Evidence of Things Seen (13 page)

Mr. Ledwell shook Gamadge's hand with a certain firmness; he looked very keen, and if he had a tight mouth and a narrow eye, he also had a well-shaped head, a strong chin and a straight back. His expression implied that he expected a certain amount of truculence in Mrs. Gamadge's husband, but he was disappointed. Gamadge was blandness itself.

“Thanks very much for coming over and saving me the trip to Stratfield, Mr. Ledwell. Not that I should have minded going, but time is important to us all in this case.”

“I can't discuss the case with you at all, Mr. Gamadge; not at the present stage of it. I can only listen to your comments, and to any new evidence your wife may have for us. I hope she has new evidence—something she forgot to mention before.”

“Nothing new, Mr. Ledwell.”

Ledwell sat down, and Gamadge took the only remaining chair, which faced the sun. He did not turn it away from the window, but allowed the full glare of the western light to fall upon his blunt features and amiable smile. “I didn't come to discuss the case, either,” he said. “I came to ask you and the sheriff whether my wife and I may move into the cottage this afternoon. And our cook, of course.”

Mr. Ledwell's eyes widened; Sheriff Duckett's remained half closed, and he chewed calmly on.

“We are now,” continued Gamadge, “as everybody knows, staying at Mountain Ridge Farm with Mr. and Mrs. Phineas Hunter. But we can't further impose on them; we must go elsewhere. Not far, since it would not be convenient to you to have Mrs. Gamadge too far away until after the inquest. The cottage is the logical place, I think; after all, we're paying for it. Will you or somebody arrange matters with the state police?”

Ledwell said after a pause: “I must say, Mr. Gamadge, that I'm very much surprised at your wife's being willing to go back to the cottage after her experience there.”

“I shall be with her this time; and although she was in the room where Miss Radford was murdered, and saw the murderer, she didn't see the murder. By the way—do you think there
was
a woman in a sunbonnet, or do you think it was a ghost—Mrs. Hickson's ghost?”

The sheriff moved slightly, and hooked his thumbs into his suspenders; Ledwell said in an angry tone: “Ghost? Ghosts do not break people's necks, Mr. Gamadge!”

“I ask because so many people do seem to think it was a ghost. My servant of course does, my wife did, Mrs. Groby does, Mrs. Hunter does, Mrs. Simms and her hired man probably do, and though Knapp will deny it for the honor of science, I think he does himself. After all, immense trouble was taken to persuade people to believe in a ghost; the whole masquerade, lasting for more than a week, was carried out to that end. You know some of the evidence that was presented to my wife; the murderer's dress and sunbonnet, which my wife knows were of the same material as the dress and the sunbonnet, Mrs. Hickson's property, which you found in the attic.”

Ledwell glanced at the sheriff, turned back to Gamadge, placed an elbow on the desk, and extended a forefinger: “Your wife did not inform us that she had seen those garments in the attic wardrobe, Mr. Gamadge.”

“Nor have you asked her to look at them, and identify them with the garments she described as worn by the murderer. No doubt they will be sprung on her at the inquest; but why wait until then?”

Ledwell said sharply: “I am not obliged to acquaint witnesses with what evidence I may possess, Mr. Gamadge.”

“But why not try to find out what evidence there is, unless you are building up a special case?”

“I am not trying to build up a case.”

“But I am. I know that a human being, impelled by some motive at present unknown, murdered Alvira Radford. That person came to the bedroom door on Saturday night or Sunday morning, and pushed the plug from the keyhole; my wife heard it fall, and you learned of it from her, although she did not at that time understand the significance of the sound. The lock was turned by means of one of the house keys. The door had never been sealed, and was pushed open. As for those purple garments, anyone could visit the attic without being seen by my wife or by Maggie, as you must have discovered for yourselves. There is nothing supernatural about these facts, and the circumstances of the murder itself, however incomprehensible it may at present seem, are not supernatural either.

“That is my view of the case so far; but it is not yours.”

The sheriff turned a lackluster eye on Gamadge. Ledwell, flushing darkly, said: “I do not propose to tell you what my views are, Mr. Gamadge.”

