Murder in Stained Glass. Armstrong Margaret
do you expect them?” I asked.
“Any minute now. I called ’em up this morning soon’s I got Doctor’s report. They acted quite excited. Said they’d be right over. They know Ullathorne is a pretty big bug. District attorney, he’s sending a man and the sheriff is coming, says his appendix will have to wait; and a detective, feller named Skinner. Fine sleuth, I’m told. And a photographer and a fingerprint expert, and a reporter from the Banbury Star, and I don’t know who all. Oh, and the coroner is sending a representative, and the coroner he told me be sure not to move the body, to leave it lay just exactly and precisely as we found it. I had to laugh.” He looked at his watch. “Eight-thirty. They’d ought to be here.”
“Here they come now!” Phyllis cried. “Three cars full!” And she opened the door.
At once the place was full of men. Experts. Some of them were sophisticated persons, well dressed, with hard-boiled professional faces, and carrying tripods, brief cases and various strange-looking instruments; others, obviously “country,” of the farmer and small-shopkeeper class. But they were all condescending in manner; civil enough, but like most experts, too intent on proving other people in the wrong to be really efficient.
It struck me that the teamwork was not very good. The sheriff and the lawyer from the district attorney’s office were evidently not in sympathy, except in one particular: they both distrusted the detective, Mr. Skinner, and when the question of leadership came up the argument was as bitter and prolonged as if they had been dowager duchesses discussing who should go in first to dinner.
In the end the sheriff gave way. Gleason, the lawyer, took the lead, and kept it.
He put on a good show. The air fairly reeked with efficiency. Poor Mr. Merritt’s claim to the center of the stage didn’t last a minute. Still giving information, he was waved aside and told to sit down on the pile of boards at the back of the room. One by one our little group joined him there. We sat waiting in a meek row, uneasy as a class that doesn’t know its lesson.
The investigators strolled about the room. Sam Beers pointed out the chief objects of interest: the kiln, the ashes, the bullet hole in the window. Some chairs and a table were brought down from the workroom. Sam Beers placed the box containing the “remains”—such a suitable term under the circumstances—upon the table. The reporters perched themselves on the stairs. The stenographers opened their notebooks. Gleason seated himself, beckoned to Sam. They conferred. The sheriff joined in. There was a good deal of talk about the doctor. His absence was explained: he was busy elsewhere bringing somebody’s baby into the world. The box was opened. The box was shut. Finally Clarence Burbank was told to come forward and make a statement.
Clarence told his story clearly and well. Gleason tried to trip him up with technical questions as to the exact temperature of the oven when glass was “fired” and the length of time required to heat it. But the boy kept his head and stuck to what he knew. He was finally allowed to sign his deposition and return to our corner.
Leo came next. His manner wasn’t as good as Clarence’s. Yet Gleason’s questions were politely worded and obviously routine. How long had the garage been used as a glass shop? Who was the owner? What was the rent? How many workmen were employed? Perfunctory questions. Why, I wondered, did Leo mind answering them? For he did mind; he hesitated and mumbled and contradicted himself. When his deposition was read over to him, he listened anxiously and his signature was so shaky that I saw Gleason give him a puzzled frown as he moved away from the table. I was puzzled too—for a different reason: Leo had not mentioned that small object I had seen him pick up from among the ashes!
However, that was Leo’s business, not mine. When my turn came to “depose,” I would, I determined, say as little as possible. I could not sign my name to anything I wasn’t absolutely sure of. I needn’t have worried. I wasn’t asked to sign anything. Neither was Phyllis. Gleason disposed of us both in short order. Phyllis got a curt word of thanks, but he waved me away with such a bored stare, as if he were wondering what the hell I was doing here, that I was rather sorry when Mr. Merritt spoke up:
“Say, Mr. Gleason!” he protested. “You’d oughtn’t to let Miss Trumbull go like that. She’s awful good at deductions. You just ask her . . . .”
“Deductions?” Skinner put in. “We make our own deductions. Facts are what we want. Have you any facts to offer, Miss Trumbull? Important facts?”
“Facts?” I said. “Yes; I have one fact to offer. I’m not sure whether or not it’s important.”
“Let’s have it, anyway.”
“If you will examine the stand-pipe over there you will find a small sticky spot where the hose is attached. It may, of course, be molasses. On the other hand—”
But Skinner was already bending over the stand-pipe. He beckoned to another man, evidently a fingerprint expert. Together they examined the spot, peering at it through a magnifying glass, smelling it. The fingerprint man shook his head.
“No prints,” Skinner announced with disgust. “But it’s blood, all right. We’ll have it analyzed.”
“Miss Trumbull, you have shortened Mr. Skinner’s examination of this cellar,” Gleason remarked, “by at least three minutes. Much obliged. Anything more?”
“That’s all—at present.”
“Then you and the young lady may go.”
Phyllis and I moved to the door. A reporter started to follow us. Gleason called him back.
“No interviews yet,” he said. “There’s plenty for you boys to see right here in this cellar. Get to work, Skinner!”
Instantly, Skinner took the lead. Fairly swelling with importance he strutted to the center of the room and stood there, pointing out this and that, giving orders with an arrogant confidence that evidently inspired respect. Tripods were unfolded, typewriters clicked, tape measures began to measure, insuflators to insuflate. I thought of the scene in that enchanting opera, Gianni Schicchi, when the heirs turn everything topsy-turvy looking for the will. Bombarded by efficiency, Phyllis and I hurried to the door. Leo opened it for us. We went out.
IV
How sharper than a serpent’s child it is to have a thankless tooth.
Mixed Proverb.
THE inquest came off on Wednesday. There had been much discussion as to the time and place, for the sheriff and the local people wanted to postpone everything until Mr. Ullathorne returned; the sheriff, because Mr. Ullathorne might suggest some way of identifying the victim, and the village, for fear Mr. Ullathorne, of whom they stood a good deal in awe, when he did come, wouldn’t like strangers poking around his premises without permission. For the same reason they didn’t want to hold the inquest in the glass shop. Mr. Merritt thought the basement of the Methodist Church where the Christian Endeavorers held their meetings would be suitable, and Mrs. Flack offered the big room over the post office. But Gleason had his own ideas. He said it was nonsense to wait for Mr. Ullathorne. All efforts to reach Mr. Ullathorne by wire and telephone had been unavailing. If Mr. Ullathorne didn’t like visitors on his premises let him come and say so. The inquest ought to be held as soon as the coroner could get a jury together, and the scene of the crime was the proper place. This was what the district attorney, Mr. Drinkwater, thought too. In the end a compromise was reached. The jury and various witnesses, including our little group, were told to come to the glass shop on Wednesday at nine o’clock in the forenoon.
I confess I was thrilled when I got the notice to attend. It was such an impersonal crime. Unreal. Your feelings weren’t involved, for those bones couldn’t belong to anyone you knew. And besides, by this time the bones were no longer very bony. Their trips back and forth in the box to Dr. Greely’s office and to the office of the medical examiner in Banbury hadn’t done them any good as exhibits. It was reported that the Banbury man was indignant, said he couldn’t be expected to report on a pint of bone meal and cinders, and Gleason scolded Mr. Merritt for not having packed