The Deep Lake Mystery. Wells Carolyn
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sir. We keep strict watch on them.”
“Well, that would only give entrance to the house. How could anyone get into and out of Mr. Tracy’s room, leaving the door locked on the inside?”
I knew Moore purposely voiced this problem himself, to head off those who would ask it of him. He had often said to me, “if you don’t want a question asked of you, ask it yourself of somebody else.” And so, as he flung this at them each felt derelict in not being able to reply.
But Ames’s querulous voice volleyed the question back.
“That’s why I want you to do up this business, Moore,” he said. “That’s what makes it such a pretty problem – ”
Moore could stand this no longer.
“For an intimate friend of a martyred man, I should think you would see the matter in a more personal light than a pretty problem!”
“Oh, I do. I’m sad and sorry enough, but I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve. And first of all, I’m keen to avenge my friend. And I know that what’s to be done must be done quickly. So, get busy, I beg.”
The more Ames said, the less I liked him, and I knew Kee felt the same way about it. But the man was right as to haste being advisable. The circumstances were so peculiar, the conditions so fantastic, that search for the criminal must be made quickly, or a man of such diabolical cleverness would put himself beyond our reach.
The Inspector, the police detective and Keeley Moore consulted a few moments and then Inspector Farrell said:
“The case is altered. Now that we know it is wilful murder, and not a stroke of illness, we must act accordingly. Coroner Hart will conduct an immediate inquiry, preliminary to his formal inquest. No one may leave the house; you, Griscom, will tell the servants this, and I shall call in more help from the police station to guard the place. We will go downstairs, and the Coroner will choose a suitable room, and begin his investigation.”
Farrell was an efficient director, though in no way a detective. He locked the door that commanded the whole apartment after he had herded us all out.
We filed downstairs, and I could hear women’s voices in a small reception room as we passed it.
The Coroner chose a room which was fitted up as a sort of writing room. It was of moderate size and contained several desks or writing tables, evidently a writing room for guests. There was a bookcase of books and a table of periodicals and newspapers.
Clearly, the house had every provision for comfort and pleasure. Save for the sinister atmosphere now pervading it, I felt I should have liked to visit there.
The Coroner settled himself at a table, and instructed Griscom to send in the house servants one at a time. He also told the butler to serve breakfast as usual, and advised Harper Ames to go to the dining room, as he would be called on later for testimony.
Hart’s manner now was crisp and business-like. The realization of the awful facts of the case had spurred him to definite and immediate action.
Mrs. Fenn, the cook-housekeeper, threw no new light on the situation. She corroborated Griscom’s story of the locked door and the subsequent opening of it by Louis, but she could add no new information.
“You were fond of Mr. Tracy?” asked Moore, kindly, for the poor woman was vainly trying to control her grief.
“Oh, yes, sir. He was a good master and a truly great man.”
“You’ve never known, among the guests of the house, any one who was his enemy?”
“No, sir. But I almost never see the guests. I’m housekeeper, to be sure, but the maids do all the housework. I superintend the cooking.”
“And you’ve heard no gossip about any one who had an enmity or a grudge toward Mr. Tracy?”
“Ah, who could have? He was a gentle, peaceable man, was Mr. Tracy. Who could wish him harm?”
“Yet somebody did,” the Coroner put in, and then he dismissed Mrs. Fenn, feeling she could be of no use.
The other house servants were similarly ignorant of any guest or neighbour who was unfriendly to Mr. Tracy, and then Hart called for the chauffeur.
Louis, a Frenchman, was different in manner and disinclined to talk. In fact, he refused to do so unless all members of the household were sent from the room.
So the Coroner ordered everybody out except Farrell and Detective March, Moore and myself.
Then Louis waxed confidential and declared that Mr. Ames and Mr. Tracy were deadly enemies.
I thought the man was exaggerating, and that he had some grudge of his own against Ames. But Hart listened avidly to the chauffeur’s arraignment, and I was forced to the conclusion that Louis knew a lot.
Yet it was all hints and innuendoes. He stated that the two men were continually quarrelling. Asked what about, he replied “Money matters.”
“What sort of money matters?” Hart asked him.
“Stocks and bonds and mortgages. I think Mr. Ames owed Mr. Tracy a great deal of money and he couldn’t or wouldn’t pay it, and so they wrangled over it.”
“There was no quarrelling on other subjects?”
“No, sir, except now and then about Mrs. Dallas.”
“And what about her?”
“Well, Mr. Ames didn’t want Mr. Tracy to marry her.”
“Did Mr. Ames favour the lady himself?”
“Oh, no, sir. He’s a woman hater. Or at least he says so. No, but he didn’t want Mr. Tracy to marry anybody for fear he might cut him, Mr. Ames, out of his will.”
“How do you know all these things?”
“Well, I drive the car, you see, and they talk these matters over, and I can’t help hearing them. They make no bones of it, they talk right out. I never repeat anything I hear, in an ordinary way, but as you ask me, sir – ”
“Yes, Louis, tell all you know. So Mr. Ames would suffer financially if Mr. Tracy married?”
“I don’t know that, sir, but I know he thought he would. And I suppose he knew.”
“It seems to me,” Farrell said, “we ought to know the terms of Mr. Tracy’s will as it might help us to get at the truth.”
“We can’t do that at the moment,” Hart said, “and anyway, this is merely a preliminary inquiry to get the main facts of the situation.”
But the other servants had no more information to impart than those hitherto questioned. A chambermaid, one Sally Bray, convinced us that all the queer decorations spread on the bed had been already in the room and were, therefore, not brought in by the murderer.
The red feather duster belonged in a small cupboard that held polishing cloths and dusters. The larkspur flowers had been in a vase on a side table, and the whole bunch had been removed from the vase and laid around the dead man. The orange and crackers had been on a plate on the bedside table, but where the plate was, Sally had no idea. The crucifix was Mr. Tracy’s property and belonged on a small hook above the head of his bed.
“And the scarf,” suggested Hart. “The red chiffon scarf, where did that come from?”
Sally blushed and looked down, but finally being urged to tell, said that she knew it to be a scarf belonging to Mrs. Dallas, and the lady had left it there one evening not long ago, when she had been there to dinner.
“Why had it not been returned to her?” Hart wanted to know.
“Because Mr. Tracy took a notion to it. It was a sort of keepsake of the lady, sir, and, too, Mr. Tracy was that fond of beautiful things. Any pretty piece of silk or brocade would please him tremenjous.”
“Then, whoever arranged all those decorations round him knew of his love for beautiful things, and that would explain the flowers and the scarf. Is there anything missing from his room, Sally?”
“I