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

We have something to go on in this instance

because we know our man.”

 

She presently went on: “During that minute when he was left alone with

the body, he took the revolver out of the drawer and dropped it in his

pocket. All during the time when the police were in the house it lay

there in his pocket, burning him! As soon as he could, he left the

house with his little flashlight as Mary has told us, and came this

way. He was looking for the letter then. He was afraid that his wife

might have carried it out in her hand, and dropped it when she fell.

Not finding any letter he had to dispose of the gun. Well, there he

was. He dared not stay out more than a few minutes. Put yourself in

his place, Bella. What would he do with it?”

 

I shook my head helplessly.

 

“I think his first impulse would be to toss it from him as far as he

could,” Mme. Storey resumed. “But it was night, you see, and the risk

would be too great that the morning light would reveal it. There are

too many men working on this place! For the same reason he wouldn’t

dare hide it in the shrubbery. He would next think of burying it, but

I don’t suppose Whittall had ever dug a hole in his life. Besides, he

would have to get a tool, which would take time, and anyway, where in

this carefully manicured place could he have buried it without

leaving tell-tale marks? Then there’s the river, that’s the ideal

hiding-place. But it’s too far away. It would take him twenty minutes

to go and come, not counting the time he spent looking for the letter,

and we have Mary’s word for it that he was not out of the house more

than ten…. I think he would have risked the trip to the river,

Bella, had he not known of water nearer to. For a guilty person with a

heavy object to hide instinctively thinks of water!”

 

We saw the gardener returning along the path.

 

Mme. Storey smiled on him. “I have a horror of mosquitoes,” she said

to him as he came up, “and I want to ask you if there is any standing

water on the place, or nearby. Any pond or pool or basin.”

 

“No, Madame,” was the reply. “Nothing of that sort anywhere in the

neighbourhood.”

 

“But are you sure?” she persisted sweetly. “They say that even a pan

of water is enough if it’s allowed to stand.”

 

“Well, there’s an old well down at the foot of the front lawn,” he said

good-humouredly. “But I hardly think the insects could breed there,

because it’s twenty feet down to the water.”

 

“Still I’d like to look at it,” said Mme. Storey. “If you wouldn’t

mind.”

 

“Certainly, Madame.”

 

He pointed out a path which led down to the right. As he led the way,

he gave us the history of the old well. “The original house on this

property stood on the edge of the steep bank, and this was the well

belonging to it. When Mr. Whittall’s grandfather pulled the old house

down, he did not fill up the well, but built an ornamental well-house

over it. But the late Mrs. Whittall thought it was incongruous, as it

was, and she had it removed. Her idea was to bring over an antique

well-curb from Italy, but for some reason this was never done, and so

at present it just has a temporary cover over it.”

 

In a hundred yards or so we came to the spot. It was on the lowest

level of the gardens and terraces in front of the house, One could

picture the old-fashioned farmhouse which had once stood there. The

magnificent elm which had shaded it had been allowed to remain. The

brickwork of the well projected a few inches above the ground, and over

it had been laid a heavy wooden cover with a trap in the middle, having

a ring.

 

“Will that open?” asked Mme. Storey, pointing.

 

He got down on his knees to pull it up, looking bored at these vagaries

of my mistress, but still respectful.

 

“I want to look in it,” she said.

 

He made place for her, and she in turn got down on her knees to peer

into the black hole.

 

Suddenly she clasped her breast. “Oh, my pin!” she cried, “It fell

in!” And got up with a face of tragedy.

 

The old gardener scratched his head. I think he was a Scotsman. He

looked utterly disgusted. Oh, the folly of these gentlefolk! his

expression said.

 

“It must be recovered!” my mistress said agitatedly. What an admirable

actress she was! “It must be recovered! I value it above price!”

 

“Well, ma’am, I suppose it can be got,” the man said slowly. “There’s

not above three feet of water in the bottom. I have a block and tackle

in the toolhouse. I will send one of the men down.”

 

“My chauffeur shall go down,” said Mme. Storey.

 

“No need of that, ma’am.”

 

“No, I insist! My chauffeur shall go down. If the others will help

him I shall see that all are well rewarded for their trouble. And you,

too!”

 

“As you wish, Madame.” He went off to summon help.

 

With a slight smile, Mme. Storey pressed an emerald barpin that she had

unfastened from somewhere or other into my hand, and sent me for

Crider. I found him still sitting like a wooden image at the wheel of

the car. I gave him the emerald, which he pinned inside his clothes,

and whispered his instructions. His eyes gleamed. We returned to the

old well.

 

The under-gardeners had gathered to help, and the old man was dragging

block and tackle towards the spot.

