There is No Return (13 page)

The coroner rapped, rather indecisively, to signify that the meeting was about to open and, looking very nervous and ill at ease, called Sheriff Latham to the stand. The sheriff, more forcefully than grammatically, related the circumstances of his being summoned to Lebeau Inn by the dead man. He said that Thomas Canby had been most insistent upon seeing the officers that very night.

“He was all set to get rid of that shyster and the gal,” explained Sheriff Latham with a dark glance which the professor met with complete aplomb.

“Just a moment,” interposed Chet Keith. “Did Mr Canby tell you that he required your presence for the purpose of arresting Professor Matthews and Miss Kelly?”

Sheriff Latham beetled his brows at the interrupter with, so far as I could see, no visible effect upon the young man.

“You ain’t on the witness stand,” he said, “and you ain’t got no right butting in like that.”

I sat up very straight in my chair. “I was under the impression, Sheriff Latham,” I said in my most critical accents, “that this is strictly an informal hearing. If you are going to insist upon being technical there are several matters which I might call to your attention.”

“Attagirl,” whispered Chet Keith behind me.

Coroner Timmons cleared his throat nervously. “I reckon we ain’t trying to enforce a lot of red tape.”

“But you want the truth,” I snapped, “or don’t you?”

I looked sharply at Sheriff Latham, who rose to the fly.

“Certainly we want the truth,” he declared belligerently.

“All right,” murmured Chet Keith, “suppose you answer my question.”

The sheriff’s florid face wore a nettled expression. He did not relish the manner in which the situation was threatening to slide out of his hands, but he did not know quite how to prevent it. It was true, as I had pointed out to his annoyance, that if he chose to put the investigation upon a technical basis there were several points at which he had slipped up.

“I don’t know that Mr Canby said in so many words that he wanted me to come up here and arrest Professor Matthews and Miss Kelly,” he admitted, “but it’s sort of self-evident, in the light of what’s happened.”

“As a matter of fact,” said Chet Keith, “isn’t it true that Thomas Canby didn’t tell you what he wanted with you?”

The sheriff squirmed uncomfortably. “Well, not in so many words.”

I saw Miss Maurine Smith, who was sitting as close to Chet Keith as possible, draw a breath of relief. I suppose she had been afraid of being called upon to testify to the telephone conversation which she had overheard, if not eavesdropped upon, and, contrary to orders, repeated to Chet Keith.

“You have merely jumped to the conclusion, Sheriff Latham, in the light of what happened later, that Thomas Canby wanted you to remove the professor and Miss Kelly from the inn,” I said severely.

The sheriff scowled at me. “If that wasn’t what he wanted, what was it?” he demanded, giving every evidence of exasperation.

Chet Keith grinned. I got the idea that he was not particularly interested in the question which he had raised. It struck me that he had wanted to badger the sheriff into a position where it would be possible to take a hand in the investigation. If that was the object, between us it had been successful. In the face of the sheriff’s attitude I was delighted to pursue the advantage.

“Isn’t it possible that Mr Canby wanted to see you about the attempt which was made upon his life yesterday afternoon?” I asked. “Or have you heard about that attempt?”

“Sure, I heard about it,” said the sheriff testily. “I ain’t deaf, and I guess there ain’t nothing happened up here in the past month I ain’t heard about.”

He glanced pointedly at Fannie Parrish, and I remembered that she had buttonholed him for quite a while the night before and again that morning.

“Then for all you know,” I said, “your summons may not have had to do with Professor Matthews and Miss Kelly at all.”

My tone was purposely argumentative but, although I could see that Sheriff Latham was tempted by it, he managed to recall with a visible effort that he was upon the witness stand in the middle, supposedly, of giving testimony.

“This ain’t the place to argue this and that, lady,” he said with a scowl. “As I was saying, Canby sent for me, and I and my two deputies came.”

He then proceeded to give a somewhat verbose but accurate enough account of his arrival at the inn, with the discovery of the tragedy.

“It was plain enough what happened,” he said with truculence.

“The gal killed Canby. She had his wife wrapped around her finger and Canby was going to put a stop to it, so she cut his throat.”

