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Anthony Trent, Master Criminal

<h2>CHAPTER XXI THE MURDER OF ANDREW APTHORPE</h2> THE Apthorpe estate ran parallel to the main street of the town but the house itself was perched on a hill almost a mile distant from it. A long winding ascent led to a big stone, turreted mansion commanding an extensive view of the country that lay about it. A well kept lawn three hundred yards in width surrounded the house. “The place was built,” Mr. Westward explained, “by Colonel Crofton, the railroad man. On this lawn were great beds of rhododendrons which cost a great deal of money. When Apthorpe bought it he had them torn up and sown in grass. He said the flower beds and shrubberies were places where burglars might conceal themselves by day to break in by night.” “He was certainly suspicious,” Trent commented. Westward pointed to the house which rose like a fortress above them. “When Crofton had it there were windows on the ground level and several entrances. Apthorpe had them filled with granite all except that big doorway opposite.” By this time Trent was near enough to see that the house was not remote from buildings such as the stables and garages which are adjacent to most such residences. He remarked on the peculiarity. “The automobiles are kept in the basement of the house,” Westward explained. “The big doors I pointed out to you cannot be opened by the chauffeurs. When they want to go out or come in they have to phone for permission. Then Mr. Apthorpe or some one else would touch a button in his big living room and the gates would swing open. He had a searchlight on the tower until the Federal authorities forbade it.” “It seems to me he must have lived in dread of violence,” Trent observed, “and yet why should he? He was a well known Boston broker of an old New England family, not the kind one would think involved in crime. In fiction it is the man who comes home after spending half his life in the mysterious East that one suspects of robbing gods of their jeweled eyes and incurring the sworn vengeances of their priests.” “All men who collect precious stones live in dread,” Charles Westward said. “I’ve never seen any of his things. I’m not interested in them particularly. I’ve always talked about fishing when I’ve been there, but it’s common knowledge that he was going to leave his valuables to the Museum of Fine Arts. One of the things which incensed his wife was that he wouldn’t give her or her daughter any of the jewels but preferred to keep them locked away.” A flight of twenty granite steps led to the main entrance, two heavily built, metal studded doors. A lofty hall was disclosed with a circular stairway around it. Leading from the hall to what seemed the main room on that floor was a flight of six steps. The chestnut doors had been shattered. Obviously it was the room in which Apthorpe had met his death. For the rest it looked in no way different from half a hundred other rooms in big houses which Trent had investigated professionally. Bookshelves not more than four feet in height lined three sides of the apartment. Making a pretense of reading the titles Trent looked to see whether they were indeed volumes or mere blinds. The policeman in charge, knowing Mr. Westward well, was only too willing to show him and his friend what was to be seen. The body, he explained, was in an upper chamber. One peculiarity Trent noted in the book cases. Apparently there was no way to open them. They were of metal painted over. If keyholes existed they were hidden from view. Fearing that the policeman in charge would notice his scrutiny, he walked over to the open window and looked out. It was from this that the murderer made his escape. Twelve feet below the green closely cropped turf touched the granite foundation of the walls. When Mr. Westward offered him a cigar he took out his pipe instead and knocked out the ashes against the window ledge. Mr. Westward heard an exclamation of annoyance and asked its cause. Then he saw that while the stem of the pipe remained in its owner’s hand the bowl had fallen to the lawn below. “I won’t be a minute,” Trent said, and went down the main steps to the grounds. It was no accident that led him to drop his favorite briar. His keen eyes had seen footprints in the grass as he looked down. They might well be the marks of him who had stolen the famous emerald and Trent had decreed a private vendetta against one who might have robbed him for what he came into Massachusetts. Searching for the pipe bowl which he had instantly detected he made a rapid examination of the ground. There were indeed footprints made undoubtedly by some one dropping from the end of the portiere to the soft turf. And as he gazed, the mysterious man whom he had suspected faded into thin air. They were the imprints of the high heels that only women wear! Carefully he followed them as far as the big gates of the garage. They were not distinct to any but a trained observer. They were single tracks leading from the grass beneath the window to the garage. Not an unnecessary step had been taken. Apparently the local police had pulled in the portiere from the window and had made no examination of the grass below. Trent noticed that a man, evidently a gardener, was approaching him. Quickly he dropped the bowl of his pipe again among some clover. The man was eager and obliging. Furthermore he had heavily shod feet which were already making their impression on the turf