victor Quade interrupted, in-terrupted, reaching into his pocket "Is this your pipe, Mr. Gerry?" Uncle Wylie reached for the dirty old thing, then he beamed all over. "Why, yes. Yes, that's it." He stuck it comfortably between his teeth. "Where'd you find it? I've hunted everywhere." "Down by the fish shed, during the fire. Certain it's yours?" "Sartin I'm sartin. However it got there." Aunt Nella gasped and began to bristle all over, but before she could say anything the minister cried: "There! What more do you want? Gerry lay on the bench and his pipe rolled out of his hand and started start-ed the fire." "But he wasn't smoking," Albion protested. "I ought to know; he was in my car. You ought to know, too, De Witt. You saw him sitting in the car when we rushed into the inn, excited about the explosion." "If the pipe set the fire, why didn't it get burned?" I asked. "The bench was burned to cinders." "How could the pipe have set the fire?" Hugh Norcross cut in. "No pipe stays lit that long. Besides, while we were all down tlrere I dropped my cigarette case. Had to light a match to find it. Looked all around that bench and didn't see any pipe." Victor was looking at him coolly. "So you lit a match?" "What of it?" "Nothing. Only you told us you were over by the Lane castle right after dark when Judy and Mr. Quincy spoke to you. Didn't take another stroll in the same direction and light another match later, did you?" Hugh nearly fell off the railing. "Say, what is this? You've got a nerve insinuating a thing like that in front of all these people. I had a score to settle with Lane, I'll admit, but not the way things have been turning up around here. I'm not a killer. Nor an incendiary." Bessie got up and linked her arm in his. "I'll just tell you this much, those of you who don't know. Rodney Lane and I were engaged -five years ago. We we broke it off. Hugh thought he treated me rather shabbily, shab-bily, but there was nothing more to it. Roddy didn't even appear to know me the other night, and I certainly cer-tainly thanked my stars he hadn't married me. What I'd like found out is who snitched Hugh's blue silk Bllfll B ft!. ti "Down by the fish shed during the fire." scarf from my bureau and Mr. Potter's Pot-ter's turpentine. I think we've got a maniac, a kleptomaniac and what do you call 'em pyromaniac." For a moment we all sat trying not to look at poor Bessie Norcross, giving us the lowdown on her unhappy un-happy past. I felt awfuDy sorry for her. Pretty tough to go to a place where romance has touched your heart and then come back with it broken to see if it hurts any more. "Thank you, Miss Norcross. That's what I mean," Victor said, talking rapidly to give the girl a chance to control herself. "By admitting that affair to us being frank and open about it you've helped us to understand under-stand some otherwise ambiguous remarks. re-marks. The police may not even have to know about it." "The police!"! Bessie stood twisting twist-ing her handkerchief to knots. She looked as if she'd have another breakdown any minute. Tall, dark, angular, too thin, she had none of her brother's good looks. Hugh turned to her. "What Quade means is that, if we all come clean, this murder will OUT. - Evidently he 'thinks it's one of us. Just as some of us think it mighty funny HE should turn up when he did." Victor looked at me. "Guess I'D have to tell them, Judy." "It might be better, Mr. Quade." Victor came around where he could see us alL "I'm not too flattered flat-tered none of you recognizes me,", he said. "Anyone ever read 'Blood on the Necklace'?" Lily Kendall's opal beads scattered on the porch. "I have. Gee, it was swell! Why, you ain't ? Now don't tell me!" "Or 'Window Ledge' or 'Ghost in the Chasm'?" Victor rattled on.' "I've heard of them," Bessie said. "And I've read 'em all, Mr. Vi-dor Vi-dor Quinn," Mr. De Witt spoke up. "Mighty good reading. A fellow loaned them to me in Once." State's Prison, did he mean? His face was purple. Would he explain? I wondered, but he didn't. There was an uncomfortable shuffling till Victor went on suavely: "You're right. I'm Vidor Quinn, but my real name is Quade. Victor Quade. The other's just a pseudonym. pseudo-nym. And I am recovering from an attack of rheumatic fever. Therefore There-fore the trailer and the rest by the sea. You can verify that much, later. lat-er. Chose to come on my own name for a little seclusion so I could do another book. Well, you've given me the book." "You mean you're goin' to put us all in a book? How thrillin'I" Lily