fragment of bone is a good long way from the body of a specific murdered woman.” He smiled at my disappointed face, and then said somberly, “Not that I’ve any doubt what we’ll prove. And I’ve no doubt, none at all, that Silas is a leading member of our conspiracy.”
I thought for a moment his aggravating caution—that caution of the policeman who fears to tip his hand—would bring the conversation to a close. He surprised me by saying abruptly, “I’ll tell you one thing I do think—one thing I believe is safe to think. Do you remember that glass I picked up on the lawn after the attack on your husband? The glass from the broken cellar window?”
“Very well indeed. I’ve always wondered why you took it.”
“I took it to remind myself I’d found it underneath the window on the lawn. You’re a smart girl, Mrs. Storm. Doesn’t that tell you anything?”
“I’m afraid it doesn’t.”
“That glass told me,” said Standish, “that the window was broken from inside the cottage. Not from outside, as you imagined. Which is an important difference.”
“Important,” Harkway now said quietly, “because the broken window was only a blind. The black-faced man in the closet didn’t need to break a window to enter the cottage. He had keys. He was Silas Elkins.”
“That annoying alibi,” said Standish, “expired at nine o’clock. You didn’t encounter your ‘burglar’ until very late that night. So, you see, it fits.”
The two policemen seemed equally triumphant. Out of a welter of impalpabilities, suspicion and conjecture they had arrived at something tangible. Jack and I exchanged a glance. I almost hated to speak, but I finally said:
“The black-faced man wasn’t Silas. It isn’t possible.”
They stared at me.
I repeated, “It simply isn’t possible. It wasn’t more than a couple of minutes after I saw Jack run into the woods before I was talking to Silas on the phone. Silas couldn’t have got to the Lodge from the woods, in that length of time, with wings.”
“Mrs. Storm,” said Standish with real dismay, “can’t you be mistaken in your time? You were under a strain, you…”
I shook my head. “I thought Jack was being killed, and I moved fast. I fairly shot into the house—and when I telephoned I reached Silas very quickly. The woods must be a full mile from the Lodge.”
“There,” said Standish, wryly, “goes an idea I’ve had for days! Everything seemed to fit so nicely. That, Mrs. Storm, is what happens when a cop who ought to know better decides to leap in the dark.”
He pushed back his napkin and rose disgustedly from the table. After I cleared away the supper things, refusing masculine assistance, we returned to the police station, prepared to await Dr. Rand’s report. But the physician had preceded us there and was seated in the ante-room. With him was a breezy individual whom he introduced as Dr. Harvey Griggstaff, a New Haven osteologist.
“In view of my report,” said Dr. Rand to Standish, “I thought you would like a second opinion. Dr. Griggstaff, at my request, has made an independent analysis.”
Standish didn’t notice the curious tone. “Nonsense. Your opinion is good enough for me.” He opened the door to his private office. We all trooped in. The police chief turned around. “Well, let’s hear that report on the bone.”
Dr. Rand was silent.
“Go on,” said Standish irritably. “Let’s have that report. I realize the fragment was comparatively small. We don’t expect too much. But could you determine the sex?”
“We determined,” said the doctor very slowly, “the origin of the bone.” Again he hesitated. “I’m afraid this is going to be a shock. John, that bone is not of human origin. It’s a fragment broken from the femur of a good-sized dog. There’s no question of it.”
“None at all,” said Dr. Harvey Griggstaff.
There was, in the room, a breathless, unbelieving silence. The events which had taken place in the rock garden, mysterious enough before, became incomprehensible.
Why had the unknown acted with such swift and reckless violence to prevent us from digging up the body of a dead dog? Why had the dog’s body been burned in the furnace? It made no sense at all.
Standish began to roar. “Where’s Laura Twining then? What became of her? Where’s the explanation for what went on last night?”
“I couldn’t say,” said Dr. Rand. There was a glint of satisfaction in the glance he shot at Jack and me. “Our conversation this afternoon looks like nonsense, doesn’t it? Also it looks as though you youngsters might as well have stayed in bed.”
The telephone on Standish’s desk started ringing. It rang on and on. Several minutes passed before the police chief snatched the receiver from its hook and spoke. The state of his emotions probably made it difficult for him to understand what was being said. We heard him shout indignant questions. And then, finally, he understood.
John Standish had experienced one tremendous shock, and apparently he wasn’t temperamentally equipped to experience another. He quietly hung up the receiver, and replaced the telephone on the desk.
And in the quietest voice I’ve ever heard he said, “That was our Paris call. Apparently I won’t talk to Luella Coatesnash after all”
“You mean she’s still asleep?”
“She shot and killed herself fifteen minutes ago.”
Any recital of what we thought and said, the questions we asked ourselves during the ensuing hours would be futile here. No theory which we advanced to explain the happenings on the hill or to explain the Paris suicide even touched upon the truth.
I was most mistaken of all. For I believed that Jack and I were done with tragedy. I doubted that the mystery would ever be fully solved, but of one thing I felt sure. Mrs. Coatesnash was responsible for drawing us into the affair, and with her shocking death I was convinced that Jack and I were out of it. Even now, as an exercise in logic, that thinking of mine seems passable, but of course it was wrong.
That very night, and for the second time, someone surreptitiously entered the cottage.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Short, Stout Fellow
Jack and I left the police station at eleven o’clock. There was nothing we could do, and I was too tired to stay. During the ensuing hours New York police attempted without success to discover what had happened to Laura Twining. They traced her to the Hotel Wickmore—she and Mrs. Coatesnash had registered on the afternoon of February 17th—but no one in the hotel remembered the two women, or anything of their activities.
And all the shipping company knew was that Mrs. Coatesnash had come aboard alone, limped to the purser’s office—a steward recalled the gold-headed cane—and canceled Laura’s passage. In Paris no further information was available. The French authorities packed Mrs. Coatesnash’s effects and prepared to ship the body back to Crockford.
I woke up in the morning in such a physically exhausted state that I remained in bed. I remember suggesting to Jack that I was catching cold.
“Nonsense! You always think you’re catching cold when you’re overtired. You’ll feel better after breakfast.”
After which he gallantly served me his own idea of what the invalid might like to eat. We didn’t discuss the case, or even read the papers. We were, to tell the truth, surfeited with mystery. Two dangerous criminals—the actual murderer of Hiram Darnley, and the man who had hidden in our closet—were still unnamed and still at large. We might have thought of that. But we did not. That false sense of security, that belief that we had been eliminated from the baffling drama, imbued us both. Only because of a very trivial circumstance did we discover our mistake.
Two