The Moving Finger Read online

  “Frankly, I’m not quite sure,” admitted Mitchell, grinning. “But as there are only two men in the house, not counting the butler, footman, chauffeur, and two gardeners, I hardly anticipate difficulty in narrowing the hunt down to one.”

  “And the two men are—”

  “Dr. Alan Noyes and Hugh Wyndham.”

  Thorne opened his cigar-case and offered it to Mitchell, then helped himself and placed a box of matches on an ash-tray conveniently before his guest.

  “Dr. Alan Noyes and Hugh Wyndham,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Mitchell, you have overlooked a member of the family in your list.”

  “You mean—?” The detective looked puzzled.

  “Craig Porter.”

  Mitchell laughed outright. “Have you seen him?”

  “No.”

  “Why, doctor, he’s paralyzed, can’t move hand or foot.” Mitchell puffed contentedly at his cigar. “I was in his bedroom yesterday afternoon and got a good look at him while I was chattmg with Mrs. Hall, the other nurse. I don’t think Porter will live very long, poor devil,” he added. “Fine-looking chap; must have been some athlete, from all accounts.”

  “Yes,” agreed Thorne, moving his plate aside to make room for the fresh pot of coffee which Cato brought in at that moment. “Let me give you a hot cup, Mitchell; there, that’s better. What were you going to ask me?” observing that his companion hesitated.

  “Can you give me any pointers about this Dr. Alan Noyes and Hugh Wyndham?” asked Mitchell. “They are your next-door neighbors, so to speak.”

  “And I never crossed their threshold until yesterday,” responded Thorne dryly. “A family feud of long standing, Mitchell, and if I were the devil with horns, Mrs. Porter couldn’t regard me with more horror.” A boyish smile touched his stern lips and his gray eyes twinkled.

  Mitchell glanced at him speculatively. There was little of the student in Thorne’s appearance; his bronzed cheeks and throat spoke of out-of-doors, and his well-cut riding-clothes showed his tall, wiry figure to advantage. The faint crow’s feet under his eyes and the slight graying of his black hair at the temples gave an impression of a not too easy path in life, and Mitchell decided in his own mind that his host was between thirty-six and thirty-eight years of age.

  “While I never talked to Mrs. Porter until yesterday, Mitchell,” continued Thorne, laying down the stub of his cigar, “I’ve had a slight acquaintance with Wyndham, and one not calculated to make me popular with him.”

  “How’s that, doctor?”

  “Oh, in my capacity of justice of the peace I’ve had to fine him for speeding,” responded Thorne. “I believe Noyes was with him on one of these occasions, but he stayed out in the motor car.”

  “I wonder whose motor Noyes used to leave the Porters’ early yesterday morning,” mused Mitchell. “Pshaw! there’s little use in speculating along that line. We’ve proved his alibi was true.”

  “Indeed? You mean—”

  “That a cipher cablegram was telephoned out to him from New York yesterday morning between two and three, and if Mrs. Porter’s testimony is to be relied on—and I see no reason to doubt it now—Noyes must have made straight for New York and is aboard the S. S. St. Louis, of the American Line. She sailed for Liverpool, and I’ve wirelessed out, but haven’t received an answer from the ship.”

  “So that clears Noyes,” commented Thorne.

  “Yes, I suppose it does,” but Mitchell’s tone was doubtful. “It doesn’t explain Miss Millicent Porter’s curious behavior at the inquest. Judging by her manner and her testimony, she believes Noyes guilty.”

  “Miss Porter was in a very hysterical state, hardly accountable for her actions.” Thorne paused and examined his nicotine-stained fingers with interest. “Have you unearthed any evidence against Hugh Wyndham?”

  “Well”—Mitchell hesitated, and shot a sidelong glance at his host—“nothing tangible against him—but if we eliminate Noyes it’s got to be Wyndham.”

  Before answering, Thorne refilled his coffee-cup. “Wyndham—or an outsider,” he said.

  “Not a chance of the latter.” Mitchell spoke with absolute confidence. “I’ve examined every lock and bolt on the doors and windows; not one is broken or out of order, and both the butler and footman declare all windows and doors were locked on the ground floor yesterday morning as usual. Take it from me, doctor, no one broke into that house to murder Brainard. No one except the dinner guests and Mrs. Porter’s household knew Brainard was spending the night there. I tell you,” emphasizing his words by striking the table with his clenched fist, “it was an inside job.”

