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Title: The Who Do You Think Did It?, or Mixed-Up Murder Mystery
Author: Stephen Leacock [
More Titles by Leacock]
NOTE.--Any reader who guesses correctly who did it is entitled (in all fairness) to a beautiful gold watch and chain.
CHAPTER I
HE DINED WITH ME LAST NIGHT
The afternoon edition of the Metropolitan Planet was going to press. Five thousand copies a minute were reeling off its giant cylinders. A square acre of paper was passing through its presses every hour. In the huge Planet building, which dominated Broadway, employés, compositors, reporters, advertisers, surged to and fro. Placed in a single line (only, of course, they wouldn't be likely to consent to it) they would have reached across Manhattan Island. Placed in two lines, they would probably have reached twice as far. Arranged in a procession they would have taken an hour in passing a saloon: easily that.
In the whole vast building all was uproar. Telephones, megaphones and gramophones were ringing throughout the building. Elevators flew up and down, stopping nowhere.
Only in one place was quiet--namely, in the room where sat the big man on whose capacious intellect the whole organization depended.
Masterman Throgton, the general manager of the Planet, was a man in middle life. There was something in his massive frame which suggested massiveness, and a certain quality in the poise of his great head which indicated a balanced intellect. His face was impenetrable and his expression imponderable.
The big chief was sitting in his swivel chair with ink all round him. Through this man's great brain passed all the threads and filaments that held the news of a continent. Snap one, and the whole continent would stop.
At the moment when our story opens (there was no sense in opening it sooner), a written message had just been handed in.
The Chief read it. He seemed to grasp its contents in a flash.
"Good God!" he exclaimed. It was the strongest expression that this solid, self-contained, semi-detached man ever allowed himself. Anything stronger would have seemed too near to profanity. "Good God!" he repeated, "Kivas Kelly murdered! In his own home! Why, he dined with me last night! I drove him home!"
For a brief moment the big man remained plunged in thought. But with Throgton the moment of musing was short. His instinct was to act.
"You may go," he said to the messenger. Then he seized the telephone that stood beside him (this man could telephone almost without stopping thinking) and spoke into it in quiet, measured tones, without wasting a word.
"Hullo, operator! Put me through to two, two, two, two, two. Is that two, two, two, two, two? Hullo, two, two, two, two, two; I want Transome Kent. Kent speaking? Kent, this is Throgton speaking. Kent, a murder has been committed at the Kelly residence, Riverside Drive. I want you to go and cover it. Get it all. Don't spare expense. The Planet is behind you. Have you got car-fare? Right."
In another moment the big chief had turned round in his swivel chair (at least forty degrees) and was reading telegraphic despatches from Jerusalem. That was the way he did things.
CHAPTER II
I MUST SAVE HER LIFE
Within a few minutes Transome Kent had leapt into a car (a surface car) and was speeding north towards Riverside Drive with the full power of the car. As he passed uptown a newsboy was already calling, "Club Man Murdered! Another Club Man Murdered!" Carelessly throwing a cent to the boy, Kent purchased a paper and read the brief notice of the tragedy.
Kivas Kelly, a well-known club man and bon vivant, had been found dead in his residence on Riverside Drive, with every indication--or, at least, with a whole lot of indications--of murder. The unhappy club man had been found, fully dressed in his evening clothes, lying on his back on the floor of the billiard-room, with his feet stuck up on the edge of the table. A narrow black scarf, presumably his evening tie, was twisted tightly about his neck by means of a billiard cue inserted in it. There was a quiet smile upon his face. He had apparently died from strangulation. A couple of bullet-holes passed through his body, one on each side, but they went out again. His suspenders were burst at the back. His hands were folded across his chest. One of them still held a white billiard ball. There was no sign of a struggle or of any disturbance in the room. A square piece of cloth was missing from the victim's dinner jacket.
In its editorial columns the same paper discussed the more general aspects of the murder. This, it said, was the third club man murdered in the last fortnight. While not taking an alarmist view, the paper felt that the killing of club men had got to stop. There was a limit, a reasonable limit, to everything. Why should a club man be killed? It might be asked, why should a club man live? But this was hardly to the point. They do live. After all, to be fair, what does a club man ask of society? Not much. Merely wine, women and singing. Why not let him have them? Is it fair to kill him? Does the gain to literature outweigh the social wrong? The writer estimated that at the rate of killing now going on the club men would be all destroyed in another generation. Something should be done to conserve them.
