Wolf in Man’s Clothing

10

DRUE ROSE AUTOMATICALLY, AS if she didn’t know what she was doing, but she didn’t speak. I was close beside her and I would have known. Alexia smiled a little and said something low to Nicky. Maud looked openly triumphant; Peter quickly started for the door as if to tell Craig and then as quickly came back into the room again. Soper said loudly that he was right, he’d known it from the first, but Nicky ought to have told it earlier. I believe I said loudly, too, a number of times that Drue wouldn’t talk without a lawyer. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Then Nugent’s voice cracked like a whip, so viciously that it brought us all up short.

“Do you mean she had the revolver with her? In her hand?” he asked Nicky.

“Oh, no,” said Nicky. “I would have seen it.”

“Then she wasn’t actually threatening him with it?”

“I can’t say about that,” said Nicky airily.

“And what did you do then?”

“After I saw her go into the library?” Nicky’s tone was very nonchalant. “I thought from the sound of Conrad’s voice that she-well, might need somebody to back her up. But she seemed able to take care of herself, so I went upstairs. I’d just got to sleep when something fell-I don’t know what-and they said Conrad was dead.”

“What else did you hear?” demanded Soper quickly. “What did Brent say when she told him she had his revolver? Did he call for help? You must have heard what else they said!”

Nicky paused, looked at his fingernails, thought for a moment and said, “N-no. No, I’m afraid not.”

“But if you heard their voices…” began Soper, and Nugent said abruptly, “You’ll swear to all this, Mr. Senour?”

And Nicky said he wouldn’t.

It was an inexplicable and sudden volte face to which he clung with silky stubbornness. “I can’t swear to anything,” he said. “I won’t. I’ve only said that Drue came downstairs while Conrad was in the library.”

Soper was furious. “You said they had a row. You said you saw her in the library with him just before he died. You said she threatened him with his own revolver!”

“I won’t swear to anything,” said Nicky, ignoring Alexia’s frown and Maud’s angry eyes and clutching little hand upon his arm.

“You don’t have to,” shouted Soper angrily. “Every word you’ve said has been taken down in shorthand. Perfectly openly; you were all aware of it.” One of the troopers in the corner, scribbled that too, rapidly, in his shorthand tablet. But Nicky shook his head.

“You’ll never get me to sign it or to admit anything of the kind on the witness stand. I won’t be the one to bring evidence like that against anybody-in court.”

Alexia was biting her full underlip with sharp white teeth, her eyes ominously fixed on Nicky. Maud made an angry little exclamation and must have vanished about then, silently, for when next I looked for her she was gone. Soper said angrily that Nicky would be a witness; he couldn’t help himself; he, Soper, would see to that. Nugent said suddenly, “We’ll question Miss Cable alone. Right, Soper?”

“But…” said Alexia, and Nugent said again, “Alone. If you please…”

So the others-Alexia, Nicky, Peter and Beevens-were obliged to leave, and did so rather reluctantly, I thought, as if they wanted to stay. But Nugent closed the door after them briskly, and Soper looked at me.

“Well?” he said sharply, “are you staying here?”

“I am,” I said simply but firmly.

“You’re not! You heard what…”

“Oh, let her stay,” said Nugent. Soper shrugged and Drue, standing very slim and erect beside the tall armchair, her gray eyes level and clear, said, “I didn’t murder him.” Said it like a simple statement, clearly and distinctly, like a child reciting a lesson. I suppose it seemed unreal to her. Yet it was real enough, too.

“You were with him,” said Soper. “You had a motive…” He began his attack with bluster, but Nugent’s voice cut sharply into the bluster, “Miss Cable,” he said, “will you make a statement of exactly what you did do? Just tell it to us in your own words.”

“I think she ought to have a lawyer,” I said again. “You can refuse to talk, Drue.” I wasn’t sure that she could refuse to answer their questions, but in any case she lifted her firm little chin and looked at Nugent.

“I’ll tell you,” she said. “I’ll tell you as much as I can.” I held my breath again and tried to think of ways to stop her if she said too much.

“I was in the library as Nicky says,” she began.

“All right, Miss Cable, go on.”

“I did want to talk to Mr. Brent. So I waited until he returned from his walk, then I came to the library. We talked for some time. He had a heart attack then and…” She faltered, and I was sure she was going to tell about the hypodermic. I rustled warningly. A faint flush came into her face and her hand went up to her throat, almost as if to stop the words on her lips. “And-he died,” she said. “If such a large amount of digitalis was found, I don’t know how he got it.”