  “It would seem so,” acknowledged Thorne, who had listened closely to Mitchell’s statement. “Were you at the Porters’ last night, Mitchell?”

  “No, I had to go in to Washington, but I left Pope there, and I returned early this morning and sent Pope in to Alexandria to get some breakfast and bring me my share. He’s never appeared.” Mitchell smiled ruefully. “But for you, doctor, I’d have fared badly. I greatly appreciate your hot breakfast,” he added, as he rose somewhat awkwardly and pushed back his chair.

  Thorne was slower in rising from the table than his guest.

  “Make this house your headquarters, Mitchell, while investigating Brainard’s murder,” he suggested hospitably. “The nearest road-house is five miles away. Should you require a meal—a telephone—a quiet moment—come here.”

  The detective looked gratified. “Mighty thoughtful of you, sir,” he said. “And I accept. The Porter house is out of the beaten track, and frankly—” He paused as they reached the large hall which did duty also as a living-room; at least such was the impression gained by Mitchell as he glanced inquiringly around, for the negro boy had taken him into the dining-room through a short passage leading from a side door, and he had not seen the front of the house before.

  The staircase in the hall was partly concealed by the stone fireplace and huge chimney about which it was built; deep window seats, comfortable lounging-chairs, a few tables, tiger skins, and other fur rugs, added to the hall’s homelike, comfortable appearance, while guns, moose and deer heads and other hunting trophies hung on the walls.

  Suddenly Mitchell became conscious of his prolonged silence and that Thorne was waiting courteously for him to continue his remark.

  “Frankly,” he commenced again, “I think the mystery will be solved and the murderer apprehended within forty-eight hours. And in that case, doctor, I’ll not trespass long on your hospitality.”

  “Come over whenever you care to,” exclaimed Thorne. “I’ll tell Cato to make you comfortable if I am not here.”

  “Thanks.” Mitchell turned up the collar of his overcoat as Thorne opened the front door, and stood hesitating on the threshold. “Say, doctor,” he suddenly burst out, “you were the first outside the Porter family to see Brainard yesterday morning—what struck you most forcibly about the affair?”

  Thorne considered the question. “The composure of Nurse Deane,” he said finally. “The young woman who said she was the first to discover the crime.”

  Mitchell stared at him open-mouthed. “What do you mean?” he demanded.

  “It is an unheard of thing for a first-class trained nurse to sleep at her post.” Thorne spoke slowly, carefully. “And the transom between the two bedrooms was open.”

  “But it is over Craig Porter’s bed,” objected Mitchell. “And Nurse Deane couldn’t have looked through the transom without climbing up on his bed.”

  “I grant you she could not have looked through the transom,” answered Thorne. “But she could hear. The slightest sound becomes ‘noise’ at dead of night.”

  Mitchell’s eyes grew bigger and bigger. “Then you think—”

  “That Nurse Deane both heard the murder committed and investigated it long before she went to summon Hugh Wyndham—and in that interval she had time to partially recover from shock and exert her self-control which, for a girl of her years, appears little short of marvelou
s.”

  There was a brief silence which Mitchell broke.

  “You’ve given me a new viewpoint,” he said. “So you think Nurse Deane is an accessory after the fact?”

  “Possibly—through sympathy.”

  Mitchell whistled. “Not to say affection, eh, doctor?” But Thorne was looking through the open door and failed to catch Mitchell’s suggestive wink. Mitchell moved briskly across the paved walk which led from the front door to the box-hedged garden in front of the house. “I’ll let you’ know what the third degree brings forth, doctor,” he called over his shoulder and hurried up the walk.

  Chapter VIII

  Many Inventions

  Dorothy Deane laid aside the muffler she had been pretending to knit and stared intently at Millicent who lay stretched out on the lounge in Mrs. Porter’s pretty boudoir. Millicent was certainly asleep at last, but Dorothy waited several more minutes before rising cautiously and stretching her stiff muscles. It seemed hours since she had breakfasted. Taking care not to awaken the sleeper, Dorothy left the room and, after debating her future actions, she finally went in search of Murray. She found the footman polishing the silver service in the pantry.

