The Maxwell Mystery

Saturday morning I went back to Maxwell Chimneys. Though I had done very little, if anything, toward a definite solution of the mystery, yet I had eliminated the Earl as a possible factor in the case, and surely that was something.

At the luncheon table I told about it, but only in a general way, and without going into details.

After luncheon, however, Mr. Hunt arrived, and we had a conference in Mr. Maxwell’s study. The guests of the house were all present except Miss Leslie and her nurse.

Mr. Maxwell led the discussion. “I’ve been thinking it over, Peter,” he said, “while you were away, and I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that we may as well give up our efforts to find the man who shot Philip. I was sure, before you went away, that the Earl of Clarendon had no hand in it, and I cannot think that we shall ever learn who was in the mysterious motor-car that Lord Clarence saw that night. And should we find the car, I dare say it would turn out to be some tradesman or other equally innocent person. I, myself, am too old to take an active part in any search. Both my sister and I have a prejudice against calling in the police or applying to the detective bureau. And so, it seems to me, that my sister and I would rather bear our grief undisturbed by harrowing publicity.”

“I quite appreciate your ideas, Mr. Maxwell,” said Tom Whiting, respectfully; “but I want to call to your attention the fact that my wife’s sister is, in a way, under a suspicion of knowing who that intruder was, and of being willing to shield him. Now we can’t stand for this! Edith and I have agreed that, unless you positively forbid it, we must at least make an attempt to discover who that man was. You see, the Earl of Clarendon thinks that the man in that motor-car came up on the veranda, and shot Philip through the library window. Moreover, he distinctly implies that Milly knows who the man is, and will not tell; and that he, the Earl, went away lest his knowledge of the car and its occupants should annoy or disturb Milly. Now this is all utter poppycock! Milly isn’t shielding any man. She doesn’t know who that intruder was,—although Philip did. Now, I propose to track that car, and that man, whether he is the criminal or not!”

“Go ahead, Mr. Whiting, if you like,” said Hunt; “but you’ll find yourself on a wild goose chase. To my mind, that precious Earl is not so innocent as he makes out! He pulled the wool over Mr. King’s eyes, but he doesn’t fool me. And trying to hide behind a woman’s skirts, is just what I should expect from a British rascal of his stamp!”

“Oh, Mr. Hunt,” said Miss Miranda, looking greatly pained; “please don’t talk like that about one of my guests! Why, he scarcely knew Philip, and he had no reason for wishing him ill.”

“He was in love with a girl that Philip was as good as engaged to,” said Hunt, bluntly; “that’s enough motive for his state of mind toward Philip.”

“There it is,” said Mr. Maxwell, “as soon as you detectives begin to suspect anybody you let your imagination run away with you. Granting the Earl of Clarendon was attracted by Miss Leslie, it doesn’t follow that he would shoot another man who happened to be in love with her, also! No, the Earl is entirely innocent, and the criminal is as far removed from our knowledge or suspicion as he ever was.”

“But he won’t be,” said Tom Whiting, “if I can once catch that motor-car! Can’t you all see clearly how a man from that car could have run up that little back staircase, around the veranda, and back again after committing the crime in a very short space of time? Of course he must have been an enemy of Philip’s, and of course he must have had his plans carefully laid. But a murderer always lays his plans carefully. He doesn’t go around on a casual chance!”

“But if your theory is the right one,” observed Hunt, “Miss Gardiner must have seen that man, for she was on the upper veranda at the time of the crime.”

“Did you see anybody, Irene?” said Edith Whiting, but she said it perfunctorily, for she knew if Miss Gardiner had seen a stranger she would have told of it before this.

“No, of course not,” said Irene; “Do you suppose if I had seen Philip Maxwell’s murderer I shouldn’t have said so long ago? I think, with Mr. Maxwell, that he can never be found; and I see no use in keeping up a search for that motor-car. I doubt if the Earl saw one anyway.”