Transome Kent was not a detective. He was a reporter. After sweeping everything at Harvard in front of him, and then behind him, he had joined the staff of the Planet two months before. His rise had been phenomenal. In his first week of work he had unravelled a mystery, in his second he had unearthed a packing scandal which had poisoned the food of the entire nation for ten years, and in his third he had pitilessly exposed some of the best and most respectable people in the metropolis. Kent's work on the Planet consisted now almost exclusively of unravelling and unearthing, and it was natural that the manager should turn to him.
The mansion was a handsome sandstone residence, standing in its own grounds. On Kent's arrival he found that the police had already drawn a cordon around it with cords. Groups of morbid curiosity-seekers hung about it in twos and threes, some of them in fours and fives. Policemen were leaning against the fence in all directions. They wore that baffled look so common to the detective force of the metropolis. "It seems to me," remarked one of them to the man beside him, "that there is an inexorable chain of logic about this that I am unable to follow." "So do I," said the other.
The Chief Inspector of the Detective Department, a large, heavy-looking man, was standing beside a gate-post. He nodded gloomily to Transome Kent.
"Are you baffled, Edwards?" asked Kent.
"Baffled again, Mr. Kent," said the Inspector, with a sob in his voice. "I thought I could have solved this one, but I can't."
He passed a handkerchief across his eyes.
"Have a cigar, Chief," said Kent, "and let me hear what the trouble is."
The Inspector brightened. Like all policemen, he was simply crazy over cigars. "All right, Mr. Kent," he said, "wait till I chase away the morbid curiosity-seekers."
He threw a stick at them.
"Now, then," continued Kent, "what about tracks, footmarks? Had you thought of them?"
"Yes, first thing. The whole lawn is covered with them, all stamped down. Look at these, for instance. These are the tracks of a man with a wooden leg"--Kent nodded--"in all probability a sailor, newly landed from Java, carrying a Singapore walking-stick, and with a tin-whistle tied round his belt."
"Yes, I see that," said Kent thoughtfully. "The weight of the whistle weighs him down a little on the right side."
"Do you think, Mr. Kent, a sailor from Java with a wooden leg would commit a murder like this?" asked the Inspector eagerly. "Would he do it?"
"He would," said the Investigator. "They generally do--as soon as they land."
The Inspector nodded. "And look at these marks here, Mr. Kent. You recognize them, surely--those are the footsteps of a bar-keeper out of employment, waiting for the eighteenth amendment to pass away. See how deeply they sink in----"
"Yes," said Kent, "he'd commit murder."
"There are lots more," continued the Inspector, "but they're no good. The morbid curiosity-seekers were walking all over this place while we were drawing the cordon round it."
"Stop a bit," said Kent, pausing to think a moment. "What about thumb-prints?"
"Thumb-prints," said the Inspector. "Don't mention them. The house is full of them."
"Any thumb-prints of Italians with that peculiar incurvature of the ball of the thumb that denotes a Sicilian brigand?"
"There were three of those," said Inspector Edwards gloomily. "No, Mr. Kent, the thumb stuff is no good."
Kent thought again.
"Inspector," he said, "what about mysterious women? Have you seen any around?"
"Four went by this morning," said the Inspector, "one at eleven-thirty, one at twelve-thirty, and two together at one-thirty. At least," he added sadly, "I think they were mysterious. All women look mysterious to me."
"I must try in another direction," said Kent. "Let me reconstruct the whole thing. I must weave a chain of analysis. Kivas Kelly was a bachelor, was he not?"
"He was. He lived alone here."
"Very good, I suppose he had in his employ a butler who had been with him for twenty years----"
Edwards nodded.
"I suppose you've arrested him?"
"At once," said the Inspector. "We always arrest the butler, Mr. Kent. They expect it. In fact, this man, Williams, gave himself up at once."
"And let me see," continued the Investigator. "I presume there was a housekeeper who lived on the top floor, and who had been stone deaf for ten years?"
"Precisely."
"She had heard nothing during the murder?"
"Not a thing. But this may have been on account of her deafness."
"True, true," murmured Kent. "And I suppose there was a coachman, a thoroughly reliable man, who lived with his wife at the back of the house----"
"But who had taken his wife over to see a relation on the night of the murder, and who did not return until an advanced hour. Mr. Kent, we've been all over that. There's nothing in it."
"Were there any other persons belonging to the establishment?"
