CHAPTER XXVII

WIGGLY REMAINS UNCONVINCED

For all of his asserted confidence, which bordered upon boasting, Wiggly Price realized that he had a hard nut to crack. Swinging out of the library and Sergeant Tish's presence, he went out to the porch and sat down to indulge himself in logic, speculation, guessing. He took the piece of tallow from his pocket again, staring at it fixedly; his belief that it had some vital part in the mystery had become an obsession; but there was one thing about it that discouraged him--Joan Sheridan had shown no perturbation when he had produced it before her eyes.

Following a simple bit of logical reasoning, if the bit of tallow were so important as he insistently imagined, and if the girl had done the shooting, it was extremely strange that she had shown no signs of agitation when faced with this evidence. He had been favorably impressed with the girl's face; she seemed to be a sane, well-balanced young person. Certainly, he argued, it was difficult to believe that she would have committed the murder after cold premeditation; but might she not have yielded to a suddenly and insanely jealous impulse, suddenly overwhelmed by the proximity of the automatic pistol?

No matter who did the murder, Wiggly reasoned, it had not been a premeditated crime; the slayer had not gone to Helen Gilmore's room with a weapon. The weapon was already there. These cogitations, of course, took it for granted that Haskins' dying statement had been entirely truthful; the reporter might have agreed with Tish that the whole yarn was a lie, except that he could not imagine a desperate man like Haskins deliberately leaving the gun behind. With the death of the only person who knew of his presence in the house, Haskins had nothing to gain by cloaking the crime under the guise of suicide.

That Joan Sheridan knew more than she had told, Wiggly was flatly certain; he had studied every changing expression of her face and he had seen the emotions which Tish had missed. Either she had committed the crime, or else she knew who did.

Presuming her innocence, whom was she protecting with her silence? Sarbella? That did not seem logical. Why should she go to such great lengths to protect Sarbella? Yet, other than Sarbella, Joan, and Haskins, there had been but one other person above the first floor when the shot was fired, and that was the other Mrs. Gilmore, Joan's mother.

"Ah!" thought Wiggly with a tingle of excitement, as his mind canvassed this possibility. "There is the person that the girl would protect, her mother. And the mother has kept closely to her room; the doctor had to look after her. Now what could have been her motive?"

That was a puzzler, particularly so since he had not so much as put eyes on the woman. Perhaps--this was guessing merely--the older Mrs. Gilmore had been mistress of Greenacres so long that she resented the appearance of an interloper; possibly she had taken the frenzied notion that she was to be dispossessed from this house which had been her home.

Both Bates and Kirklan Gilmore, downstairs in the butler's pantry when the scream and the shot had sounded through the quiet house, had been positive that they had got up the stairs before any one would have had a chance to come down; even Haskins had verified that. Their coming had been so swift as to cut off his chance of escape. Yes, decided Wiggly, counting Haskins out of it, there remained just three possible suspects. Joan, Sarbella, and the elder Mrs. Gilmore.

But the piece of tallow--he was not getting the answer to that. He was still considering it when Doctor Bushnell's automobile turned in at the Greenacres driveway. The doctor was returning from the hospital with the butler. A moment later the physician's touring car came to a pause near the porch, and Wiggly got quickly to his feet.

"How about Constable Griggs?" he asked.

"He'll make the grade, but it was a close call for him," answered Doctor Bushnell. "Mighty bad fracture. He'll have to spend a week or better in the hospital. I've explained the whole situation, and he's given me the jail keys and his permission to release Sarbella, which I shall do immediately. Has the district attorney arrived yet?"

"Haven't seen him," replied Wiggly, eager for an opening that he might have a frank talk with the deputy coroner.

"I telephoned him from the hospital and explained the situation in detail. He agreed with me that there seemed to be no doubt that Haskins killed the woman; said he'd come right over. I'll drum up enough men for the coroner's jury when I get to the village and release Sarbella. Whew! I'll bet it's a load off of his mind; it certainly looked bad for that fellow--mighty bad."

Bates had gone on into the house; the doctor had not got out of the car, his purpose in stopping evidently being merely to let out the butler. His hand was upon the gear lever, ready to start his car in motion again, but Wiggly put detaining fingers on his arm.

"Just a moment, Doctor Bushnell," he urged earnestly. "I know you've made up your mind that Haskins did the shooting, and that, since Haskins is dead, the case is virtually closed."

"Certainly it is," nodded the physician. "I thought about it all the way on the drive to the hospital and back. The evidence against Haskins is all that any reasonable man would ask. Practically a matter of legal formality, the inquest."

"I'm going to ask that you listen to me, with an open mind," Wiggly insisted. "I want to talk with you about the case in utmost seriousness; I feel that you're on the verge of making a grave blunder. I've found something----"

"Not more hairpins?" broke in the doctor with a faint smile.

"Doctor, I'm no novice in contact with crime; and, while I'm not nursing any notion that I'm a born detective, I've got eyes in my head and a logical sort of thinking apparatus. Without trying to toot my own horn, I might add that I've helped my paper solve a puzzle or so, after the police had fallen down on the job. I'm not saying that to boast; just want you to take me seriously."

