Wolf in Man’s Clothing

22

IT WAS HIGH AND thin and terrible. And stopped as if choked off by hands.

The figure in the doorway sprang forward toward me just as I lifted Chivery’s revolver and fired blindly in that direction. Claud Chivery being Claud Chivery, the thing wasn’t loaded; it clicked emptily and I flung it full at that pale, triangular face just as Alexia reached for me. It was Alexia, not Nicky. In that split second of nearness I was sure of that. She swerved and ducked to avoid the revolver and I twisted past her; she snatched at my cape and it came off my shoulders and I had reached the door to the hall.

The outside door was open and someone was running up the stairs; someone who must have entered as I evaded Alexia, for he was only on the lower step when I saw him first. It was a man in slacks and a sweater and there were sounds in the dark little hall upstairs and I ran up the stairs after that figure leaping ahead of me into the dusk.

I think I knew that it was Craig. I think I knew that Alexia was not following me. I think I had a fleeting thought of Anna, and a desperate hope that she had gone to the police as I had told her to do. Then the figure ahead of me-Craig-vanished into the dusk above and I fumbled for the bannister still running, panting, my heart pounding in my throat. And I too came out into the upper hall.

It was so dark that I could only see motion and hear it; feet shuffling frantically, a struggle somewhere in that narrow little passage, for there was the sound of fists, a thud against a wall, a panting voice saying nothing, and then Drue’s voice, “Craig…” she cried. “Craig-look out…”

I think she said that. It was all swift, incoherent, veiled in shadows. And then I stumbled on a chair. And at the same time got a clearer view of figures, silhouetted against the gray windows at the front, struggling.

So I took up the chair. It was quite light. But sturdy.

Aside from an unexpected and sudden swirl around on the part of the interlocked and struggling figures just as I was about to strike which very nearly resulted in my braining Craig instead of the murderer, I executed my little maneuver with considerable verve. As I say, the chair was sturdy.

It made quite a resounding crack. I struck again just in the interest of thoroughness but it wasn’t really necessary. One of the dark figures paused, swayed a little, and just sagged down quietly on the floor and lay there.

The humiliating thing was, of course, that I took one look at the figure on the floor, one look at Craig leaning against the bannister, panting heavily, staring downward too, one look at Drue who was running toward Craig, and I put down the chair deliberately. And then sat down in it as deliberately. And leaned back my head.

However, I have never fainted in my life, with the exception of the time when I first went on duty in the operating room and that was more years ago than I care to mention. There were noises from downstairs; women’s voices came shrilly and jerkily to my ears. I knew dimly that Alexia’s was one of them.

But I wasn’t prepared for what I saw when, suddenly aware that I had closed my eyes at something and that now a light from somewhere was beating upon my eyelids, I made a determined and curiously difficult effort and opened them again.

And I wasn’t in the upstairs hall at all. I was stretched out at full length on the table in Dr. Chivery’s examining room. Something cold and wet was on my forehead.

I don’t know how they got me there. Drue insisted that I walked but didn’t seem to know where I was going and that I relaxed, as docile as a child, upon the table which was the nearest thing to a couch in sight.

I couldn’t say about that, but I do know that the sliced-off view I had through the door into Dr. Chivery’s study both cleared my head and brought me to a sitting position.

For Alexia lay on the floor of the study, her legs in Nicky’s slacks threshing angrily but futilely, for Anna sat like a lump on Alexia and she had the revolver I had thrown at Alexia in her hand and every time Alexia would give a violent writhe Anna would shake the revolver in her face. Anna was sobbing.

I managed to get to my feet. Just as I did so Drue came from somewhere out of my range of vision, took the revolver from Anna and said, “Get up. The police are here.”

When I reached the study, just as Anna stood up and Alexia, eyes like daggers in her white face, sprang gracefully to her feet, Nugent ran across the porch and into the hall. He was followed by two state troopers. Drue said, “Upstairs. Quick.”

It was then, as the men’s feet pounded heavily on the stairs, that Alexia gave up. She listened, her hands clenched. Drue listened too, her face as white as her uniform. But after a long moment Alexia turned and looked at Drue. Lights were on now in the study, blazing upon us. Anna, in a corner, was sobbing again, and listening, too. Alexia didn’t speak to Drue, however. Her eyes shifted finally to Anna, and she said with scorn, “Shut up. Crying won’t help. I love him, too. Or,” said Alexia suddenly, “I thought I did. I’m not so sure now.”

