CHAPTER XXITHE STILL, SMALL VOICE
Charles, the butler, stared in dismay at the untasted breakfast sitting temptingly before Walter Ogden. Not a dish had been touched, and twenty minutes had elapsed since he brought them in, hot from the kitchen. The perturbed butler took a hesitating step toward Ogden but a glimpse of his face behind the morning paper, and its forbidding expression caused Charles to retreat on tip-toe, his warning about a cold breakfast unspoken. Once before he had incautiously interrupted Ogden at just such a moment, and had fled before the storm provoked by his temerity.
Charles had left the room but a bare five minutes when Ogden threw down his newspaper, poured out a cup of coffee, drank it almost in one gulp, and leaving his breakfast uneaten, walked heavily away from the table. His destination was his wife’s bedroom, and he found her sitting before the mahogany dressing table arranging her hair, with an absorption as to detail which admitted no hurry.
“I won’t be very long,” exclaimed Mrs. Ogden, catching sight of her husband’s reflection in the mirror. “Go down and get your breakfast; don’t wait for me,—I can’t be any quicker than I can.”
Mrs. Ogden could not break herself of the last phrase; it was invariably a red rag to her husband, whose impatient disposition chafed at being kept waiting, even for an infinitesimal second. He did not retreat as Mrs. Ogden hoped he would, but instead advanced into the bedroom.
“Send your maid away,” he directed, scowling at the pretty French woman, and Mrs. Ogden with a resigned expression directed Celeste to wait in her own room until she rang for her. When the door had closed behind the maid, Ogden jerked a chair forward and planted it by the dressing table.
“What do you think of the papers?” he demanded.
“The papers?” repeated Mrs. Ogden. “I haven’t had time to read them; well, you needn’t be provoked,” offended by Ogden’s impatient snort. “It’s your own fault; if you didn’t insist on my breakfasting downstairs, I could read the papers in bed.”
“Here is thePost,” Ogden thrust the newspaper into her hand. “Read this account of the inquest,” and at the word “inquest” his wife seized the paper with avidity, but her reading of the article was delayedby a search for her eyeglasses which had misplaced themselves, according to Mrs. Ogden. Thoroughly exasperated, Ogden tumbled the puffs and hairpins about the dressing table until he drew a wail from Mrs. Ogden, who had finally discovered the missing glasses under her pillow. But the lure of the newspaper averted any lengthened argument, and Mrs. Ogden read the entire article before her husband again addressed her.
“What do you make of it?” he asked as she lowered the paper.
“I don’t know exactly what to think,” she answered. “I wish I had been permitted to sit in the courtroom and listen to the other witnesses testify.”
“That is neither here nor there,” interrupted Ogden, rudely. “Have you seen this miniature of which Ethel speaks?”
“No, never,” Mrs. Ogden reread a paragraph in the paper. “Strange she never showed it to me!”
“And the ring”—Ogden rumpled his heavy white hair until it stood upright. “Was the ring given to her by James Patterson or Julian Barclay?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“Seems to me,” Ogden rose abruptly, “it’s time you found out what is taking place in this house,” and he banged out of the room before his astonished wife could question his meaning.
Mrs. Ogden contemplated her reflection in the mirror in indecision; she was more perturbed than she cared to admit even to herself. Completing her dressing with no sign of haste, she summoned her maid and ordered her breakfast served in her bedroom, and between dainty bites of hot toast and marmalade again read the newspaper account of the inquest; but she did not linger over the particular paragraphs which had so excited her husband, instead concentrating her attention on Julian Barclay’s testimony. At last throwing the paper aside, she wrote out themenufor the day, the orders for the grocer and the market man, and dispatched them to her cook by Celeste, and with the relief occasioned by having completed her morning’s work, she went in search of Ethel.
A faint “Come in” answered Mrs. Ogden’s determined rap on Ethel’s bedroom door, but she stopped abruptly just over the threshold on beholding the room in darkness.
“Bless me! Why don’t you pull up the shades, Ethel?” she asked. “Do you know it’s nearly noon?” And not waiting for a reply, she hurried across the room and pushed aside the blinds. “Brr! every window open!” she ejaculated, shivering. “And the steam heat turned off. Ethel, you are incorrigible! Do you want to have pneumonia?”
