Wolf in Man’s Clothing

9

WELL, I COULDN’T HAVE told him even if I’d known, I was so livid and gibbering with rage. I put my hand on Alexia’s shoulder and may have taken a tighter grip even than I intended, for she wrenched herself away from me with a rather startled look and got quickly to her feet, clasping her shoulder with her other hand. “Nurse, you forget yourself! How dare you touch…”

“What revolver, Alexia?” demanded Craig again. “What revolver?”

Her eyes had retreated behind those soft, satiny eyelids. She said breathlessly, “Conrad’s revolver. It was in Drue’s room. The police found it.”

Craig was as white as the pillow, and I intended to put Alexia out of the room by sheer physical force if nothing else sufficed. He said, “But he wasn’t shot!”

“No! He wasn’t shot,” I said quickly. “He died of a heart attack, just as I told you. Now then, Mrs. Brent…”

“But the police,” said Craig. “Why are they here?”

“Someone called them.” Alexia answered him. “No one knows who. But someone got on the telephone just after Conrad died and told the police your father had been murdered. So they came, and they are going to investigate his death…”

“Murder!” said Craig. “But that’s impossible!” He made a motion to get up, winced as he moved his shoulder and turned even whiter. Peter Huber knocked, entered quickly, stopped as quickly as he seemed to sense something electric in the atmosphere and then said, “It’s only-well, they want you downstairs, Alexia. Right away. They are waiting. You too, Nurse Keate.” His eyes went past us to Craig, and he said, “You’ve told him?”

Behind him on the threshold Anna appeared with the tray. “I’m not going,” I said. “I’m on duty.”

“Is it the police, Peter?” asked Craig.

Peter Huber nodded. “Craig, I’m sorry about your father…”

Craig closed his eyes as if to shut out talk of that. “Yes, Pete,” he said. There was a little silence while Anna went to the bed with the tray and I followed her. Craig looked up at me. “Go on down,” he said. “Anna will stay with me. Don’t you see, I’ve got to know…”

“I’ll tell you, Craig. I’ll tell you everything the police do.” Alexia started toward the bed, stopped as I straightened up rather abruptly from adjusting the pillows and looked hard at her, said softly to Craig, “Don’t think, darling. Don’t try to think now. I’ll be back,” and went out the doör. Peter came to the bed and Craig said again to me, “Please go downstairs, Miss Keate. I want you to tell me everything they do…”

So in the end I went; not because of the police, but merely to keep Craig’s temperature down. Anna stayed with him and Peter Huber, too, for a while, although they sent for him also before that morning’s long inquiry was over.

It lasted nearly three hours. Three hours of steady questions and answers-statements, repetitions, explanations, and probably a few lies, spoken or implied. But there was no way of identifying those.

It was already under way when I entered the little morning room, with its ivory woodwork, green and rose chintz, and blazing wood fire.

Everyone except Craig, and for the moment, Peter, was there: Lieutenant Nugent and two troopers, very lean, and silent as their chief; a man in gray, fat and rosy-cheeked with winking eyeglasses who proved to be the District Attorney (so I knew, then, that they were sure it was murder); Nicky; and Alexia who was, subtly, a broken reed. Their two faces were so much alike, so secretive, so delicate and beautiful that it was as if one was the mirror of the other; as if some deep affinity joined their very thoughts. Which, as a matter of fact, was very far from the truth.

Maud was there, too, little and indomitable in sweeping black with her pompadour rising high above her narrow, sallow, little forehead, her collar of boned white net lifting her little dark chin in the air, and her eyes brooding and angry, watching the police, watching Nicky and Alexia-watching even me, fixedly. I don’t think a move or a look or a quickened pulse escaped her eager, antlike eyes. Claud Chivery wasn’t there.

Then I saw Drue; she was sitting in a tall armchair, her hands around the arm of it, her white cap like a crown upon her shining hair. She was very pale; her dark gray eyes had a kind of terrified stillness. I thought she tried to communicate with me, mutely, with her look, and I tried, mutely, to remind her of danger, and in the same fractional glance that I was on her side. So it was a rather complicated glance, I daresay; certainly it didn’t seem to accomplish anything in the way of improving the situation.

