The Deep Lake Mystery

For I had caught a few words from the next room and I felt certain that Everett and Keeley Moore were talking over the strange story of Alma and the waistcoats.

Feeling I could do no more with Dean just then, I went back to the bedroom.

“Sifting clues?” I asked, trying to speak casually.

Kee looked at me, and smiled a little.

“Absent clues rather than present ones,” he said. “You see, the waistcoats and the Totem Pole disappeared, but so did the plate – the fruit plate.”

“Is that important?” I asked.

“Why, yes, in a way. Everything that is here or that isn’t here is important.”

“A bit cryptic, but I grasp your meaning,” I told him. “Then the hammer that belongs to the nail is important?”

“Very much so,” Kee answered, gravely. “Do you know where it is?”

“I don’t, but it seems to me you haven’t looked for it very hard. If the murderer is one of this household, presumably he used a hammer belonging here.”

“Then it loses its importance. The hammer is only of interest if it was brought in from outside.”

“Have you made any headway at all, Kee?”

“Not much, I confess. Mr. Everett here inclines to Ames – ”

“And Ames inclines to Everett,” was the somewhat surprising observation of the secretary himself.

“Yes,” he went on, as I looked at him in amazement, “but I think, I hope, Ames only suspects me because it’s the conventional thing to do. In stories, you know, nine tenths of the crimes are committed by the confidential secretary.”

“Not so many,” I said, judicially: “Four tenths, at most. Then, three tenths by the butler, three tenths by the inheriting nephew, and two tenths by – ”

“Hold up, Gray,” Keeley cried, “you’ve used up your quota of tenths already. But Ames is a really fine suspect.”

“Except that he can’t dive and I can,” Everett helped along. “And there’s no way out of this locked apartment except through a window. And all the windows are on the Sunless Sea.”

“Could you dive into that and come up smiling?” asked Kee.

“I could,” Everett said, “but I’d rather not. I know the rocks and all that, but it’s a tricky stunt. Ames could never do it.”

“Unless he’s been hoaxing you all as to his prowess in the water,” Moore suggested.

“Yes, that might be,” Everett assented, thoughtfully.

Then Moore and I started for home. As we left the house, he proposed we go in a boat, of which there seemed to be plenty and to spare at the dock.

In preference to a canoe, Keeley selected a trim round-bottomed rowboat, and we started off.

He did the rowing, by choice, and he bent to his oars in silence. I too felt disinclined to talk, and we shot along the water, propelled by his long steady strokes.

I looked about me. The whole scene was a setting for peace and happiness – not for crime. Yet here was black crime, stalking through the landscape, aiming for Pleasure Dome, and clutching in its wicked hand the master of the noble estate.

I looked back at the wonderful view. The great house, built on a gently sloping hill, shone white in the summer sunlight. The densely growing trees, judiciously thinned out or cut into vistas, made a perfect background, and the foreground lake, shimmering now as the sun caught its wavelets, veiled its dangers and treachery beneath a guise of smiling light.

We went on and on and I suddenly realized that we had passed the Moore bungalow.

“Keeley,” I said, thinking he had forgotten to land, “where are you going?”

“To the Island,” he replied, and his face wore an inscrutable look, “Come along, Gray, but for Heaven’s sake don’t say anything foolish. Better not open your mouth at all. Better yet, stay in the boat – ”

“No,” I cried, “I’m going with you. Don’t be silly, Kee, I sha’n’t make a fool of myself.”

“Well, try not to, anyway,” he said, grimly, and then we made a landing at Alma Remsen’s home.

It was a tidy little dock and trim boathouse that received us, and I realized the aptness of the name “Whistling Reeds.”

For the tall reeds that lined some stretches of its shore were even now whistling faintly in the summer breeze. A stronger wind would indeed make them voiceful.

Back of the reeds were trees, and I had a passing thought that never had I seen so many trees on one island. So dense that they seemed like an impenetrable growth, the path cut through them to the house was not at once discernible.

“This way,” Kee said, and struck into a sort of lane between the sentinel poplars and hemlocks.

But a short walk brought us out into a great clearing where was a charming cottage and most pleasant grounds and gardens.

There were terraces, flower beds, tennis court, bowling green and a field showing a huge target, set up for archery practice.

