The Last Drive (3 page)

“Is he really dead, Mr. Rankin?”

The Saturday crowd was all over the place—in the library, the bar, the dining-room, the piazzas, and, of course, the one topic of conversation was the tragic end of one of their best loved members, whose body was at that moment lying in some room upstairs. Everybody had come in from the links; all playing had ceased. In the dining-room members had left their luncheon to get cold on the tables, and then returned to sit and talk in hushed tones. There was a buzz everywhere. The mystery of the thing had grasped everybody. The word “poison” was being whispered around, and there was a rumor that police had been summoned from Brockton, the nearest village. Rankin, with his eye open for Harrison Matlin, the president of the club, was making his way from group to group through the throng in the library, when he suddenly heard his name called from behind and a hand came down on his shoulder.

“Looking for you, Rankin. You're wanted upstairs. Cortwell's room. There's the devil to pay.”

It was John Waring, the travel lecturer. Rankin followed him through to the back rooms and up the rear staircase to the floor above. Half way down the long, wide hall they stopped in front of a door and Waring knocked lightly.

“It's Waring. I've got Rankin,” he called, and an instant later there was the sound of a key turning in the lock and the door swung open.

As they entered and the door closed behind them again Rankin's quick glance showed him two or three men gathered about a table in the center of the room; others were seated on chairs and on the bed over against one side; Harry and Fred Adams were standing near an open window with their backs turned, talking together in low tones. Harrison Matlin, the president of the club, was there, and Bolton Cook and James Cortwell, and Fraser Mawson and Doctor Wortley. The eyes of all were turned on the door as the two newcomers entered.

“There's a problem here, Mr. Rankin,” Matlin began, abruptly, “and we want to put it up to you. Doctor Wortley called us in to show us—you tell him, Wortley.”

“Just this,” explained the Doctor, “that the examination of the body, together with what I learn from Fred Adams of the nature of the attack—spasmodic rigidity, pronounced dyspnoea—verifies beyond all doubt that Colonel Phillips was poisoned.”

Rankin frowned. “It's a certainty, then. What agent?”

“The motor nerves were paralyzed and death resulted from suffocation. Some virulent neurotic, most probably curare.
Strychnos toxifera
.”

“Ah!” Rankin's frown deepened. “That must enter through a wound. How—”

“Look here,” was the Doctor's answer to the unfinished question. The men about the table moved to one side, disclosing to view a lumpy, oblong form covered with a dark cloth; and Doctor Wortley, stepping forward, removed the covering from the body of Colonel Phillips. The clothing had been cut away, leaving it nude to the waist; and Rankin's gaze, directed by the Doctor, fell on a spot some three inches below the terminal of the breast bone. There was a tiny puncture of the skin, which was inflamed and slightly puffed, with a greenish tinge extending over a circular spot about the size of a silver half dollar.

“So that was the way,” breathed Rankin at length, straightening up. “But what did it?”

“That's what we want you to find out,” replied Matlin, keeping his eyes away from the table, where Doctor Wortley was readjusting the covering.

Rankin was silent.

“We don't want any scandal about it,” the club president went on anxiously, “but we feel—of course, it wouldn't be right to try to hush the thing up, even if it were possible. It must be investigated, but the Lord knows we don't want the village police here. They're no good, anyway. We feel we can trust you to do as much as anyone could do, and there will be no publicity. Colonel Phillips would want it that way himself.”

Still the detective was silent. Suddenly another voice came, and all eyes were directed at Fred Adams, the elder of the two brothers. He had turned from the window and was facing them with his countenance pale and grief-stricken.

“I only have this to say,” he remarked, quietly and distinctly, “that I don't want publicity and scandal any more than the rest of you, but nothing shall be left undone to punish the man that murdered my uncle.”

“I tell you, Fred, we don't know he was murdered,” Harry Adams put in, and the sentiment found echo in two or three other voices:

“Yes, how do you know he was murdered?”

They were silenced by Rankin:

“Gentlemen, for my part, I agree with Fred. You have requested me to solve this thing. Very well. I'll do my best, but only on condition that it is left to my discretion to notify the authorities at any time. Meanwhile, everyone of you must keep absolute silence on this affair. There must be no hint of crime in your discussions with those outside. Already the atmosphere is electric all over the place. Dispel it. And now, you will kindly leave me here with Doctor Wortley. You, Mr. Mawson, and Fred and Harry, will remain also, if you please.”

