AS A MAN SPEAKS
“Hard!” said Police Captain Tucker. “That’s what he is, Doctor—hard,” and the policeman drove a smacking fist into the palm of his other hand to emphasize the point.
The dog, lying in front of the fireplace, lifted her head. Dr. David Stone puffed his pipe serenely in the warmth of the blazing logs. The winter wind whistled about the house, a shutter banged like the report of a gun, and Joe Morrow jumped.
“Talks tough, Doctor, and sticks out his chin as though asking you what you were going to do about it. I’ve sent out his fingerprints. Wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out he was a bit of a gangster.”
“You have him safely in jail,” Dr. Stone pointed out.
“Safe enough for the present,” Captain Tucker admitted, “but I can’t hold him forever on mere suspicion.”
“Then you’re not charging him with murder?”
“How can I? You can’t prove a murder without producing a body. Where’s the corpse? Where’s Boothy Wilkes, alive or dead? He hasn’t been around——. You pass his place every day, Joe. When did you see him last?”
“Wednesday,” Joe Morrow, Dr. Stone’s nephew, answered. “He asked me had I seen Jud Cory hanging around.”
“Nobody’s seen him since Wednesday. That was six days ago. That morning he and Jud had a talk outside the post office—something about money—and suddenly Jud yelled out that he’d kill him. Dozen people heard it. And since late Wednesday Boothy hasn’t been seen.”
“Why did Jud want to kill him?” the blind doctor asked.
“How do I know?”
“Might be worth looking into,” the calm voice drawled.
“Haven’t I tried to sweat it out of him? Haven’t I grilled him trying to make him tell where he hid the body? What do I get? A stuck-out chin, and a scowl, and him telling me he’s not a squealer. That’s gangster talk.”
The blind man’s head rested against the back of the chair; his sightless eyes seemed to stare unblinkingly at some object on the ceiling; the pale face had the calmness of graven stone. Joe, highly excited by all this talk of murder and a hidden body, pulled at a thought that had occurred to him more than once in the past. Could anything happen that would shake his uncle out of that unruffled tranquillity?
“How old did you say he was, Captain?”
“Twenty.”
The doctor sat up and knocked the ashes of his pipe into the fireplace, “No boy is hard at twenty, Captain. He only thinks he’s hard. Mind if I talk to him?”
Captain Tucker sighed. “I was hoping you would.”
Dr. Stone reached for the dog’s harness. “More work for us, old girl,” he said, and the dog looked at him steadily. Joe wondered if she understood. They went out to the small police car, the tawny shepherd anxiously leading the blind man through the snow to the running-board. Crowded into the car, Joe and the dog in the rear seat, they rode toward the village.
“How long is it since Jud Cory left here?” Dr. Stone asked.
“Seven years. That’s what I can’t understand. Why should he come back after seven years to do a murder? He used to live with Boothy; did chores for his keep. We’ve sent for his brother.”
“Jud’s?”
“No; Boothy’s.”
The doctor said, surprised: “I didn’t know he had a brother.”
“Neither did anybody else. But for that matter Boothy was a tight-lipped man who told his business to no one. After the neighbors reported him missing we searched the house. Found a will and a note written the day before the quarrel outside the post office. The note said if anything happened to him——. See that, Doctor? He was afraid that something would happen.”
“He wrote that note the day before Jud threatened to kill him,” the blind man said slowly.
Joe thought that Captain Tucker had the look of a man stumbling over a rock he had not seen. “Well——.” The captain coughed awkwardly. “Why couldn’t Jud have gone to the house several times before that meeting outside the post office? Certainly he didn’t come here planning to loiter in the streets until Boothy appeared. Anyway, the note said if anything happened to him to notify his brother, Otis Wilkes, at once.”
“Any witnesses to the will?”
“No. Oh, it’s in his handwriting. We proved that.”
“Who gets his property?”
“This brother, Otis Wilkes.”
