Murder in Stained Glass. Armstrong Margaret
was hemmed in by a double ring of excited spectators, getting as close as they could and watching eagerly as he began his examination.
Most of this throng, men, women and children, were strangers to me, of course. But I recognized three of Mr. Ullathorne’s workmen; the village postmistress, Mrs. Flack, small and thin; Mr. Merritt, who kept the general store, stout and pompous; and Sam Beers, the “traffic cop,” a red-cheeked boy of eighteen or so, in a blue uniform with an old-fashioned policeman’s helmet perched on the back of his head.
Sam tried to look competent and important. He told everybody to stand back and give the doctor more room. No one listened to him. More and more people kept coming in. They crowded closer to the kiln, elbowing each other, whispering, giggling and asking questions.
Phyllis and I caught the contagion. We joined the circle and shoved and tiptoed and stared at the doctor kneeling in the ashes, examining the fragments in what seemed to me a perfunctory manner. Was he incompetent. I wondered. Or merely bewildered? He would pick up a bit of bone, squint at it uncertainly through his spectacles, lay it aside and pick up another, as if he had never seen a bone before. But I felt sorry for the man, though I didn’t like his face. It reminded me of the stuffed fox in Charlotte’s spare room. Obviously he realized he was in for something unpleasant, disliked being involved, and hated the responsibility.
Clarence stood beside him brandishing an electric torch; the cellar was lighted only by one small bulb in the ceiling. He flashed the torch back and forth, brightening the ashes, the furnace, the doctor’s anxious face, now and then letting it rest inadvertently on some one face in the audience, with an effect so like that of a spotlight on the stage that I lost all sense of reality and became a spectator at a rather queer sort of show. I think that was the way everybody felt. Ghoulish of us? Well, I suppose it was. But by that time none of us—not even I—really believed those whitish fragments could be human bones. We expected Dr. Greely to bring the comedy to an end with a laugh:
“Bones?” he would say, grinning and dusting off his hands. “They’re bones all right. A dog’s bones. Someone been getting off a joke on Clarence, I guess.”
And we would all laugh, and the crowd would melt away, and Phyllis and Leo and I would go home to supper.
Well, that wasn’t what happened. Dr. Greely did stand up at last, and he did dust off his hands; but he didn’t laugh. Far from it. His watery blue eyes were blinking nervously behind his glasses, his flabby face had lost every vestige of color. He was, in fact, the picture of misery as he stood hesitating, pinching his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger, while we all leaned towards him waiting in a strange hush.
Sam broke it.
“What’s the verdict, Doc?” he said hoarsely. “Is them bones human?”
The doctor started to speak, thought better of it, caught Sam by the arm and whispered.
Sam nodded and turned with a traffic gesture.
“Doc says clear the room. Get out everybody. Shoo, I tell you! Shoo!”
He spread out his arms, advanced on the spectators. They fell back, protesting and arguing. Sam rounded them up, got them outside and slammed the door in their indignant faces. Only Leo and Phyllis and I, Mr. Merritt and Clarence were left staring at the doctor.
“What about it?” Sam said again. “Is them bones human?”
“They—they appear to be.”
“You mean you ain’t sure?”
“How can I be sure?” the doctor snapped. “They’re burned to bits.”
“You wouldn’t like to give a guess?”
“Well, that fragment,” he pointed, “might be a portion of a human skull, and those,” he pointed again, “are probably ribs and the remains of a collarbone.”
I felt a little sick. Leo turned away and sat down on the lowest step of the stairs and buried his face in his hands. Phyllis clutched my arm. Mr. Merritt shook his head solemnly.
“Well, well!” he sighed. “Human? That’s quite a surprise, Doctor. Quite a surprise. You wouldn’t go so far as to say what sort of human? Man, woman or child—or maybe, baby?”
“Good God, Merritt! That’s a fool question.” He turned to Clarence. “Go get me a box, boy. A good stout box with a cover to it. I’ve got to take all this stuff to my office. I haven’t got the proper apparatus here.”
Clarence ran upstairs and returned with a cardboard box and a ball of twine.
The doctor stooped, gathered up the largest bits of bone and some of the ashes, placed them carefully in the box and fitted on the lid. Clarence wound a length of twine around it and knotted it tight. The doctor took the box under his arm and paused, glancing at Leo who still sat hunched on the stairs and at Sam’s round face, then addressed himself to Mr. Merritt.
“You’d better take charge here, Merritt,” he said. “See that everything is locked up securely. I’ll send my report to you, first thing in the morning.” And with a nod in the direction of Phyllis and me, he moved to the door, opened it and immediately slammed it shut again.
“Sam!” he called over his shoulder. Sam stepped up. “Go ahead of me, clear off all those damn fools out there.”
Sam obeyed. The doctor walked, rather shakily, I thought, down the path and out into the darkness. Sam rejoined us.
Mr. Merritt looked at his watch.
“Supper time,” he said briskly. “No more to do here for the present. What do you say, Sam? Shall we go home?”
“I guess so. But it’s up to you, Mr. Merritt. This business is too big for me to handle. You better take charge like Doc said. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
“Well, first off, you got to lock up here good and tight so’s the curiosity seekers and the souvenir hunters don’t get in and mess things up, destroy clues and what not. And I’ll undertake to notify the authorities at Banbury. Just as soon, that is, as I get Doctor’s report. He might change his mind when he puts the microscope onto those bones, and Banbury would have the laugh on us if we brought their high muckamucks over here and the deceased turned out to be a dog or a calf.”
“They sure would,” Sam grinned. “Mr. Leo, can I have the keys?”
“Keys?” Leo stood up. “Keys? Have we got a key to the front door, Clarence?”
“Never’s been one in my time, Mr. Leo. Mr. Ullathorne, he might have a key.”
“Mr. Ullathorne?” Mr. Merritt said. “Where is Mr. Ullathorne, by the way?”
“In New York,” Clarence answered. “Went last week and ain’t back yet.”
“He’d ought to be here,” Mr. Merritt went on. “Will you call your father up, Mr. Leo? Or shall I?”
“I—I’d rather you did.”
“All right.” Mr. Merritt looked surprised. “What’s his address?”
“Five hundred and ten Park Avenue. The telephone number is Regent 5-5478.”
“O.K.” Mr. Merritt nodded and wrote the number on his cuff. “Now about locking up here. You say there’s no key to the front door. Don’t you lock it at night?”
“No, we don’t. The door at the head of the stairs is usually locked, but there’s nothing of any value down here.”
“I see. So anyone could get in here who had a mind to?”
“Of course.”
“But not upstairs?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, we’re not very careful about the workroom door either. The door of my—my father’s studio is the only one he—he was particular about. That door has two keys. My—my father and I each have one.”