The Silent Bullet Part 24

Kennedy was intently listening. "Who found him?" he asked.

"Harrington," replied Tom. "He roused us. Harrington's theory is that uncle set himself on fire with a spark from his cigar--a charred cigar b.u.t.t was found on the floor."

We found Tom's relatives a saddened, silent party in the face of the tragedy. Kennedy and I apologised very profusely for our intrusion, but Tom quickly interrupted, as we had agreed, by explaining that he had insisted on our coming, as old friends on whom he felt he could rely, especially to set the matter right in the newspapers.

I think Craig noticed keenly the reticence of the family group in the mystery--I might almost have called it suspicion. They did not seem to know just whether to take it as an accident or as something worse, and each seemed to entertain a reserve toward the rest which was very uncomfortable.

Mr. Langley's attorney in New York had been notified, but apparently was out of town, for he had not been heard from. They seemed rather anxious to get word from him.

Dinner over, the family group separated, leaving Tom an opportunity to take us into the gruesome living-room. Of course the remains had been removed, but otherwise the room was exactly as it had been when Harrington discovered the tragedy. I did not see the body, which was lying in an anteroom, but Kennedy did, and spent some time in there.

After he rejoined us, Kennedy next examined the fireplace. It was full of ashes from the logs which had been lighted on the fatal night.

He noted attentively the distance of Lewis Langley's chair from the fireplace, and remarked that the varnish on the chair was not even blistered.

Before the chair, on the floor where the body had been found, he pointed out to us the peculiar ash-marks for some s.p.a.ce around, but it really seemed to me as if something else interested him more than these ash-marks.

We had been engaged perhaps half an hour in viewing the room. At last Craig suddenly stopped.

"Tom," he said, "I think I'll wait till daylight before I go any further. I can't tell with certainty under these lights, though perhaps they show me some things the sunlight wouldn't show. We'd better leave everything just as it is until morning."

So we locked the room again and went into a sort of library across the hall.

We were sitting in silence, each occupied with his own thoughts on the mystery, when the telephone rang. It proved to be a long-distance call from New York for Tom himself. His uncle's attorney had received the news at his home out on Long Island and had hurried to the city to take charge of the estate. But that was not the news that caused the grave look on Tom's face as he nervously rejoined us.

"That was uncle's lawyer, Mr. Clark, of Clark & Burd.i.c.k," he said.

"He has opened uncle's personal safe in the offices of the Langley estate--you remember them, Craig--where all the property of the Langley heirs is administered by the trustees. He says he can't find the will, though he knows there was a will and that it was placed in that safe some time ago. There is no duplicate."

The full purport of this information at once flashed on me, and I was on the point of blurting out my sympathy, when I saw by the look which Craig and Tom exchanged that they had already realised it and understood each other. Without the will the blood-relatives would inherit all of Lewis Langley's interest in the old Langley estate. Tom and his sister would be penniless.

It was late, yet we sat for nearly an hour longer, and I don't think we exchanged a half-dozen sentences in all that time. Craig seemed absorbed in thought. At length, as the great hall-clock sounded midnight, we rose as if by common consent.

"Tom," said Craig, and I could feel the sympathy that welled up in his voice, "Tom, old man, I'll get at the bottom of this mystery if human intelligence can do it."

"I know you will, Craig," responded Tom, grasping each of us by the hand. "That's why I so much wanted you fellows to come up here."

Early in the morning Kennedy aroused me. "Now, Walter, I'm going to ask you to come down into the living-room with me, and we'll take a look at it in the daytime."

I hurried into my clothes, and together we quietly went down. Starting with the exact spot where the unfortunate man had been discovered, Kennedy began a minute examination of the floor, using his pocket lens.

Every few moments he would stop to examine a spot on the rug or on the hardwood floor more intently. Several times I saw him sc.r.a.pe up something with the blade of his knife and carefully preserve the sc.r.a.pings, each in a separate piece of paper.

Sitting idly by, I could not for the life of me see just what good it did for me to be there, and I said as much. Kennedy laughed quietly.

