How Many Cards?/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII
THE LETTER
"I'VE found out quite a lot about Mr. Creveling, as it is," McCarty spoke a trifle grimly. "You told me, Hill, that he'd never touched a card in years, for one thing, but I've learned different."
"You mean those games at Mr. Cutter's, sir?" Hill paused. "Mr. Creveling was always great for gambling, from the old, wild days when I first came to him before he was married. He'd bet a small fortune on anything, but cards were always a passion with him. He used to run terrific games himself in that study where you found him dead; that's why he had that high wall built at the back of the house. One of the neighbors on the side street who was trying to get into society and whom Mrs. Creveling had snubbed, could look into the study from her rear windows and she got the police there in her house and tried to have the Crevelings raided one night. I must say it looked like a professional gambling establishment, at that, but Mr. Creveling being so well known he was tipped off and it cost him a mint of money to hush the matter up without scandal that would have reached Mrs. Creveling's ears. She didn't know about the games then, sir."
"She plays now herself," commented McCarty.
"All their set do, at Mr. Cutter's. When Mr. Creveling got intimate with him he stopped having games at his own house and their crowd got to meeting regular at Mr. Cutter's, him being a bachelor and master of his own house."
"And a professional gambler, at that. Did you know that, Hill?"
"I suspected as much, sir, and more. I've heard whispers that the games weren't altogether straight and that Mr. Creveling and—and one of the other gentlemen knew as much." Hill hesitated. "Butlers and valets and ladies' maids see more than their employers ever stop to think about, and I watched people come and go in their crowd, and they all ended the same; they'd come with a fortune and maybe a beautiful wife that wasn't known as well as she'd like to be in society here, and they'd lose a little and be allowed to win it back, piecemeal, with some more besides and meantime the wife was being taken up and made much of, and soon they'd be living beyond their income, whatever it was, trying to keep up with the procession. Then he'd plunge and lose more and win back more yet, and so they'd play him until he risked everything and lost, and that time there'd be no come-back. Of course, he'd think they were bully good fellows until the showdown, and she'd think she was having the time of her life and getting in with the real people. I've seen all sides of it, sir, and said nothing until now, but if some of the married men only realized the dangers they were exposing their wives to in letting them further their social advancement so—so promiscuous like, with people they really don't know anything about, they'd think twice before they got in with a set of so-called gentlemen gamblers. Mr. Ford was one of the latest that got stung, I hear—but it was Mr. Creveling you wanted me to tell you about!"
"And more than his gambling," McCarty remarked. "I've heard talk of his affairs with women, and of a quarrel with Mr. Waverly not more than a fortnight ago. What do you know about it?"
"Only what the butler, Rollins, told me, sir, and that's not much. Of course, before Mr. Creveling married it was just one affair after another and what with breach of promise and divorce suits threatened or pending, it was a miracle he wasn't shot long ago," Hill said frankly. "I never saw him fall so hard, though, as he did for Miss Alexander, and when they were married I thought he'd settle down; he didn't, for long, but he's been so cautious and discreet that even I couldn't get a line on him. I suppose you think it was funny that I stayed on with him after they'd prosecuted my wife for stealing those jewels, but I had a purpose, sir. She was innocent but they'd done her a dirty trick and I meant to fight him the same way, if I could. You see, I'm giving it to you straight. I stayed to get something on him that I could hold over him and make him either produce those emeralds if he'd taken them himself as we both thought, or else have my wife set free. He had influence enough to do it even after she was indicted if he had wanted to, and I meant to make him want to worse than he had ever wanted anything in his life before! Call it blackmail if you like, sir; my wife was facing prison for something she had never done and I was near crazed with the thought of it. Of course, I would have been dismissed or maybe arrested, too, if they had known that Ilsa and I were man and wife, but we had meant from the start to keep it a secret until spring and then leave and get a little place in the country. I've got quite a bit put by and we were going to open a sort of little tea-place for motorists—"
His voice broke and for a minute he seemed on the point of breaking down, but McCarty waited without speaking, and finally he gathered himself together and went on:
"I knew, even before Rollins told me of the words he had had with Mr. Waverly, that Mr. Creveling had what you might call another affair on; I haven't been with him all these years without learning his moods and I took it that he wasn't receiving any too much encouragement. He was ugly for weeks past and there was no pleasing him, but all at once he changed and began to act as if he owned the earth. Whoever the—the lady was, he must have had reason to think she'd begun to like him."