Then I felt that somebody was watching us and turned. It was Lieutenant Nugent, his eyes narrow and thoughtful, more green than gray-which was, as a matter of fact, a bad sign. All through that interview he was as laconic as ever and when he was forced to say more than a few words did so with an air of positively grudging distaste and terseness.

He said then, “Sit down, please, Nurse Keate. The District Attorney, Mr. Soper, wants to question you.”

I sat down, and that long bout of questioning began for me. It began badly and ended badly.

The first thing Soper said was a flat, bald statement to the effect that they had found enough digitalis in Conrad Brent’s blood stream to kill him, and they believed it was murder.

From there they went on to that inevitable conclusion.

They did it slowly, detail by detail, taking so much time at bypaths and crossroads, so to speak, that it wasn’t till the very end that I could look back and see that Soper, at any rate, had planned and charted his whole road to arrive at exactly that destination. As I have said, it took a long time; they questioned me and I told them again exactly what I had already told Lieutenant Nugent, no more and no less. They questioned Maud and Nicky and Alexia; they sent for and questioned Peter Huber; they questioned everybody. Gradually the story built itself up-much of it by confirmation, for it was obvious that they had already done considerable, less public, questioning.

Conrad Brent had spent the previous day about as other days were spent, except for his anxiety about his son, two or three morning visits to Craig’s room (before Drue and I arrived) and a talk with Dr. Chivery. This (according to Maud) was entirely about Craig’s condition. The Lieutenant already knew that Conrad had had an interview in his study with me and then with Drue after our arrival. I was questioned again about that almost immediately. It was about his son, I told them firmly, and that was all. There was a speculative look in Nicky’s eyes as he turned to look at me then, and Maud said abruptly, “That isn’t all, Lieutenant. Don’t forget that Conrad was furious because Drue Cable came here, and told her she had to leave. She was to go this morning. She…”

“Yes, you told me that,” said Nugent. Drue’s lips parted a little and she leaned forward as if to speak, but Nugent did not permit her to do so. “Now, then,” he said briskly, “there were no callers yesterday except Dr. Chivery and myself. “What about dinner?”

I couldn’t tell whether or not they had yet questioned Drue. It seemed logical that they had, but somehow I thought they had not and it seemed wrong-an ominous omission.

They were replying, one and then another. The whole inquiry began to seem more and more like a formal assembling of already established facts. Except for the impression I continued to have to the effect that Drue herself had not been questioned directly and alone. Consequently, it began to look more and more as if the already established facts had been established, so to speak, around her. When they did question her they would have a solid framework of evidence on which to base their inquiry.

I listened anxiously.

Dinner had been at the usual hour, they were saying; Nicky, Peter, Alexia, and Maud and of course Conrad had been at dinner. Drue was there, too, said Maud, but the other nurse (her eager black eyes went to me) was on duty so a tray was sent up to her. But nothing happened at dinner; no one talked much; all of them ate the same food. So he couldn’t have been poisoned then.

“Digitalis,” said Nugent, “has a very rapid effect. Almost instantaneous.” And went on. The evening had been passed, again, much as usual. They had played bridge, Conrad, Maud, Alexia and Peter-Nicky had read and watched. During the game there had been the usual talk of current news, the war, affairs at home; sometime during the game (no one remembered the time) Conrad had sent Alexia to get the clipping; the box of medicine had been in the desk drawer then. All efforts to discover more exactly when it had disappeared were without result.

At about eleven they had stopped playing. Conrad had gone for his walk, the others had gone to bed. Dr. Chivery had stopped shortly after eleven (Maud told this, too; she was altogether more eagerly informative than anyone else); he had gone to the room she always occupied when she stayed as she so often did at the Brent house, but he had not remained for long. He had walked to the Chivery cottage. “There’s a path, a short-cut,” said Maud, and Nugent nodded.

“He said he didn’t see Brent?” said Soper to Nugent who nodded again. So I knew they had already questioned Dr. Chivery.

Usually Conrad returned from his walk in about forty-five minutes; he walked very slowly, so probably he had not taken a really long walk. His coat, stick, and hat were in their usual place in the closet off the hall. His dinner-jacket hung there, too, and he had put on a lounge coat and, apparently, gone directly into the library.

