The Tragedy of Z (4 page)

I had begun on the third—and most lurid—chorus when Elihu Clay drove up, rather tired, I thought, and muttering an apology for his late return. Something, it appeared, had kept him unavoidably busy at his office. He had barely seated himself and accepted one of father's vile cigars when the telephone in his study rang.

“Don't bother, Martha,” he called to the housekeeper. “I'll take it myself.” And he excused himself and went into the house.

His study was at the front of the house, its windows overlooking the porch; the windows were open, and we could not help overhearing his conversation with someone whose voice rasped urgently in the receiver.

His very first words were: “Good God,” in a shocked tone that brought father up sharply and stilled Jeremy's hand on the strings. Then: “Terrible, terrible … I can't imagine—No, I haven't the faintest idea where he is. He said he would be back in a few days.… Heavens, man, I can't—I can't believe it!”

Jeremy ran into the house. “What's the matter, dad?”

Mr. Clay waved him off with a trembling hand. “What's that? … Well, naturally, I'm at your command.… By the way! This is confidential, of course, but I'm entertaining a man who may be able to help you.… Yes, Inspector Thumm, of New York City.… Yes, that's the man—retired a few years ago, but you know his reputation.… Yes, yes! I'm horribly sorry, old man.”

He hung up, and came slowly out on the porch again, wiping his forehead.

“Dad! What's up?”

Elihu Clay's face was a white mask against the gray tint of the wall. “Inspector, it's a fortunate thing I got you up here. Something's happened that's much more serious than my—my little affair. That was John Hume, our district attorney. He wanted to know where Dr. Fawcett, my partner, was.” He sank into a chair, smiling feebly. “Senator Fawcett has just been found stabbed to death in the study of his house on the other side of town!”

District Attorney John Hume, it appeared, was only too eager to accept the services of a man whose life had been spent in the investigation of murders. Everything, reported Mr. Clay wearily, was being left untouched for father's inspection. The district attorney urged that the Inspector come to the scene of the crime as soon as possible.

“I'll drive you over,” said Jeremy quickly. “Half a minute,” and he disappeared in the darkness to bring the car around.

“Of course, I'm going along,” I said. “You know what Mr. Lane said, father.”

“Well, I wouldn't blame Hume for kicking you out,” grumbled father. “A murder's no place for a young girl. I don't know——”

“Ready!” sang out Jeremy, and the car slipped up in the driveway. He seemed surprised to see me jump into the rear of the limousine with father, but offered no objection. Mr. Clay waved us off; he had an aversion, he said tightly, to blood.

Darkness engulfed us as the car shot on to the road, and Jeremy sent it roaring down the hill. I twisted about and looked behind. Far up, against blackish clouds, shone the lights of Algonquin Prison. Why I should have thought of the prison at that moment when we were speeding toward the scene of a crime which only a free man could have committed, I do not know; but it depressed me, and I shivered and snuggled closer to father's great shoulder. Jeremy said nothing; his eyes were intent on the road.

We accomplished the journey in what must have been a phenomenally short time; but to me it was interminable. I was experiencing an unpleasant sense of impending events.… It seemed hours before we dashed through two iron gates and screamed to a stop before a large ornate mansion blazing with lights.

There were automobiles all about, and the dark grounds were crawling with troopers and police. The front door gaped open. Leaning against the jamb stood a quiet man with his hands in his pockets. Everyone was quiet, as quiet as he; there was no conversation, no casual human noises of any kind. Crickets chirped cheerfully about the house, and that was all.

Every detail of that night stands out in memory. To father it was the old ugly story, but to me it was raw with horror and—I confess—a morbid interest. How did a dead man look? I had never seen a dead man. I had seen my mother dead, but she had been so peaceful, so amiably smiling. This dead man would be a monster, I was sure; he would be grimacing with horror, and there would be nightmares of blood.…

I found myself standing in a large study, bright with many lamps, and filled with men. I got a vague impression of men with cameras, men with little camel's-hair brushes, men who poked among books, men who did nothing at all. But the actuality, the reality was a solitary figure. Of all those present he was the most serene, the least concerned. He was a big beefy fellow with an unhandsome obesity; he was in his shirtsleeves, and the sleeves were rolled up above his elbows leaving his powerful hairy forearms bare. On his feet were old and roomy carpet-slippers. On his broad, coarse features sat a rather annoyed, not unpleasant expression.

