By the Watchman's Clock Read online

Mr. Rand smiled. Mr. Sullivan did not. His pale eyes flickered.

  “I didn’t, Mrs. Niles,” he said. “But Colonel Arbuthnot-Howe did. Like to see it?”

  He produced an envelope from somewhere. I began to think, from the way he had of suddenly producing things, that he wore saddle-bags. He opened the gummed flap and let the contents roll out on a piece of foolscap on the table. It was a cigarette, much like mine, half-smoked, with a faint crimson stain at the end. Mr. Rand and I leaned over and examined it closely. Mr. Sullivan watched with a gleam of mild satisfaction in his eyes.

  “It won’t do, Mr. Sullivan,” I said. “It’s at least three shades darker. That, I should say, is what is known as Red Ruby. I use Red Geranium, or something quite lighter. It’s a fine point, Mr. Sullivan.”

  “I’m aware of that, Mrs. Niles. But it does belong to one of you ladies.”

  “That’s a fair assumption,” I conceded sweetly.

  “So that if it doesn’t belong to you, it must belong to Miss Thorn. Anyway, from what my daughter tells me the darker you are the darker the shade of lipstick.”

  “Something of the sort, anyway.”

  “Then you agree that it belongs to Thorn Carter.”

  “I don’t see why I shouldn’t. She admits freely that she talked to her uncle before she went to bed, and before she got up again and came over to my house.”

  He looked at me with a slow twisted smile.

  “She does, does she?” he said.

  My heart sank. Had I said too much? I was very glad when Mr. Rand took my arm and said he’d walk home with me if I was going now.

  As a matter of fact I wanted most to see Thorn, and find out just what her position was, and how much and what she had told or intended to tell Mr. Sullivan. It never occurred to me even for a moment that she’d begin at the beginning and stop at the end. More than that, I wasn’t particularly anxious to go home. I hadn’t the slightest desire to have Ben screw up his face with his air of amused tolerance at the indiscretions of a total incompetent. “Dear little Martha, aren’t you a one.” That he’d ever take me more seriously, even when I was accused of murder, was the last thing I ever thought of. Nevertheless, Mr. Rand was going home with me, so home I went.

  We went out the front door without seeing anybody, except the young man and the state policeman on the porch. Rich was still at the gate. The crowd had dispersed with the arrival of a second policeman, who at this moment was talking to a couple of college students on the campus across the street. We set out towards my house.

  “Look here, Mr. Rand,” I said abruptly. “I’ve got to see Thorn, and I don’t want to see my husband.”

  “In that case I’d advise you to talk to me.”

  There was a twinkle in his eye.

  “All right,” I said. “I will.”

  And I did. I told him about seeing Reverdy counting something that looked like a roll of bills, under the lamp on King Charles Street. We had reached the intersection of King Charles Street and York Road, and I pointed to the lamp post.

  “It was right there,” I said. “He came out of the gate—at least I assumed he did. I heard a click, then I saw him emerge.”

  I told him about my going to bed and being waked up by Thorn about 2.15.

  “She was in a ghastly state. She’d had a quarrel with her uncle before she went to bed. Then she thought she heard something downstairs, and went to see what it was. As far as I can make out, she got the wind up about something else she thought she heard, or did hear, and dashed out the garden door down the path to the gate.”

  “This gate?” Mr. Rand asked, indicating the one down the road.

  I nodded.

  “Let’s take a look, then.”

  We turned down until we came even with the great iron grill where Thorn and I had stood not twelve hours ago.

  “It’s locked,” he said, trying the handle.

  “That’s the funny thing about it that I didn’t want to tell Mr. Sullivan. It’s always locked. When we decided to go back to the house, we came this way, and it was locked. Thorn swore she’d just come out.”

  “Then plainly somebody else must have been there and locked it,” Mr. Rand said meditatively. He peered through the bars along the wooded vista that finally ends in leafy greenness.

  “Then we started back towards York Road, and it was then that I found the note from Mr. Sutton. I stuck it in my pocket without letting Thorn see it. I thought Reverdy’d dropped it.”

