The Almost Perfect Murder by Hulbert Footner (reading the story of the TXT) 📕

bottom drawer of my bureau,” came the prompt reply.

 

“Will you fetch it, please?”

 

Fay called for Katy. The girl immediately appeared in the doorway,

looking white and scared. Evidently she had overheard at least part of

what had occurred.

 

“Bring me the gun from the bottom drawer of my bureau.”

 

The strangeness of this request completed the demoralisation of the

maid. She stood there like one incapable of motion. Fay herself

sprang up and ran into the next room. From there we heard her cry:

 

“It’s gone!”

 

Then her excited questioning of the maid. Katy swore that she had

neither touched nor even seen the gun. She had not yet reached that

drawer when her packing was interrupted, she said. The girl got the

idea, somehow, that her own honesty was in question. She had no idea

that her words were convicting her mistress. Fay finally came back to

her seat with a wandering and vacant air. She kept repeating: “I can’t

imagine…! I can’t imagine…!” The Inspector looked very grave.

 

Mme. Storey remorselessly resumed: “I recovered Mrs. Whittall’s pistol

this morning. It is in my possession, properly marked for

identification. The number of it is 13417. The pistol found in Mrs.

Whittall’s hand, that is to say the one from which the fatal shot was

fired, was subsequently given by Mr. Whittall to the Captain of the

precinct. I obtained it from the Captain this afternoon. The number

is 13418. Here it is.”

 

She produced the weapon from a little bag that she carried on her arm.

She handed the sinister black object to Rumsey, who read off the

number, 13418, and handed it back to her.

 

At first I couldn’t take it in. Neither could Fay. Her wandering

eyes, like a child’s, searched from one face to another for the

explanation. Mrs. Brunton and Whittall were sitting there, literally

frozen with horror. Rumsey had got up. It was from his grave and

compassionate gaze at Fay that I realised she stood convicted in his

eyes. What a dreadful moment!

 

Fay burst into tears, and dropped her head between her outstretched

arms on the table. “Oh, how can you! … How can you!” she sobbed.

 

At that something seemed to break inside of me. I forgot everything;

my duty to my mistress; everything. I was only conscious of the

weeping girl whom I loved. I got to my feet. “It’s a shame! It’s a

shame!” I heard myself crying. “She didn’t do it! She couldn’t have

done it! Look at her! What does your evidence amount to beside that!”

 

Fay reached for me like a frightened child, and I took her in my arms.

 

Mme. Storey never looked at me. No muscle of her face changed. “The

rest lies with you, Inspector,” she said quietly.

 

Rumsey’s distress comes back to me now. Then I was oblivious to

everything. “It will be all right…. It will be all right,” he kept

saying. “I’m sure that a further investigation will clear everything

up. But I’m sorry… I would not be justified … I must ask the

young lady…”

 

Mrs. Brunton jumped up with a shriek. “Is he going to arrest her!”

 

“Don’t call it an arrest, ma’am; a brief detention….”

 

“Oh, no! no! no!” Mrs. Brunton flung herself down beside the girl, and

wrapped her arms around Fay’s knees. “It’s all lies!” she cried. “All

lies! … It was I who shot Mrs. Whittall!”

 

I have scarcely the heart to describe the painful scene that followed.

Fay was broken-hearted, of course, but the shock to her proved to be

less than Mme. Storey had feared. It turned out that for weeks past,

Fay had divined that her companion was carrying a load of guilt on her

breast, though, of course, the girl had no idea of its nature. She was

already secretly estranged from the woman who passed as her mother.

 

Nevertheless she loyally wished to accompany her to Police

Headquarters, but the rest of us dissuaded her from it. Kreuger went

with Mrs. Brunton, but Darius Whittall remained with us. He had to

learn his fate. Before Mme. Storey and I, he said with a despairing

hangdog air:

 

“It was not my fault, Fay.”

 

She looked at him with gravely accusing eyes. There was nothing

childish about her then. “No,” she said quietly, “but you were not

sorry when it happened.” Unfastening the pearls from about her neck,

and drawing off the ring, she handed them over.

 

He knew it was final. He went away, a broken man. When we three were

alone together, Fay wept again. Mme. Storey looked as uncomfortable as

a boy in the presence of emotion. From the little bag she took the gun

she had produced at the table.

 

“Here is your gun, Fay,” she said. “I took it out of your drawer when

I went into your room to change my hat.”

 

We opened our eyes at that. Nothing so simple had ever occurred to us.

 

“I hope you can forgive me for those terrible moments I gave you,” Mme.

Storey went on. “I couldn’t help myself. That woman covered her

tracks so well, there was nothing for it but to force a confession.”

 

Fay forgave her freely.

 

“I owe Bella an apology, too,” Mme. Storey said with a rueful glance in

my direction. “For keeping her in the dark. You see, I needed that

outburst from Bella to give the scene verisimilitude.”

