“The records show that Henri Margot, alias Jean Carnot alias Jean Forette was married to Isabel Pelubit in Paris on March 17, four years ago, and that she died under suspicious circumstances three months later, leaving her husband all of a snug little fortune she possessed.
“All lies, monsieur—all lies! I do not believe anything you tell me!”
“Well, that's very foolish of you, Mazi, for you can easily prove for yourself everything I tell you, and it will be better for you, in the end, if you do believe.”
“I do not. But go on with—more lies!” She shrugged her shoulders contemptuously.
Colonel Ashley leafed over a sheaf of papers he had spread out on the table in front of him. He and Mazi sat in a room in police headquarters in Lakeside. It was the day following the procession to the cottage on the moor.
“The records show,” went on the detective, “that Henri Margot was arrested in Paris, charged with having poisoned his wife so that he might spend on another woman the money she possessed. But he was not convicted, chiefly because the chemists could not agree on the kind of poison that had caused death.”
“All lies—I do not believe,” said Mazi, stolidly.
“Um!” mused the colonel. “Well, Mazi, you're more stubborn than I thought. But it doesn't make any difference to me, you know. I'm paid for all this. Now let's see—what's next? Oh, yes. Then the records show that Henri, or Jean, whichever you choose to call him, came to this country. He fell in love with a pretty girl—she wasn't as pretty as you, Mazi, I'll say that—but he fell in love with her and married her—or pretended to. However, it was a fake ceremony, and she couldn't prove anything when he had spent all her money and tossed her aside. So there wasn't anything we could do to him that time.”
“More lies,” said Mazi, calmly—or at least with the appearance of calmness.
“The records show,” went on the inexorable voice of Colonel Ashley, “that next Jean Carnot, as he called himself then, became infatuated with a pretty girl—and this time I'll say she was just about as pretty as you, Mazi—and her name was Annie Tighe. She was an Irish girl, and she insisted on being married by a priest, so there wasn't any faking there. Jean was properly married at least.”
“What do I care for all these lies?” sneered the girl, impatiently tapping her foot on the floor. “Why do you bore me? I am not interested! I should like to see Jean. Ha! Where have you put him?”
“You'll see him soon enough, Mazi. I've got just a few more records to show you, and then I'm done. Now we come to the time when, after he found he couldn't get out of a legal marriage, Jean put his foot in it, so to speak. He was tied right, this time, so he took refuge in a lie when he wanted to shake off the bonds of matrimony, as my friend Jack Young would say. He told his wife—and she was his wife, and is yet—he told her the ceremony was a fake, that the priest was a false one, in his pay.”
“All lies! What do I care?” sneered Mazi, again shrugging her shoulders.
“Well, now let's get along. After our friend Jean found he was tired of his wife he shamed her into leaving him and she went—well, that isn't pleasant to dwell on, either. Except that he's the villain responsible for her going to the dogs. He sent her there just as he would have sent you, Mazi, except for what has happened.”
“You mean he is not my husband?”
“Not in the least.”
“I do not believe you. It is all lies. These women are but jealous. Proceed.”
“That's about all there is to it, Mazi, except to show you the letter from your own priest, who confirms the fact that the priest who married Jean Carnot and Annie Tighe was legally authorized to do so, both by the laws of his own church and those of New York State, where the ceremony took place. You will believe Father Capoti, won't you?” and he laid beside the girl a letter which she read eagerly.
This time she said nothing about lies, but her face turned deadly pale.
“And this is the last exhibit,” went on the colonel, as he laid a photograph before Mazi. It showed a man and a girl, evidently in their wedding finery, and the face of the man was that of Jean Forette, and that of the girl was of the woman who had groveled on the sand at the feet of the chauffeur the night before,—Morocco Kate.
“Look on the back,” suggested the detective, and when Mazi turned the photograph over she read:
“The happiest day of my life—Jean Carnot.”
“If you happen to have any love letters from him—and I guess you have,” went on the colonel, “you might compare the writing and—”
“I have no need, monsieur,” was the low answer. “I—God help me.—I believe now! Oh, the liar! If I could see him now—”
“I rather thought you'd want to,” murmured the colonel. “Bring him in!” he called.
The door opened, and, handcuffed to a stalwart officer, in slunk Jean of the many names.
Mazi sprang to her feet, her face livid. She would have leaped at the prisoner, but the colonel held her back. But he could not hold back the flood of voluble French that poured from her lips.
“Liar! Dog!” she hissed at him. “And so you have deceived me as you deceived others! You lied—and I thought he lied!” and she motioned to the colonel. “Oh, what a silly fool I've been! But now my eyes are open! I see! I see!”
With a quick gesture, before the colonel could stop her, she tore in half the picture that had swept away all her doubts.
“Mustn't do that!” chided the colonel, as he picked up the pieces which she was about to grind under her feet. “I'll need that at the trial.”
“You—you beast!” whispered the girl, but the whisper seemed louder than a shout would have been. “You beast! No longer will I lie for you. Why you wanted me to, I do not know. Yes, I do! It was so that you might be with some one else when you should have been with me. Listen, all of you!” she cried, as she flung her arms wide. “No longer will I shield him. He told me to say that he was with me when that golf man—Monsieur Carwell died—before he died—but he was not. No more will I lie for you, Jean of the many names! You were not with me! I did not even see you that day. Bah! You were kissing some other fool maybe! Oh, my God! I—I—”
And the colonel gently laid the trembling, shrieking girl down on a bench, while the eyes of the shrinking figure of Jean the chauffeur followed every movement.
He raised his free hand, and seemed to be struggling to loosen his collar that appeared to choke him. For a moment the attention of Colonel Ashley was turned toward Mazi, who was sobbing frantically. Then, when he saw that she was becoming quieter, he turned to the prisoner.
“You heard all that went on, I know,” said the detective. “That's why I put you in the next room.”
“Yes, I heard,” was the calm answer. “But what of it? You can prove nothing only that women are fools. I shall hire a good lawyer and—poof! What would you have—a man must live. Bigamy, it is not such a serious charge.”
“Oh, no, there are worse,” said the colonel calmly. “You're going to hear one presently. She told me just what I wanted to know, as I thought she would if I could get her roused up enough against you. So, you weren't riding, as you said, with her the day Mr. Carwell came to his end. I never thought you were, Jean of the many names. And now, officer, if you'll take him back and lock him up, I guess this will be about all to-day.”
“But I want to get bail!” exclaimed the prisoner. “I have a right to be bailed. My lawyer says so.”
“There isn't any bail in your case,” said the detective.
“Pooh! Nonsense! Bigamy, it is not such a serious charge.”
“Oh, didn't I tell you? I meant to,” said the colonel gently. “You're under another accusation now. Jean Forette, to call you by your latest alias, you're under arrest, charged with the murder, by poison, of Horace Carwell, and I think we'll come pretty near convicting you by the testimony of Mazi. Ah, would you—not quite!”
He struck down the hand the prisoner had raised to his mouth, and there rolled over the floor a little capsule. The top came off and a white powder spilled out.
“Don't step on it!” warned the colonel as several other officers came in to assist in handling the prisoner, who was struggling violently. “It's probably the same poison, mixed with French dope, that killed Mr. Carwell. Jean had it hidden in the collar band of his shirt ready for emergencies. But you shan't cheat the chair, Jean of the many names!”
They led the Frenchman away, struggling and screaming that he was innocent, that it was all a mistake. By turns he prayed and blasphemed horribly.
“That's the way they usually do when they can't get a shot of their dope,” said the jail physician, after he had visited the prisoner and given him a big dose of bromide. “He'll be a wreck from now on. He's rotten with some French drug, the like of which I've never seen used before.”
The coroner's jury had been called together again. Once more the sordid evidence was gone over, but this time there was more of it, and it had to do with a story told weepingly on the stand by Mazi, and corroborated by Colonel Ashley.
And a little later, when the jury filed in, it was to report:
“We find that Horace Carwell came to his death through poison administered by Jean Carnot, alias Jean Forette, with intent to kill.”
And a little later, when the grand jury had indicted him, the man's nerve failed him completely, because his supply of drug was kept from him and he babbled the truth like a child, weeping.
He had stolen two hundred dollars from the pocketbook of Mr. Carwell the day before the championship golf game, and, the crime having been detected by Viola's father, the chauffeur had been given twenty-four hours in which to return the money or be exposed. He was in financial straits, and, as developed later, had stolen elsewhere, so that he feared arrest and exposure and was at his wit's end. He had spent much of the money on Mazi, whom he induced to go through a secret marriage ceremony with him.
Then Jean, like a cornered rat, and crazy from the drug he had filled himself with, conceived the idea of poisoning Mr. Carwell. That would prevent arrest and exposure, he reasoned.
The chauffeur found his opportunity when he was ordered to stop the big red, white and blue car at a roadhouse just prior to the game. Mr. Carwell was thirsty, and in bad humor, and ordered the chauffeur to bring out some champagne. It was into this that Jean slipped the poison, mixed with some of his own drug which he knew would retard the action of the deadly stuff for some time. And it worked just as he had expected, dropping Mr. Carwell in his tracks about two hours later, as he made the stroke that won the game.
“But how did a chauffeur know so much about poison and dope as to be able to mix a dose that would fool the chemists?” asked Jack Young of his chief, a little later.
“Jean's father was a French chemist, and a clever one. It was there that Jean learned to mix the powder dope he took, and he learned much of other drugs. I suspect, though I can't prove it, that he poisoned his first wife. A devil all the way through,” answered the colonel.
“But what did Bartlett and Mr. Carwell quarrel about so seriously that Bartlett wouldn't tell?”
“It was about Morocco Kate. Harry learned that she had sold Mr. Carwell a set of books, and, knowing her reputation, he feared she might have compromised Mr. Carwell because of his sporting instincts. So Harry begged Viola's father to come out plainly and repudiate the book contract. But Mr. Carwell was stiff about it, and told Harry to mind his own business. That was all. Naturally, after Harry found that Morocco Kate really was mixed up in the case—though innocently enough—he didn't want to tell what the quarrel was about for fear of bringing out a scandal. As a matter of fact there never was any shadow of one.”
“And the mysterious notes to you about Viola having a poison book?”
“All sent by Jean, of course, to throw suspicion on her. I heard it rumored, in more than one quarter, that Viola strongly disapproved of her father's sporty life, and it was said she had stated that she would rather see him dead than disgraced. Which was natural enough. I've said that myself many a time about friends.
“Jean found Miss Carwell's library card, and took out the poison book in her name, afterward anonymously sending me word about it. I admit that, for a moment, I was staggered, but it was only for a moment. Here is what I found in his room.”
Colonel Ashley held out a piece of paper. There was no writing on it, but it bore the indentations, identical with one of the penciled, printed notes.
“He wrote it on a pad,” said the colonel, “and tore off the top sheet. But he used a hard pencil, and the impression went through. Just one of the few mistakes he made.”
“Fine work on your part, Colonel.”
“As for Captain Poland, the money transactions did look a bit queer, but we've since found the receipt and it's all right. A new clerk in Carwell's office had mislaid it. It wasn't Blossom's fault, either. He's a weak chap, but not morally bad. The worst thing he did was to fall for Morocco Kate. But better men than he have done the same thing. However, they won't again.”
“Why, she hasn't—”
“Oh, no; nothing as rash as that. She's going to take a new route, that's all. She's a natural born saleswoman, and I've gotten her a place with a big firm that owes me some favors.”
“And did Blossom come through 'clean' as he said he would?”
“He did, and he didn't. It seems that a year or so ago he inherited eleven thousand dollars. He invested half of the money in copper and made quite a little on the deal. Then, a short while before Carwell died, he got Blossom to lend him some money, which he was to pay back inside of a month or two. When Carwell's death occurred, Blossom was in financial difficulties on account of the demands of Morocco Kate. He could not get hold of the money he had invested, nor could he get hold of the money he had loaned Carwell. In his quandary he took certain securities belonging to Carwell and hypothecated them, expecting, later on, to make good as soon as he got some of his own money back. Of course the whole transaction was a rather shady one, and yet I still believe the young fellow wanted to be honest.”
“How does he stand now?”
“Oh, he has managed to get hold of some of his money, and with that got back the Carwell securities. And, of course, the Carwell estate will have to settle with him later on, and Viola and Miss Mary Carwell are going to keep him in his present position.
“He and Minnie Webb are to be married very soon—which reminds me that I have an invitation for you.”
“For me?”
“Yes. It's to the wedding of Viola and Harry Bartlett. The affair is going to be very quiet, so you can come without worrying about a dress-suit, which I know you hate as much as I do.”
“I should say so!”
“And did Bartlett's uncle really mulct Mr. Carwell in that insurance deal?”
“Well, that's according to how you look at the ins and outs of modern high finance. It was a case of skin or be skinned, and I guess Harry's uncle skinned first and beat Mr. Carwell to it. It was six of one and a half dozen of the other. The deal would have been legitimate either way it swung, but it made Mr. Carwell sore for a time, and that, more than anything else, made him quarrel with Harry when Morocco Kate was mentioned.”
The letters in the secret drawer, which had so worried Viola, proved to be very simple, after all. They referred to a certain local committee, organized for an international financial deal which Mr. Carwell was endeavoring to swing with Captain Poland. The latter thought, because of his intimate association with Viola's father, that the latter might use his influence in the captain's love affair. But that was not to be. So Viola's worry was for naught in this respect.
And so the golf course mystery was cleared up, though even to the end, when he had paid the penalty for his crime, the chauffeur would not reveal the nature of the poison he had mixed with the dope which had made him a wreck.
Beside the still water, that ran in a deep eddy where the stream curved under the trees, Colonel Ashley sat fishing. Beside him on the grass a little boy, with black, curling hair, and deep, brown eyes, sat clicking a spare reel. Off to one side, in the shade, a colored man snored.
“Hey, Unk Bob!” lisped the little boy. “Don't Shag make an awful funny noise?”
“He certainly does, Gerry! He certainly does!”
“Just 'ike a saw bitin' wood.”
“That's it, Gerry! I'll have to speak to Shag about it. But now, Gerry, my boy, you must keep still while Unk Bob catches a big fish.”
“Ess, I keep still. But you tell me a 'tory after?”
“Yes, I'll tell you a story.”
“Will you tell me how you was a fissin', an' a big white ball comed an', zipp! knocked ze fiss off your hook? Will you tell me dat fiss 'tory?”
“Yes, Gerry, I'll tell you that if you'll be quiet now.”
And Shag's snores mingled with the gentle whisper of the water and the sighing of the wind in the willows.
And then, when the creel had been emptied and Colonel Robert Lee Ashley sat on the porch with Gerry Ashley Bartlett snugly curled in his lap and told the story of the golf ball and the fish, while Shag cleaned the fish fresh from the brook, two figures stood in the door of the house.
“Look, Harry!” softly said the woman's voice. “Isn't that a picture?”
“It is, indeed, my dear. Gerry adores the colonel.”
“No wonder. I do myself. Oh, by the way, Harry, I had a letter from Captain Poland today.”
“Did you? Where is he now?” asked Harry Bartlett, as his eyes turned lovingly from the figure of his little son in the colonel's lap to that of his wife beside him.
“In the Philippines. He says he thinks he'll settle there. He was so pleased that we named the Boy after him.”
“Was he?” and then, as his wife went over to steal up behind her little son and clasp her hands over his eyes, the man, standing alone on the porch, murmured:
“Poor Gerry!” And it was of the lonely man in the Philippines he was speaking.
In the silent shadows Colonel Robert Lee Ashley fished again. This time he was alone, save for the omnipresent Shag. And as the latter netted a fish, and slipped it into the grass-lined creel, he spoke and said:
“Mr. Young, he done ast me to-day when we gwine back t' de city. He done say dere's a big case waitin' fo' you, Colonel, sah. When is we-all gwine back?”
“Never, Shag!”
“Nevah, Colonel, sah?”
“No. I'm going to spend all the rest of my life fishing. I've resigned from the detective business! I'll never take another case Never!”
And Shag chuckled silently as he closed the creel.
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