"There was Mr. Kelly's stenographer, Alice Delary, but she only came in the mornings."
"Have you seen her?" asked Kent eagerly. "What is she like?"
"I have seen her," said the Inspector. "She's a looloo."
"Ha," said Kent, "a looloo!" The two men looked into one another's eyes.
"Yes," repeated Edwards thoughtfully, "a peach."
A sudden swift flash of intuition, an inspiration, leapt into the young reporter's brain.
This girl, this peach, at all hazards he must save her life.
CHAPTER III
I MUST BUY A BOOK ON BILLIARDS
Kent turned to the Inspector. "Take me into the house," he said. Edwards led the way. The interior of the handsome mansion seemed undisturbed. "I see no sign of a struggle here," said Kent.
"No," answered the Inspector gloomily. "We can find no sign of a struggle anywhere. But, then, we never do."
He opened for the moment the door of the stately drawing-room. "No sign of a struggle there," he said. The closed blinds, the draped furniture, the covered piano, the muffled chandelier, showed absolutely no sign of a struggle.
"Come upstairs to the billiard-room," said Edwards. "The body has been removed for the inquest, but nothing else is disturbed."
They went upstairs. On the second floor was the billiard-room, with a great English table in the centre of it. But Kent had at once dashed across to the window, an exclamation on his lips. "Ha! ha!" he said, "what have we here?"
The Inspector shook his head quietly. "The window," he said in a monotonous, almost sing-song tone, "has apparently been opened from the outside, the sash being lifted with some kind of a sharp instrument. The dust on the sill outside has been disturbed as if by a man of extraordinary agility lying on his stomach----Don't bother about that, Mr. Kent. It's always there."
"True," said Kent. Then he cast his eyes upward, and again an involuntary exclamation broke from him. "Did you see that trap-door?" he asked.
"We did," said Edwards. "The dust around the rim has been disturbed. The trap opens into the hollow of the roof. A man of extraordinary dexterity might open the trap with a billiard cue, throw up a fine manila rope, climb up the rope and lie there on his stomach.
"No use," continued the Inspector. "For the matter of that, look at this huge old-fashioned fireplace. A man of extraordinary precocity could climb up the chimney. Or this dumb-waiter on a pulley, for serving drinks, leading down into the maids' quarters. A man of extreme indelicacy might ride up and down in it."
"Stop a minute," said Kent. "What is the meaning of that hat?"
A light gossamer hat, gay with flowers, hung on a peg at the side of the room.
"We thought of that," said Edwards, "and we have left it there. Whoever comes for that hat has had a hand in the mystery. We think----"
But Transome Kent was no longer listening. He had seized the edge of the billiard table.
"Look, look!" he cried eagerly. "The clue to the mystery! The positions of the billiard balls! The white ball in the very centre of the table, and the red just standing on the verge of the end pocket! What does it mean, Edwards, what does it mean?"
He had grasped Edwards by the arm and was peering into his face.
"I don't know," said the Inspector. "I don't play billiards."
"Neither do I," said Kent, "but I can find out. Quick! The nearest book-store. I must buy a book on billiards."
With a wave of the arm, Kent vanished.
The Inspector stood for a moment in thought.
"Gone!" he murmured to himself (it was his habit to murmur all really important speeches aloud to himself). "Now, why did Throgton telephone to me to put a watch on Kent? Ten dollars a day to shadow him! Why?"
CHAPTER IV
THAT IS NOT BILLIARD CHALK
Meantime at the Planet office Masterman Throgton was putting on his coat to go home.
"Excuse me, sir," said an employé, "there's a lot of green billiard chalk on your sleeve."
Throgton turned and looked the man full in the eye.
"That is not billiard chalk," he said, "it is face powder."
Saying which this big, imperturbable, self-contained man stepped into the elevator and went to the ground floor in one drop.
CHAPTER V
HAS ANYBODY HERE SEEN KELLY?
The inquest upon the body of Kivas Kelly was held upon the following day. Far from offering any solution of what had now become an unfathomable mystery, it only made it deeper still. The medical testimony, though given by the most distinguished consulting expert of the city, was entirely inconclusive. The body, the expert testified, showed evident marks of violence. There was a distinct lesion of the oesophagus and a decided excoriation of the fibula. The mesodenum was gibbous. There was a certain quantity of flab in the binomium and the proscenium was wide open.
