The Twenty-Six Clues/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II
Two Strands of Black Hair
"BUT is it true that she is really dead?" The blind secretary's emotional voice rose in an almost hysterical appeal and his fingers hovered tremblingly over the body. "What is it that has killed her? A-ah! This scarf which is drawn about her throat! Unloose it, Messieurs, I beg of you! It may be that life still lingers; that there is yet time!"
"'Tis useless, sir," McCarty interrupted him. "She's already cold, and the body must not be disturbed until the police come."
At the mention of the authorities who were sometimes his allies, more frequently his adversaries but always his competitors, Wade Terhune bestirred himself to action and took swift command of affairs. Fixing his erstwhile host with the cold eye of an inquisitor he asked in a curt, peremptory tone.
"Who is Evelyn Jarvis?"
"She is my niece Joan's intimate friend," Norwood responded mechanically as he moistened his dry lips. The jaunty air of self-possession had fallen from him and he appeared all at once shrunken and aged. "Oliver Jarvis' wife and our near neighbor. God! How can we tell him!"
"You positively identify the body, then, Mr. Norwood?" Terhune went on steadily.
"It cannot be! I feel as if I must have gone mad!" The other passed a shaking hand across his brow. "I can scarcely believe the evidence of my own eyes and yet—her eyes, her hair, that emerald upon her finger—oh! It is Evelyn! Poor child! Poor child!"
"You say they are neighbors of yours?" Terhune began and turned swiftly at a movement behind him. "Where are you going, McCarty?"
"To telephone Police Headquarters." The ex-Roundsman responded with a firmness which matched the criminalist's dominant tones. "There's been murder done and the body's here, Mr. Terhune. It's up to them first of all."
Terhune bit his lip and a slight color flushed his lean face, but he capitulated with an ironic smile.
"Assuredly, my dear McCarty. Summon them by all means! I merely wished to make a preliminary investigation before their well-meant efforts obliterated any possible clues." As the other disappeared in the corridor, he turned once more to Calvin Norwood. "Where do the Olivers live?"
"On the next street south directly on a line with this house; their back-yard and ours are separated only by a fence in which we have had a door cut through, for the girls—Evelyn and my Joan—have been like sisters. Why should anyone have taken her life, and how—how did she get here?"
Terhune did not reply immediately. He had bent over the table in his turn and was examining the body with deft, sure touches. Dennis Riordan stepped aside deferentially, and Victor Marchal had retreated to the cold hearth once more and stood with his elbow upon the mantel and his face averted.
"We must send for Oliver, of course." Norwood's dazed, trembling voice rambled on. "I can't tell the boy, I can't! It will kill him! He worshiped her"
"Dead at least four or five hours." Terhune audibly made note of the result of his conclusions as he glanced at his wrist watch. "A quarter of ten; the murder was committed, then, approximately between five and six. There was a violent struggle; her hands are bruised and one sleeve of her gown is torn as you can see, but that is merely superficial. The knot in which the scarf is tied is the significant point. When did you last see Mrs. Jarvis alive?"
"The day before yesterday, on Wednesday evening. They gave an informal farewell dinner; she and Oliver are sailing for France next week—were to have sailed, I mean" He paused and with an obvious effort pulled himself together, adding: "Mr. Terhune, I appreciate your interest in this terrible affair from a purely professional standpoint but really I cannot discuss it further until Oliver has been summoned."
"He's coming." McCarty's voice announced from the doorway as he re-entered. "After I talked to Inspector Druet, I looked up the Jarvis' number in the 'phone book and called their house. Some man, the butler, I've no doubt, told me nobody was at home but Mr. Jarvis might be at his club, the Gotham. I got to him there."
"What did you tell him?" quavered Norwood.
The secretary, too, had come forward once more.
"Just that you must see him here immediately, sir. 'Twas no concern of mine, but the Inspector will be asking for him, anyway. And, Mr. Norwood, sir, I think if you'd just say a word to the servants—the butler heard me at the telephone talking to Headquarters and I'm afraid we'll have them about our ears"
"I—I must speak to them, of course!" Norwood turned to the door. "This is horrible! What am I to say to Oliver!"
