Kitabı oku: «Lord John in New York», sayfa 12

The door stood slightly ajar, as if Helen had left it so purposely for me: but no answer followed my knock. I tapped again more loudly, and the door fell open at my touch. No one was in the room; but close to the window, on the floor, I saw a bunch of crimson roses, wet with rain.

"Bridges!" I said to myself, with a smile.

For a moment I hesitated outside the door: yet rather than go away and miss the girl when she arrived (I imagined that she had run up to the roof), or lurk in the corridor to be stared at by passing servants, I decided to walk into the room and wait. Probably, I thought, this was what Helen had meant, in leaving the door ajar.

If the door of the next room had opened at that instant, and Maida had looked out, the history of the wretched weeks which followed might have been different for us both. But the door remained closed, and no instinct told me who was behind it. No one saw me walk into Helen Hartland's room; and therefore no one could tell at what hour I had entered.

I did not look out of the window, or I should have seen the fallen aeroplane which must still have been on the ground. I left the flowers – red as their giver's blood – lying on the floor for Helen to find when she came: but minutes passed and Helen did not come.

I sat down in a chair drawn up by the table and glanced at a couple of books. Both had been lent by me at Helen's request, and had my name on the flyleaf. I laid them down again impatiently on the gaudy cotton tablecloth; and took out my watch. Ten minutes after five! … Soon it was the quarter past. I was resolving impatiently to scrawl a line on a visiting-card, and go, when I heard a slight noise, as if someone in the adjoining room were unlocking a door. I knew from Helen's description that there were two doors, with a distance of at least twelve inches between.

"Can she be using that other room, too?" I wondered: when suddenly there rang out a scream of horror, in a woman's voice. It seemed to me that it was like Maida's, though that must be a mere obsession! but I sprang to my feet, dragging off the tablecloth and bringing down on the floor books, papers, and a vase of flowers. My chair fell over also: and all this confusion in the room was afterwards used against me.

I rushed to the door leading out to the corridor – which I had closed on entering – and found a swarm of people, guests and waiters, already pouring down the service stairs from the roof-garden just above. Everyone saw me come out of Helen Hartland's room: but even if they had not seen, there was my hat with my initials in it, on the floor with the rest of the fallen things, to testify to my late presence.

As we crowded the narrow corridor, the door of the "best room" whence the scream had come, was flung wide open, and to my amazement, Maida Odell – in her grey costume of the Sisterhood – rushed out pale as a dead girl.

"Murder! A woman murdered!" she whispered rather than cried, as one strives voicelessly to shriek in a dream. Just then she saw me, and held out both hands as if for help. I pushed past everyone else and got to her: but others surged forward and she and I gave way before the crowd. A dozen men at least must have jostled into the room after us; but at the instant I hardly knew that they were there. I saw a big woman in grey drawing a veil closely round her face as she rose from a cushioned lounge: and I saw lying on the floor the body of Helen Hartland with a thin stiletto sticking in her breast – a stiletto I had lent her to use as a paper knife. I recognised it instantly in redoubled horror, though not thinking then of consequences for myself.

By this time a policeman – one of those always present on the aviation grounds – forced his way through the crowd massed in the corridor. He got rid in summary fashion of everyone, except the two ladies, occupants of the room, myself (because I seemed to know and have some business with them) and the landlord. Another policeman who followed close on his heels, guarded the doors of the adjoining rooms, and doubtless a third busied himself in sending off frantic telephone calls.

Helen Hartland lay on her back on the pale grey carpet stained with her blood; and Maida told tremulously how the tragedy had been discovered. The Head Sister, feeling ill, had lain down on a sofa not far from the door of communication between this room and the next. She had fancied a noise on the other side, and asked Maida to try if the door were fastened. Strangely, it was not (though Edson cut in to protest that it, and all other communicating doors were invariably locked). The door had opened as the handle turned, and to the girl's horror the figure of a dead woman – standing squeezed in between the two doors – had fallen into the room.

Hardly had the faltering explanation reached this point when a doctor arrived – the man who had been in the hotel, attending Charlie Bridges. He examined the body, pronounced that life had not been extinct for half an hour, and thought from the position of the weapon, that death had been caused by another hand than Helen's own.