One striking fact, however, was decided from the testimony of the expert, namely, that the stomach of the deceased was found to contain half a pint of arsenic. On this point the questioning of the district attorney was close and technical. Was it unusual, he asked, to find arsenic in the stomach? In the stomach of a club man, no. Was not half a pint a large quantity? He would not say that. Was it a small quantity? He should not care to say that it was. Would half a pint of arsenic cause death? Of a club man, no, not necessarily. That was all.
The other testimony submitted to the inquest jury brought out various facts of a substantive character, but calculated rather to complicate than to unravel the mystery. The butler swore that on the very day of the murder he had served his master a half-pint of arsenic at lunch. But he claimed that this was quite a usual happening with his master. On cross-examination it appeared that he meant apollinaris. He was certain, however, that it was half a pint. The butler, it was shown, had been in Kivas Kelly's employ for twenty years.
The coachman, an Irishman, was closely questioned. He had been in Mr. Kelly's employ for three years--ever since his arrival from the old country. Was it true that he had had, on the day of the murder, a violent quarrel with his master? It was. Had he threatened to kill him? No. He had threatened to knock his block off, but not to kill him.
The coroner looked at his notes. "Call Alice Delary," he commanded. There was a deep sensation in the court as Miss Delary quietly stepped forward to her place in the witness-box.
Tall, graceful and willowy, Alice Delary was in her first burst of womanhood. Those who looked at the beautiful girl realized that if her first burst was like this, what would the second, or the third be like?
The girl was trembling, and evidently distressed, but she gave her evidence in a clear, sweet, low voice. She had been in Mr. Kelly's employ three years. She was his stenographer. But she came only in the mornings and always left at lunch-time. The question immediately asked by the jury--"Where did she generally have lunch?"--was disallowed by the coroner. Asked by a member of the jury what system of shorthand she used, she answered, "Pitman's." Asked by another juryman whether she ever cared to go to moving pictures, she said that she went occasionally. This created a favourable impression. "Miss Delary," said the district attorney, "I want to ask if it is your hat that was found hanging in the billiard-room after the crime?"
"Don't you dare ask that girl that," interrupted the magistrate. "Miss Delary, you may step down."
But the principal sensation of the day arose out of the evidence offered by Masterman Throgton, general manager of the Planet. Kivas Kelly, he testified, had dined with him at his club on the fateful evening. He had afterwards driven him to his home.
"When you went into the house with the deceased," asked the district attorney, "how long did you remain there with him?"
"That," said Throgton quietly, "I must refuse to answer."
"Would it incriminate you?" asked the coroner, leaning forward.
"It might," said Throgton.
"Then you're perfectly right not to answer it," said the coroner. "Don't ask him that any more. Ask something else."
"Then did you," questioned the attorney, turning to Throgton again, "play a game of billiards with the deceased?"
"Stop, stop," said the coroner, "that question I can't allow. It's too direct, too brutal; there's something about that question, something mean, dirty. Ask another."
"Very good," said the attorney. "Then tell me, Mr. Throgton, if you ever saw this blue envelope before?" He held up in his hand a long blue envelope.
"Never in my life," said Throgton.
"Of course he didn't," said the coroner. "Let's have a look at it. What is it?"
"This envelope, your Honour, was found sticking out of the waistcoat pocket of the deceased."
"You don't say," said the coroner. "And what's in it?"
Amid breathless silence, the attorney drew forth a sheet of blue paper, bearing a stamp, and read:
"This is the last will and testament of me, Kivas Kelly of New York. I leave everything of which I die possessed to my nephew, Peter Kelly."
The entire room gasped. No one spoke. The coroner looked all around. "Has anybody here seen Kelly?" he asked.
There was no answer.
The coroner repeated the question.
No one moved.
"Mr. Coroner," said the attorney, "it is my opinion that if Peter Kelly is found the mystery is fathomed."
Ten minutes later the jury returned a verdict of murder against a person or persons unknown, adding that they would bet a dollar that Kelly did it.
The coroner ordered the butler to be released, and directed the issue of a warrant for the arrest of Peter Kelly.
CHAPTER VI
SHOW ME THE MAN WHO WORE THOSE BOOTS
The remains of the unhappy club man were buried on the following day as reverently as those of a club man can be. None followed him to the grave except a few morbid curiosity-seekers, who rode on top of the hearse.
The great city turned again to its usual avocations. The unfathomable mystery was dismissed from the public mind.
