The Million-Dollar Suitcase - Alice MacGowan (guided reading books TXT) 📗

tell me that you won't accept Mrs. Bowman's testimony—and Dr. Bowman's—as proving an alibi for Worth Gilbert? I'm ready to swear that he was at Tait's at five minutes past ten, was there continuously from that time until a little after midnight, when you yourself saw him there."

"A little past midnight!" Cummings repeated my words half derisively. "Not good enough, Boyne. We base our charge on the medical statement that Mr. Gilbert met his death in the small hours of Sunday morning."

I looked away from Barbara; I couldn't bear her eye. After a stunned silence, I asked,

"Whose? Who makes that statement?"

"His own physician. Doctor Bowman swears—"

"He?" Mrs. Bowman half rose from her chair. "He'd swear to anything. I—"

"Don't say any more," Cummings cut her off. And Dykeman mumbled,

"Had the whole history of your marital infelicities all over the shop. Too bad such things had to be dragged in. Man seems to be a worthy person—"

"Doctor Bowman told me positively," I broke in, "on the Sunday night the body was found, that death must have occurred before midnight."

"Gave that as his opinion—his opinion—then," Cummings corrected me.

"Yes," I accepted the correction. "That was his opinion before he quarreled with Worth. Now he—"

"Slandering Bowman won't get you anywhere, Boyne," Cummings said. "He wasn't here to testify at the inquest. Man alive, you know that nothing but sworn testimony counts."

"I wouldn't believe that man's oath," I said shortly.

"Think you'll find a jury will," smirked Cummings, and Dykeman croaked in,

"A mighty credible witness—a mighty credible witness!"

While these pleasant remarks flew back and forth, a thumping and bumping had made itself heard in the hall. Now something came against our door, as though a large bundle had been thrown at the panels. The knob rattled, jerked, was turned, and a man appeared on the threshold, swaying unsteadily. Two others, who seemed to have been holding him back, let go all at once, and he lurched a step into the room. Doctor Anthony Bowman.

A minute he stood blinking, staring, then he caught sight of his wife and bawled out,

"She's here all right. Tol' you she was here. Can't fool me. Saw her go past in the hall."

I looked triumphantly at Dykeman and Cummings. Their star witness—drunk as a lord! So far he seemed to have sensed nothing in the room but his wife. Without turning, he reached behind him and slammed the door in the faces of those who had brought him, then advanced weavingly on the woman, with,

"Get up from there. Get your hat. I'll show you. You come 'long home with me! Ain't I your husband?"

"Doctor Bowman," peppery little old Dykeman spoke up from the depths of his chair. "Your wife was brought here to a—to a—"

"Meeting," Cummings supplied hastily.

"Huh?" Bowman wheeled and saw us. "Why-ee! Di'n' know so many gen'lemen here."

"Yes," the lawyer put a hand on his shoulder. "Conference—over the evidence in the Gilbert case. No time like the present for you to say—"

"Hol' on a minute," Bowman raised a hand with dignity.

"Cummings," said Dykeman disgustedly, "the man's drunk!"

"No, no," owlishly. "'m not 'ntoxicated. Overcome with 'motion." He took a brace. "That woman there—'f I sh'd tell you—walk into hotel room, find her with three men! Three of 'em!"

"How much of this are these ladies to stand for?" I demanded.

"Ladies?" Bowman roared suddenly. "She's m' wife. Where's th' other man? Nothing 'gainst you gen'lmen. Where's he? I'll settle with him. Let that thing go long 'nough. Too long. Bring him out. I'll settle him now!"

He dropped heavily into the chair Cummings shoved up behind him, stared around, drooped a bit, pulled himself together, and looked at us; then his head went forward on his neck, a long breath sounded—

"And you'll keep Worth Gilbert in jail, run the risk of a suit for false imprisonment—on that!" I wanted to know.

"And plenty more," the lawyer held steady, but I saw his uneasiness with every snore Bowman drew.

Barbara crossed to speak low and earnestly to Dykeman. I heard most of his answer—shaken, but disposed to hang on,

"Girl like you is too much influenced by the man in the case. Hero worship—all that sort of thing. An outlaw is an outlaw. This isn't a personal matter. Mr. Cummings and I are merely doing our duty as good citizens."

At that, I think it possible that Dykeman would have listened to reason; it was Cummings who broke in uncontrollably,

"Barbara Wallace, I was your father's friend. I'm yours—if you'll let me be. I can't stand by while you entangle yourself with a criminal like Worth Gilbert. For your sake, if for no other reason, I would be determined to show him up as what he is: a thief—and his father's murderer."

Silence in the room, except the irregular snoring of Bowman, a rustle and a deeply taken breath now and again where Mrs. Bowman sat, her head bent, quietly weeping. On this, Barbara who spoke out clearly,

"Those were the last words you will ever say to me, Mr. Cummings, unless you should some time be man enough to take back your aspersions and apologize for them."

He gave ground instantly. I had not thought that dry voice of his could contain what now came into it.

"Barbara, I didn't mean—you don't understand—"

But without turning her head, she spoke to me: "Mr. Boyne, will you take Laura and me home?" gathering up Mrs. Bowman's hat and veil, shaking the latter out, getting her charge ready as a mother might a child. "She's not going back to him—ever again." Her glance passed over the sleeping lump of a man in his chair. "Sarah'll make a place for her at our house to-night."

