The door-bell sounded insistently, and without waiting for an answer a tall, spare, loose-jointed individual stalked in and laid a green bag on the table.
“Good evening, Professor Kennedy,” he began brusquely. “I am District Attorney Whitney, of Westchester. I see you have been reading up on the case. Quite right.”
“Quite wrong,” answered Craig. “Let me introduce my friend, Mr. Jameson, of the Star. Sit down. Jameson knows what I think of the way the newspapers have handled this case. I was about to tell him as you came in that I intended to disregard everything that had been printed, to start out with you as if it were a fresh subject and get the facts at first hand. Let’s get right down to business. First tell us just how it was that Miss Wainwright and Mr. Templeton were discovered and by whom.”
The district attorney loosened the cords of the green bag and drew out a bundle of documents. “I’ll read you the affidavit of the maid who found them,” he said, fingering the documents nervously. “You see, John Templeton had left his office in New York early that afternoon, telling his father that he was going to visit Miss Wainwright. He caught the three-twenty train, reached Williston all right, walked to the Wainwright house, and, in spite of the bustle of preparation for the wedding, the next day, he spent the rest of the afternoon with Miss Wainwright. That’s where the mystery begins. They had no visitors. At least, the maid who answers the bell says they had none. She was busy with the rest of the family, and I believe the front door was not locked—we don’t lock our doors in Williston, except at night.”
He had found the paper and paused to impress these facts on our minds.
“Mrs. Wainwright and Miss Marian Wainwright, the sister, were busy about the house. Mrs. Wainwright wished to consult Laura about something. She summoned the maid and asked if Mr. Templeton and Miss Wainwright were in the house. The maid replied that she would see, and this is her affidavit. Ahem! I’ll skip the legal part: ‘I knocked at the library door twice, but obtaining no answer, I supposed they had gone out for a walk or perhaps a ride across country as they often did. I opened the door partly and looked in. There was a silence in the room, a strange, queer silence. I opened the door further and, looking toward the davenport in the corner, I saw Miss Laura and Mr. Templeton in such an awkward position. They looked as if they had fallen asleep. His head was thrown back against the cushions of the davenport, and on his face was a most awful look. It was discoloured. Her head had fallen forward on his shoulder, sideways, and on her face, too, was the same terrible stare and the same discolouration. Their right hands were tightly clasped.
“‘I called to them. They did not answer. Then the horrible truth flashed on me. They were dead. I felt giddy for a minute, but quickly recovered myself, and with a cry for help I rushed to Mrs. Wainwright’s room, shrieking that they were dead. Mrs. Wainwright fainted. Miss Marian called the doctor on the telephone and helped us restore her mother. She seemed perfectly cool in the tragedy, and I do not know what we servants should have done if she had not been there to direct us. The house was frantic, and Mr. Wainwright was not at home.
“‘I did not detect any odour when I opened the library door. No glasses or bottles or vials or other receptacles which could have held poison were discovered or removed by me, or to the best of my knowledge and belief by anyone else.’”
“What happened next?” asked Craig eagerly.
“The family physician arrived and sent for the coroner immediately, and later for myself. You see, he thought at once of murder.”
“But the coroner, I understand, thinks differently,” prompted Kennedy.
“Yes, the coroner has declared the case to be accidental. He says that the weight of evidence points positively to asphyxiation. Still, how can it be asphyxiation? They could have escaped from the room at any time; the door was not locked. I tell you, in spite of the fact that the tests for poison in their mouths, stomachs, and blood have so far revealed nothing, I still believe that John Templeton and Laura Wainwright were murdered.”
Kennedy looked at his watch thoughtfully. “You have told me just enough to make me want to see the coroner himself,” he mused. “If we take the next train out to Williston with you, will you engage to get us a half-hour talk with him on the case, Mr. Whitney?”
“Surely. But we’ll have to start right away. I’ve finished my other business in New York. Inspector O’Connor—ah, I see you know him—has promised to secure the attendance of anyone whom I can show to be a material witness in the case. Come on, gentlemen: I’ll answer your other questions on the train.”
As we settled ourselves in the smoker, Whitney remarked in a low voice, “You know, someone has said that there is only one thing more difficult to investigate and solve than a crime whose commission is surrounded by complicated circumstances and that is a crime whose perpetration is wholly devoid of circumstances.”
“Are you so sure that this crime is wholly devoid of circumstances?” asked Craig.
“Professor,” he replied, “I’m not sure of anything in this case. If I were I should not require your assistance. I would like the credit of solving it myself, but it is beyond me. Just think of it: so far we haven’t a clue, at least none that shows the slightest promise, although we have worked night and day for a week. It’s all darkness. The facts are so simple that they give us nothing to work on. It is like a blank sheet of paper.”
Kennedy said nothing, and the district attorney proceeded: “I don’t blame Mr. Nott, the coroner, for thinking it an accident. But to my mind, some master criminal must have arranged this very baffling simplicity of circumstances. You recall that the front door was unlocked. This person must have entered the house unobserved, not a difficult thing to do, for the Wainwright house is somewhat isolated. Perhaps this person brought along some poison in the form of a beverage, and induced the two victims to drink. And then, this person must have removed the evidences as swiftly as they were brought in and by the same door. That, I think, is the only solution.”
“That is not the only solution. It is one solution,” interrupted Kennedy quietly.
“Do you think someone in the house did it?” I asked quickly.
“I think,” replied Craig, carefully measuring his words, “that if poison was given them it must have been by someone they both knew pretty well.”
No one said a word, until at last I broke the silence. “I know from the gossip of the Star office that many Williston people say that Marian was very jealous of her sister Laura for capturing the catch of the season. Williston people don’t hesitate to hint at it.”
Whitney produced another document from that fertile green bag. It was another affidavit. He handed it to us. It was a statement signed by Mrs. Wainwright, and read:
“Before God, my daughter Marian is innocent. If you wish to find out all, find out more about the past history of Mr. Templeton before he became engaged to Laura. She would never in the world have committed suicide. She was too bright and cheerful for that, even if Mr. Templeton had been about to break off the engagement. My daughters Laura and Marian were always treated by Mr. Wainwright and myself exactly alike. Of course they had their quarrels, just as all sisters do, but there was never, to my certain knowledge, a serious disagreement, and I was always close enough to my girls to know. No, Laura was murdered by someone outside.”
Kennedy did not seem to attach much importance to this statement. “Let us see,” he began reflectively. “First, we have a young woman especially attractive and charming in both person and temperament. She is just about to be married and, if the reports are to be believed, there was no cloud on her happiness. Secondly, we have a young man whom everyone agrees to have been of an ardent, energetic, optimistic temperament. He had everything to live for, presumably. So far, so good. Everyone who has investigated this case, I understand, has tried to eliminate the double-suicide and the suicide-and-murder theories. That is all right, providing the facts are as stated. We shall see, later, when we interview the coroner. Now, Mr. Whitney, suppose you tell us briefly what you have learned about the past history