The Curved Blades

“No, no; be calm, my dear sir. I ask you but one question. Is this your glove?”

The Inspector took the glove from his pocket and offered it to the Count.

The Frenchman took it, examined it minutely and without haste.

“No, sir,” he said, returning it; “that is not my property.”

“Thank you, that is all,” and the Inspector put the glove back in his pocket.

“There is no doubt as to the main facts,” said the Inspector, a half hour later, as, with the members of the family he summed up what had been found out from all known sources. “The assailant was most certainly a burglarious intruder; the weapon, this ‘black-jack’; the motive, robbery. Why the robbery was not achieved and what is the meaning of the unexplained circumstances of the whole affair, we do not yet know. They are matters to be investigated, but they cannot greatly affect the principal conditions. You may be thankful, Miss Stuart, that the sad death of your aunt was undoubtedly painless; and also that the thief did not succeed in his attempt to purloin the valuable gems.”

The Inspector’s speech might seem cold-hearted, but Brunt was a practical man, and he was truly glad for himself that in addition to finding the murderer he did not also have to recover a fortune of rare jewels.

“Now,” he went on, “as to the maid, Estelle. I have talked with her, but she is so hysterical and her stories so contradictory, that I am inclined to the opinion that she has some sort of guilty knowledge or at least suspicion of the intruder. The man was stocking-footed, and it is a pity, Miss Stuart, that you erased that footprint on the floor! But it would have been of doubtful use, I dare say. We have found faint tracks of the powder on the steps of the staircase, and though the last ones are almost indiscernible they seem to lead through the butler’s pantry, and to an exit by that window. But the window was found fastened this morning, so, if it was used as a means for the burglar’s getaway, it must have been fastened afterward by some person inside. Could this person have been the maid, Estelle?”

“Sure it could!” exclaimed Haviland, who was an interested listener. “That girl is a sly one! I caught her this morning, trying to take away that glass of milk. I told her to let it alone.”

“Why?” asked the Inspector.

“Because I thought if she wanted to get it away, there must be some reason for her to want it! What was it?”

“Nonsense!” and Anita looked scornfully at Gray; “naturally, Estelle would do up the rooms, and would, of course, remove the remains of Miss Lucy’s night luncheon.”

“But that’s just it!” said Haviland, triumphantly: “she didn’t take the plate that had had sandwiches on it! If she had, I should have thought nothing of it. But she took the glass of milk, in a furtive, stealthy way, that made me look at her. She turned red, and trembled, and I told her to set the glass down. She pretended not to hear, so I told her again. Then she obeyed. But she glared at me like a tigress.”

“Oh, rubbish!” said Anita. “She was annoyed at being interfered with in her work, and perhaps fearful of being censured.”

“All right,” said Haviland, “then there’s no harm done. If that girl is entirely innocent, what I said won’t hurt her. But she looked to me as if on a secret errand and a desperate one.”

“What puzzles me is,” mused the Inspector, “why she persists in saying that she left the tray in good order in the room, – though it was discovered an hour later, upset, – when we know that Miss Carrington had been dead since, at least, two or three o’clock.”

“Look here, Inspector,” and Haviland frowned, “if the murder was committed at two or three o’clock, how is it that Mrs. Frothingham saw the intruder escaping at four or later?”

“There is a discrepancy there,” admitted Brunt, “but it may be explained away. The doctors cannot be sure until the autopsy is completed of the exact hour of death, and, too, the lady next door may have made an error in time.”

“Well, I’ll inform you that Estelle did upset that tray herself,” said Pauline with an air of finality.

“How do you know?” and Inspector Brunt peered at her over his glasses.

“It was while Gray was telephoning for the doctor,” said Pauline, reminiscently, “that I looked carefully at that overturned tray.”

“I know it,” said Haviland, “I told you not to touch anything.”

“I know that, but I did. I picked up from the débris, this;” and Pauline held up to view a tiny hairpin of the sort called ‘invisible.’

“It is Estelle’s,” she said; “see, it is the glistening bronze color of her hair. Anita has gold-colored ones, and I do not use these fine wire ones. I use only shell. Moreover, I know this is Estelle’s, – don’t you, Anita?”

“It may be.”

“It is. And its presence there, on the tray, proves that she let the tray fall in her surprise at seeing Aunt Lucy, and in her trembling excitement loosened and dropped this hairpin. Doubtless, she flung her hand up to her head – a not unusual gesture of hers – and so dislodged it.”

Brunt looked closely at the speaker. “You’ve got it all fixed up, haven’t you, Miss Stuart?”

Pauline flushed slightly. “I didn’t ‘fix it up,’ as you call it, but I did gather, from what I saw, that the truth must be as I have stated; and in my anxiety to learn anything possible as to the mystery of this crime, I secured what may or may not be a bit of evidence. As Mr. Haviland has said, if Estelle is entirely innocent of any complicity in the matter, these things can’t hurt her. But it would scarcely be possible for her to have been so careless as to drop a hairpin on the tray without noticing it, if she were not startled and flurried by something that took her mind and eyes entirely away from her duties.”

“I think you are purposely making a great deal out of nothing,” remarked Anita; “it seems unfair, to say the least, to condemn the poor girl on such trifling evidence.”

The talk was interrupted by the entrance of the Coroner and the two doctors.

“It is found,” said Coroner Scofield, “that the cause of Miss Carrington’s death was not the blow on the head.”

The Inspector looked his amazement, and the others sat with receptively blank countenances waiting further disclosures.

“No,” went on Scofield, “we find in the stomach unmistakable traces of poison.”

“Poison!” It was Anita’s frightened whisper; “who would poison her?”

“What kind of poison?” asked Brunt.

“Aconitine; deadly and sure. It leaves little trace, but certain tests reveal it beyond all doubt. That is why we have been so long. The tests are difficult of performance. But, it is over, and we report that Miss Lucy Carrington was poisoned by aconitine, administered either by her own hand or another.”

“Oh, she never would poison herself!” cried Anita; “who did it?”

“And the blow on the head?” said Inspector Brunt, looking deeply perplexed.

“Her death, from poison, occurred at or near two o’clock,” asserted the Coroner; “the blow on the head was given after life had departed.”

“Incredible!” said Brunt.

“It is, indeed, Inspector. But those are the facts. The heavy blow fractured the skull, but left no bruise or mark, nor was there any blood from the cut scalp. In addition we have the poison found in the system, and the death symptoms of quiet, placid dissolution which are consequent always on that particular poison.”

“Could it have been self-administered?” asked Brunt.

“Not by Miss Carrington,” said Doctor Stanton, decidedly. “The lady has been my patient for years, and she had an absolute abhorrence of all sorts of drugs or medicines. She made more fuss over taking a simple powder than a spoiled child. I have often prescribed for her, knowing full well she would not take my prescriptions because of her detestation of taking medicine. When remedies have been really necessary, I have had to administer them while with her, and a difficult task it was. Moreover, my patient was not of the temperament or disposition to seek death for herself, nor had she any reason to do so. No; the case is murder; the poison was administered by some one who wished for her death and deliberately set out to accomplish it, – and succeeded.”

“Is the action of this poison instantaneous?” asked Brunt.

“No; death ensues about a half hour to an hour after the dose is taken into the system.”

“Then, we gather that the poison was taken in the neighborhood of one o’clock, last night.”

“Yes,” agreed the Coroner, “about one o’clock.”

“About one o’clock!” whispered Anita, in an awe-struck, gasping way, and her great blue eyes stared dazedly into the dark ones of Pauline.

VII

THE INQUEST