He hurried from the room and Victor Marchal started to follow, then paused and stooping, fumbled for the Mexican blanket.
"You will permit, Messieurs?" he asked quietly. "Until the police officials arrive, at least, it is but respect to the dead."
Reverentially he spread the blanket over the pitiful, still form upon the table, then turning with outstretched, groping hands he made his way from the room.
Terhune had taken himself to the farther end of the museum where the four long French windows, set so closely as to give the effect of a wall of glass, looked out upon the back-yard and McCarty and Dennis stood gazing round-eyed at each other.
"I knew it!" the latter ejaculated at last in a lowered tone. "From the first minute I set foot in this room I knew there was something wrong with it more than the heathenish collection would account for. No more could I keep my eyes off that table"
"Whatever put it into your head to ask that question of Mr. Norwood about the hair, Denny?" McCarty demanded.
"Well, I saw a skeleton in a real museum once, and it was not what you might call corpulent," Dennis averred. "Likewise, it was as bald as the palm of your hand. Now, that blanket looked too bulky to be covering just a rack of bones and when I walked around the head of the table I saw a long, black lock of hair hanging down nearly to the floor. I didn't know what to think, Mac, except that there was something going on here beyond a healthy mortal mind to figure out. What do you make of it?"
McCarty walked to the end of the table and glanced down. From beneath the gaudy blanket there rippled a single strand of silky ebony hair.
"Well, McCarty, what is your opinion?" Terhune had approached and unconsciously echoed Dennis' inquiry, "Have you formed one yet?"
There was about him an air of conscious superiority which betokened a discovery and the other eyed him warily.
"I have not, Mr. Terhune," he responded. "I've nothing yet to go upon. This is the first time in my experience that a murder has been committed and the body brought and laid out where it would be the most handy to come to the notice of Mr. Norwood, as if the murderer was mocking him and daring him to find out the truth. Of all places in the world you'd expect to come on a fresh-killed corpse, it would not be in a museum of old crime relics!"
"Mr. Norwood is merely an eccentric amateur." Terhune shrugged. "The remarkable phase of the affair is that it should have occurred to-night, of all occasions, when I was present; and you, too, McCarty, for your work on the force in the old days and in association with me last year on the Rowntree case is not forgotten. If someone, knowing that we were to gather here to-night, had actually planned this ghastly surprise for us it could not have been more successfully consummated."
"It could not," McCarty agreed. "However, 'twas not to give us something to do that the poor lady was murdered! What do you think of it yourself, sir?"
The subdued but insistent peal of the front door-bell checked Terhune's reply and all three listened anxiously.
"What is it?" they heard a deep and pleasantly modulated masculine voice inquire. "What has happened, Uncle Cal? I came as quickly as a taxi would bring me."
Their elderly host's quavering tones responded in an indistinguishable murmur and there came a sharp exclamation from the other.
"Evelyn! An accident? What do you mean? Where is she?"
Calvin Norwood's voice rose in a broken cry.
"Oliver, oh, my boy! I can't tell you! She's there—there in my museum! May God help us all!"
Hasty steps strode down the corridor and a tall, young man appeared in the doorway. He was in his early thirties, well-built and of a clean-cut Anglo-Saxon type but his smoothly shaven face was very white and his blue eyes swept widely about the room ignoring or unconscious in his alarmed state of the presence of the three strangers.
"Where is my wife?" he repeated hoarsely. "She is not here! What has happened to her?
Wade Terhune stepped forward.
"Mr. Jarvis, we have terrible news for you. Your wife has been killed."
He spoke slowly and quietly and for a moment the younger man eyed him as though the purport of the words had not penetrated his consciousness. Then he staggered back.
"Killed!" It was a mere husky whisper. "Evelyn—killed!"
His eyes roved dazedly once more about the room and back to Terhune's face and leaping forward he seized him by the arm.
"You can't mean what you are saying!" he cried. "Speak, man! My wife!"
"It is true, Mr. Jarvis. She is dead."
"But how? Where?" The other's voice broke in sheer agony of half-incredulous grief. "Take me to her!"
