The Burning Court (16 page)

“The real reason I came here,” she said, “was that I wanted to speak to you. I know it’s not important, but just the same I thought I’d better warn you that——”

The front door opened abruptly, and Ogden appeared in the aperture.

“Excuse me,” he said, grinning like a wolf. “But this does look like an assignation, after all. It’s a terrible thing, with your wife sleeping upstairs, too. Or is she? I notice that the car’s gone from your garage. Just to preserve the purity of public morals, I really think I’d better tail along with you when you go up to the house.”

“Get out,” said Stevens, calmly.

“Tut, tut,” Ogden urged, pleasantly. “Also, I see that the lights in your bedroom are full on. Does Marie sleep with the lights on?”

“Get OUT,” said Stevens.

Though Ogden’s manner did not change, something in this appeared to make him think he had better. He had the best of the situation, nevertheless, for he drove his car at the speed of two miles an hour, following them as they went up to the Park. Although the mist had thinned a little, it was still impossible to see more than a dozen feet ahead; hedges, trees, and lampposts swam suddenly out of the white murk, and in the Park itself there was an utter deadness of silence. There was an utter deadness of silence until they heard the sharp rapping of the front-door knocker rise insistently, and die away, and rise again. Its effect, in that muffling fog, was not pleasant.

“God!” Ogden said, abruptly. “You don’t suppose they’re all——?”

What peculiar quirk had struck Ogden at that moment, Stevens could not tell; but the car, slowly as it was going, almost collided with one pillar of the
porte-cochère.
On the front porch, shifting from one leg to another during the intervals in which he pounded at the door, stood a thick-set man with a briefcase in his hand. He turned round at their approach, and looked at them dubiously. He was a neat figure in a dark-blue overcoat and soft grey hat. Under the down-turned brim of the hat he had humorous eyes, a sandy complexion, and a broad jaw; his face looked much younger than his age, for the sides of his hair were slightly grizzled. His manner was genial and almost deprecating.

“Any of you live here?” he asked. “I know I’m early, but it seems like there’s nobody at home.” He paused. “My name is Brennan. I’m from police headquarters.”

Ogden whistled two notes and his manner grew much calmer; yet Stevens had a feeling that he was suddenly on the defensive. “Well, well, well. I imagine they were all up late last night, and that’s why they’re sleeping in. Never mind; I’ve got a key here somewhere. I live here. I’m Ogden Despard. And what would you be wanting with us this morning, Inspector?”

“Captain,” said Brennan, looking at Ogden. Ogden did not seem to be making himself popular with anyone this morning. “I believe it’s your brother I want to see, Mr. Despard. If——”

The front door opened so suddenly that Brennan’s hand over the knocker was left in the air. The hall inside looked even bleaker and gloomier than the mist-filled porch, despite a heavy sooty drizzle from the chimneys which filled the mist with grit. Partington, fully dressed and shaven so closely that he looked scrubbed, was surveying them from the doorway.

“Yes?” he said.

The captain cleared his throat. “My name is Brennan,” he repeated. “I’m from police headquar——”

At this point Stevens became convinced that the whole world was wrong. Partington’s face had turned a muddy color. He put his hand on the post of the door, sliding it down for a better grip; and if he had not held to the door it seemed that his knees might have buckled under him.

“Anything the matter?” asked Brennan, in an ordinary tone. It was so completely matter-of-fact that it helped. Partington pull himself together in a second, as though you had jerked the wires of a loose doll.

“Police headquarters,” he repeated, in a noncommittal growl.

“Yes. Of course. No, nothing’s wrong. Or, if I told you what it was, you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Why not?” asked Brennan practically.

Partington blinked a little. He seemed so puzzled that for a moment Stevens wondered whether he was drunk; but Partington dispelled that idea as a new thought appeared to strike him.

“Brennan!” he said. “I knew that name was—Look here, are you the man who sent those messages to everybody, asking them to come home?”

The captain looked at him. “We seem to have got the wires crossed,” he said, patiently. “Can I come in and talk this over before we get ’em more crossed? I didn’t send any messages. What I want to know is who sent
me
one. I want to see Mr. Despard, Mr. Mark Despard. The Commissioner sent me to see him.”

“I don’t think the doctor is quite himself this morning, Captain Brennan,” said Ogden, with unction. “In case you’ve forgotten me, Doctor Partington, I’m Ogden. I was at school when you—left us. Also, in case you’ve forgotten, this is Ted Stevens, whom you met last night. This is Miss Corbett, who nursed Uncle Miles.”

