There is No Return (23 page)

“No, I’m merely warning you, the way Chet Keith warned or threatened Professor Matthews this morning, that it isn’t conducive to longevity to share secrets with a murderer.”

Now had I had nothing on my conscience, I should unquestionably have demanded what secret Ella suspected me of harbouring and I dare say she read volumes into the fact that I did nothing of the kind. The truth is I did not dare have it out with Ella. It is very unlike me to let a challenge slide, but that is what I did, dropping my napkin petulantly upon the table and getting to my feet with the bald announcement that I had gone through the motion of dining and I hoped she was satisfied.

“No,” snapped Ella, “I’m not satisfied, but knowing you, I realize I have done all I could.”

I did not for one minute believe that she was referring to the fact that, like Allan Atwood, I had merely toyed with my food; nevertheless I again evaded the issue by pretending to think so.

“You can lead a horse to water, Ella, but not even you can make him drink,” I said, realizing from Ella’s expression that I had succeeded merely in being trite.

When we came into the lounge we found Fannie Parrish once more besieging Captain French about the latest report from the bridge. “The highway department insists that everything will be in good order by morning,” he said in a tired voice.

“Goodness knows, I hope so,” murmured Miss Maurine Smith.

“They’ve nearly run me ragged today with telephone calls. The press, you know,” she confided to me. “I think every newspaper in the country has either sent a correspondent to Carrolton or called up. I don’t know what I should have done,” she smiled coyly, “if Mr Keith hadn’t told me to refer all the reporters to him. Naturally, being in the newspaper game himself, he is the one to give out information, don’t you think?”

“Oh, naturally,” I said dryly and could not resist a triumphant glance at Ella. “I understand that Mr Canby has always been what’s called big news.”

Ella merely tossed her head. It lacked only a few minutes of nine, the hour which had been set for resuming the interrupted hearing in the parlour. Everybody involved was more or less standing around waiting for the signal to file into the room, including Sheriff Latham, who was over by the window conversing with Coroner Timmons, neither of them looking very well pleased with themselves.

There was no sign of Chet Keith. I wondered where he had disappeared to. I even went to the door and glanced out. The rain had stopped but the wind was still high and the sky overcast with scudding black clouds.

“Looking for your alter ego, Miss Adams?” inquired Hogan Brewster with his usual flippant smile. He was just behind me, quite close to Lila Atwood, and as I turned with a frown I met her eyes.

“Hogan loves innuendo, Miss Adams,” she said lightly. “I think he was trying to imply that you have a crush on the fascinating Mr Keith.”

“So you find him fascinating also, do you, Lila?” asked Hogan Brewster, grinning at Allan Atwood. “But then, Lila always has had a weakness for dashing, debonair gents, eh, Allan?”

I thought for a moment that Allan was going to strike the other man, and although I have never considered myself a blood-thirsty person I recall wishing he would. It seemed to me that no self-respecting husband under the circumstances could ignore that particular insult. It was so painfully apparent that, while Hogan Brewster was both dashing and debonair, Allan Atwood was neither. I even thought that Lila Atwood stared at her husband eagerly, but if so he disappointed us both.

“I have never bothered a lot about my wife’s taste in men, Brewster,” he said and turned away, managing, as he went, to trip over the umbrella which Fannie Parrish had brought downstairs with her with the statement that if there were any more murders she for one intended to walk to town.

Hogan Brewster grinned at me. “ ’Sfunny how old Allan always puts his foot in it every time he opens his mouth.”

I glanced at Lila Atwood. She was trying to smile, but her lips were not steady.

“Everybody can’t have your well-known facility, darling,” she murmured, and this time she made no effort to move away from the carefully manicured hand which he placed upon her arm.

I do not as a rule have any patience with the married flirt, male or female, but I remember thinking to myself that if ever a man asked for such treatment it was Allan Atwood. I had supposed all along, Lila being such an exceptionally beautiful woman, that poor fumbling Allan Atwood was hopelessly in love with her. Now for the first time I wondered if everybody was mistaken in assuming that this was the typical triangle of the unattractive husband and the too attractive other man. Thomas Canby had arranged his nephew’s marriage, that much was certain, but it did not absolutely follow that Allan Atwood had lost his heart to his wife. From all appearances the reverse was true. He acted as if he hated her. He had said as much, according to Fannie Parrish. With a queer feeling I realized that if actions meant anything Lila Atwood was far more in love with her husband than he gave any signs of being with her.

