In the Onyx Lobby Page 7

  CHAPTER VII

  Enlightening Interviews

  The avalanche of denial, the flood of vituperation and the generalhullabaloo that was set up by the four girls at Corson's accusationreduced the detective to a pulp of bewilderment. The girls saw this andpursued their advantage. They stormed and raged, and then, becoming lessfrightened they guyed and jollied the poor man until he determined thathe must have help of some sort.

  Moreover, he felt sure now that these youngsters never committed murder.Even the Mersereau girl, the vamp, as she had been called, was a youngthing of nineteen, and her vampire effect was only put on when occasiondemanded.

  "S'posen I did say I'd like to kill him!" she exclaimed, "that don'tmean anything! S'posen I said I died o' laughin', would you think I wasdead? Those things are figgers of speech,--that's what they are!"

  She paraded up and down the room with a tragedy-queen air, and rolledher practiced eyeballs at Corson.

  And Babe Russell was equally scornful, though her soft, gentle effectswere the opposite of Viola's ways.

  "Silly!" she said, shaking her pinkened finger at the detective. "Tothink us nice, pretty little girls would kill a big grown-up man! Firstoff, we _couldn't_ do it,--we wouldn't have the noive! And we'd be too'fraid of getting caught. And we, wouldn't do it anyway,--it isn't inthe picture!"

  They seemed so straightforward and so sensible that Corson began tothink it was absurd to suspect them, and yet the two he watched mostclosely were surely afraid of something. They talked gayly, and babbledon smilingly, but they glanced at each other with anxious looks whenthey thought the detective wasn't looking.

  Whatever troubled them concerned them anxiously, for beneath theirgayety they were distinctly nervous.

  Corson convinced himself that they had no intention of running away andcould always be found if wanted, so he left, with immediate intention offollowing the advice of Mr Vail and attaching an assistant.

  "Not in a thousand years!" was the opinion of the assistant, one Gibbs,after he heard Corson's tale of the chorus girls. "Those little chippiesmight be quite willing to kill a man, theoretically, but as for the deeditself, they couldn't put it over. Still, they must be remembered. Youknow, the statement that women did it, is surely the truth. Dyingmessages are invariably true. But it may mean that women caused it to bedone,--that it was the work of women, even though the actual stab thrustmay have been the deed of a man."

  "I don't think so," mused Corson. "You haven't seen the paper. It said,not only, 'Women did this,' but it said afterward, 'Get----' and thenthere were two letters that looked like b-o----"

  "No; I hadn't heard that! Why, it might have been Ba--and might havemeant Babe Russell, after all!"

  "No; it's bo,--but it isn't a capital B. I studied it closely, and Ihave it put away. I'll show it to you."

  "But the capital doesn't matter. A man writing, in those circumstances,with his last effort of fading strength, might easily use a small letterinstead of a capital. Know anybody beginning with Bo?"

  "No--why, oh, my goodness! Bob Moore!"

  "Well, there's a chance. You've had your eyes on Moore, haven't you?"

  "Only because he was right there. But Mr Vail,--George Vail, of the VailBread Company,--stands up for Moore. To be sure, it was only in ageneral way,--we only talked a few moments,--but he seemed to thinkMoore is on the detective order,--not of a criminal sort."

  "Why must Moore necessarily be either?"

  "Only because he's a detective story shark. Reads murder yarns all thetime, and goes to detective story movies."

  "That proves just nothing at all. But the 'Get Bo--' is important.Anybody else around, beginning with Bo,--or Ba? You see, he naturallywouldn't form the letters perfectly."

  "Ba? There's Julie Baxter, the telephone girl."

  "He'd hardly speak of her as Baxter."

  "But,--oh, I say, Gibbs, Moore testifies that, as the man died, he triedto say something and it sounded like 'Get J--J----' some name beginningwith J!"

  "Hello! We must inquire as to the fair Julie. Any one else?"

  "No; no women, that I know of. Young Bates, the heir, begins his namewith Ba, but he's not a woman."

  "Have you looked up his record for last evening? What was he doing?"

  "No, I haven't. A man can't do everything at once!"

  "This thing seems to have a dozen different handles. First of all, Ithink we want to see the family.

  "But he hadn't any family."

  "Well, relatives, connections, anybody most interested. Especially theheir."

  So the two went to the apartment of Letitia Prall, and there found thefamily connections of Sir Herbert Binney in a high state of excitement.

