The Silent Hour (8 page)

Dr. Dunton was putting his instruments away
in his black leather case, but glanced up with keen attention to
listen to the answer. Gennaro, who was also present, leaning
against the wall by the door, looked on with his customary subtle
amusement.

“Well,” said Mrs. Meade, folding her hands
resignedly in front of her as she stood near the foot of the bed,
“in a way, I am responsible for the whole thing—that is, I
suggested the ruse to Randall, who agreed to carry it out. We had a
long talk about the murder yesterday afternoon, and agreed upon one
thing: that all the persons with a motive to kill Major Cambert had
equally worthless alibis, and so in order to discover which one had
really done it, the guilty person must be made to give themselves
away.

“I had felt that there was some sort of
pattern among the motives for this crime, but I could not pick it
out until a remark of Randall’s made it plain to me. What was one
of Major Cambert’s strongest peculiarities? His close-fisted
attitude towards money.
Money
—that was the recurring
pattern. His grandson was entirely dependent upon him financially,
as well as in other things. His dislike of Miss Ruskin stemmed from
a stubborn belief that she could only be interested in money, or at
least security. He offended Mr. Gennaro by withholding certain of
his wages”—the cowboy blinked; he had never heard his grudge so
delicately described before—“and Old Ted by flinging him a dollar
to get rid of him whenever he became inconvenient.”

“But there wasn’t a dollar stolen,” said Dr.
Dunton, before the sheriff could speak.

Mrs. Meade inclined her head. “And that was
what was so very clever about this crime. Because none of the money
in the safe was touched, no one gave a thought to robbery as a
motive. But what if the murderer had deliberately left the money
untouched for this very reason? If all suspicion was turned another
way, he could come back for the money later without the slightest
danger—or possess himself of it in a different way entirely.

“When I heard what happened the night of
Jim’s arrest, it set me thinking.”

Gennaro shifted in his place against the
wall, a look of intelligence in his eyes. Mrs. Meade nodded as if
in answer to him. “Randall told me how Jim had sent Old Ted to ask
Tom Hall to come and put up bail. Mr. Hall did not arrive until the
next morning, saying that Old Ted had never delivered his message
till then. But suppose—just suppose—that one of them was not
telling the truth? It meant one of two things. Either Old Ted
purposely delayed giving the message, to allow himself a few hours’
time for something—or Tom Hall really
did
receive the
message that night, and lied about Old Ted not arriving till
morning, in order to give
himself
time to do something
before presenting himself at the sheriff’s office.”

“I heard somebody at the house that night,”
said Gennaro. “They rode off before I got close enough to see who
it was, but they hadn’t showed a light—so I knew they were up to no
good. I went to town next morning and I heard Jim had been in jail
all night, so he couldn’t have been here. That’s how I figured it
wasn’t him who shot the Major.”

“And that is how
I
knew it was Tom
Hall,” said Mrs. Meade.

Andrew Royal lifted a hand and started to
speak again, but once more Dr. Dunton got in before him. “But why
that night? Why did he have to lie about it? If he was after the
money, why did it have to be just then?”

“He needed the money,” said Mrs. Meade, “for
Jim’s bail.”

“That’s foolishness,” said Andrew Royal
abruptly. “Tom Hall’s well-off enough to have posted bail himself.
And if he was stingy enough to want Jim to pay his own bail he
could’ve said so.”

Mrs. Meade shook her head. “No, Andrew,
that’s just it—that was the whole motive for the murder. I very
much fear that more people in Sour Springs are going to be hurt by
this than just poor Major Cambert. When you come to examine the
accounts of the First National Bank, I suspect you will find little
actual money in the vault. I don’t know whether Mr. Hall has been
speculating with his investors’ money, or whether he simply
mismanaged it, but I think he had reached a point where he was
desperate for a sum of cash to keep up the pretense of solidity a
little longer. He knew Major Cambert had money—in cash, and plenty
of it, kept at home. Perhaps he tried unsuccessfully to convince
Major Cambert to deposit it in the First National—and then when
that failed, he plotted murder.”