I don’t think Drue heard it; her face was lifted, all her being intent upon what was going on upstairs, where Craig was. Anna heard it, though; she said, still sobbing, “You knew he killed Mr. Brent. You knew-oh, how could you help him! How could you!”

“Help him,” said Alexia. “I didn’t help him. I didn’t know anything.”

“You did, you did,” cried Anna. “He told me you were helping him. He said you thought he was in love with you. He said you would do anything he told you to do.”

“What did you say?” said Alexia in a strange kind of whispering. “What did you say?” She walked slowly, gracefully as a stalking panther, toward Anna. Anna sobbed and looked terrified but stood her ground. “Yes,” she cried. “He said he’d told you to get hold of the Frederic Miller checks. He said if he had the checks Mr. Brent wouldn’t dare tell the police who he was and where he’d come from. He said Mr. Brent wouldn’t dare do anything because if he had the checks…”

“Was he Frederic Miller?” demanded Alexia, still in that strange, still voice.

“No, no. He only knew about the checks. He’d lived here-oh, for years. He belonged to the Bund; he knew that Mr. Brent liked German ideas. He knew that he had given money to the German cause. He knew-he knew…”

“And he said I’d do anything for him?” said Alexia.

“Yes, yes. He’s always known when women liked him. He knew that you did…”

“Oh, he knew that I liked him, did he?” said Alexia. “That’s fine. That’s good. That’s very good.” She leaned over toward Anna. She laughed very softly and very horribly and said, “That’s very good. Because now he’s going to find out exactly how much I like him.” She whirled around and started for the door. And I said, “Did you know that Peter Huber killed your husband?”

She stopped again. Her small, lovely face was terribly intent. She said finally, “How did you know?”

“I heard what you said just now. But I knew before that. At least I guessed.”

“When?”

“When I found a piece of paper with notes about digitalis written on one side of it and a few sentences on the other side which Maud had written. Peter Huber over-reached himself. He had told Maud Chivery about some Spanish jewels…”

Alexia smiled thinly, “There were no Spanish jewels. He told me. It amused him.”

“Really. I think he meant to fleece Maud; and then changed his mind. I don’t know why…”

“He was after more money,” cried Anna from her corner. “He was going to get money from Mrs. Chivery. But then he knew that he could get more from Mrs. Brent. He said she’d give him money…”

“Anna,” I said sharply, “was that why he killed Mr. Brent? Was it because Mrs. Brent would then be very rich, and he thought that she would give him money?”

“No, no,” cried Anna. “It was because Mr. Brent found out about him. He found out that Peter was making love to Mrs. Brent. He found out that Mrs. Brent liked Peter. And he found out what Peter was-and he said he would turn him over to the police. Then Peter made Mrs. Brent get out the checks. He told Mr. Brent he had the checks, you see, and Mr. Brent was half crazy. Mr. Brent was like that. He shot Mr. Craig. He thought Mr. Craig was Peter; that was because Mr. Craig was in the garden with Mrs. Brent. Mr. Brent was going to shoot Peter, maybe kill him, maybe only wound him. He was going to get the checks back and then call the police and tell them who Peter was and that he had shot Peter in self-defense. Only he made a terrible mistake; he shot Mr. Craig instead of Peter. And then Peter knew that Mr. Brent meant what he’d said. He knew the checks-having them, I mean, in Mrs. Brent’s possession where Peter knew he could get them at any time because Mrs. Brent would do anything he told her to do, she was so crazy about him…”

“He’ll know now whether I’m in love with him or not. He’ll know now,” said Alexia in that deadly, soft voice, her face white and suddenly venomous and no longer beautiful. Anna went on as if she had not heard: “Peter knew that Mr. Brent would kill him or turn him over to the police. He knew that Mr. Brent was past caring about the checks-or soon would be; that’s what he said. He said, ‘Old Brent has gone further than I intended. He’s reached the place where it’s kill or be killed.’ He said, ‘I can’t count on the checks to hold him. I’ve got to act.’ And I said, ‘No, no, Peter. No.’ For you see, I knew what he meant. He was always like that,” said Anna, suddenly whispering, staring into space with horror in her blank blue eyes. “He was always cruel. He always laughed and smiled and was wicked and terrible in his heart.”

