The Curved Blades

“What do you mean by this nonsense? Is it a joke?”

“By no means; I have all the proofs of your crimes and I ask you if you will confess here, or to the Police?”

“Friend Pitts, I believe, is connected with the Police,” and Loria laughed grimly.

“Yes, he is. Have you anything to say?”

“Only to deny your accusations. Except that it’s too absurd even to deny such foolish talk. What do you mean anyway?”

“That you poisoned Miss Lucy Carrington, wilfully and purposely, by sending her a dose of powdered aconite, under the pretense of its being a beauty charm that would bring fairness and youth to her plain face.”

Carr Loria’s jaw dropped. He looked at Stone as if at something supernatural. “W – what?” he stammered.

“You did it to get her money, now, to go on with your work in the bed of the Nile. Then, in order to get your cousin’s share of the fortune, you sent her away to die in the desert, having first induced her to will you her money.”

“Ha, ha,” laughed Loria, feebly. “Poor joke, Stone, pretty poor joke, I say! Murdered my own aunt! Not much I didn’t!”

“Carr Loria, listen!” Impressively Stone held up his finger, to adjure silence, and at the same time he bent on Loria a glance of accusation that made him cringe. But, fascinated, he stared into Stone’s eyes, and in the death-like silence came a voice, – the voice of Lucy Carrington, – in a burst of ringing laughter! Loria’s eyes seemed to start from his head, and the sweat gathered in great drops on his forehead, as the voice of his aunt spoke: “This song is one of Carr’s favorites,” they heard, distinctly. “I’ll sing it for him.”

Then, in Miss Lucy’s high, clear notes, came the song, “Oh, Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms.”

Before the last strains came, Loria was raving like a maniac. He had never heard of the phonograph records of his aunt’s songs, for they had meant to surprise him with them on his next trip home.

“Have mercy!” he cried: “stop her! Oh, my God! what does it all mean?”

“Confess,” ordered Fleming Stone.

“I will confess! I do confess! I did send her the powder, just as you say. I wrote her to dress up like Cleopatra, and put on her pearls, and scarabs, and fasten an asp, a paper one, at her throat, and take the stuff, and it would cause Cleopatra’s beauty to come to her. I told her to hold in her hand something belonging to the man she loved. It was a great scheme, – a fine scheme, – ” Loria was babbling insanely now. “I don’t see how any one ever found it out. I was so careful! I made her promise to burn all my notes and letters about it, before I would send the powder. Who suspected it? I planned everything so carefully —so carefully – Made her promise to burn everything, – everything – letters of instruction, powder-papers, everything must be burned, I said – everything, – and she said, yes, Carr, everything. Over and over I wrote it. Told her that if she left anything unburnt the charm wouldn’t work, and it didn’t. Ha, ha,” with a demoniac chuckle, “it didn’t!”

“Take me away, I can’t stand it,” moaned Pauline.

Again there was a silence. The phonograph had ceased; Loria sat, with his head fallen forward on his hands, at his table. He was still, and Stone wondered if he were alive. Then, suddenly, he lifted his head, and cried out.

“Yes, I did it because I was crazy, wild over my Nile scheme. Ah, that wonderful work! It will never be done now. When I heard Stone was here I knew it was all up. I planned to lose Polly for a time, – not forever, no, not forever – I would have found her some day, – some day, – all dead, in the desert, all dead – ”

Pauline fainted and Stone flew to her side. But in a moment she revived, and he begged her to go home. She consented, and Ahri, dependable now, took her to the hotel.

Fleming Stone and Mr. Pitts attempted to get Loria to calm down and talk more coherently. Shortly he did so. He gave a full account of all the details of his crime, and though he denied the intention of leaving Pauline to die in the desert, his word was not believed by the two listeners.

Finally, he rose and walked across the room. “You see,” he said, a little wearily, but quite sane, now, “I’ve a bad streak in me. My father was a Spaniard and he killed his own uncle. The Loria line is a series of criminals. Aunt Lucy never knew this, for my parents lived always abroad. But blood will tell. And my father, after he killed my uncle, followed it up by taking his own life, – like this, – ”

Though Stone caught the gesture and sprang to prevent it, Loria was too quick for him. He had snatched a dagger from the table, and plunged it into his heart.

Both men leaped at him, but it was all over in an instant. Carr Loria had himself dealt the punishment for his crimes.

