The Deep Lake Mystery

“No, I don’t,” and she looked about wonderingly. “Of course, there are lots of them in the village, but I know of none among the servants’ families or in the neighbourhood at all. I don’t agree with Doctor Rogers. It’s too fantastic to think of a child coming along here at that time of night and getting into the house – Oh, the very idea is ridiculous.”

“I agree to that,” said Hart. “But how can we explain the feather duster and the food and all that?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure,” Alma declared, “but any man who was diabolically minded enough to drive a nail into the head of a sleeping victim would have a distorted brain, and might have done all those queer things. But cannot you detectives and policemen find out the truth?”

Her tone was appealing, she seemed to be asking their help, and I marvelled afresh at her poise and calm.

“You and Mrs. Dallas are friendly?” Coroner Hart broke out, abruptly.

“Oh, yes. We are not intimates, she is older than I am. But we have never had anything but the pleasantest of interviews.”

“You are friendly with Mr. Ames?”

“In a general way, yes. He too, is so much older than I am that I have never given him a thought save as a friend of my uncle’s. I don’t know Mr. Ames very well, but I’ve certainly no unfriendly feelings toward him.”

I wondered at myself. Why did I so admire this girl, so respect her, and yet have an undercurrent of fear for her? She was utterly frank, perfectly straightforward, to all appearances, yet – probably influenced by what I knew – I couldn’t believe in her.

She was so self-possessed, so unafraid in her attitude and expression of face, that I had no real reason to doubt her good faith.

But I did, and I determined to watch Alma Remsen carefully and to the exclusion of everybody else connected with the mystery.

Moreover, I determined to keep my knowledge to myself. I wasn’t sure whether I should tell Moore eventually or not, but at any rate, I wasn’t ready to tell him yet.

After a few questions, which seemed to me of no real importance, Alma was excused and Mrs. Dallas was summoned.

What a different type of woman!

She was, as I learned later, about thirty, but her hair had turned prematurely gray, almost white. She wore it short, a soft, curly bob, that framed her young-looking face with a sort of halo.

Her eyes were gray, too, with dark lashes, and her complexion was perfect. That lovely creamy flesh, with a soft sheen on it that needed, I felt sure, no aid of cosmetics.

Her mouth was a Cupid’s bow, and her smile was that of a siren.

I gazed at her, because I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

True, I had seen her the night before at the Moores’ dinner party, but she hadn’t looked like this then. At the dinner she had seemed out of sorts, and unsmiling.

Now, she was animated and fascinating.

A strange idea came to me. Suppose she had killed Sampson Tracy, wouldn’t she adopt this attitude of charm to wheedle the Coroner?

Then I laughed at my own foolishness. Why, of all people, would Katherine Dallas kill the man she was about to marry? The wealthy, powerful magnate, who was ready to dower her with everything heart could wish and put her at the head of his great establishment. Of course not. She had no motive, nor had she opportunity. Even if she possessed a latchkey, which might well be, she couldn’t come to the house in the dead of night, and get away again, without being seen by somebody.

Although, I was forced to admit, whoever killed the man had gone to his room in the dead of night, and had got away again, unseen, so far as we could learn. How had he got away? Well, that question was as yet unanswered.

Even now, I realized, Coroner Hart was asking Mrs. Dallas her opinion on this very matter.

“I can’t imagine,” she said, and I was angry with myself to realize that her voice had in it no ring of a false note, no hint of insincerity.

“It is too impossible,” she went on, her lovely face alight with interest, “whoever killed Mr. Tracy had to get out of that room and leave the door locked behind him, but how could he do it?”

“Dived out of the window,” suggested Keeley, to hear what she would say.

“Then he was a master diver,” she told him. “Deep Lake, or as they call it here, the Sunless Sea, is not only very deep, but it is full of hidden rocks and there are strong eddies and currents, – oh, it is a dangerous hole!”

“There’s the alternative of a secret passage,” Moore went on. “Did you ever hear of one?”

“No, and I doubt there being such. I mean, the house, though of complicated structure, is modern and I’m quite sure it hasn’t any concealed or subterranean passages. If it had, I think Mr. Tracy would have spoken of them to me.”

“Why do you feel so sure of that?”

“Only because he told me everything. I mean he was confidential by nature and I’ve never known him to have a secret from me.”

“Why didn’t Mr. Tracy attend the dinner last night at which you were a guest?”

She coloured a little, but answered frankly: “We had had a little tiff, and he was, while not really angry at me, just enough annoyed to stay home from the party. I think he regretted having declined the invitation, but then it was too late to change his mind.”

“What was your disagreement about?”

“Must I tell that?”

“I think you’d better, Mrs. Dallas.”

“I greatly prefer not to.”

“Still I must request it.”

“Well, then, he had said he wanted to tell me something about his niece, Miss Remsen.”

“Something unpleasant?”

“I feared so. I didn’t know. But he said it was a thing I ought to know about if I was coming into the family.”

“He gave you no hint as to the purport of his disclosures?”

“He wanted to, but I wouldn’t listen. I told him I didn’t want to hear it, at any rate, not then.”

“Why did you take that attitude in the matter?”

“I’ll try to explain. I have known Mr. Tracy about a year. I’ve been engaged to him about three months. Now, he had never mentioned this thing before. So I had a feeling that he had spoken impulsively, and perhaps on thinking it over would change his mind about telling me.”

“And you had no curiosity about it?”

“Oh, no, not beyond a natural wonder as to what it could be. But I am very fond of Alma Remsen, and I was positive it couldn’t be anything really serious. Perhaps an early love affair or escapade that would be better left buried in oblivion.”

“So you had words over it all.”

“Yes, I was so insistent that he should not tell me, and he so equally insistent that I should hear it, that we had a real quarrel.”