THE SCENTED HANDKERCHIEF

Fully a minute passed before David Curtis moved. Stooping down, he groped about for his cane. It had rolled a slight distance away and it took him some few seconds to find it. Possession of the cane brought a sense of security; it was something to lean on, something to use to defend himself.... He paused and listened attentively. No sound disturbed the quiet of the night. Taking out his repeater he pressed the spring—a quarter past two. He had remained downstairs in the library far later than he had realized.

How to arouse the sleeping household and tell them of the tragedy enacted at their very doors? In groping for his cane he had lost his sense of direction. He took a step forward and paused in thought. Sam Hollister! He was the man to go to, but how could he reach Hollister without running the risk of disturbing the women of the household? Suppose he rapped on the wrong door?

To be eternally in the dark! Curtis raised his hand in a gesture eloquent of despair; then with an effort pulled himself together. Falling over a dead man, and that man his host, was enough to shake the stoutest nerves of a person possessing all his faculties—but to a blind man! Curtis was conscious that the hand holding his cane was not quite steady as he felt his way down the hall in search of his bedroom. The soft chimes of the grandfather clock in the hall below brought not only a violent start on his part in their train but an idea. The house telephone in his bedroom! John Meredith, that very afternoon, had taught him how to manipulate the mechanism of the instrument.

Quickening his pace Curtis moved down the corridor and turned a corner. If he could only be positive that he was going in the right direction and not away from his room. His outstretched hand passed from the wall to woodwork—a door. He felt about and found the knob. No string such as he had instructed the Filipino servant, detailed to valet him, to tie to his door as a means of identification in case he had to go to his room unaccompanied by a servant or friend, was hanging from it.

With an impatient ejaculation, low spoken, Curtis walked forward, taking care to step always on the heavy creepers with which the halls were carpeted. He had passed several doors when his hand, raised higher than usual, encountered an electric light fixture. The heat of the bulb proved that the light was still turned on, it also restored Curtis’ sense of direction as recollection returned of having been told by Fernando, the Filipino, that an electric fixture was near his room. A second more and he again paused before a door. Cautiously his fingers moved over the polished surface of the mahogany toward the door knob and closed over a piece of dangling twine.

With a sigh of utter thankfulness Curtis pushed open the door, which was standing slightly ajar, and entered the room. The house telephone should be in a small alcove to the left of the doorway—ah, he was right—the instrument was there. What was it John Meredith had told him—his room number was No. 1; that of the suite of rooms occupied by Mrs. Meredith and her daughter Anne, No. 2; his own bedroom call No. 3; that occupied by Gerald Armstrong, No. 4. Lucile Hull, Anne’s cousin and another guest over the week-end, was No. 5—no, five was the number of Sam Hollister’s bedroom in the west wing. But was it? Curtis paused in uncertainty. He did not like the idea of awakening Lucille Hull at nearly three o’clock in the morning. He was quite positive that to tell her John Meredith lay dead in the hall would send her into violent hysterics. It was no news to impart to a woman.

Suddenly Curtis’ hand on the telephone instrument clenched and his body grew rigid. A sixth sense, which tells of another’s presence, warned him that he was not alone. It was a large bedroom with windows opening upon a balcony which circled the old mansion, two closets, and a mirrored door which led to a dressing room beyond and a shower bath.

From the direction of the windows came a sigh, then the sound of some one rising stiffly from the floor, and a chair rasped against another piece of furniture as it was dragged forward with some force.

Moving always in darkness it had not occurred to Curtis to switch on the electric light when first entering the room. But why had not his appearance alarmed the intruder? He had made no especial effort to enter noiselessly. It must be that the room was unlighted. There was one way of solving the problem. Curtis opened his mouth, but the challenge, “Who’s there?” remained unspoken, checked by the unmistakable soft swish of silken garments. The intruder was a woman.

What was a woman doing in his bedroom? His bedroom, but suppose it wasn’t his bedroom? Suppose he had walked into some woman’s room by mistake and he was the intruder? The thought made him break out in a cold perspiration. No, it could not be. It was his bedroom; the string tied to the door knob proved that.

A sudden movement behind him caused Curtis to turn his head and the sound of a light footfall gave warning of the woman’s approach. As she passed the alcove something was tossed against Curtis’ extended hand, and then she slipped out of the room. Curtis instinctively stooped and picked up the object. As he smoothed out the small square of fine linen he started, then held it up to his nose—only to remove it in haste. Chloroform was a singular scent to find on a woman’s handkerchief.

The door of his bedroom had been left ajar and through the opening came a woman’s voice.

“Good gracious, the hall is in darkness!” Mrs. Meredith’s tones were unmistakable. “Anne, how you startled me!” in rising crescendo. “Come to bed, child; the fuse is probably burned out.” A door was shut with some vigor, then silence.

Curtis slipped the handkerchief inside his coat pocket and once again turned to the house telephone. His nervous fingers spun the dial around to the fifth hole and he pressed the button. He must chance it that Hollister’s call number was five. Three times he pushed the button, each with a stronger pressure, before a sleepy “hello” came over the wires.

“Hollister?” he called into the mouthpiece, keeping his voice low.

“Yes—what is it?”

“Thank the Lord!” The exclamation was fervid. He had secured help at last without creating a scene. “This is Curtis speaking. John Meredith is lying in the hall, dead.”

“What? My God!” Hollister’s shocked tones rang out loudly in the little receiver. “Are you crazy?”

“No. He’s there— I stumbled over his body. Yes—front hall. Bring matches—the lights are out.”

Curtis was standing in the doorway of his room as Hollister, in his pajamas, ran toward him down the hall, an electric torch in one hand and a bath robe in the other.

