CHAPTER IX

THIRD DEGREE

“But I didn’t kill anyone!” shouted the actor. “Good God, man, what do you want from me? I’ve had enough!” His voice screeched protest.

“Sit down,” Smith ordered.

Reluctantly the actor obeyed, as if in a daze.

“I’ll tell you the facts as we have them now. If you can offer anything to offset them, I’ll be very glad to hear what you have to say. But this is the way the thing would appear in court:

“You are a member of Mrs. Breese’s household. Your status is peculiar. The talk is that you’re her fiancé. But you have a sweetheart in New York who expects to go to Europe with you. You have no money. Mr. Rice and the National City Bank testify that they have seen a forged check made out by you. Mr. Rice testifies that he telephoned Mrs. Breese tonight informing her of the check. Mrs. Breese taxes you with it.”

“But she didn’t,” protested the actor. “I went upstairs while she was still telephoning.”

“Why?”

“To write a letter to Miss Saunders. Mrs. Breese had agreed to give me the money and I was sending a letter to Miss Saunders to tell her everything was all set. Then, when I was about to come down again, the butler ran up to tell me she had been killed!”

“You still deny you forged this check Mr. Rice mentioned?”

“Absolutely!”

“All right,” said Smith. “Let’s waive that. In any case, fifteen minutes after Rice phoned here, Mrs. Breese is found dead. You’re upstairs. The butler tells you that Mrs. Breese has been killed. You don’t send for a doctor. Why? Because you knew already that Mrs. Breese was dead. You send him for a policeman.”

“I didn’t think.”

“Perhaps not. In any case, Mr. Thomas, you had the opportunity to kill Mrs. Breese, and if I am to believe Rice, you had the motive. I’m being very frank with you.”

“But I didn’t do it! I didn’t do it!”

Smith shrugged his shoulders.

“Have you ever fired a revolver, Mr. Thomas?” he demanded.

“Have I ever--yes, in the army.”

“Are you a pretty good shot?”

“Not especially so, no. But I’ve never fired a revolver since. I never even had one in my hand.”

I stared at Thomas, for at that moment I recalled one of the hectic events of the yacht trip down.

“Don’t you remember,” I said, “that on the yacht you went into Henry Breese’s cabin late at night and took a revolver from his luggage?”

“Oh!” the actor looked daggers at me. I, too, apparently had turned against him. “That was after he tried to throw himself in the ocean, and I knew he had a revolver, and I wasn’t taking any chances. So I took it away from him.”

“What happened to that revolver?” Smith demanded.

“I threw it away that night.”

“Sorry to contradict you,” I said firmly. “You threw the cartridges away. I distinctly remember seeing you put that revolver in your pocket.”

“I threw it away later!”

Smith surveyed the actor through half-lidded eyes.

“Any particular reason for the delay?” he inquired.

The actor shrugged his shoulders. “No. I just didn’t know what to do about it. It was dashed unpleasant for me. Everybody on the boat saying that boy wanted to kill himself on account of me. I knew it was a fake. But I wasn’t sure. It was dashed unpleasant!” He whipped out a lavender silk handkerchief and delicately patted his brow. “I’ve had nothing but bad luck since we left New York. I wish to God I’d never gone on this trip.”

“Ye-es,” drawled Smith. “You’ve had a lot of bad breaks.” He looked up at the ceiling. “By the way, you don’t happen to know if Mrs. Breese left a will?”

“How should I know?” The actor carefully avoided my glance. “I wasn’t in Mrs. Breese’s confidence to that extent. I was just a friend.”

“But you were engaged to her, weren’t you?” Smith asked.

“Well, in a way. I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“Are you in the habit of permitting women to engage themselves to you?” demanded Smith.

“Oh----” The actor squirmed. “You don’t understand. Dora was full of whims. She didn’t mean anything by it. She wasn’t seriously engaged.”

“I see,” said Smith. “It was just a joke.”

“Well, dash it all,” cried the actor, “what could I do? I couldn’t very well tell her I was engaged already. I was her guest. I didn’t want to offend her.”

Smith smiled drily. “Yeah, that’d be bad manners. Now, Mr. Thomas, I’m not up on social etiquette, but here’s something that needs explaining. On the boat coming down Mrs. Breese announced her engagement to you; when did she break it?”

