The Widening Stain Read online

  Within the locked press, against the south wall, stands a great safe, once the property of a railroad. Mr. Wilmerding, having by his astuteness emptied the safe of its valuables and brought the railroad to bankruptcy, presented it to the Library, for the protection of books excessively precious or astoundingly erotic.

  On the ground floor of the north bay and in the crossing, or center, of the room stand three show-cases. One contains several medieval manuscripts, another some rare incunabula and first editions, the third some personal relics of Mr. Wilmerding, deposited there at the request of his heirs. There is a golden spike which he hammered into place when the eastern and western sections of the Chicago and Oregon met in the Rocky Mountains, and which, apparently, he immediately pulled out again. There is a photograph of him shaking hands with the German Kaiser, and one of him standing with his foot on the head of a dead tiger, amid a swarm of flies; there is a wilted fur cap he wore when, at the age of eighteen, he taught school in Apulia, New York.

  With all this mise en scène Gilda had long been affectionately familiar. She was fond of the Wilmerding; it was like the old gentleman himself, she said: rich, tasteless, overpowering, a medley of wisdom and childish ostentation.

  And now she was to find that mystery and blood could be at home in the Wilmerding Library, as it had in the man.

  By the first of the show-cases, beneath the overhanging rail of the gallery, lay Lucie Coindreau.

  When Gilda saw her, three conflicting impulses smote her simultaneously: to scream, to faint, and to be sick. For a small fraction of a second the three impulses fought for precedence. The scream won. It was a wild, full-throated scream. She then tottered, preparing to faint away from the body on the floor.

  As she tottered, a steady arm caught her. “Easy there, Miss Gorham! Easy there! What’s all this?”

  It was Dr. Sandys. Gilda thought wildly that anyone should be able to recognize at a glance what all this was. But people have to say something, and you might as well say “What’s all this?” as simply scream.

  “I must see if she’s dead—” said Dr. Sandys. “You all right, Miss Gorham? Stand against that case.”

  “I’m all right.” Gilda suddenly knew that she was not going to faint or be sick. There were things that had to be done first.

  Dr. Sandys knelt down and felt for Lucie Coindreau’s heart.

  “I can’t feel anything. Looks as if she’d broken her neck. I’ve been afraid someone would go over those galleries. The first thing we want is a doctor. Miss Gorham, run down to the catalogue room—that’s nearest—and telephone the President’s house. Ask for Dr. Churchill or anyone else of the medical staff. Send him over on the run. Then get the President and tell him. Hurry.”

  Gilda took a step and almost fell. She seemed to have no sensation in her knees, and no control over her feet. “This won’t do!” she said aloud. Angrily she forced her legs to work, as if she were just learning to walk.

  She stepped on something small and round like a marble and steadied herself against a book-stack. Instinctively she stooped and picked up the object. It was Lucie Coindreau’s little divining ball, her amulet of radiesthésie. Holding it by its string, Gilda wavered toward the door leading to the stacks and the catalogue room.

  As she pushed the door open, Cameron brushed past her.

  “Thought I heard a scream,” he said.

  Gilda gestured with her hand and went, with increasing sureness, to the stack entrance to the catalogue room.

  She opened the door. The room was dark. She must have switched off the lights and shut the door automatically. Such is the power of habit.

  At the telephone, she called the Presidential Mansion. Dr. Churchill, she found, was just leaving. She gave him her message. It took a little longer to get the President.

  “I’ll be right over,” said President Temple. “And look here, Miss Gorham, don’t touch anything and don’t tell anybody. We can’t have a lot of people barging in. Good-by.”

  Gilda hung up. Glancing around, she saw her raincoat on her desk. Untidy. Likely to cause comment in the morning. She put it away in her locker.

  She felt a little stronger by the time she reached the Wilmerding once more. She saw Dr. Sandys and Cameron bending over the body. And there was a third figure—Francis Parry.