  “You didn’t know what was in it until Sullivan showed it to you just now?”

  “No. I forgot all about it after I saw Mr. Sullivan.”

  He chuckled. “I decided,” he said, “that if you were that good an actress I shouldn’t believe another word you said.”

  I ignored his imputation on my veracity.

  “And that’s another funny thing,” I said. “Thorn pulled the bell at the other gate, and some one let us in.”

  Mr. Rand nodded.

  “Thorn, I take it,” he remarked after a little, “has something to hide. What about yourself?”

  “Not a thing. My life’s an open book,” I replied solemnly, raising my right hand.

  “I fancy Thorn’s is too, in spite of all this to-do.”

  “I’m sure it is. Franklin’s in town—that’s reason enough for the way she’s been acting.”

  He nodded sagely.

  “Yes. I’m inclined to think that Sullivan’s over-estimating the rigors of the course of true love. Not that I wish to underestimate them, by any means,” he added quickly.

  “They’re pretty hard. Susan and I are getting jolly well fed up with this Thorn-Franklin business,” I returned. But he was thinking about something else.

  “Who is this Baca person, now, that Susan was telling me about on the way down,” he asked when we had got in the house. I discovered to my relief that Ben and Dr. Parr his dog—an ill-favored but amiable beast—had gone to the library until lunch. We settled ourselves in their study. I say “their” because they bury the bones of their calling in it and defy anyone to disturb them.

  I rang the bell for Lillie to bring Mr. Rand some White Rock.

  “I can explain Mr. Baca,” I said. “He told me this morning that he had practically completed his arrangements with Mr. Sutton about this Mexican ranch he came to see him about. He said it was unfortunate that Mr. Sutton had died, and he almost died himself when I told him Mr. Sutton had been murdered. I’ll swear he didn’t know it before.”

  Mr. Rand thought about that. Then he got up rather abruptly, after draining his tall glass.

  “I wonder if I’m not beginning to see what this is all about, Mrs. Niles?” he said, reaching for his grey bowler hat. “You’ve just reminded me incidentally of something I must do right away. Like Mr. Sullivan I assume I can find you here when I want you?”

  “Here or near by,” I said. “Where shall I find you when I’m arrested?”

  “You won’t be—yet,” he said.

  CHAPTER XX

  I took off my hat and sat down at the telephone to arrange for some other member of the Landover Book Club to take the Friday meeting. It seemed to me that it might be less embarrassing than if I waited and had to have Ben call everybody up Thursday night and say, “I’m so sorry, but Mrs. Niels won’t be able to have the Club to-morrow. She’s in the county jail.”

  I thought of several persons who wouldn’t try to keep me to find out the latest news, and was still thinking when the phone rang. It was Susan. Thorn was awake and wanted to see me. Would I come? Mr. Sullivan had gone home for lunch.

  I said I’d be delighted in that case, and put my hat on again. I was just getting out the front door when Lillie intercepted me. She wanted to know if we were still having a dinner party that night and who would we ask in place of the Suttons? That necessitated considerable rearrangement; and by the time I was ready to leave there was another ring at the door. I went to see who it was; and it was Franklin Knox, looking as if he’d been put through
a wringer.

  “Hullo,” I said. “Where’ve you been?”

  “I’ve been around, if you really want to know, to see that damned lawyer.”

  “Mr. Hawkins?”

  “No less,” he muttered, and threw his hat in one chair and sat down in another, his head on his hands, elbows on his knees.

  “Come in Ben’s study, Franklin,” I said, “and tell me about it. I’m in a hurry, I’m just on my way to see Thorn.”

  He groaned, got up and with a gesture of despair followed me into the study, where he flopped down again, on the sofa.

  I was amazed at the heavy lines in his extraordinarily fine strong face. His eyes were bloodshot, he hadn’t shaved. He lit a cigarette and brushed back the lock of hair that like his father’s always managed to get out of place and down on his high forehead. What with his brown suit that hadn’t been to the presser for several days, he looked absolutely used up.

  “Look, Martha,” he said desperately. “Do you think Thorn had anything to do with this?”

