CHAPTER XXII
A QUESTION OF ANGLE
WHEN they reached the lower hall, Bernard went to the library door and looked in. At the far end the faithful sergeant stood on guard. Otherwise the room was deserted.
Landis paused at the foot of the stairs, pulling at his lip in a brown study. Presently an instinct of blind reconnoitering led him to the drawing-room door. Though flooded with light the room had no occupant.
He crossed the hall to find Bernard brooding in front of the library fire. Landis passed on to the end of the room and across the lateral hall to the billiard-room. It was in darkness. Switching on the lights he found it untenanted.
Returning to the library he noticed that, as on Saturday night, the shades had not been drawn down and the windows were still lowered a foot or so from the top. Through the nearest window he could see that Russell’s room was dark. Closer at hand but on the second floor, Miss Mount’s drawn shade revealed a light in her room. He moved nearer the library window and craned his head sideways. All three front windows on the top floor of the wing showed lights. Evidently Helen and Susan had retired to the suite they shared.
Landis had already noticed a push-button on Harrison’s desk. Still in a mood for experiment, he pressed it and caught, in the quiet house, the sound of a distant buzzer somewhere at the back. Rather to his surprise he next heard the muffled impact of a swing door closing. Stimson appeared in the hall doorway, an expression of polite inquiry on his dark, imperturbable visage.
“You rang, sir?”
“Yes, Stimson. Where is everybody, do you know?”
“Miss Mount and Mr. Joel are in their rooms, I believe. The young ladies have gone for a drive in their cars with Mr. Allen and Mr. Russell. The—”
“Oh, they have, have they?” demanded Bernard.
“Yes, sir. The house is not exactly inviting at the present time. Did you wish us all to remain indoors?” His question was addressed to Landis.
Accumulated irritation exploded into anger. For an instant Landis saw red. He smothered his rage and spoke quietly.
“Where did they go, do you know?”
“I don’t, sir. Just for a drive, I think.” Stimson unbent a little. “They gathered in the billiard-room after you questioned them and I brought them a drink there. They were all rather quiet, eyeing each other. These two unexplained attacks have made us all suspicious, sir, of everyone else in the house. After they had had their drinks, Mr. Allen spoke up and said it couldn’t go on. He swore he knew nothing about Mr. Harrison’s murder nor the attempt on Mr. Graham. After that the others all swore the same thing. Then they made up their minds to forget it. Miss Anita suggested a drive and away they went.”
“Thanks, Stimson. What about the rest of the household?”
“The Harleys have gone up to bed, sir. So have Susan and Helen. I remained in the kitchen in case you wanted anything.”
“Very thoughtful of you,” said Landis. “By the way, can you shoot with a bow and arrow?”
“A little, sir,” said Stimson calmly. “Mr. Joel took me out to the butts one afternoon, when the rest of the family was not at home. He showed me how to hold the bow. I seem to have rather a knack for it.”
Bernard reddened with anger, although there was no impudence in the butler’s tone.
“You’re frank about it,” he growled.
“Yes, sir. I have nothing to hide.”
“Not even that bit of feather from the Japanese arrow that killed Harrison?” Bernard snapped. “We found it in the clothes you wore that day!”
Stimson shook his head.
“Not even that, sir! I left it there for you to find—if you looked!”
“Oh, you left it there for us to find, eh?” repeated Bernard with heavy sarcasm. “Then why didn’t you tell us about it—if you thought we’d find it anyway?”
“Why should I incriminate myself, sir? No man is called upon to do that! I found it there the afternoon before the murder and threw it into the waste basket. After the murder I picked it out of the basket and put it back in my pocket, feeling it my duty not to interfere with anything that might be a clue. The rest I left to chance and your search. You might solve the murder without that bit of feather, which might save me unpleasant moments—like the present, sir!”
Landis chuckled suddenly.
“Stimson,” he said, “you’re a great fellow! I believe we shall get on together. Now, as a favor to me, bring that Japanese bow and the remaining arrows up to the third floor. I want to try an experiment.”
Landis led the way to the back stairs, Bernard close at his heels. The butler brought up the rear with the Japanese bow and arrows.
“What’s the idea?” whispered Bernard as they mounted. “Think it won’t pierce the target?”
“I just remembered,” said Landis, lowering his voice, “what Joel Harrison said about the bow, the first time we questioned him. He said, ‘The design ruins it for distance’! Now a bow that won’t shoot far won’t shoot hard either. It seemed so obvious that Harrison was killed with that bow that we hardly questioned it. Wait a minute—” He turned to Stimson.
“Think you can do it?” he asked.
“Hit the target, sir? I think so.”
“No. I don’t mean that.”
“Pierce the target? I doubt it, sir,” said Stimson.
“You ought to be on the force,” chuckled Landis.
When they reached the third floor, he sent the butler to tell the other servants that the detectives were trying an experiment and wished them to remain in their rooms.
