Kitabı oku: «The Girl at Central», sayfa 4
"Did you hear any more screams?"
"No – there are no more. If there are I would have hear them, for I can't sleep ever all night. All I hear is automobiles – many automobiles passing up and down and maybe – two, three, four times – the horns sounding."
The Coroner asked her a few more questions, principally about Hines' movements, and her answers, if you could get over the lingo, were all clear and in line with what Hines had said.
The railway men followed her, Sands and Clark and Jim Donahue. Jim was as nervous as a cat, holding his hat in his hands and twisting it round like a plate he was drying. He told about the woman he put on the seven-thirty train on Sunday night.
"Where did you first see this woman?" he was asked.
"On the platform, just before the train came in. She came down along it, out of the dark."
"Can you swear it was Miss Hesketh?"
Jim didn't think he could swear because he couldn't see her face plain, it being covered with a figured black veil. But he never thought of it being anyone else.
"Why did you think it was she?"
"Because it looked like her. It was her coat and her gold purse and I'd know her hair anywhere. And when I spoke to her and said: 'Good evening, Miss Hesketh, going to leave us?' it was her voice that answered: 'Yes, Jim, I'm going away for a few days.'"
"Did you have any more conversation with her?"
"No, because the train came along then. She got in and I handed her her bag and said 'Good night.'"
When he was asked to describe the bag, he said he hadn't noticed it except that it was a medium sized bag, he thought, dark colored.
Then he was shown the clothes – that was heart-rending. The Coroner held them up, the long fur coat, the little plush hat, and the one glove. He thought they were the same but it was hard to tell, the platform being so dark – anyway, it was them sort of clothes the lady had on, and though he couldn't be sure of the glove he had noticed that her gloves were light colored.
Sands, the Pullman conductor, and Clark, from the Junction, testified that they'd seen the same woman on the train and at the Junction. Sands particularly noticed the gold mesh purse because she took her ticket out of it. He addressed her as Miss Hesketh and she had answered him, but only to say "Good evening."
Then came the Firehill servants. The two old Gilseys were dreadfully upset. Mrs. Gilsey cried and poor old David kept hesitating and looking at Mr. Reddy, but the stamp of truth was on every word they said. Casey followed them, telling what I've already written.
When Mr. Reddy was called a sort of stir went over the people. Everybody was curious to hear his story, as we'd only got bits of it, most of them wild rumors. And there wasn't a soul in Longwood that didn't grieve for him, plunged down at the moment when he thought he was most happy into such an awful tragedy. As he sat down in the chair opposite the Coroner, the room was as still as a tomb, even the reporters behind me not making so much as the scratch of a pen.
He looked gray and pinched, his eyes burnt out like a person's who hasn't slept for nights. You could see he was nervous, for he kept crossing and uncrossing his knees, and he didn't give his evidence nearly so clear and continued as the newspapers had it. He'd stop every now and then as if he didn't remember or as if he was thinking of the best way to express himself.
He began by telling how he and Sylvia had arranged to go in his car to Bloomington, and there be married by his friend Fiske, an Episcopal clergyman. The Coroner asked him if Fiske expected them and he said no, he hadn't had time to let him know as the elopement was decided on hurriedly.
"Why was the decision hurried?" the Coroner asked and he answered low, as if he was reluctant to say it.
"Because Miss Hesketh had a violent quarrel with her stepfather on Saturday morning. It was not till after that that she made up her mind she would go with me."
"Did you know at the time what that quarrel was about?"
His face got a dull red and he said low.
"Yes, she told me of it in a letter she wrote me immediately afterward."
Then he told how on Saturday night he had received a special delivery letter from her, telling of the quarrel and agreeing to the elopement. That letter he had destroyed. He answered it the next morning, she having directed him to bring it in himself and deliver it to Virginie, who would meet him opposite Corwin's drugstore. This he did, the letter being the one already in evidence.
The Coroner asked him to explain the sentence which said "Don't disappoint me – don't do what you did the other time." He looked straight in front of him and answered:
"We had made a plan to elope once before and she had backed out."
"Do you know why?"
"It was too – too unusual – too unconventional. When it came to the scandal of an elopement she hung back."
"Is it your opinion that the quarrel with Dr. Fowler made her agree the second time?"
"I know nothing about that."