"Then you don't know who it was?" McCarty asked bluntly. "This is no time for us to be quibbling about names, Hill; he didn't stop at blackening your wife's. You didn't find out?"
Hill shook his head.
"Then what makes you sure that it was a—a real lady?" McCarty chose his words now with evident care.
"Because he was so extra cautious and secretive. You'd think after all the years I've been with him he would have trusted me a little or made some break that would have given me a line on him, but not he! That's why I knew it must be some one with position, some one in his own set, maybe. It was news to me that Mr. Waverly was jealous, as he must have been from what Rollins overheard. I—I'm quite sure that Mrs. Waverly was not the lady alluded to in that quarrel."
"How did your wife come to jump her bail, Hill?" McCarty asked with seeming irrelevance.
"Well, we talked it over, sir, and it didn't seem that there was a chance for her if she went to trial, so there wasn't anything else to be done. We both hated the thought of it, for it looked like a confession of guilt, but we couldn't either of us face the worse thought of her going to prison. It's no harm to tell you now, for she's safe out of the country, but there was one that was in our confidence and helped us plan the whole thing, even to furnishing up that little flat all ready for us, and that was Mrs. Jarvie, the Crevelings' housekeeper, sir. She'd engaged Ilsa in the beginning, you know, and she thought the world of her and never believed for a minute that she took those jewels, bless her!
"Ilsa's trial was set for about a month ago and when she couldn't be found Mrs. Creveling shut up the house except for Rollins, and Sarah, and me, and went off to Long Island. I thought that with her out of the way Mr. Creveling would maybe show his hand and I stuck to him closer than ever but he didn't, and I was beginning to get desperate! It wasn't till last Thursday morning that I found something out about him, something that wasn't at all what I thought it would be, but it was enough to bring him to terms, for all that. He was working the same sort of thing on somebody else that I was trying to do to him."
"What do you mean?" McCarty stared.
"Blackmail, if you choose to call it that; anyway, he was holding something over somebody else's head.—He came to the house about ten in the morning from his club and after changing his clothes he went to the telephone and called up Mazzarini, the caterer, and ordered a supper for two sent there that night. I was going through his suit before hanging it up when I found a note in one of the pockets and I read it, sir. The top part was in his own handwriting and it began without any name so I couldn't tell who it was for, but the meaning was plain enough. It was a command for some one to come there that night and talk things over, and although it was worded politely enough there was a threat between every line if you had eyes to see it! He had signed it with just one initial—'C—and the person who got it had written seven words underneath and sent it back to him."
"What were those seven words?" demanded McCarty.
"'I accept. Expect me half-past twelve,'" Hill quoted slowly. "I didn't know the writing and there wasn't even an initial signed to the answer, but I stuck it in my pocket quick. I'd heard him tell Rollins and Sarah that they could clear out until next day and I thought that meant that I was to serve the supper, and my time had come at last! He said he expected a gentleman guest for supper and ordered me to wait at the house and arrange the table and take the stuff from the caterer's men, and then bring a freshly pressed Tuxedo to the club at eleven o'clock. I did, thinking of course that I was to return, and I could have cursed him to his face when he told me I needn't show up until the next day.
"I went home to the little flat where Ilsa was hiding and we talked it over. The note that I'd kept was enough if it was handled right to make him clear Ilsa's name by bluffing his wife some way and giving out that the jewels were found even if he couldn't produce them, but if I knew who the man was that was coming I'd have Creveling so he couldn't even squirm. He had put through more than one shady business transaction at those little midnight suppers of his before, and I knew this must be nearer blackmail than the others, if he wouldn't have one of us there even to serve the supper. It meant I'd be discharged if he caught me in the house when he'd told me to stay away, but I made up my mind at last to go back and risk it. It was almost three o'clock but usually those conferences were all-night affairs and I hoped to get just one look at his guest without being seen.
"The house was all lighted up but I didn't think anything of that, and let myself in with my own key at the tradesmen's entrance. I kept as quiet as I could for fear Mr. Creveling should discover me and it was well for me that I did, for I heard heavy footsteps and men's voices in the kitchen and I had barely time to dodge into the scullery when they came out and started down to the cellar; a policeman that I recognized as the one on night duty around that beat, and two men in plain clothes.
