Part 18

When, at noon and luncheon, I tried to tell her the truth, she listened to the end: Then: “I should think you could have done better than that,” she said. “You have had all morning to think it out.”

However, if things were in a state of armed neutrality at home, I had a certain compensation for them when I told my story to Sperry that afternoon.

“You see how it is,” I finished. “You can stay out of this, or come in, Sperry, but I cannot stop now. He was murdered beyond a doubt, and there is an intelligent effort being made to eliminate every particle of evidence.”

He nodded.

“It looks like it. And this man who was there last night--”

“Why a man?”

“He took your overcoat, instead of his own, didn’t he? It may have been--it’s curious, isn’t it, that we’ve had no suggestion of Ellingham in all the rest of the material.”

Like the other members of the Neighborhood Club, he had a copy of the proceedings at the two seances, and now he brought them out and fell to studying them.

“She was right about the bullet in the ceiling,” he reflected. “I suppose you didn’t look for the box of shells for the revolver?”

“I meant to, but it slipped my mind.”

He shuffled the loose pages of the record. “Cane--washed away by the water--a knee that is hurt--the curtain would have been safer --Hawkins--the drawing-room furniture is all over the house. That last, Horace, isn’t pertinent. It refers clearly to the room we were in. Of course, the point is, how much of the rest is also extraneous matter?” He re-read one of the sheets. “Of course that belongs, about Hawkins. And probably this: ‘It will be terrible if the letters are found.’ They were in the pocketbook, presumably.”

He folded up the papers and replaced them in a drawer.

“We’d better go back to the house,” he said. “Whoever took your overcoat by mistake probably left one. The difficulty is, of course, that he probably discovered his error and went back again last night. Confound it, man, if you had thought of that at the time, we would have something to go on today.”

“If I had thought of a number of things I’d have stayed out of the place altogether,” I retorted tartly. “I wish you could help me about the fire-tongs, Sperry. I don’t seem able to think of any explanation that Mrs. Johnson would be willing to accept.”

“Tell her the truth.”

“I don’t think you understand,” I explained. “She simply wouldn’t believe it. And if she did I should have to agree to drop the investigation. As a matter of fact, Sperry, I had resorted to subterfuge in order to remain out last evening, and I am bitterly regretting my mendacity.”

But Sperry has, I am afraid, rather loose ideas.

“Every man,” he said, “would rather tell the truth, but every woman makes it necessary to lie to her. Forget the fire-tongs, Horace, and forget Mrs. Johnson to-night. He may not have dared to go back in day-light for his overcoat.”

“Very well,” I agreed.

But it was not very well, and I knew it. I felt that, in a way, my whole domestic happiness was at stake. My wife is a difficult person to argue with, and as tenacious of an opinion once formed as are all very amiable people. However, unfortunately for our investigation, but luckily for me, under the circumstances, Sperry was called to another city that afternoon and did not return for two days.

It was, it will be recalled, on the Thursday night following the second sitting that I had gone alone to the Wells house, and my interview with Sperry was on Friday. It was on Friday afternoon that I received a telephone message from Mrs. Dane.

It was actually from her secretary, the Clara who had recorded the seances. It was Mrs. Dane’s misfortune to be almost entirely dependent on the various young women who, one after the other, were employed to look after her. I say “one after the other” advisedly. It had long been a matter of good-natured jesting in the Neighborhood Club that Mrs. Dane conducted a matrimonial bureau, as one young woman after another was married from her house. It was her kindly habit, on such occasions, to give the bride a wedding, and only a month before it had been my privilege to give away in holy wedlock Miss Clara’s predecessor.

“Mrs. Dane would like you to stop in and have a cup of tea with her this afternoon, Mr. Johnson,” said the secretary.

“At what time?”

“At four o’clock.”

I hesitated. I felt that my wife was waiting at home for further explanation of the coal-tongs, and that the sooner we had it out the better. But, on the other hand, Mrs. Dane’s invitations, by reason of her infirmity, took on something of the nature of commands.

“Please say that I will be there at four,” I replied.

I bought a new hat that afternoon, and told the clerk to destroy the old one. Then I went to Mrs. Dane’s.