The Deep Lake Mystery

This was fine talk, but to me it didn’t ring true. If Ames had done the foul deed himself, he might have put forth this very line of argument. He might have demanded the services of a great detective, feeling sure nobody could detect his guilt.

Well, it wasn’t up to me to decide these things.

A few more inquiries of small importance finished up Ames’s testimony and then Mrs. Dallas was questioned.

She was dignified of appearance and calm of speech. She said she was the fiancée of Mr. Tracy and they had expected to be married in the fall. She said they occasionally had little differences, but always made them up and were really very fond of one another. Her statements were all rational and straightforward. She spoke as might a cultured and mature woman of her accepted suitor.

Asked as to the terms of Mr. Tracy’s will, she replied that so far as she knew his fortune was left to his niece, Miss Remsen. But, she added, he had told her that after they were married, he would change his will and make suitable arrangements for his wife. She said she had given the matter no thought, knowing that Mr. Tracy would do what was right.

This seemed to remove from her any possible suspicion that might have formed in the minds of the jury. Surely, Mrs. Dallas had no reason to kill the man she loved and expected to marry.

No reference was made to the disagreement the engaged pair had had, and which had resulted in Mr. Tracy’s absence from the Moores’ dinner party.

I rejoiced at this, for I dreaded to have Alma’s name brought in at all. But as I thought it over, I became a little alarmed. Had Hart omitted the point in order to tax Alma herself with it later? To ask her what was the tale her uncle desired to tell Mrs. Dallas? To see if it could be some disgraceful story that might militate against the girl herself?

The two secretaries followed Mrs. Dallas.

Everett, quiet-mannered and polite, as always, answered questions readily enough, but offered no additional information.

He repeated his story of the evening, how he had been with Mr. Tracy until about ten o’clock, and then had gone to his room and to bed.

“You heard no unusual sounds during the night?”

“No,” said Everett, but it seemed to me he had hesitated.

Hart must have noticed this, too, for he said, “Are you quite sure? No sounds inside the house or out?”

Apparently Charlie Everett was a truthful man. But it was equally evident he did not want to testify further.

“I must press you for an answer, Mr. Everett,” the Coroner prodded him.

“Well, to be strictly accurate, I may say that I thought I heard the sound of a boat on the lake some time after midnight.”

“What sort of boat?”

“I don’t know. And it may not have been any. I was asleep, and I partially awaked and seemed to hear a slight sound as of paddles. But it may well be that I dreamed it, for I heard no further sounds.”

“Do you know the time this happened?”

“No, except that I seemed to have been asleep some hours. I thought nothing of it, and directly went to sleep again.”

“You didn’t look out of the window?”

“No, I didn’t rise from my bed.”

I thanked my lucky stars that he hadn’t! That he hadn’t seen Alma Remsen, in her canoe, some time after midnight!

But if the Coroner thought much about this bit of evidence he gave no sign of doing so, and the rest of the inquiries he put to Everett were of a stereotyped sort and led nowhere.

Then came Billy Dean. That cheerful young man was chipper as always and told all he had to tell in a clear and concise way.

“Did you hear any sound in the night as of a passing boat?” Hart asked him.

“No,” Dean declared, and his voice was steady and all would have been well but that the silly chap turned brick red from the roots of his hair to the top of his collar.

“Then,” said Hart, with a full intention of embarrassing him, “why are you blushing like a turkey cock?”

“I’m not!” Dean stormed at him, getting redder yet. “But you barge into me with sudden questions and it knocks me off my base.”

Clever! His winning smile and his sudden carrying of the war into the enemy’s quarters succeeded, as I was sure he had hoped, in diverting the jury’s attention from his palpable mendacity.

“Then you heard no boat?” Hart went back to his subject.

“I heard a motor boat, but that was about twelve o’clock,” Dean said, reminiscently. “I heard none later, for I went to sleep then.”

He had himself perfectly in hand, now, and though I confidently believed he had seen Alma Remsen in her canoe, I knew, too, that wild horses couldn’t drag the fact from him.

“And you heard no further noises?”

“Not till morning, when Everett rapped on my door, and told me to get up.”

There seemed to be nothing more to get out of young Dean, and he was dismissed. He had made a good effect on the jury, I could see that. Since they didn’t have my knowledge of the girl in the boat, they were not greatly interested in the vague sounds mentioned by Everett.

In fact, I could gather from the whole trend of the inquest that suspicion centred on the inmates of the house. There was little thought given to the outer world.

Then Alma Remsen was called.

Without asking permission, Mrs. Merivale rose and went with her charge to the witness chair. She took another chair beside Alma, and her big, hard face looked like a tower of strength, should such be needed.

“You were not at this house on Wednesday evening or night at any time?” the Coroner said. It was more a statement than a question, and it sounded to me as if Hart wanted to shut up this point once and for all.

“No, I was not,” Alma replied, and I hoped nobody except me noticed the quivering of her eyelids.

That was the only way she showed any nervousness. Her hands lay quietly in her lap, her lips were not trembling, her eyes were clear and steady in their gaze, but the eyelids fluttered once, twice, as if she was holding herself together by sheer force of will.

“Where were you that evening?”

“At home, in my own house.”

“All the evening?”

“Yes.”

“Who is your companion?”

“Mrs. Merivale. My housekeeper and friend.”

“Will she corroborate your presence in your home?”