The Marathon Mystery/Part 4/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV
Cecily Says Good-bye
THE cold light of the morning brought with it a profound scepticism. Godfrey’s theory no longer seemed so convincing; in fact, it did not seem convincing at all. Many objections occurred to me; I saw that the whole elaborate structure was built upon quicksand—there was no proof that any of the clippings referred to Tremaine or Thompson; there was no proof that Thompson had gathered them with elaborate care and of set purpose; there was no proof…
Yes—there was one point susceptible of proof; by it the whole structure would stand or fall…
“Mr. Royce,” I said to our junior, in the course of the morning, “I wonder if I could be spared this afternoon? I’ve some business of my own which I’d very much like to attend to.”
“Why, certainly,” he answered instantly: so when I left the office at noon, I took the Elevated to the Grand Central Station and bought a ticket to Ossining. Once there, I went direct to the grey old prison and stated my errand to Mr. Jones, the sub-warden, whom I found in charge.
“I’ve come up from New York,” I began, after giving him my card, “to see if you can identify this man,” and I handed him the photograph of Thompson.
He looked at it long and searchingly, seemingly for a time in doubt, but at last he shook his head.
“No, I don’t believe I can,” he said. “There’s something familiar about the face, but I can’t place it.”
“How long have you been connected with the prison, Mr. Jones?” I asked.
“I began thirty years ago as guard. But what made you think I could identify this fellow?”
“We’ve rather imagined,” I answered, “that his real name was Johnson and that he served a term here for robbery, beginning in 1885.”
He looked at the photograph again, with a sudden flush of excitement in his face.
“I believe you’re right,” he said. “Let’s look at Johnson’s photo.”
He consulted the index, then turned to one of the wall cases.
“Here he is,” he said, opening a compartment and pointing to a photograph. “It’s the same man, sure, only changed a lot. It would be easy to prove it. I suppose they took his Bertillon measurements at the morgue, and we’ve only to compare them with ours. They’d be the same, no matter how much he’d changed.”
And he had changed, indeed! The Johnson of the prison photograph was, of course, smooth-shaven; his face was alert, intelligent; there was no scar upon the temple, nor did the features show that subtle bloating of long-continued dissipation. But it was the it was the same. There was no need to apply any finer tests.
“I remember him now,” said Jones, looking from one photograph to the other, “very well. He was a quiet, well-behaved chap-had been captain of a little tramp steamer, I believe. He had a perfect mania for cutting pieces out of newspapers and pasting them in a scrap-book. He spent all his leisure time that way. Oh, yes; I remember, too, he tried to escape, but his pal went back on him and left him layin’ out yonder by the wall. His pal was a bad one, he was; he got away and I’ve often wondered what become of him. Here he is.”
He swung open another compartment, and I found myself staring at Tremaine!
Not until I was quite near New York did I recover sufficiently from the effects of this discovery to heed the cry of the train-boy as he went through the coaches with the evening papers.
“All about th’ Edgemere murder!” he was crying, and the name caught my ear.
“Edgemere,” I repeated to myself. “Edgemere. I’ve heard that name somewhere.”
Then in a flash I remembered; and in a moment more the whole story of the tragedy of the night before—the murder of Graham and the theft of Mrs. Delroy’s necklace—lay before me. With what intensity of interest I read it can be easily imagined; I was shaken, nervous, horror-stricken. That there was some connection between this second tragedy and the one in suite fourteen I did not doubt; and I read and re-read the details with the greatest care, in the effort to find where that connection lay.
But it was impossible to see how Tremaine could be implicated in the Edgemere mystery even in the least degree—his alibi was perfect. On the other hand, the evidence against young Drysdale seemed complete in every link. Certainly, none of the papers doubted his guilt, and they handled his past career and his family history with a minuteness and freedom which must have been most trying to his friends. Coroner Heffelbower came in for the lion’s share of praise—everyone agreed that he had conducted the case with rare skill and acumen. Of course, the Record had his photograph, as well as those of his wife and six children, and as I looked at his round face, I fancied him strutting back and forth in his saloon, inflated with pride, and listening approvingly to the constant ringing of the cash-register. It’s an ill wind—but certainly there was no denying that he had handled the case adroitly.
Drysdale, it appeared, had been lodged in the jail at Babylon, and steadfastly refused to make any statement, or to explain his absence from the house. No reporters had been admitted to Edgemere—though that fact did not prevent two or three of them from writing minute descriptions of the condition of affairs there, and publishing interviews with the members of the family. Marvellous accounts were given of the exquisite beauty and immense value of the missing necklace, and the Record published a drawing of it “from a description by Tiffany.”
We pulled into the station, and I took a car down to my rooms, turning this latest enigma over and over in my mind, looking at it from every angle, trying in vain to discover some fact that would implicate Tremaine. At my door I paused a moment; then I crossed the hall and knocked at Tremaine’s door. Perhaps Cecily had forgiven me, and in an evening’s talk I ought surely to be able to find out something more…
But it was not Cecily, it was Tremaine himself who opened to me.
