“Because, with three people confessing a crime, and no one else even remotely suspected, save a mysterious and perhaps mythical bugle-player, it does not seem an easy job to hunt up and then hunt down a slayer.”

“But you’ll do it,” begged Appleby, almost pleadingly, “for it must be done.”

“We’ll see,” Stone replied. “And now tell me more about the fire in the garage. It occurred at the time of the shooting, you say? What started it?”

But nobody knew what started it.

“How could we know?” asked Jeff Allen. “It was only a small fire and the most it burned was the robe in Mr. Appleby’s own car and a motor coat that was also in the car.”

“Whose coat?” asked Stone.

“Mine,” said Keefe, ruefully. “A bit of bad luck, too, for it was a new one. I had to get another in place of it.”

“And you think the fire was the result of a dropped cigarette or match by Mr. Appleby’s chauffeur?”

“I don’t know,” returned Keefe. “He denies it, of course, but it must have been that or an incendiary act of some one.”

“Maybe the bugler person,” suggested Stone.

“Maybe,” assented Keefe, though he did not look convinced.

“I think Mr. Keefe thinks it was the work of my own men,” said Dan Wheeler. “And it may have been. There’s one in my employ who has an ignorant, brutal spirit of revenge, and if he thought Samuel Appleby was inimical to me, he would be quite capable of setting fire to the Appleby car. That may be the fact of the case.”

“It may be,” agreed Stone. “Doubtless we can find out – ”

“How?” asked Allen. “That would be magician’s work, I think.”

“A detective has to be a magician,” Stone smiled at him. “We quite often do more astounding tricks than that.”

“Go to it, then!” cried Appleby. “That’s the talk I like to hear. Questions and answers any of us can put over. But the real detecting is like magic. At least, I can’t see how it’s done. Duff in, Mr. Stone. Get busy.”

The group dispersed then, Fleming Stone going to his room and the others straying off by twos or threes.

Burdon, who had said almost nothing during the confab, declared he wanted a talk with the great detective alone, and would await his pleasure.

So Burdon sat by himself, brooding, on the veranda, and presently saw the boy, Fibsy, returning toward the house.

“Come here, young one,” Burdon called out.

“Nixy, old one,” was the saucy retort.

“Why not?” in a conciliatory tone.

“’Cause you spoke disrespectful like. I’m a detective, you know.”

“All right, old pal; come here, will you?”

Fibsy grinned and came, seating himself on a cushioned swing nearby.

“Whatcha want?” he demanded.

“Only a line o’ talk. Your Mr. Stone, now, do you think he’ll show up soon, or has he gone for a nap?”

“Fleming Stone doesn’t take naps,” Fibsy said, disdainfully; “he isn’t that sort.”

“Then he’ll be down again shortly?”

“Dunno. Maybe he’s begun his fasting and prayer over this phenomenal case.”

“Does he do that?”

“How do I know? I’m not of a curious turn of mind, me havin’ other sins to answer for.”

“I know. Mr. Stone told us you have no respect for the truth.”

“Did he, now! Well, he’s some mistaken! I have such a profound respect for the truth that I never use it except on very special occasions.”

“Is this one?”

“It is not! Don’t believe a word I say just now. In fact, I’m so lit up with the beauties and glories of this place, that I hardly know what I am a-saying! Ain’t it the show-place, though!”

“Yes, it is. Looky here, youngster, can’t you go up and coax Mr. Stone to see me – just a few minutes?”

“Nope; can’t do that. But you spill it to me, and if it’s worth it, I’ll repeat it to him. I’m really along for that very purpose, you see.”

“But I haven’t anything special to tell him – ”

“Oh, I see! Just want the glory and honor of chinning with the great Stone!”

As this so nearly expressed Burdon’s intention, he grinned sheepishly, and Fibsy understood.

“No go, old top,” he assured him. “F. Stone will send for you if he thinks you’ll interest him in the slightest degree. Better wait for the sending – it’ll mean a more satisfactory interview all round.”

“Well, then, let’s you and me chat a bit.”

