For sake of the boy and the girl who didn't know enough to take care of their own happiness, I wheeled and galloped in the direction of the country club.
There is an institution known – and respected – in police circles as the Holy Scare. I was determined to make use of it. I'd throw a holy scare into a man I knew, and see what came out.
CHAPTER XX
AT THE COUNTRY CLUB
The country club, when I walked up its lawn, was noisy with the hammering and jawing of its decoration committee. Out in the glass belvedere, like superior goods on display, taking it easy while every one else worked, I saw a group of young matrons of the smart set, Ina Vandeman among them, drinking tea. The open play she was making at Worth troubled me a little. He was the silent kind that keeps you guessing. She'd landed him once; what was to hinder her being successful with the same tactics – whatever they'd been – a second time?
Then I saw Edwards' car was still out in the big, crescent driveway, showing by the drift of twigs and petals on its running board that it had been used to bring in tree blooms from his ranch; the man himself crossed the veranda, and I hailed,
"Any place inside where you and I could have a private word together?"
"I – I think so, Boyne," he hesitated. "Come on back here."
He led me straight across the big assembly room which was being trimmed for the ball. From the top of a stepladder, Skeet Thornhill yelled to us,
"Where you two going? Come back here, and get on the job."
She had a dozen noisy assistants. I waved at her from the further door as we ducked. Strange that honest, sound little thing should be own sister to the doll-faced vamp out there in the showcase.
Edwards made for a little writing room at the end of a corridor. I followed his long, nervous stride. If the man had been goaded to the shooting of Thomas Gilbert, it would have been an act of passion, and by passion he would betray himself. When I had him alone, the door shut, I went to it, told him we knew the death was murder, not suicide, and that the crime had been committed early Saturday night. Before I could connect him with it, he broke in on me,
"Is Worth suspected?"
"Not by me," I said. "And by God, not by you, Edwards! You know better than that."
I held his eye, but read nothing beyond what might have been the flare of quick anger for the boy's sake.
"Who then?" he said. "Who's dared to lisp a word like that? That hound Cummings – chasing around Santa Ysobel with Bowman – is that where it comes from? I told Worth the fellow was knifing him in the back." He began to stride up and down the room. "The boy's got other friends – that'll go their length for him. I'm with him till hell freezes over. You can count on me – "
"Exactly what I wanted to find out," I cut in, so significantly that he whirled at the end of his beat and stared.
"Meaning?"
"Meaning you are the one man who could clear Worth Gilbert of all suspicion."
"What do you know?"
The big voice had come down to a mere whisper. Plenty of passion now – a passion of terror. I spoke quickly.
"We know you were in the study that night, with a companion," and I piled out the worst of his affair, as I'd read it in the diaries, winding up,
"Plain what brought you there. Quarrel? Motive? Don't need to look any further."
Before I was done Jim Edwards had groped over to a chair and slumped into it. A queer, toneless voice asked,
"Worth sent you to me – a detective – with this?"
"No," I said. "I'm acting on my own."
"And against his will," it came back instantly.
"What of it?" I demanded. "Are you the coward to take advantage of his sense of honor? – to let his generosity cost him his life?"
"His life." That landed. Watching, I saw the struggle that tore him. He jumped up and started toward me; I hadn't much doubt that I was now going to hear a plea for mercy – a confession, of sorts – as he stopped, dropped his head, and stood scowling at the floor.
"Talk," I said. "Spill it. Now's your time."
He raised his eyes to mine and spoke suddenly.
"Boyne – I have nothing to say."
"And Worth Gilbert can hang and be damned to him – is that it?" I took another step toward him. "No, Edwards, that 'nothing to say' stuff won't go in a court of law. It won't get you anywhere."
"They'll never in the world – try Worth for – that killing."
"I'm expecting his arrest any hour."
"A trial! Those cursed diaries of Tom's brought into court – My God! I believe if I'd known he'd written things like that, I could have killed him for it!"
I stared. He had forgotten me. But at this speech I mentally dropped him for the moment, and fastened my suspicions on the woman who went with him to the study.
"All right," I said brutally. "You didn't kill Thomas Gilbert. But you took Mrs. Bowman to the study that night to have it out with him, and get six pages from the 1916 book. She got 'em – and you know what she had to do to get 'em."
"Hold on, Boyne!" he said sternly. "Don't you talk like that to me."
"Well," I said, "Mrs. Bowman was there – after those diary leaves. I heard Barbara Wallace imitate her voice – and Chung recognized the imitation. You know – that night at the study – the first night."
He took a bewildered moment or two for thought, then broke out,
"It wasn't Laura's voice Barbara imitated. Did she say so?"