 

“This will take some time, I suppose,” said Mme. Storey when he came

up. “We had better be looking over the house while we wait.”

 

So we went back up the slope.

 

We had no particular interest in the interior of the house, but we went

over everything dutifully under the guidance of the butler. It was one

of the most attractive houses I ever was in. If I had never heard

anything else about the mistress of it I would have known by the inside

of her house that she was a superior woman. It had nothing of the

awful perfection usual to the houses of the very rich; nothing of the

museum look. It was full of character. There were no “period” rooms.

 

In order to give Crider plenty of time we made our tour last as long as

possible, but we had returned to the main floor before any word came

from him. There was a central hall which was furnished with

comfortable chairs. Mme. Storey said to the butler:

 

“If we may, we will wait here a little while. It is so cold outside.”

 

“Certainly, Madame,” he said, and withdrew. We had a feeling, though,

that he was lingering somewhere close by. Well, after all, we were

strangers in the house.

 

In a few minutes we heard a car approach swiftly through the crunching

gravel, and come to a stop with a grinding of brakes. Mme. Storey and

I looked at each other significantly. She shrugged. We heard the car

door slam outside, feet came running up the steps, and the front door

was flung open. There stood the master of the house. The light was

behind him, and I could not read his expression.

 

The thought instantly flew into my head that the butler, recognising

Mme. Storey, or perhaps suspecting us on general principles, had

telephoned to him. He had had just about time enough to drive up from

town.

VII

“What! Mme. Storey!” Whittall cried very affably. “What a surprise!

I had no idea that you were interested in my property. Why didn’t you

let me know?”

 

She ignored the question. “It is beautiful!” she said blandly, “but I

am afraid it is too expensive for me.”

 

They shook hands. I could see his face now. He had it under pretty

good control, but his eyes were narrow and sharp with curiosity. He

was a handsome man in his way, with dark, bright eyes in which there

was something both defiant and shifty. It was the look of a schoolboy

who knows he has a bad name, and is determined to brazen it out. Why

had not Fay Brunton’s instincts taken alarm? I wondered. But perhaps

Whittall only had that look when he faced my mistress.

 

“Oh, it’s too expensive for anybody to own as a residence now,” he said

with a laugh. “I supposed it would be bought by a real estate

operator, and subdivided…. Have you seen everything?”

 

“Yes, thank you,” said Mme. Storey. “We were just waiting for a few

minutes. I had the misfortune to lose a piece of jewellery in the

grounds, and they are looking for it.”

 

“Ah, I am so sorry!” While he smiled in polite sympathy, his sharp

eyes sought to bore into her, but my mistress’s face presented a

surface as smooth as tinted china.

 

“We might as well go and see what they are about,” she said, moving

towards the door.

 

“Don’t hurry away!” he begged. “I don’t often have the chance of

entertaining you.”

 

However, at this moment the butler appeared, to announce that Madame’s

pin had been found, and we all moved out to the front steps. Crider

was there, and the head gardener. Crider passed over the emerald, and

with a meaning look gave his mistress to understand that he had been

successful in his other quest. A great relief filled me. Whittall had

not come home in time to frustrate us. Mme. Storey was loud in her

protestations of thankfulness. She opened her purse to reward the

gardener and his men.

 

“Where was it found?” asked Whittall.

 

The gardener spoke up. “At the bottom of the old well, sir.”

 

It must have given Whittall a hideous shock. I scarcely had the heart

to look at him. He uttered no sound; his eyes were divested of all

sense. His florid face went greyish, leaving a network of tiny,

purplish veins outlined against the greyness. Several times he essayed

to speak before any sound came out.

 

“Come inside a minute,” he gabbled. “Come inside … come inside!”

 

Mme. Storey looked at Crider, and he followed us inside. My mistress

had no notion of trusting herself alone with that madman. Whittall led

the way across the hall, walking with such quick short steps as to give

almost a comic effect. He opened the door of the library for us to

pass in. He was for shutting it in Crider’s face, but Mme. Storey

stopped him with a steady look. So Crider entered and waited with his

back against the door. It was a beautiful, quiet room upholstered in

maroon, with three tall windows reaching to the floor.

 

Whittall was in a pitiably unnerved state. Consider the height that he

had fallen from. On the eve of his marriage, too. He drew a bottle

from a cabinet, and poured himself a drink with shaking hands. Gulped

it down at a draught. He went to the windows and jerked at the curtain

cords senselessly, though they were already opened to their widest.

Again, one was reminded of something comic in his attempt to make out

that there was nothing the matter. Finally he asked in a thick voice:

 

“Am