There was, of course, no difficulty in identifying the girl, for the landlord and I were both on the spot retained to give evidence. It soon came out that Helen Hartland had told Mrs. Edson she expected a visit from Lord John Hasle, and I without hesitation admitted making it. The Head Sister chimed in, saying that she and her friend had come for the express purpose of seeing Miss Hartland and persuading her to leave "her unsuitable position." The adjoining room was entered, for it was found that the second of the double doors was unlocked. The confusion was remarked, and silence was maintained when I told how in jumping up at the sound of the scream I had thrown down a chair and pulled off a tablecloth.

The books with my name written in them were handled by the policeman who had taken charge, and by his superior who soon arrived on the scene. Letters of mine – albeit innocent ones – were unearthed. A few drops of blood were discovered on the strawberry-coloured carpet between the table and the door, as well as between the double doors, in the narrow space into which the body had been thrust. Worse than all, my monogram was seen to adorn the stiletto paper-knife; and later (when I had been rather reluctantly arrested on suspicion) the last letter Helen had written turned up in my pocket. I had slipped it in and forgotten about it; but with so many damaging pieces of evidence that capped the climax. The girl accused me in so many words of wishing to get her out of the way, to send her back to England.

It seemed like a nightmare, and a stupid nightmare: one of those nightmares when you know you are awake yet cannot rouse yourself: I, John Hasle, brother and heir to the Marquis of Haslemere, lay under strong suspicion of having murdered a pretty little third-rate actress who had become troublesome to my "lordship" – Helen Hartland.

Everything was against me, nothing apparently for me: yet I was almost insolently sure that my innocence would prove itself, until the lawyer my friends engaged in my defence showed me how seriously he took the matter.

"You're in a bad fix," he said, "unless we can find someone to prove that you weren't in that room long enough to have killed the girl and hidden her between the doors. You see, that would have been a smart dodge on the murderer's part, putting her there. If the next room hadn't happened to be occupied (it seldom is, the landlady says) the man who did the trick would have had plenty of time to get away before the crime was found out. It was an accident that there were ladies on the other side to open the door of their room and see what was behind it. Your letters, your books, your stiletto – "

"It seems to me the stiletto is a proof of my innocence, not of my guilt," I ventured. "If I'd wanted to kill the girl, I wouldn't have done it in a way to incriminate myself, would I?"

"Hobson's choice," said the famous James Jeckelman, shrugging his shoulders. "You might have been in a rage and a hurry and had to take what there was at hand. You couldn't have shot her, because of the noise. It was a stab or nothing. No. If we're to save you, we must get hold of someone who saw."

That was easy to say, but not to do. Not a soul came forward to state that I had opened Helen Hartland's door at precisely five o'clock, to find the room empty; and that at a quarter past five the girl's body had fallen into the room next door. Even if there had been such evidence in my favour, it could not have freed me from suspicion. There might have been time to murder the girl, and hide her between the doors in less than fifteen minutes. But it was strange that she had not screamed.

Circumstantial evidence piled up: and the most hateful part for me was that Maida, as well as the directress of the Grey Sisterhood, should be called as a witness. I writhed at the thought that Maida was involved in the case, a case concerning the murder of a woman supposed to have loved me "not wisely but too well."

At first I thought only of this distressing phase of the business: but it wasn't long before I began to realise that Jeckelman had not exaggerated. My "position" was not to be allowed to tell in my favour, and socialists were hot in anger against the British "lord" who thought he could break any commandment he chose in America.

If only I had been sure how Maida felt, there might have been a rift in the dark sky. Could it be that her loyalty had stood this greatest test, or had the evidence and the Head Sister's hatred done their work? I could not tell, and day after day I saw more clearly that I might go to my death without knowing.

The coroner's inquest had found against me: and the trial was coming on when one day Charlie Bridges suddenly woke to consciousness. For weeks he had lain between life and death. The concussion from which he suffered was so severe that for a time he had been a mere log. His soul seemed to have gone out of him. Delirium followed this state. Then he fell into a long, sound sleep, and waking, his first words were: "What's happened since I fell? Have they got the man who made Helen Hartland kill herself?"