"No, but she imitated the voice of a woman who came weeping to get those pages from the diary; and who else would that be? Who else would want them?"
"You're off the track, Boyne," he drew a great, shuddering sigh of relief. "Tom was always playing the tyrant to those about him; no doubt some woman did come crying for that stuff – but it wasn't Laura."
"By Heaven!" I exclaimed as I looked at him. "You know who it was! You recognized the voice that night – but the woman isn't one you're interested in."
"I'm interested in all women, so far as their getting a decent show in the world is concerned," he maintained sturdily. "I'd go as far as any man to defend the good name of a woman – whether I thought much of her or not."
"This other woman," I argued, not any too keen on such a job myself, "hasn't she got some man to speak for her?"
Edwards looked at me innocently.
"She didn't have, then – " he began, and I finished for him,
"But she has now. I've got it!" As I jumped up and hurried to the door, his eyes followed me in wonder. There I turned with, "Stay right where you are. I'll be back in a minute," ducked out into the hall and signaled a passing messenger, then stepped quickly back into the writing room and said, "I've sent for Bronson Vandeman."
He settled deeper in his chair with,
"I'll stay and see it out. If you get anything from Vandeman, I miss my guess."
CHAPTER XXI
A MATTER OF TASTE
Upon our few moments of strained waiting, Vandeman breezed in, full of apologies for his shirtsleeves. I remember noticing the monogram worked on the left silken arm, the fit and swing of immaculate trousers, as smoothly modeled to the hip as a girl's gown; his ever smiling face; the slightly exaggerated way he wiped fingers already clean on a handkerchief pulled from a rear pocket. He was the only unconstrained person in the room; he hardly looked surprised; his glance was merely inquiring. Edwards apparently couldn't stand it. He jumped up and began his characteristic pacing of one end of the constricted place, jerking out as he walked,
"Bronse, it's my fault that Boyne sent for you. He's working on this trouble of Worth's, you know. He's had me in here, grilling me, shaking me over hell; and something I said – God knows why – sent him after you."
"Trouble of Worth's!" Vandeman had been about to sit; his half bent knees straightened out again; he stood beside the chair and spoke irritably. "Told you, Boyne, if you meddled with that coroner's verdict you'd get your employer in the devil of a tight place. Nobody had any reason for wanting Worth's father out of the way – except Worth, himself. Frankly, I think you're wrong. But everything that I can do – of course – "
"All right," I said, letting it fly at him. "Where was your wife from seven to half past nine on the evening of Gilbert's murder?"
Back went his head; out flashed all the fine teeth; the man laughed in my face.
"Excuse me, Mr. Boyne. I understand that this is serious – nothing funny about it – but really, you know, recalling the date, what you've said is amusing. My dear man," he went on as I stared at him, "please remember, yourself, where Ina was on that particular evening."
"The wedding and reception were done with by seven o'clock," I objected. This ground was familiar with me. I'd been over it in considering what opportunity Laura Bowman would have had for a call on Thomas Gilbert at the required hour. If she could slip away for it, why not Ina Vandeman? As though he read my thoughts and answered them, Vandeman filled in,
"A bride, you know, is dead certain to have at least half a dozen persons with her every minute of the time until she leaves the house on her wedding trip. Ina did, I'm sure. We'll just call her in, and she'll give you their names."
He was up and starting to bring her; I stopped him.
"We'll not bother with those names just now. I'd rather have you – or Mrs. Vandeman – tell me what you suppose would be the entry in Thomas Gilbert's diary for May 31 and June 1, 1916. I have already identified it as the date on which the Bowmans first moved into the Wallace house. I think Mr. Edwards knows something more, but he's not so communicative as you promise to be."
He looked as if he wished he hadn't been so liberal with his assurances. I saw him glance half sulkily at Edwards, as he exclaimed,
"But those diaries are burned – they're burned. Worth told us the other night that he burned them without reading."
At the words, Edwards stopped stock-still, something almost humorous at the back of the suffering gaze he fastened on my face. I met it steadily, then answered Vandeman,
"Doesn't make any difference to anybody that those books are burned. I'd read them; I know what was in them; and I know that three leaves – six pages – covering the entries of May 31 and June 1, 1916, were cut out."
"But what the deuce, Boyne?" Vandeman wrinkled a smooth brow. "What would some leaves gone from Mr. Gilbert's diary four years ago have to do with us here to-day – or even with his recent death?"
"Pardon me," I said shortly. "The matter's not as old as that. True, the stuff was written four years ago; it recorded happenings on those dates; but the ink that was used in marking out a run-over on the next following page was fresh. Anyhow, Mr. Vandeman, we know that a woman came weeping to Mr. Gilbert on the very night of his death, only a short time before his death – as nearly as medical science can determine that – and we believe that she came after those leaves out of the diary, and got them – whatever she had to do to secure them."