“He liked to rest a little before going upstairs,” said Beevens. “He had a nightcap or smoked a cigarette or two as a rule and then went to bed. He never wanted me to wait up for him; he locked the front door himself.”

Nightcap. Brandy? Well, they had taken away the decanter; they would know if there was poison in it.

Nicky then created a small sensation by saying abruptly that he had seen Conrad return. “I was here in this room,” he said easily. “I saw Conrad come in, lock the door, remove his coat and hat and put on his lounge coat.”

“Nicky!” cried Alexia twisting around to look up at him.

Soper said, “But look here, Mr. Senour, why didn’t you tell us?”

“I didn’t think it was important,” said Nicky silkily. “That’s all there is to it, you see. He didn’t see me. I was sitting over there by the fire, reading. He went into the library and after a while I went upstairs. That’s all.”

Drue was looking at him steadily. I don’t know how I knew that she was holding her breath, perhaps because I was.

“Are you sure that’s all?” said Nugent. “Did anyone-you, for instance,-go into the library?” There was a silence. Nicky smiled and examined the fingernails on one slender hand. “That’s all,” he said with a kind of silky stubbornness. Soper said, “Well, well; let’s get on,” and began to question about motives and about possible enemies. Nugent looked thoughtfully at Nicky. Soper did the questioning, his little eyes suspicious, except when they rested upon Alexia, of whom he obviously approved and who did look, I must say, very lovely and helpless, except when she lifted her shadowy eyelashes and one caught a glimpse of the very cool and self-possessed look in her eyes. Nicky leaned against the back of her chair in an ostentatiously protecting way, still with the shadow of a smile on his lips, and Alexia sat perfectly still for the most part, answering only when she had to and that briefly, one leg crossed over the other and the toe of her pump making impatient little circles.

After a while they sent for Peter Huber, who came into the room and sat down not far from me. He had told Craig, I imagined, as much as could be told. He sighed a little, unconsciously, as he sat down and then lighted a cigarette and listened. As we all listened.

Presently they questioned him-or rather recapitulated some earlier bout of questioning. When he came downstairs he had found both nurses in the library, was that right? Yes, that was right; he nodded. Why had he come downstairs at all?

“I told you that,” he said. “I’d dropped off to sleep, reading. I hadn’t put up the windows or turned off the light and, when I awoke, the room was too warm. I put up the windows and turned off the light and then I opened the door to the hall, thinking I’d get air into the room more quickly that way.”

As he did it he heard a kind of scream from somewhere downstairs. He’d listened for a moment and as he was closing the door again I had run along the corridor and down the stairs. So he thought something was wrong, went back to get a dressing gown and slippers and had come down after me.

“Mr. Huber,” said the District Attorney, “I want you to think back carefully; this is very important. When you came into the room, were the nurses-either or both of them-doing anything for Mr. Brent? I mean, definitely, did either of them have a hypodermic syringe in her hand? Think back…”

My heart came up in my throat. I didn’t dare look at Drue.

Then Peter said, positively, “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. They were just standing there. We looked at him but he was dead. So Miss Keate sent Miss Cable back upstairs to Craig and me to telephone. I didn’t succeed in getting the doctor then. I couldn’t find the number; I was upset. Anyway, all at once there was this sound of something falling…”

“Yes, yes, you told us about that,” said the District Attorney testily. “Something falling and the sound of a window breaking and we can’t find anything that fell and there is no window broken.” He turned to me. “Miss Keate, was there anything else? Anything that happened last night before the death of Mr. Brent that struck you as being-well, out of the way? Unusual.”

From the way he said it, I had a quick impression that he had asked everyone that. Maud looked rather scornful, and Alexia all but yawned. It was one of fate’s dangerous little jokes that I would have answered in the negative (as I imagine everyone else had done) had not Delphine at that point slunk across the hall, with a wary green eye toward the trooper in the doorway. The fleeting glimpse I had of him reminded me of a very trivial thing I had forgotten up to then. “Why, yes,” I said. “As a matter of fact there was something.”

Alexia stopped yawning so suddenly her jaws snapped together and Maud’s scorn changed to alert interest. I went on, “There was a kind of bump against the closed door to my patient’s room.”

