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Clues Detective Stories, December 1937, with "Crime On Skis"
The apparently stanch rail was torn away by the weight of their bodies.
IT was the winter when all America went ski wild, only to have the golf fairways stay green, and the ice gnomes stay prowling in their Norways.
On Long Island we didn't have enough snow before February for rabbits to leave tracks. Even in February you had to go to the Berkshires or the Green Mountains for skiing.
Jigger Masters still had some of the saddle tan left he had acquired in the Alps, where he had gone for two years after his wife died. Now he got out the skis he had used there until Mussolini suspected him of military spying. Jigger started groping absentmindedly for the castor-oil bottle.
Jigger's hazel eyes shone. He carefully rewaxed those steel-edged hickory slats. They had a binding with a spring in back, to keep the heel of each boot down on the wood. Jigger had different waxes for climbing, for schussing, for providing a grip on the snow when doing telemarks, Christies, dodging slalom flags, or whatever. For a whole month while he waited vainly for snow to cover the slopes of Beth-page Park, those precious imported skis got as much careful attention as the complexion of a debutante. When, and if, snow came anywhere. Jigger was ready to go.
Jigger was ski hungry. I could sympathize with him, since during my four years at Dartmouth I'd traveled with the Outing Club—new while I was there—to Moosilauke Mountain, to Mount Washington, and done my bit on the hills and big slide in the Vale of Tempe back of College Park.
Owing to an accident which left me a game left leg, there would be no more skiing, or tennis, or bowling for me. I could tramp a short distance on webs, though. That's about as exciting to an ex-skier as taffy pulling in the kitchen would be to Joe Louis.
However, it was to become important. After the next few words you can figure me toiling around on snowshoes, never an actor in the terrible drama for the simple reason that I did not ski, but doing my best to be on the spot or thereabouts. Some parts of this I did not actually witness. But for the sake of smoother narrative, I have let it all go just as though I had been an all-seeing surrealist eye, frowning down upon everything.
With tall, athletic, and capable Jigger Masters I've often wished to be just that sort of omnipresent eye. But in all truth, I was never even a Doctor Watson, since in all but a couple of rare instances I knew nothing at all about Jigger's cases until they were finished. Then perhaps he'd tell me. Perhaps not.
Jigger rang me at four one rainy afternoon. There was a tingle and thrill in his deep, resonant voice.
"Old man," he said, "it's snowing in the northern valley of the Connecticut! Seven inches at Wells River! Five inches at White River Junction! And still coming down! I just got the wire from a chap who maybe is some relative of yours— Lars Jansserud! He's supposed to be teaching skiing at Dartmouth College. I met him at Madison Square Garden when they had that indoor carnival, and he promised to let me know the first time there was real skiing."
No matter what I said while getting used to the idea. Twenty minutes later I was talking long distance to Roger Traill, who has a big all-year home on Lake Conant, near South Effingham, Vermont. Roger had invited me many times. Now I asked if I could come and bring Jigger. While my friend tried out the hills and runs, I probably would sneak down by railway twenty miles to Hanover-Norwich, and have a nostalgic look at Dartmouth in session. A young instructor who had been a good friend of mine in the old days was now a dignified professor and head of the English department. I'd seen him, and—oh, you know the usual things—visit the new frat house toward which I'd kittied in a couple hundred, and never seen; a meal or two at the old restaurant, if they still did business; a prowl out to the Bema; a look at the new football stadium and gym; and especially an hour in the new library which had replaced the crowded old building I had known.
The temperature stood at forty-four when Jigger's big yellow car crossed the Triborough Bridge, with me and my webs, my friend's ski equipment, and two stuffed suitcases, heading north. It might be snowing way up there, but down here it was muggy and nasty. I foresaw one hell of a night with Jigger driving. He's good, but he believes in getting to a destination.
However, I need not have worried. We had some fish chowder at Dan-bury. After that I took a nap—which lasted about seven hours. I had meant to drive part of the way, but woke up to look at a beautiful sunrise on snow, and to realize that we were on the White Mountain Highway not far from Claremont, New Hampshire!
Fifty miles to go, straight up the river! Of course I drove then, but I had a guilty conscience all right When we stopped at the Calvin Coolidge Hotel at "The Junk"—White River Junction—for breakfast, I didn't even suggest going a couple miles out of the way to pass through my old college town. Time enough for that later, or so I thought.
I was a little shocked to find how bald hearty old Roger Traill had become. But he looked more like an English squire out of Punch than ever; stocky, bowlegged, and with gray sideburns now. He had a "little house party," he said, none of them up yet. But we were as welcome as the fourteen-inch snow, for which they had been waiting nearly three months.
After a rather awed greeting to Jigger Masters, and ushering us to a big bleak room somewhat brightened by a log fire to supplement a smallish steam radiator, Roger got me aside.
"Don't tell me he's the detective—the J.C.K. Masters!" he whispered, blue eyes round. "If he is—Dammit, I've been reading too many thrillers, I guess. But, Tony, you know there is—or rather was—some pretty creepy trouble here last week! I—Oh, never mind me. Come on and have a Ku Klux Klan breakfast—kippers, kidneys, and koffee! A second breakfast never harmed a man!"
And he went away, his hearty laugh booming in the upper halls, as I, rather soberly, went to get my friend. Being in a bit of "creepy trouble" isn't always as much fun as hearing about it afterward over pipes and tankards.
But I need not have worried. As I said, I did not ski.
JIGGER ate no second breakfast. Instead, he slept three solid hours. He got up at eleven thirty, just as earringed and corseted Billy Traill—née Rosa Ginsburg—was finishing a dainty breakfast of ham and eggs, with half a cord of buttered toast.
"You're Mr. Masters." She smiled comfortably. "Set! Make it a double order of ham-and, for the gentleman, Martha. He had a long drive last night. Mr. Masters, I'm Billy Traill, who should be having Melba toast and tea. But that first skiing yesterday—hm-m-m! It left me with a positively ravenous appetite! And would you believe it, I haven't a single bruise, in spite of my tumbles! It was my first adventure on skis, you know!"
She chuckled cheerfully across an almost horizontal bosom, deep dimples coming to her powdered cheeks. She was an ivory-blonde, by grace of a hairdressing genius she called Henri. But her provocative eyes were blue-gray, with a twinkle. It was evident she knew a great deal about men; and in spite of that, liked them in their place—which was paying attention to Billy Traill, naturally.
Masters was right at home with the Billy Traills of the world. He had two cups of coffee and a cigarette, declining the ham and eggs. And in a space of minutes he had the young matron chattering away cheerfully about the house party, herself, her husband Tommy, and the sad occurrence of the previous Saturday.
There had been a tragedy; so if Mr. Masters found the place a little gloomy for a while, he wasn't to mind. Bradford Traill had crashed. His monoplane had gone down in flames. He had bailed out, but too low for his chute to open. They all had gone to the funeral on Tuesday; and for that reason the house party was only really beginning now.
