The Girl at Central

VII

The Doctor was as calm and matter-of-fact as if he were giving a lecture to a class of students. He looked much better than he did that morning in the Exchange; rested and with a good color. As he settled himself in the chair, I heard one of the reporters whisper:

"I wouldn't call that the mug of a murderer."

I looked over my shoulder right at the one who had spoken, a young chap with a round, rosy, innocent sort of face like a kid's and yellow hair standing up over his head as thick as sheep's wool. I'd seen him several times in the Exchange and knew his name was Babbitts and that the other fellows called him "Soapy." When he caught my eye he winked, and you couldn't be mad because it was like a big pink baby winking at you.

The Doctor told his story more straight and continuous than any of the others. It went along so clear from point to point, that the coroner didn't have to ask so many questions, and when he did the doctor was always ready with his answer. It sounded to me as if he'd thought out every detail, worked it up just right to get the best effect. He began with Saturday morning, when he'd got the call to go to the Dalzells'.

"An operation was performed early that afternoon and I stayed during the night and all the next day, going out on Sunday morning at ten for an hour's ride in my motor. I had decided to remain Sunday night too – though the patient was out of danger – when at about eight I received a telephone message from my wife saying Miss Hesketh had run away with Jack Reddy. Hearing from her that their route would be by the turnpike to Bloomington I made up my mind that my best course was to strike the turnpike and intercept them."

"You disapproved of their marriage?"

"Decidedly. Miss Hesketh was too young to know her own mind. Mr. Reddy was not the husband I would have chosen for her – not to mention the distress it would have caused Mrs. Fowler to have her daughter marry in that manner. My desire to keep the escapade secret made me tell Mrs. Dalzell a falsehood – that I was called away on an important case.

"The Dalzells' chauffeur told me that the road from their place to the turnpike was impassable for motors. The best route for me would be to go to the Junction, where I could strike the Riven Rock Road, which came out on the turnpike about a mile from Cresset's Crossing. I had plenty of time, as the distance young Reddy would have to travel before he reached that point was nearly a hundred and twenty miles.

"I arrived at the Junction as the train for Philadelphia was drawing out. I spoke to Clark, the station agent, about the road, and, after getting the directions, walked round the depot to the back platform, where my car stood. As I passed the door of the waiting-room it suddenly opened and a woman came out."

He stopped – just for a moment – as if to let the people get the effect of his words. A rustle went over the room, but he looked as if he didn't notice it and went on as calm and natural as if he was telling us a fiction story.

"I probably wouldn't have noticed her if she hadn't given a suppressed cry and cowered back in the doorway. That made me look at her and, to my amazement, I saw it was Miss Hesketh's maid, Virginie Dupont."

Nobody expected it. If he'd wanted to spring a sensation he'd done it. We were all leaning forward with our mouths open.

"The moment I saw her I remembered that my wife had told me the woman had gone with Miss Hesketh. One glance into the waiting-room told me she was alone and I turned on her and told her I knew of the elopement and asked her what she was doing there. She was evidently terrified by my unexpected appearance, but seeing she was caught, she confessed that she knew all about it, in fact, that she had been instructed by Miss Hesketh to go to Philadelphia by the branch line, take a room in the Bellevue-Stratford, and wait there till her mistress appeared.

"I was enraged and let her see it, pushing her round to the car and ordering her into the back seat. I vaguely noticed that she carried a bag and wrap over her arm. She tried to excuse herself but I shut her up and took my seat at the wheel. There was no one on the platform as we went out.

"It took me over an hour to negotiate the distance between the Junction and the turnpike. The road was in a fearful condition. We ran into chuck holes and through water nearly to the hubs. Once the right front wheel dropping into a washout, the lamp struck a stump and was so shattered it had to be put out. My attention was concentrated on the path, especially after we left the open country and entered a thick wood, where, with one lamp out of commission, I had to almost feel my way.

"I said not a word to the woman nor she to me. It was not till I was once again in the open that I turned to speak to her and saw she was gone."

"Gone!" said one of the jury – a raw-boned, bearded old man like a farmer – so interested, he spoke right out.