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Tom Whiting, “why is it that everybody doubts the Earl’s veracity? Surely he would have no reason for making up that story of the motor-car! Certainly he saw It; and I, for one, am determined to find out about it!”

“Yes, do,” said Mrs. Whiting; “for I can never rest happy until Mildred is entirely cleared from any suspicious thought. The poor child has enough to bear, without the added insult of an unjust suspicion.”

“What does she say about the Earl’s seal?” I asked.

“We haven’t asked her yet,” returned Mrs. Whiting. “Nurse Lathrop is to ask her as soon as Milly wakens from her nap.”

“Perhaps Milly has wakened already,” said Miss Maxwell, and acting on that suggestion, Edith went up-stairs to see.

In a few moments the nurse came down, leaving Edith with the patient.

The white, stiffly-starched personage came into the room with her usual air of professional importance, and taking a chair, folded her hands primly, awaiting questions.

Miss Maxwell spoke gently: “Have you asked Milly, Miss Lathrop, about the seal the Earl gave her?”

“Yes, I have, Miss Maxwell.”

“And what did she say?” went on the gentle voice, which was such a contrast to the nurse’s cold, metallic tones.

“She said that the Earl gave it to her.”

“Did she say she left it in the library? Tell us all she said, can’t you?” This was from Mr. Maxwell, who was clearly impatient at the aggravating slowness of Miss Lathrop’s story and indeed he voiced what we all felt.

The nurse rolled her hard  eyes slowly toward him. “I would rather be questioned,” she said; “I might say more than would be discreet.”

“Oh, bother discretion!” exclaimed Tom Whiting, whose nerves were on edge; “the seal business doesn’t amount to anything, any way; and you’re purposely trying to make it seem important.”

“Why should I do that?” and Miss Lathrop smoothed her immaculate apron in a most exasperating manner.

“I don’t know why you should, and I don’t care,” went on Whiting; “here, I’ll question you. After Milly said the earl gave her the seal, what did you ask her next?”

“I asked her what she did with it?”

“And what did she say?”

“She said she fastened it on her neck-chain.”

“And after that?”

“She said she pulled it off her chain and threw it at the man.”

“What man?”

“The man that shot Mr. Maxwell.”

“Oh, she did, did she? that’s just what I supposed. Did she throw it before she threw the horse or after?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Whiting.”

“And it doesn’t make a scrap of difference anyhow! Mr. Maxwell, there’s the whole seal story. The Earl gave it to Milly, and she wore it on a chain. With the impulse, which she has already described, and which is a very natural feminine instinct, to throw something at the intruder, she grabbed that heavy jewel from her chain and threw it. She probably didn’t hit him, but whether she did or not, the seal fell under the edge of the chair, and was found next morning by Emily. This in no way implicates his lordship, and you can readily see that he went away, lest he should seem to know anything that might react against Milly, in an ultra-suspicious mind! Now, then, the Earl is out of the question, once for all,—to my mind,—and the only suspicion we have left, tends toward that motor-car, which must have brought here the man who shot both Philip and my sister. Even though you, Mr. Maxwell, do not wish to trace this man, I hold that I have a right to do so; for the fact that he did not kill Milly, in no way excuses his intent and effort to do so!”

“Do not misunderstand me, Mr. Whiting,” said Mr. Maxwell; “as I said, I am unable myself to work actively in the matter. But you must surely know that I’m entirely in sympathy with your feeling, and that I wish as much as you do, to bring the villain to an accounting. If you will instigate and conduct the search, I will defray any expenses incurred, and thus, in a way, do my share.”

“All right, Mr. Maxwell,” said Whiting, with enthusiasm. “I only wanted your sanction to go ahead with my plans. King, I hope you will help me. Mr. Hunt, may I also count on you?”

“Of course,” said Hunt, “but I tell you frankly, Mr. Whiting, that I cannot believe, as the rest of you do, in the entire innocence of that English Earl!”

