The House of the Whispering Pines (16 page)

"Sit, ladies," said he, drawing up chairs quite as if he were doing the
honours of the house. Then with a sly, compassionate look into each
woe-begone face, he artfully remarked: "You're all upset, you are, by
what Mr. Cumberland said in such an unbecoming way at the funeral. He'd
like to strangle Mr. Ranelagh! Why couldn't he wait for the sheriff. It
looks as if that gentleman would have the job, all right."

"Oh! don't!" wailed out one of the girls, the impressionable,
warm-hearted Maggie. "The horrors of this house'll kill me. I can't
stand it a minute longer. I'll go—I'll go to-morrow."

"You won't; you're too kind-hearted to leave Mr. Cumberland and his
sister in their desperate trouble," Sweetwater put in, with a decision as
suggestive of admiration as he dared to assume.

Her eyes filled, and she said no more. Sweetwater shifted his attention
to Helen. Working around by her side, he managed to drop these words
into her ear:

"She talks most, but she doesn't feel her responsibilities any more
than you do. I've had my experience with women, and you're of the sort
that stays."

She rolled her eyes towards him, in a slow, surprised way, that would
have abashed most men.

"I don't know your name, or your business here," said she; "but I do know
that you take a good deal upon yourself when you say what I shall do or
shan't do. I don't even know, myself."

"That's because your eye is not so keen to your own virtues as—well, I
won't say as mine, but as those of any appreciative stranger. I can't
help seeing what you are, you know."

She turned her shoulder but not before he caught a slight disdainful
twitch of her rosy, non-communicative mouth.

"Ah, ah, my lady, not quick enough!" thought he; and, with the most
innocent air in the world, he launched forth in a tirade against the man
then in custody, as though his guilt were an accepted fact and nothing
but the formalities of the law stood between him and his final doom. "It
must make you all feel queer," he wound up, "to think you have waited on
him and seen him tramping about these rooms for months, just as if he had
no wicked feelings in his heart and meant to marry Miss Cumberland, not
to kill her."

"Oh, oh," Maggie sobbed out. "And a perfect gentleman he was, too. I
can't believe no bad of him. He wasn't like—" Her breath caught, and so
suddenly that Sweetwater was always convinced that the more cautious
Helen had twitched her by her skirt. "Like—like other gentlemen who came
here. It was a kind word he had or a smile. I—I—" She made no attempt
to finish but bounded to her feet, pulling up the more sedate Helen with
her. "Let's go," she whispered, "I'm afeared of the man."

The other yielded and began to cross the floor behind the
impetuous Maggie.

Sweetwater summoned up his courage.

"One moment," he prayed. "Will you not tell me, before you go,
whether the candlestick I have noticed on the dining-room mantel is
not one of a pair?"

"Yes, there were two—
once
," said Helen, resisting Maggie's effort to
drag her out through the open door.

"
Once
," smiled Sweetwater; "by which you mean, three days ago."

A lowering of her head and a sudden make for the door.

Sweetwater changed his tone to one of simple inquiry.

"And was that where they always stood, the pair of them, one on each end
of the dining-room mantel?"

She nodded; involuntarily, perhaps, but decisively.

Sweetwater hid his disappointment. The room mentioned was a thoroughfare
for the whole family. Any member of it could have taken the candlestick.

"I'm obliged to you," said he; and might have ventured further had she
given him the opportunity. But she was too near the door to resist the
temptation of flight. In another moment she was gone, and Sweetwater
found himself alone with his reflections.

They were not altogether unpleasing. He was sure that he read the
evidences of struggle in her slowly working lips and changing impulses.

"So, so!" thought he. "The good seed has found its little corner of soil.
I'll leave it to take root and sprout. Perhaps the coroner will profit by
it. If not, I've a way of coaxing tender plants which should bring this
one to fruit. We'll see."

