CHAPTER VIII
STIMSON WONDERS TOO
THEY had reached the second floor and were preparing to descend the main staircase when Bernard, who led the van, turned back suddenly to confront Miss Mount.
“By the way, was Joel Harrison in the house when his brother was murdered?” he growled.
“I don’t know. Probably he was in bed, as I told you.”
“Then why didn’t you send for him to take charge of matters instead of for Graham here?”
“Because Mr. Joel is dreamy, absent-minded and quite incapable of handling a situation requiring the care and foresight that this one required,” said Miss Mount sharply.
Bernard rapped another question at her:
“Where is he now?”
“Well! In his bed, I suppose!”
“Just make sure of that, will you?”
She crossed the hall, knocked on Joel’s door and opened it. After a moment she rejoined them.
“Yes, he went to bed, as he often does, very early. There’s a tray in his room and he says Cook sent him up his supper. He is reading.”
“You mean he often goes to bed before dinner and has a tray brought to his room?” Bernard persisted.
“Yes.”
“What’s the idea of that?”
“I beg your pardon?”
Bernard smiled slightly.
“Why does he eat in his room instead of with the family?”
“He rises early and likes to go to bed early.”
Bernard looked at his watch.
“It’s after ten now,” he said, “and you say he is reading. So he wasn’t too sleepy to come down to dinner at seven-forty-five!”
“Sometimes it is sheer absent-mindedness,” explained Miss Mount, compressing her lips. “He may go to his room and start dressing for dinner, forget what he is doing and find himself undressed and in bed. Then, no doubt, he considers it hardly worth while getting up again.”
Landis and Graham smiled at this. Bernard merely nodded, still eyeing Miss Mount.
“You say ‘sometimes,’” he pointed out. “What about the other times he stayed in his room? Were there any other reasons?”
“At other times,” she answered slowly, “he may have preferred to stay in his own room because his brother, whom he seemed to irritate, was apt to be rather sharp with him when they were together, Mr. Bernard.”
“I thought so!” snapped Bernard. He turned to Graham. “Have you seen them together?”
“Yes, once or twice.”
“How did Harrison treat Joel on those occasions?”
“Mr. Harrison mocked and made fun of him most unpleasantly. I thought his treatment of his brother distinctly brutal. But Mr. Joel took it very well. He seemed hurt and bewildered but I never saw him lose his temper.”
Bernard turned back to Miss Mount.
“Is that what you call ‘rather sharp’?” he asked curiously.
“Sometimes Mr. Harrison was more than sharp,” she admitted. “‘Uncle Joel’ was a great disappointment to his brother who wanted him to be equally successful. But Uncle Joel bore no malice and forgot sharp words almost as soon as they were uttered.”
“You two seem to agree on that,” said Bernard.
“Why did you think Mr. Harrison was disagreeable to his brother?” asked Miss Mount. “Has anyone else said so?”
“Who would be likely to say so, Miss Mount?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea, Mr. Bernard!”
Now Bernard studied her face intently and openly, answering her question in an absent voice:
“No one told me. Harrison was usually at home for dinner. Joel stayed away from that meal. Harrison was a brute. It’s in his face. From what you’ve said of Joel he would be the ideal victim for a bully. The deduction is a simple one.”
Waiting for something, he hardly knew what perhaps, Bernard watched a slow flush stain Miss Mount’s white neck.
“By the way,” said Landis after a moment, “has Mr. Harrison quarreled with anyone else in the household, especially of late?”
Miss Mount drew herself up, rather like a stag at bay in the old-fashioned steel engravings.
“I myself had a heated argument with Mr. Harrison Thursday evening, Mr. Landis. As usual he lost his temper and made a great deal of noise. No doubt someone will mention it.”
“Is that why you mention it?” asked Landis with a smile.
Miss Mount permitted herself a faint display of amusement.
“Naturally,” she replied.
“What was the argument about?”
“I would prefer not to say. It has nothing to do with the case.”
“We’ll judge of that,” snapped Bernard.
“In this instance, I will judge of it,” retorted Miss Mount coolly. “It was a purely personal matter.” She steeled herself visibly for a thunderous and threatening reply. Bernard merely studied her with speculative eyes.
“Who else did Harrison quarrel with?” he asked.