Meantime Transome Kent was on the trail. Sleepless, almost foodless, and absolutely drinkless, he was everywhere. He was looking for Peter Kelly. Wherever crowds were gathered, the Investigator was there, searching for Kelly. In the great concourse of the Grand Central Station, Kent moved to and fro, peering into everybody's face. An official touched him on the shoulder. "Stop peering into the people's faces," he said. "I am unravelling a mystery," Kent answered. "I beg your pardon, sir," said the man, "I didn't know."
Kent was here, and everywhere, moving ceaselessly, pro and con, watching for Kelly. For hours he stood beside the soda-water fountains examining every drinker as he drank. For three days he sat on the steps of Masterman Throgton's home, disguised as a plumber waiting for a wrench.
But still no trace of Peter Kelly. Young Kelly, it appeared, had lived with his uncle until a little less than three years ago. Then suddenly he had disappeared. He had vanished, as a brilliant writer for the New York Press framed it, as if the earth had swallowed him up.
Transome Kent, however, was not a man to be baffled by initial defeat.
A week later, the Investigator called in at the office of Inspector Edwards.
"Inspector," he said, "I must have some more clues. Take me again to the Kelly residence. I must re-analyse my first diæresis."
Together the two friends went to the house. "It is inevitable," said Kent, as they entered again the fateful billiard-room, "that we have overlooked something."
"We always do," said Edwards gloomily.
"Now tell me," said Kent, as they stood beside the billiard table, "what is your own theory, the police theory, of this murder? Give me your first theory first, and then go on with the others."
"Our first theory, Mr. Kent, was that the murder was committed by a sailor with a wooden leg, newly landed from Java."
"Quite so, quite proper," nodded Kent.
"We knew that he was a sailor," the Inspector went on, dropping again into his sing-song monotone, "by the extraordinary agility needed to climb up the thirty feet of bare brick wall to the window--a landsman could not have climbed more than twenty; the fact that he was from the East Indies we knew from the peculiar knot about his victim's neck. We knew that he had a wooden leg----"
The Inspector paused and looked troubled.
"We knew it." He paused again. "I'm afraid I can't remember that one."
"Tut, tut," said Kent gently, "you knew it, Edwards, because when he leaned against the billiard table the impress of his hand on the mahogany was deeper on one side than the other. The man was obviously top heavy. But you abandoned this first theory."
"Certainly, Mr. Kent, we always do. Our second theory was----"
But Kent had ceased to listen. He had suddenly stooped down and picked up something off the floor.
"Ha ha!" he exclaimed. "What do you make of this?" He held up a square fragment of black cloth.
"We never saw it," said Edwards.
"Cloth," muttered Kent, "the missing piece of Kivas Kelly's dinner jacket." He whipped out a magnifying glass. "Look," he said, "it's been stamped upon--by a man wearing hob-nailed boots--made in Ireland--a man of five feet nine and a half inches high----"
"One minute, Mr. Kent," interrupted the Inspector, greatly excited, "I don't quite get it."
"The depth of the dint proves the lift of his foot," said Kent impatiently, "and the lift of the foot indicates at once the man's height. Edwards, find me the man who wore these boots and the mystery is solved!"
At that very moment a heavy step, unmistakably to the trained ear that of a man in hob-nailed boots, was heard upon the stair. The door opened and a man stood hesitating in the doorway.
Both Kent and Edwards gave a start, two starts, of surprise.
The man was exactly five feet nine and a half inches high. He was dressed in coachman's dress. His face was saturnine and evil.
It was Dennis, the coachman of the murdered man.
"If you're Mr. Kent," he said, "there's a lady here asking for you."
CHAPTER VII
OH, MR. KENT, SAVE ME!
In another moment an absolutely noiseless step was heard upon the stair.
A young girl entered, a girl, tall, willowy and beautiful, in the first burst, or just about the first burst, of womanhood.
It was Alice Delary.
She was dressed with extreme taste, but Kent's quick eye noted at once that she wore no hat.
"Mr. Kent," she cried, "you are Mr. Kent, are you not? They told me that you were here. Oh, Mr. Kent, help me, save me!"
She seemed to shudder into herself a moment. Her breath came and went quickly.
She reached out her two hands.
"Calm yourself, my dear young lady," said Kent, taking them. "Don't let your breath come and go so much. Trust me. Tell me all."
"Mr. Kent," said Delary, regaining her control, but still trembling, "I want my hat."
