Chapter XXI The Key Of The Mystery
Dorothy gave a rapturous, almost inarticulate gasp, and, jumping up, impulsively held out two little roseleaf hands that were as impulsively clasped by Fleming Stone.
“You dear man!” she breathed, and the glory in her eyes seemed to dart far beyond the enclosing walls of the room, penetrating, Stone felt sure, even to the cell where her lover sat.
Unconscious, in her joy, of having acted unconventionally, Dorothy resumed her seat, and Fleming Stone took up the conversation.
“It seems a baffling case,” he said, “and doubtless you are too inexperienced to know that often the baffling cases solve themselves more readily than the simpler ones. To begin with, Miss Duncan, I ignore all suspicion of you, either as accessory or as having any guilty knowledge of the affair. I am positive you know no more than you have so frankly told me.”
“Why are you so sure?” Dorothy asked the question simply.
“Because I can read you and because it would be absurd for you to seek my services, if there were any danger of finding evidence against you.”
And Fleming Stone’s glance gave Dorothy an unspoken assurance that he knew no guilty person could have spoken to him as she did over the telephone.
“Your play with the dagger is meaningless,” he went on. “As you said, you have a foolish attraction toward the picturesque weapon, but I am sure I am safe in saying you are cured of that.”
A sad little smile confirmed this statement, and Stone went on.
“You left Mr. Arnold alive and well, just as you have said; and, tell me, was he wearing a boutonniere of the scarlet sage?”
“No, Mr. Stone. I had given him one earlier in the evening, but he had thrown it away.”
“You had given Mr. Chapin one?”
“Yes; but, Mr. Stone, I have given them to all the men all the week. I decorated Mr. Crane every day. Also Mr. Gale and Mr. Crosby. When they went away on Monday, I gave them each a sprig; and I even gave old Dr. Gaspard one. It is my favorite flower, and I almost always wear it when it is in season.”
“Then it may not be a definite clue. I think, Miss Duncan, the strongest argument against your faith in Mr. Chapin is his speech, of which you told me yourself: that he said he didn’t care what had become of Mr. Arnold, and that he would be willing to commit crime to win you.”
Dorothy hesitated a moment, then she blushed a rosy red, and, as if with sudden determination, she said, “But, Mr. Stone, Mr. Crosby said that, too. He said he didn’t care what had become of Justin if it left me free to marry him. I know these are awfully conceited things for a girl to tell, but I’m only trying to show you that a man doesn’t always mean the desperate things he says.”
“Miss Duncan,” said Stone, “I may as well confess I brought up that point to see if you would not answer it in some such manner as you did. I feel sure you have had a wide and varied circle of admirers, and I know you have learned not to take all their remarks too literally. I’m making this point because I want you to understand that I do not really consider that speech of Mr. Chapin’s as evidence against him. On the contrary, if a man has murder in his heart, he’s most careful, usually, not to let such a thing creep into his speech. Now, another point, the fact that Mr. Chapin packed up his clothing at night, after being discharged by his employer, and unpacked it again the next day, is to my mind distinctly in his favor. Whatever was his condition of mind when he packed his boxes after his angry interview with Mr. Arnold, it was changed when he learned that Mr. Arnold had disappeared. Had he been the cause of that disappearance, he would not have been surprised at the information, and would have had no reason to change his plans accordingly.”
“That is true!” cried Dorothy excitedly. “That horrid coroner was bound to suspect Ernest, and he made every bit of evidence seem to be against him, whether it was or not.”
“It is a common mistake to theorize, and then insist on fitting the facts to one’s theory. Miss Duncan, I cannot promise you success, but I can promise you my best endeavors to fasten this crime where it rightly belongs, and I do not think now that the criminal’s name is Chapin.”
“Who do you think did it?” asked Dorothy quickly.
“I haven’t an idea, though I have the least little, tiny glimmering of a direction in which to look. Further than that, I cannot say, until I can go to White Birches and examine the scene of the crime.”
“But it is too late to find clues! To-day is Friday—that’s four days since—since it happened.”
“Some clues are ineffaceable,” said Stone gravely. “A living clue is not lost sight of in four days.”
Suddenly Dorothy felt enveloped in the mystery of this man’s genius. He knew nothing of the case save what she had told him. She had told him nothing of the case save what had been heard by the jury who had convicted Chapin; and yet here was this man implying that he considered Ernest innocent, and talking about living clues, as if he already had the criminal in mind!
“When will you come, Mr. Stone?”
“I will go to White Birches to-morrow morning, and remain there, if necessary, over the week-end.”
“And”—Dorothy hesitated, and stammered a little—”but—they tell me you are very expensive, Mr. Stone.”
