At the warning sound of approaching footsteps, Creighton whipped an envelope from his pocket and dropped into it the precious bit of blue steel he had recovered from the crack beneath the French window; he smoothed down the carpet with a quick sideways flirt of his foot, thrust the envelope into his coat, and had barely time to hiss one further admonition into Krech's attentive ear.
"Not a word of this to a soul!"
"My lips are sealed," declared the big man.
Miss Ocky entered the room to find two gentlemen engaged in conversation close by an open window out of which they were looking while their backs were tranquilly turned to the apartment. When she said, "Excuse me!" they pivoted about as one, and the synchronic promptitude with which they uttered the same question did credit to their bringing up.
"How is Mrs. Varr?"
"Much quieter—much better, thank you." Miss Ocky lighted a cigarette with the air of one who has earned it, and dropped wearily into a chair. "I was as much upset as you must have been when she turned up there in the study. Hardly necessary to make excuses for her, is it? She is not very strong, and she has been through enough in the last two days to wreck an Amazon."
"Doctor worried about her?" asked Krech. "Is there anything Mrs. Bolt or my wife can do? I know that's the first thing they'll ask."
"Not a thing. Please thank them both for me. I'm not a bit diffident about asking favors of people and they can be sure I'll call for help if I need it. No, the doctor isn't alarmed; he just wants her to sleep as much as possible until the worst of the mental strain is over."
A faint clatter of silverware from the dining-room aroused Krech to the passage of time. He looked at his watch and started as if he had been stung.
"Nearly seven! I'm a ruined man! Where on earth is Jason Bolt? He was to call for me long before this."
"That's true—you're stranded, aren't you? I'd forgotten you came with him." Miss Ocky reflected briefly. "I simply can't leave here myself just now, but I'll have Janet take the car and drive you home."
"Janet?" inquired Creighton. "Drives a car, does she? Quite an accomplished lady's-maid!"
"She's a remarkable person," said Miss Ocky. "I'll tell you about her some other time. Now—about yourself! Will you let me save you from the horrors of the local hotel?"
"I was going to ask you if your invitation was still open," answered the detective hesitantly. "But under the circumstances—with your sister ill—haven't you enough trouble on your hands?"
"This house runs itself, thank to Bates," she replied quickly. She met his eye frankly. "You won't inconvenience us in the least, and I'd really be grateful if you would stay. So would my sister. With only old Bates in the house she is inclined to be nervous while—while that man is still at large."
"It is very gracious of you to put it that way," he murmured.
"That's settled," she said briskly, and stood up. "Now I'll go find Janet."
"So Janet's a remarkable person, is she?" muttered Krech when Miss Ocky had left the room. "Hers was the name I was about to mention when you stopped me. Janet Mackay knows Charlie Maxon!"
"Easy! Don't let your imagination run away with you. What conceivable motive could she have had to conspire against Varr's life?"
"I don't know." Krech grinned. "If I lay the foundation, it's up to you to erect the edifice. Brain-work, not manual labor, is my forte." Then he added more seriously, "I've thought of something; instead of the accomplice being actually a member of the household, mightn't he be just some one who has the entrée—the run of the house? Some one who could carry off the situation if he had been discovered in the living-room or study by the servants?"
"That's a good point, Krech; a very good point. I'll inquire into that possibility."
"So you're going to make this your headquarters?"
"Assuredly." Creighton tapped his pocket. "This decided it."
"Well—take care of yourself, won't you?" There was genuine concern in the big man's voice as he went on with specious flippancy. "Miss Copley left a dagger kicking around; let's hope she hasn't dropped an automatic or a machine-gun here and there. If Mr. Monk got the idea that you knew too much—"
"All right." Creighton reached out and gave Krech's arm an affectionate squeeze. "Don't worry; I'm an artist at taking care of myself."
"I know a darn' sight better!" growled Krech, and the honking of a horn from the driveway ended their talk. "Good-by. I'm going to pump Jason Bolt and if I glean anything I'll let you know in the morning."
Creighton waved good-night to him from the veranda and stepped back into the house to find the maid awaiting him in the hall.
"Your bag has gone up, sir. Shall I show you your room?"
"Thank you. By the way, what is your name?"
"Betty, sir. Betty Blake."
"Very pretty name, too." He motioned her to precede him up the stairs. "Been with Mrs. Varr long?"
"About four months, sir."
"Are you a Hambleton girl?"
"Yes, sir, born and bred."
The room assigned to him was one of the best in the house. It was next to Miss Ocky's own, he was to discover later, and like hers it had a small rounded balcony outside the tall windows. He glanced about him appreciatively. He could rough it with any man, but he vastly preferred to be comfortable. Here he would be, if his eye didn't deceive him.
