By the Watchman's Clock Read online

  After his first excited exclamation in Spanish, which I didn’t understand, Mr. Baca sat for a moment perfectly silent and motionless. I thought I could read on his extraordinarily mobile face amazement, uneasiness, anger, shock, understanding, defiance. Suddenly he made an attempt to get up, and as suddenly relaxed back into cushions. I couldn’t tell whether he was weak or had decided abruptly that his best course was to remain in his ivory tower.

  “Who told you Mr. Sutton died of a heart attack?” I ventured.

  “The butler. I must have misunderstood. He said the master was dead and something about healing and heart.”

  “That’s fair enough,” I remarked with a smile, knowing how hard it is to understand Lafayette even when you’re used to him unless you know what he’s talking about. And I got up to go.

  “Well,” I said, “I’ve got to get back. I’m glad you’re better. Has Dr. McPherson been to see you?”

  “Not this morning, thank you.”

  I heard some steps in the hyphen, and recognized Susan’s high heels. She opened the door.

  “He’s sitting up!” she said. “Hello, Martha. Thorn’s been asking for you.”

  “I’m just going to see her.”

  “Not now you can’t. Dr. Mac’s just given her something to make her sleep. She’s absolutely shot.”

  We left Mr. Baca, passing the doctor on our way down the hall. Susan took hold of my arm.

  “It’s ghastly about Thorn, Martha,” she whispered. “She’s in a frightful mess. I don’t know what’s the matter with her.”

  “Has she seen Franklin?”

  She shook her head.

  “She hasn’t seen anybody.”

  “You let me know when she wakes up.”

  “Okay.”

  There’s an entrance from the hyphen of the guest wing to the house through the back drawing room, but I went outside and around the way I’d come in. Colonel Arbuthnot-Howe was moving unconcernedly back and forth across the first terrace, smoking his pipe. He looked up as I came out and strolled over to meet me. There was an amused twinkle in his eye and I shook my head.

  “He’s not very sick,” I said. “Or at least he wasn’t ten minutes ago. Dr. Mac and I dare say Susan are there now.”

  “I may take either of the two implications?”

  “Or find a third. By the way, Mr. Baca’s main trouble, as far as I could see, seems to be a badly bruised face.”

  He looked inquiringly at me.

  “Has he been fighting?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose he struck a pile out in the channel that knocked him out A girl last year did something of the kind.”

  Colonel Arbuthnot-Howe did not seem particularly impressed by my explanation, although he didn’t say anything against it. I was just on the point of telling him about what Baca said about the ranch when Mr. Rand appeared on the verandah.

  “Hello, Mrs. Niles!” he boomed. “Come in here—I want to talk to you.”

  CHAPTER XVIII

  Mr. Rand is not an ordinary man. He’s sort of a presence. His white leonine head, white mustache and Van Dyke, his twinkling merry blue eyes, his glasses hanging from his lapel on a black ribbon, his cavernous chuckle, his great bulk—everything about him is kindly and impressive. They say he is one of the most astute conference lawyers in New York.

  “Hello!” I said, shaking hands with him. “It’s nice to see you again. This is Colonel Arbuthnot-Howe. Mr. Rand.”

  They shook hands, both striking figures. They’re about the same height, but Mr. Rand has considerable advantage in girth.

  “I know Evelyn Arbuthnot-Howe in Surrey. Is there a connection?” asked Mr. Rand with his grave courtesy.

  “Rather. He’s my uncle. Many a drubbing he’s given me. I spent most of an unfortunate youth at Esher.”

  “Ah, splendid. We must get together on this. You’ll excuse us now?—I’ve got to talk to this young woman.”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  “Let’s go in here, Mrs. Niles.”

  In the hall Mr. Sullivan’s young man was firing questions at Lafayette in a ludicrous imitation of his senior’s prosecuting manner. He quite subsided when he saw Mr. Rand, and Lafayette was quick to notice the change. The young man was in awe of Mr. Rand; Lafayette had known Mr. Rand when he was an undergraduate in Landover College. Therefore Lafayette was no longer in awe of the young man, and would never be again.