  It was nearly noon, and Richard Bates was impatiently waiting thearrival of the detective, whom he had been expecting all the morning.

  "Look here," he said to the two men when they came in, "I want you totake hold of this case with me,--if you can't do it, I'll get somebodywho can. I don't want you to be off skylarking on a wild goose chase,while I sit here waiting for you----"

  "One moment, Mr Bates," said Corson, sharply; "we're not detectives inyour employ; we're police officers, and we're conducting this case inaccordance with orders."

  "Well, well, let's get at it, and see where we stand. What do you know?"

  "Only the message on the paper left by your uncle, and such testimony aswe could gather from the employees downstairs. Now, we want to interviewyou."

  "And I want to be interviewed. Go ahead."

  "Interview all of us," put in Eliza Gurney, who with Miss Prall had satsilent during the men's colloquy, but was quite ready to talk.

  "One at a time," and Gibbs took up the conversation. "Mr Bates, wherewere you last evening?"

  "That," said Richard, "I decline to state, on the grounds that it has nobearing on the question of my uncle's death. If you ask me where I wasat the time of the tragedy, or shortly before, I will tell you. But lastevening or yesterday afternoon or morning are not pertinent."

  "You refuse to state where you spent last evening?"

  "I do."

  "Not a good thing for you to do," Gibbs shook his head, "but let it passfor the moment. Where were you at two o'clock this morning?"

  "In bed and asleep."

  "You can prove this?"

  "By me!" spoke up Letitia Prall. "I heard him come in about twelve andgo to his room."

  "H'm. Proof to a degree. How do you know he didn't leave the apartmentlater?"

  "Because I didn't hear him do so."

  "Where is his room, and where is your own?"

  After being shown the respective bedrooms, Gibbs remarked that in hisopinion Bates could easily have left his room without Miss Prall'sknowledge, if she were asleep at the time.

  "Unless you are unusually acute of hearing, are you?"

  Now this was a sensitive point with the spinster. Her hearing was notwhat it had once been, but she never acknowledged it. She greatlyresented the busy finger of time as it touched her here and there, andoften pretended she heard when she did not. Both her nephew and hercompanion good-naturedly humored her in this little foible, and atGibbs' question they looked up, uncertainly.

  "Of course I am!" was Miss Prall's indignant reply to the detective'squestion. "I hear perfectly."

  "Are you sure?" said Gibbs, mildly; "for I have noticed several timeswhen you have seemed not to hear a side remark."

  "Inattention, then," snapped Letitia. "I am a thoughtful person, and Ioften take little notice of others' chatter."

  "But you are sure you could have heard your nephew if he had gone out ofhis place last night after----"

  "But I didn't go out!" declared Bates. "You're absurd to imply that Idid, unless you have some reason on which to base your accusation!"

  "We have to locate you before we can go further, Mr Bates," insistedGibbs, who had assumed leadership, while Corson sat, with folded arms,taking in anything he found to notice.

  And Corson, though lacking
in initiative, was a close observer, and hesaw a lot that would have escaped his notice had he been obliged tocarry on the inquiry.

  "Let's try it," Corson said, suddenly. "Go into your room, please, MissPrall, and shut the door, and see if you can hear me go out."

  "Of course I can!" and with a determined air, Miss Prall went into herroom and closed the door quite audibly.

  Lifting his finger with a gesture of admonition, Corson made every onesit perfectly still and without speaking for about two minutes.

  Then, rising himself, he opened Miss Prall's door and bade her come out.

  "Now," he said, "I admit I made as little noise as possible, but did youhear me go out of the front door?"

  "Of course I did!" declared the spinster, haughtily. "I heard you tiptoeto the door, open it stealthily and close it the same way."

  She looked calmly about, and then seeing the consternation on the facesof Richard and Eliza and the amused satisfaction on the countenances ofthe detectives, she saw she had made a false step, and became irate.

  "What is it?" she began, but Richard interrupted her.

  "Don't say a word, Auntie," he begged; "you see gentlemen, Miss Prall isa little sensitive about her slight deafness, and sometimes she imaginessounds that are not real."

  "I'm not deaf!" Letitia cried, but Eliza interposed:

  "Do hush, Letitia. You only make matters worse! Will you be quiet?"

  The tone more than the words caused Miss Prall to drop the subject, andGibbs proceeded.

  "Now, you see, Mr. Bates, we can't accept your aunt's testimony that youdidn't leave your room last night."