"Native, eh?" he continued conversationally as the girl made to leave him. "Then you must know every one in these parts. For instance—do you know a young man called Maxon?"
"Charlie Maxon?" She tossed her head. "Yes, I knowhim!" Her accent was richly scornful. "Pity they couldn't keep him in jail!"
There was a writing table with note paper on it in one corner of the room, and as she finished speaking a scrap of crumpled paper on the floor beneath it caught her eye. With instinctive neatness she went across the room and picked it up, steadying herself as she stooped by resting her fingertips lightly on the pile of paper.
"Is there anything more, sir?"
"Thank you, no," replied Creighton absently.
When she had closed the door behind her he went over by the writing table and stood looking down at the topmost sheet of paper. The maid's orderly spirit had given him a hint that he thought he might profitably employ. He picked up the paper and held it slantwise to the light of the window while he peered at its surface. Then he nodded contentedly.
He drew forth his pencil and made a neat number one at the top of the sheet, which he then dropped in a drawer of the desk. He found a clean page in a small memo-book that he carried and made a careful entry, "1. Betty Blake."
"I'll get 'em all before I finish," he promised himself.
He went downstairs a few minutes later to meet the butler on his way up with the announcement that dinner was served; a welcome piece of news to a man who had had a long day on sandwiches only.
"Just the two of us," Miss Ocky greeted him as he entered the dining-room. "I'll pay you the compliment of admitting that the arrangement suits me perfectly. A crowd would have been terrible, but to have dined by myself would have been ghastly."
"Nothing could have pleased me better," said the detective as they seated themselves. "It has been growing increasingly clear to me that I must look to you for a great deal of information. Yours is the most authoritative voice around here."
"I'll play oracle within reason."
"Um. Don't let's start off with a reservation like that, Miss Copley. You made a naïve, but very wise, remark this afternoon when you said you might just as well tell me something, especially as I was bound to find it out anyway. Stick to that maxim. It will save me time and you trouble."
"Mmph!" said Miss Ocky.
"About there only being two of us for dinner," continued the detective, blandly ignoring the sniff, "there's a matter I'd like to clear up. Where is Mr. Varr's son? Was the trouble between them so bitter that it is to be perpetuated after death?"
"I couldn't bring myself to speak about that until we were by ourselves," said Miss Ocky. She looked up at Bates with a friendly glance. "I know you won't repeat anything, Bates! The trouble between Simon and his son grew out of Copley's attachment for Sheila Graham. I like her extremely, so I found myself in opposition to Simon. I cast myself in the role of the heavy fairy godmother and took a hand in shaping the destinies of the young couple—a fond aunt has an inalienable right to barge into her nephew's affairs, hasn't she?"
"Second only to a grandmother's," he assured her.
"I persuaded them to elope," confessed Miss Ocky. "No date was set for it that I heard of. Yesterday Copley succeeded in finding a job on the HambletonNewsas a reporter—and the editor, Mr. Barlow, when he arrived here this morning to cover this story told me that the boy had immediately celebrated his getting a job by asking for a two-week vacation to attend to some personal business. He left Hambleton last night for parts unknown. Meanwhile, Sheila Graham had gone to visit friends in New York for a fortnight. If you're a good detective, Mr. Creighton, you may make the right deduction."
"He started off on a honeymoon the very day his father was murdered. Rather—unpleasant coincidence."
"It struck me that way. I've been keeping mum just on that account. Norvallis was apparently satisfied with a statement that Copley is temporarily absent and that we are trying to get in touch with him."
"Norvallis is a very amiable gentleman; he has his reasons for being so, I think. As for Copley—well, a good many newspapers will carry the story of what happened last night and he will undoubtedly read it by to-morrow morning—possibly this evening. Then he will come home."
"Keeping his marriage—if there was one—dark, I trust. With the opposition—er—removed, I think it would be more suitable to have a public ceremony after a decent interval."
"Um. A matter of taste, perhaps. Personally, I've seen so much trouble caused by secret marriages that I'm inclined to eye them doubtfully. But—may I ask you a few questions about the less romantic adventures of the young man? Mrs. Varr declared this afternoon that her husband had driven him from the house. Was their disagreement—violent?"
"You must make allowances for my sister's nervous condition," answered Miss Ocky quickly. Her perceptions were instantly alive to whither this shift in the conversation might lead, and she resolved to limit the information she gave him as much as possible to the facts he would surely discover for himself. "Simon and Copley talked over the situation, night before last; Lucy naturally exaggerates the affair."
"Mr. Varr and his son quarreled. Isn't that the plain truth?"
"Doesn't a quarrel depend somewhat on the natures of the two people involved, Mr. Creighton? Simon was fearfully obstinate, and Copley is a little high-tempered—just to the extent that is becoming to a young man with any spirit—and I suppose that what might be merely a normal discussion between two such natures might—might seem like a quarrel to other people. Mightn't it?" she added, not very hopefully.
