CHAPTER IX

THE OPEN DOOR

The butler at Greenacres occupied a small room on the ground floor near the kitchen. He had been asleep for some time when the ringing of the doorbell sounded, a loud jangling in the night's stillness; he stirred, muttered grumblingly, and was about to tell himself that it must be a mistake, when the ring was insistently repeated.

"There ought to be a law against it," he declared, as he slid his thin old legs out from beneath the sheets, and, not more than partly awake, fumbled groggily for the light. The clock on the bureau told him that it was half an hour past midnight. "Fine time of night for people to go around ringing bells at respectable houses!" Again the bell started its clatter. "Maybe it's an automobile accident out on the road," he said, but he did not hurry. Bates was not the hurrying kind. He reached under the pillow for his false teeth, clicked them into his toothless gums, and then began to pull his trousers on over the old-fashioned nightshirt that flapped about his skinny legs.

Still grumbling under his breath, he shambled down the hall, switched on another light, and went to the front door, making sure that the safety chain was in place before he opened it. Bates did not have good eyesight even in the daytime, and at night he was little better than blind; squintingly he stared through the narrow crack at the form of the man out on the porch.

"What's wanted?" he snapped complainingly.

"It's me, Bates," came the answer.

"Heaven bless us, it's Mr. Kirklan!" gasped the butler, making haste to unfasten the chain and admit the master of Greenacres. "Was it you, sir, doing all that ringing?"

Kirklan Gilmore, still wearing his disheveled dinner coat, entered the house with a slow, dragging step. His face, as it had been all day, was haggard and drawn.

"Yes, I rang," he answered; "sorry to rout you out of bed, but I must have forgotten my keys when I dressed for dinner. It was the only way I could get in, and I didn't want to spend the night in the studio."

"Oh, certainly not, sir," Bates agreed hastily. "You mustn't think I am objecting to getting up to let you in. It's quite all right, sir--quite all right. But you gave me a surprise; I thought you were in bed hours ago. Have you been at your writing so late?" As an author, Kirklan Gilmore was one of those methodical fellows who worked just so many hours a day, usually eight, and at the most ten.

He laughed mirthlessly. "Writing? Man, I can't think, much less write."

"You are ill, sir," Bates murmured solicitously. "I noticed at dinner that you did not look well. I thought----" He broke off abruptly, realizing that thinking, especially as regards family affairs, was not one of his offices as butler.

"You thought--what?"

"Er--nothing, sir; I beg your pardon very humbly. Is there anything I can do for you before you turn in?"

Kirklan Gilmore's lips twitched.

"Thanks for offering, Bates; as a matter of fact, I was thinking of asking you to make me one of those old-fashioned toddies that you once were so good at in my father's day. With a dash of stomach bitters in it, you know. My nerves are all shot to pieces, Bates. You can see that; probably liquor won't do any good, but perhaps a good, long drink will help me get to sleep."

Bates' head wagged approvingly on its slender neck.

"Your father, Mr. Kirklan, always found them beneficial after a hard day at court. I remember one time when----But I mustn't be gabbing, when your nerves are jumping like that. I'll mix the toddy for you right off, sir."

"And I'll go with you," said Gilmore. "You know, as many of 'em as I've had, I don't think I ever saw you make one."

"There's a bit of a trick to it," Bates admitted modestly and shuffled toward the rear of the house, Gilmore at his slippered heels. A moment later the butler was performing a service for the author that, in the old days, he had performed many times for Kirklan's father. Kirklan wasn't so fond of liquor as his father had been.

"A full measure of orange juice--like this," Bates was saying. "Two squares of sugar and----" He droned on, illustrating his formula, as Gilmore watched him dully.

"Take one for yourself, Bates," he invited; but the butler shook his head.

"They say it's a poor doctor that won't take his own prescription, sir; but it would upset me at this time of night. Thank you just the same, sir. Ah, there you are." He handed Gilmore the glass, the square of ice clinking, and the latter accepted it, sipping slowly. He did not gulp it down hastily, as Bates had expected.

"Is Sarbella still here?"

The butler looked bewildered.

"Is he still here, sir? Why--why certainly, Mr. Kirklan. I took it for granted that he was down for a considerable stay. He retired to his room a little more than an hour after dinner."

Gilmore nodded.

"Oh, yes, of course," he murmured and took another sip of the toddy. "But I thought he might have gone. A little something happened--something that----My God, man, what's that?"

His body had tensed, and the glass slipped from his fingers, as a look of horror spread over his face. Loud, shrill, blood-chilling, there rang through the house a terrified scream--a woman's scream.

Bang! A sharp, staccato explosion reverberated through the night's stillness. Bates' thin legs were trembling beneath him, his mouth sagged open, and his eyes rolled wildly toward the ceiling as, struggling for utterance, he pointed a shaking hand upward.

