>Chapter 11

Lee called up the Gartrey apartment. A manservant answered. "I would like to speak to Miss Eliza Young," said Lee.

"What name, please?"

"Never mind my name. It's a personal matter." The voice hesitated. "The servants do not use the phone for personal calls, sir. Mrs. Gartrey's orders."

"It is rather important," said Lee.

"Hold the wire a moment, please. I will find out." After a considerable wait Lee heard Agnes Gartrey's cold, crisp voice on the wire. "What is it?" Smiling to himself, he quietly hung up. She was always on guard!

At eight o'clock he called again. He figured that at this hour Mrs. Gartrey would certainly be at dinner, and the manservant presumably waiting on the table. Though he had obeyed orders, the man had probably told Eliza of the call for her and she would be on the qui vive for another. A female voice answered on the wire.

"I would like to speak to Miss Eliza Young, please."

"This is she."

Lee smiled at his success. "This is Amos Lee Mappin speaking,"

"Oh, yes," she answered eagerly.

"Can you speak freely, Eliza?"

She lowered her voice to a whisper. Evidently her lips were close to the transmitter. "I'm speaking at the switchboard, sir. So you can say what you like. But the other servants are in and out of the pantry, here."

"I understand. I think you and I ought to have a talk, Eliza, privately. There has been too much publicity."

"Indeed you're right, sir."

"Would you be willing to come to my home to discuss the case?"

"Yes, sir, I would be glad to."

"When will you have time off?"

"I could make it about nine o'clock tonight, sir, if convenient to you."

"Very good. I'll be looking for you." He gave her the address.

When Jermyn brought her in to him, Lee was sitting by the fire with a whisky and soda before him. Eliza was a comely woman with a tall, matronly figure and white hair. Her clothes, while of good material, were soberly made without any concessions to the style of the moment. She was of a type unusual in America and seen on the street it would have been hard to place her. Thirty years' service had rendered her face smooth and expressionless. She wore a pince-nez that she was continually adjusting and readjusting.

"Sit down, Miss Eliza," said Lee in friendly fashion. "You see I am having a little refreshment. Will you join me?"

Eliza bridled a little. "I take that kind of you, Mr. Mappin. I don't mind if I do, seeing it's after working hours." Her voice was unexpectedly small and flat, conveying the impression that her soul was too small for its ample frame. She sat stiffly on the edge of the sofa facing Lee. Lee looked at Jermyn over her head, and Jermyn, comprehending, mixed her a stiff highball at a table behind her. Lee perceived that the offer of a drink had stiffened her guard. He thought: That's all right, my lady; it wouldn't be the first time that good liquor had loosened a woman's tongue in spite of her. He started a general conversation.

"I take it you are English, Miss Eliza."

"Yes, Mr. Mappin."

"How long have you been in this country?"

"Twenty years."

"Really! Then you are quite one of us by this time. What brought you to America in the first place?"

"I came with an American family, Mr. Mappin, who had been living in England. And the wages was so much higher in this country that I stayed."

They chatted on about life in America and in England. Eliza, who set a good value on herself, was not at all put about by Lee's condescension. At first, she took dainty little sips of her drink, but as it warmed her, the sips became larger and in the end it was finished as soon as Lee's. Getting up, Lee took both glasses to the little table behind her.

"No more for me, thank you, Mr. Mappin," she said primly.

Nevertheless he mixed her a good one. When he put it before her, her expression suggested that she did not intend to touch it. However, she did.

"Miss Eliza," said Lee, "do you believe that Al Yohe killed Mr. Gartrey?"

"No, Mr. Mappin!" she said positively. "On the contrary, I know that he could not have done it!" She emphasized it so vigorously that the pince-nez slipped down her nose and had to be shoved back. "I let him out of the apartment myself a good five minutes before the shot was fired."

Lee held up his glass and looked through it. "Perhaps he came back," he said casually. "Did he have a key?"

Eliza was shocked. "No, Mr. Mappin! That would have been impossible!...Matters had not gone as far as that," she added.

This was not what Lee had expected. Matters had not gone as far as that! He took a swallow and turned it over in his mind.

"If Mr. Yohe would only come back!" sighed Eliza. Lee said: "He says he won't until he sees a chance of clearing himself."

"My evidence would clear him, Mr. Mappin!"

"But, don't you see, Miss Eliza, your evidence is canceled out by that of Hawkins."

"It is supported by Mr. Alan Barry Deane," said Eliza sharply, "and he's a gentleman of position."

"I'm afraid Deane wouldn't make a very good witness."

"Hawkins is a liar!" said Eliza viciously. "If he would only fall dead it would simplify matters."

Lee wondered if Eliza was echoing her mistress. Agnes Gartrey had men to do her bidding and unlimited money. Hawkins must be warned.

"Even if Hawkins should testify," Eliza went on, "there would be a conflict of evidence and they wouldn't dare convict Mr. Yohe."

Lee thought: Somebody has been coaching her in the legal aspects of the case. He said: "We can't be sure of clearing Mr. Yohe until we find the real murderer. What is your opinion, Miss. Eliza?"

She stiffened. "Find the liar in the case and you'll have the murderer, Mr. Mappin."

"Obviously," said Lee.

He took her over the whole ground of Monday afternoon. Eliza told precisely the same story as her mistress and Lee felt that he was getting nowhere. Every question he put reminded Eliza that she must be on her guard. He was working to get her to the point where she would talk on without prompting, but it was a slow business. He thought he had her when she said in answer to one of his questions:

"Every time he came Mr. Yohe would have a highball."