Well, that was true enough and so far safe. But I wished I could be sure that she saw, as I saw, that the one thing they were after was an admission that she had given Conrad digitalis. It was the important material evidence; it was the clinching fact, it was the missing link in the chain they had forged. There was no possible way for her to prove, ever (to them, or to a jury), how much she had given him, and that it was not a lethal amount. Her instinct was for telling them the truth, I knew that; and the truth would have been, literally, the most horrible and fatal trap, as things stood then. Soper burst into question again.

“But this revolver, Miss Cable. You had a revolver. Why?”

She turned to face him. “I found that revolver in the garden,” she said steadily, “yesterday afternoon.”

“G-garden,” said the District Attorney.

“Where my-that is, where Craig was shot that night. It was hidden and I found it. In the burlap wrapping around one of the rose shrubs.”

Nugent’s eyes had an odd expression. “Why did you look for it, Miss Cable?” he said. “Why did you bring it to your room?”

She turned back to him; there was less defiance in her manner when she spoke to Nugent, more confidence-which might be her undoing. She seemed to trust him and to want to tell him the whole story and Soper was ready and eager to pounce upon any unguarded admission. She said, “Because I didn’t believe the story of an accident. I went to the garden just to have a look at the place where my”-again she corrected herself quickly-“where Craig had been hurt. I searched it and I found the gun. That’s all. I brought it to my room because I intended to show it to Craig when he was better.”

“Why?” said Nugent rather softly.

“Because it proved someone shot at him,” she said.

“He says it was accident,” said Nugent, watching her closely. “He ought to know.”

“I wanted him to have that revolver,” she said with a kind of obliquity.

“You’re saying that his accident was actually an attempted murder?” cried Soper.

Again she whirled around to face him, her chin high, her voice steady. “He wouldn’t have shot himself like that! He wouldn’t have been cleaning a gun in the garden at eleven o’clock at night!”

“Did you know that the revolver belonged to Conrad Brent?”

“I wasn’t sure. I knew that he’d had a revolver.”

“Did he admit it belonged to him? When you took it to the library, I mean?”

“Yes. That is, by implication. He recognized it and asked where I’d found it.”

“See here, Miss Cable,” said Soper with a crafty look, “did you accuse him of trying to kill his son?”

“No. Certainly not.”

“Why did you give him the revolver?”

“Because I wanted him to know of it, of course. I wanted him to know that I had found it in the garden, hidden. I wanted him to know.”

“Why?” said Soper again.

“Naturally because something ought to be done about it. It proved that Craig didn’t shoot himself. He wouldn’t have hidden it.”

“Exactly what did he say?”

Drue flushed. “He said I couldn’t have found the revolver just there. He said I was-was trying to make trouble.”

“And you…”

“I saw then that he was ill. I told him he’d better lie down. I started to leave but he-he asked me to stay with him. And then he got worse. All at once. And-and died.”

After a moment Nugent said, “Who do you think shot Craig?”

Again the defiance went out of her. She shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know…”

“Don’t know! Of course, you don’t know! It’s an obvious attempt to divert your inquiry, Lieutenant. I’m surprised that you can’t see through this girl’s story.” Soper came close to Drue, his face red and threatening, shaking a pudgy but forceful forefinger under her nose. “Now, you see here, Miss. We want the truth. You did quarrel with Conrad Brent, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t quarrel with him. I asked him to permit me to stay and take care of Craig.”

“You quarreled with him! You were heard yesterday afternoon when he tried to send you away. You blamed him for breaking up your marriage. You came here in the hope of getting young Brent back again. But his father wouldn’t let you, so you killed him.”

Drue’s face wasn’t white any more; two scarlet flames were in her cheeks, her eyes flashed. “I came here to nurse Craig,” she said. “And he was my husband until his father…”

“Drue, Drue!” I cried, my hand on her arm.

And Soper said, “Arrest her, Nugent. I insist upon it. I’ll make you responsible if she gets away. It’s a murder charge, there’s no use in prolonging this thing. Take her away…”

“I don’t think there’s enough evidence-material evidence-to convict,” said Nugent softly but very coolly.

“Enough evidence!” snorted the District Attorney. “What more do you want? There’s the hypodermic…”

“We haven’t made sure that she had one.”

“You will, you will! No use asking her, she’d only lie. Yes, and you”-he pounced on me, his eyes angry, bright slits in his red face-“you are putting her up to it. Well, we’ll take care of you, too. Besides, there’s the witness…”

“Nicky Senour,” said Nugent again softly. “And he says he won’t swear to it. Besides, he didn’t see her kill him. He said only that she was in the library with Brent…”

“He said they were having a row. That kind of thing goes a long way with a jury. Don’t be a fool, Nugent. You’ll get the evidence. But put the girl under arrest; make sure you’ve got her. All the evidence in the world won’t do you any good later if you’ve let the girl who did it get away. Arrest her…”

“I’ll take her into custody,” said the Lieutenant slowly.