It fascinated me, and I no longer wondered that Miss Remsen loved her island home. The house itself, though called a cottage, was a good-sized affair, of two and a half stories, with verandahs and balconies, and a hospitable atmosphere seemed to pervade the porches, furnished with wicker chairs and chintz cushions.

Yet the place was so still, so uninhabited looking that I shuddered involuntarily. I became conscious of a sinister effect, an undercurrent of something eerie and strange.

I glanced off at the trees and shrubbery. It was easily seen that the Island, of two or three acres, I thought, was bright and cheerful only immediately around the house. Surrounding the clearing for that, the trees closed in, and the result was like an enormous, lofty wall of impenetrable black woods.

I quickly came back to the house, and as we went up the steps, Alma Remsen came out on the porch.

I shall never forget how she looked then.

For the first time I saw her close by without a hat. Her hair, of golden brown, but bright gold in the sunlight, was in soft short ringlets like a baby’s curls. I know a lot, having sisters, about marcel and permanent, about water waves and finger curls, but this hair, I recognized, had that unusual attribute, longed for by all women: it was naturally curly.

The tendrils clustered at the nape of her neck and broke into soft, thick curls at the top of her head. I had never seen such fascinating hair, and dimly wondered what it was like before she had it cut short.

She wore a sort of sports suit of white silk with bands of green.

She glanced down at this apologetically.

“I ought to be in black,” she said, “or, at least, all white. But I am, when I go over to the mainland. Here at home, it doesn’t seem to matter. Does it?”

She looked up at me appealingly, though with no trace of coyness.

“Of course not,” I assured her. “Our affection is not made or marred by the colour of a garment.”

This sounded a bit stilted, even to me, but Kee had told me not to make a fool of myself and I was trying hard to obey.

“Sit down,” she said, hospitably, but though calm, she was far from being at ease.

“We’re only going to stay a minute,” Kee said. “We must get home to luncheon. It’s late now, and my wife will be furious. Miss Remsen, I think I’ll speak right out and not beat about the bush.”

She turned rather white, but sat listening, her hands clasped in her lap and her little white-shod foot tapping nervously on the porch floor.

“I want to ask you,” Keeley Moore spoke in a tone of such kindness that I could see Alma pluck up heart a bit, “about the waistcoats. Though it may be a trifling matter, yet great issues may hang on it. When you said your uncle gave them to you, were you strictly truthful?”

She sat silent, looking from one to the other of us. When she glanced at me I was startled at the message in her eyes. If ever a call of SOS was signalled, it was then. Without a word or a gesture her gaze implored my help.

But with all the willingness in the world, what could I do? Keeley had warned me against making a fool of myself, and though I would gladly have defied him to serve her, I could see no way to do so, fool or no fool. All I could do, was to give her back gaze for gaze and try to put in my eyes all the sympathy and help that were surging up in my heart.

I think she understood, and yet I could see a shadow of disappointment that I could, as she saw, do nothing definite.

Moore was waiting for his answer, but she was deliberate of manner and speech.

“By what right are you questioning me, Mr. Moore?” she said.

“Principally by right of my interest in you and your welfare and my great desire to be of service to you.” Kee’s sincerity was beyond all doubt.

“That is the truth?”

“Yes, Miss Remsen, that is the truth.”

“Then, I will tell you, that you can be of service to me only by refraining from questioning me and ceasing to interest yourself in my welfare.”

The asperity of the words was contradicted by the supplicating glance and the troubled face of the girl before us. Her eyelids quivered with that agonized trembling I had learned to know, and she fairly bit her lips in an effort to preserve her poise.

“I’m sorry not to take you at your word, and leave you at once, but I must warn you that the police will doubtless come to see you, and I’m sure you are in need of advice.”

“Police!” she breathed, scarcely audibly.

“Yes; Not Hart, but more likely Detective March. He is not an unkind man, but he will do his duty, and it will be an ordeal for you. Now, won’t you let me help you, as a friend, or, if not, won’t you call a lawyer, of good standing and repute?”

“A lawyer!” she breathed, exactly as she had spoken of the police. Clearly, the poor child was at her wits’ end. The reason for her distress I did not see, for surely nobody could dream of her being mixed up in a crime. The obvious explanation was that she was shielding somebody, and this was my theory.

I came to a swift conclusion that she had gone to Pleasure Dome that night, that she had seen or heard the murderer at his fell deed, and that it had so unnerved her that she could not control herself when thinking of it.