Despite himself, the detective was forced to grin at this ingenuous, or ingenious, argument.
"They quarreled," he summed it up, regaining his gravity. "If you will recollect, Miss Copley, when you came into the sitting-room a while ago you excused your sister's indisposition on the plea that she had been through enough the lasttwodays to wreck an Amazon. Whytwodays, unless it was the quarrel between her husband and her son that worried her all of yesterday?"
"Oh, heavens! You're worse than a dictaphone!" Miss Ocky made a face at him. "There's no help for it—I must go into a silence."
"Please don't, until I've asked one more thing. You can answer freely, or the station master will. If Copley went to town last night, what trains were available?"
"Only one," she admitted slowly. "There's a through train from the West that stops at Hambleton for water—at midnight!"
"Ah," said Peter Creighton, then wished he hadn't.
A high-tempered youth—a pig-headed father—a balked romance—a quarrel—a murder at eleven and a train away at midnight. These facts paraded through Creighton's brain and to a certain extent got ready to parade right on out of it. He could think all around a given subject, as he had described the process to Jason Bolt, and he was no fool to commit himself to half-baked hypotheses. Any theory of Copley's guilt could be countered with the same objection he made to Krech's hasty indictment of Mrs. Varr; a boy like that might strike down a man in the heat of passion but he would hardly set himself to calculated murder—or if he did, he would certainly arrange a better finish than a clumsy attempt at flight.
He became aware that Miss Copley was watching him anxiously while he meditated. He met her eyes—very nice eyes they were, he reflected—and it was too bad they should reveal fear, as they had since his monosyllabic exclamation.
"Are—are you suggesting—"
"Nothing, Miss Copley—nothing! Frankly and honestly! If you will permit me to say so, I think you are trying to make a mountain out of this molehill yourself. I haven't a doubt in the world that your nephew will turn up with every minute of last evening properly accounted for." He welcomed the slow reversion to normal of her expression. "Come, if I'm a dictaphone, let's pretend I'm turned off! Shall we talk of something else than murder? One might as well dine to jazz!"
That brought a smile to her lips—a quavery, uncertain little smile but an augury of better ones to come.
"With all my heart," she agreed. "What are your conversational preferences?"
"Anything but shop. May I ask you a personal question?"
"Personal questions are always the most interesting."
"I've heard you addressed once or twice as 'Miss Ocky,' and I've been wondering just what the abbreviation stands for?"
"Oh! You've landed squarely on a sore spot, but no matter. My father, bless him, was one of the dearest men that ever lived, but now and then he would get some particularly quaint idea into his head and proceed to carry it out in spite of every opposition. I arrived in this world on a chilly autumn day and was duly presented to my father's gaze. He was quite inexperienced about babies and it's recorded of him that he stared at me aghast and said: 'My gad, what a bleak-looking object!' That inspired some by-standing lunatic to observe that I doubtless took after the month, and my father promptly exclaimed: 'October! What a jolly fine name for her. We'll call her October!'" Miss Ocky sighed resignedly. "They let him get away with it. I was christened October. It has the sole merit of being distinctive!"
"My golly!" Creighton had listened to the concluding phrases of her anecdote with wonderment writ large on his face. He carefully put his knife and fork on his plate and leaned back in his chair while he continued to regard her with a rapt expression. "AreyouOctober Copley?"
"Yes!" laughed the lady.
"TheOctober Copley?"
"I'm quite unique, I believe," said Miss Ocky cheerfully.
"Didyouwrite 'Thibetan Trails,' 'Passages from Persia' and those bully Chinese things with the queer title?"
"'Chiliads of China.' Yes, I wrote 'em. Don't sit there and tell me you've read them!"
"Read them—I'velovedthem! It's a wonder I didn't connect your name with them at once. My wits have been woolgathering. But, hang it! Who could have expected to find an internationally famous writer and traveler stuck away in this corner of the world? Why haven't seventeen or ninety peopletoldme who you were?"
She laughed at his eager interest.
"A prophet is without honor in his own country," she said. "To my family I'm just Ocky; to the natives of Hambleton I'm only 'that Copley girl with the queer name who's come back from furrin parts'."
She laughed again, half surprised and half embarrassed, as he suddenly rose from his chair, marched around the table, shook hands with her and solemnly marched back again to his seat.
"Meeting a stray Miss Copley is one thing," he assured her. "Meeting October Copley is quite another matter."
It was impossible for her not to be touched by such sincere, whole-hearted enthusiasm. Her throat tightened queerly. Bates, too, an astonished spectator of the scene, was discreetly impressed. A stand-offishness that he had felt toward Peter Creighton, the detective, was weakened in favor of a man who thus appreciated his own Miss Ocky. An artist in simple gestures, he testified to his new approbation by refilling the wineglass beside Creighton's plate.
"Now, tell me what you are doing here. I can't believe it is really you sitting opposite me, there! If any one had asked me ten minutes ago where I supposed you might be, I would have answered that you were probably hunting hippopotamusses in the Himalayas or—or—"
"Tigers in Africa!" suggested Miss Ocky. "No, here I really am." Creighton had already noticed that she was usually divided between two moods, an amused, faintly mocking one, and another that had somehow an undercurrent of sadness. This last seemed to hold her as she added, "Here to stay, I think. My wanderings are done and now I must—settle down."
"Another great light has just burst on me," exclaimed Creighton. "Janet Mackay! She must be the companion you refer to so often in your travel books. By golly, was it she who dove beneath an ice-pack and brought you back to the air-hole through which you had fallen?"
"That was indeed Janet! I repaid the favor later by valiantly dashing into a burning hotel and releasing her from a beam that had dropped across her—well, she'd call 'em limbs! Regular movie stuff. Yes, Janet and I are now fearfully responsible for each other."
"There was no mention of the fire in any of your books."
"Mmph. I'd be apt to bust into print with that, wouldn't I? But I don't mind informing you—just between us girls, as your friend Mr. Krech would say—that you're in the presence of an honest-to-goodness heroine!"
"I knew that," said Peter Creighton simply.
There followed for him a somewhat curious evening. No detective worth his salt will permit extraneous matters to thrust themselves between his mind and the immediate problem with which it should be occupied, and Creighton really had a very high sense of duty. When they had taken themselves out of the house and settled down in the cozy corner of the big veranda, he punctiliously strove to concentrate on a dagger and a notebook and a murder, but ever and anon, as he tried to post himself on the manifold ramifications of the affair to date, the conversation would persist in taking unexpected trips to the Orient. His interest in this topic was so keen that he blamed these divagations on himself, and since a clever woman is cleverer than the cleverest man, it never once occurred to him that the guiding-reins of their talk lay in a pair of slender, capable, sun-browned hands. Miss Ocky preferred almost any subject that evening to the one of paramount importance.
He sat a while after she bade him good-night and left him, his thoughts a medley of vague impressions, confused, half-formed, inchoate. He tried to fix his mind on Simon Varr and ended by surrendering it to the vivid, vital personality of Miss Ocky.
When he went upstairs to his room the first object that caught his attention was a slender volume, beautifully bound, that lay on his dressing-table. "The Mystery of Lhasa." He had not heard of that one. A glance at the title-page accounted for that. Privately printed. On the flyleaf, inscribed in a bold, dashing hand, were the words, "For Peter Creighton—a master of mysteries—from October Copley."
"That's mighty nice of her," he told himself, putting it down. "Golly, what a woman! She has packed more life into each of her years than most men get in their three-score-and-ten."
The hour was early for his metropolitan standards. He thought of the balcony outside his window, and forthwith carried a comfortable chair to that cool retreat. He had lighted a cigar and established himself contentedly before a low voice challenged him from the darkness to the right.
"So you have found your little veranda!"
"Hello, Miss Copley! You got one too?"
"Yes. I come out here nearly every evening for an hour before going to bed. I love to watch the stars."
"No dearth of them in these skies."
"If we could look beyond them we might read the Riddle of the Universe. I think we could—I think so!" Here was the undercurrent of sadness again, sounding through an odd intensity of tone. "Surely, there is something beyond them. There must be! What do you think?"
"I know there is. If you sat here long enough, Miss Copley, I believe your doubts would be set at rest."
"What do you mean? What is behind the stars?"
"The dawn," he told her seriously. "These windows must face due East." He mused briefly. "They also command a partial view of that kitchen garden, come to think of it! You didn't happen to see or hear any—last evening—"
"What a one-track mind!" lamented Miss Ocky. "No!"
They talked until very late.
At eleven o'clock the next morning, the ground-floor of the big house was again invaded by a heterogeneous collection of people drawn thither by the coroner's inquest into the death of Simon Varr. Some were there as witnesses or because they had a personal interest in the proceedings, some because they were part of the legal machinery, and many because they were driven by morbid curiosity. The Coroner, an alert, bewhiskered old gentleman named Merton, took possession of the big living-room and had one end of it fenced off with chairs the better to mark the dignified exclusiveness of his court.
As on the previous day, the end of the veranda around the corner from the front of the house escaped the notice of the invading horde. Creighton spent the early part of the morning there, after a solitary breakfast, reading the morning paper attentively. Barlow, the editor, had covered the story of the murder with a competent pencil. The account was graphic, lucid and comprehensive, a credit to himself and his paper. When Creighton had finished its careful perusal he was posted on many details of the case that sheer lack of time had prevented him from learning the day before. With a considerable degree of satisfaction, however, he noted that he had unearthed a fair amount of information that the industrious scribe had missed.