Even Alexia was struck with her look. Drue had turned too and was listening, and I felt her hand go out to mine. Anna said, whispering, “Yes. Always.” Then my beads on a string, my knots on a rope became real knots on a rope.

I said, “Anna-” sharply again, to compel her attention. She turned her eyes rather dazedly and slowly to me. I said, “Anna, listen. He came from that German submarine, didn’t he? The one that was torpedoed off the New England coast about a month ago?”

Alexia hadn’t known that. I saw her stiffen. Anna nodded slowly. I said, “He hadn’t lost his baggage. He didn’t have any. Isn’t that right?”

Again Anna nodded. I said, “Why did he come here? Why do you know so much? How could he make you keep his secret? How could he make you pick up that broken vase? How could he…?”

“He was my brother,” whispered Anna, twisting her hands together. “He changed his name from Haub to Huber. He came to America after I came. He worked and went to school. He learned American ways. But he was always a German at heart. And he was always like a-like a wolf. We had wolves at home, in the forests, watching and killing and”-she stopped and stared into space and whispered-“so I was afraid. I knew him. I was afraid.”

Then Craig came down the stairs and into the room and Nugent followed him. Nugent closed the door behind him, so we only heard sounds of other men on the stairs and crossing the little hall; they walked heavily, as if something walked between them at the end of a chain. Like a beast.

It was, though, a man, handcuffed.

The door closed and there were footsteps across the porch and then the roar of an automobile.

That was all, really. The facts were there, inherent in what we then knew. But I listened while they wrapped the fabric of implication and circumstance around the facts. And when the time came I said my own little say and gave them a clipping, a piece of paper, and an empty medicine box. The box was really unimportant. Drue looked at it almost absently. “It was in the pocket of Craig’s dressing-gown, that night,” she said. “I found it and hid it.”

“It was probably planted,” said Nugent.

“Then it was Peter Huber that knocked me out?” said Craig.

Nugent nodded. “He was very busy just then; he had counted on your staying inside your room, in bed. It must have given him a shock to come upon you wandering around the hall. He knocked you out and dragged you in there to get rid of you. And somehow had the empty box in his pocket, perhaps intending to plant it on you all along. At any rate, he must have done so then. The medicine box, like the bloodstained gloves, was planted. They were false clues, intended to mislead us. Although the gloves had been used, all right,” added Nugent, looking very grim.

They looked then at the clipping; and the paper with Maud’s note to Peter Huber on one side, and the notes about digitalis he had made on the other side. It was, of course, a definite link. Not proof but a link.

“When did you begin to believe it was Huber?” asked Craig. He was leaning back in Dr. Chivery’s chair. He looked better when he ought to have looked worse; part of it excitement but part of it was just general toughness, I suppose. Drue, of course, was sitting on the floor beside him, and his hand brushed her shoulder, so that may have accounted for some of it.

I replied, “Just before he came to the cottage. He must have heard Alexia and me talking; he must have guessed finally that Anna had brought Drue here, and he must have been afraid that Anna had told Drue…”

Drue’s hand went up quickly and I stopped to note with some satisfaction that Craig’s hand closed firmly over Drue’s small fingers. I went on quickly, “It was when I came back for the paper with the notes about digitalis on it. I read Maud’s note then, realized (in view of what Peter had told us, trying to cover himself in case Maud told it) that she must have written it to Peter. All at once that, and the clipping and the account of the submarine on the back of it, linked themselves together. It occurred to me that it wasn’t the account of the arrest of some Bund members that Conrad Brent had wanted somebody in the room to know that he knew about. It was the torpedoed submarine. And I remembered, of course, about the stories of Germans from submarines reaching our coast; like the three saboteurs, who reached Long Island. That seemed for an instant, too far-fetched. But then I remembered Peter Huber speaking to the clerk at the little haberdashery in the village. The clerk had laughed at the recollection of how Huber had looked when he came to his shop and bought some clothes. He got rid of his German clothing near where he reached land, probably stealing pants and a shirt from a cottage somewhere along the beach. Once in Balifold he made up a story to account for his appearance, got some money from Anna” (Anna nodded violently here) “and bought himself some clothes. The clerk remembered the way he was dressed. That linked up, too, you see. In the same breath it suddenly occurred to me that it was only Anna who had said that Peter Huber was an old school friend; it was only Anna who had given me the impression that he had often been at the house and was an old friend of yours.” I looked at Craig and, holding Drue’s hand tightly, he nodded. He started to speak however, so I continued hurriedly before I could be interrupted. “But I had also got an impression from Craig Brent that he hadn’t really known Huber long; and later Alexia said that ‘none of us knew him.’ So somehow, I felt that in spite of all this talk of school friends…”