The nurse who heard these questions thought that delirium had seized her patient again: but the doctor, coming in at that moment, understood that Bridges was in a normal state of mind. He realised that every word the sick man said might mean life or death for me. Cautiously he answered the question by another, speaking quietly, not to startle his patient. "Did Helen Hartland kill herself? Weeks have passed since you've been laid up, and the case was supposed to be murder."

"It was the same as murder," Bridges answered wearily. "Nearly everyone who knew us, knew I used to fly past her window and fling in a bunch of flowers. It was one of my stunts. I could always see what Helen was doing if she was in: and there was generally time for a smile. A smile's a thing quickly done. And that was the reward I got. This last time I saw a man standing over her in a strange way with his hand on her forehead, for all the world as if he was hypnotising her: a big tall man I'd never seen before. I was so surprised that I turned and flew back. The fellow must have seen my flowers fall into the room with my first go; but the second time I swooped past, Helen was stabbing herself with a kind of stiletto. That was all I saw. I went queer and sick, and felt that I'd lost control. My one thought was to get out and save her. I believe I must have tried to jump. That's the last thing I remember."

When he had finished, he fell back exhausted, and had to be revived. But there wasn't much time to waste. Knowing the immense importance of the statement, Doctor Graves got Bridges to repeat it as soon as he was able. As the words left his lips they were taken down, and then signed by him. Later he swore that the man he had seen with Helen was not Lord John Hasle.

"If it had been, I'd have let him go to the chair, even if he didn't kill her with his own hands. I'd not have opened my mouth to help him," Bridges said. "I hated the fellow because Helen liked him better than me. But I must say he didn't seem to encourage her much. Anyhow I can't keep still and let an innocent man die."

When asked if he could identify the hypnotist. Bridges was not sure. All he could say "for certain," he persisted, was that "John Hasle was younger and slighter and altogether a different type: there was no chance of a mistake."

I was saved – saved by my rival, poor Charlie Bridges, the last man on earth to whom I should have looked for help. But then, his help didn't precisely come from the earth: it came from the air.

I had been a fool, and I felt unworthy of the traditions I had made for myself, not to have suspected in what manner the crime had been committed. Of course I had thought of Doctor Rameses. I thought always of Doctor Rameses! But I had not seen any way of connecting him with the murder of Helen Hartland, even if he were the man to whom she had gone for lessons in "will power." Now, I saw the way, and I believed that at last the police would see also. Indeed, they were ready to see. When Rameses' name as one of the leading "crank doctors" of New York was earnestly brought forward by me, it was arranged that Bridges was to be given a sight of him. Unfortunately, however, on the day when the California Birdman first woke from his long trance, and it was prematurely announced in the papers that his delirium might be followed by a return of normal consciousness, Doctor Rameses left town for a holiday. His servants said that he had been suffering from nervous strain through hard work, and had been preparing for some time to take a rest. His favourite summer country resort was, it appeared, the White Mountains. He was sought there, but not found. And I believed that he never would be found – unless by me.

My only happy souvenir of these miserable weeks was a letter from Maida, which I shall keep as long as I live.

"I knew from the first that you were innocent," she wrote, "and if I had been called I intended to say so in the witness-box."

EPISODE VII
THE WATCHING EYE

"What shall I do?" I asked myself as I read a letter from Maida.

She begged a small and simple service, yet – I hesitated.

Roger Odell had begged me to look after her as well as I could in the circumstances, during his long absence. Those circumstances were difficult ones: for I was not allowed to visit her at the Sisterhood House, and she never went out unchaperoned by her "friend" the directress. Her wish was that I should give her the key of her "sanctum" at Roger Odell's shut-up house in New York. A caretaker named Winter, one of the old servants, was in charge of the place; but I had been appointed special guardian of the "shrine," as Maida called this sacred room.