"Mrs. Craigfell wanted to go home and take Roberta with her," said Billy. "But we just wouldn't let her. Brad was a wild one. He'd been asking for it for years. Nobody liked him much—not even his own brothers. So why should we all wring our hands? Why, d'you know, outside of a cigarette case and some money in a bill fold, the only thing that man had in his pockets was a pair of enormous green dice?
"They'd had come in the mail for him that morning. I saw him open the package, and pretend he was puzzled. But the thing that set me against him was"—here Billy leaned as far forward to whisper across the table, as her frontal projection allowed—"those dice were loaded! I saw him practice with them there at table, and they fell on two and one—craps—every single time!"
Jigger was interested. Roger Traill had said something earlier about some creepy business. Apparently Billy Traill had seen nothing strange about it.
There had been five Traill brothers, with Roger the eldest. Remaining now besides our host, were Tommy, Luther, and Henry—the latter known always as "Hank." Luther was married and the father of a large family. He was the principal of the combined high and grammar schools of Nodd's Corners, New Hampshire, and, alone of the brothers, never had come near being rated even well-to-do. His family were at home; but being a ski enthusiast, he arranged matters so he could come to this annual house party given by Brother Roger. To look at Luther's sallow, vulturine face, with black eyes magnified behind steel-rimmed spectacles, or to see him in his long-tailed black coat of Prince Albert vintage, was to wonder why he would come to a ski party.
He was, however, the most accomplished ski performer of the four surviving brothers. Nodd's Corners was off the main roads, it seemed, and skis were more useful there in winter than automobiles. Fast Christies and jump turns were as natural to Luther Traill as mashie approaches were to his scratch golfer of a brother Hank.
Except for Roger Traill, Elsa Taintor, Roger's middle-aged divorcee cousin, who acted as his hostess and housekeeper, Billy Traill, and a stalwart young stripling named Lens Ackerman—no relative, just a lad here to teach the women skiing—the members of the house party had breakfasted, piled into cars, and gone downriver to Dartmouth. This was the time of midwinter carnival there; and this year there were Swiss teams entered, in addition to the usual fourteen or fifteen Canadian and American colleges.
The weather had gone below zero where it belonged. Because of the prolonged spell of mild weather, however, even these residents of the north country were apt to feel the change, and come scooting back before the afternoon was over.
Meanwhile, lunch was to be at one o'clock; and Jigger, hazel eyes glistening as he looked out over the virgin snow, was in outdoor attire of peaked cap with fur earflaps, gaudy muffler, sweater, gloves, red-brown corduroys, ski boots and heavy socks. He could not wait till after lunch, but went right out to try a near hill. Roger Traill chuckled, offering a parka or anything else he might lack. Roger had complete outfits for all sizes of men and women, since his guests were rarely equipped, but Jigger had everything brought back from his sojourn in the Alps.
Out there, where Roger had added forty feet of scaffolding and slide to a young natural mountain, with a jump take-off at the bottom where the ground fell gradually away. Jigger found Lens Ackerman.
Jigger learned almost at once that young Lens was a product of a place called Ironwood, Michigan, and that he had found the scholastic going too tough down at Hanover, leaving by request at the end of the first term of this, his freshman year.
"I went for football and skiing, not algebra, anyhow," he told Jigger frankly, with a disarming grin. "Now the old man says if I can't make the grade in college, he doesn't want to see me home. So I guess I'll gnaw lots of cedar bark till the semi-pro baseball season gets going."
Roger had seen him ski, learned that he was broke, and taken him up here to Lake Conant for the month of February. He was supposed to teach the women, in exchange for board and lodging, and a salary that was philanthropy disguised. Jigger was to learn that old Roger did lots of unobtrusive things like that.
Jigger had to be called to lunch, Roger going out on webs to do it. Jigger had been making Len's eyes bug out with some of the Alpine ski tricks he knew. Lens was smiling rather ruefully when he came in, trailing Jigger.
"Gosh," he said, leaning his skis and poles against the wall of the open porch, "this man is a ringer! His name is Ragnar Kalterud Jansserud Omtvedt—an' I don't mean Yon Yonson, either!"
It was a gay lunch, though small in number of guests. Billy Traill was out to add Jigger to her string; and she was really a very attractive woman in spite of weighing close to one hundred and fifty. Roger wielded an enormous carving blade —on a tiny leg of lamb. He was happiest, probably, when acting the country squire. In business he was shrewd. Some would call it crooked and make no bones of it. But at home no one would dream that Roger ran the largest manufacturing establishment specializing in fake antiques, anywhere in the civilized world.
He had inherited a mission-furniture factory from his father. The place was useless, practically speaking, when the style went out. Roger transformed it into a place busily manufacturing wormholes—literally enough. Early American furniture of all kinds was the specialty, though Sheraton, Chippendale, and many other styles, when in particular vogue, were imitated with enormous success. Truck loads of such stuff, duly cobwebbed and with upholstery rat-gnawed and dusty, were planted in abandoned farmhouses in New England, then "discovered" by some antique dealer cooperating with Roger. When a prospective client was taken out to make his choices right on the ground, with all the history of the place genuine—all except that of the furniture, of course—what really was fifty dollars' worth of creaky junk often brought ten thousand dollars from some dupe so anxious to buy that his vision was blinded by eagerness—until later.
Roger went much further than this nowadays. Old houses on Washington Square in New York, or Riverside Drive, still more ancient houses out in the "one thousand six hundred and forty towns" of Suffolk County, Long Island, or old homes of the Boston Back Bay district about to make room for modern apartments, all were settings for his coups.
Since he had no open arrangement with his dealers, none of this fraud ever was brought home legally to Roger. And, in all truth, he had an immense knowledge of antiques, and an immense contempt for amateur collectors thereof. His own home was furnished in modern style. He had no personal use for spindly and fragile things, no matter how beautiful. And when he, himself, could imitate a five-thousand-dollar highboy, or a Louis Quinze escritoire so well that even self-designated experts were deceived, furnishing his own place with the genuine articles as an investment did not appeal at all.
"How would I know somebody else wasn't fooling me?" he chuckled, letting himself down luxuriously in a wild-looking but comfortable armchair of metal, springs, upholstery, and chintz. "There's no sucker like a man who thinks himself unbeatable in his own line. I do. But I take the same precautions P.T. Barnum took!"
The luncheon was hearty, and except for the memory of last week's sudden tragedy, spirits were good. Then it happened. A servant came up from the big R. F. D. box on the road, bringing the afternoon mail. There were letters, circulars, and newspapers for Roger and the guests. Then there was another thing, which was tossed to Billy Traill. It was a small package addressed to her husband, and bearing the name of a Boston department store on the wrapper.
Billy Traill's eyes widened at first sight of the tiny package. "For my husband!" she almost whispered. "D'you know, Roger, this—this looks just like the little box Bradford got from Boston last—last Saturday morning!"
"Eh? What's that?" Roger half rose, and every shred of his pomposity and good nature fell from him. His skin went gray. "You mean—another of those—those pairs of dice?"