“Custody! What do you mean by that?”

“I’ll keep her here, in her room. Under guard,” said Nugent.

And in the end, incredibly, that was exactly what he did. But first they questioned her again, and made me leave before they began. I would have stayed; but when a District Attorney, a Police Lieutenant and two remarkably stalwart and able-bodied troopers are lined up against one, there’s nothing much to do. I retired as ungracefully as it lay in my power to do and sat on the bench in the hall watching the door. Never before in my whole nursing experience have I let anything come between me and my patient but frankly, while I sat there, eyes glued to the door of that room, trying and failing to hear anything but a rapid murmur of voices, I didn’t care whether Craig Brent lived or died, except I hated him so, just then, for being the cause of Drue’s presence in that ill-omened house that I’d a little rather he’d have died, preferably in boiling oil. If I could have made him come alive again. My own impulses to murder, while vehement in their way, are not very lasting.

Once I did go upstairs. The door to Craig’s room was open and I peeked in cautiously. Peter Huber was sitting in a chair beside him, smoking. Anna was standing at the window, her back toward the room and her head bent with a handkerchief to her eyes, and Craig and Peter were talking in low voices. Craig looked all right, certainly the police were not hounding him from trap to trap, from admission to admission, from refuge to refuge. I went quickly back to the bench downstairs and they were still in the little morning room.

I was there when they emerged. Drue was white and drawn-looking; even her lips were chalky. She looked at me with great, haunted, dark eyes and I could read nothing in them, although I thought she was thankful I was there, waiting for her. And they took her straight upstairs, and put her in her room, under guard! I followed. Soper, giving me a suspicious look, had turned into the library.

Well. Nugent, if he had eyes in his head as he certainly did, couldn’t have failed to see that my room connected with Drue’s. But the trooper already on guard didn’t stop me when I entered my own room. And of course I went straight through the bathroom to Drue.

She was standing in the middle of the room, facing the door, head up, hands clenched at her sides as if at bay. When she heard me she whirled and suddenly crumpled down on the bed. “Oh, Sarah, Sarah, what shall I do?”

I sat down on the bed beside her and took her hands. “What have you told them? What did they make you say? Quick, Drue. Tell me.”

In the end it wasn’t too bad; which is to say it could have been worse but not much worse. They had questioned her at length about her interview with Conrad, about her reasons for coming to Balifold, about the hypodermic syringe they had not found among her other nursing tools, about the supply of digitalis they had found. Somehow (as if she saw now, clearly, her own danger) she had evaded them; she had not admitted that she had given Conrad a hypodermic, she had not admitted that he asked her for the medicine and that, when she went to look for it, it was not in the drawer.

She had indeed fought and evaded-especially about the box of medicine-in a way that was not like Drue; she was, as most of us are, naturally and innately truthful. If she had been fighting thus to protect somebody else (somebody she loved) it would have seemed to me more comprehensible and more like Drue. She had that kind of courage; I’ve seen her fight to save a patient with the courage and fury of a tigress. But I didn’t stop then to think of that; I was only thankful that she had kept them from grinding any really convicting admission out of her.

“I kept saying I didn’t know, I didn’t know. I remembered what you said, and told them I wanted a lawyer. Sarah, when they asked me a direct question: did I give him a hypodermic of digitalis? Did he ask me for his medicine?-I-I squirmed and evaded and wriggled out of it.” She pressed her hands over her face. “Funny,” she said unevenly, “how hard it is to tell an outright lie, even when you’ve made up your mind to do it. Instead of lying, you-you evade, you weasel out of making a direct statement, you-oh, it’s fantastic, really. You employ all the spirit of lying and yet you can’t make yourself conquer the fact. Well,” she took her hands from her face and stared at the rug, “they don’t know I gave him the hypodermic-not certainly. But-oh, Sarah, what can I do!”

Well, I said what I could, which was little enough. I told her we’d get a lawyer. I told her they had nothing but circumstantial evidence.

“But they convict people on circumstantial evidence. Don’t they, Sarah?”

“Never,” I told her stoutly and falsely. “It isn’t legal.” And made her lie down flat on the bed and fixed her some aromatic spirits of ammonia which she didn’t drink. But before we could really talk or outline any kind of sensible course of action there was a knock on the door, and it was the trooper Wilkins, the man on guard. And they wanted us to come to Craig’s room.

“Right away, please,” said the trooper.

