CHAPTER XXIITHE CONFESSION
Julian Barclay’sconfession staggered his hearers, who gazed at him in amazement too great for words.
“I don’t get your meaning,” stammered Mitchell. “Explain yourself.”
Before Barclay could comply with his request, the portières were dragged aside and Walter Ogden strode into the room. He came to an abrupt stop as his eyes lighted on Barclay standing handcuffed, the central figure of the little group. Ogden hardly seemed aware of the others, his gaze being focused on Barclay and the handcuffs. Great beads of perspiration appeared on his forehead.
“What’s the meaning of this?” he demanded. “What deviltry are you up to?” and he glared at them all.
Mitchell took the question to himself, and an angry sparkle lit his eyes. “Don’t interfere with the administration of the law,” he snapped. “I’ve justarrested your cousin, Mr. Julian Barclay, for the murder of James Patterson.”
“Of which I am entirely innocent,” declared Barclay, facing the detective with something of his habitual poise and self-command.
“That remains to be proved,” exclaimed Mitchell skeptically. “I am still awaiting an explanation of your cryptic remark that you killed Patterson and not James Patterson.”
Barclay cleared his throat, and not looking at Ethel, addressed them inclusively.
“Fifteen years ago I accidently shot and killed Dr. Paul Patterson, with whom I roomed in Baltimore while a student at Johns Hopkins University,” he said. “I was acquitted by the grand jury.”
“After three trials.” The comment slipped from Walter Ogden, and too late, he regretted the words.
“After three trials,” repeated Barclay slowly. “Quite true, but I was acquitted, and cannot be tried again for that offense.”
“I don’t recall any such case,” muttered Mitchell. “How did you come to kill this Paul Patterson?”
Barclay did not reply at once, and his labored breathing indicated the strain he was under. “From a child I was imaginative, highly strung, nervous,” he began. “As I grew older I gained self-control, and when I entered Johns Hopkins University I wasas normal as any student. I was very ambitious, and during my last year overstudy and the tension under which I was living brought on somnambulism.”
“Oh!” Ethel, who was hanging on his words, was unaware that she had spoken, but from that moment she was Barclay’s only audience, and his voice deepened with emotion as he rehearsed old memories and lived through old scenes.
“I knew that as a boy I often talked in my sleep when unduly excited by the day’s events,” he continued. “But I was never aware that I ever walked in my sleep, and Dr. Patterson, on discovering that fact, never told me. One night he inadvertently awoke me, and the revolver I had picked up from his desk in the library, went off without my volition”—Barclay shivered, lifted his manacled hands as if to shut out a vision, and dropped them impotently. “When fully awake I found Paul Patterson lying dead across the desk, and the housekeeper crying: ‘Murder,’ as she ran through the house. My arrest followed.”
“I am beginning to remember the case,” interrupted Mitchell excitedly. “But the student’s name was not Barclay—it was——”
“Julian Meredith,” answered Barclay. “Shortly after my acquittal at the hands of the grand jury, my mother’s cousin left me his fortune with theproviso that I drop my last name and legally assume his, which I did.”
“Wait,” Mitchell held up an imperative hand, and Barclay paused. “Did not the proof of your somnambulistic state rest on a letter written by Dr. Paul Patterson and begun by him just before you shot him, in which he mentioned your sleep-walking propensities, and that you were at that moment walking about in his library, sound asleep?”
“That is correct,” acknowledged Barclay.
“And this letter was secured by the housekeeper who, instead of turning it over to the police, told its contents to Dr. Patterson’sfiancéewho, in revenge for the killing of her lover, bribed the housekeeper to withhold the letter,” added Mitchell.
“Which the housekeeper did,” said Barclay, “until conscience made her confess to the police during my third trial.”
“And the name of Dr. Paul Patterson’sfiancéewas——” Mitchell paused, and Barclay filled in the remainder of the sentence.
“Henrietta Patterson, a distant cousin.”
“And this Miss Henrietta Patterson was the only sister of James Patterson,” finished Mitchell. “And James Patterson died by your hand two nights ago.”