“I will tell you what they are. You have followed the line of least resistance. You ignore the plug from the keyhole, which is evidence that somebody came through that door, and you say what my wife feared that you would say unless she withheld the fact that she had seen the purple dress and sunbonnet in the attic: that she had had a hallucination, based on the woman in the sunbonnet whom she and Maggie had seen about the cottage, the clothes in the attic, and the gossip about Mrs. Hickson's death by poison.”

Duckett had stopped chewing; Ledwell was silent.

“But you go farther than that,” continued Gamadge. “You tell yourself that my wife was so worked upon by these matters, that Miss Radford's accident was a last straw; you tell yourself that during the night of the murder she temporarily lost her reason; that she identified herself with the avenging ghost of Eva Hickson, built up the scene she afterwards described from figments supplied by her own imagination, and herself killed Alvira Radford in a fit of homicidal mania. That is what will be suggested at the inquest, on her own evidence; and if she doesn't realize it herself, it's because she is too sane to entertain a possibility so absurd.”

When Ledwell at last spoke it was in a tone of regret: “I can only say that it's a theory, Mr. Gamadge, and that in default of any other we must of course consider it.”

“And I have considered how to deal with it. I can assure you without prejudice that it's impossible—not in her inheritance, her history, or her mental make-up; but that assurance will carry little weight with you. I propose to do what I can to supply you with another, and I can work best from the cottage.”

Ledwell said, rather awkwardly, that there could be no objection to his taking Mrs. Gamadge back to the cottage if he saw none himself.

“She didn't go mad there before, if that's what you mean, and I can promise you that she won't go mad there now.”

Duckett spoke for the first time: “I have that plug that came out of the keyhole, Mr. Gamadge; I looked around for it as soon as your wife told me she heard something drop on the floor. I don't suppose I would have looked, or it would never have been found, if she hadn't mentioned it; it's like a splinter off the woodwork, and it was off in a corner under the edge of the mat.

“I found out that the front-door keys fit that back-door lock; but when I looked they were both in their own doors. I've combed the county for prowlers, Mr. Gamadge; can't place one in that vicinity at the times specified by Mrs. Gamadge and your help.

“I had a kind of theory myself, for a while. The bed was right under the window. I thought the window screen might have been moved, and Alvira Radford killed from outside the cottage. But those screens fit tight, and if your wife was asleep the noise would have woke her up.”

“I know, Sheriff; I thought of the window myself.” Gamadge took out his cigarette case, lighted a cigarette, and smoked for some time in silence. Then he said: “I know it's a problem. I'll be quite frank with you; I'm out first of all to demolish the avenging ghost theory. The murderer built up evidence for it in order to localize the murder—keep people's minds on the Radford sisters and the cottage, on the possibility of an old crime. If that's what the murderer wants, we must do the other thing; get rid of the ambiguous and the spectral, and bring the facts of the matter out into the open. One fact above all—that there was a flesh-and-blood murderer, with a motive. There's only one way to make it definite; by exhuming Mrs. Hickson. If she wasn't poisoned by Alvira Radford, there was no reason for her to come back and kill Alvira to prevent Alvira from putting flowers on her grave.”

Duckett ceased to chew, but he said nothing. Ledwell spoke frowningly: “Exhumation is a serious matter.”

“Mrs. Groby is willing to have it done.”

“She is?” Ledwell stared. “Most people don't care for the publicity.”

Duckett said: “There needn't be any. I could get it done at night.”

“Before the inquest?” Gamadge looked at him.

“Right away.”

“Thanks. And I'd be very grateful to you if you'd tell me exactly how much money Mrs. Hickson left to Miss Radford.”

“A hundred and six thousand and sixty-four dollars and seven cents,” said Duckett, “but the taxes cut into it.”

“Thanks. And I'd like to see that dress and that sunbonnet you found in the attic.”

