“Allow me.” A tall, gray-haired and quite distinguished-looking man with a black mustache moved forward and took the stemware from between her fingers.
“Thank you.”
“Not at all. I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse the major. The party spirit, you know.” He nodded, indicating a woman in extreme décolletage chattering animatedly to a group of three laughing men. “But since it’s by way of being a farewell celebration—”
“Ah, there you are!” The short man whom Miss Plummer had identified as Major Hamilton bounced back into orbit around Natalie, a fresh drink in his hand and a fresh smile on his ruddy face. “I’m back again,” he announced. “Just like a boomerang, eh?”
He laughed explosively, then paused. “I say, you do have boomerangs in Australia? Saw quite a bit of you Aussies at Gallipoli. Of course that was some time ago, before your time, I daresay—”
“Please, Major.” The tall man smiled at Natalie. There was something reassuring about his presence, and something oddly familiar too. Natalie wondered where she might have seen him before. She watched while he moved over to the Major and removed the drink from his hand.
“Now see here—” the major sputtered.
“You’ve had enough, old boy. And it’s almost time for you to go.”
“One for the road—” The Major glanced around, his hands waving in appeal. “Everyone else is drinking!” He made a lunge for his glass, but the tall man evaded him. Smiling at Natalie over his shoulder, he drew the Major to one side and began to mutter to him earnestly in low tones. The Major nodded exaggeratedly, drunkenly.
Natalie looked around the room. Nobody was paying the least attention to her except one elderly woman who sat quite alone on a stool before the piano. She regarded Natalie with a fixed stare that made her feel like an intruder on a gala scene. Natalie turned away hastily and again caught sight of the woman in décolletage. She suddenly remembered her own desire to change her clothing and peered at the doorway, seeking Miss Plummer. But Miss Plummer was nowhere to be seen.
Walking back into the hall, she peered up the staircase.
“Miss Plummer!” she called.
There was no response.
Then from out of the corner of her eye, she noted that the door of the room across the hallway was ajar. In fact, it was opening now, quite rapidly, and as Natalie stared, Miss Plummer came backing out of the room, carrying a pair of scissors in her hand. Before Natalie could call out again and attract her attention, Miss Plummer had scurried off in the other direction.
The people here, Natalie told herself, certainly seemed odd. But wasn’t that always the case with people at parties? She crossed before the stairs, meaning to follow Miss Plummer, but found herself halting before the open doorway.
She gazed in curiously at what was obviously her uncle’s consultation room. It was a cozy, book-lined study with heavy, leather-covered furniture grouped before the shelves. The psychiatric couch rested in one corner near the wall and near it was a large mahogany desk. The top of the desk was quite bare, save for a cradle telephone, and a thin brown loop snaking out from it.
Something about the loop disturbed Natalie and before she was conscious of her movement she was inside the room looking down at the desk-top and the brown cord from the phone.
And then she realized what had bothered her. The end of the cord had been neatly severed from its connection in the wall.
“Miss Plummer!” Natalie murmured, remembering the pair of scissors she’d seen her holding. But why would she have cut the phone cord?
Natalie turned just in time to observe the tall, distinguished-looking man enter the doorway behind her.
“The phone won’t be needed,” he said, as if he’d read her thoughts. “After all, I did tell you it was a farewell celebration.” And he gave a little chuckle.
Again Natalie sensed something strangely familiar about him, and this time it came to her. She’d heard the same chuckle over the phone, when she’d called from the station.
“You must be playing a joke!” she exclaimed. “You’re Dr. Bracegirdle, aren’t you?”
“No, my dear.” He shook his head as he moved past her across the room. “It’s just that no one expected you. We were about to leave when your call came. So we had to say something.”
There was a moment of silence. Then, “Where is my uncle?” Natalie asked at last.
“Over here.”
Natalie found herself standing beside the tall man, gazing down at what lay in a space between the couch and the wall. An instant was all she could bear.
“Messy,” the tall man nodded. “Of course it was all so sudden, the opportunity, I mean. And then they would get into the liquor—”
His voice echoed hollowly in the room and Natalie realized the sounds of the party had died away. She glanced up to see them all standing there in the doorway, watching.
Then their ranks parted and Miss Plummer came quickly into the room, wearing an incongruous fur wrap over the rumpled, ill-fitting uniform.
“Oh, my!” she gasped. “So you found him!”
Natalie nodded and took a step forward. “You’ve got to do something,” she said. “Please!”
“Of course, you didn’t see the others,” Miss Plummer said, “since they’re upstairs. The Doctor’s staff. Gruesome sight.”
The men and women had crowded into the room behind Miss Plummer, staring silently.
Natalie turned to them in appeal. “Why, it’s the work of a madman!” she cried. “He belongs in an asylum!”
“My dear child,” murmured Miss Plummer, as she quickly closed and locked the door and the silent starers moved forward. “This is an asylum...”
74
The Blue Wash Mystery
Anna Katharine Green
One summer day, several years ago now, a gentleman was walking down Broadway, when he encountered Mr. Hardy of the firm of Hanson, Gregg & Hardy, House Painters and Decorators. Being friends, they both stopped.
“Well met,” cried the former. “I am just on my way to spend a couple of weeks with my family at Lake George, and your face reminds me of a pleasant surprise I can give my wife upon our return. Our front parlor needs to be freshly frescoed and painted, or so she has been saying for the last six months. Now if it could be done while I am gone, her wishes would be gratified and I would escape a confounded nuisance. What do you think about it? Can you manage to do it at such short notice?”
“Yes,” was the sturdy reply, “if you let us into the house today. I have two men on hand waiting for orders this morning. If I could make use of them I think there would be no difficulty about the matter.”
“But I haven’t the key — I gave it to Henry, who is going to sleep in the house while I am gone, and he went to Newark this morning and won’t be home till midnight. Won’t tomorrow do? Or stay, I have an idea. Our house is a corner one as you know, and my room looks out on G-Street. If your men will put a ladder up on that side of the house, they can get in through the farther window on the second floor. I left it up this morning with injunctions to Henry to close it when he came home tonight. Won’t that do? The furniture you can put in the back room, the carpet you can cover up — anything so my wife gets her surprise.”
“Well, we’ll try.”
And the gentlemen parted.
Now to you lady readers, the mystery will be that any man in his sane mind would dare to order his parlor furniture removed and the ceiling torn over a first-class axminster carpet, without warning his wife of the destruction that loomed over her favorite property. But that is not the mystery of this tale. The mystery of this story is one that a man can comprehend, even a boy, I think. So listen and be patient while I relate a few further facts.