The Mystery of the Sycamore

“Not at all,” answered Keefe, promptly. “If he had, I do not know of it, but I think I can affirm that he had not. For, when Mr. Appleby was anxious, he always showed it. In many ways it was noticeable, if he had a perplexity on his mind. In such a case he was irritable, quick-tempered, and often absent-minded. The day we came down here, Mr. Appleby was genial, affable and in a kindly mood. This, to my mind, quite precludes the idea that he looked for anything untoward.”

“How did he impress you, Mr. Wheeler?” Stone went on. “You had not seen him for some time, I believe.”

“Not for fifteen years,” Dan Wheeler spoke calmly, and with an air of determined reserve. “Our meeting was such as might be expected between two long-time enemies, but Appleby was polite and so was I.”

“He came to ask a favor of you?”

“Rather to drive a bargain. He offered me a full pardon in return for my assistance in his son’s political campaign. You, I am sure, know all this from Mr. Appleby, the son.”

“Yes, I do; I’m asking you if Mr. Appleby, the father, showed in his conversation with you, any apprehension or gave any intimation of a fear of disaster?”

“Mr. Stone,” returned Wheeler, “I have confessed that I killed Mr. Appleby; I hold, therefore, that I need say nothing that will influence my own case.”

“Well, you see, Mr. Wheeler, this case is unusual – perhaps unique, in that three people have confessed to the crime. So far, I am preserving an open mind. Though it is possible you and your wife and daughter acted in collusion, only one of you could have fired the fatal shot; yet you all three claim to have done so. There is no conclusion to be drawn from this but that one is guilty and the other two are shielding that one.”

“Draw any conclusion you wish,” said Wheeler, still imperturbably. “But I’ve no objection to replying to the question you asked me. Sam Appleby said no word to me that hinted at a fear for his personal safety. If he had any such fear, he kept it to himself.”

“He knew of your enmity toward him?”

“Of course. He did me an unforgivable injustice and I never pretended that I did not resent it.”

“And you refused to meet his wishes regarding his son’s campaign?”

“I most certainly did, for the same reasons I opposed his own election many years ago.”

“Yes; all those details I have from Mr. Appleby, junior. Now, Mr. Appleby does not believe that his father was killed by any member of your family, Mr. Wheeler.”

“Can he, then, produce the man whom he does suspect?”

“No; he suspects no one definitely, but he thinks that by investigation, I can find out the real criminal.”

“You may as well save your time and trouble, Mr. Stone. I am the man you seek, I freely confess my crime, and I accept my fate, whatever it be. Can I do more?”

“Yes; if you are telling the truth, go on, and relate details. What weapon did you use?”

“My own revolver.”

“Where is it?”

“I threw it out of the window.”

“Which window?”

“The – the bay window, in my den.”

“In this room?”

“Yes.”

“That window there?” Stone pointed to the big bay.

“Yes.”

“You were sitting there at the time of the shot, were you not, Miss Wheeler?” Stone turned to Maida, who, white-faced and trembling, listened to her father’s statements.

“I was sitting there before the shot,” the girl returned, speaking in quiet, steady tones, though a red spot burned in either cheek. “And then, when Mr. Appleby threatened my father, I shot him myself. My father is untruthful for my sake. In his love for me he is trying to take my crime on himself. Oh, believe me, Mr. Stone! Others can testify that I said, long ago, that I could willingly kill Mr. Appleby. He has made my dear father’s life a living grave! He has changed a brilliant, capable man of affairs to a sad and broken-hearted recluse. A man who had everything to live for, everything to interest and occupy his mind, was condemned to a solitary imprisonment, save for the company of his family! My father’s career would have been notable, celebrated; but that Samuel Appleby put an end to fifteen years ago, for no reason but petty spite and mean revenge! I had never seen the man, save as a small child, and when I learned he was at last coming here, my primitive passions were stirred, my sense of justice awoke and my whole soul was absorbed in a wild impulse to rid the world of such a demon in human form! I told my parents I was capable of killing him; they reproved me, so I said no more. But I brooded over the project, and made ready, and then – when Mr. Appleby threatened my father, talked to him brutally, scathingly, fairly turning the iron in his soul – I could stand it no longer, and I shot him down as I would have killed a venomous serpent! I do not regret the act – though I do fear the consequences.”

Maida almost collapsed, but pulled herself together, to add:

“That is the truth. You must disregard and disbelieve my father’s noble efforts to save me by trying to pretend the crime was his own.”