“Oho, coming round to sort of like me, are you? Well, I’m willing. Tell me this: how far from the victim did the shooter stand?”

“The doctor said, as nearly as he could judge, about ten feet or so away.”

“H’m,” and Fibsy looked thoughtful. “That would just about suit all three of the present claimants for the honor, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes; and would preclude anybody not inside the room.”

“Unless he was close to the window.”

“Sure. But it ain’t likely, is it now, that a rank outsider would come right up to the window and fire through it, and not be seen by anybody?”

“No; it isn’t. And, of course, if that had happened, and any one of the three Wheelers had seen it, they would be only too glad to tell of it. I wonder they haven’t made up some such yarn as that.”

“You don’t know the Wheelers. I do, and I can see how they would perjure themselves – any of them – and confess to a crime they didn’t commit, to save each other – but it wouldn’t occur to them to invent a murderer – or to say they saw some one they didn’t see. Do you get the difference?”

“Being an expert in the lyin’ game, I do,” and Fibsy winked.

“It isn’t only that. It’s not only that they’re unwilling to lie about it, but they haven’t the – the, well, ingenuity to contrive a plausible yarn.”

“Not being lying experts, just as I said,” Fibsy observed. “Well, we all have our own kind of cleverness. Now, mine is finding things. Want to see an example?”

“Yes, I do.”

“All right. How far did you say the shooter person stood from his victim?”

“About ten feet – but I daresay it might be two or three feet, more or less.”

“No; they can judge closer’n that by the powder marks. The truth wouldn’t vary more’n a foot or so, from their say. Now, s’posin’ the shooter did throw the revolver out of the bay window, as the three Wheelers agree, severally, they did do, where would it most likely land?”

“In that clump of rhododendrons.”

“Yep; if they threw it straight ahead. I s’pose you’ve looked there for it?”

“Yes, raked the place thoroughly.”

“All right. Now if they slung the thing over toward the right, where would it land?”

“On the smooth lawn.”

“And you didn’t find it there!”

“No. What are you doing? Stringing me?”

“Oh, no, sir; oh, no! Now, once again. If they chanced to fling said revolver far to the left, where would it land?”

“Why – in that big bed of ferns – if they threw it far enough.”

“Looked there?”

“No; I haven’t.”

“C’mon, let’s take a squint.”

Fibsy rose and lounged over toward the fern bed, Burdon following, almost certain he was being made game of.

CHAPTER XII
THE GARAGE FIRE

“Now, watch me,” he said, and with a quick thrust of his arm down among the ferns, he drew forth a revolver, which he turned over to Burdon.

“Land o’ goodness!” exclaimed that worthy. “Howja know it was there?”

“Knew it must be – looked for it – saw it,” returned the boy, nonchalantly, and then, hearing a short, sharp whistle, he looked up at the house to see Fleming Stone regarding him from an upper window.

“Found the weapon, Fibs?” he inquired.

“Yes, Mr. Stone.”

“All right. Bring it up here, and ask Mr. Burdon to come along.”

Delighted at the summons, Burdon followed the boy’s flying feet and they went up to Stone’s rooms. A small and pleasant sitting-room had been given over to the detective, and he admitted his two visitors, then closed the door.

“Doing the spectacular, Terence?” Stone said, smiling a little.

“Just one grandstand play,” the boy confessed. As a matter of fact, he had located the pistol sometime earlier, but waited to make the discovery seem sensational.

“All right; let’s take a look at it.”

Without hesitation, Burdon pronounced the revolver Mr. Wheeler’s. It had no initials on it, but from Wheeler’s minute description, Burdon recognized it beyond reasonable doubt. One bullet had been fired from it, and the calibre corresponded to the shot that had killed Samuel Appleby.

“Oh, it’s the right gun, all right,” Burdon said, “but I never thought of looking over that way for it. Must have been thrown by a left-handed man.”

“Oh, not necessarily,” said Stone. “But it was thrown with a conscious desire to hide it, and not flung away in a careless or preoccupied moment.”

