CHAPTER XVIICHERCHEZ LA FEMME

CHAPTER XVIICHERCHEZ LA FEMME

Guy Trenholmhelped Miriam into his powerful roadster and then, with a murmured word of apology, slipped back into his bungalow. Miriam waited patiently, unmindful of his prolonged absence and thankful for the opportunity of rest undisturbed. Her ideas were confused—chaotic. The thirteen messages which she and Trenholm had just decoded were ringing in her head, but, try as she would, she could think of no solution to the enigma. The Law of Chance had indeed plunged her into an impenetrable mystery. Trenholm’s voice at her elbow caused her to start slightly.

“I am extremely sorry to have been so long,” he said, taking his place behind the steering wheel. “Pablo,” to the Filipino, who had followed him from the front door and was clinging frantically to the collars of the police dogs in his endeavor to keep them out of the car, “let no one enter the house. If any one calls on the telephone, tell them I am at Abbott’s Lodge.”

The next instant the roadster had glided into the highway, and with Trenholm’s impatient foot on the accelerator, was making record time in its dash for Abbott’s Lodge.

Pablo was busy going about his work, whistling shrilly, when a heavy knock on the side door interrupted him. Answering it, he found a man in chauffeur’s livery just about to implant a heavy kick on the panels by way of emphasis.

“Your mastair, where is he?” demanded Pierre, and Pablo’s back stiffened at his insolent manner.

“None of your business,” he retorted, and slammed the door. The heavy bombardment of knocks which followed was stopped by Alexander Nash’s appearance on the scene. He had waited in the Nash limousine, but the sound of conflict stirred him to action. His voice, raised in anger, caused Pablo to glance through the pantry window, and at sight of the clergyman, he at once opened the side door.

“What is eet?” he asked blandly, ignoring Pierre utterly. “Did some one knock?”

“I wish to see Sheriff Trenholm at once,” stated the clergyman. “Tell him that Doctor Nash is here.”

“He is away.”

“Oh!” Nash looked a trifle nonplussed, then asked briskly, “Where will I find him?”

Pablo paused, in his turn, for reflection. Trenholm had stated very clearly that should any one call him by telephone he, Pablo, was to say that he was to be found at Abbott’s Lodge. Trenholm, however, had specified a telephone call only, and not a caller in person, therefore, according to Pablo’s reasoning, he could not divulge the whereabouts of his master to Nash.

“He gone out,” he replied, assuming a stupid air and lack of English, which he spoke remarkably well, except for a distinct accent. “No tell where go.”

Nash’s disappointment was obvious. “Think again!” he begged, and jingled some loose coins in his pocket suggestively. But Pablo’s total lack of expression proved more exasperating than enlightening. “Come, where is the sheriff?”

“I dunno,” Pablo shrugged. “Maybe he come back to dinner, maybe not. Want to wait in your car?”

“No, certainly not.” Nash frowned thoughtfully. “Let me use your telephone a moment,” and he held out a bank note.

Pablo backed away. “Sorry, can’t use—” He got no further.

Pierre, with a dexterity which Pablo had not anticipated, had slipped between the Filipino and the open door, and, with a vigorous push, sent Pablo sprawling. But the latter was too quick for him. With a spring like a panther, Pablo was on his back and Pierre measured his length on the ground.

“Stop this unseemly brawling,” commanded Nash, looking genuinely shocked. “Pierre, go at once to my car. As for you,” turning to Pablo, who rose with reluctance and one final kick which sent the chauffeur’s headgear down the path, “I shall report your conduct to Mr. Trenholm.” And he stalked away.

Without giving a thought to Pablo’s habit of taking everything he said literally, Trenholm slackened the roadster’s speed when they got within a mile of Abbott’s Lodge.

“Do you see very much of Miss Carter?” he asked.

“No. She is never with Mrs. Nash at night and I am not around the house in the daytime,” replied Miriam. She hesitated perceptibly. “Betty is the only name given in the messages we decoded. Does it refer to Miss Carter?”

“To whom else could it refer?” and Miriam was silenced by his tone. She stole a look at Trenholm. She dared not admit, even to herself, how frequentlyher thoughts were centered on the self-contained man by her side.

“Miss Ward”—Trenholm drove the car to the side of the road and stopped—“did you catch sight of the man in Mrs. Nash’s bedroom early this morning?”

Her answer was disappointing. “No. I was halfway up the staircase when I heard her cry out, but when I reached her she was alone in the room,” she explained. “I had left the hall door partly open and found it practically in the same position upon my return.”

