The Maxwell Mystery

There was nothing to be said. I was silent, because I felt as if the earth had suddenly given way beneath me, and all was chaos. Not for a moment did I doubt Fleming Stone’s statement, for his words compelled conviction.

But in the confused mass of sudden thoughts that surged through my brain, I seemed to see clearly nothing but Miss Miranda’s placid face, and I cried out involuntarily:

“Don’t let his sister know!”

Hunt sat like a man stunned. His expression was positively vacant, and I think he was trying to realize what Mr. Stone’s announcement meant.

“It is terrible, I know,” said Fleming Stone, “and I quite appreciate the shock it must be to you. But inexorable justice demands that we proceed without faltering.

“I think that, without telling you of the various steps which led me to this conclusion, I can best prove to you that it is the true one by asking you to go with me while I lay the facts before Mr. Maxwell. I think his reception of what I have to say, and the visible effect of my accusations upon him, will prove to you beyond any possible doubt his connection with the crime. Indeed, from what I know of the man I am disposed to think he will make full confession of his guilt.”

Fleming Stone’s words sounded to me like a voice heard in a dream; and even my own voice sounded strange and unreal, as I murmured: “It will kill him. He has heart disease.”

“I know it,” said Fleming Stone, “and I, too, fear the effect upon him. For that reason I have asked Dr. Sheldon to be present.”

When Dr. Sheldon arrived, he came directly to us in the library, and Fleming Stone told him in a few words of the ordeal we had to undergo.

The four of us then went down to Mr. Maxwell’s study. We found him there alone. We all went in, and Fleming Stone closed the door. He stood for a moment looking directly at Mr. Maxwell, and his deep eyes were filled with a great compassion.

“Mr. Maxwell,” he said—and his voice though quiet was most impressive—”we have come to tell you that we have discovered that Philip Maxwell died by your hand.”

If any of us had doubted Alexander Maxwell’s guilt—and I think some of us had—all possibility of doubt was at once removed.

If ever I saw a face on which confession was stamped as plainly as on a printed page, it was Alexander Maxwell’s face at that moment. Instinctively, I turned away, but almost immediately I heard Mr. Maxwell gasp, and I knew that Fleming Stone’s expectations had been verified, and that Mr. Maxwell’s heart had not been able to stand the shock.

Dr. Sheldon sprang to his side, and with the assistance of the others laid the unconscious man on the couch.

“He is not dead,” said Dr. Sheldon, after a few moments. “And he will soon rally from this; but I feel sure it is a fatal attack. I think he cannot live more than a few hours.”

As the doctor had surmised, Mr. Maxwell soon rallied and spoke:

“Don’t let Miranda know,” he said, “don’t ever let Miranda know.”

Fleming Stone stepped forward.

“Mr. Maxwell,” he said, “if you will make a full confession in the presence of these gentlemen, I will promise you on my honor that I will use every endeavor to keep the knowledge of your guilt from your sister.”

“I will not only assist Mr. Stone in his endeavor,” said Dr. Sheldon, “but I think I can safely promise that Miss Miranda shall never learn the secret. You are very ill, Mr. Maxwell, and whatever you wish to say must be said at once.”

“I am ready,” said Alexander Maxwell, and though his voice was faint, and though he seemed to realize his own fearful position, yet his manner expressed a certain sense of relief which I believed to be due to the relaxation of the tension of fear he had been under so long.

“I am ready,” he said again, “and, to make clear to you the motive for my deed, I must begin my story many years back.”

“But you must make it brief,” said Dr. Sheldon. “I cannot allow you to talk long at this time.”

“There will not be any other time,” said Mr. Maxwell quietly.

I could not help marvelling at this strange man, whose wonderful power of self-control did not desert him in this moment of mental and physical extremity.

Mr. Maxwell proceeded, and Fleming Stone took stenographic notes of his statement.

“Twenty-five years ago I lived in California and so did my brother John. Though not partners, our business interests were closely united in many ways. My brother married, and, about a year after Philip’s birth, his wife died.

“Five years later, John Maxwell died, and left the whole of his large fortune with me in trust for Philip. Although it was supposed at that time that my own fortune was as large or larger than John’s, the reverse was true. I had lost much money in unfortunate speculation, and it was to my surprise that I discovered the large amount of money my brother had left behind him.

“I used this money to make good my losses, trusting to replace it with further gains of my own before Philip should come of age. I was always a close-mouthed man, and neither Miranda nor my other sister, Hannah, knew anything about John’s money.

“I came East to live, and after some years the lawyer who was the only one beside myself who knew the circumstances died. Having by this time become a well-known and respected citizen of Hamilton, being president of the bank, and holding, or having held, various public offices, my pride and ambition rebelled at giving up my entire fortune to Philip.