“No such luck!” muttered Ethel, and Mrs. Ogden, busily turning on the cock of the steam radiator missed the remark. “Do you want me for anything, Cousin Jane?” throwing back the bedcovers as she spoke.
“Just to chat with you,” Mrs. Ogden ensconced herself in a big chair, first taking the precaution to slip on Ethel’s sweater which lay on a near-by sofa. “My goodness, Ethel, I don’t believe you slept a wink last night!” getting a good look at her as she moved toward her bureau.
“I couldn’t sleep,” acknowledged Ethel. “That is why I stayed in bed this morning.” She paused to gather up her underclothes and returned to her bed, on which she perched. “Nothing exciting has occurred, has there?”
In spite of Ethel’s effort to keep her voice indifferent, a trained ear would have caught the undertone of pent-up anxiety and fear; a fear of herself, of Julian Barclay, and of Detective Mitchell, which had kept her a prisoner in her room. Her night had been a night of horrors. Her faith in Julian Barclay had been shaken to its foundations by the discovery of the powder-stained flannel and Charles’ unintentionally incriminating remark—Julian Barclay had occasion to clean his revolver the morning after James Patterson had been murdered by a shot froma revolver; and Barclay had surrendered that self-same revolver to the detective cleaned and each chamber containing a loaded cartridge.
“Coincidences,” Ethel had told herself. “All coincidences,” but the mere word brought little comfort as she twisted and turned on her pillow. Detective Mitchell did not look like a man who would place confidence in coincidences; and Ethel, toward daylight, had fallen into fitful slumber, in which dreams of Julian Barclay, handcuffed, standing in the prisoner’s pen while she, Ethel, testified against him, haunted her. The nightmare had seemed so realistic that she awoke cold with fright, but with one resolve firmly taken; for weal or for woe she would befriend Julian Barclay; and until he, himself, confessed his guilt she would believe him innocent.
Mrs. Ogden’s sudden descent on her bedroom had aroused her dormant fear of Mitchell; had he acted precipitously after his discovery of the powder-stained flannel, and had Mrs. Ogden appeared to break the news of Julian Barclay’s arrest to her?
“No more excitements here, thank Heaven!” exclaimed Mrs. Ogden, having taken her time to make herself comfortable. “My nervous system won’t stand any more cyclonic outbreaks. I’ve been spending the morning reading accounts of the inquest;here, glance at thePost,” flinging the newspaper across the bed, and Ethel, but half dressed, perused the article with feverish haste, and she, like Mrs. Ogden, lingered longest over Julian Barclay’s testimony.
“Well, what do you think of it?” asked Mrs. Ogden finally, unconsciously repeating her husband’s question to her earlier in the morning.
“I wonder what the Japanese, Yoshida Ito, and James Patterson were discussing,” replied Ethel, laying down the paper and resuming her dressing.
“You think they met?”
“Julian Barclay states so, according to this article,” and Ethel glanced curiously at the older woman.
Mrs. Ogden shrugged her shoulders. “As Ito is still a fugitive from justice and poor Jim dead, we are not likely to know what they talked about, nor can Julian’s statement of the meeting be confirmed.”
“You doubt Julian’s testimony?” and Mrs. Ogden had the grace to blush under Ethel’s scorn. “You, his own cousin?”
“Well, my dear,” she began, moving uneasily. “Julian has sometimes, eh, prevaricated. I remember as a boy he used to tell the most abominable stories to get out of going to church, and I—I—have reason to fear the habit’s grown on him,—of prevarication,I mean,” she added confusedly. “Have you ever caught him in an, eh, evasion?”
It was the one thing in which Ethel had caught Barclay in, and she winced at the question. “Oh, pshaw! what is an evasion?” she asked with assumed lightness. “We are all guilty of it, and you remember the boy who said ‘a lie is an abomination of the Lord, but a very present help in time of trouble’.”
Instead of smiling, Mrs. Ogden sighed. “Some people attract trouble,” she said gloomily. “Julian is one of them.”