Stone looked at her pityingly. McGuire stared fixedly; the boy’s eyes round with amazement at this outburst of self-condemnation.

Then Stone said, almost casually: “You, too, Mrs. Wheeler, confess to this crime, I believe.”

“I am the real criminal,” Sara Wheeler asserted, speaking very quietly but with a steady gaze into the eyes of the listening detective. “You can readily understand that my husband and daughter are trying to shield me, when I tell you that only I had opportunity. I had possessed myself of Mr. Wheeler’s pistol and as I ran downstairs – well knowing the conversation that was going on, I shot through the doors as I passed and running on, threw the weapon far out into the shrubbery. It can doubtless be found. I must beg of you, Mr. Stone, that you thoroughly investigate these three stories, and I assure you you will find mine the true one, and the assertions of my husband and daughter merely loving but futile attempts to save me from the consequences of my act.”

Fleming Stone smiled, a queer, tender little smile.

“It is certainly a new experience for me,” he said, “when a whole family insist on being considered criminals. But I will reserve decision until I can look into matters a little more fully. Now, who can give me any information on the matter, outside of the identity of the criminal?”

Jeffrey Allen volunteered the story of the fire, and Keefe told of the strange bugle call that had been heard.

“You heard it, Mr. Keefe?” asked Stone, after listening to the account.

“No; I was with Mr. Appleby on a trip to Boston. I tell it as I heard the tale from the household here.”

Whereupon the Wheeler family corroborated Keefe’s story, and Fleming Stone listened attentively to the various repetitions.

“You find that bugler, and you’ve got your murderer,” Curtis Keefe said, bluntly. “You agree, don’t you, Mr. Stone, that it was no phantom who blew audible notes on a bugle?”

“I most certainly agree to that. I’ve heard many legends, in foreign countries, of ghostly drummers, buglers and bagpipers, but they are merely legends – I’ve never found anyone who really heard the sounds. And, moreover, those things aren’t even legends in America. Any bugling done in this country is done by human lungs. Now, this bugler interests me. I think, with you, Mr. Keefe, that to know his identity would help us – whether he proves to be the criminal or not.”

“He’s the criminal,” Keefe declared, again. “Forgive me, Mr. Stone, if my certainty seems to you presumptuous or forward, but I’m so thoroughly convinced of the innocence of the Wheeler family, that perhaps I am overenthusiastic in my theory.”

“A theory doesn’t depend on enthusiasm,” returned Stone, “but on evidence and proof. Now, how can we set about finding this mysterious bugler – whether phantom or human?”

“I thought that’s what you’re here to do,” Sam Appleby said, looking helplessly at Fleming Stone.

“We are,” piped up Terence McGuire, as Stone made no reply. “That’s our business, and, consequentially, it shall be done.”

The boy assumed an air of importance that was saved from being objectionable by his good-humored face and frank, serious eyes. “I’ll just start in and get busy now,” he went on, and rising, he bobbed a funny little bow that included all present, and left the room.

It was mid-afternoon, and as they looked out on the wide lawn they saw McGuire strolling slowly, hands in pockets and seemingly more absorbed in the birds and flowers than in his vaunted “business.”

“Perhaps McGuire needs a little explanation,” Stone smiled. “He is my right-hand man, and a great help in detail work. But he has a not altogether unearned reputation for untruthfulness. Indeed, his nickname is Fibsy, because of a congenital habit of telling fibs. I advise you of this, because I prefer you should not place implicit confidence in his statements.”

“But, Mr. Stone,” cried Maida, greatly interested, “how can he be of any help to you if you can’t depend on what he says?”

“Oh, he doesn’t lie to me,” Stone assured her; “nor does he tell whoppers at any time. Only, it’s his habit to shade the truth when it seems to him advisable. I do not defend this habit; in fact, I have persuaded him to stop it, to a degree. But you know how hard it is to reform entirely.”

“It won’t affect his usefulness, since he doesn’t lie to his employer,” Appleby said, “and, too, it’s none of our business. I’ve engaged Mr. Stone to solve the mystery of my father’s death, and I’m prepared to give him full powers. He may conduct his investigations on any plan he chooses. My only stipulation is that he shall find a criminal outside the Wheeler family.”

“A difficult and somewhat unusual stipulation,” remarked Stone.

“Why difficult?” Dan Wheeler said, quickly.

“Because, with three people confessing a crime, and no one else even remotely suspected, save a mysterious and perhaps mythical bugle-player, it does not seem an easy job to hunt up and then hunt down a slayer.”

