Chapter IV

_Some Hypothetical Questions_

Dinner was not a particularly cheerful meal. I had to take the head of

the table, and therefore sat in the chair so lately vacated by my Cousin

Francis Graeme. Really I should have preferred a decent delay in the

matter, but old Effingham, the family butler for two generations past,

would have it so, and any protest would have been both futile and

unseemly.

There were three of us at table, for Doctor Marcy was staying on to look

after the sick man, and would remain over night in default of the

regular nurse, who could not be secured until the next day. I liked the

doctor, a blunt, ruddy faced man of forty-five or so. He told me that he

was a graduate of Edinburgh, and that he had led an adventurous life for

several years after taking his medical degree, including service in the

British army during the Boer War. He had a curious scar running down the

left side of his jaw and extending nearly to the chin. Naturally I had

not commented upon the disfigurement, but somehow the subject of

insanity came up, and he told us of a remarkable experience of his

hospital days. A patient, subject to periodical fits of mania, was to be

operated upon, and Marcy was alone with him in a large room where the

instruments were kept. With his hands full of chisels, trephines, and

mallets Marcy went to cross the room, and chanced to trip on a rug,

falling headlong. Instantly the patient, an English army officer of

tremendous physique, was upon him, kicking him in the face with his

heavy, double-welted boots. Marcy, fearing that the madman might get

hold of the eight-pound mallet, rolled over and flung the whole lot of

instruments across the room; thereby he exposed the other side of his

head, and the consequence was another terrific kick on the left jaw.

With his mouth full of blood and broken teeth Marcy grappled with his

man, dragged him to where he could reach a push-button, and held him

until help arrived. The curious part of the affair lay in the fact that

up to the moment of the fall the patient had been perfectly sane,

talkative, and friendly. Marcy's sudden slip and defenseless position

had simply unchained the beast in the man. It must have been an Homeric

struggle, for Marcy himself, though comparatively short of stature,

possessed the most marvelous muscular development I have ever seen, his

forearm being bigger than the average man's leg. When I add that,

despite his terrible injuries, Marcy assisted that same afternoon at the

operation (which in the end restored the patient to perfect mental

health), it will be evident that there was little of the weakling about

him; as I have said, I liked him from the start.

John Thaneford ate and talked but little during the meal. He drank

several glasses of whiskey and water, and smoked a cigarette between

every course. The cloud of his sullen temper was oppressive, and both

the doctor and I felt relieved when he abruptly declined coffee, and

announced his intention of returning to the sick room. The elder

Thaneford still continued in a comatose condition, and really there was

nothing to do but wait for whatever change might come; accordingly

Doctor Marcy ran upstairs for a hasty look at his patient, and then

rejoined me in the library, where coffee and liqueurs had been served.

Effingham had taken his tray and retired to the pantry. Doctor Marcy

pulled at his cigar until it glowed redly; then he looked over at me.

"You're Hildebrand of the 'Hundred,' I hear," he began abruptly.

"Yes."

"Consequently you ought to know of something that has been bothering me

more than a little. Has it ever been intimated to you that there was

anything peculiar about the death of your cousin?"

"Francis Graeme! Why, no; nothing has been said to me."

"Well, I don't think his death was a natural one."

It startled me, the assured manner in which he spoke; in an instant, the

atmosphere of this quiet country room seemed to have grown tense and

heavy. "Go on," I said briefly.

"As you know," continued Doctor Marcy, "Mr. Graeme died suddenly on

Tuesday, June 21, presumably from heart failure or a cerebral

hemorrhage. As a matter of record, my routine certificate gives the

latter as the cause of death. The fact of a brain lesion was fully

established, as I'll explain later, but I'm not at all satisfied as to

the predisposing cause."

"Yes."

"You'll understand what I'm driving at when I tell you that I saw

Francis Graeme professionally that very morning, and I know that he was

in the best of health for a man of his age. He had been thinking of

taking out additional life insurance, and as I am the county examiner

for the company, he asked me to drop in Tuesday morning and go over him.

Mind you, I had been his regular physician for a number of years, long

before he came to the 'Hundred,' and I knew him inside and out. A

straighter, cleaner man never lived, and he had always kept himself in

top condition; I had never discovered the least sign of any degenerative

process.