"I turned cold, for it came to me right away that something had happened to Mr. Creveling, and the letter I'd found might be of no use in freeing Ilsa, after all! As soon as they had gone down the cellar steps I hurried around to the main hall and looked into the breakfast room and then the study. There lay Mr. Creveling, dead!"
"Hill"—McCarty interrupted the story—"did that gun beside him belong to Mr. Creveling?"
The valet shook his head.
"I never saw it before, sir, and I didn't notice it particularly then. I was staring down at the place where his face had been, and I almost went crazy for a moment thinking of Ilsa and that her last chance had gone!"
"What did you do then?" McCarty asked. "Think carefully, Hill. Did you touch anything in the room? Did you see any playing cards or anything lying around?"
"I don't have to think!" the other responded. "I'll never forget that scene as long as I live! I didn't see any playing cards or anything except just Mr. Creveling's body and I wouldn't have soiled my hands by touching it for the world! I don't know how long I stood there with my brain whirling, but it couldn't have been more than a minute or two, and then I began to think fast. I saw I had two strings left to my bow, after all. One was to find the man that had been there and shot Creveling and hold what I knew over his head to make him help me, as he could have if he knew Mrs. Creveling and had any influence with her; the other was to get Mrs. Creveling and her uncle there together as quick as I could and offer to hush things up if they'd set Ilsa free. I knew that she'd stopped caring for her husband long ago—hated him, in fact—and I thought she would want to prevent scandal and notoriety before anything else, just as Mr. Alexander would. He would be glad enough that Creveling was out of the way so he could handle the estate to suit himself."
"You didn't stop to think that it might have been suicide?"
Hill laughed shortly.
"Not knowing Mr. Creveling the way I did! He wouldn't have had the—the guts to do it, sir! It takes long to tell it but I just thought it all out in a flash. I could only find out who had been there that night by tracing the writing at the bottom of that note and I knew Mr. Creveling kept a lot of private letters in that secret drawer in his desk. Of course I'd been through it often enough before, having watched when he didn't know it to see how he worked the spring, but some of the letters were from gentlemen whose names were strange to me and I hadn't taken notice of the writing. Then I remembered that there would be a thorough search made for clews all over the house, and it came to me—what if Mrs. Jarvie had left a stray letter or memorandum or something in her desk that would show where Ilsa was hiding? She was an old lady and though close-mouthed was given to scribbling notes and diaries and such. I supposed, of course, that the policeman and the other two were the only living men in the house besides myself and I started upstairs, when all of a sudden you and the inspector came out of Mr. Creveling's room. I sprang back quick or you would have seen me. When you had gone on to the next floor I slipped into Mr. Creveling's room, put on a pair of his gloves so that my finger marks wouldn't show and, opening the little drawer, I took out the letters.
"I hoped against hope that I could sneak into the housekeeper's room before you got around to it in your search but you nearly caught me on the stairs a second time and I had to wait until you had gone down again. I knew that she used to hide the spare key to her desk behind a loose brick up in the fireplace and chanced that she had forgotten and left it there, which she had done. Her old household account books were in the desk together with a stack of loose papers and I had to take the lot for I had no time to sort them out. I don't know how I ever got out of the house without being seen, but I heard you all talking in the room where Mr. Creveling's body was lying and I slipped out and made for home, where Ilsa was.
"She looked over the housekeeper's books and papers and sure enough, there were the receipts for some of the furniture of our little flat, that I'd given Mrs. Jarvie the money to pay for, with the address scribbled on it to where the stuff was to be delivered, so Ilsa burned the lot. I read over the notes I had taken from Mr. Creveling's desk and compared them with those seven words written at the bottom of his letter. None of them were in the same hand, but I kept two or three for Mrs. Creveling to buy with Ilsa's freedom; they showed plain that Mr. Creveling had been threatening people to make them pay up card debts or lend him money, and if they ever got in the newspapers she wouldn't have been able to hold up her head again. It seems rotten to fight a woman like that, maybe, sir, but she hadn't spared Ilsa!
"When I'd destroyed the letters that didn't mean anything to me I put the rest in my pocket together with that one I had taken from Mr. Creveling's clothes in the morning, and went to the corner drugstore and called up Mr. Alexander; I altered my voice so he wouldn't recognize it, and you know what I told him. Then I went straight back to the Creveling house and hid those letters. I heard Mr. Alexander come in and then I knocked on the door of the breakfast room."