When he came back, Stimson took the bow, fitted an arrow to the string, drew it back until the metal head touched the grip and let fly. The arrow flew straight and buried its head in the blue ring. Stimson tried it again, with the same result. The arrow struck and remained quivering. The sharp head penetrated to about two-thirds the thickness of the target.
“That the best you can do?” asked Bernard.
Stimson rubbed his wrist gently.
“Yes, sir. You see that I am drawing the bow to the tip of the arrow. It can’t be drawn farther. One needs a wrist guard and finger guards for this sort of work. I don’t think anyone could shoot any harder with it, sir,” he added, “not even an expert.”
“What do you mean by that last?” Bernard demanded.
“Nothing, sir,” replied the butler innocently.
Leaving Bernard on the third floor, Landis and Stimson descended to the billiard-room. From the lockers they selected the bow which seemed to them both the strongest and took it up to the third floor.
With this, Stimson managed to shoot hard enough so that the point of the Japanese arrow could be felt at the back of the target. He drew a full bow to do it. Inexperienced as they were, the detectives felt justified in believing that the bow could shoot no harder with that arrow. Yet much more force would have been required for the arrow to pass entirely through the target and chip bits of brick from the chimney beyond.
“Stimson,” said Bernard suddenly, “have you got a skeleton key to the various bedrooms in the house?”
“No, sir. I believe Miss Mount has one in her room. She would naturally keep it, sir.”
Bernard stared, then nodded slowly.
“Thank you, Stimson,” said Landis. “Now replace the two bows and the quiver where you found them and wait for us in the kitchen a while longer, if you don’t mind. We may need you again. Much obliged.”
“Certainly, sir!” Stimson moved with dignity to the back stairs. They watched him out of sight. Bernard surprised Landis.
“A queer customer but an honest man,” he said. “There’s venom in our butler. But it’s all for Harrison. He can’t help us much. I’d like to know who planted that bit of feather in his livery. So would he!”
“You believe that?” cried Landis.
“Don’t you?”
“Maybe. Either he’s honest or the cleverest rogue I’ve ever had to corner. He certainly is frank!”
“Come down to Joel’s room,” grunted Bernard. “I’ve got an idea. But I can’t see what good it is!” he added with a rare flash of humor.
They descended to the second floor, saw that there was still a light under Miss Mount’s door and knocked softly. She was fully dressed, although it was close on midnight.
“Sorry to disturb you,” Landis apologised.
“You haven’t disturbed me. I was reading. I thought I’d go in during the night and see how Mr. Graham was resting. A certain amount of fever is to be expected with such a wound.”
Bernard stared at her fixedly.
“There’s a policeman on guard outside Graham’s door,” he said. “Until we find out who attacked Graham, the man will admit nobody who might have done it. We’d like to go through your bathroom, please.”
“I take your point!” Miss Mount permitted herself a slight, amused smile. “Pray make yourselves at home.”
They obeyed her, unlocked the bathroom door into the den and entered, switching on the lights. Bernard closed the door behind them, not too pointedly. Turning, he directed his companion’s attention to a steel arquebus which stood in a corner.
“There you are,” he said. “What about that thing? It looks to me as if it would shoot harder than any bow!”
Landis studied the foot-grip in front, the short, steel bow and the double-handled windlass back of the trigger catch. From this catch to the front of the stock, the distance was far too short to accommodate a three-foot arrow. Nor was there any guide to hold an arrow.
“These cross-bows,” Landis explained, “shoot heavy, short bolts, I think. They called ’em quarrels. The weapons weren’t built for arrows. Don’t believe they’d shoot straight.”
Bernard looked disappointed. His glance roved the walls, to light upon another cross-bow, a wooden one this time, with no foot-grip, a much longer stock, a gut instead of a steel bow-string, a wooden windlass and a deep groove along the top of the stock. Like the other, the bow itself was of steel.
“That would shoot an arrow,” he said. “It has that groove to guide it.”
Landis shook his head.
“Maybe it would shoot one of those Japanese arrows and shoot it hard. But think of the risk of lugging that thing down to the library door! He’d have to lug it back upstairs again, don’t forget, with the house humming about his ears! It isn’t like shooting with a bow that’s already there and stays there!”
“Look here,” growled Bernard, “I never liked that Japanese bow theory! How could a man move around in there, get the bow, fit an arrow to it and wait until Harrison got up, without Harrison seeing him or hearing him or sensing him there? Harrison had his side face to the end of the library, not his back! But to creep up to the door, wait your chance and let fly with that cross-bow from outside the library—that’s different.”
“The risk of being caught there!” Landis demurred.
Bernard scratched his head.
“That’s the hell of it! On the other hand, your Japanese bow is definitely out! It couldn’t shoot that hard!”
Landis shrugged his shoulders.
“Maybe somebody had the Japanese bow all wiped and the cross-bow and a Japanese arrow tucked away behind that couch in the hall back of the library. But at that it’s a terrible risk to run. Anybody might have come along through the billiard-room!”
