The Classic Mystery Novel MEGAPACK®. Hay James
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to go to the city, our failure to mention Franklyn Elliott because we hadn’t dreamed of seeing him. There were other things, however, which I didn’t understand. Did the police suspect the lawyer of having a hand in his partner’s murder? Why else would Standish attempt to establish a link between the three of us? Why else would he charge conspiracy and silence on our part?
Jack repeated precisely the words of our talk with Franklyn Elliott and explained as best he could the impulse which had conveyed us to the lawyer’s office. He explained to a man who listened, but who plainly didn’t believe a word he said. Standish’s attitude became apparent when he departed, for Lester Harkway stayed. There was no explanation; the young policeman simply stayed.
The inquest was to be held on Thursday, and our understanding was that we were to be kept in “protective custody” at least until the verdict had been handed down. It was an awkward situation and one which I resented. No one likes being under guard, and I like it less than most, although I must confess that Harkway did his best to be unobtrusive. He even tried to be of service around the house. In the morning he neatly made his bed and offered to help me with the dishes. He spent considerable time at the telephone. He always closed the door, but I gathered that the investigation was in full cry and that Standish was out of town. It was plain enough that Harkway didn’t wish to discuss the case, but at Wednesday lunch I brought it up.
“Why do you suspect Franklyn Elliott? And what do you suspect him of?”
“I wouldn’t exactly say I did suspect him,” said Harkway cautiously. “But what we’re up against in Hiram Darnley’s death is beginning to look like a conspiracy—and, in a conspiracy, plenty of people could be involved.” His meditative glance reminded Jack and me that we could be involved.
Jack hardly ignored the glance. “A conspiracy! Are you seriously suggesting that the murderer had an accomplice? What’s your evidence for making things so complicated? We’ve got two plots on Darnley’s life already, two people to account for and now you propose a third!”
“Not necessarily.” Again Harkway hesitated. “Standish has suggested, and it doesn’t seem unlikely, that the man who hid in your closet and the actual murderer might originally have been confederates in the same plot.”
Jack stared at him. “I don’t follow you. Darnley was murdered long before we reached the cottage, and the black-faced man certainly didn’t know it, else he would not have waited here. That…doesn’t look like team work.”
“Suppose,” said Harkway slowly, “the plot didn’t operate on schedule. Suppose it went off the rails. Doesn’t that make the situation less confusing?” He added thoughtfully, “You’ve heard of the double-cross. Well, a hundred and eight thousand dollars is a lot of money. A cold-blooded murderer who saw a chance to grab a fortune might not pause to consider a confederate. He might be willing to forget previous—arrangements.”
It was a logical theory. I could see that Jack was much impressed. But my own special leaning is usually toward facts. I said, “Is there any way of fitting Franklyn Elliott into such a picture? I’m sure that Standish doesn’t trust him.”
“I shouldn’t sit here talking.” Harkway said candidly, “but there’s no harm in saying this. We haven’t a scrap of real evidence to tie up Elliott with Darnley’s death. You need evidence to take before a court. A hunch won’t go far there.”
“But your hunch must be based on something!’
“It’s based on nothing more than Franklyn Elliott’s attitude,” said Harkway slowly. “Personally, I’m inclined to think any suspicion of Elliott is moonshine. But this is true. He spent four hours in the station Monday, and when he got through talking he hadn’t said a thing. Not one damn thing about a man who’d been his partner seven years. Also he seemed a little over-anxious we should write off the murder as an unsolved mystery.”
I was disappointed. “Had he a motive for wishing Darnley dead?”
“None at all,” Harkway said at once. “Or none that we can find. Standish was in the New York office yesterday, talking to the help. It appears that Darnley’s death will actually cost Elliott money. Darnley was the senior partner; he ran with the society crowd and drummed up the business. Offhand, you’d say Elliott had every reason for wanting Hiram Darnley alive—every reason for wanting us to catch the killer. That’s just it; he evidently doesn’t care to have us crack the case, or at least he doesn’t choose, to help.”
I asked if Elliott had an alibi for the night of the murder, and Harkway laughed. “You don’t ask a big-time lawyer if he has an alibi. As a matter of fact, Elliott told us voluntarily that he’d been on a hunting trip. He has a place in the Catskills.”
“Was he there alone?”
“He said he went out with a guide days. The guide went home nights. Standish looked up that place on the map after Elliott left,” ended Harkway, “and it’s two hundred and ninety miles from here. That, Mrs. Storm, is one hell of a distance!” Thursday came at last, a bright clear day, a day of blue skies and-white drifting clouds. In Connecticut an inquest is always held in private—decently, behind closed doors. Jack, I knew, would be the leading witness, and I was very grateful that the ordeal would take place in private. What I didn’t take into my calculations was human nature, and I wasn’t prepared for those crowds who poured into Crockford merely on the chance of glimpsing the actors in a tragedy.
Harkway, Jack and I drove downtown together. Long before we reached Town Hall, we had to abandon the car and walk. Sidewalks and streets alike were jammed with sensation seekers. Jack and I were identified at once, and Harkway had all that he could do to force us through. I thought for a time I wouldn’t escape with the clothes on my back, and I still remember that determined young woman who wanted to seize my scarf for a souvenir. And what she said. She said indignantly. “You won’t need a scarf in the death house.”
As I sit here now it seems incredible those words were ever spoken. But on that bright blue day of the inquest, that angry, defrauded young woman—I saw her long afterward behind a counter in the Crockford bakery—represented the majority opinion, the ingrown, prejudiced opinion of a small New England village. The opinion, in short, of most of Crockford.
It was ten past two when we battled our way into Town Hall. The hearing was to be held in the court room upstairs, and the jury, chosen that morning, was already closeted there with Dr. Rand, who, as coroner, was presiding. After the uproar outside, the lower floor seemed queerly quiet and empty. The room where the witnesses were to wait their turns to testify seemed also very quiet, although two people were sitting there. Dennis Cark, the grocery boy, was seated near the door. He wore a brand-new suit, and he looked small, subdued and nervous. Beyond him, in a far corner of the room, sat a wan, colorless woman whom I did not immediately identify. Her head was bent and she was weeping silently into a crumpled handkerchief.
“Darnley’s secretary,” whispered Harkway. “Name’s Anita Willetts. She’s come to confirm the identification.”
I remembered then the stricken woman I had seen in Franklyn Elliott’s office. I said, “Where’s Elliott?”
“He sent word this morning he was ill. Miss Willetts came instead.”
“I thought Elliott had to come.”
“No,” Harkway said slowly, “No. At this stage he has a legal right to refuse to leave the State of New York. A coroner’s inquest is not a trial.”
Trial or not, Jack and I were there and I bitterly resented Franklyn Elliott’s absence. I fancied Harkway also resented it, though discretion kept him quiet. Jack and I sat down and Harkway tiptoed off upstairs.
“I’ll get a line,” he said, “on what’s going on.”
I knew precisely what was going on. John Standish, I had been informed, would make an opening speech, and, from that locked and curtained room three flights above, I almost fancied I could hear the rumbling accents of his voice, explaining to the members of a local jury at what date and hour, under what circumstances,