The porcelain mask A detective story
She is dead--I am sure she is dead. She shot herself with a pistol.
She is--there." He pointed to the partly open door. "It--it won't be
necessary for me to--to come in there with you?"
The doctor gave a pitying glance at the young husband, whose wife had
been taken from him after three weeks of marriage; he saw the haggard,
drawn face, the horror-filled eyes, the twitching lips.
"It will not be necessary," he answered quietly. "Perhaps you had
better wait downstairs. If I need you I will call."
"Th-thanks," gulped Gilmore.
Doctor Bushnell, after a glance at Victor Sarbella, who, of course, was
a stranger, passed on into the room and closed the door behind him.
Being a doctor, he was steeled to death, but he was hardly prepared for
the sight that shocked his eyes. Despite himself, his nerves reacted
with a tingle of horror, and a gasp slipped through his lips.
Quickly he bent over the still form of the beautiful woman; it was
the first time that he had seen Kirklan's wife, although gossip of
the surprisingly sudden unannounced marriage had reached the near-by
village. Little more than a cursory examination was necessary to
verify the butler's earlier findings. Helen Gilmore was dead; she had
succumbed to that bullet wound which the doctor found in the chest,
just a little below the left armpit.
"She was murdered!" The butler's statement came back to Doctor Bushnell
with a rush of conviction now. It would have been almost impossible
for such a wound to have been self-inflicted. For the woman to have
shot herself would have meant the holding of the weapon at a decidedly
awkward and unnatural angle. Possible, perhaps, but highly improbable
from a medical viewpoint.
Doctor Bushnell's face had become grim. Swiftly he unfastened the
surgical kit and found a long, slender probe, with which he might
approximate the direction that the bullet had taken. Ranging downward!
Still further argument against the wound having been self-inflicted.
"Bates was right!" muttered the physician. "I wonder how he knew." He
stepped back and glanced at the gun on the floor. He had, of course,
noted that the moment he had entered the room, and he took it at the
moment as proof of suicide. The pistol had every appearance of falling
from the hand flung out over the edge of the lounge.
"Who could have killed her--this beautiful bride of three weeks?" he
said under his breath. As a physician, as a surgeon, he knew the right
thing to do at the right time, but now a feeling of helplessness came
over him. Obviously something had to be done. What?
As he stood there in the center of the floor, staring down at the dead
woman, debating, there came to his ears the sound of a muffled cough in
the hall. He took a quick step toward the closed door, more than half
suspecting that some one was eavesdropping.
"Oh, it's you, Bates," he grunted, as he saw the butler. "You might as
well come in; there are some questions I wanted to ask you, anyhow."
"Yes, sir," murmured Bates, entering the tragedy chamber willingly
enough. "Have you discovered anything, doctor?"
"Did you examine the body, Bates?"
The butler shivered.
"Examine it?" he whispered. "Heaven, no! I held a mirror close to her
face; I touched her with my hand; that is all. Why did you ask me that,
sir?"
"I wondered what made you so certain that it was murder, Bates, and
whether you had observed the nature of the wound which caused her
death."
"It wasn't that made me know it was murder; it wasn't anything more
than just common sense. The door into the hall was open when we found
her."
"The door was open? What significance was there in that?"
"Would you shoot yourself, sir, with a door standing half open?"
Doctor Bushnell stared and, after considering this question for a
moment, shook his head. "No," he answered slowly; "since you mention
it, I don't suppose I would."
"And you wouldn't scream, doctor, while you were getting ready to pull
the trigger," added the deductively inclined butler.
"You mean----"
"I mean, sir, that she screamed horribly. Oh, it was a terrible scream,
the kind of a scream that makes a man's blood turn to ice." Bates made
no mention of his first impression that the scream might have been
that of Miss Joan; he had, in his own mind, entirely rejected that
possibility as too absurd for any consideration whatever. "As I take
it, sir, she screamed when she knew that she was about to be murdered."
"Humph!" murmured Doctor Bushnell. "You've got quicker wits than I'd
given you credit for. You figured that out like--well, like, I imagine,
a trained detective might do it."
Despite the situation, Bates gave a faint smile of pleasure at this
compliment.
"I have always read a great many detective stories, sir," he said.
"I've not only read them, I've studied them. I might say that I am
quite a student in a way. Had I not waited so late in life to develop
my mental faculties, I hardly think that I should have remained a
butler. In fact, I am quite sure that I would not."
"You're a queer fellow," mused the doctor. "What else have you
deducted, Bates? Can you manage your tongue?"
"Why do you ask that, doctor? If you mean, can I keep from talking too
much, I can be very discreet."
"All right, Bates; then I'll tell you that you were right. This woman
has been murdered. The nature of the wound verifies your guess."
Bates looked grieved. "You don't call it guessing?" His tone was
protesting.
"Well, no, not guessing," Doctor Bushnell answered slowly. "It had
more foundation than a guess. Very logical, Bates, reasoning out that
business about the door. What else can you tell about this business?"
"Very little, sir, very little, indeed. Mr. Kirklan and I rushed
directly upstairs when the shot was fired and then----"
"Wait a minute. You rushed upstairs? What time was this?"
"A few minutes after half past twelve, very shortly before I had you on
the telephone."
