CHAPTER XVI
A LACE HANDKERCHIEF
LANDIS and Bernard were rather worse than disgusted. To date it was a case almost without a clue, except the small, blurred finger-prints on the door. Now those were gone. It was humanly natural for both of them to glare at Thorpe as though the fault were his. The ill humor of Landis broke in laughter. A certain perfumed lace handkerchief remained to them and might easily prove of greater use than blurred finger-prints.
“It’s bad luck and my mistake, Thorpe,” he admitted. “There’s nothing else you can do just now. If anything further turns up I’ll send for you. In the meantime, print two positives of each of those pictures.”
They helped him collect his paraphernalia and Landis escorted him to the front door and let him out. Returning, he stuck his head into the drawing-room, where Russell, Allen and Isabelle were bidding their heads off at cut-throat bridge.
“We’ve finished at the end of the library,” he observed, “so don’t let us keep you up. Only the library and the reception-room are out of bounds now.”
The two men nodded shortly. Isabelle presented him with an expansive smile that seemed peculiarly meaningless.
Bernard was waiting by the library fire.
“I think,” said he, “that you might send for three local men to relieve Forbes and his man. I’d station one to watch the body and two to patrol the grounds.”
With a nod, Landis went to the telephone and put through the necessary call. Then he returned to the fire.
“It’s a real puzzler,” admitted Bernard slowly. “The murder is something entirely new to my experience—the sort of thing we ought to trace at once—if we knew where to start! What clues we have don’t point in any definite direction.”
“Such as which?”
“Joel and the Japanese bow; Allen’s walk; Anita’s lies about leaving her room; this handkerchief with Isabelle’s initials. What’s she doing now, by the way?”
“Playing bridge with Russell and Allen.”
“And her father dead in the next room! A rum family!”
“Why are those clues indefinite?” Landis persisted.
“Because no woman could have shot that arrow hard enough to go clean through a big man like Harrison. It isn’t likely one of his own daughters shot him, either.”
“What about the men?”
Bernard smiled.
“Got any ideas yourself?”
“I’ll tell ’em presently. What about the men?”
“Well, Joel had a motive if his brother bullied him. But he isn’t the type exactly. There’s plenty of motive for Russell or Allen and plenty of opportunity.”
“They’re the likely ones,” suggested Landis.
“When a rich man is murdered,” grumbled Bernard, “and murdered evidently by somebody in the house, anybody likely to profit is a likely suspect.”
“Stimson hated him!”
“—and admitted it readily!”
“Foxiness!”
“Maybe. There’s Brent, too.”
Landis looked his astonishment.
“He wasn’t here!”
“How do you know that? He lives near by. So does Doctor Stanford!” Bernard shook his head. “We’ll have to wait, young fellow. What about that handkerchief? Going to question Isabelle right away?”
“You mean I ought to wait! Unless a good opportunity turns up, I will wait until she feels more secure or shows signs that she knows she’s lost it.”
“Miss Mount is out of it,” ruminated Bernard. “So is Susan. That cuts it down a bit.”
“Why is Miss Mount out of it?” asked Landis suddenly.
Bernard stared.
“Because we know,” he drawled, “that she was in front of Harrison when he was shot in the back. And she was a long way from that Japanese bow.”
“The construction of which is such that it can’t shoot far—nor, presumably, very hard!” suggested Landis.
“If Joel is right! But Harrison may have fallen on the arrow in such a way as to drive it through his body!”
“The target on the third floor didn’t fall on the arrow and drive it through,” retorted Landis.
Bernard presented him with a glance of grudging approval and a moment later burst out laughing.
“How in the world could Miss Mount do it, when she was in front of him?”
“A fair alibi,” Landis admitted doubtfully. “Perhaps it’s a bit too good.” He shrugged. “I don’t know how she did it—if she did do it. But the person who did it was clever.”
“This case has got you,” smiled Bernard. “I suppose you figure that Miss Mount strangled Harrison with her large and muscular hands, while Susan held him. They stuck the arrow into him afterwards for evidence and Susan had hysterics just to fool us, eh?”
