The Four-Pools Mystery
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"His father never turned him out of the house then?"
"Never that I heard of. He did leave home once because his father insulted him, but he came back again."
"That was forgiving," commented Terry. "In general, though, I understand that the relations between the two were rather strained?"
"At times they were," I admitted, "but things had been going rather better for the last few days."
"Until the night before the murder. They quarreled then? And over a matter of money?"
"Yes. Radnor makes no secret of it. He wanted his father to settle something on him, and upon his father's refusal some words passed between them."
"And a French clock," suggested Terry.
I acknowledged the clock and Terry pondered the question with one eye closed meditatively.
"Had Radnor ever asked for anything of the sort before?"
"Not that I know of."
"Why did he ask then?"
"Well, it's rather galling for a man of his age to be dependent on his father for every cent he gets. The Colonel always gave him plenty, but he did not want to take it in that way."
"In just what way did he want to take it?" Terry inquired. "Since he was so infernally independent why didn't he get to work and earn something?"
"Earn something!" I returned sharply. "Rad has managed the whole plantation for the last three years. His father was getting too old for business and if Rad hadn't taken hold, things would have gone to the deuce long ago. All he got as a regular salary was fifty dollars a month; I think it was time he was paid for his services."
"Oh, very well," Terry laughed. "I was merely asking the question. And if you will allow me to go a step further, why did Colonel Gaylord object to settling something on the boy?"
"He wanted to keep him under his thumb. The Colonel liked to rule, and he wished everyone around him to be dependent on his will."
"I see!" said Terry. "Radnor had a real grievance, then, after all—just one thing more on this point. Why did he choose that particular time to make his request? You say he has had practical charge of affairs for the past three years. Why did he not wish to be independent last year? Or why did he not postpone the desire until next year?"
I shrugged my shoulders.
"You'll have to ask Radnor that." I had my own suspicions, but I did not wish to drag Polly Mathers's name into the discussion.
Terry watched me a moment without saying anything, and then he too shrugged his shoulders as he turned back to the newspaper clippings.
"I won't go into the matter of Radnor's connection with the ha'nt just now; I should like to consider first his actions on the day of the murder. I have here a report of the testimony taken at the inquest, but it is not so full as I could wish in some particulars. I should like to have you give me the details. First, you say that Radnor and his father did not speak at the breakfast table? How was it when you started?"
"They both appeared to be in pretty good spirits, but I noticed that they avoided each other."
"Very well, tell me exactly what you did after you arrived at Luray."
"We left our horses at the hotel and walked about a mile across the fields to the mouth of the cave. We had lunch in the woods and at about one o'clock we started through the cave. We came out at a little after three, and, I should say, started to drive back about half past four."
"Did you notice Radnor through the day?"
"Not particularly."
"Did you see either him or the Colonel in the cave?"
"Yes, I was with the Colonel most of the time."
"And how about Radnor? Didn't you see him at all?"
"Oh, yes. I remember talking to him once about some queerly shaped stalagmites. He didn't hang around me, naturally, while I was with his father."
"And when you talked to him about the stalagmites—was there anyone else with him at the time?"
"I believe Miss Mathers was there."
"And he was carrying her coat?"
"I didn't notice."
"At least he left it later in what you call the gallery of the broken column?"
"Yes."
"I see," said Terry glancing over the printed report of the inquest, "that the coroner asked at this point if Radnor were in the habit of forgetting young ladies' coats. That's more pertinent than many of the questions he asked. How about it? Was he in the habit of forgetting young ladies' coats?"
"I really don't know, Terry," I said somewhat testily.
"It's a pity you're not more observing," he returned, "for it's important, on the whole. But never mind. I'll find that out for myself. Did you notice when he left the rest of the party?"
"No, there was such a crowd of us that I didn't miss him."
"Very well, we'll have a look at his testimony. He left the rest of you in this same gallery of the broken column, went straight out, strolled about the woods for half an hour or so and then returned to the hotel. I fancy 'strolled' is not precisely the right word, but at any rate it's the word he uses. Now that half hour in the woods is an unfortunate circumstance. Had he gone directly to the hotel from the cave, we could have proved an alibi without any difficulty. As it is, he had plenty of time after the others came out to remember that he had forgotten the coat, return for it, renew the quarrel with his father, and after the fatal result make his way to the hotel while the rest of the party were still loitering in the woods."