  "I didn't ask you to," retorted Richard; "nor do I need it. I tell you Iwas in bed by or before midnight, and did not leave my bed until I wassummoned by Bob Moore after the tragedy had occurred. Now, unless youhave some definite and sufficient reason to suspect me of falsehood, Ihave no need to bring any proof of my assertion."

  "That's so, Gibbs," said Corson, meditatively. "There's no reason, Iknow of, to inquire into Mr Bates' doings."

  "There's reason to inquire into the doings of everybody who had theslightest connection with this matter," said Gibbs severely. "But unlessthere's a doubt, we needn't yet ask for proof of their words."

  He glared at Miss Prall, with the evident implication that he might feela doubt of her word.

  However, when she and Miss Gurney stated that they had retired at abouteleven and had not left their rooms until called up by Richard to hearthe tragic news, no comment was made by Gibbs and Corson merely lookedat them abstractedly with the air of a preoccupied owl.

  "Then," resumed Corson, "now that we've placed your whereabouts andoccupations, will you state, any or all of you, what opinion you hold asto the identity of the women who are responsible for the death of SirHerbert Binney?"

  "Those chorus girls," said Miss Letitia, promptly. "I always told himhe'd get into a moil with them, and they'd fleece him. They are a smartlot, and Sir Herbert, though a shrewd business man, was putty in thehands of a clever or designing woman!"

  "But these girls are mere children--"

  "In years, perhaps," Miss Prall broke in, "but not in iniquity. Agentleman of Sir Herbert's mild and generous nature could be bamboozledby these wise and wicked little vampires until they'd stripped him ofhis last cent!"

  "You seem to know a lot about them, Madam."

  "Because Sir Herbert has told me. He often described the cleverness withwhich they wheedled and coerced him into undue generosity, and though helaughed about it, it was with an undercurrent of chagrin and vexation.And so, the time came, I feel certain, when Sir Herbert, like the wormin the proverb, turned, and what he did or said, I don't know, but Ihaven't the slightest doubt that it led, in some way, to such hardfeeling and such a deep and desperate quarrel, that the affair resultedin tragedy."

  Gibbs looked at the speaker.

  The Grenadier, as some people called her, sat upright, and her fine headnodded with stern denunciation of the young women she accused.

  Her tight-set lips and glittering eyes showed hatred and scorn, yet herfingers nervously interlaced and her voice shook a little as if fromover-strained nerves.

  Even more nervous was Miss Gurney. Unable to sit still, she movedrestlessly from one chair to another,--even now and then left the room,hurrying back, as if afraid of missing something.

  "Do sit still, Eliza," said Miss Prall, at last; "you're enough to driveany one distracted with your running about like a hen with its headoff!"

  "I feel like one! Here's poor Sir Herbert dead, and nobody paying anyattention to it,--except to find out who killed him! I think our duty isfirst to the dead, and after that----"

  "Keep still, Eliza," ordered Bates, who was never very patient with hisaunt's irritating and irritable companion. "Sir Herbert's body and hisaffairs will be duly taken care of. It's necessary now to discover hismurderer, of course, and the sooner investigation is made the more hopeof finding the criminal."

  "Or criminals," put in Gibbs. "Since seeing that paper, I feel convincedthat the dying man tried to write 'get both,' meaning to insurepunishing to the women who killed him."

  "Then you think women really did the deed?" asked Bates, a strange fearin his blue eyes.

  "Yes, I do;" Gibbs stated, "but Corson thinks women were merely at theroot of the trouble. However, that isn't the point just now. That willall be learned later. First, we must get an idea of which way to look.And, too, I may be wrong. The illegible word on that paper may mean, asCorson thinks, the beginning of some name. The fact that the B is not acapital doesn't count for much when we realize the circumstances of thewriting."

  "I should say not!" and Miss Prall looked straight at him. "Think ofthat poor dying man trying to write, while his life blood ebbed away!And can you fail to heed his dying message? Can you fail to get thosewicked, vicious little wretches who heartlessly lured him on and on intheir wild orgies, until it all resulted in his fearful end! I, for one,shall never be satisfied until those foolish, flippant little things arepunished----"

  "Oh, Letitia," wailed Miss Gurney, "bad as they are, you wouldn't wantto see them all stuffed into an electric chair, would you, now?"

