Wolf in Man’s Clothing

Soper said, “But look here, Mr. Senour, why didn’t you tell us?”

“I didn’t think it was important,” said Nicky silkily. “That’s all there is to it, you see. He didn’t see me. I was sitting over there by the fire, reading. He went into the library and after a while I went upstairs. That’s all.”

Drue was looking at him steadily. I don’t know how I knew that she was holding her breath, perhaps because I was.

“Are you sure that’s all?” said Nugent. “Did anyone-you, for instance,-go into the library?” There was a silence. Nicky smiled and examined the fingernails on one slender hand. “That’s all,” he said with a kind of silky stubbornness. Soper said, “Well, well; let’s get on,” and began to question about motives and about possible enemies. Nugent looked thoughtfully at Nicky. Soper did the questioning, his little eyes suspicious, except when they rested upon Alexia, of whom he obviously approved and who did look, I must say, very lovely and helpless, except when she lifted her shadowy eyelashes and one caught a glimpse of the very cool and self-possessed look in her eyes. Nicky leaned against the back of her chair in an ostentatiously protecting way, still with the shadow of a smile on his lips, and Alexia sat perfectly still for the most part, answering only when she had to and that briefly, one leg crossed over the other and the toe of her pump making impatient little circles.

After a while they sent for Peter Huber, who came into the room and sat down not far from me. He had told Craig, I imagined, as much as could be told. He sighed a little, unconsciously, as he sat down and then lighted a cigarette and listened. As we all listened.

Presently they questioned him-or rather recapitulated some earlier bout of questioning. When he came downstairs he had found both nurses in the library, was that right? Yes, that was right; he nodded. Why had he come downstairs at all?

“I told you that,” he said. “I’d dropped off to sleep, reading. I hadn’t put up the windows or turned off the light and, when I awoke, the room was too warm. I put up the windows and turned off the light and then I opened the door to the hall, thinking I’d get air into the room more quickly that way.”

As he did it he heard a kind of scream from somewhere downstairs. He’d listened for a moment and as he was closing the door again I had run along the corridor and down the stairs. So he thought something was wrong, went back to get a dressing gown and slippers and had come down after me.

“Mr. Huber,” said the District Attorney, “I want you to think back carefully; this is very important. When you came into the room, were the nurses-either or both of them-doing anything for Mr. Brent? I mean, definitely, did either of them have a hypodermic syringe in her hand? Think back…”

My heart came up in my throat. I didn’t dare look at Drue.

Then Peter said, positively, “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. They were just standing there. We looked at him but he was dead. So Miss Keate sent Miss Cable back upstairs to Craig and me to telephone. I didn’t succeed in getting the doctor then. I couldn’t find the number; I was upset. Anyway, all at once there was this sound of something falling…”

“Yes, yes, you told us about that,” said the District Attorney testily. “Something falling and the sound of a window breaking and we can’t find anything that fell and there is no window broken.” He turned to me. “Miss Keate, was there anything else? Anything that happened last night before the death of Mr. Brent that struck you as being-well, out of the way? Unusual.”

From the way he said it, I had a quick impression that he had asked everyone that. Maud looked rather scornful, and Alexia all but yawned. It was one of fate’s dangerous little jokes that I would have answered in the negative (as I imagine everyone else had done) had not Delphine at that point slunk across the hall, with a wary green eye toward the trooper in the doorway. The fleeting glimpse I had of him reminded me of a very trivial thing I had forgotten up to then. “Why, yes,” I said. “As a matter of fact there was something.”

Alexia stopped yawning so suddenly her jaws snapped together and Maud’s scorn changed to alert interest. I went on, “There was a kind of bump against the closed door to my patient’s room.”

“Bump!” said the District Attorney.

“Yes. Something in the hall struck against the door.”

“Something! What?” cried the District Attorney. He looked a little astonished at having, so to speak, got a bite. “Well-well, go on,” he said impatiently as I hesitated. “What was it? Didn’t you go to the door and open it and look?”

