Chapter 8

MAILLOT'S EXPERIENCE

"We must have made a Rembrandt-like picture"--to quote the young man again--"the two of us bending over this table by the light of a solitary candle. There was a wan reflection of the flame from the polished table-top, but elsewhere all was darkness and the shadows crowded in close. The most brilliant thing in the room was that wonderful jewel, glowing and scintillating like blood-red fire.

"It was considerably larger than the end of my thumb--as large as a big hickory-nut and, my uncle averred, flawless. Rubies of such a size and without a flaw are extremely rare, I believe; in fact, there are only one or two known to be in existence. The old gentleman declared that one of five carats was worth five times as much as a diamond of equal weight, and that the value increased proportionately with each additional carat.

"But I could only sit and stare at it and wonder, and now and then pinch myself to see whether I was in reality awake and not the victim of a fantastic Arabian Nights sort of dream."

After a while the conference between uncle and nephew ended. Mr. Page would not allow the young man to depart from the house at that hour of the night with the gem, pointing out (reasonably enough) that nobody but a fool would be abroad at such a time with five hundred thousand dollars on his person; though, in his anxiety to secure the ruby and be away before his uncle had an opportunity to change his mind, Maillot might have retorted that a fool would not have had it at all.

"There are men who have left no stone unturned to discover where I have kept _this_ stone," Mr. Page had concluded, with another chuckle, "and they have by no means given it up yet." Then, with grim significance in view of the tragedy which so swiftly followed,--"I 'd have been murdered long ago, if it would have helped 'em to finding where I keep the stone hid."

The leather jewel-box--shabby, according to Maillot's description, and plainly showing the marks of age--was at last closed, and shortly the young man was shown to his room by Mr. Page.

Maillot declared that, ascribing the circumstance to reaction from the evening's powerful excitement, he almost immediately sank into a deep sleep.

"I was as exhausted," he amplified, "as if I had been all day digging ditches or shovelling coal. I could scarcely realize that my mission had succeeded; I feared the entire proceeding was only a stupendous, ghastly hoax, which my uncle had in mind, but to what end, or who the intended victim, I could not in the least conceive.

"And then came a crash that made me think the house had collapsed, and I knew I had been asleep. I was only dimly sensible that the noise, whatever its source, had been loud and decidedly out of place in this household at such an hour.

"I sprang from bed, and first thing banged against the door of a wardrobe, which had swung open. It nearly knocked my brains out, and hurt something awful. So I straightway forgot all about the noise, and after groping a while for matches, presently found one and lighted the candle. Then I filled the basin on the wash-stand and bathed my eye."

What followed was something more than corroborative of Burke's statement. After the secretary had rapped and Maillot thrown open the door, the latter was considerably surprised at Burke's very patent fright.

"The plain truth of the matter is that the fellow was in a condition of cowering terror," was Maillot's language, "and when I learned that he had n't made the first move toward ascertaining the cause of the disturbance, why, I simply pushed him to one side and went to see about it myself.

"Burke disgusted me. He would neither approach the body nor allow me to get very far away from him; and when I broached the matter of going after help, he even went so far as to argue with me that there was no necessity for either of us leaving the house until daylight. The mere suggestion that he should wait here alone threw him into a blue funk; so I was finally obliged to tell him flatly, that if he did n't go, I would, and that he should n't follow me, either.

"Well, apparently he chose the lesser of two evils, and went to fetch the police."

I remembered Burke's reluctance to come down the front stairs, after I had sent Stodger to conduct him to me, together with my colleague's remark to the effect that "Burke did n't have much sand"; clearly, the secretary was a coward.

And now, too, I recalled the triumphant light in his pale eyes, while we were inspecting the concealed safe--the only time I had detected any expression in them--as if he had already anticipated the predicament Maillot would be in after relating his story of what had brought him to this house, and the occurrences of last night. How could he have had an inkling of all this?

However, at the time I did n't waste many minutes over an unprofitable mental catechism; there were other and more vital matters requiring immediate attention. I asked Maillot a good many questions, but elicited no further information germane to the tragedy. So I presently said:

"Have you any idea what your uncle did with the ruby after having shown it to you?"

"Well," he returned, with thoughtful deliberation, "there 's the safe. I suppose, when he disappeared through the curtained alcove last night, he went at once to his bedroom, got the box from the safe, and when we separated for the night--well, I don't know; I can't guess. When he left me in my room, he was still carrying the box in his hand."

"You are positive of that?"

"Yes, positive; for after all that had happened between us, and knowing as I did what the box contained, I remember very distinctly that I looked oftener at it than I did at him. The little leather box in his left hand is more vivid in my memory than any other detail of his appearance."