The moon shone that night, much to Sweetwater's discomforture. As he
moved about the stable-yard, he momentarily expected to see the window of
the alcove thrown up and to hear Mr. Cumberland's voice raised in loud
command for him to quit the premises. But no such interruption came. The
lonely watcher, whose solitary figure he could just discern above the
unshaded sill, remained immovable, with his head buried in his arms, but
whether in sleep or in brooding misery, there was naught to tell.

The rest of the house presented an equally dolorous and forsaken
appearance. There were lights in the kitchen and lights in the servants'
rooms at the top of the house, but no sounds either of talking or
laughing. All voices had sunk to a whisper, and if by chance a figure
passed one of the windows, it was in a hurried, frightened way, which
Sweetwater felt very ready to appreciate.

In the stable it was no better. Zadok had bought an evening paper, and
was seeking solace from its columns. Sweetwater had attempted the
sociable but had been met by a decided rebuff. The coachman could not
forget his attitude before the funeral and nothing, not even the pitcher
of beer the detective proposed to bring in, softened the forbidding air
with which this old servant met the other's advances.

Soon Sweetwater realised that his work was over for the night and
planned to leave. But there was one point to be settled first. Was there
any other means of exit from these grounds save that offered by the
ordinary driveway?

He had an impression that in one of his strolls about, he had detected
the outlines of a door in what looked like a high brick wall in the
extreme rear. If so, it were well worth his while to know where that door
led. Working his way along in the shadow cast by the house and afterward
by the stable itself, he came upon what was certainly a wall and a wall
with a door in it. He could see the latter plainly from where he halted
in the thick of the shadows. The moonlight shone broadly on it, and he
could detect the very shape and size of its lock. It might be as well to
try that lock, but he would have to cross a very wide strip of moonlight
in order to do so, and he feared to attract attention to his extreme
inquisitiveness. Yet who was there to notice him at this hour? Mr.
Cumberland had not moved, the girls were upstairs, Zadok was busy with
his paper, and the footman dozing over his pipe in his room over the
stable. Sweetwater had just come from that room, and he knew.

A quiet stable-yard and a closed door only ten feet away! He glanced
again at the latter, and made up his mind. Advancing in a quiet, sidelong
way he had, he laid his hand on the small knob above the lock and quickly
turned it. The door was unlocked and swung under his gentle push. An
alley-way opened before him, leading to what appeared to be another
residence street. He was about to test the truth of this surmise when he
heard a step behind him, and turning, encountered the heavy figure of the
coachman advancing towards him, with a key in his hand.

Zadok was of an easy turn, but he had been sorely tried that day, and his
limit had been reached.

"You snooper!" he bawled. "What do you want here? Won't the run of the
house content ye? Come! I want to lock that door. It's my last duty
before going to bed."

Sweetwater assumed the innocent.

"And I was just going this way. It looks like a short road into town. It
is, isn't it?"

"No! Yes," growled the other. "Whichever it is, it isn't your road
to-night. That's private property, sir. The alley you see, belongs to our
neighbours. No one passes through there but myself and—"

He caught himself in time, with a sullen grunt which may have been the
result of fatigue or of that latent instinct of loyalty which is often
the most difficult obstacle a detective has to encounter.

"And Mr. Ranelagh, I suppose you would say?" was Sweetwater's easy
finish.

No answer; the coachman simply locked the door and put the key in
his pocket.

Sweetwater made no effort to deter him. More than that he desisted from
further questions though he was dying to ask where this key was kept at
night, and whether it had been in its usual place on the evening of the
murder. He had gone far enough, he thought. Another step and he might
rouse this man's suspicion, if not his enmity. But he did not leave the
shadows into which he again receded until he had satisfied himself that
the key went into the stable with the coachman, where it probably
remained for this night, at least.

It was after ten when Sweetwater re-entered the house to say good night
to Hexford. He found him on watch in the upper hall, and the man, Clarke,
below. He had a word with the former:

"What is the purpose of the little door in the wall back of the stable?"

"It connects these grounds with those of the Fultons. The Fultons live on
Huested Street."

"Are the two families intimate?"

