At the district attorney’s suggestion they stopped on a hill overlooking the valley in which, separated only by a narrow stretch of woods, the Marsh and Carmody residences were located.
“I want to think,” said Whittaker. “It’s a nuisance not to have Storm here to do my thinking for me. Now let’s see. There,” indicating a cluster of lights, “is the Marsh house. Looks as if something was going on. And there,” pointing to a single light twinkling through the trees, “is the Carmody place. Looks pretty quiet, doesn’t it? You can never tell, though. The quietest-looking place is sometimes the liveliest.”
“You are speaking of deeds of darkness?” Harrington surmised in a whimsical vein.
“Something like that. Now let me think. There’s no car on the Marsh place. As far as we know, Carmody and Miss Lanyard, as she calls herself, are still there. Of course, Carmody may have bucked up and walked home. He’s been an anxious man all day—ever since Carstairs dropped in and handed us the coffin.”
Harrington cast him a quick glance.
“It’s possible he doesn’t know,” Whittaker went on, “that Samuel Tarkin got the coffin away from you. Anyway, he is a worried man. And I guess Miss Lanyard is a worried girl I’d be worried, too, if there was a million dollars’ worth of diamonds at stake. And so they’ve been anxious all day to get back to the Carmody place. Maybe Tarkin is there waiting for them. Again, maybe he isn’t.”
His eyes ranged the valley between the two houses, one almost dark, the other brightly lighted.
“Wish I knew what to do,” he said plaintively. “Guess I’m too dependent on Storm. I had a clear idea when I started out, but a lot of things have happened since then.”
“What was your idea? You gave me an awful jolt when I saw you in the glass all of a sudden.”
“It was just an experiment. I wanted to see if it could be done.”
“But the conditions weren’t the same as when Marsh played the same trick.”
“No, not quite. Anyway, I thought a ride would do me good. Besides, I was getting worried about Storm. I’m still worried about him. Tell you what you do. Drive up as far as Luke Garbo’s garage, and then I’ll get out and walk up to the Marsh house and see what’s stirring. I want to telephone Doc Griffin, anyway.”
In an acutely puzzled state of mind Harrington did as directed. There was a light in the garage, but Luke Garbo was nowhere in sight. The district attorney got out and walked away with a rapid, lunging stride.
Harrington lighted a cigarette and waited. Being too nervous to remain still, he walked over to the garage and looked in. There was no sign of the proprietor anywhere. Harrington strolled back and forth a few times, and presently Whittaker’s rangy figure appeared around a bend in the road. He climbed inside the car and asked Harrington to drive toward the Carmody place.
“Storm got back,” he reported as the car was being swung around. “He was waiting for me at the Marsh house. It took him a long time to find what he was looking for.”
“Oh, he found it?”
“Of course he found it. Storm always gets what he goes after. Clever fellow, Storm.”
Harrington fixed him with a quizzical eye as he drove along, but Whittaker did not seem inclined to go into confidences.
“Carmody and Miss Lanyard are still there,” he went on. “It seems Carmody has been fretting terribly. Wouldn’t be surprised if he asked somebody to take him home in the car Storm used to go to Crooked Creek bridge.”
Harrington bent a scowling gaze on the moon-bathed road ahead. It seemed the district attorney was altogether too secretive. Yet, he realized, Whittaker had no desire to be tantalizing. Possibly he was not quite sure of his facts as yet.
“What’s Carmody fretting about?” he asked.
“The coffin, of course. He had the shock of his life when Carstairs walked in and calmly pulled the coffin from his pocket. Carmody doesn’t see how there can be two coffins exactly alike in both shape and size.”
“Two coffins? Then—“ Harrington stopped short, seized with a staggering thought.
“Yes,” said Whittaker, “that same coffin which Carstairs brought to Peekacre this morning should have been reposing in a snug hiding place in Carmody’s home. Carmody couldn’t believe his senses when Carstairs pulled it out of his pocket. The shock was too much for him. He collapsed under it. And all day he has been anxious to go home and see if there can possibly be a mistake somewhere.”
Harrington sat silent, guiding the wheel in an absent manner, his mind too full for words.