“But it would have taken all my available assets to make up the sum entrusted to me by the boy’s father. For many years I struggled with this temptation, and at last, when Philip was twenty-one, I succumbed.

“On his twenty-first birthday, instead of telling him the truth, I offered him a permanent home at Maxwell Chimneys and agreed to support him indulgently and even extravagantly.”

Here, at the very climax of the recital, Mr. Maxwell sank back upon the couch, breathless and exhausted. But after a moment’s rest he continued: “We lived happily enough for a few years—in fact, until one day about a fortnight ago.

“That morning I was here in my study and had spread out before me the principal papers relating to the trust I had held for Philip.

“Suddenly I was called to the telephone and, thinking to return in a minute, left the papers on my desk. But I was detained at the telephone much longer than I anticipated, and, when I returned, although there was nobody in sight, it seemed to me the papers had been disturbed.

“They were tossed about, and I felt a presentiment that Philip had been in there and had read them. It would have been no breach of honor on his part, for he had always been allowed free access to my study and to my business papers.

“From that time on Philip was a changed man. His manner toward me confirmed my suspicion that he had discovered my guilt. No mention was made of the subject between us, but for more than a week Philip continued to act like a man crushed by a sudden disaster.

“Last Monday he wrote a letter to me in which he told me that he had discovered the truth, and that he felt he was entitled to an explanation. This explanation I knew I could not give, nor was I willing to face my nephew’s well-deserved condemnation and the exposure of my treachery to the public.

“On Monday then, after reading Philip’s letter, I determined that I would take my own life, as being a cowardly but final solution of my difficulties.

“Monday evening I sat in my study and decided that the time had come. I had placed my pistol in my pocket, and had intended to go up to my own room and there expiate my guilt toward my brother and his son.

“At this moment, Mr. King chanced to come into my study, and mentioned that Philip and Mildred were in the library. This strengthened my purpose, for I felt sure that Philip was even then telling Miss Leslie that he was in reality a rich man.

“Mr. King went on through the billiard-room and across the hall to the music-room. I left the study at once, and saw Mr. King enter the music-room door.

“As I crossed the back part of the hall, I felt an impulse to look once more on Philip’s face. I knew I could step out on the balcony from the hall window and look in at the library window unobserved.

“It has always been my habit when going out for a moment into the night air to catch up any coat from the hat-stand and throw it around me. I did this mechanically, and it chanced to be Gilbert Crane’s automobile coat.

“I went up the back stairs, putting the coat on as I went. Instinctively putting my hands into the pockets, I felt there the cap and goggles.

“It was then that the evil impulse seized me. I saw my beautiful home with its rich appointments, its lights, and its flowers; I heard the gay music and laughter; and like a flash it came to me that Philip should be the one to give up all that, and not I.

“I realized, as by an inspiration, that the goggles and a turned-up coat-collar would be ample disguise, and I thought the crime would be attributed to an outside marauder.

“The rest you know. Philip recognized me. But Miss Leslie did not. That is all.”

Mr. Maxwell fell back, and Dr. Sheldon, thinking the end had come, went toward him.

But Fleming Stone, the inexorable, leaned forward, and said distinctly to Mr. Maxwell: “Wait—did you refill the inkstand?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Maxwell, with a sudden revival of strength, “yes. I returned to the room late that night, picked up the inkstand, washed it, refilled it, and replaced it. The bronze horse I picked up and replaced before leaving the room the first time.”

I gazed at Alexander Maxwell, wonderingly. And yet, for a man who could live the life he had lived, who could conduct himself as he had during the past week, it was not strange that he was able thus, in the face of death, calmly to relate these details of his own crime.

“One more thing,” said Mr. Stone. “Did you scrape your foot around on the balcony to efface a possible footprint?”

“Yes; I knew the dust was thick there, and I wished to eliminate all traces.”

Here Mr. Maxwell’s strength seemed to leave him all at once. On the verge of total collapse, he said again, “Don’t let Miranda know”—and then sank into unconsciousness.

“He will probably not rally again,” said Dr. Sheldon. “I think his sister should be notified at once of his illness. But we shall all agree that she must not know of his crime.”

“Shall I call her?” I volunteered, as no one else moved to do so.

“Yes,” said Dr. Sheldon. “She will be startled, but it will not be entirely unexpected. I have warned her for years that the end would come like this.”

In justice to the innocent, Fleming Stone and I went at once to Inspector Davis to ask that Gilbert Crane be released. The order for release was sent immediately, and at last we were free to ask Fleming Stone a few questions.