“And what do you deduce from that?” asked Burdon, quite prepared to hear the description of the murderer’s physical appearance and mental attainments.

“Nothing very definite,” Stone mused. “We might say it looked more like the act of a strong-willed man such as Mr. Wheeler, than of a frightened and nervously agitated woman.”

“If either of those two women did it,” Burdon offered, “she wasn’t nervous or agitated. They’re not that sort. They may go to pieces afterward, but whatever Mrs. Wheeler or Maida undertake to do, they put it over all right. I’ve known ’em for years, and I never knew either of them to show the white feather.”

“Well, it was not much of an indication, anyway,” Stone admitted, “but it does prove a steady nerve and a planning brain that would realize the advisability of flinging the weapon where it would not be probably sought. Now, as this is Mr. Wheeler’s revolver, there’s no use asking the three suspects anything about it. For each has declared he or she used it and flung it away. That in itself is odd – I mean that they should all tell the same story. It suggests not collusion so much as the idea that whoever did the shooting was seen by one or both of the others.”

“Then you believe it was one of the three Wheelers?” asked Burdon.

“I don’t say that, yet,” returned Stone. “But they must be reckoned with. I want to eliminate the innocent two and put the guilt on the third – if that is where it belongs.”

“And if not, which way are you looking?”

“Toward the fire. That most opportune fire in the garage seems to me indicative of a criminal who wanted to create a panic so he could carry out his murderous design with neatness and despatch.”

“And that lets out the women?”

“Not if, as you say, they’re of the daring and capable sort.”

“Oh, they are! If Maida Wheeler did this thing, she could stage the fire easily enough. Or Mrs. Wheeler could, either. They’re hummers when it comes to efficiency and actually doing things!”

“You surprise me. Mrs. Wheeler seems such a gentle, delicate personality.”

“Yep; till she’s roused. Then she’s full of tiger! Oh, I know Sara Wheeler. You ask my wife what Mrs. Wheeler can do!”

“Tell me a little more of this conditional pardon matter. Is it possible that for fifteen years Mr. Wheeler has never stepped over to the forbidden side of his own house?”

“Perfectly true. But it isn’t his house, it’s Mrs. Wheeler’s. Her folks are connected with the Applebys and it was the work of old Appleby that the property came to Sara with that tag attached, that she must live in Massachusetts. Also, Appleby pardoned Wheeler on condition that he never stepped foot into Massachusetts. And there they were. It was Sara Wheeler’s ingenuity and determination that planned the house on the state line, and she has seen to it that Dan Wheeler never broke parole. It’s second nature to him now, of course.”

“But I’m told that he did step over the night of the murder. That he went into the sitting-room of his wife – or maybe into the forbidden end of that long living-room – to see the fire. It would be a most natural thing for him to do.”

“Not natural, no, sir.” Burdon rubbed his brow thoughtfully. “Yet he might ’a’ done it. But one misstep like that ought to be overlooked, I think.”

“And would be by his friends – but suppose there’s an enemy at work. Suppose, just as a theory, that somebody is ready to take advantage of the peculiar situation, that seems to prove Dan Wheeler was either outside his prescribed territory – or he was the murderer. To my way of thinking, at present, that man’s alibi is his absence from the scene of the crime. And, if he was absent, he must have been over the line. I know this from talks I’ve had with the servants and the family and guests, and I’m pretty confident that Wheeler was either in the den or in the forbidden north part of the house at the moment of the murder.”

“Why don’t you know which it was?” asked Burdon, bluntly.

“Because,” said Stone, not resenting the question, “because I can’t place any dependence on the truth of the family’s statements. For three respectable, God-fearing citizens, they are most astonishingly willing, even eager, to perjure themselves. Of course, I know they do it for one another’s sake. They have a strange conscience that allows them to lie outright for the sake of a loved one. And, it may be, commit murder for the sake of a loved one! But all this I shall straighten out when I get further along. The case is so widespread, so full of ramifications and possible side issues, I have to go carefully at first, and not get entangled in false clues.”

