No Clue Part 18

"Just a moment!" the old man commanded him. "This Mildred Brace claimed she had suffered injury at your hands. You fired her out of your office.

She and her mother afterwards pursued you. She came out here in the middle of the night, where she knew you were. She was murdered, and by a weapon whose blade may have been fashioned from an article you possessed, an article which is now missing, missing since you came to Sloanehurst this time. You were found bending over the dead body.

"Her mother and her closest friend, her would-be fiance, say she wrote to you Friday night, addressing her letter to Sloanehurst. The flap of an envelope, identified by her mother and friend, and bearing the impression in ink of her handwriting, is found in the fireplace of your room here. The man who followed her out here, who might have been suspected of the murder, has proved an alibi.

"Now, I ask you, as a lawyer and a sensible man, who's going to believe that she came out here without having notified you of her coming? Who, as facts stand now, is going to believe anything but that you, desperate with the fear that she would make revelations which would prevent your marriage to Miss Sloane and keep you from access to an immense amount of money which you needed--who's going to believe you didn't kill her, didn't strike her down, there in the night, according to a premeditated plan, with a dagger which, for better protection of yourself, you had manufactured in a way which you hoped would make it beyond identification? Who's----"

Wilton intervened again.

"What's your object, Hastings?" he demanded, springing from his chair.

"You're treating Berne as if he'd killed the woman and you could prove it!"

Webster was swaying on his feet, falling a little away from the piano and reeling against it again, his elbows sliding back and forth on its top. He was extremely pale; even his lips, still stiff and twisted to what he thought was a belittling smile, were white. He looked at the detective as a man might gaze at an advancing terror which he could neither resist nor flee. His going to pieces was so complete, so absolute, that it astonished Hastings.

"And you, both of you," the old man retorted to Wilton's protest; "you're treating me as if I were a meddlesome outsider intent on 'framing up' a case, instead of the representative of the Sloane family--at least, of Miss Lucille Sloane! Why's that?"

"Tell me what's on that paper," Webster said hoa.r.s.ely, as if he had not heard the colloquy of the other two.

He held up a trembling hand, but without taking a step. He still swayed, like a man dangled on strings, against the piano.

"Yes; tell him!" urged Wilton.

Hastings handed Webster the envelope flap. Instead of looking at it, Webster let it drop on the piano.

"One of the words," Hastings said, "is 'pursuit.' The other two are uncompleted."

"And it's her handwriting, the daughter's?" Wilton said.

"Beyond a doubt."

Webster kept his unwinking eyes on the detective, apparently unable to break the spell that held him. For a long moment, he had said nothing.

When he did speak, it was with manifest difficulty. His words came in a screaming whisper:

"Then, I'm in desperate shape!"

"Nonsense, man!" Judge Wilton protested, his voice raised, and, going to his side, struck him sharply between the shoulders. "Get yourself together, Berne! Brace up!"

The effect on the collapsing man was, in a way, magical. He stood erect in response to the blow, his elbows no longer seeking support on the piano. He got his eyes away from Hastings and looked at the judge as a man coming out of a sound sleep might have done. For a few seconds, he had one hand over his mouth, as if, by actual manipulation, he would gain control of the muscles of his lips.

"I feel better," he said at last, dropping the hand from before his face and squaring his shoulders. "I don't know what hit me. If I'd--you know," he hesitated, frowning, "if I'd killed the woman, I couldn't have acted the coward more thoroughly."

Hastings went through with what he wanted to say:

"About that letter, Mr. Webster: have you any idea, can you advance any theory, as to how that piece of the envelope got into your room?"

Webster was pa.s.sing his hand across his hair now, and breathing in a deep, gusty fashion.

"Not the faintest," he replied, hoa.r.s.ely.

"That's all, then, gentlemen!" Hastings said, so abruptly that both of them started. "We don't seem to have gone very far ahead with this business. We won't, until you--particularly you, Webster--tell me what you know. It's your own affair----"

"My dear sir----" Judge Wilton began.

"Let me finish!" Hastings spoke indignantly. "I'm no fool; I know when I'm trifled with. Understand me: I don't say you got that letter, Mr.

Webster; I don't say you ever saw it; I don't know the truth of it--yet.

I do say you've deliberately refused to respond to my requests for cooperation. I do say you'd prefer to have me out of this case altogether. I know it, although I'm not clear as to your motives--or yours, judge. You were anxious enough, you said when we talked at Sloane's door, for me to go on with it. If you're still of that opinion, I advise you to advise your friend here to be more outspoken with me.

I'll give you this straight: if I can't be corn, I won't be shucks. But I intend to be corn. I'm going to conduct this investigation as I see fit. I won't be turned aside; I won't play second to your lead!"

He was fine in his intensity. Astounded by his vehemence, the two men he addressed were silent, meeting his keen and steady scrutiny.

He smiled, and, as he did so, they were aware, with an emotion like shock, that his whole face mirrored forth a genuine and warm self-satisfaction. The thing was as plain as if he had spoken it aloud: he had gotten out of the interview what he wanted. Their recognition of this fact increased their blankness.

"You know my position now," he added, no longer denunciatory. "If you change your minds, that will be great! I want all the help I can get.

And, take it from me, young man, you can't afford to throw away any you can get."

"Threats?"

Webster had shot out the one word with cool insolence before the judge could begin a conciliatory remark. The change in the lawyer's manner was so unpleasant, the insult so palpably deliberate, that Hastings could not mistake the purpose back of it. Webster regarded him out of burning eyes.

"No; not threats," Hastings answered him in a voice that was cold as ice. "I think you understand what I mean. I know too little, and I suspect too much, to drop my search for the murderer of that woman."

Judge Wilton tried to placate him:

"I don't see what your complaint is, Hastings. We----"

A smothered, half-articulate cry from Webster interrupted him. Hastings, first to spring forward, caught the falling man by his arm, breaking the force of the fall. He had clutched the edge of the piano as his legs gave under him. That, and the quickness of the detective, made the fall more like a gentle sliding to the floor.

Save for the one, gurgling outcry, no word came from him. He was unconscious, his colourless lips again twisted to that poor semblance of smiling defiance which Hastings had noticed at the beginning of the interview.

X

THE WHISPERED CONFERENCE

Dr. Garnet, reaching Sloanehurst half an hour later, found Webster in complete collapse. He declared that for at least several days the sick man must be kept quiet. He could not be moved to his apartment in Washington, nor could he be subjected to questioning about anything.

"That is," he explained, "for three or four days--possibly longer. He's critically ill. But for my knowledge of the terrific shock he's sustained as a result of the murder, I'd be inclined to say he'd broken down after a long, steady nervous strain.

"I'll have a nurse out to look after him. Miss Sloane has volunteered, but she has troubles of her own."

Judge Wilton took the news to Hastings, who was on the front porch, whittling, waiting to see Lucille before returning to Washington.

"I think Garnet's right," Wilton added. "I thought, even before last night, Berne acted as if he'd been worn out. And you handled him rather roughly. That sort of questioning, tantalizing, keeping a man on tenterhooks, knocks the metal out of a high-strung temperament like his.

I don't mind telling you it had me pretty well worked up."

"I'm sorry it knocked him out," Hastings said. "All I wanted was the facts. He wasn't frank with me."