Dr. Stone said, “I’d like to meet Otis.” Joe, sitting taut on the rear seat, had the feeling that his uncle had touched something hidden in the dark. The car halted outside the village lock-up.
“I won’t go down with you,” Captain Tucker grunted. “He wouldn’t talk if I were there.”
“I’ll want Joe with me,” Dr. Stone said, and a turnkey led man, boy and dog down a damp staircase. It was the first time Joe had ever seen this forbiddingly bleak corridor of cells, and his heart grew heavy with a sick chill. A key rasped in a lock, and the jail attendant threw open an iron-barred door.
“Somebody to see you, Cory.”
“I don’t want to see nobody,” a voice answered harshly.
The blind man said, “Lady, left,” and followed the dog into the cell. Joe saw a disheveled youth who sat scowling upon a cot. At sight of them he arose with an air of bravado. The cell door closed.
“What’s the idea?” the harsh voice demanded. “Trying to scare me with a dog?”
“Nobody’s trying to scare you, Jud. Don’t you remember me? I’m Dr. Stone.”
“Another cop?”
“No,” the blind man said gently; “your friend. And here’s another friend—Joe Morrow. You ought to remember Joe. He was only a little tyke then, and always followed you when you brought the cows in from pasture.”
Joe saw the hard eyes waver. At that moment Jud Cory looked, not the murderous gangster, but a frightened, bewildered, sick-souled boy.
“He always brought me a cake with raisins in it,” Jud said huskily. And then, like some wild animal touched by danger, the youth had sprung back against the wall of the cell. “Hey! Trying to pull soft stuff on me? Nothing doing, I don’t talk.”
“You’ve had your share of bitter days, haven’t you?” Dr. Stone asked quietly.
The hard eyes wavered.
“I knew your father, Jud. It doesn’t seem possible that his son could butcher a man for a few dollars.”
“It wasn’t a few dollars,” the lad cried thickly. “It——”
Joe shivered. Then this had really been a murder for a lot of dollars. The youth had choked off the sentence and stood against the stone wall shaken by the appalling significance of what he had said.
“Jud,” the blind man said, “don’t try to fool me and don’t try to fool yourself. You’re just a poor, miserable kid who’s caught in a squeeze that’s too tight for him. Don’t you think you ought to tell me.”
The chin wasn’t a hard chin now. It quivered, tried to steady itself; and suddenly, like a tree that snaps in a storm, Jud Cory broke. One moment he stood against the wall, still suspicious, still afraid; the next he was on the side of his cot, his head in his hands, sobbing.
“You don’t know what it’s been like in here, Doctor. Everybody telling me I was a murderer and asking what I did with the body. When I said I’d kill him I was mad. I didn’t mean it. I tell you, Doctor, I didn’t mean it.”
The blind man groped across the cell, and sat upon the cot, and one hand reached out and rested on the boy’s shoulder.
The sobbing had stopped. “We—we lived in the city,” came from between the lad’s hands, “my pop and me, and pop got sick and they said he should go to the country. I don’t know how it happened, but we came to Boothy Wilkes’. I liked it there. Then pop died, and that changed everything. I was nine then, nine nearly ten, and Wilkes made me do all the chores—said I had to earn my keep. Telling me every day I was a pauper and threatening to send me away to the pauper farm. Then he began to shout and yell that I ate too much. That was when I lit out.
“I went to Philadelphia and sold newspapers. They told me to keep out of the way of the cops or they’d slap me in a home because I ought to be in school. It wasn’t so bad in the summer, but in the winter it was tough. Snowy days I wouldn’t sell many papers, and maybe I’d have to sleep in a hallway that night.”
“How old were you then, Jud?”
“About fourteen.”
Joe shot a glance at his uncle. The unruffled tranquillity was gone. The blind man’s face was dark with a bitter wrath.