Kent let go the beautiful girl's hands. "Sit down," he said. Then he went across the room and fetched the hat, the light gossamer hat, with flowers in it, that still hung on a peg.
"Oh, I am so glad to get it back," cried the girl. "I can never thank you enough. I was afraid to come for it."
"It is all right," said the Inspector. "The police theory was that it was the housekeeper's hat. You are welcome to it."
Kent had been looking closely at the girl before him.
"You have more to say than that," he said. "Tell me all."
"Oh, I will, I will, Mr. Kent. That dreadful night! I was here. I saw, at least I heard it all."
She shuddered.
"Oh, Mr. Kent, it was dreadful! I had come back that evening to the library to finish some work. I knew that Mr. Kelly was to dine out and that I would be alone. I had been working quietly for some time when I became aware of voices in the billiard-room. I tried not to listen, but they seemed to be quarrelling, and I couldn't help hearing. Oh, Mr. Kent, was I wrong?"
"No," said Kent, taking her hand a moment, "you were not."
"I heard one say, 'Get your foot off the table, you've no right to put your foot on the table.' Then the other said, 'Well, you keep your stomach off the cushion then.'" The girl shivered. "Then presently one said, quite fiercely, 'Get back into balk there, get back fifteen inches,' and the other voice said, 'By God! I'll shoot from here.' Then there was a dead stillness, and then a voice almost screamed, 'You've potted me. You've potted me. That ends it.' And then I heard the other say in a low tone, 'Forgive me, I didn't mean it. I never meant it to end that way.'
"I was so frightened, Mr. Kent, I couldn't stay any longer. I rushed downstairs and ran all the way home. Then next day I read what had happened, and I knew that I had left my hat there, and was afraid. Oh, Mr. Kent, save me!"
"Miss Delary," said the Investigator, taking again the girl's hands and looking into her eyes, "you are safe. Tell me only one thing. The man who played against Kivas Kelly--did you see him?"
"Only for one moment"--the girl paused--"through the keyhole."
"What was he like?" asked Kent. "Had he an impenetrable face?"
"He had."
"Was there anything massive about his face?"
"Oh, yes, yes, it was all massive."
"Miss Delary," said Kent, "this mystery is now on the brink of solution. When I have joined the last links of the chain, may I come and tell you all?"
She looked full in his face.
"At any hour of the day or night," she said, "you may come."
Then she was gone.
CHAPTER VIII
YOU ARE PETER KELLY
Within a few moments Kent was at the phone.
"I want four, four, four, four. Is that four, four, four, four? Mr. Throgton's house? I want Mr. Throgton. Mr. Throgton speaking? Mr. Throgton, Kent speaking. The Riverside mystery is solved."
Kent waited in silence a moment. Then he heard Throgton's voice--not a note in it disturbed:
"Has anybody found Kelly?"
"Mr. Throgton," said Kent, and he spoke with a strange meaning in his tone, "the story is a long one. Suppose I relate it to you"--he paused, and laid a peculiar emphasis on what followed--"over a game of billiards."
"What the devil do you mean?" answered Throgton.
"Let me come round to your house and tell the story. There are points in it that I can best illustrate over a billiard table. Suppose I challenge you to a fifty point game before I tell my story."
It required no little hardihood to challenge Masterman Throgton at billiards. His reputation at his club as a cool, determined player was surpassed by few. Throgton had been known to run nine, ten, and even twelve at a break. It was not unusual for him to drive his ball clear off the table. His keen eye told him infallibly where each of the three balls was; instinctively he knew which to shoot with.
In Kent, however, he had no mean adversary. The young reporter, though he had never played before, had studied his book to some purpose. His strategy was admirable. Keeping his ball well under the shelter of the cushion, he eluded every stroke of his adversary, and in his turn caused his ball to leap or dart across the table with such speed as to bury itself in the pocket at the side.
The score advanced rapidly, both players standing precisely equal. At the end of the first half-hour it stood at ten all. Throgton, a grim look upon his face, had settled down to work, playing with one knee on the table. Kent, calm but alive with excitement, leaned well forward to his stroke, his eye held within an inch of the ball.
At fifteen they were still even. Throgton with a sudden effort forced a break of three; but Kent rallied and in another twenty minutes they were even again at nineteen all.
But it was soon clear that Transome Kent had something else in mind than to win the game. Presently his opportunity came. With a masterly stroke, such as few trained players could use, he had potted his adversary's ball. The red ball was left over the very jaws of the pocket. The white was in the centre.
