Chapter XI: Part VI (3)

She said no more, but went where he directed. There were a number of persons waiting in the kitchen—all exits from which were guarded—but she didn’t notice them, nor had she any idea of what was going on—that the detectives were searching every part of the house and going over the grounds outside with electric torches; that a couple of plain-clothes men were out after the man who’d followed Haworth through the streets, threatening him with a revolver; that the people waiting there in the room with her were being taken into another room one by one, to be questioned.

* * * * *

Some time later she found herself in the great entrance hall, standing before a man at an improvised desk of rough boarding. There were police about and a plain-clothes man was writing things on sheets of paper. Two or three others not in uniform were standing near, apparently uninterested, but in reality watching her like cats. The old woman glanced at the various people in the room, hardly aware that they were real. It might just as well have been a dream. After a time she thought she heard some one speaking to her.

“What?” she asked, looking about vaguely.

An officer came to her and explained that she must answer the questions.

“What questions?” she inquired.

It appeared there was curiosity as to her name, age, and occupation. She gave the information in a low mumbling voice, speaking absently.

That out of the way, the inspector, noticing that she was inattentive, began with sharp emphasis:

“Mrs. Temple, you knew the deceased, did you not?”

The old woman turned to him, startled, and stood looking at him a moment. Then she looked away, glancing rather vaguely about the room. She was beginning to realize where she was and what was going on.

“Well, are we going to hear anything from you this evening?”

“Are you the perlice?” she asked with a sharpness of her own.

“You’re here to answer questions—not to ask them.”

“I’d like to know if you’re the perlice, that’s all!”

“This is a police investigation, if that’s what you mean. We’re taking testimony throwing light on the crime just committed here. You may be able to help us.”

“No——” Mrs. Temple shook her old gray head. “I won’t be able to help ye none.”

“You mean you don’t know anything about it?”

“I mean what I told ye—that I won’t be able to help ye none.”

“You don’t seem to realize your position, madam. We can compel you to answer questions here. But you ought to be willing to give us any information you can without that, so we can find the guilty man and bring him to the punishment he deserves.”

“What good’ll punishment do, I’d like to know? What’s the good o’ that to—to the poor dear man lyin’ there—shot down like a dog he was—doin’ no harm to no one—juss standin’ there lightin’ his pipe—and shot down like a dog!” She was unable to go on for a moment; but having caught what she said about Haworth lighting his pipe, the inspector waited for her. He would give her plenty of time and nurse her along, for it looked very much as though she’d been a witness to the actual shooting.

“A nice lot of folks _you_ be,” the old woman finally went on in a broken voice but with deep indignation back of it. “What was ye doin’ before, I’d like to know, asettin’ around offices an’ paradin’ up and down the streets! When I went an’ warned ye more’n a week ago that we was in danger over here, I was told there warn’t nothin’ you could do—not till somebody done somethin’. Well, now some one’s done somethin’ an’ ye come hurryin’ around askin’ us all about it! But ye needn’t take no trouble askin’ me. I’ve told ye all I’ve got to tell. I told it to one of yer perlice a-strollin’ up an’ down Centre Street in a nice uniform with brass buttons on it!”

The inspector made no attempt to interrupt or cut short Mrs. Temple’s somewhat fervent remarks, and when she’d quite finished he spoke to her in a carefully softened tone.

“You’re certainly right, Mrs. Temple,” he said, “as to its being too late to do anything now for the—the unfortunate victim in this case. His murder was, as you indicate, a most cold-blooded crime. Every additional particular that is brought out adds to its cruelty and brutality. And was it really a fact, as I think you intimated, that the poor fellow was lighting his pipe as the shots were fired?” He looked sympathetically and inquiringly at the old woman.

But Mrs. Temple’s mouth was shut and there were no signs visible that she had any intention of opening it.

“Rot in jail before she’d talk if she didn’t want to,” was the inspector’s unspoken comment. Well, they’d have to make her want to, that was all. So she was excused, almost with apologies, and allowed to go where she pleased. But wherever that was a detective would be on the job and not lose track of her for an instant.

* * * * *

All available information was in, but the plain-clothes men were still working through the house and grounds. No weapon of any kind had yet been found, and no bullet marks discovered in the room. The theory regarding the latter was that the bullets (it was taken for granted they’d been fired through the front window) struck against the masonry of the fireplace or chimney and left no noticeable mark. In that case, however, they should have been found where they dropped—and the search for them was still going on.