The question was a surprise. Miss Mount hesitated. “He—seldom argued with the servants,” she said.
All three men smiled at this, each in his fashion.
“Aside from the servants?” Landis inquired.
“I think, if you don’t mind, I’d prefer to sit down,” said Miss Mount. “Shall we go down to the library?”
“I beg your pardon,” said Landis contritely. “How stupid to keep you talking here until you—almost—run out of evasive answers!” He smiled at her pleasantly.
Miss Mount gave him a sharp, surprised look, turned on her heel and led the way down to the library.
As soon as they were seated Landis took up the burden of questions, for Bernard appeared content to listen now.
“You were going to tell us, Miss Mount, who it was that Mr. Harrison quarreled with aside from Joel Harrison, yourself and the servants.”
“Was I?”
“I hope so, Miss Mount. A court-room is such a stuffy, public place to be questioned. We’ll have to have the answers now or there—all of them!”
Miss Mount glanced at Brent. He had risen from the desk to greet them, had joined them and now sat with his finger-tips together, looking more like a stage lawyer than a real one. He repulsed her glance with frowning gravity. She turned back to Landis, a gleam in her eyes.
“During the past week,” she said, “Mr. Harrison also had something in the nature of a quarrel, I believe, with Mr. Allen, a guest who is staying in the house.”
“About what did they quarrel, Miss Mount?”
“As it happens, I know what they quarreled about, if it could be called a quarrel. Mr. Harrison told me. But I consider it only fair to the young man for you to ask him the subject they discussed.”
“It was a personal subject purely?”
Miss Mount inclined her head.
“The future,” Landis observed judicially, “will tell us whether you are being wise—or very unwise—to make so many evasions at this time, Miss Mount.” Here in spite of himself he glanced at Brent, to receive a bow of weighty endorsement. “We are holding this inquiry,” he resumed, “not with a view of catering to your approval but to get at the facts. Do you still decline to tell us the nature of this—er—misunderstanding?”
“I would rather you asked Mr. Allen himself.”
“Very well. I agree on one condition. When I have obtained his answer you will tell me whether, in your opinion, it is accurate and complete. Do you agree to that?”
“I do,” replied Miss Mount in a slightly stifled voice. “That is, I—I suppose so—”
“That’s settled then,” said Landis and glanced at Bernard. He was just in time to see the expression of impatient disgust on Bernard’s features alter subtly to one of amused approval. He leaned back in his chair, satisfied to know that the pretty little trap he had concealed beneath his slyly humorous pomposity had passed muster with his more experienced colleague. He faced Miss Mount again with an abrupt change of manner.
“Thank you,” he said briskly. “Now we’ll question the servants, I think, and then the household. I want you to ask the butler to step in here in ten minutes. Also, on your way upstairs, ask Mr. Joel Harrison to get dressed and await our summons. Finally, please tell the young ladies that we must question them tonight if it’s humanly possible. We won’t keep them long. You might stay with them, Miss Mount, until we send for them.”
Miss Mount was bristling.
“Do you mean to say that you propose to question those poor girls tonight, immediately after their father’s death?” she demanded.
“I don’t propose to, I’m going to,” said Landis incisively, “unless they are actually too ill to answer questions.” He held Miss Mount’s eyes with a chilling stare. “Mr. Harrison was murdered tonight, in his own house, probably by a member of his household. When death comes to dinner, in the guise of a familiar face, the service must suffer. Every person who was in this house at that time is under suspicion, including yourself. Now please do as I ask.”
Miss Mount looked from face to face about her. On Brent’s she read righteous approval, on Bernard’s a grim endorsement of the stand Landis had taken. Graham looked uncomfortable but failed to meet her eyes.
She rose to her feet and walked out of the room.
The moment she had gone, Brent got up and rubbed his palms together.
“Mr. Landis,” he said, “I am going home satisfied that the case is in most capable hands. Graham, give these gentlemen every assistance in your power!”
“Find anything in the desk?” snapped Bernard.
Startled, Brent stiffened and shook his head.
“I found nothing of moment—nothing other than business papers.”
“You didn’t disturb or remove anything whatever?”
“I did not!” crowed the little man.
“All right. Good night, Mr. Brent.”
