The House of the Whispering Pines (4 page)

And thus it proved. More quickly than I expected, the total darkness in
which I lay, brightened under an advancing lantern, and I heard the steps
of two men coming down the hall. It was a steady if not rapid approach,
and I was quite prepared for their presence when they finally reached the
doorway opposite and stopped to look in at what must have appeared to
them a vast and empty space. They were officials, true enough—one hasty
glance through the balustrade assured me of that. I even knew one of them
by name—he was a sergeant of police and a highly trustworthy man. But
how they had been drawn to this place at a moment so critical, I could
not surmise. Do men of this stamp scent crime as a hound scents out prey?
They had the look of hounds. Even in the momentary glimpse I got of them,
I noted the tense and expectant look with which they endeavoured to
pierce the dim spaces between us. The chase was on. It was something more
than curiosity or a chance exercise of their duty which had brought them
here. Their object was definite, and if the sight of the low gallery in
which I lay, should suggest to them all its possibilities as a
hiding-place, I should know in just one moment more what it is for the
helpless quarry to feel the clutch of the captor.

But the moment passed without any attempt at approach on their part, and
when I lifted my head again it was to catch a glimpse of their side faces
as they turned to look elsewhere for what they were plainly in search
of. An oath, muffled but stern, which was the first word above a whisper
that I had heard issue from their lips, told me that they had reached
the
room and had come upon the horror which lay there. What would they
say to it! Would they know who she was—her name, her quality, her
story—and respect her dead as they certainly must have respected her
living? I listened but caught only a low murmur as they conferred
together. I imagined their movements; saw them in my mind's eye leaning
over that death-tenanted couch, pointing with accusing finger at those
two dark marks, and consulting each other with side-long looks, as they
passed from one detail of her appearance to another. I even imagined them
crossing the floor and lifting the two cordial glasses just as I had
done, and then slowly setting them down again, with perhaps a lift of the
brows or a suggestive shake of the head; and maddened by my own
intolerable position, drawn by a power I felt it impossible to resist, I
crept to my feet and took my staggering way down the half-dozen steps of
the gallery and thence along by the left-hand wall towards the further
doorway, and through it to where these men stood weighing the chances in
which my life and honour were involved, and those of one other of whom I
dared not think and would not have these men think for all that was left
me of hope and happiness.

It was dark in the ballroom, and it was only a little less so in the
corridor. All the light was in
that
room; but I still slid along the
wall like a thief, with eyes set and ears agape for any chance word which
might reach me. Suddenly I heard one. It was this, uttered with a
decision which had the strange effect of lifting my head and making a man
of me again:

"That settles it. He will find it hard to escape after this."

He!
I had been dreading to hear a
she
. Yet why? Who on God's earth,
save myself, could know that Carmel had been within these woeful walls
to-night.
He!
I never stopped to question who was meant by this
definite pronoun. I was not even conscious of caring very much. I was in
a coil of threatening troubles, but I was in it alone, and, greatly
relieved by the discovery, I drew myself up and stepped quickly forward
into the room where the two officials stood.

Their faces, as they wheeled sharply about and took in my shoeless and
more or less dishevelled figure, told me with an eloquence which made my
heart sink, the unfortunate impression which my presence made upon them.
It was but a fleeting look, for these men were both by nature and
training easy masters of themselves; but its language was unmistakable
and I knew that if I were to hold my own with them, I must get all the
support I could from the truth, save where it would involve her—from the
truth and my own consciousness of innocence, if I had any such
consciousness. I was not sure that I had, for my falseness had
precipitated this tragedy,—how I might never know, but a knowledge of
the how was not necessary to my self-condemnation. Nevertheless my hands
were clean of this murder, and allowing the surety of this fact to take a
foremost place in my mind, I faced these men and with real feeling, but
as little display of it as possible, I observed:

"You have come to my aid in a critical moment. This is my betrothed
wife—the woman I was to marry—and I find her lying here dead, in this
closed and lonely house. What does it mean? I know no more than you do."

It is a damned and a bloody work;
The graceless action of a heavy hand,
If that it be the work of any hand.

King John
.

The two men eyed me quietly, then Hexford pointed to my shoeless feet and
sternly retorted:

"Permit us to doubt your last assertion. You seem to be in better
position than ourselves to explain the circumstances which puzzle you."

They were right. It was for me to talk, not for them. I conceded the
point in these words:

"Perhaps—but you cannot always trust appearances. I can explain my own
presence here and the condition in which you find me, but I cannot
explain this tragedy, near and dear as Miss Cumberland was to me. I did
not know she was in the building, alive or dead. I came upon her here
covered with the cushions just as you found her. I have felt the shock. I
do not look like myself—I do not feel like myself; it was enough—" Here
real emotion seized me and I almost broke down. I was in a position much
more dreadful than any they could imagine or should be allowed to.

Their silence led me to examine their faces. Hexford's mouth had settled
into a stiff, straight line and the other man's wore a cynical smile I
did not like. At this presage of the difficulties awaiting me, I felt one
strand of the rope sustaining me above this yawning gulf of shame and
ignominy crack and give way. Oh, for a better record in the past!—a
staff on which to lean in such an hour as this! But while nothing serious
clouded my name, I had more to blush for than to pride myself upon in my
career as prince of good fellows,—and these men knew it, both of them,
and let it weigh in the scale already tipped far off its balance by
coincidences which a better man than myself would have found it
embarrassing to explain. I recognised all this, I say, in the momentary
glance I cast at their stern and unresponsive figures; but the courage
which had served me in lesser extremities did not fail me now, and,
kneeling down before my dead betrothed, I kissed her cold white hand with
sincere compunction, before attempting the garbled and probably totally
incoherent story with which I endeavoured to explain the inexplainable
situation.

