The Classic Mystery Novel MEGAPACK®. Hay James
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are you up to, young woman? I suspect I’m being pumped. Of course, I’ve known Laura Twining long. Met her ten years ago when she started working for the old lady. She—Laura, I mean—has the worst sinuses and frontals I’ve ever seen. I’ve treated her for years. Would you like a report on the hay fever attack Laura had in nineteen-twenty-seven?”
“Skip it, please.”
Dr. Rand was again thoroughly aroused. “Curiosity is a curse; even legitimate curiosity is. It has broken more hearts and opened more graves and caused more trouble, I do believe, than all other human emotions combined. What tree are you barking up now? Why these questions about Laura Twining? Are you supposing that anemic, dried-up old maid could tell you anything about Darnley’s death?”
“Lola,” said Jack, endeavoring to interpret my remarks, a habit of his which I detest, “was merely using Laura as an example of the mismanagement in this case. If Laura had ever met Hiram Darnley, and she probably had, the French police should have questioned her.”
“Why, in the name of heaven? The police can’t question everyone who had a nodding acquaintance with Hiram Darnley.”
“Then she did know him!”
“Trapped, by God!” Dr. Rand made a sound, half exasperated, half amused. “Certainly Laura knew Darnley. Quite well. He got her the job with Mrs. Coatesnash, recommended her from New York. Anyone in the village could tell you as much.” He rose from his chair. “I see I must flee for my life. You will be demanding professional confidences next. The fact that Laura and Darnley were acquainted adds up to nothing. Sensibly, it doesn’t.” He looked from Jack to me. “But then you don’t appear to be in a sensible mood. Either of you!”
Irritated as he was, Dr. Rand remembered his need of gas. While Jack was siphoning a gallon from our car, Lester Harkway rode up to the cottage and joined the two men in the garage. Preferring to hear our story without an auditor, he restrained his questions.
“Good morning, doc. You’re out early.”
The physician chilled at the “doc.”
“The Storms have been good enough to entertain me a while. They’re bright young people. Somewhat nosy, but then detective work takes nosiness. I should warn you they’ve gone in for sleuthing. If you don’t solve your murder soon, they may beat you out of the glory.”
Harkway smiled a shade smugly. “Anyone who cracks the case will earn my gratitude.”
“How’s Standish? Where’s he? Usually you two are thick as thieves—never see the one without the other.”
“John’s out of town. He went yesterday to Osage, New York, to interview Darnley’s wife. That’s why I’m here.”
“Oh! So you were expected.”
Dr. Rand gave Jack a straight look. He refused a lift to his car. “I like the exercise.” He picked up the gasoline and plodded toward the road. Jack and Harkway watched him vanish in the distance, the tin bucket bobbing at his side.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Missing Annual
Over coffee Harkway heard the story of our evening. Directly afterward we started for the Coatesnash house. It was six o’clock.
Dawn was rising in the east, like the spreading of a slow stain. A bleak, colorless dawn. We climbed the pasture path. The rocks and trees and turnings that by night had been so fearsome were now merely gray and dull and ugly. Clothed in naked trees rose Hilltop House, cupolaed and hideous. The Lodge squatted in close attendance like a meek and anxious servitor. Unchallenged, we wound past the smaller building and on to the grape arbors.
Harkway had pocketed the key to the cellar door. We went there first. Quite undramatically the policeman thrust the key into the lock, twisted it. The lock grated, but did not budge. Again the lock grated. Harkway frowned.
“Sure this is the right key?”
“Certain. Here let me try it.” Jack’s knuckles whitened as he vainly exercised his force upon the key. His face looked queer. “It seems to stick.”
“It doesn’t,” amended Harkway doubtfully, “appear to fit.” Jack was nervous and annoyed.
“The key did fit last night. Let me try again.”
“I don’t think it’s necessary.” Harkway dropped to one knee and, taking out a pocket magnifying glass, scrutinized the lock. A small brass circle, slightly rusted. He handed Jack the glass. “Was this particular lock on the door last night?”
“I didn’t notice the lock; I simply turned the key.”
Harkway said slowly, “I believe the lock has been changed since you were here. Done pretty carefully, but if you look closely, you will see certain traces of the job.” He moved his finger around the rusted circle. “Do you see the particles of raw wood? And over here—the fresh scratch?”
Jack stood up. “I see, yes. But where did the second lock come from? Crockford isn’t New York. Where could a second lock be got in the middle of the night? They don’t grow on bushes.” Harkway hesitated, and I perceived his bewildered groping. He scratched his jaw. “The lock isn’t new.”
Suddenly and definitely I hit upon the origin of the second lock. A recollection of the cluttered storeroom flashed into my mind. I recalled the cardboard carton filled with odds and ends of hardware—bits of plumbing, window fastenings, a graceful wrought-iron hinge, a bunch (of string-tied keys and old discarded locks. Jack turned to me.
“Did you say something, Lola?”
“There were locks in the storeroom; I think this may be one of them.”
“In the storeroom!”
“Old locks—junk. The place was jammed with trash.”
Jack gnawed his lip and I understood, if Harkway did not, the workings of his thought. He was remembering our case against Franklyn Elliott. Small as it was, this bit of evidence weighed in the lawyer’s favor. A straw to indicate his innocence. Even if Elliott had the manual skill to change a lock—which seemed unlikely—he hardly could have obtained the second lock. Such a presumption required far too intimate a knowledge of the house. The person who had gone to the storeroom and found a lock there must have known precisely where to look for what he wanted.
These speculations slid rapidly through my brain. Abandoning our efforts with the cellar door, we circled around the house. We had been prepared for surprise, and consequently were not surprised by what we saw. There was no hole in the rock garden. There were no swift blurred footprints. The marks on the grass remained, but in a form changed and characterless. They had been trampled over; other marks had been superimposed; it was now impossible to trace the course which had led from the garden to the cellar door a few hours earlier.
Jack blinked. “A thorough clean-up.”
“Very thorough. Queer thing—the deliberation of it all. The business must have taken plenty of time and calculation—changing the lock, filling in the hole, spoiling the marks. A cool customer, the chap last night.” Harkway spoke absently. His eyes rested upon the rock garden, narrowed. “Can you show me the spot where you saw the hole?”
Surmounting the rocks, Jack halted at a patch of loose black earth, which in the dull dawn light resembled not a level grave, but a recently prepared, quite unsinister flower bed. “Here’s the place.”
Harkway joined him. They both got down on hands and knees and crawled about, searching for something which might have been overlooked. Nothing had been.
A line of leafless snowball bushes marched somberly along the road at the foot of the garden. I guessed rather than saw a stir of movement there. I squinted. The movement became perceptible. Both men were occupied, and as I opened my lips to summon them, the bushes parted. Silas Elkins stepped forth and hastened up the slope toward the searchers. He looked angry and aggressive.
“What