“Bump!” said the District Attorney.

“Yes. Something in the hall struck against the door.”

“Something! What?” cried the District Attorney. He looked a little astonished at having, so to speak, got a bite. “Well-well, go on,” he said impatiently as I hesitated. “What was it? Didn’t you go to the door and open it and look?”

“Yes. Yes, I did open the door and I saw…” I stopped again on the verge of saying I had seen Nicky coming from a room down the hall. But that was wrong. I had seen Nicky, but that was before something-whatever it was-had struck against the door, and struck so sharply it roused me and the cat. No; that was wrong, too; the cat had already aroused, as if he heard someone in the hall. The bump against the door had come later. And when I had got to the door and opened it no one was in the hall.

The District Attorney said, “Well, who did you see? Who did you see?”

Nugent was very still and very observant-as, I suddenly realized, everyone in the room was watching, too, and listening. There was indeed a strained and queer silence. I said slowly, confused not so much by the silence as by the singularly intent quality in it, “I didn’t see anyone. I don’t know who it was. I saw nothing.”

“But you…” began Soper explosively, and Nugent said, “All right, Miss Keate. We believe you.” His eyes looked very narrow and green. He went on quickly, “You were in the library when you heard the sound of something falling. What did you do?”

“I ran upstairs.” I told him of it again, briefly. And brought forward what seemed to be, up to then, a bit of new evidence, or at least a new fact. That was the matter of Craig’s being found in the linen closet, unconscious and bleeding from a bruise on his temple.

“He says somebody was in the hall and struck him,” I explained.

The District Attorney interrupted. “Who?”

“He said he doesn’t know. But if someone did that it proves there was an intruder, a-a thief…”

“But he said he was in the hall when he was struck,” said Soper, looking a little impressed with his own astuteness, and very pompous. “You say you found him in the linen room.”

“I did. Or rather Miss Cable found him there first.” Again glances went to Drue; again no one questioned her. “Someone must have dragged him into the linen closet and left him there. A man, I mean.”

“A woman could have done it,” began Soper, and Nugent cut in rather quickly. “I’ll question Craig Brent later,” he said, his eyes still very green and thoughtful, however. Soper, brought up short, frowned, tapped his stomach and began again briskly. “Now then, about Conrad Brent’s business affairs…”

That did not take a very long time; everyone I think was convinced that Conrad’s business affairs were in good order and in any case it would be an easy matter for them to find out through his bankers and his lawyer. There seemed to be, however, little question on that point. He had been a rich man, living well within an income which was, certainly, on the more or less lavish side. Only later inquiry could confirm it, but just then there seemed to be no reasonable doubt but that his affairs were perfectly balanced and sound.

Nothing however was said of his will-which seemed to me another omission. After that they went into the matter of alibis-very cautiously, very suavely, so one didn’t at first realize the exact trend of all their detailed questions of time. In the end, however, so far as I could see, no one really had an alibi except Craig. Nicky, at least, had admitted his presence in the morning room when Conrad returned. Had he seen Drue? Was he going to tell of her interview with Conrad? There was no way to know and no way to read Nicky’s enigmatic face. At length the District Attorney observed, rather pettishly, that there was no alibi, really, for murder by poison, looked impatiently at Nugent and fidgeted. Nugent looked back at him and shook his head, only a little, almost imperceptibly, but as if he’d said, “Wait-not yet.”

I saw that. And I thought I prepared myself for it. I didn’t really; no one does against catastrophe. But I knew that it was coming; they had asked about a hypodermic, so they had seen that tiny red mark on Conrad Brent’s arm. They had searched Drue’s room and mine and had taken away the little bag in which she carried instruments and the few drugs she had, so they knew she had a supply of digitalis and knew she didn’t have a hypodermic-as I had and as any nurse normally would have. They had established the fact that Conrad’s medicine was gone, box and all, so he couldn’t have taken it himself. They wouldn’t have far to look for a motive, or a witness of sorts, either, for Nicky must have seen Drue going to the library even if, for any purpose of his own, he did not then admit it. Above all, the look Soper and Nugent exchanged admitted a previously agreed-upon purpose.