Ledwell frowned more heavily. “I only want the truth of this matter,” he said, “but those garments will probably be state's evidence; if we have a trial, you know. I don't feel justified…”

Duckett tilted his chair forward, put his elbows on his desk, and addressed the state's attorney in his dispassionate drawl:

“Ledwell, this feller's in trouble. He comes home from overseas and finds his summer plans all upset and his wife mixed up in a homicide. His wife's as nice a woman as ever I met. She don't holler or complain, she sees us all, she don't make up stories about being in a faint or asleep, which is all she'd have to do to get out of the business now and hereafter. I say give these folks a chance. I can get a court order and have that exhumation done tomorrow night; I can get the inquest put off till we have the report from the Hartford laboratory. I'm willin' Mr. Gamadge should see the things, if he thinks they may help him to solve the case.”

Gamadge thought that the two exchanged a very odd look; but he said: “I'm extremely grateful.”

Duckett rose, went into an inner room, and came back with a large, loosely wrapped paper package. This he opened, disclosing a bundle of faded calico, purple, with a pattern of small black sprigs. The dress had been turned on itself twice lengthwise, and the sunbonnet wrapped inside it; he laid both out flat on the desk top. Then he straightened, and looked at Gamadge.

His expression was no more peculiar than Gamadge's own, and Ledwell watched them both with bright, sharp eyes.

Presently Gamadge leaned forward, took a bit of the material between thumb and finger, and after a moment put it down again. He questioned the sheriff incredulously:

“Are these—just as you took them out of that wardrobe in the attic?”

“Just.” He added: “Ever since I saw them I've been teetering on the edge of the ghost theory myself.”

“I don't blame you.”

“I was out there that night; I saw Alvira Radford on that bed, and I saw that door swingin'; and then later I found these things hangin' up in that attic, among all Eva Hickson's junk.” He pointed a long, knotty finger at the relics on the desk. “I took ‘em off the hook myself. Those creases in that dress haven't been shook out for months, I should say; and nobody untied those sunbonnet strings four days ago. Nobody untied ‘em months ago. Look at the knot.”

Gamadge looked; he seemed unable to cease looking.

“They've hung there, on a bet,” said Duckett, “since Eva Hickson wore ‘em; early last summer, perhaps. Nobody wore ‘em to scare Mrs. Gamadge with, or to scare anybody with; or to kill Alvira Radford in. That's why I'm teetering on the edge of the ghost theory, and that's why Ledwell thinks Mrs. Gamadge was seeing things; it's just as well, Mr. Gamadge, for you to know what you're up against.”

Gamadge raised his eyes to Ledwell. “I know what I'm up against,” he said. “I must get busy. Thank you both.”

“Thank us for nothing.” Duckett, looking pessimistic, began to wrap up the purple dress. He avoided touching it or the sunbonnet, and he eyed them with disgust.

“For something,” Gamadge told him, straightening and smiling. “For letting me know what I have to prove; that Mrs. Hickson had two dresses and two sunbonnets, just alike.”

He shook hands, saluted them both gaily, and went out.

“Who is he, anyway?” Ledwell gazed after him.

“I don't know. But the gov'ment sent him abroad,” said Duckett, “so perhaps he's as smart anyway as we are.”

I
N HER ANXIETY
to fall in with Gamadge's plans, Clara had suppressed her doubts and fears; but when the time came to return to the cottage she found to her amazement that she was not only resigned to the move, but looking forward to it. Gamadge's high spirits and Maggie's complacency carried her along, and the move itself was an easy one. Maggie, ensconced in the rumble of the Gamadge car, with a lump of ice done up in newspaper at her feet and half a cooked ham in her arms, said that there would be no ghosts with Mr. Gamadge in the house. Gamadge talked with almost febrile intensity of his yearning for dips in the pool and walks in the woods.

“I want to hear the waterfall,” he kept saying, in the tones of a minor poet crazed by inspiration. “I want to hear the waterfall.”

Clara wanted to hear the waterfall, too.

They stopped at the Radford farm. Sam the hired man said that he guessed they could go on having dairy produce, and forthwith supplied them with a can of milk and a pound of butter. He promised eggs for the morrow.

“What became of the dogs?” asked Gamadge.

“They was drafted into the Coast Guard.”

“Where did Miss Radford get them, do you know?”

“Kennels over the mountain near Stormer. She went there on and off for three weeks after she got settled in here, makin' herself acquainted with them; then when they came she introduced them to me.”