Chapter XIV

Patton Telephones—“It's Murder”

Ranville, at the invitation to play golf, informed us very earnestly that he did not care for the game. So, leaving him with his nose buried deep in a magazine, we went out to the car. The morning was cool, with a breeze sweeping across the lake from the distant hills. Forty-five minutes later we drove up the sweeping road which led to the club house.

As we waited our turn to drive off from the first tee, I sank on the bench and studied the view before me. The club house was on a small elevation, and one could take in the countryside for miles around. The lake lay several miles away, its surface dark blue. Six miles in front of us we could see the church steeples in the town as they peered through the leaves of the trees. Across the lake the mountains stood forth etched into sharp lines by the clear air.

Golf was a game Bartley loved but one which, strange to say, he failed to play very well. Sometimes his game would be wonderful, at other times directly opposite. He started out with his first drive by one of the worst slices I have ever seen—one which took his ball off the fairway, across the rough and on to the fairway of another hole. When he sank the ball into the first hole with his eighth shot, he turned to give me a little grin.

By the time we had reached the fifth hole, his score was approaching forty. I had seen him play some rather poor golf, but never such a game as he was playing to-day. When the ball had dropped into the sixth hole, he motioned to me and walked over to a clump of trees by the side of the course. As he flung himself down upon the ground, I followed his example, wondering why he had interrupted his game. He took a cigarette from a case, which he passed to me, lighted it, and then said:

“I have been wondering, Pelt, if you told me everything that you observed that night you found Warren dead in his library. From what Ranville and the chief tell me, there have been no clews of any sort. Not a thing which would point to any particular person as the murderer. In a sense that is unusual. And as I have run this thing over in my mind, I have been wondering—wondering if there is anything which you did not tell me.”

I assured him that he must know, either from what I had told him or Ranville, everything that was of importance. But he shook his head as if he did not agree. He suggested I start in at the beginning and tell him the story as if he was hearing it for the first time. And so, carefully picking my words, I started to tell him of everything we had seen from the time we left the house until after we had found the body. When I came to the place where I said the body lay in a queer position on the floor he stopped me.

“There is something new, Pelt. What do you mean by a queer position?”

“Why, the arms were extended from the body,” was my reply.

He gave me one look, and then drew a figure with the end of his golf stick—a figure upon the grass in the shape of a cross.

“Like that?” he asked.

I nodded, and as he said nothing, added I had told Carter it seemed impossible for a man to fall in such a position. For a moment I saw his face become very thoughtful, and then he said:

“You are right about that, Pelt. He was struck by a dagger—struck suddenly through the heart. When he fell from his chair to the floor, the odds were a thousand to one against his falling in that position.”

Across the green a squirrel dashed down a tree, ran across the grass and scampered up another tree. Bartley watched it with a very peculiar expression on his face. Then he turned to me:

“As I understand it, Pelt, the Chinaman was at the library just before six o'clock. He says the door was open, and that he found Warren dead. Let us believe the story. The housekeeper was at the library sometime between six and seven. She found the door locked; what is more, she claimed she thought she heard some one in the building. That may not be so; her fear and nervousness might have suggested it.”

All at once I remembered the gardener had testified at the inquest that as he came from his work after six he saw a boat just rounding the point. I mentioned this, reminding him that the point was below the library. He thought this over for a while, then asked what time it was the boy who had been picking berries had seen the figure on the wall.

“Just before six,” I said. “He told me the whistle in the town blew a moment after the man dropped on the ground. He went down the other side of the wall.”

“He meant that the man went along the wall outside of the Warren grounds?”

I nodded. Very slowly he took a cigar and lighted it, blowing the first ring carefully. Then he said thoughtfully:

“That may mean one thing.”

“What?” I asked.