"Who telephoned out to Broadmead? It was your wife, wasn't it?" asked McCarty.
"Yes. I told her to give the message to a servant and to pretend that she was the Crevelings' cook. You know the rest, sir. You could have knocked me down with a feather when I saw the way Mrs. Creveling took the news and how possessed she was to find out who had shot her husband, but I might have known she would be that way, she was so set on punishing Ilsa. I haven't found out yet who the man was that had supper with Mr. Creveling and then killed him, but I've still those letters to hold over Mrs, Creveling's head, only now it won't be any use."
"Nor any need, I hope," McCarty remarked. "Where did you hide those letters, Hill?"
The valet hesitated for a fraction of a second and then threw out his hands in a gesture of surrender.
"In a niche in the upper hall near Mr. Creveling's door there's a teakwood stand with one of those queer Chinese vases on it that he was always so crazy about. Lift off the vase, sir, and you'll see that the little marble slab that's set in the top of the stand is loose; the letters are under that."
"Well," McCarty rose. "I'm going now to see about getting you out of here and over to headquarters where your wife is waiting to see you. We'll have to hold her—you understand that, of course, for she wouldn't be admitted to bail again even if it should drop from the skies a second time, but the inspector will see that things are made as easy as possible for her and we'll do all we can to have her trial put off. I won't go back on my promise, Hill. I'm going to do my best to dig up some evidence that will kill that indictment."
An hour later he presented himself at the Creveling house and his eyes twinkled at the austerity of Rollins' bow.
"If you wish to see Mrs. Creveling, sir, the doctor says that she is not to be disturbed, even by the. police," that worthy announced with dignity. "'E says 'e'll be responsible to the authorities, sir."
"That's all right. I didn't come to see her," McCarty responded, adding slyly: "Surprised you, didn't it, Rollins, that arrest we made yesterday?"
"I am not surprised at anything the police does, sir," Rollins remarked. "From the way this case 'as been 'andled, it wouldn't amaze me if Sarah or me was to be took up next!"
McCarty chuckled.
"Then you don't think that Hill shot Mr. Creveling? No more do I, but orders are orders!—Is Mr. Alexander here?"
"Not yet, sir." Rollins unbent a trifle. "'E telephoned that 'e would be 'ere in an hour, and 'e must consult with Mrs. Creveling; 'e wouldn't take 'no' for an answer—"
The butler hesitated somewhat uncertainly and McCarty asked:
"Did he say what he wanted to see her about, Rollins?"
"Well, sir, 'e did mention something about that other gentleman that was called in; Mr. Terhune. 'E was so excited that I couldn't rightly make out what 'e meant but 'is language to me was most unusual; shocking, I'd call it, in a man of 'is years! I gathered that 'e didn't regard Mr. Terhune very 'ighly and wanted 'im off the case."
McCarty nodded appreciatively.
"I shouldn't wonder. I'll wait here for Mr. Alexander." He seated himself in the- nearest chair and ostentatiously pulling a newspaper from his coat pocket he spread its ample pages before him. Then as the butler still lingered he added: "Don't let me be keeping you from your work, Rollins."
The other opened his lips to speak, but thought better of it and with a nod retired to the pantry. McCarty waited for a few moments, then tossed his paper aside and crossing the hall with noiseless tread he gently closed the door through which Rollins had passed, and, turning, crept up the main stairway.
There in the hall by Creveling's door, upon its stand of carved black wood stood a squat, bulging vase upon which a grotesque dragon in dull red and gold appeared to be endlessly chasing his own tail. From behind the closed door leading to Mrs. Creveling's apartments across the hall came the murmur of feminine voices and McCarty wasted no time in admiration of the specimen of ancient art. Unceremoniously lifting the vase off the stand, he placed it on the rug and examined the small circular inset of pinkish marble upon which it had rested. It moved slightly beneath his fingers and pulling out his pen-knife he pried up one edge. There in a shallow recess beneath lay a thin packet of letters held together by a rubber band.
Two minutes later the vase was back in its accustomed place and McCarty, with an expression upon his countenance not unlike that supposed to have been worn by the celebrated cat that ate the canary, was letting himself silently out the front door.