CHAPTER XXVI
MOTIVE AND METHOD
BERNARD was rubbing his hands. He turned on Landis before his younger colleague had fully recovered from his surprise.
“And now to business,” he said. “With your permission, Landis, I propose to have a full confession from Graham. I think I know most of the details but we want a confession.”
White and shaken, Graham was staring at Bernard with hurt amazement.
“You don’t think I have anything to confess!” he gasped.
“I don’t think it! I know it!” snapped Bernard. “We caught you red-handed, my lad!”
“Good God, Bernard! What do you mean? I only slipped across the hall to watch what happened when you pulled your thread! The desk wobbled and I put out my hand to steady it just as the bow twanged. Then these fellows burst from Miss Mount’s clothes-closet and laid hold of me! I can’t believe you mean it! You must be joking—”
“Can’t you?” retorted Bernard. “It’s a grim sort of joke! But we’ll begin at the beginning and lead you up to your confession gently.”
Graham tried to smile.
“Go on with your joke then!” He was recovering his composure. An instant later he lost some of it.
“I will!” Bernard looked down at Graham’s hands which the policemen held in view. Following his glance, Landis saw with a shock that Graham was wearing the famous gloves. Astonishment at the whole situation turned swiftly to regret. He had liked Graham.
“I notice,” said Bernard dryly, “that you went into Joel’s den and put on the gloves before you touched the cross-bow—pardon me—I mean, before you steadied that wobbling desk!” He stepped toward the window and tried to tilt the desk this way and that. “Seems steady enough now, Graham!”
“I thought it moved!” retorted Graham in a strained voice. “I was afraid of the experiment anyway!”
“And the gloves?”
“Great Scott, Mr. Bernard! I simply tried them on!”
“To give us a better set of your finger-prints? The others, of which I have an impression, will do to hang you!”
Wincing a little, Graham drew his hands together, a movement permitted by his captors, and with two quick twitches pulled off the gloves.
“There! I wanted to see how large they were!” The laugh that accompanied his words obviously cost him an effort. “I don’t know why you’re having all this fun at my expense—”
Bernard’s massive shoulders moved under the impetus of a grim and dreadful chuckle.
“You’re game, Graham!” he said.
Abruptly he turned to Landis.
“Stand guard and don’t let anyone in here,” he said, “while I tell you the history of Harrison’s murder. Suspecting everyone, Landis, I’ve suspected Graham from the first! That suspicion grew steadily until the finger-prints gave me my proof! Now for the facts.”
Landis stepped back to the door and turned to watch Graham’s harassed, white face.
“Go on,” he said.
“Some months ago, as Graham told us, Harrison set him to work to find Ethel Cuddy. Graham knew her already, probably knew all about her supposed parents then. But Harrison’s interest and his lame story of a deceased friend as Ethel’s father gave Graham an idea. He thought he saw a way to make a fortune by blackmail, a way that carried no risk. So he went to see the Cuddys. Harrison’s payments to them had ceased. Cuddy is a miser and would sell his best friend for money. Graham bribed out of him the whole story of the kidnapping and where Ethel was born. He traced the records, got a good description of Miss Mount and possibly of Harrison, then married Ethel and got Harrison to invite them out here. Most of that story, except the essential details of his motive, Graham told us himself.”
“Mr. Bernard!” exclaimed Graham. “I told you that in confidence—”
“Shut up! We’ll hear you presently. To resume. No doubt the Cuddys told Graham that Ethel had a scar on her back that would identify her. She had it when they kidnapped her, you see, when she was only three years old. Now Harrison paid for the child’s support before he had the Cuddys kidnap her as well as after. But he wouldn’t dare send such sums in his own name. He had his lawyers do it. The old records of the firm would verify the Cuddys’ statements as to the people who cared for Ethel until she was three. Graham had access to those records.
