32 Caliber Part 6

"Fo' dat money?" His teeth gleamed.

I nodded.

"Mr. Woods was here last night?" I asked, abruptly.

"Yas, suh."

"What time did he come in?"

"Ah cain't raghtly say, Mist' Thompsin, but he had dinnah out heah 'bout seben-thuty," he answered.

"Did he leave the club after that?"

"Not 'til de telephone call come whut says Mist' Feldahson ben killt. Den he lef wif Mist' Brown an' Mist' Paisley."

"You're sure he was here all that time?" I asked.

"No, sah, I ain't suah, but Ah seen him ev'y now an' den thu de ev'nin'."

"Was he here at quarter past eight?" I questioned.

"He was heah at twenty-fahv minutes past eight, Ah knows, cause Ah done brought him a drink."

"You're sure of that?"

"Yas, suh! Positive!" the negro answered. "'Cause Ah looked at de clock raght den an' der."

As near as I could figure, the accident had happened about eight-ten or eight-fifteen and the bridge was six miles away from the club. Woods couldn't have been at the bridge at the time of the tragedy and got back to the club by eighty twenty-five. Still, he might have had an accomplice.

"Thank you, Jackson," I said, giving him the money. "Just forget that I asked you any questions!"

The darky chuckled. "Ah done fohgot 'em befoh you evah asted 'em, suh. Thank you, suh!"

As I pa.s.sed into the big, central living-room, Paisley came in.

"What was this I saw in The Sun?" he asked.

"The sort of rot that nasty sheet always prints," I said.

"Nothing to it of course. I thought not. You don't feel like golfing?"

I shook my head. "Not to-day, old chap. By the way, were you with Frank Woods when the news of Jim's death reached the club?"

"Yes--why?" he asked.

"You won't think it too strange if I ask you how he appeared to take it?" I said, trying to make my remark seem as casual as possible. Seeing the puzzled expression on his face, I added: "I know it is a peculiar thing to ask, but please don't think any more about it than you can help, and just answer."

"Why--" Paisley began, a little fl.u.s.tered, "why he took it just the way the rest of us took it, I suppose. I don't remember exactly."

"Did he seem surprised?" I questioned.

"Of course," Paisley answered, "He didn't seem relieved?"

"Say, what the devil are you driving at, Thompson?" Paisley burst out.

I saw I could get nothing from him so I left him looking after me with a perplexed and somewhat indignant gaze. As a detective it seemed I might make a good plumber. I knew very well he would not repeat my questions, but it would be just like good old Paisley to worry himself to death trying to solve them.

I drove back to the bridge, determined to find the revolver, if possible, and then hunt up Inspector Robinson to learn what he had to report. Apparently, my suspicions of Frank Woods were groundless. He had had dinner at the club and then waited around for Jim to keep his appointment. He had been seen by Jackson at eight twenty-five; Jackson was positive of that fact. Ten or fifteen minutes at the most in which to go six miles to the bridge and back to the club, put up his car and ask Jackson for a drink. The thing couldn't be done. He had heard of Jim's death with surprise and had heard of Helen's injury with the greatest horror. There seemed to be no doubt of one thing: no matter how much he wished for Jim's death, no matter how much he benefited by the murder, Frank Woods, himself, didn't do the killing.

An automobile was standing at the bridge when I got there and I cursed the whim that had sent me to the club on a false scent and kept me from having an uninterrupted search for the weapon. When I saw, however, that the driver of the automobile was Inspector Robinson, I was greatly relieved, for this would not only give me a chance to learn what he had discovered concerning the men in the black limousine, but would not interfere with the search for Jim's gun. Robinson had his coat off and his sleeves rolled up and was fishing around the edge of the little creek with his hands. So engrossed was he in his task that I was almost upon him before he looked up.

"Good afternoon, Inspector," I addressed him. "What are you doing, digging for gold or making mud pies?"

"I'm gettin' bait to catch a sucker," he snarled. "You must have thought you had one this morning."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"All that bunk you handed me about Schreiber and the men in the black limousine. That was a fine stall you pulled. I might have known you was tryin' to cover up somebody's tracks."

He dried his hands on a rather flamboyant, yellow handkerchief.

"I haven't the least idea what you are talking about," I replied coldly.

"Oh, you haven't, haven't you?" the little man burst out malignantly. "You're innocent, you are! Too d.a.m.ned innocent! I suppose you didn't know that your brother-in-law was shot in the back of the head and that your sister was the only one that was with him when it was done. I suppose that's news--eh?"