“We may have to juggle the time limit a little,” he commented. “But suppose we assume this—Warren was killed before six; the murderer did leave the door open. Perhaps it was because he saw the Chinaman coming up the hill. If he did, he went out the back door and returned when the oriental left. When he climbed the wall, he threw the dagger into the swamp, dropped on the ground and followed the wall down to the shore. Here he had a boat, and as he was going away, was seen by the gardener. In fact the gardener must have been coming across the grounds, inside the wall, when this person was going down to the shore, outside.”

“But who closed the door of the library?” I ventured.

“We do not know, of course. But we can make a guess. It would be a very easy matter for this person in the boat to watch the library from the lake. It was on a hill and could be easily seen. Suppose he saw the gardener. If so, he might return to the shore and go back to the library. Why he went back, I cannot understand. It must have been for some other purpose than to close the doors; that was not necessary. He knew that one person had discovered the murder; but then again it is a very queer crime all the way around.”

Though after this he asked me a number of other questions, I could give him nothing which seemed of any importance. For a while we talked, then rising with the remark that he did not feel like playing golf any longer, we walked across the course to the club house. Here we had a drink of ginger ale and then, going to the car, started for the house.

We discovered Ranville in the same position as when we had left. Carter was not in sight, and we found that he had not returned. As we dropped into easy chairs, Ranville drawled out some question about our game, then returned to his magazine. Finally, he flung it aside and, after a glance around, turned to Bartley:

“Have you any ideas about this murder?”

“Have you?” was the retort.

The Englishman smiled as he shook his head, then said:

“A few. Of course, what interests me is to watch the apparent lack of interest the police are taking. That, however, is no doubt due to the fact you have no Central Police System as we do in England. I should think you would be lost without it.”

“We are at times,” was the dry reply.

“Yes, so I would think,” commented Ranville. “You see that's why this case interested me; I felt there were no clews and such things. And I see that your local police are not familiar with these technical crimes. So I have been mulling it over. First, I thought about the Chinaman, but the way the body had been marked put him out, in my mind.”

He shot a look at Bartley, who nodded his agreement; then went on:

“Of course, it would be silly to think the secretary killed him. Then it dawned upon me that after all the thing I perhaps could not understand was the psychology of you Americans. Studying the whole affair, I could not find a motive—” He paused, then smiled, “At least a motive which would suit an Englishman.”

Bartley shot him an admiring look, then laughed as he replied:

“And in what you last said is, perhaps, the whole solution of the crime. On the face of it there is no apparent motive in sight. Warren had no enemies one can think of. There seems no apparent reason for killing him. And the whole thing is a matter of—well, perhaps what you call the psychology of us Americans.”

I gave him a puzzled look, wondering what under heavens he meant by his remark. But Ranville seemed to find nothing out of the way in it, for he nodded in a very wise manner. I was just on the verge of asking Bartley what he meant when we heard Carter's car drive into the yard. And when he came up the steps, the first thing he asked was if lunch was ready.

It seemed to have turned warmer after lunch, and we spent the early hours of the afternoon in just lying around. Bartley buried himself in a book, while Carter, after telling us very frankly that he was lazy, went to sleep in the hammock. Ranville, who had some letters he wished to write, vanished to his room, and for several hours the piazza was silent. When at length Bartley flung aside his book, it was to give a glance in my direction and to ask if I cared to take a stroll.

We went rather leisurely out of the yard, turning up the tree-lined sidewalk, and passed the little stone church. I pointed it out to Bartley saying that it was the church of the minister who had visited us. He gave it a curious glance and remarked that the tower divided the church from the rectory. Then he chuckled as he assured me that the minister was, to say the least, a fanatic.

We walked about a mile—until the pavement gave place to a country road, and the summer estates to farmhouses. Then we retraced our steps to the house. For some reason, as we walked back, Bartley was very silent. He seemed to be pondering over something, but what it was I did not know as he gave no indication. As once again we passed the green expanse of lawn which led to the stone church, he stopped. I saw him study the granite building with the ivy climbing over the stones. Then to my surprise he said:

“What do you say if we pay the minister a visit?”