There were mutterings as the men began a general movement toward the door, and Harrison Matlin stepped up to whisper in the ear of the detective, who nodded impatiently in reply. Slowly they trooped out, with backward glances at the covered form on the table, and as the last of them disappeared into the hall Rankin stepped to the door and closed it. Then he turned to the four men who had remained behind at his request. Doctor Wortley stood with his hand resting on the table; Fraser Mawson had sunk into a chair, while the two Adams brothers still stood together near the window. The faces of all were lined with gravity.

“You've heard what Doctor Wortley has declared to be the cause of Colonel Phillips' death,” began Rankin, abruptly, glancing from Mawson to the two young men. “A virulent neurotic poison, probably curare. Curare is an arrow poison, without serious effect when taken internally, but almost instantly fatal when introduced into the blood through a wound. It was used by South American Indians to infect the tips of arrows; tiny arrows shot from blowpipes. The abrasion of the skin on the Colonel's chest is final proof of the agent. The point is, how did it get there? It must have been done sometime within the ten minutes immediately preceding his collapse. Who did it, and how?”

Silence greeted the detective's pause. Mawson glanced at Doctor Wortley, then at the window; the two brothers had their eyes fixed on the detective. Nobody spoke.

“Did anything unusual happen during that time?” Rankin continued. “Was there anyone about except you four men and the caddies?”

There was a simultaneous “No” from the two young men, and Fraser Mawson shook his head in negation.

“No one,” the latter declared. “Nothing unusual occurred, absolutely nothing, until poor Carson suddenly cried out and fell to the ground. To me, Mr. Rankin, the whole thing is incomprehensible. There was absolutely no way it could have happened. And I can't believe—why, Carson Phillips hadn't an enemy in the world.”

“Nevertheless, it did happen.” The detective's tone was grim. “And I don't suppose you intend to suggest suicide, Mr. Mawson.”

“Good heavens, no!” the lawyer protested. “I simply can't understand it.”

“One of the caddies was a West Indian,” Fred Adams put in suddenly.

Rankin sent him a quick glance. “Which one?”

“Mine. His name's Joe; that's all I know about him. Never had him before.”

“M-m-.” Rankin didn't seem particularly interested. “I'll talk to him. You can never tell. But as a matter of fact, I expect to find nothing here. The sooner we're away the better. Doctor, I'll ask you to go with us. An examination should be made of that wound. Telephone to Brockton for a conveyance for the body. It can follow.”

The detective paused, then turned to Fred Adams:

“I'll spend the night with you at Greenlawn, if you don't mind. And Doctor Wortley—”

“Very well, sir. But I don't see how you expect to find out anything there.” The young man was plainly surprised, as were the others.

“Perhaps I won't. We'll look around a bit, though. Will you do that telephoning, Doctor? It would be best to go down at the rear; no use running past all those curious eyes.” He turned to the others. “You came over in the Colonel's car, I suppose. Run it out on the drive and wait for me there. I'll be only a minute or two.”

Downstairs again, Rankin observed that the excitement was beginning to quiet down a little. Groups had broken up and scattered, and when he reached the piazza he saw several pairs and foursomes making their way to the first tee. On the lawn he found Harrison Matlin and surprised the club president by informing him of his decision to depart at once for Greenlawn, Colonel Phillips's country estate; then the two men proceeded together to the caddie-house. Joe, the West Indian mentioned by Fred Adams, proved to be one of those indolent, ignorant half breeds who seem to consider the process of breathing an unwarranted tax on human energy; he had been with the club now for more than two seasons, and the caddie-master declared him to be inoffensive and fairly competent. Rankin asked him a few guarded questions, then dismissed him with a shrug of the shoulders; clearly there was nothing to be suspected here.

He found the motor car on the drive near the gateway, with Fred Adams at the wheel and Harry seated beside him with a bag of golf clubs between his knees. To an observation of Rankin's as he climbed in the young man responded:

“They're not mine, sir. Uncle Carson's. I didn't want to leave them. . . .”