"I—I'm afraid so!" breathed Billy, her fingers trembling. "I'm going to open it! Tommy won't be back for a long while, and I'd just go crazy thinking, wondering if—"
The sentence ended in a crackle of paper, as she ripped open the little container. Then she moaned softly. "The same box!" she said, pulling aside a cord that held together the two halves of a gray box about one and one-half by three inches by one and one-half in depth.
Inside, wrapped in tissue paper, were two very large translucent green dice, with white spots!
Elsa Taintor slipped quietly forward against the table in a faint, but for the moment no one paid her any attention. Roger had risen, his chair clattering behind him.
"Let me see, Billy!" he cried in a hoarse, croaking voice. He seized the box, dumped the green cubes in one hand, then with a swift motion tossed them out upon the cloth so they rattled against a cut-glass bowl full of fruit. Then every one bent forward to see what had been thrown.
"Oh—my—heavens!" groaned Roger in a stricken voice. "Two aces! That's craps; just the same as a two and a one! The finger has been put on Tommy, too! God help him!"
YOUNG Lens Ackerman was the coolest at table, beside Masters. Jigger gathered up the cubes, made another cast, then three more in rapid succession. There was no doubt of it. A single spot was uppermost every time on each die. The dice were loaded to come craps!
Jigger Masters, his craggy features grave, slid back his chair with just a glance at Elsa Taintor, whom Billy Traill now was fanning, though Billy, white as chalk, looked about ready to topple over herself. Roger was calling for some brandy. All thankfully drank, while Jigger got up and walked out into the little room where Roger had a desk, a safe, and a filing cabinet.
Here was a phone, Jigger asked for information, then got long distance. In fifteen minutes he was talking to the store in Boston, and was connected with the department of games and magician's paraphernalia. He found out quickly enough that one could buy marked cards, decks with other odd features, and dice loaded to fall always on any designated spots.
When he went further, desirous of knowing who had ordered such dice recently, he ran head-on into department-store red tape. Hanging up, he said grimly that the Boston police would have to investigate that. Did any one here know a responsible officer on the Boston police or detective forces?
Apparently no one did. Masters, his jaw showing lumps of muscle and the hazel eyes narrowing into slits of suspicion, came back to table. He ignored the bell glass with the half gill of brandy in the bottom, and turned directly to Roger.
"This looks serious to an outsider, Mr. Traill," he said restrainedly. "To you and Mrs. Taintor, at any rate, those dice mean something; something that has to do with the past! I think that here and now is the time to get this right out into the open. Do you want to speak before us all? Or would you rather tell me or a policeman in confidence?"
"Oh, no, there's nothing—except the—the coincidence!" gasped Roger unconvincingly.
"Oh—do you think—I'm afraid!" quavered Elsa Taintor. She was a thin brunette, with rather lined face, and looked every bit of her forty-odd years. Masters had heard that she had divorced her husband at Reno, getting a comfortable alimony allowance, only to have him go stony broke and shoot himself, in 1930. Penniless, she had come then to act as hostess and house manager for Roger Traill. She had been here since, doing her job well enough, but gradually getting soured inwardly, as it became evident she never would interest another man. She had been revived by the liqueur, with a glass of cold water for a chaser. But even with the stimulant she had no color, and looked as though she might drop off again any second.
A suppressed scream from Billy, as she jumped to her feet, both hands pressing her left breast, cut short the possible chance of information.
"Tommy doesn't know!" she cried agitatedly. "He's down there at Dartmouth, and I—I'm afraid he may fly back, if Lew Pinckney has his plane there! Then She shuddered uncontrollably.
"No," said Jigger reassuringly. "There's no chance to land a plane of any kind. More than a foot of snow, and ice on the river. Your husband won't fly back, though that may not diminish his peril. Tell me, Mrs. Traill, what serious enemies has your husband? Think of them all first. Then particularize. Who hated Bradford Traill, and also your husband, enough to commit murder?"
There it was, said openly. Of course with Jigger Masters around, a specialist in murder mysteries, it was certain the most gruesome of all possibilities would be explored first. Jigger was pretty cynical where strange circumstances were concerned.
"You may as well short cut; and assuming the worst first, is the quickest way home!" had been Jigger's motto for years.
This time Billy Traill looked horrified, but honestly bewildered. "This is the first time—was the first time we'd even as much as seen Brad, for almost five years!" she declared. "He's been flying in China, you know. Heavens, he and my Tommy haven't—uh, I mean, didn't have a single thing in common, except their last names!"
"Then maybe that's it!" snapped Jigger, looking sidewise at Roger. But in spite of our host's stricken appearance, he seemed to have nothing to say.
"Well, how about you, Mrs. Taintor?" went on Masters, after a silence of several pulsebeats. "Does anything occur to you which would make murder likely? Do you think Bradford Traill was murdered in his plane? And do you suspect that Thomas Traill will die also, now these loaded dice have been sent to him?"
Wrong tactics. With a gasping cry, Mrs. Taintor endeavored to shake her head, then slipped away in a faint for a second time. Jigger looked suspicious and disgusted, but the terrible pallor of the woman was unmistakable. She probably had a leaky heart, and could not stand emotional strain.
Into that disturbed company floated then a welcome sound. It was a two-toned horn—the one on Tommy Traill's car. With a cry of joy Billy rushed from the dining room, and ran out bareheaded into the snow and below-zero temperature of the porch, to welcome the party.
They were all there intact, florid-faced Tommy bellowing out a greeting, and sliding out from under the wheel to assist kittenish and clinging little Roberta Craigfell, and her still handsome mother, the widowed Mrs. Robert Craigfell.
With these were the spectacled and dark-skinned Luther Traill, looking every inch the rural schoolmaster as he got out stiffly; well-groomed, smiling Hank Traill; and a college-widow girl-woman of nearly his own age, whom he had brought from Hanover to be a member of his brother's house party overnight.
Her name still was Cissie St. Lauren, apparently, just as it had been when Hank graduated, thirteen years earlier. He had found her in the college town, taken her along when they decided to go to the Rogers House at Lebanon for lunch; and there, with the aid of flasks, the decision to bring her to Lake Conant had been easily made.
The ski jumping, which they had gone down to see, would not be held until the following day. That was the reason their stay had been so brief.
Every person in the car, except Luther, was exhilarated by drinks and cold weather. The greetings were noisy, and for some time it scarcely percolated Tommy's consciousness, that his wife was almost frantic with apprehension.
Then, when he heard about the dice, he was interested and curious, but not in the least frightened. He had not ordered any dice, cogged or otherwise. Who could have bought them for him, and why? The shivery answer suggested by Billy, hanging on his arm and whispering her fears, was laughed to scorn. Hell, he was no aviator. Wouldn't even ride in one of the damn things. Cars suited him. How were they going to bring him down in flames, eh?
Besides that, he hadn't an enemy in the world! Not one! Maybe a few years back, some of those stockbroker clients on whom he had unloaded some parcels of electric securities, might have itched to tan his hide a bit. But that was all over and written off the books by now. A new boom was coming, and wise money was making plenty more.
No, not a single enemy in the whole wide world! That's me, Tommy Traill! Le's have a drink!