Ethel selected a silk waist from the bureau drawer with care. “Has Julian spent many years in the Far East?”
“I don’t know how long he was out there,” answered Mrs. Ogden. “We haven’t met for years until this winter. Julian has traveled ever since the death of Cousin Julian Barclay, senior—he adopted him, you know.”
“No, I wasn’t aware of it,” Ethel dressed more slowly; she had tried before, but unsuccessfully, to get Mrs. Ogden to discuss Julian Barclay, and she was determined to learn something of him now that Mrs. Ogden was at last in a communicative mood.
“Yes, Cousin Julian left him all his money as well as his name——”
“Then Julian’s father was——?”
“William, Cousin William,” Mrs. Ogden added quickly. “Both Julian’s parents died while he was young, and he was brought up by Cousin Julian, the most eccentric, cantankerous old wretch!” Mrs. Ogden paused breathlessly. “No one grieved when he died, and his will just about saved young Julian from—What do you want, Celeste?” she asked abruptly as the Frenchwoman appeared.
“Mrs. McLane is downstairs, Madame.”
Ethel paused, conscious-smitten. “Oh, I asked Lois to lunch with me, thinking you were going to the Van Alstynes’ today, Cousin Jane, and I never thought of it again until this minute.”
“I am glad you did, I like Lois McLane,” answered Mrs. Ogden. “Ask her to come upstairs to Miss Ethel’s room, Celeste.” She waited until the maid had disappeared, then turned to Ethel. “What about this miniature business? You never told me you had one of yourself.”
“I—I—meant to,” stammered Ethel, taken by surprise. “I will some day.”
“Who made it?” Mrs. Ogden was not to be put off.
“The artist? I don’t recall his name,” Ethel brushed a stray curl into place. “The miniature was a—a surprise to me, Cousin Jane.”
“Humph! Jim Patterson was always doing the unexpected,” Mrs. Ogden, deterred by Ethel’s manner from too close questioning, was trying by indirect means to elicit information. “Did he give you the ring, too?”
“No.”
Mrs. Ogden left her chair and faced Ethel. “Did Julian Barclay give you the ring?” she demanded, looking straight at her, but evasion was far from Ethel’s mind.
“He did,” she said simply. Her eyes, however, told more than she knew, and Mrs. Ogden suddenly saw her through a mist of tears.
“What have I done?” she stammered, laying her hand almost imploringly on the girl’s shoulder. “God forgive me for ever asking Julian Barclay here!” and turning she stumbled blindly from the room, and passing Lois McLane in the hall without a word of greeting, made her way into her bedroom and flung herself on her lounge.
Lois stopped to look after Mrs. Ogden in bewilderment; it was the first time she had known her to be guilty of rudeness; then she continued more slowly to Ethel’s bedroom.
Ethel was still standing where Mrs. Ogden had left her, and her face lighted with relief at sight of Lois.
“I’m so glad you’ve come,” she said, clinging to Lois as they embraced. “I am frightened, Lois, frightened,” and a sob broke from her.
Lois’ arms closed about her lovingly. “Come and tell me all about it,” she coaxed; and Ethel, her natural reserve giving way to her longing for comfort and help, poured her hopes and fears into Lois’ sympathetic ears.
“Let me understand clearly, Ethel, the reasons you have for thinking Julian guilty of Dwight Tilghman’s death?” Lois’ expression had grown graver and graver as Ethel’s account had progressed. “They were both from California; both on the same train; they played cards the night before the murder and Julian lost a large sum of money to Dwight which was strangely missing after his death; Dwight remained alone in the smoker while the train was in Atlanta and was there poisoned. Julian, among the men who might have poisoned Dwight, is the only one who cannot give an alibi; and your mother passing along the train-shed, saw a hand wearing a peculiar ring, holding a small paper aloft in a suspicious position, and this ring——”
“Is here,” springing to her feet Ethel took the ring and a letter from her bureau drawer. “See, they are identical,” spreading out the sketch of the hand sent by her mother. “And appearances leadme to believe that Julian gave me the ring that it might not be found in his possession——”
“Because it might be incriminating evidence?” finished Lois. “Do you not think it just possible that Julian gave it to you because he wanted you to have something of his?” Ethel flushed and glanced up eagerly, hopefully. “Have you other reasons for thinking Julian connected with Dwight’s death?”