"You're a material witness, Walter," he replied. "Perhaps I shall need you some day to testify that I actually found these spots in this room."

Just then Tom stuck his head in. "Can I help?" he asked. "Why didn't you tell me you were going at it so early?"

"No, thanks," answered Craig, rising from the floor. "I was just making a careful examination of the room before anyone was up so that n.o.body would think I was too interested. I've finished. But you can help me, after all. Do you think you could describe exactly how everyone was dressed that night?"

"Why, I can try. Let me see. To begin with, uncle had on a shooting-jacket--that was pretty well burnt, as you know. Why, in fact, we all had our shooting-jackets on. The ladies were in white."

Craig pondered a little, but did not seem disposed to pursue the subject further, until Tom volunteered the information that since the tragedy none of them had been wearing their shooting jackets.

"We've all been wearing city clothes," he remarked.

"Could you get your Uncle James and your Cousin Junior to go with you for an hour or two this morning on the lake, or on a tramp in the woods?" asked Craig after a moment's thought.

"Really, Craig," responded Tom doubtfully, "I ought to go to Saranac to complete the arrangements for taking Uncle Lewis's body to New York."

"Very well, persuade them to go with you. Anything, so long as you keep me from interruption for an hour or two."

They agreed on doing that, and as by that time most of the family were up, we went in to breakfast, another silent and suspicious meal.

After breakfast Kennedy tactfully withdrew from the family, and I did the same. We wandered off in the direction of the stables and there fell to admiring some of the horses. The groom, who seemed to be a sensible and pleasant sort of fellow, was quite ready to talk, and soon he and Craig were deep in discussing the game of the north country.

"Many rabbits about here?" asked Kennedy at length, when they had exhausted the larger game.

"Oh, yes. I saw one this morning, sir," replied the groom.

"Indeed?" said Kennedy. "Do you suppose you could catch a couple for me?"

"Guess I could, sir--alive, you mean?"

"Oh, yes, alive--I don't want you to violate the game laws. This is the closed season, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir, but then it's all right, sir, here on the estate."

"Bring them to me this afternoon, or--no, keep them here in the stable in a cage and let me know when you have them. If anybody asks you about them, say they belong to Mr. Tom."

Craig handed a small treasury note to the groom, who took it with a grin and touched his hat.

"Thanks," he said. "I'll let you know when I have the bunnies."

As we walked slowly back from the stables we caught sight of Tom down at the boat-house just putting off in the motor-boat with his uncle and cousin. Craig waved to him, and he walked up to meet us.

"While you're in Saranac," said Craig, "buy me a dozen or so test-tubes.

Only, don't let anyone here at the house know you are buying them. They might ask questions."

While they were gone Kennedy stole into James Langley's room and after a few minutes returned to our room with the hunting-jacket. He carefully examined it with his pocket lens. Then he filled a drinking-gla.s.s with warm boiled water and added a few pinches of table salt. With a piece of sterilised gauze from Doctor Putnam's medicine-chest, he carefully washed off a few portions of the coat and set the gla.s.s and the gauze soaking in it aside. Then he returned the coat to the closet where he had found it. Next, as silently, he stole into Junior's room and repeated the process with his hunting-jacket, using another gla.s.s and piece of gauze.

"While I am out of the room, Walter," he said, "I want you to take these two gla.s.ses, cover them, and number them and on a slip of paper which you must retain, place the names of the owners of the respective coats.

I don't like this part of it--I hate to play spy and would much rather come out in the open, but there is nothing else to do, and it is much better for all concerned that I should play the game secretly just now. There may be no cause for suspicion at all. In that case I'd never forgive myself for starting a family row. And then again but we shall see."

After I had numbered and recorded the gla.s.ses Kennedy returned, and we went down-stairs again.

"Curious about the will, isn't it?" I remarked as we stood on the wide verandah a moment.

"Yes," he replied. "It may be necessary to go back to New York to delve into that part of it before we get through, but I hope not. We'll wait."