Notwithstanding there were any number of witnesses to the following of Haworth home by an infuriated man using the most abusive language and threatening him with a revolver, no one could be found who had any idea who this person was. Nor had anyone seen him make an attack on Haworth that would result in the cut and bruise which had been found on his face. The two Jamaica Plains citizens who’d followed the quarreling couple to the house gave as good a description of him as could be expected. But their statement that the instant before the shots were fired he was peering in through the large window at the left of the entrance portico and had his revolver gripped in his hand, was positive and unshaken. Also that he stayed there a few seconds after the firing,—though they could not make out what he was doing,—and then turned suddenly and dashed madly down the drive into Torrington Road. Everything pointed to this person as the man they wanted, and the inspector had detectives out after him when the taking of testimony had hardly begun.

The report of the medical inspector with the “survey” attached, showing all distances, positions, heights, measurements of everything in the room, as well as all particulars relating to the body of the murdered man, had been turned in. Out of this technical mass of information a few facts adapted to the limited intelligence of the layman could be extracted. Charles Haworth’s tragic death resulted from whichever of the two gunshot wounds found upon him was inflicted first. Either would have caused it instantly. The shots were discharged from a distance of from fifteen to twenty feet. No chance therefore existed of the wounds being self-inflicted. The distance of the weapon or weapons at the instant of discharge, the locality of the wounds and the course of the projectiles through the body, made such a feat impossible. Both missiles had come from behind the victim, one entering at the back of the head and drilling the brain, the other striking near the middle of the spine and passing through the heart. There were no burns or powder marks on the clothing nor on the head or body, where the projectiles went in.

The upward course of the bullets demonstrated two things—and you can see from both of them how nicely the services of a surveyor came in: first, Haworth must have been standing when he was shot, for otherwise the assailant couldn’t have got low enough down to fire at the angle shown; second, even with Haworth standing, the weapon must have been held well down to give the bullets their upward course; but as accurate aim (which had evidently been taken) would have been difficult if not impossible while holding the gun down within two or three inches of the floor, the probability was that the assailant had been standing outside of one of the windows and had fired into the room from near the bottom of it.

The detectives had a fresh filled pipe—the tobacco on top hardly more than singed; a book fallen open on its face, crumpling the leaves; a box of matches; one partly burned match—all from the floor close to the body. The exact position of each article was given in the survey.

Haworth had evidently been reading and had stopped to fill and light his pipe as the first of the two bullets made an end of him. No evidence of a struggle with anyone—none that he had an idea of what was about to happen.

* * * * *

Two persons concerned in this tragic affair got away from the mansion and its vicinity before the arrival of the police—Hugo Pentecost from within, slipping out quietly through the basement entrance, proceeding through the rear of the property and coming into town by way of Brookline,—thus avoiding Torrington Road and Roxbury altogether; and Augustus Findlay from the front, rushing blindly down the drive like a wild man pursued by seven devils.

After one fearful moment when he’d stood, stunned and paralyzed, looking through the broken slats near the bottom of the shutters of the front window—the booze suddenly swept from his system—the crashing reports of the shots ringing in his ears and Haworth lying there in a crumpled heap on the floor, Findlay was suddenly recalled to himself by feeling the weight of something dragging down his right arm; and raising it into a bar of light coming through the chinks in the shutter, he saw his revolver gripped in his hand, his forefinger still hooked to the trigger. He knew—hazily, but he knew it—that he’d been following Haworth and threatening him with the gun.... And so at last he’d done it! In a drunken frenzy he’d killed a man! Murder—murder—that was it! The crime they hang people for or sizzle the life out of them, strapped in an electric chair! They’d have _him_ for that if he stayed there. Flight was his only chance, yet he couldn’t move. He saw the lights suddenly go off in the house—somebody already there! A moment later he heard a loud voice within calling out something, yet still his feet were weighted with lead. Then came the sound of quick footsteps from around the southeast corner. Some one was coming down the path at the side of the house and dragging some heavy wooden thing—he heard it grating along the stone flagging. Wheeling about with a desperate jerk, he fled madly down the drive.

Findlay had been running only a few minutes (he was out on the Torrington Road by this time) when he suddenly thought of his gun. It mustn’t be found on him! Looking frantically about, he saw a thick clump of shrubbery on one of the front lawns and quite near the road. No one would look for it there! But as he stopped to pitch the weapon over the fence he discovered that he was being followed! He mustn’t be seen throwing the thing away—that alone would convict him! There was nothing to do but run with the gun in his hand. Perhaps he could see a hole or drain where he could drop it without a noticeable motion as he ran.