"Terry—" I began.
He waved his hand in a gesture of dissent.
"Oh, I'm not saying that's what did happen. I'm just showing you that the district attorney's theory is a physical possibility. Let's glance at the landlord's testimony a moment. When Radnor returned for his horse he appeared angry, excited and in a hurry. Those are the landlord's words, and they are corroborated by the stable boy and several loungers about the hotel.
"He was in a hurry—why? Because he wished to get away before the others came back. He had suddenly decided while he was in the woods—probably when he heard them laughing and talking as they came out of the cave—that he did not wish to see anyone. He was angry—mark that. All of the witnesses agree there, and I think that his actions carry out their evidence. He drank two glasses of brandy—by the way, I understood you to say he had stopped drinking. He ordered the stable boy about sharply. He swore at him for being slow. He lashed his horse quite unnecessarily as he galloped off. He rode home at an outrageous rate. And he was not, Solomon gives me to understand, in the habit of maltreating horses.
"Now what do you make of all this? Here is a young man with an unexpended lot of temper on his hands—bent on being reckless; bent on being just as bad as he can be. It's as clear as daylight. That boy never committed any crime. A man who had just murdered his father would not be filled with anger, no matter what the provocation had been. He might be overcome with horror, fear, remorse—a dozen different emotions, but anger would not be among them. And further, a man who had committed a crime and intended to deny it later, would not proclaim his feelings in quite that blatant manner. Young Gaylord had not injured anyone; he himself had been injured. He was mad through and through, and he didn't care who knew it. He expended—you will remember—the most of his belligerency on his horse on the way home, and you found him in the summer house undergoing the natural reaction. By evening he had got himself well in hand again and was probably considerably ashamed of his conduct. He doesn't care to talk about the matter for several reasons. Fortunately Solomon is not so scrupulous."
"I don't know what you're driving at, Terry," said I.
"Don't you?" he inquired. "Well, really, it's about time that I came down!" He paused while he scrawled one or two sentences on his copy pad, then he glanced up with a laugh. "I don't know myself, but I think I can make a pretty good guess. We'll call on Miss Polly Mathers in the morning and see if she can't help us out."
"Terry," I expostulated, "that girl knows no more about the matter than I do. She has already given her testimony, and I positively will not have her name mentioned in connection with the affair."
"I don't see how you can help it," was his cool reply. "If she's in, she's in, and I'm not to blame. However, we won't quarrel about it now; we'll pay her a call in the morning." He ran his eyes over the clippings again, then added, "There are just two more points connecting Radnor Gaylord with the murder that need explaining: the foot-prints in the cave and the match box. The foot-prints I will dismiss for the present because I have not seen them myself and I can't make any deductions from hearsay evidence. But the question of the match box may repay a little investigation. I want you to tell me precisely what happened in the woods before you went into the cave. In the first place, how many older people were there in the party?"
"Mr. and Mrs. Mathers, a lady who was visiting them and Colonel Gaylord."
"There were two servants, I understand, besides this Mose, to help about the lunch. What did they do?"
"Well, I don't know exactly. I wasn't paying much attention. I believe they carried things over from the hotel, collected wood for the fire, and then went to a farm house for water."
"But Mrs. Mathers, it seems, attended to lighting the fire?"
"Yes, she and the Colonel made the fire and started the coffee."
"Ah!" said Terry with a note of satisfaction in his voice. "The matter begins to clear. Was Colonel Gaylord in the habit of smoking?"
"He smoked one cigar after every meal."
"Never any more than that?"
"No, the doctor had limited him. The Colonel grumbled about it regularly, and always smoked the biggest blackest cigar he could find."
"And where did he get his matches?"
"Solomon passed the brass match box from the dining-room mantelpiece just as he passed it to us to-night."
