The Crooked Cross - Sách nói Miễn phí

Chapter X.
The Face at the Window

As we went up the hill which led to the eight-sided building in which we had found the murdered scientist, we concluded the chief had arrived. The lights were streaming out of the windows and the front door was slightly open. As we passed within the chief came over from the desk in the center of the room. I introduced him to Bartley and he shook his hand with evident pleasure.

For a few moments the two men talked. The chief told us the room was untouched from the night of the crime. After we had left he had stationed one of his policemen in the library. He said that he did not want the place overrun with people, and he knew that until the secretary had been found there was no way for him to tell if anything was missing. The room had not been entered by any one, though there had been hundreds of people drawn by curiosity who had wished to look within.

Bartley's eyes swept around the book-lined walls and then came to rest on the big desk in the center of the room. I told him where we had found the body and he slowly walked over to the place I pointed out. The chairs were just as we had found them and I mentioned what Ranville had said regarding the murderer sitting across from Warren. He slowly nodded his head in approval and then, turning, his keen eyes saw the broken glass in the bookcase.

I told him we had found it in that condition; and he went over to the case and, bending down, looked at the contents. Pulling first one and then another of the thin books from the case, he glanced at their title page, only to return them to the shelf. He spent some little time at the row which had the gaps in it, and I saw him half frown as he looked at every book on that shelf. He was just starting to say something when a voice from the door called:

“I hope I have not kept you waiting.”

We turned to see the secretary coming across the floor. She had changed her light dress for one of some darker material, and her face was very serious. As she cast a glance at the desk, I saw her shudder, and her cheeks grew a little pale. But there was nothing of fear in the frank glance she gave the chief and the rather curious look which went over Bartley and Ranville. The chief introduced her to the two men, and in a few words told them what she had said had been the reason she left her work so suddenly. When he had finished her face flushed as she spoke:

“I have been thinking ever since you told me of Mr. Warren's death how very foolish I was to have used the expression that I did. I never meant anything by it—simply let my temper run away with me.”

I saw Bartley's cool glance as he studied her, and then there came a little smile around his lips as he said:

“Miss Harlan, it is the privilege of young women to lose their tempers. Only in your case it happened that what you said became public. I am sure the chief will agree with me that you are sorry you said what you did; but though there will naturally fall some suspicion because of your going away, yet I think we can take care of that.”

The chief nodded and a grateful look swept over the girl's face. I judged from her expression that it had come over her the last few hours in what a peculiar situation she was in. That she knew the slightest thing about the murder, I doubted. And I knew from Bartley's expression he felt the same way. Just what the chief might think I could not tell. His heavy face wore a rather bewildered look and as he glanced around the room it struck me that he hardly knew what his next step should be.

Bartley must have sensed the chief's feeling, for he turned, saying:

“Chief, I have had a great deal of experience in these kinds of cases; I thought perhaps you might let me ask Miss Harlan a few questions. It has been a difficult afternoon for her, and she needs a little rest. Perhaps I can gain all the information she has to give in a few moments.”

The chief jumped at the suggestion and Bartley, turning to the girl, asked her to tell us in detail just what she and Warren did in the hours they passed in the library. There was not much to tell. Warren was working over his notes—the notes of his expedition to Mongolia. He would dictate a chapter which she would type, and then he would go over it and correct it. The book, she judged, was half done, for he had told her the day before she left him that the most important half was coming. I judged from what she said that there had been no regular hours for work; sometimes they would work until late in the evening; sometimes they would stop at six.

“Did you have many callers at the library?” asked Bartley.

“No one,” was the reply. “Mr. Warren refused to see any one here. Sometimes some one would come, but I always met them and they never even got within the room.”

“How about the telephone?” questioned Ranville. “I see there are two.”

She nodded. “Yes, one connects directly with the house; the housekeeper used that to get Mr. Warren. The other ran outside. But there were not many calls that came through—maybe two or three a day, sometimes not even one.”

There was a little smile around Bartley's lips as he asked the next question. But it was a very pleasing smile—one which caused the serious look to leave the girl's face.

“Now, Miss Harlan, you say that the work was rather hard, that you sometimes were here twelve and fourteen hours a day. I judge also Mr. Warren was not the easiest person to work with. Now, tell us just what happened the afternoon you left him—what made you angry.”

