Stoddard, dark and lean-bodied and well-groomed, had seized the girl’s arm. He had the type of intellectual features that might denote either a genius in lawful pursuits or a genius in villainy. At the sound of Harrington’s hurried steps he whirled round and gaped. Theresa’s eyes grew round with astonishment.
“Who the devil are you?” Stoddard demanded. “Oh, I see! The new secretary at Peekacre. I recall seeing you once or twice. And so you have been playing eavesdropper in that closet. Well, well! Is that the sort of work Marsh is paying you for?”
Quickly, and yet with a casual air, his hand went to his hip pocket Theresa gave a sharp cry, and Harrington raised his pistol. Stoddard shrugged and let his hand fall back.
“The advantage is yours,” he conceded. “What do you propose to do with it?”
Harrington’s eyes went to Theresa. Her face was white, her chin quivered. Her astonishment, following her recent shock at Stoddard’s conduct, was acute. She stared at Harrington as if he had risen out of the floor. “Who is this man?” he asked.
She did not answer, and Stoddard replied in her stead.
“I have the dubious honor of being Miss Lanyard’s accomplice, in a manner of speaking. That is, I was until a little while ago. Then I caught her in an act that opened my eyes to her treachery.”
Theresa shrank back a step and regarded him with an expression of keen aversion.
“We’ll go into all that later,” said Harrington. His mind was revolving the thought that here, perhaps, was the murderer of Christopher Marsh. He had heard nothing while he stood in the closet which conflicted with such a conjecture. Stoddard’s clothing and shoes were dry, he observed, but he might have worn raincoat and rubbers. “Stand back against the wall and hold up your hands,” he directed.
“Too strenuous,” Stoddard objected. “It would give me a cramp in the arms.”
“Instantly,” said Harrington sharply, making an ominous gesture with the pistol.
“I abhor melodramatics.” The man yawned superciliously. “And you can’t frighten me with that pistol. I know you are not going to shoot me. However, if you feel so inclined, shoot away.”
With superb nonchalance he swung on his heels and walked evenly toward the door.
“Good night,” he called back over his shoulder. “See you later, Miss Lanyard.”
Harrington stared after him. He could not help but admire such insolence and courage. Of a sudden he dropped the pistol into his pocket and ran in pursuit, but he was an instant too late. The man broke into a run, and he had disappeared into the howling blackness by the time Harrington reached the piazza. With a sense of frustration he returned to the room where he had left Theresa.
She had stood staring thoughtfully at the candle on the desk, but she turned as he entered and regarded him with an inscrutable expression.
“He got away,” he announced. “He’ll get a good drenching.”
She nodded absently.
“So you didn’t deliver the letter,” she murmured.
“The letter?” His hand went toward his breast pocket. He had almost forgotten. “No, I didn’t. You see, I—“ He stopped, deciding he would not go into gruesome revelations just now.
“You changed your mind,” she finished for him, misunderstanding his hesitancy. “But I don’t understand. What are you doing here? What do you know about this place?”
He smiled somberly. His thoughts went back to the car he had left in the road and its gruesome freight.
“I knew nothing when I started out,” he admitted, “but I’m learning fast. The place seems to be a rendezvous for certain people. It appears that there is some mystery about the attic. That’s about all I’ve learned so far. Perhaps you will tell me the rest.”
“Oh, sometime. It’s a long story, and I’m dreadfully tired. But you are entitled to an explanation. I don’t know what Mr. Stoddard might have done to me if you hadn’t come to my assistance just in time. He is a dreadful man. I believe he is capable of murder. Yes, I believe—“ She shivered and her voice dropped to an unintelligible whisper.
“I heard him call you his accomplice.”
“Yes, and you probably heard him call me a liar, a cheat, and a crook. It was true. I am all that That is, I’ve cheated Mr. Stoddard and lied to him. I’ve been playing both ends against the middle.”
“Marsh and Stoddard being the two ends,” he suggested.
“Yes, and I’ve played them against each other to find out who murdered David Mooreland.”
“Good Lord!” Harrington exclaimed under his breath.
“You see,” she went on, “I’ve never been convinced that it was Mr. Marsh who killed Mooreland. I’ve been just as ready to believe that Mr. Stoddard was the murderer. Either that, or else they planned it together. There were lots of reasons for suspecting either of them or both of them. And so I’ve kept them both dangling, in a way. Mr. Stoddard knew I had an ulterior motive in getting the position of nurse at Peekacre, but he was mistaken about the motive. Tonight, thanks to my carelessness, he stumbled upon the truth.”
Harrington gazed at her In amazement. A thousand questions were thronging his mind, but he refrained from asking them.
“You seem desperately anxious to bring Mooreland’s murderer to justice,” he declared.
“Oh, I am!”
“But that wasn’t your reason for coming here tonight?”
“No, not exactly. I came because—Oh, I suppose it was a sort of intuition. I was astounded when you told me about the letter Mr. Marsh had dictated and about the instructions he had given you. I knew there was some deep purpose behind it, but I couldn’t figure it out. Then, after you had gone, an idea popped in my mind. I saw it all in a flash—or I thought I did. And so I rushed out here to warn you and prevent a murder.”
“Murder?” he echoed.