Only second in interest to the big story itself was the half-column on an inner page devoted to the jail-breaking exploit of Mr. Charles Maxon—which would certainly have been largely featured at any other time. Some lesser scribe on Barlow's staff had been assigned to this minor item of news. He had gotten hold of the unfortunate Moody, and under the caption, "Der Jail Is Oudt" he had written a racy, humorous account of a Lady-Fair with Knockout Drops, a Resourceful Romeo and a hoodwinked Jailer. It ended with the statement that Romeo and the Lady were still missing, and that a ticket agent on night duty at the railroad station had seen two muffled figures unostentatiously board the last car of the midnight train without the formality of buying tickets.
"That means they'll have had to pay on the train," mused Creighton, "and of course the conductor will remember to what point they bought transportation when the police get around to asking him. Um. Would a murderer leave a trail as clear as that? I think not!"
It still lacked half-an-hour of the time set for the inquest. Creighton was smoking a cigarette and mentally digesting the information gleaned from the newspaper when Jason Bolt, accompanied by Krech and Miss Ocky, came swooping down upon him.
"Developments!" said Jason, his face wreathed in smiles. "I've found out what Norvallis has up his sleeve. Want to know?"
"I certainly do," said Creighton. "How did you find out?"
"Small-town stuff," declared Bolt cheerfully. "You can't keep a thing dark in the country. Our local Chief of Police is sore as a pup because Norvallis, when he gave the paper the story yesterday, failed to give him credit for fixing the hour of the murder by the dry ground beneath the body. Steiner—that's the chief—came to see me this morning at the office to make some inquiries about the fire the other night. He accepted a cigar, got to talking about his troubles—and didn't hesitate to tell me the county officers' theory when I asked him what it was."
"Charlie Maxon?" asked Creighton when Bolt paused for breath—and from the corner of his eye saw Miss Ocky give a little start.
"You've guessed it," admitted Jason a trifle disappointedly. "I confess I don't think much of their case, but Charlie Maxon is their choice. He broke jail just after ten o'clock and came up here. That is definitely proved to their satisfaction, at least, by footprints recognized as his in the soft earth beside Simon's body. They were identical with some he'd left when he came up here on an earlier tomato-swiping raid. Norvallis swore out a warrant yesterday afternoon and started a couple of sleuths on the trail of Maxon and his lady friend, and they were arrested early this morning in the village of Chiswick, about fifty miles down the line. What do you think of that?"
"What is the charge?"
"Indefinite. They're to be held on suspicion of being concerned in the murder. That's why I say it sounds like a weak case."
"How do they trace the dagger to Maxon?"
"He is supposed to have an accomplice." Bolt looked a little more serious. "Steiner was more cautious on that point—or else he was not so much in the know. There was a discharged clerk named Langhorn who accompanied Billy Graham to this house on the night of the robbery. Langhorn must have recognized the notebook in Simon's hand during that interview, and it was common knowledge among the clerks in the tannery that it contained valuable matter. The police theory is that he took advantage of Simon's absence at the fire to sneak back to the house, enter the study and steal the book—using the dagger and carrying it off with him afterward. He was seen talking to a man on the evening of the murder at the corner of an alley behind the lock-up. The county crowd think that man was Maxon, that Maxon was two-thirds drunk at least, and that Langhorn gave him the knife and egged him on to kill Simon. That's the gist of it."
"Um. Why should Langhorn flirt with the hangman? Discharged clerks don't necessarily revenge themselves to that extent!"
"He wouldn't tell me if he could—and I don't believe he can!"
"There is something I don't understand," broke in Miss Ocky, frowning thoughtfully. "Can a possibly innocent man be held just on suspicion like that? Surely, Norvallis must have strong proofs."
"I may be doing him an injustice," answered Creighton quietly, "but I think I have discovered the reason for Mr. Norvallis' activities. I rather wondered why he was thrusting himself so eagerly into the investigation instead of leaving it to the detectives. Yesterday I saw a poster on a fence by the tannery and learned that he is up for County-Attorney at the coming State election!" He caught a flicker of comprehension in Jason's eye, but Miss Ocky and Krech looked blank. "Don't you see? Here's a murder—a notable murder—committed in his county a few weeks before election. He has to do something. Maxon obligingly implicates himself enough to warrant his being held. Norvallis arrests him. He can easily juggle things along until the ballots have dropped in the box—meanwhile demonstrating that he's an active, zealous and conscientious officer!"
"You've hit it," declared Bolt. "He's that kind."
"But that's—vile!" cried Miss Ocky.
"We'll give him the benefit of one doubt," said Creighton. "He probably would not do that to a man he believed innocent; undoubtedly he is convinced that Maxon is guilty and will fight tooth-and-nail to convict."