They listened—I will do them that much justice; but it was with such an
air of incredulity that my words fell with less and less continuity and
finally lost themselves in a confused stammer as I reached the point
where I pulled the cushions from the couch and made my ghastly discovery.

"You see—see for yourselves—what confronted me. My betrothed—a dainty,
delicate woman—dead—alone—in this solitary, far-away spot—the victim
of what? I asked myself then—I ask myself now. I cannot understand
it—or those glasses yonder—or
those marks!"
They were black by
this time—unmistakable—not to be ignored by them or by me.

"We understand those marks, and you ought to," came from the second man,
the one I did not know.

My head fell forward; my lips refused to speak the words. I saw as in a
flash, a picture of the one woman bending over the other; terror,
reproach, anguish in the eyes whose fixed stare would never more leave
my consciousness, an access of rage or some such sadden passion
animating the other whose every curve spoke tenderness, whose every look
up to this awful day had been as an angel's look to me. The vision was a
maddening one. I shook myself free from it by starting to my feet."
It's—it's—" I gasped.

"She has been strangled," quoth Hexford, doggedly.

"A dog's death," mumbled the other.

My hands came together involuntarily. At that instant, with the memory
before me of the vision I have just described, I almost wished that it
had been
my
hate,
my
anger which had brought those tell-tale marks
out upon that livid skin. I should have suffered less. I should only have
had to pay the penalty of my crime and not be forced to think of Carmel
with terrible revulsion, as I was now thinking, minute by minute, fight
with it as I would.

"You had better sit down," Hexford suddenly suggested, pushing a chair my
way. "Clarke, look up the telephone and ask for three more men. I am
going into this matter thoroughly. Perhaps you will tell us where the
telephone is," he asked, turning my way.

It was some little time before I took in these words. When I did, I
became conscious of his keen look, also of a change in my own expression.
I had forgotten the telephone. It had not yet been taken out. If only I
had remembered this before these men came—I might have saved—No,
nothing could have saved her or me, except the snow, except the snow.
That may already have saved her. All this time I was trying to tell where
the telephone was.

That I succeeded at last I judged from the fact that the second man left
the room. As he did so, Hexford lit the candle. Idly watching, for
nothing now could make me look at the lounge again, I noticed the
candlestick. It was of brass and rare in style and workmanship—a
candlestick to be remembered; one of a pair perhaps. I felt my hair stir
as I took in the details of its shape and ornamentation. If its mate
were in her house—No, no, no! I would not have it so. I could not
control my emotion if I let my imagination stray too far. The
candlestick must be the property of the club. I had only forgotten. It
was bought when? While thinking, planning, I was conscious of Hexford's
eyes fixed steadily upon me.

"Did you go into the kitchen in your wanderings below?" he asked.

"No," I began, but seeing that I had made a mistake, I bungled and added
weakly: "Yes; after matches."

"Only matches?"

"That's all."

"And did you get them?"

"Yes."

"In the dark? You must have had trouble in finding them?"

"Not at all. Only safety matches are allowed here, and they are put in a
receptacle at the side of each door. I had but to open the kitchen door,
feel along the jamb, find this receptacle, and pull the box out. I'm well
used to all parts of the house."

"And you did this?"

"I have said so."

"May I ask which door you allude to?"

"The one communicating with the front hall."

"Where did you light your first match?"

"Upstairs."

"Not in the kitchen?"

"No, sir."

"You are sure?"

"Quite sure."

"That's a pity. I thought you might be able to tell me how so many wine
and whiskey bottles came to be standing on the kitchen table."

I stared at him, dazed. Then I remembered the two small glasses on the
little table across the room, and instinctively glanced at them. But no
whiskey had been drunk out of them—the odor of anisette is unmistakable.

"You carry the key to the wine-cellar?" he asked.

I considered a moment. I did not know what to make of bottles on the
kitchen table. These women and
bottles
! They abhorred wine; they had
reason to, God knows; T remembered the dinner and all that had signalised
it, and felt my confusion grow. But a question had been asked, and I must
answer it. It would not do for me to hesitate about a matter of this
kind. Only what was the question. Something about a key. I had no key;
the cellar had been ransacked without my help; should I acknowledge this?

"The keys were given up by the janitor yesterday," I managed to
stammer at last. "But I did not bring them here to-night. They are in
my rooms at home."

I finished with a gasp. I had suddenly remembered that these keys were
not in my rooms. I had had them with me at Miss Cumberland's and being
given to fooling with something when embarrassed, I had fooled with them
and dropped them while talking with Adelaide and watching Carmel. I had
meant to pick them up but I forgot and—

"You need say nothing more about it," remarked Hexford. "I have no right
to question you at all." And stepping across the room, he took up the
glasses one after the other and smelled of them. "Some sweet stuff," he
remarked. "Cordial, I should say anisette. There wasn't anything like
that on the kitchen table. Let us see what there is in here," he added,
stepping into the adjoining small room into which I had simply peered in
my own investigation of the place.

As he did so, a keen blast blew in; a window in the adjoining room was
open. He cast me a hurried glance and with the door in his hand, made the
following remark:

"Your lady love—the victim here—could not have come through the snow
with no more clothing on her than we see now. She must have worn a hat
and coat or furs or something of that nature. Let us look for them."

I rose, stumbling. I saw that he did not mean to leave me alone for a
moment. Indeed, I did not wish to be so left. Better any companionship
than that of my own thoughts and of her white upturned face. As I
followed him into this closet he pushed the door wide, pulling out an
electric torch as he did so. By its light we saw almost at first glance
the coat and hat he professed to seek, lying in a corner of the floor,
beside an overturned chair.