“But you’ll do it,” begged Appleby, almost pleadingly, “for it must be done.”

“We’ll see,” Stone replied. “And now tell me more about the fire in the garage. It occurred at the time of the shooting, you say? What started it?”

But nobody knew what started it.

“How could we know?” asked Jeff Allen. “It was only a small fire and the most it burned was the robe in Mr. Appleby’s own car and a motor coat that was also in the car.”

“Whose coat?” asked Stone.

“Mine,” said Keefe, ruefully. “A bit of bad luck, too, for it was a new one. I had to get another in place of it.”

“And you think the fire was the result of a dropped cigarette or match by Mr. Appleby’s chauffeur?”

“I don’t know,” returned Keefe. “He denies it, of course, but it must have been that or an incendiary act of some one.”

“Maybe the bugler person,” suggested Stone.

“Maybe,” assented Keefe, though he did not look convinced.

“I think Mr. Keefe thinks it was the work of my own men,” said Dan Wheeler. “And it may have been. There’s one in my employ who has an ignorant, brutal spirit of revenge, and if he thought Samuel Appleby was inimical to me, he would be quite capable of setting fire to the Appleby car. That may be the fact of the case.”

“It may be,” agreed Stone. “Doubtless we can find out – ”

“How?” asked Allen. “That would be magician’s work, I think.”

“A detective has to be a magician,” Stone smiled at him. “We quite often do more astounding tricks than that.”

“Go to it, then!” cried Appleby. “That’s the talk I like to hear. Questions and answers any of us can put over. But the real detecting is like magic. At least, I can’t see how it’s done. Duff in, Mr. Stone. Get busy.”

The group dispersed then, Fleming Stone going to his room and the others straying off by twos or threes.

Burdon, who had said almost nothing during the confab, declared he wanted a talk with the great detective alone, and would await his pleasure.

So Burdon sat by himself, brooding, on the veranda, and presently saw the boy, Fibsy, returning toward the house.

“Come here, young one,” Burdon called out.

“Nixy, old one,” was the saucy retort.

“Why not?” in a conciliatory tone.

“’Cause you spoke disrespectful like. I’m a detective, you know.”

“All right, old pal; come here, will you?”

Fibsy grinned and came, seating himself on a cushioned swing nearby.

“Whatcha want?” he demanded.

“Only a line o’ talk. Your Mr. Stone, now, do you think he’ll show up soon, or has he gone for a nap?”

“Fleming Stone doesn’t take naps,” Fibsy said, disdainfully; “he isn’t that sort.”

“Then he’ll be down again shortly?”

“Dunno. Maybe he’s begun his fasting and prayer over this phenomenal case.”

“Does he do that?”

“How do I know? I’m not of a curious turn of mind, me havin’ other sins to answer for.”

“I know. Mr. Stone told us you have no respect for the truth.”

“Did he, now! Well, he’s some mistaken! I have such a profound respect for the truth that I never use it except on very special occasions.”

“Is this one?”

“It is not! Don’t believe a word I say just now. In fact, I’m so lit up with the beauties and glories of this place, that I hardly know what I am a-saying! Ain’t it the show-place, though!”

“Yes, it is. Looky here, youngster, can’t you go up and coax Mr. Stone to see me – just a few minutes?”

“Nope; can’t do that. But you spill it to me, and if it’s worth it, I’ll repeat it to him. I’m really along for that very purpose, you see.”

“But I haven’t anything special to tell him – ”

“Oh, I see! Just want the glory and honor of chinning with the great Stone!”

As this so nearly expressed Burdon’s intention, he grinned sheepishly, and Fibsy understood.

“No go, old top,” he assured him. “F. Stone will send for you if he thinks you’ll interest him in the slightest degree. Better wait for the sending – it’ll mean a more satisfactory interview all round.”

“Well, then, let’s you and me chat a bit.”

“Oho, coming round to sort of like me, are you? Well, I’m willing. Tell me this: how far from the victim did the shooter stand?”

“The doctor said, as nearly as he could judge, about ten feet or so away.”

“H’m,” and Fibsy looked thoughtful. “That would just about suit all three of the present claimants for the honor, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes; and would preclude anybody not inside the room.”

“Unless he was close to the window.”

“Sure. But it ain’t likely, is it now, that a rank outsider would come right up to the window and fire through it, and not be seen by anybody?”

“No; it isn’t. And, of course, if that had happened, and any one of the three Wheelers had seen it, they would be only too glad to tell of it. I wonder they haven’t made up some such yarn as that.”

