The Winning Clue Part 18

"Nothing--came in, bought a pack of cigarettes, and went out."

"Anybody else seen him?"

"Not so far as we've been able to discover."

"Has he ever registered at any of the hotels here?"

"Not that we can find; no, never."

"Funny," ruminated Bristow, "very funny. Yes, I think you're right, chief. Put up the case against Perry until we can do something better or prove it on him absolutely. Of course, if the laboratory test shows that he had human flesh--a white person's flesh--under his finger nails, that will settle it in my mind. There couldn't be any other answer."

"Will the test show whether it's a white person's skin or a n.i.g.g.e.r's?"

"Of course. There's no pigment in a white person's skin."

"Is that so? That's something I never knew before. Anyway, it certainly will nail him, won't it? But, you don't feel anyways sure Perry's the guilty man, do you?"

"No, I can't say I do. I'll tell you what we've got to consider, and it's not a very pretty theory; either that Morley killed Mrs. Withers, and Miss Fulton knows it; or that Morley and Miss Fulton together killed her; or that, although Perry killed her, we, in looking for the murderer, have come pretty near to stumbling on some sort of a nasty family scandal, something in which Maria Fulton, Enid Withers and George Withers, with perhaps another man, all have been mixed up.

"I mean a scandal ugly enough for all the rest of them to make desperate attempts to keep it hidden, even when Mrs. Withers is dead and gone.

Frankly, I didn't believe Withers was in on the murder or that he believes Maria had anything to do with it or knows how it was done.

"But Maria Fulton--that's different. How else are we to explain her behaviour with us when we tried to interview her, the fact of her sudden abhorrence for Morley, the man to whom she was engaged only yesterday?

"And how else are we to explain Morley's unexplained two hours of last night, and his apparent terror today, and his whole connection with the case--the matter of the ring found in his hotel room, and all that?

There's something fishy about this thing somehow, something fishy that includes Maria Fulton and Morley.

"This fellow with the brown beard and the gold tooth strengthens the theory of some rotten scandal. He must be mixed up in it some way. I'll bet anything, though, that he had nothing to do with the murder. That's what we want to get at--this inside scandal, this something which existed long before the murder but yet may have led indirectly to the murder."

Greenleaf sighed and pa.s.sed his hand wearily across his eyes. He had had a hard day, the hardest day of his life.

"But you think my plan for the inquest is all right?" he asked once more.

"Yes; it's the best thing possible. By the way, don't have me summoned to testify. Leave my evidence until the trial. I don't want to wear myself out going down there for merely an inquest."

"All right; I'll fix that. We've enough evidence without yours--enough for the inquest, anyway."

"Thanks."

Bristow looked at his watch, and Greenleaf got up to go.

"I'll be up here between eight and nine tomorrow morning," he said, "if that suits you."

"What for?"

"To get a good look at the grounds back of Number Five. If the murderer dropped anything, I want to be the man to pick it up."

"Oh, I'd forgotten that," Bristow said in a tone indicating his hopelessness of finding anything worth while. "Yes; I'll be ready for you."

Something else was on Greenleaf's mind.

"This Braceway," he said sarcastically, "the smartest detective in the South. He'll be here in the morning. What will we do? Work with him?"

"Sure," Bristow replied heartily, as if to fore-stall the other's dislike of the new-comer. "Even if he were no good, the best thing we could do would be to work with him. And, as he's something of a world-beater, we'll get the benefit of his ideas. By all means, let's all keep together on this thing."

"All right," Greenleaf agreed, his tone a little surly. "Your appointment to my force is O. K. I fixed that this afternoon. Good night."

"Good night--and don't forget to send that stuff off to the Charlotte laboratory tonight. If we can find out who scratched somebody last night, if we can determine who had little bits of foreign skin under the finger nails today, we've got the answer to this murder mystery. That's one thing sure."

Bristow turned off the lights in the living room and went to his dressing room to prepare for bed on the sleeping porch.

"Money," he was thinking as he undressed; "money and fifteen thousand dollars' worth of jewelry. Where has it all gone? That's the thing that will settle this case, and I think--I think I've a pretty good idea of what will be proved about it."

CHAPTER IX

WOMEN'S NERVES

Lucy Thomas in a cell in the Furmville jail sat on the edge of her cot at midnight, staring into inky darkness while she tried to remember the events of the night before. She was not of the slow-witted, stupid-looking type of negro women. The thing against which she struggled was not poverty of brain but the mist of forgetfulness with which the fumes of liquor had surrounded her.

Questioned and requestioned by the police during the afternoon and early evening, she had been able to tell them only that she and Perry had been drinking together in her little two-room cabin. When he had left her, what he had said, whether he had returned--these points were as effectually covered up in her mind as if she had never had cognizance of them.

She did remember, however, certain things which she had not imparted to the police. One was that at some time during the night there had been a struggle between herself and Perry. The other was that at some time, far into the night or very early in the morning, she had heard the clank-clank of the iron key falling on the floor of her house, a key which she had worn suspended on a ribbon round her neck.

She rocked herself back and forth on the cot, her head throbbing, her mouth parched, tears in her eyes. To the white people, she thought, it did not matter much, but to her the fact that she and Perry had intended to get married was the biggest thing in her life.

"I don't know; I don't know," her thoughts ran bitterly. "Ef Perry tuk dat key away fum me, he mus' done gawn to dat house--an' he wuz full uv likker. Ef he ain' done tuk dat key fum me an' den later flung it back on de flo' uv my house, who did do it?"

She sobbed afresh.

"He is one mean n.i.g.g.e.r when he gits too much likker in him. Ain' n.o.body knows dat better'n I does. An' he sayed somethin' las' night 'bout gittin' a whole lot uv money. He--"

She moaned and flung herself backward on the cot.

"Gawd have mussy! Gawd have mussy! I done remembuhed. I done remembuhed.

He done say somethin' 'bout dat white woman's gol' an' jewelery. Gawd!

Dat's whut he done. He done it! Dat's why he wuz fightin' me. He wuz tryin' to git dat kitchen key. An' he got it! He got it! Ef he done kilt dat woman, de white folks goin' to git him sho'ly--sho'ly. An' him an' me ain' nevuh gwine git married--nevuh. Dey'll kill him or dey'll sen' him to dat pen. Aw, my Gawd! My Gawd!"

She sat up again and began to think about Mrs. Withers, how well the slain woman had treated her, how kindly. From that, her thoughts went to ghosts. She fell to trembling and moaning in an audible key. It was not long before a warden, awakened by her cries of terror, had to visit her and threaten bodily punishment if she did not keep quiet.

After a while, she relapsed into her quiet sobbing.

"I think maybe he done tuk dat key. I knows he done lef' me durin' de night, an' I b'lieve he done come back. But I ain't gwine say nothin'.

Maybe I don' know. Maybe I is mistuk. De whole thing done got too mix' up fuh me. Maybe he kilt her an' maybe he ain' been nigh de place. But I wish I coul' know. My holy Lawd! I wish I done know all dat done happen.