Doctor Bushnell gave him a quick, sharp glance. "I'll listen, as we drive to the village," he said. "Hop in."

Wiggly hopped in, and, as the car got into motion, so did his tongue. Absolute conviction that he was right enabled him to give a forceful presentation of his theories, and his short, punchy sentences were punctuated by frequent twitchings of his ears.

He began by repeating in substance Haskins' dying statement and emphasizing the improbability of Haskins leaving the gun behind, the utter uselessness of Haskins covering up the murder beneath the guise of suicide. From there he switched to the piece of tallow, saving any mention of Joan Sheridan until the last. The doctor, listening patiently, gave him a fair hearing; but it is a difficult job to convince a man who has already made up his mind to the contrary.

"Now we come down to the nub of things," Wiggly went on; swiftly he voiced his suspicions concerning Joan and his reasons for them. He told of his effort to cross-examine the girl and the results.

Doctor Bushnell had an uneasy feeling, as he himself recalled Joan's perturbation of the previous night, but he brushed these thoughts aside.

"Do you realize," he demanded sternly, "that you are intimating that Joan Sheridan might have----Oh, it's absurd, preposterous! I refuse even to consider such a ridiculous notion. Why, I've known Joan all her life; a sweeter, finer young woman never lived."

"Did you happen to know that she's in love with Gilmore?" Wiggly demanded, and at this suggestion of a motive the doctor's eyes snapped angrily.

"So that's what you base all this wild talk on, eh? That reduces your reasoning to further absurdity."

"I'm not accusing her of the shooting, doctor, but I'm absolutely certain that she's hiding something; if not to protect herself, then to protect some one else. Her agitation----"

"Humph!" broke in Doctor Bushnell. "What sort of a woman wouldn't be agitated with all that's happened at Greenacres during the past few hours. Whom would she be protecting? Answer me that!"

"It would have to be some one who was on the second floor when the shot was fired. Tell me something--does Gilmore or his stepmother own Greenacres?"

"Gilmore does," the doctor answered. "His stepmother's share of the estate was in cash and other realty, but I'm afraid she managed it poorly."

"Ah!" murmured Wiggly. "Then she was virtually dependent upon her stepson. If things had become so unpleasant for her at Greenacres after the arrival of the house's new mistress that she could not stay----"

The physician's indignation became more pronounced.

"Gad, what a villainous imagination you've got!" he exploded. "You mean now, I suppose, that Mrs. Gilmore did the shooting, and that Joan is shielding her? Young man, I've lost all patience with such nonsense. I refuse to listen to these ravings any longer. Any one, except a hare-brained idiot, would know that Haskins did the shooting. No more of this twaddle; I simply won't listen to you!"

"Then you won't help me with a further investigation?"

"I shall certainly have no hand in such foolishness," answered Doctor Bushnell with a tone of absolute finality. "Talk to the district attorney, if you insist, but I warn you that he'll take no stock in it."

"Probably not," Wiggly agreed gloomily, "but just the same I know I'm right."

They had reached the village, and the doctor's car came to a halt in front of Borough Hall.

"I'll release Sarbella and then get busy drumming up my men for the coroner's jury," said Bushnell. "You've got a sensational enough story for your paper, as it is; forget that silly rubbish you've been talking to me."

Wiggly made no response, but followed the physician from the machine into the village building and downstairs into the basement, where Victor Sarbella was a prisoner. At the sound of their approach, Sarbella came to the door of the narrow cage and peered out between the rusting steel bars, but he uttered no word of protest, of outraged innocence; only stared in a stony, narrow-eyed silence.

"I've the best of news for you, Mr. Sarbella!" Doctor Bushnell exclaimed heartily. "I've come to let you out."

The prisoner's head jerked up, his fingers tightened their grip about the bars of the cell door, his lips parted, and his eyes brightened with the look of relief that flashed across his face.

"You mean," he asked slowly, "that I am to be released unconditionally--that I have been removed from suspicion?"

The doctor, with the constable's keys, was struggling with the lock that would unfasten the bolts; the mechanism was badly in need of oiling, and it was giving him trouble.

"Yes, unconditionally," he answered. "We find that we have done you an injustice, although you must admit that we were within our rights, everything considered. The murderer of the Gilmore woman----Oh, curse this lock!"

Sarbella pressed his body closer to the bars. "Yes?" he demanded with an eager impatience. "The murderer--go on, man!"

The lock finally yielded, enabling the physician to turn the handle that slid the bolts, and the door opened. Victor Sarbella was a free man.

"Tell me," he commanded again. "Who----" The newspaper reporter sensed his grave concern, his anxiety--and wondered.

"Luckily for you," answered Doctor Bushnell, "the slayer was still in the house--a criminal who, it developed, was the woman's undivorced husband."

"Thank Heaven!" breathed Sarbella, and it was apparent that this news was a great relief to him.

Briefly the doctor related the facts.

"What a blessedly fortunate ending!" murmured the artist. "I was afraid of other things--something more terrible."

