in his own household?”
“Enemy is a harsh word. But the man was far from happy with one who should have been his closest friend.”
“Meaning his wife?”
“Meaning his wife.” Mrs. Carstairs’s face was white, now, and her eyes had a steely glitter as she said these words, looking straight at the coroner.
“You state, then, that Mr. Van Wyck was not happy in his marital relations?”
“I state that, emphatically.”
There was a murmur of disapproval all through the room at the trend of this conversation, and more than one was heard to whisper, “Shame!” and, “This won’t do!”
I could see that Archer, Morland and the others were restrained from speech only by Anne herself.
As I had noticed before when these two women clashed, Anne won by the force of her marvellous aloofness. She now sat regarding Mrs. Carstairs with an expression of slight scorn, which said far more strongly than words could have expressed, that the witness was talking nonsense. Anne Van Wyck looked like a queen listening to the prattle of a demented subject, and her absolute indifference to the housekeeper’s remarks was the one reason why her friends did not at once put a stop to the testimony.
I saw at once that Anne’s attitude was the best possible refutation of the housekeeper’s evidence; and I saw, too, that Mrs. Carstairs was herself quite aware of this. I think Anne’s look of supercilious scorn, almost tinged with amusement, acted as a whip to the housekeeper’s burdened soul, and spurred her to greater effort.
“I know of what I am speaking,” Mrs. Carstairs went on, “for David Van Wyck was engaged to me, when he met and wooed the lady he made his wife.” She flashed a dazzling smile at the coroner, which went far to disturb that gentleman’s equilibrium.
“It was then—it was then, a breach of promise?” he said, half involuntarily.
“It was,—yes. But of course I never sued him, or in any way asserted my rights. He was sufficiently punished by his unhappy marriage. His wife has always been jealous of me. She has endeavored many times to have me dismissed from my position, but with no success. However,” and here Mrs. Carstairs turned her direct gaze upon Anne, “since the death of her husband, Mrs. Van Wyck has asserted her intention of getting rid of me! I accuse no one. I only state that there are several who would consider themselves benefited by the death of David Van Wyck.”
The quiet intensity of the speaker’s voice took away the melodramatic effect of the scene, and made her seem like an accusing angel speaking words of Fate.
There was a pause which was broken by Detective Markham, who burst out, with something the effect of a bomb-shell: “And your son is one of them!”
At last something had disturbed Mrs. Carstairs’s calm. She turned white to the very lips, and she trembled as if mortally afraid. But she made a brave effort to control herself, and said, distinctly, though in tones that quivered, “My son is in no way implicated!”
“Then what were you searching in the road for, early this morning?”
“I was not searching—” began Mrs. Carstairs, and then, as she saw me looking intently at her, she stopped speaking.
“You were,” declared the detective; “there’s no use your denying it! And later on, your son was seen searching in the same place. What clue was he looking for?”
Mrs. Carstairs could not speak. Her lips moved inaudibly, but she was striving to pull herself together and would doubtless have succeeded, when, breaking the silence, the voice of Beth Fordyce was heard.
It sounded weird, and the audience listened breathlessly as Beth said, in dreamy, far-away tones, “Wheel tracks! He was looking for wheel tracks! He was the man who came in the motor car! I recognize him now,—it was Carstairs, Mr. Van Wyck’s valet, who came into the grounds, at midnight, in a motor car. Who stopped—and hesitated —and proceeded at intervals—who left the car, and walked stealthily around the house in the shadow of the eaves—evading the moonlight—seeking the shadow—the shadow—”
Miss Fordyce’s voice trailed away in a whisper, and I knew that she was in one of the semi-trances, or whatever word might express the strange condition that sometimes enveloped her. She was perfectly conscious, but her mentality seemed dual. She envisioned other scenes than those she might be among, and while she saw them clearly she spoke as if through a mist.
The audience sat enthralled. Here at last was a hint of something real and tangible! Wheel tracks were legitimate clues! If Miss Fordyce’s story were true, there was at last a way to look for light on the mystery!
I glanced at Mrs. Carstairs, expecting to find her almost collapsed; but instead, she had again risen to the occasion and resumed her grasp of the situation. I saw, too, that it was the alarm of her mother instinct, that had nerved her to a renewed effort at composure, and she said quietly, “There is no meaning to the babble of a mind given to frequent hallucinations!”
But apparently the coroner thought there was, for he abruptly dismissed Mrs. Carstairs as a witness, and recalled her son.
The valet looked wretched, but seemed ready to answer questions.
“Did you come into this place in a motor last night at midnight?” the coroner shot at him.
“No, sir,” and the answer was firm, though in a low tone.
“You have testified that you were at a ball in the village.”
“Yes, sir, but I walked home. It—it isn’t far, sir.”
“Can you prove that you were at this village ball? Did any of the servants of this house see you there?”
“N-no, sir.”
“How does that happen?” snapped the coroner; “were none of them present at the ball?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“What do you mean? Look here, Carstairs, you weren’t at that ball at all! Where were you? Were you out in a motor?”
“No, sir; oh, no, sir!” The man’s denial was so emphatic and his manner so agitated, that it was palpably a falsehood on the face of it.
“I think you were,” the coroner went on, “and as I doubt your word, I will ask some one else.”
Then the coroner called for Ranney, the garage mechanician.
This witness doggedly persisted that he knew nothing of Carstairs’s whereabouts the night before. But persistent nagging by the coroner finally drew out the fact that the new touring car had been taken out.
“How do you know it had?” asked the coroner, and Ranney seemed suddenly to decide that he would make a clean breast of the matter.
“I seen the wheel tracks, sir,” he said.
“How did you know them from any other tracks?”
“It’s a new car, sir, and it has peculiar tires. You can’t mistake the tracks, sir.”
I