Then he told of leaving Firehill, coming into Longwood, and going down Maple Lane.
"I reached there a few minutes before seven and ran down to the pine tree where I was to meet her. I drew up to one side of the road and waited. During the time I waited – half an hour – I neither saw nor heard anybody. At half-past seven I decided she had changed her mind again and left."
"You didn't go to the house?"
"No – I was not welcome at the house. She had told me not to go there."
"You were in the habit of seeing her somewhere else, though?"
His face got red again and you could see he had to make an effort not to get angry.
"After I had heard from Miss Hesketh and seen from Dr. Fowler's manner that I was not wanted at Mapleshade, I saw her at intervals. Once or twice we went for walks in the woods, and a few times, perhaps three or four, I met her on the turnpike and took her for a drive in my car."
He then went on to tell how he drove back to Firehill, reaching there a little after nine. The place was empty and he went up to his room. He didn't know how long he'd been there when the telephone rang. It was the mysterious message from her.
He repeated it slowly, evidently trying to give it word for word. You could have heard a pin drop when he ended.
"Did you attempt to question her on the phone?"
"No, it all went too quick and I was too astonished."
"Did you get the impression that she was in any grave danger?"
"No, I never thought of that. She was very rash and impulsive and I thought she'd done some foolhardy thing and had turned to me as the one person on whom she could rely."
"What do you mean by foolhardy?"
He gave a shrug and threw out his hands.
"The sort of thing a child might do – some silly, thoughtless action. She was full of spirit and daring; you never could be sure of what she mightn't try. I didn't think of any definite thing. I ran to the garage and got out my car and went northward up the Firehill Road. It was terrible traveling, and I should say it took me nearly three-quarters of an hour to make the distance. When I was nearing the pike I sounded my horn to let her know I was coming.
"Just before I got there the clouds had broken and the moon come out. The whole landscape was flooded with light, and I made no doubt I'd see her as soon as I turned into the pike. But she wasn't there. I slowed up and waited, looking up and down, for I'd no idea which way she was coming, but there wasn't a sign of her. As far as I could see, the road was lifeless and deserted. Then I ran up and down – a mile or two either way – but there was no one to be seen."
"Did you hear any sounds in the underbrush – footsteps, breaking of twigs?"
"I heard nothing. The place was as still as the grave. I made longer runs up and down, looking along both sides and now and then waiting and sounding the auto horn."
"Did you stop at any of the farms or cottages and make inquiries?"
"No. I didn't do that because I had no thought of her being in any real danger and because she'd cautioned me against letting anyone know. After I'd searched the main road thoroughly for several miles and gone up several branch roads I began to think she'd played a joke on me."
"Do you mean fooled you?"
"Yes – the whole thing began to look that way. Her not being at the rendezvous in Maple Lane and then phoning me to meet her at a place, which, when I came to think of it, it was nearly impossible for her to reach in that space of time. It seemed the only reasonable explanation – and it was the sort of thing she might do. When I got the idea in my head it grew and," he looked down on the floor, his voice dropping low as if it was hard for him to speak, "I got blazing mad."
For a moment it seemed like he couldn't go on. In that moment I thought of how he must be feeling, remembering his rage against her while all the time she was lying cold and dead by the road.
"I was too angry to go home," he went on, "and not thinking much what I did, I let the car out and went up and down – I don't know how far – I don't remember – miles and miles."
"According to Mr. Casey it was half-past four when you came back to the garage."
"I daresay; I didn't notice the time."
"You were from 9:30 to 4:30 on the road?"
"Yes."
"You spent those seven hours going up and down the turnpike and the intersecting roads?"
"Yes, but at first I waited – for half hours at a time in different places."
He looked straight at the Coroner as he said that, a deep steady look, more quiet and intent than he'd done since he started. I think it would have seemed to most people as if he was telling the absolute truth and wanted to impress it. But when a girl feels about a man as I did about him, she can see below the surface, and there was something about the expression of his face, about the tone of his voice, that made me think for the first time he was holding something back.
Then he went on and told about going home and falling asleep on the sofa, and about the doctor and Mills coming.
"When I saw the Doctor my first thought was that I must keep quiet till I found out what had happened. When he asked me where his daughter was I was startled as I realized she wasn't at home. But, even then, I hadn't any idea of serious trouble and I was determined to hold my tongue till I knew more than I did.
