CHAPTER XIXTHE UNSEEN EAR
Asif hypnotized, John Hale stared at his sword cane, raising it slowly, very slowly, then as slowly dropped the point and gazed at his brother.
“Itisblood,” he gasped. “But you are unhurt?”
“Yes.” Robert Hale’s voice was not quite steady. “You did not reach me.”
“Then where did this blood come from?” demanded John Hale. “It’s—it’s notfresh,” and there was a growing horror in the look he cast at his companions.
Ferguson, who had followed every act and word with rapt attention, picked up the bamboo cane casing which John Hale had tossed to the floor when he drew the concealed weapon and lunged at his brother. Stepping up to the dazed man, the detective took the sword from his unresisting hand and examined it with interest.
“Austin Hale was killed by a rapier-like thrust,” he stated slowly. “The autopsy provedthat the wound was greater in depth than in length. Is this your cane, Mr. Hale?”
John Hale wet his dry lips. “It is,” he muttered, and looked dumbly at his silent, motionless companions.
“You carry it always?” asked Ferguson with dogged persistence.
“When I go out, yes.”
“Who knows that this ordinary-appearing bamboo cane conceals a rapier?”
“My brother.” John Hale avoided looking at them, his eyes were still on the sword cane.
“Any one else?”
“N—no.”
“Quite sure?” and Ferguson tried to meet his eye.
“No—yes.” With an effort John Hale recovered some semblance of his usual manner. “I may have spoken of the cane but I don’t recall doing so. I bought it from an antique dealer and it’s been a fad of mine to carry it.”
“I see.” Ferguson considered him steadily for a moment. “Where were you on Tuesday night?”
“At the French Embassy reception.”
“Mrs. Hale,”—the detective spoke her name with such sharpness that she jumped involuntarily—“wasyour brother-in-law with you at the Embassy between midnight Tuesday and one o’clock Wednesday morning?”
Mrs. Hale looked at no one in particular and wrung her hands.
“Must I answer?” she begged, turning imploringly to her husband and, as she caught his expression, exclaimed: “No, I refuse to.”
“Don’t put yourself out for me, Agatha.” There was a sudden utter weariness in John Hale’s tone, and Richards started and looked at him intently. What did it portend? “I will answer your question, Ferguson. I was not at the French Embassy during that time.”
“Where were you?”
There was a tense silence. When John Hale answered he spoke hardly above a whisper.
“I had returned to this house to meet my stepson, Austin.”
Mrs. Hale collapsed. “Oh, dear! oh, dear, I’ve feared it all along,” she wailed, and burst into tears. “Oh, Polly, Polly, you have a lot to answer for!”
“Have I?” asked a strained voice, and Polly Davis, who had been a stunned witness of the scene, advanced a few steps further into the room, Anna, the waitress, peering over her shoulder withwide, curious eyes. “Well, I am here to face the consequences.”
John Hale, who had not taken his eyes from her ghastly face, sprang to her side.
“No!” he exclaimed vehemently. “No. Go home.”
“Presently,” she silenced him with an imperative gesture, before turning to the detective.
“Whom do you accuse of the murder of Austin Hale?” she asked.
Ferguson scratched a bewildered head. “I did believe Major Richards guilty,” he admitted slowly. “But seeing that Mr. Hale states he came back here to meet his stepson, that Austin was killed at that time with a rapier thrust, and that Mr. Hale’s sword cane has bloodstains on it—” He paused. “Well, taking all that into consideration and with the knowledge that he and Austin were not on good terms—I guess—it looks as if Mr. Hale killed him.”
Polly drew a long, painful breath. “Wait,” she cautioned. “I was here on Tuesday night.”
“Hush!” commanded John, a look of agony on his strong face.
“No, I must speak.” Polly partly turned from him and addressed the others. “I wrote Austin on Saturday breaking our engagement,but as Monday was Washington’s Birthday he never received the letter until Tuesday morning. In answer I had a wire from Austin stating that he would get here Tuesday about midnight. I”—her voice quivered a bit, then steadied—“it was imperative that I see him without delay, so I came, admitting myself with Mrs. Hale’s latchkey which I had borrowed one day last week. I walked into the library”—she caught her breath.