Craig succeeded this time in interrupting me. “I never saw him before,” he said. “He told my father that he knew a man I had known in school. And he could have known him. If he went to school in America…”

“Oh, he did,” cried Anna interrupting, too. “He did. That was why he knew so much. He spoke such good English; nobody ever would have dreamed that he spoke German even better. He-that was why it was all my fault, Mr. Craig. He knew all about the family. I used to write to him, since he was very young. I told him. That was why he came to Balifold. He went back to Germany, you see, just before the war began. He worked for the Bund movement here. I didn’t know that, then. He knew from me, though, how Mr. Brent felt about Germany. He knew a man called Frederic Miller, and he told him that Mr. Brent might donate some money. That was before the war; that was before Mr. Brent changed and no longer liked German ideas. This Frederic Miller, he went back to Germany, too. But Peter knew that there had been checks. He knew Mr. Brent wouldn’t want anybody to know what he had done. It’s all my fault,” she began to sob again. “I started it. I told him about the money and the family. So when he escaped from the submarine and managed to get on land unobserved, he remembered me and the Brents. He came to Balifold and waited till I went to town on my day off and found me; and he asked me all about the family. Then he asked me about friends of Mr. Craig’s and I remembered a name. He really had gone to school in America, and he was so American! Are you going to arrest me? It’s all my fault. But I was afraid. You see, I knew there would be trouble. I knew he wanted something. He-he asked me how Mr. Brent felt about Germany, and he said he ought to be able to get some money out of him… But I tried to stop him. I met him in the meadow one night and told him I was going to the police and tell them who he was. He wouldn’t let me. He had a gun. I don’t think he meant to kill me; he only meant to frighten me. But I ran; in the darkness I ran into the trees and then he… The nurse was up above, her figure showed, moving against the light. He must have thought it was me. But he didn’t mean to kill her. Or me. He didn’t mean to shoot to kill. It was only to frighten me. So I wouldn’t talk. And I didn’t. I was afraid.”

I turned to Nugent. “What was his motive then?”

“He talked a little,” said Nugent. “Before he was taken away. Not much, but he will talk more. His motive was to save himself; that was the first motive. The Brents were an influential family; if he could hole in at the Brent house for awhile, and get hold of some money, he could escape without being interned. As it was, he was in danger. He met Brent at the inn, and managed to introduce himself as a friend of a friend of Craig’s. Craig wasn’t here then. By the time he came Huber was well established and Craig accepted him as a friend of some fellow he knew.”

“Naturally,” said Craig. “I didn’t question it. My father seemed to be on quite good terms with him.”

“They were on good terms at first. I believe that Huber thought he could still play on your father’s sympathies for Germany. He must have thought so, for eventually there was a blow-up. He came out in his true colors as a German sympathizer; your father said he was no longer a German sympathizer. They had words and your father threatened to kick him out and to expose him to the police. At least, I think that happened…”

“Yes,” said Anna. “Oh, yes. Then Peter asked Mrs. Brent to get hold of the checks if they had not been destroyed. They hadn’t been and she did.”

Alexia had been standing across the room, near the window. She said suddenly, “I was a fool. He… I did take the checks. But I kept them myself. I didn’t quite trust him.”

“How much exactly did you know of the murder, Mrs. Brent?” said Nugent.

“I knew nothing,” said Alexia instantly. “Nothing at all.” She walked slowly toward the door. “May I go now, Lieutenant?” she said. “I’m sure I have nothing to tell you and I’d like to go home…”

“Certainly,” said Nugent unexpectedly. “A man is waiting outside to take you. Oh, and by the way, Mrs. Brent, please give him your entire statement. Thank you.” He opened the door for her and said coolly, “I’ll see you later, Mrs. Brent.”

He closed the door just as a uniformed trooper in the hall started forward.

