"What a woman! A mania for wickedness--evil from head to foot, thoroughly. _She_ wouldn't stick at murder--if she thought it safe.

She'd do anything, say anything. Every word she uttered this morning had been rehea.r.s.ed in her mind--with gestures, even. When I beat her, I beat this puzzle; that's sure."

That he had to do with a puzzle, he had no manner of doubt. The very circ.u.mstances surrounding the discovery of the girl's body--Arthur Sloane flashing on the light in his room at a time when his being awake was so unusual that it frightened his daughter; Judge Wilton stumbling over the dead woman; young Webster doing the same thing in the same instant; the light reaching out to them at the moment when they bent down to touch the thing which their feet had encountered--all that shouted mystery to his experienced mind.

He thought of Webster's p.r.o.nouncement: "The thug, acting on the spur of the moment, with a blow in the dark and a getaway through the night----" Here was reproduction of that in real life. Would people say that Webster had given himself away in advance? They might.

And the weapon, what about that? It could have been manufactured in ten minutes. Crown had said over the wire that Russell's nail file was missing. What if Webster's, too, were missing? He would see--although he expected to uncover no such thing.

He came, then, to Lucille's astounding idea, that her father must be "protected," because he was nervous and, being nervous, might incur the enmity of the authorities. He could not take that seriously. And yet the most fruitful imagination in the world could fabricate no motive for Arthur Sloane's killing a young woman he had never seen.

Only Webster and Russell could be saddled with motives: Webster's, desperation, the savage determination to rid himself of the woman's pursuit; Russell's, unreasoning jealousy.

So far as facts went, the crime lay between those two--and he could not shake off the impression that Mrs. Brace, shrilly a.s.serting Russell's innocence, had known that she spoke the absolute truth.

VII

THE HOSTILITY OF MR. SLOANE

Delayed by a punctured tire, Hastings reached Sloanehurst when the inquest was well under way. He went into the house by a side door and found Lucille Sloane waiting for him.

"Won't you go to father at once?" she urged him.

"What's the matter?" He saw that her anxiety had grown during his absence.

"He's in one of his awfully nervous states. I hope you'll be very patient with him--make allowances. He doesn't seem to grasp the importance of your connection with the case; wants to ask questions.

Won't you let me take you to him, now?"

"Why, yes, if I can be of any help. What do you want me to say to him?"

As a matter of fact, he was glad of the opportunity for the interview.

He had long since discovered the futility of inquests in the uncovering of important evidence, and he had not intended to sit through this one.

He wanted particularly to talk to Berne Webster, but Sloane also had to be questioned.

"I thought you might explain," she continued hurriedly, preceding him down the hall toward her father's room, "that you will do exactly what I asked you to do--see that the mysterious part of this terrible affair, if there is any mystery in it--see that it's cleared up promptly. Please tell him you'll act for us in dealing with newspaper reporters; that you'll help us, not annoy us, not annoy him."

She had stopped at Sloane's door.

"And you?" Hastings delayed her knock. "If they want you to testify, if Dr. Garnet calls for you, I think you'd better testify very frankly, tell them about the footsteps you heard."

"I've already done that." She seemed embarra.s.sed. "Father asked me to 'phone Mr. Southard, Mr. Jeremy Southard, his lawyer, about it. I know I told you I wanted your advice about everything. I would have waited to ask you. But you were late. I had to take Mr. Southard's advice."

"That's perfectly all right," he rea.s.sured her. "Mr. Southard advised you wisely.--Now, I'm going to ask your help. The guest-rooms upstairs--have the servants straightened them up this morning?"

They had not, she told him. Excitement had quite destroyed their efficiency for the time being; they were at the parlour windows, listening, or waiting to be examined by the coroner.

"That's what I hoped," he said. "Won't you see that those rooms are left exactly as they are until I can have a look at them?" She nodded a.s.sent.

"And say nothing about my speaking of it--absolutely nothing to anybody?

It's vitally important."

The door was opened by Sloane's man, Jarvis, who had in queer combination, Hastings thought, the salient aspects of an undertaker and an experienced pick-pocket. He was dismal of countenance and alert in movement, an efficient ghost, admirably appropriate to the twilit gloom of the room with its heavily shaded windows.

Mr. Sloane was in bed, in the darkest corner.

"Father," Lucille addressed him from the door-sill, "I've asked Mr.