He did not wait for me to make any reply, but started up the winding gravel path which led to the rectory. I followed rather puzzled at his sudden desire to call upon the clergyman. Ministers, as a rule, were very much out of his line, and as we waited at the rectory steps, I could not but wonder why he wished to see him.

The door was at length opened by a woman. She was a very old lady and extremely deaf. I judged by her appearance that she must be the person who looked after the house, for Carter had told us that he was unmarried. To Bartley's inquiry if the minister was in, she said he was not. I expected Bartley would then turn to go, but instead he suggested that we might wait in the study. She led us into a rather ill-kept room. There were a great many books in the bookcases along the wall, but they were dusty. In fact, the whole room could have been much cleaner. The desk was covered with newspapers, books and pamphlets. Even the chairs were dusty. It needed but a look at the room to understand the housekeeper did not believe that cleanliness was next to Godliness.

The woman excused herself and went out leaving us alone. For a moment Bartley's eyes went over the row of books, and then he went closer to examine them. From their appearance most of them had not been taken from their places in many days. The dust lay thick upon the dingy volumes—volumes which seemed to be mostly theological works, and of a very orthodox character. Of novels and works of science there was not a trace. All the books along the wall dealt with theology.

I watched Bartley pull one of the volumes from the shelf and turn the pages. As his eyes fell upon some sentence, he gave a shrug of his shoulders and replaced the book. Walking over to the desk, he stood for a moment glancing at the disordered contents. Then he went over to the window and looked out. When he turned, his eyes searched the room as if looking for something, and at length came to rest on a bookcase which was near the door.

It was an old-fashioned bookcase. One of those affairs with glass doors with some kind of figured cloth covering the glass within the case. Not a very large case, and I doubted if there were more than four rows of shelves. This case seemed to interest Bartley, for he went across the floor, and in a moment knelt before it to try the door. Not very much interested, I walked to the window and for a few moments stood looking out. When I turned, it was to discover that the bookcase was open.

I did not bother to go closer to see what the books might be. From where I stood I could see the contents of the four shelves—shelves which were not all filled. But those which were seemed to interest Bartley very much. He pulled first one book and then another forth, only to replace them and take another, finding several over which he spent some time. Then all at once he rose to his feet, closed the glass door, and said we better be going.

Wondering a little why he had not waited until the minister returned, I followed him out into the hall. The woman was washing the windows by the front door, and Bartley explained we were unable to wait any longer. When we reached the open air, he struck across the lawn to the hedge which divided Carter's estate from the church. He said nothing, walking in a hurried manner. And when we came through the hedge and crossed the grass, he paused in front of the house long enough to say that he was going to take the car and go to town.

As he said nothing regarding my going with him, I went into the house, to find Carter in his library. He asked me where Bartley was, and I told him he was going to town, hearing the sound of his car in the drive as I spoke. Then, as Carter was engaged in writing a letter, I picked up the paper and for a while ran through its contents. There was little news, however, and I soon threw it aside.

When Carter had finished his letter, he dropped into a large chair, and we started to talk—a conversation which was mostly one-sided. He told me Patton had been very much pleased to find, when he reached the library, that the young woman who had been Warren's secretary was there. She had promised to work with him, and, as she knew more about the library than Patton did, her offer had taken quite a load off his mind. Then he suddenly said that he thought he knew why the Chinaman had not taken the box of opium away when he discovered Warren murdered.

That had been one of the things which had puzzled me, that is, if we were to accept the story the man had told as being true. He had found the door of the library open, and Warren dead. The box of opium was his reason for being there; yet he had not taken it, and it had been on the stand all the time. That had rather puzzled me, and when Carter said he thought he knew why it had been untouched, naturally I asked his reason.