The secretary's face reddened, but her eyes met Bartley's bravely. “You are right when you say Mr. Warren was not easy to work for, but perhaps—it was more my fault than his. He was a very nervous man whose mind worked very quickly. I had never done this kind of work before. Not only were the terms he used in dictating new to me, but there were long lists of references which I had to verify. The afternoon of his death I had been planning to go to a dance in the evening. About three o'clock Mr. Warren told me we would work until ten; that made me a little angry. Then he decided he wanted to have two pages copied from one of the books in that case.”

She pointed to the case with the broken door and, seeing our inquiring look, explained:

“It was not broken when I left. Mr. Warren always kept that case locked. But he sent me for a book and when I got it he found two pages that I was to copy in his notes. I started to look at the book and there were pictures in it.” Her face flushed very red as the recollection came to her.

“Pictures?” asked Bartley. “What have they to do with it?”

“Perhaps nothing, sir,” was her quick response. “I was pretty tired, and it was warm. Naturally, I felt disappointed over having to work until ten. And then I saw those pictures, and they were very bad—I never saw anything like them.”

She paused, then went on quickly: “Mr. Warren asked me what was the matter and I told him. He said he did not hire me to comment on the morality of his books and that led me to get angry. I told him I had a good mind to leave him. He laughed and said he judged he could find a good many better typists than myself. So—so I simply told him I was through. I went to the house and got my bag. You know the rest.”

“What was the book?” was Bartley's question.

“De Sade's ‘Justine’—the third volume.”

“And did you place it back in the case?”

She shook her head. “No, I locked the case and gave the key to Mr. Warren. But the volume was on the desk when I left.”

We had looked the desk over after the murder, but there had been no book of that description. It would have been easy to have seen it, because of the shape and because the books in that case were almost all bound in white vellum or red morocco. I told Bartley this, and he went over to the case, returning with a book—a book bound in red—which he simply handed to me. It was the first volume of the original ten-volume edition of De Sade's work. I gave it one look and said that I had not seen it on the desk.

He turned to the girl. “It was bound like this, was it not?”

“No,” was her rather surprising answer. “It was not. There were six books in the set. Mr. Warren said that the last eight volumes were bound two to a book. For some reason the second volume and the other four were bound in white. This one was red—the only one of the set with that color for a cover.”

I saw a curious smile play over Bartley's face. Slowly, he turned the pages of the book, and then to my surprise he placed it in his pocket. Then, turning to the girl, he asked:

“Now, did any one call the library on the telephone during the afternoon?”

“Two people, both men. I do not know who they were. Mr. Warren answered the phone. I don't even know what they wanted.”

“And do you know if Mr. Warren was expecting any visitor?”

“Not that I know of,” was her response. “In fact I doubt it very much.”

Though other questions were asked her, she knew nothing more of value. She did say the windows and the door were left open while they were working, but that Mr. Warren had them closed every evening. When she left the library the windows were all open and she could not account for any reason why they should be closed. Then, at our request, she went carefully over the room in an attempt to discover if anything had been disturbed. But when she had finished, she was forced to admit that nothing had been touched.

For a moment after she made this statement we stood silent, wondering just what our next move could be; and then came Bartley's voice:

“Miss Harlan, where did Mr. Warren keep his manuscript and the notes of his trip to China?”

She pointed to the large safe which stood near the door. As Bartley went over to look at it, I followed him. It was a rather large safe and, as I expected, it was locked. Bartley stood looking at it a moment, only to turn when the girl said:

“I know the combination, Mr. Bartley. Mr. Warren had me lock it every night. Also open it at times. He always used the same combination.”

At the chief's suggestion she came over to the safe and, bending down, fumbled for a moment or so with the lock. The first time she tried she did not get the right combination, but the next trial resulted in the door being opened. The interior of the safe was of the usual type, save for the fact that there seemed far more space than is usual. This open space at the lower half was filled with a mass of papers which no one disturbed. At Bartley's request after his short examination she closed the safe, giving him the combination which he wrote down in a little red note book.

We slowly returned to the center of the room, no one speaking. The girl's story had added little, if anything, to our knowledge. So far as we could tell nothing in the room had been disturbed or even touched. As to gaining any knowledge which would aid us in solving the mystery of Warren's death, we were in the same position as before. I think the chief was thinking this, for I saw him glance slowly around the room and then shake his head. And then Ranville's voice broke the silence.

“Miss Harlan, there is just one thing you might explain. You said that you were angry because Mr. Warren wished you to work until ten o'clock. Did you expect he was to be with you in the library?”

“No,” was the reply. “In fact, I knew he would not have been. He had a dinner he was giving to three men. But there were notes which had to be typed. He would have corrected the manuscript the next morning. That's why I would have had to stay so late. He was in a hurry to finish the book, you know.”