squealed. "I don't know. If I do it would be nothing personal nothing you'd not wish that your friends might identify you by. A writer can change a story so you wouldn't recognize rec-ognize it as ever having happened to you. But that's not here nor there. Being Vidor Quinn doesn't give me an alibi." "I'll say it doesn't," Quincy shot at him. "However," Victor ignored the interruption, in-terruption, "it does place me give the rest of you something to go on." "How do we know you didn't cook up the whole thing? Get even with Lane and hide behind your vocation?" voca-tion?" I was ashamed for Mr. Quincy. Quin-cy. Victor only smiled and showed his fine white teeth at me. "Miss Jason hinted something or other of the kind " "I did not," I stammered. "I never nev-er really thought " "In your eyes, my dear. I told her, as I'll tell you, that when I plan a murder I won't park my trailer trail-er on the spot and leave my car to get away in down in the Rockville garage. I'd just like to say this, as a manufacturer of mystery stories sto-ries there are certain aspects of this one which are only too apparent. appar-ent. Used them myself in fiction. Now, do you wish me, or shall someone some-one else, act as spokesman so we can clear up some of the muck? Believe me, the police will run the gamut of all your our lives." There was a unanimous decision that he should go ahead. Even Mr. Quincy appeared to have less animosity. ani-mosity. He banged the rail with his cane. "I've been hoping, Mr. Quade, if we let you talk you'd give yourself away. Now you've done it, and there's a chance you're O. K. What do you want to know? I'll spill the beans after you show us a few credentials. cre-dentials. Can you do it?" "I don't know," Victor said, fishing fish-ing in his pocket. He pulled out a billfold, but stuffed it back again. "Guess you've got me. Thought I had a statement from my publisher, but I must have left it at home when I dumped the rest of my pockets. pock-ets. That's a good one. You'll have to take me on faith, mingled with doubt, of course unless it's in another an-other pocket in the trailer. Shall we go see?" He shrugged. "Personally I can think of a dozen more important im-portant " "Well, I can't. You come to the Head and hell busts loose. Give Judy and Norcross the keys to your trailer and let 'em look. Only take a jiff." Mr. Quincy tapped the end of each sentence with a cane. All we needed was direction. No-sooner-said-than-done stuff, to relieve re-lieve the tension. The two of us ran up the pasture to the lovely new trailer. I'd never been inside one before. Compact? Why, it had everything. ev-erything. Everything but the pub-"lisher's pub-"lisher's letter. We locked it up again and hurried to report "No letter," Norcross said. "Puts you on the same spot with me, Mr. Quade." "Except that he did have a typewriter. type-writer. And and there was a sheet of paper in it," I said. Hugh Norcross said accusingly: "Go on. Miss Jason. Tell what he'd written." "It said it said there was just a title in capitals." "Yes. And the title was 'Murder 'Mur-der on the Bluff!' " Hugh finished for me. "Now was that a coincidence coinci-dence or was that a coincidence?" Thaddeus Quincy thumped furiously. furi-ously. "Either he's the maniac or it lets him out and he is Vidor Quinn. Mystery story, don't you see? I move we let it lie and go on. Mr. Quade will have to stick around where we can keep an eye on him, anyway. What were the dozen more important things you spoke of a moment or two ago?" Albion Potter leaned forward, wide-eyed. "May I say something?" He seemed awfully self-conscious, speaking up before us all. "It's about you'll think me foolish, at a time like this, perhaps but but don't forget, he took my turpentine. If I'd only discovered it before I went to town I could have bought some more." I saw Victor give him a half glance, then turn his attention to Bessie Norcross. "The fire does make that missing turpentine seem more portentous. You you didn't try to clean that spot off your white coat with a little of Mr. Potter's turpentine, did you, Miss Norcross?" Nor-cross?" "What spot?" Bessie twirled around to look where we were all looking. There, sure enough, was a big, black, greasy-looking smudge, fading away into yellowish rings. "Good grief! Hov did I get that on there?" She pulled at the offending skirt and murmured regretfully: "My new white coat!" Hugh stared fixedly at the spot. "That's my doings," he said. "Sorry. "Sor-ry. 'Fraid I made it worse, Bess." (TO BE CONTINUED) |