Since the excitement was evidently over for the time being, Lens Ackerman slipped out, saying to each of the women that if they wanted him, he'd be at the slide. He looked around a moment in the long coat-closet, on the way out, said something about his parka being missing, then went on out. He wore a bright orange mackinaw and a toque, and made a cheerful spot upon the crystal white snow of the hillside.
That afternoon was a riot for all these people except Jigger Masters, and, perhaps, Roger Traill. The host looked glum, but he went out with his skis just the same. The women and men all had drinks at intervals. They schussed the hills. Luther, Miss St. Lauren, young Roberta Craigfell and Hank Traill tried the jump, without, however, attempting the added scaffolding slide. On the plain hill, with the take-off, you could whizz through the air some thirty to thirty-five feet, which was plenty for those who rarely alighted on their skis anyhow.
JIGGER spent a good two hours getting long-distance connections. He had to go about his investigation in a roundabout manner; but by four thirty he had fixed matters so that Detective Sergeant Warner of Boston would look into the matter of the loaded dice at the department store.
If something had happened right then, perhaps the case would have galloped to a solution. But nothing did happen. Cissie St. Lauren passed out from an acute attack of unbridled alcoholism, and was put to bed by the sniffing and disapproving Elsa Taintor and one of the maids.
Otherwise nothing happened.
Dinner was gay, Roger providing a good wine, and choice liqueurs. Young Roberta's cheeks were crimson, and her black eyes snapped. It probably was the first experience of her life with heady wine. She flirted hard with Lens Ackerman, but the boy was sleepy, and embarrassed in presence of his elders. He went to bed. Roberta transferred her attentions to the thoroughly sophisticated Hank Traill.
That bachelor, bereft of his college widow, was not averse to a mild affair with as pretty a young lady as Roberta. So when dinner was over, and a table of duplicate contract was suggested and arranged, Roberta slipped out under the misted full moon with Hank, donning the first of Roger's ski outfits that happened to come near fitting them.
The bridge game was a predestined flop. Tommy Traill could not keep his eyes open more than ten seconds at a time, slumping into a doze during each round of bidding. Elsa Taintor, his partner, did not seem to care much. Their opponents, Billy Traill and Mrs. Craigfell, were up to snuff; but no duplicate foursome can rise above the level of tiddledywinks or monopoly, unless all four players are out for blood.
Out in the billiard room Roger, with Luther Traill and myself, were experimenting with the new balk line carom game lately introduced.
Jigger kibitzed a little while at both games. From the two vertical corrugations on his tanned forehead, it was plain he was worried and would stay worried, no matter how much he told himself fears were baseless. Finally he went up to his room. Then the phone rang. It was long distance for him.
He spent nearly half an hour with the phone.
He had just finished with the call, lighted a cigarette, and was strolling into the billiard room, when he suddenly flattened himself against the frost-covered French window there, the cigarette smoke curling up past his long, twisted nose.
He started violently, the cigarette dropping to the floor unnoticed as he grabbed the lever handle of the French door.
"Did you hear that? Somebody's screaming!"
Bang! Crash! Billiard cues were grounded. "What?" the players exclaimed in one voice, fear leaping to their faces and voices. And Jigger Masters was trying in vain to unfasten the French door, which had burglar catches top and bottom.
With a dismayed exclamation, Jigger abandoned the door, and ran through the living room, where the card players stared wonderingly up at him. Out to the hallway he dashed and to the front door, which he flung wide open. Every one in the house came hurrying fearfully after him, whispering questions to each other. Fear was there—but fear of what?
"Can't hear anything now," said Jigger abruptly. "Give me a big flashlight. I'm going out there—take webs—something has happened, and I don't like it."
He donned his own ski outfit. Before grabbing up the snowshoes, however, he examined his automatic pistol. Donning only one glove, he sank the bare right hand deep in the pocket of his corduroys where the pistol was hidden. With the big, white turtle-neck sweater pulled over his other clothes, the peaked ski cap, and a pair of overshoes doing the duty of moccasins for the webs, he was all ready and going whish-whish over the dry snow in the vague moonlight, before any of the rest of the party had really discovered what was happening.
Then the others dressed and went outdoors.
Jigger had made for the jumping hill. That was probably where young Roberta had taken her middle-aged beau. So the others started in that direction, their flashlights throwing round, hard cylinders of brilliance against the pale purple-white luster of the snow.
The distance from Roger's house, there among the black pines of the lake shore, to the top of that first two-hundred-foot hill, was about a quarter of a mile. By the time the party of men and women had started. Jigger was out of sight. Then, when the straggling group, making hard going of the climb, was no more than halfway to the top, Jigger appeared there at the crest.
"Stop!" he called hoarsely. He looked gigantic up there with his arms raised, and the beam of his flash angling off into vacancy. A hush fell, and the party halted. Then down came the awesome words that congealed every heart.
"The women better all go back to the house!" Masters shouted. "Henry Traill crashed in flames! He lies at the foot of the jumping hill."
"The girl's skis are there, but she has disappeared! I want the men to come quickly and help me search— follow her trail. One of you women phone the police! This is murder!"
MASTERS met the men, and sternly sent back Mrs. Craigfell who was crying hysterically for her daughter. Finally Elsa Taintor managed to get the mother moving downhill toward the house, and Jigger turned abruptly.
"You men," he said, "will have to take my word for what's down there!" He motioned with one arm, throwing the beam of his torch toward what looked from the hill crest like the charred remains of a bonfire.
"Great Heaven!" cried Roger. "You mean—she killed him somehow, and then ran? It's—it's—"
"You said, crashed in flames," cried the high, schoolmasterish voice of Luther. "How could that be? D'you mean she—or somebody—dumped gasoline on him and set it off, after a murder?"
"He's dead," said Jigger harshly. "Very dead indeed, in the worst way a man can die! The police will have to see the snow—the tracks. His tracks. Hers. Mine. There's nobody else's within two yards of where his body lies! We were jumping a little farther over here to the left, earlier to-day.
"But never mind that now. We must find her. Her tracks start there at the bottom, and go that way toward the lake!" He swung the flash as a pointer. "We'll pick them up over here. Keep your eyes open, and watch for a can of gas, or alcohol or—or anything! I don't believe you'll find one, but the police will surely ask that the first thing!
"Now we must get the girl Roberta! Follow me!" With that he started downhill in a plod-plod-plod of webs, which was a sort of dogtrot. The others followed.
At the bottom of the hill at the side where Jigger led, lay one ski, the kind with just a strap and no binding. Roberta had been using these. Her trail, a sort of plowing in the drifted snow, with now and then a splotch to show where she had fallen and struggled up to her feet again, led around the bottoms of two small hillocks, and then direct to the garage at the side of the road that Roger's men had opened from the main highway.
Fortunately the search had to go no farther. They found Roberta huddled in the back of Tommy's car. At first sight of the people, when the lights that flashed in upon her wide-eyed, agonized face, she set up a shrill, dry shrieking. She fought the kindly hands, until Roger pinioned her arms, and dragged her out.
She kicked and tried to bite, stopping only to shriek at intervals. She was quite mad, and the realization of this fact brought cold perspiration to the foreheads of the men. Could she have gone mad before—perhaps from the drink—and somehow managed to kill an able-bodied man like Hank Traill?
