The porcelain mask A detective story
"There's a bit of a trick to it," Bates admitted modestly and shuffled
toward the rear of the house, Gilmore at his slippered heels. A moment
later the butler was performing a service for the author that, in the
old days, he had performed many times for Kirklan's father. Kirklan
wasn't so fond of liquor as his father had been.
"A full measure of orange juice--like this," Bates was saying. "Two
squares of sugar and----" He droned on, illustrating his formula, as
Gilmore watched him dully.
"Take one for yourself, Bates," he invited; but the butler shook his
head.
"They say it's a poor doctor that won't take his own prescription, sir;
but it would upset me at this time of night. Thank you just the same,
sir. Ah, there you are." He handed Gilmore the glass, the square of ice
clinking, and the latter accepted it, sipping slowly. He did not gulp
it down hastily, as Bates had expected.
"Is Sarbella still here?"
The butler looked bewildered.
"Is he still here, sir? Why--why certainly, Mr. Kirklan. I took it for
granted that he was down for a considerable stay. He retired to his
room a little more than an hour after dinner."
Gilmore nodded.
"Oh, yes, of course," he murmured and took another sip of the
toddy. "But I thought he might have gone. A little something
happened--something that----My God, man, what's that?"
His body had tensed, and the glass slipped from his fingers, as a look
of horror spread over his face. Loud, shrill, blood-chilling, there
rang through the house a terrified scream--a woman's scream.
Bang! A sharp, staccato explosion reverberated through the night's
stillness. Bates' thin legs were trembling beneath him, his mouth
sagged open, and his eyes rolled wildly toward the ceiling as,
struggling for utterance, he pointed a shaking hand upward.
"That was upstairs!" he cried hoarsely. "Something--something terrible
has happened upstairs. It was a shot. And that scream--I swear that it
was Miss Joan's."
Kirklan Gilmore stood, his muscles rigid, hands clenched at his sides,
gulping hard.
"Joan's scream?" he muttered. "No, Bates, no! Something tells me, man,
that it was my wife. I tell you it was my wife. Quick, the stairs! I've
got to know what happened; I've got to know. Come!"
And, although it was Gilmore who urged haste, it was the butler who
took the lead, heading for the stairs with a lame lope.
"I--I can't understand it, sir," the servant chattered as he went
along. "There's no weapon in the house except your shotgun; and that
report--it wasn't loud enough for a shotgun. It must have been a
pistol; I am sure that it must have been a pistol."
When they were perhaps halfway up the staircase there came to their
ears, unmistakably clear and permitting no possibility of a mistake,
even in the tenseness of the moment, the sound of a hastily slammed
door. Gilmore stopped dead in his tracks. An opening door, some member
of the household aroused by the scream and the explosion, would have
been perfectly understandable. But a closing door! There was the
suggestion of hasty, headlong flight. Under the circumstances it was a
sinister sound.
Nearing the top of the stairs, the two men, master and servant, saw a
patch of light rays which came from an open doorway down the hall.
"That light!" panted Gilmore. "It comes from my wife's room. The door
of her room is open--her light is burning!"
They had now reached that ominously opened door; it stood ajar for
perhaps ten inches. Gilmore stopped again, the breath wheezing through
his teeth, as if he might have had a presentiment of what he might find
on the other side of that panel. The old butler went on forward, laid
his withered hand upon the knob; but he was unprepared for the sight
which met his eyes. With a gasp of horror he reeled back.
"You--you were right, sir," he whispered hoarsely. "It is your wife,
and she----Be brave, sir--be brave!"
Helen Gilmore lay in a half-reclining posture on a wicker couch.
Looking only at her face, one might have thought her sleeping, such was
the repose of her features. But the bosom of her silk robe was stained
crimson. On the floor, beneath the outflung fingers of one hand, there
was an automatic pistol.
Gilmore took another brief step forward and over the butler's shoulder
saw his wife, the light from one of the wall brackets flooding across
her beautiful face--still beautiful even now. A shudder shook his
shoulders, as if the hand of some invisible giant had seized him in a
vicious grip.
"Your wife has killed herself!" cried Bates. "The poor woman has shot
herself!"
"Is she dead?" Gilmore cried hoarsely. "I can't--I haven't the
strength--the courage to go near her, Bates. Can you tell me if--if my
wife is dead?"
The butler was trembling in his agitation, but he steeled himself to
the ordeal and forced his unwilling feet forward. Even as he neared
the couch, he thought one last, weak breath escaped the lips of his
master's wife. But he might have been mistaken. His fingers reached
out and touched her cheek.
"She is still warm," he gulped; "of course she would be--so soon after.
But I think she must be dead. You see, sir, the bleeding has stopped.
I understand that is a sign of death." He shook his head slowly. "Yes,
Mr. Kirklan, I am sure that she is dead."
Gilmore collapsed into a chair; head lowered, his eyes closed, as if to
blot out the terrible sight in front of him, he began to sob, brokenly,
but without tears. A moment later he checked his grief.
"You'd better call Doctor Bushnell, Bates," he choked. "There--there
might still be a chance of saving her."
The butler shook his head sadly. "I'm afraid not, but there is a way
that I've heard the doctors use----" He shambled to Helen's dressing
table where he picked up a silver-backed hand-mirror; then he returned
to the limp form on the couch and held the glass close to her lips.