“Got any clue, sir? Any real ones?”

“Meaning dropped handkerchiefs and broken cuff-links?” Stone chaffed him. “Well, there’s the pistol. That’s a material clue. But, no, I can’t produce anything else – at present. Well, Terence, what luck?”

Fibsy, who had slipped from the room at the very beginning of this interview, now returned.

“It’s puzzlin’ – that’s what it is, puzzlin’,” he declared, throwing himself astride of a chair. “I’ve raked that old garage fore and aft, but I can’t track down the startings of that fire. You see, the place is stucco and all that, and besides the discipline of this whole layout is along the lines of p’ison neatness! Everybody that works at Sycamore Ridge has to be a very old maid for keeping things clean! So, there’s no chance for accumulated rubbish or old rags or spontaneous combustion or anything of the sort. Nextly, none of the three men who have any call to go into the garage ever smoke in there. That’s a Mede and Persian law. Gee, Mr. Wheeler is some efficient boss! Well, anyway, after the fire, though they tried every way to find out what started it, they couldn’t find a thing! There was no explanation but a brand dropped from the skies, or a stroke of lightning! And there was no storm on. It wouldn’t all be so sure, but the morning after, it seems, Mr. Allen and Mr. Keefe were doin’ some sleuthin’ on their own, and they couldn’t find out how the fire started. So, they put it up to the garage men, and they hunted, too. It seems nothing was burnt but some things in Mr. Appleby’s car, which, of course, lets out his chauffeur, who had no call to burn up his own duds. And a coat of his was burned and also a coat of Mr. Keefe’s.”

“What were those coats doing in an unused car?” asked Stone.

“Oh, they were extra motor coats, or raincoats, or something like that, and they always staid in the car.”

“Where, in the car?”

“I asked that,” Fibsy returned, “and they were hanging on the coat-rail. I thought there might have been matches in the pockets, but they say no. There never had been matches in those coat pockets, nor any matches in the Appleby car, for that matter.”

“Well, the fire is pretty well mixed up in the murder,” declared Stone. “Now it’s up to us to find out how.”

“Ex-cuse me, Mr. Stone,” and Burdon shook his head; “you’ll never get at it that way.”

“Ex-cuse me, Mr. Burdon,” Fibsy flared back, “Mr. Stone will get at it that way, if he thinks that’s the way to look. You don’t know F. Stone yet – ”

“Hush up, Fibs; Mr. Burdon will know if I succeed, and, perhaps he’s right as to the unimportance of the fire, after all.”

“You see,” Burdon went on, unabashed, “Mr. Keefe – now, he’s some smart in the detective line – he said, find your phantom bugler, and you’ve got your murderer! Now, what nonsense that is! As if a marauding villain would announce himself by playing on a bugle!”

“Yet there may be something in it,” demurred Stone. “It may well be that the dramatic mind that staged this whole mysterious affair is responsible for the bugle call, the fire, and the final crime.”

“In that case, it’s one of the women,” Burdon said. “They could do all that, either of them, if they wanted to; but Dan Wheeler, while he could kill a man on provocation – it would be an impulsive act – not a premeditated one. No, sir! Wheeler could see red, and go Berserk, but he couldn’t plan out a complicated affair like you’re turning this case into!”

“I’m not turning it into anything,” Stone laughed. “I’m taking it as it is presented to me, but I do hold that the phantom bugler and the opportune fire are theatrical elements.”

“A theatrical element, too, is the big sycamore,” and Burdon smiled. “Now, if that tree should take a notion to walk over into Massachusetts, it would help out some.”

“What’s that?” cried Fibsy. “What do you mean?”

“Well, the Wheelers have got a letter from Appleby, written while he was still governor, and it says that when the big sycamore goes into Massachusetts, Wheeler can go, too. But it can’t be done by a trick. I mean, they can’t transplant the thing, or chop it down and take the wood over. It’s got to go of its own accord.”

“Mere teasing,” said Stone.