The fire—ugh! That meant premeditation! Perhaps, though, an insane premeditation, though no one had thought her crazy.
There had been no sign of a container in which gasoline or alcohol could have been carried. Yet it could have been thrown a distance to one side, and not seen in this vague light, even with the help of torches.
Truly it was a waking nightmare that followed. Roberta was taken to a bedroom, still gripped by madness and terror, but growing weaker and less able to struggle and scream. The nearest doctor lived in the town of Ely; and he was also the coroner's physician—a Doctor Murdock. He came with Ben Allison, a sort of constable or peace officer of the village of South Effingham. State troopers were on the way, and would take charge. Masters himself returned to watch beside the charred body in the snow, until relieved by Ben Allison and the doctor.
Almost instantly snow started to fall in fine flakes, but with the overcast sky this meant heavy snow was on the way. When it warmed up to ten above, we might get another foot or two.
Jigger called Roger and asked a sharp question. He got an affirmative, then gave directions. Roger hurried back to the house in bow-legged, puffing haste, to reappear fifteen minutes later with a 4x5 camera on a tripod, a flash gun and some boxes of powder. With this equipment Jigger took two film rolls of pictures from all angles, showing the body, the tracks in the snow; then he backed away to get a broader view of the whole terrible scene.
"Incredible! Monstrous!" I heard him mutter to himself.
Then he was directing Lens Ackerman, who brought sheets and a gray blanket, to lay carefully over the charred thing there in the snow. Coverings to protect any sign, of course, though they looked ironically like swathings to keep a poor fellow who had burned to death warm.
As soon as the authorities took full charge. Jigger had a short talk with one of the State police. It was about a matter of the mails, and the postmaster in the village. The policeman took the phone, called a number, and held the line. The post office was part of a general store, and the postmaster's residence adjoined.
While every person in the party beside Jigger was herded into the big living room, and there watched grimly by two guards, Masters got the word he dreaded, but more than half expected to receive.
Down there at the post office, ready for R.F.D. on the coming morning, were three more of the small, oblong packages—dice from Boston! One, horribly enough, was addressed to poor Hank Traill who already had died. One was coming to our host, Roger, and the last one to the school principal, Luther.
Counting Brad, who was the first to receive the dice and who had crashed in flames, and the scoffing Tommy who had one, but as yet had suffered no catastrophe, every one of the five Traill brothers had been the recipient of this strange gift!
"Apparently they don't go in exactly the order the mail is received," said Jigger to the State policeman.
"Great heavens! D'you think then that the rest of 'em—"
"Some one wants to make a clean sweep of the Traill family—as far as the men are concerned," said Jigger grimly. "Go in and add yourself to the guards there. Let no one—not even Roger Traill—leave that room for the next half hour. I have just a glimmering of a notion what this terrible thing may be, and I intend to prevent any more of these tragedies!"
"How?" asked the policeman.
"By routing out the murderer!" was Jigger's determined response. He turned his back and strode down the long hall to the closet, where all the parkas, mackinaws, toques, and other paraphernalia for skiing were kept. He went inside, snapped on the electric light, and closed the door.
WHEN Masters rejoined us, his harsh features were graven with lines from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth. His hazel eyes were somber, and his voice seemed deeper and slower than I ever had heard it before.
"Please take separate chairs—anywhere in this room," he directed gravely. "I have asked the police to stop any one who may attempt to leave."
"Here, wait a minute!" broke in red-faced Roger, frowning. "I don't like this, Mr. Masters. Surely the ladies might be excused, and go to their rooms? I am all in favor of helping this investigation by all means in my power, but it must be plain to you that Mrs. Taintor, Mrs. Craigfell and her daughter—"
"I have a good reason for asking them to stay," said Jigger simply. "There is not a single one of you who would be safe, if he or she left this room and went outside for a while, let us say!"
"What the hell?" demanded Tommy Traill, aghast. "D'you mean there's a mob of Heinies out there, waitin' to douse us with Flammenwerfer, like they did at St. Mihiel, or somep'n?" He achieved a skeptical smile.
Masters turned and surveyed the speaker, a most curious expression on his face. "Not Germans this time, Mr. Traill," he said slowly. "But in a way you are not far off the track. Strange you should mention that. You were at St. Mihiel?"
"I was!" snapped Tommy, coloring as if this were a damaging admission. "Second lieutenant, artillery, ex-Mex border, Fort Sheridan, Illinois; Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Eleven months across—Rainbow Division. That makes me a killer, does it?" he sneered.
Just the same he looked as if he were rather frightened of the tall, almost savage-looking detective standing there with arms folded.
"You must have lied about your age?"
Tommy snorted. "What if I did? Only cribbed a couple or three years. Dog-gone it, Mr. Masters—" He started to rise.
"Just a moment. I am going to ask a few questions, and while none of you is forced to answer, it will be much easier here—than later in public. I think if you all cooperate, I can promise you the murderer before this night is done!"
With a nervous shriek Mrs. Craigfell reached from her chair to clutch her nearest neighbor, who happened to be the spectacled Luther. With an annoyed tush-tush he disengaged himself, and then spoke in a lower, more reassuring voice to the unnerved woman. Masters gave only a moment of silence and a side glance to this. Then he went on.
"You are a stockbroker, Mr. Thomas Traill?"
The latter looked more guilty than ever, at this formal address. "Yeah, I am—off and on," he growled. "And I'm doin' all right now," he continued with a trace of belligerence. "I ain't broke, or any-thing like that, though there was a time, I'll admit, that—"
"Thank you," said Masters definitely. "And you, Mr. Roger Traill, manufacture furniture, I've been told. You inherited your father's factory, and have continued the business."
All heads turned to the host, who seemed to shift uneasily. "That sounds all right," he said grudgingly. "My life's an open book—for the law to read. Only, I wouldn't want too many of the pages read closely," he ended with a forced guffaw. No one else as much as smiled. All present knew of his fake antique business, and liked him some the less for it. After all, gullible public and all that, there was no doubt at all that Roger was strictly dishonest, and owed most of his big fortune to that alone.
Masters turned away from Roger, and asked a few questions of Lens Ackerman. The boy had no past life outside a rural high school in the upper peninsula of Michigan, and no connection of any sort with the Traill family, beyond his sport job of the month.
Going around the circle of men only, Jigger elicited from schoolmaster Luther that he had been a civilian in Washington during the last year of War; he taught physics and chemistry at Nodd's Corners; and eventually he had secured the post of principal, where he had remained ever since. He and Tommy were the only ones of the Traill brothers who were married, or who ever had been.
"So far so good," nodded Masters. "Now, I want to tell a story. Some time long ago there was a dice game between five brothers—"
As he paused, Roger jerked erect. Luther laughed shortly, sourly, and Tommy prophesied that he would be damned.
"I'd forgotten all about that!" he exclaimed. "Great Scott, Roger, you haven't cherished hard feelings—"
What had started as a rough jest, finished in a gulp. Tommy paled somewhat, looked frightened, but plunged on again.
