MRS2 Madame Storey Read online

  "There were only three left in the house, then?"

  "Yes—Mr. Poor, Miss Dean, and Mrs. Batten."

  "Go on."

  "Mrs. Poor returned from the entertainment about midnight. Mrs. Batten let her in the front door. Standing there, the two women could see into the library, where Poor sat with his back to them. They were struck by something strange in his attitude, and started to investigate, Mrs. Batten in advance.

  "She was the first to realise that something had happened, and tried to keep Mrs. Poor from approaching the body. They struggled. Mrs. Poor screamed. The girl, Philippa Dean, suddenly appeared, nobody can tell from where. A moment later the other servants, who had gone around to the back door, ran in.

  "Well, there was the situation. He had been shot in the back. The pistol was there. The butler telephoned to friends of the family and to the police. Grimstead, as you know, is within the city limits, so it comes within our jurisdiction. I was notified of the affair within an hour and ordered to take personal charge of the case. Nothing had been disturbed. I ordered the arrest of the Dean girl, and she is still in custody."

  "What do you want of me?" Mme. Storey inquired.

  "I want you to see the girl. Frankly, she baffles me. Under our questioning she broke down before morning and confessed to killing the man. But the next day she repudiated her confession, and has obstinately stuck to her repudiation in spite of all we could do. I want you to see her and get a regular confession."

  "What about the girl's lawyers?"

  "She has none as yet. Refused to see one."

  "You're sure she did it?"

  "Absolutely. It was immediately apparent that the murder had been committed by one of the inmates of the house."

  "Why?"

  "Because when Mrs. Poor and the servants departed for the entertainment Mrs. Batten, who let them out, turned on the burglar-alarm, and it remained turned on until she let her mistress in again. One of the first things I did on arriving at the house was to make sure that the alarm was working properly. I also examined all the doors and windows. Everything was intact."

  "Why couldn't the housekeeper have done it?"

  "A simple, timid old soul! Impossible! No motive. Besides, if she had she would hardly have given me the principal piece of evidence against those in the house; I mean her testimony about the burglar-alarm."

  "What motive could the girl have had?"

  "The servants state that their master had been pestering her—forcing his attentions on her."

  "Ah! But this is all presumptive evidence, of course. What else have you?"

  "Ashcomb Poor was shot with an automatic pistol belonging to Miss Dean. The butler identified it. At first she denied that it was hers. She could not deny, though, that she had one like it, and when asked to produce it she could not. It was not among her effects."

  "Where did you find the gun exactly?"

  "In the dead man's hand."

  "In his hand?"

  "Under his hand, I should say. It had been shoved under in a clumsy attempt to make it appear like a suicide. But the hand was clenched on top of the weapon. Moreover, the man was shot between the shoulders. He could not possibly have done it himself. The bullet passed completely through his body, and I found it lodged in the wall across the room."

  "Did the housekeeper hear the shot?"

  "She did not. She was in another wing of the house."

  "Anything else against the girl?"

  "Yes. When she appeared, attracted by Mrs. Poor's cry, though she was supposed to have retired some time before, she was fully dressed. Moreover, she knew what had happened before any one told her."

  "Ah! How does she explain these suspicious circumstances?"

  "She will explain nothing. Refuses to talk."

  "What story did she tell when she confessed?"

  "None. Merely cried out: 'I did it! I did it! Don't ask me any more!'"

  There was a silence here, during which Mme. Storey presumably ruminated on what she had been told. Finally she said: "I'll see the girl, but it must be upon my own conditions."

  "What are those?"

  "As an independent investigator, I hold no brief for the district attorney's office."

  "Well, there's no harm in that."

  "But you must understand what that implies. Neither you nor any of your men may be present while I am talking to her. And I do not bind myself to tell you everything she tells me."

  "That's out of the question. What would the old man say if he knew that I turned her over to an outsider?"

