OCR Text |
Show CLEAVER. . f COPYRIGHT DOUBLEDAY OORAN CO INC." " . ETT-T T---.r-rfTr;.' -v. :- .r,-. .-.r- ' W.USERVICEf fc'Ci- una 1 ti'iocTTo rurn-fuy- thoughts into different channels. There was Chad's suicide and his confession. It could be possible that ho had killed himself hecnuse he had loved Gaby. But that would not account ac-count for his confession to the crime. It could mean but one thin- a de sire to shield some one. Wuuld he have cared about shielding some unknown un-known scoundrel who had crept into the house and killed the girl whom Chad loved? Had Chad, then, mistakenly mistak-enly suspected Martha, or Sam, or John, and killed himself and left the note to aid one of them? Not likely. Men do not kill themselves, leaving a written confession to a crime of which they are innocent, because of some mere suspicion. I remembered my conversation with Hubert Hand In the ball that morning. morn-ing. What was it that he had thought I had overheard in the cabin and had bribed me not to tell? It was rea- , (ill my love of the work will return. i It Is only at first, when I seem to he in a maze of mystery, like this, that I get so discouraged. I always do it. right at first ; and I always think that here is the case of which I am going to make an absolute failure." "Have you ever failed on a case?" I asked. "Indeed I have, on several. It is queer, though; in each case that has been a failure, it has seemed that the solution was written plainly from the start. It was written all wrong. Judging from that, 1 should be unusually un-usually successful In this case." Poor girl, no wonder that she was discouraged. She has given me leave, now that it is all over, to use any of ' her notes that I care to use in the ! writing of this story. "Far he it from Lynn MacDonald." she said, when 1 asked her about using us-ing the notes, "to refuse advertisement advertise-ment of one of her banner cases. -My rivals will sav that L succeeded Ln this hpo,niM. as often happens, my luck stood hy me. Put you and I, we understand about luck, don't we, Mary?" CHAPTER XU Continued. ""My "word 1" said Miss MacDonald. "I think," I offered, "that some-; :Mng was all wrong with Martha's jenrt before she took the powder. She acted sleepy, stupid, nil after-son." after-son." "Yes. Now then " She was off ' gain, leading us with her questions, hrough Mra Kicker's confession and !;er suspicions of Martha. 1 "After Martha came Into the house 'iltb. the bracelet," she asked, "wns l.ie out of the room again within the j'.onrj or even within the second hour, between five and six?" "She was not out between four and live," I said. "We all stayed right in lie room. It was too hot to .move Ground. I know that Martha did not Uve the room. She sat beside Chad you, just now. 1 love housework, of sorts. And 1 Wiint to get intimately inti-mately acquainted with this house. 1 he b0st way t0 d0 that u n It, Isn't it?" Sam winked nt me. "She isn't going go-ing to let you out of her sight, Mary." Miss MacDonald tried to smile, but she made a failure of it. "But you don't need to worry, wary, Sam went on, "because one thing, now. Is dead certain. If Gab.v ' was murdered there on the steps, it s impossible that any member of this household could have done it. tt was anyway. But now it is sure. Thai clears us all." Miss MacDonald flashed out, in one of her rarely shown tempers. "What utter nonsense," she said. CHAPTER XIII sonable enough to suppose that, nt that time, he had hoped to keep bis entire story, bis prison records, his reason " for coming to the Desert Moon, his relations with Mrs. Bicker and Martha, a secret; just as I had hoped to keep the fact of finding Sam's pipe ashes a secret. Sam's pipe ashes, again. If someone some-one had put them there, in an effort to implicate Sam, it would have had to be someone who knew Sam's ways. My thoughts were off again. You can't, I told myself, get shed of a following shadow by running away from it. You have to turn and face it, before you can go the other way. I faced it. John. He had left the ranch at two o'clock. He could easily have gotten back by four, or shortly after. Suppose Sup-pose that he had left the machine down the road, quite ft"- down the road in the spot where the tire tracks "If you aren't afraid," 1 said, "that your notes may give away some of the secrets of that luck of yours, so that your rivals will be able to lay their hands on some of the same brand?" She laughed. "I never write down a secret. That is a safe enough rule for an honest person, who plans to remain re-main