CHAPTER XVIII
“NOTHING MUCH ANYHOW!”
“WHEN I got home tonight,” began Anita slowly, “I could see that Fred was mad because I’d been flirting with Hobart. As soon as I got to my room Isabelle came in and yelped about it. About five minutes past seven I did come down the back stairs to talk to Fred alone. I closed the door into the library so Dad wouldn’t ask where I was going. Then I went on to Fred’s room and made it up with him.”
“You couldn’t do that later?” Landis inquired.
“I could. But you’re always being interrupted when there’s a crowd of people about. Susan screamed and I got in a sudden panic for fear I might be caught in Fred’s room. I ran to the door at the end of the hall. I must have pulled at it without turning the latch. I thought it was locked and turned the key. Then I couldn’t budge it at all. I remembered afterwards that the key turns the wrong way to lock it.”
“So I noticed,” nodded Bernard.
“Well, then I ran up the stairs at the end of the hall and along the first-floor hall. When I reached the big hall at the top of the stairs I saw Uncle Joel wandering about, so I waited until he went into his room. Then Isabelle came out of her room and I ducked out of sight again. I was just in a panic of being caught in the wing!”
“You didn’t see anyone else; Mrs. Graham and Helen, for instance?” inquired Landis.
“No. The first-floor halls were deserted except for Uncle Joel and Isabelle. Anyhow, when Isabelle was half-way downstairs I ran down after her. But I was dumb enough to take the near flight instead of the other one from my room. She looked back and saw me on it. I suppose the precious darling has pointed that out to you, hasn’t she?”
“I was wondering,” remarked Landis, an ironical inflexion in his voice, “about this handkerchief of your sister’s that you came down to find just now.” He held it up.
“I guess that wasn’t very sensible either,” Anita admitted. “I heard you tell that finger-print man to look for finger-prints on the library door. I knew mine were on it, of course, for I’d just pushed the door shut. As soon as you let us out of the library I ran upstairs to my room for a handkerchief to rub them off with, if I had time—”
“Why didn’t you want us to find them?” asked Bernard.
“Because you might ask me a lot of questions as you have done and find out where I’d been just before dinner. Naturally I didn’t want people to know that I’d been in a man’s room when he was dressing.”
“What made you think you’d have the chance to wipe them off before he found and photographed them?”
“I heard Mr. Landis tell the man to look on the armor. He mentioned that first.”
“I see. Go on! What did you do?”
“The first thing I saw when I got to my room was Isabelle’s handkerchief. I grabbed it and raced down the backstairs. There was nobody in the hall out there. So I scrubbed the door and ran back to the servants’ hall. But I dropped the handkerchief. I hadn’t the nerve to go back for it.”
“You mean you saw that the finger-prints had chalk on them! So you dropped the handkerchief to put the blame of wiping them off on your sister!” accused Bernard.
“I didn’t either! Why, I came down to get it, so she wouldn’t get into trouble! A fat lot she deserves it!”
“Then you did notice the chalk! Otherwise, why should her handkerchief get her into trouble?”
“I didn’t, I tell you! But the handkerchief was near the library door and Dad was shot from there!”
“Why did you tell us you were in your room from six-thirty on? Why did you lie in the first place?”
Anita made a gesture of hopeless impatience.
“Because I didn’t want to tell you where I was!” she cried.
“It’s unfortunate,” said Bernard judicially, “that all this will have to come out, including the fact that you were in Allen’s bedroom when he was half naked in the bathroom adjoining—and the door was open between!”
Anita winced and shrank in her chair, looking at Allen. He nodded to her.
“May as well tell ’em everything, ’Nita,” he said. “Fact is, Mr. Bernard, we’re married—”
At the last word Anita uttered a shriek of protest. Bernard and Landis looked at her swiftly enough to catch the flash of terror in her eyes. But she pulled herself together with an effort, looked down and said nothing.
“Can you prove that?” Bernard asked Allen gruffly.
For answer he left the room, returning with a marriage certificate which he showed them. It contained his name and Anita’s and was signed by a minister in Frederick, Maryland.
“We slipped down there together one week-end, when ’Nita was supposed to be visiting friends in Westchester,” Allen explained. “It’s all in order.”
“Did your father know you were married?”
“Of course he did,” Anita gasped and again they caught a flash of terror in her eyes.
“A poor lie,” said Bernard, watching Allen, “and a dangerous one. If Harrison had known you were married you would have occupied adjoining bedrooms. ‘You slipped down one week-end when Anita was supposed to be visiting friends!’ What’s more, Allen, your quarrel with Harrison was not over a loan but over marrying Anita, here. Anita and Harrison had a row over that last Sunday when Graham was in the room!”
“He didn’t know!” said Allen coolly.
“Miss Harrison,” said Bernard, “every lie you tell just gets you in deeper.” He turned back to Allen. “Now then, when Landis got Russell and left you alone here tonight, you went for a walk in the sunken garden. Where else did you go?”
“Why ask when I’ve already told you?”
“I won’t ask,” growled Bernard. “I’ll tell you! You went round to the kitchen door and up the back stairs to Anita’s room. There you discussed the situation, decided to lie out of it and arranged to make your stories agree.”
“Lie out of what?” demanded Allen.
