The Classic Mystery Novel MEGAPACK®. Hay James
force. Mrs. Storm here and her husband broke in the house last night.
I want them arrested.”
Standish sidestepped the issue neatly. He said soothing, empty phrases, granted that the expedition had been illegal, promised damages and redress. He congratulated the hired man upon his devotion to his employer’s interests.
Silas relaxed a little. “Then I’ll buy another door tomorrow and charge it to the county.”
“The county will be glad to pay.”
Standish peered at the hired man. Quick to read the signs of human distress, he observed what Jack and I had observed a few days earlier. For all his bluster, Silas was distrait, worried, not himself. Obviously he was suffering some inner strain.
Standish had been acquainted with Silas since Silas’s boyhood. He understood the slow, suspicious workings of the Scotchman’s mind, his deathly fear of law, his determination at any cost to save himself. Convinced that the other was a moving spirit in our mystery, he adopted his own methods of establishing it. He did not storm or threaten, or, as Harkway had done, accuse Silas of destroying evidence. He set himself to woo the hired man’s confidence. He piped a soft and gentle tune. In vain.
Categorically and in particular Silas denied knowledge of Laura Twining and her movements. He professed astonishment that she was not in Paris. No, he hadn’t seen or heard from her. Standish was prepared for denials. But he had anticipated a tightening of tension, a show of fear, alarm. He drew a blank. A puzzling blank. Oddly, the mention of Laura Twining appeared to bring Silas an obscure relief.
“She was one of your talkers, Chief, but I never bothered to listen much. A nice lady—if Mrs. Coatesnash fired her it’s news to me. They was thick as thieves the day I drove them to New York.”
“What time did you leave them there? What time did you get back to Crockford? On February seventeenth?”
Silas scratched his head. “Gosh, lemme see. Traffic was pretty bad that day. I took ’em to a hotel, helped ’em settle, then turned around and started back. It’s a good four-hour drive; we left here at noon. I must have got back by nine or tea o’clock.”
Could Silas sit so quietly if he had blood on his hands? Would his faded eyes be tranquil if he knew Laura Twining were dead? Murdered? I looked through the broken door at the furnace, cleanly swept, cold and secret.
“Now, Silas, I want you to listen carefully. I’m told the two women quarreled after you left them. Over a fifty-dollar bill. My information is that Mrs. Coatesnash accused her companion of theft.”
“Sounds funny to me. I’da said Miss Twining wouldn’t steal a pin. Did you ask her about it? What does she say?”
“Laura Twining has disappeared. Vanished. Dropped from the earth.” Standish’s voice was purposely loud. “I’m beginning to believe she’s gone for good and all.”
Normal curiosity was to be expected. The hired man exhibited none. He idly dug his pitchfork in the earth. “Likely she’ll turn up. A passel of her stuff is still in the house. I wouldn’t worry about Miss Twining.”
Standish, I knew, had hoped for a startling reaction. He looked bitterly disappointed. His lips tightened.
“So Laura Twining left things in the house? What kind of things? Baggage?”
“No, sir. She needed her bags for the trip. She packed a cardboard box with stuff that wouldn’t go in. Books mostly, I guess, and magazines. She saves old magazines. Just trash, but it meant something to her. I’d swear she’d come back for it.”
If Silas knew of the vanishing traveling bags, the unused passport and letter of credit, he hid his knowledge well. Standish scuffed at a heap of gravel.
“Then Laura Twining hasn’t been on the place since you took her down to New York?”
“Ain’t seen hide nor hair of her. She couldn’t have got in if she had come. She ain’t got keys; I ain’t myself. Mrs. Coatesnash carried ’em with her. She always does.”
Standish abandoned the unfruitful topic. He settled himself upon the doorstep. He tried another tack.
“Silas, are you acquainted with Franklyn Elliott?”
It was a random shot, but surprisingly it told. Silas woke abruptly from his lethargy. He suppressed a start. His Adam’s apple fluttered in his throat.
“You mean Mrs. Coatesnash’s lawyer?”
“Exactly. Do you know him?”
“Never laid eyes on him.”
“Sure of that?”
“Sure I’m sure. What’s Franklyn Elliott got to do with me?”
“You seemed—well—taken aback when I mentioned him.”
“I been reading about him in the papers. That’s all. Elliott’s nothing to me. I’m nothing to him.”
“Take care, Silas. Has he ever written you? Have you ever written him?”
“No.” The hired man developed an irritatingly irrelevant grievance. “I ain’t rich enough for New York lawyers. Folks with money can run to the law; it’s no help to them without. I get into trouble. What happens? I stay in trouble. Franklyn Elliott don’t pester his head with the likes of me.”
The new vein had played out. Silas had said his say and we were left to face hazy, ambiguous speculations. Why had the mention of Franklyn Elliott disturbed the hired man, when the more sinister mention of Laura Twining had not? Was there a hidden link between Silas and the lawyer?
Standish shifted his bulk on the step. “Silas, it pays to tell the truth. The whole truth. Nothing is to be gained protecting others. Not in a murder case.”
Silas was frightened. There was no question of it. A look of pressing worry came on his face, a look of terror, of stubborn desperation. The bones in his thin face seemed sharpened, the hollows beneath his eyes became pronounced.
“I’ve told the truth,” he said a little wildly. “Go ahead and take me off to jail if you don’t believe it. I’d be as well off in jail as I am now. Maybe I could get some sleep at nights and…” he broke off suddenly, and made an attempt to pull himself together. He went on in a different tone, “You’ve got nothing on me. Nothing you can prove.”
“This is your chance,” said Standish sternly, “to tell me what I’m convinced you know. We’re going to find out who murdered Hiram Darnley; we’re going to find out a lot of other things. No matter who it hurts! Someone is going to hang!”
“I hope to God,” said Silas Elkins, “it happens soon.”
Standish turned at once on his heel and stalked past the hired man and into the Coatesnash house. Silas meekly accepted the police chiefs statement that he was acting on his own authority, and did not object. No one bade me no. I followed. Since morning Silas’s attitude had undergone a striking change. He seemed eager to assist; he made suggestions; he produced Laura Twining’s string-bound, cardboard suit box. The box contained two cotton housedresses, a pair of rubbers, two books on astrology, a pamphlet on spiritualism, a dozen well-thumbed popular magazines. There were no letters, nothing personal.
Aided by his volunteer assistant, the police chief searched every cranny of the basement, first and second floor. Unobtrusively I tagged along. My presence was unofficial, and I took no part in the search. Standish himself was handicapped, slowed down because he didn’t know exactly what he was hunting for. He opened drawers, chests, looked into bookcases and wastebaskets, crouched on his haunches to peer under beds and bureaus. He found mouse droppings, dust. Of Laura Twining’s missing traveling bags there was not the slightest sign.
Gaining Mrs. Coatesnash’s third-floor bedroom, Standish flung back rusty, velvet draperies, pushed the shutters wide and let the fast-fading sunlight in. A canopied four-poster bed, with the mattress rolled and tied, bedding