Arrow Pointing Nowhere (24 page)

“By Mott Fenway?”

“Mott Fenway didn't ask me to come to the house on Sunday afternoon; he spoke to me as I was leaving yesterday; suggested that I should come back last night and look for the lost picture. His theory was the same as Miss Fenway's, you know.”

“And why didn't you mention the fact last night—that he was killed before you could get here?”

“I had no evidence that he was killed because he was going to let me in secretly.”

Nordhall said with his coldest look: “I guess you are an amateur, after all. If you'd seen fit to give me this information at the time I would have asked some more questions, and I would have broken down Mrs. Grove's alibi.”

“Would you?”

“I would have seen the parties alone and separate, and Mrs. Fenway would have told me all about the blackmail. Now Mrs. Grove has been shot dead instead of standing trial for Mott Fenway's murder, and Alden Fenway will go to a private asylum for life—unless they get tough and send him to Matteawan—and his mother's about ready to qualify for Bloomingdale herself. That's what you get for poking around looking for evidence on your own. Or were you?”

“Well, yes, I was; and I have some. I hope for more, if you—”

“Just let me get this out of you my way, if you don't mind. When were you tipped off first, and who tipped you?”

“I was tipped off on Saturday,” said Gamadge mildly, “by what you might call an anonymous letter.”

“Sent by Mott Fenway, of course; unless Caroline Fenway sent it without telling him.”

“Or,” continued Gamadge, politely ignoring this, “you might call it a code message. The details of it won't matter to you now—”

“Oh; won't they?” Nordhall had so far relaxed his Olympian calm as to condescend to sarcasm.

“No, but you can have all the details later if you want them. I really don't think you will want them. I had reason to think that the sender of this letter or message had been trying to reach me for more than a week; ever since the day when—as I personally believe—that picture was torn out of the book of views.

“The message was cryptic, but it seemed to ask me to investigate conditions in this house. I got myself invited here, you're quite right about it; and the first thing I found that could be considered at all out of the way was the fact that that picture of Fenbrook was lost, and that the discovery of the loss had been made the day the first anonymous message was sent to me.”

Nordhall was now sitting forward on the edge of his chair, his mouth slightly open and his hands on his knees; but he said nothing.

“The next thing I found here,” continued Gamadge, “was a second message, or what seemed like one; I found it in a wastebasket in the sitting room. It seemed to suggest a trip to Fenbrook, so I went up there with my assistant yesterday afternoon. I met Hilda Grove, and I decided to leave Bantz in the neighborhood. I returned here to find Mott Fenway dead; but I also found a third message, which I interpreted as best I could. I thought it meant that somebody or something must be removed from Fenbrook.”

Nordhall could contain himself no longer: “What did it say?”

“It didn't say a thing. It was a timetable, a Rockliffe timetable, with an arrow pointing nowhere. Away from Rockliffe, I mean.”

Nordhall slowly sat back, his eyes on Gamadge, his hands sliding along his pin-striped blue trousers.

“My assistant agreeing with my conclusions,” continued Gamadge, “he took Miss Hilda Grove temporarily out of Fenbrook. The pretext was a coasting party, and he assured me when he was here a little while ago that that coasting party was not the least of many hazards which he has survived during the past year.

“Pursuing my instructions, he afterwards searched Fenbrook for a concealed peril or a trap.”

“You knew there was a trap?”

“I imagined a trap,” said Gamadge modestly.

“That's more than I did. I don't believe there was a trap. Bantz didn't find one, I suppose?”

“He found one; a disused dumb-waiter shaft, which had at some time been converted into a tier of corner cupboards by means of removable floorings. Bantz found that the floorings had been removed. In the attic cupboard he found Mrs. Grove's knitting bag on an innermost hook, out of reach unless he stepped in. If he were not the most skeptical and cautious of human beings he would have stepped in, and would now probably be lying dead on the cement floor of the disused basement-kitchen.”

Nordhall's light eyes were like marbles. “That cupboard was there for anybody to step into?”

“No, it was locked. But Bantz found the key in the attic; Hilda Grove would have found it easily enough if somebody telephoned instructions to her. I may add that Bantz and I were particularly interested in the attic because Hilda Grove heard somebody there on the night of the twenty-first. That,” said Gamadge, mildly regarding Nordhall, “was the day the book of views came to this house, and the day—as I suppose—that the first anonymous message was sent out of this house to me.”

“That little scrap of a woman went up there in the middle of the night!”

“You don't perhaps know what the climb from Rockliffe station is like. Harold and I did it yesterday.”

“They say crazy people can do things they couldn't do if they were sane, and now I believe it. Mrs. Fenway is right; that woman had been driven out of her mind by the war and her troubles, and I'm not so sure I'm sorry she's dead.”

“Humane of you, very humane.”

Nordhall suddenly got to his feet. “Did Bantz put back those floors or anything?”

“Oh, no; he left things as they were, of course; but of course he relocked the cupboard door.”

“And one of those locals I had them send up to the place will bust it open and walk in. Where's the nearest telephone?”

But Nordhall knew where it was; in the stress of the moment he had forgotten. He strode towards the door to the back passage, then stopped. “Fenway didn't get any answer when he called up this evening. Wires may be down.”

“I think you'll find that you can reach Fenbrook now.”

Nordhall, with a dark look at his colleague, vanished. After a few minutes he came back and sank into his chair. “They were looking for time bombs in the cellar,” he muttered.