Trenholm considered her answer for a second. When he addressed her again she was struck by the gravity of his tone.

“Exactly what is the matter with Mrs. Nash?” he inquired. “I am not asking from idle curiosity, Miss Ward,” observing her hesitation, “but as an officer of the law.”

Miriam eyed him in startled wonder. What did his question portend?

“Doctor Roberts told me he felt that he had not located the real trouble,” she replied. “Nor can I give a reason for her, at times, alarming symptoms.”

“Can you not venture an opinion?”

“Mr. Trenholm!”

He turned and his rare smile gave her a ray of comfort and a sense of security.

“It’s unethical, I know,” he said. “But you must realize, Miss Ward, that we are confronted with a dastardly conspiracy, the tentacles of which reach from Russia to Abbott’s Lodge. Can I not count upon your aid to expose Zybinn’s plot?”

“You can.” Her voice rang out clearly, and again Trenholm smiled, well pleased. “I have sometimes thought that Mrs. Nash’s condition is due to a heart depressant—”

“A coal-tar poison,” quietly. “And by whom administered?”

Miriam moved unhappily. “I am not in the sickroom at all hours,” she observed dryly. “Miss Carter is there during the day, and Doctor Nash spends much time with his wife.”

Trenholm contemplated her, a gleam of something besides admiration in his eyes; then shifting his gears and releasing his brake, he drove onward.

“Do you recall the exact wording of the coded message in the thirteenth letter?” he asked, after a brief silence.

“Yes. It was: ‘Watch thirteenth letter suicides grave,’” she looked at him inquiringly. “Does the word ‘suicide’ take the possessive ‘s’, or is its meaning plural?”

“That remains to be seen.” He turned the car into the driveway to Abbott’s Lodge, and before stopping under theporte cochère, addressed her in a voice carefully lowered to reach her ear alone. “Say nothing of the thirteen letters toany one.”

“Of course not!”

He was quick to detect her hurt tone. “Forgive me,” he begged, and his low, earnest voice impressed her. “I depend on your aid absolutely and trust you implicitly,” then as she flashed a glance upward of glad relief, he added, “Don’t forget those five words, for I firmly believe that the solution to Paul’s mysterious murder rests in the thirteenth letter.” Their approach had been seen from inside the Lodge and Corbin swung open the door. Trenholm had opportunity for only one hurried sentence, “The thirteenth letter,” he repeated, under his breath, “of the alphabet is ‘M.’”

Corbin favored Miriam with an unpleasant glance as she sped by him into the house, but touched his forehead, with some show of respect, to Trenholm.

“Mrs. Nash wishes to see ye,” he stated. His shifty eyes fell before the sheriff’s steady gaze. “Can I have a word with ye, sir; me and Martha—”

“Yes?” inquiringly, as the caretaker paused in uncertainty. “Well?”

Corbin licked his lips. Talking to the sheriff wasnot quite so easy a task as he had represented to Martha, and he instantly shifted the responsibility.

“Martha’s dressin’ now, sir; but she’ll be down d’reckly,” he mumbled. “An’ before ye go, sir, please ask for her.”

Trenholm took silent note of the man’s twitching facial muscles and his unhealthy pallor.

“Very well,” he said. “I will send for Martha. Wait—no, go on,” as Corbin stopped reluctantly at the first injunction, and, giving Trenholm no time to reconsider his second order, he disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

Trenholm hung up his hat and overcoat in the closet off the living room in deep thought. He had intended questioning Corbin as to the hours of receiving mail at Abbott’s Lodge, but he shrewdly suspected that Martha would prove a more reliable source of information, and so dismissed the caretaker with the question unasked.

Trenholm’s low tap on Mrs. Nash’s bedroom door brought Somers in response. On recognizing the sheriff she drew back and held the door more widely open.

“My mistress is expecting you,” she said. “Come in, sir.”

It was the first time Mrs. Nash had met Guy Trenholm face to face, though each had had glimpsesof the other during Mrs. Nash’s occasional visits to Abbott’s Lodge in the past. Under pretense of much languor, she was slow in offering him her hand and equally slow in releasing his. Trenholm’s pressure on her icy fingers forced her rings into her flesh, but aside from a slight, very slight, intake of her breath, she gave no sign of how much he hurt her.