“Perhaps it’s as well,” said Stone, musingly. “A trial, and all that, would have been awful for his cousin, and the family connections. Now the matter can be disposed of with far less notoriety and publicity.”

“Yes,” agreed Pitts.

Fleming Stone waited till morning to tell Pauline of her cousin’s death. She was wide-eyed and pathetically sad, but composed.

“It is all so dreadful,” she said, “but, Fleming, I knew it before I left New York. I didn’t know it, exactly, but I felt sure it must be so, and I had to come here to see. Then I found Carr so gay and light-hearted I thought I must be mistaken, and I was glad, too. Then when you came, I couldn’t make up my mind whether you suspected Carr, or whether – ”

“Whether I came only to see you,” supplied Stone. “It was both, dear.”

“What made you think of Carr, in the first place?”

“Because there was no real evidence against any one else, though the police were making things dangerous for you, my little girl.” Stone held her close, as if even yet there might be a hint of danger. “And I made Miss Frayne confess that she didn’t really see you leave your aunt’s room that night, though she did honestly think that you were in there, and your aunt was talking to you. Nor you didn’t see her actually leaving the room, did you?”

“I only saw her with her hand on the door-knob. That was my first glimpse of her, and I thought she was coming out.”

“No; she thought of going in to apologize for her hasty temper. But, hearing a voice, she paused, and so thrilling was the talk she overheard, she waited there some minutes.”

“And then, you thought of Carr?”

“I sized up all the people who had motive, and Loria was surely in that category. And then I found the powder-papers. Dear, those would have gone sorely against you if any one else had discovered them. I resolved to wrest the secret from those papers, and I did!”

“You did? How?”

“By studying them for hours; with magnifying glasses, and without. I found at last a clue, – a possible clue, – in the fact that the edges of the papers had been cut with the curved blades of a pair of manicure scissors. I had Jane bring me all the manicure scissors in the house, – thank Heaven, your scissors didn’t come within a mile of fitting the edges! You see, the papers were faintly scalloped on every edge. They must have been cut by the little curved blades, and rarely do two pairs of manicure scissors make the same scallop. The great discovery was that Miss Lucy’s own scissors did fit them! This, dearest, would have pointed to you in the eyes of these determined police, for you had access to your aunt’s toilet appointments.”

“So did Anita or anybody in the house!”

“Yes, but the police were hot on your track, and ready to bend any hint your way. Oh, thank God, that I could and did save you! Well, I further noticed that these scissors of Miss Carrington’s were of a different pattern from the brushes and mirrors of her set. I went to Estelle, and she told me that the last time Carr Loria was at home he took a great fancy to his aunt’s scissors and asked her to give them to him. She did, and when she tried to get another pair with that especial shaped blade, she could do so only by taking a different patterned handle! Do you wonder that I came straight over here?”

“No,” and the lovely eyes beamed with admiration of Stone’s cleverness, as well as with affection.

“Then, last night, I went to Loria’s rooms, and found not only the scissors, that fitted exactly the scalloped papers, but found that the outside powder wrapper is undoubtedly a piece of his own writing-paper. It is the same color and texture. Moreover, as he confessed it all, there is no further room for doubt. Another hint I had was when I found some of Loria’s letters in your aunt’s desk. Not their contents, they were just such as any affectionate nephew might write his aunt, but the chirography. You know the letter from him that you showed me, was typewritten, and I judged nothing from it. But his handwriting, – I have studied the science, – gave evidence of criminal traits, and I felt sure then I was on the right track. I brought the phonograph record to frighten him into confession, and it did. Ahri started it, in the next room, at my signal.”

“I might have known you would do it. When I came here, you know, I wrote and asked you to drop the case. I feared your investigations would lead to Carr.”

“It had to be a question of his guilt or yours,” returned Stone gravely. “You don’t know, darling, how near you were to arrest! Let’s not think of it ever again. I’ll engage to keep your dear mind occupied with pleasant thoughts all the rest of our life. You don’t want to stay in Cairo, do you? Shall we try Algiers for a honeymoon spot? Or, if you don’t want Africa at all, how about Greece, or over to Algeciras? Whither away, my Heart’s Dearest?”

“Whither? Together, then what matter whither?” said Pauline, her eyes full of a love deep enough to drown the sorrows that had filled the past weeks.

“Together always,” he responded, holding her to him; “always, my Pauline.”