Back Aa

Hemlock Avenue Mystery

Close

<h4>CHAPTER XV</h4> Lyon suspected that he might have difficulty in securing admission to Fullerton's room in the Wellington a second time, and when he made application to Hunt, the janitor who had admitted him before, he found his fears were justified. Indeed, Hunt's dismay at the suggestion struck him as extreme. "Go in? No, sir! Nobody goes in. The police are responsible for that room, now. I haven't anything to do with it, and I wouldn't have, not for a farm." "You let me in before, you know, and the police didn't take it to heart." "Eh?" "I mean they didn't mind. Bede knew I was there." Hunt shook his head. "Mr. Bede says to me that if I let anybody else in, he would have me arrested for killing Fullerton." "That's nonsense, you know. When did he say that,--when I got in before?" "No farther back than yesterday he said that." "Has he been around again?" "Yes, he has." There was something nervous and dogged about the man's manner that puzzled Lyon. "Well, see here. I'll make it worth your while to let me in for an hour. You can go along to see I don't steal anything, if you like. I want to make sure of something I overlooked before." "I tell you I can't, Mr. Lyon, even if I wanted to. The police have put a seal on the door. It can't be opened without their knowing." "Then pass me in through the window." Hunt lifted his downcast eyes and gave Lyon a long, curious look. "You wouldn't want to, if you knew what I know." "What's that?" Hunt shuffled and stumbled, but perhaps at heart he was not unwilling to confess his fears in the hope of having them quenched. He looked somewhat shamefaced, however, as he asked, "Do you believe that sometimes the dead walk?" "I don't know," Lyon answered non-committally. He was more anxious to get at Hunt's ideas than to confess his own. "What makes you ask? Have you seen anything?" "Well,--not exactly,--" "I'd like to hear about it." "Well, it's this way. Mr. Fullerton had a way of throwing the letters he wrote of an evening on the floor right before the door, so that I could pick them up in the morning and give them to the carrier when he came around. I always took in his breakfast tray and his paper,--" "How did you get in?" "He could release the lock on his door by a spring from his bedroom. There was nothing too much trouble if it was going to save him some trouble afterwards." "Go on." "The letters were always in a certain place,--just where he could toss them easily from the writing table where he sat. They would fall on a certain mat, so that I knew just what to pick up. If I didn't, he would swear to turn a nigger white. Mr. Fullerton wasn't no saint. That's what makes it worse." "Makes what worse?" "Why, this that I'm going to tell you. Day before yesterday something possessed me to go in to that room. I don't know what it was,--I just was pestered to go in. I thought I would just look inside, and there, on the rug before the door where they always used to be, was a letter in Mr. Fullerton's hand, on his paper, ready stamped to be mailed." "This is interesting," said Lyon, with sparkling eyes. "What did you do with it?" "I didn't rightly know what to do with it at first, I was so took back. I had been in that room five or six times since--since Mr. Fullerton was killed, letting the police in, and you, and going in by myself once to make sure the windows was locked, and there wasn't no letter on the rug, or I'm blind. Now, what I want to know is, here did that letter come from?" "That I can't tell yet. But what did you do with it?" "I mailed it. It seemed that it must have been something that Mr. Fullerton wrote that last night he was home and threw down for me to mail, and that somehow, in the excitement, it must have been kicked under the edge of the rug, and then, somehow, kicked out again the last time someone was in the room. At least, I couldn't see what else it could be, so I gave it to the carrier, thinking that it ought to go to the person it was addressed to." "I think you were quite right. To whom was it addressed?" But Hunt was unexpectedly reticent. "Mr. Fullerton didn't like to have me talk about his affairs." "Oh, that's all right. But I think I know about this letter. It was for Miss Wolcott, wasn't it?" Hunt's surprised look gave confirmation, though his habit of discretion prevented a verbal assent. "That isn't all," he said, hastily, returning to his story. "That was queer enough to set me wondering about it all day, and yesterday, when I went around in the morning, I opened the door just to make myself believe that it really had happened. There on the rug was another letter, just like the one the day before." His eyes sought Lyon's nervously. He seemed to be almost afraid of his own words. "Another letter for Miss Wolcott?" gasped Lyon, in utter amaze. "It was just like the first," Hunt persisted doggedly. "What did you do with it? Did you mail it?" "I wouldn't touch it. Not for money, Mr. Lyon. Where did that letter come from? That's what I want to know. I wasn't going to have any truck with it." "But you didn't leave it lying on the rug?" "Mr. Bede got it." "Bede! Oh, the devil!" Gasped Lyon. "How did he come to get it?" "He came in in the morning and I told him what I had seen. I couldn't have stayed in the house without someone knowing. He went in and got the letter, and then he put a seal on the door, so that no one else should get in. He came here again this morning himself and looked into the room, but there wasn't anything on the rug. Do you suppose it was perhaps because the last one wasn't sent? Does he know? I know some as thinks he had truck with the devil while he was alive all right. Say, what do you think about such things, Mr. Lyon?" "I think you ought to have mailed that letter to Miss Wolcott. Bede has no business with her letters." "I wasn't going to touch it," said Hunt doggedly. "Did Bede ask you anything about her?" "He asked if I knew whether she ever came here to Fullerton's room. I wouldn't know. I never saw her to know her." Hunt was evidently aggrieved over the turn things had taken generally. "Then he wanted to know particularly what that lady looked like that came to see Fullerton that last night,--the one he went out with. I didn't see her, but the elevator boy told, same as Donohue told at the inquest, that she wore a veil and a dark dress and a fur coat, short. Anybody might be dressed like that." "Who has the apartment above?" Lyon asked abruptly. "It's empty. The people moved out this week." "What day?" "Yesterday and the day before." "Let me look at it. Perhaps I might take it. Is it furnished?" "No, the furniture was moved out. Come up with me, sir." Lyon knew the arrangement of the suites in the Wellington. They were all alike, in the corresponding positions. He already knew the arrangement of Fullerton's room, and his chief interest in the apartment above was in its relation to the wall outside. He leaned out of the window to examine it while Hunt was detained in the hall by a passing tenant, and when the man appeared Lyon's mind was made up. "I'd like to take this apartment for a week. They are making some alterations at the Grosvenor" (those alterations at the Grosvenor were very opportune!) "and I want a place to stay for a few nights. You can put some furniture into the bedroom, can't you? I shan't need anything else. I may not be here more than a night or two." Hunt looked shrewd. "You needn't think that being in the building makes any difference about the room below, Mr. Lyon!" "That's all right," laughed Lyon. "Really, what I want is to keep an eye on Bede. And if Fullerton's ghost comes to carry you off because you didn't mail that letter, I'll be here to explain things and make it easy for you." The arrangement was made without difficulty, and Lyon went away with Hunt's assurance that the bedroom would be habitable when he returned that night. It was his "night off" at the paper, and he had a mind to make the most of the freedom which that circumstance would give him. Several important things happened before the evening came, and these must be first recounted; but it may as well be mentioned here that when Lyon did return that evening, the bag which Hunt obligingly carried upstairs contained, with a few other trifles, a rope fire-escape and a glazier's diamond. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2