In the Onyx Lobby Part 19

Gibbs looked at the speaker.

The Grenadier, as some people called her, sat upright, and her fine head nodded with stern denunciation of the young women she accused.

Her tight-set lips and glittering eyes showed hatred and scorn, yet her fingers nervously interlaced and her voice shook a little as if from over-strained nerves.

Even more nervous was Miss Gurney. Unable to sit still, she moved restlessly from one chair to another,--even now and then left the room, hurrying back, as if afraid of missing something.

"Do sit still, Eliza," said Miss Prall, at last; "you're enough to drive any one distracted with your running about like a hen with its head off!"

"I feel like one! Here's poor Sir Herbert dead, and n.o.body paying any attention to it,--except to find out who killed him! I think our duty is first to the dead, and after that----"

"Keep still, Eliza," ordered Bates, who was never very patient with his aunt's irritating and irritable companion. "Sir Herbert's body and his affairs will be duly taken care of. It's necessary now to discover his murderer, of course, and the sooner investigation is made the more hope of finding the criminal."

"Or criminals," put in Gibbs. "Since seeing that paper, I feel convinced that the dying man tried to write 'get both,' meaning to insure punishing to the women who killed him."

"Then you think women really did the deed?" asked Bates, a strange fear in his blue eyes.

"Yes, I do;" Gibbs stated, "but Corson thinks women were merely at the root of the trouble. However, that isn't the point just now. That will all be learned later. First, we must get an idea of which way to look.

And, too, I may be wrong. The illegible word on that paper may mean, as Corson thinks, the beginning of some name. The fact that the B is not a capital doesn't count for much when we realize the circ.u.mstances of the writing."

"I should say not!" and Miss Prall looked straight at him. "Think of that poor dying man trying to write, while his life blood ebbed away!

And can you fail to heed his dying message? Can you fail to get those wicked, vicious little wretches who heartlessly lured him on and on in their wild orgies, until it all resulted in his fearful end! I, for one, shall never be satisfied until those foolish, flippant little things are punished----"

"Oh, Let.i.tia," wailed Miss Gurney, "bad as they are, you wouldn't want to see them all stuffed into an electric chair, would you, now?"

The mental picture of the chorus girls crowded into a single electric chair was almost too much for Richard's sense of humor, and he smiled, but Miss Gurney went on:

"But, anyway, if a pack of girls did do it, don't think it was the chorus girls. They're too frivolous and light hearted. I think you'd better look nearer home. The girls in this house were all down on Sir Herbert. None of them liked him, and he was always berating them, both to us, and to their very faces. That telephone girl, now,----"

"Eliza, _will_ you keep still?" fumed Miss Prall. "Why do you suggest anybody? These detectives are here to find out the murderers and they not only need no help from you, but they are held back and bothered by your interference. Please remain quiet!"

"I'll talk all I like, Let.i.tia Prall; I guess I know what's best for your interests as well as my own."

"You haven't any interests separate from mine, and I can look after myself! Now, you do as I tell you, and say nothing more on this subject at all. If Sir Herbert was the victim of his foolish penchant for those light young women, I'm not sure it doesn't serve him right----"

"Oh, Auntie!" exclaimed Bates, truly pained at this. "Don't talk so!"

"What right have you got to dictate to me? You keep still, too, Rick,--in fact, the least we any of us say, the better."

"Oh, no, Miss Prall," said Gibbs, suavely, "if there's anything you know, it will really be better for all concerned that you should tell it. As to your opinions or ideas or theories, I hold you quite excusable if you keep those to yourselves."

"And you'd prefer I should do so, I suppose! Well, I will. And as to facts, I know of none that could help you, so I will say nothing."

"Miss Gurney," and Gibbs turned toward her with a determined glance, "you spoke of the young women employed in the house; had you any one in mind?"

"Eliza----" began Miss Prall, but Gibbs stopped her.

"Beg pardon, ma'am, but I must request that you let Miss Gurney speak for herself. You have no right to forbid her, and I insist upon my right to ask."

"n.o.body in particular," Miss Gurney a.s.serted, as she looked timidly at Let.i.tia. "But Sir Herbert's chambermaid,----"

"Yes, go on."

"Well, she refused to take care of his room, he was so cross to her. But I don't suppose she'd kill him just for that."

"I'll look up the matter. Glad you mentioned it. Andy they gave him another maid?"

"Yes, the same one we have."

"I must have a talk with her. Much may be learned from a room servant.

That's what I want, facts,--not theories. We've got the big primal fact,--'women did it.' We've got a possible fact,--an uncertain statement,--'get both'--or, maybe, get some particular person. Now any side lights we can get that may throw illumination on that uncertain bit of writing is what is needed to show us which way to look. Isn't that right, Mr. Bates?"

"Why, yes, I suppose so. Personally, I can't seem to see women doing such a deed----"

"That, sir, is the result of your own manly outlook and your lack of experience with a desperate woman. You know, 'h.e.l.l hath no fury like a woman scorned,' and we can readily imagine a woman scorned by this Sir Herbert."

"He could do the scorning, all right----"

"And they could do the rest! Oh, yes, sir, it isn't a pleasant thing to believe, but it is a fact that women can be just as revengeful, just as vindictive, just as cruel as men,--and can commit just as great crimes, though as we all know, such women are the exception. But they are in existence and that fact must be recognized and remembered."

"But the circ.u.mstances--" demurred Bates, "the time----"

"My dear sir, it seems to me the circ.u.mstances and time were most favorable for the work of women. Granting some women wanted to kill that man, or had determined to kill him,--or even, killed him on a sudden irresistible impulse, what more conducive to an opportunity than this house late at night? The great lobby, guarded, as it is at that hour, by only one man and he often up in the ascending elevator car. You see, the women could easily have been in hiding in that onyx lobby. The great pillars give most convenient and un.o.bservable places of concealment, and they could have been tucked away there for a long time, waiting."

"Oh, ridiculous! Supposing my uncle hadn't come in?"

"Then they could have slipped out again. They may have been hidden there night after night, waiting for just the chance that came last night."

"But, suppose Moore had been downstairs when Sir Herbert entered--"

"Just the same," Gibbs explained, wearily. "Then they would have gone away and tried again the next night. A woman's perseverance and patience is beyond all words!"

"It's all beyond all words," and Richard folded his arms despondently.

"I can't get a line on it."

"Well, I can," a.s.serted Gibbs; "they came, no doubt, prepared. Else, where'd they get the knife? Now, naturally one criminal would be a.s.sumed,--that's why _women_ was written so clearly. Several who know, have agreed the handwriting is positively that of Sir Herbert Binney,--so, there's nothing left to do but _cherchez les femmes_."

CHAPTER VIII

Julie Baxter

Richard Bates and the two detectives stood waiting for the already summoned elevator to take them downstairs.

"You see," Gibbs was saying, "in nearly every investigation there's somebody who won't tell where he was at the time of the crime."