“Please take that chair,” she said, as Somers, obedient to previous instructions, pushed forward the chair Miriam had occupied the night before and in which she had found the thirteenth letter. “You will fill it nicely, Mr. Trenholm; it is made for such big frames as you and my husband. I feel,” she added as he kept a discreet silence, waiting for her to open the interview, “that you and I should be old acquaintances; I have heard so many nice things about you from both Paul and his father.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Nash!” Trenholm sat back and eyed her gravely. Her rouge was cleverly applied and her hair was becomingly dressed. But to his critical mind there was something unnatural in the high notes of her voice, in the constant tremble of her hand, which, strive as she did, she could not control. “I have frequently hoped to meet you, and frankly”—with a disarming smile—“particularly after your experiences last night.”

“You come directly to the point,” she remarked.“I can only tell you that, after Miss Ward left me, I closed my eyes—for a few minutes only—and opened them to find the room in darkness, to feel some one creeping to my bedside, the touch of the beard on my hand—” The shrug of her shoulders was eloquent. “Have you, Sheriff Trenholm, discovered the identity of the intruder?”

He shook his head. “I must admit failure,” he said. “Give me a little more time.”

She frowned, then smiled, and Trenholm decided that a fiery temper was kept under iron control. “My husband has gone to employ a celebrated detective agency to solve the mystery,” she stated. “I thought that you should know and so sent for you.”

“Thank you,” simply, and settling himself more comfortably in the big chair Trenholm awaited her next remark.

“You are not exactly loquacious,” she commented dryly. “Have you been told the terms of Paul Abbott’s will?”

“Yes. Your niece will inherit a very handsome fortune.”

“Provided she remains single the rest of her natural life.” Mrs. Nash’s laugh smote unpleasantly on his ear. “Betty is so very young—not yet out of her twenties. Does wealth compensate, Mr. Trenholm, for a lonely old age?”

“To some natures it does.” Trenholm’s voice was softly modulated to suit a sick room, and Mrs. Nash had to listen attentively to catch every word he said. “It seems a pity that Paul and Miss Carter were not married before his death.”

Mrs. Nash’s eyelids flickered slightly; otherwise she regarded him with unchanged expression. “It is a pity,” she agreed, “in a way. But I have no doubt that certain terms in Paul’s ridiculous will can be set aside.”

“Ah, on what grounds?”

“That he was not of sound mind when it was drawn up,” quietly. “In view of the mystery surrounding Paul’s shocking murder, Mr. Trenholm, I feel that you should be informed on certain matters.”

“And what are they, Mrs. Nash?” as she paused. Trenholm was giving her flattering attention and she smiled shrewdly.

“My father had given his consent to Betty’s engagement to Paul,” she went on, “when, shortly after, we noticed a change in Paul. His morbid tendencies became more pronounced and he suffered from the delusion that people were pursuing him.” She looked at Trenholm. “You know the unfortunate story of his mother?”

“That she died insane, yes.”

“My father grew more and more distressed, for Betty is his only grandchild. At last my husband went to Doctor Roberts and asked him to join my father’s party on our yachting trip to Bermuda, so that he might have Paul under mental observation.” Mrs. Nash paused to clear her throat. “That was only two months ago.”

“And what conclusion did Roberts come to regarding Paul’s mental condition?” questioned Trenholm swiftly.

“Roberts is an old fogy!” For once Mrs. Nash’s self-control slipped. She had herself in hand again before Trenholm could guess the cause of her emotion. “And his affection for Paul biased his judgment. My husband would have done better had he employed another physician.”

Trenholm scrutinized her intently for several minutes. “And what connection is there between Paul’s mental condition and his murder?” he asked finally.

“Suicide—”

Trenholm laughed outright. “An utterly unpractical theory, Mrs. Nash,” he remarked, and the dryness of his tone brought the carmine to her cheeks under her rouge. “It was physically impossible for Paul to have stabbed himself.” He rose without ceremony and stared openly about the big bedroom. “I’vebeen in here often when Mr. Abbott, Sr., used it as a sitting room,” he said, “and these are the hunting prints which Paul left me.” He looked down at Mrs. Nash, a faint smile still lingering about his lips. “I want these prints awfully. Please don’t contest Paul’s will,” and turning his back upon her, he walked leisurely across the room and examined them.

Mrs. Nash’s emotions were too great to permit her clear vision and she failed to detect Trenholm when he quietly took down the sketch of neglected graves which hung where Miriam had seen it during her first vigil in the sick room. Slipping the small picture inside his pocket, he strolled back to the bed.

“Good-by, Mrs. Nash,” he bowed courteously, then bent further down until his lips nearly touched her right ear. “I am not much of a doctor, but I am of the opinion that you can get up.”

When Mrs. Nash recovered her breath only Somers was in the bedroom.

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