honest. For a dishonest person, or for one who contemplates any sort of evil, or admits the possibility of such a course, the safe rule would be: 'Never, under any circumstances, put pen or pencil to paper.' " As Sam would say, "It is a poor rule that won't work both ways." The notes that Miss MacDonald had made, before this conversation of ours, that day in the kitchen, and on the evening of that same day, July eleventh, elev-enth, are as follows: July 7. Saw body in crematory late ! tonight. Cause of death, strangulation. strangula-tion. Probably work of an expert. Look for Japanese on ranch. Broken fingers on right hand. Beautiful, costly gown, lingerie, etc., indicating wealth and good taste. July 8. Rose, my assistant, who has shadowed twin sister, reports nothing verging on suspicion. She attended services at crematory. Evidence of genuine grief. Returned to boteL One telegram sent to Desert Moon ranch. Received no company. Mailed no letters. let-ters. Did no shopping. I received telegram from Desert Moon ranch engaging me on case. Explicit Ex-plicit directions concerning train probably prob-ably due to inconvenience of meeting trains in rural community, and not due to a desire to have me on the same train with Miss O. However, note. Telephoned to coroner and undertaker, under-taker, requesting them to give me conference in Telko. Also, had coroner coro-ner verify list of names, as published in "Examiner" of all persons present on ranch at time of murder. Note absence of all ranch employees at the time. Note extreme reluctance of both coroner and undertaker to give Information, or to meet me in Telko. July 9. Spent day In shadowing Miss 0. myself. R's observations, as 'a the piano bench, for a while. She lit on the arm of Sam's chair, watch-;g watch-;g the chess game " "Hold on," Sam Interrupted. 'Tve ht two things to tell you that you :e overlooking, and 1 know that they J:e both mighty important." "What are they?" "The first one Is this. Gaby had ted here close to two months. Mar-a Mar-a had never harmed her. Does it and to reason that, on the very day :by was afraid she wns going to he i.'Jeil, Martha would do it? There's ;o much coincidence In that, isn't jiere?" j "I think so. Though we can not :er discount coincidence. What ap-ars ap-ars to be coincidence usually proves t to be coincidence at all, in the id. But, Mr. Stanley, unless the !:her thing you have to tell me is a ;ct, and not an opinion, I am going : ask you not to tell it to me, at least !t until later." "It is straight fact."-"Very fact."-"Very well, then?" "Martha was always trying experl-;nts experl-;nts with feeding her rabbits. I :ess she thought that they might ;e grain. Maybe they do. I don't low. Anyway, she, or someone, had ;ged a half sack of grain up there, lot of It bad spilled out under the try bushes It is all fresb sprouted, :i growing fine. There wasn't a spot :t there, except under those bushes, -pro Martha could have bidden the showed that the machine had been stopped and started again, the spot where we thought he had changed a tire? He . could have climbed the fence, taken a short cut to the house, and gotten here in half or three quarters quar-ters of an hour. He could have met Gaby; could have stolen into the house with her. He could have killed her, and stolen out of the house again. A short cut across the fields, and a drive to the house would get him here by six o'clock the time he did get here. If he could be wicked enough to murder, he could be wicked enough to arrange clews to throw suspicions on his father and his sister. sis-ter. If he were low enough to do that, he would be low enough to rob her of a little money. In other words, grant that John is a blonde, and you can go along and grant that he has blue eyes and tow hair. It was all of it false, I told myself, from its wicked beginning to its wicked end; false and unfair. But I had faced it. Now I could turn and go in another an-other direction. I had not realized how deeply I had been thinking, dawdling over my work In consequence, until I saw that Miss MacDonald had taken up the pork chops, and bad them in the New Clews. When it came to helping in the kitchen, that girl was more help in five minutes fhau Belie, Sadie and Coldie, all three of them together had been in half a day. She didn't ask questions. She didn't say where is this, and how do you do that? She pitched iD as if she had been working work-ing In that kitchen with me for the past twenty years. How she knew where I kept the potatoes, where the best paring knife lived, and