“Much depends on circumstances, Miss Duncan. If Mr. Chapin is freed, perhaps he will pay my not exorbitant fee out of his legacy.”
Dorothy looked pained for a moment, and then she realized that if Ernest were freed, and the real criminal discovered, there could be no stigma attached to the bequest of Arnold.
After the briefest of good-byes, Mr. Stone held the door open for her, and closed it immediately after her, so that Leila caught not even a glimpse of the celebrated detective.
“‘But you will see him, Leila, you will!” exclaimed Dorothy, as she threw her arm around her mother’s neck, in her gladness. “Oh, Mother, he’s coming to-morrow, and he knows Ernest didn’t kill Justin, and he’s going to find out who did—though I think he knows that, too, already!”
“By Jove, Dorothy, you’re a wonder!” exclaimed Emory Gale. “You must have hypnotized him to think just what you wanted him to! I didn’t think he was that sort of man!”
“He isn’t that sort of man,” said Dorothy, smiling happily. “He just thinks his own thoughts, but he thinks Ernest is innocent, and he’s going to make everybody else think so, too.”
Fleming Stone arrived Saturday morning. His winning personality appealed to them all, and though Leila was surprised that the great detective should have the polished manner of the men of her own world, she, with the others, fell under the thrall of his personal magnetism.
Mr. Stone did not desire the household to come together, so that he might ask them questions officially. Instead, he wandered about the house and grounds, conversing casually with the different ones, and seemingly going about at random.
In fact, Emory Gale began to think that the man’s powers had been overrated, and that he was floundering, because he knew not in which direction to look. Fred Crane was secretly disgusted at the detective’s methods; but Miss Abby Wadsworth sniffed openly, and said to Mrs. Duncan that for her part she thought Mr. Wheeler had twice the brains of Mr. Stone.
The detective whom she thus flattered, however, was of quite another mind. James Wheeler, who had begged to be present, appreciated what Fleming Stone was doing. He followed the great man about, furtively watching every expression of his face and every direction of his eyes. He listened to Mr. Stone’s remarks—noting the vital questions veiled by casual effects—and almost held his breath as he endeavored to trace the workings of the subtle mind.
Fleming Stone was especially interested in the great wall and the gates that guarded White Birches from intrusion.
“Can we find no loophole?” he asked as he searched the whole place.
“No,” cried Fred Crane exultantly; “I have been round and round the wall, inside and out, and there is no way a man could get under or over or through!”
“What’s this?” and Stone picked up a small key from the ground, quite near the wall.
With the detective were Fred Crane, Mr. Wheeler and Malony. They all examined the key.
“There’s no doubt as to what it is,” said Wheeler, “it’s a prestolite key. But where did it come from, and how did it get here?”
“What’s a prestolite key?” asked Crane, who was not a motorist.
“A key to turn on the big motor searchlights that illumine the path ahead at night,” answered Stone. “Does it belong to you, Malony?”
“No, sor,” and the old Irishman shook his head; “we have a different shtyle from the likes o’ thot. But how the divil, savin’ yer prisince, sor, cud thot thing iver get inside these walls?”
“That’s the question,” said Stone; “a motor could scarcely leap the wall and drive about the grounds.”
“Do they use such a key in an aeroplane?” inquired Wheeler, who had been secretly nursing an airship theory for some time.
“I think not,” returned Stone, who was gazing absently at the key and then at the wall. “Curious to find it so near the wall, eh?”
Both Wheeler and Crane were overjoyed at the attitude of the famous detective, who seemed to defer to them at every turn.
As a matter of fact, it was only seeming, for Fleming Stone kept his real thoughts to himself, and made unimportant speeches to occupy his hearers’ attention while he was thinking.
He put the key in his pocket, and said in a most serious way: “I charge you strictly, gentlemen, to say nothing of this key to any one. It may be of no importance as a clue, but I fancy it is, and I must ask your promise to divulge to no one,—no one at all, the fact of its being found. You hear, Malony?”
“Yis, sor. I’ll say nothin’. But, sor, av ye plaze, where did it come from?”
“I don’t know yet, for sure, Malony, but I think we shall find out soon.”
After not more than an hour at White Birches, Mr. Stone went away for an interview with Ernest Chapin. At her earnest request, Dorothy was allowed to accompany him.
The interview was brief but very much to the point.
“Mr. Chapin,” said Fleming Stone, “I am going to begin by assuming that you are innocent of this crime. But I should like your statement to that effect.”
“You shall have it,” and Chapin spoke frankly, looking Stone square in the eye. “I am innocent. Entirely so. I said I was guilty to shield Miss Duncan from a possible suspicion which seemed to me to be hovering very near her.”
“You yourself did not believe Miss Duncan could be guilty?”