"But you can remember how he was dressed?"

"Oh, yes; just as we found him. After bidding me good-night, he certainly did n't go to bed as he announced he should; he could n't even have started to undress."

I glanced in Miss Cooper's direction. Her blue eyes were regarding me with an expression of deep and interested attention, but they also yielded a faint light of some emotion which materially aided me to a decision. I can make my position clear only by briefly sketching what was going on in my own mind.

Why did I hesitate to decide between Maillot and Burke in charging one or the other of them with the perpetration of this crime?--for crime it was, beyond a shadow of doubt. Well, there were several reasons, any one of which was sufficient, to indicate what my attitude toward these two men should be.

In the first place, both had frankly and without the least hint of reserve respecting each other's attitude that I had been able to detect, told stories which they must have known beforehand would tend strongly to incriminate them; but notwithstanding this fact, they had given their accounts with a knowledge that if they maintained a strict silence, I must have remained unable to find this information otherwise. The hostility between the two--and I could not account for it--did not explain this willingness, because neither had made an open attempt to direct suspicion toward the other.

I make a possible exception here: Burke's enigmatic conduct while we were examining the hidden safe might be construed as innuendo deliberately planned. On the other hand, if he were innocent, and considering that the two had been alone, then he might honestly have believed Maillot to be guilty, but was reluctant to make a charge which he was unable to defend with tangible proof. The circumstance of their stories agreeing in all essentials verified my conclusion that both had told the truth; still it was possible that either of them might not have told all the truth.

Again, I was convinced by the manners of both that there was more behind the tragedy than had been made to appear, excepting by the haziest sort of allusion; a potential factor whose existence had been barely suggested, whose nature remained entirely obscure. On the surface it looked as if somebody had slain Felix Page and stolen the ruby. Simple enough. But was this all? I was sure not.

The point, though, that I wish to make is this: whatever the prime motive for the murder might have been, Maillot had not the slightest idea respecting it, nor did he even suspect that such a motive existed. He was still too dazed from the whirl of events of the past twenty-four hours to consider the matter in any other light than the way in which it most nearly affected himself.

As for Burke, I was pretty much in doubt. I felt that he knew something that he was keeping in reserve, but what it might be or how to get hold of him and force the information from him I did not at this stage know.

If anything at all about the puzzle was clear, it was that the two had not and were not working together. Individually, the evidence--such as it was--more strongly indicated Maillot. It was at this moment that I looked toward Miss Cooper and decided.

"Maillot," said I, tersely, "it's up to you and Burke to submit to a personal search."

He flushed hotly, but maintained his attitude of calm. I did not dare a glance in Miss Fluette's direction.

"Candidly," I added, "I don't think you have the ruby--for that matter, I don't think Burke has either. But such a proceeding is only fair to me, for if I turn you two chaps loose I 'm taking all the chances. I ought to be bundling you both off to jail; I don't want to do that, you see, and I deserve some sort of--"

"Enough," Maillot cut in. "I believe you 're a good fellow, Swift; I have no objection to you going over me with a microscope."

He rose at once, extended his arms above his head to facilitate my task, and even essayed a bit of banter at my hesitating to begin.

In truth, it was hard enough to do; the presence of the two girls made the operation not only doubly disagreeable, but extremely embarrassing as well. Miss Fluette's cheeks were hot with indignation, her hazel eyes snapped. She made no comment--thank goodness!--but it was plain to be seen that she restrained herself only with the greatest of efforts. I am pretty adept at "going through" a man; and while in the present instance it required but a few moments to satisfy myself that Maillot could not have the gem, I was all the while acutely sensible of a little foot tapping nervously beneath the table and an angry look searing my offending back.

"There!" I ejaculated at last, with an attempt at making light of the matter and at including Miss Cooper and Miss Fluette as recipients of my apology. "If you 'll only lose sight of the man in the instrument, you 'll forgive the liberty, Maillot.

"You may go; but let me tell you"--I eyed them all seriously--"prepare for a grilling at the inquest. I would advise you to be frank, as you have been with me; the instant a jury feels that answers are being dragged from a witness they straightway receive a bad impression. I 'm sure Miss Fluette would far rather put up with unwelcome publicity, than that you should suffer through any quixotic ideas of shielding her name."

He took it all as I intended he should, but never a sign of approval did I get from the two pretty girls. With my concluding words Miss Fluette thrust a hand under Maillot's arm and gave it an affectionate little squeeze.

Before the door closed, Miss Cooper's head bent and she glanced back at me across her shoulder. She was much the more beautiful of the two.