* * * * *

Somewhere about the time the homicide squad arrived at the Cripps mansion an individual whose clothing set him down as a laboring man and who was evidently carrying a load of something with more than one-half of one percent alcoholic content, walked a trifle unsteadily into the South Station by the Atlantic Avenue entrance, looked blankly about, and then stopped a man who was hurrying past and asked where there was a telephone. On having the booths pointed out to him, he mumbled a thick “much obliged” and made his way to them, getting into No. 19 and occupying it for some little time. Then he reappeared in the concourse, and after further inquiries of various persons, found the gate for the 11:35 P.M. train for New York (“Advanced” time). With much fumbling in his pockets and boozy mutterings as a running accompaniment thereto, he produced a ticket, and after passing in at the gate tried to give it up to the Pullman and train conductors seated at a table just inside; they, however, refusing to take it—as only Pullman passengers gave their tickets there—he went on toward the train, and eventually climbed aboard one of the day coaches.

Walking bravely down the aisle, finding not a little assistance from the friendly arms and backs of the seats on each side, he half fell into an unoccupied seat—the next to the last at the extreme forward end. It might have been observed (but it wasn’t) that this seat gave a person the advantage of having all the lights of the car at his back, leaving his face in comparative obscurity.

Not long after the train passed the Back Bay station this man was half asleep, his head bobbing about; and the conductor took his ticket from the band of his cap where he had stuck it, and passed on without getting a view of his face.

On arrival at the Grand Central a few minutes before six in the morning (a few minutes before five, standard) he was left snoozing in his seat after the rest of the passengers had filed out. A moment or two later the head end trainman, running through the coaches to see that all was clear, stopped and shook him, not altogether gently, into consciousness, yelling as he did so, “All out—all out—Grand Central!... You get out here!”

The drowsy chap, coming to himself and doubtless being considerably hazy, conceived that he was being attacked, and hit out in all directions. The result was a scuffle of wrestling and pulling, all the more eagerly entered into by the trainman because of having had a lot of trouble during the night trying to keep the fellow’s muddy boots off the seat in front of him, throwing them off by main force a number of times. The present struggle ended in the enraged passenger falling in the aisle and being dragged out by his feet to the station platform.

* * * * *

On this same morning the steamer _North Land_, from the stern of which Mr. Pentecost had rather skillfully disembarked a few hours after she left Boston, came down the Sound and through Hell Gate, emerging into the East River at about eight o’clock, daylight-saving time. Half an hour later she was rounding the Battery into the North River, and not long after that was backing into her berth alongside Pier 18.

By this time most of the passengers were massed in the saloon lobby of the hurricane deck, their small luggage in their hands, ready to go ashore through the starboard door of that lobby as soon as the steamer was made fast and the gangplank run out from the wharf. Nearly every officer and steward and deckhand was on duty on the starboard side, which was the landing side in this instance, as the steamer slowly backed in alongside her wharf.

A small rowboat had been lying close up under the stringpieces at the shore end of the pier. There were three men in it, apparently of the deckhand order, and they had mops and pails in the bottom of the boat and across the seats. They had rowed in there some time before the arrival of the steamer, coming along the south side of the slip among the barges and scows of the New York Central Railroad Company which, at this time, occupied the pier on that side as a freight terminal.

As the _North Land_ came slowly gliding in stern first, the men in the rowboat pulled out into the middle of the slip and waited there. A moment after she was made fast and the crew on the fantail had gone forward, a man in the uniform of a ship’s officer stepped out of the passageway near the stern on the port side (the passengers were to disembark on the starboard) and motioned to the men in the rowboat, upon which they pulled up close under the guard and began to make an examination of the hull near the water line. Soon after this they had mops out and appeared to be swabbing off something on the ship’s side, the officer overlooking the job from the rail above them. A moment later there were two others watching them, not in the ship’s uniform, one from some distance forward on the port outside passageway, and the other from near the stern end of it where it opens into the fantail. These men each had a movie camera focused on the party in the rowboat, and when one of the swabbers was trying to get at a place that was too high to reach and the officer dropped him a rope ladder, the two men kept their cameras trained on him as he clambered up and stepped over the rail into the passage, and still followed him as he was reaching down the ship’s side with his mop in one hand while clinging to the rail with the other.

This man—the deckhand or swabber who had come aboard by the rope ladder—got somehow mixed with one or two others of his kind who came out into the passage, but eventually he could be seen climbing down the ladder again and into the boat; and very soon after that the three rowed lazily away with their buckets and mops. The officer hauled the rope ladder aboard and disappeared through the “emergency exit” into the ship’s cabin, and the men with the cameras were already gone, one walking forward along the port passageway, and the one who had been near the stern passing round to the starboard side by way of the fantail. Everything was smoothly and rapidly done, the whole thing occupying scarcely four minutes from the time the rowboat came up to the ship’s side.

