The Almost Perfect Murder, Hulbert Footner [digital e reader .TXT] 📗

this, or written it, plainly, but I couldn’t bring myself

to write the words that would hurt you. I hoped you would just forget

me when I went away…. But we were happy while it lasted, weren’t we?

I was in Paradise. If you send me to my death you will forget your

anger against me, you will only remember the times that we were happy.

How will you feel then? Is it worth it, Julia? I cannot believe that

anybody so beautiful can have a bad heart…. Do you remember…” He

took a step closer to her, and murmured something none of us could

hear. “After that,” he asked gravely, “after that, can you bring

yourself to swear my life away?”

 

She strained her face away from him. “I’m sorry,” she said in an

unnatural, twanging voice, “but the truth is the truth! I have nothing

to change in what I said.”

 

Henry Varick slowly raised his shoulders, and spread out his palms;

then his whole body sagged. “Well, that’s that,” he said in a flat

voice. “I’m done for, I guess.” A painful recklessness appeared on

his face. “Come on, Inspector!” he cried out. “Come on, old cock,

let’s go! I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way!” He

stopped short, and an awful goneness sounded in his voice. “Oh God! I

wish it was to the death chamber that you were taking me! That is over

in a minute, but the weeks before that…!”

 

The Inspector seemed disposed to linger, to talk things over with Mme.

Storey, and the young man cried out sharply: “Come on! Come on! I

can’t stand any more of this!”

 

At a glance from my mistress the Inspector bestirred himself. As the

two men reached the door, the girl shrieked. The sound seemed to be

torn from her breast. “Stop! Stop! I cannot bear it! I lied!”

 

The two men turned back. When the girl’s unnatural self-control broke,

everything went. Her convulsed face seemed scarcely human. It was

dreadful to see so complete an abasement.

 

“I lied!” she moaned. “I lied from beginning to end. He didn’t do it!

It was I who poisoned Commodore Varick. Oh, what a wretch I am!” She

struck her head with her clenched hands.

 

Henry Varick stared at her like one transfixed with horror. “You

killed my father!” he murmured from time to time: “You killed my

father!”

 

I was dazed with the suddenness of it. My mistress motioned to me, and

I automatically drew a sheet of paper towards me, and with trembling

hands started to take down what the girl said, scarce knowing what I

wrote.

 

Her body swayed forward and back. The words came gabbling from her

lips, as if some terror urged her to get it all out before she could

think. “I will tell all! It has been in my mind for a long time. But

it was Henry that I meant to kill. Because he was false to me. First

with that foreign woman, and afterwards with the contemptible Gilsey

girl. It was the poisons that put it into my head. Always they were

in the next room, tempting, tempting me. I found a key that would open

the door, and I could go into Henry’s study at any time without anybody

knowing. He was never there. There was a book in there, too, that

described all the different poisons and how they acted….

 

“I collected old keys. I bought them in junk-shops and other places,

many, many keys, until I had got one that would open the curio cabinet,

and a little one that opened the box of drugs. I took out the bottle

of aconite, and locked all up again, and threw away the keys. Then I

bided my time, and studied how to give Henry the poison. But I could

think of no way. I never saw him any more. I wrote asking him to come

to see me, but he paid no attention to the letter….”

 

“She did … she did!” murmured Henry, like one in a trance.

 

“Then I heard Henry tell his father that he was married to that

white-faced blonde, and I went mad … mad! I changed my plan. I

couldn’t get at Henry, but I had plenty of opportunities with his

father. I wanted to strike at them, I didn’t care which one. I made

up my mind to wait until the Commodore had changed his will, and then

kill him. That was to be my revenge. I didn’t think until later of

putting it off on Henry. That made it sweeter!

 

“I knew the Commodore took a capsule after every meal. There was a

white powder in it that looked just the same as the aconite. I got

some empty capsules and filled them with the aconite. There was only

enough to fill three. When Henry and the girl were with the Commodore

in his study, I sneaked around outside, through the foyer of the suite

and into the bathroom. I took the capsules out of the box, put the

poisoned ones in, and went back to my room. I watched and listened. I

saw Henry and the girl go. The Commodore was half-reconciled to them,

and it made me smile to think how I was going to dish them all!

 

“When the Commodore left his study, I followed and listened at the

crack of the door. I heard him go into the bathroom and come out

again. Then I knew the thing was done. I knew that I would have just

as much time as it would take for the capsule to melt in his stomach.