  As she approached, Parry came to meet her. Silently he patted her on her bare shoulder. In the crook of his left arm he was carrying her blue-and-silver evening wrap. He threw it without a word about her shoulders.

  Through the main door of the Wilmerding came Professor Casti, running. “Is it Lucie?” he cried. “I had a feeling—”

  He looked at the body on the floor.

  “Lucie!” he cried. He fell on his knees. “Lucie!” Gilda saw that he was weeping, in the horrible choking way that men weep. His right hand darted before his face. He was crossing himself.

  Dr. Churchill entered through the main door. He bent down and examined the body. It did not take long.

  “She’s dead all right,” he said. “How did it happen?”

  “It looks clear enough,” said Dr. Sandys. “She must have been up there, probably in the Occulta, on the top gallery. No doubt she was reaching up to turn on one of the lights. She’s so short she could barely reach the key. Then she probably lost her balance and fell over.”

  “It could easily have happened that way,” said Dr. Churchill.

  “Those lights are strung out too far from the wall. But if you string them any closer, they will hit a tall man on the head. Probably we will have to put in higher-powered lights, fixed above the gallery runways, with wall-switches.”

  Gilda thought hysterically that in a crisis people seek to save themselves by taking a firm hold on the normal, as in a shipwreck one swims to safety on a kitchen table or something.

  “What’s that you’ve got in your hand?” Parry said to her.

  She was still carrying the little divining ball.

  “Here!” she said. “Here is Lucie’s little radiesthésie gadget. I found it over by the Schopenhauer press.”

  “I’ll keep it, if you like,” said Dr. Sandys. “For—the authorities.”

  President Temple entered, bland, calm, and competent. Everything that could happen to a university president had happened to him. He knew what to do.

  When the accident had been briefly explained, he took charge. “Violent death always has to be reported to the police,” he said. “There has to be a coroner’s inquest. Sandys, you call up the police. Casti, you go home. Cameron, you go outside the door there and stay on guard. We don’t want a lot of people barging in here.”

  Everything was in good hands. And sudden acid fumes rose to Gilda’s brain. Now she could faint. Now she was going to faint.

  “Miss Gorham, you go home. Parry, you take Miss Gorham home. Come on, get out of here.”

  No, she would not faint after all. Parry took her arm and led her to the door and through the lobby. The fresh air blew through her thoughts.

  “Can you walk to my car, in the parking area?” said Parry. “Or will you wait here while I get it?”

  “I’d rather walk. I feel better.”

  They walked to the car in silence. In silence they drove to Gilda’s apartment.

  “Good night, Gilda,” said Parry.

  “Good night, Francis. . . . Francis!”

  “Yes?”

  “How did you happen to be in the Library?”

  “Why, I got your coat, and then I looked for you at the Mansion for ten minutes or so. Then I got a little annoyed.”

  “But why did you go to the Library?”

  “Well, if you must know, I wanted to go to the bathroom. And the President doesn’t make a very convenient provision for his guests. The Library was nearest, so I went there. And then I went out in the portico and lit a cigarette. It was such a beautiful night that I took a stroll around the Library. I had time enough to get back to the reception before ten thirty and, to tell the truth, I thought I woul
d let you look for me a little.”

  “Did you hear the—the scream?”

  “No. The exit bells rang, and it occurred to me that you might have run to your burrow in the catalogue room. I thought I would just take a look. So I went into the building and saw Sandys running up to the Wilmerding. Naturally, I followed.”

  “Naturally. Well, good night, Francis.”

  “Good night, Gilda. By the way—”

  “Yes?”

  “What were you doing in the Library?”

  “Me? Why—why— Oh, let’s not talk about it tonight.”

  “Certainly. Good night, Gilda.”

  “Good night, Francis.”

  Gilda shut the door and went to her bedroom. As she undressed it occurred to her that probably no one had seen her in the Library before her discovery of the body of Lucie Coindreau.

