The Girl at Central/Chapter 10

FTER the excitement of the French woman's arrest there was a sort of lull. For a few days people thought we were going to move right on and lay our hands on the murderer. But outside of proving that the Doctor wasn't the guilty one the crime was no nearer a solution than it had been the day it happened. Though there was still a good deal of talk about it, it began to die down in the public interest and it was then that the papers got to calling it "The Hesketh Mystery" in place of "The Hesketh Murder."

The reporters left the Inn and went back to live in town, coming in every few days to snoop around for any new items that might have turned up. Babbitts came oftener than the others and stayed later, and he and I had several more walks. We were getting to be like partners in some kind of secret business, meeting after dark, and pacing along the roads round the village, with the stars shining overhead and the ground hard and crumbly under our feet.

If you'd met us you'd have set us down for a pair of lovers, walking side by side under the dark of the trees. But if you'd followed along and listened you'd have got cured of that romantic notion mighty quick. Our flirtation was all about evidence, and leads, and clues—not so much as a compliment or a baby stare from start to finish. I don't believe if you'd asked Babbitts he could have told you whether my eyes were brown or blue, and as for me—outside his being a nice kid he didn't figure out any more important than the weathervane on the Methodist Church.

It was "the case" that drew us together like a magnet drawing nails. We'd speculate about it, look at it all round as if it was something we had hold of in our hands. I guess it was the mysteriousness of it that attracted him, and the reward, too. There was more in it for me as you know—but he never got a hint of that.

It was one evening, nearly four weeks after the murder that he gave me a shock—not meaning to, of course, for even then I'd found out he was the kind that wouldn't hurt a fly. We were talking of Jack Reddy, who we'd seen that evening in the village, the first time since the inquest.

"You know," said Babbitts, "it's queer but I keep thinking of that yarn of Jasper's, that evening in the Gilt Edge."

I drew away like he'd stuck a pin into me.

"Why do you think about that?" I asked loud and sharp.

"Why," he said, slow as if he was considering, "I suppose because it was so plausible. And I've been wondering if many other people have thought of it."

"I guess they have," I answered kind of fierce; "there's fools enough in the world, God knows, to think of anything. I make no doubt there's people who've tried to work out that I did it, the reward tempting them to lies and sin."

Babbitts looked at me surprised.

"What's there to get mad about?" he asked. "I'm not for a moment suggesting that Reddy really had any hand in it. Why, he could no more have killed that girl than I could kill you."

I simmered down—it was awful sweet the way he said it.

"Then you oughtn't to be casting suspicions on an innocent man," I said, still grouchy.

"Oh, you're such a little pepper pot. Do you think for a moment I'd say this to anybody but you. Look at me!" I looked into his eyes, clear as a baby's in the starlight. "If you believe I'm the sort of fellow who'd put a slur on Reddy I wonder you'll come out this way and walk with me."

I smiled, I couldn't help it, and Babbitts, seeing I was all right again, tucked his hand inside my arm and we walked on, very friendly. Being ignorant of the true state of my feelings, he went straight back to the subject.

"Now understand that I mean nothing against Reddy and that I've never said this to a soul but you, but ever since the inquest there's been one thing that's puzzled me—the length of time he was out that night."

"He explained that," I said.

"I know he did, and everybody's accepted his explanation. But seven hours in a high-powered racing car! He could have gone to Philadelphia, taken in a show and come back."

"But he told all about it," I insisted.

"He did," said Babbitts, "but I'll tell you something, Miss Morganthau—between ourselves not to go an inch farther—Reddy's story impressed me as the undiluted truth till he got to that part of it."

"What do you mean?" I said, low, and being afraid I was going to tremble I pulled my arm away from him.

"This—I was watching him very close, and when he began to talk about that night ride, some sort of change came over him. It was very subtle, I never heard anyone speak of it, but it seemed to me as if he was making an effort to give an impression of frankness. The rest of his testimony had the hesitating, natural tone of a man who is nervous and maybe uncertain of his facts, but when he came to that he—well, he looked to me as if he was internally bracing himself, as if he was on dangerous ground and knew it."

If I'd been able to speak as well as that those were exactly the words I would have used. I cleared my throat before I answered.

"Looks like to me, Mr. Babbitts, that you ought to be writing novels instead of press stories."