“Lie out of Anita’s being in your room!”
Allen laughed, ignoring the girl’s strained, white face.
“Yes, Mr. Bernard, I admit it!” he said. “That’s exactly where I went and what I did. I’d do it again, too! We didn’t want it to come out, immediately after Harrison had been murdered, that we were secretly married. And I certainly didn’t want people to know that ’Nita had been in my bedroom like that unless they knew that we were married. Anybody with any respect for his wife’s reputation would do what I did!”
Bernard nodded his big head ominously.
“So far so good,” he growled. “Harrison didn’t know you were married. We know that he wouldn’t let you marry! We know that he swore to cut her off without a cent if she did. He might find out, any day, that you were married! Because of his threat, you and your wife decided that the only thing to do was to put him quietly out of the way before he did find out. So you—”
Allen’s face had gone dead white. Anita was writhing in her chair.
“It isn’t true!” she gasped.
“So you got the bow ready last night,” continued Bernard. “Tonight Anita came down, saw that her father was in the library and came to your room and told you. She closed the door so that he wouldn’t see her, or so that she wouldn’t see him, in view of what you had planned together!”
“It’s all lies!” Anita moaned. “It’s all lies!”
“Go on,” said Allen through stiff lips.
“I’m going to! Anita locked the door at the end of the hall so you wouldn’t be interrupted. She waited in your room while you stole along to the library and slipped in, again closing the door so that nobody passing in the hall would see you. You had the bow and an arrow ready and Harrison never noticed you in the shadow. Then the gong rang. Harrison got up and walked toward the door. You waited until he reached it so that if your arrow didn’t kill him you could slip out into the hall again before he could turn and make sure who you were. But your arrow did kill him!”
“Oh, stop!” Anita shrieked at him. “How can you tell such wicked, brutal lies about us! It isn’t true!”
“Shut up, ’Nita!” said Allen harshly. “Go on, Mr. Bernard. We may as well hear it all.”
“You let fly at him when he was in the doorway! Your arrow killed him. So you replaced the bow, slipped out and raced for your room, which you gained in safety. You sent Anita flying up the end stairs to her room. But she lost her head, knowing what she knew had happened, and came down the wrong flight. And there Isabelle saw her. We know you’re an excellent shot with a bow and arrow, Allen!”
“It’s not true!” wept Anita. “Not a word!”
Allen sat stiffly erect in his chair.
“There’s just one thing wrong with that theory, Mr. Bernard,” he said, “cleverly as you’ve worked it out. It never happened! We’ve told you the exact truth about where we were when Harrison was murdered. You are right about my row with Harrison. I didn’t tell you about it because I saw how black it would make things look against me. But I didn’t shoot Harrison!
“If you advance that theory you’ll disgrace us both and we’ll never live it down. You may put me on trial for the murder. You might even convict me on purely circumstantial evidence. But I didn’t do it. My finger-prints ought to be on the bow and arrow that killed Harrison, oughtn’t they?”
“You wore gloves!”
“I neither wore gloves nor killed Harrison!”
“Oh, you won’t ruin us!” wept Anita. “We didn’t do it! We know n-nothing about the murder—”
“Look here,” Allen interrupted. “You’d rather have the real murderer than a miscarriage of justice for the sake of a conviction, wouldn’t you? You don’t want to ruin two innocent people and let the real murderer escape, do you?”
“Who did kill Harrison?” asked Bernard dryly.
“I haven’t the faintest idea!”
Bernard stared at Allen fixedly, then shrugged his shoulders.
“Mr. Landis is in charge of the case!” he growled.
Landis got up.
“I want you two to go back to your rooms and stay there the rest of the night,” he told them quietly. “We’ll say nothing at the inquest of what you have told us, provided you tell us the exact truth in future. Is that a bargain?”
Anita scrambled from her chair, flung off his overcoat and ran to the door.
“Thank you!” she gasped and vanished.
Allen, on the other hand, showed signs of cracking now that the strain was over. He thrust out his hand.
“It is a bargain!” he gasped. “You’re a white man!”
“So’s Bernard here, if you only knew it,” grumbled Landis. “Good night, Allen.”
When they were alone Bernard chuckled.
“Full of holes, wasn’t it! But I thought we might learn something new.”
“We’ve learned plenty. We know who closed the library door and who locked the door at the end of the wing. Personally, I’m inclined to think we’ve eliminated two possible suspects, though I’m far from sure. What do you think?”
“I’m not sure, either. But you saw the holes.”
Landis nodded, smiling quizzically.
“It’s doubtful whether so young a girl would plan to murder her own father,” he admitted. “If she did make such a plan, she’d be a lot more careful not to let the servants or anyone else see her on her way to help Allen execute it. Her lies were stupid—not carefully planned, as Allen would see to it that they were. Allen’s ready confession of a secret marriage, giving a strong motive for murder under the circumstances, would be the last thing he’d admit—if he killed Harrison. Anything else?”
“The main thing is that Allen is intelligent. But he made no careful preparation to hide Anita’s trail. Above all, he made no attempt to throw suspicion elsewhere.”
“There’s no direct evidence anyhow, sir. They lied! But they were in enough of a jam to make them lie!”
Bernard nodded.
“Come on,” he growled, “let’s go back to bed and get some sleep!”