“Fine,” came the drawling voice of the Englishman. “And now did you ever hear some silly story about Mr. Warren having a box with the bone—excuse me—the ashes of Buddha in it?”

The girl's eyes grew large as she gazed at Ranville. I could see that she thought he was joking, and at his next remark her eyes grew even larger as he asked:

“And did any Chinaman come around here to see Mr. Warren?”

She shook her head, saying she knew nothing of either a Chinaman or a box with ashes in it. It was clear she did not even understand what he was talking about, for she glanced at both the chief and Bartley as if asking for information. But instead of replying the chief reached into his pocket and came forth with a long envelope. Very slowly he opened it and brought forth a piece of paper. As I saw the torn sheet, I recognized it. It was the letter I had found on the desk. Approaching the girl and holding the letter where she could read it, he asked:

“Did you ever see that?”

She carefully read the few lines, and then shook her head. Bartley's hand went out for the sheet of paper and as he took it I told him where we had found it. He said nothing for a moment, then turned to the girl:

“Did you open Mr. Warren's mail?” he asked.

“As a rule I did. I never saw that letter. And I never heard anything about a Chinaman or any box of ashes of any kind.”

As Bartley gazed at his watch he said that it was rather late, and that perhaps Ranville would be willing to drive the secretary home in our car. Ranville nodded his assent and said that he would come back for us, to which Bartley replied by saying that we could walk back to the house. As the Englishman and the girl started for the door Bartley, who was by the desk, bent forward to pick something from the floor. Then he called to the secretary.

“Miss Harlan, who cleaned this room?”

She had reached the door, but turned to answer him.

“Why, Jimmy—the man who works around the grounds. He swept every morning before we came to work.”

“Did he clean the room the day of the murder?”

“Yes, he was here when I came; had just finished.” She paused, waiting for another question, but instead Bartley said “Good night,” and she went outside. When she had gone, he turned to the chief and myself.

“I picked this up on the floor,” he said, holding some object in his hand. We came closer to see what it was. As we looked we saw a small bone hairpin, which we gazed at without speaking. As he placed it in his pocket, he said:

“It may not mean a single thing. The secretary has her hair bobbed, so, of course, she does not use hairpins. But if the man cleaned up the place the morning of the murder he must have overlooked this.”

No one made any reply, and the chief stood looking rather moodily at the desk. Then he asked:

“What do you think about that letter?”

Instead of replying, Bartley walked over to the typewriting stand. The typewriter was covered, but he took the cover off. Finding a piece of blank paper, he placed it in the machine and struck several of the keys, then wrote a sentence. He turned to ask that the chief let him see the letter, and then evidently copied something from it. Pulling from the machine the sheet upon which he had written, he compared the two for a moment. Then he said.

“I do not know, chief, what to say regarding that letter. It was written on this machine, however.”

There came a grunt from the chief, and the words:

“It was?”

“Yes. There is no doubt of it. This machine is a bit out of alignment; the letters ‘e’ and ‘a’ are very much worn. You will find the same markings in the letter you found on the desk and in the copy I struck off.”

A comparison of the two sheets of paper convinced the chief and me that they had, indeed, been written upon the same typewriter, the one upon the stand before us. The letters Bartley mentioned were a little worn and both copies showed the same markings. Not only that, the ribbon was rather old, and the type bars seemed out of alignment. As we saw these facts, the chief well expressed my opinion when he said in a very amazed voice:

“I guess you are right. But what under heavens does it mean?”

Bartley reached for his cigar case, and then he handed it to us. We all took a cigar and after Bartley had lighted his he said:

“I can only tell you what I think it might mean, Chief. The letter was written after Warren was killed—written to be discovered.”

“How do you make that out?” was the query.

“Well, it seems very logical to say that if the person who wrote it had not wished any one to see it, he or she would have destroyed the entire letter. To simply tear off the signature—if there was one—meant nothing. If they wished to have no one see the letter they would have destroyed it all. Then, it is written on this typewriter. The secretary says that no one was in the library during the time she was here on that last day. I do not think she wrote it; the murderer might have done so, and if so, he wrote it to make you think just what you did think.”