"The ring of the telephone gave me a shock. I had been expecting to get a call from her and instinctively I gave a jump for it. By that time I was sure she'd got into some silly scrape and I wasn't going to have her stepfather finding out and starting another quarrel. They," he nodded his head at the Doctor and Mills, "caught on at once and made a rush for me.
"After that – " he lifted his hands and let them drop on his knees – "it was just as they've said. I was paralyzed. I don't know what I said. I only felt she'd been in danger and called on me and I'd failed her. I think for a few moments I was crazy."
His voice got so husky he could hardly speak and he bent his head down, looking at his hands. I guess every face in the room was turned to him but mine. I couldn't look at him but sat like a dummy, picking at my gloves, and inside, in my heart, I felt like I was crying. In the silence I heard one of the reporters whisper:
"Gee – poor chap! that's tough!"
He was asked some more questions, principally about what Sylvia had told him of the quarrels with her stepfather. You could see he was careful in his answers. According to what he said she'd only alluded to them in a general way as making the life at Mapleshade very uncomfortable.
He was just getting up when I saw one of the jurors pass a slip of paper across the table to the Coroner. He looked at it, then, as Mr. Reddy was moving away, asked him to wait a minute; there was another question – had he stopped anywhere during Sunday night to get gasoline for his car?
Mr. Reddy turned back and said very simply:
"No, I had an extra drum in the car."
"You used that?"
"Yes."
"What did you do with the drum?"
"Threw it into the bushes somewhere along the road."
"Do you know the place?"
He gave a sort of smile and shook his head.
"No, I don't remember. I don't know where I filled the tank. When it was done I pitched the drum back into the trees – somewhere along the turnpike."
Several more of us came after that, I among them. But the real sensation of the day was the Doctor's evidence, which I'll keep for the next chapter.
VII
The Doctor was as calm and matter-of-fact as if he were giving a lecture to a class of students. He looked much better than he did that morning in the Exchange; rested and with a good color. As he settled himself in the chair, I heard one of the reporters whisper:
"I wouldn't call that the mug of a murderer."
I looked over my shoulder right at the one who had spoken, a young chap with a round, rosy, innocent sort of face like a kid's and yellow hair standing up over his head as thick as sheep's wool. I'd seen him several times in the Exchange and knew his name was Babbitts and that the other fellows called him "Soapy." When he caught my eye he winked, and you couldn't be mad because it was like a big pink baby winking at you.
The Doctor told his story more straight and continuous than any of the others. It went along so clear from point to point, that the coroner didn't have to ask so many questions, and when he did the doctor was always ready with his answer. It sounded to me as if he'd thought out every detail, worked it up just right to get the best effect. He began with Saturday morning, when he'd got the call to go to the Dalzells'.
"An operation was performed early that afternoon and I stayed during the night and all the next day, going out on Sunday morning at ten for an hour's ride in my motor. I had decided to remain Sunday night too – though the patient was out of danger – when at about eight I received a telephone message from my wife saying Miss Hesketh had run away with Jack Reddy. Hearing from her that their route would be by the turnpike to Bloomington I made up my mind that my best course was to strike the turnpike and intercept them."
"You disapproved of their marriage?"
"Decidedly. Miss Hesketh was too young to know her own mind. Mr. Reddy was not the husband I would have chosen for her – not to mention the distress it would have caused Mrs. Fowler to have her daughter marry in that manner. My desire to keep the escapade secret made me tell Mrs. Dalzell a falsehood – that I was called away on an important case.
"The Dalzells' chauffeur told me that the road from their place to the turnpike was impassable for motors. The best route for me would be to go to the Junction, where I could strike the Riven Rock Road, which came out on the turnpike about a mile from Cresset's Crossing. I had plenty of time, as the distance young Reddy would have to travel before he reached that point was nearly a hundred and twenty miles.
"I arrived at the Junction as the train for Philadelphia was drawing out. I spoke to Clark, the station agent, about the road, and, after getting the directions, walked round the depot to the back platform, where my car stood. As I passed the door of the waiting-room it suddenly opened and a woman came out."
He stopped – just for a moment – as if to let the people get the effect of his words. A rustle went over the room, but he looked as if he didn't notice it and went on as calm and natural as if he was telling us a fiction story.
"I probably wouldn't have noticed her if she hadn't given a suppressed cry and cowered back in the doorway. That made me look at her and, to my amazement, I saw it was Miss Hesketh's maid, Virginie Dupont."
Nobody expected it. If he'd wanted to spring a sensation he'd done it. We were all leaning forward with our mouths open.
"The moment I saw her I remembered that my wife had told me the woman had gone with Miss Hesketh. One glance into the waiting-room told me she was alone and I turned on her and told her I knew of the elopement and asked her what she was doing there. She was evidently terrified by my unexpected appearance, but seeing she was caught, she confessed that she knew all about it, in fact, that she had been instructed by Miss Hesketh to go to Philadelphia by the branch line, take a room in the Bellevue-Stratford, and wait there till her mistress appeared.
"I was enraged and let her see it, pushing her round to the car and ordering her into the back seat. I vaguely noticed that she carried a bag and wrap over her arm. She tried to excuse herself but I shut her up and took my seat at the wheel. There was no one on the platform as we went out.
"It took me over an hour to negotiate the distance between the Junction and the turnpike. The road was in a fearful condition. We ran into chuck holes and through water nearly to the hubs. Once the right front wheel dropping into a washout, the lamp struck a stump and was so shattered it had to be put out. My attention was concentrated on the path, especially after we left the open country and entered a thick wood, where, with one lamp out of commission, I had to almost feel my way.
"I said not a word to the woman nor she to me. It was not till I was once again in the open that I turned to speak to her and saw she was gone."
"Gone!" said one of the jury – a raw-boned, bearded old man like a farmer – so interested, he spoke right out.
"Yes, gone. I guessed in a moment what she had done. Either when I had stopped to put out the lamp or in one of the pauses while I was feeling my way through the wood she had slipped out and run. It would have been easy for her to hide in the dark of the trees. I glanced into the tonneau and saw that the things she had carried, the bag and the wrap, were also missing. She had been frightened and made her escape. Unfortunately, in the shock and horror of the next day the whole matter slipped my mind and she had time to complete her getaway, probably by the branch line early Sunday morning."
The Coroner here explained that inquiries had since been made at the branch line stations for the woman but nobody had been found who had seen her.
"I had no time to go back and look for her, and, anyway, it would have been useless, as she could have hidden from a sheriff's posse in the wood. Besides, my whole interest was focused on reaching the turnpike. I could see it before me, a long winding line between the dark edges of small trees. I turned into it and let the car out. Though the road has many turns I could have seen the lamps of a motor some distance ahead and I ran fast, looking neither to the right nor left but watching for approaching lights. On my ride back I met only a few vehicles, several farmers' wagons and the car of Dr. Pease, the Longwood practitioner.
"I reached home about two and went at once to my wife's room. She was in a hysterical state and I stayed with her an hour or so trying to quiet her. When she was better I retired to my own apartment and at seven called up Walter Mills, a detective in New York, telling him to come to Longwood as soon as he could. By this time I was uneasy, not that I had any suspicion of a real tragedy, but the disappearance of Miss Hesketh alarmed me. I met Mills at the train and told him the situation and that I intended telephoning to Fiske at Bloomington, thinking they might have reached there by some other way. It was his suggestion that before any step was taken which might make the matter public, it would be well to communicate with Firehill and see if the servants knew anything. I did this and to my amazement learned that Reddy was there."
That is all of the Doctor's testimony that I need put down as the rest of it you know.
It left us in a sort of mixed-up surprise. No one could have told it better, no one could have been more sure about it or more quiet and natural. But– it seems like I ought to write that word in the biggest letters to give the idea of how it stood out in my mind.
Of all the stories it was the strangest and it was so awfully pat. I don't know how you feel about it, reading it as I've written it here, but I can say for myself, listening and watching that man tell it, I couldn't seem to believe it.
It was near to evening, the room getting dusk and the fire showing up large and bright when the jury brought in their verdict: "The deceased met her death at the hands of a person or persons unknown."
I walked back up Maple Lane. The night was setting in cold and frosty. The clouds had drawn off, the air was clear as crystal and full of the sounds of motor horns. Big and little cars passed me, jouncing over the ruts and swinging round the bend where the pine stood. I was looking up at it, black like a skeleton against the glow in the West, when a step came up behind me and a voice said:
"You're a good witness, Miss Morganthau."