“Mr. Landis,” said Brent stiffly. “I—er—bid you good night!”
“By the way,” said Landis, “you might leave me your address here in town before you go.”
“Why, yes—certainly! Here’s my card!”
“Thank you. Good night, Mr. Brent,” said Landis.
“Good night, to you. ’Night, Graham!” Brent ambled to the door whence was wafted back to them, explosive but muffled, a single word: “Insufferable!”
After a moment they heard the front door slam behind him and Bernard smiled a little.
Negligently holding the card by its edges between finger and thumb, Landis looked uncertainly at Graham. The young lawyer caught the glance and instantly translated it.
“Want me to go?” he asked.
Landis hesitated.
“Fact is,” he smiled, “the servants will speak more freely if there are as few people as possible present. Mrs. Graham must be a little frightened still. How would it be if you stayed with her until we want her? For we’ll probably have to question her, too.”
“Maybe she is!” exclaimed Graham ruefully. “Anyhow I’ll look her up and wait for you to send for us.”
When he had gone, Landis took an envelope from his pocket and carefully placed in it the card Brent had given him. Bernard nodded curt approval. From another pocket Landis removed the bit of feather he had found in Stimson’s room. Bernard rose to his feet and they walked down the library toward the Japanese armor.
With a nod to Sergeant Forbes, Landis bent over the blunted arrow. A moment later he restored the bit of feather to his pocket and smiled at Bernard.
“She fits!” he said.
“I expected it would!” growled Bernard. “I liked that check on Allen and Miss Mount and getting Brent’s finger-prints better. But the feather may be useful.”
“In a case of this kind,” said Landis with mock pomposity, “we’re in the position of a man cast up on a desert island. Anything may be useful.”
“Insufferable!” quoted Bernard tolerantly.
They were walking back to the fire when Stimson appeared in the doorway. Landis invited him to have a seat, which he somewhat stiffly accepted. Bernard hunched himself down in his chair and stared at the butler.
“We’d like you to tell us, please, whether you happened to lock the door at the end of the wing on this floor this evening,” said Landis.
“No, sir, I did not. I never lock it until midnight or later.”
Landis studied the man sitting stiff and motionless across the fire. He could read nothing in the attentive, somberly handsome features, not even wariness.
“Thanks. Did you close the door there at the end of the library any time this evening?”
“No, sir.”
Landis jerked his head back toward the Japanese armor, which Stimson faced.
“That Japanese bow is strung and leaning against the armor now,” he said. “Was that its usual position, Stimson?”
“I think not, sir. I believe it hung across the back of the figure, with the—string in front.”
“It was strung then? The string was taut?”
“I think not, sir. The bow looks an entirely different shape now. My impression is that it was bent the other way, so that the horns—the tips, that is—bent toward the string instead of away from it as they do now.”
“We’ll test that later,” nodded Landis. “Very observant of you to notice it. I wonder whether you ever noticed the number of arrows in the quiver?”
“I believe there were four or five, sir.”
“I see. You’re not sure. Now, when was the last time, before the murder, that you noticed the bow and arrows?”
Stimson looked down and aslant, reflectively.
“Sorry, sir, but I can’t be sure,” he admitted at last. “Not for three or four days at least.”
“So you definitely did not notice it unstrung any time today?”
“No, sir, I did not.”
“Who else comes in here frequently?”
“Susan comes in to dust every day. Mr. Harrison was in here almost every night, before and usually after dinner. The others seldom used this room.”
“But you come in here frequently yourself?”
“Twice a day, sir,” Stimson admitted. “In the morning to raise the shades and lower the windows; in the evening during dinner to lock the windows and lower the shades. Tonight the sergeant told me to leave them as they were.”
“Stimson,” snapped Bernard suddenly, “who killed Mr. Harrison?”
The butler hesitated an instant, then replied calmly, without raising his voice: “I don’t know, Mr. Bernard.”
“But you suspect somebody!”
“No, sir. I have no reason to suspect anyone—no theory of the crime.” About Stimson’s amendment there seemed a faint trace of irony.
“I wonder!”
“I wonder, too, sir!”
“What do you mean by that?” Bernard growled.
“Why, I wonder who killed Mr. Harrison!” said Stimson in surprise.