“Stop, Polly,” pleaded John Hale. “Stop. You don’t know what you are saying.” Seeing that she paid no attention to his words, he appealed to the detective. “For God’s sake tell her to stop—it’s not fair—it’s cruel—she shall not convict herself.”
“What are you insinuating?” cried Polly. “Convict myself? Are you mad? Austin was stabbed before I entered this house.”
The five men eyed each other in silence, then concentrated their attention upon her, forgetful of Mrs. Hale, of Anna—waiting for her to continue.
“I saw Austin lying on the floor,” she went on, her voice husky with emotion. “The shock made me cry out, then my whole impulse was to run, to hide. I reached the central hall and pausedto gather strength; a faint noise on the staircase caused me to look in that direction and I made out dimly a man peering at me over the bannisters”— She paused. “Mr. Robert Hale, why are you using a dictograph in this house?”
Hale looked at her in dumb surprise—twice he opened his lips to speak and twice closed them with the words unspoken. Richards, standing somewhat in the background, bent forward in a listening attitude.
“What’s that noise?” he demanded. “Listen!”
Through the silence came a faint drumming, it grew louder, then died away, to break out again a little louder, more insistently.
“By heavens, it comes from the alcove!” exclaimed Richards, and racing across the room, he dashed aside the heavy red satin curtains pulled across it. A horrified exclamation escaped him, and he recoiled at sight of Judith, bound and gagged, lying on the window seat. Her body had slipped down the piled up sofa cushions and her right foot just touched the paneled wall and with it she was beating the devil’s tattoo.
“Good God!” gasped Richards, then recovering himself, tore at her fastenings. Ferguson, more clear-headed than the other, slashed at theclothes’ line which bound her with John Hale’s sword cane, and aided him in carrying her to a chair by the table.
“Chafe her arms and ankles so that the blood will circulate,” he advised, while his nimble fingers untied the cord holding the fan, which had been thrust into her mouth as a gag.
Judith, who had watched their efforts in silent agony, raised her cramped arms and massaged the stiffened muscles of her mouth and jaw; then she replaced the wires connecting her earphone and its battery.
“In God’s name who has treated you so, Judith?” demanded Richards, his eyes were blazing with rage. “Who has dared to—” and he choked.
“Fetch my smelling salts,” Judith spoke with some difficulty and paused eagerly to drink the water offered her by Frank Latimer. “No, don’t go, Anna,” placing her hand on the waitress’ shoulder as she knelt at her side chafing her ankles. “Ring for Maud.”
Her father complied with her request, then returned to Judith. For the first time he looked old and haggard.
“What’s the meaning of all this?” he demanded, with a return of his domineering manner.
Judith looked at her husband for a fleeting second, then addressed Detective Ferguson whose attention was focused on her.
“I have a confession to make to you,” she began. “You recall finding the bloodstained shears near Austin’s body?”
“Yes,” he said, as she paused.
“I used them.”
“Judith!” Richards sprang forward with an imploring gesture, but for once his wife ignored him.
“I used them,” she reiterated, “to remove a locket from Austin’s watch chain when I found him lying dead in this library. That locket,” she paused to take the smelling salts which Maud who had hurriedly entered a second before handed to her,—“that locket Polly Davis stole from my bedroom last night with other jewelry.”
No one spoke, and Judith, resting one hand on Anna’s shoulder and the other on Maud’s arm, rose stiffly to her feet.
“Late this afternoon,” Judith continued, “I was examining Father’s safe,”—Hale started violently—“when some one stole behind me, blindfolded me, disconnected my earphone, and gagged me.”
“Well, well, go on,” urged Detective Ferguson,forgetting, in his interest, his usual respectful manner.
“I was gagged,” repeated Judith, “with my fan. The thief did not know that this fan”—she raised it as she spoke—“is an ear trumpet which when pressed against my teeth enables me to hear distinctly.”
Her right hand moved upward with a sweeping motion, and Maud, the parlor maid, was shorn of her cap and wig.
Ferguson recovered from his stupefaction in time to trip and catch the flying figure.
“Jim Turner,” he gasped, as the handcuffs slipped over the wrists of the erstwhile maid. “I’ve been looking for you for five years.”
“And you have found the murderer of Austin Hale,” ended Judith.