The Door (27 page)

Nothing else escaped them; the chair and sofa cushions, the mattresses, even the kitchen utensils and the washing machine in the laundry were closely examined; and the unfortunate Simmons spent some warm hours in the wood cellar, carefully moving the wood. But they found no papers, nor anything resembling a clock dial save on the clocks themselves.

The mere fact of the search, however, had greatly unnerved both Clara and Norah, and had a result beyond any of our expectations.

Norah asked that night to be allowed to keep Jock in her room, and Clara took Isabel. The total result of which was that I was awakened at three o’clock in the morning by a most horrible scream. It seemed to come from the back of the house, and was both prolonged and agonized.

I leaped out of bed and threw open my door. Joseph had similarly opened his, and I heard his voice.

“Who is it? What is wrong?”

There was a moan, and turning on the lights Joseph and I ran to the back stairs. Norah in her night dress was crouched there on the landing, her hands over her eyes.

“I’ve seen her!” she wailed. “I’ve seen her!”

“Stop that noise,” said Joseph sternly. “You’re scaring the whole neighborhood. Who have you seen?”

“Miss Sarah. I saw her, right at the foot of those stairs. She was standing there looking at me. In her uniform, too. All white.”

And to this absurd story she adhered with the dogged persistency of her type.

It appeared that Jock had wakened and had demanded to be taken out. He had whimpered and scratched at the door, and at last, none too happily, Norah had started down with him.

At the top of the back stairs, however, he had stopped and given a low growl. Norah had looked down. There is a lamp on the garage, and since our trouble I had ordered it left burning all night. Through the pantry window it sends a moderate amount of light into the pantry, and in that doorway Norah claimed to have seen her figure.

“And after that, what?” I demanded.

“I don’t know. I shut my eyes.”

Only one thing struck me as curious in all this. So far as I know, Elise, terrified by Judy’s dire threats, had said nothing of the figure in the attic and was now at a safe and discreet distance.

The next day I went over the house again with Joseph. New locks had been placed wherever possible and bolts supplemented them at the doors, and in the basement I had had placed over the windows gratings of stout iron well set into the bricks.

“What is it, Joseph?” I asked. “Do these women imagine these things? Or is somebody getting into the house?”

“They’re very nervous, madam. And nothing has been taken.”

I looked at him. It seemed to me that he stood not so erect as formerly; that he looked older and very tired. And lately I had noticed that he was less certain in his movements, slightly inco-ordinate. I put my hand on his arm.

“This is wearing on you, Joseph,” I said. “Would you like a vacation? I daresay we could manage.”

But he shook his head.

“Thank you, madam, but I’d prefer to stay. I’ve been a bit shaken since the attack; that’s all.”

“And you still have no idea who struck you?”

I thought that he hesitated. Certainly the arm under my hand perceptibly tightened. But although I know now that Joseph knew perfectly well who had struck him and that his very soul was seething with anger, it shows the almost incredible self-control of the man that his voice was as impassive as ever.

“Not the slightest, madam.”

He must have been intensely curious. That searching of the house by the police, what did it mean? But he said nothing, asked no questions. A perfect upper servant, Joseph. A very perfect servant.

The incident did not add to my peace of mind. I would lie in my bed at night and imagine that I heard stealthy movements, faint stirrings. Nor were these limited to the lower floor; sometimes they were over my head, and once indeed in my very boudoir, next to my bedroom. When I called out sharply they ceased and were not renewed.

It was on the second day after Norah’s experience, and sitting alone in my study that evening, that I decided to spy on my house; to lock myself securely in my room and listen to it. And this was less difficult than may appear.

The old speaking tubes in the house are simple of operation. To use them one opens them and drawing a long breath, expels it into the tube. The result is a wail of no mean calibre, wherever the tube may lead. But, once opened, these tubes are excellent conductors of sound, and as during a long invalidism my dear mother had managed her household from her bedroom, some four of these tubes led to the chamber which I now occupy, practically forgotten but still serviceable.