“Yes. Yes, I did open the door and I saw…” I stopped again on the verge of saying I had seen Nicky coming from a room down the hall. But that was wrong. I had seen Nicky, but that was before something-whatever it was- had struck against the door, and struck so sharply it roused me and the cat. No; that was wrong, too; the cat had already aroused, as if he heard someone in the hall. The bump against the door had come later. And when I had got to the door and opened it no one was in the hall.

The District Attorney said, “Well, who did you see? Who did you see?”

Nugent was very still and very observant-as, I suddenly realized, everyone in the room was watching, too, and listening. There was indeed a strained and queer silence. I said slowly, confused not so much by the silence as by the singularly intent quality in it, “I didn’t see anyone. I don’t know who it was. I saw nothing.”

“But you…” began Soper explosively, and Nugent said, “All right, Miss Keate. We believe you.” His eyes looked very narrow and green. He went on quickly, “You were in the library when you heard the sound of something falling. What did you do?”

“I ran upstairs.” I told him of it again, briefly. And brought forward what seemed to be, up to then, a bit of new evidence, or at least a new fact. That was the matter of Craig’s being found in the linen closet, unconscious and bleeding from a bruise on his temple.

“He says somebody was in the hall and struck him,” I explained.

The District Attorney interrupted. “Who?”

“He said he doesn’t know. But if someone did that it proves there was an intruder, a-a thief…”

“But he said he was in the hall when he was struck,” said Soper, looking a little impressed with his own astuteness, and very pompous. “You say you found him in the linen room.”

“I did. Or rather Miss Cable found him there first.” Again glances went to Drue; again no one questioned her. “Someone must have dragged him into the linen closet and left him there. A man, I mean.”

“A woman could have done it,” began Soper, and Nugent cut in rather quickly. “I’ll question Craig Brent later,” he said, his eyes still very green and thoughtful, however. Soper, brought up short, frowned, tapped his stomach and began again briskly. “Now then, about Conrad Brent’s business affairs…”

That did not take a very long time; everyone I think was convinced that Conrad’s business affairs were in good order and in any case it would be an easy matter for them to find out through his bankers and his lawyer. There seemed to be, however, little question on that point. He had been a rich man, living well within an income which was, certainly, on the more or less lavish side. Only later inquiry could confirm it, but just then there seemed to be no reasonable doubt but that his affairs were perfectly balanced and sound.

Nothing however was said of his will-which seemed to me another omission. After that they went into the matter of alibis-very cautiously, very suavely, so one didn’t at first realize the exact trend of all their detailed questions of time. In the end, however, so far as I could see, no one really had an alibi except Craig. Nicky, at least, had admitted his presence in the morning room when Conrad returned. Had he seen Drue? Was he going to tell of her interview with Conrad? There was no way to know and no way to read Nicky’s enigmatic face. At length the District Attorney observed, rather pettishly, that there was no alibi, really, for murder by poison, looked impatiently at Nugent and fidgeted. Nugent looked back at him and shook his head, only a little, almost imperceptibly, but as if he’d said, “Wait-not yet.”

I saw that. And I thought I prepared myself for it. I didn’t really; no one does against catastrophe. But I knew that it was coming; they had asked about a hypodermic, so they had seen that tiny red mark on Conrad Brent’s arm. They had searched Drue’s room and mine and had taken away the little bag in which she carried instruments and the few drugs she had, so they knew she had a supply of digitalis and knew she didn’t have a hypodermic-as I had and as any nurse normally would have. They had established the fact that Conrad’s medicine was gone, box and all, so he couldn’t have taken it himself. They wouldn’t have far to look for a motive, or a witness of sorts, either, for Nicky must have seen Drue going to the library even if, for any purpose of his own, he did not then admit it. Above all, the look Soper and Nugent exchanged admitted a previously agreed-upon purpose.

So they had not yet questioned Drue. My feeling about that was right. Obviously they thought that it would weaken her to have to sit there before them and hear the case built up-possibilities eliminated, circumstances set