"You don't understand, Mr. Jarvis. Your wife's body was discovered here a few moments before you were summoned. You must try to command yourself, for I have something yet more shocking to tell you." Terhune's own voice was gravely sympathetic but his sharp eyes followed every expression of the stricken face before him. "Mrs. Jarvis' body was brought here and placed where it was found in this room. She had been killed, I told you; I should have said 'murdered'!"
"Murdered! You are mad! Who would murder Evelyn? Where is this body which you have found?"
No one answered him but unconsciously all eyes turned to the swathed form upon the table and he followed their gaze. With a gasp he sprung forward and tore off the enshrouding blanket and a cry rang through the room so poignant with horror and heart-breaking despair that the others instinctively averted their faces.
"My boy!" Calvin Norwood had entered and swiftly approached him. "Try to be brave and control yourself for her sake! We must find the vile wretch who"
His voice ended in a choking gurgle for the grief-crazed young husband had turned and seized him by the throat
"You've done this!" he roared. "You've killed her!"
Terhune moved swiftly, but McCarty and Dennis were before him and with a dexterous lunge forced Jarvis to relinquish his frenzied grasp.
"There now!" McCarty admonished soothingly. "'Tis a terrible business, Mr. Jarvis, but Mr. Norwood is not responsible. He knows no more of it than we do. We all came in here with him and found the body just as you see it now. We've no notion how it came here nor who killed her!"
A shudder shook the tense form which they held and it relaxed suddenly.
"Uncle Cal, I didn't mean—I didn't know what I was doing!" The young man murmured brokenly and turning once more to the table he fell upon his knees with his arms thrown out across the body of his wife and burst into harsh racking sobs.
At that moment the door-bell rang a second time and Inspector Druet's curt, incisive tones reached their ears in quick questioning. The butler's frightened stammer replied to him and then firm steps sounded in the corridor and the police official entered the room followed by two sturdy figures who took up their positions on either side of the doorway.
The Inspector nodded to Terhune and McCarty and his keen, alert eyes took in the situation at a glance.
"Mr. Norwood?" He turned to the bowed, elderly figure. "I'm from Headquarters. I'd like to have you tell me what you know of this crime, but first who is that?"
He pointed to the grief-stricken man by the table and Norwood responded:
"Her husband. Mr. McCarty sent for him as soon as he had telephoned to you. Inspector, this is a frightful affair! The young woman was an intimate friend of my household and a near neighbor, but I have not seen her for two days. I don't know how she was murdered nor the body conveyed here. I only know that we came in a half-hour ago and found her as you see, only the blanket had been drawn up, completely covering her. We were in here for some minutes before we discovered the body"
The Inspector stopped him with a gesture, for Oliver Jarvis had dragged himself to his feet and lurched toward them.
"The police?" he asked thickly. "Find me the man who killed my wife and you can have all I possess! Find him for me and let me deal with him! Evelyn! Evelyn!"
He swayed and collapsed utterly, slumping forward as McCarty caught him in his strong arms.
"He'll do no good here for awhile," the latter remarked. "He's fainted, I think. Shall we get him to another room, Inspector, till he comes to and quiets down a bit? He's near crazed, and no wonder!"
"Yes, Mac Take him away, but come back yourself—no, Martin and Yost can take him."
The two figures by the door advanced at the Inspector's nod, and Norwood roused himself.
"The library would be best; the front room on your left as you entered the house. Victor Marchal, my secretary, is there and will attend to him."
As the unconscious form was borne away by the two stalwart detectives, the Inspector examined the body swiftly and then returned once more to his interrogation.
"When did you enter this room last, Mr. Norwood?"
"This afternoon; I think it was about three o'clock." The older man had regained a trifle of his composure with the removal of the bereaved husband, but his eyes flutternigly avoided the figure upon the table. "Everything was in perfect order then."
"The operating table was bare?"
"No, it is always covered with the Madero blanket beneath which I had placed the skeleton of the Duchess of Piatra!" Norwood paused with a start of returning memory which anticipated the Inspector's next query.
"Where is that skeleton now?"
"I—I don't know! The murderer must have hidden it somewhere or removed it altogether when he put the body there in its place. I hadn't remembered it until this moment." Norwood glanced about, him as if expecting the gruesome object to meet his eye, but it was not in evidence and the room contained no closed receptacle large enough to conceal it. "You've heard of my collection of crime relics, Inspector,"
The other interrupted him with a trace of impatience.