  Chapter VI

  THE FOLLOWING morning, Tuesday, September 30, Gilda woke with a throbbing headache. She telephoned the Library that she would not come in. She called the grocer, and spent the day, thankfully, in a dressing-gown.

  On Wednesday morning she attended, by command, the Coroner’s inquest, in a small room used for hearings in the County Court House. Only a dozen chairs were disposed for witnesses and visitors, and in fact not all the dozen were filled. Gilda felt some relief as she looked about the room. If the town had been whispering, or talking out loud, there would have been an audience of drama-lovers.

  She looked with approbation at the Coroner, Dr. Ingalls. He was a hearty good fellow, elected largely by the co-operation of his fellow members of the Lions, the Elks, the Moose, the Oddfellows, and the Order of Red Men. Humanity’s pal, he was bound by many fraternal oaths to believe the best of mankind, to boost, not knock. He was not one to go making trouble for folks.

  The Medical Examiner testified that the deceased had come to her death as a result of a broken neck. The fatal injury was evidently caused by a fall. The position of the body indicated that the deceased had fallen from one of the galleries of the Wilmerding Library, had struck the show-case in her descent, and had landed on the back of her head, snapping the spinal column. Death had been instantaneous. No other injuries were noted, except some superficial wounds evidently caused by the body’s striking against the show-case.

  In response to a question from the Coroner, the Medical Examiner stated that a fall from either the first or second gallery might have caused the fatality. But the likelihood of the deceased’s breaking her neck would have been considerably greater in the case of a fall from the upper gallery.

  Lieutenant Kennedy of the city police was called. The lieutenant was a broad, hard-skinned, red-faced man with twinkling blue eyes. He had risen from the rank of patrolman by the merit or luck of never making a serious mistake.

  Lieutenant Kennedy testified that he was called by telephone at ten thirty-seven p.m. That he had ordered the Desk Sergeant to call the Medical Examiner, and had arrived at the Wilmerding Library at ten forty-seven. He had examined the scene of the accident. The glass of the manuscript show-case was broken, but he was informed by Librarian Sandys that nothing was missing or disturbed. He had inspected the galleries. On the upper gallery he had observed a portable pair of steps, used, he was informed, for inspection or removing books on the top shelves of the book-presses. The steps were placed against the rail of the gallery, directly beneath a light which hung from the ceiling, on a line with the gallery rail. The light turned on and off by an ordinary key in the lamp-socket. This key was six feet eight inches above the level of the floor. The light was turned off.

  This much was fact. When asked for an opinion, he replied: “This is only an opinion. A hypot’esis, you might say. Well now, this Miss Coindreau was just five foot one inch tall. She was dressed in a long skirt, which must have dragged on the ground. She couldn’t hardly have reached the light standing on the floor. But if she put the portable step beneath the light, and then got up on the first or second step, and then had a dizzy spell maybe, or got her high heel caught in her gown, she could easily have lost her balance and tipped over the edge. That’s the way I look at it, but it’s just a hypot’esis.”

  Asked if he had noted any signs of her presence in the top gallery, he replied that he had found an evening bag, identified as that of Miss Coindreau, on the gallery floor, near the portable step. It was half open, but there was no sign of its being tampered with. He had further asked Mr. Cameron, the janitor, to make a check.

  Mr. Cameron took the stand. He looked very distinguished in his neat blue serge suit. Though he was entirely respectful, there was something faintly supercilious, faintly mocking, in his manner. He reminded Gilda of something. After a minute or two she had it. He reminded her of an English country squire whom she had once visited. A thorough skeptic in the home, he had insisted on taking his house-party to the village church on Sunday, and, seated in the manor box-pew, had followed the service with the same air of not quite convincing reverence.

  Cameron stated that he had found nothing amiss, except one trifling thing. A volume of the Oracles of Nostradamus, Paris, 1867, 4117 DP 808, was slightly out of place, being lodged between DP 812 and DP 813. Asked what this proved, he said that the misplacement showed only that someone had looked at the book since the summer checking and inventory. Asked if such misplacement was common, he answered that it was, very.