Someone's heavy voice growled: “Have a look at him, Inspector.”

Through the dancing haze before my eyes I looked, and looked, and thought that it was indecent for a dead man, a murdered man, to sit so quietly and uncernedly while all the world scuttled about his room, invading his privacy, raping his books, photographing his desk, smearing his furniture with powdered aluminum, brutally searching his papers.… This was Senator Joel Fawcett, the late Senator Fawcett.

The haze wavered a little, and my eyes riveted on that white shirt-front. Senator Fawcett was seated behind a cluttered desk; his thick torso was pressed against the edge, and his head was cocked a bit to one side in an inquiring way. And just above the edge of the desk against which he sat so closely, in the center and to the right of the pearly buttons of his shirt, there was a stain, a spread stain, out of the heart of which protruded the haft of a slender paper-knife. Blood, I thought dully; it really looked like red ink that had crusted.… And then a fussy little man, whom I discovered later to be Dr. Bull, the medical examiner of Tilden County, slipped into my line of vision and blotted out the corpse. I sighed and shook my head clear of a sudden vertigo. I felt father's powerful grip on my elbow, and I stiffened, fighting for self-control.

Voices were saying things. I looked up into the eyes of a very young man. Father was booming something—I caught the name “Hume”—and realized that he was presenting the district attorney of the county, the gentleman who—good heavens! I thought—who was to have been the dead man's political opponent in the coming campaign.… John Hume was tall, almost as tall as Jeremy—where
was
Jeremy? I wondered—and he had very beautiful and intelligent dark eyes. The guilty little thought that had been trying to creep into my consciousness curled up and died of shame. Not this man. And that lean, hungry look about him. Hunger for … what? Power? Truth?

“Hullo, Miss Thumm,” he said crisply; he had a deep practiced voice. “The Inspector tells me you're something of a detective yourself. You're sure you want to stay?”

“Quite sure,” I said in the most careless tone I could muster. But my lips were dry, the words came out cracked, and his eyes grew keen.

“Oh, very well.” He shrugged. “Do you want to examine the body, Inspector?”

“Your bone-setter'll tell you more than I can. Examine the duds?”

“There's nothing on the body of interest.”

“He wasn't expecting a woman,” muttered father. “Not that bird. With his lips, and those sissy fingernails, he wouldn't receive a dame in shirt-sleeves.… Is he married, Hume?

“No.”

“Girl-friend?”

“Pluralize that, Inspector, and you'll be nearer the truth. Bad actor, and I have no doubt there's many a woman who would have liked to jab a knife into him.”

“Got anyone special in mind?”

Their eyes met. “No,” said John Hume, and turned away. He beckoned sharply, and a squat, burly, flop-eared man slouched across the room toward us. The district attorney introduced him as Chief Kenyon, of the local police department. The man had the gelatinous eyes of a fish; I disliked him immediately. And I fancied I saw malevolence in his glance at father's broad back.

The fussy little man, Dr. Bull, who had been engaged in scribbling with an enormous fountain-pen on an official slip of paper, straightened up and tucked the pen away in his pocket.

“Well, Doc?” demanded Kenyon. “What's the verdict?”

“Murder,” said Dr. Bull briskly. “No question in my mind. Everything points that way, and away from suicide. Aside from all other considerations, the wounds that caused death simply couldn't have been self-inflicted.”

“There was more than one blow, then?” asked father.

“Yes. Fawcett was stabbed in the chest twice. Both wounds bled profusely, as you see. But the first, while a serious wound, didn't quite send him west, and the murderer made sure by jabbing again.”

He flicked his finger toward the letter-knife which had been buried in the dead man's breast. He had removed it from its bed in the victim's body, and it lay on the desk, dull with a clotted crimson coating on its thin blade. A detective picked it up gingerly and began to dust it with a grayish powder.