It’s hardly necessary to tell you that after this little performance was over, the man who climbed the rope ladder with his mop was still on board the steamer, and that the man with the same mop who went down the ladder into the rowboat was another person altogether. Nor is it of the least importance to mention names, for you gentlemen can hardly fail to be aware that it was Mr. Pentecost who thus came aboard and that it was one of his “trusties”—made up and dressed to appear in every way like him—who slid down into the rowboat; so that it might be seen, if anyone kept account of such things, that the number of men in it when it was rowed away from the steamer was not less than when it came up under the stern. And, as you can readily imagine—if you have not already done so—the entire scene was played, as one might say, for outside consumption only—that is, for whoever might be about in boats or barges or on the railway pier opposite. No one connected with the steamer could have any knowledge of it; a passenger approaching from either direction on one of the passages would have been begged, by whichever camera man blocked the way, to wait just a moment until the picture was taken; an officer or seaman would receive quite the same request, but with the added explanation that their film concern had obtained permission from the Eastern Steamship Lines, Inc., to photograph a bunch of seamen (which is to say, actors posing as such) swabbing blood off the steamer’s side.

No one would have recognized Pentecost in the confusion, even had he been seen; and it was perfectly true that such permission had been asked and granted. Indeed, the company had loaned an officer’s uniform to help it along. There seemed to have been a little misunderstanding as to dates, but that was a small matter. Back of it all, if it ever got to it, they’d have found a company and a scenario, and a couple of thousand feet of film already taken.

* * * * *

The passengers, herded in the saloon lobby of the hurricane deck, which was the one they were to disembark from, were growing impatient. Those nearest the open door on the starboard side had noticed a couple of men on the dock in conversation with a policeman, and the moment the gangplank was run out the latter had given a signal of some kind and the ship’s officers held everybody back. The two men came aboard at once and went with the Purser into his office, where they scanned the passenger list. A little later the Captain came to the door and the Purser asked him to step in a moment. Shortly after that the Steward and head waiter were sent for. Then (the whole affair had hardly taken five minutes) the two men went ashore with the Purser, and at once the ship’s officers who were blocking the way stood aside, the two ticket takers from the New York office took their places, and the passengers began to leave the steamer.

Near the foot of the gangplank in the vast dock building was a corner partition where the passengers coming ashore made a turn to the right. Back in this corner, which commanded a view of the people filing past the two ticket takers and down the gangplank, stood the Purser with the two men who had been looking over the passenger list in his office.

It was toward the end of the stream of disembarking passengers that Mr. Pentecost and the two Harkers, father and son, came into view at the top of the gangway, with one of the stewards carrying their luggage. As they came ashore and were approaching the right-hand turn, the Purser stepped out and shook hands with them, trusting they’d had a restful night after their strenuous day in Boston, and wishing them good luck with their new invention. All was in the most jovial manner, and the three passed on toward the street. But before they’d got there one of the stewards came running after them and said that if they had time the Purser would like to see them for just a minute. “Why, certainly,” Pentecost said. “Tell him we’ll be right along!”

Harker was alarmed and started to say something under his breath, but Pentecost growled in a half whisper, without looking at him, “Can’t you see everything they do stamps it!”

Alfred went on toward the street to get a taxi, and the two partners turned back.

The Purser was still on the dock near the gangplank, but the two men who’d been with him were gone—at least, not in sight. But don’t imagine that fooled Pentecost any.

“Didn’t mean to trouble you,” Mr. Lawson called out as the two came near.

“No trouble,” said Pentecost.

“Not at all,” added Harker. “What’s going?”

“Why, I’ve just heard something that might concern you gentlemen in a business way. Man came aboard a minute ago and was telling about a hell of a murder last night over in Boston.”

“Murder, eh?” said Harker, with the interest such news might naturally inspire—but no more.

“What makes you think we’d be concerned?” Pentecost inquired.

“Hardly a chance you are—only he said it was out in West Roxbury, and I remembered you told us _your_ man——”

“What was the name—did he say?” Pentecost asked quickly and with awakening anxiety—just the right amount you know—not the merest trifle overdone.

“Why no, I don’t think he did.”

Pentecost glanced at Harker and Harker at him.

“A lot of things might happen in West Roxbury,” he said, turning back to the Purser.

“Sure they might,” assented that official; “but he said it was an inventor chap living out there alone.”

“Inventor!” exclaimed Pentecost. “Living out——By George! And all that money we——” He broke off, and suddenly turning to go was heard to say, “I’ve got to make a run for a train!”

Harker emitted a “My God!” and followed his partner up the dock. But Pentecost stopped suddenly a few yards away, where he could still be seen and heard by the Purser (or anyone concealed in the vicinity), and pulling out a N. Y., N. H. & H. Railroad folder, began looking for express trains to Boston.

“That’s right,” Harker said, coming up to him. “We’ll get the first train out!”

The Purser was approaching them.

