No Clue Part 21

She held her chin high.

"It was all true, what I told you in the library, my being waked up by father's moving about, my going to the window, my seeing Berne and the judge facing each other across--her--there at the end of the awful yellow arm of light. But that wasn't all. The moment the light flashed on, the judge threw back his head a little, like a man about to cry out, shout for help. I am sure that was it.

"But Berne was too quick for that. Berne put out his hand; his arm shot across her; and his hand closed the judge's mouth. The judge made no noise whatever, but he shook his head from side to side two or three times--I'm not certain how many--while Berne leant over the body and whispered to him. It seemed to me I could almost hear the words, but I didn't.

"Then Berne took his hand from the judge's mouth. I think, before that, the judge made a sign, tried to nod his head up and down, to show he would do as Berne said. Then, when they saw she was dead, they both hurried around the corner to the front of the house, and I heard them come in; I heard the judge call to father and run up to your room."

She was alarmed then by the amazement and disapproval in his face.

"Oh!" she said, and this time she took his hand. "You see! You see! You don't understand! You think Berne killed her!"

"I don't know," he said, wondering. "I must think." For the moment, indignation swept him. "Wilton! A judge, a judge!--keeping quiet on a thing like that! I must think."

XI

MOTIVES REVEALED

She let go his hand and, still leaning toward him, waited for him to speak. A confusion of misgivings a.s.sailed her--she regretted having confided in him. If his anger embraced Berne as well as Judge Wilton, she had done nothing but harm!

Seeing her dismay, he tried again to rea.s.sure her.

"But no matter!" he minimized his own sense of shock. "I'm sure I'll understand if you'll tell me more--your explanation."

Obviously, the only inference he could draw from her story as she had told it was that Webster had killed the woman and, found bending over her body, had sprung forward to silence the man who had discovered him.

Nevertheless, it was equally evident that she was sincere in attributing to Webster a different motive for preventing the judge's outcry.

Consideration of that persuaded Hastings that she could give him facts which would change the whole aspect of the crime.

Her hesitance now made him uneasy; he recognized the necessity of increasing her reliance upon him. If she told him only a part of what she knew, he would be scarcely in a better position than before.

"Naturally," he added, "you can throw light on the whole incident--light by which I must be guided, to a great degree."

"If Berne were not ill," she responded to that, "I wouldn't tell.--It's because he's lying up there, his lips closed, unable to keep a look-out for developments, at the mercy of what the sheriff may do or say!--That's why I feel so dreadfully the need of help, Mr. Hastings!"

She slid back in her chair, moving farther from him, as if his kindly gaze disconcerted her.

"If he hadn't suffered this collapse, I should have left the matter to him, I think. But now--now I can't!" She straightened again, her chin up, the signal with her of final decision. "He acted on his impulsive desire to prevent my being shocked by that discovery--that horror out there on the lawn. Things had happened to convince him that such a thing, shouted through the night, would be a terrific blow to me. I'm sure that that was the only idea he had when he put his hand over Judge Wilton's mouth."

"I can believe that," he said. "Tell me why you believe it."

"Oh!" she protested, hands clenched on her knees; "if it affected only him and me!"

Her suspicion of her father recurred to him. It was, he thought, back of the terror he saw in her eyes now.

"But it does affect only him and me, after all!" she continued fiercely, as much to strengthen herself in what she wanted to believe as to force him to that belief. "Let me tell you the whole affair, from beginning to end."

She proceeded in a low tone, the words slower, as if she laboured for precision and clarity.

"I must go back to Friday--the night before last--it seems months ago! I had heard that Berne had become involved in some sort of relationship with his stenographer--that she had been dismissed from his office and refused to accept the dismissal as final. I mean, of course, I heard she was in love with him, and he'd been in love with her--or should have been.

"It was told me by a friend of mine in Washington, Lucy Carnly. It seems another stenographer overheard the conversation between Berne and Miss--Miss Brace. It got out that way. It was very circ.u.mstantial; I couldn't help believing it, some of it; Lucy wouldn't have brought me idle gossip--I thought."

She drew in her under lip, to hide its momentary tremour, and shook her head from side to side once.

"All that, Mr. Hastings, came up, as a matter of course, when Berne reached here evening before last for the week-end. I'd just heard it that day. He denied it, said there had been nothing remotely resembling a love affair.--He was indignant, and very hurt!--He said she'd misconstrued some of his kindnesses to her. He couldn't explain how she had misconstrued them. At any rate, the result was that I broke our engagement. I----"

"Friday night!" Hastings exclaimed involuntarily.

He grasped on the instant how grossly Webster, by withholding all this, had deceived him, left him in the dark.

"Yes; and I told father about it," she hurried her words here, the effect of her manner being the impression that she hoped this fact would not bulk too large in the detective's thoughts. "The three of us had a talk about it Friday night. Father's wonderfully fond of Berne and tried to persuade me I was foolishly ruining my life. I refused to change my mind. When I went upstairs, they stayed a long time in the library, talking.

"I think they decided the best thing for Berne was to stay on here, through yesterday and today, in the hope that he and father might change my mind. Father tried to, yesterday morning. He was awfully upset.

That's one reason he's so worn out and sick today.--I love my father so, Mr. Hastings!" She held her lips tight-shut a moment, a sob struggling in her throat. "But my distress, my own hurt pride----"

"What did your father say about Mildred Brace?" Hastings asked, when she did not finish that sentence.

She looked at him, again with widened eyes, a startled air, putting both her hands to her throat.

"There!" she said, voice falling to a whisper.

Then, turning her face half from him, she whispered so low that he heard her with difficulty: "I wish I were dead!"

Her words frightened him, they had so clearly the ring of truth, as if she would in sober fact have preferred death to the thought which was breaking her heart--suspicion of her father.

"That was why Berne stopped the judge's outcry," she said at last, turning her white face to him; "he had the sudden wild idea that I'm afraid you have--that father might have killed her. And Berne did not want that awful fact screamed through the night at me. Oh, can't you see--can't you see that, Mr. Hastings?"

"It's entirely possible; Mr. Webster may have thought that.--But let's keep the story straight. What had your father said about Mildred Brace--to arouse any such suspicion?"

"He was angry, terribly indignant. You know I made no secret to you of his high temper. His rages are fierce.--Once, when he was that way, I saw him kill a dog. If it had--but I think all men who're unstrung nervously, as he is, have high tempers. He felt so indignant because she had come between Berne and myself. He blamed neither Berne nor me. He seemed to concentrate all his anger upon her.

"He said--you see, Mr. Hastings, I tell you everything!--he threatened to go to her and---- He had, of course, no definite idea what he would do. Finally, he did say he would buy her off, pay her to leave this part of the country. After that, he said, he knew I would 'see things clearly,' and Berne and I would be reconciled."

Hastings remembered Russell's a.s.sertion that Mildred had her ticket to Chicago.

"Did he buy her off?" he asked quickly.

"Oh, no; he was merely wishing that he could, I think."

"But he made no attempt to get in touch with her yesterday? You're sure?"

"Quite," she said. "But don't you see. Mr. Hastings? Father was so intense in his hatred of her that Berne thought of him the moment he found that body--out there. He thought father must have encountered her on the lawn in some way, or she must have come after him, and he, in a fit of rage, struck her down."

"Has Webster told you this?"