  He stood aside and bowed amiably as we went into the drawing room, where Mr. Sullivan’s papers were still spread out on the bridge table.

  I had never seen Mr. Rand when he was engaged in anything more impressive than drinking one of Lafayette’s mint juleps, or giving sheepskins—reluctantly paid for—to newly hatched bachelors of arts. I’ll admit I stood—or sat now—in some awe of him myself. His twinkling eyes were troubled, his usually jovial face grave. I had the uncomfortable feeling that I’d done something I shouldn’t have done, and that Jove was about to loose a mild but still devastating thunderbolt at my unworthy head.

  “What’s this all about, now, Mrs. Niles,” he asked, drawing a chair close to mine and sitting down. “Sullivan tells me you found him.”

  I told him about it. He made a sympathetic clucking sound and shook his head. After all he is preeminently a gentleman of the old school; the idea of a lady’s touching the cold murdered body of a friend was not pleasant or proper. In spite of his feeling Mr. Rand gave one the impression that he avoided unpleasant things. Perhaps unpleasant things avoided Mr. Rand.

  “I got a call from Sutton about half-past seven last night,” he said after a moment. “He said he had something important to talk to me about. He wanted me to come down. I’m pretty busy, but there’s a board meeting at the college day after tomorrow and I decided I’d pack up and come for a few days with Sutton and Knox. So here I am.”

  “Didn’t he tell you what he wanted?”

  “Nothing, except that he wanted to make some change in his will. He talked to me himself, and he seemed somewhat excited.”

  “You know he’s been threatening to disinherit Thorn,” I said tentatively. “Because she wants to marry Franklin Knox.”

  He stroked his white mustache meditatively.

  “Why, do you suppose?” I asked, when he didn’t say anything. “You’d think just off-hand it’s the kind of a match that would please him most. Instead he’s been carrying on just as he did about Dan and Joan Frazier.”

  Mr. Rand shook his head.

  “That’s one of the great mysteries of human conduct, my dear. The way parents and guardians act towards young people when they decide to marry. I’m convinced in my heart, though I don’t like to admit it, that my two daughters have literally thrown themselves away. You’ll do the same thing, some day.”

  “It’s more than that with Mr. Sutton,” I replied stubbornly. “I think it’s the same sort of thing as Aunt Charlotte’s cabin, and everything else he’s got. He’s bent on being master of everything, human or otherwise, in the place. Just as he would probably have given the college something if he could be sure of being the only one who did. Did he leave us anything, by the way—or is that a professional secret?”

  Mr. Rand smiled ironically.

  “We need a bass drum,” I said, “and Miss Henry tells me somebody has stolen the Decameron from the library.”

  Again Mr. Rand smiled.

  “We can just about make the two of them, I should think,” he said. “Sutton was rather a practical joker. I’m afraid it’ll be a blow to Knox. Fortunately, however, the Guggenheim people are definitely interested now—we can forget about Mr. Sutton. Except to find out who shot him.”

  I was, I’m afraid, a little more interested in what the Guggenheim Foundation was going to do for us than in Mr. Sutton’s death. But Mr. Rand wouldn’t be drawn, and furthermore he swore me to absolute secrecy until Commencement.

  “What I want of you, young lady,” he said gravely, “is to tell me how much you know, from Thorn and the others, of
what’s been going on around here lately. Sutton’s not been himself for quite a while.”

  “Oh,” I said. “That’s undoubtedly . . .”

  A tap on the door cut me short.

  “Come in!” Mr. Rand boomed.

  It was Mr. Sullivan.

  “I wonder if you’d come with me, Mr. Rand, and Mrs. Niles too,” he said. “I’ve got something here I want you to see.”

  We followed him across the hall and into the library. He was being extremely deliberate. I almost had to stop still in front of the chair where Mr. Sutton had sat. I couldn’t help seeing the stain on the wing of the chair. As a matter of fact it did have some horrible fascination for me, and I must have looked at it longer than I should have done; I felt Mr. Sullivan looking intently at me. Our eyes met for a second. His were perfectly impersonal. I thought that he would undoubtedly hang his grandmother if necessary.