"Hell, you didn't have any reason. Heaven knows you done better by what you got than any of us did. But the dice! D'you realize, Roger, that all these dice are green?"
The host had got command of himself, and waved his hand negligently. "I fail to see any connection," he said testily. "But I suppose, now the matter looks as though it could have some queer sort of bearing, you'll have to know about it, Mr. Masters."
"I could bear knowing," said Jigger dryly.
"Well." suggested Roger, "I think we could all stand a drink, if there if to be a story, and the kind policemen will permit." He almost achieved a sneer, but ironed out his round, jolly face into a smile as he saw there was no objection.
He rang for glasses and the wheeled buffet. The butler stopped with this in front of each person, but only Roger, Tommy, and Lens Ackerman took drinks. Then the host resumed.
"It all goes back to my father—our father. He was a cabinetmaker of the old handicraft school, and something of a genius in his line. His business went downhill the latter years of his life, partly due to the fact that he was going blind, and partly because his five sons had no interest whatever in the manufacture of furniture.
"All of us wanted to get out into the world, and start some other sort of business. I remember, it was my ambition then to go to Bennington and become a milkman! Luther, I think, wanted to go to Boston Tech, as we called it then. Brad wanted to start a garage, which was a new business then. And so on. I forget just what poor Hank and Tommy wanted."
"I wanted to run a saloon," put in Tommy moodily. "I'd 'a' done mighty well with it, too."
"Been your own best customer!" said Billy Traill tartly. "No, my dear, I think you are better off as is. You tried bootlegging, remember, claiming you knew enough chemistry to recook rubbing alcohol. Hm-m-m—need I say more? I think not!"
"Oh, so you're a chemist?" asked Masters.
Tommy shook his head. "No. Had some in high school once. But I pretty near cooked my goose when I drank some of the stuff I made. I don't make any claims," he answered sulkily.
Roger had sunk down as if relieved to have the conversation switch, but now Masters turned back to him. "You were telling us about your father and the furniture business," he reminded.
"Oh, yeah. Well, it's quickly finished," growled the host. "None of us wanted the old shop. Dad went gradually blind, and the business to pot. Finally Tommy persuaded the governor to split up what we would get eventually, parcel it out, and let us do what we wanted.
"The old boy thought it over several weeks, and finally agreed. He wanted to keep the house, and made us promise that the one who got the furniture factory would run it while he lived, and keep house for him. So then he split most of what he had into five parts. The factory that none of us wanted, was one part. Then there were four shares of seven thousand dollars each. He suggested we draw lots to see who was stuck with the factory.
"Well, one night we got together, talked it over, and then threw a pair of dice. Low man was to have the factory. The others would get seven-thousand-dollar shares, and permission to go and do what each one wanted in the world.
"There were two ties at first. Then finally I got stuck, and had to take the factory. The others were very glad."
Silence of two seconds was broken by a growl from Tommy. "Yes, we were glad at first," he admitted. "But why not tell the rest? We were happy until we found out the gov'nor had kept a fifth share to go along with the factory. So you, Roger, took down double, for all the fact you couldn't throw nothin' but craps!"
"That wasn't exactly the way," denied Roger seriously. "Dad didn't want to starve, you know. Also, he realized that the factory had to have a little capital to run on. More than just the inventory, I mean. So he did keep that extra share, and when he became entirely helpless, he gave it to me. That was a later gift, and wasn't even dreamed of in the conference we had."
Elsa Taintor, the rather soured and nervous cousin who kept house for Roger, emitted a dry squeak, and got to her feet, holding to the back of her chair.
"Roger, you!" she said in a quavery voice. "I—I think you are the murderer! Do you people know why-y?" Her voice rose to a raspy scream of small volume, and one thin arm waved in a widespread motion as though she were sweeping aside the rubbish of falsehood.
"Elsa! You are not yourself! Sit down!" commanded Roger sternly. A worried light had sprung into his eyes, however.
"No, I am not myself. I never will be again!" she cried despairingly. "But I am afraid of you, Roger! You know full well why. I am the only one who knows your secret. You knew in advance about that extra share! You persuaded the boys to throw dice that way with you! And then you had two pair of dice to use; one of them loaded so it always would come craps!"
"You're crazy, woman!" he denied roughly.
"I am not! Twice you've boasted about it—when you were drunk!"
"Just a moment." Masters broke into what might almost have become physical violence, so wrought up had Mrs. Taintor and Roger become in a few short seconds. From the look of the host, every one present had a feeling of certainty that Roger had begun his career of crookedness by cheating his own brothers.
"Mrs. Taintor," went on Jigger's slow, deep voice, when quiet had fallen on the room, "I want you to tell me just how many people you have mentioned this to, earlier? How often have you told it?"
"Never! To no one before this," she replied faintly. Her knees suddenly gave way, and she sank down to the chair she had quitted. "I was a-afraid," she admitted with a dry sob. "Roger is really cruel!"
"You're sure of that? You told no one?" Jigger frowned.
"P-positive," she sobbed, burying her face in a handkerchief, then lifting it momentarily. "But all the servants heard, I think. R-Roger was pretty loud when h-he was drunk!"
"Well, by the saint's whiskers!" exploded Tommy. "To think you were a double-crosser like that! Damn you, Roger! And you got us to make them wills, too! What was the idea? Didja plan even then to get us up here an' kill us all off? I may as well tell you I made an-other will, time I married Billy! So—"
"Explain that!" snapped Jigger, straightening, and with nostrils flaring momentarily. To one who knew him well, that meant the keystone of the deductive arch was settling in place.
"Aw, hell," growled Tommy, his brief rage cooling quickly into contempt. "I don't think Rog would murder anybody. But he is a damn dirty crook, an' no mistake. The wills? Well, all us fellas were goin' out to make fortunes—maybe. We all figured on livin' dangerously, an' maybe not livin' long, so we all agreed to make holograph wills, leavin' everything we owned, to each other—or to a favorite brother, if we wanted. Now Billy gets what I got. My brothers don't need it|."
"I changed my will a few years ago, too, because I have a family," said Luther, looking staid and schoolmasterish behind his horn-rimmed spectacles. "Not that I have very much to leave any one."
"Well, I didn't," growled Roger. "Mine's the same as it was, if any fond brother of mine wants to bump me off!"
"Never mind that—though in your case, Mr. Traill, I certainly would burn that holograph will immediately," advised Jigger. "It can be only an added temptation now.
"To conclude, then, before we single out the murderer, I want to know one thing. In what order did your male guests arrive, Mr. Traill?"
"Oh, hell, I don't know," growled Roger. Then he stirred himself sullenly, and answered. "First was Hank. Then Luther. Then young Lens here. Then Brad. Then you two. You were ten days after Brad came, and the others were all here in the two days before that. Why?"
"We won't go into my reasons," said Jigger. "Have you any kind of a laboratory in this house—or in any of the outbuildings?"
"Laboratory? You mean for chemistry, or something? No, nothing like that anywhere here. The chauffeur's got a sort of tool shop, with some paints and oils."