This seemed to point to Billy Dean, that is, if she cared for him as he did for her.

Kee was forging ahead.

“Yes. Please try to realize, Miss Remsen, that the visit from the police detective is inevitable. He will doubtless come this afternoon. You will have to see him; one can’t evade the law. Now, let me help you to be a little prepared for him, and not let him throw you into spasms of terrified silence, or, worse, impetuous and incriminating statements.”

Still looking at him steadily, Alma Remsen seemed to change. Her face grew calm, even haughty; her lips set in a straight line that betokened determination and courage; and her eyes fairly gleamed with a beautiful bravery that transformed her into a veritable goddess of war.

She seemed to have taken up her sword and her shield, and I think it was at that moment that I realized that I loved her and adored her as something far above earthly mortals.

I couldn’t help her, at least, not at the moment, but I could worship her and did so, with the innermost fibres of my being.

Then this new Alma spoke.

“Mr. Moore,” she said, “and Mr. Norris, I thank you for this visit. I thank you for the kindness that prompted it, and for your offers of assistance. But there is nothing you can do, either of you. I am alone in the world; alone, I must fight my battles and conquer my foes. Alone I must defend my actions and accept my misfortunes. I live alone, I shall always be alone, and alone I must decide upon my course in this present crisis. Please believe I am grateful and please believe I am sorry not to accept your kindly offered assistance. But I cannot tell you anything, I cannot – I cannot – Merry!”

Her final despairing call brought the old nurse on the run.

“Yes, lamb, yes, my darling, – there, there – ”

Mrs. Merivale clasped the trembling girl to her bosom and glared at us as at vile interlopers.

“Please to go away, gentlemen,” she said, in a repressed tone that indicated wrath behind it. “Please leave my young lady for the present. She will see you, if she wishes, at some other time. But now, she is nervous and all wrought up with the horror of her uncle’s death. If you are men, let her alone!”

The last plea was brought out with a dramatic touch worthy of a tragedy queen, and I know I felt like a worm of the dust and I devoutly hoped that Keeley felt even more so.

He gave one last bit of unsolicited advice.

“You’d better be with Miss Remsen when the police come, Mrs. Merivale,” he said, and no one could have put any construction on his words other than the kindest and most disinterested counsel.

Then we went away, and Keeley rowed us home without a word.

CHAPTER X

DISCUSSION

If Whistling Reeds had seemed desolate and sinister, Variable Winds was just the opposite. Clean, wind-swept, cheerful with flowers and only pleasantly shaded by the waving trees, the place was like sanctuary after the forbidding aspect of the island home.

Luncheon was ready and the two women who awaited our coming were not at all reproachful, but welcomed us with smiles.

“Dust up a bit and then come along,” admonished Lora, and we obeyed.

At the table, though the subject of the tragedy was not entirely taboo, there was no real discussion, until we were, later, seated in the lounge, comfortably smoking and resting from our strenuous morning.

“The keynote is the missing waistcoats,” Kee announced, oracularly.

“You said the keynote was the watch in the water pitcher,” I reminded him.

“They are part of the same note,” he informed me. “The work of the same hand and equally illuminating as signboards.”

“Oh, if you’re going to be mysterious – ”

“I’m not, Gray, but I can’t announce decisions that are not yet entirely clear in my own mind. I’m sorry Doctor Rogers went away – he could read the message of the watch at once. But I don’t want to put it up to any other doctor.”

“Well, of course I can’t help you, as you are so close-minded – ”

“Nonsense, Gray,” said Lora, “of course we can help. The watch may or may not be of such great importance, but it surely isn’t all there is of it. Nor the waistcoats, either. To me, those things seem merely adjuncts of the rest of the queer performance, the flowers and feather duster and all that.”

“But the waistcoats are in contradictory stories,” I argued. “Miss Remsen said she took them home Tuesday afternoon, and left them in the boathouse where they were found. Griscom says they were in their place on Wednesday. Then Everett came along and said Mr. Tracy wore one of them, the blue one, Wednesday night at dinner.”

“Well, then,” and Lora looked at me keenly, “what point are you making, Gray? These stories seem to stultify Miss Remsen’s statement.”