“Yes, I felt certain Mr. Marsh meant to murder you. It seemed very clear then—horribly clear. But now—“ Her voice faltered and she gazed uncertainly about the room.
“But I had no intention of going to this place,” he pointed out. “What led you to suppose that you would find me here?”
With a thoughtful frown, as if trying to collect a sequence of ideas, she glanced off into space.
“I don’t know. I reasoned it all out, but it seems absurd now. If you knew all that I know, perhaps you would understand. Anyway, I was almost certain that, if Mr. Marsh meant to do you harm, the harm would be done here.” She gave a nervous laugh. “As Mr. Stoddard remarked, it’s a perfect setting for a murder. I supposed you would be held up on the way and enticed to this place somehow. My mind wasn’t very clear on that point. It seemed—“ She turned on him suddenly, with a startled look in her eyes. “And I was right!” she exclaimed. “You did come here!”
Their eyes met in an expression of mutual wonder. Yes, he reflected, she had been right, or very nearly right He wondered by what process of reasoning, or by what flash of intuition, she had divined Marsh’s intention.
“How did it happen?” she asked.
He turned away, hesitated, listened to the roar of the storm, then faced her again. She had to know the gruesome truth very soon. It might as well be now.
“Mr. Marsh is dead,” he said gently.
She stood stonily still, staring at him. Then she swayed a little, and he led her to the ramshackle sofa at the side of the room.
“Dead?” she echoed huskily. “Murdered?”
“Yes, and in the most curious way.” As clearly as he could, he told her what had happened, beginning with Marsh’s sudden and inexplicable appearance in the car and concluding with a description of the dramatic scene that had terminated in the mysterious death thrust.
She sat very still when he had finished. Only her hands moved nervously.
“I should have driven straight back to Peekacre,” he added, “but just then I saw a light over in this direction. I was seized with a wild idea that I might catch the murderer, and so I ran over.”
“And you almost caught him,” she said unthinkingly.
He gave a start and fixed her with a searching look.
“You think Stoddard is the murderer?”
“Oh, I shouldn’t say that. I don’t know. All I know is that he would be capable oi almost any atrocity.”
He turned away, and in his mind he ran over the incredible things that had happened in the car.
“I doubt,” he said huskily, “if any human being could have committed this murder in the way it was done.”
She bowed her head in thought. He gazed down at the gleaming waves of brown that curved away from her forehead.
“I think we had better go,” he murmured. “Your car is waiting, isn’t it? I don’t suppose you want to go back to the attic any more tonight?”
“The attic?” She shivered. “Oh, that was just an after-thought When I didn’t find you here, I supposed my suspicions had been wrong, and then I thought I might as well go up there and look around a bit.”
“I see,” he said, still gazing down at her head and wondering how many mysteries and secrets wore contained there. As yet she had given him only a few glimpses.
She rose. “Yes, let’s go. Fm really dreadfully tired. Such excitement! “
She smiled wanly as he helped her into her raincoat A brave, splendid girl, he reflected, and what a maze of terrors and mysteries she was moving in!
The storm had abated only a trifle. They stopped on the piazza steps, and he swept his flashlight over the soggy ground, but in the downpour they could see only a few feet ahead.
“Stoddard?” he muttered. During the past few minutes the dark man had been almost forgotten. “Wonder which way he went.”
They stared out along the misty path projected by the flashlight In the distance, trees were swaying and groaning, and it was disquieting to think that one of them might shelter an evilly disposed man with a pistol.
“I think he went away,” said Theresa. “He happened to mention that he left his car in the garage.”
“But we would have heard the noise of the engine,” he pointed out.
“Not in this storm.”
He swung the flashlight back and forth. For Theresa’s sake he was anxious to guard against an attack from ambush. Presently the moving beam picked out the dim contours of a tumble-down structure. The double doors stood wide open.
“The garage,” she said. “And it’s empty.”
With a sigh of relief he took her arm and, bending against the gale, they walked out into the howling deluge. They had taken only a few steps when another troublesome thought occurred to him.
“Stoddard couldn’t have got very far,” he remarked. “My car is blocking the road a little way down the hill, and there isn’t room to pass.”
“But there are three roads. I have an idea Mr. Stoddard took one of the others.”
They quickened their steps, although it seemed as if the wind were constantly pushing them back. She guided him to the narrow clearing, sheltered on one side by a dump of trees, where her car and chauffeur were waiting. All in all, he reflected, it was best that she should return with the chauffeur, although he should have preferred to have her beside himself in the Waynefleet sedan. But that, he decided, would be too gruesome an experience.
His swift glance at the chauffeur’s face was reassuring. He felt the man could be trusted. But he searched the car thoroughly before he assisted her to her seat and made sure that the doors were securely locked. After the experience he had been through, he felt that he could not be too cautious. Then, after telling her that he would see her soon at Peekacre, he walked the short distance to where he had left his own car.
As he approached, he searched the soggy ruts for signs that another car had been through, but there were none. Evidently Theresa had been right. Stoddard had gone away by one of the other roads. He opened the rear door and flashed his torch into the interior. The body had sagged a little deeper into the cushions, but otherwise the scene was exactly as he had left it. He shook his head slowly and shut his mind against a horde of perplexities. Then he took his seat at the wheel and started back.