“But how did the coffin, with the diamonds in it, get into Carmody’s possession?” he finally blurted out.
“That’s what I’d like to know. Better stop here. Just as well not to advertise our arrival. It might be a good idea to park the car behind that dump of trees.” Mechanically Harrington drove the car off the road and maneuvered it into the desired position. He turned off the lights and they stepped out. Avoiding the driveway, they walked in silence through a sprinkling of pines and hemlocks, all the time guided by the single light shining in the house.
“We’ll work around to the back,” said Whittaker in an undertone, and they made a wide detour. Evidently the district attorney had been over the ground before, for he seemed thoroughly familiar with it. As they walked side by side, Harrington detected signs of a tension and a suppressed excitement about him.
A wall of stucco and stone loomed before them. There was not a single light on this side of the house. The moonlight tinged the black windows with a blurred iridescence. They stopped before a door, narrow and disproportionately tall, with a fanlight above it “I feel like an arsenal,” Whittaker muttered. “Two guns—my own and the one we found beside Stoddard’s body. Hope this door isn’t locked.”
Luckily it was not. The district attorney entered first, and Harrington followed. In the dark, without speaking a word, they made their way through several rooms. At length, after Whittaker had opened a door a crack, they stopped and listened. No sounds came. The district attorney moved forward and played his flashlight over the floor. They were in the library.
“Nice and cozy,” Whittaker observed, but his voice was not quite steady. He swung his torch over the walls, then focused it on a circular safe embedded in the oak paneling. “I could never see what people want with these flimsy wall safes. You could almost pry them open with a can opener. I certainly wouldn’t want to keep a million dollars’ worth of diamonds in one of them.”
Harrington bent a questioning gaze on his long, somber face. Whittaker moved away from the wall, put his torch on the desk and, displaying his white vest to advantage, looked about him.
“Devilish things, diamonds,” he soliloquized. “They seem to turn people’s minds. There have already been three murders on account of the ones in the coffin—Mooreland, Marsh and Stoddard. Maybe there’ll be another before the night is over. I wouldn’t be surprised—”
The buzzing of the telephone interrupted him. He looked at it dubiously, then walked up to the instrument and put the receiver to his ear.
“Hello,” he said in fair imitation of Martin Carmody’s timid voice. “Yes, this is Mr. Carmody. Oh, yes, Tarkin. Well?”
There was a brief conversation. The district attorney looked slyly pleased when he hung up the receiver.
“Tarkin wants Carmody or Miss Lanyard to meet him at the hilltop hotel,” he announced.
Harrington started, then stared at him for a moment.
“And Tarkin has the diamonds with him, of course.”
“I suppose so. Evidently he wants to turn them over to Carmody or Miss Lanyard.”
“For a good, stiff consideration?”
“Maybe.” Whittaker scratched his head. “Wonder why Tarkin didn’t bring the diamonds here. He knew Carmody would be back here after a while. Maybe he didn’t think this house was a safe place for that sort of transaction.”
Harrington nodded absently. His mind was too full of problems and vague premonitions to give much thought to the reasons for Tarkin’s conduct.
“Did you ever hear of Mooreland’s murder insurance?” he asked suddenly.
“Yes, just the other day. Queer arrangement, wasn’t it?”
“You’ve had a suspicion, haven’t you, that it was Carmody who murdered him?”
Whittaker looked doubtful and a little shamefaced. “Yes, I’ve had a suspicion, but not a very definite one. After what has happened lately, I’m more uncertain than ever. Storm thinks that—”
He did not reveal what Storm was thinking. Instead he reached hurriedly for the flashlight and extinguished it. From the outside came the humming of an engine, and a white glare was thrown on the window shades.
“I suppose that’s Carmody,” he muttered. “And maybe Miss Lanyard is with him. Wish I could crawl into a mousehole and watch them for a while.”
“Maybe this will do.” Harrington spoke tensely, with a sense that the next few moments would bring dynamic developments. He led the district attorney across the library and opened a door. They stepped into the smaller room from which Theresa had been abducted the other night They stood side by side, with the door open a narrow crack in front of them.
A tense wait followed. Harrington started nervously at the opening of a door on the other side of the library. Voices and footsteps sounded, and then a light flashed through the narrow opening. Evidently the newcomers had turned on the reading lamp in the library.