“Well,” he grinned, “it is what they call in the mystery yarns ‘deduction.’ Now, of course, he must have known there was a box in the library which contained opium. He must have known that.”

“Right you are,” came a voice from the doorway, and Ranville came into the room and dropped into the nearest chair.

“All right then,” retorted Carter seriously. “But if he did not take it away with him, it was because he did not know which one of the three boxes it was.”

“Not so good,” was Ranville's dry comment. He threw one leg over his knee and added: “He might not have been very sure when he went in. But I wager that he knew before he went out.”

“What makes you say that?”

“It is very simple to me. He told the gardener to bring him the box near the safe. That was the right one as we discovered. If he did not take the box away, there was a reason why he could not; some one must have been approaching the library or else he did not care to be seen with the large box under his arm.”

Carter at length agreed this might be so, and after a while he went up to his room. Ranville and myself talked a few moments, and then he went over to the desk to write a letter. In my chair I dreamed away the moments. The afternoon wore away, and in the silence of the library I half dozed—dozed, to be awakened by a muttered oath from Ranville. As I gave a start, it was to see him looking at a piece of paper in his hand. As his eyes met mine, he said, with a rather sheepish expression on his face:

“What a confounded ass I have been!”

“What's the matter?” I drawled as I noticed his eyes on the paper he held.

“Why, I forgot all about that bit of paper with the letters; you know—those ‘Anani’ and that sort of thing.”

I had found the paper by Warren's body. The letters had puzzled us at the time, but we had paid very little attention to them. Just what they meant, I had not known nor any one else. But Ranville had placed the paper in his pocket, and then apparently forgotten all about it. Now, in reaching into his pocket, he had found it; and the fact he had forgotten all about it had put him in a decidedly bad humor.

I half laughed as I reminded him that we did not suppress evidence in that manner in the States. He gave me a rueful smile and again wondered what the letters might mean. But I shook my head, saying I had not the slightest idea. While we were arguing about it, Bartley came into the room and asked what we were talking about.

Extending the paper to him, Ranville told how I had found it beside the body. He seemed chagrined as he remarked that he had placed it in his pocket and forgotten all about it. He added that I had said it meant nothing anyway. With a look in my direction, Bartley took the piece of paper, glanced at it, spelled out the words, and suddenly chuckled. Then he slowly spelt out the letters—“Anani—”

“So it means nothing, Pelt?” he asked.

I assured him that it meant nothing in my life. Rising, I said that no word I knew anything about was spelled like that. Again he looked at the paper, then laughed, but the laughter lasted but a second, and his face grew serious. He started to speak, checked himself, and placed the paper in his bill case. Though we asked him what he thought the letters meant, the only reply we received was that he would tell us later.

It was almost six, and at Bartley's suggestion we went to our rooms to be ready for dinner. Patton was to eat with us, and I was eager to hear what he had done during the day. Perhaps deep in my mind was the wish he would inform us what the wonderful discovery was that Warren had made in China.

After a quick shower I dressed and went down to the piazza, where I was joined by the three men. For a while we talked of various people we knew, and then Ranville and Bartley got into a discussion as to where was the best place to eat in London. Then, as there came a lull in the conversation, Carter looked at his watch and said that Patton was late. He was just on the point of saying something else when the telephone in the hall rang shrilly.

As I was nearest the door, I rose and, going into the house, took the receiver from the hook. For a moment I had trouble in hearing the person at the other end. And then all at once the line was clear, and I recognized Patton's voice—broken and hesitating but very much excited and at the same time filled with horror. The first question he asked was who was talking. I told him and there came a pause. Then came the gasping, excited words in a voice which shook:

“Pelt, for God's sake, get Bartley and Carter down to the library. I am in here with the gardener, and the man's dead—murdered.”

I gave a startled cry and stammered out something. What it was I said I do not know; but he was too excited to say more. Then came his voice again, breaking with excitement, as he cried:

“Get them down here quick, Pelt—it is murder.”