“Why--she never broke it exactly. After all that fuss on the boat, why, Dora said we’d have to wait. I was glad of it! Then today I told her about my girl. She wished me luck. And everything was fine!”

“I’m trying my best to understand,” said Smith. “You and Mrs. Breese were engaged, but when you told her you had a previous engagement, she just said: ‘Great!’ Is that it?”

“Well, Dora wouldn’t stand in the way of my happiness.”

“So much so,” continued Smith, “that she was going to give you a very substantial wedding present. A lot of money.” He paused significantly. “What for?”

“What for?” the actor repeated. “She knew I didn’t have any money, and I stuck to her, didn’t I? I went through hell for her in the trial, didn’t I? Dash it all, she had some gratitude left. You don’t seem to understand. Dora and I have been friends for years. I’ve spent a lot of my time in Dora’s interests--taking her out, looking after things, seeing that she was comfortable. Dash it all, a woman appreciates that.”

“And she wasn’t sore about this other girl?” demanded Smith. “Not the least bit jealous?”

The actor smiled. “Oh, well, you can’t help that.” He swaggered a bit. “You couldn’t very well expect anything else, could you?”

“Well, in my own roughneck way,” said Smith, “I’d expect her to blow up and throw you out of the house.”

“She couldn’t do that!” said the actor. “She wrote me a lot of letters she wouldn’t want in the wrong hands. Not that I’d do anything like that! That’s blackmail. That’s despicable! Dora was too nice--had too much pride--to make a fuss about things.... You mustn’t believe that man Rice,” he pleaded. “Dora and I never quarrelled for a minute. We were real friends. This is a terrible blow to me!”

“Yes,” said Smith, “I see that.”

The actor glared at him. “Is that meant for sarcasm?”

Smith nodded obligingly.

“Then it’s in very poor taste.”

“That may be,” said Smith, “but of all the thin alibis I’ve ever heard, yours takes the prize.”

“Alibis?” shouted the actor. “I didn’t kill her! I don’t need an alibi.”

“I’m not saying you killed her,” said Smith.

“Well, you’re intimating!” the actor bit his lips in his anger. “What are you asking all those questions for? I’ve told you all I know. I guess I’ve got some rights. And I’ve got some friends, too.” He was incoherent in his sudden fury. “You’d better be careful how you treat me.”

He moved to the door.

“I’m going!” he shouted.

“I’m not stopping you,” said Smith. “But you’d better not go too far.” He smiled grimly. “I mean that both ways. I don’t want you to leave the house, Mr. Thomas. I’m not through with you yet--not by a long shot!”

“I’m leaving for New York right now!” the actor shrieked defiantly.

“Come here!” growled Smith.

The actor glared at him hesitantly. Smith advanced on him. “I don’t like your attitude,” said Smith. “I wasn’t ready to arrest you--yet. But you’re forcing my hand. Also you’re being very dumb about it.”

“Am I?” the actor cried. “I’ll have no more of your insults! I won’t stand it, I tell you!”

Smith laughed suddenly. I turned in surprise at him.

“That’s all I wanted to know,” he said, still chuckling. “I wanted to see if you could get good and mad, Mr. Thomas. You can!”

The actor was breathing heavily. “Let me go!” he cried. “What are you doing to me? I don’t know anything about it. I’m going back to New York.”

Smith suddenly reached for the actor’s arm and held it securely. Thomas cried out in pain.

“You’re not going to New York,” said Smith. “You’re going to stay right here with me. If you didn’t kill Mrs. Breese, you know who did.”

“I don’t!” the actor protested. “Let me go, won’t you? Let me go!”

I was so intent in watching this third-degree that for a moment I did not hear the sounds of scuffling and angry voices in the reception-room. Before we were quite aware of it, a young man was being dragged before us by the butler, now very red-faced, and the Japanese steward. Both captors were out of breath and talking at once. Only their prisoner seemed calm and perfectly self-possessed.

“Caught him--hiding--in the blue room--just now,” the butler panted.

Then as they propelled their captive toward us, where the full light of the chandelier enveloped him, I could not but gasp. For the young man so unceremoniously brought before us was Perutkin’s melancholy protégé, the Count Giering-Trelovitch.

Thomas seemed to recognize him, too, for the actor’s expression changed as if magically. His fear left him and I saw him grin in relief.

“There’s the man you want!” he cried.