“I cannot tell you. I could not believe it in my heart, for I love her too deeply; but I knew her quick impulsive nature, I knew her strange infatuation for sharp weapons, and I knew her especial aversion to being scolded. With this knowledge, while I could not and did not think her guilty, I had to admit to myself the possibility of it; or at least, I thought I did. And rather than run the slightest risk of her being suspected, I willingly shouldered the crime. Now that you have come, I am sure the truth will be brought to light, and so I declare myself innocent.”
“You had a stormy interview with Mr. Arnold?”
“It was, indeed. He was justly incensed because the woman he loved had given her heart to me, and he had discovered it. I do not blame him for feeling as he did. I was not very honorable and my only excuse is that Miss Duncan did love me, and so blinded my honor, my judgment, and my loyalty to my employer. For many years Mr. Arnold had been most kind to me, and I did illy repay him to treat him as I did.”
“Your words are true, Mr. Chapin, but that is all past now, and so beyond ethical argument. It is to be hoped that you and Miss Duncan have yet many years of happiness in store, and to gain that, we must first discover the murderer of Justin Arnold.”
“Have you any suspicion as to the identity of the criminal, Mr. Stone?”
Fleming Stone did not answer this direct question, but said: “At what time did you leave Mr. Arnold?”
“At about one o’clock,” replied Chapin.
“And you went downstairs, Miss Duncan?”
“At about ten minutes after one. I saw Mr. Chapin come up, and waited for him to get to his room. I went down, partly to make peace with Mr. Arnold, and partly to learn what he had said to Mr. Chapin.”
“Then you went back upstairs at what time?”
“At about half-past one; perhaps twenty minutes of two.”
“You saw no one about?”
“No.”
“Did either of you hear Mr. Arnold come upstairs?”
“Why, no,” returned Chapin; “as the presumption is he never came up.”
“Did you hear any noise during the rest of the night?”
“No,” said Dorothy, but Ernest Chapin said: “I heard some sounds, which I assume to be the rats in the wall that the servants mentioned.”
“Tell me of these sounds,” said Stone with greatest interest.
“It was, I think, a little before two o’clock,” said Chapin. “I had not been to sleep, and I heard a sound in the wall at the head of my bed, a sort of scratching sound as of something going up or down. When the servants spoke of rats, I decided that was what it was, though I had never heard them before. The sounds ceased, and I fell into a restless doze, when I was awakened by a repetition of the same or similar sounds. I looked at my watch and it was then about three o’clock. I heard no more of them, but I was then so thoroughly wide awake I couldn’t lie still, so I got up and packed my clothing and belongings. Mr. Arnold had discharged me from my position as his secretary, but he hadn’t told me to leave at once. However, I felt I could not stay, and decided to leave early the next morning. When I learned of Mr. Arnold’s strange disappearance, I concluded to stay until the mystery was cleared. So I told Peters to unpack my things. I did give him a fee, as has always been my habit when he did extra services for me, and I did ask him not to mention the matter; but the two incidents had no connection, and it was not a case of bribery as has been charged.”
“I believe you implicitly, Mr. Chapin,” said Stone; “what interests me most is those strange sounds in the wall. Why should rats appear suddenly, when you have never heard them there before?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure,” said Chapin, wearily, “but I can’t see that it has any bearing on the crime. No secret passage exists in that wall or any other, for I have examined the house myself, aside from the searchings of the detective and Mr. Crane and the others.”
“Thank you, Mr. Chapin,” said Fleming Stone, as he left. “You have helped me more than you know. I feel sure we shall unravel this tangled thread of mystery in a few days, at most. Come, Miss Duncan, are you ready to go?”
But even as he spoke, Fleming Stone turned aside to give the pair an opportunity for a word alone, and at his nod the warden also waited a moment.
And then the two visitors went away, and Chapin was left in his cell, but with a heart full of hope and faith in the great detective’s powers.
Stone helped Dorothy into the car and got in beside her. She looked at him appealingly; he replied at once to her unspoken question.
“Your faith is not misplaced, my dear child. Mr. Chapin is innocent of the crime; and though he must remain where he is until the criminal is discovered, it is fortunate that he has the knowledge of your love and loyalty to cheer him. Moreover, he may yet owe his very life to your insistence on his innocence; for I have never seen a more convincing pile of circumstantial evidence against an innocent man.”
“But how are you going to find the culprit, Mr. Stone?”
“There seems to be no direction in which to look. There are, in fact, very few directions in which to look; but I’m sure you can understand that the very limitations of the outlook must mean quick work.”
Dorothy didn’t quite understand this, but as Mr. Stone became silent and seemed lost in thought, she said nothing further to him.