Stately was the key word for the whole place, and I suddenly remembered that Kubla Khan’s Pleasure Dome was described as stately. Surely, Sampson Tracy had sensed the real meaning of the phrase.
Inside, the house was the same. Marked everywhere by good taste, the appointments were of the finest and best.
There seemed to be a great many people about. Servants were coming and going and policemen were here and there.
March took Moore and myself directly to the library, where Inspector Farrell was awaiting us.
Also present were Ames, whom we already knew, and a young man, who proved to be Charles Everett, the confidential secretary of the dead man.
I took to Everett at once. He was the clean-cut type of so many of our efficient young American secretaries. He looked capable and wise, and being introduced, bowed gravely.
Ames took up the matter at once.
He looked perturbed rather than grumpy this morning, but his speaking voice had an unpleasant twang, and I saw Kee stiffen up as if he would certainly decline to be at this man’s beck and call.
“I sent for you, Mr. Moore,” Ames began, “to get your help in unravelling the mystery of Sampson Tracy’s death. As you will soon learn, the conditions are startlingly unusual, even bizarre. But I have heard that the more bizarre the clues and evidence, the easier a case is to solve. So, I beg you to get at it at once and exert your most clever efforts.”
“But I haven’t yet said I would take the case for you,” Moore told him.
“Why not?” cried Ames, his face lowering in a pettish frown. “I shall make no objection to your terms, whatever they may be – in reason. I shall not trammel you with any restrictions or annoy you with any advice. I am told you are a famous detective. I know you for a friend of Mr. Tracy. Why, then, would you hesitate to solve the problem of his death and learn the identity of his murderer?”
“Are you sure he was murdered?” asked Moore. “You see, I know little of the facts in the case.”
“No,” broke in Inspector Farrell, “no, we don’t know that he was murdered. And the facts that we do know are seemingly contradictory. I trust, Mr. Moore, that you will look into the matter, at least, and give us the benefit of your findings, whether you officially take up the case or not.”
“I cannot say,” Moore told him, “until I am in possession of the details of the tragedy. Nor do I want it told me here. Let me see the body, let me inquire for myself concerning the facts, and let me draw my own conclusions. Only after that can I decide whether I take on the case or not.”
“I think you very unreasonable, Mr. Moore,” Ames grumbled. “I want you to be my agent in this matter, and so I want you to start in fully equipped with my sanction and authority.”
“Just how much authority have you here, Mr. Ames?” asked Moore, looking at him thoughtfully.
“As the oldest and nearest friend of Sampson Tracy, and as his intimate confidant and adviser, I think I can claim more authority than any one else. In fact the man had no relatives in the world except a niece. He had no friends of a confidential nature except myself. I am not referring to financial affairs, they are in the hands of his lawyer and his secretaries. But if he has been murdered, I propose to hound down the wretch who is responsible for his death. I know much about Tracy’s life that nobody else knows. I know of those who might wish him dead, and my knowledge, combined with the skill of a canny detective, must bring out the truth.”
This was straightforward talk, and Ames, though his face wore an aggrieved expression, spoke concisely and to the point. But after all, his manner was truculent, he didn’t ask Moore’s help so much as he demanded it, almost commandeered it. I was not surprised to see Kee stick to his first decision.
“I appreciate all you say, Mr. Ames,” Kee said, “but I repeat I am not willing to take a case until I look into it. Do not delay further, but let us go at once to the scene of the tragedy.”
Ames glowered, but without another word he led the way from the room and turned toward the staircase.
The broad steps, carpeted with red velvet, branched half way up, and turning to the right, Ames conducted us to Sampson Tracy’s rooms. They were in a wing that had been flung out at the back of the house, probably as a later addition to the structure. Entrance was through a private hall, and then into a foyer or ante-room, from which led several doors.
“This is the bedroom,” said the Inspector, taking a key from his pocket as he paused before one of the doors.
“I thought you had to break in,” Moore said, looking at the unmarred door.
“Not exactly,” Farrell told him. “The door was locked and the key inside, in the lock. But they got the garage mechanician up here, and he managed to dislodge the key and then get the door unlocked with his tools.”
He opened the door, and we filed in, the Inspector first, then Moore and I, then Ames and Detective March.
Farrell closed and locked the door behind us, and it was then that I saw the strange, the grotesque spectacle of Sampson Tracy’s deathbed.
The first thing that caught my attention and from which I found it well nigh impossible to detach my vision was the red-feather duster.
A full plume of bright red feathers seemed to crown the head on the pillow.
The handle of the duster had been thrust down behind and under the head, and only the red plume showed, of such fine, light feathers that a few fronds waved at a step across the room or a movement near the bed.
Then I looked at the rest of the strange picture.
Sampson Tracy was a large and heavy man. His head was large, and his face was of the conformation sometimes called pear-shaped. He had heavy jaws, pendulous jowls and a large mouth. Clean shaven as to face, his hair was thick and rather long. His eyebrows were bushy, and his half opened eyes of a glassy and yet dull blue.
His hair was iron-gray, and round his brow were wreathed some blossoms of blue larkspur. Across his chest, diagonally, was a garland of the same flowers. The blossoms were not tied or twined, they had merely been laid in a row in order to form a vinelike garland.
The right hand, bent to rest on his breast, held a crucifix, and in the left hand was, of all things, a small orange.
His head lay on one large pillow, and on the other pillow was a folded handkerchief and also two small sweet crackers. And encircling the head and shoulders, framing all these strange details, a long and wide scarf, of soft and filmy scarlet chiffon, a beautiful scarf, from a woman’s point of view, but a peculiar adjunct to a man’s taking-off.
I stared at all this, quite forgetting to look at Moore to see how he was taking it.
When I did glance up at him, hearing his voice, I saw he had evidently completed his scrutiny of the bed and had turned to Harper Ames.
“Why do you think Mr. Tracy was murdered?” Kee asked of the glum-faced one.
“What other theory is possible?” Ames returned. “A suicide would not place all that flumadiddle about himself. A natural death wouldn’t have such decorations, either. So, he was killed, either by some one with a most distorted sense of humour, or there is a meaning in each seeming bit of foolishness.”
“What did he die of, exactly?”
“That we don’t know yet, the doctor will be here any minute, and the coroner, too.”
Even as he spoke, Doctor Rogers arrived. He was the family physician, and as Farrell opened the door to his knock, he went straight to the bed.
“What’s all this rubbish?” he exclaimed, reaching for the scarf.
“Don’t touch it, If you can help it, Doctor,” March implored him. “It may be evidence – ”
“Evidence of what?”
“Crime – murder – or is it a natural death?”
Doctor