Hastings to talk to you about things. He's just back from Washington."

"Shuddering saints!" said Mr. Sloane, not lifting his head from the pillows.

Lucille departed. The ghostly Jarvis closed the door without so much as a click of the latch. Hastings advanced slowly toward the bed, his eyes not yet accustomed to the darkness.

"Shuddering, shivering, shaking saints!" Mr. Sloane exclaimed again, the words coming in a slow, shrill tenor from his lips, as if with great exertion he reached up with something and pushed each one out of his mouth. "Sit down, Mr. Hastings, if I can control my nerves, and stand it. What is it?"

His hostility to the caller was obvious. The evident and grateful interest with which the night before he had heard the detective's stories of crimes and criminals had changed now to annoyance at the very sight of him. As a raconteur, Mr. Hastings was quite the thing; as protector of the Sloane family's privacy and seclusion, he was a nuisance. Such was the impression Mr. Hastings received.

At a loss to understand his host's frame of mind, he took a chair near the bed.

Mr. Sloane stirred jerkily under his thin summer coverings.

"A little light, Jarvis," he said peevishly. "Now, Mr. Hastings, what can I do for--tell you?"

Jarvis put back a curtain.

"Quivering and crucified martyrs!" the prostrate man burst forth. "I said a little, Jarvis! You drown my optic nerves in ink and, without a moment's warning, flood them with the glaring brilliancy of the noonday sun!" Jarvis half-drew the curtain. "Ah, that's better. Never more than an inch at a time, Jarvis. How many times have I told you that? Never give me a shock like that again; never more than an inch of light at a time. Frantic fiends! From cimmerian, abysmal darkness to Sahara-desert glare!"

"Yes, sir," said Jarvis, as if on the point of digging a grave--for himself. "Beg pardon, sir."

He effaced himself, in shadows, somewhere behind Hastings, who seized the opportunity to speak.

"Miss Sloane suggested that you wanted certain information. In fact, she asked me to see you."

"My daughter? Oh, yes!" The p.r.o.ne body became semi-upright, leaned on an elbow. "Yes! What I want to know is, why--why, in the name of all the jumping angels, everybody seems to think there's a lot of mystery connected with this brutal, vulgar, dastardly crime! It pa.s.ses my comprehension, utterly!--Jarvis, stop clicking your finger-nails together!" This with a note of exaggerated pleading. "You know I'm a nervous wreck, a total loss physically, and yet you stand there in the corner and indulge yourself wickedly, wickedly, in that infernal habit of yours of clicking your finger-nails! Mute and mutilated Christian martyrs!"

He fell back among the pillows, breathing heavily, the perfect picture of exhaustion. Jarvis came near on soundless feet and applied a wet cloth to his master's temples.

The old man regarded them both with unconcealed amazement.

"You'll have to excuse me, Mr. Hastings, really, I can't be annoyed!"

the wreck, somewhat revived, announced feebly. "All I said to my daughter, Miss Sloane, is what I say to you now: I see no reason why we should employ you, or indeed why you should be connected with this affair. You were my guest, here, at Sloanehurst. Unfortunately, some ruffian of whom we never heard, whose existence we never suspected--Jarvis, take off this counterpane; you're boiling me, parboiling me; my nerves are seething, simmering, stewing! Athletic devils! Have you no discrimination, Jarvis?--as I was saying, Mr.

Hastings, somebody stabbed somebody else to death on my lawn, unfortunately marring your visit. But that's all. I can't see that we need you--thank you, nevertheless."

The dismissal was unequivocal. Hastings got to his feet, his indignation all the greater through realization that he had been sent for merely to be flouted. And yet, this man's daughter had come to him literally with tears in her eyes, had begged him to help her, had said that money was the smallest of considerations. Moreover, he had accepted her employment, had made the definite agreement and promise. Apparently, Sloane was in no condition to act independently, and his daughter had known it, had hoped that he, Hastings, might soothe his silly mind, do away with his objections to a.s.sistance which she knew he needed.

There was, also, the fact that Lucille believed her father unaccountably interested, if not implicated, in the crime. He could not get away from that impression. He was sure he had interpreted correctly the girl's anxiety the night before. She was working to save her father--from something. And she believed Berne Webster innocent.

These were some of the considerations which, flashing through his mind, prevented his giving way to righteous wrath. He most certainly would not allow Arthur Sloane to eliminate him from the situation. He sat down again.