the particular par-ticular kettle that was best for cooking cook-ing the potatoes in, I don't know, and I never shall know. Most mystery stories, especially of late, have an element ele-ment of the supernatural in them. 1 tell you, that gUTi knowledge of my ways, anc the manner In which she took hold In the kitchen, are as supernatural su-pernatural as anything ever brought to my notice. The first thing I knew, she was peeling the potatoes, and peeling them thin and clean. She didn't ask how many would be enough. When she got them peeled and washed, she put them on, In boiling water, with no inquiry as to where I kept the salt. She did not talk as she worked. I ,-7as glad of that ; for, after three solid hours of conversation, conversa-tion, 1 needed, badly, a silent space. I wanted to think. Those last words of hers, "utter nonsense," In answer to Sam's statement, kept ringing ln my ears. -w 1 "Nay" I tried to think whether there was any way a person could get upstairs without coming through the house. We had no fire escapes. There were no trees close enough to the house that anyone could swing to an upstairs window from one of them. There were no vines growing on the house. Without about a twenty foot ladder, which we didn't have on the place, and which would be hard to go conveying con-veying about, to say nothing of disposing dis-posing of it afterward, there was not any possible way for anyone to get to the second floor of our house, except ex-cept by means of the back or the front stairway. Since Gaby had been killed on the attic stairway, and since all who knew about that sort of thing agreed that she had been dead at least two hours when we found her, she must have returned to the house sometime between be-tween four and five o'clock, and hav stolen upstairs with none of us seeing see-ing her. Since she could do that there was no reason to suppose thai usual, excellent. Rose's research through back files of Nevada papers provided following information : Samuel Stanley, ranch owner. Very wealthy. Exemplary character. High standing throughout state of Nevada. Philanthropic. John Stanley, adopted son of S. Stanley. Distingished himself on University of Nevada football team, 191G, 1917. Enlisted In air service for war, 1917. Mather's Field when armistice was declared. Hubert Hand. Winner of chess tournament held ln Reno, 1914, 1915. Mrs. OUie Ricker. No report Chadwick Caufield. No report, except ex-cept mention as guest at Desert Moon ranjh. Mary. Magin. No report. Danielle Cannezinno. No report, except mention of her arrival with sister, Gabrielle, at ranch last May. Inspection of Miss C.'s room in hotel after she had turned in her key revealed no clew. Unusually neat and orderly person. Wastebaskets empty. "Good Lands!" 1 Said, "I've Certainly Come to One Conclusion." iy. A body, even as small as by's, would have smashed down and 'ken those fresh sprouts of grain." 'Cut the body was never there. Is possible that you don't know that brielle Canneziano was murdered :ht there on the stairs, where she 1, and where she was found?" ' How in blazes could I know It?" a said. My word! Weren't you present v en the body was moved?" -Xo. I well, I didn't care about The fingers of her right hand were .tching the stair tread with the p of death. Nothing can disprove X Dead fingers cannot be made clutch." How to you know that?" Sam de-3ded. de-3ded. "About her fingers, I mean." When I saw the body in the crema-7 crema-7 in San Francisco " What I" 1 always do that, when I can. Be-'i Be-'i 1 sent you my telegram. I had ? to see the body." Pid does Danny know that?" So. It might be better not to tell It is a necessary part of my pro-nn. pro-nn. The crematory people realize ; but, since people are often very itive about it, they prefer that the Ives should not know that they It. As I was saying, I saw, that the fingers on the right i had been broken. The under-' under-' had done that, you understand, per that they might look natural Kid. ' 'hen I had received your tele-: tele-: engaging me to take the case, ( ephnned to the coroner and the rtnker in Telko. They corrob-1 corrob-1 the opinion I had formed, from ! fingers, about the death clutch, "g other things. Those proved she had been killed on tbe stairs, someone who had been coming ptairs behind her. How did It that you did not know this?" : soon as I realized what had d," Sam explained, "I cleared ihndy right out and locked the j I knew that it was necessary jiie coroner to examine the body i'e It had been disturbed." j ,lw very, very sensible," Miss