I was struck with the difference in the way these two men took inquiry. Edwards had writhed, changed color, started to speak and caught himself back, showed all the agony of a clumsy criminal who dreads the probing that may give him away: temperament; the rotten spot in his affairs. Vandeman, younger, not entangled with an unhappy married woman, sat looking me in the eye, still smiling. The blow I had to deal him would be harder. It concerned his bride; but he'd take punishment well. I proceeded to let him have it.
"I can see that Mr. Edwards has an idea what the entries on those pages covered. He has inadvertently shown me that your wife was the woman who came and got them from Thomas Gilbert on the night he was murdered."
At that he turned on Edwards, and Edwards answered the look with,
"I didn't. On my honor, Bronse, I never mentioned your name or Ina's. The Chinaman told him that – about some woman coming that evening – "
"Mr. Vandeman," I broke in, "there's no use beating about the bush. Chung recognized your wife's voice. She was the woman who came weeping to get those diary leaves."
He took that with astonishing quietness, and,
"Suppose you were shown that she wasn't out of her mother's house?"
"Wouldn't stop me. Allow that her alibi's perfect. Yet you men have something. There's something here I ought to know."
"Something you'll never find out from me," Jim Edwards' deep voice was full of defiance. "Bronse, I owe you an apology; but you can depend on me to keep my mouth shut."
After a minute's consideration Vandeman said,
"I don't know why we should any of us keep our mouths shut."
Jim Edwards looked utterly bewildered as the man sat there, thinking the thing over, glanced up pleasantly at me and suggested,
"Edwards has a little different slant on this from me. I don't know why I shouldn't state to you exactly what happened – right there in Gilbert's study on the date you mentioned."
"Oh, there did something unusual happen; and you've just remembered it."
"There did something unusual happen, and I've just remembered it, aided thereto by your questions and Edwards' queer looks. Cheer up, old man; we haven't all got your southern chivalry. From a plain, commonsense point of view, what I have to tell is not in the least to my wife's discredit. In fact, I'm proud of her all the way through."
Jim Edwards came suddenly and nervously to his feet, strode to the further corner of the room and sat down at as great a distance from Vandeman as its dimensions would permit. He turned his face to the small window there, and through all that Vandeman said, kept up a steady, maddening tattoo with his fingernails on the sill.
"This has to do with what I told you the first night I ever talked with you, Boyne. You threw doubt on Thomas Gilbert's death being suicide. I gave as a reason for my belief that it was, a knowledge and conviction that the man's mind was unhinged."
Edwards' tattoo at the window ceased for a minute. He stared, startled, at the speaker, then went back to it, and Vandeman proceeded,
"I'm not telling Jim Edwards anything he doesn't know, and what I say to you, Boyne, that's discreditable to the dead, I can't avoid. Here it is: on the evening of June first, 1916, I had dinner alone at home. You'll find, if you look at an old calendar, that it falls on a Sunday. Jim Edwards had dined informally at the Thornhills'. As he told it to me later, they were all sitting out on the side porch after dinner, and nobody noticed that Ina wasn't with them until they heard cries coming from somewhere over in the direction of the Gilbert place. At my house, I'd heard it, and we both ran for the garage, where the screams were repeated again and again. We got there about the same time, found the disturbance was in the study, and Edwards who was ahead of me rushed up and hammered on its door."
Again Jim Edwards stopped the nervous drumming of his fingers on the window-sill while he stared at the younger man as at some prodigy of nature. Finally he seemed unable to hold in any longer.
"Hammered on the door!" he repeated. "If you're going to turn out the whole damn' thing to Boyne, tell it straight; door was open; we couldn't have heard a yip out of Ina if it hadn't been. Tom there in full sight, sitting in his desk chair, cool as a cucumber, letting her scream."
"I'm telling this," Vandeman snapped. "Gilbert looked to me like an insane man. Jim, you're crazy as he was, to say anything else. Never supposed for a minute you thought otherwise – that poor girl there, dazed with fright, backed as far away from him as she could get, hair flying, eyes wild."
I looked from one to the other. What Edwards had said of the cold, contemptuous old man; what Vandeman told of the screaming girl; no answer to such a proposition of course but an attempted frame-up. To let the bridegroom get by would best serve my purpose.
"All right, gentlemen," I said. "And now could you tell me what action you took, on this state of affairs?"
"Action?" Vandeman gave me an uneasy look. "What was there to do? Told you I thought the man was crazy."
