American Sherlocks Nick Rennison (best big ereader txt) 📖

‘Is Miss Noraker standing where Mr Rennick’s body was found, Senator?’

‘She will strike the exact spot, I think, if she takes two steps more.’

I had hardly obeyed the suggestion when I caught the swift rustle of skirts behind me. I whirled to see Madelyn’s lithe form darting toward me with her right hand raised as though it held a weapon.

‘Good!’ she cried. ‘I call you to witness, Senator, that I was fully six feet away when she turned! Now I want you to take Miss Noraker’s place. The instant you hear me behind you – the instant, mind you – I want you to let me know.’ She walked back to the tree as the Senator reluctantly changed places with me. I could almost picture the murderess dashing upon her victim as Madelyn bent forward. The Senator turned his back to us with a rather ludicrous air of bewilderment.

My erratic friend had covered perhaps half of the distance between her and our host when he spun about with a cry of discovery. She paused with a long breath.

‘Thank you, Senator. What first attracted your attention to me?’

‘The rustle of your dress, of course!’ Madelyn turned to me with the first smile of satisfaction I had seen since we entered the Duffield gate.

‘Was the same true in your case, Nora?’

I nodded. ‘The fact that you are a woman hopelessly betrayed you. If you had not been hampered by petticoats –’ Madelyn broke in upon my sentence with that peculiar freedom which she always reserves to herself. ‘There are two things I would like to ask of you, Senator, if I may.’

‘I am at your disposal, I assure you.’

‘I would like to borrow a Boston directory, and the services of a messenger.’

We walked slowly up the driveway, Madelyn again relapsing into her preoccupied silence and Senator Duffield making no effort to induce her to speak.

IV

We had nearly reached the verandah when there was the sound of a motor at the gate, and a red touring car swept into the yard. An elderly, clean-shaven man, in a long frock coat and a broad-brimmed felt hat, was sharing the front seat with the chauffeur. He sprang to the ground with extended hand as our host stepped forward to greet him. The two exchanged half a dozen low sentences at the side of the machine, and then Senator Duffield raised his voice as they approached us.

‘Miss Mack, allow me to introduce my colleague, Senator Burroughs.’

‘I have heard of you, of course, Miss Mack,’ the Senator said genially, raising his broad-brimmed hat with a flourish. ‘I am very glad, indeed, that you are able to give us the benefit of your experience in this, er – unfortunate affair. I presume that it is too early to ask if you have developed a theory?’

‘I wonder if you would allow me to reverse the question?’ Madelyn responded as she took his hand.

‘I fear that my detective ability would hardly be of much service to you, eh, Duffield?’

Our host smiled faintly as he turned to repeat to a servant Madelyn’s request for a directory and a messenger. Senator Burroughs folded his arms as his chauffeur circled on toward the garage. There was an odd suggestion of nervousness in the whole group. Or was it fancy?

‘Have you ever given particular study to the legal angle in your cases, Miss Mack?’ The question came from Senator Burroughs as we ascended the steps.

‘The legal angle? I am afraid I don’t grasp your meaning.’

The Senator’s hand moved mechanically toward his cigar case. ‘I am a lawyer, and perhaps I argue unduly from a lawyer’s viewpoint. We always work from the question of motive, Miss Mack. A professional detective, I believe – or, at least, the average professional detective – tries to find the criminal first and establish his motive afterward.’

‘Now, in a case such as this, Senator –’

‘In a case such as this, Miss Mack, the trained legal mind would delve first for the motive in Mr Rennick’s assassination.’

‘And your legal mind, Senator, I presume, has delved for the motive. Has it found it?’

The Senator turned his unlighted cigar reflectively between his lips. ‘I have not found it! Eliminating the field of sordid passion and insanity, I divide the motives of the murderer under three heads – robbery, jealousy and revenge. In the present case, I eliminate the first possibility at the outset. There remain then only the two latter.’

‘You are interesting. You forget, however, a fourth motive – the strongest spur to crime in the human mind!’

Senator Burroughs took his cigar from his mouth.

‘I mean the motive of – fear!’ Madelyn said abruptly, as she swept into the house. When I followed her, Senator Burroughs had walked over to the railing and stood staring down at the ground below. He had tossed his cigar away.

In the room where we had breakfasted, one of the stable boys stood awkwardly awaiting Madelyn Mack’s orders, while John Dorrence, the valet, was just laying a city directory on the table.

‘Nora,’ she said, as she turned to the boy, ‘will you kindly look up the list of packing houses?’

‘Pick out the largest and give me the address,’ she continued, as I ran my finger through the closely typed pages. With a growing curiosity, I selected a firm whose prestige was advertised in heavy letters. Madelyn’s fountain pen scratched a dozen lines across a sheet of her note-book, and she thrust it into an envelope and extended it to the stable lad.

As the youth backed from the room, Senator Duffield appeared at the window.

‘I presume it will be possible for me to see Mr Rennick’s body, Senator?’ Madelyn Mack asked.

Our host bowed.

‘Also, I would like to look at his clothes – the suit he was wearing at the time of his death, I mean – and, when I am through, I want