“You don’t know the Wheelers. I do, and I can see how they would perjure themselves – any of them – and confess to a crime they didn’t commit, to save each other – but it wouldn’t occur to them to invent a murderer – or to say they saw some one they didn’t see. Do you get the difference?”

“Being an expert in the lyin’ game, I do,” and Fibsy winked.

“It isn’t only that. It’s not only that they’re unwilling to lie about it, but they haven’t the – the, well, ingenuity to contrive a plausible yarn.”

“Not being lying experts, just as I said,” Fibsy observed. “Well, we all have our own kind of cleverness. Now, mine is finding things. Want to see an example?”

“Yes, I do.”

“All right. How far did you say the shooter person stood from his victim?”

“About ten feet – but I daresay it might be two or three feet, more or less.”

“No; they can judge closer’n that by the powder marks. The truth wouldn’t vary more’n a foot or so, from their say. Now, s’posin’ the shooter did throw the revolver out of the bay window, as the three Wheelers agree, severally, they did do, where would it most likely land?”

“In that clump of rhododendrons.”

“Yep; if they threw it straight ahead. I s’pose you’ve looked there for it?”

“Yes, raked the place thoroughly.”

“All right. Now if they slung the thing over toward the right, where would it land?”

“On the smooth lawn.”

“And you didn’t find it there!”

“No. What are you doing? Stringing me?”

“Oh, no, sir; oh, no! Now, once again. If they chanced to fling said revolver far to the left, where would it land?”

“Why – in that big bed of ferns – if they threw it far enough.”

“Looked there?”

“No; I haven’t.”

“C’mon, let’s take a squint.”

Fibsy rose and lounged over toward the fern bed, Burdon following, almost certain he was being made game of.

CHAPTER XII

THE GARAGE FIRE

“Now, watch me,” he said, and with a quick thrust of his arm down among the ferns, he drew forth a revolver, which he turned over to Burdon.

“Land o’ goodness!” exclaimed that worthy. “Howja know it was there?”

“Knew it must be – looked for it – saw it,” returned the boy, nonchalantly, and then, hearing a short, sharp whistle, he looked up at the house to see Fleming Stone regarding him from an upper window.

“Found the weapon, Fibs?” he inquired.

“Yes, Mr. Stone.”

“All right. Bring it up here, and ask Mr. Burdon to come along.”

Delighted at the summons, Burdon followed the boy’s flying feet and they went up to Stone’s rooms. A small and pleasant sitting-room had been given over to the detective, and he admitted his two visitors, then closed the door.

“Doing the spectacular, Terence?” Stone said, smiling a little.

“Just one grandstand play,” the boy confessed. As a matter of fact, he had located the pistol sometime earlier, but waited to make the discovery seem sensational.

“All right; let’s take a look at it.”

Without hesitation, Burdon pronounced the revolver Mr. Wheeler’s. It had no initials on it, but from Wheeler’s minute description, Burdon recognized it beyond reasonable doubt. One bullet had been fired from it, and the calibre corresponded to the shot that had killed Samuel Appleby.

“Oh, it’s the right gun, all right,” Burdon said, “but I never thought of looking over that way for it. Must have been thrown by a left-handed man.”

“Oh, not necessarily,” said Stone. “But it was thrown with a conscious desire to hide it, and not flung away in a careless or preoccupied moment.”

“And what do you deduce from that?” asked Burdon, quite prepared to hear the description of the murderer’s physical appearance and mental attainments.

“Nothing very definite,” Stone mused. “We might say it looked more like the act of a strong-willed man such as Mr. Wheeler, than of a frightened and nervously agitated woman.”

“If either of those two women did it,” Burdon offered, “she wasn’t nervous or agitated. They’re not that sort. They may go to pieces afterward, but whatever Mrs. Wheeler or Maida undertake to do, they put it over all right. I’ve known ’em for years, and I never knew either of them to show the white feather.”

“Well, it was not much of an indication, anyway,” Stone admitted, “but it does prove a steady nerve and a planning brain that would realize the advisability of flinging the weapon where it would not be probably sought. Now, as this is Mr. Wheeler’s revolver, there’s no use asking the three suspects anything about it. For each has declared he or she used it and flung it away. That in itself is odd – I mean that they should all tell the same story. It suggests not collusion so much as the idea that whoever did the shooting was seen by one or both of the others.”

“Then you believe it was one of the three Wheelers?” asked Burdon.