“And I want to say,” said Irene Gardiner, “that while I cannot share Mr. Hunt’s actual suspicion of the Earl, I do think we ought to verify his story by some evidence other than his own.”

“That’s just what we’re going to do, Irene,” said Tom Whiting; “if we spot that car and nail the man we want, that’s going to prove the Earl a real detective, and worthy of his own Scotland Yard!”

To my surprise, Miss Gardiner turned white, and trembled as if beneath a blow. Even as I watched her, I saw also that Miss Lathrop was watching her, stealthily but closely.

Irene endeavored to speak further, but was unable to do so. Her quivering lips would utter no word, and as we looked at her in amazement, unable to guess what had so stirred her, Nurse Lathrop arose and taking Irene’s arm, led her from the room.

“Whatever’s the matter with Irene?” exclaimed Mr. Whiting. “Anybody would think she was shielding the man in the motor-car, instead of Milly! I tell you the whole thing hinges on that man, and I’m going to find him!”

“Will it,—will it be necessary to consult the police?” said Miss Maxwell, timidly, a little alarmed at Whiting’s emphatic manner.

“Certainly not,” said Mr. Maxwell. “Mr. Whiting’s determination, and the skilled assistance of Mr. Hunt and Mr. King, can track that car quicker than all the police in the county. Go on, my boys, and may success go with you! But I will leave all questions of method and procedure to your judgment. I’m quite sure I could not help you; and if you’ll excuse me, I would rather not take part in your planning.”

I felt sure that this decision of Mr. Maxwell’s was largely induced by his recognition of his sister’s wishes. She was shrinkingly averse to having herself or her brother drawn into the actual investigation of the crime, and I think her gentle heart would have preferred that the criminal go unpunished, rather than take part in or even have cognizance of the sordid details of the search.

And so I went with Tom Whiting and Mr. Hunt to the library to discuss what we should do first.

The memory of what had happened there made it a ghastly place to converse in, but the fact that it was the scene of the crime, seemed to stir Whiting’s mind to even a more intense determination to succeed in his quest.

“I propose,” he said, “that we three canvass the neighborhood, and see if we can find anyone who saw that car Monday night.”

“It may be a car belonging in the neighborhood,” I suggested.

“Then we must find that out. At any rate this idea will do for a start.”

We agreed to this, and after some further confab, in which Tom was the main spokesman, and Hunt took a very uninterested part, we set out on our preliminary search.

Later on Whiting and I returned to Maxwell Chimneys, and found there a note from Hunt, saying that he had discovered nothing of consequence.

“Let’s leave him out of it,” said Whiting to me; “he’s no sort of a detective, anyway, unless he’s working on his own individual theory. What did you find out, King?”

As we mutually discovered, we had found out considerable. Sifted out and checked up, the evidence seemed to be, that the car described by the Earl was neither fiction nor imagination.

Mr. Plattner, the neighbor on the right,—though the country houses sat some distance apart,—had seen that car come from the village of Hamilton at about ten o’clock on Monday night. He had chanced to notice it because of its great speed, and he described it as a long gray car with several men in it.

Mr. Allen, the neighbor on the other side, had seen the car pass his house, going very fast, at some time after ten. His description was the same, and we couldn’t doubt the identity of the car seen by the Earl and by these two neighbors. This made it pretty positive that a fast car had come up from the village at ten, had turned in and stopped at the Maxwells’, and had gone on along the main road by or before half-past ten.

The definiteness of this seemed to Whiting to be a long step toward our goal, and my half-formed doubts had no weight with him.

“But the man in the car couldn’t have gone up on the veranda by that little outside staircase, without Miss Gardiner seeing him,” I said.

“Don’t you be too sure that Irene didn’t see him,” said Whiting; “that girl knows a whole lot more than Mildred about things, but there’s no earthly use in trying to get anything out of her. Irene Gardiner is a sphinx and a sibyl and a siren and all such things, but as a witness she’s absolutely worthless! She doesn’t want to tell anything, and wouldn’t tell it if she did! But she knows! O Lord, yes, that girl knows a lot!”