"Oh, no," he said careless, "but, you see, I've been on a number of cases like this and a fellow gets observant. It's queer—the whole thing. If that French woman's evidence is to be trusted Miss Hesketh did leave the house early to keep that date with the Voice Man."

I didn't say a word, looking straight before me at the lights of Longwood through the trees. Babbitts, with his hands in his pockets swinging along beside me, went on:

"That's what's made me think of Jasper's hypothetical case. Do you remember? He said Reddy'd come down to the meeting place, found Miss Hesketh with the other man and got into a Berserker rage. Say what you like, it does work out."

When he bid me good night at Mrs. Galway's side door he wanted to know why I was so silent? Even if I'd wanted to give a reason I hadn't one to give. Don't you believe for a minute I was really worried—it was just that I hated anyone even to yarn that way about Jack Reddy. Poor—me—if I'd known then what was coming!

It began to come two days later, the first shadow that was going to darken and spread till—but I'm going on too quick.

I'd just had my lunch, put away my box and swept off the crumbs, when I got a call for the depot from the Rifle Run Camp. That's a summer resort, way up in the hills beyond Hochalaga Lake. The voice, with a brogue on it as rich as butter, was Pat Donahue's, Jim's eldest son, a sort of idle scamp, who'd gone up to the camp to work last summer and had stayed on because there was nothing to do—at least that's what Jim said.

I made the connection and listened in, not because I was expecting anything worth hearing, but because I wasn't taking any chances. I guess Pat Donahue was the last person anyone would expect to come jumping into the middle of the Hesketh mystery—but that's what he did, with both feet, hard.

I didn't pay much attention at first and then a sentence caught my ear and I grew still as a statue, my eyes staring straight in front, even breathing carefully as if they could hear.

It was Pat's voice, the voice answering Jim's at the Depot:

"Me and Bridger was in to Hochalaga Lake yesterday forenoon, fishin' through the ice. Can you hear me, Paw?"

"Fine. Are you payin' for a call to tell me you're that idle you have to play at fishin'?"

"Jest you listen close and hear me before you come back. I seen in the papers that Miss Hesketh that was murdered had one glove lost. Do you mind what the one that wasn't lost looked like?"

"Sure I do—why shouldn't I? Didn't I see it at the inquest?"

"Will you be answering me instead of tellin' me what you saw?"

"Ain't I doin' it? It was a left-hand glove, light gray with three pearl buttons and a furrener's name stamped in the inside."

"Well, then, I got the feller to it—right hand. I found it on the wharf at the lake, in front of the bungalow. Seeing that there's ten thousand dollars reward offered, I thought I'd be a blowin' in the price of a call to tell you, though it's so ungrateful ye are for the news I'm sorry I done it. But I'll not bother you no more, for it's in to the District Attorney I'll be goin' with the evidence."

That was what he did, that very afternoon. By the next day everybody in Longwood knew how Pat Donahue had found Sylvia Hesketh's missing glove on the wharf just in front of the Reddy bungalow. There was a person who didn't close an eye that night, and I guess you know what her name was.

Gee, those were awful days that followed! When I think of them now I can feel a sort of sinking come back on me and my face gets stiff like it was made of leather and couldn't limber up for a smile. Each morning I'd get up scared sick of what I was going to hear that day, and each evening I'd go to bed filled with a darkness as black as the night outside.

I couldn't believe it and yet—well, I'll tell you and you can judge for yourself.

The police went out to Hochalaga and made a thorough examination of the house and its surroundings.

The bungalow stood at one end of the lake right on the shore, with a little wharf jutting out in front of it into the water. The door opened into a big living-room, furnished very pretty and comfortable with green madras curtains at the windows, a green art rug on the floor, and wicker chairs with green denim cushions. At one side was a big brick fireplace with a copper kettle hanging on a crane and over in a corner was a desk with a telephone on it. Along the walls were bookcases full of books and in the center was a table with chairs drawn up at either side of it.

The police noticed right off that it didn't have the damp, musty feel of a place shut up through a long spell of rain. The air was cold and dry and they could scent the odor of wood fires and a slight faint smell of cigar smoke. Then they saw that the fireplace was piled high with ashes and that several cigarette ends were scattered on the hearth. On the center table was a shaded lamp and near it a match box with burnt matches strewn round on the floor. The desk drawer was open and the papers inside all tossed and littered about as if someone had gone through them in a hurry. Two armchairs stood on either side of the table and another was in front of the fireplace. All over the floor were earth stains as if muddy feet had been walking about. There were no signs that the place had been broken into—windows and doors were locked and the locks in good condition.