“All set for the next encounter, Miss Adams?” murmured a voice behind me.

I turned sharply. “Where have you been?” I demanded.

Chet Keith grinned. “Oh, here, there and yonder,” he said airily.

Sheriff Latham at that moment looked around with a frown. “Nine o’clock,” he announced, referring to a huge gold watch attached by a braided leather fob to his belt.

Everybody began moving toward the parlour door which Mart Butler was unlocking. I realized I had only a moment but I intended to make the best of it. Ella had succeeded in thoroughly unsettling me. I suppose the glance I fixed upon Chet Keith must have been severe; at any rate he made a squirming movement with his shoulders.

“That tip to your city editor,” I said, “was it Sheila Kelly who sent it?”

I took him by complete surprise. “How on earth did you –” He paused, bit his lip and stared at me.

“So it was from her?” I asked with a sinking feeling in my heart.

He grinned wryly. “Pretty neat about setting traps, aren’t you?” he inquired. “All right, it was from her. Otherwise, I don’t suppose I’d have utilized my week’s vacation to run it down.”

“Week’s vacation?”

“Yes, Miss Adams, I’m here on my own time, not the paper’s.”

My heart must have been as low as my shoelaces by this time. “What sort of tip was it?”

“Anonymous, that’s why the city editor tossed it into the wastebasket.”

“Oh, he did, did he?” I muttered and frowned. “And the tip was anonymous?”

“Yes, but it was from Sheila. I might not have recognized her writing if she hadn’t mentioned a spiritualist angle. When she did, it was the giveaway. You see,” he flushed, “I tried to look her up three months ago and discovered that she had gone on the road with a fake psychic, namely Professor Thaddeus Matthews.”

“So you recognized her writing, just like that.”

He met my eyes without a tremor. “Just like that.”

“Why should she have tipped off the editor of a Chicago paper that something was up down here?” I asked sharply.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I got the idea that the poor kid was frightened. I flattered myself that in spite of the poor opinion which she has of me in affairs of the heart she had some faith in my ability as a friend in need. Perhaps I am more quixotic than I believed possible until I met Sheila Kelly.”

“You thought she sent that tip in deliberately, knowing it would fall into your hands?”

“I guess you were right in the first place,” he said with a wry grin. “I fell for the girl over a year ago and I’ve never got over it. I just thought I had. Amusing in a hard-boiled egg like me, eh what?”

I did not find it in the least amusing. Ella had been partly right at any rate, I told myself with consternation. Sheila Kelly was responsible for Chet Keith’s presence at the inn, and he and I together were responsible for hoodwinking the sheriff and otherwise playing hide-and-seek with the law. I had a sudden ghastly vision of Professor Matthews’ bloodless face, stamped with a hideous grimace above the horrible red gash in his throat.

“How do you know,” I asked in a shaking voice, “that she isn’t making a fool of both of us?”

Had he tried to put me off, I think I should have blurted out the truth then and there, the moment I could have reached Sheriff Latham, but Chet Keith paid me the supreme tribute of dropping his guard for an instant during which we exchanged a distracted glance.

“Good Lord,” he groaned, “don’t you suppose that thought has me going around in circles half the time?”

“Maybe the sheriff is right,” I said again. “Perhaps she is just a clever actress, making a play at several million dollars.”

“Sure,” admitted Chet Keith miserably, looking like a wretched small boy. Then he squared his shoulders with an effort. “I’m pinning my faith on two things, Miss Adams. If she intended to kill Canby why did she want me here? And if she killed the professor how did she get back into her room with the key on the outside?”

“She might have wanted you here,” I said slowly, “to do exactly what you have done — manipulate the officers of the law, as well as the press, to suit her purpose.”

“She couldn’t have counted on the bridge going out.”

“No,” I admitted, “but you were relieved when it did go out, and I’ll have to remind you again that there is only your word for the key being on the outside of her door after the professor’s murder.”