“Have you rung for the servants, Curtis?” he asked, keeping his voice lowered.

“No. I couldn’t recall their room numbers or find a bell.”

Hollister brushed by him into the bedroom, switched on the light, and, pausing only long enough to get the servants’ quarters on the house telephone and order a half-awake butler to come there at once, he bolted into the hall again.

“Where is John?” he demanded.

“Lying near the head of the staircase—” Not stopping for further words Curtis caught the lawyer’s arm and, guided by Hollister, hurried with him down the hall.

At sight of the figure on the floor Hollister stopped abruptly. Loosening Curtis’ grasp, he thrust the electric torch into his hand, then dropped on one knee and looked long and earnestly at his dead friend.

“You are sure he is beyond aid?” he stammered.

“Absolutely. He died before I reached him.”

Hollister crossed himself. “John—John!” His voice broke and covering his face with his hands he remained upon his knees for fully a minute. When he rose his forehead was beaded with tiny drops of moisture.

“Go and hurry the servants, Curtis. Oh, I forgot—you can’t see.” It was not often that the quick-witted lawyer was shaken out of his calm. “We must get John back into his bedroom.”

“You cannot remove the body until the coroner comes,” interposed Curtis.

“But, man, the place is all blood—it’s a ghastly sight!”

“I imagine it is,” replied Curtis curtly. “The coroner must be sent for at once.”

“Very well, I’ll attend to that. You stay here and keep the servants from making a scene; we can’t alarm the women.” Hollister stopped long enough to put on his bath robe. “I’ll telephone from my room—there’s an outside extension phone there; then I’ll put on some clothes before I come back,” and he sped away.

Herman, the butler, heralded his approach with an exclamation of horror.

“Keep quiet!” Curtis’ stern tones carried command and Herman pulled himself together. “Go and see what is the matter with the electric lights in this corridor; then come back. Make as little noise as possible,” he added by way of caution and the alarmed butler nodded in understanding.

At sound of the servant’s receding footsteps Curtis dropped on one knee and ran his hand over John Meredith. A startled exclamation escaped him. He had left the body lying partly on one side as he had found it; now John Meredith was stretched at full length upon his back. Could Hollister have been so foolish as to turn him over? Only the coroner had the right to move a dead body.

As Curtis drew back his hand preparatory to rising, he touched a strand of hair caught around a button on the jacket of Meredith’s pajamas.

“If I could only see!” The exclamation escaped him unwittingly. He hesitated a brief second, then deftly unwound a few hairs and placed them inside his leather wallet just as Herman stopped by his side.

“There weren’t nothing the matter with the lights,” he said, in an aggrieved tone. “They was just turned off. My, don’t the master look awful! You oughter be thankful, sir, that you can’t see ’im.”

Hollister’s return saved any reply on Curtis’ part, and the servant stepped back respectfully to make room for him.

“Coroner Penfield is coming right out,” the lawyer announced. “Also Dr. Leonard McLane, Meredith’s family physician. I thought it best to have him here when we break the news to Mrs. Meredith and Anne, not to mention Miss Hull—she’s a bundle of nerves.”

His thoughts elsewhere, Curtis failed to remark the change in Hollister’s voice at mention of Lucile Hull’s name.

“Did you notify the police?” he asked.

“The police? Certainly not.” Hollister stared at his companion. “We don’t need the police, Curtis. Say, are you ill?” noticing for the first time the blind surgeon’s pallor.

“I’m beginning to feel a bit faint.” Curtis pushed his hair off his forehead and unloosened his collar.

“Here, Herman, nip into my room and get the flask out of my bureau drawer,” directed Hollister. “Hurry!”

As the servant hastened on his errand Hollister half guided, half pushed Curtis to a hall chair and propped him in it. Not pausing to dilute the fiery liqueur, he snatched the flask from the breathless servant and tilted it against Curtis’ lips.

“Take a good swallow,” he advised, keeping his voice low. “There, you look better already,” as the fiery stimulant brought a touch of color to Curtis’ cheeks. “Rest a bit, then I’ll let Herman take you to your room and help you undress. You haven’t been to bed?”

“No. I was on my way to my room when I tripped over Meredith’s body.” Curtis spoke with an effort, the sensation of deadly faintness had not entirely vanished, in spite of the stimulant. He had no means of knowing that Hollister was watching him with uneasy suspicion. “I stayed down in the library until around two o’clock or a little after.”

“Ah, then you don’t know the exact hour you found poor Meredith,” Hollister spoke half to himself, but Curtis caught the words.

“It was a quarter past two by my repeater,” he answered.

“A quarter past two—and you did not call me until three o’clock,” exclaimed Hollister. “How was it that you let so long a time elapse?”

“Because I did not know which was your room,” explained Curtis, speaking slowly so that Hollister could not fail to understand. “I thought it best to call you on the house telephone, and it took me quite a time to find my way back to my bedroom. The moment I got there I telephoned to you—”

“The moment you got there,” repeated Hollister. “The moment you got to your bedroom, do you mean?”

“Yes. I identified it by the string on the door knob. You found me standing in my doorway when you came down the hall.”

Hollister stared at him, his eyes big with wonder. “Was it from that room you telephoned to me?” he asked.

“Yes,” with growing impatience. “I have already told you that I called you on the house ’phone in my bedroom.”

“But, my dear fellow, that wasn’t your bedroom.”

Curtis half rose. “That wasn’t my bedroom,” he gasped. “Then whose was it?”

“John Meredith’s bedroom—good Heavens!” as Curtis collapsed. “Help, Herman. Doctor Curtis has fainted.”