“You go to thunder!”
“For my part,” Bernard continued equably, “I want to know where Miss Mount went on Thursday and why; what made Anita lie to us; whether Harrison went to Long Island today to see Cuddy or somebody else; whether it was Cuddy that telephoned Mrs. Graham; why she screamed Wednesday night and what Miss Mount knows about it. There’s no direct evidence to connect anybody with this murder. We’ve got to go round about for it, young fellow.”
“The whole thing hangs on finding out who practiced up on the third floor since Tuesday, practiced firing that—”
“Shooting that Japanese bow,” Bernard corrected.
“All right, practiced shooting that Japanese bow by himself or herself. That’s the one definite clue.”
“Let’s have a look at the bow,” Bernard suggested.
The finger-print expert had replaced it near the armor. They walked down the library and studied it together.
The Japanese bow was about seven and a half feet long over all, made of three layers of flat bamboo and bound with cane. The shape was peculiar, the grip for the hand being much nearer the lower end than the upper. Thus the lower limb was less than three feet long, the upper limb almost five. The shorter limb was considerably thinner than the longer one.
Clumsily enough, Landis contrived to bend the bow and release the string from the upper nock. Thus relaxed, the flexible bamboo bent the other way, giving the weapon a peculiar appearance, the belly convex where it had been concave, the ends of the limbs concave where they had been convex.
“Stimson was right,” said Landis, pointing. “Seems a noticing sort of chap!”
Bernard grunted assent.
“Wonder whether he’s missed that bit of feather from his pocket!”
“Thought you implied he didn’t know it was there!”
“I’m not implying anything because I don’t know anything,” retorted Bernard irritably.
Landis was studying the arrows, which were fairly heavy and about three feet long.
“Maybe these are steel-swined hog-backs, or whatever Joel calls ’em,” he reflected aloud, “but one of ’em killed Harrison and they’re made for this bow!”
“Which lets out Miss Mount and Susan!”
“I wasn’t seriously considering Miss Mount. It’s only that she has the best alibi. Allen is my pick.”
“Why?”
“I don’t quite know yet.”
“All right,” said Bernard. “Suppose we try our old plan again. We’ll compare notes as we go but follow our own theories. That will give us different angles of approach.”
“Suits me,” nodded Landis. “But first, is it or isn’t it an inside job?”
“I believe it is, though a man could have come through that sunken garden and the billiard-room and passed out the same way, as your friend Allen thoughtfully suggested.”
“If he knew the house and had prepared the bow. That doesn’t help much. Well, what’s your plan, sir?”
“I haven’t any. But I suggest that we nose around here for a bit longer. Something else may turn up.”
“My idea, too,” Landis agreed. “We’ll hang around here tomorrow, see if we can trace Cuddy and get a description of him. Monday morning we’ll attend the inquest together, if you like. Monday afternoon I’m going to look up Cuddy on Long Island and see where he fits in. He’ll need an alibi for seven-thirty this evening or he’s suspect!”
Bernard nodded.
“I’ll stay in the city. I want to look up the records of Allen and Russell—get their financial ratings. I want to know where Harrison went last Monday and today. I’ll have a look at his will, too.”
Catching a movement in the hall, Landis stepped to the doorway. Stimson was in the act of admitting the relief of police, his manner stiff and remote.
Landis told off two men to patrol the grounds, set the third to watch Harrison’s body and was conducting Sergeant Forbes and his man to the front door when Isabelle drifted into the hall from the drawing-room.
He closed the front door on the departing police and turned to her.
“Looking for me?”
“Sort of,” she smiled heavily.
“Come into the library where it’s warmer, won’t you?”
Isabelle followed him and sat down near Bernard. Landis selected a chair facing her.
“What was it?” he asked confidentially.
“It’s funny,” Isabelle exploded, “about ’Nita coming down that right-hand flight of stairs!”
There was a faintly vicious note in her voice.
“It certainly is queer,” admitted Landis.
