Markham muttered some polite protestation, to which Mrs. Greene paid not the slightest attention. She had turned, with seemingly great difficulty, to the nurse.
“Fix my pillows, Miss Craven,” she ordered impatiently, and then added, in a whining tone: “Even you don’t give a thought to my comfort.” The nurse complied without a word. “Now, you can go in and sit with Ada until Doctor Von Blon comes.—How is the dear child?” Suddenly her voice had assumed a note of simulated solicitude.
“She’s much better, Mrs. Greene.” The nurse spoke in a colorless, matter-of-fact tone, and passed quietly into the dressing-room.
The woman on the bed turned complaining eyes upon Markham.
“It’s a terrible thing to be a cripple, unable to walk or even stand alone. Both my legs have been hopelessly paralyzed for ten years. Think of it, Mr. Markham: I’ve spent ten years in this bed and that chair”—she pointed to an invalid’s chair in the alcove—“and I can’t even move from one to the other unless I’m lifted bodily. But I console myself with the thought that I’m not long for this world; and I try to be patient. It wouldn’t be so bad, though, if my children were only more considerate. But I suppose I expect too much. Youth and health give little thought to the old and feeble—it’s the way of the world. And so I make the best of it. It’s my fate to be a burden to every one.”
She sighed and drew the shawl more closely about her.
“You want to ask me some questions perhaps? I don’t see what I can tell you that will be of any help, but I’m only too glad to do whatever I can. I haven’t slept a wink, and my back has been paining me terribly as a result of all this commotion. But I’m not complaining.”
Markham had stood looking at the old lady sympathetically. Indeed, she was a pitiful figure. Her long invalidism and solitude had warped what had probably been a brilliant and generous mind; and she had now become a kind of introspective martyr, with an exaggerated sensitiveness to her affliction. I could see that Markham’s instinct was to leave her immediately with a few consoling words; but his sense of duty directed him to remain and learn what he could.
“I don’t wish to annoy you more than is absolutely necessary, madam,” he said in a kindly voice. “But it might help considerably if you permitted me to put one or two questions.”
“What’s a little annoyance, more or less?” she asked. “I’ve long since become used to it. Ask me anything you choose.”
Markham bowed with Old World courtesy. “You are very kind, madam.” Then, after a moment’s pause: “Mr. Greene tells me you did not hear the shot that was fired in your oldest daughter’s room, but that the shot in Miss Ada’s room wakened you.”
“That is so.” She nodded slowly. “Julia’s room is a considerable distance away—across the hall. But Ada always leaves the doors open between her room and mine in case I should need anything in the night. Naturally the shot in her room wakened me. . . . Let me see. I must have just fallen to sleep. My back was giving me a great deal of trouble last night; I had suffered all day with it, though I of course didn’t tell any of the children about it. Little they care how their paralyzed old mother suffers. . . . And then, just as I had managed to doze off, there came the report, and I was wide-awake again—lying here helpless, unable to move, and wondering what awful thing might be going to happen to me. And no one came to see if I was all right; no one thought of me, alone and defenseless. But then, no one ever thinks of me.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t any lack of consideration, Mrs. Greene,” Markham assured her earnestly. “The situation probably drove everything momentarily from their minds except the two victims of the shooting.—Tell me this: did you hear any other sounds in Miss Ada’s room after the shot awakened you?”
“I heard the poor girl fall—at least, it sounded like that.”
“But no other noises of any kind? No footsteps, for instance?”
“Footsteps?” She seemed to make an effort to recall her impressions. “No; no footsteps.”
“Did you hear the door into the hall open or close, madam?” It was Vance who put the question.
The woman turned her eyes sharply and glared at him.
“No, I heard no door open or close.”
“That’s rather queer, too, don’t you think?” pursued Vance. “The intruder must have left the room.”
“I suppose he must have, if he’s not there now,” she replied acidly, turning again to the District Attorney. “Is there anything else you’d care to know?”
Markham evidently had perceived the impossibility of eliciting any vital information from her.
“I think not,” he answered; then added: “You of course heard the butler and your son here enter Miss Ada’s room?”
“Oh, yes. They made enough noise doing it—they didn’t consider my feelings in the least. That fuss-budget, Sproot, actually cried out for Chester like a hysterical woman; and, from the way he raised his voice over the telephone, one would have thought Doctor Von Blon was deaf. Then Chester had to rouse the whole house for some unknown reason. Oh, there was no peace or rest for me last night, I can tell you! And the police tramped around the house for hours like a drove of wild cattle. It was positively disgraceful. And here was I—a helpless old woman—entirely neglected and forgotten, suffering agonies with my spine.”
After a few commiserating banalities Markham thanked her for her assistance, and withdrew. As we passed out and walked toward the stairs I could hear her calling out angrily: “Nurse! Nurse! Can’t you hear me? Come at once and arrange my pillows. What do you mean by neglecting me this way. . . ?”
The voice trailed off mercifully as we descended to the main hall.
CHAPTER IV
THE MISSING REVOLVER
(Tuesday, November 9; 3 p. m.)
“The Mater’s a crabbed old soul,” Greene apologized offhandedly when we were again in the drawing-room. “Always grousing about her doting off-spring.—Well, where do we go from here?”
Markham seemed lost in thought, and it was Vance who answered.
“Let us take a peep at the servants and hearken to their tale: Sproot for a starter.”
Markham roused himself and nodded, and Greene rose and pulled a silken bell-cord near the archway. A minute later the butler appeared and stood at obsequious attention just inside the room. Markham had appeared somewhat at sea and even uninterested during the investigation, and Vance assumed command.
“Sit down, Sproot, and tell us as briefly as possible just what occurred last night.”
Sproot came forward slowly, his eyes on the floor, but remained standing before the centre-table.
“I was reading Martial, sir, in my room,” he began, lifting his gaze submissively, “when I thought I heard a muffled shot. I wasn’t quite sure, for the automobiles in the street back-fire quite loud at times; but at last I said to myself I’d better investigate. I was in negligé, if you understand what I mean, sir; so I slipped on my bath-robe and came down. I didn’t know just where the noise had come from; but when I was half-way down the steps, I heard another shot, and this time it sounded like it came from Miss Ada’s room. So I went there at once, and tried the door. It was