Outside against the wall of the house they found a pile of broken china, what seemed to be the remains of a tea set. It was not till the search was nearly ended that one of the men, studying the grass along the roadside for traces of footprints, came on a gasoline drum hidden among the bushes.

But that wasn't the worst—leading up the road to within a few yards of the wharf were the tracks of auto wheels. At the time when these tracks were made the road was deep in mud which, about the wharf, had evidently been a regular pool. The driver of the motor had stopped his car at the edge of this, got out and walked through it to the bungalow. Clear as if they had been cast in plaster his footprints went from where the ruts ended to the edge of the wharf. There, just at the corner of the planks, three small, pointed footprints met them—a woman's. Either the man had carried the woman or she had picked her way along the grass by the roadside, and joining him on the planks had made a step or two into the soft earth. On the wharf the prints were lost in a broken caking of mud. The man's went back to the car, close to where they had come from it, and they returned as they had come—alone.

Jack Reddy's shoes fitted the large prints and Sylvia Hesketh's the small ones!

It came on Longwood with an awful shock. The faces of the people were all dull and dazed looking, as if they were knocked half silly by a blow. They couldn't believe it—and yet there it was! The papers printed terrible headlines—"The Earth gives up a Murderer's Secret"—and "Jack Frost versus Jack Reddy." There were imaginary accounts of how Mr. Reddy could have done it, and Jasper, in his paper, had a long article worked out like the story he'd told us that night in the Gilt Edge, but with all the holes filled up. Everything was against Mr. Reddy, even the telephone message that Sylvia had sent him from the Wayside Arbor couldn't be traced. The Corona operator could remember nothing about it and there was no record—only Jack Reddy's word and nobody believed it.

They had him up before the District Attorney and his examination was published in the papers. I can't put it all down—it's not necessary—but it was bad. After I read it I sat still in my room, feeling seasick and my face in the glass frightened me.

When they asked him if he had been at the bungalow that night he said he had, he had gone there after he had given up his hunt for Sylvia.

"Why didn't you say this at the inquest?" was asked.

He answered "that he hadn't thought it was necessary—that" then he stopped as if he wasn't sure and after a moment or two said: "I didn't see that it threw any light on the murder, as I was alone."

"You wished to conceal the fact that you were there, then?"

To that he answered sharp:

"I did not—but I saw no reason to give my movements in detail, as they were of no importance."

"Why did you go there?"

"I was angry and excited and it was a place where I could be quiet."

Asked how long he had been in the bungalow he said he wasn't sure—it might have been an hour or two. He had lit the fire and sat in front of it thinking and smoking cigarettes.

"Didn't you hunt in the desk for something?"

He answered with a sort of shrug as if he'd forgotten.

"Oh, yes—I was hunting for a bill I thought I left there."

To the questions about Sylvia—whether she had been there with him—he answered almost violently that she had not, that he had not seen her there or anywhere else that night.

"Did you notice any footprints in the mud when you came?"

"I did not."

"There were no evidences on the wharf or in the house of anyone having been there before you?"

"None. The bungalow was locked and undisturbed."

Then they switched off on to the gasoline drum and asked him if he had filled the tank there and he said he might have but he didn't remember.

"Was it dark when you left the place?"

"No—very bright moonlight."

"You remember that?"

"Yes. I recollect thinking the ride back would be easier than the ride up in the dark."

"Why did you say at the inquest that you filled the tank somewhere on the turnpike?"

"I suppose I thought I had. In the angry and excited state I was in small things made no impression on me. I had no clear memory of where I'd done it."

All the papers agreed that his testimony was unsatisfactory and made much of his manner, which, under an effort to be calm, showed a spasmodic, nervous violence.

A day later he was arrested at Firehill and taken to Bloomington jail to await indictment by the Grand Jury.

That night—shall I ever forget it! I heard the sounds in the street dying away and then the silence, the deep, lovely silence that comes over the village at midnight. And in it I could hear my heart beating, and as I lay with my eyes wide open, I could see on the darkness like a picture drawn in fire, Jack Reddy in the electric chair.