“Not guilty knowledge!” I cried.

“Depends on what you mean by guilty. She didn’t shoot Philip, of course, but she knows a thing or two about who did.”

I made no reply to this, for I was beginning to realize that I could not speak restrainedly when I tried to defend Irene. So Whiting went on.

“Now let’s go down to the village and see if that car didn’t stop at the inn before coming up toward Mr. Plattner’s. It would be a most natural thing to do.”

So to the inn we went, taking for the purpose a little runabout from the Maxwell garage.

The ample-faced inn-keeper listened to our questions and then said thoughtfully: “Yep, I do seem to remember that there car. It stopped here along about half-past nine or a little later on Monday night. But I never once thought of connectin’ that up with the Maxwell murder! Land! do you think them men did it?”

“Did the men come in? How long did they stay?” said Whiting, impatiently.

“No, they didn’t come in; they didn’t hardly stop, as you might say. They jus’ whizzed up here, stopped a minute, and asked me where the Maxwell place was.”

“They did!” we cried, in amazed duet.

“Yes sir, they did! and of course I told ’em, and never thought of it again. Good land! so they wuz the murderers, was they?”

“We don’t know,” said Tom, “but we’re going to find out, and we want you to help us all you can. Can you describe the car?”

“Well, of course, I’m mighty used to cars, as cars go,—but I couldn’t just say the make of that one. It was long, extra long, I should say,—and gray,—darkish gray. It was a touring car, and there were four young fellows in it beside the chauffeur. Now, that’s jus’ about all I know about it.”

“Do you know the number?”

“Well, I didn’t look at it purposely, but I ‘most always glance at a number on general principles. But all I can tell you is, that the first two figures were sixes. The other three I couldn’t swear to, though I’m ‘most sure one of them was a four. Of course I only caught a glimpse of it, as they swung away, but I’d know that car again anywhere!”

“Well! we may want you to identify it, if we can find it anywhere. What were the men like?”

“I didn’t notice them much. It was the chap that sat by the driver that asked me where the Maxwells lived. He was a big man, one of the biggest I ever saw, and with a big, deep voice and a off-hand way,—kind of like a Westerner. The whole crowd was off-hand; kind of laughin’ and carryin’ on, but I didn’t pay much attention to ’em. If I’d a thought anything about it, I’d a thought they was some friends of the Maxwells, but I didn’t even think that. If you hadn’t brought it up, I’d never have thought of that car again! How are you going to find it?”

“That’s just what I don’t know,” said Whiting, gloomily; “you see, King, we’ve lost so much time. The trails are all cold, the clues all destroyed, and I confess I don’t know which way to look.”

The inn-keeper looked on in sympathetic silence, his bland face devoid of any idea or suggestion.

But I had an inspiration. “There’s one thing, Whiting,” I said; “if those men left the Maxwells’ as late as half-past ten, they must have gone somewhere to spend the night Of course, they would want to get pretty well away, but I doubt if they’d travel all night. Now, let’s telephone to the most likely places, and see if they know anything about them.”

“Now, that’s a smart idea,” commented Schwartz, the inn-keeper. “I can give you a list or a map of all the hotels and inns in this part of New Jersey.”

“It’s a pretty slim chance,” said Whiting, but his face showed a gleam of hope.

“We’ve got to take slim chances,” said I, “if we take any.”

We called up a score of places on the telephone, and spent two good hours doing it. But at one of them we spotted our quarry. About midnight that gray motor-car had put up at a small hotel in Millville, a town some thirty miles away. The hotel man described the car and the party, and said that the man who registered was not the big Westerner, but one of the others, and who signed James Mordaunt and party.

We asked no further information over the wire, but determined to go to Millville early the next morning and learn what he could. Then, if we could trace our men, to go on wherever we might be led.