"Yes, gone. I guessed in a moment what she had done. Either when I had stopped to put out the lamp or in one of the pauses while I was feeling my way through the wood she had slipped out and run. It would have been easy for her to hide in the dark of the trees. I glanced into the tonneau and saw that the things she had carried, the bag and the wrap, were also missing. She had been frightened and made her escape. Unfortunately, in the shock and horror of the next day the whole matter slipped my mind and she had time to complete her getaway, probably by the branch line early Sunday morning."

The Coroner here explained that inquiries had since been made at the branch line stations for the woman but nobody had been found who had seen her.

"I had no time to go back and look for her, and, anyway, it would have been useless, as she could have hidden from a sheriff's posse in the wood. Besides, my whole interest was focused on reaching the turnpike. I could see it before me, a long winding line between the dark edges of small trees. I turned into it and let the car out. Though the road has many turns I could have seen the lamps of a motor some distance ahead and I ran fast, looking neither to the right nor left but watching for approaching lights. On my ride back I met only a few vehicles, several farmers' wagons and the car of Dr. Pease, the Longwood practitioner.

"I reached home about two and went at once to my wife's room. She was in a hysterical state and I stayed with her an hour or so trying to quiet her. When she was better I retired to my own apartment and at seven called up Walter Mills, a detective in New York, telling him to come to Longwood as soon as he could. By this time I was uneasy, not that I had any suspicion of a real tragedy, but the disappearance of Miss Hesketh alarmed me. I met Mills at the train and told him the situation and that I intended telephoning to Fiske at Bloomington, thinking they might have reached there by some other way. It was his suggestion that before any step was taken which might make the matter public, it would be well to communicate with Firehill and see if the servants knew anything. I did this and to my amazement learned that Reddy was there."

That is all of the Doctor's testimony that I need put down as the rest of it you know.

It left us in a sort of mixed-up surprise. No one could have told it better, no one could have been more sure about it or more quiet and natural. But– it seems like I ought to write that word in the biggest letters to give the idea of how it stood out in my mind.

Of all the stories it was the strangest and it was so awfully pat. I don't know how you feel about it, reading it as I've written it here, but I can say for myself, listening and watching that man tell it, I couldn't seem to believe it.

It was near to evening, the room getting dusk and the fire showing up large and bright when the jury brought in their verdict: "The deceased met her death at the hands of a person or persons unknown."

I walked back up Maple Lane. The night was setting in cold and frosty. The clouds had drawn off, the air was clear as crystal and full of the sounds of motor horns. Big and little cars passed me, jouncing over the ruts and swinging round the bend where the pine stood. I was looking up at it, black like a skeleton against the glow in the West, when a step came up behind me and a voice said:

"You're a good witness, Miss Morganthau."

It was that fresh kid Babbitts and I wasn't sorry to have him join me as I was feeling as if I'd been sitting in a tomb. He was serious too, not a wink about him now, his eyes on the ground, his hands dug down in the pockets of his overcoat.

"A strange case, isn't it?" he said.

"Awful strange," I answered.

"If it wasn't for your story of that man on the 'phone I think they'd arrest Dr. Fowler to-night."

"Didn't you believe what he said?"

I wasn't going to give away my thoughts any more than I'd been willing to give away what I heard on the wire. And it seemed that he was the same, for he answered slow and thoughtful:

"I'm not saying what I believe or don't believe, or maybe it's better if I say I'm not ready yet to believe or disbelieve anything," – then he looked up at the sky, red behind the trees, and spoke easy and careless: "They say Miss Hesketh had a good many admirers."

"Do they?" was all he got out of me.

That made him laugh, jolly and boyish.

"Oh, you needn't keep your guard up now. Your stuff'll be in the papers to-morrow, and, take it from me, that fellow that sent the message is going to get a jar."

"The man I listened to?"

"Sure. He hasn't got the ghost of an idea anyone overheard him. Can't you imagine how he'll feel when he opens his paper and sees that a smart little hello girl was tapping the wire?"

It's funny, but I'd never thought of it that way. Why, he'd get a shock like dynamite! It got hold of me so that I didn't speak for a spell, thinking of that man reading his paper to-morrow – over his coffee or maybe going down in the L – and suddenly seeing printed out in black and white what he thought no one in the world knew except himself and that poor dead girl. Babbitts went on talking, me listening with one ear – which comes natural to an operator.

