At One-Thirty - Isabel Ostrander (book reader for pc .txt) 📗

CHAPTER I THE PASSING OF GARRET APPLETON

RISING from his chair, Damon Gaunt crossed the library to the window, and flung it wide, drinking in the sultry air of early autumn as though he loved it, listening to the familiar noises of the street with ears eagerly at’ tuned. Although, in passing, he had touched the diiFerent articles of furniture in his path casually and lightly, with those long, slim, wonderfully sensitive fingers of his, it had been but absent-mindedly, not gropingly hesitant, and it was not until one looked straight and level into his soft, deep-brown eyes that one realized they were sightless.

He sighed deeply as he stood at the window, his fingertips touching delicately here and there the trailing tendrils of ivy that reached out boldly from the trellised vine, which clambered over the brick walls of the house. No man loved life— vibrant, pulsating life—more than Damon Gaunt, nor more deeply yearned to know it to the full.

But he had never permitted himself to regret the sight, which from birth had been denied to him, save in his life-work, the detection of crime.

The man’s condition and his career would seem in themselves to be paradoxical. How a being deprived of one of the senses—hy the majority considered the most essential—could engage, and successfully, in a profession that required every attribute, every resource, known to mankind, developed to the nth degree, seemed inexplicable. Yet Damon Gaunt had never lost a case.

He turned suddenly from the window, and stood expectant, although no sound audible to the normal ear had broken the stillness within the house. In a moment, however, a softly treading footfall might have been heard on the carpeted hall; there was a moment’s hesitation, and then a quick tap at the door, accompanied by an involuntary deferential cough.

Damon Gaunt smiled slightly to himself. He had never been able to break Jenkins of that unnecessary note of warning.

“Come in!” he said.

Jenkins entered, with a small salver in his hand.

“Card, sir. Gentleman to see you.”

Gaunt approached, and took the card from the salver. The comers of his mobile, smooth-shaven mouth twitched again. He had at least succeeded in breaking Jenkins of the habit of shoving things into his hand.

His fingertips traveled over the heavily engraved card; but the lettering upon it was too elaborate for his sense of touch to spell for him. He turned to a large writing-desk in a comer.

“Miss Barnes, the name, please.”

A tall, angular, precise young woman came forward, and took the card from his hand.

“Mr. Yates Appleton.”

“Yates Appleton?” What was it that the name seemed vaguely to convey? Oh, yes I Something his secretary. Miss Barnes, had read to him in the morning papers, lately. The man had tried unsuccessfully to break a will, or something of the sort. He must be looked up later, perhaps.

“Show him up, please, Jenkins.”

“Yes, sir.”

Without a word. Miss Barnes gathered up her papers, and passed into an inner room, and Gaunt seated himself in a deep leather chair, and waited. Presently, returning footfalls could be heard— Jenkin’s regular, catlike tread, and shorter, nervous, uneven steps accompanying him. Both paused at the door.

“Come in, Mr. Appleton. That will do, Jenkins. I’ll ring if we need you.”

Mr. Appleton crossed the threshold, dropped the cane he was carrying with a clatter upon the floor, retrieved it, and stood before Gaunt’s chair. He was a man of perhaps the early thirties, slightly thick of neck and girdi, slightly bald, with a round. puffy pink face, and round, staring blue eyes. Just now, the face was mask-like with horror, and the eyes were telescoped, like those of a defunct crab; but of these indications Gaunt was, of course, in ignorance.

“Sit down, Mr. Appleton,” he said, composedly, “and tell me what I can do for you.”

Mr. Appleton laid his hat and stick upon the writingtable, sniffing nervously as he did so, and seated himself.

“Mr. Gaunt, Pve come on a terrible affair. My brother. Garret Appleton, was found dead this morning, in his den, with a bullet in his heart! He’d been murdered in the night I”

The young man shuddered, and licked his dry lips, his nostrils twitching.

“Murdered! Did anyone hear the shot fired?”

“No. That’s the strangest part of it, although it’s a huge house, and the servants all sleep away upstairs, above the rooms of the family and guests, and the den is on the ground floor, at the back. It’s an awful thing Mr. Gaunt, awful! It’s just about going to kill my mother—the notoriety, and all!”

“Notoriety! And— grief?”

“Oh, yes, grief, of course. That was what I meant.” He sniff’ed again, as he spoke, and rubbed his blunt, snout-like nose with his gloved finger.

“Was the weapon found?”

“No, certainly not! How would it be? It was murder, I tell you—murder! The man—whoever it was—carried the revolver away with him, of course. The motive was robbery, that was plain— the window was open and my brother’s watch, purse, and jewelry gone/’ Mr. Appleton sniffed. “My mother wanted me to come at once for you, before the police get trying to rake up family scandal. My car is outside—”

“I understand. Very well, then, Mr. Appleton, we will go at once.” Gaunt rose, and pressed a button in the wall. ” But just a word, first, before we start. I say this for your own good. You will need all your wits about you, and all your nerve, if I’m not mistaken. Take some disinterested advice, and go a, little light on that cocaine for the next few days.”