“You stay here,” said Pentecost. “There’s a lot of business at the office. I can wire if I want you. Here”—looking at the folder—“‘New York to Boston’—I ought to get the nine o’clock.”

“No—” (from Harker) “half-past nine now!”

“That’s Daylight—railroad’s on Standard.”

“So it is—train’s ten our time—just make it!”

Pentecost seized the Purser’s hand. “Thank you very much, Mr. Lawson. You’ve done us a great favor.” And as he was turning to go: “We paid that man something like thirty thousand yesterday. A yegg’s run up on him—that’s what it is!” He hurried out to the street and jumped into the taxi that Alfred was holding, pushed a five-dollar bill into the driver’s hand with “Grand Central—make time!” and shouting out a few parting directions to Harker as the taxi started with a great jerk (the driver was earning his money) he was whirled away into the traffic.

* * * * *

The man who was following Augustus Findlay as he fled wildly away from the Cripps mansion a few seconds after the sound of the two revolver shots split the air, wasn’t by any means putting a shadow on him, but was running him close, never less than thirty yards behind, and a flash on him from his pocket torch whenever it was safe to throw a light. His name was Graham and he knew his business. He kept so near that Findlay didn’t get a chance to pitch his gun anywhere, and what’s more, I doubt if he could have done it if he’d got the chance, for the minute he realized he was being followed and the light flashed on him every few seconds, he was virtually on the scrap heap—which is to say, out of his head with terror.

It was in a quiet block of Collamore Street over near the railroad tracks that Graham ran up on him and bumped him against the iron post or column of a street light. This nearly knocked Findlay over, but Graham got him by the throat and shut off his wind before he had a chance to fall, and in his wild struggles to loosen Graham’s grip so he could get air, and Graham doing some extra thrashing about trying to hold him, it gave the idea there was the liveliest kind of a fight on; and a man in his shirt sleeves, who’d been sitting smoking a pipe at a second-story window nearly above, commenced to yell at them to quit.

From that minute you could see that Graham was trying to get Findlay’s revolver away from him, twisting his arm, trying to bite his fingers loose, and all the while shouting out, “You damn dirty sneak, gimme that gun! Gimme the gun, I say! It’s the gun I want!” and things like that. And Augustus, who was terrified, thinking they were after the thing to prove murder on him, clung to it with the tenacity of an octopus.

The man at the second-story window, whose name it later appeared was Rathbun, finding yelling to the two scrappers was no good, came downstairs and out at the street door of the tenement building; but seeing—or, to be more accurate, hearing what it was they were fighting for, hesitated in the doorway, as he had an aversion to being shot up. In this instant of Rathbun’s hesitation Graham gave Augustus a smash in the face that made him loosen his hold, and then snatching the revolver out of his hands turned and raced up Collamore Street, carrying it by the muzzle; and Rathbun noticed, as the man swung into a street light, that the hand he was holding it with had a glove on it.

After Graham got safely away, Rathbun went out to Findlay, who was lying in the road, and tried to find out what it was all about and whether he was hurt. But he couldn’t get anything out of the fellow.

After a few moments Findlay got to his feet unsteadily, stared blankly at Rathbun for a second or two, then wheeled around and went limping down the street toward the railroad. A sorry-looking object he was, battered and torn and plastered with mud. But his mental condition was sorrier. Maudlin and devastating fright possessed him. He’d done a murder—murder—murder! Shot a man, killed a man, and they were hunting for him—they’d get him! Drunkenness no defense. He’d looked that up before, when he really thought of doing it! This time he didn’t think. And he’d done it!

He stopped. If he went home they’d get him there. But if he tried to get away it would be the same as a confession of guilt. If he went home he could deny everything—insist that he didn’t know what they were talking about—that he hadn’t left the house all that evening. Edith must back him up. That is, if anyone came for him. But after all, why should they? No one could possibly have seen him at the Haworth place. It was dark as pitch. And the shutters were closed, so no light shone on him. Yet who could the man have been who got his revolver? Just a plain hold-up, that’s what it was. Yet he thought he’d heard him following from way back near Torrington Road. But if he was a detective he’d have arrested him. And, anyway, a detective couldn’t have got on the job thirty seconds after Haworth was k——. Great God! He couldn’t say it even to himself.

With his mind seething, he stumbled up the two steps to his front door and stopped there with his hand on the knob and a quick glance up the street, thinking he heard some one following. He turned with a sudden terror and tried to open the door, but it was locked. He shook it and pounded on it, and the instant he heard Edith turn the key in the lock he burst in, closed the door frantically after him, and stood pushing against it as if trying to keep some one out.

Edith stood quiet, watching his feverish terror. When he finally ceased his violent pushing against the door she spoke.

“Tell me,” she said.

