At One-Thirty by Isabel Ostrander (best book series to read .txt) đ
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âYou have done a lot. Inspector; but I donât quite see where it comes in connection with the murder. Do you?â
âNo,â Inspector Hanrahan admitted. âI donât quite see that yet myself; but it may come out later. Anyway, itâs worth sifting to the bottom. Weâve not got any other clue to go on.â
âOf course,â Gaunt said musingly, as if to himself, âif any outsider, who has not come into the case as yet, committed the murder, he must have had an ally in the house to let him in, in the first place, and then attempt to conceal traces of the crime afterward, and that hardly seems feasible, since no one seems to have known of this private matter except Garret Appleton, himself.â
âHow about that butler, Dakers? Iâve had my eye on him from the first. I cannot help feehng, somehow, that he holds the key to the whole thing.â
The Inspector had risen, and Gaunt rose with him.
âInspector, itâs well that youâve no stealthy criminal to trail tonightâa criminal with trained ears and a sense of humor/â the detective remarked jestingly. âIf you had, your task would be hopeless from the start.â
âWhy?â The Inspector reddened, and shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. âI donât get you, Mr. Gaunt.â
âYour boots, man! I could hear you coming three hundred yards away. Youâve taken to wearing that soft goatâs-skin, again, machinesewn, and you creak like a windlass!â He clapped the discomfited official on the back in friendly fashion, and added: âWell, let me know if you get anything, and, if I learn anything, definitely, youâll hear from me. Turn about is only fair play, and we seem to be working together on this thing.â
âYes, sir. Iâve not forgotten the pointer you gave me last nightâto watch that butler. To be sure,â he added hastily, âI have suspected him all along, as Iâve said, of knowing something; but it sort of confirmed it, when I found heâd impressed you the same way. Youâll hear from me in the morning, sir.â
After he had departed. Gaunt dined hastily, and then spent the intervening time before the anticipated arrival of Randolph Force at the telephone. His several short conversations seemed to bring him no satisfaction, however, and he turned from his own thoughts with a distinct feeling of relief, when his visitor was announced.
Randolph Forceâs step was firm and steady, his handclasp warm and vigorous, his voice low and rich. He brought in with him a breath of the cool, clean outdoors and a faint odor of good tobacco. Gaunt felt instinctively drawn to this man, who was the affianced husband of the woman who had so deeply impressed him.
He seemed, even in the first ^few moments of their meeting, to be a fit mate for her, strong and controlled and ringing true.
âMr. Gaunt? Miss Ellerslie told me you wished to see me. If I can be of any assistanceââ
âSit down, Mr. Force. I wanted some information, in a general way, concerning the Appleton familyâthe men of the family, in particularâfrom one who had known them well, yet who was not one of their intimate associates. I thought that you would be able to give it to me.â
The other man laughed pleasantly.
âIâve known them alwaysâthe two boys, I mean. What makes you think I am not an associate of theirs?â
âBecause Miss Ellerslie tells me that she is engaged to you. She would not be likely, I think, to choose her future husband from among the confreres of her brother-in-law.â
There was a momentâs pause, and then the young man said gravely:
âI see your point, Mr. Gaunt. As a matter-of-fact, although my family and the Appletons have been closely allied socially for three generations, Iâve never gone around very much with Garret and Yates. Our interestsâlet us say, our ideas of amusementâdiffer.â
âCan you tell meâconfidentially, of courseâ something of the two men, Mr. Forceâsomething of their characters and pursuits?â
âThatâs rather a difficult proposition. A man doesnât like to discuss other men, from a personal standpoint. Yates is rather an ass, I should say. No real downright harm in him; but he goes the pace, and his friends make a fool of him, generally. With Garretâhang it all! one shouldnât speak ill of the deadâbut the same tendencies Yates manifests had sunk in deeper in him, if you know what I meanâthe tendency to consider vices a form of modern sport. With Yates, it is merely foolish weakness; with Garret, it had become sheer evilness. Yates drinks with his crowd; Garret alone. Yates is without moral stamina; Garret was deliberately, shrewdly vicious. You understand the distinction I am endeavoring to make?â
âPerfectly. You say that your family have been closely allied to that of the Appletons, for three generations? Can you tell me something of their antecedents?â
âTheir father, Finlay Appleton, was a fine old man, and a great friend of my late fatherâs. Their grandfather, Appleton, started in hfe as an upstate farmerâs boy, and died a multi-millionaire and power in Wall Street. Their mother was a Yatesâone of the Tuxedo Yates. Her people were rich, too, but far from being as wealthy as the Appletons. Her father was a bom miser, and would have done anything, gone to any lengths, to accumulate and hoard money. That is a trait which Garret Appleton had inherited to a marked degree. He, of course, entertained lavishly, and spent money with seeming extravagance; but it was only to keep up his position before the world, to gain the reputation of being a generous, but never spendthrift, millionaire.