“I don’t say that, yet,” returned Stone. “But they must be reckoned with. I want to eliminate the innocent two and put the guilt on the third – if that is where it belongs.”

“And if not, which way are you looking?”

“Toward the fire. That most opportune fire in the garage seems to me indicative of a criminal who wanted to create a panic so he could carry out his murderous design with neatness and despatch.”

“And that lets out the women?”

“Not if, as you say, they’re of the daring and capable sort.”

“Oh, they are! If Maida Wheeler did this thing, she could stage the fire easily enough. Or Mrs. Wheeler could, either. They’re hummers when it comes to efficiency and actually doing things!”

“You surprise me. Mrs. Wheeler seems such a gentle, delicate personality.”

“Yep; till she’s roused. Then she’s full of tiger! Oh, I know Sara Wheeler. You ask my wife what Mrs. Wheeler can do!”

“Tell me a little more of this conditional pardon matter. Is it possible that for fifteen years Mr. Wheeler has never stepped over to the forbidden side of his own house?”

“Perfectly true. But it isn’t his house, it’s Mrs. Wheeler’s. Her folks are connected with the Applebys and it was the work of old Appleby that the property came to Sara with that tag attached, that she must live in Massachusetts. Also, Appleby pardoned Wheeler on condition that he never stepped foot into Massachusetts. And there they were. It was Sara Wheeler’s ingenuity and determination that planned the house on the state line, and she has seen to it that Dan Wheeler never broke parole. It’s second nature to him now, of course.”

“But I’m told that he did step over the night of the murder. That he went into the sitting-room of his wife – or maybe into the forbidden end of that long living-room – to see the fire. It would be a most natural thing for him to do.”

“Not natural, no, sir.” Burdon rubbed his brow thoughtfully. “Yet he might ’a’ done it. But one misstep like that ought to be overlooked, I think.”

“And would be by his friends – but suppose there’s an enemy at work. Suppose, just as a theory, that somebody is ready to take advantage of the peculiar situation, that seems to prove Dan Wheeler was either outside his prescribed territory – or he was the murderer. To my way of thinking, at present, that man’s alibi is his absence from the scene of the crime. And, if he was absent, he must have been over the line. I know this from talks I’ve had with the servants and the family and guests, and I’m pretty confident that Wheeler was either in the den or in the forbidden north part of the house at the moment of the murder.”

“Why don’t you know which it was?” asked Burdon, bluntly.

“Because,” said Stone, not resenting the question, “because I can’t place any dependence on the truth of the family’s statements. For three respectable, God-fearing citizens, they are most astonishingly willing, even eager, to perjure themselves. Of course, I know they do it for one another’s sake. They have a strange conscience that allows them to lie outright for the sake of a loved one. And, it may be, commit murder for the sake of a loved one! But all this I shall straighten out when I get further along. The case is so widespread, so full of ramifications and possible side issues, I have to go carefully at first, and not get entangled in false clues.”

“Got any clue, sir? Any real ones?”

“Meaning dropped handkerchiefs and broken cuff-links?” Stone chaffed him. “Well, there’s the pistol. That’s a material clue. But, no, I can’t produce anything else – at present. Well, Terence, what luck?”

Fibsy, who had slipped from the room at the very beginning of this interview, now returned.

“It’s puzzlin’ – that’s what it is, puzzlin’,” he declared, throwing himself astride of a chair. “I’ve raked that old garage fore and aft, but I can’t track down the startings of that fire. You see, the place is stucco and all that, and besides the discipline of this whole layout is along the lines of p’ison neatness! Everybody that works at Sycamore Ridge has to be a very old maid for keeping things clean! So, there’s no chance for accumulated rubbish or old rags or spontaneous combustion or anything of the sort. Nextly, none of the three men who have any call to go into the garage ever smoke in there. That’s a Mede and Persian law. Gee, Mr. Wheeler is some efficient boss! Well, anyway, after the fire, though they tried every way to find out what started it, they couldn’t find a thing! There was no explanation but a brand dropped from the skies, or a stroke of lightning! And there was no storm on. It wouldn’t all be so sure, but the morning after, it seems, Mr. Allen and Mr. Keefe were doin’ some sleuthin’ on their own, and they couldn’t find out how the fire started. So, they put it up to the garage men, and they hunted, too. It seems nothing was burnt but some things in Mr. Appleby’s car, which, of course, lets out his chauffeur, who had no call to burn up his own duds. And a coat of his was burned and also a coat of Mr. Keefe’s.”