"Shrine" was indeed rather an appropriate name; since it contained treasures which formed the sole link between the girl and her lost past. She had been brought, a child of four, by her dying mother to the father of Roger Odell, and her sole possessions had been a couple of miniatures, a curious Egyptian fetish, and an Egyptian mummy in a fine, painted mummy-case. The miniatures had been enlarged into life-size portraits of Maida's mother and a man in the uniform of a British officer, whom she believed to be her father. Both portraits hung on the wall of the "shrine," together with one of Roger Odell, Senior. These, with the mummy-case, were the sole contents of the room.

Roger and I had cause to think that enemies of Maida's unknown father had followed the child and her mother to America: and that the vendetta would not end until Maida – the last of the family – had paid with her happiness or even with her life for the sin of some ancestor. We had cause to think also, that the mummy in its painted case was of importance to them, and that they had tried in various ways to get hold of it. For its protection, Roger had had a clever electrical contrivance fitted up, by means of which anyone not in the secret and trying to touch the mummy-case would receive a violent shock. Before going away he had given me the plan of this mechanism, with directions for applying the current and turning it off. At the same time he had handed me the key of the shrine which Maida had left with him on departing for Long Island.

Now, she wanted this key.

"I went yesterday to my dear old home," she wrote, "to visit my treasures. But the shrine was locked; and Winter told me that Roger had given you the key. He said also that there was some kind of patent burglar alarm which had frightened a couple of thieves away, since I came to stay at Sisterhood House. Is that true? And is there danger in opening the door? I know I can depend upon you, when you send the key, to make it safe for me to go in. I'll post the key to you afterwards, if you like – and if Roger wants you still to be troubled with it. Please arrange for me to pay my visit to-morrow."

It seemed that there was only one way to answer this letter: by saying that I would arrange for the safety of the visit; and enclosing the key in my note. Nevertheless I hesitated. I was afraid to send Maida the key.

It was useless to explain to her the reasons for my seeming boorishness. She trusted the Head Sister. Nothing that had happened since she entered the Grey Sisterhood had opened the girl's eyes to the cruel falseness of the woman, as I saw it. Nothing, not even the affair of Helen Hartland, had made her believe that the friend she respected was one of the agents working for her destruction and my elimination. So I knew that if I refused the key I would seem a stupid blunderer to Maida.

"If only she'd waited a few days!" I thought. For after many unsuccessful attempts, we (I and Paul Teano) had contrived to get an employee – I may as well use the word "spy" – into Sisterhood House. She was a young but singularly intelligent girl whom Teano's wife, once known as "Three Fingered Jenny," had lately rescued from a set of pickpockets and "sneak thieves." We hoped great things from "Nippy Nance," as a protégée of the Head Sister, who did not suspect the girl's change of heart and profession. If she could get evidence that the directress of the Grey Sisterhood was the leader of a criminal gang, posing as a charitable reformer, I could not only say "I told you so!" to the incredulous police, but I could convince Maida of her own peril.

A few days more grace, and Nance might have been able to give us a satisfactory report! But I dared not delay. I had to decide, for Maida's letter must be answered. My desire to please her prevailed over prudence. I persuaded myself that I had no right to refuse such a request: that I must consent: that my vague fears were foolish. I had only to watch, and see that no harm came to Maida or to the mummy in its painted case.

I wrote that, in loyalty to the promise I had made Roger (made for her sake!) I couldn't leave the shrine without its "patent burglar protection" (as she called it) over night: but I would go to the house early in the morning and do everything necessary to ensure her safety if she wished to touch or open the mummy-case.

"I know if you had been willing to see me there, you would have suggested my meeting you at the house," I went on. "As you haven't, I daren't ask to be present: but I'll be in New York and at the Belmont Hotel all day, expecting a word. Will you call me up, or if not, will you send a line by messenger to say at what hour I shall go round again to make the "shrine" burglar proof? I enclose the key: and perhaps you will leave it for me with the caretaker."

Maida's letter had come to the Long Island hotel. I sent my answer from there by hand to Sisterhood House, where it would be taken in by a lay sister at the gate. The boy was ordered to wait for a reply, if reply there were, but I thought it unlikely Maida would answer so soon. I fancied she would consult the Head Sister, and that a response would be delayed till the last minute. I was mistaken, however. My messenger presently came back with a letter.

