The Deep Lake Mystery

“All right, go on. What’s the widow’s motive?”

I knew Moore’s methods. He liked to have us make suggestions that he could accept or discard, thereby giving his mind something to work on.

“We can’t get at her motive,” I told him, “because we know too little about her. A personal interview with her is needed, and then she would probably, or at least perhaps, let slip some hint of why she wanted Sampson Tracy out of her way.”

“She’d have to hate him,” said Maud, doubtfully.

“Whoever killed him must have hated him,” Kee declared. “It was a brutal murder – ”

“Don’t over-stress the brutality,” Lora put in. “It was horrible, of course, but to my mind it was less dreadful than shooting or stabbing.”

“Where did the murderer get his nail?” mused Kee.

“The nail and the hammer,” Lora said, “inclines me to the servants, or the secretaries. I can’t see Mrs. Dallas or Alma Remsen coming to the house armed with a hammer and nail! They might bring a pistol or a dagger, but the implement used must have been picked up impulsively or impetuously, in the Tracy pantries or offices.”

“Unless the murderer acted on the story Maud told of, the Spanish story of The Nail,” I observed.

“Rather far-fetched,” Kee returned. “I’d have to see a copy of that book in a suspect’s possession before I’d take much stock in that theory.”

“I rather fancy it,” Maud insisted. “Any of our suspects, and I suppose they include all who were questioned by the coroner, may have read that book.”

“The servants?” I asked.

“Yes, often servants read books that they run across, though they’d never dream of buying them.”

“Then Griscom for choice,” Moore said. “Say his motive is a desire to get his legacy at once. Say his friendship for his master is not so great as he pretends, and there’s no question of his opportunity. Say he read that gruesome tale, and concluded it would be a fine way to get his money quickly. Then, after his deed is accomplished, he has imagination enough, or ingenuity enough to fix up all those tricks on the bed, and in his zeal he rather overdid it.”

“Your own imagination is running away with you,” I declared. “It may all be true, but you’ve no atom of proof, nor even an atom of evidence against Griscom more than any other servant. Sally Bray – ”

“Sally Bray may have been Griscom’s accomplice. Isn’t she in love with him?”

“Is she?” I inquired. “There’s the trouble, Kee, we don’t know enough facts. Is Sally in love with the butler? Is Mrs. Dallas in love with the secretary? Is Harper Ames in love with Mrs. Dallas? Get these things settled for certain, and then try to fit in your theories.”

“That’s so, Gray,” Moore agreed. “And I see Mr. Police Detective March coming our way. I hate to acknowledge it, but he may know more, in his ordinary police way, than we hifalutin, transcendent detectives have, so far, been able to ferret out.”

I glanced out of the window to see the stolid-looking man tramping along toward our door.

Although he showed little alertness or eagerness, there was a sort of power in the way he carried himself that gave me a feeling of confidence.

He came in as Kee rose to greet him, spoke to the ladies in a preoccupied way, and seated himself comfortably in a big easy chair.

“Well,” he said, “I’ve been to see the Remsen girl.”

“What about her?” Kee asked.

“Nothing, so far. She’s rattled to death, and all upset, of course, but though I think she’s trying to hide something, I’m sure it’s nothing of real importance. I mean, she thinks she knows something about somebody that seems to her of evidential value, but it isn’t.”

“How do you know it isn’t?”

“This way, Mr. Moore. She gets embarrassed at the wrong places.”

“Go on, say more about it.”

“It’s hard to explain so as to make it plausible. But when I ask her about her doings that night, or about her relations with her uncle, or her feeling towards Mrs. Dallas, she’s as unconcerned and un-self-conscious as a child. But when I refer to those waistcoats or that painted pole, she gets queer-like all in a minute.”

“And you gather from that?”

“That she is worried to death about the waistcoats because somebody must have put them in her boathouse to incriminate her, and that scares her. While any talk of the actual murder seems not to disturb her nearly so much.”

“You have imagination, Mr. March,” Moore said, looking at him with a sort of admiration. “Or you couldn’t see all that.”

“No, Mr. Moore,” the policeman looked earnest, “that’s only seeing things as they are. I saw all that in Miss Remsen’s face and attitude. It isn’t imagination a detective needs, it’s ability to read the facts right. It’s the criminal who has to have imagination.”

“This present murderer surely had it,” Moore said.

“Yes, if he is the one who fixed up the doodads around the dead man. Sometimes I think he was, and then again, I don’t see how he could have been.”

“Why?”

“Well, the murder, even though a cruel stroke, was the work of an intelligent mind. A less imaginative brain would have chosen shooting or stabbing as a method. But granting a mentality that could think of and carry out a killing like that nail business, I can’t reconcile it with a personality that would collect those gewgaws and scatter them around.”

“Why wasn’t that done with intent to mislead – ”

“Oh, mislead, yes. But why so much of it? That’s the point. A few flowers, now, even the crucifix – all right. But the exaggeration. The superfluity. The piling on of the orange and crackers, the lady’s scarf, the watch in the water pitcher – ”

“The missing waistcoats, Totem Pole, and fruit plate,” Keeley broke in, as if unable longer to keep still. “What do you make of all these things, March?”

“What I said. Exaggeration, overdoing. So, we must hunt for a nature, a temperament, that is extravagant and over generous, rather than a well-balanced mind.”

“Good work,” Keeley Moore exclaimed, for he was always ready to acclaim merit, and he thought the detective showed real insight. “And you didn’t discover this extravagant spirit in Miss Remsen?”

“Not a bit of it. She’s a lovely lady, and she may know something she’s keeping quiet about, but she had no hand in the crime. She had no hand in the decoration of the deathbed in that fantastic manner. Motive she had, opportunity she had, but after all they’re not everything.”

I blessed the man in my heart for this whole-souled acquittal of Alma, and I began to feel more interest in the matter.

“Then, who’s your pet suspect?” Kee was asking.

“I have four,” the detective answered, frankly. “Mr. Ames, Mrs. Dallas and the two secretaries.”

“Quite a net full,” Keeley smiled. “Do you care to detail your reasons? Or do you think I ought to do my own investigating?”

“No,” said March, ponderously. He was a big man, heavy of voice as of body, and he seemed to weigh his words as he spoke them. “No, Mr. Moore, I’m only too glad to tell you all I know, to give you all I get, for I know you are the one to make the deductions from my facts.”

“All right, then, go ahead. Motives first, for all four. What about the will?”

“It will be read to-morrow afternoon, after the funeral. But I will tell you the gist of it. It’s really no secret, but better not mention its terms until after they’re made public.”

Moore nodded, and March went on: