“I haven’t much time, Winter. I’m out to find who murdered her. So I’ll ask you to unpack your suitcase there, and lay every article on the bunk.”
“Clara is really dead — murdered?”
“You can take my word for it.”
“What are you looking for?”
“Just unpack.”
Like a man in a dream, Winter took item after item out and laid them upon the blanket. Once he stopped and asked: “Whom do you think killed her?”
When Troy didn’t answer him, he continued his task until the suitcase was empty.
Troy pointed at a gray checked suit and a few brightly colored neckties. “Isn’t that strange garb for a Septaguint minister?”
For the first time color appeared in Winter’s cheeks, but he said nothing. Troy stepped over to the suitcase and slipped his hand into the wide pocket inside the lid. Then he pulled out a writing pad and held it up triumphantly. The paper was yellow with light green lines.
“This is the kind of paper that Clara’s ex-husband wrote his threatening notes and letters on! It’s too much for coincidence. I think you’re Nate Mitchell!”
The other made a sudden dash for the cabin door, eluding Troy’s grab for him. By the time the gambler reached the deck, the pseudo-preacher was climbing over the taffrail. But before he could release his hold to drop into the dark waters of the river, Troy had seized his arm and was pulling him back. Mitchell struggled frantically, but at that moment the steward appeared, and not unused to violence on board, held on to him matter-of-factly, while Troy terminated the man’s struggles with a smart blow from the butt of his revolver.
They laid the half-conscious Mitchell on the bunk in Troy’s own cabin, and when the steward had gone, Troy fetched in Auslander who had remained in Clara’s cabin. The German’s eyes were red from weeping.
“What have you found?” Auslander asked, gasping with excitement.
“Him,” Troy said pointing at the man in the bunk. “That is Nate Mitchell, Clara’s ex-husband.”
“Schweinehund!” the expletive broke like a whip lash from Auslander’s lips as he looked down at the pale face. “He murdered mine Clara!”
Mitchell’s eyes fluttered and he looked up at Troy. “No, no,” he said faintly. “I did not.”
“Do you deny that you’re Mitchell?” Troy asked.
“No, I’m Nate Mitchell. But I didn’t kill Clara. I swear it.”
“You’d better talk.”
“Yes.” Mitchell moisted his lips, and when he spoke again his voice was stronger. “I was married to Clara. She ran away from me, took our child. It died. I swore to kill her. It took me five years to find her.” He stopped talking as if the effort were too great.
“Tonight you came to my cabin,” Troy prompted. “But not to save my soul.”
“No. I came to strike you down, so I could get at Clara. But when you told me she was so frightened, and you were so — damned sympathetic, concerned. I don’t know. I knew I couldn’t go through with it. I was ready to leave without ever seeing Clara again!”
“You’ll have a hard time convincing the police of that when I show them your letter.”
“I know.” Mitchell nodded and closed his eyes, as if he’d given up.
“Well, that frees you,” Auslander said, patting Troy upon the shoulder.
“I don’t know.” Troy looked down frowning at the pale, quivering Mitchell. “When he came to my cabin he was ready to go up like a balloon, and then all of a sudden he wilted. He might be telling the truth.”
“Maybe afterwards he got up his courage again.”
“Maybe.”
Troy never knew afterwards exactly why he did it. The feeling came, a slight tingling in his heart, the way he felt when he knew what card his opponent held, and spoke it correctly without thought. But this hunch had nothing to do with cards. He ran to the cabin door.
“Watch Mitchell. Don’t let him get away,” Troy ordered Auslander curtly, and stepped out on deck. There were no passengers visible. He ran softly to Clara’s cabin, paused to listen outside the door, then thrust it open.
Ex-captain Ferris stood stiffly by Clara’s bunk, as if stricken by some rare paralysis. His face, when he turned it jerkily towards Troy, was frozen with fear, and in his right hand, held like a useless toy, was Troy’s Derringer.
Twenty minutes later Ferris entered Troy’s cabin, followed by the gambler. Ferris paused momentarily to stare at Mitchell, who still lay with his eyes closed, breathing as if asleep, then sat down nervously near the bunk. Auslander’s eyes opened wide when he saw the Derringer in Troy’s hand.
“You found it! Where?”
“Ferris. He says he paid a visit to Clara earlier this evening, after I’d warned him away. The door was open and she wasn’t there. He went in and looked around. He saw the Derringer lying on the bunk, couldn’t help picking it up and putting it in his pocket. I found him there just now, returning it. He says his conscience got the better of him. He was stunned when he saw Clara dead upon the bunk.”
“You believe him?” Auslander asked.
“Yes, I do. Because he didn’t murder Clara.”
“Then Mitchell did.”
“No.”
“Who, then?”
“You did, Mr. Auslander.”
The German turned red and began spluttering. “That is ridiculous!”
“Is it?” Troy held up a pair of light brown kid skin gloves. “I found these in the pocket of your coat which you left in Clara’s cabin. The fingers of this glove are splattered with blood. My blood. Blood from the end of the cane you hit me with!”
“Give me that!” Auslander cried truculently, starting forward.
Troy was ready for him. He jabbed a quick right fist to the German’s jaw, and Auslander went down in a heap, his head hitting the pipe beneath the wash-stand. He lay there, looking groggily up at Troy.
“That evens us a little bit,” Troy said mildly. “Now why did you kill Clara?”
Auslander eyed the glove Troy held as if he were starving for it. Then he closed his eyes briefly and shuddered, and began speaking very low.
“She laughed at me when you hit me on the head on the train. I had taken so much from Clara, but that was the last straw. I couldn’t stand being laughed at in front of you, who had won her from me. I made up my mind to kill her then!”
Troy nodded to Mitchell and Ferris. “For telling the truth, you may have the gloves.” And he threw the pair towards Auslander, and the latter snatched them and examined them.
“Mein Gott, there is no blood!” Auslander rose shakily to his feet and shook the gloves accusingly at Troy.
“No, I made that up. Once I suspected you, I had to find a way to make you commit yourself.”
“How could you know?” Auslander asked incredulously.
“I told you I believe Ferris’ story about the Derringer. If Ferris found the pistol on the bunk, that meant that Clara was taken from the cabin after she was unconscious or dead. I think you killed her there. She never would have come to me along that deck without carrying the gun!
“But if she was attacked in her own cabin, who could have succeeded in getting in? She would never have admitted either Ferris or Winters. She suspected one of them of being her husband. And before she would have opened that door to anyone, she would have looked through the louvers to make sure her visitor was who he said he was, the way she did even with me earlier this evening, when I got myself locked out.
“There was no tampering with the lock — the steward told me that was impossible. Therefore, Clara had admitted somebody. Who else would she admit besides me? Only a man for whom she had contempt, who, as she told me this afternoon ‘didn’t count’. In other words, you, Auslander. She considered you a joke, so she admitted you and you strangled her!”