  “Lord, no!” I exclaimed incredulously, as if he were the first person who’d ever suggested such a thing.

  “Does Sullivan?”

  “Mr. Sullivan thinks I did it.”

  “You? What for?”

  “Unwritten law. Right of every woman to protect her nest. My husband, it seems, under a will or something, stands to get the stipend from a two hundred thousand dollar chair of Anthropology when the old man died. It seems that last night or before Sutton decided he shouldn’t have it, and was about to change his will. I, with my well-known clairvoyance, knew this, and Bang! Mr. Sutton is dead. Ben gets enough to pay the rent with and send the children to school. I go dry-eyed to the gallows. What could be clearer?”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Martha,” he groaned. “This is serious. Look here. I’m a lawyer, and I know just how much good a phoney confession is, but if Thorn’s in danger I’ll say I did it. And by God I’ll prove I did it too.”

  “Swell. Then I won’t have to go dry-eyed to the gallows. We do hang us in Maryland, don’t we.”

  “Listen, Martha. I tell you it’s serious.”

  He looked around, then leaned closer to me.

  “Thorn and I had a quarrel. It was my fault.”

  “I’ve heard all about it. It was Thorn’s fault.”

  “No. It was mine.”

  “All right. As a matter of fact if either one of you had a lick of sense . . .”

  “Oh I know. But anyway, it’s over now. Listen. I came down last night and tried to get in touch with her. I didn’t want Sutton to give her a going over, so Dad said he’d go over after dinner and take her a message. She phoned me about 12.10, I guess, and said she’d meet me down at the King Charles Street gate when everybody went to bed. She said she’d have Rich or somebody unlock the gate and I Could come in and wait at . . . at our place.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “I couldn’t read or do anything. So I went down there about 12.30 and waited. Pretty soon I heard somebody. But I know Thorn’s step, it wasn’t her. I was in the shadow of a tree, so I laid low. Somebody whistled. Then I saw Hawkins come to the gate.”

  “Reverdy? From the street?”

  “Yes. He tried the gate and came in. I heard him talking to somebody, but I couldn’t see who it was. Pretty soon I heard him say ‘Mr. Wally,’; then I heard ‘Charlotte.’ That was that. Then Wally began to get pretty sore. He said ‘You lay off, you damned scarecrow, or I’ll murder you.’ There was an argument. Finally Hawkins left. I guess that was about 1.00.”

  I nodded.

  “It was; I saw him leave. We were just getting home.”

  “Well, Wally heard me, I think, I heard him hoofing it back pronto to the house. Well, I stuck around then, until I couldn’t stand it any longer. I thought she couldn’t get away or maybe she’d met Wally, or something. I went along as quietly as I could to the house.”

  I looked at him.

  “What time was that, Franklin?”

  “That’s the point. I looked at my watch at a little after 1.30; and just as I did I thought I heard a shot. I was still way down in the back garden, on the path. I stayed there. About five minutes later I saw a man come out on the porch and look around. The hall light was on. What with that and the moon I could see him pretty well. I don’t know who it was—a big fellow though. In a minute Wally came out there too.”

  So it was like that, I thought.

  “Well, I got the idea of clearing out then. But while I was there the big fellow slipped over to the side of the porch by the back drawing room window, and Wally cut down and around the house to the left, around the kitchen wing.”

  I was naturally listening to this open-mouthed. Was it possible that Colonel Arbuthnot-Howe . . . ?

  “Then I thought I couldn’t get out, I didn’t know what could have happened to Thorn. I went up behind the kitchen, up on the porch and inside. It was then the funny thing happened. Just as I got in the light went off, and I was pretty sure I heard the library door close. I tipped over and tried to open it, but it was locked from inside. I thought I’d turn on the lights and see what the devil was up, when I heard somebody coming down the stairs. I thought it would look funny for me to be there just then, so I stepped in the recess of the front drawing room door and held my breath.”

  So Thorn was right, I thought.