“I’m making the point,” I declared, “that the girl isn’t quite responsible for her own statements; she doubtless told her uncle she would like the satin for her patchwork and he probably said she could have it. But she didn’t carry the waistcoats away with her, Tuesday afternoon – that we know. So, what conclusion is there, but that, as the old nurse said, it is all a plant? Somebody came in the night, killed Mr. Tracy, and then, after fixing up all that jiggery-pokery, went off carrying the waistcoats and Totem Pole, and carefully planted them in Alma Remsen’s boathouse. I can’t see anything incriminating to the girl in all that.”

“Gray, dearie,” Lora said, with a queer, affectionate little smile, “you couldn’t see anything incriminating to Miss Remsen with a Lick telescope! Now, that’s all right, and I’m not cavilling, but unless you can approach this matter with an unbiassed mind, maybe you’d better keep out of it.”

“Keep out of it nothing!” I exclaimed. “I admit I admire Miss Remsen, but that’s all the more reason to see things clearly and stay in the discussion.”

“Right!” said Maud, “and I vote that Gray be in it all, and that we pay especial attention to his opinions.”

I looked at her quickly, to see if she was guying me, but she was not, and I at once recovered my balance, my self-respect and an added cocksure air that caused the Moores, both of them, great amusement.

But I was not at all daunted by their smiles and I went on.

“My opinion is this,” I stated, “the man who killed Sampson Tracy is as clever as they come. He fixed up all the rubbishy evidence to mislead the investigators. But, perhaps on purpose, perhaps accidentally, he led directly to Miss Remsen in the matter of the waistcoats and the Totem Pole. And so – ”

“Now, Graysie, dear,” and Kee threw the stub of his cigar into the ash tray, “I’m ready to talk. So, call a halt on the waistcoat-totem matter, and let’s get down to cases.”

“It’s a case, all right,” said Lora, whose fine eyes were gazing directly at her husband, as she concentrated on the subject. “Kee, you’ve got your chance!”

“Chance!” Moore echoed. “I’m no Sherlock, I’m ready to say right out that I’m all afloat, absolutely at sea, in this thing.”

Somehow this comforted me. I feared he would jump at once to a conclusion that somehow incriminated Alma Remsen, and I was greatly relieved that he didn’t.

Wanting to be helpful, I volunteered: “How about the weapon? There’s the nail, of course, but what about the hammer or mallet? I can’t see that nail driven without a heavy implement.”

Kee looked at me.

“No,” he said, “I can’t either. How about a croquet mallet?”

“That would fit,” I responded. “Know of any here-abouts?”

“Not precisely. But the tennis court at Whistling Reeds used to be a croquet ground.”

I quailed, but I hoped I didn’t show it.

“And that proves?” I said, jauntily.

“Nothing but possibility.”

“Which isn’t much.”

“No, it isn’t much.” Kee looked harassed. “But a lot of little bits of evidence, added together, make a – ”

“Make a muckle,” I jibed. “All right, what’s your muckle?”

“That Alma Remsen knows more about this matter than she’s telling.”

Moore’s deadly still tone, more than his words, struck a chill of terror to my heart.

For a moment, knowing his great wisdom as well as I did, I was tempted to tell him everything, but caution held me back, and I only said, “it may be.”

Lora looked at me, curiously.

“Gray,” she said, “you don’t know anything, do you?” I was glad she put it like this.

“No, Lora,” I replied, “I don’t know anything. If I did, I’d speak out. But I do believe that there is a deep, dark, underlying mystery that none of us understands, and I wish I could see into it.”

“Kee will see into it,” she said, confidently, and I could only respond: “I hope to Heaven he will.”

Kee sat without speaking for a moment or two, and then said:

“Gray, what was the reason for Miss Remsen’s sudden change of base while we were talking to her?”

“Change of base?” I said, stupidly.

“Yes. Don’t be an imbecile. I know you noticed it. It was just after I told her the police would come to interview her. That seemed to spur her or stir her up in some way, for she at once became a different being. More alert and alive, more determined.”

“Yes, I noticed it,” I told him. “I can’t explain it except to say that she was startled at the idea of a police interview, and it brought out her natural bravery and courage. She rose to the occasion and I’ve no doubt she will meet Hart with proper dignity and poise.”

“It won’t be Hart, it will be March. March is a good man, but I doubt if he can swing this case.”

“Of course he can’t,” I declared. “But you’re going to do the swinging, yourself.”

“Then I’d better begin. Now let’s marshal our facts. First of all, we have the collection of properties found on the bed. Was that all the work of one hand?”

