The Almost Perfect Murder by Hulbert Footner (ereader for comics txt) 📖
- Author: Hulbert Footner
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remove their wraps. When Fay left the room something of the inferno of
passion that was consuming Whittall broke through the mask he wore. He
looked at me as much as to say: What the hell are you doing here? I
paid no attention. Mme. Storey entered, and he smiled at her
obsequiously. Mme. Storey lit a cigarette, and lingered in the
sitting-room exchanging some trivial remarks with Whittall until Fay
returned. She then said something about tidying herself, and entered
Fay’s room alone.
When she came back we sat down at the table, and the waiters entered.
Mme. Storey, alone of the women, was not in evening dress, nevertheless
by her mere presence she dominated the scene. Everybody else was
trying to be funny. There was a ghastly hollowness about it. Whittall
was the loudest of all. Fay seemed pleasant towards him, but I
suspected that her pleasant manner concealed a certain reserve. Mrs.
Brunton seemed to be satisfied that everything was going well, as long
as there was plenty of noise.
Fay occupied the place of honour at the head of the table, with Mme.
Storey on one hand, and me on the other. Kreuger sat next to Mme.
Storey, and Mrs. Brunton next to me. Whittall faced Fay across the
table. Fay, I remember, was wearing a pale pink gown embroidered with
self-coloured beads in a quaint design. It lent her beauty an
exquisite fragility. When he thought nobody was looking at him, I
would catch Whittall gazing at her like a lost soul.
The meal, I suppose, left nothing to be desired. I cannot remember
what we ate or drank. Some day I hope I may be invited to such a
perfect little supper when my mind is at peace. This one was wasted on
all of us. It was soon over, and the cigarettes lighted. Mrs. Brunton
chattered on.
“There was twenty-one hundred dollars in the house tonight. That’s a
hundred and fifty more than capacity.”
“How do you do that sum?” asked Whittall facetiously.
“Standees,” said Mrs. Brunton. “… And what a house! So warm and
responsive. I could have hugged them to my breast!”
“Rather an armful,” put in Whittall.
“And when she finished her waltz song, didn’t they rise to her! Oh, it
was wonderful! Never have I heard such applause! And didn’t she look
sweet when she came out to acknowledge it? I declare her pretty eyes
were full of real tears!”
“Well, I thought maybe it was the last time,” said Fay.
“I thought they would never let her go!” Mrs. Brunton rhapsodised.
“She took fourteen calls!”
“Oh, mamma!” protested Fay, laughing. “Draw it mild!”
“Fourteen!” said Mrs. Brunton firmly. “I said it, and I stick to it!
Fourteen!”
She appealed to Whittall and to Kreuger, and they made haste to agree
in order to shut her up.
“One doesn’t have to exaggerate the successes of a girl like Fay,” she
went on complacently. “I saw Mildred Mortimer and her mother hidden
away at the back of the house. I can. imagine what their feelings
were!”
Such was Mrs. Brunton’s style. She turned it on like a tap. She had
been something of a beauty in her day, and she looked quite handsome
tonight in her black evening gown, with her hair freshened up with
henna, and prettily dressed.
Whittall, I remember, made an effort to break up the party. “Fay, you
look tired,” he said. “I think we’d better beat it.”
Fay protested. Kreuger, always eager to take a hint from his master,
pushed his chair back. No one else moved. I saw Mme. Storey, for whom
this suggestion was really intended, glance at her wrist watch. Then
she helped herself to a cigarette, and gave the conversation a fresh
start.
The crisis was precipitated by an innocent question of Fay’s. “Why are
you so quiet, Rosika?”
“I am thinking of that poor lady who is dead,” said Mme. Storey gravely.
It was like an icy hand laid on each heart there. A deathly silence
fell on us. It seemed to last for ever. I felt paralysed. Mrs.
Brunton was the first to recover herself. She was afraid of Mme.
Storey, and dared not be openly rude, but her anger was evident enough
in her voice.
“Oh, I say! What a thing to bring up at such a time and place! I’m
surprised at you, Mme. Storey!”
“We are all thinking of her,” said Mme. Storey. “It would be better to
clear our minds of the subject.”
“I wasn’t thinking of her, I assure you!”
Even the gentle Fay was resentful. “It’s not fair to Darius,” she
murmured.
“Darius is a man and must face things!”
I glanced at Whittall. He had the look of one braced to receive a
fatal stroke.
“I am so sorry for her!” murmured Fay distressfully. “I often think
about her and wonder… But, Rosika, is it my fault that I am happy?
that I have everything, while she is dead?”
Mme. Storey made no reply to this.
“She solved her problems in her own way!” cried Mrs. Brunton excitedly.
“Who shall blame her? Can’t you leave her in peace?”
“She did not kill herself,” said Mme. Storey slowly. “She was
murdered.”
Again that awful silence. Horror crushed us.
Whittall lost his grip on himself. “You promised me … you promised
me…!” he cried shakily, “that you would not tell her…”
“We had better not talk about promises,” said Mme. Storey with a steady
look at him.
“Darius! … you already knew this!” gasped Fay.
He could make no answer.