  "Well, that's up to you, of course." Mme. Storey spoke indifferently. "You came to me, you know."

  "Well—all right." This very sullenly. "I suppose if she confesses you'll let me know."

  "Certainly. But I'm not at all sure this is going to turn out the way you expect."

  "After all I've told you?"

  "Your case against her is a little too good, Walter."

  "Who else could have done it?"

  "I don't know—yet. If she did it, why should she have stuck around the house until you arrested her?"

  "She supposed it would be considered a suicide."

  "But, according to you, a year-old child wouldn't have been deceived into thinking so."

  "Well, you never can tell. They always do something foolish. Will you come down to the Tombs? I'll arrange for a room there."

  "No, I must see the girl here."

  "That's impossible!"

  "Sorry; it's my invariable rule, you know."

  "But have a heart, Rose. I daren't let her out of my custody."

  "You and your men can wait outside the door, then."

  "It's most irregular."

  "I am an irregular person," was the bland reply. "You should not have come to me."

  "Well—I suppose you must have your own way."

  "Always do, my dear. With the girl send a transcript of whatever statements have been taken down in the case."

  "All right. Rose, turn off that confounded dictagraph, will you? I want to speak to you privately."

  "It's off."

  It wasn't, though, for I continued to hear every word.

  "Good God, Rose, why do you persist in trying to madden me?"

  "Mercy, Walter! How?"

  "You know! With your cold and scornful airs, your indifference. It's—it's only vanity. Your vanity is ridiculous!"

  "Oh, if you're only going to call names, I'll turn on the dictagraph!"

  "No, don't, don't! I scarcely know what I'm saying you provoke me so! Why won't you be decent to me, Rose? Why won't you take me? We were made for each other!"

  "So you say."

  "Do you never feel anything, anything behind that scornful smile? Are you a breathing woman or a cold and heartless monster?"

  "Bless me, I don't know."

  "You need a master!"

  "Of course I do. Why don't you master me, Walter?"

  "Don't taunt me. A man has his limits! You make me want to seize and hurt you!"

  "Don't do that. You'd spoil my pretty frock. Besides, Giannino would bite the back of your neck."

  "Don't taunt me. You'd be helpless in my arms. You're always asking for a master."

  "I meant a master of my soul, Walter."

  "I don't understand you."

  "Yes, you do. Look at me! You can't. My soul is stronger than yours, Walter, and in your heart you know it."

  "You're talking nonsense!"

  "Don't mumble your words. That's my tragedy, if you only knew it. I have yet to meet a man bold enough to face me down. How could I surrender myself to one whose soul was secretly afraid of mine? So here I sit. You know that the Madame I have hitched to my name is just to save my face. No one would believe that a woman as beautiful as I could be still unmarried—and respectable. But I am both, worse luck!"

  "It's your own fault that you're alone. You think too well of yourself. You make believe to scorn all men."

  "Well, if it's a bluff, why doesn't some m
an call it?"

  "I will right now! I'm tired of this fooling. You've got to marry me."

  "Look at me when you say that, Walter."

  A silence.

  "Ah—you can't you see."

  "Ah, Rose, don't torture me this way! Can't you see I'm mad about you? You spoil my rest at night; you come between me and my work by day. I hunger and thirst for you like a man in a desert. Think what a team you and I would make, Rose. There'd be no stopping us short of the White House."

  Here, to my chagrin, the dictagraph was abruptly turned off, but when, a minute or two later, Mr. Barron burst out of the inner room purple with rage I guessed that no change had occurred in the situation. He flung across the floor and out of the door without a glance in my direction.

  Mme. Storey called to me to bring in my note-book. As I entered she was talking to the monkey.

  "Giannino, you are better off than you know. Better be a dumb beast than a half-thinking animal."

  The little thing wrinkled up his forehead and chirruped as he always did when she addressed him.

  "You disagree with me? I tell you, men would rather go to jail than put themselves to the trouble of thinking clearly."