"See here," Cummings got between us and the door. "I can't let you go like this. I feel—"

"Mr. Dykeman," Barbara turned quietly to her employer, "could we pass out through your room?"

"Certainly," the little man was brisk to make a way for us. "I want you to know, Miss Wallace, that I, too, feel—I, too, feel—"

I don't know what it was that Dykeman felt, but Cummings felt my rude elbow in his chest as I pushed him unceremoniously aside, and opened the door he had blocked, remarking,

"We go out as we came in. This way, Barbara."

It was as I parted with the two of them at the Capehart gate that I drew out and handed Mrs. Bowman a small piece of dull blue silk, a round hole in it, such as a bullet or a cigarette might have made, with,

"I guess you'll just have to forgive me that."

"I don't need to forgive it," her gaze swam. "I saw your mistake. But it was for Worth you were fighting even then; he's been so dear to me always—I'd have to love any one for anything they did for his sake."

CHAPTER XXVII THE BLOSSOM FESTIVAL

Two hours sleep, bath, breakfast, and I started on my early morning run for the county seat. Nobody else was going my way; but even at that hour, the road was full of autos, buggies, farm wagons, pretty much everything that could run on wheels, headed for the festival, all trimmed and streaming with the blossoming branches of their orchards. These were the country folks, coming in early to make a big day of it; orchardists; ranchers from the cattle lands in the south end of the county; truck and vegetable farmers; flower-seed gardeners; the Japs and Chinese from their little, closely cultivated patches; this tide streamed past me on my left hand, as I made my way to Worth and the jailer's office, trying with every mile I put behind me, to bolster my courage. Why wasn't this shift of the enemy a blessing in disguise? Let their setting of the hour for the murder stick, and wouldn't Worth's alibi be better than any we should have been able to dig up for him before midnight?

From time to time I was troubled by recollection of Barbara's crushed look from the moment they sprung it on us, but brushed that aside with the obvious explanation that her efforts in bringing Mrs. Bowman to speak out had just been of no use; surely enough to depress her.

Worth met me, fit, quiet, not over eager about anything. They let us talk with a guard outside the door. Once alone, he listened appreciatively while I told him of our interview with Cummings and Dykeman as fast as I could pile the words out.

"Nobody on earth like Bobs," was his sole comment. "Never was, never will be."

"And now," I reminded him nervously, "there's the question of this alibi. You went straight from the restaurant to your room at the Palace and to bed there?"

"No-o," he said slowly. "No, I didn't."

"Well—well," I broke in. "If you stopped on the way, you can remember where. The people you spoke to will be as good as the clerks and bell-hops at the Palace for your alibi." He sat silent, thoughtful, and I added, "Where did you go from Tait's, Worth?"

"To a garage—in the Tenderloin—where they keep good cars. I'd hired machines from them before."

"Oh, they knew you there? Then their testimony will—"

"I don't believe you want it, Jerry. It only accounts for the half hour—or less—right after I left you; all I did was to hire a car."

"A car," I echoed vaguely. "What kind of a car? Hired it for when?"

"I asked them for the fastest thing they had in the shop. Told 'em to fill it all round, and see that it was tuned up to the last notch. I wanted speed."

"My God, Worth! Do you know what you're telling me?"

"The truth, Jerry." His eye met mine unflinchingly. "That's what you want, isn't it?"

"Where did you go?" I groaned. "You must have seen somebody who could identify or remember you?"

"Not a solitary human being to identify me. Those I passed—there were people out of course, late as it was—saw my headlights as I went by. But I was moving fast, Jerry. I was working off a grouch; I needed speed."

"Where did you go?"

"Straight down the peninsula on the main highway to Palo Alto, made the sweep across to the sea, and then up the coast road. I ran into the garage about dawn."

"No stops anywhere?"

He shook his head.

"And that's your alibi?"

"That's my alibi." Worth looked at me a long while before he said finally,

"Don't you see, Jerry, that the other side had all this before they encouraged Bowman to change his mind about when father was shot?"

I did see it—ought to have known from the first. This was what they had back of them last night in Cummings' room; this explained the lawyer's smug self-confidence, Dykeman's violent certainty that Worth was a criminal. A realization of this had whitened Barbara's face, set her lips in that pitiful, straight line. As to their momentary chagrin over Bowman; no trouble to them to get other physicians to bolster any opinion he'd given. Medical testimony on such a point is notoriously uncertain. All the jury would want to know was that there could be such a possibility. I sat there with bent head, and felt myself going to pieces. Cummings was right—I was no fit man to handle this job. My personal feelings were too deeply involved. It was Worth's voice that recalled me.

"Cheer up, Jerry, old man. Take it to Bobs."

Take it to Bobs—the idea of a big, husky old police detective running to cast his burden on such shoulders! I couldn't quite do it then. I went and telephoned the little girl that I was doing the best I could—and then ran circles for the rest of the day, chasing one vain hope after another, and finally, in the late afternoon, sneaked home to Santa Ysobel.

Now I had the road more to myself; only an occasional handsome car, where the wealthy were getting in