"Very. Mr. Cumberland is sweet on the young lady there. She was at the
funeral to-day. She fainted when—you know when."

"I can guess. God! What complications arise! You don't say that any woman
can care for
him
?"

Hexford gave a shrug. He had seen a good deal of life.

"He uses that door, then?" Sweetwater pursued, after a minute.

"Probably."

"Did he use it that night?"

"He didn't visit
her
"

"Where did he go?"

"We can't find out. He was first seen on Garden Street, coming home after
a night of debauch. He had drunk hard. Asked where he got the liquor, he
maundered out something about a saloon; but none of the places which he
usually frequents had seen him that night. I have tried them all and some
that weren't in his books. It was no good."

"That door is supposed to be locked at night. Zadok says that's his duty.
Was it locked that night?"

"Can't say. Perhaps the coroner can. You see the inquiry ran in such a
different direction, at first, that a small matter like that may have
been overlooked."

Sweetwater subdued the natural retort, and, reverting to the subject of
the saloons, got some specific information in regard to them. Then he
passed thoughtfully down-stairs, only to come upon Helen who was just
extinguishing the front-hall light.

"Good night!" he said, in passing.

"Good night, Mr. Sweetwater."

There was something in her tone which made him stop and look back. She
had stepped into the library and was blowing out the lamp there. He
paused a moment and sighed softly. Then he started towards the door, only
to stop again and cast another look back. She was standing in one of the
doorways, anxiously watching him and twisting her fingers in and out in
an irresolute way truly significant in one of her disposition.

He felt his heart leap.

Returning softly, he took up his stand before her, looking her straight
in the eye.

"Good night," he repeated, with an odd emphasis.

"Good night," she answered, with equal force and meaning.

But the next moment she was speaking rapidly, earnestly.

"I can't sleep," said she. "I never can when I'm not certain of my duty.
Mr. Ranelagh is an injured man. Ask what was said and done at their last
dinner here. I can't tell you. I didn't listen and I didn't see what
happened, but it was something out of the ordinary. Three broken
wineglasses lay on the tablecloth when I went in to clear away. I heard
the clatter when they fell and smashed, but I said nothing. I have said
nothing since; but I know there was a quarrel, and that Mr. Ranelagh was
not in it, for his glass was the only one which remained unbroken. Am I
wrong in telling you? I wouldn't if—if it were not for Mr. Ranelagh. He
didn't do right by Miss Cumberland, but he don't deserve to be in prison;
and so would Miss Carmel tell you if she knew what was going on and could
speak.
She
loved him and—I've said enough; I've said enough," the
agitated girl protested, as he leaned eagerly towards her. "I couldn't
tell the priest any more. Good night."

And she was gone.

He hesitated a moment, then pursued his way to the side door, and so out
of the house into the street. As he passed along the front of the now
darkened building, he scanned it with a new interest and a new doubt.
Soon he returned to his old habit of muttering to himself. "We don't know
the half of what has taken place within those walls during the last four
weeks," said he. "But one thing I will solve, and that is where this
miserable fellow spent the hours between this dinner they speak of and
the time of his return next day. Hexford has failed at it. Now we'll see
what a blooming stranger can do."

Tush! I will stir about,
And all things will be well, I warrant thee.

Romeo and Juliet
.

He was walking south and on the best lighted and most beautiful street in
town, but his eyes were forever seeking a break in the long line of fence
which marked off the grounds of a seemingly interminable stretch of
neighbouring mansions, and when a corner was at last reached, he dashed
around it and took a straight course for Huested Street, down which he
passed with quickened steps and an air of growing assurance.

He was soon at the bottom of the hill where the street, taking a turn,
plunged him at once into a thickly populated district. As this was still
the residence quarter, he passed on until he gained the heart of the town
and the region of the saloons. Here he slackened pace and consulted a
memorandum he had made while talking to Hexford. "A big job," was his
comment, sorry to find the hour quite so late. "But I'm not bound to
finish it to-night. A start is all I can hope for, so here goes."