  “This way, sir,” he said, motioning Mr. Rand to the far end of the room.

  We followed him towards the front windows, and stopped when he stopped, in front of Mr. Sutton’s desk.

  There were several neat piles of papers on top of it, but Mr. Sullivan seemed not interested in them. Instead he raised the leather-eared blotting pad and pointed to a slip of paper from a memorandum pad that was on top of some other papers between it and the desk-top.

  “Read it,” he said, “but don’t touch it.”

  Both of us bent over. I recognized Mr. Sutton’s precise beautiful hand. He had written:

  Memo. for Rand April 25

  1. Remove ranch from residue.

  2. Stipulate removal of incumbent, otherwise $200,000 trust, chair of anthropology, void.

  3. Cut T. in event marriage before 36.

  4. Remove F. from any benefit in toto.

  My heart skipped a beat. I read that second item again, and felt the blood pounding against my temples. My first impulse was one of blind red anger. What had Ben done to him? I had no notion; but it seemed to me horribly unfair, in some way, for any man to have such a club with which to beat another.

  Suddenly I realized that both Mr. Rand and Mr. Sullivan were watching me. They both looked away at precisely the same moment, Mr. Rand to study the memorandum again, Mr. Sullivan to examine the heavily carved cornice of the room.

  “What time was it that you left here last night, Mrs. Niles?” asked Mr. Sullivan. He turned from the cornice to the matter in hand with obvious nonchalance, but still I didn’t realize in the least what he was so plainly getting at.

  “I left here a little before one o’clock, with Mr. Niles.”

  “And you returned?”

  “At three, with Thorn Carter,”

  “What did you do in between those times?”

  “I went to bed, went to sleep, and woke up at 2.15 by my bedside clock. It may be a few minutes off one way or another. I went downstairs and let Thorn in. We talked until some time after 2.30.”

  “Mrs. Niles,” he went on, with a friendliness that I now began to take a little alarm at, “several people have testified—at least they’ve told me—that you had on tennis slippers when you came over here.”

  “That’s quite correct.”

  “And stockings.”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, Mrs. Niles. Did you go upstairs and put on stockings and tennis shoes after Miss Thorn Carter came to your house? Or did you already have them on?”

  I looked at him in surprise. I’m afraid I hesitated a little too long. His eyes flickered triumphantly.

  “They were in the closet downstairs,” I said. “I slipped them on when I got my coat.”

  “Do you keep stockings in the downstairs closet, Mrs. Niles—just for emergencies?”

  “They happened to be socks, not stockings really,” I said. “They were there by accident. I’d worn them over a pair of silk stockings when I was playing tennis with the children the day before. They were stuffed in my shoes; I just slipped them on.”

  “Why did you put on tennis slippers at all, Mrs. Niles?”

  “Because I didn’t care to clump over here in green satin mules, Mr. Sullivan,” I said acidly.

  “What are mules? Bedroom slippers?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you leave your mules in the closet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you take them upstairs with you when you got back at four o’clock?”

  “No. I didn’t think of them.”

  Mr. Rand stirred and cleared his throat, gently but ominously. Mr. Sullivan however was bent on his course.

  “In that case, Mrs. Niles, can you explain why one of my men who went to your house this morning was unable to find your green bedroom slippers in the downstairs closet?”

  “Probably because the maid had put the slippers in their proper place.” I was extremely annoyed at what seemed an unwarrantable intrusion into my house.

  “In which case we would assume that she would have put the tennis slippers and your coat downstairs, in their proper place, in the closet.”

  “Except that she does the downstairs first,” I replied.

  “In that case, Mrs. Niles, perhaps you can explain this.”

  He held out a folded piece of paper.

  “We found this in the pocket of your tweed coat.”

  I took it and opened it. Like the memorandum I had just read, it was in Mr. Sutton’s unmistakable handwriting. I read it. There was no salutation.

  I want you to see me before morning. I shall wait for you in the library. Important.

  D. S.

  CHAPTER XIX

  Obvious as it was, I still didn’t realize what he was driving at.