Joseph was out, but Clara was in the pantry. I shall never forget her face when I told her to go to the wood cellar and to bring me a small piece of wood to the library.

“And a knife, Clara. A very sharp knife.”

“A knife, ma’am? A butcher knife?”

“The sharpest one you can find, Clara.”

She was still staring at me as I turned and went out, and it shows the state of nerves in the household that after she had brought me the knife she turned and ran like a scared rabbit.

I cut my wood—and also my finger—and in the end I managed to prop open all the tubes except that in the pantry. After I had sent Clara to bed I opened that one also, and by midnight I was safely locked in my room with the lights out, and ready for my vigil.

For the first hour nothing happened. I heard Joseph come in the back door, apparently pick up the knife, mutter something and put it away. I heard the sound of the refrigerator opening and closing, and gathered that he was taking a little refreshment up to bed with him. And then, until one o’clock, there was a complete silence.

At that time I began to hear a faint sound. It came from the drawing room, and was too far away to identify, but it was unmistakable. Now and then it stopped, only to resume again. It was a stealthy scraping, rather like that of a mouse nibbling at a board. And indeed, as it went on interminably, I believed that that was what it was. The tube ran through the old walls, and we are liable to onsets of mice, as are all old houses.

I do not know how long it lasted, or when it ceased. It stopped abruptly, and although I listened intently there was nothing further. No stealthy footsteps followed it. The silence was complete.

I was up early the next morning, a trifle ashamed of the whole proceeding, to remove the strips of wood. The drawing room was undisturbed, as was the rest of the lower floor.

But Joseph was to interpret those sounds for me that very morning, and with my breakfast tray.

“I think we will not be troubled again, madam.”

“Troubled?”

“At night. I have found the means by which the person entered.”

And so indeed he had. According to his story he had gone into the drawing room to open it, and had set the rear door open. On the upper step he noticed some bits of putty, and on examining it he found that it was soft.

The device had apparently been a simple one. The old putty around one of the panes had been carefully dug out and fresh soft putty substituted. To gain access to the house it was only necessary to remove this, a matter of a moment, and with some adhesive material fastened to the pane, to draw it carefully out.

Inspector Harrison, examining the pane, decided that adhesive tape had been used for this purpose.

As there is no path there, the steps leading directly onto the grass, there were no footprints. But as a result of this discovery the Inspector himself that day placed a heavy iron bar across the door, and personally examined the doors and windows.

He was not entirely satisfied, however.

“That bolt on the door,” he said to me, “it’s beyond a normal man’s reach from that pane. Now it’s conceivable that Joseph might forget that bolt once, and on the night that somebody had planned to get in. But twice, or a half dozen times! I don’t believe it.”

“He might have pushed it back with something. The man outside, I mean.”

“Well, he might,” he admitted grudgingly.

T
HE IMMEDIATE RESULT OF
that discovery was my decision to tell Katherine all I knew. Partly to save her in her trouble and partly because I did not trust her discretion at that time, I had never told her about the missing sheets from Sarah’s records.

She listened attentively while I told her of that excursion of Judy’s and mine to Florence Gunther’s room, and of what we had found there, and I showed her Sarah’s record of the eleventh of August.

“Have you told Godfrey Lowell that?”

“Not yet. I’ve been trying to locate the missing pages.”

She got up, rang the bell and ordered the car.

“It is hard to forgive you for this, Elizabeth,” she said. “To hold that back, with Jim’s very life hanging on it!”

“I don’t see how it helps Jim.”

“Don’t you? Don’t you know what was on those records? That Howard never made a will at all, or that he was drugged when he did it. One of those two things.”

She had not waited for Elise. She was dragging out her outdoor garments, hurrying about—strange to see Katherine hurry—with two purplish spots of excitement high on her cheeks. Judy came in and stood by helplessly.

“It’s been clear to me from the start. That man Waite has forged this will, and Walter Somers bribed him to do it.”

“With what?” Judy demanded.

“On his prospects. How do you know that fifty thousand dollars wasn’t the bribe?”

