Wolf in Man's Clothing: A Sarah Keate Mystery (15 page)

“He kept it,” said Craig, accepting the fact of the revolver’s ownership without question, “in the desk in the library. He never locked the desk; anything valuable he put in the safe. The safe is behind one of those panels in the library.”

“You mean anybody might have taken the revolver,” said Soper.

“Obviously.”

Nugent was looking thoughtful. He said, “Was the hand you saw wearing a glove?”

Craig’s pulse gave a leap and began to race like an accelerated motor. But he said coolly enough, looking straight at Nugent, “I haven’t the faintest idea. It was dark. There was only a kind of whitish outline.”

“But you knew it was a hand?”

“Why—yes.”

There was a little silence and I looked at my watch in a marked manner. Soper said, “So you think the same person that killed your father tried first to kill you?”

“I don’t know,” said Craig. “But I do know Miss Cable was in New York when I was shot.”

“How do you know that?” interposed Soper.

Craig lifted his eyebrows. “Obviously she wasn’t here.”

Nugent said abruptly, “It’s all right, Mr. Soper. She was in New York; I checked that and the telephone call to the Nurses’ Registry office.”

Soper looked annoyed. Craig went on quickly, “In any case, it isn’t likely that she would take a pot shot at me one night and the next night poison my father because she wanted to see me and he opposed it. The motives seem a little mixed.”

Soper said, “Now look here, Brent, we are only trying to get at the truth. You needn’t take that tone.”

“I know,” said Craig soberly and with the edge gone from his voice, so it was only weary and honest. “I understand your position and I appreciate what you are trying to do. I’ll do everything I can to help you. But I really do think you are wasting time making out a case against Miss Cable; she was not anywhere near, the night I was shot. And she had no motive to kill my father. She doesn’t want to marry me any more than I want to marry her. Our marriage is absolutely finished and neither of us regrets it.”

“Do you mean to say,” said Soper, glancing covertly in Drue’s direction, “do you mean to say that if Drue Cable—your former wife, came to you and suggested that you remarry, you would refuse her?”

I didn’t look at Drue; no one did but Soper. Craig’s pulse was as steady as a clock. “At the risk of sounding unchivalrous,” he said coolly and distinctly, “yes.”

I
SAID, “TIME IS
up. I’ll have to ask you to go.”

I must have sounded a little vigorous about it, for instantly Nugent turned around and stalked toward the door. But Soper said, “Your father was a rich man, Brent. Who benefits by his death? I mean to say, what are the main provisions of his will?”

“You’ll have to ask his lawyer. John Wells. In Balifold. Are you going to release Miss Cable?”

Nugent jerked around to look at Soper; Soper turned a fine magenta. “Release her! By God, no! She stays here under guard or in jail.”

“But I need her,” I said quickly, essaying a rally. “I need her to help me nurse Mr. Brent.”

“You can get another nurse out from New York,” snapped Soper. “She stays under guard or in jail.”

Well, I didn’t want another nurse bothering around. Anna could give me any help I needed. Soper waddled out of the room like an enraged and vicious duck. Nugent, however, drew me into the hall. “Miss Keate,” he said in a low voice, “Who was here in the hall last night? When something bumped against the door and you went to look?”

“Why—why, no one! That is, oh, some time (perhaps half an hour before) I saw Nicky in the hall. But not after the bump on the door. There’s a dent—here,” I put my finger on it and he looked at it, his face as inexpressive as a Red Indian’s. “But it’s as I told you,” I added. “After the bump against the door I didn’t see anybody in the hall.”

Something very queer in his eyes stopped me. But he said only, “I advise you to tell me. Think it over,” and went away. Leaving me a little perplexed, for if I had seen anyone or anything I should have been only too glad to tell him and shift the burden of suspicion from Drue.

When I entered his room again, Craig was lying with his eyes closed. Wilkins advanced a little, tentatively, toward Drue, who was still at the window. “Wait outside,” I told him, and with an uncertain look at me he did so and I closed the door after him. But if I had had, as I don’t think I had really, any vague notion of a word of understanding between Craig and Drue I was disappointed.

Drue had turned so I could see only her back, slim and erect, and her lifted, white-capped head.

“Are they gone?” Craig said to me.