âFrom his grandfather, Yates, he inherited an inordinate love of money for its own sake, and there have more than once been whispers in the Street that his operations were not entirely on the level; in fact, were perilously near the danger line. Of this, I think, his wife was in total ignorance; but then, as far as I can learn, he never took the trouble to make a companion or confidant of her.â
âBeing engaged to Miss Ellerslie, you must know of the conditions existing in the household of her brother-in-law. â
âYes, Mr. Gaunt; but I prefer not to speak of theni. You understand that, even to aid you in your investigation, it would be impossible for me to do so. Miss Ellerslie has told me that you are aware of the circumstances under which they lived, of the unhappiness of her sisterâs home life, and the hostile attitude assumed toward them by the other members of the family. Surely, that is sufficient, without going into details, which can have no bearing on the fact of Garretâs death, and which really concern only the people involved? Really, it is aâa painful subject.â
âI am going to be very frank with you, Mr. Force. I am going to assume that you, as a prospective member of the family, are cognizant, at least, of all the intimate, personal facts, which I, as a detective, have been able to glean in two days. I know that Mr. Appleton had transferred his affections from his wife to a young society girl, a frequent guest at his house, and that, partly in consequence of that, partly because of certain traits in his character, his behavior to his wife was brutal in the extreme. But I heard a suggestion, also, that young Mrs. Appleton herself was not without an opportunity of consoling herself, whether she availed herself of it, or not.â
âWhat?â the young man roared, jumping to his feet. âThey dared to do that! To utter a whisper against an innocent, deeply suffering woman! That was Yates, not his mother, I know. She is too jealous of the family honor, too fearful of gossip and scandalâof which she has already endured enough, through her sonsâ to breathe a word against anyone who bore her name. It must have been Yatesâthe contemptible cur! Now I will speak, Mr. Gaunt!â
Randolph Force turned, and began pacing furiously up and down before the hearth; and Gaunt rested motionless in his chair, waiting for the otherâs suddenly aroused indignation to find vent in speech. At length. Force stopped abruptly, facing the detective, and his words came with a rush:
^âNatalie Appleton is as true and loyal a little woman, as gentle a spirit, as ever existed. She would not utter a word of complaint, of disparagement even, under all the weight of her husbandâs intolerable cruelties. For he was cruel; not passionately, but systematically, fiendishly. Never mind how I know. It was not, I assure you, from her own lips. A man who was as constant a visitor at the house as I, the prospective husband of her sister, could not help but inadvertently observe much that was not meant for his eyes, hear much that was not meant for his ears, and come inevitably to know the truth.
âI did not neeii the gossip of the clubs and the business worldâalthough I heard enough of it, heaven knows!âto know the sort of life she and her siste^r were leading. I tell you, Mr. Gaunt, if those two girls had had a single male relative living. Garret Appleton would have had a bullet in his heart long ago!â
He stopped suddenly, and, in the silence that followed, Gaunt could hear the creaking of the heavy leather chair,, as the young man flung himself back in his seat. Although the detective waited, he did not speak again, and the stillness deepened and was prolonged between them, until it seemed to hang, heavy and sentient, upon the air. At last. Gaunt himself broke the spell:
âYou have known Miss Ellerslie long, Mr. Force?â
âEver since she came North, to make her home with her sister. Although not intimate with either of the brothers, as I have said, our families were old friends, and I have been a frequent visitor, with my mother and sisters, at Mrs. Finlay Appletonâs house. When Garret married, of course, I called, and admired his pretty, blonde little wife tremendously, even before I realized the strength of character that lay behind her physical frailty. Thenâthen I met Miss Ellerslie, and Iâ well, Mr. Gaunt, I imagine you know how it is with a man!â
He paused in a sudden access of boyish confusion, which was infinitely attractive after his outburst of very real indignation and the selfrepression that had followed it. But the detective did not heed the tone so much as the words themselves. He, too, had experienced the magnetism that Barbara EHerslieâs mere presence bore with it, the music in the soft, drawling pulsation of her voice, the unnamable charm in the nearness of her. The mention of her by the other man had seemed to evoke her actual being; it was as if she were there in that room^ standing before him, before his sightless eyes. He could almost hear the sound of her light footfall, feel the brush of her skirt against his knee, the touch of her cool little hand; smell the fresh, pure fragrance of her, the perfume of her breath upon his cheek, as when she had leaned toward him in the earnestness of her disclosures of the previous dayâŠ. Oh, yes, he knew how it was with a man!
âYou wereâto have been married soon?â He heard his own voice quietly, steadily, breaking the silence.
âThis autumn, if things had grown a little brighter for Natalie. Iâve had a splendid post offered me in Russia. I donât need the money, of course; but it is a wonderful opportunity in the diplomatic world. When it became evident that Barbaraâthat Miss Ellerslie could not leave her sister, I renounced it, of course, and now everything must be left to the future. I have hopes, though, that, when Natalieâs health is restored from the effects of this frightful shock,
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