"Well—is he right?" asked Bolt slowly. A dull red flushed his cheeks. "Did Maxon do it?"
"I'm confident that he did not," said Creighton. A pressure of his arm against his breast brought a crackle of paper and the comfortable assurance that his chip from the blade of the dagger was safe. "Don't press me for reasons yet, Mr. Bolt."
"I won't." Jason rose as Bates came around the corner to say the inquest had opened. "Take your time, sir, but get me that notebook!"
The proceedings went swiftly and smoothly from beginning to end. Whether or not he was a particularly good coroner—and Creighton felt some doubt of that—Merton was certainly expert in the technique of his job. He handled his witnesses capably, with deftness and dispatch, extracting facts from them with the easy grace of a headwaiter pulling corks, and each time a fact popped out he beamed benignly at his jury.
No mention was made of the police theory, and from the way Merton neatly headed off one or two witnesses who came close to trespassing on that forbidden ground, Creighton reckoned that Norvallis had persuaded him to mark time "in the interests of justice." The crowd that had come for a thrill were rewarded by the tale of the black monk, most of which was told by Miss Ocky. Her soft, clear voice carried to every ear, and her cool, matter-of-fact tones seemed rather to accentuate the dramatic values of her testimony than otherwise. It was the highlight of the whole picture, more interesting even than the verdict with its orthodox tag of "person or persons unknown."
"Norvallis hasn't shown his hand," murmured Jason Bolt, who was sitting next to Creighton.
"It'll make a louder splash in the papers to-morrow," retorted the detective cynically.
He had taken care to seat himself at the beginning of the inquest in such a way that he could watch the faces of the spectators who had come to this macabre entertainment. There was so much to the case that was hopelessly dark to him that he dared miss no opportunity to seek something or somebody who might inject even a single ray of light into the murk. He knew that the crowd at any inquest was quite likely to include the very person or persons unknown mentioned in the verdict. He watched the crowd here with a sharp eye for any one who might display a deeper interest than that of the casual ambulance-chaser brand.
He spotted just one among those present who seemed worthy of closer attention. This was a strikingly handsome blond man, middle-aged and well-dressed, who occupied an inconspicuous seat in the farthest corner of the long room. He had about him an air of strained intensity as he leaned forward to follow every word of the testimony, particularly when Miss Ocky was giving hers, and he tugged nervously and continuously at a close-cropped mustache. Creighton could see that his face was haggard and bore lines of worry—and he could see that an unmistakable look of relief came into his eyes as the jury returned its open verdict.
"Interesting," said the detective to himself, and touched Bolt on the arm as the man hurried from the room at the conclusion of the proceedings. "Who is that fair-haired chap just going out?"
"His name is Leslie Sherwood," answered Jason promptly. "He's a native of these parts but he has been out in the great world making lots of money. He has just returned and opened up the old Sherwood place, which has been closed since his father's death a few months ago. Why?"
Creighton was spared a reply by the appearance of a dapper, sharp little old gentleman who came up and greeted Bolt by his first name.
"Hello, Judge!" Jason turned with a gesture of his hand. "I want you to meet Mr. Peter Creighton, of New York. This is Judge Taylor, Mr. Creighton, who has always handled our legal affairs and managed somehow to keep us out of jail! Judge, Creighton is here to investigate that robbery of the other evening when Simon's notebook was stolen."
"Andthe dagger that killed him!" added Taylor significantly. "Glad to meet you, Mr. Creighton. I trust your inquiry will be successful." He jerked his head backward. "What did you think of this inquest?"
"Nicely stage-managed," said the detective, and an appreciative twinkle lit the lawyer's eyes. "May I have a chat with you sometime, Judge?"
"Whenever you please. Jason will show you my office."
"Hello! Who is this?" Creighton was facing the door from the hall, to which the other two men had their backs, and he was the first of them to notice a tall, prepossessing young man who hurried into the room. Behind him came Miss Ocky, looking pleased, and after her Krech, hunting for the detective from whom he had become separated. "Is it—?"
"Copley!" cried Jason Bolt and Judge Taylor with one voice. They greeted the newcomer warmly, but with the subdued sympathy suitable to the occasion. "When did you learn about this?" added Bolt.
"This morning's papers. I came as fast as I could." He spun around toward Miss Ocky. "My mother—?"
"Sleeping," answered his aunt. "It has been a shock, but you have no need to worry about her. Don't think of waking her up; I know you must want to go to her, but wait."
"This is a terrible business," said the young man to Bolt and the lawyer. He was yet unaware of Creighton, who had withdrawn slightly into the background. "I only know what I've read in the papers. As I came in just now I heard somebody say the inquest had drawn a blank. Is that so?"
