“Miss Thompson declined to admit him. You must understand, Mr. Trent, that Andrew Apthorpe was a very sick man, heart trouble mainly, and she was within her rights. The man who would not give his name put his foot in the door and said he would see Mr. Apthorpe if he waited there all night. While she was arguing with him, begging him, in fact, to go away, her employer came to the head of the stairs that lead from the main rooms to the hall. Miss Thompson explained what had happened. To her surprise he said, ‘I have been expecting him for twenty years. Let him in.’”
“Why should she call you up?” Trent asked.
“Merely because she was nervous and knew other people even less than she did me.” Mrs. Westward hesitated a moment. “There have been rumors about her and Mr. Apthorpe which were not pleasant. They were probably not true but when a man has lived as he had it was not surprising. She called me up at eight because the two men were quarreling. My husband told you he was a man of violent temper. That is putting it mildly. I told her there was nothing to be alarmed about. At nine she called me up again to say that she would be grateful if Mr. Westward and my nephew Richmond, who is staying with me, would go up there as she had heard blows struck and Mr. Apthorpe was too ill to engage in any sort of tussle. I told her my two men were out but that the police should be called in. While I was talking she gave a shriek—it was a most dramatic moment and I could hear her steps running from the telephone.”
“My nephew and I came in at that moment,” Westward interrupted, “and went up the hill to the house as fast as possible. Mrs. Westward meanwhile had telephoned for the police. Miss Thompson was waiting on the steps. She was hysterical and afraid to go back into the lonely house.”
“Richmond said he thought she had been drinking,” his wife interjected.
“That meant nothing,” Westward observed, “she was hysterical and I don’t wonder in that great lonely house. When we went in with the police we found the big living room door locked with the key on the inside. We had to break it open and found it bolted. Evidently the stranger had seen to that. Old Apthorpe was lying dead shot through the head with a bullet from his own revolver. The window was open. There was a twelve-foot drop to the grass outside and the man had lowered himself by a portiere. So far not a trace has been found of him. A great many people pass through here on the way to or from Boston and we have become so used to strangers that no heed is paid to them any more.”
“Was there any evidence of robbery?” Trent asked.
“Not a trace so far as we could see. I mean by that there was no disorder. Things of value might have been taken but nothing had been broken open. We shan’t know until Mrs. Apthorpe comes.”
“It was evidently,” Mr. Westward declared, “some man whom he had been expecting. Miss Thompson, according to her story, did not know the man’s name and yet was told to admit him. It may be the police will find it from correspondence.”
“I doubt it,” Trent observed shaking his head. “If it was a man Apthorpe had dreaded for a score of years he wouldn’t be corresponding with him.”