"He was a frequent visitor, then," put in Lee casually.

"Why, Mrs. Gartrey told you he was," said Eliza.

Lee, taken aback, applied himself to his drink. This innocent-sounding answer opened up a vista. Agnes Gartrey had foreseen that Lee would question her maid and had drilled her in all the answers. That explained why Eliza not only told the same story but told it in Agnes' very words. Lee took another line.

"While the door was standing open between the boudoir and the dressing room, what did Mr. Yohe and your mistress talk about? You could hear that part?"

A look of fright came into Eliza's eyes; apparently this was outside her lesson. She recovered herself quickly. "You must be mistaken, Mr. Mappin. Madam did not go into the dressing room until after Mr. Yohe left the apartment."

Lee let it pass. "Did you have warning of Mr. Gartrey's return?" he asked.

Eliza stared. "I don't understand you, Mr. Map-pin."

"The other day when I was sitting in the boudoir," said Lee mildly, "I could hear the sound of the elevator door opening and closing on the other side of the wall."

"We could hear nothing," said Eliza sullenly, "because the door from the dressing room into the corridor was closed."

Notwithstanding her prim airs, Eliza loved whisky and apparently had not often tasted any so good as Lee's. A tinge of pink crept into her pale cheeks and her tongue became nimbler. When Lee placed a third highball on the stand beside her, she affected not to notice what he was doing. In the end it was a simple remark of Lee's about Jules Gartrey that loosened the curb on her tongue. After that Lee had only to sit back and listen.

"A hard man, Mr. Mappin; a hard man! Inhuman! Nobody could get along with him because he was so suspicious. He believed that everybody was trying to wrong him. He looked on all servants as thieves. It is no wonder that his two previous wives left him in spite of all his riches."

"Only one wife left him," Lee pointed out mildly. "Well, the other died," said Eliza.

"My mistress was an angel the way she tried to placate him and to hide his bad temper from others..."

Lee smiled inwardly at the thought of Agnes in the role of angel.

"Always so polite and good-tempered with him, deferring to all his whims. He was never satisfied. And, of course, no servant could please him. Though the servants worshiped the mistress, they were always leaving because they could not stand him. I have been there the longest and I hope to stay with the Madam until I retire from service. She says she wants me to. Of course, as Madam's own maid he had very little to do with me. I kept out of his way as well as I could, but even that put him in a temper. He said that I failed to show him proper respect and that Madam should discharge me. She refused. It was the only time I ever knew her to oppose him..."

Lee, listening to this farrago, wondered how the belief had gained credence that the truth always came out when whisky loosened the tongue.

"Oh, Mr. Mappin, nobody would ever believe what my madam had to put up with from that man! You could tell the moment you entered the apartment whether he was home or not. All day we would be so happy and peaceful, and when he came home in the afternoon a blight would fall on the house. He would always ring the bell and then open the door with his latchkey. When we heard that sound our hearts would sink. That day I didn't hear the bell but only the sound of the latch and then, right away...a shot in the foyer! I will never forget that moment! I was tidying up Madam's dressing table..."

So Agnes had finished dressing, then! Lee's face gave no sign.

Eliza, unaware of the slip she had made, plunged on. "I was tidying up Madam's dressing table, and I stopped dead in my tracks. My first thought was of her and I ran out into the corridor..."

"So she had left you," put in Lee mildly.

Eliza realizing then where her tongue had led her, was transfixed with terror. "No, no, no," she stammered. "She was right there in the dressing room with me."

"Then what did you mean by saying your first thought was of her?"

"I mean...I mean, I thought there was an assassin, a madman loose in the house and I wanted to save her from him."

Lee affected to believe her. "So you ran out into the foyer with the idea of grappling with him?"

"Yes, sir. That was what was in my mind. But I didn't get far because she called me back to her and we clung to each other like two sisters! And my madam said: 'Eliza, we've got to go out there..."

From that point Eliza recited her lesson to the end without any slips. Lee preserved a bland face. "Drink up," he said amiably. "It is so distressing to recall these things."

Eliza shook her head. She was still trembling at the narrowness of her escape. She could not be persuaded to touch the glass again.

"When you and Mrs. Gartrey finally got out into the foyer, what did you see?" he asked.

"Hawkins was kneeling beside the body, Mr. Map-pin."

"Did he appear to be agitated?"

"Not to say agitated, Mr. Mappin. He was cool enough. But there was a horrible look in his face. There was murder in it."

Lee got no more out of her. He had no desire as yet to corner the woman. First satisfy himself as to the truth of what had happened was his plan, then go after the evidence. In the meantime, Eliza and, more particularly, Agnes Gartrey, must not be put on their guard.

When Eliza finally rose to go, she drank off the rest of the highball, feeling that she was then safe. Lee rang for Jermyn to show her out.

"It was very good of you to come to me tonight, Miss Eliza. I trust you will accept this trifle for your trouble."

Eliza was not at all abashed. "I thank you kindly, Mr. Mappin," she said, slipping the folded bill in her glove.

Lee rubbed his hands when she had gone. He felt that he was making a bit of progress. Agnes had been fully dressed when the shot was fired. This bore out Al Yohe's story. And, what was more, the two women were not together at the moment when Jules Gartrey met his end.