CHAPTER IX.

The Three Bullets

(Friday, November 12; 9 a. m.)

At this moment Doctor Doremus, the Medical Examiner, a brisk, nervous man with a jaunty air, was ushered in by one of the detectives I had seen in the drawing-room. He blinked at the company, threw his hat and coat on a chair, and shook hands with every one.

“What are your friends trying to do, Sergeant?” he asked, eying the inert body in the chair. “Wipe out the whole family?” Without waiting for an answer to his grim pleasantry he went to the windows and threw up the shades with a clatter. “You gentlemen all through viewing the remains? If so, I’ll get to work.”

“Go to it,” said Heath. Chester Greene’s body was lifted to the bed and straightened out. “And how about the bullet, doc? Any chance of getting it before the autopsy?”

“How’m I going to get it without a probe and forceps? I ask you!” Doctor Doremus drew back the matted dressing-gown and inspected the wound. “But I’ll see what I can do.” Then he straightened up and cocked his eye facetiously at the Sergeant.

“Well, I’m waiting for your usual query about the time of death.”

“We know it.”

“Hah! Wish you always did. This fixing the exact time by looking over a body is all poppycock anyway. The best we fellows can do is to approximate it. _Rigor mortis_ works differently in different people. Don’t ever take me too seriously, Sergeant, when I set an exact hour for you.—However, let’s see. . . .”

He ran his hands over the body on the bed, unflexed the fingers, moved the head, and put his eye close to the coagulated blood about the wound. Then he teetered on his toes, and squinted at the ceiling.

“How about ten hours? Say, between eleven-thirty and midnight. How’s that?”

Heath laughed good-naturedly.

“You hit it, doc—right on the head.”

“Well, well! Always was a good guesser.” Doctor Doremus seemed wholly indifferent.

Vance had followed Markham into the hall.

“An honest fellow, that archiater of yours. And to think he’s a public servant of our beneficent government!”

“There are many honest men in public office,” Markham reproved him.

“I know,” sighed Vance. “Our democracy is still young. Give it time.”

Heath joined us, and at the same moment the nurse appeared at Mrs. Greene’s door. A querulous dictatorial voice issued from the depths of the room behind her.

“. . . And you tell whoever’s in charge that I want to see him—right away, do you understand! It’s an outrage, all this commotion and excitement, with me lying here in pain trying to get a little rest. Nobody shows me any consideration.”

Heath made a grimace and looked toward the stairs; but Vance took Markham’s arm.

“Come, let’s cheer up the old lady.”

As we entered the room, Mrs. Greene, propped up as usual in bed with a prismatic assortment of pillows, drew her shawl primly about her.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” she greeted us, her expression moderating. “I thought it was those abominable policemen making free with my house again. . . . What’s the meaning of all this disturbance, Mr. Markham? Nurse tells me that Chester has been shot. Dear, dear! If people must do such things, why do they have to come to my house and annoy a poor helpless old woman like me? There are plenty of other places they could do their shooting in.” She appeared deeply resentful at the fact that the murderer should have been so inconsiderate as to choose the Greene mansion for his depredations. “But I’ve come to expect this sort of thing. Nobody thinks of _my_ feelings. And if my own children see fit to do everything they can to annoy me, why should I expect total strangers to show me any consideration?”

“When one is bent on murder, Mrs. Greene,” rejoined Markham, stung by her callousness, “one doesn’t stop to think of the mere inconvenience his crime may cause others.”

“I suppose not,” she murmured self-pityingly. “But it’s all the fault of my children. If they were what children ought to be, people wouldn’t be breaking in here trying to murder them.”

“And unfortunately succeeding,” added Markham coldly.

“Well, that can’t be helped.” She suddenly became bitter. “It’s their punishment for the way they’ve treated their poor old mother, lying here for ten long years, hopelessly paralyzed. And do you think they try to make it easy for me? No! Here I must stay, day after day, suffering agonies with my spine; and they never give me a thought.” A sly look came into her fierce old eyes. “But they think about me sometimes. Oh, yes! They think how nice it would be if I were out of the way. Then they’d get all my money. . . .”