So they had not yet questioned Drue. My feeling about that was right. Obviously they thought that it would weaken her to have to sit there before them and hear the case built up-possibilities eliminated, circumstances set forth so they were indisputable.

I felt cold and queerly stiff, as if all my muscles had tightened hard. I felt that I had to look at Drue and I wouldn’t.

It came sooner than I expected and it was worse. Maud at last brought the thing to its ugly climax. She said, suddenly and impatiently, interrupting a question as to any possibility of the medicine box having been empty and thrown away by Conrad himself, previous to his attack, “Nonsense!”

Everyone looked at her. She said again, “That’s utter nonsense! Conrad never would have done that. He always kept a supply of digitalis on hand. Besides, as Claud has already told you, his prescription had been refilled only three days ago. He hadn’t had an attack since, so it was a full, new supply. And I don’t see why you don’t get to the point. He was given a hypodermic, you know that; Claud saw what he felt sure was the mark and told me. Nobody but a nurse would have given him a hypodermic-a nurse or a doctor, and Claud wasn’t here. And you know who had a motive.”

I said quickly, “A hypodermic mark?”

Nugent glanced at me and Maud stopped, shooting a light black look at me. Nugent said, “Do you want to say something, Nurse Keate?”

“Yes. I don’t see how anyone, even a doctor, can make a positive statement about the mark made by a hypodermic needle. It is very small; frequently so small that it can’t be seen at all. The skin is elastic and instantly closes after the needle is withdrawn.”

Maud’s eyes snapped. “It frequently shows, too.”

I shrugged. “I don’t question Dr. Chivery’s statement to the effect that he found some sort of small mark that might have been made by a hypodermic needle. I do question anyone being able to say with any degree of certainty that a-well, a bare pinprick is the mark of a needle.”

“Miss Keate,” said Maud. “You are not here to question the veracity of the doctor you are working for!”

“It’s the plain truth,” I said. “Ask anyone.”

Maud whirled around toward Nugent. “Dr. Chivery’s word has never been questioned. As I was about to say, it is obvious that only one person in the house had a motive. That was Drue Cable.”

“Mrs. Chivery…” began Nugent, but she went on so vehemently that her tight little body jerked; her black eyes plunged in little bursts from one to the other of us.

“She must have come down to the library to see him; to try to persuade him not to make her go. He had told her she must leave today. She threatened him, yesterday afternoon. I heard her and so did you, Nicky. You heard her say, ‘I could kill you for this.’ I know exactly what happened. She came to the library and she accused him of breaking up her marriage. Conrad had an attack and asked her for medicine; she went to the desk and-and took the medicine away, pretended it was gone. So Conrad, dying, begged her to help him. She was a nurse. How could he know what she would do…?”

“Stop! We’ll get a lawyer. You can’t accuse…” I rose and Nugent was at my side, his hand tight on my arm. Drue looked like a ghost, white, rigid, with great dark eyes fastened on Maud. There was a shadow of a smile on Alexia’s lips. Maud swept on vigorously, black eyes snapping. “So she gave him a hypodermic of digitalis and she gave him too much. It killed him. As she planned. She thought it would never be traced. That’s how it happened…”

“That’s enough, Mrs. Chivery,” said Nugent. But Soper’s voice rose over Nugent’s. “She’s perfectly right,” he said loudly. “I’ve thought so from the very first. She’s perfectly right, Nugent; there’s no other real explanation. I’ve been patient, I’ve covered every possible line of inquiry. But that’s enough…” He got up and looked at Drue, his little eyes bright and accusing. “She did it. The girl did it. She intended to kill him with the revolver. Then he had a heart attack and this way was easier for her, a nurse, and she jumped at it. She hid the medicine; she pretended to him that it was gone; she told him she’d save him. And then she killed him. Arrest Drue Cable now, Lieutenant. It’s a clear case; I’ll take the responsibility for it, and I’ll bring the charge. We’ll get a grand jury indictment at once. It’ll be murder in the first degree.”

Nicky looked at his fingernails. “Well,” he said softly into the sudden silence, “I may as well tell you, then. Drue was with Conrad in the library. I saw her. And I heard her say, ‘I’ve got your revolver.’ They had a terrific row.”