No Clue. Hay James
had judged her feelings correctly during their conference in the parlour. At dinner, she had seen in him merely a pleasant, quiet-spoken old man, a typical "hick" farmer, who wore baggy, absurdly large clothing – "for the sake of his circulation," he said – and whose appearance in no way corresponded to his reputation as a learned psychologist and investigator of crime. Now, however, she responded warmly to his charm, felt the sincerity of his sympathy.
Seeing that she looked up to him, he enjoyed encouraging her, was bound more firmly to her interests.
"I think your fears are unfounded," he told her.
But he did not reveal his knowledge that she suspected her father of some connection with the murder. In fact, he could not decide what her suspicion was exactly, whether it was that he had been guilty of the crime or that he had guilty knowledge of it.
A little anxious, she had asked him to promise that he would be back by ten o'clock, for the inquest. He thought he could do that, although he had persuaded the coroner that his evidence would not be necessary – the judge and Webster had found the body; their stories would establish the essential facts.
"Why do you want me here then?" he asked, not comprehending her uneasiness.
"For one thing," she said, "I want you to talk to father – before the inquest. I wish you could now, but he isn't up."
It was eight o'clock when Miss Davis, telephone operator in the cheap apartment house on Fourteenth street known as The Walman, took the old man's card and read the inscription, over the wire:
"'Mr. Jefferson Hastings.'"
After a brief pause, she told him:
"She wants to know if you are a detective."
"Tell her I am."
"You may go up," the girl reported. "It's Number Forty-three, fourth floor – no elevator."
After ascending the three flights of stairs, he sat down on the top step, to get his breath. Mr. Hastings was stout, not to say sebaceous – and he proposed to begin the interview unhandicapped.
Mrs. Brace answered his ring. There was nobody else in the apartment. The moment he looked into her restless, remarkably brilliant black eyes, he catalogued her as cold and repellent.
"One of the swift-eyed kind," he thought; "heart as hard as her head. No blood in her – but smart. Smart!"
He relied, without question, on his ability to "size up" people at first glance. It was a gift with him, like the intuition of women; and to it, he thought, he owed his best work as a detective.
Mrs. Brace, without speaking, without acknowledging his quiet "Mrs. Brace, I believe?" led him into the living room after waiting for him to close the entrance door. This room was unusually large, out of proportion to the rest of the apartment which included, in addition to the narrow entry, a bedroom, kitchen and bath – all, so far as his observation went, sparsely and cheaply furnished.
They sat down, and still she did not speak, but studied his face. He got the impression that she considered all men her enemies and sought some intimation of what his hostility would be like.
"I'm sorry to trouble you at such a time," he began. "I shall be as brief as possible."
Her black eyebrows moved upward, in curious interrogation. They were almost mephistophelian, and unpleasantly noticeable, drawn thus nearer to the wide wave of her white hair.
"You wanted to see me – about my daughter?"
Her voice was harsh, metallic, free of emotion. There was nothing about her indicative of grief. She did not look as if she had been weeping. He could learn nothing from her manner; it was extremely matter-of-fact, and chilly. Only, in her eyes he saw suspicion – perhaps, he reflected, suspicion was always in her eyes.
Her composure amazed him.
"Yes," he replied gently; "if I don't distress you – "
"What is it?"
She suddenly lowered her eyebrows, drew them together until they were a straight line at the bottom of her forehead.
Her cold self-possession made it easy, in fact necessary, for him to deal with facts directly. Apparently, she resented his intimated condolence. He could fling any statement, however sensational, against the wall of her indifference. She was, he decided, as free of feeling as she was inscrutable. She would be surprised by emotion into nothing. It was his brain against hers.
"I want to say first," he continued, "that my only concern, outside of my natural and very real sympathy with such a loss as yours must be, is to find the man who killed her."
She moved slowly to and fro on the armless, low-backed rocker, watching him intently.
"Will you help me?"
"If I can."
"Thank you," he said, smiling encouragement from force of habit, not because he expected to arouse any spirit of cooperation in her. "I may ask you a few questions then?"
"Certainly."
Her thin nostrils dilated once, quickly, and somehow their motion suggested the beginning of a ridiculing smile. He went seriously to work.
"Have you any idea, Mrs. Brace, as to who killed your daughter – or could have wanted to kill her?"
"Yes."
"Who?"
She got up, without the least change of expression, without a word, and, as she crossed the room, paused at the little table against the farther wall to arrange more symmetrically a pile of finger-worn periodicals. She went through the communicating door into the bedroom, and, from where he sat, he could see her go through another door – into the bathroom, he guessed. In a moment, he heard a glass clink against a faucet. She had gone for a drink of water, to moisten her throat, like an orator preparing to deliver an address.
She came back, unhurried, imperturbable, and sat down again in the armless rocker before she answered his question. So far as her manner might indicate, there had been no interruption of the conversation.
He swept her with wondering eyes. She was not playing a part, not concealing sorrow. The straight, hard lines of her lean figure were a complement to her gleaming, unrevealing eyes. There was hardness about her, and in her, everywhere.
A slow, warm breeze brought through the curtainless window a disagreeable odour, sour and fetid. The apartment was at the back of the building; the odour came from a littered courtyard, a conglomeration of wet ashes, neglected garbage, little filthy pools, warmed into activity by the sun, high enough now to touch them. He could see the picture without looking – and that odour struck him as excruciatingly appropriate to this woman's soul.
"Berne Webster killed my daughter," she said evenly, hands moveless in her lap. "There are several reasons for my saying so. Mildred was his stenographer for eight months, and he fell in love with her – that was the way he described his feeling, and intention, toward her. The usual thing happened; he discharged her two weeks ago.
"He wants to marry money. You know about that, I take it – Miss Sloane, daughter of A. B. Sloane, Sloanehurst, where she was murdered. They're engaged. At least, that is – was Mildred's information, although the engagement hasn't been announced, formally. Fact is, he has to marry the Sloane girl."
Her thin, mobile lips curled upward at the ends and looked a little thicker, giving an exaggerated impression of wetness. Hastings thought of some small, feline animal, creeping, anticipating prey – a sort of calculating ferocity.
She talked like a person bent on making every statement perfectly clear and understandable. There was no intimation that she was so communicative because she thought she was obliged to talk. On the contrary, she welcomed the chance to give him the story.
"Have you told all this to that sheriff, Mr. Crown?" he inquired.
"Yes; but he seemed to attach no importance to it."
She coloured her words with feeling at last – it was contempt – putting the sheriff beyond the pale of further consideration.
"You were saying Mr. Webster had to marry Miss