"Well, I did come over, and I saw him in this very room where we are

sitting. He was cheerful as usual, and even joked me on the possibility

that I might at last uncover one of the insidious enemies to health that

so often make their appearance in middle life. But there was nothing,

absolutely nothing--heart, lungs, circulatory system--all in first-class

shape. As a matter of form, there would have to be a laboratory

analysis, but otherwise I was prepared to give him a clean bill of

health, and I told him so. He took it quite as a matter of course, and,

after arranging for a round of golf that same afternoon at the Lost

River Country Club, we parted. That was around ten o'clock, and at half

past two I had a telephone from the 'Hundred,' asking me to come over at

once. When I arrived I was taken in here. Graeme lay on the floor,

alongside the big library table. On his right temple there was a

noticeable contusion, triangular in shape. He was stone dead."

"Could you tell how long?"

"Probably a couple of hours."

"The wound, of course, was your first thought."

"Naturally. And in itself it was quite enough to have caused death.

Remember that it was on the temple, a vulnerable spot."

"An assailant then?"

"By hypothesis certainly. I may say that I have had some experience in

criminal cases; accordingly I was very careful not to disturb anything,

and up to this time I had only touched the man's wrist to assure myself

that the pulse was gone."

"Who was it that gave the alarm?"

"I am told that one of the servants, Effingham, to be precise, knocked

on the library door at about half past one o'clock, to announce the

serving of luncheon. He then went away without waiting for an answer

from Mr. Graeme; it seems that was his custom on the occasion of this

particular summons. A half hour later, when Mr. Graeme failed to appear

at the table, Miss Trevor told Effingham to go again and make sure that

his master had heard the message. I understood that occasionally Graeme

would not come to luncheon, especially if he happened to be more than

usually busy; he might appear an hour or so later, and forage around for

a glass of milk and a couple of biscuits."

"His tardiness then excited no surprise?"

"Apparently not. But Effingham went again to the library, and knocked

two or three times without getting any response."

"Must have been very alarming to Miss Graeme."

"Oh, luckily Betty wasn't at home. Miss Trevor was alone in the house,

and everything devolved upon her. Finally she decided to have the door

broken down, but after she had given the order Effingham reminded her

that it would not be necessary. A few months before Graeme had installed

a complete system of modern locks throughout the house, and the butler

had the master key in his possession."

"That's an interesting point."

"Yes--very. Well, Effingham went to the butler's pantry and got the

key."

"Oh, then it was not in his immediate possession after all?"

"I believe he was in the habit of keeping it behind the clock in the

pantry instead of with his regular bunch. Of course the idea was that

if any of the ordinary keys were lost, or indeed the whole lot of them,

he would still have the master key in reserve."

"Do you suppose that anyone else--especially among the other

servants--knew about the master-key and where it was kept?"

"Effingham is quite sure that no one did know, but really it's

impossible to say. You understand what darkies are--as curious as

magpies and quite as lighthanded. If one of them had chanced to see

Effingham hiding something behind the clock, he would be sure to

investigate for himself at the first convenient opportunity."

"While a clever thief, guessing that a master-key must be in existence,

would go straight to such a prominent object as a clock for his first

try. Curious, isn't it, how human nature prefers beaten trails, the old

ruts, the obvious grooves in which to run. Take the ordinary small

suburban house, with nobody home and everything supposed to be tightly

locked up. It's a one-to-three shot, at least, that the front door key

will be found neatly tucked away under the mat. But I shouldn't have

interrupted."

"The more light the better," nodded the doctor, helping himself to a

fresh cigar.

"Where was I? Ah, yes, at the opening of the door. Miss Trevor, so I

understand, hung back a little; a woman naturally shrinks from this sort

of thing, and Marcus, the house-boy, was the first person to enter. For

the instant it seemed as though the room was empty, and Effingham says

he heard Marcus exclaim: 'Marse Francis he done gone out!' Then as the

boy drew level with the high leather screen, standing at the right of

the big desk as one enters the room, he saw the body, yelled in terror,

and bolted. Miss Trevor had fainted----"

"When? Exactly when?" I broke in.

"I don't know," returned Marcy. "It may have been before she heard

Marcus scream, and it may have been after. I dare say everybody's nerves

were pretty tense by this time."

"Well, Effingham seems to have kept his head. He ordered out the other

servants, had Miss Trevor carried into the dining room, where she

quickly revived, and finally he telephoned for me."

"At Miss Trevor's request?"

"At Miss Trevor's request. That brings us up again to my arrival on the

scene, and my first hasty impressions.

"As I have said, Mr. Graeme lay face downward alongside the desk, just

hidden by the screen from the gaze of anyone entering the room from the

hall. Since the head was turned slightly to the right, the wound was not

visible unless one knelt, as I did, directly beside the body.