“I figured I’d go some place where there wouldn’t be so much cold, so I beat it to California. There I got jobs doing this and that, and got along. One day, when I was out of work and feeling pretty low, a man stopped me and asked wasn’t I Jud Cory. He said I looked as though I was on my uppers, and I said I was. He said I must have gone through the money pretty fast, and I asked him what money, and he said he had been cashier for the bank here and that just a few days before my father died he was sent for, and went to Wilkes’ house, and that my father put nine thousand dollars in Wilkes’ account for me. It seemed pop didn’t want any dealings with lawyers and courts and thought Wilkes was honest. Maybe this man was telling me straight and maybe he wasn’t. I got thinking it over, and it seemed maybe Wilkes had laid it on me heavy so I’d light out and he’d have the money to himself. So I came back here, and the first time I spoke to Wilkes I knew it was true.”
“How?” Dr. Stone asked.
“By his face.”
“What was the name of this man, Jud?”
“I—I don’t know. I got so excited I forgot to ask, and when I went looking for him afterwards I couldn’t find him. Does that make any difference?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Jud Cory’s hands went out in a hopeless gesture. “I don’t suppose anybody’ll believe me.” He was up from the cot, frantic, terror-stricken. “But I didn’t kill him. I didn’t.”
“I know you didn’t,” Dr. Stone said quietly. “I’ve known that for the past ten minutes.”
Serenity had come back upon the blind man. Holding the handle-grip of Lady’s harness he followed the dog up the damp stairway to the headquarters room. There he told Captain Tucker Jud Cory’s story.
“A fairy tale,” the police captain scoffed. “He got it out of a book or the movies. Anyway, it doesn’t explain the riddle. Where’s Boothy Wilkes’ body?”
“Let’s go to the bank,” the doctor suggested.
Again they rode in the police car, and again Lady cautiously conducted her master through the snow. Bryan Smith, president of the bank, admitted them to his private office and closed the door.
“The Wilkes case, gentlemen?”
Captain Tucker shrugged. “In a way. Cory has burst forth with a wild——”
“Just a moment, Captain,” Dr. Stone said sharply. “Mr. Smith, did a cashier resign eight or nine years ago?”
“Eight or nine years?” The banker considered. “That would be Herman Lang. He resigned about that time.”
“Do you know why he resigned?”
“Yes. He had an offer to join a land development company.”
“Where?”
“In California.”
Joe saw Captain Tucker’s mouth sag, but his uncle’s face was impassive. Bryan Smith lowered his voice.
“Ordinarily, gentlemen, we do not discuss our depositors’ business. However, there is something I think you should know. Boothy Wilkes drew out five thousand dollars in cash the day he vanished. Cash!”
The sag that had been in Captain Tucker’s jaw was gone. Out in the car he spoke a positive judgment.
“There’s your motive, Doctor. Find Boothy’s body and Cory’ll soon tell us what he did with the five thousand dollars. Anyway, we all know Boothy kept a tight fist on a dime. Suppose he did rob the boy. Is that any excuse for murder?”
“You haven’t yet proved Jud did commit a murder,” the blind man suggested gently.
“The body?” Captain Tucker snapped an impatient finger. “That’s only a matter of time. It couldn’t have been taken far.”
Outside the village town hall a constable awaited their coming. Otis Wilkes, he said, had arrived from Baltimore and was now at the Wilkes farm. Captain Tucker turned the car about. Fifteen minutes later they swung into a driveway between trees and skidded to a stop. On the Wilkes porch a thin, wiry man paced back and forth restlessly.
“I’d know him for a Wilkes anywhere,” Captain Tucker said in an undertone. “Favors Boothy in looks, only this one’s all whiskered. Mind if I use Lady while you’re here, Doctor?”
“What for?”
“Clues. She might scent us something.”
As they left the car and came toward the house, Joe Morrow had eyes only for the man on the porch. A voice called down to them across the railing.
“Captain Tucker?” The tone carried a high, nasal twang. “Land o’ Goshen, I’ve been a-waitin’ for you until I’m like t’ freeze.” The sentence ended in a choking, sputtering cough. The man spat violently with a burst of breath. “Come in; come in out of the cold.”