“Oh, Mr. Lester,” he cried, with hand outstretched, “how are you? I wanted to see you—I’ve been listening for your step. You must join us here this evening.”
“I shall be glad to,” I said, returning his clasp, all my suspicions melting away, reduced to absurdity, at sight of him. “But why so particularly this evening?”
“Because we’ve planned a little celebration. Cecily is going away”
“Going away?”
“Yes—back to St. Pierre to get my house in order—but I’ll tell you at dinner—it’s to be served here in an hour. You will come?”
“Certainly I will,” I assured him, and hastened over to my room to dress.
He was awaiting me when I knocked an hour later; a table had been set with three places.
“Come in,” he said. “Dinner will be here directly. I thought it safer to have the celebration here because—well,” and he nodded significantly toward the inner room.
“Cecily?” I questioned.
“Yes—she takes it to heart more than you’d believe. But she’ll get over it in a day or two.”
“When does she leave?”
“In the morning early, by the fruit boat. And, by the way, I want you to go down with me to see her off. She’ll appreciate it.”
“Why, certainly—but isn’t it rather sudden?”
“In a way, yes. You see, I’ve arranged for a committee from New York to go down to Martinique and look over the ground, and I want to take them before they have a chance to cool off. I’ve got to get my house there in order and engage some servants, for that will be our headquarters, and if Cecily doesn’t leave by the boat tomorrow, she can’t go for ten days. Ten days from now I’m going to have the committee ready to sail, and when I get them to Martinique, I’m going to give them a sample of Creole hospitality. I wish you could come,” he added warmly. “I’d like to have you.”
“There’s nothing I’d like better,” I said, suddenly conscious of how I had slandered him in my thoughts. “But I fear it isn’t possible just now.”
“Well, some day I shall have you there, and I warn you I shan’t let you go in a hurry. Come in,” he added, in response to a knock at the door.
Two waiters entered, and in a moment the dinner was served.
“That will do,” said Tremaine, pressing a coin into the hand of each of them. “We’ll attend to ourselves. Send up in an hour for the dishes. I thought that was best,” he added, as he closed the door after them. “We can talk freely now.”
He stepped to the inner door.
“Cecily!” he called.
She appeared in a moment, with eyelids a little puffed and red, but on the whole in much better spirits than I had expected. She was arrayed in all her finery—she had put on every piece of jewelry, I think—and she paused in the doorway to throw me a courtesy. Tremaine took her hand and led her to a seat, with a grace worthy of the Grand Monarque.
“See the spoiled child!” he said, laughing across the table at her, a moment later. “She’s been making herself miserable for nothing. In two weeks, we shall be together again at Fond-Corré.”
She answered his laugh with a thin smile, and shot me a glance pregnant with meaning. I knew she meant that her prophecy had come true.
He brimmed her glass with wine.
“Drink that,” he said. “To our meeting in two weeks.”
“To our meeting in two weeks!” she repeated ironically, and drained the glass.
But in a few moments the mood passed and she became quite gay. Not till then did it occur to me that Tremaine had made no reference to the tragedy at Edgemere. Then I caught myself just in time, for I remembered suddenly that I was not supposed to know he had been there.
“So you have been successful?” I asked finally.
“Yes, I believe so. I’ve succeeded in interesting some capitalists. Richard Delroy—perhaps you know him?”
“No; only by reputation.”
“He has helped me greatly.”
“You got through, then, sooner than you expected?”
“Yes—I thought it would take a week, at least. Mr. Delroy had arranged that the conference should take place at his country house near Babylon. We finished the details yesterday, and,” he added, after the faintest hesitation, “an extremely unfortunate event occurred there last night which made any further stay impossible—I dare say you saw an account of it in the evening papers?”
“Oh, yes; that murder and robbery. The evidence seems to point very strongly toward a young fellow named Drysdale.”
“Very strongly,” he agreed, nodding with just the right degree of concern, “although I’m hoping that he may be able to prove himself not guilty. An amiable young fellow—somewhat impulsive and headstrong—but let us not talk about it. It’s too unpleasant. This evening, we must be gay.”
There is no need for me to detail what we did talk about, since it in no way concerns this story; but I had never seen Tremaine to better advantage. He was the unexceptionable gentleman, the man of the world who had travelled far and tasted many things, a brilliant and witty talker—a personality, in a word, on the whole so fascinating and impressive that long before the evening was over I had dismissed as ridiculous my vague suspicions of an hour before. The story that Godfrey had built up was, I reflected, wholly hypothetical, flimsy with the flimsiness which always attaches to circumstantial evidence. I knew how a jury, looking at Tremaine, would laugh at it. No lawyer would risk his reputation with such a case, no magistrate would allow it to proceed before him. Why, for all I knew, Tremaine could prove an alibi for the tragedy in suite fourteen as complete as that which Delroy had offered for him in the Edgemere mystery. Godfrey and I had been forging a chain of sand, imagining it steel! As for that prison photograph, I had been deceived by a chance resemblance.