  “How did Miss Coindreau get into this Wilmerding Collection?” asked the Coroner. “Is the door left unlocked?”

  “Not usually. The main door, in the north bay, right beside where the body was found, is ordinarily locked. When I got there through the stacks, that door was open. I guess Dr. Sandys must have unlocked it with his key.”

  The Coroner picked out Dr. Sandys in the small audience. “Is this correct, Dr. Sandys?”

  Dr. Sandys nodded.

  “Then,” said the Coroner, “there is an entrance through the stacks?”

  “Yes, sir,” replied Cameron, “on the ground floor of the Wilmerding. When there is a call for a Wilmerding book at the delivery desk, that’s the way they send up a boy for it.”

  “Then you could get from any place in the stacks to the Wilmerding Library. How do you get into the stacks?”

  “The main entrance is behind the delivery desk. But there are a dozen other ways of getting in. There are doors from the periodical room, and the reference room, and the catalogue room.”

  “Are those doors kept locked?”

  “No, sir; there’s a good deal of movement back and forth through them. And most of the seminaries open directly into the stacks, as well as into a hall. The seminary key opens any seminary door. So anybody with a seminary key can get into the stacks without being seen, if the seminary happens to be empty.”

  “Who has seminary keys?”

  “I guess nearly all the faculty and most of the grad students. There are a lot more keys out than we can check on.”

  “Then Miss Coindreau could have gone into any of the seminaries without being observed, and through a door into the stacks, and up to this Occulta place without being seen?”

  “Yes, sir. If it was me, and I wanted to get into the Occulta from the main entrance to the Library, I’d go through the Philosophy Seminary. You go up the same stair that leads to the main door to the Wilmerding, and then you go up two more flights and you come to the Philosophy Seminary. There’s a door from that seminary that opens directly onto the third floor of the Wilmerding, where they keep a lot of philosophy books and such.”

  “Would there be anyone in the Philosophy Seminary who might have seen Miss Coindreau go through?”

  “I’ve asked about that. The last person there was a Miss Labadie, a grad student. She went out at ten o’clock and turned out the lights.”

  “You seem to be very well informed, Mr. Cameron.”

  “I was interested. I guess I like to find out what goes on in this Library.”

  Cameron smiled apologetically. To Gilda, watching him closely, it seemed t
hat his manner was condescending as well as apologetic.

  Miss Gilda Gorham was called.

  She described her discovery of the body, which she placed at ten twenty-six p.m., just after the ringing of the ten twenty-five exit buzzers. She volunteered the fact that on Monday morning Miss Coindreau had said she was going up to the Occulta, and that she was interested in Nostradamus. She told of the finding of the divining ball, and of Miss Coindreau’s faith in radiesthésie.

  The Coroner held up a small silvered leaden ball on a string.

  “Is this the—er—radio-STZ thing?”

  “It looks like it. It must be.”

  “Do you think Miss Coindreau could have dropped it easily?”

  “Very easily. It was supposed to be held lightly by the knot in the string, between the thumb and finger.”

  “Perhaps she was performing some experiment and dropped it, and she was trying to turn on the light to look for it when she met with her fatal accident?”

  “Possibly.”

  The Coroner seemed inclined to dismiss her. Gilda sighed with relief. He was not going to ask her how she happened to be in the Library. He was not going to uncover the fact that Gilda had followed Lucie there. Nor Lucie’s surreptitious escape from the President’s reception, and Casti’s rather curious behavior. He was not going to bare the wild conjectures in Gilda’s mind.

  “Miss Gorham,” said the Coroner, “there is one thing I want to ask you, purely as a matter of form, you understand.”

  Gilda’s heart stilled and then beat more quickly.

  “Do you know of any reason why Miss Coindreau might have wished to—ah—do away with herself?”

  Gilda collected her swimming thoughts.

  “None. She seemed happy and normal on Monday morning. As far as I know, she was perfectly well, and successful in her work.”