Kmald said. But 1 did not quite 'the way she said it. b'ked at my watch and said that s time for me to be starting to -nner. She " asked if she might ,-rr me. I thought that she was try- jX be polite, and 1 was making fusal just as polite, when she in-jt'ted in-jt'ted me. pse, Mrs. Magin," she urged, pei'.iioned at breakfast that you j one inefficient girl to help v- there was no reason to suppose tnat someone else could not have done the same thing; either coming In with her at the time, or coming before or after she did. I had to conclude that another an-other person certainly had done just that; had entered the house and had gone upstairs during that hour. Whol Tbe person whom she bnd been fearing? fear-ing? Not one of us, that seemed a certainty. And yet, Miss MacDonald had said, "nonsense." i I remembe ed, again, her strange, mad actions Immediately after she had received the code letter. I remembered re-membered how she had looked ln the hall that day, when 1 had told John that I thought I had seen the ghost of Sin In Gaby's note to Danny she had written that she had purposely kept her fears and her danger a secret se-cret from Danny. Undoubtedly, the secret was written In the code letter. 1 Had she told Danny partly the truth ' about the contents of that letter, or bad she told her falsehoods from beginning be-ginning to end? Or had Danny old us only Vt of the truth? U by dfd we all keep forgetting how Danny I ad tried to call Gaby back when ! Gaby had started on that fatal walk? ! I have said before, and I say again I I knew that Danielle Canneziano had ' not murdered her sister. But I knew, t0o that it she had some reason, ome better reason than I could conceive con-ceive for keeping qtnet, for not tell-everything tell-everything she knew, Danny was emablc of so doing. I remombe.ed our talk in her room on the mortun, of the fifth of July. I rememorcd how she hnd acted when her engage- Newspapers folded on table. Magazine, Maga-zine, "Ladies Home Journal" on table. No heavy perfume. Hotel soap unwrapped. un-wrapped. Fastidious. Silver dollar left on table for chambermaid. Rose reports: Miss C. went from hotel to Ferry bi:ii ling In taxlcab. Crossed alone on ferry. Spoke to no one. Boarded tiain at eight thirty o'clock and went at once to her berth. July 10. Afternoon. Breakfasted with Miss C. this morning. No conversation. con-versation. All the evidences of good breeding. Dad conference with coroner and undertaker. Think that they strongly suspect John Stanley because of their repeated efforts to keep me from sharing the suspicion. Information gained from them: Girl murdered on attic stairway. Position of body and marks on throat prove an attack from the rear. Members of household declare that rigor was complete when body was discovered at eight o'clock the night of the fourth of July. Amateur testimony, however. how-ever. If fact, death must have occurred oc-curred nt least three hours before discovery of body. July 10. Ni-'kt Ai!"wcd r'j'Mi'i) "h:m:U" to h'trny roason ar.-l common S'-rsee. C.-nM s::!r m!s;;:!:e at h'-vinnlns of case Si t a irr.p to calch l;:r.vk. Cot cnu-!,t 'myself. Luckily, r.o harm i T.e. iet men. hers of household. First impressions, before hearing hi.-tory of case other than gnitifJ from ncv.3-pPn.,. ncv.3-pPn.,. v;ror.erjna undertaker: " ' (To Be ContinneHl) warming-oven, and was making gravy, as smooth and tasty looking pan-gravy as I ever saw. "Good lands I" I said. "I've certainly cer-tainly come to one conclusion." "It Is a little early for conclusions, isn't it?" she asked. "It is a lot too late for this one." "Please" she began; but, for once, I got the best of her. "My conclusion is," I said, "that, by "hook or crook, Sam Stanley has got to get me some efficient help in this house. When I think of what I've put up with, all these years ln the way of help, and then see the wny you pitch in, it makes me mad aU"Iv'ish," she said, "that I might drop this case, right now, and stay here for all time, and be your assistant assis-tant and a thoroughly domestic person per-son end forcet that there were crimes and criminals in the world." "Mavbe," I said, eagerly, hut know-ing know-ing r" course that it was too good io como true, "when you've flntshed with this case, yon could do u You'd be one of our family, and bau would pay-well, 1 gas anwhmg you'd cars to ask." .. "No" "he smiled, "it is to...,'"i.-now. to...,'"i.-now. 'rut that desire of .e to ptve p my profession is a l'h-e t : always pass thro,:," . le ;;"; of each difficult .. m " r -' -: and HMlil-- |