There is No Return (14 page)

The professor’s sonorous voice was beautifully even.

“My landlady did call me to the phone on the evening in question,” he said, “and I did agree to meet somebody in the specified time upon a-er-matter of business.”

Patrick Oliver was frowning at him, but the professor seemed equal to it; he even smiled benevolently.

“As a matter of fact,” he continued, “I met Mr Patrick Oliver.”

“You double-crossing old crook!” cried Patrick with a sob.

His sister clutched his arm and stared defiantly at Chet Keith, who, I thought, regarded her with pity.

“So,” he murmured softly, “there was nothing accidental about your taking Dora Canby to that movie, Oliver.”

Patrick Oliver seemed to go to pieces all at once. “All right, all right,” he cried in a tormented voice. “I did see the professor beforehand and I did fix up a job on Aunt Dora. So what?”

“Patrick!” wailed Judy.

Jeff Wayne suddenly was there beside her. “Keep still, Patrick!” he cried harshly. “This fellow hasn’t any right to ask you questions.”

The sheriff glared at Chet Keith. “You’re supposed to be on the witness stand, not putting innocent people through the third degree,” he protested in his most vociferous manner.

This was more than I could stand. “How can you be sure all these people are innocent?” I demanded. “Every member of Thomas Canby’s family, including his own wife, hated him. Ask them if you don’t believe me. Every one of them stood to gain by his death and not one of them but had as good an opportunity to kill him last night as Sheila Kelly.”

“The woman’s crazy!” protested Jeff Wayne. “The girl killed Canby. We all saw it.”

“In the dark?” murmured Chet Keith.

Allan Atwood had got to his feet, his face congested with anger.

“They’re trying to lead you by the nose, Sheriff!” he cried unsteadily.

“Maybe none of us had any love for Uncle Thomas, but we aren’t killers. You can ask anybody who was here. The girl killed him!”

It was then I had one of my unfortunate brainstorms.

“It seems to me that if this affair had been properly conducted,” I exclaimed indignantly, “there ought to be no question. If Sheila Kelly cut Thomas Canby’s throat, her fingerprints should be on the handle of the scissors, though” — I gave Sheriff Latham a withering glance — “I don’t suppose it occurred to you to look for them.”

The sheriff returned my hostile gaze with accrued interest.

“In spite of not being a storybook detective,” he said with top-heavy dignity, “I ain’t such a back number as certain people would like to make out. We did examine the scissors for fingerprints. Butch here took a correspondence course in such things.”

Determined as I was to believe in Sheila Kelly’s innocence, I had a very bad moment. However, Chet Keith displayed a faith which made me ashamed of myself.

“You did not find Sheila Kelly’s prints on the scissors, Sheriff,” he said softly.

“No,” admitted Sheriff Latham, “there wa’n’t no prints on them.”

“Doesn’t that seem highly significant?” I demanded.

“Significant of what?” asked the sheriff bluntly.

“This whole affair was staged to leave the impression that in some sort of trance Sheila Kelly killed Thomas Canby,” said Chet Keith. “If that were true her prints should be on the scissors, as Miss Adams pointed out.”

For the first time the sheriff looked a little nonplussed. “She killed him all right,” he muttered doggedly.

“Without leaving any marks upon the weapon?” I said caustically.

Fannie Parrish uttered a little moan. “A dead hand leaves no trace,” she declared with traces of hysteria.

Dora Canby nodded. “No,” she said in a bemused voice, “the dead have no fingerprints.”

The sheriff reminded me of a baited bull. “I don’t take no stock in that stuff,” he said, “and I don’t take no stock in this trance business. The girl knew what she was doing and she cut Canby’s throat.”

The professor smiled comfortably to himself.

“If Sheila Kelly killed Canby,” I contended, “there are two facts you can’t get around. Why did the room have to be dark and why aren’t her prints on the scissors?”

And then Jeff Wayne for the second time injected himself into the discussion, his voice quite violent. “She had a handkerchief in her hand,” he said. “She held the scissors inside the handkerchief.”

I sighed. I had forgotten until he mentioned it, but I distinctly remembered the large chiffon handkerchief which Sheila Kelly had clutched and later torn to pieces between her fingers after Thomas Canby’s death.

“She did have a handkerchief!” exclaimed Fannie Parrish. “One of those large expensive chiffon ones! I recall thinking that Mrs Canby must have given it to her.”