The house, untenanted for a week, was scarcely warmer than the outdoors. But it was the house from which a man had disappeared, and Joe Morrow kept staring about uneasily as though expecting to find a ghost. They went into a front room that overlooked some of the land bordering the road. Here, at least, there was sun.
“Did they get him?” Otis Wilkes demanded. “This Jud Cory?” Speech was momentarily halted by that same choking cough, that same sputtering outburst of breath. “This Jud Cory who killed Boothy.”
Joe was conscious of a sudden, intent look on his uncle’s face. Captain Tucker answered very, very slowly.
“Did you stop at the police station, or did you come straight to the house?”
“To the house, of course. Where else with maybe Boothy lying dead?”
“How did you know he was dead?” Captain Tucker demanded.
“He wrote me, Boothy did.” One hand made a frantic reach for the inside pocket of his coat and drew forth a folded paper. “Boothy said it was on him. Here!”
Captain Tucker read the letter aloud:
Dear Otis: Like as not you’ll be surprised to get this letter seeing as we have not seen or heard of each other in twenty years. But when a man feels he is going to be took, it is natural he should turn to his only kin. I have wrote a will leaving everything to you, and you will be notified when necessary. If anything should happen to me sudden, look for Jud Cory. He has made talk of killing me, and I think he is the kind to do it.
Your brother, Boothy.
Captain Tucker folded the letter. “Well, Doctor?” he asked in poorly-concealed satisfaction.
The blind man’s face was inscrutable. “Does a man facing death, a man known to keep a tight fist on a dime, stop to draw five thousand dollars in cash from a bank?”
“Boothy was a-tryin’ t’ buy him off,” Mr. Wilkes shrilled.
“How do you know that, Mr. Wilkes?”
“Reasonable, ain’t it? Reckon a man would ruther pay five thousand dollars than be laid out stiff. What about Jud Cory?”
“We have him,” Captain Tucker answered, “but Boothy’s missing. We believe he’s been murdered.”
“Then why you standin’ ’round wastin’ time doin’ nothin’?” Mr. Wilkes’ outburst arose to a tremulous falsetto. “Find him. I’ll pay a reward.”
“We’re starting a search now with the dog,” Captain Tucker soothed the agitated man. “If you wish to come along——”
But Mr. Wilkes was seized with a shuddering reluctance. “It ain’t fitten’ I should, seein’ as folks might say I was powerful anxious t’ find him so’s t’ claim the property. Besides——” Straggling hairs again bothered his mouth, and there was another spell of coughing and sputtering. “Besides, I ain’t so spry anymore and the cold gits into my bones. I’ll set here by the window in the sun an’ watch out through the apple orchard.”
“It’s a fine orchard,” Captain Tucker observed.
“Boothy set great store by it,” Mr. Wilkes said feelingly. “Blasted the soil with dynamite before settin’ out the trees.”
“Coming, Captain?” Dr. Stone asked.
There was an undercurrent to the words. Joe, roused out of his expectation of a ghost, saw that the strained lines were gone from his uncle’s mouth and that now the face was placid and serene. The boy knew the sign. Once more Dr. Stone had touched something hidden in obscurity. Light had come to the brain that lay behind those blind eyes. And so they came outdoors, to the snow and the frozen ground.
“Careful, Doctor,” Captain Tucker warned.
“Lady won’t let me on ice,” the doctor answered. “Search, old girl.”
The dog winnowed through the snow, back and forth, ever advancing. The quest took them past the house, on past the summer kitchen. Suddenly the animal, no longer advancing, began to dig in the snow with her paws.
“She’s found something,” Joe cried.
Out from under the snow Lady dragged a hat. Captain Tucker seized it eagerly.
“It’s Boothy’s, Doctor. Here are his initials. B. W.”
The doctor asked a question. “Where are we, Joe?”
Joe’s throat ached. “On the driveway to the barn.”