  “Miss Millicent wishes to know, Murray, if Mr. Wyndham has returned,” she said, letting the swing door close behind her.

  “No, Miss Dorothy, not yet.” Murray dropped his chamois and straightened to an upright position, and a sudden sharp crick in his back resulting caused an involuntary groan to burst from him. Dorothy looked at him sympathetically.

  “Why not use Sloane’s liniment?” she asked.

  Murray shook his head and eyed her dismally. “I’ll just have to endure it, miss—if it isn’t rheumatism it’s something else.”

  “Try a liver pill,” suggested Dorothy. She was aware of Murray’s peculiarities, and, if discussing medicine and illness would put him in a good humor, she was willing to go any length; Murray alone could supply her with certain information. Her suggestion, however, was unfortunate.

  Murray favored her with a withering glance. “It’s not my liver that gives me an ache in every bone, it’s grippe,” he announced. “I’m wishing I had one of them ante-bellum cartridges.”

  “Had what?” Dorothy looked at him in honest amazement.

  “Ante-bellum cartridges,” he repeated. “The same as Dr. Noyes gave you, Miss Dorothy, when you came down with cold and fever in Christmas week.”

  “Oh!” Dorothy’s piquant face dimpled into a smile, hastily suppressed; discretion prevailed in spite of her love of fun. It was wiser not to tell Murray that he should have said “antifebrin capsules”; she was there to wheedle, not to instruct. “Oh, Murray, I do hope you haven’t grippe—it’s so contagious.”

  “Yes, miss.” But Murray did not look downcast at the idea. “We’d be a whole hospital then, a regular hospital.” His face lengthened. “But we’ve no doctor in the house, now Dr. Noyes has gone.”

  “Oh, well, there’s one in the neighborhood; in fact, just across the fields—Dr. Thorne.”

  Murray shook his head dubiously. “I’m thinking I wouldn’t like him,” he said thoughtfully. “They say he’s over-hasty at cutting people up.”

  Dorothy laughed, then became serious. “I believe he has made a specialty of surgery.” She turned as if to go. “By the way, Murray, did Mr. Wyndham mention when he would be back?”

  “No, miss, he didn’t.” Murray, turning about to replace a dish on the shelf, smiled discreetly. “I’m thinking, miss, that Mr. Hugh intended to tell Mrs. Porter when he would be back when that ’tec, Mr. Mitchell, stepped out of the door I was holding open for Mrs. Porter, and Mr. Hugh called to her to expect him when she saw him, and the car started off with a rush. He was here this morning.”

  “Who—Mr. Hugh?” Dorothy turned like a flash.

  “No, no, miss, the ’tec, Mitchell. I hear tell as how he’s the man in charge here; tall, light-haired, looks as if he didn’t belong anywhere, ’cause he’s so busy concealing he’s looking everywhere.”

  “I know the man you mean.” Dorothy laid her hand on the swing door. “Miss Millicent and I watched him pacing up and down the carriage drive before breakfast, and saw him go toward Dr. Thorne’s house. Has he been here since? Oh!” She stepped back, startled, as a face appeared at the pantry window, and a second later a finger tapped gently on the pane.

  “Speaking of the devil”—muttered Murray, walking past Dorothy and throwing open the window. “What do you want to scare the lady for?” he demanded wrathfully.

  “I beg your pardon.” Mitchell lifted his hat and regarded Dorothy solemnly. “I was under the impression she had seen me standing here a moment ago. Please tell Nurse Deane, Murray, that I wish to see her.”

  Dorothy, who had drawn back until she stood partly hidden by the wall of the pantry from Mitchell’s penetrating gaze, grew paler as she heard the detective’s request, and the quick droop of her eyelids hid a look of sudden terror. Before the footman could reply she stepped forward to the window.

  “My sister is off duty this morning,” she said. “She is still asleep in her bedroom. Can I take your message to her?”

  Mitchell considered rapidly before replying. “May I have a few words with you?”

  “Surely. Will you not come into the house? It is rather chilly standing by an open window.”

