went far to disturb that gentleman’s equilibrium.
“It was then—it was then, a breach of promise?” he said, half involuntarily.
“It was,—yes. But of course I never sued him, or in any way asserted my rights. He was sufficiently punished by his unhappy marriage. His wife has always been jealous of me. She has endeavored many times to have me dismissed from my position, but with no success. However,” and here Mrs. Carstairs turned her direct gaze upon Anne, “since the death of her husband, Mrs. Van Wyck has asserted her intention of getting rid of me! I accuse no one. I only state that there are several who would consider themselves benefited by the death of David Van Wyck.”
The quiet intensity of the speaker’s voice took away the melodramatic effect of the scene, and made her seem like an accusing angel speaking words of Fate.
There was a pause which was broken by Detective Markham, who burst out, with something the effect of a bomb-shell: “And your son is one of them!”
At last something had disturbed Mrs. Carstairs’s calm. She turned white to the very lips, and she trembled as if mortally afraid. But she made a brave effort to control herself, and said, distinctly, though in tones that quivered, “My son is in no way implicated!”
“Then what were you searching in the road for, early this morning?”
“I was not searching—” began Mrs. Carstairs, and then, as she saw me looking intently at her, she stopped speaking.
“You were,” declared the detective; “there’s no use your denying it! And later on, your son was seen searching in the same place. What clue was he looking for?”
Mrs. Carstairs could not speak. Her lips moved inaudibly, but she was striving to pull herself together and would doubtless have succeeded, when, breaking the silence, the voice of Beth Fordyce was heard.
It sounded weird, and the audience listened breathlessly as Beth said, in dreamy, far-away tones, “Wheel tracks! He was looking for wheel tracks! He was the man who came in the motor car! I recognize him now,—it was Carstairs, Mr. Van Wyck’s valet, who came into the grounds, at midnight, in a motor car. Who stopped—and hesitated —and proceeded at intervals—who left the car, and walked stealthily around the house in the shadow of the eaves—evading the moonlight—seeking the shadow—the shadow—”
Miss Fordyce’s voice trailed away in a whisper, and I knew that she was in one of the semi-trances, or whatever word might express the strange condition that sometimes enveloped her. She was perfectly conscious, but her mentality seemed dual. She envisioned other scenes than those she might be among, and while she saw them clearly she spoke as if through a mist.
The audience sat enthralled. Here at last was a hint of something real and tangible! Wheel tracks were legitimate clues! If Miss Fordyce’s story were true, there was at last a way to look for light on the mystery!
I glanced at Mrs. Carstairs, expecting to find her almost collapsed; but instead, she had again risen to the occasion and resumed her grasp of the situation. I saw, too, that it was the alarm of her mother instinct, that had nerved her to a renewed effort at composure, and she said quietly, “There is no meaning to the babble of a mind given to frequent hallucinations!”
But apparently the coroner thought there was, for he abruptly dismissed Mrs. Carstairs as a witness, and recalled her son.
The valet looked wretched, but seemed ready to answer questions.
“Did you come into this place in a motor last night at midnight?” the coroner shot at him.
“No, sir,” and the answer was firm, though in a low tone.
“You have testified that you were at a ball in the village.”
“Yes, sir, but I walked home. It—it isn’t far, sir.”
“Can you prove that you were at this village ball? Did any of the servants of this house see you there?”
“N-no, sir.”
“How does that happen?” snapped the coroner; “were none of them present at the ball?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“What do you mean? Look here, Carstairs, you weren’t at that ball at all! Where were you? Were you out in a motor?”
“No, sir; oh, no, sir!” The man’s denial was so emphatic and his manner so agitated, that it was palpably a falsehood on the face of it.
“I think you were,” the coroner went on, “and as I doubt your word, I will ask some one else.”
Then the coroner called for Ranney, the garage mechanician.
This witness doggedly persisted that he knew nothing of Carstairs’s whereabouts the night before. But persistent nagging by the coroner finally drew out the fact that the new touring car had been taken out.
“How do you know it had?” asked the coroner, and Ranney seemed suddenly to decide that he would make a clean breast of the matter.
“I seen the wheel tracks, sir,” he said.
“How did you know them from any other tracks?”
“It’s a new car, sir, and it has peculiar tires. You can’t mistake the tracks, sir.”
I saw it all in a flash. Carstairs had taken the car out for a ‘joy ride,’ and in order to escape discovery, he had endeavored to obliterate these peculiar tire marks from the dust of the road. And without a doubt, his mother had been engaged in the same work of precaution.
The detective also jumped to these conclusions, and after a few of his questions, in conjunction with the coroner’s inquiries, they forced a confession from the valet.
Carstairs’s manner became sullen as he owned up to his wrongdoing. It seemed that the use of a motor car by any of the servants was a most grave offense in the eyes of David Van Wyck. And especially, to take out the big new touring car was a daring thing to do!
Seeing that the valet was not making a good story of it, his mother cleverly managed the coroner so that she told the story instead. As Ranney had divulged the secret, she admitted that her son had taken out the car the night before. She said that it was wrong, and that she did not excuse him for it; but that since David Van Wyck was no longer here to reprove or punish him, no one else had the right to do so, and that the offense was a thing of the past, and should be forgotten. She admitted that she had heard her son return in the car, and that she was so worried about his wrong deed that she had tried to eliminate any possible proof against him in the matter of the wheel tracks. But, she concluded, this had no bearing on the crime of the night before, as her son had returned about eleven o’clock and had put the car away and had then retired. She overreached herself here, because the valet had previously testified that he came home about midnight, and both Miss Fordyce and Ranney agreed that the big car had arrived at about twelve o’clock.
But when this was put to her, Mrs. Carstairs became excited again, and insisted that the hour of her son’s return was of no consequence, as he had not gone to the study at all and knew nothing of the occurrences there.
“You have no right to suspect him!” she blazed out, finally; “it is wicked for you to do so!”
“We have not said we suspected him, madam,” said the coroner, gravely, “but if we do suspect him, or even feel inclined to investigate his story, it is because he has not been frank in the whole matter, and neither have you. And now I wish to ask you further, did your son know that in the will of Mr. Van Wyck, five thousand dollars was bequeathed to him, and twenty-five thousand to yourself?”
Mrs. Carstairs hesitated.
“It would be wiser for you to tell the truth,” prompted the coroner, “as you know a lack of frankness has not served you well so far. Now answer my questions truly.”
“Yes, we have both known of these facts for some years.”
“That