She was still talking when we got into the car, still feverishly excited. Judy begged her to be calm, not to say anything disastrous, but I doubt if she heard her. But when she made that flat statement to Godfrey Lowell, he sat upright in his chair, stiff and angry.

“I have the utmost confidence in Mr. Waite,” he said. “An accusation of that sort necessarily involves his probity, Mrs. Somers.”

“How do you know how honest he is?” she said sharply. “Men have been bought before this.”

“The will was witnessed. I can have those signatures examined if you like. But—”

“What good would that do? The witnesses are dead. Maybe that’s the reason why they are dead.”

But Godfrey shook his head.

“No,” he said. “I understand and I sympathize with you, Mrs. Somers. But that will was made by Mr. Somers, properly drawn by a man above reproach and signed and witnessed by two persons in Mr. Waite’s presence before a notary. He has already sworn to that before the Grand Jury. He will so testify at the trial.”

“Then why did Sarah hide the records of the two days when the will was drawn?”

“She did that?”

“She did. What was on those records, Mr. Lowell? Did she show that some pressure was brought to bear on Howard, or that he had been drugged?”

“Doctor Simonds says he was not drugged.”

“What does he know? He wasn’t there, was he?”

“Barring evidence to the contrary we shall have to take his word. He was there that night, and Mr. Somers was normal then.”

Before we left he referred again to Katherine’s statement about Mr. Waite.

“I know that you have had a great burden to bear, Mrs. Somers, and that naturally it is difficult for you to accept certain things. But some facts we must accept. During that illness all unpleasant feeling between Walter Somers and his father had been wiped out. In his conversation with Mr. Waite, Mr. Somers mentioned this. He was feeble, but quite clear as to his wishes. He felt that perhaps an injustice had been done to his son, and he wished to rectify it. That is why the will was drawn as it stands, and—as it will stand before any court, Mrs. Somers.”

“Have you examined the signature?”

“I have, at Mr. Waite’s own request. We have even had an expert on it. A forged signature under the microscope shows halts and jerks; the hand works slowly, and there are tremors.”

“And this shows none of these?”

“Mr. Somers was not allowed to sit up. It shows the weakness of a sick man, writing in a constrained position. That’s all.”

She sat there, smoothing her gloves after that habit of hers, and her face looked drawn in the glare from the wide-open windows. Her anger was gone, and something disquieting had taken its place.

“Then this secret fund is beyond question?”

“Beyond question.”

She said nothing more until we had got into the car. Then she spoke, looking ahead of her and with her face a white mask.

“So she is living, after all!”

“Who is living, Katherine?”

“Margaret.”

Just how long she had been brooding over that possibility I do not know, but I think it explains much that had almost alienated me at the time; her refusal to accept the will, her frozen attitude even to Judy, the hours she spent locked away in her room, inaccessible even to her maid.

“I don’t believe it, Katherine.”

“I do,” she said with stiff lips. “It would be like her, wouldn’t it? To hide away for all these years, and then when she knows Howard is ill and dying, to let him know. She told Walter, and Walter told him.”

Nothing I could say could shake that conviction. And here again we had grazed the cheek of truth, touched it and gone on. For Margaret was not living, as we were to learn at the end.

Certainly one of the most astounding things about our series of crimes—and perhaps about all baffling crimes—is the narrow margin by which, again and again, the solution evaded us. Despite the extraordinary precautions taken by the criminal, on at least a half dozen occasions safety was a matter of seconds only. One such incident was the sound outside Florence Gunther’s room, the night Judy and I were there. Another, for example, was Clara’s failure to identify the figure in the pantry door. Again, had the intruder on my staircase the night of Sarah’s murder happened to have crept a few steps lower, the entire situation would have been changed. That I was resting when Florence came to see me resulted in her death before she had told her story.

There were others, also.

Had Judy turned that night in the garage she might have seen who it was who struck at her. And Dick, deciding by the merest chance to retrace his steps around the wash, confronted that crouching figure and was violently flung into the gully.