“I see,” said Partington. “Mark!”

Yellow light penetrated into the hall as the door to the big front room opened, and Mark stood in the doorway. Behind every move that was made now there was a curiously repressed and muffled significance, like a note of warning. It was like seeing the edge of some crisis whose meaning just eluded the spectator. Mark stood loosely, and yet drawn up, with the light along the side of his face. He wore a heavy grey sweater with a rolled collar, which gave his shoulders a top-heavy look.

“Well, well, well, well,” said Ogden. “We seem to have run into some trouble, brother. This is Captain Brennan of the Homicide Bureau.”

“I’m not from the Homicide Bureau,” said Brennan, a faint roar beginning to be distinguishable under his voice. “I’m attached to the staff of the Commissioner of Police. Are you Mr. Mark Despard?”

“Yes. Come in here, please.”

He stood to one side. He might have added, “The-doctor-will-see-you-in-a-minute” in the same tone of voice; it was not like Mark, and it was a bad sign.

“We’re a little disorganized here this morning,” he went on. “My sister has had a rather bad night. (Miss Corbett, will you go up and see her?) Also, the cook and the maid are away, and we’ve been trying to get breakfast in the best way we can. This way. Ted—Partington—will you come in here, too? No, Ogden, not you.”

Ogden could hardly believe his ears. “Oh, tut, tut! What’s the matter with you, Mark? Of course I’ll come in. Don’t try to pull any of that stuff on me. After all——”

“There are times, Ogden,” Mark continued, “when I feel for you a true brotherly affection. There are times when you are the life and soul of the party. But there are also times when your presence is definitely an encumbrance. This is one of them. Go on out to the kitchen and get yourself something to eat. Now I warn you.”

He closed the door as the other three went into the front room. The shutters were still on the windows as they had been last night, the lamps still burning; there seemed hardly a hiatus in time. At Mark’s gesture Brennan sat down in an overstuffed chair, where he put his hat and briefcase on the floor beside him. Without his hat Brennan was revealed as a middle-aged, shrewd-looking man with grizzled hair carefully brushed to hide the bald spot, a pleasant jaw, and a young face. He seemed hesitant about how to get down to business. Then he took a deep breath and unlocked his briefcase.

“I suppose you know why I’m here, Mr. Despard,” he said, “and I suppose I can talk in the presence of your friends here. I’ve got something I want you to read.” From the briefcase he took an envelope and a sheet of notepaper neatly typed. “I got that letter just about this time yesterday morning. As you can see, it was addressed to me personally, and mailed from Crispen on Thursday night.”

Mark unfolded the letter without haste. At first he seemed to be studying it without reading it. Then, without lifting his eyes, he began to read it aloud.

“Miles Despard, who died at Despard Park, Crispen, on April 12th, did not die a natural death. He was poisoned. This is not a crank letter. If you want proof, go to Joyce & Redfern Analytical Chemists, 218 Walnut Street. The day after the murder, Mark Despard brought them a drinking-glass that had contained milk, and a silver cup that had contained a wine-and-egg mixture. The cup had arsenic in it. This cup is now locked up in Mark Despard’s desk at home. He found it somewhere in Miles Despard’s room after the murder. The body of a cat formerly belonging to the house is buried in a flower-bed to the east of the house. Mark Despard buried it there. The cat had probably drunk some of the mixture with arsenic in it. Mark did not do the murder, but he is trying to cover up.

“The murder was done by a woman. If you want proof of this, see Mrs. Joe Henderson, who is the cook. She saw the woman in Miles Despard’s bedroom on the night of the murder, handing him the same silver cup. You can catch her away from the house and make her tell you. But go easy, as she does not know it is murder, and you will learn a lot. You will find her staying with friends at 92 Lees Street, Frankford. It is to your advantage not to disregard this.

A
MOR
J
USTITIAE
.”

Mark put the letter down on the table. “I like that business about Amor Justitiae. It’s not much as a model of composition, is it?”

“I don’t know about that. The point is, Mr. Despard, it’s true.— Now just a minute,” Brennan added, more sharply. “I’ve got to tell you that we had this Mrs. Henderson at City Hall yesterday. And I’ve been sent here by the Commissioner, because he’s a personal friend of yours, to help you.”

“You’re a damned funny sort of detective,” said Mark. And suddenly he began to laugh.

Brennan grinned broadly in reply. Stevens thought he had never seen a more complete puncturing of tension, a more sudden cessation of hostilities. The real reason for it occurred to him at last; and it occurred to Brennan too.