Isabelle shifted restlessly.
“Where are you going to sleep tonight?” she asked with no great interest.
“Here in the house if it’s convenient.”
“I’ll call Stimson.” She started to rise. Landis checked her with a friendly gesture.
“Now you’re here, you might help us a bit first,” he suggested. “Have you had any other house guests lately?”
“Mr. Brent was here over the last week-end.”
“I suppose he was busy with Mr. Harrison?”
“He was on Saturday. Sunday Uncle Joel hauled him off to shoot at the butts.”
“Suppose your uncle wanted a greenhorn to gloat over!”
“Oh, my, no! Uncle Joel would rather see good shooting. Mr. Brent is a peach of a shot. He and Uncle Joel are regular cronies over archery.”
“Have you lost a handkerchief?” asked Landis.
Isabelle fumbled about and produced one.
“Why, no! I don’t think I have,” she replied.
Landis held out the one he had found in the hall.
“Is this yours?”
Isabelle glanced at it, then stared from one detective to the other.
“It—it’s one of mine,” she stammered. “Where did you find it?”
“We found it in the hall back there, Miss Harrison.”
To their surprise, she looked relieved.
“Oh, yes! I must have dropped it on my way into the house tonight.”
“Then you had it this afternoon?” He held it closer so that she could see it in detail.
“Yes, that’s the one I had today.”
“Why,” inquired Bernard in slow, lugubrious tones, “were you frightened when we first showed it to you? Be careful, Miss Harrison! Only the truth will serve you now!”
Landis assumed his gravest expression, for Isabelle had turned piteous, unintelligent eyes on him.
“I was frightened,” she gasped, “b-because I thought you’d found it in ’Nita’s room and you’d know I’d fibbed!”
“Oh, you weren’t in your room from six-thirty on!” said Bernard ominously. “We suspected as much! When were you in Anita’s room and why?”
“I—I quarreled with my fiancé this afternoon because he flirted with ’Nita! When we got home I went in and had a row with ’Nita about it. But she just laughed at me!” An angry, baffled light shone in Isabelle’s blue eyes. “Some day I’ll—I’ll—” she hesitated.
“You’ll what!”
“I’ll slap her!” cried Isabelle viciously.
A cough attacked Landis. Bernard maintained his gravity.
“What time were you in Anita’s room?”
“About half-past six—or just a minute after.”
“Where else did you go, Miss Harrison? Careful now!”
“I went back to my room and stayed there,” wailed the girl, on the brink of tears.
“And so,” continued Bernard solemnly, “because Anita flirted with your fiancé this afternoon, you wondered whether she was coming from his room when you saw her on the wrong flight of stairs this evening!”
Isabelle’s face flamed with helpless anger and the detectives knew that Bernard’s guess had been correct.
“You have no right to ask me questions like that!” she flared.
“We have every right to know where every member of the household was this evening just before your father was murdered! Be careful that you don’t repeat one word of what you have told us! Now we’ll be glad if you’ll arrange a place for us to sleep. Anywhere will do, Miss Harrison.”
Bernard’s tone was severe. Isabelle, looking harried and uncertain what to do about it, scuttled out in search of Stimson.
Bernard and Landis were given the two spare rooms on the ground floor of the wing. Allen was most cordial about sharing his bathroom with Landis. Bernard took the front room and simply unlocked the door into the bathroom beyond. Russell came through from his bedroom to see what was going on and shrugged his shoulders.
Before he turned in, Landis went to the reception-room and helped the lone policeman there to lift Harrison’s body from the floor and lay it on the couch in the library. Returning to the wing he knocked on Bernard’s door and got the borrowed pyjamas Elsa had packed for him. He exchanged a cheerful one for his companion’s gruff good night and started for his room across the hall, then turned and stuck his head in Bernard’s door again.
“Why,” he demanded, “don’t you leave Isabelle alone and pick on somebody with brains—like me?”
“Huh!” Bernard snorted absently.
“You don’t say so! Well, I guess we will add Brent to our list of possible suspects!”