It was sweet, and full of gratitude for the "trouble" I was taking. "I am 'willing' to see you," she quoted. "I'm more than willing! I shall be glad to see you. I have permission to do so. Will you call at Roger's house about two o'clock? I don't know what time I shall arrive; perhaps much earlier; but I promise not to leave until I've had a talk with you. I'll tell Winter to show you into Roger's study to wait. I shall have a companion. But it's just possible I may be granted a few minutes alone with my brother's best friend!"

This made me happier than I had been since the night when I fell in love with Maida. Nevertheless, I didn't forget the need to watch Roger's house, from the moment that the "shrine" and the mummy-case were released from their patent protection. Not that I distrusted Maida. I believed in her as I believed in Heaven. But she might be deceived: and it was my business to guard her interests.

I went to the house, as I had agreed to do, early in the morning, and not only switched off the electric current which protected the shrine and its contents day and night, but removed the small visible parts of the apparatus in case someone had the intention of studying the mechanism. I informed Winter that he might expect Miss Odell with one of the ladies from the Grey Sisterhood, and that I would return at two o'clock. I then went back to the hotel where I stayed when in New York, for I could not bear to do the necessary spying myself. A man from Teano's agency was engaged to watch the house, and 'phone instantly if anyone other than the ladies in grey uniform entered; also if one or both of these ladies went away.

No message came: and a little before two o'clock I arrived at the door. My man, disguised as a member of the "white wings" brigade, was visible in the distance. I gave the signal agreed upon to mean "You can go!" and went, as arranged, into Roger's study at the back of the house, Winter having told me that "the ladies were upstairs."

I waited for half an hour; for three quarters: and then, growing anxious, sought the caretaker, who had pottered down into the basement. He was surprised at my question. "Why, I thought the ladies was both in the library with you!" he stammered. "I was in the hall, where you told me to wait. They came down and said they were going to talk to you. Miss Maida's friend, the lady with the thick veil, had a telegram to send. She asked me to take it, and gave me something for myself. I supposed it was all right when I got back just now, to stop in my quarters for a bit, as the lady said they'd be staying some time."

What a fool I had been to think, because I had arrived on the scene, that it was safe to send the watcher away! It was my trust of Maida that had undone me. I had believed so blindly in her promise not to go without seeing me, that I had thought all danger of a trick was over. I hadn't reflected that the enemy was clever enough to trick her at the last minute, as well as me!

I dashed upstairs to the "shrine" found the door open and the mummy-case gone! This was the worst blow that could fall, because, once the mummy-case was actually in the hands of those who had schemed to get it, every hope of Maida's safety seemed to vanish. In the street, I could find no one who had seen the great painted box carried from the house or taken away in any vehicle. Next, I inquired at the houses adjoining, and opposite, with no better luck: but in the shame and confusion which obscured my mind, it appeared probable that the Sisterhood car had taken ladies and mummy-case as swiftly as possible to the Sisterhood House.

My own car was under repair, and I had been spinning round New York in a taxi. Now, I returned for a moment to my hotel, in the desperate hope of a message from Maida. There was nothing: but as I was hurrying out, I met Teano.

"Hurrah, my lord!" he exclaimed. "What luck to catch you like this! I thought perhaps you'd have got back from Mr. Odell's house by this time, but if you hadn't I was going round to find you. Is the young lady all right?"

"Why do you ask?" I caught him up.

"Because Nance is at our flat. She had leave for the afternoon – the first time she's got off: a sign they trust her. She's got a report, my lord. It's a blood-curdler!"

"Take me to your place and let me hear it," I said, reflecting that it would be stupid to flash off to Long Island, when Nance's news might save a wild goose chase. At worst, I should lose but a few minutes. And taxying to Teano's, I told him in a few words what a mess I'd made of things.

"They won't have gone back to Long Island," he said excitedly. "You'll understand when you hear Nance and perhaps you'll have some theory."

