Death Points A Finger Part 15

Professor Brierly was also shaking his head. There was a puzzled frown on his fine features. He said:

"I shall have to recast my opinion about the man or men who are responsible for these two murders. I said he or they are clever but not subtle. I was wrong, there is a subtlety about it, a devilish ingenuity about it." He shook his head once more, the puzzled frown becoming deeper. "There are things about these two murders that do not fit and it seems hard to make them fit. I wonder--" He shook his head violently as if to clear it of an unpleasant or hazy thought.

Hale began, slowly, not knowing how to broach the subject:

"Was there something, Professor, that you were holding back in Justice Higginbotham's camp, something you knew, that you did not care to tell."

Professor Brierly looked at him quizzically.

"You _are_ an acute young man, Hale--or, was I so obvious?"

He sat for a long time thoughtfully tearing to bits the small sheets on which he had made his notes of the examination of the ropes and twine. He continued slowly:

"What the microscope showed me this morning increased my doubts about the matter. The trail left by the murderer in Miller's Folly seemed clear enough. Finding the rope, however, instead of clarifying the case makes it more puzzling. What we found on the rope and twine does not at all accord with the rope itself and its implication.

"I find an a.n.a.logous situation in New York. Everything seemed clear enough. Someone entered Schurman's apartment. That person was either rather skilled in human anatomy or he was told how to hit Schurman. The victim was struck in such a way that it could easily have been mistaken for simple asphyxia or the kind of asphyxia that you would find in a body that has been hung by the neck. Everything seemed simple enough until I found the apple."

"The apple?" queried McCall.

"Yes, the apple of which the murderer almost took a bite. It was a green apple. The murderer was about to take a bite, but he changed his mind. It was too hard, or too bitter, or too sour." He changed the subject abruptly. "And what will the District Attorney of New York County do about August Schurman's murder? That, at least, is in your jurisdiction, Mr. McCall."

"Yes, that is in my jurisdiction. I have wired orders and my office is doing all it can right now to cooperate with the police.

We should hear something shortly."

Professor Brierly turned to the reporter.

"Obviously, Mr. Hale, the ends of justice will not be well served if you should publish in your paper what we discovered today by means of the microscope. The police may be seriously hampered in its work if too much or any publicity is given this matter."

"But Professor--"

The old man snapped at him. "But nothing. If you were not here you would know nothing about it. Certainly, if the police discovered what I discovered they would be very careful to withhold it from reporters. Surely you have enough in this story to satisfy even your insatiable appet.i.te for news."

Jimmy gulped. It was a bitter pill to swallow. Here he had a juicy bit of news that would delight Hite and he could not publish it.

What a swell new lead for the story. Acting contrary to the old man's wishes in the matter was, of course, out of the question.

Chapter X

Dinner was finished at the Brierly camp when a telephone message from the Higginbotham camp requested Professor Brierly to come down there that evening, if it was convenient. McCall and, as an afterthought, Hale, were included in the invitation.

After their arrival Justice Higginbotham began without preamble:

"What conclusions have you reached with reference to these murders, Professor?"

Professor Brierly looked at his questioner curiously. He looked about at the other men. The strain was increasingly telling on them. Old men, all of them, the difference that the last three days had made in their appearance was startling. A furtive, harrowing fear was apparent in most of their countenances.

Professor Brierly answered gently:

"I do not believe I have reached any general conclusion, Judge.

The facts, as I found them, that may be helpful to the police I have given the police. Understand, please, I am not a policeman nor a detective. I am a simple scientist and it is as problems in science that I approach these subjects."

"Perhaps I have not made myself clear, Professor. We, or rather most of us, are in a very unhappy state of mind. Thus, what might three days ago have been a very simple thing, takes on for all of us perhaps a grossly exaggerated importance. Mr. Flynn there,"

glancing toward one of the men who was looking with dull unseeing eyes at the table, "has an important errand at his home. His home is in Pleasantville, N.Y. That is not far from New York City. We are really perplexed as to whether we ought to let him go."

Justice Higginbotham nervously clenched his fist until the knuckles showed white.

"This is ghastly, Professor. Let me put it bluntly. Here we are, eleven old comrades, and we are--shall I say it--suspicious of one another. There, you have it, but it is the simple truth. Perhaps all of us do not share this unworthy feeling." He smiled grimly and continued:

"We are old men. In this state of mind, if it continues and grows as it must, unless this d.a.m.nable mess is cleared up, we will all die shortly without the aid of murder."

McGuire stood up abruptly and took several paces back and forth.

He growled:

"Yes, it's h.e.l.lish. We don't like the idea of Flynn going off by himself and at the same time we are all afraid to stay here. That d.a.m.n Tontine policy. If not for that we would not--"

His sentence was left unfinished. Several of the old heads nodded in agreement. Flynn looked up. With an air of obviously false bravado he exclaimed:

"What the h.e.l.l is there to be afraid of? And suppose I do follow the others? I told you when I came three days ago that I could not spend the week. I just have to attend to this matter." He shook his head stubbornly. "If we take this att.i.tude--we are men, aren't we. Can't we protect ourselves, now that we know definitely of the danger. Or aren't we exaggerating the danger?"

Mr. Marshall said gently.

"But it is not altogether our fear for your safety, Bill, that is in our minds. It is--let us put it frankly--"

McGuire interrupted.

"Oh, go on, say it, Hank, say it! It is fear of one another as well as fear for one another. Is that it?"

Marshall nodded. Jimmy tingled at this scene. There was an electric tension that might result in--almost anything. McGuire continued:

"Stay here, Flynn, stay here until this thing is cleaned up."

Flynn got out of his seat. He picked up a light top coat and hat that had been on the arm of his chair.

"Well, I've got to go and that's that. You all know I've got to go. If you're afraid of me, send a guard along. If you're afraid for me, the same guard can do your business."

Justice Higginbotham turned to McCall.

"Mr. McCall, see to it that Flynn is guarded from the moment he steps foot in New York. We will see to it that he has adequate protection until he reaches New York." His eyes swept the rest of the group. "Is that satisfactory?"

There was a general nod of a.s.sent. Justice Higginbotham continued:

"For G.o.d's sake, let us not be children or old women. We have all faced death before, we have faced other and worse things. We should get some reports soon that will clear this up. In a day, at the most in two days, we will know definitely if Amos Brown, the only remaining member of '14', is still alive."

Bruce Thomas spoke up:

"Facing death from a musket with your comrades about you is comparatively easy, Isaac. But this d.a.m.nable thing--"

"Forget it. Let us confront it. We--"