The detective seated himself in the tonneau beside Fraser Mawson, and the four men sat in silence, waiting for Doctor Wortley. He soon put in an appearance, with the information that conveyance would arrive from Brockton for the body in half an hour. Rankin merely nodded, sliding over on the cushions to make room for him.

“All ready, Fred.”

The engine whirred and the automobile shot forward, with two hundred pairs of curious and sympathetic eyes gazing after it from the piazza and lawns.

Twenty minutes later they entered the gateway of Greenlawn, nestling in a wooded valley among the Jersey hills. Down a long avenue of lindens, with well-kept park on either side, the car rolled smoothly, then curved round a large sunken garden to bring up before the main entrance of the house. It was one of those summer castles that have been appearing throughout the east in ever increasing numbers in the past decade, low and rambling, of grey stone brought from Colorado, with extensive lawns and gardens dotted here and there with fountains, gravel walks in every direction, terraces descending at one side to a miniature lake and a broad driveway leading circuitously to a garage, constructed of the same material as the house, in the rear. Some comment had been excited among Colonel Phillips's friends when he bought the place a few years before, for what use can an old bachelor make of a castle? He had merely smiled good-humoredly at their sly insinuations and proceeded to make Greenlawn one of the show spots of the hills. An old man's whim, he said; and his nature was incapable of guile.

Together the five men left the car and ascended the granite steps of the wide shady portico. From the rear of the house a chauffeur appeared, advancing inquiringly, but Fred Adams dismissed him by a wave of the hand. At the door of the reception room they were met by Mrs. Graves, the housekeeper, and the five men glanced at one another: Here was an unpleasant duty.

“You tell them, Mr. Mawson,” Fred pleaded; and the lawyer was left behind to call the servants together and announce the death of their master. The others went on to the library, where Harry Adams finally freed himself of the burden of the Colonel's golf bag, leaning it against a corner of the fireplace. They watched him in silence, with the thought in their eyes: He has played his last game.

“Now if you young men will be good enough to leave me alone with Doctor Wortley,” said Rankin abruptly.

Harry turned and started to go without a word. Fred hesitated, and finally blurted out:

“I know you have charge of this thing, Mr. Rankin, but I must say that I don't see why you run away from it. What can be done here at Greenlawn? I know you're older and wiser than I am, and I don't want to criticize, but Harry and I feel we have a right to know—”

“You have,” Rankin put in, stopping him with a gesture. “But as yet there's nothing to tell. I hold myself responsible. I am doing what I think best. But of course you're in authority here now, and if you think—”

“No, sir, it isn't that,” the young man declared hastily. “I suppose I shouldn't have said anything. But you—you know how we feel.”

“I do, my boy.”

Fred turned and followed his brother out of the room, closing the door behind him.

The doctor and the detective, finding themselves alone, glanced at each other, and then away again. Rankin's eye happened to light on a large bronze clock above the mantel, and stayed there; the hands of the clock pointed to a quarter past two. Doctor Wortley walked to a window looking out on the garden and stood there a moment, then crossed to a chair near the table and sank down in it, his fingers moving nervously along the arm. Neither said a word.

“Of course, I know what you're thinking, Rankin,” the Doctor finally observed, breaking into speech all at once. “I know why you thought there was nothing to be done over there. But—well—it seems preposterous. Fred? Harry? Mawson? Why, it's preposterous!”

The detective turned from his contemplation of the clock.

“If you know what I think you know more than I do,” he said at last, slowly. “And you do as a matter of fact know more than I do. That's why I want to talk to you. But certain conclusions are inevitable. We know how the Colonel was killed. A tiny arrow or steel needle cannot be sent from any considerable distance. From the fifth tee to the spot where the Colonel fell there is no shrubbery anywhere, nothing that could have served as a hiding place for the murderer. That is certain. Then it is equally certain that the murderer was not hidden. He was there, and he was not hidden. The caddies are out of the question. They were the two Simpson boys, Jimmie Marks and Joe, the West Indian Fred spoke of. Absurd to suspect any of them. That leaves only the members of the foursome. First the Colonel himself. Suicide must be considered, though the circumstances render it highly improbable. You were his friend and physician for thirty years. You knew him more intimately than anyone else. Your opinion?”