Plenty of time to get away. He returned to his study, but he never saw

me. I was back in the office then. I went around through the foyer

into the bathroom. There were only two capsules in the box, so I knew

there had been no slip-up. I replaced them with two of the harmless

capsules, and went downstairs.”

 

So much for the facts of her story. I shall not speak of the

unfortunate girl’s ravings. It is too painful. Too great an effort of

self-control is followed by the collapse of all resistance. It left

her exhausted and shaking, finally apathetic. Detective Manby was

called in, and she was handed over to his care. Unable to speak above

a whisper then, she begged for permission to rest for ten minutes in

the office. This was granted.

 

The other four of us were left looking at each other, scarcely able to

comprehend what had happened. I for one was conscious of an immense

weariness. I felt as if I should drop in my tracks. But it was a

delicious kind of weariness, the feeling that comes after a shattering

storm, when you find quiet in your ears once more. Blessed, blessed

quiet and peace. At first you can hardly believe it. But I looked at

Henry Varick, and there he was, safe, and my heart was content.

 

He, I think, was the first to speak. “And are you through with me,

now?” he asked wonderingly. “Am I free?”

 

“Free as air,” said Mme. Storey, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Go to

your wife and tell her. And to your mother. You appear to have lost

your fortune, but you have them!”

 

Gladness shone out in his face like the sun breaking through. He had

already forgotten the poor, hysterical wretch in the next room. Well,

such is youth! “What do I care for the money!” he cried. “If I am

free.” He ran out of the room.

 

“Well, I expect your mother won’t let you starve,” remarked Mme. Storey

dryly. “And wills have been broken before this!”

 

“And so you were right after all!” said Inspector Rumsey generously.

 

“As it happens,” said my mistress, smiling. “But I was not nearly so

sure as I made out to be.”

 

Our excitements were not yet over, for presently Detective Manby burst

into the room with a dismayed face. “She has given me the slip!” he

cried.

 

To make a long story short, at a moment when Manby was not looking

directly at her, the prisoner had slipped from the office into Henry’s

study adjoining. Manby was not even aware that she had unlocked the

door. She slammed it in his face, and got out into the main hall. By

the time Manby got through the two doors, she was nowhere to be seen.

None of the servants had seen her. To us, of course, it was apparent

that she had gone down the enclosed stair, of which Manby knew nothing,

and out through the secret passage. The Inspector was in a rage, but

Mme. Storey took it with more than usual calmness.

 

“It is all for the best,” she said enigmatically.

 

“For the best!” he exclaimed indignantly.

 

“I take it she has gone home,” said my mistress, gravely. “But

wherever she has gone she will soon be found, my friend. The resolve

to kill herself was in her eye.”

 

“Justice will be defeated!” cried the Inspector.

 

“Man’s justice,” murmured Mme. Storey with an imperceptible shrug.

 

“We must follow her!” cried the Inspector.

 

“No! Let us not be seen there,” said my mistress, laying a hand on his

arm. “Send Manby.”

 

And so it was done.

 

In my notebook I find the following clipping:

 

“At 11.15 yesterday morning the body of Miss Julia Priestley, 26, was

found dead at No. –- Lexington Avenue, with a bullet through the

heart. A new .38 automatic was clutched in her hand, and her clothing

revealed powder burns. From the position of the body it was apparent

that she had stood in front of a mirror to aim the gun. She was found

in the bedroom of a small three-room apartment that she occupied alone

at the above address.

 

“The body was discovered by Detective-Sergeant James Manby. Sergeant

Manby had been sent to Miss Priestley’s apartment as the result of a

mysterious message received by Inspector Rumsey at headquarters a few

minutes earlier. Inspector Rumsey was advised by a woman’s voice over

the telephone, that he had better send a detective to the address

given. When he asked for particulars, his informant hung up. It is

supposed that this was Miss Priestley herself. When Sergeant Manby

reached the apartment, he found the door open as if for his

convenience. The woman’s body was still warm.

 

“For the past year Miss Priestley was employed by the late Commodore

Varick as an amanuensis in the preparation of a book that he was

writing. It is supposed that the death of her employer, which came

with such shocking suddenness on Tuesday evening, and the consequent

loss of her employment, temporarily deranged the young woman’s mind.

Her nearest relative is a brother living in Cleveland, Ohio, who is on

his way to New York to take charge of the body.”

 

And that is all that ever got into the papers.

THE END

[End of The Almost Perfect Murder by Hulbert Footner]