  “I thought it was Thorn, but I didn’t want to frighten her. I didn’t say anything. I forgot the switch was right there by my hand, or I’d have turned on the light. Before I knew it she’d gone around the staircase and was out the garden door. Then I came to my senses. And just at that time I heard somebody in the back drawing room. No mistake about that. I kept still. Then another queer thing happened: there was a definite smell of cordite in the hall. I hadn’t noticed it before. It got faint again. I knew I was getting in deeper than I’d planned, but I didn’t know how to get out.”

  “What time was that?”

  He frowned in intent recollection.

  “The clock struck two when Thorn came down. I remember the bell sort of drowned out her steps or I’d have been surer it was her. I guess this happened five to ten minutes later. Well anyway, I got out and started down to the path after Thorn. I looked back in a minute, and the hall light was on again. Whoever it was was just waiting for me to get out.”

  I took a deep breath, and glanced at my wrist watch. He didn’t stop.

  “I cut down along the path after Thorn. Once I thought I heard her running, then I thought I heard the gate click; but when I got there she’d disappeared. I didn’t like to stick around too long. I whistled but she didn’t answer.”

  “She was here,” I said.

  He nodded.

  “I saw a light and guessed she was here. Well, I stuck around a few minutes under your kitchen window. It seemed useless to stay, when I knew where she was, so I decided I’d go home and phone to her at your house. I was just leaving when I saw Wally come out of the gate, look around, go over by the lamppost, take a piece of paper out of his pocket, run his handkerchief over it and drop it under the post.”

  I stared at him in consternation. It dawned on me that I wasn’t very clever. Wally had deliberately set a trap, and I had walked into it, bag and baggage.

  “Go on,” I said.

  “He went back and through the gate. I heard him lock it. Just then you and Thorn came down the street and tried the gate. You then went towards York Road, and you picked up Wally’s paper and put it in your pocket. By that time I’d decided to let you go on and not explain to Thorn until today.”

  I looked at him a long time. Then I said, “In that case I’d explain to her now, and then both of you explain to Mr. Sullivan. It’ll make things a lot simpler.”

  He shook his head miserably.

  “What’s wrong now?” I demanded.

  “Do you think she’ll see me?”

  “Good Lord!” I groaned. “For Heaven’s sake go on over and see her. I’ll call up a
nd tell her you’re coming. Good bye!”

  He hadn’t been gone five minutes when there was another ring at the door. It was Bill Sutton this time.

  “Look here, Martha,” he began hastily. “I came by the Charles Street gate and they don’t know I’ve gone.”

  “Yes?” I said, and waited.

  “I unlocked the gate for Thorn last night. She was going to see Franklin as soon as she could get out.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Franklin was just here. You’d have met him if you’d come down York Road.”

  “Well, look here,” he went on quickly, “I left the key in the gate, and Thorn was to lock it. She told me it was locked when she came back from here, and this morning the key’s in its place on the hook in the kitchen hyphen.”

  “Wally put it there,” I said. I told him what Franklin had just told me about Wally’s locking the gate.

  “The dirty skunk,” he said savagely. “Some day he’ll get what’s coming to him. But Martha—do you think Franklin shot my father? Because if he did I don’t blame him.”

  He stared rigidly into the empty grate.

  “I’m sure he didn’t. However, he’s just got through telling me he’s going to say he did, and prove it, if there’s danger of Thorn’s being involved.”

  That appealed to Bill’s movie soul.

  “Good fellow!” he muttered.

  “Stupid idiot, you mean. If he’d not been the perfect fool, Thorn wouldn’t be in this mess, to begin with.”

  Bill was thinking about something else. I have a hard time remembering that he’s twenty-four and through Princeton, and quite a capable young fellow even if he has unruly brown hair like Thorn’s and brown eyes like hers. They were puzzled when he turned to me.

  “What do you think of that Mexican, Martha?” he asked earnestly.

  “I think he’s a very nice man,” I said, with more conviction than I should have thought I felt. “Why?”

  “Well, that ass of a Susan has done nothing all morning but take him ice packs and calves-foot jelly and change the radio for him. She even went down in the cellar and got some of Dad’s pre-war claret for him.”

  “Why not?”