Fay turned to Mme. Storey. “Rosika … how do you know? … how do you
know?” she faltered.
“She received a letter that evening which drew her out to the pavilion.
She was unarmed when she left the house.”
“Then it’s quite clear,” said Fay, laughing hysterically. “The letter
must have been from her lover. He pleaded with her for the last time,
and when she was obdurate he shot her in a fit of desperation.”
“She was shot within three minutes of leaving the house,” said Mme.
Storey relentlessly. “Not much time for pleading. No! Somebody was
waiting for her in the pavilion with the gun ready.”
“But it must have been her lover!” wailed Fay.
Mme. Storey sat looking straight ahead of her, pale and immovable as
Nemesis. “It was somebody who is amongst us here,” she said.
You could hear the tight breasts around the table labouring for breath.
Each of us glanced with furtive dread at our companions. Whittall
broke again.
“Well, who? … who? … who?” he cried wildly, “Out with it!”
“Somebody amongst us here?” quavered Mrs. Brunton in a high falsetto.
“I never heard of such a thing!”
The ageing woman with her touched-up cheeks and dyed hair looked like a
caricature of herself. Everybody around the table looked stricken,
clownish, scattered in the wits. I’m sure I was no exception. Only my
beautiful mistress was as composed as Death.
“Fay,” she asked, “what were you doing on the evening of September
eleventh?”
I turned absolutely sick at heart. Mrs. Brunton and Whittall loudly
and angrily protested. The exquisite girl shrank away from Mme.
Storey, and went as pale as paper. Apart from the noisy voices of the
others I heard her dismayed whisper.
“Rosika! … I? … I? … Oh, Rosika, surely you can’t think that
I…”
“This is too much!” cried Mrs. Brunton, jumping up. “Must we submit to
be insulted here in our own rooms? Mr. Whittall, are you going to
permit this to go any further?”
“No!” cried Whittall, banging the table. “This woman is taking too
much on herself! She has no right to catechise us!”
Mme. Storey looked at me. “Bella,” she said, “admit the gentleman who
is waiting outside.”
As well as my legs would serve me I got to the door. Inspector Rumsey
was in the corridor. He came in.
With a wave of the hand, Mme. Storey introduced him to the gaping
company. “Inspector Rumsey and I are acting in concert in this
matter,” she said. “I suppose you will allow that he has a right to
ask questions.”
Rumsey quietly sat down in a chair away from the table.
“Now, Fay,” said Mme. Storey.
The girl raised her gentle eyes in an imploring and reproachful glance
upon her friend. “Oh, Rosika, how can you?” she murmured.
Mme. Storey’s face was like a mask. “I must do my duty as I see it.
Answer my question, please.”
Fay put a hand over her eyes. “That was the night of the first showing
of ‘Ashes of Roses’,” she murmured. “I did not go. I was not well. I
went to bed when Mamma went out.”
“But you got up again,” said Mme. Storey remorselessly. “I have a
report from the garage where you keep your cars, stating that you
telephoned for the convertible at 8.10 that night, and that it was
handed over to you at the door of your hotel five minutes later. It
was returned to the garage at half-past ten.”
“Oh, yes,” murmured Fay feebly. “I forgot.”
Mrs. Brunton and Whittall looked dumfounded. As for me, I simply could
not believe my ears.
“Where did you go?” asked Mme. Storey.
“I … I was just driving around for the air. I don’t remember
exactly.”
“According to the custom of the garage,” Mme. Storey continued, “a
reading of the speedometer was taken when the car went out, and again
when it was returned. The elapsed mileage was twenty miles. That is
just the distance to Riverdale and back.”
Fay sat up suddenly. “I never went to Riverdale!” she cried sharply.
“Then where did you go?” persisted Mme. Storey.
A deep blush overspread Fay’s face and neck. “Well, if you must know,”
she said a little defiantly, “I picked up Frank Esher in front of his
house and took him for a drive.”
Again Mrs. Brunton and Whittall looked at her open-mouthed.
The Inspector spoke up cheerfully. Like everybody else, he wished to
be on Fay’s side. “That will be easy to verify,” he said, taking out
his notebook.
“Unfortunately,” said Mme. Storey coldly, “Mr. Esher has disappeared.”
“Well, anyhow,” cried Whittall, “you can’t convict her of a crime
simply because she chanced to take a drive that night. It’s
ridiculous!”
“Ridiculous!” echoed Mrs. Brunton.
“I have not yet done,” said Mme. Storey. “Inspector, will you please
state what you learned respecting the purchase of the guns.”
Rumsey consulted the notebook. “On May 24th Mr. Darius Whittall
purchased two Matson 32 calibre automatics from Lorber and Staley’s.
He has an account there. Those were the only pistols of that design he
ever purchased from them. One was numbered 13417, the other 13418.”
Mme. Storey turned to Whittall. “Are you willing to concede that you
gave one of these pistols to your wife, and one to Fay?” she asked.
“I refuse to answer without advice of counsel,” he muttered.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Mme. Storey, undisturbed; “for we already
know from other sources that you gave one to your wife and one to Fay,
making the same remark to each…. Fay, where is yours?”
“In the
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