“Tell you what? Whad’ ye mean? I ain’t got anything to tell!”

“You have.”

“I have not! I been in a fight, that’s all. A hell of a dirty footpad jumped on me—just over the other side of the railroad—but he didn’t get any money—he only took my gun!”

“Your revolver?”

“Can’t you hear what I say?”

“What had you been doing with it?”

“What had——I just had it along. How could I be doing anything when he took it away from me!” The man was almost sobbing. “You ain’t got any right to talk to me like that! You’d ought to help me—that’s what you’d ought to do! I’m going to bed and you tell ’em I was here all this evening! You can do that much for me, I should think. I was here reading a book, that book over there on the stand—that’s all you got to say. What’s the harm o’that? Just tell ’em I was here reading that book?”

Edith shook her head.

Then followed begging and crying and protesting on his part, but with no response on hers. She didn’t speak again.

After Augustus had gone whining upstairs and locked himself in his bedroom, Edith opened the front door and looked out into the dismal night. She was hesitating. If it hadn’t been for leaving little Mildred alone in the house with the crazed brute (who had often threatened to kill the child) she’d have hurried through the dark streets to Torrington Road. She knew from her husband’s behavior that something fearful had happened, yet without an idea of how terrible it was.

Finally she sat on a chair in the small living room and waited. There was nothing else to do.

* * * * *

It was early morning when they came—still dark. Edith heard their feet on the wooden steps and then the heavy knock on the front door.

Two men stood there, dressed in ordinary clothes. And she could see a uniformed policeman moving back at the side of the house. It was the patrolman on the beat who’d been phoned from headquarters to keep an eye on the place till the Inspectors got there. Now they’d come and were sending him to cover the rear.

The men at the door were roughly polite. They were sorry to disturb her, but was Mr. Findlay at home?

“Yes.”

“We’d like to see him.”

“He’s in his room upstairs. I’ll tell him you’re here.”

But as she turned to go the man who’d been speaking called after her:

“If it’s all the same to you we’ll go——Which room is it?”

“The back one—farthest from the stairs.”

“Thank you ma’am.”

The men ran up, and she heard their loud knocking on the door and gruff orders to Findlay to open it.

Then came the crash of splintering wood (the door was a flimsy affair) and their heavy tread as they rushed into the room. A moment later there were more distant voices, and the men came hurrying down again.

“They got him outside, ma’am,” one of them said. “Sorry to make you all this trouble.” And the two passed out at the front door. Edith called:

“Oh, wait! I want to——”

One of the men turned in the doorway.

“I want you to—I want you to tell me if—if——Oh, what is it?”

“Some trouble in West Roxbury, ma’am. You can find out from headquarters.”

As the man passed into the street she could hear Augustus’s voice through the open door. He was whining and crying that he didn’t know anything about it—he was here at home all the evening reading a book—that was what he was doing—he never once left the house—ask his wife if they didn’t believe it—she was right there—just ask her; in the midst of which came a rough caution from one of the inspectors that he’d better keep his mouth shut—he could tell all that to the chief. A moment later came the clatter of a car driven up from somewhere, the slamming of its door, and the sound of its rapid departure up the street.

* * * * *

A number of things were happening along here that I’m not going to try to describe to you. My supposition is that I’m able to get away with plain facts so they’ll be understood, which is all I aim at. But when it comes to telling you about Edith Findlay through all this affair—her going over to the mansion as soon as she could get a neighbor to take care of little Mildred, and staying there with all that was left of poor Haworth as long as they’d let her; and later her being at the funeral; and after that sitting stunned and dry-eyed in her little parlor at home while she slowly came to the realization of what it meant—that the one person who was all there was in the world for her had gone forever, and that somehow it was through her that the terrible thing had come about—I’m out of it altogether. I can only briefly refer to it as I’ve just been doing.

Yet with all these fearful things coming down on her, the poor child—frail and delicate and already in the grip of the demon of disease—had it in her to stand up to it, quiet and brave. I made a mistake, though, when I said all these fearful things coming down on her, for she knew only one. Others had no place in her mind. They didn’t even occur to her.

And with old Mrs. Temple it was much the same, though in a different way. Back of all the police investigations, and questionings of witnesses, and photographing, and ransacking the mansion and grounds surrounding it, and the sensational newspaper write-ups, and arrests, and talk, and confusion, was this cruel blow for each of them—the loss of the one who was dear to them.

* * * * *

Mr. Pentecost left the train at Back Bay Station on arrival in Boston, thus saving about five minutes. And he saved some three minutes more by not having to explain to the taxi man where Torrington Road could be found, the morning and early afternoon papers having thoroughly attended to that.