"Of course. But this afternoon, did you raise the blanket and look beneath it?"
"No. It is sometimes undisturbed for weeks together. I only took it from the table, to-night to show my guests—Mr. Terhune, Mr. McCarty, and Mr. Riordan—the skeleton. This afternoon I entered for just a moment to obtain some notes for my secretary to transcribe, and went out immediately thereafter, to visit my friend, Professor Parlowe, the eminent toxicologist. I found him in the midst of a highly interesting experiment in his laboratory and returned home barely in time to change for dinner."
"You were alone when you came in here for the notes this afternoon?"
"No. Victor—Captain Marchal—my secretary, was with me."
"He left the room with you?" persisted the official.
"Yes, but he returned later and replaced the notes." Norwood was evidently disturbed afresh at the trend of the questioning. "He has free access to the museum at all times, Inspector; most of his work for me is in the care and tabulating of my collection, you know. He carries one key and I the other."
"You keep your museum locked, then?"
"Of course. It is only on comparatively rare occasions that I throw it open to visitors." Norwood spoke with dignity. "My collection is not on display for the morbidly curious."
"The door was locked when you brought your guests here this evening?" The Inspector was not to be swerved from his point and Dennis stirred and glanced meaningly at McCarty.
"Why, no, I—I don't believe that it was." Norwood's eyes traveled from one to another of them in troubled bewilderment. "I was so deeply engrossed in talking of the various objects of interest which I intended to show my friends that I scarcely' noted. Did you observe whether I used my key or not?"
He appealed to Terhune, but while the latter was considering his reply Dennis broke in irrepressibly.
"You did not, sir. You switched on the light and just turned the handle of the door."
"Dear me! This is most unusual." Norwood was plainly taken aback. "I must ask Victor if he forgot to lock the door."
"I will ask him myself, later," the Inspector announced drily. "Who else was in the house this afternoon during your absence?"
"Only the cook and housemaid, and they were below stairs. My niece is out of town on a visit and her personal maid is with her," explained Norwood. "We have reduced our household staff considerably as a matter of war economy and we keep no other servants except the butler. I gave him an afternoon off to-day to go to see his brother, who is ill in the hospital."
"H'm! I should like to have a little talk, then, with your secretary." Inspector Druet turned to the door. "He may have seen"
"He can see nothing." Norwood interrupted. "He is a young French officer, recently blinded in battle, whom I brought back with me from France three months ago. He knows no more of this terrible event than I, and I beg that you will be as considerate with him as possible. His nerves were completely shattered by the ordeal through which he has passed and he is only beginning to regain his grip on life. Evelyn—Mrs. Jarvis—had taken a very kindly interest in him and the shock of her death, her murder, has utterly depressed and unnerved him. He was on the verge of absolute prostration when I left him in the library."
"I will let him off as lightly as I can, Mr. Norwood," the Inspector promised with a note of deepened respect in his tones. "However, if the murder was not committed here someone in this house must know how the woman's body was conveyed to this room"
"If you will pardon my intrusion, Inspector," Terhune's tones were ironically apologetic "I may be able to save you some valuable time. Mrs. Jarvis was not killed on the premises, nor was her body carried through the house. Someone, presumably her murderer, brought it in through that window there, the second from the left as you face it. I do not as a rule express an opinion on mere theory but I am led to believe that the murder occurred in her own home."
"Is that so, Mr. Terhune?" The Inspector paused deferentially. "On what do you base that opinion?"
"I have already ascertained from Mr. Norwood that the Jarvis residence is directly on a line with this, facing the next street south and the two back-yards are separated only by a wall through which a door has been cut." Terhune's tenuous fingers sought the pocket of his vest. "Just before your arrival I examined the four windows in the rear of the room carefully. All were closed as you see them now, but the second from the left was unbolted and I opened it experimentally. Caught in a loose sliver of wood on the inner side of the frame, a little over four feet from the floor, where the two perpendicular sides of the window open like double doors I found—this."
He stretched out his hand and Dennis and McCarty glanced once more significantly at each other. From between the thumb and forefinger dangled a long, curling strand of glossy, jet-black hair.