“Yes,” I said. And then because I had to, I said slowly, “There was a glove on the hand, wasn’t there? You couldn’t have seen the color in the dark. Why did you think it was yellow?”

His eyes flared open. He looked very straight at me for a long moment. Then he said definitely, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Which was about what I might have expected.

“All right. I can’t make you tell me. But there’s one thing you’ll have to explain, if not to me, then to the police. You said—half asleep yesterday—‘there’ll be murder done. Tell Claud.’ What did you mean?”

He just lay and looked at me through half-shut eyes whose expression I couldn’t read. And he denied it flatly.

“I don’t remember it. I could have meant anything. Unless I was referring to the attack upon me. Go ahead and tell the police.”

“I will,” I said. And Drue whirled around then. Her hands were doubled up, her crimson mouth tight. “Craig, you needn’t have lied for me!” she cried.

“I didn’t,” he said briefly.

“You didn’t send me for the revolver …”

“Oh,” said Craig, “that. But the rest of it was the truth, wasn’t it? I mean, you didn’t come here with the intention of—of”—he smiled a little, though his eyes were very intent—“of a reconciliation? I’m sure you didn’t.” The smile left his lips, but his eyes were still very intent, watching Drue. “It’s something neither of us wants. That’s why I told them …”

And at that instant the trooper, Wilkins, knocked on the door. He looked apologetic when I opened it. But Drue had to go with him all the same.

When the door closed behind her, Craig closed his eyes and lay there, very quiet, with a gray look around his mouth for a long time.

Well, after that the day settled into a smoldering kind of quiet. Eventually I bestirred myself to my duties. Craig was really on the mend, in spite of occurrences which, certainly, were not exactly conducive to convalescence. He must have been thinking hard, for he was unexpectedly docile, while I gave him a quick sponge bath and an alcohol rub, got him into fresh pajamas and took a look at the dressing on his wound.

“Such a fuss about nothing,” he said, but winced nevertheless as I worked. “If it had been a Jap bullet I’d feel as if I deserved some of this fuss.”

“You’ll be dodging Jap bullets soon enough,” I said tartly. “Hold still.”

“So long as I dodge them,” he said, and grinned. While I thought of youth and war and the hideous waste of it.

I said, “When do you go?”

“I don’t know. The end of this week sometime.”

“With this? Nonsense!”

“I feel fine. I’d get up now if you’d let me.”

“Certainly. Just try it. And start your wound bleeding.”

“Would it?”

“Listen, young man, you just escaped with your life. Do you want to get well enough to leave or do you want to be an invalid for several weeks?”

“Okay, okay,” he said but looked rebellious, so I realized I’d have to watch him. I said, “If you want to spend the spring at home or in a hospital, all right, get up. If you want to fight, do as I tell you. Stay in bed. I’ll get you well.”

For the first time he looked rather approving and pleased. “In time to leave when the orders come through?”

“It depends. I’ll try. Do you know where you will be sent?”

“No.” He moved restively. “I hope they get the inquest over satisfactorily and everything settled before I go.”

“Yes, naturally. Does Drue know you are leaving so soon?”

“No,” he said, and eyed me with sudden sharpness. “And you are not to tell her, either.”

“But …”

“I mean that. Understand?”

“All right. If you don’t want her to know, but I think …”

“I’m doing the thinking about this,” he said, and then added with a touch of apology, “I’m sorry.”

I eased him back onto the pillow. The wound was doing all right; but the pain of even the slight motion brought moisture to his forehead and around his mouth. Well, it was just luck that the bullet had missed his heart.

I said, “Have you been at home long?”

“Only a few days. There, that’s better.” He relaxed against the pillow and sighed and grinned a little. “The brave soldier!” he said, deriding his weakness.

“You’re lucky to be alive,” I said. And, as the shadow of perplexity and horror and sorrow came over his young face again, I said impulsively, “Mr. Brent, what do
you
think happened last night? This is your home. You know these people. What’s your theory?”

He closed his eyes. Weakly? Or was it, I thought suddenly, to shut me out, so I would read no expression in his eyes that might reveal his thoughts. He said, “Theory? I haven’t any. I don’t know what to think.”

“Do you think it was accident?” I persisted. “Or do you think the police are right?”