  III

  Eddie, the hall boy, and I had become at least outwardly friendly. In his heart I think Eddie always despised me as "a jane out of the storehouse," one of his own expressions, but as he had the keenest curiosity about all that went on in our shop, he was obliged to be affable in order to tap such sources of information as I possessed. He adored Mme. Storey, of course; all youths did as well as older males. As for me, I couldn't help liking the amusing little wretch, he was so new.

  Like most boys of his age his ruling passion was for airplanes and aviators. At this time his particular idol was the famous Lieutenant George Grantland who had broken so many records. Grantland had just started on a three days' point-to-point flight from Camp Tasker, encircling the whole country east of the Mississippi, and Eddie, in order to follow him, was obliged to buy an extra every hour. Bursting with the subject, and having no one else to talk to, he brought these up to my room. This was his style—of course I am only guessing at the figures.

  "Here's the latest. Landed at New Orleans four thirty this A.M., two hours ahead of time. Gee! If I could only get out to a bulletin-board! Slept four hours and went on. Four hundred and forty-two miles in under four hours. Wouldn't that expand your lungs? Say, that guy is a king of the air all right. Flies by night as well as day. They have lights to guide him where to land. Hasn't had to come down once for trouble. Here's a picture of his plane. It's the Bentley-Critchard type. They're just out. Good for a hundred and forty an hour. Six hundred horse. Do you get that? Think of driving six hundred plugs through the clouds. Some team!"

  After two days of this I was almost as well acquainted with the exploits of Lieutenant Grantland as his admirer. Every hour or two Eddie would have a new picture of the dashing aviator to show me. Even after being snapshotted in the blazing sun and reproduced in a newspaper half-tone, he remained a handsome young fellow.

  Eddie was in the thick of this when they brought Philippa Dean up from the Tombs, but as she was indubitably a "class one jane," his attention was momentarily won from his newspapers. The assistant district attorney did not accompany her. To be obliged to wait outside was, I suppose, too great a trial to his dignity. Miss Dean was under escort of two gigantic plain-clothes men, the slender little thing. I was glad, at any rate, that they had not handcuffed her.

  My first impression was a favourable one; her eyes struck you at once. They were full, limpid, blue, very wide open under fine brows, giving her an expression of proud candour in which there was something really affecting—however, I had learned ere this from Mme. Storey that you cannot read a woman's soul in her eyes, so I reserved judgment. Her hair was light-brown. She was dressed with that fine simplicity which is the despair of newly arrived women. At present she looked hard and wary, and her lips were compressed into a scarlet line—but that was small wonder in her situation.

  Mme. Storey came out when she heard them. What was her first impression of the girl I cannot say, for she never gave anything away in her face at such moments. She invited the two detectives to make themselves comfortable in the outer office, and we three women passed into the big room. She waved the girl to a seat.

  "You may relax," she said, smiling; "nobody is going to put you through the third degree here."

  But the girl sat down bolt upright, with her hands clenched in her lap. It was painful to see that tightness. Mme. Storey applied herself to the task of charming it away. She said to the ape:

  "Giannino, take off your hat to Miss Dean, and tell her that we wish her well."

  The little animal stood up on the table, jerked off his cap and gibbered in his own tongue. It was a performance that never failed to win a smile, but this girl's lips looked as if they had forgotten how.

  "The assistant district attorney has asked me to examine you," Mme. Storey began in friendly style. "Being a public prosecutor, he's bent on your conviction, having nobody else to accuse. But I may as well tell you that I don't share his feelings. Indeed, he's so cock-sure that it would give me pleasure to prove him wrong."

  I knew that my employer was sincere in saying this, but I suppose the poor girl had learned to her cost that the devil himself can be sympathetic. At any rate, the speech had no effect on her.

  "I hope you will believe that I have no object except to discover the truth," Mme. Storey went on.

  "That's what they all say," muttered the girl.