“From the very beginning I never believed Graham’s story that Harrison offered to leave the girl a part of his fortune. Harrison wasn’t that sort. What happened was that Graham blackmailed him into transferring some two million dollars into a trust fund for the girl. Harrison would receive the income from these securities as long as he lived. Then the income, from an unknown donor, would go to Ethel—and her husband, eh, Graham?”
“My God!” cried the young lawyer. “I don’t know what Harrison may have done about Ethel! I told you that!”
“Not a doubt you covered your tracks there!” snapped Bernard. “Now, then! You justified your blackmail by explaining to Harrison that you were only asking for Ethel her just due as his daughter, legitimate or no. Anyhow, Harrison found himself in a box, with an outraged woman and a public scandal to face. So on Monday, a week ago yesterday, he took you into town, lunched with you, talked it over, went to the bank and arranged the trust fund. He would get the income from it as long as he lived. There was plenty left for Isabelle and Anita. I don’t suppose he cared much what became of the money after he died!
“You may remember, Landis, that Brent told us the estate was two million dollars less than he had supposed. Brent is accurate, I imagine, whatever else he seems.”
“I remember,” nodded Landis soberly. The gloves and Graham’s pallor had already convinced him.
“In return for the trust fund, Graham no doubt promised Harrison to keep the whole thing a secret from his wife and everyone, including, of course, the fact that Miss Mount was the mother. Harrison must have heaved a sigh of relief and decided that he had got off light. For the skeleton in his cupboard was buried under a married name!
“But Harrison was hale and hearty. Probably he’d live another twenty years, years which Graham proposed to enjoy. So early last week our young friend, here, decided to go the whole hog. And he cast about for some safe method to murder Harrison and get the trust fund!”
“Murder him! Good God, Bernard, are you trying to pin this thing on me? You mean to say you’d do a vile, cruel thing like that to save your face—because the case has beaten you?”
Bernard nodded grimly.
“Just so!”
He turned back to Landis.
“The fact that all the household shot with bows and arrows gave him his cue. He planned to shoot Harrison with a bow and arrow in some way. Probably he had noticed the Japanese bow and considered that.
“On Tuesday, Joel asked Russell, Allen and the two girls into his den. He did not include the Grahams. Yet Graham described the den to us that first night, so he must have been in there!
“Shooting up on the third floor that Tuesday afternoon, Joel or somebody probably mentioned cross-bows. Another cue for Graham! In such a weapon he saw a more certain method of killing Harrison. With an ordinary bow he might miss. Within the next twenty-four hours he sneaked into the den, selected that cross-bow, found an opportunity to test it on the third floor with a Japanese arrow, noticed the bit of feather, planted it on Stimson to furnish another misleading clue and so improved on his original idea. But remembering the Japanese bow, he arranged that to look as if it had been used instead.
“Now consider the situation as he considered it. On Sunday night in the library, when Graham was blackmailing Harrison, Anita came in and quarreled with her father about Allen. There he had one person, two in fact, with a motive for murder. Allen’s room was handy to the Japanese bow. Graham’s one mistake was not making sure that the Japanese bow would shoot that hard.”
“You’re mad!” shouted Graham suddenly. Studying him for an instant, Landis saw signs that he was cracking under the strain. Bernard drove smoothly on with his indictment.
“There were other people with possible motives, too. Joel was little more than a half-wit, could shoot well and was mercilessly bullied by his brother. Again, Graham may have overheard enough to know that Russell was sore on Harrison for not letting him marry Isabelle unless and until he went to work. Russell was handy to the Japanese bow also.
“Of course Graham watched Harrison closely, noticed that he stooped when he went through a door and above all, noticed the regularity of his habits in the evening. The household was run like clockwork. So Graham could be sure exactly where most of the inmates would be at the time he planned to kill Harrison. On his visit to Joel’s den, which he could reach only through Miss Mount’s room, he looked out her window and saw a clear path to the reception-room door. Now the really brilliant method came to him. For it permitted him to shoot Harrison from close to his own room and also to work out an alibi that looked perfect—but wasn’t!”