"Yes, I know," Gilmore muttered thickly, watching him with a fascinated
stare. "If any breath of life remains, there will be moisture on the
mirror." He leaned forward tensely. "What--what does it show, Bates?"
The butler inspected it briefly.
"There is no breathing," he answered; "I was right, sir; your wife is
quite dead. But I will phone for the doctor; that is, I believe, the
customary thing in cases like this."
As the servant moved toward the door, he paused suddenly, a startled
look coming into his eyes.
"It is very strange," he muttered; "yes, very strange."
Gilmore looked at him dully. "What is strange?" he demanded heavily.
"That--that she should have shot herself with the door standing open,
sir. If you will pardon me, I know that I wouldn't kill myself--with
a door open. I would lock myself in. And"--his voice sank to a tense,
vibrating whisper--"Mr. Kirklan, did you hear a door slamming shut, as
we were coming up the stairs just a moment ago?"
"I heard a noise, Bates, yes. You are sure, Bates, that it was a
closing door?"
"Quite sure of it!" cried Bates. "There is something else, too. If she
shot herself, why did she scream? My word, sir, don't you understand?
Your wife has been murdered!"
CHAPTER X
COMMON SENSE
"Your wife has been murdered sir," repeated the butler, with growing
conviction of his sudden theory. "I am not a detective, but I am sure,
were it suicide, the door here would have been closed--locked. That is
only common sense, Mr. Kirklan."
Kirklan Gilmore forced his eyes to that lifeless, crimson-stained form
which so recently had been alive, that lovely creature whom he had
married only three weeks before. His face was set in a rigid paralysis
of horror, which did not change even when he turned his head away and
closed his eyes.
"No, Bates, no!" he cried thickly. "It--it couldn't be. Look! There
is the gun beside her, where it must have dropped from her fingers
after--after she pressed the trigger. Your first impression was the
right one; Helen has killed herself."
But the butler was not to be shaken.
"You heard the scream, sir," he argued; "the scream that sounded before
we heard the shot--the scream that I thought was Miss Joan's."
"What nonsense!" muttered Gilmore, pressing his hands to his temple. "A
scream is a scream, Bates; they all sound alike."
"Of course I was mistaken," the butler broke in hastily. "I had heard
Miss Joan scream once, the time you were thrown by the horse, and we
all thought you had been killed. It sounded so much like that, sir, I
thought for a moment----But naturally it could not have been Miss Joan."
"Certainly not," said Gilmore. "Why do you stand there arguing about
it? Go call the doctor, can't you? Tell Doctor Bushnell to come
quickly."
Yet Bates delayed another moment to press his theory.
"Do you remember the scream, sir?" he whispered. "There was terror in
it. Not at all the kind of a scream, Mr. Kirklan, that one would give
unless faced with a terrible danger. And people do not scream when they
are about to shoot themselves."
Gilmore groaned and tossed his hands wildly.
"Stop it!" he cried hoarsely. "Get out! Do what I tell you--call the
doctor. You're a butler, not a policeman. In Heaven's name, Bates, get
a move on you."
As the butler shambled into the hall, almost ludicrous in his haste, he
narrowly escaped a collision with Victor Sarbella, who appeared from
out of the darkness, a dressing gown thrown over his pajamas.
"What's happened?" demanded the guest of Greenacres. "I thought
I heard a shot." His voice was strained, excited; there could be
considered nothing strange in that, for there was certainly the
promise of sinister, tragic things when the after-midnight stillness
of a peaceable country house is shattered by the startling voice of
exploding gunpowder.
"The younger Mrs. Gilmore is dead, shot--murdered!" panted Bates, and
dashed on past so headlong that it seemed he would surely tumble down
the steps.
A smothered exclamation broke through Sarbella's lips, and for a brief
moment he did not move, as he stared toward the half-open door in front
of him. His face was set into tense lines. From within he heard the
sound of a groan, and, stepping forward, he saw Kirklan Gilmore, as his
body sagged in a chair, twisting his hands with such intensity that it
seemed he must snap the finger joints. And then the artist saw the dead
woman on the chaise longue.
"Great Lord, Kirklan----"
The novelist turned, flinging out an accusing finger in a wild gesture.
"You did this!" he screamed. "You----"
Sarbella's eyes narrowed, his face hardened. "Be careful what you say,
Gilmore," he broke in. "It is no light thing to accuse a man of murder."
"I say you did it! Helen has killed herself, and you--you drove her to
it--you drove her to her death."
Sarbella was naturally bewildered.
"Your butler says your wife has been murdered; then you accuse me of
it, and now you switch everything around by telling me that she has
killed herself. I don't know what it all means. What _has_ happened?"
"Bates is an old fool," muttered Gilmore. "Of course she has killed
herself. You see--there is the gun on the floor, where it dropped from
her fingers. Any one can see that it was suicide."
One might have thought that a look of relief came into the face of the
artist; he nodded his head slowly in agreement.
"Yes, that's the way it appears; but if that is the case, why is it
that your butler says----"
"Oh, what's the use of discussing my butler's notions. He seems to
think that he ought to be a detective, that's all. She killed herself,
and"--his voice became edged with bitterness--"it was you who drove her
to do it."
The artist tossed out his hands in an imploring gesture. "That is