  Mr. Rand said, “Sullivan, I suggest that you give Mrs. Niles a chance to explain that paper before you jump to a conclusion.”

  “Mrs. Niles will have plenty of opportunity to explain several things,” Mr. Sullivan said, slightly nettled by Mr. Rand’s calm assumption of leadership.

  Then I did see what it was all about. I looked from one to the other of them in blank amazement.

  “Do you mean, Mr. Sullivan,” I demanded incredulously, “that you think I shot Mr. Sutton?”

  Mr. Sullivan’s professional suavity quickly returned.

  “I merely suggest, Mrs. Niles,” he said calmly, “that you had the two prime requisites for the State’s Attorney’s case—which he is bound to look for. Motive”—he tapped the memorandum sharply—“and . . . Opportunity.”

  “Oh,” I said weakly, and sat down in Mr. Sutton’s desk chair.

  Then I did a preposterous thing that absolutely convinced Mr. Sullivan he was right. He thinks to this day that I shot Daniel Sutton to keep the Sutton Chair of Anthropology at Landover College, with its stipend of $8,000, open for my husband. I began to laugh. It seemed to me perfectly, hilariously, funny that anybody would think that I’d shoot Daniel Sutton. Perhaps, however, if I’d known about that second provision of the memorandum, I would have done.

  “When did you get this note from Mr. Sutton, Mrs. Niles?” asked Mr. Sullivan, frowning heavily at what seemed to him my indecent conduct.

  “I didn’t get it,” I said promptly. “I found it.”

  Then it occurred to me on what a dangerous course I’d embarked, and I decided I’d better say nothing more until I’d thought it over. I remember feeling a momentary glow of self-righteousness. Ben says I never think until I’m through speaking, and that I play the best game of bridge of anyone he knows who never thinks about a card until it’s down. At any rate I did think at this moment that laying my cards on the table, as Mr. Sullivan would say, would involve Thorn, and the business of the locked gate, and Heaven knows what else. When I picked the note up it had seemed obvious that Reverdy had dropped it when he stood under the light counting his bills. Now it seemed fairly clear that it was Thorn. It would account certainly for her staying behind when the others went upstairs, as Colonel Arbuthnot-Howe said she did.

  So I stopped where I was.

  “If I’m suspected,
Mr. Sullivan,” I said calmly, “I think I’d better not say anything more until . . .”

  I didn’t want to say “Until I’ve seen Thorn.” So I said, as I do to servants when I haven’t decided just what to say, “Until I’ve consulted Mr. Niles.”

  It worked just as well in this case, except that with servants I go upstairs, think it over and come down and tell them that Mr. Niles has decided the matter thus and so. I couldn’t make a bee-line to Thorn, and then come back, obviously; so I fished in my sweater pocket and found a limp package of Chesterfields. Mr. Rand lighted one for me.

  “I think you’re wise, Mrs. Niles,” he said gravely. “Please consider me entirely at your service.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Rand,” I said. Then I turned to Mr. Sullivan. “May I go now, or are you taking me to jail?”

  At this point the young man came in with several telegrams, which he handed to Mr. Sullivan, who tore them open, got out his horn-rimmed spectacles and read them with exasperating deliberation. I don’t know what made me suppose he would read them aloud. At last he folded them all up neatly, took off his glasses and returned them to his pocket, and turned to us.

  “No finger-prints on either telephone—wiped clean. None on the safe. Gun, a .38, fired about three feet off. That doesn’t get us much forrarder.”

  He stuffed the telegrams in his coat pocket.

  “Mrs. Niles, you’ll be at home if I want to see you, I suppose?” he said cautiously.

  “I won’t be far away, at any rate, Mr. Sullivan.”

  I pressed out my cigarette in the white jade ashtray on the desk. Mr. Sullivan looked at the gradually writhing butt—it was almost half a cigarette—then he looked at me. I looked at the white half-smoked column, with the tiny crimson tip from my lips, and then looked at him.

  “Don’t tell me you found a cigarette with lipstick on it at the feet of the victim,” I said mockingly.