“I did give Gloria a pretty handkerchief, didn’t I, darling?” murmured Dora Canby fondly.

The girl shivered but did not raise her head.

“She tore it up before the sheriff arrived,” said Jeff Wayne. “I saw her tear it to shreds.”

So had we all for that matter.

“That’s it!” exclaimed the sheriff in fine fettle. “She used the handkerchief to hold the scissors, so as to leave no fingerprints, and then she tore it up to fool me. I dare say there were bloodstains on it.”

“No!” cried Sheila Kelly in a stifled voice. “I swear there were no-no marks on it.”

Sheriff Latham leaned over until his swarthy face was very close to hers. “Where is it now? What did you do with the pieces?” he demanded.

“I-I burned them,” she whispered.

“Burned them?”

“I threw them into-into the fireplace over there before you took me upstairs.”

Sheriff Latham fairly beamed at Chet Keith. “There you are!” he cried. “If she was innocent, why should she have destroyed evidence?”

“We have no proof that the handkerchief was evidence,” said the newspaperman.

“Why did she destroy it then?” asked the sheriff almost with glee.

“I suppose if the handkerchief was ruined there was no point in keeping it,” I said tartly.

“You suppose,” repeated Sheriff Latham in sarcastic tones. He winked at the jury. “But to a sensible man, to plain sensible folks like us, it’s pretty clear that the girl did away with the handkerchief because she didn’t dare let it fall into the hands of the law.”

Sheila Kelly glanced at Chet Keith. “I told you it was no use,” she said in a despairing voice.

“Keep still,” he said sharply. He seemed to give his shoulders a little shake, as if he were settling them to a burden, but his voice was perfectly self-possessed when he turned again to the coroner. “She didn’t kill Canby,” he said. “I can prove it.”

Everybody present caught his breath, and I saw a flicker of hope in Sheila Kelly’s eyes as he went on. “You are a doctor, Coroner Timmons, and you and the jury have viewed the dead man. Thomas Canby died of a severed carotid artery. Right?”

“Sure you’re right,” said the sheriff testily, “though I don’t guess me and the jury knows the name of it. Canby died of having his throat cut.”

“The left carotid artery, Coroner Timmons,” persisted Chet Keith.

Coroner Timmons gave him a startled glance. “It was the left carotid, yes,” he admitted.

“Sheila Kelly is left-handed, Coroner Timmons,” said Chet Keith.

“What of it?” demanded the sheriff in an irascible voice.

Chet Keith suddenly produced a fountain pen. “Take this, Sheriff Latham, take it in your left hand, face me and go through the motions of cutting my throat.”

“What’s the idea of all this tomfoolery?” protested the sheriff angrily.

Nevertheless he took the fountain pen and pretended to lunge at Chet Keith’s throat. He lunged a couple of times and there was a very peculiar expression upon his face.

“Get it, Sheriff?” asked the reporter softly. “Thomas Canby’s throat was cut from left to right. It would be impossible for a left-handed person to have dealt the wound.”

The sheriff made a fumbling attempt to draw the fountain pen across Chet Keith’s throat in the prescribed direction without changing the pen into his right hand.

“Can’t be done, Sheriff,” murmured the reporter, his eyes gleaming.

Sheila Kelly was trembling, but the flicker of hope which I had seen in her drawn face was now a flame.

“Could be if she was standing behind him,” muttered Sheriff Latham, who was never one to abandon his position without a struggle.

“But we have the testimony of everybody in the room that Sheila Kelly was directly in front of Canby!” I said triumphantly.

“Anyway,” muttered the sheriff, “we ain’t got no proof the gal’s left-handed.”

“I am left-handed, Sheriff,” said Sheila Kelly with a little sob.

“Thank God!”

The radiance in her face brought a lump to my throat. I had not realized until that moment what a very pretty girl she might be if she were less haggard.

“I think we’ll have no trouble proving that Sheila Kelly is left-handed,” said Chet Keith and smiled at her. “Plenty of people must have seen her, since she’s been at the inn, using her left hand.”

Fannie Parrish could always be trusted to bob up with miscellaneous information. “She writes with the left hand, I’ve seen her!” she exclaimed excitedly.

“Of course,” remarked Ella dubiously, “many left-handed people are ambidextrous.” She frowned at the sheriff. “In case you don’t know, that means they can use either hand if necessary.”