Doctor Bushnell gave the man a quick glance. "You had been in bed,
hadn't you? I judge from your state of dress----"
"Quite so, doctor; I had retired early. I was sound asleep when I was
awakened by the ringing of the doorbell. It was Mr. Gilmore; he had
locked himself out and was trying to get in. He had been out at the
studio--the old stable, you know, where he does his writing. The poor
man was quite badly upset; he was in a terrible way, and asked me to
make him a toddy."
The physician looked uneasy. "Good Lord, Bates," he muttered, "you
don't think it possible that Kirklan----"
"Oh, certainly not, sir," the butler broke in quickly. "It was quite
impossible. I was standing within four feet of him when we both heard
the scream and the shot. The glass dropped out of his hand, and he
stood there like a man of stone, his hands shaking, his face white as
a sheet of paper. He said: 'My God, Bates, what's that?' And while we
were both still listening, there came the shot; it must have followed
the scream by half a minute, perhaps not so long as that. We both
dashed up the stairs, I in front. While we were mounting the steps,
sir, we both heard a sound that seemed to be the slamming of a door."
"Ah!" exclaimed the doctor. "The slamming of a door? Then you think
that some one in the house----"
"That would be but guessing, doctor. The door of this room was open,
the light was burning, and I was the first to see her. It seemed
to me--I cannot be sure--that she took her last breath while I was
watching her. The bleeding had stopped. Am I right, doctor, in
supposing that the flow of blood stops when death takes place?"
Doctor Bushnell nodded. "Yes, when the heart action ceases," he
answered. "What else, Bates?"
"The gun was just as you see it now, sir. It was only natural that Mr.
Gilmore should be so firm in his belief that she had taken her own
life. He was not even convinced when I mentioned the matter of the door
and the scream. Poor man, he couldn't be expected to do any thinking at
a time like that. He was very much in love with her; he seemed fairly
to worship her. It was too bad that she wasn't the right wife for him.
Miss Joan is the one he should have married; she's only his stepsister,
you know, no blood kin. I guess it nearly broke her heart, poor girl,
when----"
"What do you mean by saying she wasn't the right wife for him, Bates?"
broke in the doctor, moving toward the bed, where he began removing
a sheet with which to cover the body until an undertaker could be
summoned.
"She had good looks, but she wasn't his kind," Bates replied. "She'd
managed to climb up in the world--most likely from pretty near the
bottom. A servant can usually tell, sir, from watching them at table,
and a letter came--day before yesterday, I believe it was--a most
disreputable-looking letter it was, sir, to be received at Greenacres,
all smudgy and dirty. It gave her a shock, too, although she tried to
pass it off casual."
"What the servants don't know!" murmured the doctor under his breath,
and then added, aloud: "You think there may have been some connection
between the letter and the murder?"
"As to that, I couldn't say, Doctor Bushnell, but she was much
agitated, it seemed to me. I would say that it must have been written
by some very low person, a most peculiar sort of a missive for Mr.
Kirklan's wife to be getting."
"All these little scraps of information may prove valuable, Bates," the
doctor said meditatively. "You were pretty sharp on naming it murder.
Perhaps you have some theory as to who killed her."
Bates looked crestfallen; his slender stock of theory was completely
exhausted, and then he brightened.
"Finger prints!" he exclaimed. "Perhaps the murderer's finger prints
are on the gun." He made a move to pick up the weapon, but the doctor
stopped him with a gesture.
"Better not," he warned. "I understand it's such a simple matter to
destroy a delicate thing like a finger print. We'd better leave that
for more practiced talents than ours; I'm afraid that all finger prints
look alike to both of us."
"It wasn't robbery, sir," offered the butler. "She is still wearing
some jewelry."
"Yes, I'd noticed that. There are no back stairs, Bates?"
"There are none."
"In that case, Bates, it hardly seems likely that the slayer could have
fled from the second floor without you or Kirklan seeing him. That
probably means that the murderer is still in the house. That would not
give us a very large list, eh?"
The butler's eyes widened.
"You mean, sir," he whispered tensely, "that you think Mr. Sarbella
could----"
"I mentioned no names, Bates. Sarbella--is that the man I saw in the
hall when I arrived?"
"Yes, sir, that's him; he's a friend of Mr. Kirklan's, a guest who
came out only this afternoon--yesterday afternoon it is now, speaking
precise. He's some kind of an artist, I believe. I guess he's an
Italian, sir. I don't want to go around accusing any one, Doctor
Bushnell, but----"
"But what, Bates? This talk is strictly between ourselves."
"There was a most peculiar attitude at dinner, sir; Mr. Sarbella and
her"--pointing toward the sheet-covered lounge--"did not so much as
speak once, while I was serving. They were all on edge--even Mr.
Kirklan. I didn't understand it; I don't understand it now. After
dinner the younger Mrs. Gilmore went very quickly to her room; she was
pale and nervous. I don't think I know anything more, doctor."
"Just one more question, Bates. You and Mr. Kirklan were downstairs.
Sarbella was upstairs. Who else?"
"The elder Mrs. Gilmore, Miss Joan, and her." Again he pointed to the
dead woman.
"What about the other servants?"
"Elizabeth, the maid, went to Yonkers yesterday, sir. She pleaded that
her mother was ill, but I doubt it. She don't know what the truth