“The bath water running!” Landis exclaimed.
“Exactly! To go back a little, before he murdered Harrison he had another idea. Perhaps Miss Mount would do it for him! So he deliberately burned his wife’s back with his cigarette, close to the scar. Miss Mount heard her scream and came across the hall as he hoped. He left her to find the scar. He knew that she questioned his wife next morning and then was gone all day. He knew, no doubt, that his wife had given her the address of the Cuddys as she told us she had. It was easy to guess that Miss Mount had gone to see them and would learn what he had learned. Her quarrel with Harrison that night satisfied him that she had learned, for the first time, the trick Harrison had played on her.
“So far so good. Graham waited to see whether Miss Mount would do his work for him. But she limited herself to making a fuss of Ethel. So he went ahead with his own plans, content to know that in Miss Mount he had an alternative suspect with an especially strong motive. That’s why he told us as much as he did about Ethel and let us guess that Miss Mount was her mother. He led us up to that very cleverly!
“Now for what actually happened. The night before the murder, Friday night, he got the cross-bow and the gloves from Joel’s room and hid them in his own. During the night he put on the gloves, stole down to the library, detached the Japanese bow from the armor, strung it and left it leaning handy there. He took back with him an unblunted Japanese arrow and hid that in his room as well.
“Saturday night, when they all came home to dress, he delayed his wife and himself by romping with her. Giving their lateness as an excuse, he rang for Helen to help her dress. He wanted Helen as an additional witness to his alibi.
“He went into the bathroom, probably locked the door into his wife’s room and turned on the bathwater. Then he stripped, resumed his coat and trousers and wound up the cross-bow, wiping it clean of finger-prints afterwards.
“Just before it was time for the gong he set up a great splashing in the tub with his hands, so the women would think he was in his bath. He left the water running, hurried into his room and pulled on the gloves, tearing them at the wrists because his hands were wet and the leather stuck to them!” Bernard looked at Landis.
Graham struggled between his captors, his face a mask of bitter fear.
“Lies!” he shouted. “You’re weaving a web of circumstantial evidence around me, as you tried to weave it round Miss Mount! There’s no proof! No proof, I tell you!”
Bernard turned.
“Only the finger-prints, Graham! Distinct and damning in the wet finger-tips!
“To proceed. He opened his door softly, saw that the coast was clear, nipped across to Miss Mount’s room and made sure that her window was open from the bottom as usual. He saw Harrison at his desk. He fitted the Japanese arrow to the cross-bow and waited. The gong rang almost at once. Harrison rose. Graham aimed his cross-bow. Harrison reached the reception-room door and paused there, stooping a little as usual. Graham let fly and without waiting to see the result of his shot, raced back to his room with the cross-bow and gloves. Probably he heard Susan scream as he crossed the hall. But he hid the weapon and the gloves in his room, ran into the bathroom and began splashing the water about as before. It was then that he shut off the tap.”
Graham’s face was ghastly, distorted as though he were undergoing physical torture.
“Lies!” he gasped. “A fabric of clever lies! You have no proof!”
“The rest we know,” continued Bernard calmly. “His wife heard the scream and hammered on the bathroom door. He stopped splashing and asked her what was up. She told him someone screamed and he sent her downstairs to see what had happened. Satisfied that she was going, he ran to his door into the hall and heard his wife and Helen go past on their way downstairs. Then he nipped across the hall and replaced the cross-bow and the gloves in Joel’s room. He was just going or just coming back when he heard Anita running along the hall. He ducked back into Miss Mount’s room or into his own and she ran past without seeing him. She ran downstairs by the near flight. Graham finished and slipped back to his bathroom, satisfied that all was well. He stripped off his coat and trousers and got into the tub. When his wife came up again he was naked, drying himself. A perfect alibi—almost, eh, Graham?”
Now at last Graham snapped.