"We've been rounding up all the men that were after her – not that they were backward with their alibis – only too glad to be of service, thank you! Carisbrook was at Aiken, a lawyer named Dunham was up state trying a case; Robinson, a chap in a bank, was spending the week-end on Long Island. There was only one of them near here – man named Cokesbury. Do you know him?"

Both my ears got busy.

"Cokesbury," I said, sort of startled, "was Cokesbury at the Lodge last week?"

"He was and I know just what he did."

"What did he do?"

He laughed out as gay as you please, for he saw he'd got me just where he wanted.

"When I've tried to find out things from you you've turned me down."

"Aw, go on," I said coaxing, "don't you know by experience I'm no talking machine to give out every word that's said to me."

"I believe you," he answered, "and it'll be good for your character for me to set a generous example. Cokesbury was at the Lodge from last Saturday on the one-ten train to last Monday on the eight-twenty."

"Gee!" I said, soft to myself.

"You can quell those rising hopes," he replied. "He wasn't the man you heard."

"How do you know?"

"Because hearing that he was a friend of Miss Hesketh's, I spent part of yesterday at Azalea and found that Mr. Cokesbury can prove as good an alibi as any of them."

"Did you see him?"

"No, he wasn't there and if he had been I wouldn't have bothered with him. I saw someone much better – Miner, the man who owns the Azalea Garage, where Cokesbury puts up his car. It appears that the trip before last Cokesbury broke his axle and had to have his car towed down to the garage and left there to be mended. When he came down Saturday he expected it to be done and when it wasn't, got in a rage and raised the devil of a row. He had to go out to his place in one of Miner's cars which left him there and went back for him Monday morning."

"Then he had no auto on Sunday."

"Miss Morganthau will take the head of the class," then he said, low, as if to someone beside him: "She's our prize pupil but we don't say it before her face for fear of making her proud," then back to me as solemn as a priest in the pulpit, "That is the situation reduced to its lowest terms – he had no car."

"Well that ends him," I said.

"So it seems to me. In fact Cokesbury gets the gate. I won't hide from you now that I went to Azalea because I'd heard a rumor of that talk on the phone and thought I'd do a little private sleuthing on my own. Didn't know but what I was destined to be the Baby Grand Burns."

"And nothing's come of it."

"Nothing, except that it drops Cokesbury out with a thud that's dull and sickening for me, but you can bet your best hat it's just the opposite for him."

"Well, I guess yes," I said and walked along wondering to myself whose voice that could have been.

VIII

After the inquest there was no more question about who was suspected. It was as if every finger in Longwood was raised and pointed to Mapleshade. The cautious people didn't say it plain – especially the shop-keepers who were afraid of losing custom – but those who had nothing to gain by keeping still came out with it flatfooted.

It wasn't only that nobody liked the Doctor, or believed his story, it was because the people were wild at what had been done. They wanted to find the murderer and put him behind bars and seeing that things pointed more clearly to Dr. Fowler than to anybody else they pitched on him. All the gossip about the quarreling came out blacker than ever. The papers were full of it and the other worse stories, about Sylvia's allowance and the will of her father. There wasn't a bit of dirty linen in the Fowler household that wasn't washed and hung out on the line for the public to gape at, and some of it was dirtier when they'd got through washing than it had been before.

There were those who didn't scruple to say that the whole tragedy was a frame-up between Virginie Dupont and the Doctor. If you talked sensible to them and asked them how Virginie could have got word to him that Sylvia was running away, they'd just push that to one side, saying it could be explained some way, everything wasn't known yet – but one thing you could be sure of – the one person who knew the whereabouts of that French woman was Dr. Daniel Fowler.

I believe there were some days after the inquest when, if there'd been an anarchist or agitator to stand on the postoffice steps and yell that Dr. Fowler ought to be jailed, a crowd would have gathered, gone down to Mapleshade, and demanded him.

Fortunately there was no one of that kind around, and he stayed quiet in his home, not even coming to the village. Two days after the inquest I saw Anne and she said he and Mrs. Fowler hadn't been out of the house – that they were in a state of siege what with reporters and the police and morbid cranks who hung round the grounds looking up at the windows.