Masters started to speak, and rose again to his feet. But those words were drowned in a sudden ghastly roaring and shrieking which came from abovestairs somewhere! It was hair-raising, horrible! Every person downstairs came to his or her feet, crying out aghast. The five or six servants, now retired in their rear wing, came bursting out in night attire, robes hastily thrown over their pajamas or robes.
For perhaps ten seconds the awful screams in a high-pitched, feminine voice, continued. Then they stopped abruptly. But as we all ran for the main staircase. Jigger ahead, and taking the steps three at a time, we knew that the rushing, roaring sound not only continued, but was increasing in volume!
Fire! We saw the smoke pouring out of Roger's room, the second we reached the transverse corridor of the second floor. That door, usually closed, was wide open. From inside came the stench of burning cloth and human flesh! It was so thick with smoke inside the room that we could see nothing save a licking yellow crown of flame which seemed to be suspended in mid-air about thirty inches from the ground!
Roger Traill's bed was on fire, and burning as if it had been soaked in gasoline!
With the butler, one footman, and t$e Traill men, Jigger had buckets and fire extinguishers going in just a few seconds. And perhaps two minutes and ten seconds after that terrible, shrieked alarm, the fire was out. But its job had been done.
The bed was just a horizontal char, with the wood licked black at head and foot. And on that bed, twisted and burned till she was unrecognizable, was the blackened body of the college widow, Cissie St. Lauren.
"How in Heaven's name did—did she get into my bed?" cried Roger. "Oh, this is unbearable! She—wasn't she put in the blue room?"
No one answered then, though there were glances of stern anger and suspicion. But a little later the blue room told its own pitiful story. Cissie St. Lauren had been intoxicated when put to bed. She had been ill, as the blue room bed and the adjacent bathroom testified.
Apparently Cissie had recovered somewhat, taken a shower, put on a clean pair of pajamas—her soiled ones were lying on the floor—and then gone blindly into the next room, and crawled into the bed.
That had been prepared, not for a silly old-young woman too full of wine and other beverages, but for Roger Traill himself.
Or—had he fixed it as a blind, and then whispered a word into the ear of the intoxicated girl? We shivered to think.
RESERVES of State police had come. Masters had talked long and earnestly with them, before returning to the living room where all the people in the house, including all the servants, and poor, cowering, maddened Roberta Craigfell, were held under doubled guards. But the servants were just innocent victims.
I know now that Masters asked for a free hand in one operation, which he promised would unmask the killer. If it failed Jigger would withdraw from the case instantly. He was given permission to go ahead, but only because none of the police at the place had the faintest idea what to do, short of arresting the whole household and beating out some kind of a confession from each one with rubber hoses.
And the third degree is not much used in Vermont, thank Heaven! As a matter of fact, probably because of New England reserve, the police were less obtrusive here than in any previous case in which Jigger Masters had figured.
So when Masters came to us finally, there was a cordon of silent State policemen about the house, with guards upstairs and down inside, and a shocked-looking peace officer hovering about. But none interfered when Jigger told the assembly in the living room that all of us—excepting Roberta Craigfell, who would remain under the care of Doctor Murdock—were to don our ski costumes, bring lanterns or flashlights, and come out to the summit of the nearest hill.
"We will go in a group. Dress warmly. It's way below zero," said Jigger. "The men all take skis. The women can go on webs if they wish, or just walk. There is a footpath to the top now."
"What in the world?" demanded Roger; but he was subdued and apprehensive in manner now, casting side glances at Masters, and also at his two surviving brothers.
Lens Ackerman, with the resilience of youth, took it all as a matter of course. He helped the women get ready, bringing forth their sweaters, parkas, ski boots, and generally being very busy.
Masters put on his own Alpine costume. Rotund Roger swathed himself in two shaker sweaters, and hauled on a parka over that.
"This isn't my parka," he grumbled, "but it doesn't matter. We aren't going to be out long, are we?"
Masters did not answer. He was at the door, one hand on the knob, waiting like a stern statue for them to get through the inevitable fussing of preparation. When they all trooped out. Tommy grousing about not being able to locate his blue parka, and having to put on a mackinaw tight for him, the flashlights cut bright beams through the blue-gray moonlight on the snow.
The cold made one gasp, and breathe shallowly. Only Luther, thin and funereal-looking in a black heavy sweater, black toque, and bearskin gauntlets, seemed unbothered, tramping out and up at the head of the procession with his skis slanted up and over his right shoulder, and a long nickeled flash playing this way and that.
Masters did one odd thing. He was last to leave the porch. He stopped momentarily, and took one blue garment, probably a parka, from a wooden bench. He came out, carrying the garment over his left arm. In silence, save for the creaking and squealing of the snow under our boots, we tramped slowly up to the top of the ski-jump hill, about a quarter mile from the blazingly lighted house. The police stationed themselves below the hill, but not out in front where the declivity ended. Doubtless they had been instructed by Masters. He was putting on some kind of a terrible show, but what it could be, no one was able to guess. The women whispered, and Tommy grunted painfully in denial. As we neared the top, even whispering ceased.
This hill, perhaps two hundred feet above the level of Roger's house—which was situated on a knoll—was almost perfect for ski enthusiasts. It was only moderately steep, but clear of stumps and brush; and the snow was clear of everything save ski and web tracks, except for the few footprints made at the time of Hank Traill's disaster.
Beginners simply schussed this hill, and learned to balance. The next step, as ambition grew, was to climb the stanch forty-foot stairs to the jump platform above.
This platform was railed, and commodious. From it two slides went down parallel. One of these was the big jump—not a championship affair, of course, but plenty paprika for most tastes. From the take-off below, Masters or Lens Ackerman could soar eighty or ninety feet, before coming down to clip up snow beneath the strips.
The second slide was not quite so steep. And instead of leading to the take-off, it joined smoothly with the hill below. Then, halfway down the natural hill, when a skier was traveling something like sixty miles an hour, there was a long turn, banked to a sheer eighty degrees. Looking at it, no one would think a skier could negotiate it without falling. But almost every skier did after a few afternoons and mornings of practice. This slide sent a skier off toward Lake Conant.
Silent, save for the scuffing of footsteps, the slight creaking of the wood, and some puffing on the part of Tommy Traill, we all climbed up to the platform.
"Now," said Jigger Masters, "I am going to ask you to do exactly what I say. I have no real authority here, and you may refuse if you think best. However, this is the last chance for this party. Some one here is a murderer! The police, anxious above all to prevent any more of these unthinkable torch killings, are going to take us all to Bennington or Montpelier or somewhere, and lock us up—till the guilty one confesses, which may not be soon!"
"But—" began Roger.
"No questions, please! No protests! Kindly take your instructions, and follow them explicitly. Then I shall show you the murderer! The identity of that person is known to me now. But there are reasons why I wish to go through with this. Lens Ackerman!"
The last words crackled. Young Lens jumped as though he had been stuck with a bayonet.
"Ai!" he cried in surprise. "Me?"
"You," said Jigger grimly. "Go there and schuss the slide!" He pointed to the slide at the right, beyond the jump slide.