"That was upstairs!" he cried hoarsely. "Something--something terrible has happened upstairs. It was a shot. And that scream--I swear that it was Miss Joan's."

Kirklan Gilmore stood, his muscles rigid, hands clenched at his sides, gulping hard.

"Joan's scream?" he muttered. "No, Bates, no! Something tells me, man, that it was my wife. I tell you it was my wife. Quick, the stairs! I've got to know what happened; I've got to know. Come!"

And, although it was Gilmore who urged haste, it was the butler who took the lead, heading for the stairs with a lame lope.

"I--I can't understand it, sir," the servant chattered as he went along. "There's no weapon in the house except your shotgun; and that report--it wasn't loud enough for a shotgun. It must have been a pistol; I am sure that it must have been a pistol."

When they were perhaps halfway up the staircase there came to their ears, unmistakably clear and permitting no possibility of a mistake, even in the tenseness of the moment, the sound of a hastily slammed door. Gilmore stopped dead in his tracks. An opening door, some member of the household aroused by the scream and the explosion, would have been perfectly understandable. But a closing door! There was the suggestion of hasty, headlong flight. Under the circumstances it was a sinister sound.

Nearing the top of the stairs, the two men, master and servant, saw a patch of light rays which came from an open doorway down the hall.

"That light!" panted Gilmore. "It comes from my wife's room. The door of her room is open--her light is burning!"

They had now reached that ominously opened door; it stood ajar for perhaps ten inches. Gilmore stopped again, the breath wheezing through his teeth, as if he might have had a presentiment of what he might find on the other side of that panel. The old butler went on forward, laid his withered hand upon the knob; but he was unprepared for the sight which met his eyes. With a gasp of horror he reeled back.

"You--you were right, sir," he whispered hoarsely. "It is your wife, and she----Be brave, sir--be brave!"

Helen Gilmore lay in a half-reclining posture on a wicker couch. Looking only at her face, one might have thought her sleeping, such was the repose of her features. But the bosom of her silk robe was stained crimson. On the floor, beneath the outflung fingers of one hand, there was an automatic pistol.

Gilmore took another brief step forward and over the butler's shoulder saw his wife, the light from one of the wall brackets flooding across her beautiful face--still beautiful even now. A shudder shook his shoulders, as if the hand of some invisible giant had seized him in a vicious grip.

"Your wife has killed herself!" cried Bates. "The poor woman has shot herself!"

"Is she dead?" Gilmore cried hoarsely. "I can't--I haven't the strength--the courage to go near her, Bates. Can you tell me if--if my wife is dead?"

The butler was trembling in his agitation, but he steeled himself to the ordeal and forced his unwilling feet forward. Even as he neared the couch, he thought one last, weak breath escaped the lips of his master's wife. But he might have been mistaken. His fingers reached out and touched her cheek.

"She is still warm," he gulped; "of course she would be--so soon after. But I think she must be dead. You see, sir, the bleeding has stopped. I understand that is a sign of death." He shook his head slowly. "Yes, Mr. Kirklan, I am sure that she is dead."

Gilmore collapsed into a chair; head lowered, his eyes closed, as if to blot out the terrible sight in front of him, he began to sob, brokenly, but without tears. A moment later he checked his grief.

"You'd better call Doctor Bushnell, Bates," he choked. "There--there might still be a chance of saving her."

The butler shook his head sadly. "I'm afraid not, but there is a way that I've heard the doctors use----" He shambled to Helen's dressing table where he picked up a silver-backed hand-mirror; then he returned to the limp form on the couch and held the glass close to her lips.

"Yes, I know," Gilmore muttered thickly, watching him with a fascinated stare. "If any breath of life remains, there will be moisture on the mirror." He leaned forward tensely. "What--what does it show, Bates?"

The butler inspected it briefly.

"There is no breathing," he answered; "I was right, sir; your wife is quite dead. But I will phone for the doctor; that is, I believe, the customary thing in cases like this."

As the servant moved toward the door, he paused suddenly, a startled look coming into his eyes.

"It is very strange," he muttered; "yes, very strange."

Gilmore looked at him dully. "What is strange?" he demanded heavily.

"That--that she should have shot herself with the door standing open, sir. If you will pardon me, I know that I wouldn't kill myself--with a door open. I would lock myself in. And"--his voice sank to a tense, vibrating whisper--"Mr. Kirklan, did you hear a door slamming shut, as we were coming up the stairs just a moment ago?"

"I heard a noise, Bates, yes. You are sure, Bates, that it was a closing door?"

"Quite sure of it!" cried Bates. "There is something else, too. If she shot herself, why did she scream? My word, sir, don't you understand? Your wife has been murdered!"