ISABEL OSTRANDER: Mystery & Western Classics: One Thirty, The Crevice, Anything Once, The Fifth Ace & Island of Intrigue. Isabel Ostrander
begun to examine the room thoroughly yet. There are a lot of queer features about this case, which you mayn't have found time to go into. In the first place, those tracks over there at the window were not made by muddy feet, but bloody hands."
"Of course," the Coroner returned, impatiently, "we know that. Those traces were left by the murderer, going out."
"How about coming in? He didn't leave any traces then, although it rained hard last night, and there's soft loam and top soil in the garden beneath this window. I can smell the late autumn flowers. Again, the window was opened from the inside, not out, and the person who opened it was afraid, not of taking his time about it, but of making a noise; for he opened the catch of the window in the proper way, and then painstakingly bent and twisted it with some blunt instrument to give it the appearance of having been forced, though, had he dared make any noise, he could have shattered it with a single blow. And moreover, gentlemen, that blood about the window was not fresh blood, wiped from the murderer's red hands in making good his escape. It was stale congealed blood when it, was applied to the carpet and curtains. When the window was forced and the semblance of robbery and escape given to the scene of murder in this room. Garret Appleton had already been dead for some hours."
Chapter II
The Instrument of Death
The men looked at one another. "How do you know that--about the bloody I mean?" demanded the Inspector, bluntly. "How can you tell?"
"Feel it, man, feel it!" returned Gaunt. "It's dried in thick, raised, sticky clots. And, unless I'm mistaken, it wasn't brushed there by the hand of the murderer, but was deliberately wiped there, placed there hours after the murder."
The Coroner strode to the window.
"Mr. Gaunt is right," he cried. "Come here, Inspector! It looks like a deliberate and very clumsy attempt to brand the crime as an outside job. It must have been for robbery, of course; one of the servants, probably. But why the fellow should have waited for hours before preparing his alibi, running the risk of some one discovering the crime in the meantime, is beyond me. Also, what has become of the jewels and the weapon-- but they'll come to light, of course."
"I'll have the house searched at once, and the servants questioned; put through the third degree, if necessary!" Inspector Hanrahan replied, excitedly.
Gaunt had been stooping, feeling about on the floor before the chair" in which the dead man sat, and, at the Inspector's words, he rose, his long fingers slipping for an instant into his waistcoat pocket. He had discovered upon the floor before the chair three tiny hard globules, like irregular pearls.
"I wouldn't do that. Inspector," he suggested, mildly. "At least, searching the house won't do any harm; but don't question the servants in such a manner that you'll lead any of them to suspect that you don't think this was an outside job. If you do, you may defeat your own ends." He turned to the Coroner. " You'll have an autopsy performed immediately, I suppose? I'd like to know at once, if you'll tell me, what caliber and make cartridge was used."
"I'll let you know gladly. You'll be here all day?"
"Yes. I want to make a more thorough examination of the room now, and then I should like to speak to some members of the family. That robbery theory still looks good, of course. Coroner Hildebrand, if it weren't for one thing."
"What's that?" the Inspector turned sharply from the window.
"The dead man's face. Look at his expression. Blank horror and craven fear are stamped upon it!"
"Look here, Mr. Gaunt, I don't see what you can tell about his expression!" Inspector Hanrahan's voice held a good-naturedly contempt.
"By feeling the drawn, contracted muscles," Gaunt said, tersely. He resented bitterly any reference to the handicap nature had placed upon him, yet he realized the justice of the implication.
"It may be only the death-agony, the shock, you know, which has distorted his face," the Coroner broke in hastily, soothingly.
"Look at him yourself. Coroner Hildebrand. Does he look like a man suddenly attacked without warning, or like one who recognized his assailant, and read his approaching fate in the other's eyes, but felt powerless to avert it?"
The Coroner was silent, and, with a slight shrug, Gaunt turned away, and bent over the writing table, his hands playing lightly among the papers and ornaments it contained. From there, he made a circuit of the room, passing swiftly from one article of furniture to another, more as if to orient himself than with any idea of a thorough examination.
Suddenly he paused before a low, swinging lamp of ancient brass, and felt carefully of its jangling pendant ornaments. From one of these, a tiny strand of hair hung, as if caught from the unwary head of some feminine Absalom, in passing beneath it. It was a long strand of but two or three fine silky hairs, and the detective wound them carefully around his finger, then placed them in the vest-pocket with the tiny white globules.
Meanwhile, the other men went about their gruesome task of removing the body to an adjoining room for the autopsy, and Gaunt heard their heavy, subdued tread down the hall. With silent haste, he approached the door and closed it softly, then returned to the library-table in the center of the room, beside which the body of the murdered man had been seated, and opened drawer after drawer, his hands searching feverishly among the papers they contained, as if seeking some object he fully anticipated finding. If Garret Appleton really had known his assailant, and might actually have feared for his life, it was logical to suppose that he might have kept some weapon with which to protect and, if necessary, defend himself. If that weapon should happen to be a revolver, of the same caliber as that with which he had been shot--
The detective's fingers closed over a cold steel object in the lowest drawer, and with an exultant exclamation he drew it forth. It was a revolver. He placed it hastily to his nose, and sniffed it, then, with a satisfied air, he thrust it into his hip-pocket, and, when the Inspector reappeared, he was fingering and smelling the hangings and pillows of the large, richly-upholstered divan, about which a peculiar heavy perfume seemed to cling.
"Well, I've finished here," he announced. "I'd like to see my client now."
"Found anything more?" the Inspector asked, with a grin.
"No, nothing. Guess your robbery theory goes. Interviewed any of the servants yet?"
"Yes; and, between you and me, Mr. Gaunt, I think I'm on the right trail. From all accounts, Mr. Garret Appleton wasn't a very pleasant customer. Dissipated, he was, and overbearing, and a bully. He led his wife and everyone else pretty much of a dog's life, and about a month ago he drove his valet, Louis, out of the house, and the man was heard to vow that he'd get even. This Louis was a Frenchman, a hot-headed man himself, and he was very friendly with one of the maids. She might have let him in last night, and he, only meaning to rob the master, might have murdered him without premeditation. Of course, this morning, seeing what he'd done, the maid would be afraid to admit he was here. Anyway, that's my theory. Where are you going?"
"To interview Mrs. Appleton."
Gaunt found the object of his search ensconced in her morning-room, and, if the reaction of her hour of silence and composure after the shock of the discovery of her son's body, and the ensuing scene in the den, had unnerved her, had brought with it any flood of tenderness and natural grief, there was no evidence of it in her voice or manner, or the steadiness of her hand.
"You have discovered anything, Mr. Gaunt-- any clue to the thief who killed my son?"
"Only that he was a most uncommon thief, Mrs. Appleton--that the manner of your son's death presents some very unusual features. As I have already informed Mr. Yates Appleton, in undertaking your investigation for you, I must make one condition--"
"Your fee--" the elderly lady interrupted him, coldly.
"My fee has nothing whatever to do with it. That can be arranged