to the undoing of any who might seek, as Anthony Trent had done, to make a careful examination. Already the high heeled imprints were obliterated. When the pipe was found the man insisted on speaking of the murder. He declared that for an hour on the fatal night a big touring car had been drawn up near his cottage in a lane nearby and that two men got out of it leaving another in charge. Trent shook him off as soon as he could and returned to the house, his previously held theories wholly upset. He had built them in the facts or falsities carefully supplied by Miss Thompson and he was anxious to see the lady. It was most likely that the woman who had lowered herself from the window was the woman who had committed the murder. And for what could the crimes have been committed so readily as the Takowaja emerald? He recalled now that there had been a certain reserve in the Westwards’ manner when they had spoken of Miss Thompson. Might they not have suspected her and yet feared to voice these suspicions to a stranger? As he thought it over he came to the conclusion that it was not of the crime of murder they suspected her but perhaps because of her relations with so notorious a man as the late Andrew Apthorpe. He remembered that the dead man’s family was alienated from him, possibly for this very reason. He was given an opportunity very shortly to see the nurse. She came along the hall, not seeing him as he stood in the entrance, and made her way toward Mr. Westward. She was a tall woman, quietly dressed and not in nurses’ uniform. Her walk was studied and her gestures exaggerated. She was that hard, blond type overladen with affectation to one who observed carelessly. But Trent could see she had a jaw like a prize fighter and her carefully pencilled eyes were intrinsically bellicose. She had a big frame and was, he judged, muscularly strong. And of course nurses must have good nerves. If she had the emerald he was determined to obtain, it would not be an easy conquest. Her greeting of Mr. Westward was effusive. Indeed it seemed too effusive to please him. He was courteous and expressed sympathy. She talked volubly. She related in detail the events of the previous night and the listener noticed that she was letter perfect. The only new angle he got was a description of the supposed murderer. According to Nurse Thompson he was about fifty, wore a short grizzled moustache, was of medium height but very broad, and dressed in a dark gray suit. In accent she judged him to be a Westerner. She would recognize him, she declared dramatically, among ten million. Trent had no wish to meet her—yet. He had seen her, recognized a predacious and formidable type and had observed she wore expensive shoes with fashionably high heels. Presently Charles Westward joined him. “I’ve been talking to Miss Thompson,” he volunteered. “I saw you,” Trent said, “but supposed it was one of the family. She wasn’t dressed as a nurse.” “She doesn’t act like one,” Westward answered. “Richmond was right. That woman drinks. I don’t like her, Mr. Trent.” “I suppose she needs sympathy now that her position is lost?” The more Anthony Trent thought over the matter the more thoroughly he became convinced that the mysterious stranger of whom the nurse spoke had no existence. If she had killed her employer she would not have done so unless it were to her advantage. And what better reason could there be, were she criminally minded, than some of his famous jewels? Trent determined to follow the thing up. He chuckled to think that he was now on the opposite side of the fence, the hunter instead of the hunted. But that was no reason that he should aid his enemy the law. If he devoted his talents to the running down of the murderer he wanted the reward for himself. Supposing that she had planned the crime, the opportunity was hers when she had the old man alone in the house. She would have been far too clever to use her knowledge of drugs to poison him. By such a ruse she would inevitably have incurred suspicion. If his assumption were correct she had been very clever. At eight o’clock she had started the ball rolling. At nine she had strengthened her position by some acting clever enough to deceive Mrs. Westward. And when they had reached her primed by her story of the threatening stranger they had found her waiting hysterically for their aid. No doubt she had been drinking. Most women hate using firearms for violent purposes unless the act is one of suddenly inspired fury when the deed almost synchronizes with the impelling thought. She had planned the thing carefully. She had, if his theory held, probably shot the old man as he sat reading. Then she had locked and barred the great doors and lowered herself to the ground and entered by the garage door which she could have opened from above. Thus the men coming to her aid found a scene prepared which her ingenuity had led them to expect as entirely reasonable. “By the way,” he demanded suddenly, “how long was the doctor or coroner in getting to Mr. Apthorpe?” “He didn’t get there until midnight. His motor broke down.” It was thus impossible to fix accurately the time of Apthorpe’s death. As they turned from the drive into Groton’s main street a big limousine passed them. To its occupants Mr. Westward raised his hat. “Mrs. Apthorpe,” he explained, “her daughter and son-in-law, Hugh Fanwood. The other man was Wilkinson the lawyer who acts for Mrs. Apthorpe.” He paused as another car turned into the