"Colonel Gaylord was not in the habit of carrying matches in his pockets then?"
"No, I think not."
"We may safely assume," said Terry, "that in this matter of making the fire, if the two were working together, the Colonel was on his knees arranging the sticks while Mrs. Mathers was standing by, giving directions. That, I believe, is the usual division of labor. Well, then, they get to the point of needing a light. The Colonel feels through his pockets, finds that he hasn't a match and—what happens?"
"What did happen," I broke in, "was that Mrs. Mathers turned to a group of us who were standing talking at one side, and asked if any of us had a match, and Rad handed her his box. That is the last anyone remembers about it."
"Exactly!" said Terry. "And I think I can tell you the rest. You can see for yourself what took place. Mrs. Mathers went back to the spot where they were building the fire, and the Colonel took the match box from her. No man is ever going to stand by and watch a woman strike a match—he can do it so much better himself. At this point, Mrs. Mathers—by her own testimony—was called away, and she doesn't remember anything further about the box. She thinks that she returned it. Why? For no reason on earth except that she usually returns things. As a matter of fact, however, she didn't do it this time. She was called away and the Colonel was left to light the fire alone. He recognized the box as his son's and he dropped it into his pocket. At another time perhaps he would have walked over and handed it back; but not then. The two were not speaking to each other. Later, at the time of the struggle in the cave, the box fell from the old man's pocket, and formed a most damaging piece of circumstantial evidence against his son.
"On the whole," Terry finished, "I do not think we shall have a very difficult time in clearing Radnor. I had arrived at my own conclusions concerning him from reading the papers; what extra data I needed, I managed to glean from Solomon's lies. And as for you," he added, gazing across at me with an imperturbable grin, "I think you were wise in deciding to be a corporation lawyer."
CHAPTER XVIII
TERRY ARRIVES AT A CONCLUSION
"And now," said Terry, lighting a fresh cigar, and after a few preliminary puffs, settling down to work again, "we will consider the case of Cat-Eye Mose—a beautiful name, by the way, and apparently a beautiful character. It won't be my fault if we don't make a beautiful story out of him. You, yourself, I believe, hold the opinion that he committed the murder?"
"I am sure of it," I cried.
"In that case," laughed Terry, "I should be inclined to think him innocent."
I shrugged my shoulders. There was nothing to be gained by getting angry. If Terry chose to regard the solving of a murder mystery in the light of a joke, I had nothing to say; though I did think he might have realized that to me, at least, it was a serious matter.
"And you base your suspicions, do you not, upon the fact that he has queer eyes?"
"Not entirely."
"Upon what then?"
"Upon the fact that he took part in the struggle which ended in my uncle's death."
"Well, certainly, that does seem rather conclusive—there is no mistake about the foot-prints?"
"None whatever; the Mathers niggers both wore shoes, and anyway they didn't go into the cave."
"In that case I suppose it's fair to assume that Mose took part in the struggle. Whether he was the only man or whether there was still a third, the cave itself ought to tell a pretty clear story."
Terry rose and paced up and down the room once or twice, and then came back and picked up one of the newspaper clippings.
"It says here that the boot marks of two different men are visible."
"That's the sheriff's opinion," I replied. "Though I myself, can't make out anything but the marks of Mose and the Colonel. I examined everything carefully, but it's awfully mixed up, you know. One really can't tell much about it."
Terry impatiently flung himself into the chair again.
"I ought to have come down last week! If I had supposed you people could muddle matters up so thoroughly I should. I dare say you've trampled the whole place over till there isn't one of the original marks left."
"Look here, Terry," I said. "You act as if Virginia belonged to you. We've all been working our heads off over this business, and you come in at the last moment and quarrel with our data. You can go over tomorrow morning and collect your own evidence if you think it's so far superior to anyone else's. The marks are just as they were. Boards have been laid over them and nothing's been disturbed."