“It’s a lie!” he screamed, wrenching at his arms to free them. “You’re a liar! I didn’t kill Harrison! I—I was shot myself by the same hand!”
“You bet you were!” retorted Bernard. “You shot yourself, too! It was the cleverest and yet the most foolish thing you did, Graham! But the trail was getting warm. Just before we went into town yesterday I let you see that I was going after Cuddy. You were smart enough to appreciate the risk there. So you shot yourself to mystify us and bolster up your own alibi! It was to be mystery piled on mystery, with you one of the innocent victims! Only—nobody except yourself had any real motive for shooting you, Graham!”
Graham tried to pull himself together.
“I suppose I stood in the library and shot myself from Miss Mount’s window here at the same time!” he gasped. “Don’t try to pin Harrison’s murder on an innocent man just because you’ve failed to find the real murderer!”
“When you shot Harrison,” replied Bernard smoothly, “you saw Miss Mount closing the reception-room window and you realized that she did the same thing every night at the same time. She had a motive already. Why not pin the business definitely on her and thereby close the door forever upon your wife’s unhappy past?”
Graham stared pleadingly at the faces of his other captors but found no response. Landis and the policemen were held spellbound, as much by Bernard’s tremendous personality as by his reasoned, relentless exposure of the motive and the method of the crime.
“You were left alone all day yesterday,” Bernard continued. “You spent your time collecting the rope and thread and preparing the Japanese bow as before. When Miss Mount went downstairs last night you went across to her room and got the cross-bow from Joel’s den as before. You got the gloves as before. But this time you lashed the cross-bow on the desk with your rope, hitched the thread to the trigger, ran it over the doorknob and dropped the spool out the window as we did just now. You went out and locked Miss Mount’s door!
“Mrs. Graham was tired so you got her to lie down. You went down and outdoors, got the spool, tossed it through the library window, made a nail-hole in the reception-room window and went round into the library, ostensibly to resume your work. You picked up the spool in there. When the gong rang you walked to the door as Harrison had done, jerked your thread and at the same time swerved aside. You didn’t swerve quite far enough. Or maybe you were willing to risk a wound to make the business more realistic and thereby save your neck from the noose. Was that it?”
Graham shook his head and tried to speak but in vain.
“You fell in the doorway so that Miss Mount couldn’t get past,” Bernard resumed. “As she ran into the hall, you wound up the broken thread and stowed it in your pocket while she was looking for the murderer.
“Stimson came and took you upstairs. You were sure that Susan would keep Miss Mount busy as before. So you dismissed everybody on a plea of nervousness and nausea, nipped across the hall, unlocked Miss Mount’s door, restored the key to the inside, replaced the cross-bow and the gloves in Joel’s den, planted your thread in her sewing-drawer and your rope in her clothes-closet and went cheerfully back to bed. Later, you were careful to tell us that you heard a noise outside the library windows before you were shot. If we traced the method and found the nail-hole, the rope and the thread, that would pin the murder and the attempted murder on Miss Mount almost past a doubt!”
Graham turned upon Landis eyes that strove to hide stark terror beneath their indignation.
“Do you believe it?” he demanded hoarsely. “Is it probable?”
“Of course it isn’t!” Bernard cut it. “It’s too clever for that. But those finger-prints will hang you!”
“This—this business just now!” shouted Graham suddenly. “Why should I try to kill you?”
“I haven’t said you did!” was the swift retort. “But you came mighty near it! Only, I was expecting you to try, so I dropped flat as I lowered the window and pulled the thread. Now for your motive! I handed you a sheet of paper a little while ago with a lot of indefinite nonsense on it. You suspected I did it to get your finger-prints. You were right. But I wanted you to know that I suspected you. When you warned us—warned Landis in advance—that our experiment was dangerous, I knew that you had fallen into my little trap!
“A clever trap wouldn’t have caught you, Graham. This was so simple and obvious that you fell for it and tried to kill me. I made a point of telling you that everyone would be downstairs, including the policeman we posted to guard you. That left you a clear road to the cross-bow. One little twitch and it would shoot me instead of shooting through the reception-room doorway!”