Kent looked into Throgton's face.
The balls were standing in the very same position on the table as on the night of the murder.
"I did that on purpose," said Kent quietly.
"What do you mean?" asked Throgton.
"The position of those balls," said Kent. "Mr. Throgton, come into the library. I have something to say to you. You know already what it is."
They went into the library. Throgton, his hand unsteady, lighted a cigar.
"Well," he said, "what is it?"
"Mr. Throgton," said Kent, "two weeks ago you gave me a mystery to solve. To-night I can give you the solution. Do you want it?"
Throgton's face never moved.
"Well," he said.
"A man's life," Kent went on, "may be played out on a billiard table. A man's soul, Throgton, may be pocketed."
"What devil's foolery is this?" said Throgton. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that your crime is known--plotter, schemer that you are, you are found out--hypocrite, traitor; yes, Masterman Throgton, or rather--let me give you your true name-Peter Kelly, murderer, I denounce you!"
Throgton never flinched. He walked across to where Kent stood, and with his open palm he slapped him over the mouth.
"Transome Kent," he said, "you're a liar."
Then he walked back to his chair and sat down.
"Kent," he continued, "from the first moment of your mock investigation, I knew who you were. Your every step was shadowed, your every movement dogged. Transome Kent--by your true name, Peter Kelly, murderer, I denounce you."
Kent walked quietly across to Throgton and dealt him a fearful blow behind the ear.
"You're a liar," he said, "I am not Peter Kelly."
They sat looking at one another.
At that moment Throgton's servant appeared at the door.
"A gentleman to see you, sir."
"Who?" said Throgton.
"I don't know, sir, he gave his card."
Masterman Throgton took the card.
On it was printed:
PETER KELLY
CHAPTER IX
LET ME TELL YOU THE STORY OF MY LIFE
For a moment Throgton and Kent sat looking at one another.
"Show the man up," said Throgton.
A minute later the door opened and a man entered. Kent's keen eye analysed him as he stood. His blue clothes, his tanned face, and the extraordinary dexterity of his fingers left no doubt of his calling. He was a sailor.
"Sit down," said Throgton.
"Thank you," said the sailor, "it rests my wooden leg."
The two men looked again. One of the sailor's legs was made of wood. With a start Kent noticed that it was made of East Indian sandalwood.
"I've just come from Java," said Kelly quietly, as he sat down.
Kent nodded. "I see it all now," he said. "Throgton, I wronged you. We should have known it was a sailor with a wooden leg from Java. There is no other way."
"Gentlemen," said Peter Kelly, "I've come to make my confession. It is the usual and right thing to do, gentlemen, and I want to go through with it while I can."
"One moment," said Kent, "do you mind interrupting yourself with a hacking cough?"
"Thank you, sir," said Kelly, "I'll get to that a little later. Let me begin by telling you the story of my life."
"No, no," urged Throgton and Kent, "don't do that!"
Kelly frowned. "I think I have a right to," he said. "You've got to hear it. As a boy I had a wild, impulsive nature. Had it been curbed----"
"But it wasn't," said Throgton. "What next?"
"I was the sole relative of my uncle, and heir to great wealth. Pampered with every luxury, I was on a footing of----"
"One minute," interrupted Kent, rapidly analysing as he listened. "How many legs had you then?"
"Two--on a footing of ease and indolence. I soon lost----"
"Your leg," said Throgton. "Mr. Kelly, pray come to the essential things."
"I will," said the sailor. "Gentlemen, bad as I was, I was not altogether bad."
"Of course not," said Kent and Throgton soothingly. "Probably not more than ninety per cent."
"Even into my life, gentlemen, love entered. If you had seen her you would have known that she is as innocent as the driven snow. Three years ago she came to my uncle's house. I loved her. One day, hardly knowing what I was doing, I took her----" he paused.
"Yes, yes," said Throgton and Kent, "you took her?"
"To the Aquarium. My uncle heard of it. There was a violent quarrel. He disinherited me and drove me from the house. I had a liking for the sea from a boy."
"Excuse me," said Kent, "from what boy?"
Kelly went right on. "I ran away as a sailor before the mast."
"Pardon me," interrupted Kent, "I am not used to sea terms. Why didn't you run behind the mast?"