"Yes. It is a complicated affair, Copley," answered Bolt. "It will take some time to tell you everything that has happened—"
"We'll go into it later, then. Just tell me now if everything possible is being done to identify the man who killed my father. That is the most important business before us. Have the police any clues?"
"I believe so, but they are saying little. On our own account, I have engaged this gentleman here—Mr. Creighton—to conduct an independent inquiry. Creighton, this is Mr. Varr's son, of whom you have heard."
Copley sent a keen look at the detective, then held out his hand.
"Glad to meet you—and very glad that Mr. Bolt has engaged your services. It is the very thing I would have wished. I have no confidence in the local authorities."
"That appears to make it unanimous," said Creighton, grinning. "Really, I'm beginning to wonder if these county fellows can be as stupid as they're reputed." He glanced at Jason Bolt. "Suppose I take Mr. Varr into the study here and give him a résumé of events to date? Somebody must, and I know the details better than any one else, perhaps."
There was a chorus of relieved approval from Bolt, Taylor and Miss Ocky and a quick nod of assent from Copley.
"I must have a talk with you, too, Copley, as soon as possible," added Jason Bolt. "It's hard to have to intrude business—"
"Oh!" interrupted the young man, and suddenly ran his fingers through his hair with a distraught gesture. "I'm in the deuce of a jam—! Aunt Ocky, when is the funeral?"
"We were waiting to hear from you. Now that you're here—shall we say to-morrow noon?"
"Very well. After that I must catch the one-thirty to New York." He shrugged his shoulders at Bolt's disappointed grunt. "It can't be helped, sir! And I'll be busy every minute until I leave. Are you sure that you need me after all?" He looked at the old lawyer who was eyeing him thoughtfully. "Judge Taylor, you had charge of my father's will, didn't you? Would it be improper for you to tell me whether or not I've inherited his interest in the tannery?"
"I'll risk the impropriety under the circumstances," said Taylor slowly, breaking a little silence that followed the question. "Yes, you have inherited a controlling interest without any restriction." He hesitated cautiously. "I'm assuming that no other will exists—I cannot believe there is any."
"In that case—you and I are partners, Mr. Bolt." Copley held out his hand rather bashfully. "You'll have a fearful lot to teach me, but you'll find me willing to learn." He continued more incisively. "I believe the first thing to do is to get that strike settled and the men to work. They'll listen to you, Mr. Bolt, if you ask them to return pending our decision to raise wages and improve conditions. Another thing—can you persuade Graham to stay with us?"
"I believe so—now," said Bolt slowly.
"The tannery must remain closed to-morrow, the day of the funeral. I'd like to see it open up the morning after at the usual hour."
"It will," said Jason flatly. "Leave it to me."
"That's what I want to do, for a fortnight anyway. After that you will find me ready to pull my weight in the boat." The young man turned to the others. "Aunt Ocky, you'll let me know, won't you, as soon as my mother wakes up? Come on, Mr. Creighton; I'm anxious to hear all you can tell me." He walked off to the study without waiting to see if the detective followed.
Creighton did not, for the moment. Bolt and Krech were leaving, and so was Judge Taylor. The detective had a few words with his friend as they followed the other two along the hall to the piazza, while Miss Ocky went up to her sister's room.
"What did you think of him?" asked Krech.
"Haven't thought much yet."
"He ought to be a pleasant change for Jason. He'll be open to reason, yet he'll have ideas of his own. Did you notice how he snapped into the business of getting work started again?"
"I noticed it."
"An up-and-coming lad," said Krech. "He couldn't have done it better if he'd been expecting the job."
Creighton glanced at the speaker quickly, but the big man's face was as ingenuous as a child's. They dropped the subject as they came up with the others.
When he had bidden themau revoir, the detective went to the small study, where he found Copley Varr restlessly pacing the short fairway between the door and his father's desk. The young man welcomed him with a gesture of relief.
"Thought you were never coming," he said, though not rudely. "If I can't see my mother yet, I'm in a hurry to—to attend to some other matters."
"Is an interview with William Graham one of them?" asked Creighton quietly as they sat down. He caught the sharp look that Copley sent him. "While digging into the history of this case it was inevitable that I should discover something of your private affairs. I will ask you to believe that I do not violate confidences—even though I have to force them at times."
"That's all right. You're a detective, aren't you?"
"I try to be!" smiled Creighton.
"Well, it's no use employing a detective and then cramping his style by refusing him information. I understand that."
"Good. We'll get along beautifully. Will you tell me, please, why you are obliged to return to New York? Is the reason—Miss Graham?"
"Not any more." For the first time since he had entered the house, Copley smiled a little. "It is Mrs. Varr, now. We were married yesterday morning in New York." The smile vanished abruptly. "And my father—scarcely cold! I won't forget the shock I got from the papers this morning if I live to be a hundred."