As the chief's eyes expressed his wonder, Bartley added:

“Suppose, for instance, that the person who killed Warren did it in a sudden fit of frenzy. Then, when the deed was over, there came the second cooler thought—he had committed a murder. Criminals, that is, all that I know, always make mistakes. This one realized he was pretty safe, but he thought he had better make it safer, throw suspicion on some one else. Seeing the typewriter, he wrote that part of the letter you see, and left it where he knew some one would find it. And by doing that he defeated the very thing he wanted us to think. For if he had not left that portion, we would not have known anything about it. It is a very mysterious murder at the best, and this makes it more so.”

“You're right when you say it is a mysterious murder,” shot forth the chief. “It's damned mysterious. And here am I—without any clews, without any sort of a chance to solve it. There is nothing missing even from the room.”

“Oh, yes, there is,” came Bartley's quick comment.

“There is not,” answered the chief. “That girl knows the room, everything in it. She says there is nothing missing.”

“But then she is mistaken,” was the cool reply.

As the chief started to speak, he went on:

“The girl told you the truth, and yet she is mistaken. There is something missing. It is the rest of that edition of De Sade,” and he pointed to the red-covered book which he placed on the surface of the desk.

The chief's eyes went to the book, but he glanced at it as if he did not believe what Bartley had said. Then, as he turned, he burst out:

“What do you mean?”

“This, Chief. I happen to know about this edition of De Sade's ‘Justine.’ It is not very common, though it is very famous; perhaps I had better say ‘infamous.’ The original edition was in ten small volumes with one hundred illustrations—illustrations as bad as the text. The author, a pathological case, spent most of his time in insane asylums, sent there first by Napoleon. He was not insane, however, in the strict sense of the word. Now, as I said, there were ten volumes. The secretary said that the last eight volumes of the set Mr. Warren had were bound two to a book; the first two were not.”

There was a perplexed look on the chief's face. He was trying to follow Bartley, but did not seem to understand just what it was all about. Seeing this, Bartley explained:

“What I mean is this. Mr. Warren's set contained six bound books. Five of them, the girl said, were bound in white vellum. The first volume was bound in red morocco. That case was locked during the afternoon. Some one smashed the glass, so it could not have been Mr. Warren who took the books. They took what they thought was the entire set or edition. But they made a mistake, a natural one—”

“What was that?” came the chief's insistent voice.

“A very logical and very simple mistake. They saw the books were all bound in white vellum; so they were—all but the first volume—that was red morocco. They took the five books thinking they had the set, but left the red one behind. No doubt they were so upset they did not think of looking very closely. But they took the books all right. That is what is missing from the room.”

“But, my God, Mr. Bartley,” broke in the chief, “no one would murder a man for five books.”

Bartley laughed. “If you knew the history of crime, Chief, you would know there have been several murders over a book. One man not only killed his best friend to secure the possession of a rare book he had, but burned his house after the crime. Yet in a sense you are right. I fail to understand why any one should kill Warren for this particular set.”

“Are they worth much?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Not much as rare books go. The work has been reprinted under cover. You can buy it for about twenty-five dollars in Europe. I doubt if the original edition is worth over two hundred. And the type of man who would steal that sort of a book after committing a murder is—”

Suddenly he paused as if a new thought had suddenly come to him, but what it was he did not say. There came the voice of the chief, and there was such a complaining tone in his voice that I almost laughed.

“You know, Mr. Bartley, this thing has me all upset. There has not been a murder in the village for years and years. Now comes this thing and the papers are full of it. What to do I do not know. And there seems to be no reason on earth why Mr. Warren was murdered.”

No one made any reply to his plaintive remark, and there came a silence for a moment which he broke by saying:

“I forgot to tell Florence that I had a long distance call from that man who is going to finish Mr. Warren's book—Patton, I think the name was. He wants her to act as his secretary, like she did for Warren; said that she knew more about his papers than any one else. But then I can get her in the morning.”

There seemed to be little more that we could do, and we started for the door; before we reached it the chief asked:

“Do you think, Mr. Bartley, that the murderer closed those windows which were found locked?”

“There seems no reason why he should have done it,” was the reply. “I would say that Mr. Warren had closed them himself. He must have been just on the verge of leaving for the house to get ready for dinner. Let us say he had closed the windows for the night when some one came. There would be no real reason why the murderer should have closed them.”

As he paused, I turned to glance at the windows. They were placed above the bookcases—one window for each of the eight sides of the building. And then, as my eyes went to the central window, I gave a gasp and then a sudden cry. For there, peering through the window, was a face—a face whose outlines were far from plain. But I could see the hat pulled low over the eyes, and the eyes themselves, which seemed to meet my own. For an instant I saw them, and as our glance met, the face disappeared. But for a second I had seen it—a man's face peering through the central window into the room.