It was a few minutes after four o’clock (Advanced time) when his machine came tearing up the drive—that is, tearing up the lower part of it, for it was stopped by a patrolman some distance from the house. Two policemen and a plainclothesman were on watch there. Pentecost hurriedly explained who he was, and that his firm had paid a large amount of money the day before for one of the murdered man’s inventions—which was still in the house, he supposed. They’d left it crated in the front hall.

The detective made no reply to that, but instead informed Mr. Pentecost that the Chief would like to see him at headquarters.

“Yes, but wait a minute!” remonstrated Pentecost. “I want to find out if that machine——”

“You can talk it over with the Inspector when you get there.”

“Talk it over! But my God, man—it’s our property!”

“The Inspector’ll attend to that. You don’t need to worry.”

“Was there a truck out here after it?”

“There sure was, but the truck didn’t get it. How do we know but it might have something to do with the case?”

“Have you got the idea that anybody’s going to shoot up a man for a three-ton machine he couldn’t get out of the house?”

“Ask the Inspector that.”

Pentecost was allowed to go in and satisfy himself that his property was still in the house and had not been tampered with. After a moment of breathing easier (not overdone you know) upon finding that this was the case, he apparently began to call to mind that a terrible crime had been committed and finally asked if he could see the poor chap who’d been shot. But the body’d been taken to the morgue some hours before.

Half an hour later the detective and Mr. Pentecost arrived at Pemberton Square and the Inspector didn’t keep them waiting long. Besides the latter there were two plain-clothes men in the room—one at a table ready to make notes, the other standing back near the window. The Inspector, seated at his desk, greeted Pentecost pleasantly; and after an informal question or two regarding his business and the methods of running it, came down to the matter in hand.

“Understand your firm’s been having some dealings with the man they shot out in Roxbury—or rather Jamaica Plain—last night.”

“Why yes, we just bought an invention of his—that is, rights to exploit and so forth—and paid the money down for it. It was only yesterday, and the machine’s still out there in the house. One of your men in charge advised me to speak to you about it, and I certainly hope you’ll be so good as to arrange it so we can——”

“All in good time Mr. Pentecost. First I’d like to have you tell me what you know about the affair or the people concerned in it.”

“Yes, certainly, certainly—er——” Pentecost appeared to be slightly flurried by having the subject shifted so suddenly away from what was apparently uppermost in his mind. (It might be just as well to remember I said “appeared to be” and “apparently.”)

“Your firm specializes in novelties of a mechanical nature, you say—organizes companies and that sort of thing?”

“Yes—yes, we—that’s our business.”

“What are some of the inventions you’ve handled?”

“Well, there’s quite a number. The latest thing we took over was the Crudex Oil Burning Device. We’re also behind the Polaris Refrigerating Machine, the Acme Vacuum Cleaner and other successful things. Of course we hit on a loser now and then, but our average stands up well.” (Pentecost had naturally given out the straight deals that the firm had undertaken—sometimes at considerable expense—for precisely this sort of emergency.)

“That being your business, I take it you were attracted to Haworth’s inventions.”

“Yes—I was.—That is, to one of them.”

“How did you happen to hear of them?”

“From reading a Sunday supplement write-up when I was over here a couple of weeks ago—or thereabout.” And Pentecost went on to give an account of how he went out there to see what sort of mechanical novelties the inventor had, and to describe his visit to the ancient mansion—the young man alone there with an old charwoman—the finding of a device that greatly interested him—the bringing of his partner over from New York to see it—and their ultimate purchase of the rights in the machine and the payment of quite a large sum of money down.

“Did you see much of the old woman you speak of,—the one who came in to cook for him and so on?”

“Not a great deal, but I had to admire her.”

“Why? What did you admire?”

“The game way she kept at it trying to protect Mr. Haworth from us,—for she got the idea we were trying to rob him or something like that. She bothered us some listening around, but it was no great matter, so I let it go.—Though now I think of it I did drive her away once.”

“What was the reason for that?”

“The machine we were negotiating for depended on a secret process, as you might say. That is, he managed his combustion to compress air direct without the use of intervening machinery. Something they’d hardly allow a patent on. That’s why I’m so nervous about it. I hope nobody takes it out of that crate.”

“Was the old woman trying to see it?”

“Trying to see anything she could. We’d find her everywhere. I don’t suppose she’d have understood the thing even if she’d got a good look at it, but I always like to play safe when there’s no patent. So we finally asked Haworth to keep her out of the house till we got the machine away.”

After questioning Pentecost on other points, the business transaction between Haworth and the firm was taken up,—the fourteen-day option, the payment of the thirty-five thousand dollars, the arrangement made with him for coming on to New York and setting up and adjusting the machine, and his agreement to work under their direction for five years.

“It was a cash transaction I understand—this payment of thirty-five thousand?”