“He was always trying to get Grandfather to
put his money in the bank,” said Jim quietly from his pillow.
“They’d been wrangling about it that week, before Grandfather and I
quarreled—just in their usual friendly way. I never suspected
anything different.”

He lifted tired, pain-shadowed eyes to Mrs.
Meade’s face. “Did Hall try to frame me for the murder?”

“He certainly made use of the quarrel, which
everyone in Sour Springs knew about, to divert suspicion,” said
Mrs. Meade gently. “But I think he tried to plan it so as to avoid
any real condemning evidence against you—making certain you were
away from the house before he entered, and so forth. He was quite
sincere about defending your innocence, for it was necessary that
you be kept alive and out of prison for him to have a trustee’s
access to your inheritance. That is what he really wanted, you
know. Major Cambert must have told him he would be executor and
guardian. He could have secretly used your money to try and keep
his bank afloat, no doubt convincing himself he could repair his
fortunes and return the money in the year before you came of age—as
many another untrustworthy trustee has done before him.”

Andrew Royal was about to speak, but when Dr.
Dunton seemed about to ask a question he desisted and glared at
him, evidently feeling it was a lost cause trying to get in ahead.
But the doctor had apparently changed his mind, and Mrs. Meade went
on:

“He had no alibi for that night either, you
know. His wife was away and he was home alone. So Randall and I
discussed it, and agreed that the way to alarm him was to make him
believe his extraction of the bail money from the safe was about to
be discovered. Randall was to convince Jim to jump bail (as I
believe the expression is), to stay away for a few days and take
some money from home with him—all in plain hearing of Old Ted, who
would carry the news to Hall. There was always the slight chance
that we were mistaken, and Old Ted was the culprit, in which case
he
would have probably hurried ahead to steal the money
before Jim arrived. But if we were right, he was undoubtedly in Mr.
Hall’s pay for keeping quiet about when he had really delivered his
message. And if we were right, Mr. Hall would almost certainly try
and get to the ranch himself before Jim did, to keep him from
discovering the theft—the amount required for bail being missing
might give him away. Jim knew how much money was supposed to be in
the safe. Mr. Hall might have taken it all away to cover his
tracks, or he may have simply attempted to stall Jim off and keep
him from opening the safe. What I did
not
expect was for him
to entirely lose his head.”

“A busted bank’s enough to drive anybody off
his head,” said Royal.

“Well, you see,” said Mrs. Meade somewhat
apologetically, “Randall was to have followed Jim much more
closely, but you interfered with that, Andrew—all with the best of
intentions, of course. Randall was armed; he was to serve as a
witness to anything that occurred, as well as forestall any
unpleasantness that might arise. However, I see now that we made
entirely too little allowance for circumstances beyond our control,
and I am
very
sorry for that. But there wasn’t much time,
you see—and it
was
my first experience with arranging
anything of this sort, so I hope you will forgive me.”

Gennaro coughed—he caught Dr. Dunton’s eye,
and then they avoided each other’s glance for a moment after that.
“I’d been watching the house these last two nights,” Gennaro said,
“and I saw Hall get here tonight and go inside. He left his horse
hid in the trees. But then a minute later Jim showed up, so I hung
back to see what was going on. I was sneaking round back to see if
I could listen at a window when the shooting started, so I ran
round and stopped him when he came out the back door.”

Jim was silent. He had said nothing of that
brief confrontation that must have taken place by the hearthside,
when the man he had believed to be a friend had been revealed as
his grandfather’s murderer, and Mrs. Meade did not expect him
to.

“Er—what do you suppose has become of Old
Ted?” said Dr. Dunton.

“I rather think Sour Springs has seen the
last of Old Ted,” said Mrs. Meade. “Randall said he never saw him
again after the commotion started. I fancy he left in a hurry.”

Andrew Royal grunted. “Got rid of him cheap
if all anybody’s out is the price of Murdock’s horse. Won’t be so
cheap in Hall’s case, though, if all this about the bank turns out
true.”

“I said to Morris, before he left,” said
Gennaro, “‘I guess Cambert’s keeping his money out of the bank cost
him more in the end.’ He laughed and said, ‘I wasn’t thinking that.
I’m just glad my money’s in the Stockmen’s Associated instead of
the First National.’”

“And he’s quite right,” said Mrs. Meade.
“Anyone’s money would be safer under a rock than in a bank run by a
man who would murder for it.”

The sound of buggy wheels was heard outside.
Dr. Dunton looked up, and snapped his bag shut. “I think I will
have some of that coffee,” he said, as he buckled the straps. “Made
strong, I hope, Mrs. Meade?”

“Oh, yes, Doctor. Quite strong enough to
match the circumstances,” said Mrs. Meade.

Dr. Dunton picked up his bag and went out,
and Gennaro went with him. A moment after the door had closed
behind them, more footsteps and voices were heard in the house, and
then steps approached and Randall Morris opened the bedroom door.
He stood aside to make way for Frances Ruskin, who halted on the
threshold, white-faced and uncertain, her eyes going half fearfully
to the bed where Jim lay. Jim Cambert turned his head a little on
the pillow and saw her. She took a few slow, hesitant steps into
the room. Then Jim lifted his good hand a little and stretched it
out toward her, with an unmistakable look of love and longing. And
Frances came forward the last few steps with a swift, stumbling
rush, dropped on the edge of the bed and bent and hid her face
against him. Jim put his arm around her, and whispered brokenly in
her ear.

Randall, who knew a little something about
these moments himself, tapped the Sheriff gently on the shoulder,
and they exited by the door that Mrs. Meade held open for them.

###

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The Silver Shawl: A
Mrs. Meade Mystery

In a small town in turn-of-the-century Colorado, a
young woman has disappeared from the boarding-house where she
lives. Her distraught fiancé is certain that she must have been
kidnapped. But the case takes a new turn when a city detective
appears on the scene, looking for a woman who matches the
description of the missing girl. Was Charity really kidnapped, or
did she have a reason to flee? Mrs. Meade, a gentle but shrewd
widow lady who lives across the hall in the boarding-house, feels
that there is something wrong with the story of Charity’s
disappearance…but can she unravel the mystery before it is too
late? The first entry in the Mrs. Meade Mysteries series,
approximately 15,700 words.

The Parting Glass: A
Mrs. Meade Mystery

Mrs. Meade is not the only one in Sour Springs who is
shocked at the news when Clyde Renfrew is accused of drunken
assault on a woman. Clyde, a sober, steady young rancher, seemed
the last person likely to do such a thing. Between an emphatic
witness and Clyde’s own apparent reluctance to defend himself, the
case seems open and shut. But Mrs. Meade—who seems to have a knack
for being just across the hall when things happen—has a few ideas
of her own…The second entry in the Mrs. Meade Mysteries series,
approximately 12,500 words.

The Oldest Flame: A
Mrs. Meade Mystery

Mrs. Meade had been looking forward to a pleasant
visit with old friends—but their house party turns to disaster when
a fire destroys the house during the night. Even worse, the fire
appears to have been deliberately set. Which of the people who were
in the house that night is responsible? There are several
possibilities, and Mrs. Meade is not sure which is the most
distressing…The third entry in the Mrs. Meade Mysteries series,
approximately 17,800 words.

Elisabeth Grace Foley is a historical fiction author,
history buff and insatiable reader. She has been a finalist for the
Peacemaker Award for Best Independently-Published Western Novel,
for
Left-Hand Kelly
, and is also the author of short story
collections
The Ranch Next Door and Other Stories
and
Wanderlust Creek and Other Stories
. Her work has appeared
online at
Rope and Wire
and
The Western Online
. Her
other books include a series of short historical mysteries, the
Mrs. Meade Mysteries; and short fiction set during the American
Civil War and the Great Depression.