The Door (35 page)

Some time in that ten days I made a list of possible and impossible suspects, with a notation following, and as it is before me now I reproduce it. It shows better than I can tell it the utter confusion of my mind.

This is my list:

In such fashion did I fill in those ten interminable days. There were apparently no new developments, and the Inspector obstinately absented himself. Judy had grown thin to the point of emaciation, and still by night our guard ranged the lower floor and by day patrolled the grounds.

Joseph had come home from the hospital that day, I remember. He took hold of the household much as usual, tottering from the silver drawer to the kitchen closets; but he was much shattered, and with that bandaged arm of his he could do very little. I arranged to send him to the country for a few weeks, and he agreed gratefully.

Then out of a clear sky, on the seventeenth of July, Katherine made her resolution and precipitated the crisis.

She was an intelligent woman, Katherine. Perhaps I have done her less than justice in this narrative. She was strange during that time, more frightened than she wanted us to know, and the result was that she withdrew herself.

I think from the time Jim took the stand at the trial, maybe even before it, she knew that he was protecting somebody.

“You say that you saw his white shirt front? What do you mean by that?”

“Just what I say. A white shirt front.”

“He wore no vest?”

“I can’t say. I had only an impression of evening clothes. He might have worn a dinner jacket.”

“But you are sure of the cap?”

“No. I think it was a cap.”

“Yet he came, according to your story, so close to you that he knocked this stick out of your hand. You could see a cap and a white shirt front, but you could not see anything more?”

And it was then that Jim hesitated. He was under oath, and an oath is a solemn matter. Then he glanced toward Katherine, and sat up a little in his chair.

“That is all I saw. I was on the ground. His face was turned down the hill.”

Whom would he protect with his life but Howard? Howard with his heavy white hair, his invariable dinner dress in the evenings, and something to be kept hidden at any cost. Small wonder that Katherine thought of Margaret, or that she reverted to the will as the key to the mystery.

And so, very close to the end now, I go to the scene that afternoon, when at Katherine’s request I accompanied her to Mr. Waite’s office.

She had made the appointment and we were admitted at once. I was rather shocked by the change in Mr. Waite. He looked worn and not too well, and I thought there was a certain apprehension in his eyes when he greeted us.

He rose, but did not come forward.

“I am lame again,” he explained, indicating a cane which stood beside him. “The old trouble. Well, I can only say that I am shocked and grieved, Mrs. Somers. Of course the appeal—”

“An appeal will do no good,” said Katherine somberly.

“Still, new facts may come up. The case is of course not closed until—”

“Until they have killed an innocent man,” Katherine finished for him. “And that is what they will do, Mr. Waite, unless the truth can be brought out.”

He stirred uneasily in his chair.

“The truth? What is the truth? I am as much in the dark as you are.” And seeing her face, he bent toward her across the desk. “I know what you mean, Mrs. Somers, and—I can understand. Nevertheless, I tell you that as surely as I sit here in this chair, Mr. Somers outlined the provisions of that will and signed it when I had prepared it. He was as rational as I am now. He discussed his family and his affairs. He even recognized that the will would be a blow to you, and said that he meant to leave an explanatory letter with it. Just why he did not do so I don’t understand.”

He was not acting. He was telling us facts, and I think Katherine saw it as well as I did. She sat stiffly upright, but the antagonism was gone from her voice.

“He did not explain the fund of fifty thousand dollars?”

“He did, and he did not. The son was to administer it for some purpose. He simply said that Walter would understand. He was of course still very weak, and he was not a talkative man, I understand. To be frank, I was in pain that first day, and not much better the second. I don’t recall many details, although of course I have tried to since. A will is a routine matter.”

“He did not appear to have been drugged?”

“Absolutely not.”

“And Sarah was there? Sarah Gittings?”

“She left the room, but she came in once and gave him some medicine.”

But Katherine was stubborn. Here were the facts, and she still refused to accept them. Mr. Waite saw that, and stiffened in his chair.

“The will was genuine, Mrs. Somers,” he said. “If you have any doubt of it, I will go to the hotel with you, and we will repeat my own actions of those two days. I will show you that on the first day I was taken to Mr. Somers’ room by the hotel manager himself, and that the floor clerk saw us and remembers this. I will show you that Walter Somers received me at the door and took me in, and that on both days Florence Gunther was with me. The floor clerk saw her there also.”

“That is what she says. I know that, Mr. Waite.”

He made an angry gesture.

“But she may be lying? I wonder if you realize what you are saying? If I had forged that will—and it seems to me that this is what you imply—why should I have gone there at all? Good God, madam, what had I to gain by such a criminal proceeding? It’s nonsense, insane outrageous nonsense.”

Katherine, however, seemed hardly to hear him. Certainly his words had no effect on her. She looked up from that careful inspection of her gloves.

“You would be willing to go to the hotel?”

“Of course I’ll go to the hotel. Do you think I am afraid to go?”

She stood up, and for the first time it apparently occurred to her that he was angry; white with anger. She looked at him with that faint childlike expression which so altered her face.

“I’m sorry. It’s only that I don’t understand. You see, there was no reason, no reason at all. Not if Margaret Somers was dead.”

He was polite but still somewhat ruffled when we started out. None of us, I am sure, had any idea that any
dénouement
was imminent. I remember that Mr. Waite delayed a moment or two to sign some letters, and that he grunted as he got up and reached for his stick.

“I’ve lost four teeth and two tonsils to cure this thing,” he grumbled, “and I’m just where I started.”

And so we reached the hotel, Katherine silent and absorbed, Mr. Waite limping, and I trailing along and feeling absurd and in the way.