“Yes—he insisted on having it that way.”

“Do you know his reasons for that?”

“No.”

“You actually paid him that amount—in bills?”

“Yes. That is to say, he received it from the firm. Alfred Harker, our secretary, was the one who handed it to him.”

“But you saw—yourself—that that amount was paid over to him?”

“Yes, I did. I watched Harker counting it out for him.”

“Into his hands?”

“Well, no, it was rather too bulky for that. He counted it out on the table.”

“And Haworth took it?”

“Yes.”

“What did he do with it—put it in his pocket?”

“I’m not sure, but I should say not. It was rather too large for an ordinary pocket.”

“Mr. Pentecost, where, exactly, was that bunch of bills when you last saw it?”

“My recollection isn’t clear enough to admit of a positive statement. I have the impression that Haworth held it in his hands a short time and then put it down on the table and stood there with one hand resting on it.”

“What happened then?”

“Soon after the money was paid we left the house.”

“Did he bring it to the door with him when he went to see you out?”

“He didn’t come to the door—we left him standing at the table.”

“He said good night to you there?”

“Yes. And it was then that he was standing—as I remember it—with one hand resting on the stack of bills.”

“You referred to an agreement you made with him for working under your direction. Was he entirely willing to agree to this or did you have to urge it to some extent?”

“We had some discussion, but he finally saw it was to his advantage, and signed the contract willingly.”

“Have you that contract with you?”

“My partner took charge of it. I can wire him and he’ll get it in the mail to-night.”

“Kindly do that.”

The next inquiries were as to the machine the firm had bought, and Pentecost described it as well as he could and offered to have the blueprints sent over from New York—an offer which was accepted. He was unable, when asked, to give any information concerning Augustus Findlay as he’d never seen him nor even heard his name mentioned, nor could he tell the Inspector anything about the butler, Dreek, as he’d only seen him once or twice in the performance of his duties and once when he was called in to sign as a witness.... Yes, he should say it was quite possible this butler, Dreek, had seen the bunch of money.... No, he had no idea how it happened that Mr. Haworth had sent to a New York agency for a butler.

Shortly after that he was excused, the Inspector intimating that he’d like to have another chat with him in the near future.

Pentecost said of course—anything he could do, and added that if the Inspector wanted to see Mr. Harker and his son Alfred—the two who were with him at the Haworth place—he could get them over that night; but he was told that such a thing was hardly necessary, as their testimony could be taken in New York if it came to that.

“You got over here in quick time, Mr. Pentecost,” the Inspector was moved to say as the interview was coming to a close. “We have to thank you for that.”

“It was my business that was worrying me—not yours,” Pentecost returned. “And now that you speak of it,” he went on, beginning to show eagerness again, “I was advised to consult you as to how I could get that machine out of the house. We’ve got a good-sized stack of money invested in it and I’d like to get it into a safe place.”

“It’s perfectly safe where it is, Mr. Pentecost. We’ve got to hold it till we can see what bearing—if any—it has on the case. Good afternoon.”

A plain-clothes man opened the door for him and Mr. Pentecost passed out. When the man turned back into the room the Inspector spoke quickly in an undertone: “Run out after him, Charlie, and keep him in sight till I get someone on the job. Keep your distance—don’t let him get wise to it.”

The detective addressed as Charlie disappeared through the door.

* * * * *

The Inspector sat thinking a moment and then got to his feet and began pacing the room—a habit of his when hunting for the answer to something. He suddenly stopped and spoke to the plain-clothes man at the table who’d been taking down the conversation with Pentecost.

“What did you think of that, Alec?”

“Sounded nice an’ slick to me.”

“Ever see him before?”

“Not as I remember.”

“Got an idea I have. Can’t place it. Going to put Loderer and Trench on him.”

“Cinch on Findlay, ain’t it?”

“What you might call that, but there’s one or two curious things about it—money gone—thirty-five thousand in bills—we can’t get that on Findlay.”

“Nor on this man, either, that I can see. You can’t crack an alibi like that, with the Purser an’ all talking to ’im on the voyage. And on top of it he comes ashore from the steamer in New York this morning.”

The inspector muttered, “Yes, I know,” absently, and was silent a moment, thinking. Finally he said with a slightly explosive effect:

“God! I hope Bellinger gets the man that phoned in here last night!”

“You mean about this Pentecost not being on board?”

“Yes—and advising us to have the boat watched in New York.”

“Nothing on it yet?”

“Nothing to the good. We got the booth he phoned from and we picked up a man who saw a chap go into that booth about that time, but he couldn’t give a description except that he looked like a day laborer of some kind—so we don’t land anywhere.”

“What booth was it?”

“Nineteen——South Station.”