It was that fresh kid Babbitts and I wasn't sorry to have him join me as I was feeling as if I'd been sitting in a tomb. He was serious too, not a wink about him now, his eyes on the ground, his hands dug down in the pockets of his overcoat.
"A strange case, isn't it?" he said.
"Awful strange," I answered.
"If it wasn't for your story of that man on the 'phone I think they'd arrest Dr. Fowler to-night."
"Didn't you believe what he said?"
I wasn't going to give away my thoughts any more than I'd been willing to give away what I heard on the wire. And it seemed that he was the same, for he answered slow and thoughtful:
"I'm not saying what I believe or don't believe, or maybe it's better if I say I'm not ready yet to believe or disbelieve anything," – then he looked up at the sky, red behind the trees, and spoke easy and careless: "They say Miss Hesketh had a good many admirers."
"Do they?" was all he got out of me.
That made him laugh, jolly and boyish.
"Oh, you needn't keep your guard up now. Your stuff'll be in the papers to-morrow, and, take it from me, that fellow that sent the message is going to get a jar."
"The man I listened to?"
"Sure. He hasn't got the ghost of an idea anyone overheard him. Can't you imagine how he'll feel when he opens his paper and sees that a smart little hello girl was tapping the wire?"
It's funny, but I'd never thought of it that way. Why, he'd get a shock like dynamite! It got hold of me so that I didn't speak for a spell, thinking of that man reading his paper to-morrow – over his coffee or maybe going down in the L – and suddenly seeing printed out in black and white what he thought no one in the world knew except himself and that poor dead girl. Babbitts went on talking, me listening with one ear – which comes natural to an operator.
"We've been rounding up all the men that were after her – not that they were backward with their alibis – only too glad to be of service, thank you! Carisbrook was at Aiken, a lawyer named Dunham was up state trying a case; Robinson, a chap in a bank, was spending the week-end on Long Island. There was only one of them near here – man named Cokesbury. Do you know him?"
Both my ears got busy.
"Cokesbury," I said, sort of startled, "was Cokesbury at the Lodge last week?"
"He was and I know just what he did."
"What did he do?"
He laughed out as gay as you please, for he saw he'd got me just where he wanted.
"When I've tried to find out things from you you've turned me down."
"Aw, go on," I said coaxing, "don't you know by experience I'm no talking machine to give out every word that's said to me."
"I believe you," he answered, "and it'll be good for your character for me to set a generous example. Cokesbury was at the Lodge from last Saturday on the one-ten train to last Monday on the eight-twenty."
"Gee!" I said, soft to myself.
"You can quell those rising hopes," he replied. "He wasn't the man you heard."
"How do you know?"
"Because hearing that he was a friend of Miss Hesketh's, I spent part of yesterday at Azalea and found that Mr. Cokesbury can prove as good an alibi as any of them."
"Did you see him?"
"No, he wasn't there and if he had been I wouldn't have bothered with him. I saw someone much better – Miner, the man who owns the Azalea Garage, where Cokesbury puts up his car. It appears that the trip before last Cokesbury broke his axle and had to have his car towed down to the garage and left there to be mended. When he came down Saturday he expected it to be done and when it wasn't, got in a rage and raised the devil of a row. He had to go out to his place in one of Miner's cars which left him there and went back for him Monday morning."
"Then he had no auto on Sunday."
"Miss Morganthau will take the head of the class," then he said, low, as if to someone beside him: "She's our prize pupil but we don't say it before her face for fear of making her proud," then back to me as solemn as a priest in the pulpit, "That is the situation reduced to its lowest terms – he had no car."
"Well that ends him," I said.
"So it seems to me. In fact Cokesbury gets the gate. I won't hide from you now that I went to Azalea because I'd heard a rumor of that talk on the phone and thought I'd do a little private sleuthing on my own. Didn't know but what I was destined to be the Baby Grand Burns."
"And nothing's come of it."
"Nothing, except that it drops Cokesbury out with a thud that's dull and sickening for me, but you can bet your best hat it's just the opposite for him."
"Well, I guess yes," I said and walked along wondering to myself whose voice that could have been.