“If we were being technical, Sheriff Latham,” I murmured in an urbane voice, “I’d be forced to remind you that it is not your duty to give the jury the benefit of your opinion in this matter but to produce evidence to substantiate it.”

The sheriff looked at me as if I were a bee which he had suddenly discovered under his shirt. “I’ll produce the evidence all right!” he growled, reseating himself beside the coroner and proceeding to manipulate the little man as if he were a marionette to which Sheriff Latham possessed the only strings.

Although it seemed unnecessary to me, everyone who had been present at the fatal séance was required to give his testimony as to what had occurred. The accounts were strikingly alike. None of them differed in salient points.

“A pure waste of time,” I muttered.

“Certainly,” admitted Chet Keith, “but the sheriff is no fool. He knows the value of cumulative evidence.”

He glanced significantly at the jury and then at the girl in the cheap black dress, sitting there with bowed, dejected head, her hands locked in her lap. I sighed. There was no question but that each of us who took the stand made the picture darker for Sheila Kelly. After all, what could we do except say over and over that she had, allegedly in the character of his dead daughter, threatened Thomas Canby with violence before the light was extinguished and when it came on again he was done to death?

Although the coroner had not questioned him about it, it was Chet Keith, during his stay upon the stand, who brought up the matter of the parlour lamp. “I suppose the sheriff has checked up on how it came to go out at the strategic moment,” he said.

The flush upon Sheriff Latham’s swarthy face was ample proof that he had done nothing of the sort. “I don’t see what difference it makes why the lamp went out,” he protested.

“I should think it made a great deal of difference,” I said promptly, being constitutionally unable to concur with any opinion expressed by that gentleman.

Chet Keith nodded. “The cord was jerked out of the socket, as of course you noticed when you examined it, Sheriff.”

Sheriff Latham’s expression showed that he had not noticed.

“The lamp was attached by a long extension cord to a socket clear across the room,” continued the newspaperman. “The plug does not fit tightly. The slightest tug is sufficient to pull it away from the socket. I think you’ll bear me out in this, Professor.”

Professor Matthews started and plucked nervously at his black string tie. “What is that?” he inquired.

“I was saying,” murmured Chet Keith, “that the lamp on the table, which you connected before the séance started, was attached to a floor socket clear across the room by a plug which fitted quite loosely.”

The professor swallowed twice before answering. “To the best of my recollection, yes,” he said.

“What’s the difference?” demanded the sheriff again. “As I remember the setup, the cord was in easy reach of both the professor and the girl. Either of them could have kicked the cord loose with one foot.”

“Either of them or anybody else on the right side of the circle,” amended Chet Keith smoothly.

I gave a slight start. I remembered during Sheila Kelly’s tirade the night before feeling something crawling across my ankle and looking down to perceive that it was only the light cord.

“On the right side of the circle?” repeated the sheriff with a frown.

“The cord stretched inside the circle from the right side of the table clear across the room,” said Chet Keith.

“But we were all on that side!” exclaimed Judy Oliver, then closed her lips tightly, her eyes widening in her stricken face.

Chet Keith began to tick them off upon his fingers. “Yes, Miss Oliver,” he said, “you and your aunt and your cousins and your friends, Mr Wayne and Mr Brewster, and Miss Adelaide Adams were in a position to have jerked the lamp cord out of its socket.”

“Are you trying to make out that Judy and Allan and-and the rest of us had anything to do with this thing?” blustered Pat Oliver.

“If so, let me warn you, we won’t stand for it!”

Chet Keith smiled. “Let me see now,” he mused. “It was you, wasn’t it, who first introduced your aunt to Professor Matthews?”

The bluster faded out of the boy’s carriage as if he were a tyre which had suddenly encountered a tack.

“I took Aunt Dora to a picture show in Carrolton where the professor was putting on a stunt, if that is what you mean,” he said sulkily. “I-I thought it might amuse her.”

“Yes?”

“I didn’t-I didn’t know there was a fake spiritualist on the bill,” muttered the boy.

I leaned forward and stared at him. “In your opinion, then, the professor is a fake?”

“Sure he’s a fake!” cried Patrick Oliver defiantly.

I glanced at Professor Matthews; he was smiling complacently.