“He did not,” declared Barclay vehemently. “AsGod is my witness, I never knowingly raised my hand against any member of the Patterson family. You can prove no motive for such a crime.”
“You’ve just supplied me with one,” returned Mitchell. “Before I had only evidence of guilt to go on, but now I’m positive of the motive. Henrietta Patterson avenged her lover’s death by almost sending you to the gallows, and you, in turn, avenged the suffering she had caused you, by murdering her brother.”
“A specious argument, nothing more,” scoffed Barclay. “You have absolutely no proof against me.”
Mitchell looked about him. “Suppose we sit down,” he said, drawing up a chair. “Now we can talk more comfortably. Mr. Barclay, why did you carry a revolver the night of the fire?”
“I carried my revolver to use in case of encountering the Jap, Ito, for whom I was searching.”
“Did you meet this Ito after securing your revolver?”
“I did not.”
“Then at whom did you discharge your revolver?”
No answer.
“Did you discharge the revolver at James Patterson?” persisted Mitchell, and this time Barclay’s denial was prompt and forceful.
“I did not,” he declared. “I did not discharge itatanyone.”
“Mr. Barclay,” Mitchell slipped his hand inside a pocket and produced a rag, and at sight of it Ethel shivered. “Charles, the butler, swears that you used this powder-stained flannel to clean your revolver the morning after Patterson’s murder—and he was killed by a thirty-two revolver bullet, such as you use in your revolver.”
“I did not know that Patterson was killed by a thirty-two caliber revolver bullet until after the inquest,” retorted Barclay. “I thought, as did everyone else, that he had been killed by the explosion of Ogden’s rifle cartridges, and I cleaned that revolverbeforethe inquest.”
Mitchell shook his head. “That fact does not help you,” he argued. “It only goes to show that you knew before the others that Patterson was killed by a thirty-two caliber bullet and that you cleaned your revolver so that the bullet could not be said to have been fired from your revolver. And you, with your medical knowledge and past experience in a murder trial, knew that the probing of the wound would establish the fact that Patterson had been shot by a thirty-two caliber bullet. You were simply forehanded in cleaning your revolver.”
Before Mitchell had finished speaking Ethel wason her feet, her eyes flashing, and she turned and addressed her companions, indignation in tone and gesture.
“In his heckling of Mr. Barclay, the detective has forgotten to inquire at whom Mr. Barclay fired,” she said, and as Barclay looked up at her his haggard face was transformed.
“Thanks,” he exclaimed, springing to his feet. “As I reached the back hall on my return from my fruitless search for Ito, I made out dimly a figure advancing head down, half crouching under the hall light. Thinking it might be Ito overcome by the smoke, I raised my revolver just as the fusillade of shots rang out, and instinctively I pulled the trigger of my revolver, supposing I was attacked.”
“Ah, then you contend that youaccidentallykilled James Patterson,” asked Mitchell incredulously. “It strikes me that you are working the accident plea rather fine.”
“I have not used it in this instance,” declared Barclay hotly. “I did not shoot James Patterson.”
“Then the man advancing under the light was not Patterson?”
“Yes, it was,” admitted Barclay. “But you will all recall that Patterson was shot in the back; whereas, when I fired that revolver I stood directly in front of him.”
Silence followed Barclay’s statement. Norcross was the first to speak.
“Did you observe anyone standing down the hall behind Patterson?” he asked.
“No, the dense smoke was drifting toward me, and I could not see down the hall,” was Barclay’s answer, and Norcross looked his disappointment.
“Will you kindly tell us, Mr. Barclay,” began Mitchell, “if your bullet did not go into Mr. Patterson, exactly where it did go.” He waited, and then added significantly. “The walls and ceilings in every direction on the second floor have been examined by experts in search of thirty-two caliber bullets which might have been imbedded in them; and while we have found numerous thirty-eight caliber bullets, none have been located in the neighborhood where Mr. Patterson’s body was found. And every bullet that has been found in other parts of the halls and rooms has been a thirty-eight caliber bullet. Where did your revolver bullet go?”
“Out of the hall window,” retorted Barclay. His words caused a sensation. “Come upstairs and I will show you,” he urged.
“Yes, come,” echoed Ethel, and taking Lois’ arm, she led the way to the second floor back hall, Mitchell marching stolidly by Barclay’s side, and the latter had no opportunity to whisper a word of the gratitudeoverflowing his heart and soul to the girl who, among them all, was the only one to champion his cause.
On reaching the back hall Barclay moved down toward the servants’ staircase. “I stood here,” he said. “Norcross, just crouch down under the light and balance yourself as if you were going to topple forward on your face; yes, that’s about right, now, hold the position—steady”—Barclay raised his right arm, hand closed as if he grasped a revolver butt. “See, the window at the curve of the hall is just in line—the bullet passed directly through it.”
“Without breaking the glass?” asked Mitchell, lifting his eyebrows.
“The window was open,” answered Barclay. “And the current of air coming from there lifted the smoke so that I could see a man’s figure crouching where Norcross is—Thanks,” he added as Norcross rose. “Now, I hope you are satisfied, Mitchell?”
But Mitchell looked unconvinced. “It’s pretty thin,” he grumbled. “You’ve got to produce that bullet from somewhere in this neighborhood before I’ll believe your bullet did not go into Patterson’s body.”
“It’s a poor rule that doesn’t work both ways,” exclaimed Ethel, who had loitered behind for a second.“If Mr. Barclay’s bullet entered Mr. Patterson’s body, Mr. Mitchell, what became of the bullet which struck this safe—see the mark—and ricocheted from its bullet-proof surface. That bullet, if it did not strike Mr. Patterson in the back, had to go somewhere—now, where is it?”
The men stared at her in dumbfounded surprise, then simultaneously they wheeled about and gazed at the uninjured, unmarked wall paper down the hallway, and when they turned back to Ethel, their faces were as blank as the wall.
“Ethel, you’ve struck the nail on the head,” shouted Ogden loudly. “Now, Mitchell, take off those handcuffs and apologize to Mr. Barclay.”
Mitchell, with a bad grace, did the former but not the latter. “I have two bullets to trace now, instead of one,” he said. “But that does not exonerate you, Mr. Barclay; and you will have to accompany me to headquarters. I take it you will come peaceably?” dangling the handcuffs suggestively before returning them to his pocket.
“Certainly.” Barclay looked as if years had been taken from him. “And my cousin, Mr. Walter Ogden, will go surety for me, if you desire it.”
Ogden dropped the cigar he was lighting. “No,” he said, his face red from the exertion of stooping. “I am not a property owner in the district.”
“But I am,” put in Norcross. “I own this house, Mitchell, and if anything is wanted, call on me.”
Barclay paused to wring the professor’s hand, and when he turned back to the others Ethel and Lois were nowhere in sight. “You must come with me at once, Mr. Barclay,” insisted Mitchell at his elbow.
“Just a minute”—Barclay tore a leaf from his memorandum book, and scribbled:
Ethel:I must go at once to Detective Headquarters. I go with a greater courage, a newer, happier faith in human nature, inspired by you—the most loyal friend a man ever had. My life—my love are yours. I pray God that soon I can stand before you cleared of all suspicion, and ask the question which honor forbids while I am under a cloud.Julian.
Ethel:
I must go at once to Detective Headquarters. I go with a greater courage, a newer, happier faith in human nature, inspired by you—the most loyal friend a man ever had. My life—my love are yours. I pray God that soon I can stand before you cleared of all suspicion, and ask the question which honor forbids while I am under a cloud.
Julian.
Barclay folded the note and addressed it, then catching up with Norcross and Ogden, and with Mitchell at his heels, hastened into the lower hall. Charles, much agitated, met them at the foot of the staircase, and before he could speak, Barclay thrust the note into his hand with a Treasury bill.
“Take this note at once to Miss Ethel,” he directed.
“Yes, sor,” promised Charles. “Mr. Ogden, luncheon is served, sor.”
“Well, thank Heaven for small mercies!” ejaculated Ogden. “Come on in, Norcross.”