But it was a week, as it happened, before Alexia was prevailed upon to turn state’s evidence, and she never admitted complicity in the murders, and there was no way, then or ever, to prove what she had known. It was fairly clear though that she must have known, or guessed Peter’s part in it. Certainly she had been in the meadow the night Chivery was killed. Certainly she had taken and hidden the Frederic Miller checks which Peter (telling Conrad Brent that they were actually in his own possession) held as a club over Conrad’s head when Conrad discovered Peter’s real identity and threatened to expose him. We never knew whether or not Peter admitted his real identity and the manner of his arrival at Balifold; but certainly Conrad guessed it from some chance allusion of Peter’s or some word or look. The clipping convinced us of that. But from that time on it was, as Nugent and Craig had said, kill or be killed. For Conrad couldn’t bear to let anyone know that (before the war and mistakenly) he had donated money to the Bund. And added to that was his growing suspicions that Alexia had fallen in love with Peter. Jealousy, pride, and fear, all had combined to make an overwhelming motive for murder.

I never thought, though, that he intended to kill Peter Huber. I thought that he intended to wound him, to get hold of the checks, and then to turn him over to the police. But then he shot Craig instead. And then Peter knew that he must act.

But the wind was rather taken out of my sails when I discovered that both Nugent and Craig had that day begun strongly to suspect Peter Huber. Nugent, because the Hollywood address Peter had given him was a real address but no one had heard of Peter Huber. And Craig because Alexia was in love with Peter and he had proved it, after a fashion, by asking Alexia to marry him. At first he had merely wished to protect Drue from Alexia. Alexia had the whip hand and hated Drue, and it seemed safer for Drue for him to appear to fall in with Alexia’s claims upon him. He didn’t think that Alexia was really in love with him; he thought that her pretension was merely pretension and that therefore there must be a motive for it. And what better motive than in covering the real state of affairs because there was danger if the real state of affairs came to light. Which summed up to Peter Huber.

When Craig couldn’t get to the Chivery cottage without help, he thought of trying to trap Peter.

“Chivery had told me of the paper in his book; but not enough. I was afraid to tell the police for fear that, somehow, it implicated Drue. Then I thought that if Peter Huber was the murderer he would want that paper. I don’t know how Huber knew that Chivery had it; perhaps we’ll never know, but my guess is that he adroitly pumped Chivery; he’d missed the paper, of course; he knew where he must have left it; somehow he decided that Chivery had found it, as he had. So he had to get rid of Chivery; Claud was always inept and blundering; perhaps, somehow, he blundered there. At any rate, he was killed. And I knew that if I told the nurse-Miss Keate, she would come instantly to get the paper.”

I must say I was taken aback. “You…” I began.

Craig had a definite expression of apology-as well he might. “I thought you’d be safe,” he explained. “I detained Peter after you’d gone. I kept him until I thought you’d had plenty of time to get the paper. Then I got up and followed Peter. Sure enough, he came straight here. I was a little behind him; I was stronger, once I got started, than I thought I’d be, but still I was pretty wobbly. But Nugent…”

“I was watching you,” said Nugent. “I hoped Miss Cable would try to get in touch with you. I thought if I kept a watchful eye on you, you might lead me to her. I only knew, then, that there was something phony about Huber. I didn’t know what. But when I talked to the clerk in the haberdashery about the yellow gloves, he told me how Huber was dressed when he came in with a story of lost baggage and some money (which he took from you, Anna, I presume)”-Anna nodded, Nugent went on: “I decided there was something very phony about him; no hat and a coat and pants that didn’t match. He’d stolen them somewhere as he came along, I suppose. We’ll never know that probably now. There may be a lot of things we don’t know. But that’s the sum of the main points.”

But he was wrong. Except for Alexia’s activities and the extent of her knowledge, there was very little we didn’t eventually know. And in the end every little piece of the picture fitted together. We were never quite sure as to how and when Chivery had given away the knowledge of the piece of paper and the things written upon it, which proved to be so fatal to him, but that was almost all we didn’t know. Naturally, Peter Huber never admitted it. But the charges against him were already sufficient.

All this, of course took place some time ago. But last week there was a new chapter added to it. Craig had his first leave and came home, tanned and happy. It was a handsome wedding; there’s something about an air-force uniform. Drue went away with him, stars in her eyes and an air-force emblem pinned proudly to the lapel of her blue jacket, walking down the red carpet to the Twentieth Century as if she were walking on clouds. They’ll have two weeks; then Craig leaves again.

But sometime he’ll be back. To a happier and better world.