“You're sure,” snapped John Hume, “that it couldn't possibly have been suicide?”

“Dead certain. Angles and directions of both wounds make the conclusion inevitable. There's something else, though, that you'll want to see. Damned interesting.”

Dr. Bull pattered around the desk and stood over the still figure, like a lecturer over an
objet d'art.
Quite impersonally he raised the dead man's right arm, which was already stiffening in
rigor mortis.
The skin was pallid, and the long hairs of the forearm were hideous in their glossy luxuriance. And then I forgot that this was a corpse.…

For on the forearm were two peculiar marks. One of them was a sharp thin gash just above the wrist, from which blood had oozed. The other was four inches farther up the arm; a queer fuzzy ragged scratch which puzzled me.

“Now,” said the medical examiner jovially, “this gash just above the wrist. No question but that it was made by the paper-knife. At least,” he added hastily, “by something as sharp as the letter-knife.”

“And the other one?” demanded father, frowning.

“Your guess is as good as mine. There's only one thing I'll say positively, and that is that the ragged scratch wasn't made by the murder-weapon.”

I moistened my lips; an idea was whispering. “Have you any way of fixing the
time
both wounds were made on the arm, Doctor?”

They all turned sharply toward me. Hume checked a remark, and father grew thoughtful. The medical examiner smiled. “That's a good question, young lady. Yes, I have. Both scratches were made very recently—in the general period of the murder—and I should say at the same approximate time.”

The detective who had been experimenting with the bloody weapon straightened up with a look of disgust. “No fingerprints on the knife,” he announced. “Tough.”

“Well,” said Dr. Bull pleasantly, “that's the end of my job. You'll want an autopsy, of course, although I'm sure I'll find nothing to cast doubt on the dope I've already given you. One of you men, get the Public Welfare boys in here to cart the stiff away.”

He closed his medical kit. Two men in uniform trooped in. One of them was masticating something vigorously, and other sniffled—his nose was damp and red. These details have always stood out in my mind; it would be impossible to forget the utter callousness of the proceedings. I turned away slightly.… The two men approached the desk, deposited a large basket-like contrivance with four handles on the floor, seized the dead man by the armpits, lifted him with loud grunts out of the chair, dumped him into the crate, shoved a wicker lid over him, stooped, and—the one still chewing his gum, the other still sniffling—carried their burden away.

I found breathing less difficult, and sighed with relief; although it was some minutes before I could muster courage enough to approach the desk and the empty chair. It was at this time that I remarked with a little feeling of surprise the tall figure of Jeremy Clay in the hall, leaning by the side of a policeman against the door-jamb. He was watching me intently.

“By the way,” growled father, as the medical examiner picked up his bag and trotted to the door, “when was this bird killed?” There was disapproval in his eyes; I gathered that there was something slipshod in the conduct of this murder investigation, and that his city-trained, orderly soul rebelled at the complete indifference of Kenyon, who was wandering idly about the study, and Dr. Bull, who was whistling a joyous little tune.

“Oh! That's right; I forgot. I can fix the time of death pretty exactly,” said Dr. Bull. “Ten-twenty tonight, I'd say. Ten-twenty. Yes. Not a minute more or less. Ten-twenty …” He smacked his lips, bobbed his head, and disappeared through the door.

Father grunted and looked at his watch. It was five minutes of midnight. “He's damn' cocksure of himself,” he muttered.

John Hume shook his head impatiently and went to the door. “Get that fellow Carmichael in here.”

“Who's Carmichael?”

“Senator Fawcett's secretary. Kenyon says he has a lot of valuable testimony for us. Well, we'll know in a moment.”

“Find any prints, Kenyon?” growled father, bestowing a look of Olympian contempt upon the chief of police.

Kenyon started; he had been picking his teeth with an ivory gadget, eyes abstracted. He took the toothpick out of his mouth, scowled, and said to one of his men: “Find any prints?”

The man shook his head. “Not of an outsider. Plenty of the Senator's, and of Carmichael's. Whoever pulled this job must ‘a' read detective stories. He wore gloves.”

“He wore gloves,” said Kenyon, and put the toothpick back into his mouth.