“Doesn’t it strike you as strange, Captain, that Boothy’s hat should be found here?”
“What’s strange about it? Isn’t this the driveway?”
“That’s exactly what’s strange about it,” the blind man answered. “If somebody wanted to dispose of a body would he drag it through the open or would he seek cover? Might not the hat have been left here to be found?”
But the police officer was absorbed in a fresh discovery. The hat was sodden with snow; and yet, darker than the soak of water, was a stain above the sweat-band.
“Doctor, there’s something on this hat.”
“What?”
“Blood.”
Dr. Stone’s lips formed to a soundless whistle. “Boothy’s blood?”
“Why not?”
“Because, Captain, if that had been human blood Lady would have shied, and whimpered, and trembled. She would have called our attention to it, but she would not have brought the hat out to us.”
Captain Tucker flared into temper. “Doctor, that’s going too far. Even a clever dog is only a dog. We’re going back.”
The police officer carried the gruesome find to the house. Joe stumbled in the snow. There had been that dark stain near the sweat-band; he had seen it, and was troubled. Was Uncle David wrong? They crossed the porch and entered the room where Mr. Wilkes waited, and on the instant the man cried out in nasal horror:
“It’s Boothy’s hat. And there’s blood on it.”
“I’m going back to the village,” Captain Tucker said hurriedly. “I’m coming back with a crew of men. We’ll find what’s hidden here. We’ll find it if we have to dig up every foot of this farm.”
The captain was gone. The outer door closed. Dr. Stone still stood just within the room. Outside a motor roared, and suddenly the blind man shouted.
“Tucker! See that Herman Lang comes here as soon as he arrives.”
It seemed to Joe that Mr. Wilkes leaped and jerked in every muscle. “Lang? What about Herman Lang?” Another fit of sputtering and coughing seized him, and he spat violently. “What about him?”
“Oh!” The doctor’s voice was soft. “So you know Herman Lang?”
“Never heerd o’ him. Who is he?”
“He’s the bank cashier who was at this house the day Jud Cory’s father trusted Boothy with nine thousand dollars. Jud came here to get that money.”
“Bah! A likely tale. What am I supposed to do about it?”
The blind man, holding to the dog’s leash, stepped well within the room. Joe edged a little to the side. He had been with his uncle on so many adventures he had developed an instinct that told him when a trap was to be sprung. And instinct told him a trap was to be sprung now.
“You might answer a few questions, Mr. Wilkes. You and Boothy hadn’t seen or heard from each other in twenty years?”
“Maybe it was twenty-one years.”
“Then how did you know Boothy used dynamite to break the hardpan when he set out his orchard. Those trees were planted in the spring of 1920, thirteen years ago.”
Joe saw the Adam’s apple in the man’s throat work convulsively. “Likely I heard about it somewhere.”
“When Tucker came in, how did you know he had Boothy’s hat?”
“It must have been Boothy’s—Boothy allers wore the same kind.”
“How did you know of the blood? You were across the room. You couldn’t have distinguished a stain on a wet hat. Or—” The blind man paused. “Or did you know, before we left the room, that we were going to come back with a blood-stained hat?”
Joe could almost feel the man tremble. But no words came from the stark, startled lips.
“Nine thousand dollars,” Dr. Stone mused. “Simple interest for eleven years at six per cent. Five hundred and forty dollars a year. A total, principal and interest, of fourteen thousand nine hundred forty dollars. Sit down, Wilkes.”
Mr. Wilkes sat down.
“Make out a check to Jud Cory for fourteen thousand nine hundred forty dollars.”
Joe expected shrill, nasal protest. Instead the man sat there, huddled in tremulous abjection. By and by the fingers, strong and work-hardened, began to move slowly; and with that Joe saw a look of shrewd, calculating cunning steal into the eyes. He was like a man who, lost, sees a glimmer of hope.