My heart stood still as I heard his words. So he was after the proof that Helen did it. He had read the insinuations in The Sun and had abandoned his work against Schreiber and Zalnitch for the fresher trail.

"I found out this morning that my brother-in-law was shot, but that only makes the case look the blacker for those who openly threatened his life."

"Among whom was your beautiful sister," the detective retorted acidly.

"How do you know that?" I demanded.

"From her maid and all the rest of the servants in the house. I found that out when I went up to take another squint at the automobile. You thought you were pretty smart sendin' me on a wild-goose chase after a couple of cracked Socialists, when all the time you knew it was your own sister done the thing. Tried to keep me off the track by slippin' me a little dough. Well, it didn't work, see? There's your dough back." He threw a crumpled wad of bills on the ground at my feet. "No one saw you give it to me, but I ain't takin' any chances, you may have marked those bills. From now on I work alone without any theories from you."

"Look here, Inspector!" I demanded, "I was in earnest when I told you I wanted you to find out all you could about the men in the black limousine. I'm sure they had something to do with Mr. Felderson's death. I didn't try to bribe you, nor throw you off the right track. Even though my sister did have a little unpleasantness with her husband, it was no serious difference."

I determined to find out just how much Robinson knew.

"She was utterly incapable of doing an act like this. What possible motive could she have?"

I could see that Robinson was rather impatiently waiting for me to go before continuing his search.

"Well, I ain't found out her motive yet. That can wait. It might have been money or jealousy."

"Money?" I scoffed. "My sister had plenty; more than she could use. And as for her being jealous of her husband, that is even more ridiculous."

The little man eyed me angrily. "I said that the motive could wait. There's no tellin' what a society woman will do. She may have been crazy for all I know. But I ain't, and all your arguin' is just so much time wasted. You think those guys in the automobile done it. I don't. I think your sister done it. You don't. All right, then, you take your road and I'll take mine, and we'll see who comes out ahead."

He turned and started back to where he had been hunting when I came up.

"May I ask what you expect to find here?" I queried, walking after him.

"Sure you can ask," he replied. As he found me following, he turned and snapped: "Say, what the h.e.l.l are you hangin' around here for, anyway?"

"I merely wanted to ask what you had discovered about the men in the black limousine. That's why I stopped."

"Well, you've found out, haven't you? Nothin'. All right then, you go on into the city and see if you can find out anything more!"

I walked on down the sloping bank, searching the ground to see if I could find the gun that might reveal so much. I could feel the eyes of the inspector boring into my back.

"What are you looking for?" he demanded.

"A cuff-link," I answered easily. "I think I lost one here last night. You didn't happen to find it, did you?"

"A cuff-link? Humph!" he grunted. "No, I haven't found it, but I wouldn't be surprised if I was lookin' for that same cuff-link."

All this time I was searching the bank with my eyes. A scrubby, little bush overhung the creek and I kicked at it with my foot. There was a "plopp" as though something heavy had dropped into the water. Instinctively I knew it was the object for which we were both searching, and I turned to find the inspector eying me quizzically.

"What was that noise?"

"What noise?" I asked.

"Sounded as though that precious cuff-link of yours had dropped into the water." He started for me, and as he did so, I bent down quickly and plunged my arm into the water. My fingers closed on the revolver just as he came bounding toward me. With a quick shove I pushed it far into the soft clay of the bank, and, grabbing a rock off the bottom of the creek, withdrew my arm from the water and slipped the rock into my pocket. The red-faced little detective was peering over my shoulder as I turned. Rarely have I seen a man so angry.

"Give me what you pulled out of that creek!" he almost screamed.

"What for, Inspector?" I asked quietly.

"Never mind what for. You give me what you found in that creek, or I'll--" he grabbed me by the shoulder.

"All right," I said; "all right, Inspector, don't get so excited over nothing. It's yours." I pulled the muddy rock from my coat pocket and gravely handed it to him. "It was only an ordinary, every-day rock. I didn't know you were a geologist."

He pounced on me and ran his fingers over my person. Red-faced, he surveyed me.

"I ain't a geologist, but I am a criminologist, and just one more of your monkey tricks like that and I'll put you where you'll have time to study a lot of rocks and do a lot of thinkin' before bein' funny again. Now, you get out! Get into that car as quick as you can, if you know what's good for you!"

