The Mystery of the Sycamore

“I asked that,” Fibsy returned, “and they were hanging on the coat-rail. I thought there might have been matches in the pockets, but they say no. There never had been matches in those coat pockets, nor any matches in the Appleby car, for that matter.”

“Well, the fire is pretty well mixed up in the murder,” declared Stone. “Now it’s up to us to find out how.”

“Ex-cuse me, Mr. Stone,” and Burdon shook his head; “you’ll never get at it that way.”

“Ex-cuse me, Mr. Burdon,” Fibsy flared back, “Mr. Stone will get at it that way, if he thinks that’s the way to look. You don’t know F. Stone yet – ”

“Hush up, Fibs; Mr. Burdon will know if I succeed, and, perhaps he’s right as to the unimportance of the fire, after all.”

“You see,” Burdon went on, unabashed, “Mr. Keefe – now, he’s some smart in the detective line – he said, find your phantom bugler, and you’ve got your murderer! Now, what nonsense that is! As if a marauding villain would announce himself by playing on a bugle!”

“Yet there may be something in it,” demurred Stone. “It may well be that the dramatic mind that staged this whole mysterious affair is responsible for the bugle call, the fire, and the final crime.”

“In that case, it’s one of the women,” Burdon said. “They could do all that, either of them, if they wanted to; but Dan Wheeler, while he could kill a man on provocation – it would be an impulsive act – not a premeditated one. No, sir! Wheeler could see red, and go Berserk, but he couldn’t plan out a complicated affair like you’re turning this case into!”

“I’m not turning it into anything,” Stone laughed. “I’m taking it as it is presented to me, but I do hold that the phantom bugler and the opportune fire are theatrical elements.”

“A theatrical element, too, is the big sycamore,” and Burdon smiled. “Now, if that tree should take a notion to walk over into Massachusetts, it would help out some.”

“What’s that?” cried Fibsy. “What do you mean?”

“Well, the Wheelers have got a letter from Appleby, written while he was still governor, and it says that when the big sycamore goes into Massachusetts, Wheeler can go, too. But it can’t be done by a trick. I mean, they can’t transplant the thing, or chop it down and take the wood over. It’s got to go of its own accord.”

“Mere teasing,” said Stone.

“Yes, sir, just that. Appleby had a great streak of teasing. He used to tease everybody just for the fun of seeing them squirm. This whole Wheeler business was the outcome of Appleby’s distorted love of fun. And Wheeler took it so seriously that Appleby kept it up. I’ll warrant, if Wheeler had treated the whole thing as a joke, Appleby would have let up on him. But Dan Wheeler is a solemn old chap, and he saw no fun in the whole matter.”

“I don’t blame him,” commented Stone. “Won’t he get pardoned now?”

“No, sir, he won’t. Some folks think he will, but I know better. The present governor isn’t much for pardoning old sentences – he says it establishes precedent and all that. And the next governor is more than likely to say the same.”

“I hear young Mr. Appleby isn’t going to run.”

“No, sir, he ain’t. Though I daresay he will some other time. But this death of his father and the mystery and all, is no sort of help to a campaign. And, too, young Appleby hasn’t the necessary qualifications to conduct a campaign, however good he might be as governor after he got elected. No; Sam won’t run.”

“Who will?”

“Dunno, I’m sure. But there’ll be lots ready and eager for a try at it.”

“I suppose so. Well, Burdon, I’m going down now to ask some questions of the servants. You know they’re a mine of information usually.”

“Kin I go?” asked Fibsy.

“Not now, son. You stay here, or do what you like. But don’t say much and don’t antagonize anybody.”

“Not me, F. Stone!”

“Well, don’t shock anybody, then. Behave like a gentleman and a scholar.”

“Yessir,” Fibsy ducked a comical bow, and Burdon, understanding he was dismissed, went home.

To the dining-room Stone made his way, and asked a maid there if he might see the cook.

Greatly frightened, the waitress brought the cook to the dining-room.

But the newcomer, a typical, strong-armed, strong-minded individual, was not at all abashed.

“What is it you do be wantin’, sor?” she asked, civilly enough, but a trifle sullenly.

“Only a few answers to direct questions. Where were you when you first heard the alarm of the garage fire?”

“I was in me kitchen, cleanin’ up after dinner.”

“What did you do?”

“I ran out the kitchen door and, seein’ flames, I ran toward the garage.”

“Before you ran, you were at the rear of the house – I mean the south side, weren’t you?”

“Yes, sor, I was.”

“You passed along the south veranda?”

“Not along it,” the cook looked at him wonderingly – “but by the end of it, like.”

“And did you see any one on the veranda? Any one at all?”

The woman thought hard. “Well, I sh’d have said no – first off – but now you speak of it, I must say I do have a remimbrance of seein’ a figger – but sort of vague like.”

“You mean your memory of it is vague – you don’t mean a shadowy figure?”

“No, sor. I mean I can’t mind it rightly, now, for I was thinkin’ intirely of the fire, and so as I was runnin’ past the end of the verandy all I can say is, I just glimpsed like, a person standin’ there.”

“Standing?”

“Well, he might have been moving – I dunno.”

“Are you sure it was a man?”

“I’m not. I’m thinkin’ it was, but yet, I couldn’t speak it for sure.”

“Then you went on to the fire?”

“Yes, sor.”

“And thought no more about the person on the veranda?”

“No, sor. And it niver wud have entered me head again, savin’ your speakin’ of it now. Why – was it the – the man that – ”