“Yes,” Ethel hesitated; then plunged ahead with her story. “The night I saw Ito dash out of the house with Julian in pursuit of him, I heard Julian call to Ito in a guarded voice, ‘Ito, I have no more money to spare.’” Ethel paused again. “It may be that this Ito may have seen Julian poison Dwight Tilghman and be blackmailing him.”
Lois looked at her pityingly. “It may be,” she repeated mechanically. “I—” A discreet knock on the door interrupted her.
“The mail, Miss Ethel,” announced Charles from the hall, and Ethel hastened over to the door, returning to Lois an instant later with a letter.
“Go on, Lois, I am listening,” she urged, tearing open the envelope. “What is this?” her voice changing as her eyes fell on a torn and ragged photograph.
It was the upper half of a man’s face, and as Ethel studied the fine eyes, wavy black hair andstraight nose, an exclamation escaped her. “Why it might be Julian, taken years ago, before his hair turned gray at the temples.”
Lois looked at the photograph attentively, then sat bolt upright. “I’ve seen that before,” she announced excitedly. “Jim Patterson received it during the dinner just before the fire; and in opening the envelope the picture fell into my lap, face uppermost, and but that he wore a beard in the photograph I should have known instantly that it was Julian Barclay.”
“Really?” Ethel stared perplexedly at the torn photograph and then examined the envelope. “Why should this scrap have been sent to me? There is no name on the envelope, no card or message, and the address is typewritten.”
“I can’t imagine,” Lois rubbed her hands excitedly together. “Jim said that he had ordered the letter forwarded to him as it was important.”
“Did Julian see Jim receive the letter?”
“Yes, and the picture as well; for he caught the photograph as it slid out of my lap.”
“Oh!” Ethel covered her face, then dropped her hand disclosing such misery that Lois cried out. “Hush! Lois, before dinner, I found Julian and Jim quarreling, and Jim threatened to expose Julian—for what I don’t know. Perhaps this photographhad something to do with the exposure—it was evidently taken years ago.”
“True. And Julian saw the photograph, saw exposure imminent and——”
“Shot Jim,” completed Ethel, with forced calmness. “So I reasoned it out last night. I did not then know of the existence of this photograph, but I knew of the quarrel, Jim’s threat of exposure, and that Julian cleaned his revolver the morning after the murder.”
Lois’ eyes opened to their widest. “Heaven!” she exclaimed aghast. “And Julian Barclay was the first to find Jim Patterson. My husband saw him bending over his dead body—and no one else was in the vicinity.”
“It all dovetails,” admitted Ethel, and her eyes were indescribably sad. “What more likely than that Julian took his revolver intending to use it in the capture of the Jap, Ito; met Jim unexpectedly, and under cover of the smoke and fusillade of shots, which drowned his, gave way to temptation and killed Jim.”
“It is too horrible!” Lois’ gesture was eloquent. “And yet jealous men have committed crime since the days of Cain, and, God knows, Julian had reason to hate Jim Patterson”—she hesitated, but one look at Ethel decided her, and the information she hadcome that day to give her remained unspoken. “Ethel, dear”—impulsively she clasped her hands. “What can I say to you? How comfort you?”
Ethel tightened her grip of Lois’ hands, then dropped them slowly. “I told you I reasoned out all the evidence against Julian—I did not say IbelievedJulian a murderer.”
“Ethel!” Lois’ eyes were shining. “I pray God that your loyalty and faith are not misplaced.”
There was a brief silence as Ethel, with shaking fingers, completed her toilet, but her interview with Lois had strengthened her; she had lost the feeling of being alone and helpless; she knew that she could depend on Lois in any crisis.
“We had better go downstairs?” she suggested. “The household is so disorganized that I don’t know whether Charles will think to send us word when luncheon is ready.” She paused long enough to replace Barclay’s ring, the sketch, and the photograph in her bureau and take the drawer key, then accompanied Lois downstairs.
