Five Fatal Words Read online

  Melicent bent over them. They were all right, they said. They just needed breath.

  Melicent returned to Miss Cornwall, who had faced about again to the fire. She sat on her suitcase and hugged her knees. She trembled but one could not be sure whether it was from fear or from the frigidity of the early morning.

  Melicent could not be sure why she herself was shaking. The ground under her feet and the air were cold. The flames gave a little heat as they added to the slowly increasing light of day. A siren heralded the approach of the fire apparatus, but it was obvious that the firemen were not in time to save the house. However, they ran their hose and pumped their streams of water on the blaze which now leaped from all the length of the roof and spread a crimson glare to the sky.

  A floor fell, scattering flaming embers, the brick walls became sides of a furious furnace so hot that Miss Cornwall and her tin box and huge suitcase were moved farther away. What had been an early morning breeze became a wind. Shrubbery on the lawn and the tops of trees caught fire. The men who had come from the village had to satisfy themselves with a triumph over these fires and with drenching the garage so no ember could set it ablaze. However, Granger drove out the Rolls-Royce and two other cars.

  He had helped the firemen for a while and so had Hardy and Donald Cornwall, and now, with the shrubbery wet down, there was nothing for anyone to do but watch.

  Donald Cornwall went to the fire engine and found two blankets and laid one about his aunt. With the other he approached Melicent.

  "It's all I can rustle for you. Are you all right?"

  "Perfectly."

  "Shaking a bit," he observed.

  "Am I? I'm not cold."

  His face was grimy and the grime almost camouflaged a grin that held more praise than humor. "Don't dream that I grudge you a shiver or two. Do you know, I thought you were never coming out. Did you save anything of your own?"

  "Do I look as if I did? returned Melicent, quieted now of her quivering. "Too bad.

  I guess my aunt and the insurance company will make amends for that."

  It was the first moment in which Melicent had thought of the fate of her personal belongings. The fervor with which Miss Cornwall had packed the big suitcase and clung to the tin box had so impressed Melicent that she had forgotten her own in helping save the old lady's personal belongings. What were her dresses and hats and underthings compared to the putative contents of that tin box?

  Abruptly she recollected that over the nightdress belonging to Miss Cornwall she was wearing a borrowed sweater and skirt, and that everything she had possessed--except the bedroom slippers on her feet--had been consumed in the crackling, thundering caldron before them.

  Miss Cornwall approached her. "Granger has the car ready. I think we had better go to town. There is quite a nice little hotel there. I am sorry about all this."

  Melicent looked at the face of Hannah Cornwall, ruddy in the crimson glare. She wondered if Miss Cornwall was sorry. There was no tone of regret in the voice that said the words and perhaps they carried a trace of relief. Now that gloomy old Blackcroft had been consumed before her eyes, now that it had been blotted from the earth, was the old lady finding herself almost glad that it was gone?

  This home had been for her a dwelling place of dread, in recent days at least, and in it yesterday her brother had been murdered.

  Did she realize that it was murder which had come to her brother with the little copper spider clenched in his hand?

  She stumbled as she strode toward the car and Melicent caught her on one side, Donald Cornwall on the other. They helped her into the car and packed in her big suitcase and her precious tin box in front of her.

  Melicent stepped away then in the direction of the burning house and Donald followed her.

  "There's not a chance of saving anything now," he said.

  "Of course not. I was just thinking."

  "What?"

  "About what I saw in there; about what I told you. There was a hole in the plaster in that room just opposite the tub in the bathroom."

  "But there was no hole through into the bathroom," said Donald Cornwall.

  "No, nothing that we noticed, but--do you know about the message he received before he went to bathe?"

  "He got a message?" asked Donald quickly. "What sort of a message?"

  "Then your aunt didn't mention it to you."

  "No, she didn't mention any message. What sort was it?"

  "A five word message--meaningless to him."

  "What were the words--meaningless or not?" He had seized her wrist again, almost as he had in the burning room, but this time it was to hold her until she told him.

