The Four Pools Mystery - Jean Webster (uplifting book club books .TXT) 📗

finished with his coat pockets and commenced on the waistcoat. "It would be almost worth living in if many little affairs like this occurred to keep things going."

"Really, Terry," I said, "when you refer to my uncle's murder as a 'little affair' I think you're going too far!"

"Oh, I beg your pardon," he returned good-naturedly, "I guess I am incorrigible. I didn't know Colonel Gaylord personally, you see, and I'm so used to murders that I've come to think it's the only natural way of dying. Anyhow," he added, as he finally produced a yellow envelope, "I've got something here that will interest you. It explains why our young friend Radnor didn't want to talk."

He tossed the envelope on the bed and I eagerly tore out the telegram. It was from the police commissioner in Seattle and it ran:

"Jefferson Gaylord returned Seattle May fifth after absence six weeks. Said to have visited old home Virginia. Had been wanted by police. Suspected implication in case obtaining money false pretences. Mistaken charge. Case dismissed."

"What does it mean?" I asked.

"It means," said Terry, "that we've spotted ghost number one. It was clear from the first that Radnor was trying to shield someone, even at the expense of his own reputation. Leaving women out of the case, that pointed pretty straight toward his elder brother. Part of your theory was correct, the only trouble being that you carried it too far. You made Jeff commit both the robbery and the murder, while as a matter of fact he did neither. Then when you found a part of your theory was untenable you rejected the whole of it.

"This is how the matter stood: Jeff Gaylord was pretty desperately in need of money. I suspect that the charge against him, whatever it was, was true. The money he had taken had to be returned and somebody's silence bought before the thing could be hushed up. Anyway, Seattle was too hot to hold him and he lit out and came East. He applied to Radnor, but Radnor was in a tight place himself and couldn't lay his hands on anything except what his father had given him for a birthday present. That was tied up in another investment and if he converted it into cash it would be at a sacrifice. So it ran along for a week or so, while Rad was casting about for a means of getting his brother out of the way without any fresh scandal. But Mose's suddenly taking to seeing ha'nts precipitated matters. Realizing that his father's patience had reached its limit, and that he couldn't keep you off the scent much longer, he determined to borrow the money for Jeff's journey back to Seattle, and to close up his own investment.

"That same night he drove Jeff to the station at Kennisburg. The Washington express does not stop at Lambert Junction, and anyway Kennisburg is a bigger station and travellers excite less comment. This isn't deduction; it's fact. I rode to Kennisburg this morning and proved it. The station man remembers selling Radnor Gaylord a ticket to Washington in the middle of the night about three weeks ago. Some man who waited outside and whose face the agent did not see, boarded the train, and Rad drove off alone. The ticket seller does not know Rad personally but he knows him by sight—so much for that. Rad came home and went to bed. When he came down stairs in the morning he was met by the information that the ha'nt had robbed the safe. You can see what instantly jumped into his mind—some way, somehow, Jeff had taken those bonds—and yet figure on it as he might, he could not see how it was possible. The robbery seemed to have occurred while he was away. Could Jeff merely have pretended to leave? Might he have slipped off the train again and come back? Those are the questions that were bothering Radnor. He was honest in saying that he could not imagine how the bonds had been stolen, and yet he was also honest in not wanting to know the truth."

"He might have confided in me," I said.

"It would have been a good deal better if he had. But in order to understand Rad's point of view, you must take into account Jeff's character. He appears to have been a reckless, dashing, headstrong, but exceedingly attractive fellow. His father put up with his excesses for six years before the final quarrel. Cat-Eye Mose, so old Jake tells me, moped for months after his disappearance. Rad, as a little fellow, worshipped his bad but charming brother.—There you have it. Jeff turns up again with a hard luck story, and Mose and Radnor both go back to their old allegiance.

"Jeff is in a bad hole, a fugitive from justice with the penitentiary waiting for him. He confesses the whole thing to Radnor—extenuating circumstances plausibly to the fore. He has been dishonest, but unintentionally so. He wishes to straighten up and lead a respectable life. If he had, say fifteen hundred dollars, he could quash the indictment against him. He is Radnor's brother and the Colonel's son, but Rad is to receive a fortune while he is to be disinherited. The money he asks now is only his right. If he receives it he will disappear and trouble Rad no more.—That, I fancy, is the line of argument our returned prodigal used. Anyway, he won Rad over. Radnor was thinking of getting married, had plenty of use for all the money he could lay his hands on, but he seems to be a generous chap, and he sacrificed himself.

"For obvious reasons Jeff wished his presence kept a secret, and Rad and Mose respected his wishes. After the robbery Radnor was too sick at the thought that his brother may have betrayed him, to want to do anything but hush the matter up. At the news of the murder he did not know what to think; he would not believe Jeff guilty, and yet he did not see any other way out."