  “Walk around to the front door, sir, and I’ll show you into the drawing-room,” directed Murray, removing his apron and closing the window. “Mrs. Porter is in the library,” he added, and hastened to open the swing door.

  With a word of thanks Dorothy walked slowly through the dining-room and down the hall, permitting the footman to reach the front door and usher Detective Mitchell into the drawing-room before she entered. She bowed courteously to Mitchell and signed to him to take a chair near the sofa on which she deposited herself with careful regard to having her back turned to the windows and the detective facing the light. She waited for him to open the conversation.

  “You came here last night, Miss Deane.” It seemed more a simple statement of fact than a question, and Dorothy treated it as such and made no reply. Mitchell moved his chair nearer the sofa before asking, “Did I understand you to say that your sister was resting this morning—or ill?”

  Dorothy started; ill, why should the detective imagine Vera was ill?

  “She is resting,” she responded. “Your ignorance of nurses’ hours of duty proves a clean bill of health, Mr. Mitchell. Night nurses must sleep in the daytime, especially when the day nurse is late in reporting for duty.”

  “But Mrs. Hall has been back for some time,” persisted Mitchell. “And it is now nearly one o’clock. Are you quite sure that your sister is still asleep? I am under the impression that I saw her in the upper hall talking to Miss Porter fifteen minutes ago.”

  Dorothy considered the detective in silence. What had aroused his sudden interest in Vera?

  “If you will give me your message,” she said, “I will go upstairs and see if my sister is awake.”

  “Thank you,” replied Mitchell. “But I must see your sister—”

  “When?”

  “Now.” Hearing a step behind him, Mitchell spun around as Murray stopped by the back of his chair.

  “Mrs. Porter desires you to step into the library, sir,” he announced. “You also, Miss Dorothy,” and, wondering why her presence was required, Dorothy followed the detective into the library.

  A disorderly pile of newspapers lay on the center table in front of Mrs. Porter, whose air of displeasure and heightened color Dorothy rightly attributed to the display type which heralded the news accounts of the mysterious death of Bruce Brainard.

  “Upon my word,” Mrs. Porter’s gold lorgnette performed an incessant tattoo on the table. “The unbridled license of the press of today! And your paper, Dorothy, is most sensational,” addressing her directly. “How could you permit it?”

  “But, dear Mrs. Porter, I’m only society editor—I have no authority
except over my particular section of the paper,” protested Dorothy. “I am deeply sorry if—if the article offends you.”

  “It not only offends—it’s offensive!” fumed Mrs. Porter. “I spoke hastily, Dorothy; I admit you are in no way to blame, but I’ll place the matter in my lawyer’s hands, and the owners of the paper shall smart for hinting that we are a band of murderers.”

  “Surely it does not go as far as that?” ejaculated Mitchell.

  “It implies it.” Mrs. Porter favored him with an angry look. “I see the article gives you, Mr. Mitchell, as authority for the statement that Dr. Noyes is being sought by the police. How dare you insinuate that he may be guilty? I gave his reason for his abrupt departure at the inquest; the jurors did not hold him in any way responsible for the crime or bring a verdict against him.”

  “You must not believe everything you read in the newspapers,” remarked Mitchell, meeting her irate glare with unruffled good nature. “My precise statement to the newspaper men implied nothing against Dr. Noyes. The reporters simply picked him as the first possible ‘suspect.’”

  “Kindly disabuse their minds of any such idea. Dr. Noyes, besides his professional ability, is a man of high character and proven courage. He would not stoop to murder,” declared Mrs. Porter hotly. “Besides, there is no possible motive for his killing Bruce Brainard—they never even met before Monday night.” Mitchell remained discreetly silent, and, after watching him in growing resentment, Mrs. Porter announced vehemently: “Mr. Brainard committed suicide. In ascribing his death to murder, the police err.”

  “What leads you to believe he committed suicide?” demanded Mitchell.

  “His morbid tendencies, his—” She stopped abruptly. “He must have been suffering from mental aberration.”

  “All suicides are temporarily insane,” agreed Mitchell. “Otherwise they would not kill themselves; but, Mrs. Porter, in Brainard’s case the medical evidence went to prove that the wound in his throat could not have been self-inflicted.”