That same evening I stayed over time in the Exchange, lending a hand. The work was something awful, and Katie Reilly, the new girl, was most snowed under and on the way to lose her head. I wanted to see her through and I wanted the credit of the office kept up, but it's also true that I wanted to be on the job myself and hear all that was passing. Believe me, it was hard to quiet down in my bedroom at night after eight hours at the switchboard right in the thick of the excitement. Besides, I'd got to know the reporters pretty well and it was fun making them think I could give them leads and then guying them.

I liked Babbitts the best, but there were three others that weren't bad as men go. One was Jones, a tall thin chap like an actor, with long black hair hanging down to his collar, and Freddy Jasper, who was English and talked with an awful swell dialect, and a sallow-skinned, consumpted-looking guy called Yerrington who belonged on a paper as yellow as his face and always went round with a cigarette hanging from his lip like it was stuck on with glue.

It was nearly eight and work was slacking off when I started to go home. What with the jump I'd been on and listening to the gabbing round the door I'd forgotten my supper. It wasn't till I saw the Gilt Edge window with a nice pile of apples stacked up round a pumpkin, that I remembered I was hungry and walked over. There were only three people in the place, Florrie Stein, the waitress, and a woman with a kid in the corner.

I was just finishing my corn beef hash with a cup of coffee at my elbow and stewed prunes on the line of promotion when Soapy and Jones and Jasper came in and asked me if they could sit at my table. "Please yourself," said I, "and you'll please me," for politeness is one of the things I was bred up to, and they sat down, calling out their orders to Florrie Stein.

They naturally began talking about "the case" – it was all anybody talked about just then – and for all I knew so much about it, I generally picked up some new bits from them. So I went to the extravagance of three cents worth of jelly roll, not because I wanted it, but because I could crumb it up and eat it slow and not give away I was sitting on to listen.

"We can talk before you, Miss Morganthau," said Babbitts, "because while we all agree you're the belle of Longwood, we've found out by sad experience you're a belle without a tongue."

Florrie Stein, bringing the food then, they were silent till she'd set it out, and when she'd drawn off to the cashier's desk, they started in again. They were, so to speak, looking over Hines as a suspect.

"No, Hines won't fit," said Babbitts. "The presence of the jewelry on the body eliminates him. They've dug up his record and though the place he ran wasn't to be recommended for Sunday school picnics, the man himself seems to have been fairly decent."

"It's odd about the bag – the fitted bag and the jewelry gone from the room," said Jasper.

"The police have an idea that Virginie Dupont could tell something of them."

"Theft?"

"Theft on the side."

"Oh, pshaw!" said Jones, "what's the good of complicating things? If theft was committed it was a frame-up, part of a plot."

"You believe in this idea they've got in the village that Fowler and the French woman worked together?"

"I do – to my mind the murderer's marked as plain as Cain after he was branded on the brow or wherever it was."

Then Jasper spoke up. He's a nice quiet chap, not as fresh as the others. "Let's hear what you base that assertion on."

Jones forgot his supper and twisted round sideways in his chair, looking thoughtful up at the cornice:

"As I understand it, in a murder two things are necessary – a crime and a corpse; and in a murderer one, a motive. Now we have all three – the motive especially strong. If Miss Hesketh married, her stepfather lost his home and the money he had been living on, so he tried to stop her from marrying. Saturday night he heard that his efforts had failed. I fancy that on Sunday morning when he went for that auto drive he stopped at some village – not as yet located – and communicated with Virginie Dupont, who was in his pay. She, too, went out that morning, you may remember."

"There's a good deal of surmise about this," said Babbitts.

Jones gave him a scornful look.

"If the links in the chain were perfect Dr. Fowler'd be eating his dinner to-night in Bloomington Jail."

"How do you account for Miss Hesketh – presupposing it was she – being on the train instead of the turnpike?" said Jasper.

"A change of plans," Jones answered calmly, "also not yet satisfactorily cleared up. To continue: Sometime on Sunday the Doctor conceived the plan of ridding himself of all his cares – his troublesome stepdaughter, the disturbance of his home and his financial distress. How," he turned and looked solemnly at us, fate played so well into his hands I can't yet explain – the main point is that it did. He met Miss Hesketh at the Junction, either by threats, persuasion or coercion made her enter his auto and carried her up the road to the turnpike.