  "It was a telegram from New York which was phoned over to him. It had no meaning to him, he said. He thought it could not be for him but it was addressed to him, care of his sister."

  "What were the five words of the message?"

  "'Don't ever alter these horoscopes,'" repeated Melicent slowly. She could hear him whispering the initial letters after her and his fingers clamped on her wrist mercilessly.

  "Miss Waring!" commanded Miss Cornwall from the car. "Come! Miss Waring!"

  "Go with her!" bade Donald, and dropped her hand.

  "It seems sure your uncle was murdered."

  "Of course he was, so stay with her. Don't you see how she's twice as much more in danger? Leave everything else to me."

  "Come, come! Miss Waring!"

  Melicent climbed into the car. She had one last glimpse of the old mansion. The iron railing that ran around the top had been broken in two and part of it sagged into the flames. It was red hot--almost the same color as the autumn sun which was rising behind it. Granger drove smoothly and swiftly but when the limousine reached the post road Donald Cornwall's yellow roadster passed them and they found, upon reaching the Williamsborough inn, that Donald had awakened the proprietor and already had arranged accommodations for them. What other business he had in town Melicent did not learn, for he had not awaited them.

  She went with Miss Cornwall to the room reserved, where Hannah locked herself in. At eight o'clock a girl from one of the local stores was sent to Melicent's room, talked with her briefly and less than an hour later returned with some clothing which, while not what Melicent herself would have selected, was far better than a costume of a long, dark skirt, an ill-fitting sweater and bedroom slippers.

  She wondered as she dressed, when she was left again alone, whether she would continue to hold her job. Miss Cornwall had said nothing about it, but certainly it would not be strange if Hannah Cornwall, accustomed to change all her employees periodically, made another shift after what had happened. As she thought of this possibility, Melicent learned how much she wanted to remain in the strange old lady's employ and close to the amazing secrets of this family. She was in a situation utterly incomparable with anything in her life before, and she could not relinquish it. She tried to think what Miss Cornwall had last said to her, but she could not remember that the old lady had said a word from the time they left Blackcroft until the time she locked herself in her hotel room.

  Donald Cornwall, Melicent was sure, had ordered that she be supplied with the clothes, though they were to be charged to Miss Cornwall.

  It was a bright, warm forenoon, with cars passing, people walking by, voices and bells. The business of the day was begun, and Melicent Waring's business (she was very sure) was to see that the authorities understood that murder had been done somehow in that bathroom at Blackcroft where Everitt Cornwall had died with the little copper spider clutched in his hand.

  She listened at Miss Cornwall's door and hearing nothing Melicent went downstairs, her mind full of determination, her nerves aching from the intensity of the last twenty-four hours. In complete contrast to herself, she found Donald Cornwall sitting alone at a table in the dining room calmly drinking coffee. He had on fresh clothing, and with the grime of last night weariness also seemed to have gone from him. He rose as he saw her. "How do you feel?"
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  "I'm all right. Thanks for sending the girl from the store."

  "She did very well by you. How's my aunt?"

  "Sleeping, I think."

  "I might make sure of that. But first, will you have some coffee?"

  "I'd love some."

  He beckoned to the waitress hovering near. "Coffee and fruit--and whatever else Miss Waring wants, here," he ordered, and he pulled back a chair for Melicent, and himself departed.

  Before the coffee came, however, he was back and opposite Melicent at the little, cozy table.

  "Was she asleep?" asked Melicent.

  "No, just resting. She's quite a woman, isn't she? She gets waked up in the middle of the night, finds her house is on fire, takes out the things she values most, and accepts the whole thing as calmly as you please. When I saw her just now, she was sitting on her bed checking over her insurance policies. She'd already made her mind up about everything "

  "About everything?"

  Young Cornwall nodded. "About you, for example, and even me. I personally think she was glad to get rid of Brackcroft. She never voluntarily would have moved out.