"I'm driving back to Greenacres after I get together a jury for the inquest," went on the physician. "I'm anxious to get it over with as quickly as possible, for my private practice has to wait until this official business is disposed of, and my patients are liable to lose their patience." He chuckled a little at his own pun. "You may ride back to Greenacres with me, if you choose."

"Thanks," nodded Sarbella, "I will."

The three men made their way out of the basement cell room and to the street, where the doctor said that they could wait in his car, if they liked. A moment later he was hurrying along the village thoroughfare in quest of his jurors, picking up practically the first citizens that he encountered. Sarbella got into the rear of the touring car, and Wiggly Price sat beside him.

"You seem to be well out of a bad situation," said the newspaper man.

The released suspect nodded soberly. "Yes," he agreed, "a bad situation--an overwhelming situation. Circumstantial evidence can be a damning thing. Perhaps I owe something to you; your attitude, when you came to the cell about the cigarette----"

"You do not owe your release to me, Sarbella; it was the appearance of Sergeant Tish, his identification of the gun and the presence of Haskins in the house." Wiggly paused for a moment with his eyes on the other's face. "You were greatly relieved when you heard the doctor's explanation of the tragedy?"

Victor Sarbella inclined his head.

"I was!" he exclaimed fervently. "Knowing my own innocence, I am afraid that I was as much inclined to suspect other people as other people to suspect me. I am afraid that I even suspected my friend Gilmore."

"Why Gilmore?" asked Wiggly. "He had a perfect alibi--downstairs when the shot was fired."

"Yes, I know," murmured Sarbella, "but the poor chap was so overwrought, so beside himself, so obsessed with the suspicion that there had been an--ah--affair between me and--and his wife--but let us not talk of that."

"I wonder," pressed Wiggly, but careful to make his tone carelessly casual, "if you also suspected Miss Sheridan?"

"Eh?" exclaimed Sarbella, turning quickly, and then he laughed briefly. "Yes, I think I even suspected her. Her attitude it was--ah--very strange, it seemed to me. Only excitement, of course, as we know the facts now; but at the time--well, I hardly knew what to think."

Wiggly's ears twitched slightly. Further confirmation of his theory! Yet it convinced no one except himself.

"I condemn myself for harboring any such suspicions," went on Sarbella musingly, "but it was strange. She was up, had not retired, and yet she had not heard the scream or the shot."

"What!" exclaimed Wiggly; this was something new to him. He had not known that. "You mean that she was up and dressed?"

Sarbella shot him a quick, curious glance, saw his eagerness, and was warned to sudden silence.

"Let us talk of something else," he said. "Am I to understand that there are still any doubts in your mind----"

"Haskins made a dying statement in which he denied the murder," said Wiggly; "he said, however, that he did see the murderer coming out of the room after the shot was fired."

Sarbella gave no guilty start, such as might have been expected, if Haskins' story was true, and it had been himself that Haskins had seen coming out of Helen Gilmore's room.

"What could you expect but lies from the lips of such a man?" the artist asked. "Thank Heaven that the ending is as it is. This man, this Haskins, must have been the husband who went to my poor brother with the story that unbalanced his reason and sent him to his death. Poor Andrea! The hand of Fate has avenged him! There is a God of retribution!"

Wiggly Price made one more effort. His fingers went to his pocket for that puzzling piece of tallow.

"Had another look around that room this morning," he said. "On the floor I found several pieces of this."

Victor Sarbella turned and glanced at the white, black-flecked, shapeless lump, but he betrayed no more visible signs of emotion than had Joan Sheridan.

"What is it?" he asked, frowning. "What of it?"

"Nothing!" grunted Wiggly Price, as his arm raised in a disgustedly impulsive gesture to toss it into the street. Even his own persistent faith in this as a vital clew was being badly shaken. Yet his fingers closed about the bit of tallow, and he returned it to his pocket again. His mouth tightened.

"Nothing--so far," he added. He was one of those chaps who just naturally can't quit.

Sarbella gave him a curious glance, shrugged his shoulders, and dismissed both the man and the bit of tallow as of no further importance; then he lapsed into a moody sort of silence. A moment later Doctor Bushnell returned to the car; it had taken him no time at all to drum his jury for the inquest.

"All right," he announced, "we'll be getting back and having things over with. Shouldn't take much longer than an hour: Presley, our local garage man, will bring the jurors out in a bus, and they'll be no great distance behind us."

He took the wheel, started the motor, and the three men were on their way back to Greenacres. Wiggly sat stiffly in the seat beside Sarbella, trying in vain to drive his brain over the hurdles. Time with him was short, for, as the doctor had just said, in another hour or so it would be over. The law would have finished with the Gilmore affair and write the easiest, most obvious ending to the dramatic business of the past night, charging the whole tragic account to Don Haskins and, through his death, mark the whole deed as "Paid."

Once the verdict of the coroner's jury was in, Wiggly knew, it would be next to the impossible to have the case reopened again. He had just about sixty minutes longer to prove he was right, and that the rest of them were wrong.