"Got a shock, did you?" repeated Creighton to himself, yet the boy's words had rung true. "If you're ready, Mr. Varr, I'll give you the story of what happened up to your father's death. I'll be brief."
At that, it was a lengthy narrative. It took more than an hour to relate, an hour in which Copley Varr did not once take his eyes from the detective's face. His gaze was expressionless; Creighton, returning it with interest, strove vainly to pierce that inscrutable veil to see what lay behind.
"And there is no definite clue to the murderer?" asked, Copley when Creighton finished. "Is the Maxon theory sound?"
"I think not. As for clues—well, such indications as I have turned up are too vague to be termed that."
"Do you suspect any one?"
"That question is out of order, Mr. Varr."
"Oh. Will you tell me then, in a general way, where those indications you mention seem to point?"
"In a general way, yes." Creighton meditated. "They point to a person who hated your father, who sympathized with the striking tanners, who was wealthy enough to supply them with money, either from sympathy or to further his grudge, a person of some education, familiar with local history and imaginative enough to adapt the costume of a legendary monk to a perfect disguise. Last, a person who was sufficiently familiar with this house to stage a burglary as bold as it was successful."
Copley Varr was pale as this hypothetical portrait was limned. His eyes now avoided the detective's.
"That description might fit a—a number of people," he said.
"Oh, yes. It's very vague. Now, I can ask a question that you mustn't, doyoususpect any one?"
"N-no."
"Come! are you weakening already about giving me information?"
"Suspicion—if I had any—is not fact!"
"Quibbles won't get us anywhere. I won't press you further to voice your suspicion—right now. In the meantime, I'll plod along with my investigation on the obvious lines."
"Obvious? I suppose they are to you, Mr. Creighton, but I do not see a single point of attack. Will you tell me what you plan to do, or is that also taboo?"
"I'm going to make a list of all the people that description might fit and then eliminate them one by one as circumstances dictate. I suppose competent alibis will let most of 'em out. Yes, I guess I'll have quite a fine assortment of alibis at the end." The detective was speaking easily, good-humoredly, and his voice was elaborately casual as he added:
"By the way, where were you the night of the burglary from ten to twelve?"
Copley Varr started violently and his face crimsoned. For a long minute he did not speak but sat staring angrily at his inquisitor. He clenched his hands as though ready to leap on the detective. Then, slowly, his fingers relaxed, the color faded from his cheeks and the anger from his eyes. Creighton watched the metamorphosis with approval; if he could get the best of his temper like that, would he have been likely to lose it to the extent of committing murder? Improbable!
"I was in the editorial rooms of theNewsfrom ten-thirty until quarter to twelve, when I left to catch the midnight train to New York. At least three men connected with the paper will bear me out."
"That's bully!" said Creighton. "The crowd on my list will be in luck if they do half as well. One thing more, Mr. Varr, and then I'm off to real work. Was William Graham in the habit of coming to this house?"
Again Copley jumped, but this time with the air of shrinking from a blow rather than delivering one. His voice, when it came, was hoarse.
"Don't ask me that—now!"
"Um. Yes, it's rather a tough question—new father-in-law, new bride and all that! You needn't answer it, Mr. Varr!"
"Plainer than you have already, my son!" he added to himself as he left the room. "William Graham—to the bar!"
Creighton was light on his feet and invariably wore rubber-soled shoes—not, as he had been obliged to explain to Krech aforetime, because he was trying to be the complete pussy-footed sleuth, but because he really preferred them to leather. The result, however, whether designed or not, was to make him as soundless in his movements as a panther.
He slipped noiselessly along the hall to the front door, his thoughts busy with what he had just learned, his immediate intention to go to town for the talk he had promised himself with Judge Taylor. Lawyers often could throw light on an affair of this kind if they chose to; what if there were some secret, unsuspected page in Simon Varr's life—?
As he put on his hat and stepped out of the front door, he heard the low hum of voices from the cozy corner at the end of the piazza. He wondered who it might be, and curiosity turned his steps in that direction. Instead of turning the corner, however, he halted abruptly when he heard his own name spoken by unmistakable accents.
"Where is Mr. Creighton, do you know?"
"He's in the study with Master Copley. Do you wish to speak to him, Miss Ocky?"
"No. Has he had any conversation with you yet, Bates?"
"No, Miss Ocky; nothing special."
"He probably will, though. It struck me, Bates, that you might inadvertently mention our little talk of the other day if I didn't warn you. I don't think that would be advisable."
"Nor do I, Miss Ocky! I was only afraid you might let it out yourself!"
"It would be a pity to put notions in his head," continued Miss Ocky calmly. "I must say, Mr. Creighton seems to be unusually sensible, but you can never tell which way a detective will jump."
"They're worse'n cats!" agreed the old butler.