Part 20 (1/2)

To my surprise, it was Sperry, accompanied by two ladies, one of them heavily veiled. It was not until I had ushered them into the reception room and lighted the gas that I saw who they were. It was Elinor Wells, in deep mourning, and Clara, Mrs. Dane's companion and secretary.

I am afraid I was rather excited, for I took Sperry's hat from him, and placed it on the head of a marble bust which I had given my wife on our last anniversary, and Sperry says that I drew a smoking-stand up beside Elinor Wells with great care. I do not know. It has, however, pa.s.sed into history in the Club, where every now and then for some time Herbert offered one of the ladies a cigar, with my compliments.

My wife, I believe, was advancing along the corridor when Sperry closed the door. As she had only had time to see that a woman was in the room, she was naturally resentful, and retired to the upper floor, where I found her considerably upset, some time later.

While I am quite sure that I was not thinking clearly at the opening of the interview, I know that I was puzzled at the presence of Mrs. Dane's secretary, but I doubtless accepted it as having some connection with Clara's notes. And Sperry, at the beginning, made no comment on her at all.

”Mrs. Wells suggested that we come here, Horace,” he began. ”We may need a legal mind on this. I'm not sure, or rather I think it unlikely. But just in case--suppose you tell him, Elinor.”

I have no record of the story Elinor Wells told that night in our little reception-room, with Clara sitting in a corner, grave and white. It was fragmentary, inco-ordinate. But I got it all at last.

Charlie Ellingham had killed Arthur Wells, but in a struggle. In parts the story was sordid enough. She did not spare herself, or her motives.

She had wanted luxury, and Arthur had not succeeded as he had promised.

They were in debt, and living beyond their means. But even that, she hastened to add, would not have mattered, had he not been brutal with her. He had made her life very wretched.

But on the subject of Charlie Ellingham she was emphatic. She knew that there had been talk, but there had been no real basis for it. She had turned to him for comfort, and he gave her love. She didn't know where he was now, and didn't greatly care, but she would like to recover and destroy some letters he had written her.

She was looking crushed and ill, and she told her story incoordinately and nervously. Reduced to its elements, it was as follows:

On the night of Arthur Wells's death they were dressing for a ball. She had made a private arrangement with Ellingham to plead a headache at the last moment and let Arthur go alone. But he had been so insistent that she had been forced to go, after all. She had sent the governess, Suzanne Gautier, out to telephone Ellingham not to come, but he was not at his house, and the message was left with his valet. As it turned out, he had already started.

Elinor was dressed, all but her ball-gown, and had put on a negligee, to wait for the governess to return and help her. Arthur was in his dressing-room, and she heard him grumbling about having no blades for his safety razor.

He got out a case of razors and searched for the strop. When she remembered where the strop was, it was too late. The letters had been beside it, and he was coming toward her, with them in his hand.

She was terrified. He had read only one, but that was enough. He muttered something and turned away. She saw his face as he went toward where the revolver had been hidden from the children, and she screamed.

Charlie Ellingham heard her. The door had been left unlocked by the governess, and he was in the lower hall. He ran up and the two men grappled. The first shot was fired by Arthur. It struck the ceiling.

The second she was doubtful about. She thought the revolver was still in Arthur's hand. It was all horrible. He went down like a stone, in the hallway outside the door.

They were nearly mad, the two of them. They had dragged the body in, and then faced each other. Ellingham was for calling the police at once and surrendering, but she had kept him away from the telephone. She maintained, and I think it very possible, that her whole thought was for the children, and the effect on their after lives of such a scandal.

And, after all, nothing could help the man on the floor.

It was while they were trying to formulate some concerted plan that they heard footsteps below, and, thinking it was Mademoiselle Gautier, she drove Ellingham into the rear of the house, from which later he managed to escape. But it was Clara who was coming up the stairs.

”She had been our first governess for the children,” Elinor said, ”and she often came in. She had made a birthday smock for Buddy, and she had it in her hand. She almost fainted. I couldn't tell her about Charlie Ellingham. I couldn't. I told her we had been struggling, and that I was afraid I had shot him. She is quick. She knew just what to do. We worked fast. She said a suicide would not have fired one shot into the ceiling, and she fixed that. It was terrible. And all the time he lay there, with his eyes half open--”

The letters, it seems, were all over the place. Elinor thought of the curtain, cut a receptacle for them, but she was afraid of the police.

Finally she gave them to Clara, who was to take them away and burn them.

They did everything they could think of, all the time listening for Suzanne Gautier's return; filled the second empty chamber of the revolver, dragged the body out of the hall and washed the carpet, and called Doctor Sperry, knowing that he was at Mrs. Dane's and could not come.

Clara had only a little time, and with the letters in her handbag she started down the stairs. There she heard some one, possibly Ellingham, on the back stairs, and in her haste, she fell, hurting her knee, and she must have dropped the handbag at that time. They knew now that Hawkins had found it later on. But for a few days they didn't know, and hence the advertis.e.m.e.nt.

”I think we would better explain Hawkins,” Sperry said. ”Hawkins was married to Miss Clara here, some years ago, while she was with Mrs.

Wells. They had kept it a secret, and recently she has broken with him.”

”He was infatuated with another woman,” Clara said briefly. ”That's a personal matter. It has nothing to do with this case.”

”It explains Hawkins's letter.”