Nance – a sharp-faced midget who would make as good a thief-catcher as she had been a thief – was proud of her achievement. She was on the way to get proof of the Sisterhood's secret. A girl had half confided in her, and had stopped in fright; but Nance expected to prove soon that the Grey Sisterhood was a "regular gang," associated with "high up ones" in New York. "There's a big boss over the whole shebang," she said, "but he's made a bolt. I don't know where – but I'll find out. I guess he's jumped the country; and I guess m'lady o' the mask (that's what we calls the Head Sister behind her back: we all know she wears somethin' under her veil to hide a beauty spot) will be joinin' him. She's been sort o' gatherin' things together as if for a flit, these last two days, but I couldn't make a break to get word to you."

Nance had more to tell, but nothing which directly concerned Maida. We could only draw our own deductions that the Head Sister wouldn't "flit" unless she could take the girl. Because Doctor Rameses had found America too hot for him after his last plot against me, no doubt the directress of the Grey Sisterhood had been waiting her chance to play Ruth to his Boaz.

She had now accomplished her great coup, in securing the mummy-case which interested Rameses; and if she'd been able to force or wheedle Maida into breaking faith with me, she could force or wheedle her to the ends of the world.

"Egypt!" I said aloud, as if the word had been spoken in my ear, and I echoed it. "These devils want to get the girl to Egypt and finish the vendetta that began there. What ships sail to-day?"

We learned that one was leaving for Bordeaux, and another for Naples. Both had been due to sail in the morning, but had been delayed, owing to the strict inspection of cargo. Some lively telephoning followed, but we could get no information from the agents concerning such passengers as we described. Nance was ordered back post-haste to Sisterhood House in case, contrary to our theory, the pair had returned. Teano sent a man to the ship sailing for France; and I myself started for the one Naples-bound, the night luggage I'd brought from Long Island on my taxi. I had a mission from my Government, which I served during my convalescence, and I had no right to leave without permission. But I was ready to sacrifice my whole career, rather than see Maida sail for Egypt with a cruel and unscrupulous enemy.

I arrived at the dock just in time to see the ship moving out. In desperation I tried to hire a tug, at no matter what price, to follow and board her when she shed her pilot. The thing was impossible. It was small consolation to be assured that no such ladies as I described were on board. I felt almost certain they were there, in ordinary dress, having changed from the uniform of the Grey Sisterhood. When every effort had failed in this direction, however, there remained half a hope that they might have been found by Teano's man on the ship starting for Bordeaux. There was a chance of reaching her before she steamed out, and that chance I took; but fate was against me again. She had been gone twenty minutes when my taxi rushed me to the wharf. "You've missed nothing. They weren't aboard," said the detective, who awaited my arrival. But how could I be sure that he was right?

The next thing was to cable the police at Naples and Bordeaux: yet so far we had no definite proof against the Head Sister, who had the luck as well as the ingenuity of her supposed partner, Doctor Rameses. She could merely be watched on her arrival at a foreign port, not held: and I dared not even take it firmly for granted that she and Maida had left America, till Teano's frantic energies should bring further particulars of their movements. I blamed myself for the embroglio: still, I would not say, even in the privacy of my own head, "If I hadn't trusted the girl so blindly!"

I spent that night in New York, hoping for news from one direction or other: and though it was not till the morning that Teano picked up anything authentic, I had better fortune. A sudden inspiration came as I walked up and down my room, smoking more cigarettes than were good for me, and racking my brain for a solution of the puzzle.

"What if Maida left a note for you in the shrine, hoping you'd have the sense to look?" a voice seemed to whisper in my ear.

Instantly I became certain that she had done so. It was past ten o'clock, but I jumped into a taxi and flashed back to Roger's house. After pressing the electric bell a dozen times at least, Winter appeared in deshabille, inclined to grumble. I went straight to the violated shrine, and switched on the electric light in its curious globes of golden glass. The portrait of Maida's beautiful mother faced the door and gazed into my eyes. Never had I quite realised its likeness to the girl. It was as if Maida looked at me.

"If there's anything, it will be behind that portrait," I thought. Going straight to it, I lifted the heavy gold frame, and a folded piece of paper fell to the floor. No writing was visible, but I knew I had found what I sought.