Terry paused a moment and leaned forward with an excited gleam in his eye.

"That," he said, "is the whole truth about ghost number one. Our business now is to track down number two, and here, as a starter are the missing bonds."

He tossed a pile of mildewed papers on the bed and met my astonishment with a triumphant chuckle.

It was true—all five of the missing bonds were there, the May first coupons still uncut. Also the deeds and insurance policy, exactly as they had left the safe, except that they were damp and mud-stained.

I stared for a moment too amazed to speak. Finally, "Where did you find them?" I gasped.

Terry regarded me with a tantalizing laugh.

"Exactly where I thought I'd find them. Oh, I've been out early this morning! I saw the sun rise, and breakfasted in Kennisburg at six forty-five. I'm ready for another breakfast though. Hurry up and dress. We've got a day's work before us. I'm off to the stables to talk 'horses' with Uncle Jake; when you're ready for breakfast send Solomon after me."

"Terry," I implored, "where on the face of the earth did you find those bonds?"

"At the mouth of the passage to hell," said Terry gravely, "but I'm not quite sure myself who put them there."

"Mose?" I queried eagerly.

"It might have been—and it might not." He waved his hand airily and withdrew.

CHAPTER XX POLLY MAKES A CONFESSION

At breakfast Terry drank two cups of coffee and subsided into thought. I could get no more from him on the subject of the bonds; he was not sure himself, was all the satisfaction he would give. When the meal was half over, to Solomon's dismay, he suddenly rose without noticing a new dish of chicken livers that had just appeared at his elbow.

"Come on," he said impatiently, "you've had enough to eat. I've got to see those marks while they're still there. I'm desperately afraid an earthquake will swallow that cave before I get a chance at them."

Fifteen minutes later we were bowling down the lane behind the fastest pair of horses in the Gaylord stables, and through the prettiest country in the State of Virginia. Terry sat with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the dash-board. As we came to the four corners at the valley-pike I reined in.

"Would you rather go the short way over the mountains by a very rough road, or the long way through Kennisburg?" I inquired.

"What's that?" he asked. "Oh, the short way by all means—but first I want to call at the Mathers's."

"It would simply be a waste of time."

"It won't take long—and since Radnor won't talk I've got to get at the facts from the other end. Besides, I want to see Polly myself."

"Miss Mathers knows nothing about the matter," said I as stiffly as possible.

"Doesn't she!" said Terry. "She knows a good many things, and it's about time she told them.—At any rate, you must admit that she's the owner of the unfortunate coat that caused the trouble; I want to ask her some questions about that. Why can't girls learn to carry their own coats? It would save a lot of trouble."

It ended by my driving, with a very bad grace, to Mathers Hall.

"You wait here until I come out," said Terry, coolly, as I drew up by the stepping stone and commenced fumbling for a hitching strap.

"Not much!" said I. "If you interview Polly Mathers I shall be present at the interview."

"Oh, very well!" he returned resignedly. "If you'd let me go about it my own way, though, I'd get twice as much out of her."

The family were at breakfast, the servant informed me. I left Terry in the parlor while I went on to the dining-room to explain the object of our visit.

"There is a friend of mine here from New York to help us about the trial"—I thought it best to suppress his real profession—"and he wants to interview Miss Polly in regard to the coat. I am very sorry—"

"Certainly," said Mrs. Mathers, "Polly is only too glad to help in any way possible."

And to my chagrin Polly excused herself and withdrew to the parlor, while her father kept me listening to a new and not very valuable theory of his in regard to the disappearance of Mose. It was fifteen minutes before I made my escape and knocked on the parlor door. I turned the knob and went in without waiting for a summons.

The Mathers's parlor is a long cool dim room with old-fashioned mahogany furniture and jars of roses scattered about. It was so dark after the bright sunshine of the rest of the house, that for a moment I didn't discover the occupants until the sound of Polly's sobbing proclaimed their whereabouts. I was somewhat taken aback to find her sitting in a corner of the big horsehair sofa, her head buried in the cushions, while Terry, nonchalantly leaning back in his chair, regarded her with much the expression that he might have worn at a "first night" at the theatre. It might also be noted that Polly wore a white dress with a big bunch of roses in her belt, that her hair was becomingly rumpled by the cushion, and that she was not crying hard enough to make her eyes red.

"Hello, old man!" said Terry and I fancied that his tone was not entirely cordial. "Just sit down and listen to this. We've been having some interesting disclosures."

Polly raised her head and cast him a reproachful glance, while with a limp wave of the hand she indicated a chair.

I settled myself