“I understand, madam,” Markham put in abruptly, “that you were asleep last night at the time your son met his death.”

“Was I? Well, maybe I was. It’s a wonder, though, that some one didn’t leave my door open just so I’d be disturbed.”

“And you know no one who would have any reason to kill your son?”

“How should I know? Nobody tells me anything. I’m a poor neglected, lonely old cripple. . . .”

“Well, we won’t bother you any further, Mrs. Greene.” Markham’s tone held something both of sympathy and consternation.

As we descended the stairs the nurse reopened the door we had just closed after us, and left it ajar, no doubt in response to an order from her patient.

“Not at all a nice old lady,” chuckled Vance, as we entered the drawing-room. “For a moment, Markham, I thought you were going to box her ears.”

“I admit I felt like it. And yet I couldn’t help pitying her. However, such utter self-concentration as hers saves one a lot of mental anguish. She seems to regard this whole damnable business as a plot to upset her.”

Sproot appeared obsequiously at the door.

“May I bring you gentlemen some coffee?” No emotion of any kind showed on his graven wrinkled face. The events of the past few days seemed not to have affected him in any degree.

“No, we don’t want coffee, Sproot,” Markham told him brusquely. “But please be good enough to ask Miss Sibella if she will come here.”

“Very good, sir.”

The old man shuffled away, and a few minutes later Sibella strolled in, smoking a cigarette, one hand in the pocket of her vivid-green sweater-jacket. Despite her air of nonchalance her face was pale, its whiteness contrasting strongly with the deep crimson rouge on her lips. Her eyes, too, were slightly haggard; and when she spoke her voice sounded forced, as if she were playing a rôle against which her spirit was at odds. She greeted us blithely enough, however.

“Good morning, one and all. Beastly auspices for a social call.” She sat down on the arm of a chair and swung one leg restlessly. “Some one certainly has a grudge against us Greenes. Poor old Chet! He didn’t even die with his boots on. Felt bedroom slippers! What an end for an outdoor enthusiast!—Well, I suppose I’m invited here to tell my story. Where do I begin?” She rose, and throwing her half-burned cigarette into the grate, seated herself in a straight-backed chair facing Markham, folding her sinewy, tapering hands on the table before her.

Markham studied her for several moments.

“You were awake last night, reading in bed, I understand, when the shot was fired in your brother’s room.”

“Zola’s ‘Nana,’ to be explicit. Mother told me I shouldn’t read it; so I got it at once. It was frightfully disappointing, though.”

“And just what did you do after you heard the report?” continued Markham, striving to control his annoyance at the girl’s flippancy.

“I put my book down, got up, donned a kimono, and listened for several minutes at the door. Not hearing anything further, I peeked out. The hall was dark, and the silence felt a bit spooky. I knew I ought to go to Chet’s room and inquire, in a sisterly fashion, about the explosion; but, to tell you the truth, Mr. Markham, I was rather cowardly. So I went—oh, well, let the truth prevail: I _ran_ up the servants’ stairs and routed out our Admirable Crichton; and together we investigated. Chet’s door was unlocked, and the fearless Sproot opened it. There sat Chet, looking as if he’d seen a ghost; and somehow I knew he was dead. Sproot went in and touched him, while I waited; and then we went down to the dining-room. Sproot did some phoning, and afterward made me some atrocious coffee. A half-hour or so later this gentleman”—she inclined her head toward Heath—“arrived, looking distressingly glum, and very sensibly refused a cup of Sproot’s coffee.”

“And you heard no sound of any kind before the shot?”

“Not a thing. Everybody had gone to bed early. The last sound I heard in this house was mother’s gentle and affectionate voice telling the nurse she was as neglectful as the rest of us, and to bring her morning tea at nine sharp, and not to slam the door the way she always