We shared a secret; in effect, Joseph and I were accomplices.
Between us we had compounded a felony, destroyed evidence, and Joseph knew it.
Whether he had seen the stain or not, he knew that carpet.
“You should not have tried to do that, madam,” he said.
“In the future, if you need any help, you can always call on me.”
Then he went out; strange inscrutable Joseph, living the vicarious life of all upper class servants.
Somewhere he had a wife, but he never mentioned her.
His room at night, the pantry and the newspapers by day, apparently comprised his life and satisfied him.
It was when he came to remove the tray that he told me, very quietly, that his revolver was missing.
“I have been keeping it in my bedroom lately, under my pillow,” he said. “Now it is gone.
Taken by some one who knew the habits of the house, madam.”
Chapter Eleven
WHATEVER WAS THE MEANING of that unpleasant episode, it was impossible to go to the police with it.
I was seeing rather less of the Inspector now; he and the entire homicide squad were working on the Gunther case; the crime detection unit of photographer, chemist, microscopist and gun expert were at work, but I believe their conclusions were unimportant.
The bullet was missing.
From the size of the wounds in the skull and the fact that it had passed entirely through the head, they believed that it had been a large caliber bullet fired at close range, and that the time of her death had been about eight or eight-thirty.
The bag, then, had lain in the street for almost three hours.
Outside of these facts the murder remained a complete and utter mystery.
She appeared to have been without friends or family, one of these curious beings who from all appearances have sprung sporadically into being, without any past whatever.
She had had no ability for friendship, unless that odd acquaintance of hers with Sarah could be called friendship.
Strange that two such reserved women should have found each other, have somehow broken down their repressions, have walked, talked, maybe even laughed together.
For it seems now that during the month or so before the murders, they had met a number of times.
One pictures them walking together, maybe sitting together in a moving picture theater, and then one day something said; a bit of confidence, and both were doomed.
The day passed without incident, save that Mary Martin took her departure.
She even cried a little when she left, although she had shown no affection for any of us.
Judy seemed relieved to have her gone.
“Thank heaven,” she said.
“I don’t have to whisper any more.
She was always listening, Elizabeth Jane.
I’ve caught her at it, leaning over the banisters.
I’ll bet my hat she knows something.
And I’ll bet two dollars, which is all I have in the world at the moment, that she took Joseph’s gun.”
“Why would she take Joseph’s gun?
That’s silly.”
“Is it?
Well, ask Norah.
She knows.”
And ask Norah I did, with curious results.
It appeared that on the day before Joseph had missed his revolver, Norah had gone upstairs to her room to change her uniform before she prepared luncheon.
She wears rubber-soled shoes in the kitchen, as it has a tiled floor, and so she moved quietly.
Joseph, it seems, was downstairs.
The door at the top of the back stairs is a swinging one, as otherwise the maids forget to close it, and it swings noiselessly. She pushed it open, and there was Mary Martin, down the hall and just coming out of Joseph’s room.
She stepped back when she saw Norah, and then reconsidered and came out again.
“I was looking for some matches,” she said.
According to Norah she had no matches in her hands, however, and she looked so pale that Norah was curious.
When Mary had shut herself in her room Norah glanced inside Joseph’s door.
There were no matches on his bureau, and his revolver lay on top of the bed.
But with Mary gone, and the house quiet again and with no “snooping,” as Judy called it, I went into the library that night to find Dick grinning and Judy with her mouth set hard.
“Well, tell her, if you think it’s so funny.”
“Tell her yourself, lady of my heart.