  The mental picture of the chorus girls crowded into a single electricchair was almost too much for Richard's sense of humor, and he smiled,but Miss Gurney went on:

  "But, anyway, if a pack of girls did do it, don't think it was thechorus girls. They're too frivolous and light hearted. I think you'dbetter look nearer home. The girls in this house were all down on SirHerbert. None of them liked him, and he was always berating them, bothto us, and to their very faces. That telephone girl, now,----"

  "Eliza, _will_ you keep still?" fumed Miss Prall. "Why do you suggestanybody? These detectives are here to find out the murderers and theynot only need no help from you, but they are held back and bothered byyour interference. Please remain quiet!"

  "I'll talk all I like, Letitia Prall; I guess I know what's best foryour interests as well as my own."

  "You haven't any interests separate from mine, and I can look aftermyself! Now, you do as I tell you, and say nothing more on this subjectat all. If Sir Herbert was the victim of his foolish penchant for thoselight young women, I'm not sure it doesn't serve him right----"

  "Oh, Auntie!" exclaimed Bates, truly pained at this. "Don't talk so!"

  "What right have you got to dictate to me? You keep still, too,Rick,--in fact, the least we any of us say, the better."

  "Oh, no, Miss Prall," said Gibbs, suavely, "if there's anything youknow, it will really be better for all concerned that you should tellit. As to your opinions or ideas or theories, I hold you quite excusableif you keep those to yourselves."

  "And you'd prefer I should do so, I suppose! Well, I will. And as tofacts, I know of none that could help you, so I will say nothing."

  "Miss Gurney," and Gibbs turned toward her with a determined glance,"you spoke of the young women employed in the house; had you any one inmind?"

  "E
liza----" began Miss Prall, but Gibbs stopped her.

  "Beg pardon, ma'am, but I must request that you let Miss Gurney speakfor herself. You have no right to forbid her, and I insist upon my rightto ask."

  "Nobody in particular," Miss Gurney asserted, as she looked timidly atLetitia. "But Sir Herbert's chambermaid,----"

  "Yes, go on."

  "Well, she refused to take care of his room, he was so cross to her. ButI don't suppose she'd kill him just for that."

  "I'll look up the matter. Glad you mentioned it. Andy they gave himanother maid?"

  "Yes, the same one we have."

  "I must have a talk with her. Much may be learned from a room servant.That's what I want, facts,--not theories. We've got the big primalfact,--'women did it.' We've got a possible fact,--an uncertainstatement,--'get both'--or, maybe, get some particular person. Now anyside lights we can get that may throw illumination on that uncertain bitof writing is what is needed to show us which way to look. Isn't thatright, Mr. Bates?"

  "Why, yes, I suppose so. Personally, I can't seem to see women doingsuch a deed----"

  "That, sir, is the result of your own manly outlook and your lack ofexperience with a desperate woman. You know, 'Hell hath no fury like awoman scorned,' and we can readily imagine a woman scorned by this SirHerbert."

  "He could do the scorning, all right----"

  "And they could do the rest! Oh, yes, sir, it isn't a pleasant thing tobelieve, but it is a fact that women can be just as revengeful, just asvindictive, just as cruel as men,--and can commit just as great crimes,though as we all know, such women are the exception. But they are inexistence and that fact must be recognized and remembered."

  "But the circumstances--" demurred Bates, "the time----"

  "My dear sir, it seems to me the circumstances and time were mostfavorable for the work of women. Granting some women wanted to kill thatman, or had determined to kill him,--or even, killed him on a suddenirresistible impulse, what more conducive to an opportunity than thishouse late at night? The great lobby, guarded, as it is at that hour, byonly one man and he often up in the ascending elevator car. You see, thewomen could easily have been in hiding in that onyx lobby. The greatpillars give most convenient and unobservable places of concealment, andthey could have been tucked away there for a long time, waiting."

  "Oh, ridiculous! Supposing my uncle hadn't come in?"

  "Then they could have slipped out again. They may have been hidden therenight after night, waiting for just the chance that came last night."

  "But, suppose Moore had been downstairs when Sir Herbert entered--"

  "Just the same," Gibbs explained, wearily. "Then they would have goneaway and tried again the next night. A woman's perseverance and patienceis beyond all words!"

  "It's all beyond all words," and Richard folded his arms despondently."I can't get a line on it."

  "Well, I can," asserted Gibbs; "they came, no doubt, prepared. Else,where'd they get the knife? Now, naturally one criminal would beassumed,--that's why _women_ was written so clearly. Several who know,have agreed the handwriting is positively that of Sir HerbertBinney,--so, there's nothing left to do but _cherchez les femmes_."