We were fortunate in one thing: the rooms Howard had occupied were empty. Unluckily the manager was out, but the floor clerk, Miss Todd, was at her desk. She greeted us with the decorous gravity the occasion seemed to demand, and bowed to Mr. Waite.

“You remember me?” he asked her.

“Oh, perfectly, Mr. Waite.”

“And that I came here on two succeeding days?”

“Yes, indeed. Mr. Hendrickson brought you up the first day.” And she added glibly: “The first day you had the young lady with you. The second day she came again, and the hotel notary came up later. I remember it all very clearly. Miss Gunther sat down there on that chair until you called her in.”

“And why?” said Katherine suddenly, “did she wait in the hall? There was a sitting room.”

Miss Todd looked slightly surprised.

“That’s so,” she said. “That’s queer, isn’t it? Do you remember why, Mr. Waite?”

Mr. Waite however did not remember. He had seen no sitting room. He had been ushered directly from the hall into the bedroom.

“I suppose the nurse was in there,” he said impatiently. “If you will open the rooms, Miss Todd—”

Miss Todd was very curious, and I think rather thrilled. She led the way briskly to the sitting room of the suite, unlocked the door and threw open a window or two; but if she hoped to be asked to remain she was disappointed.

“In which room was Mr. Somers?”

“In there. I’ll light the lights.”

“Thanks. If you’ll close the door as you go out—”

Some of Mr. Waite’s irritation had returned. He limped into the bedroom Miss Todd had indicated and stood surveying it.

“I imagine your questions are answered, Mrs. Somers,” he said crisply. “Here is the room. You have learned that I came here as I said. If you believe that I came for any other purpose than to draw up a will, I will remind you that I had not spoken ten words to Mr. Somers in my life until that day. I came because I was sent for, and for that reason only.”

Katherine moistened her dry lips.

“And my husband was in bed?”

“In this bed. I sat down beside him, and I saw that he looked very ill. It was a dark day, but the lamp was on. I sat down here, as the lamp was on this side of the bed then. I see they have moved it.”

There was a curious look in Katherine’s face.

“I wonder,” she said tensely, “if you mind doing again just what you did then? Can you remember? Try to remember, Mr. Waite! Everything. Every
little
thing.”

I could see that her suppressed excitement had its effect on him. He glanced at her, and his voice was not so cold. He walked to the hall door and opened it.

“Let me see,” he said. “Yes. Walter Somers was outside the door, in the hall. He opened the door and said: ‘Father, Mr. Waite is here.’ Then he stepped back and I came in alone. I think he closed the door behind me. Yes, he closed the door.

“I said: ‘Well, Mr. Somers, I’m sorry to see you laid up.’ He said something about his condition; that he was better, or getting better, and I put down my hat and gloves and got out some paper and my fountain pen. After that it was strictly business. He had the will pretty well thought out, and I suppose I was there only a half hour.”

“And that is all?”

“All I can recall.

“He seemed perfectly normal. But he was nervous. I had propped my stick against the table, and once it slipped and fell. I remember that he jumped as though I had hit him. I picked it up and hung it on the doorknob, and—that’s funny! That’s damned queer.”

He was staring at the wall beside the bed.

“They’ve taken away the door,” he said.

“What door?”

“There was a door there by my right hand. It’s on the other side of the bed now.”

We all stood there, stupidly staring at the door. None of us, I fancy, had the remotest idea of its significance at that moment. It was Katherine who realized it first.

“Are you certain you were in this room, Mr. Waite?”

“I don’t know. They all look alike. Of course they are always changing these places about.”

And I think to Katherine must go the credit of that discovery, although Inspector Harrison had known it for at least a week. She was very calm, very quiet, as she went into the hall and called Miss Todd again.

“You are certain that this was my husband’s bedroom?”

“Oh, yes, indeed, Mrs. Somers.”

“And it has not been altered since? No changes have been made?”

“Only the new curtains at the windows.”

“Thank you.”

Miss Todd retired, her sharp eyes giving us a final survey as she closed the door. Not until she was gone did Katherine move, and then it was to cross the sitting room and glance into the bedroom there. Then she called to us, quietly enough.

“I think this is where you came, Mr. Waite,” she said. “To Walter’s bedroom, where an accomplice of Walter’s impersonated his father and drew that will.”

And only then was there a ring of triumph in her tired voice. “I knew it,” she said. “I knew it. My poor Howard!”

O
F THE PLOT WHICH
lay behind that discovery we had no knowledge. It was enough at the moment that there had been a conspiracy.

But later on in the day, the initial shock over, our ideas began to crystallize. Who had been the man in the bed? What relation did he bear to the murders? Was he himself the murderer?

None of us, however, gathered in my library that night, believed what was the fact; that the amazing
dénouement
was even then in preparation, and that it was a matter of only a few hours until all our questions were to be answered.

We were silent but more cheerful than we had been for days on end. There was hope now for Jim, and Katherine’s relief was written in her face. Jim would be saved and Howard was once again hers to mourn. The frozen look had left her.

Judy too looked better than she had looked for weeks.

She had come in with her eyes bright and her color high, to show me a very nice but extremely small diamond on her engagement finger.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” she said.

“It is indeed beautiful,” I told her gravely. For it seemed so to me, that symbol of Dick’s pride and his essential honesty. And I was proud of Judy, that she wore that bit of stone as a queen might wear a crown.

But talking got us nowhere that night. Again and again we went back to the scene in that hotel bedroom, with no result. It was Judy, with Dick’s arm around her and Katherine accepting that as she had accepted the ring, who put forth the theory that the fifty thousand dollar clause which had been put in the will was to be the payment to this unknown for his services.

And it was Dick who followed that scene to its logical conclusion, and who said that a man who could put on a wig and look enough like Howard to deceive Mr. Waite under those circumstances, could easily have fooled Jim at night on the hillside.