"Now a wound of this nature could have been received in two easily

understandable ways. Either Mr. Graeme, overcome with vertigo, had

fallen and hit his head against some sharp corner, or he had been

attacked and struck down by a weapon in the hands of some unknown

assailant.

"Hypothesis No. 1, or the accident theory. I can state positively that

Francis Graeme was not in the least subject to vertigo or fainting

spells, and there was nothing to indicate an ordinary trip-up and fall.

There is no rug at this point, the floor while smooth is not noticeably

slippery, and Graeme was dressed for golf, wearing rubber-soled shoes

which must have given him a particularly firm footing. Finally, there

was no apparent sharp corner on which his head could have struck. From

the position of the body it was clear that he had fallen entirely clear

of the writing-desk."

"That seems to dispose of the accident theory."

"Seems to--yes. But it's still a possibility that he might have fallen

and struck on something calculated to inflict an injury of this nature,

a something which was afterward removed."

"By whom?"

"Who knows? There was time enough for many things to happen between my

departure from the house and the discovery of the body. In the meantime

no one, supposedly, saw him. So nearly as I can determine, he died a

little after twelve o'clock, but the door was not opened until two. A

person who knew the house well could have secured the master-key,

entered the room, and left it again with little danger of detection."

"It's an impertinent observation, Doctor Marcy, but you say that _no

one_ saw Mr. Graeme alive after your departure from the library at ten

o'clock?"

"Oh, I have my alibi straight enough," smiled the doctor. "Miss Trevor

happened to be passing through the hall as I left the room. I stopped

and spoke to her, made some jesting remark about Graeme's being good for

a thousand years, more or less. At that same moment he came to the

library door and waved his hand to us both; then he turned back, and we

heard the click of the spring-latch. I believe that he usually set the

catch when he wanted to make sure of not being disturbed.

"Now we come to hypothesis No. 2, the possible assailant. The door

leading into the hall was locked. There are no roof openings. The

windows of stained glass in leaded frames are immovable; otherwise there

would be danger of the valuable glass being broken or knocked out

through an accidental jar. But for purposes of ventilation there is

inserted in each section a pridella. Ah, you don't understand--come over

here."

Doctor Marcy conducted me across the room to the window on the right of

the fireplace, the one depicting the return of the spies from the land

of Canaan. "You will notice," he said, "that there are three panels in

the window, each carrying a part of the general picture. Then, in the

lower part of the central panel, there is a small subsidiary scene; in

this particular case it represents a field of waving wheat in which

scarlet poppies are interspersed. This section is technically called the

pridella. Being small and exactly square in shape it can be easily

hinged. See, I pull the cord that controls the locking-catch--thus--and

this small window swings open.

"Tuesday the twenty-first of June was a warm day, and the pridella in

each of the large windows was in use. Now the available aperture is

about twenty inches by ten, the glass revolving on central pivots. A

boy, or a very small man, might possibly squeeze through, but the bottom

ledge of the window being some five feet above the terrace level he

would have to use a ladder or a pair of steps in order to reach it. Now,

as it chanced, that portion of the lawn lying adjacent to the library

terrace was in process of being mowed that morning. I saw the men at

work, two of the farm negroes. Assuredly they would have noticed any

attempt to scale the windows."

"They themselves are quite above suspicion, I suppose."

"Unquestionably. They are elderly men who have been employed at the

'Hundred' all their lives, and who bear excellent characters. Zack is

the local colored Baptist preacher, and Zeb is an assistant field

overseer. Impossible to suspect either, let alone both."

"Wouldn't they knock off for dinner at noon? Go to their cabins, I

mean."

"Ordinarily, yes. But on Tuesday Mandy, Zack's wife, went to Calverton,

and didn't return until late in the evening, or afternoon, as you would

say. Accordingly she made up pail dinners for both Zack and Zeb, the

latter being a boarder in their family. The men ate their food in the

shadow of the osage hedge directly opposite the terrace; Effingham saw

them and told me so."

"You seem to have covered the ground pretty thoroughly," I observed

approvingly.

"And for good reasons, too," remarked the doctor. "For if I really

believed the circumstances warranted the step it would be my duty to

communicate my suspicions to the coroner."

"Then you haven't done so!" I was surprised and doubtless my voice

showed it.

"No," assented Marcy deliberately. "In the first place I was determined

to keep every

[Note: There was a misprint here in the book. Instead of the end of this

paragraph, the preceding paragraph was duplicated.]

I started; I fancied that I had caught just the faintest suggestion of a

sigh. Let me explain that the great room was in darkness except for the

circle of yellow light cast by the shaded lamp that stood on a table at

my right. I listened intently, but I could hear nothing more.