The sheriff grasped at a straw. “That’s it,” he said and glared at Sheila Kelly. “She’s ambi-ambi- She can use one hand as well as the other if she wants.”

“Gloria was born left-handed like me,” contributed Dora Canby archly, “but it always got on Thomas’ nerves, my using the wrong hand. Nearly everything I did seemed awkward and irritating to him. So he insisted that Gloria be taught to write with her right hand, but she can use both hands equally well, can’t you, darling?” she asked Sheila Kelly.

“Don’t! Oh, please don’t!” whispered the girl.

“It’s Judy’s left ear that’s clipped,” put in Jeff Wayne in a constrained voice.

“Those cats,” said Allan Atwood loudly, “were cut from left to right. I examined them.”

The radiance had drained from Sheila Kelly’s face, leaving her so white I shivered.

“It’s no use,” she said again with a despairing glance at Chet Keith.

“Hush!” he cried brusquely and fixed his eyes upon the professor.

“As a spiritualist, you’re a fake and admit it,” he said in an ominous voice.

The professor coloured slightly, but his composure was not even threatened. “It’s true that the-er-messages which I suggested to Sheila Kelly did not originate in the other world.”

“Oh!” gasped Fannie Parrish. “The old fraud!”

The professor seemed amused. “As is the rule in such-er-demonstrations,” he explained smoothly, “I collected the data in advance.”

“How could you possibly have known that my poor dear Theo called me his Little Butterfly?” protested Fannie indignantly.

The professor ignored her interruption. “I am referring, naturally, to the Little Blue Eyes messages,” he said. “As for that other tragic personality which manifested itself at the séance, I deny all responsibility.”

Chet Keith scowled. “You do, do you?”

“Absolutely.”

“That will be nice for you if you can get by with it,” I snapped.

“But you can’t deny that you have been tampering with this girl’s mind for months, subjecting her to daily hypnotic trances, breaking down her resistance to your domination. It is true, isn’t it, Professor Matthews, that a constant regime of that sort breaks down the victim’s ability to resist mental suggestion?”

The professor smiled with perfect good humour. “It’s quite true, Miss Adams, that it is easier to exert a hypnosis the second or third time upon what we scientists prefer to call the subject, not the victim, of the experiment.”

“Scientists!” exploded Chet Keith, looking like a furiously disgusted small boy. “You infernal quack!”

The professor smiled deprecatingly. “I fear you are allowing your emotional reactions to distort the known facts in this case, Mr Keith,” he murmured with repulsive benignity. “It is true, as I said, that once a subject has become habituated to hypnosis he offers little if any resistance to mental suggestion, so long as the suggestion is not contrary to his moral code. May I repeat that for emphasis? So long as the suggestion is not contrary to his moral code?”

“That’s your defence, is it?” demanded Chet Keith.

The professor gave him a smug smile. “Undoubtedly.”

“You are going to claim that you could not have prevailed upon Sheila Kelly in a hypnotic trance to kill Thomas Canby?” I demanded, feeling helpless.

“And science will bear me out in the statement.”

Hogan Brewster uttered a mirthless laugh. “I tell you if they turn a good defence lawyer loose with that theory, he’ll go to town.”

Professor Matthews smiled upon him gently. “I’ll never sit in the electric chair.”

Chet Keith flushed darkly. “There are other ways to die,” he said.

For the first time the professor looked disconcerted. “Are you threatening me?”

“I’m reminding you that half of those gold scissors is unaccounted for,” said Chet Keith.

The professor smiled. “I assure you they will not be discovered in my body, Mr Keith.”

“For some reason you think you’re sitting pretty,” said Chet Keith, “but you know something and I’m going to get it out of you.”

“You think so?” murmured the professor, his lips curling.

“I know it,” said the younger man. “You’re yellow, Professor, as yellow as butter, and you’ll welsh when the heat’s turned on.”

“You can’t bully me, Mr Keith,” snapped the professor, but his face looked a little shrivelled.

“It will be the simplest thing on earth to turn you wrong side out, Professor Matthews.”

It seemed to me that the professor cast a terrified glance around the room but I could not be certain, for he recovered himself instantly.

“You can’t bully me,” he said again.

Chet Keith’s voice sharpened. “Good God, man, I’m warning you. The only safeguard you have is to spill the truth while you can.”

The professor appealed to Sheriff Latham. “Is this man to be permitted to use his position on the witness stand to intimidate other witnesses?” he demanded.