“Yes, I could feel what you were thinking the minute I walked in here,” he declared. His startled grin became a chuckle. “Let me ask you something. Did you expect me to come charging in here, pointing my finger in everybody’s face, insulting people right and left, and roaring for blood? Listen, Mr. Despard. I can tell you this: the cop who acted like that would get his pants thrown out of the police department so quick you couldn’t see ’em for dust. Especially if the party concerned happened to have an ounce of influence, or was a personal friend of the Commissioner’s: like you. When people write those stories, there’s one thing they seem to forget—and that’s politics. But
we
can’t forget it. And there’s more to it. We have a job to do. We try to do it as well as we can, and I think we do it pretty well. We’re not a side-show or a monkey-house. And the ambitious young fellow who tries to turn us into one, and make a splash for himself, is the one who doesn’t get on with the department. That’s only common sense. As I say, I’m here representing Mr. Cartell, the Commissioner——”

“Cartell,” repeated Mark, and sat up. “Of course. He was——”

“So,” concluded Brennan, with a broad gesture, “what about telling me the whole truth? I’ve told you this so that you’ll see where I stand; and the Commissioner wants me to help as far as I can within the law. Is it a deal?”

This, Stevens reflected, was probably the one course which would have won over Mark Despard. Captain Brennan was not only a representative of the head of the department; he was a clever man. Mark nodded, and Brennan opened the briefcase again.

“First of all, though,” he said, “you’ll want to know about my end of the business, to show that this isn’t any bluff.

“As I told you, I got that letter early yesterday morning. Now, I know all about you here; I’ve got a cousin who lives down in Merion. So I took that letter straight to the Commissioner. He didn’t think there was anything to it, and neither did I. But I thought I’d better go round and see Joyce and Redfern, the chemists. And,” said Brennan, running his finger down a typed sheet, “that part of it was right, anyway. You went to them on Thursday, April 13th. You took a glass and a cup for analysis. You said you thought your cat had been poisoned, and the cat had been lapping some stuff out of one of these two. You asked them not to say anything about it if anybody asked. You came back next day and got the report. Glass O. K., but two grains of arsenic in the cup. Description of cup: about four inches in diameter, three inches high; solid silver; a design like flowers round the top; very old.” He raised his eyes. “Correct?”

In the ensuing minutes Brennan demonstrated that, beyond doubt, he had a way with him. Mark always said afterwards that it was like being lured into a purchase by an expert salesman: so painlessly, so imperceptibly, that before you knew what you were doing it suddenly occurred to you that you had promised to buy the article. Brennan—with a bland and catlike pleasantness, his ear inclined, his grizzled head bent over his notes—was as confidential as a Balkan diplomat. He could mention even the weather in terms of one imparting a grave secret. But he received as much information as he gave. Imperceptibly he got Mark to tell the story of Miles’s illness, of Miles’s death and the events of that night, of the finding of the cup in Miles’s room; and he established that, if poison had been drunk at all, it must have been drunk out of that silver cup.

Then Brennan went on to tell how Mrs. Henderson came to give her evidence. This part of it was not clear. But, Stevens guessed, Brennan had probably gone to Frankford in the guise of a friend of Mark’s, had seen Mrs. Henderson, and had encouraged her in her natural tendency to gossip. For—Brennan admitted—Mrs. Henderson had no suspicion that anything was wrong until she was invited to come to City Hall and repeat her statement to the Commissioner of Police. Afterwards, Brennan also admitted, she had departed in tears and hysterics, swearing that she had betrayed the family and that she could never bring herself to look on their faces again.

From a typed copy Brennan read the statement made by Mrs. Henderson about the night of April 12th. And, in essentials, it was exactly the same thing she had told Mark. There was only one thing absent from the police record—the intangible quality of atmosphere. This record contained no suggestion of anything supernatural or even supernormal. It contained merely the statement that Mrs. Henderson, at 11:15 p.m., had peeped through a gap in the curtain and seen a woman in Miles’s room. At this time Miles had been in perfect health. The visitor was a small woman who wore “queer old-fashioned clothes,” or fancy dress. Mrs. Henderson had supposed that it was Mrs. Lucy Despard or Miss Edith Despard. She knew that both had gone to a masquerade that night; but she had just returned from a visit to Cleveland, had not seen either, and did not know what costumes they were wearing. The visitor in “queer old-fashioned clothes” had been carrying a silver cup whose description corresponded with that later found to have contained arsenic, and had given this cup to Miles Despard. Miles was seen to have the cup in his hand, although he was not actually seen to drink from it.