Drue went to the mirror before we went, however. It gave me a kind of lift to see her put cold water on her eyes and powder her face and touch her lips with crimson. It was like a little, unconscious declaration of war.

But if Craig saw it, or was aware of anything but the bare fact of Drue’s presence, there was no hint of it in his attitude when we entered his room. He gave us both a remote and impersonal look; Drue might have been the barest acquaintance, certainly anything but a woman who was once his wife.

Soper was there, suspicious the instant his eyes fell upon Drue again. Nugent was there and the ubiquitous trooper with the shorthand tablet. Anna was hovering in a corner but Peter had gone. After a closer glance at Craig I sent Anna away and took up my post at his side with my fingers on his pulse. I did feel a wave of compunction. There was a flare of color in his cheeks and his eyes were too bright.

“I sent for you, Miss Keate,” he said to me, “and for Drue. I thought this concerned both of you.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to be quick,” I said to Nugent. “Ten minutes…”

The District Attorney swelled up as if about to protest and at a look from Nugent went down again. Drue went quietly over to stand in the shadow of the window curtains; the light fell upon her white skirt and her face was in the shadow. But I think all of us, all the time, were poignantly aware of that slender, listening figure.

“We weren’t going to question you, Brent, if we could help it, until you were better,” said Nugent. “However, we both wanted very much to see you…”

“All right,” said Craig. “But first, exactly what is your case against Miss Cable? Facts, I mean. That you can substantiate.”

“I’ll tell you,” said Lieutenant Nugent, and did, wasting no words and outlining their case against Drue in black and white. She had quarreled with Conrad Brent; she had held him responsible for her separation from her husband; (“that is,” said Nugent looking carefully past Drue’s white figure and out the window, “from you, Mr. Brent…”) she had had digitalis; the medicine was missing from its customary place and there was the mark which might be that of a hypodermic needle on the body of Conrad Brent. He explained, still briefly but pungently, that since no one else knew anything of the missing box of pills there was only one construction that could be placed upon their absence, plus the hypodermic and the fatal amount of digitalis found in Conrad Brent’s body. And that was that Drue had removed the medicine as a pretext to administer a fatal dose of digitalis.

“Am I to understand then that your whole theory is based upon a presumption that Miss Cable came here with the purpose of effecting a reconciliation with-with me, and that her purpose was so overwhelmingly strong that she murdered my father because he opposed her?” There was an edge in Craig’s voice. He went on. “Because that’s out of the question. As a motive that is preposterous. Neither Miss Cable nor I have any desire to remarry. Miss Cable did not come here with any such purpose.”

“Why did she come here?” said Soper.

A flicker of a smile came into Craig’s eyes and vanished. “She is a nurse. It was sheer coincidence that she was called when I was injured. She needed the money and, as our divorce was entirely amicable, there was no earthly reason why she shouldn’t come.”

“Then why,” said Soper acutely, “did she quarrel with your father?”

Craig lifted his eyebrows. “I’m not sure she did quarrel with my father-but if so I suggest that that was no difficult achievement.”

“Really, Mr. Brent,” said Soper looking shocked. “Your father…”

“I know, I know,” said Craig. “But you are making this an inquiry into murder; there’s a duty paid the living, too. However, it is likely that my father asked her to leave and she, professionally, resented being kicked out of the house. In any case, that is neither here nor there. For in the first place, your evidence against her is altogether circumstantial. You can’t prove any of it…”

“There I beg to differ with you,” interrupted Soper. “If we find her hypodermic outfit and it has contained digitalis…” Nugent was looking very glum.

Craig said quickly, “But you haven’t. So you have no proof whatever. And even so, you see, she wasn’t here the night an attempt was made to murder me. And it isn’t likely that there are two murderers floating around in-in this house.” He said it rather lightly and looked gray and terribly grim around the mouth.

“Two-but you told everybody it was accident…” began Soper explosively and Nugent broke in again, driving neatly through implications and repetitions, “Who shot you?”

Craig closed his eyes wearily. “I could have told you all I knew of it yesterday if Chivery hadn’t doped me so thoroughly. I understand you were here making an inquiry.”

“The girl had the revolver, too!” cried Soper. “You didn’t say anything about that, Nugent.”

“Mr. Brent wasn’t shot,” said Nugent.

“You mean Conrad. Craig here was shot and…”

“Miss Cable was not here when I was shot,” said Craig.

Soper paid no attention to that. He said, “How do we know she’s telling the truth about the revolver? Sounds much more likely to me that she took Conrad’s revolver and threatened him with it. And then changed her mind as she thought of an easier way to get rid of him. Then she thought up this story of finding the revolver in the garden in order to explain why she had it…”

“Why did she have it, in that case?” said Craig.

