In Jeopardy
moment I had quite forgotten that this was a house of mourning. Miss
Graeme had risen, and I realized that the interview was at an end.
"You will want to go to your room," she said, as we walked out to the
entrance hall, our footsteps resounding hollowly upon its marble
pavement of alternate white-and-black chequers. She clapped her hands,
and a young negro servant presented himself. "Mr. Hildebrand is to have
the red room, Marcus," explained Miss Graeme. "Dinner is at seven," she
went on. "You won't mind if Eunice and I don't come down. You can have
your own meal served in your room, if you prefer."
"But there is Mr. Thaneford," I suggested. "Also Doctor Marcy."
My cousin Betty frowned. "I suppose they are our guests," she admitted,
and I experienced an odd thrill at the feeling of intimacy expressed in
that little word, "our."
"I think I had better do the honors in the dining room," I went on.
"I wish you would, then." She stopped at the lower step of the
staircase, and held out her hand. "Good night, Cousin Hugh."
Now it is possible to shake hands with hundreds and thousands of people,
and find it a perfectly uninteresting operation; it may even be a
painful one if you happen to be President of the Republic or the hero of
the passing hour. But now and then someone comes along whose hand seems
to fit, perhaps too fatally well, and that is different. And so when
Betty Graeme slid her slim white hand into mine I knew instantly that it
belonged there, always had belonged, and always would. An interesting
fact, this, in the natural history of selection, but it has to be
recognized by both parties to the transaction before it can be set down
as an absolute and accepted truth. It suddenly occurred to me that my
Cousin Betty was entirely too frank and cousinly in her behavior to
justify any jumping at conclusions. I was naturally exhilarated by the
astonishing change in my material fortunes, while she was in sorrow, a
sorrow whose full realization still lay before her. I must be patient
and wait. Wherefore I returned my Cousin Betty's parting word in kind,
and followed Marcus to the red room, where, left alone, I resorted to
the childish trick of pinching myself; could this really be I?
Chapter IV
_Some Hypothetical Questions_
Dinner was not a particularly cheerful meal. I had to take the head of
the table, and therefore sat in the chair so lately vacated by my Cousin
Francis Graeme. Really I should have preferred a decent delay in the
matter, but old Effingham, the family butler for two generations past,
would have it so, and any protest would have been both futile and
unseemly.
There were three of us at table, for Doctor Marcy was staying on to look
after the sick man, and would remain over night in default of the
regular nurse, who could not be secured until the next day. I liked the
doctor, a blunt, ruddy faced man of forty-five or so. He told me that he
was a graduate of Edinburgh, and that he had led an adventurous life for
several years after taking his medical degree, including service in the
British army during the Boer War. He had a curious scar running down the
left side of his jaw and extending nearly to the chin. Naturally I had
not commented upon the disfigurement, but somehow the subject of
insanity came up, and he told us of a remarkable experience of his
hospital days. A patient, subject to periodical fits of mania, was to be
operated upon, and Marcy was alone with him in a large room where the
instruments were kept. With his hands full of chisels, trephines, and
mallets Marcy went to cross the room, and chanced to trip on a rug,
falling headlong. Instantly the patient, an English army officer of
tremendous physique, was upon him, kicking him in the face with his
heavy, double-welted boots. Marcy, fearing that the madman might get
hold of the eight-pound mallet, rolled over and flung the whole lot of
instruments across the room; thereby he exposed the other side of his
head, and the consequence was another terrific kick on the left jaw.
With his mouth full of blood and broken teeth Marcy grappled with his
man, dragged him to where he could reach a push-button, and held him
until help arrived. The curious part of the affair lay in the fact that
up to the moment of the fall the patient had been perfectly sane,
talkative, and friendly. Marcy's sudden slip and defenseless position
had simply unchained the beast in the man. It must have been an Homeric
struggle, for Marcy himself, though comparatively short of stature,
possessed the most marvelous muscular development I have ever seen, his
forearm being bigger than the average man's leg. When I add that,
despite his terrible injuries, Marcy assisted that same afternoon at the
operation (which in the end restored the patient to perfect mental
health), it will be evident that there was little of the weakling about
him; as I have said, I liked him from the start.
John Thaneford ate and talked but little during the meal. He drank
several glasses of whiskey and water, and smoked a cigarette between
every course. The cloud of his sullen temper was oppressive, and both
the doctor and I felt relieved when he abruptly declined coffee, and
announced his intention of returning to the sick room. The elder
Thaneford still continued in a comatose condition, and really there was
nothing to do but wait for whatever change might come; accordingly
Doctor Marcy ran upstairs for a hasty look at his patient, and then
rejoined me in the library, where coffee and liqueurs had been served.
Effingham had taken his tray and retired to the pantry. Doctor Marcy
pulled at his cigar until it glowed redly; then he looked over at me.
"You're Hildebrand of the 'Hundred,' I hear," he began abruptly.
"Yes."