“What good would that do?” Graham demanded shrilly. “Landis would remain!”
Bernard laughed.
“Landis had fallen for your evidence against Miss Mount and you knew it. You also knew that he had not heard my theory and was still waiting to hear it. If I were killed he never would hear it. You were going to hide the gloves. When he got up here, you’d be back in your bed with your door locked and the gloves would have mysteriously disappeared. There would be no evidence, probably no suspicion against you. Landis could only conclude that the arrow had swerved and your considerate warning was justified. You’d be where you were before I began to suspect you in earnest. That’s the story. The game’s up, Graham!”
The young lawyer started as though fully realizing his position for the first time. Into his eyes, dazed with terror, crept an expression of dreadful certainty. He stared slowly from face to face of his four captors. The two policemen looked puzzled but determined. Bernard’s face was adamant. On the features of Landis alone was there any trace of pity. But Graham read conviction there, too. It was the pity of the living for a man already condemned to death—
Once more he looked at Bernard, staring at him attentively. In the brief silence, the others could hear the catch and sigh of his hurried breathing. They saw that he had begun to tremble. At length he spoke, his voice almost calm, although it shook a little.
“Bernard,” he said, “you’ve woven about me a web of damnably clever circumstantial evidence. For the sake of—of my wife, will you give me one chance to prove you wrong before you charge me with this thing?”
Frowning a little, Bernard returned the stare of his victim. Slowly his brows cleared and he nodded.
“Yes. For the sake of your wife, Graham.”
“Then wind up the cross-bow, get me an arrow from Joel’s den—any arrow—and I’ll prove to you that I couldn’t have shot Harrison!”
Unsmiling, Bernard moved to the desk and complied by winding up the bow. He opened the bathroom door, lifted the black thread and slipping under it, disappeared into the room beyond. After a moment he returned with an arrow. He closed the bathroom door behind him and laid the arrow on the desk, looping the thread over the bathroom doorknob again.
“Your proof, Graham!” he directed quietly.
“Tell them to let go of me. I won’t try to run away!”
Bernard nodded to the sergeant.
“Release his arms, will you? I’ll be responsible for him.”
Sergeant Forbes set free the arm he held. The policeman followed the example of his superior. Landis moved forward uncertainly, puzzled, stirred by some mysterious, subconscious excitement the source of which he could not trace. A quick, warning glance from Bernard brought him to a halt.
For an instant Graham remained where he was, swaying a little, one hand pressed to his wounded arm. Then he moved forward and set the arrow carefully in the groove of the cross-bow. He laid hands on the desk and with a sudden effort drew it back into the room a foot or so. Stooping down, he sighted along the arrow from nock to point and thence out the window.
He rose to his feet again and addressed Bernard.
“Now,” he said quietly, “the arrow points straight through the library window at the reception-room door. But there is no allowance for the drop in its flight!”
Bernard did not smile.
“I understand,” he said.
Graham moved around the desk and bent his knees until his eyes were on a level with the head of the arrow. He sighted along it toward the nock.
“Follow the line of it from this direction,” he continued, “and you will see something that—will—perhaps—surprise you!”
As he spoke he rose a little and his hand darted out to grasp the black thread still trailing past him from the doorknob to the window. Watching him, Landis sprang forward with a shout of warning. His cry was echoed by the vicious twang of the bow and a single, stifled shriek of agony.
Graham bent forward in a dreadful travesty of an obeisance toward his conquerors. He swayed an instant, toppled sideways from behind the desk and lay still, a few feathered inches of the arrow protruding from his chest.
Bernard walked forward and looked down at the slim figure and the colorless, high-bred face. The eyes were closed, the delicate features composed and tranquil.
The old detective turned and they saw that his eyes were bitter with distaste.
“The responsibility for this is mine,” he said huskily. “There lies our confession, Landis.”