  Nobody could have budged her, but now that it's gone, it bucked her up. She's decided to do something."

  "What?"

  "Go abroad. Her sister Alice lives in Belgium, has a big house in the Domrey river valley. They haven't seen each other for years. Aunt Hannah has decided to go there and wants to take you and Granger and the car and she wants me to go along. Sort of family pilgrimage."

  "She wants to take me to Belgium?"

  He nodded. "Yep. She has a high opinion of you. Says you have plenty of nerve and intelligence."

  "It's nice of her--"

  "I am supposed to make the proposition and tell her the answer, so what do you say?"

  "You Cornwalls are a very strange people," said Melicent. She looked about. Her coffee and fruit had been brought her and the waitress had gone away. They were alone in the breakfast room of the inn, yet Melicent leaned nearer him across the table and whispered, "Did you understand what I told you last night?"

  "About the hole in the plaster," he replied without a change in his expression,

  "and about the message, too. In fact, I checked over the message with the telegraph company this morning. It was as you repeated it to me."

  "And it meant nothing to you?"

  "Of course it means something to me--and so does the hole in the plaster; so much that I want to be sure that my aunt goes away, leaves the country at once. I'm sure she will, if you go with her. She is more shaken than she seems, but she feels she can depend on you, and she likes Granger, too. So will you go?"

  "What are you going to do?"

  "I'm going abroad too. We will have services here for Uncle Everitt, of course.

  Meanwhile I'll have time to see to some obvious duties." His voice dropped but his expression did not at all change, and anyone looking in would think him conversing only casually. "I'm having the death of Uncle Everitt investigated fully--and privately. So tell no one else what you told me. You see why, surely. We must throw them off guard--they who thought up the copper spider. We must make it appear that we accept what happened as an accident--he was electrocuted touching a defective fixture. Any hope we have of catching them depends on that. You see it, surely."

  "Yes," agreed Melicent. "I see."

  The waitress was returning. "You've been to Belgium?" Donald inquired of Melicent easily.

  "Never."

  "You'll like it . . ." his voice ran on pleasantly and unperturbed.

  Later, away from him, Melicent felt she had acquiesced too readily. She liked him, he was utterly disarming of doubts when he was with her, and she knew from having seen the letter he had written following the death of his father that he must be thoroughly convinced now that the messages meant murder and that murder had been done.

  The burning of the house following the sudden death of Everitt Cornwall had made a sensation, of course, but Melicent found that it had aroused no suspicion in the little town. The same explanation sufficed for both events. The wiring in the old mansion had become very defective, so that a fixture had killed Everitt Cornwall when he touched it stepping into the bath; another defect in the same wiring had made a short circuit during the night and set fire to the house. The second circumstance seemed to confirm the original explanation of the first.

  Shortly before noon Mr. Reece arrived and was received by Miss Cornwall alone.

  They had a long conference, and when the lawyer came out from it Donald Cornwall claimed him.

  This conference was shorter, but it was after luncheon when Melicent found her first opportunity for a private word with the lawyer, who originally had engaged her.

  "You have behaved admirably," Mr. Reece praised her. "Miss Cornwall and her nephew agree that no one could have acted better. I am very glad that you will accompany my client to Belgium. That there are personal risks involved in this employment, which scarcely were contemplated when I first talked to you must be clear to you." He went on in a way which suggested to Melicent that he had rehearsed what he had to say. "The nature of those risks should be as clear to you as to me."

  "Perhaps," put in Melicent, "they are clearer."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Did Mr. Cornwall tell you that we believe--I mean, he and I--that his uncle was murdered?"

  Reece nodded. "And he has related to me the reasons for that belief--also that you have very sensibly concluded that these must be kept secret for the present."

  "That is the chief thing, Mr. Reece, which disturbs me."

  "Dismiss your disturbance. You would only bring to nothing the investigations which I am conducting here. For forty years--for forty years," Reece repeated impressively, "I or the firm which I now represent have handled the affairs of this family.