“Doctor, most likely this Jud Cory’s been a-tellin’ you a passel o’ lies. But it ain’t fitten to speak ill o’ the dead, and Boothy’s my brother and I don’t hanker t’ have folks a-whisperin’ about him and makin’ light o’ his good name. Tell you what I’ll do, Doctor. I’ll give this Jud Cory enough to stop his mouth. Likely he’ll need it, anyway, t’ pay his trial lawyer.”
“That’s kind of you,” Dr. Stone said dryly.
Mr. Wilkes wrote a check and pressed it into the blind man’s hand.
“It’s no more than fair to tell you, Wilkes, that Herman Lang is not expected here.”
With a snarl the man was on his feet. “Give me that check!” Lady gave a warning growl, and on the instant the grasping hand was stayed. Mr. Wilkes shrank back.
“It would be a simple matter to telegraph and bring him East,” the doctor said pointedly.
As slowly as it had come the shrewd cunning faded out of the man’s eyes. He sank back into the chair.
Dr. Stone held out the slip of paper. “How much is it for, Joe?”
“Five thousand dollars, Uncle David.” This time it was the boy who trembled. Five thousand dollars was the amount of cash Boothy Wilkes had drawn from the bank.
“Signed by whom?”
“By Otis Wilkes.”
Without haste the doctor folded the check twice, and tore it into bits.
“Write another check,” he ordered quietly. “This time write it for fourteen thousand nine hundred forty dollars. This time sign your own name. Sign it Boothy Wilkes.”
To Joe Morrow the world went topsy-turvy. Through an incredulous haze he saw a snarling man sign a check and almost hurl it into his uncle’s face. As they came out upon the porch with Lady, Captain Tucker’s car swung into the driveway from the road.
“I’ll have men here in half an hour. Where’s Otis, Doctor?”
“Gone. Boothy’s inside.”
“Boothy?”
“Otis, if you like that name better,” the doctor said pleasantly.
For the second time that day Captain Tucker’s jaw sagged. Dr. Stone brought out his pipe, filled it, and puffed with calm enjoyment.
“You see,” he said, “Jud Cory told us the truth. When he arrived with the information that he knew of the money that was his, it was like plunging a knife into Boothy’s heart. Money has rather been Boothy’s god. The way to save the money came with Jud’s threat to kill him that so many persons overheard. Boothy went to the bank, drew out five thousand dollars, wrote the will and the note that you found, wrote himself the letter he showed you, and went to Baltimore to await the results he knew would follow. When it was discovered he was gone people remembered Jud’s threat. And so Jud was arrested, and you wrote Otis to come on, and the search began for a body that would never be found.
“Boothy had it figured out nicely. As Otis he would have five thousand dollars to live on. There was no hurry. Let Jud Cory stew in jail. He would never be tried for murder, for without a corpse no murder could be proved. Public opinion, though, might try Jud for threatening life, or for disturbing the peace, or for something else. He might even be sent to the county penitentiary for nine months. All right; let him go. When he was released he would be so sick of the game, so glad to be at liberty again, that he’d take the first train out and never come back. And then, after an interval, Boothy would reappear. What story would he have told? Well, he might have claimed a complete loss of memory—aphasia, as it is called. And there he’d be with his nine thousand dollars intact and Jud Cory gone for good.”
Captain Tucker had recovered from his chagrin. “I can see all that now, Doctor. But how did you know he was Boothy? Man, he had me completely fooled.”
“There were several signs,” Dr. Stone answered. “An apple orchard, for one; a hat for another. But the real give-away—” He passed the pipe under his nose and inhaled the aroma of the burning tobacco. “You wear false teeth, Captain?”
“What has that to do with it?” Captain Tucker demanded impatiently.
“Took you a while to get used to them, didn’t it?”
“Of course.”
“There’s the answer. Boothy didn’t take time to get used to them. They kept straggling out of place and interfering with his speech.”
“What are you talking about?” Captain Tucker cried impatiently. “False teeth?”
“No,” the blind man said mildly. “False whiskers.”