"You're rather done up, old man," Terry remarked, smiling across at me good-humoredly. "Of course it's quite on the cards that Cat-Eye Mose committed the crime—but there are a number of objections. As I understand it, he has the reputation of being a harmless, peaceable fellow not very bright but always good-natured. He never resented an injury, was never known to quarrel with anyone, took what was given him and said thank you. He loved Colonel Gaylord and watched over his interests as jealously as a dog. Well now, is a man who has had this reputation all his life, a man whom everybody trusts, very likely to go off the hook as suddenly as that and—with no conceivable motive—brutally kill the master he has served so faithfully? A man's future is in a large measure determined by his past."
"That may all be true enough," I said, "but it is very possible that people were deceived in Mose. I have been suspicious of him from the moment I laid eyes on him. You may think it unfair to judge a man from his physical appearance, but I wish you could once see Cat-Eye Mose yourself, and you would know what I mean. The people around here are used to him and don't notice it so much, but his eyes are yellow—positively yellow, and they narrow in the light just like a cat's. One night he drove Radnor and me home from a party, and I could actually see his eyes shining in the dark. It's the most gruesome thing I ever saw; and take that on top of his habits—he carries snakes around in the front of his shirt—really, one suspects him of anything."
"I hope he isn't dead," Terry murmured wistfully. "I'd like a personal interview."
He sat sunk down in his chair for several minutes intently examining the end of his fountain pen.
"Well," he said rousing himself, "it's time we had a shy at the ghost. We must find out in what way Radnor and Mose were connected with him, and in what way he was connected with the robbery. Radnor could help us considerably if he would only talk—the fact that he won't talk is very suggestive. We'll get at the truth without him, though. Suppose you begin and tell me everything from the first appearance of the ha'nt. I should like to get him tabulated."
"The first definite thing that reached the house," I replied, "was the night of my arrival when the roast chicken was stolen—I've told you that in detail."
"And it was that same night that Aunt What-Ever-Her-Name-Is saw the ghost in the laurel walk?"
I nodded.
"Did she say what it looked like?"
"It was white."
"And when you searched the cabins did you go into the one where the grain is stored?"
"No, Mose dropped his torch at the entrance. And anyway Rad said there was no use in searching it; it was already full to the brim with sacks of corn meal."
"Do you think that Radnor was trying to divert you from the scene?"
"No, I am sure he hadn't a suspicion himself."
"And what did the thing look like that you saw Mose carrying to the cabins in the night?"
"It seemed to be a large black bundle. I have thought since that it might have been clothes or blankets or something of that sort."
"So much for the first night," said Terry. "Now, how soon did the ghost appear again?"
"Various things were stolen after that, and the servants attributed it to the ha'nt, but the first direct knowledge I had was the night of the party when Radnor acted so strangely. I told you of his going back in the night."
"He was carrying something too?"
"Yes, he had a black bundle—it might have been clothes."
"And after that he and Mose were in constant consultation?"
"Yes—they both encouraged the belief in the ha'nt among the negroes and did their best to keep everyone away from the laurel walk. I overheard Mose several times telling stories to the other negroes about the terrible things the ha'nt would do if it caught them."
"And he himself didn't show any fear over the stories?"
"Not the slightest—appeared rather to enjoy them."
"And Radnor—how did he take the matter?"
"He was moody and irritable. I could see that something was preying on his mind."
"How did you explain the matter to yourself?"
"I was afraid he had fallen into the clutches of someone who was threatening him, possibly levying blackmail."
"But you didn't make any attempt to discover the truth?"
"Well, it was Rad's own affair, and I didn't want the appearance of spying. I did keep my eyes open as much as I could."
"And the Colonel, how did he take all this excitement about the ha'nt?"
"It bothered him considerably, but Rad kept him from hearing it as much as he could."
"When did the ha'nt appear again after the party?"
"Oh, by that time all sorts of rumors were running about among the negroes. The whole place was haunted and several of the plantation hands had left. But the next thing that we heard directly was in the early evening before the robbery when Mose, appearing terribly frightened, said he had seen the ha'nt rising in a cloud of blue smoke out of the spring-hole."
"And how did the Colonel and Radnor take this?"
"The Colonel was angry because he had been bragging about Mose not being afraid, and Rad was dazed. He didn't know what to think; he hustled Mose out of the way before we could ask any questions."