“Why, to-to clean off her fingerprints! Or perhaps she was excited and forgot the revolver. Left it in her room when she went to get the digitalis and forgot it. We found it; she had to explain it. And also she saw a chance to throw dust in our eyes; to suggest that Craig’s accident was attempted murder and thus, that the person who shot Craig and the person who killed Conrad were the same, which would let her out inasmuch as she was not here that night.”

“No, no,” cried Drue from the window. “I didn’t. I…”

“I can corroborate Miss Cable’s story of the revolver,” I broke in hastily. “Or at least part of it.” But when I had told them as convincingly as I could of seeing her return to the house from the direction of the garden they were not very much impressed.

“Could you see what she was carrying?” asked Nugent.

“No. She was wearing her cape.”

“So you didn’t see that it was a revolver?”

“Not exactly. It had to be something small.”

“But in fact you are not sure she carried anything.”

“It was my impression…”

“Impressions!” snorted Soper.

Nugent shook his head. Drue turned suddenly back toward the window; suddenly, I thought, to conceal tears.

“Let’s get back to your accident,” said Nugent abruptly, addressing Craig. “Did somebody shoot you? If so, who?”

“All right,” said Craig. “This is what happened. I was walking in the garden; no reason for it-just walking. It was dark; there’s no moon. There was a rustle in some shrubs. I turned around, thinking it was the dog. I stepped a little nearer the shrubs; anyway, I could see a hand. Barely see it, the rest was in the shadow; I think there were outlines of a figure. And then something hit my shoulder, as if somebody had given me a kind of hard slap. Then I realized I’d been shot. I think I started for the shrub; I must have called for help. I remember stumbling and then that was all until they were carrying me upstairs. Beevens and Pete. Then Chivery came. But I didn’t see anybody clearly in the shrub; I just knew somebody was there. I didn’t even really see the revolver,” he said. “But I imagine that Miss Cable found it and that that is the revolver she had in her room. I asked her to try to find it; I had a kind of lucid moment, the way you do when you’re drugged. She was here and I asked her to look for it. Naturally I wanted to know who shot me; I wanted the evidence.”

Soper’s cold little eyes practically lost themselves in suspicious wrinkles. “That’s not Miss Cable’s story. She didn’t say you sent her to look for the revolver.”

Craig shot a glance at Drue. “Didn’t she?” he said imperturbably. “Well, that’s the way it was.”

Nugent said, “The revolver belonged to your father. Mrs. Brent and Mr. Senour have identified it.”

“He kept it,” said Craig, accepting the fact of the revolver’s ownership without question, “in the desk in the library. He never locked the desk; anything valuable he put in the safe. The safe is behind one of those panels in the library.”

“You mean anybody might have taken the revolver,” said Soper.

“Obviously.”

Nugent was looking thoughtful. He said, “Was the hand you saw wearing a glove?”

Craig’s pulse gave a leap and began to race like an accelerated motor. But he said coolly enough, looking straight at Nugent, “I haven’t the faintest idea. It was dark. There was only a kind of whitish outline.”

“But you knew it was a hand?”

“Why-yes.”

There was a little silence and I looked at my watch in a marked manner. Soper said, “So you think the same person that killed your father tried first to kill you?”

“I don’t know,” said Craig. “But I do know Miss Cable was in New York when I was shot.”

“How do you know that?” interposed Soper.

Craig lifted his eyebrows. “Obviously she wasn’t here.”

Nugent said abruptly, “It’s all right, Mr. Soper. She was in New York; I checked that and the telephone call to the Nurses’ Registry office.”

Soper looked annoyed. Craig went on quickly, “In any case, it isn’t likely that she would take a pot shot at me one night and the next night poison my father because she wanted to see me and he opposed it. The motives seem a little mixed.”

Soper said, “Now look here, Brent, we are only trying to get at the truth. You needn’t take that tone.”

“I know,” said Craig soberly and with the edge gone from his voice, so it was only weary and honest. “I understand your position and I appreciate what you are trying to do. I’ll do everything I can to help you. But I really do think you are wasting time making out a case against Miss Cable; she was not anywhere near, the night I was shot. And she had no motive to kill my father. She doesn’t want to marry me any more than I want to marry her. Our marriage is absolutely finished and neither of us regrets it.”

“Do you mean to say,” said Soper, glancing covertly in Drue’s direction, “do you mean to say that if Drue Cable-your former wife, came to you and suggested that you remarry, you would refuse her?”

I didn’t look at Drue; no one did but Soper. Craig’s pulse was as steady as a clock. “At the risk of sounding unchivalrous,” he said coolly and distinctly, “yes.”