“Yes, sir, just that. Appleby had a great streak of teasing. He used to tease everybody just for the fun of seeing them squirm. This whole Wheeler business was the outcome of Appleby’s distorted love of fun. And Wheeler took it so seriously that Appleby kept it up. I’ll warrant, if Wheeler had treated the whole thing as a joke, Appleby would have let up on him. But Dan Wheeler is a solemn old chap, and he saw no fun in the whole matter.”

“I don’t blame him,” commented Stone. “Won’t he get pardoned now?”

“No, sir, he won’t. Some folks think he will, but I know better. The present governor isn’t much for pardoning old sentences – he says it establishes precedent and all that. And the next governor is more than likely to say the same.”

“I hear young Mr. Appleby isn’t going to run.”

“No, sir, he ain’t. Though I daresay he will some other time. But this death of his father and the mystery and all, is no sort of help to a campaign. And, too, young Appleby hasn’t the necessary qualifications to conduct a campaign, however good he might be as governor after he got elected. No; Sam won’t run.”

“Who will?”

“Dunno, I’m sure. But there’ll be lots ready and eager for a try at it.”

“I suppose so. Well, Burdon, I’m going down now to ask some questions of the servants. You know they’re a mine of information usually.”

“Kin I go?” asked Fibsy.

“Not now, son. You stay here, or do what you like. But don’t say much and don’t antagonize anybody.”

“Not me, F. Stone!”

“Well, don’t shock anybody, then. Behave like a gentleman and a scholar.”

“Yessir,” Fibsy ducked a comical bow, and Burdon, understanding he was dismissed, went home.

To the dining-room Stone made his way, and asked a maid there if he might see the cook.

Greatly frightened, the waitress brought the cook to the dining-room.

But the newcomer, a typical, strong-armed, strong-minded individual, was not at all abashed.

“What is it you do be wantin’, sor?” she asked, civilly enough, but a trifle sullenly.

“Only a few answers to direct questions. Where were you when you first heard the alarm of the garage fire?”

“I was in me kitchen, cleanin’ up after dinner.”

“What did you do?”

“I ran out the kitchen door and, seein’ flames, I ran toward the garage.”

“Before you ran, you were at the rear of the house – I mean the south side, weren’t you?”

“Yes, sor, I was.”

“You passed along the south veranda?”

“Not along it,” the cook looked at him wonderingly – “but by the end of it, like.”

“And did you see any one on the veranda? Any one at all?”

The woman thought hard. “Well, I sh’d have said no – first off – but now you speak of it, I must say I do have a remimbrance of seein’ a figger – but sort of vague like.”

“You mean your memory of it is vague – you don’t mean a shadowy figure?”

“No, sor. I mean I can’t mind it rightly, now, for I was thinkin’ intirely of the fire, and so as I was runnin’ past the end of the verandy all I can say is, I just glimpsed like, a person standin’ there.”

“Standing?”

“Well, he might have been moving – I dunno.”

“Are you sure it was a man?”

“I’m not. I’m thinkin’ it was, but yet, I couldn’t speak it for sure.”

“Then you went on to the fire?”

“Yes, sor.”

“And thought no more about the person on the veranda?”

“No, sor. And it niver wud have entered me head again, savin’ your speakin’ of it now. Why – was it the – the man that – ”

“Oh, probably not. But everything I can learn is of help in discovering the criminal and perhaps freeing your employers from suspicion.”

“And I wish that might be! To put it on the good man, now! And worse, upon the ladies – angels, both of them!”

“You are fond of the family, then?”

“I am that! I’ve worked here for eight years, and never a cross word from the missus or the master. As for Miss Maida – she’s my darlint.”

“They’re fortunate in having you here,” said Stone, kindly. “That’s all, now, cook, unless you can remember anything more of that person you saw.”

“Nothin’ more, sor. If I do, I’ll tell you.”

Thinking hard, Stone left her.

It was the most unusual case he had ever attempted. If he looked no further for the murderer than the Wheeler family, he still had enough to do in deciding which one of the three was guilty. But he yearned for another suspect. Not a foolish phantom that went around piping, or a perhaps imaginary prowler stalking on the piazza, but a real suspect with a sound, plausible motive.

