The Meredith Mystery

by Natalie Sumner Lincoln

THE SCENTED HANDKERCHIEF

Fully a minute passed before David Curtis moved. Stooping down, he groped about for his cane. It had rolled a slight distance away and it took him some few seconds to find it. Possession of the cane brought a sense of security; it was something to lean on, something to use to defend himself.... He paused and listened attentively. No sound disturbed the quiet of the night. Taking out his repeater he pressed the spring—a quarter past two. He had remained downstairs in the library far later than he had realized.

How to arouse the sleeping household and tell them of the tragedy enacted at their very doors? In groping for his cane he had lost his sense of direction. He took a step forward and paused in thought. Sam Hollister! He was the man to go to, but how could he reach Hollister without running the risk of disturbing the women of the household? Suppose he rapped on the wrong door?

To be eternally in the dark! Curtis raised his hand in a gesture eloquent of despair; then with an effort pulled himself together. Falling over a dead man, and that man his host, was enough to shake the stoutest nerves of a person possessing all his faculties—but to a blind man! Curtis was conscious that the hand holding his cane was not quite steady as he felt his way down the hall in search of his bedroom. The soft chimes of the grandfather clock in the hall below brought not only a violent start on his part in their train but an idea. The house telephone in his bedroom! John Meredith, that very afternoon, had taught him how to manipulate the mechanism of the instrument.

Quickening his pace Curtis moved down the corridor and turned a corner. If he could only be positive that he was going in the right direction and not away from his room. His outstretched hand passed from the wall to woodwork—a door. He felt about and found the knob. No string such as he had instructed the Filipino servant, detailed to valet him, to tie to his door as a means of identification in case he had to go to his room unaccompanied by a servant or friend, was hanging from it.

With an impatient ejaculation, low spoken, Curtis walked forward, taking care to step always on the heavy creepers with which the halls were carpeted. He had passed several doors when his hand, raised higher than usual, encountered an electric light fixture. The heat of the bulb proved that the light was still turned on, it also restored Curtis’ sense of direction as recollection returned of having been told by Fernando, the Filipino, that an electric fixture was near his room. A second more and he again paused before a door. Cautiously his fingers moved over the polished surface of the mahogany toward the door knob and closed over a piece of dangling twine.

With a sigh of utter thankfulness Curtis pushed open the door, which was standing slightly ajar, and entered the room. The house telephone should be in a small alcove to the left of the doorway—ah, he was right—the instrument was there. What was it John Meredith had told him—his room number was No. 1; that of the suite of rooms occupied by Mrs. Meredith and her daughter Anne, No. 2; his own bedroom call No. 3; that occupied by Gerald Armstrong, No. 4. Lucile Hull, Anne’s cousin and another guest over the week-end, was No. 5—no, five was the number of Sam Hollister’s bedroom in the west wing. But was it? Curtis paused in uncertainty. He did not like the idea of awakening Lucille Hull at nearly three o’clock in the morning. He was quite positive that to tell her John Meredith lay dead in the hall would send her into violent hysterics. It was no news to impart to a woman.

Suddenly Curtis’ hand on the telephone instrument clenched and his body grew rigid. A sixth sense, which tells of another’s presence, warned him that he was not alone. It was a large bedroom with windows opening upon a balcony which circled the old mansion, two closets, and a mirrored door which led to a dressing room beyond and a shower bath.

From the direction of the windows came a sigh, then the sound of some one rising stiffly from the floor, and a chair rasped against another piece of furniture as it was dragged forward with some force.

Moving always in darkness it had not occurred to Curtis to switch on the electric light when first entering the room. But why had not his appearance alarmed the intruder? He had made no especial effort to enter noiselessly. It must be that the room was unlighted. There was one way of solving the problem. Curtis opened his mouth, but the challenge, “Who’s there?” remained unspoken, checked by the unmistakable soft swish of silken garments. The intruder was a woman.