Bernard turned away to the cross-bow, took it down from the wall by the gut bowstring and carried it to the work-bench, where he lit the light. Turn it this way and that as he might, to catch the light, not a finger-mark showed on its polished wooden surface.
“It ought to be covered with finger-prints!” he growled. “There isn’t one! I tell you, this cross-bow shot the Japanese arrow that killed Harrison and the one that almost killed Graham!”
Suddenly he crossed the room, replaced the arquebus on its nail and returned to the workbench. Carelessly flung down at one end of it lay a pair of doeskin gloves. Bernard picked them up and examined them. The finger-tips were worn smooth and polished. The soft leather at the wrist of each glove was torn just below the thumb. The tears were quite recent. Bernard hesitated, stuffed the gloves into his pocket and touched Landis on the arm.
“Come on out of this!” he said.
Highly intrigued, Landis followed him through the bathroom, again apologized to Miss Mount and joined his older companion in the hall.
“What’s the idea?” he asked in a whisper.
“We’re getting warm! These gloves were torn recently, by hands too big for them! The man who handled the cross-bow and the Japanese bow wore gloves! We’re getting warm, Landis!”
“I’ve been hot under the collar for some time,” said Landis dubiously. “Which did he handle?”
“Both! He planted the Japanese bow and used Japanese arrows to fool us. He shot Harrison with the cross-bow!”
“From where?”
“From the library door!”
“Who did?”
“How do I know?” snorted Bernard. “Joel or Russell or Allen or Stimson! Any one of them could have hidden the cross-bow in one of those lockers in the billiard-room or behind that couch in the hall! Any one of them could have got to that library door. We’ll get the method first and then the man—or woman!”
Landis shook his head.
“Joel couldn’t, without coming down the front or the back stairs or going the whole length of both wing halls. In any of those cases somebody would have seen or heard him.”
“That cross-bow killed Harrison,” Bernard declared.
Landis was silent for several minutes. Abruptly he flung up his head and chuckled joyously.
“We’re a pair of fools!” he exclaimed. “Come on down to the library!”
Bernard followed him without demur. When he reached the long room, Landis touched the bell on Harrison’s desk. In a moment the butler appeared from the hall.
“Stimson,” said Landis, “did Mr. Harrison stoop?”
“Why—er—not as a rule, sir!” declared Stimson. “He carried himself quite erect, as I remember.”
Landis looked disappointed.
“What do you mean by ‘not as a rule,’ Stimson? Did he ever stoop?”
“Yes, sir. He was a very tall man and had a habit of stooping as he passed under a chandelier or through a doorway. Why do you ask, if I may inquire, sir?”
“Just curiosity! Thanks very much, Stimson. That’s all for just now.”
The butler bowed and withdrew. Landis waited until his footsteps died away toward the back of the hall. Then he hurried to the quiver which Stimson had restored to its place, drew out an arrow and handed it to Bernard.
“Now come down to this end where Harrison was shot!”
Bernard followed him, puzzled and growling. At the doorway into the reception-room, Landis faced away from the library and stood erect. “Now,” he said, “put the point of the arrow against me where it entered Harrison and at about the same angle, will you, sir? Got it?”
“Of course I’ve got it,” snorted Bernard and prodded him with it. “Great jumping—”
“Wait!” cried Landis. “Now, as I stoop and turn a very little, keep the arrow in the same relative position to my body?”
“It’s done,” said Bernard, “and you’ve got a head on your shoulders, young man!”
“Hold it there, then!” Landis whirled about, sighted along the arrow from point to feather vanes, took it and held it and stepped aside. “Look along it,” he directed in triumph.
Bernard obeyed, the tip of the arrowhead against his nose. Sighting along the shaft toward the nock, his line of vision led straight through the open top of the middle library window to the lower edge of Miss Mount’s drawn shade on the second-floor wing. If her window had been open, the arrow would have pointed backward into her room.
“And there,” said Landis, “endeth our first real clue!”
“The cross-bow it is!” rapped Bernard, “from Miss Mount’s—”
He broke off, turned and for all his weight sprang lightly to the hall doorway. Stimson was just disappearing with lithe speed into the drawing-room opposite. Bernard called him sharply. He reappeared at once.
“You called, sir!”
“Come here! What were you snooping around for, after we sent you back to the kitchen? You killed Harrison and had a try at Graham! We’re sure of it now! You hated Harrison and you shot him!”
Stimson shook his head.
“That is a mistake, sir. I didn’t shoot at either of them,” he answered calmly.
“Then why were you snooping around?” thundered Bernard.
Stimson glanced, with a shadow of a smile, at Landis, who had joined his older companion in the doorway.
“Just curiosity, sir!” he quoted softly.
“Curiosity killed the cat!” suggested Landis.
“Yes, sir. So I believe. I must have made more noise than a cat, however, or Mr. Bernard would not have heard me!”
“You get back to the kitchen and stay there,” ordered Bernard very quietly.
Stimson turned and went.