"Hear me out," said Kelly, "I am nearly done. We sailed for the East Indies--for Java. There a Malay pirate bit off my leg. I returned home, bitter, disillusioned, the mere wreck that you see. I had but one thought. I meant to kill my uncle."
For a moment a hacking cough interrupted Kelly. Kent and Throgton nodded quietly to one another.
"I came to his house at night. With the aid of my wooden leg I scaled the wall, lifted the window and entered the billiard-room. There was murder in my heart. Thank God I was spared from that. At the very moment when I got in, a light was turned on in the room and I saw before me--but no, I will not name her--my better angel. 'Peter!' she cried, then with a woman's intuition she exclaimed, 'You have come to murder your uncle. Don't do it.' My whole mood changed. I broke down and cried like a--like a----"
Kelly paused a moment.
"Like a boob," said Kent softly. "Go on."
"When I had done crying, we heard voices. 'Quick,' she exclaimed, 'flee, hide, he must not see you.' She rushed into the adjoining room, closing the door. My eye had noticed already the trap above. I climbed up to it. Shall I explain how?"
"Don't," said Kent, "I can analyse it afterwards."
"There I saw what passed. I saw Mr. Throgton and Kivas Kelly come in. I watched their game. They were greatly excited and quarrelled over it. Throgton lost."
The big man nodded with a scowl. "By his potting the white," he said.
"Precisely," said Kelly, "he missed the red. Your analysis was wrong, Mr. Kent. The game ended. You started your reasoning from a false diæresis. In billiards people never mark the last point. The board still showed ninety-nine all. Throgton left and my uncle, as often happens, kept trying over the last shot--a half-ball shot, sir, with the red over the pocket. He tried again and again. He couldn't make it. He tried various ways. His rest was too unsteady. Finally he made his tie into a long loop round his neck and put his cue through it. 'Now, by gad!' he said, 'I can do it.'"
"Ha!" said Kent. "Fool that I was."
"Exactly," continued Kelly. "In the excitement of watching my uncle I forgot where I was, I leaned too far over and fell out of the trap. I landed on uncle, just as he was sitting on the table to shoot. He fell."
"I see it all!" said Kent. "He hit his head, the loop tightened, the cue spun round and he was dead."
"That's it," said Kelly. "I saw that he was dead, and I did not dare to remain. I straightened the knot in his tie, laid his hands reverently across his chest, and departed as I had come."
"Mr. Kelly," said Throgton thoughtfully, "the logic of your story is wonderful. It exceeds anything in its line that I have seen published for months. But there is just one point that I fail to grasp. The two bullet holes?"
"They were old ones," answered the sailor quietly. "My uncle in his youth had led a wild life in the west; he was full of them."
There was silence for a moment. Then Kelly spoke again:
"My time, gentlemen, is short." (A hacking cough interrupted him.) "I feel that I am withering. It rests with you, gentlemen, whether or not I walk out of this room a free man."
Transome Kent rose and walked over to the sailor.
"Mr. Kelly," he said, "here is my hand."
CHAPTER X
SO DO I
A few days after the events last narrated, Transome Kent called at the boarding-house of Miss Alice Delary. The young Investigator wore a light grey tweed suit, with a salmon-coloured geranium in his buttonhole. There was something exultant yet at the same time grave in his expression, as of one who has taken a momentous decision, affecting his future life.
"I wonder," he murmured, "whether I am acting for my happiness."
He sat down for a moment on the stone steps and analysed himself.
Then he rose.
"I am," he said, and rang the bell.
"Miss Delary?" said a maid, "she left here two days ago. If you are Mr. Kent, the note on the mantelpiece is for you."
Without a word (Kent never wasted them) the Investigator opened the note and read:
"Dear Mr. Kent,
"Peter and I were married yesterday morning, and have taken an apartment in Java, New Jersey. You will be glad to hear that Peter's cough is ever so much better. The lawyers have given Peter his money without the least demur.
"We both feel that your analysis was simply wonderful. Peter says he doesn't know where he would be without it.
"Very sincerely,
"Alice Kelly.
"P.S.--I forgot to mention to you that I saw Peter in the billiard-room. But your analysis was marvellous just the same."
That evening Kent sat with Throgton talking over the details of the tragedy.
"Throgton," he said, "it has occurred to me that there were points about that solution that we didn't get exactly straight somehow."
"So do I," said Throgton.
[The end]
Stephen Leacock's short story: Who Do You Think Did It? or, The Mixed-Up Murder Mystery
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