“Yes,” I said, “but not necessarily the hand of the murderer.”

“That’s right,” and Moore nodded assent. “I’m inclined to think a waggish-minded visitor followed up the murderer and arranged that scenery.”

“Why?” asked Lora, very thoughtfully.

“I can think of no reason,” Kee returned, “except in an effort to direct suspicion away from the real criminal.”

“Who would do that?”

“Only a clever and watchful person, determined to shield the murderer.”

“Set up a hypothetical case,” suggested Maud. “Say, Mrs. Dallas was the murderer – ”

“How absurd,” cried Lora, “why should she kill the man she expected to marry?”

“That we don’t know,” Maud went on in her calm way. “But there may have been reasons. Suppose Mr. Tracy had learned some secret in Mrs. Dallas’s past – ”

“Go on,” Kee said, briefly, as Maud looked at him questioningly.

“I know it sounds melodramatic, but the whole affair is melodramatic, and those clues don’t seem to lead anywhere. Well, suppose Mrs. Dallas did it – killed him, I mean – and suppose somebody saw her who cared for her, Mr. Ames or Mr. Everett, or – or anybody. Mightn’t he trump up all that funny business to make it seem as if she could not have done it?”

“I don’t think you’ve struck it quite right, Maud,” Keeley said, “but I will say there’s a germ of thought in your theory. Granting two people concerned, there’s no reason to think them accomplices, it’s far more likely one is covering up the deeds of the other.”

“All of which is fantastic and not founded on fact,” Lora put in. “It’s only imagination, and one can imagine anything.”

“You have no use for imagination?” I asked her, smiling.

“Yes, when it is admittedly imagination, as in a fairy story or a romance. But imagination must not be used as a basis for argument.”

“She’s right,” Keeley said, slowly. “Lora’s usually right. Now what facts have we, outside the feather-duster lot?”

“The people themselves,” I offered. “The relationships between the people and the motives of the people.”

“That’s more like it,” and Kee gave me a glance of approval. “Take the household first. Who’s the most likely suspect?”

“Mrs. Dallas,” I said, promptly.

“She isn’t in the household.”

“Same as. She has a latchkey, so that makes her practically one of them.”

“Then Alma Remsen is in the same case.”

“Same case,” I agreed, knowing better than to combat him.

“All right, go on. What’s the widow’s motive?”

I knew Moore’s methods. He liked to have us make suggestions that he could accept or discard, thereby giving his mind something to work on.

“We can’t get at her motive,” I told him, “because we know too little about her. A personal interview with her is needed, and then she would probably, or at least perhaps, let slip some hint of why she wanted Sampson Tracy out of her way.”

“She’d have to hate him,” said Maud, doubtfully.

“Whoever killed him must have hated him,” Kee declared. “It was a brutal murder – ”

“Don’t over-stress the brutality,” Lora put in. “It was horrible, of course, but to my mind it was less dreadful than shooting or stabbing.”

“Where did the murderer get his nail?” mused Kee.

“The nail and the hammer,” Lora said, “inclines me to the servants, or the secretaries. I can’t see Mrs. Dallas or Alma Remsen coming to the house armed with a hammer and nail! They might bring a pistol or a dagger, but the implement used must have been picked up impulsively or impetuously, in the Tracy pantries or offices.”

“Unless the murderer acted on the story Maud told of, the Spanish story of The Nail,” I observed.

“Rather far-fetched,” Kee returned. “I’d have to see a copy of that book in a suspect’s possession before I’d take much stock in that theory.”

“I rather fancy it,” Maud insisted. “Any of our suspects, and I suppose they include all who were questioned by the coroner, may have read that book.”

“The servants?” I asked.

“Yes, often servants read books that they run across, though they’d never dream of buying them.”

“Then Griscom for choice,” Moore said. “Say his motive is a desire to get his legacy at once. Say his friendship for his master is not so great as he pretends, and there’s no question of his opportunity. Say he read that gruesome tale, and concluded it would be a fine way to get his money quickly. Then, after his deed is accomplished, he has imagination enough, or ingenuity enough to fix up all those tricks on the bed, and in his zeal he rather overdid it.”

“Your own imagination is running away with you,” I declared. “It may all be true, but you’ve no atom of proof, nor even an atom of evidence against Griscom more than any other servant. Sally Bray – ”

“Sally Bray may have been Griscom’s accomplice. Isn’t she in love with him?”