“The boat starts from pier fifty-seven, North River, at the foot of West Twenty-seventh Street, at eight o’clock,” were Tremaine’s last words to me. “We shall look for you there.”
Is there any virtue in dreams, I wonder? That night, while I slept, the tragedy in suite fourteen was re-enacted before me. I witnessed its every detail—I saw Tremaine snatch up the pipe and strike a heavy blow—then, suddenly, behind him, appeared a face dark with passion, a hand shot out, a pistol flashed, even as Tremaine tried to knock it aside, and Cecily looked down upon her victim with eyes blazing with hatred!
I was at the pier in good time, for, let me confess it, I was curious to see the details of this leave-taking. Cecily and Tremaine were there before me, the former leaning sadly against the rail while the latter directed the checking of some baggage.
I went directly to her.
“So here you are,” I said, “ready to go back to that St. Pierre you love so much. Aren’t you glad?”
“Oh, very glad,” she answered, with a single listless glance at me. “I shall never come back to this horrible place.”
“And Tremaine will join you in two weeks,” I added.
This time she looked at me—a lightning flash!-a glance that brought back vividly my dream.
“Will he?” she asked between her teeth.
“Why,” I questioned, in affected surprise, “don’t you think he will?”
She drew in her breath with a quick gasp.
“What does it matter? I’m only a fille-de-couleur. I shall laugh and forget, like all the others,” and, indeed, a strange unnatural excitement had come into her face.
I saw her eyes devouring Tremaine as he approached.
“Everything is arranged,” he said cheerily, shaking hands with me. “Here are the checks, Cecily. Now take us down to your stateroom and do the honours.”
“As you please, doudoux,” she answered quietly, and led the way.
It was a very pleasant cabin, one of the best on board, and I saw that some of her personal belongings were already scattered about it. Against the hot-water pipe in one corner was hanging Fê-Fê’s cage. A curtain had been tied about it to protect its tender occupant from the cold.
“I see you’re taking Fê-Fê with you,” I remarked.
“To be sure she is,” said Tremaine. “She knows the snake would starve to death if she left it with me. But we must drink to a good voyage.”
He rose and touched the electric button. Cecily followed him with eyes gleaming like two coals of fire. Looking at her, I felt a vague uneasiness—did she have concealed in the bosom of her gown that same revolver—was she only waiting a favourable moment…
“The first toast is yours, Mr. Lester,” said Tremaine, as he filled the glasses.
“To Cecily!” I cried. “Her health, long life, and happiness!”
“Thank you, chè,” she said simply, and very gravely, and we drank it.
Just then a bell sounded loudly from the deck and a voice shouting commands.
“Come, we must be going,” said Tremaine, rising hastily. “That’s the shore bell.”
I passed out first, and for an instant held my breath, expecting I know not what—a dull report—a scream… But in a moment they came out together. Tremaine and I made a rush for the gang-plank, while Cecily again took up her station against the rail. We waved to her and waved again, shouting goodbyes, as the last rope was cast loose, and the steamer began to move away from the dock.
She waved back at us and kissed her hands, looking very beautiful.
Then suddenly her face changed; she swayed and caught at the rail for support.
“She’s going to faint, pardieu!” said Tremaine.
But she did not faint; instead she made a funnel of her hands and shouted a last message back at us.
Tremaine nodded as though he understood and waved his hand.
“Did you catch what she said?” he asked.
“No, not a word of it. That tug over there whistled just then.”
“I caught the word ‘lit.’ She probably wants to know how many she’ll have to get ready—but no matter,” and he turned to me with an expressive little shrug.
“Why? Isn’t the committee really going to Martinique?”
“Oh, a couple of engineers are going to look over the ground and report.”
“And you?”
“I shall stay here.” He waved his handkerchief again at the receding boat, then passed it across his forehead. “That takes a big load off my mind, Mr. Lester, I tell you, to get her safely off and be alive to tell the tale. I rather expected her to stick a knife into me last night. I made a great mistake in bringing her with me.”
“But I thought you said”
“Oh, they do laugh and forget in time; but just at first they naturally feel badly. Now, before the voyage is over, I dare say Cecily will have another doudoux—some handsome Creole returning home, perhaps. She’s a magnificent woman, just the same,” he added.
“That she is,” I agreed, and threw a last look down the river.
The boat was almost hidden by the morning mist; in a moment more it had quite disappeared, bearing Cecily to death, a fortnight later, in the shadow of Pelée. And I doubt if I shall ever know another woman like her.