"And what did you think?"
"Well, I fancied at the time that he had really seen something, but as I thought it over in the light of later events I came to the conclusion that he was shamming, both then and in the middle of the night when he roused the house."
"That is, you wished to think him shamming, in order to prove his complicity in the robbery and the murder; and so you twisted the facts to suit your theory?"
"I don't think you can say that," I returned somewhat hotly. "It's merely a question of interpreting the facts."
"He didn't gain much by raising all that hullabaloo in the middle of the night."
"Why yes, that was done in order to throw suspicion on the ha'nt."
"Oh, I see!" laughed Terry. "Well, now, let's get to the end of this matter. Was any more seen of the ha'nt after that night?"
"No, at least not directly. For five or six days everyone was so taken up with the robbery that the ha'nt excitement rather died down. Then I believe there were some rumors among the negroes but nothing much reached the house."
"And since the murder nothing whatever has been seen of the ha'nt?"
I shook my head.
"Just give me a list of the things that were stolen."
"Well, the roast chicken, a box of cigars, some shirts off the line, a suit of Rad's pajamas, a French novel, some brandy, quite a lot of things to eat—fresh loaves of bread, preserves, a boiled ham, sugar, coffee—oh, any amount of stuff! The niggers simply helped themselves and laid it to the ha'nt. One of the carriages was left out one night, and in the morning the cushions were gone and two lap robes. At the same time a water pail was taken and a pair of Jake's overalls. And then to end up came the robbery of the safe."
"The ha'nt had catholic tastes. Any of the things turned up since?"
"Yes, a number of things, such as blankets and clothes and dishes have gradually drifted back."
"The carriage cushions and lap robes—ever find them?"
"Never a trace—and why anyone should want 'em, I don't know!"
"What color were the lap robes?"
"Plain black broadcloth."
Terry got up and paced about a few moments and then came back and sat down.
"One thing is clear," he said, "there are two ha'nts."
"Two ha'nts! What do you mean?"
"Just what I say. Suppose for convenience we call them ha'nt number one, and ha'nt number two. Number one occupied apartments over the grain bin and haunted the laurel walk. He was white—I don't wonder at that if he spent much time crawling over those flour sacks. He smoked cigars and read French novels; Mose waited on him and Radnor knew about him—and didn't get much enjoyment out of the knowledge. It took money to get rid of him—a hundred dollars down and the promise of more to come. Radnor himself drove him off in the carriage the night he left, and Mose obliterated all traces of his presence. So much for number one.
"As for number two, he appeared three or four days before the robbery and haunted pretty much the whole place, especially the region of the spring-hole. In appearance he was nine feet tall, transparent, and black. Smoke came from his mouth and blue flames from his eyes. There was a sulphurous odor about him. He was first seen rising out of the spring-hole, and there is a passage in the bottom of the spring-hole that leads straight down to hell. Solomon is my authority.
"I asked him how he explained the apparition and he reckoned it was the ghost of the slave who was beaten to death, and that since his old master had come back to haunt the laurel walk, he had come back to haunt his old master. That sounds to me like a plausible explanation. As soon as it's light I'll have a look at the spring-hole."
"Terry," I said disgustedly, "that may make a very picturesque newspaper story, but it doesn't help much in unravelling the mystery."
"It helps a good deal. I would not like to swear to the flames or sulphur or the passage down to hell, but the fact that he was tall and black and comes from the spring-hole is significant. He was black—mark that—so were the stolen lap robes.
"Now you see how the matter stands on the night of the robbery. While ghost number one was out driving with Radnor, ghost number two entered the house through the open library window, found the safe ajar and helped himself. Let's consider what he took—five thousand dollars in government bonds, two deeds, an insurance policy, and a quart of small change—a very suggestive lot of loot if you think about it enough. After the robbery he disappeared, nothing seen of him for five or six days; then he turned up again for a day or so, and finally disappeared forever. So much for ha'nt number two. He's the party we're after. He pretty certainly robbed the safe and he possibly committed the murder—as to that I won't have any proof until I see the cave."