 

This made me feel rather foolish, but of course I was not troubling

about a little thing like that then.

 

“I am alone now,” sobbed Fay.

 

Mme. Storey murmured the name of Frank Esher. “I suggest that that

woman may have fomented the trouble between you and him because he was

poor,” she said.

 

“She was always against him,” Fay agreed.

 

“Why don’t you write to him now?”

 

“I don’t know where he is!” mourned Fay.

 

“In care of the British-American Development Company, Georgetown,

British Guiana,” said Mme. Storey dryly.

 

“Oh, Rosika!” This with her face hidden on my shoulder.

 

“In fact, why not cable?” said Mme. Storey.

 

“Oh, Rosika. You do it for me.”

 

“Well, as a matter of fact, I have cabled already,” said Mme. Storey.

 

I cannot do better than conclude by appending Mrs. Brunton’s subsequent

confession to the police—her real name was Elinor Tinsley. All that

was so baffling in the case therein becomes clear.

 

“I am aware that anything I say may be used against me. I want to tell

the truth now. I’m glad it’s out. It was too great a load to bear. I

did it for her; for the one whom I called my daughter. I loved her as

much as I could my own child. In spite of all I said, I knew that she

had not sufficient talent to maintain her as a star. So many new faces

coming to the front each year. I wanted to secure her future. I

wanted her to have the best.

 

“When Mr. Whittall began to pay her attention I saw our chance in him.

But his wife was in the way. He was anxious for a divorce, but she

wouldn’t. I couldn’t forget about it. I brooded and brooded on it. I

felt I had to act quickly, because Mr. Whittall had a reputation for

fickleness. I was afraid he’d take a fancy to somebody else. Once he

told me the name of a man he thought his wife was secretly in love

with—I won’t mention it here; and that gave me my first idea.

 

“I got a sample of Mrs. Whittall’s handwriting by writing her a begging

letter under an assumed name, and I practised and practised until I was

able to imitate it. Then I sent a letter as coming from her to this

man I told you about, hoping that it would result in throwing them into

each other’s arms, and that there would have to be a divorce then. But

weeks passed and nothing happened. I was no further forward than

before.

 

“Then one day Mrs. Whittall asked my daughter and me to have lunch and

tea with her at her place. And when we were having tea out in the

pavilion, the whole thing seemed to unroll itself before me. I thought

of the first showing of ‘Ashes of Roses’ that was coming soon, and what

a good chance that would give me, and I made up my mind I would try

again that night. I knew I wouldn’t have any trouble with Fay, because

she doesn’t care for pictures, and I could easily persuade her not to

go.

 

“I got a sample of that man’s handwriting on another pretext, and I

practised until I was able to write a letter that looked like his. I

bought the gun at –- (a big department store) for cash, so the sale

couldn’t be traced. I knew the kind of gun Mr. Whittall had bought for

his wife, and I got the same. I wanted to make it look like suicide.

Then I wrote a letter to Mrs. Whittall in this man’s name, asking her

to come to me, for God’s sake, in the little pavilion at nine-thirty

that night. Of course, she ought to have known, after the other

letter, but I figured if she was in love she wouldn’t stop to think.

If she hadn’t come, I’d just have tried something else. I sent the

letter the same afternoon with a special delivery stamp on it. Through

a messenger it could have been traced.

 

“My daughter and I had special invitations to see the private showing

of ‘Ashes of Roses’ that night. Without seeming to, I persuaded Fay to

stay at home. I took a taxicab to the theatre, arriving there about

eight-fifteen. I had the gun in my reticule. I greeted many friends

in the lobby, so I could prove an alibi if anything went wrong. I took

a seat on the side aisle, beside one of the exits, and when the lights

were put out, it was easy for me to slip out through that exit without

anybody seeing.

 

“I took the West Side subway to the end of the line, and walked up the

hill to Riverdale, and on down the other side towards the river. I had

fixed in my mind the road that ran alongside the wall of the Whittall

property. I climbed the wall, and went up the hill to the pavilion. I

was in plenty of time. I took the gun in my hand and waited, hidden

behind a pillar. I kept my gloves on so I wouldn’t leave any

fingerprint on the gun. When Mrs. Whittall came running in, I pressed

the gun to her temple and pulled the trigger. She fell back outside.

She never made a sound. I closed her hand over the gun as well as I

could, and went back the way I came.

 

“I had found out from Mr. Kreuger that he and Mr. Whittall would be

dining at the Hotel Norfolk that night. I wanted to warn Mr. Whittall

to secure his wife’s gun. I knew he’d be glad enough to hush up any

scandal. But I was afraid to stop at Van Cortlandt for fear somebody

might remember seeing me in a telephone booth. So I rode on the subway

down to 145th Street, and telephoned from a pay station there. Then I

rode on the subway down to Times Square, and took a taxi to the hotel.

That is all I have to say.”

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Murder in Masquerade

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