“How did you do it?” cried Hunt, in his abrupt way.

“How did you do it so soon?” cried I, no less curious.

“It was not difficult,” said Fleming Stone, in that direct way of his, which was not over-modest, but simply truthful. “Mr. King’s statement, which was the first one I heard, showed me that, although Mr. Crane’s alibi from ten o’clock till half past ten depended entirely upon his own uncorroborated word, yet Mr. Maxwell’s alibi was equally without verification.

“Mr. King saw Mr. Maxwell in his study at ten o’clock. He was found there again some time after ten-thirty. This proved nothing but the opportunity. Then all the evidence regarding the coat, the clues found in the library, and elsewhere, would apply to him as well as to Crane. It remained, however, to find what motive, if any, could have impelled Alexander Maxwell to the deed.

“I had not talked with him ten minutes before I concluded that he was a man with a secret. Miss Maxwell supplied a clue when she told me what she knew of Philip’s early history.

“Another clue was the crumpled letter found among the waste paper. This was addressed to Alexander Maxwell, and was probably begun and discarded for the one which Philip wrote and sent to his uncle.

“The fact that the inkstand had been refilled and replaced argued some one familiar with the library; even Gilbert Crane would not be apt to know where the supply of red ink was kept. Everything pointed in one direction.

“But perhaps the most convincing clue was given to me last evening by Mr. Maxwell himself. You remember, Mr. King, that I took each member of the household to the study separately. When I interviewed Mr. Maxwell there, I took care not to alarm him, but rather to put him at his ease as much as possible.

“Noticing a well-worn foot-rest, I felt sure that it was his habit to sit with his feet up on it. In hopes of his taking this position, I asked him to show me just how he was sitting when the news of the crime was brought to him.

“As I surmised, he sat down in his big armchair, and put his feet upon the footrest. This gave me an opportunity to examine the soles of his shoes, and I discovered on one of them a large stain of a dull, purplish red. The stain made by red ink is indelible and of a peculiar tinge, so that I felt sure this was the man at whom the inkstand had been thrown, and who had unknowingly stepped upon a wet spot of red ink.

“Owing to the awkward goggles which he wore, and, too, the excitement of the moment, he probably did not notice the ink at all. When he returned later, the spots had sunk into the crimson rug, and partly dried. The shoes were light house-shoes, and probably he did not wear them out of doors, for dampness or hard wear would have tended to obliterate the stain.

“As it was, the color could plainly be seen. I am sure that a chemical test would prove it to be a stain of red ink.”

Mr. Maxwell died that night, and Dr. Sheldon at once took Miss Miranda to his own home, and kept her there, safely out of the reach of gossip, until she went out to Colorado to live with her sister. Her nerves were shattered, and she begged so piteously that she might not be obliged to enter Maxwell Chimneys again, that her wishes were willingly respected. The rest of us remained at the house until the sister, Hannah, came to take charge of affairs, and to take Miss Miranda home with her.

“It is a case,” I said to Irene Gardiner, “which proves your theory—the murder of Philip Maxwell was brought about solely by opportunity.

“My chance remark to Mr. Maxwell that the young people were in the library; the inadvertent snatching up of Gilbert’s coat; the fact that the goggles and cap were in the pocket; the fact that Philip’s uncle had a weapon with him—all these things form tiny links in a strong chain of opportunity.”

“But the evil impulse must have been in his heart, or he would never have taken advantage of this opportunity,” said Irene, unconsciously refuting a theory she had herself advanced.

“I would rather not think,” said Fleming Stone, in his sweet, serious voice, “that opportunity creates a sinner, or even that it creates an evil impulse. I would rather believe—and I do believe—that opportunity only warms into action an evil impulse that is lying dormant; and I do not believe that dormant evil impulse is in everybody.”

“Nor do I,” said Irene; “it would be a sad world, indeed, if that were true. And yet,” she looked at me, “I confess I used to think so. But I have learned much in the last few weeks, and I realize how difficult it is to judge what anyone would do or would not do upon occasion. And yet I would rather believe that the evil impulse was created in Mr. Maxwell’s mind by the especial opportunity, than to think he had all his life been a man capable of crime.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” said Stone; “and after all, it makes little difference. The thing is to have a strong enough character or will to resist any evil impulse or any special opportunity that may present itself. And that no one can declare he possesses, until he has been tried and proven. But let us be thankful that the opportunities are comparatively rare and the natures that succumb to them are rarer still.”

“It is a satisfaction to realize that,” I returned, “but that very knowledge makes it seem all the more strange and sad that an exceptional case should be this of Alexander Maxwell.”

-End-