drive. “Look like detectives,” he commented. “We are well out of it.” That night Anthony Trent went back to New York. Twenty-four hours later his fast runabout drew up at the Westward’s hospitable home. “I brought my car over from Boston,” he explained untruthfully, “on my way back to New York by way of the Berkshires and dropped in to see if there was any news in the Apthorpe murder case. The Boston papers had very little I didn’t already know.” He learned a great deal that interested him. First that Nurse Thompson had been left fifty thousand dollars in the Apthorpe will. This, on the advice of counsel, would not be contested, as the widow desired, on the ground of undue influence. Her daughter Mrs. Hugh Fanwood was not desirous of publicity. Secondly one of the most famous jewels in the world had been stolen. “Imagine it,” Mrs. Westward exclaimed, “for five years an emerald that was once in a Tsarina’s crown has been within a mile of us and not a soul in Groton knew of it. It was worth a fortune. Now we know why the poor man was done to death.” “Have they any clue?” he demanded. “They have offered a reward of ten thousand dollars. Miss Thompson’s description of the man has been circulated widely and caused arrests in every town in the state. The house is being searched by a detective agency but we all believe it’s useless. I don’t think Amelia Apthorpe behaved at all well. She insisted on having everybody searched who was in the house. Not Charles of course but every one she didn’t know and some whom she did.” “I was in the house,” Trent reminded them, “perhaps I ought to offer myself.” “No, no,” Westward exclaimed, “I told Mrs. Apthorpe who you were. I said you bought the Stanley camp on Kennebago and that I could vouch for you.” “That’s mighty nice of you,” Trent responded warmly. It was at a moment like this when he realized he was deceiving a good sportsman that he hated the life he had chosen. It was one of the reasons that he denied himself friends. “Did she have any sort of scrap with Miss Thompson?” “It’s too mild a word,” said Westward. “After the nurse’s things were searched she was told to go. Then she said she should bring an action against Mrs. Apthorpe for defamation of character and illegal search. She promised that there would be enough scandal unearthed to satisfy even the yellow press. I don’t suppose poor Amelia Apthorpe knew there were such lurid words in or out of the dictionary until the Thompson woman flung them at her.” “Will she bring action, do you think?” “I think she’s too shrewd. From what Hugh Fanwood told me they had looked up her record and found it shady. She was a graduate nurse once. Her diploma is genuine and the doctor here tells me she knew her business, but there are other things that she wouldn’t want in print. I think we’ve seen the last of her. She’ll get her fifty thousand dollars and when she’s gone through that she’ll find some other old fool to fall for her.” So far, Trent’s conjecture as to her character had been accurate. The death of Apthorpe meant a large sum of money to her while the legacy remained unrevoked. He could not marry her since he was not divorced from his wife. Perhaps he had believed in her sufficiently to show her his peerless emerald. Or perhaps he had only hinted at its glories and she had become possessed of the secret of its whereabouts. In any case Anthony Trent firmly believed she had it. It was quite likely that she had secreted it somewhere in the grounds of the mansion to retrieve it without risk later on. What woman except Nurse Thompson would have lowered herself from the room to the turf below on the night of the murder? And was it not likely that the emerald was the cause of the tragedy? The whole history of precious stones could be written in blood. In any case it was a working hypothesis sound enough for Trent to have faith in. In accordance with the advice of lawyers and relatives Mrs. Andrew Apthorpe decided to place no obstacle in the way of the departure of Nurse Thompson. She told Mrs. Westward she was certain the woman had taken the diamond ring she flaunted and that it had not been a gift, as she claimed, from her employer. Furthermore it was evident that she had made a good deal of money in padding the household expenses. Detectives, meanwhile, clinging faithfully to the description so generously amplified by Miss Thompson of the thief in the night, were hunting everywhere for him and his loot. The West Groton Gazette supplied Anthony Trent with some much needed information. It printed in its social columns the news that Miss Norah Thompson was to make an extended stay in the West, making her first long stop at San Francisco. Until then she was staying with a married sister in East Boston. Since the name was given in full Anthony Trent had little difficulty in finding what he needed. An operative from a Boston detective agency gleaned the facts while Trent made a pleasant stay at the Touraine. To the operative he was a Mr. Graham Maltby of Chicago. When he went West on the same train as the now resplendent Miss Norah Thompson he was possessed of a vast amount of information concerning her. In St. Louis six years before she had badly beaten a man whom she declared had broken his engagement to marry her. She was a singularly violent disposition and had figured in half a dozen cases which wound up in police courts. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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