Young Mr. Appleton gave a violent start, and drew in his breath sharply.

“I don’t know what you mean!” he blustered.

“Your constant sniffing and rubbing your nose gave you away,” Gaunt explained, quietly.

Mr. Appleton crumpled.

“Oh, well, it isn’t a habit with me, anyway. I started in my college days, just for a lark. I can give it up whenever I want to, without the slightest trouble in the world!”

“Then I should advise you to do so speedily. Jenkins, my hat and coat.”

Speeding up-town in the fast motor. Gaunt turned to his new client.

“Mr. Appleton, in undertaking your case, you must know that I demand the absolute confidence of those by whom I am employed. There must be no retaining of facts, no half-measures. The questions I ask must be answered, whether they seem relevant or not, fully and truthfully, with no reservations. Is that understood?”

“Why, y-yes, of course, Mr. Gaunt; that goes without saying. We want you to find out the t-truth!”

“How many are there in the family—the immediate family?”

“The household, you mean? My mother, my brother and his wife, his wife’s sister, and myself. But my mother and I are staying there only temporarily, while our own house is being done over.”

“That is all except the servants? No guests?”

“None staying in the house. There were some people there last evening, old family friends. The police are at the house, now,” he added with nervous irrelevance. “Infernal nuisance, this whole terrible affair! My mother relies upon you to prevent as much of the fuss and bother as you can.”

“The fuss and bother, as you term, it, are, I am forced to tell you, indispensable in a case of sudden and violent death, from whatever cause—doubly so when crime is in question. They are very necessary to the cause of justice. Mr. Appleton, you speak of the possibility of the police raking up family scandal. What scandal is there for them to discover?”

“None, really.” Mr. Appleton sniffed hastily. “The only thing is, one doesn’t care to have family jars and unpleasantness brought to light. My mother and I dislike—that is, we don’t get on at all with Garret’s wife and her sister, and there have been dissensions lately—rows, if you like that better—which the police might try to make mountains out of. That’s all. Every family has that sort of thing—rows. But the police are so stupid they might try to look beyond the very obvious cause.”

“I understand, perfectly. By whom was the body discovered, and when?”

“At about halfpast six this morning.” Mr. Appleton replied to the last part of the question first. “Katie, the housemaid, came down to straighten the room, and found my brother lying dead on the floor, and her screams aroused the whole house.”

“You awakened with the rest, and rushed down?”

“No-o. The fact is, Mr. Gaunt, I’m not a light sleeper at any time, and I’d been out pretty late last night. It was some time after Katie found my brother’s body before the commotion wakened me, and quite awhile before I roused from my sleepy stupor enough to realize that something unusual was going on. When I did get downstairs, I found all the household collected in the den, and most of the servants crowded in the doorway. Mother had sent for the doctor; but anyone could have seen it would be of no use. Natalie, my brother’s wife, was in a state of collapse, and Barbara, her sister, was attending her. Garret was leaning back in his chair, with his face all distorted and gray, and his eyes staring, and there was a great splashing blobd-stain on his shirtfront. But I’ll never forget the look on. his face. It was the most horrible I have ever seen…. Here we are now, Mr. Gaunt,” he added, as the car slowed down, and then stopped, with a jerk. ” This way.”

He led the detective swiftly through the lines of police, sternly holding back the curious rabble of morbid sight-seers, up the great stone steps, and the massive vestibule doors closed behind them. There was a subdued, soundless stir, a tenseness in the air of the silent house, which led unmistakably in one direction, and was more acutely manifest to the -detective than to the drug-dulled perceptions of his companion.

At the door of the den, they paused, and young Mr. Appleton hung back, his breath coming in great gasps, his hand clutching Gaunt’s arm in a sudden, involuntary grip of nervous terror and dread, only to be as quickly withdrawn.

“Mr. Gaunt! How does it happen that you are here? I’m glad you’ve come.”

A man’s step sounded, and a large, powerful hand gripped the detective’s in a hearty grasp.

“Coroner Hildebrand!” Gaunt’s exclamation of pleasure at a well known voice, with a certain admixture of relief at the scarcely expected presence of a friend and former ally on more than one difficult case, was interrupted by a woman’s voice— the coldest, most implacably hardened, that he had ever heard.

“I sent for Mr. Gaunt, Coroner,” the voice said. “I wish him to represent my interests and those of my family in this most shocking, most terrible aflFair.” There was the rustle of a silk garment, and the voice sounded again, this time close to Gaunt’s side. ” I am Mrs. Appleton, Mrs. Finlay Appleton, the mother—” The voice broke oddly, and there was a strained silence. It was not the break of emotion, of uncontrollable maternal emotion face to face with tragedy. There was more an element of