Though, to be sure, the Wheelers had motive enough. To be condemned to an absurd restriction and then teased about it, was enough to make life gall and wormwood to a sensitive man like Wheeler.

And who could say what words had passed between them at that final interview? Perhaps Appleby had goaded him to the breaking point; perhaps Wheeler had stood it, but his wife, descending the stairs and hearing the men talk, had grown desperate at last; or, and Stone knew he thought this most plausible of all, perhaps Maida, in her window-seat, had stood as long as she could the aspersions and tauntings directed at her adored father, and had, with a reckless disregard of consequences, silenced the enemy forever.

Of young Allen, Stone had no slightest suspicion. To be sure, his interests were one with the Wheeler family, and moreover, he had hoped for a release from restrictions that would let the Wheelers go into Massachusetts and thereby make possible his home there with Maida.

For Maida’s vow that she would never go into the state if her father could not go, too, was, Allen knew, inviolable.

All this Stone mulled over, yet had no thought that Allen was the one he was seeking. Also, Curtis Keefe had testified that Allen was with him at the fire, during the time that included the moment of shooting.

Strolling out into the gardens, the detective made his way to the great tree, the big sycamore.

Here Fibsy joined him, and at Stone’s tacit nod of permission, the boy sat down beside his superior on the bench under the tree.

“What’s this about the tree going to Massachusetts?” Fibsy asked, his freckled face earnestly inquiring.

“One of old Appleby’s jokes,” Stone returned. “Doubtless made just after a reading of ‘Macbeth.’ You know, or if you don’t, you must read it up for yourself, there’s a scene there that hinges on Birnam Wood going to Dunsinane. I can’t take time to tell you about it, but quite evidently it pleased the old wag to tell Mr. Wheeler that he could go into his native state when this great tree went there.”

“Meaning not at all, I s’pose.”

“Of course. And any human intervention was not allowed. So though Birnam Wood was brought to Dunsinane, such a trick is not permissible in his case. However, that’s beside the point just now. Have you seen any of the servants?”

“Some. But I got nothing. They’re willing enough to talk, but they don’t know anything. They say I’d better tackle the ladies’ maid, a fair Rachel. So I’m going for her. But I bet I won’t strike pay-dirt.”

“You may. Skip along, now, for here comes Miss Maida, and she’s probably looking for me.”

Fibsy departed, and Maida, looking relieved to find Stone alone, came quickly toward him.

“You see, Mr. Stone,” she began, “you must start straight in this thing. And the only start possible is for you to be convinced that I killed Mr. Appleby.”

“But you must admit, Miss Wheeler, that I am not too absurd in thinking that though you say you did it, you are saying it to shield some one else – some one who is near and dear to you.”

“I know you think that – but it isn’t so. How can I convince you?”

“Only by circumstantial evidence. Let me question you a bit. Where did you get the revolver?”

“From my father’s desk drawer, where he always keeps it.”

“You are familiar with firearms?”

“My father taught me to shoot years ago. I’m not a crack shot – but that was not necessary.”

“You premeditated the deed?”

“For some time I have felt that I wanted to kill that man.”

“Your conscience?”

“Is very active. I deliberately went against its dictates for my father’s sake.”

“And you killed Mr. Appleby because he hounded your father in addition to the long deprivation he had imposed on him?”

“No, not that alone. Oh, I don’t want to tell you – but, if you won’t believe me otherwise, Mr. Stone, I will admit that I had a new motive – ”

“A new one?”

“Yes, a secret that I learned only a day or so before – before Mr. Appleby’s death.”

“The secret was Appleby’s?”

“Yes; that is, he knew it. He told it to me. If any one else should know it, it would mean the utter ruin and desolation of the lives of my parents, compared to which this present condition of living is Paradise itself!”

“This is true, Miss Wheeler?”

“Absolutely true. Now, do you understand why I killed him?”