“Murder,” he said thoughtfully after a moment. “No, I don’t think it was murder. My father had no …” He had been about to say, I thought, that his father had no enemies. He stopped and changed it. “No one would murder my father.” He paused again for a moment and then went on, his eyes still closed, “My father and I had our differences. Yet we loved each other. The differences we had didn’t separate us in that way. I’m sure that he felt that. I’m sure he did.”

“One knows things like that without words,” I said. “I’m sure he felt as you do. I’m sure he was proud of you, too. And that he …”

“No,” said Craig rather quickly. “No, he wasn’t proud of me. Not that I’ve ever done anything to make anybody proud of me, or anything to be exactly ashamed of either—that is, I’m an ordinary fellow. But he wasn’t proud …”

“I meant, about your getting into the air force. Having a son going to fight for his country.” It’s queer how the true things can sometimes sound trite. But Craig laughed a little, on an unsteady note, so he caught himself up quickly.

He said, “You don’t understand. That was one of our differences. He wasn’t afraid; it isn’t that. He just didn’t want me to go to war.”

“Why not?”

“Because he—because …” He moved a little again. “Oh, it’s nothing, Miss Keate.”

He said it easily enough; yet something in his tone caught my ear and my interest. I waited, thinking of it and of what he had said—or rather had failed to say. And he added all at once, “It was nothing my father could help. He’d felt that way for years. And, anyway, he changed lately. I know that he changed. Since December seventh, I mean. Since we entered the war. Yes, he’d changed, I’m sure.”

“But …” I began, wanting to get whatever it was he was trying to say clear in my mind.

He didn’t want it clear for me, however; he said rather brusquely, pushing the subject away, “Pete will be going too, you know. Soon. He thinks in another few weeks.”

“Pete? Oh, Peter Huber. What’s he doing here, by the way? Did he come to see you?”

Naturally, it wasn’t my business to know; still, I have seldom if ever scrupled to ask questions, particularly when I wanted to know. As in this case. Craig said, moving his shoulder a little and wincing again, “No, he’s been here several weeks. Came on from the coast to try to get into some branch of the service. He’s waiting now to hear; remembered we lived here and came up to Balifold and was staying at the inn when my father discovered him and made him come here. Ouch …” he said, moving his shoulder experimentally. “What makes it hurt like that?”

“It’s doing all right. No infection. Did Mrs. Brent know Pete in school, too?”

“Mrs. Brent? No.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “Pete’s more or less susceptible.”

“Susceptible! Oh, you mean …” There wasn’t anybody to mean except Alexia. Craig said quickly, “Oh, it’s only Pete. Alexia’s so—beautiful,” he finished rather dryly.

“But then …” I was struck by a sudden and rather far-fetched speculation. If Peter Huber had fallen madly in love with Alexia, there existed a motive for Conrad’s murder.

Not however a very sound motive; certainly not a very pleasant one—but then a motive for murder is not likely to be pleasant. Mainly, though, there was little if any evidence to back it up. So I caught back my own words.

But Craig guessed my unuttered thought.

“He didn’t murder my father to get Alexia! Peter’s a good egg. Besides, Alexia doesn’t go for him.”

Which was true enough. Alexia had certainly wasted no time in making her intentions clear and they obviously had nothing to do with Peter Huber.

The trouble was however that Conrad Brent had been murdered; the police don’t make mistakes about things like that.

It’s very difficult, and I discovered it then, really to face and accept the fact of murder; yet it’s inescapable too—like an ugly, invisible presence. Murder in that house. Murder in the night just past.

I put away my instrument case in silence. After I had made Craig comfortable and was sure he was warm, I pushed aside the heavy curtains and opened the windows and aired the room.

It was cold, much colder than it had been the day before, with the lowering kind of still gray sky that threatens snow. I could see then, as I couldn’t the day before, something of the rolling landscape. Hills, everywhere, thickly wooded, rose gently up to the gray sky. Roads twisted here and there over and among the hills; and stone walls traced old boundaries. Near at hand, running along just outside the wall and appearing to pass the garden, a path wound downward and out of sight. It led, as a matter of fact, from the Brent house directly to the Chivery cottage about a mile away and was a short cut.

The hills and the trees gave an effect of isolation. As I looked, a snowflake, very white against the gray sky, fluttered past my eyes and then another. Shivering a little, I closed the windows.