The Mahnomen Pioneer

Friday, November 27, 1936

CHAPTER XIII.—Leila sees a cat enter the death room, and, being superstitious, goes in after the cat. She sees the animal licking a sharp-pointed andiron. She captures the cat, and is seeking Deck's letters when Harriden enters.

"You'd got those letters out... I tell you, Inspector, I want her searched."

At that moment a hand slid through my arm and Monty Mitchell was by my side. He was no taller than I, but he seemed a very tower of strength. I felt courage flowing into me through that friendly touch.

"You've gone crazy again, Dan," he said curtly.

"You've been having too many drinks with Letty. You heard Miss Seton say she came in after the cat. She is not interested in your letters."

"You mind your business," Harriden retorted. "What's Miss Seton to you?"

"As it happens, we are engaged," said Monty Mitchell.

"That's what she is to me."

An electric shock seemed to run through that room, but no one there was more completely astonished than I was myself. Involuntarily I looked about at him, and he gave me back a funny twinkle, his fingers squeezing my arm. I thought what a comfort it would be to put my head down on his shoulder and sob out all my rage and disgust, but pride held my head high.

"That isn't true," I heard myself saying.

"I don't need to take advantage of Mr. Mitchell's protection—of his wish to establish a position for me. I have one of my own. I have taken nothing of Mr. Harriden's."

"You're a liar!" said Harriden violently.

"Damn you! I don't care whether you're Mitchell's fancy girl or not."

"You're a Liar!"

Mitchell struck him in the face. He leaped at him like a bull terrier at a mastiff. The blow caught Harriden unprepared, and he reeled, a hand at his chin, then, with a choking sound he lunged at his assailant.

With official agility Donahey's big body intervened; Keller and young Watkins sprang to hold Dan.

"Not here, Dan, not here."

Keller's reminder had its weight. Harriden gave a queer look towards the bed, to that still, sheeted figure of his wife, and his arms fell. He drew a deep, convulsive breath.

He addressed Donahey.

"Whoever this girl is, she took those papers. She is a thief and a blackmailer. If they aren't on her she has destroyed them. They were here when I left this room."

Involuntarily our heads turned to that fireplace but no flames danced there.

The sight of the andirons exploded something in my brain. It was as though some flash of lightning, the flash I had been waiting for, subconsciously, flung into indelible brilliance the way before my straining vision.

I spoke out, throwing all caution to the winds.

"You'll find blood on one of those andirons, Mr. Inspector. On the left hand one. It is Mrs. Harriden's blood... It has been washed away, but it is still in the deep places... She was killed by falling on it, by being thrown back upon it."

In the stillness that descended on the room there was literally no sound.

Then a voice came, Harriden's voice, hoarsened, hardly distinguishable.

"If you know—that—you did it."

"No, you," I said. "When you struck at her the second time. When you followed her away from the window. It was you who struck at her at the window," I went on.

"You had come up early, though you denied this. Nobody remembered clearly enough to contradict you. You came to her room, you quarreled and then struck out at her. She fled backwards and you struck at her again. Perhaps you struck her down, perhaps she fell trying to escape you, but she fell across the screen, knocking it over, and her head crashed on that andiron."

I wasn't looking at him. I was looking at that sharp-pointed andiron, watching what I saw there.

"She came down with all her weight. You rushed to draw the curtains. You lifted her up, carried her into the closet. Perhaps you thought she was already dead. She died very soon, her blood on that closet door... You wiped off the andiron with your handkerchief, you wet the handkerchief and washed over the andiron but more blood than you knew had run into the deep grooves of its decorations. Then you washed the handkerchief and left it drying on the radiator."

I spoke as if I were seeing it. I was seeing it; everything that had been confused and strange was suddenly crystallized and sure.

"You were aghast, but you concentrated on your danger," I said. "You locked the closet and went in your room and dressed for dinner. Then you came back and rang for the maid. You stood at the door watching for her; you had darkened the room behind you. You told her not to disturb Mrs. Harriden."

"But she saw my wife on the bed. You've got her testimony to that!"

Harriden's voice had loudened; belligerence rang out of it.

"People see what they expect to see," I said. "The room was darkened; you let her have a glance through the half open door, then you closed it and went down to dinner."

No one spoke then. No one moved.

"But you kept worrying about that body in the closet. Perhaps you hadn't taken the diamonds then—perhaps you had, but you realized you hadn't made it look enough like a robbery, like an assault from outside. You began seeing the situation. You thought of opening the window. So you went upstairs, halfway through dinner, and when you were opening the window, you realized you could make it look like suicide. So you took your wife out of the closet and thrust her out, down into the shrubbery. Perhaps you had seen the blood on the floor—"

I stopped. I had a queer feeling that I was wrong. I said, "I think you hadn't seen it—but you thought it wise to lock that closet till you could look it over, later. You locked it and came down again to dinner."

"You were thinking you could make it seem either accident or suicide and after dinner you asked the princess to go up—you talked of a row between you, of her overwrought state of mind, of her hysterical threats. You created the impression of a neurotic, irresponsible woman, ready for any rashness... You didn't want that closet opened. When Mrs. Keller had the housekeeper unlock it, you were quick to enter. You said there was nothing there. Then they found the blood. You realized you had to make it look like robbery."

My voice grew slower, raggeder.

"I don't know when you picked up the diamonds—perhaps at the beginning when you meant to make it seem the work of an outside thief. After you decided upon suicide you didn't speak of their disappearance. But when you saw it had to seem robbery, then you thought of them again."

It seemed to me that I had been talking forever in that world of shadows. Not a word now out of Harriden. Not a sign from him except that immobile attention.

"I don't know now why you pinned that chain in my dress that night," I said, and my voice shook over that.

"You were furious at me because I had told of the scene at the window... but you were hating Alan Deck even more—"

"Perhaps you saved out the big pendant intentionally from the first for him," I said. "A man might have hidden a single stone... Your chance came when you found his case lying about. You stuffed the diamond under the cigarettes, but you couldn't get it back to him at once. You couldn't leave it out for him to find till all the outsiders were gone. Then you saw that he found it."

I stopped suddenly, utterly spent. I was trembling from head to foot; my blood felt like ice in my veins.

"Are we crazy—to listen to this pack of lies?" Harriden demanded. His brusque tone seemed to sweep away my words like a house of cards. "Donahey—I want this girl arrested."

I felt a terrible despair. No one would believe. I had no shred of proof. Nothing but that andiron—and the blood on it could not speak. Nor could the dead under the sheet.

Mitchell's voice came suddenly.

"Not so fast, Harriden... Donahey, you've heard this story. I can vouch... (To be continued)