"And you, Edwards?"
"Let it go as Bronse says. I cut back to Mrs. Thornhill's, scouting to see what the chance was for getting Ina in without the family knowing anything."
"That's right," Vandeman said. "I stayed to fetch her. She was fine. To the last, she let Gilbert save his face – actually send her home as though she were the one to blame. Right then I knew I loved her – wanted her for my wife. On the way home, I asked her and was accepted."
"In spite of the fact that she was engaged to Worth Gilbert?"
"Boyne," he said impatiently, "what's the matter with you? Haven't I made you understand what happened there at the study? She had to break off with the son of a man like that. Ina Thornhill couldn't marry into such a breed."
"Slow up, Vandeman!" Edwards' tone was soft, but when I looked at him, I saw a tawny spark in his black eyes. Vandeman fronted him with the flamboyant embroidered monogram on his shirt sleeve, the carefully careless tie, the utterly good clothes, and, most of all, at the moment, the smug satisfaction in his face of social and human security. I thought of what that Frenchman says about there being nothing so enjoyable to us as the troubles of our friends. "Needn't think you can put it all over the boy when he's not here to defend himself – jump on him because he's down! Tell that your wife discarded him – cast him off – for disgraceful reasons! Damnitall! You and I both heard Tom giving her her orders to break with his son, she sniffling and hunting hairpins over the floor and promising that she would."
"Cut it out!" yelled Vandeman, as though some one had pinched him. "I saw nothing of the sort. I heard nothing of the sort. Neither did you."
I think they had forgotten me, and that they remembered at about the same instant that they were talking before a detective. They both turned, mum and startled looking, Edwards to his window, Vandeman to a nervous brushing of his trouser edges, from which he looked up, inquiring doubtfully,
"What next, Boyne? Jim's excited; but you understand that there's no animus; and my wife and I are entirely at your disposal in this matter."
"Thank you," I said.
"Would you like to talk to her?"
"I would."
"When?"
"Now."
"Where?"
"Here – or let the lady say."
Vandeman gave me a queer look and went out. When he was gone, I found Jim Edwards scrabbling for his hat where it had dropped over behind the desk. I put my back against the door and asked,
"Is Bronson Vandeman a fatuous fool; or does he take me for one?"
"Some men defend their women one way, and some another. Let me out of this, Boyne, before that girl gets here."
"She won't come in a hurry," I smiled. "Her husband's pretty free with his promises; but more than likely I'll have to go after her if I want her."
"Well?" he looked at me uncomfortably.
"Blackmail's a crime, you know, Edwards. A woman capable of it, might be capable of murder."
"You've got the wrong word there, Boyne. This wasn't exactly blackmail."
"What, then?"
"The girl – I never liked her – never thought she was good enough for Worth – but she was engaged to him, and – in this I think she was fighting for her hand."
He searched my face and went on cautiously,
"You read the diaries. They must have had complaints of her."
"They had," I assented.
"Anything about money?"
I shook my head.
"You said there were two entries gone; the first would have told you, I suppose – Before we go further, Boyne, let me make a little explanation to you – for the girl's sake."
"Shoot," I said.
"It was this way," he sighed. "Thornhill, Ina's father, made fifteen or twenty thousand a year I would say, and the family lived it up. He had a stroke and died in a week's time. Left Mrs. Thornhill with her daughters, her big house, her fine social position – and mighty little to keep it up on. Ina is the eldest. She got the worst of it, because at the first of her being a young lady she was used to having all the money she wanted to spend. The twins were right on her heels; the thing for her to do was to make a good marriage, and make it quick. But she got engaged to Worth; then he went to France. There you were. He might never come back. Tom always hated her; watched her like a hawk; got onto something she – about – "
"Out with it," I said. "What? Come down to cases."
"Money." He uttered the one word and stood silent.
I made a long shot, with,
"Mr. Gilbert found she'd been getting money from other men – "
"Borrowing, Boyne – they used the word 'borrowed,'" Edwards put in. "It was always Tom's way to summon people as though he had a little private judgment bar, haul them up and lecture them; I suppose he thought he had a special license in her case."
"And she went prepared to frame him and bluff him to a standoff. Is that the way you saw it?"
"My opinion – what I might think," said Mr. James Edwards of Sunnyvale ranch, "wouldn't be testimony in a court of law. You don't want it, Boyne."
"Maybe not," I grunted. "Perhaps I could make as good a guess as you could at what young Mrs. Vandeman's capable of; a dolly face, and behind it the courage of hell."
"Boyne," he said, as I left the door free to him, "quit making war on women."
"Can't," I grinned and waved him on out. "The detective business would be a total loss without 'em."