He stared at me, his face white. “Are you implying that Sheila and I are in cahoots on this thing?” he inquired, his lips curling.

“I still refuse to believe that the trances are faked,” I said slowly, “but there’s only your own testimony to prove that you drew a blank on the ESP tests.”

“Good God, you can’t believe that I am Conspirator Number One!” he protested. “With Sheila in the role of my victim!”

“People have done worse things for a million dollars, and maybe she isn’t a victim at all,” I suggested miserably. “Maybe I have jumped to conclusions in thinking so. After all, I have no reason, except her own protestations, to believe that murder is contrary to her moral code.”

He looked genuinely aghast. “You think we plotted this together and I hypnotized her into committing the crimes!”

“Or maybe you just hypnotized her, so she could put on a good act, while you committed the crimes yourself.”

He wiped his forehead. “You don’t believe any such thing,” he stammered, again reminding me of a small boy, a desperate one.

“It’s possible, isn’t it?” I demanded.

“Anything is possible in this damnable business,” he admitted with a groan. “Nevertheless I am no hypnotist, Miss Adams, and I’d stake my life that Sheila is incapable of murder. Somebody has framed her by means of mental suggestion, just as you figured out, but I don’t dare face Sheriff Latham with that theory, any more than I dare let him know that the door between your room and Sheila’s was unlocked this afternoon; not, at least, until I have smoked the murderer out.”

He drew a long breath. “Give me an hour, just another hour,” he pleaded.

I hesitated, although as a rule I am not an indecisive person, and at that moment Butch came down the hall with Sheila Kelly in custody. She looked worse than ever, paler and more dejected if possible, but as she passed she glanced up at me and tried to smile.

I suppose Ella is right, though I have always flattered myself otherwise, and I am a sentimental old goose. At least that is my only excuse for acceding to Chet Keith’s request.

We were all seated and Marty Butler had closed the parlour doors before I realized that our number had been augmented since our last sitting with the coroner. For a moment I did not recognize the muscular young man in the neat blue serge suit with the carefully plastered-down brown hair and guarded expression. I had seen him only once before and then he had been wearing his chauffeur’s uniform, in which he looked trimmer, especially across the shoulders.

It was not, in fact, until Chet Keith called him to the witness stand that I was certain of the man’s identity.

“You acted as chauffeur to the late Thomas Canby?” the coroner asked, referring to the notes with which Chet Keith had supplied him.

“Yes.”

“Your name is Jay Stuart?”

“Yes.”

He had a hoarse, unpleasant voice and apparently he was determined to be as laconic as possible. He kept glancing at Chet Keith with unconcealed antagonism. Later I found out where the newspaperman had been when I missed him from the lounge. He was spying upon Mr Jay Stuart, much to the latter’s discomfiture.

“How long have you been in Mr Canby’s employ?” was the coroner’s next question.

“Three months or so.”

“What was your occupation before that?”

The man frowned and hesitated, and Chet Keith leaned a little forward. “You may as well spill it, Stuart. I’ve checked up on you, and how!”

It was then I realized what job Chet Keith had browbeaten his colleague Soaper into.

“There’s no disgrace in being a bodyguard,” growled the chauffeur.

The coroner looked blank, and Chet Keith went ahead to explain with a genial smile, “Certainly there’s nothing disgraceful in hiring out to protect a man who feels in need of protection. As I have taken the trouble to ascertain, Mr Stuart has served in that capacity on the pay rolls of several more or less distinguished persons who felt safer with him in their vicinity.”

The chauffeur’s hard small eyes flashed. “If you have done as much checking up as you claim, wise guy, you know there ain’t never been any complaints about my services.”

“No,” said Chet Keith, “your former employers seem to be of the unanimous opinion that you are efficient, so far as your peculiar talents go.”

“When I hire out to look after a bird I look after him,” growled the other.

“Nevertheless,” said Chet Keith softly, “Thomas Canby was murdered.”

The man slumped slightly in his chair. “Yep,” he muttered, “they got him.”

“With you on the job?” drawled Chet Keith.

Jay Stuart’s shoulders squirmed. “With me on the job,” he acquiesced with every evidence of chagrin.