"Consequently you ought to know of something that has been bothering me
more than a little. Has it ever been intimated to you that there was
anything peculiar about the death of your cousin?"
"Francis Graeme! Why, no; nothing has been said to me."
"Well, I don't think his death was a natural one."
It startled me, the assured manner in which he spoke; in an instant, the
atmosphere of this quiet country room seemed to have grown tense and
heavy. "Go on," I said briefly.
"As you know," continued Doctor Marcy, "Mr. Graeme died suddenly on
Tuesday, June 21, presumably from heart failure or a cerebral
hemorrhage. As a matter of record, my routine certificate gives the
latter as the cause of death. The fact of a brain lesion was fully
established, as I'll explain later, but I'm not at all satisfied as to
the predisposing cause."
"Yes."
"You'll understand what I'm driving at when I tell you that I saw
Francis Graeme professionally that very morning, and I know that he was
in the best of health for a man of his age. He had been thinking of
taking out additional life insurance, and as I am the county examiner
for the company, he asked me to drop in Tuesday morning and go over him.
Mind you, I had been his regular physician for a number of years, long
before he came to the 'Hundred,' and I knew him inside and out. A
straighter, cleaner man never lived, and he had always kept himself in
top condition; I had never discovered the least sign of any degenerative
process.
"Well, I did come over, and I saw him in this very room where we are
sitting. He was cheerful as usual, and even joked me on the possibility
that I might at last uncover one of the insidious enemies to health that
so often make their appearance in middle life. But there was nothing,
absolutely nothing--heart, lungs, circulatory system--all in first-class
shape. As a matter of form, there would have to be a laboratory
analysis, but otherwise I was prepared to give him a clean bill of
health, and I told him so. He took it quite as a matter of course, and,
after arranging for a round of golf that same afternoon at the Lost
River Country Club, we parted. That was around ten o'clock, and at half
past two I had a telephone from the 'Hundred,' asking me to come over at
once. When I arrived I was taken in here. Graeme lay on the floor,
alongside the big library table. On his right temple there was a
noticeable contusion, triangular in shape. He was stone dead."
"Could you tell how long?"
"Probably a couple of hours."
"The wound, of course, was your first thought."
"Naturally. And in itself it was quite enough to have caused death.
Remember that it was on the temple, a vulnerable spot."
"An assailant then?"
"By hypothesis certainly. I may say that I have had some experience in
criminal cases; accordingly I was very careful not to disturb anything,
and up to this time I had only touched the man's wrist to assure myself
that the pulse was gone."
"Who was it that gave the alarm?"
"I am told that one of the servants, Effingham, to be precise, knocked
on the library door at about half past one o'clock, to announce the
serving of luncheon. He then went away without waiting for an answer
from Mr. Graeme; it seems that was his custom on the occasion of this
particular summons. A half hour later, when Mr. Graeme failed to appear
at the table, Miss Trevor told Effingham to go again and make sure that
his master had heard the message. I understood that occasionally Graeme
would not come to luncheon, especially if he happened to be more than
usually busy; he might appear an hour or so later, and forage around for
a glass of milk and a couple of biscuits."
"His tardiness then excited no surprise?"
"Apparently not. But Effingham went again to the library, and knocked
two or three times without getting any response."
"Must have been very alarming to Miss Graeme."
"Oh, luckily Betty wasn't at home. Miss Trevor was alone in the house,
and everything devolved upon her. Finally she decided to have the door
broken down, but after she had given the order Effingham reminded her
that it would not be necessary. A few months before Graeme had installed
a complete system of modern locks throughout the house, and the butler
had the master key in his possession."
"That's an interesting point."
"Yes--very. Well, Effingham went to the butler's pantry and got the
key."
"Oh, then it was not in his immediate possession after all?"
"I believe he was in the habit of keeping it behind the clock in the
pantry instead of with his regular bunch. Of course the idea was that
if any of the ordinary keys were lost, or indeed the whole lot of them,
he would still have the master key in reserve."
"Do you suppose that anyone else--especially among the other
servants--knew about the master-key and where it was kept?"
"Effingham is quite sure that no one did know, but really it's
impossible to say. You understand what darkies are--as curious as
magpies and quite as lighthanded. If one of them had chanced to see
Effingham hiding something behind the clock, he would be sure to
investigate for himself at the first convenient opportunity."
"While a clever thief, guessing that a master-key must be in existence,
would go straight to such a prominent object as a clock for his first
try. Curious, isn't it, how human nature prefers beaten trails, the old
ruts, the obvious grooves in which to run. Take the ordinary small
suburban house, with nobody home and everything supposed to be tightly
locked up. It's a one-to-three shot, at least, that the front door key
will be found neatly tucked away under the mat. But I shouldn't have
interrupted."
"The more light the better," nodded the doctor, helping himself to a
fresh cigar.
"Where was I? Ah, yes, at the opening of the door. Miss Trevor, so I
understand, hung back a little; a woman naturally shrinks from this sort
of thing, and Marcus, the house-boy, was the first person to enter. For