“Harold was quite prepared to find an infernal machine. And now, that being off our minds, don't you think, Nordhall, that we might have a look for the lost picture of Fenbrook?”

“How the dickens does it tie up with the case? I think it's only a coincidence,” said Nordhall with some irritation. “I know what you think—that its being lost started all the trouble. But if so, Mrs. Fenway doesn't know it, she hasn't said a word about it. And it doesn't matter now whether Alden Fenway tore it out or not.”

“He didn't tear it out.”

“Well, then? Why the hurry?”

“I'd better show you the book of views.” Gamadge went across the room, got the green velvet quarto out of the inlaid coffer, and returned to lay it open on the broad arm of Nordhall's chair.

“That's where the view of Fenbrook was,” he said.

“
I
T WAS TAKEN OUT NICELY,
all right,” said
Nordhall. “Kind of a horrible mutilation, though. Who's this Julian Fenway that wrote the piece about it? Grandfather? I don't blame the family for not wanting to lose the picture of the house.”

“If you'll turn to the Delabar King plate, and the Colonel Ash one, you'll find incised marks on them and on the tissue guards. You won't make much of them without a reading glass,” said Gamadge, “and there's a reading glass on Blake Fenway's desk. While you were telephoning I convinced myself that it's a well-equipped library. However, you may be willing to take my word for it that there's part of a facsimile of Cort Fenway's signature on one of the pictures and on its guard.”

“Cort Fenway? Wasn't he the Fenway brother that died twenty years ago—Mrs. Fenway's husband?”

“Yes. He made those marks soon before he died, I think; made them because he used the book as a writing pad. My
idea is that we'll find more and clearer traces of his writing on the lost view.”

“Oh. Now I get it.” Nordhall's face changed. “Blackmail? But Mrs. Fenway wasn't being blackmailed with the picture, or if she was she hasn't said so.”

“She wasn't.”

“You seem to know a lot about it.” Nordhall again turned a grim appraising look on his ally. “Was Mrs. Grove going to blackmail Fenway?”

“I should know more about it if we found it.”

“Find it in a house of this size?” Nordhall's tone was pitying. “It would take a couple of trained men a week. It could be rolled up and stuffed into a pipe, or folded and put into any of these thousands of books.” His eyes wandered over the towering shelves.

“It wasn't rolled or folded; the marks on it had to be preserved in good condition, not broken or obscured by rubbing and creasing. And if it wasn't folded it couldn't have been put into any book smaller than a quarto, which eliminates three-quarters of the volumes in this library.”

“It could be under a carpet; a nailed carpet.”

“Fingers couldn't push it farther than fingers could reach it. You don't understand, Nordhall; this was hidden so that it shouldn't be found, even by a free and most intensive search. It's been searched for, you know; Fenway has had it searched for since the twenty-second of January, and I'm sure that Mott Fenway and Caroline had a good look for it too, not to mention others.”

“It could be buried in the garden in a waterproof case, or locked up in a safe-deposit box.”

“I don't think it was taken out of this room.”

“You don't?”

“No. Tell you why later.”

Nordhall again glanced up at the bookshelves in front of him. “What about sliding it down behind the books on a shelf?”

“It would be seen at a glance by anyone who chose to get up on those library steps there, and pull out two or three volumes from each section.”

“It wouldn't be seen at a glance if it was in any of those big books, and there are plenty.”

“I don't like to contradict you, but it would; it's on the stiffest of fine thick paper, and would be noticed instantly.”

“I suppose it wouldn't be on top of these high cases, or that cabinet?”

“Servants dust the tops of things.”

Nordhall flung himself back in his chair. “You tell me all about it.”

“I'll tell you what I think went on in this library in the late afternoon of Thursday, January the twenty-first; perhaps on the following morning, but somehow I think it happened on Thursday afternoon. The books came down, Mr. Fenway unwrapped them, and they lay accessible on that long table in the bay window on your right. Fenway didn't examine the consignment—he hadn't the time. Mrs. Grove wandered in, and was interested in the lot which her niece had just sent down; she was particularly interested in the set of
Views On The Hudson
, probably because Fenway had been talking about it. She had never had her attention called to it at Fenbrook. She wasn't a Fenway, you know, and Mrs. Fenway wasn't either; she might never have heard of old Fenbrook until recently.

“Now she looked for the picture of it; she found it, and on it she found incised markings, which she deciphered by means of that reading glass I spoke of. I won't try to describe how she looked when she did decipher them, because until we decipher them ourselves we shan't be able to guess how profound her emotions were. But when she had recovered herself she
must have hunted feverishly through the book for other markings; she realized, of course, exactly what had happened and what Cort Fenway had unconsciously done. The other marks were innocuous, so she left them; and since she couldn't easily hide the book, she tore out the picture and its tissue guard.

“What to do with them? She must have looked about her wildly, thinking that if she could find a hiding place for them in the library she would not have to run the risk of carrying them upstairs; she would leave no clue to their hiding place at all. And she realized other facts; that a library is equipped with other things as useful at a pinch as a reading glass, and that servants don't dust the undersides of things.”

“They don't?” Nordhall shifted his legs. “They tip up chairs and tables.” He looked at the highboy opposite, and at Gamadge. “You don't mean…?”

Gamadge, smiling, shook his head. “I tried.”

“You thought it would be stuck—”

“Mrs. Grove wished to preserve it carefully; and there's paste in the desk, Nordhall, library paste, and large manila envelopes.”

“You've found it!”

“No; I waited for you. What in this room can be lifted but not tipped? What is there that we couldn't shove our hands under?”