  "Satisfy yourself in your own way as to whether you can trust me. Come, we have all afternoon."

  "Am I obliged to answer your questions?" demanded the girl.

  "By no means," was the prompt reply. "Why don't you question me first?"

  The girl took her at her word. "Who are you?" she asked. "I have been told nothing."

  "Mme. Rosika Storey. They call me a practical psychologist. The district attorney's office sometimes does me the honour to consult me, particularly in the cases of women."

  "You'll get no confession out of me!"

  "I don't expect to. I don't believe you did it. No sane woman would shoot a man between the shoulder-blades and expect to make out that it was a suicide. At any rate, Ashcomb Poor seems to have richly deserved his fate. Come now, frankly, did you do it?"

  The girl's blue eyes flashed. "I did not."

  "Good! Then tell me what happened that night."

  The girl sullenly shook her head. "What's the use?"

  "Why, to clear yourself, naturally."

  "They haven't enough evidence to convict me. They couldn't convict me, because I didn't do it."

  "That's a perilous line to take, my dear. I suspect you haven't had much experience with juries. The gentleman of the jury would consider silence in a woman not only unnatural, but incriminating. Of course, they might let you off, anyway, if you condescended to ogle them, but as I say, it's perilous. Why did you confess in the first place?"

  "To get rid of them. They were driving me out of my mind with their questions."

  "I can well understand that. Well then, what did happen, really?"

  The girl set her lips. "I have made up my mind to say nothing, and I shall stick to it," she replied.

  Mme. Storey spread out her hands. "Very well, let's talk about something else. Dean is a good old name here in New York. Are you of the New York family?"

  "My people have lived here for four generations."

  "I have read of a great beau in the sixties and seventies—Philip Dean. Are you related to him?"

  "He was my grandfather."

  "I might have guessed it from your first name. How interesting! All the chronicles of those days are full of references to his wit and savoir faire. But he must have been a rich man. How does it come that you have to work for your living?"

  "The usual story; the first two generations won the family fortune, and the next two lost it. I am of
the fifth generation."

  "Well, I suppose one cannot have a famous bon vivant in the family for nothing."

  "Oh, no one could speak ill of my grandfather. He was a gallant gentleman. I knew him as a child. He spent his money in scientific experiments which only benefited others. My poor father was not to blame either. He lost the rest of the money trying to recoup his father's losses in Wall Street."

  "And you were thrown on your own resources."

  "Oh, I was never a pathetic figure. I could get work. There were always women, not very sure of themselves socially, who were glad to engage Philip Dean's granddaughter."

  "That's how you came to go to Mrs. Poor."

  "No, that was different. Mrs. Poor didn't need anybody to tell her things. Her family was as good as my own. Her husband was travelling abroad and she was lonely. She engaged me as a sort of companion."

  "When did her husband return?"

  The girl frowned. "Now you think you're leading me up to it, don't you?"

  Mme. Storey laughed. "I suspect you're the kind of young lady that nobody can lead any farther than she is willing to go."

  Miss Dean glanced suspiciously at me. "Is she taking down all I say?" she demanded.

  "Not until I tell her to," Mme. Storey replied.

  "He returned two months ago."

  "Do you mind describing their house at Grimstead for me?" asked Mme. Storey. "There's no harm in that, is there?"

  The girl shrugged. "No. It's a small house, considering their means, and it looks even smaller because of being built in the style of an English cottage, with low, over-hanging eaves and dormer windows. You enter through a vestibule under the stairs and issue into a square hall. This hall is two storeys and has a gallery running around three sides. On your left is the library; on your right the small reception room; the living-room, a large room, is at the back of the hall, with the dining-room adjoining it. These two rooms look out over the garden and the brook below. Between reception and dining-room there is a passage leading away to the kitchen wing. Besides pantry, kitchen, and laundry, this wing has a housekeeper's room and a servants' dining-room."