“Now we shall see!” a voice remarked. It was hoarse and a trifle shrill and edged with nervous excitement. Harrington recognized it at once as Carmody’s.
“Couldn’t you wait, dad?” asked Theresa nervously. “You aren’t well, and the doctor said you must avoid shocks.”
Harrington, looking out over the district attorney’s shoulder, listened intently. In spite of what he knew about the relationship, it seemed odd to hear Theresa address Carmody as “dad.”
“No shock could be worse than this strain,” Carmody declared. “Let’s get it over.”
“In just a moment, dad. Sit here and rest for a bit. The ride gave you quite a shaking up, you know. You mustn’t exert yourself. We have all night.”
With a good-natured grumble he yielded to her persuasion. There were sounds which indicated that they had seated themselves in a part of the library not visible through the narrow opening. The safe in the wall paneling could be clearly seen, however.
“I don’t know what’s come over you, dad,” Theresa was saying. “Why should you get so dreadfully upset over a few diamonds?”
“A jew diamonds. They are worth a million.”
“But what’s a million. It isn’t worth ruining your health for.”
“The diamonds belong to me,” Carmody declared. “Nobody else has any right to them. I don’t intend to let a gang of despicable criminals take them away from me.”
“Oh, dad! I wish you wouldn’t talk like that The diamonds can’t do you any good. I’d rather see them dumped in the ocean than have you brood over them. Besides, it isn’t your nature to be greedy. You were always generous to a fault. I don’t understand you.”
“Greedy?” Carmody chuckled grimly, with a nervous catch in his voice. “No, I’m not greedy. It isn’t that. It is—Don’t you understand, dear?”
“No. All I understand is that those horrid diamonds are ruining your life.”
“Oh, no. It isn’t as bad as that On the contrary, they enable me to look forward to a care-free and comfortable old age.” He paused, and when he spoke again his tone was strangely gentle. “As you know, I loved your mother. And when she died—you were only so high then—I promised to take care of you. I’ve done my best I’ve loved you as if you were my own daughter. There’s one thing, though, that’s hung like a shadow over my life. It’s the fact that when I die there’ll be no one to look after you. I shan’t be able to leave you much. There will only be a few—”
“Oh, dad, what do I care? I’m strong and healthy and can take care of myself.”
“Yes, doubtless. But I’m worried just the same. I should be so much happier if I could leave you something substantial. Now, don’t scold me, dear. I may be a foolish old man, but that’s the way I feel. Anyway, I am just stubborn enough to refuse to be cheated out of what’s mine. Now, don’t try to stop me. I can’t stand this uncertainty any longer. I must see about those diamonds.”
“But it’s ridiculous, dad! The diamonds are in the safe.”
“Safes can be robbed.”
“But your safe is different from most. No burglar is likely to find the inner compartment. You said so yourself.”
“I know, but where did Carstairs get that box? Where did it come from if it didn’t come from my safe? Now, dear, I’m going over there and find out.”
A sigh sounded, then a series of quick, nervous footsteps. Through the narrow opening the two watchers saw the tall, slightly stooping figure of Carmody. His face looked drawn and haggard, and his hands shook as he manipulated the combination lock. Directly behind him stood Theresa, watching anxiously.
The safe door swung open, and then followed further manipulation. Evidently Carmody was now opening the inner compartment of which Theresa had spoken.
His face showed a terrible strain. His whole body was shaking.
Harrington gave a sudden start. He looked out into the library as far as the narrow opening permitted. Whittaker, too, stood tense and rigid. Footsteps, very light and furtive, sounded across the library floor. Someone who as yet could not be seen through the narrow crack seemed to be creeping up on the two persons in front of the safe.
“It’s here!” cried Carmody hoarsely.
Weak from excitement, he staggered away from the safe. His face was pale, but his eyes shone unnaturally. In his hand he held a coffin-shaped box, gorgeously decorated.
“See, dear?” he cried thickly. “It’s here. It’s—”
“Much obliged,” said a voice. “Just what I’ve been lookin’ for.”
Harrington started sharply, then stood stonily still. It was Luke Garbo’s voice!