Ogden was standing in the large entrance hall, and he greeted their appearance with a grunt of approval.
“Your Cousin Jane has a very ill-regulated appetite,” he said, after shaking hands with Lois. “She never knows when it’s time for luncheon or dinner.Have you seen her this morning, Ethel?” and a penetrating look, of which his cousin was totally unaware, accompanied the question.
“Yes,” answered Ethel. “Cousin Jane came into my room for a few minutes this morning.”
“Any idea where she is now?”
“No; but I can look for her,” and Ethel slipped into the drawing room, only to find Professor Norcross the sole occupant of it.
“Don’t let me disturb you,” she exclaimed, as he dropped his newspaper on seeing her. “I’m looking for Mrs. Ogden to tell her that luncheon is ready.”
“Let me find her for you——?”
“No, don’t trouble.” But Norcross stepped after her into the hall. “I imagine Cousin Jane is in the library,” and leaving the professor greeting Lois McLane and Walter Ogden, she entered the library. Her sudden entrance caused a man standing at the farther end of the room to dart unseen behind a tall screen.
Ethel reached the center of the large library before she became aware that Julian Barclay, and not Mrs. Ogden, was stretched on the large leather sofa, sound asleep. Ethel drew back, intending flight, but an overwhelming desire to see Barclay, to study his expression as he lay asleep, mastered her, and stepby step she crept nearer until she stood at the head of the sofa, looking down at him.
Barclay showed the effect of sleepless nights. His eyes seemed more sunken, or the shadows under his eyelashes gave them that appearance, while deeper lines about his mouth and a graying of the black hair over the temples were indelible marks of strain and suffering. His dreams did not seem to be of the pleasantest, judging by the restless movement of his head, and the twitching of his hands.
Out in the hall Ogden waited with unconcealed impatience for his other guests and his wife to assemble for luncheon. Nor had Charles put in an appearance, although he had repeatedly rung the bell. Finally Lois could stand his nervous, almost furtive glances about the hall no longer.
“I’ll go and see what’s keeping Ethel,” she volunteered, edging toward the library door.
“It’s a pretty how-de-do if one guest has to seek another,” grumbled Ogden. “Go with her, Norcross, and see she doesn’t vamoose the way Ethel appears to have done.”
Norcross laughed as he crossed the hall and pulled back the portières, but both he and Lois stopped short just over the threshold at sight of the tableau confronting them in the sun-flooded room.
Ethel, love and a great compassion lighting herface, was stooping over Julian Barclay, who lay apparently asleep on the sofa. Suddenly Barclay tossed his hand above his head and his fingers touched Ethel’s cool palm resting on his pillow. The contact evidently fitted into his dream, for he smiled contentedly as his grasp tightened on her hand.
“Ethel!” he called, and as she bent further over him, his smile faded into a frown, the lines in his face deepened, and he writhed as if in pain, his lips moving, but at first no words came.
“God help me!” he groaned. “I killed Patterson.”
A scream, terrible in its agony, broke from Ethel and awoke Barclay from his slumbers and Lois and Norcross from their stupor. It was the professor who caught Ethel as she reeled backward, and assisted her to a chair.
Barclay, but half awake, sat staring in growing horror at the handcuffs dangling from his wrists, while Detective Mitchell, who had slipped from behind a screen some seconds before, gazed with satisfaction at his prisoner.
“I already had evidence enough to secure this warrant,” he said, producing the document. “But I’m obliged to you, Mr. Barclay, for calling out that you killed Patterson—and before witnesses, too.”
Barclay’s gaze roved around the little group,lingering longest on Ethel, who sat with her face buried in her hands, and his expression brought stinging tears to Lois’ eyes.
“Did I talk in my sleep?” he questioned, with dry lips.
Lois nodded, speech was impossible for her. Mitchell broke the painful silence.
“You said: ‘God help me, I killed Patterson’,” he announced.
Barclay rose stiffly, and the jingle of the handcuffs caused Ethel to look at him. He moved like an old man.
“Well, so I did kill Patterson,” he admitted slowly. “But not James Patterson.”