  I must be the one to judge the best interests of all concerned. Is there anything I can do for you before you leave for Belgium?"

  For a moment Melicent found herself flung from the maze of the Cornwall affairs.

  She was returned in mind to her room with Helen Crosby which had been her home when she had been only a girl out of a job.

  "I have agreed to devote myself exclusively to Miss Cornwall but I would like before I go away to send word to my old roommate that I am going abroad for an indefinite stay and that I am fascinated by my work."

  Mr. Reece permitted himself a smile. "Certainly, you may send that."

  Later in the afternoon arrived a smug, sententious and oversolicitous scholar, upwards of fifty in years. This was Prof. Coleman, who, if Hannah Cornwall survived all her sisters and brothers, would surely obtain many of the family millions for his university to be established after the ancient Greek ideals. At five o'clock Theodore Cornwall, now the sole surviving brother, appeared at the inn.

  In contrast to Everitt, he traveled with a corps of attendants. He brought valet, secretary, masseur, and two burly individuals who badly disguised the fact that they were bodyguards. He contrasted with his late brother in many other ways. There was no geniality about him.

  He was a tall, thin, querulous man, absorbed with himself and possessed of enormous vanity. He was the brother, Melicent recollected, who had become a vegetarian when a young man in the hope of prolonging his years and who had become so confident of outliving his brothers and sisters that he announced now and then some new grandiose scheme which would be carried out when he obtained the family money.

  He was with his sister when the news came that the coroner had completed his investigation of the circumstances of Everitt Cornwall's death and had given the verdict that it was due to accidental causes.

  Melicent met Granger in the lounge of the inn.

  "You're going to Belgium with our employer, I hear," he observed.

  "Aren't you, too?"

  He nodded. "What's the real word on what happened in that bath?" he asked her, jealously. "You know, but I--well, they ask me to come along but they don't tell me a
nything. What do you think of that accident?"

  "What do you'" returned Melicent, evading him although she was glad he was going to Belgium too.

  Outside, Donald Cornwall awaited her. "Uncle Theodore has been inviting Aunt Hannah to visit him in New York," Donald told her. "But she's not likely to change her plan now--for heaven's sake don't let her."

  Melicent stood at the rail of the fastest and finest liner in the Atlantic service. She had never been on an ocean liner before in her life. On one side of her a lifeboat hung in its davits. On the other side a long row of people lined the same rail, dividing their attention between the waving, shouting crowd on the pier and the towering skyline which rose in the background. A tugboat pushed the mushroom on its nose against the side of the liner, a deep whistle shook her body. Handkerchiefs broke over the crowd on the dock like small white flowers. She had a vague sense of motion and water appeared between the side of the vessel and the dock. The great whistle sounded and was answered by lesser whistles.

  She noticed one of the passengers, a middle-aged man with a waxed mustache, looking at her and it gave her a momentary feeling of satisfaction. A barber at the Ritz had arranged the coiffure of her golden-brown hair. The traveling suit which she wore was not a cheap copy of a Paris model--it was a Paris model. Miss Cornwall had insisted that Melicent's smart but meager wardrobe which had been destroyed in the fire should be replaced at her own expense. She had furthermore, rejected Melicent's suggestions of stores at which to shop and had taken her to a couturier with the result that Melicent's new wardrobe was not only extravagant and complete but a suitable compliment to a girl whose beauty and poise merited such careful attention.

  The man with the waxed mustache looked away from her and Melicent forgot about him. She even laughed soundlessly at herself for allowing herself the vanity of being pleased by his obvious admiration. The water between the ship and the shore was now half as wide as the river. The crowd and the waving handkerchiefs had melted into a single spot of color on the wharf. By turning her head in a semicircle she could perceive the entire extent of Manhattan Island. She looked at it wistfully. It had been her home for a long time and although it had sometimes been hard to live there she had always found it exciting and she had always felt safe inside its roaring, impersonal boundaries.