“You didn’t know when you induced your sister and your aunt to take in the movie in Carrolton,” pursued Chet Keith, “that the professor was part of the show?”

“They don’t usually have vaudeville turns in small-town movies,” said the boy sullenly.

“That wasn’t my question,” murmured Chet Keith. “I asked you if you knew the professor was on the bill.”

“And I told you I didn’t,” declared the boy angrily.

“You are quite certain about that?”

“Certainly I’m certain,” snapped Patrick Oliver.

I saw his sister move closer to him with terror in her eyes.

“You arrived at Lebeau Inn on the morning of the day on which you took your sister and aunt to the show in Carrolton, I believe,” murmured Chet Keith.

“And what of it?” retorted Patrick Oliver.

“When did you arrive in Carrolton?”

“You just said it,” muttered Oliver. “On the morning of the day I took Aunt Dora to that darned movie.”

“You mean to say you came straight from the train to the inn?” asked Chet Keith. “Before you commit yourself, Mr Oliver, perhaps I should warn you that, though we are temporarily cut off from town, the telephone is still working.”

Not until later did I realize how much use Chet Keith made of the fact that, while we were physically marooned upon Mount Lebeau, the wires to town were not down. It was possible to get in touch with the outside world by telephone and consequently by telegraph, if necessary.

“For various reasons,” the, newspaperman went on, “I considered it advisable to check up on you, Oliver, the principal reason being a clandestine visit which you paid to the second floor, last night.”

The boy turned white. “I don’t know what you are talking about,” he said in a vain attempt at his usual bravado. “I wasn’t on the second floor last night.”

“It will do you no good to prevaricate, young man,” I said with acidity. “I saw you with my own eyes.”

Patrick Oliver bit his lip and scowled at me as if he would have liked to wring my neck. “Nosy old hen!” he muttered.

Chet Keith grinned. “Do you persist in your statement, Oliver, that you came straight to the inn when you arrived in Carrolton?”

“Look here,” interrupted Jeff Wayne furiously, “who is conducting this inquest?” He frowned at Sheriff Latham. “Are you going to sit there like a chump and let this smart-aleck reporter and that battle-ax of an old maid run things to suit themselves?”

I saw Judy Oliver give him a passionately grateful glance before she remembered to turn her eyes away. I suppose I should have been abashed by the epithet bestowed upon me, but it was not the first time I have been alluded to in such a manner, so I did not allow it to ruffle me – on the contrary.

“Sheriff Latham is as anxious as I am to arrive at the truth, aren’t you, Sheriff?” I murmured with an ironical smile.

The sheriff’s large mouth gaped like a fish, fighting for air, but Chet Keith gave him no chance to speak.

“Maybe you’d rather explain to the coroner, Oliver, why you are unwilling to admit that you spent a night in Carrolton before you appeared at the inn,” he said.

“You’re crazy,” protested Patrick Oliver.

“No,” said Chet Keith quite genially, “like Miss Adams, I merely have a passion for the truth, and you’re lying, Oliver, lying about this whole business.”

“You’re talking through your hat,” muttered the boy, biting his lips.

“You arrived in Carrolton by a late train, as I have taken the trouble to find out,” murmured Chet Keith. “The bus had made its last run of the day to the inn. You registered under your own name at the Carrolton House. Apparently at that time you had no intention of denying your presence there. I have talked to the clerk at the hotel by telephone. He remembers you distinctly. You asked him what a feller could do in a one-horse burg like that after nine o’clock in the evening. The clerk recommended the local picture house.”

“What if he did?” demanded Patrick Oliver furiously. “That’s no proof I went to the damned show!”

“No,” admitted Chet Keith, “and unfortunately the girl at the ticket window and likewise the ticket taker have been unable to identify you as being present.”

“Because why?” almost snarled young Oliver. “Because I wasn’t there.”

“It wasn’t you, then, who called Professor Matthews afterward at the cheap rooming house where he and Sheila Kelly were staying, and asked him to meet you at the town square?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about!”

Chet Keith turned to the professor. “On the night before Dora Canby’s first appearance in your audience you were called to the telephone shortly after your return from the theatre, or so your landlady informed me by phone this morning. She heard you make an appointment to meet somebody in the town square in ten minutes. Right?”