Hoping I could retrieve the revolver later, and realizing that nothing could be gained by staying there longer, I started toward the car. I had hardly taken five steps when I heard a joyful yell and turned to see Robinson struggling to his feet, the muddy revolver in his hand.

"Here's your cuff-link," he cried. "Before I'm through you'll find that this ain't a cuff-link, but a necklace for the neck of that pretty sister of yours. You, with your Socialists and your cuff-b.u.t.tons, tryin' to keep me from gettin' what I go after. Well, it didn't work! It don't usually, when I go after somethin'. It didn't work, did it?"

"No. It didn't work," I admitted.

"Oh, I don't blame you," Robinson went on, mollified by his success and the soft tone of my reply; "I'd of done the same thing in your place, if my sister was a murderer."

The word "murderer" acted like an electric shock on me.

"She didn't do it, I tell you; she couldn't have done it!"

"Now, Mr. Thompson," Robinson began in a soothing voice. "These things happen in even the best families sometimes. You mustn't take it too hard."

"Will you let me examine that revolver?" I demanded.

"Why, no. I can't let you examine it. But I'll examine it when I get ready."

"Will you be so good as to do it now?" I asked.

"What for?"

"Because it may not have been fired at all. That would make things look entirely different, you know."

The inspector took out the gaudy handkerchief again and wiped the mud off the barrel and the grip. I had shoved the pistol barrel foremost into the bank so the muzzle was filled with clay. It was Jim's--a "32" automatic.

"It won't be spoilin' any evidence by my cleanin' this mud off the outside, because you put that there yourself," the detective said, wiping the pistol carefully. He released the spring and pulled out the clip. I saw a cartridge at the top of the clip and exclaimed: "There! You see? That gun was never fired!"

The inspector looked at me with a pitying smile.

"Now, that's where you're wrong, Mr. Thompson. You see, you don't know the inner workings of an automatic. When a gun like this is fired, it discharges the old sh.e.l.l and a new cartridge comes to the top of the clip. There are only three cartridges left in this clip."

"Do you mean to say that my sister fired more than one shot?" I asked sarcastically.

"Not at all, not at all," the little man responded airily. "There were probably only four cartridges in the gun in the first place. You're gettin' all excited over this thing. Of course, I don't blame you, Mr. Thompson, for tryin' to fight against facts, but it certainly looks bad for sister."

I got into my car and started home, my heart dead within me. It certainly did look bad for Helen.

CHAPTER NINE.

LOOK OUT, JIM.

A good general realizes when he is beaten and changes his tactics accordingly. Where I had been certain of Zalnitch's guilt before, and had planned his prosecution, now, with the sickening certainty that it was my sister herself who was guilty, I began to plan her defense. Yes, I'll admit right now, the gun convinced me. I had been certain that Jim had not been killed through careless driving, that is why I had been so insistent that Inspector Robinson should hunt down those responsible for his death. Now that it was too late, I cursed myself for not having let well-enough alone and aided the coroner in giving a verdict of accidental death. My suspicions against Zalnitch had been based on the knowledge that he hated Jim and would have done anything to put him out of the way. Coincidence had brought him over the same road that Jim had traveled a few minutes before his death. This had strengthened my suspicions, but the case would have been hard to prove, while the evidence against Helen was too p.r.o.nounced to be disregarded. Woods, too, had gained my suspicions, and yet he was miles away from the murder. I realized suddenly that I had been refusing to look at the obvious in order that I might place the guilt where I wanted to believe it lay. Yet it did seem the irony of fate that the two men benefiting by Jim's death should have had nothing to do with it.

Helen did it! As the awful realization of what that meant came over me, I hoped, for a brief second, that death would take her and so spare her the consequences of her act. It would be such an easy way out. I felt sure that if she died I could hush the whole thing up. The Sun could be bought, if enough money was offered.

These gruesome thoughts carried me into the city almost before I knew it. I stopped at the house to change my muddy clothes, before going to the hospital to get Mary, and learned from the maid that mother had been asking for me. I went quickly to her room. She was lying in bed and at first I thought she was asleep, but she turned as I approached her.

"Is that you, Warren?" she asked softly.

"Yes, mother. Stella said you wanted to see me." I bent down and kissed her lightly. She reached up and put her thin weak arms around my neck.

"Warren, is there anything wrong? If there is you must tell me."