For a second, young Ackerman hesitated. He was thinking, as were all of us, of how Hank Traill must nave done just this thing—and gone mysteriously and horribly to a blazing death.
But the boy was game enough.
"Right-o," he said, and clap-clapped his skis into position. "Here goes nothin'!"
He moved slowly forward—then faster—faster!
"Come back up when you're through," called Jigger after him.
There was no answer. A black dot, receding fast, went down the twin trails of the prepared slide. Lens kept perfect balance, knees bent, body slightly forward.
He shot around the banked turn, body almost horizontal! Then he straightened out, and went swiftly down the valley in the direction of the black Norway pines which bordered the lake.
A-ah! It was a gasping exhalation from all of us who watched. None had breathed, I am sure, till Lens was down and slowing, safe. But then all eyes turned questioningly to Jigger Masters.
What had this descent proved, if anything? We all had seen Lens Ackerman do it before, though not under the same dramatic circumstances, of course.
"Mr. Roger Traill!" called Masters next.
Our host shivered perceptibly. He was a pretty good skier, but now he shrank from this ordeal, and began to sputter protests. Some one might easily be anxious to kill him; and did Masters really know how those people had been burned? Did he know the murderer? If so, why not name him or her, and have it over?
There seemed a good deal of sense in that, but for once Jigger was implacable. "Go and schuss the slide!" he commanded sternly.
Roger still held back.
Masters stepped up to him. "Do as I say right now," he said evenly, "or I shall call the police—and name you the murderer!"
"Great Heaven!" gasped Roger. He turned, carried his skis to the slide, and fastened the harness to his heavy boots.
"So be it, then," he said bitterly. "But if I burn, damn you, I'll—"
He stopped, took a long breath, then faced the hill. He gave a little cry of dread as he started to move.
But he went on down safely, and nothing happened. Then, while Lens Ackerman, carrying his skis, was climbing up. Tommy Traill took the limelight. He swaggered, though his face was drawn and pale. He kissed Billy, who silently clung to him, and then disengaged himself to take his position.
"Hope I char nicely!" he flung back at us, with a ghastly grin.
Then he was gone, and Masters watched him intently, peering over the rail and far down, until he had actually come to a stop, detached his skis, and was starting back up the slope. Roger, by then, was clambering up heavily, and puffing. He reached the platform just as Masters called the name of Luther Traill.
"What the hell is this all about anyway. Masters?" demanded Roger. "The ladies'll be getting chilled. Seems to me it's pretty far-fetched, hoping anything will come of this—out here at twenty below, and two o'clock in the morning!"
"Never mind that. Just a minute, Mr. Luther Traill, before you take your turn on the slide." Masters pulled back the black-sweatered man just as he shrugged resignedly and started to inch forward toward the slant. "Put this parka on, before you schuss. I wouldn't want any one to catch pneumonia, and you are wearing only that one sweater."
"Don't want it. It isn't mine, and I'm warm enough as it is!" snapped Luther, pushing the blue parka from himself. But I am sure that every one who heard those words, stiffened to alert attention. They had sounded a queer, strained note far different from the ordinary shrinking of normal men from the schuss ordeal they did not understand. Luther's voice had been pitched higher. It was shrill, near the cracking point.
"I know it isn't yours. It's Tommy Traill's, I believe. But I insist that you obey orders implicitly!" gritted Jigger, still offering the blue parka he had picked up on the porch of the house at the last moment when coming out here. "Put this on—and go!"
"I won't—and what of it!" defied Luther. "You're too damn highhanded to suit me, Mr. Jigger Masters. What of it, I say?"
"Wait then, and I'll tell you in plain words!" retorted Jigger ominously. "Bradford Traill crashed in flames, because some one with a knowledge of chemistry soaked all the fabric and wooden parts of his plane in an inflammable substance. It was no trick, of course, to arrange it so that the heat of the exhaust line from a roaring engine would set afire his plane. That is what happened. Bradford Traill was murdered by some one who hated all the Traill men, and who perhaps hoped to benefit financially by their deaths!"
"Great heavens, you're crazy!" shrilled Luther.
Shocked protests came from the men and women on the platform, but Masters raised one hand for silence.
"Bear with me," he said grimly. "Mr. Luther Traill, at any rate, understands! The coverings of Mr. Roger Traill's bed were soaked, and ready to ignite when the warmth of the human body raised their temperature a few degrees. Poor Miss St. Lauren was not the intended victim, of course. It was just her ghastly misfortune to be ill, and seek a clean bed anywhere, in the nearest room she located. And the chemical fire killed her, too!
"Hank Traill died because he carelessly put on a mackinaw which had been prepared in the same way. When he got exercising violently the chemical got warmed up, and flared. It burned as fiercely as the head of a match burns, though on a much larger scale. He was shocked to death in just a few seconds by the burn!
"I took the parkas and mackinaws prepared for the others. This blue one is one made ready to murder Mr. Tommy Traill, only he could not find it when he started out here."
There was a whinnying sort of cackle from Luther, and awed, scared words from the other men and women. But Jigger was near the end of his indictment now.
"You, Mr. Luther Traill," he said savagely, "are the only person here with a real knowledge of chemistry. You taught it, before you became principal of your school! You learned how your own brother Roger cheated you of part of your rightful legacy. You also believed all the holograph wills were still effective—all except your own, which you altered secretly. You hoped to kill all four of your brothers, get revenge on Roger, and inherit enough to live in luxury the rest of your life!
"Lies, just lies!" screamed Luther, almost dancing up and down on his skis, then suddenly bending down to unleash the harness. "You know it's all a lie! You can't prove anything! You—"
"Oh, yes, there is proof, all right!" denied Masters. "When I heard you were one of the first to come, I guessed the way you must have worked it. There was no sign of any chemicals mixed or stored on this estate. Therefore you must have had some other place near at hand. I set the State police to searching all available empty houses and summer cottages here on the lake. There is a little cottage halfway around here to the west, where it is plain that chemicals in jars have been stored. There is one jar there, broken, which still has some traces of a certain chemical on it.
"In a word, phosphorus! The same stuff which once was used on match heads. A chemical which will flame fiercely at a little friction, or when warmed up only a few degrees!
"Of course not just plain phosphorus. This substance is more like the ancient Greek fire, in that it is 'sleepered' a little. That means that the phosphorus has been quieted just a little, in a chemical combination. It is possible to fix this so the substance will explode and burn fiercely at any given temperature—say eighty degrees, for instance—when it is warmed up by the heat of the human body! Unlike plain phosphorus, it has no odor to give warning!
"Phospho-arzene they call it for short, in the munitions manufacturing business. It has been used for all sorts of things, notably in tracer bullets and incendiary shells.
"Now, Mr. Luther Traill, the man who visited that cottage secretly at night, was seen twice! A witness is ready to confront all of you, and say just who it was! I know it was you!"
It is bromidic to say a murderer is crazy. Masters denies that Luther Traill was really insane—only savagely bitter at the world which cheated him and held his long, sharp nose to the grindstone. But every one on the high platform who heard that laughing, jeering shriek burst trembling from the brother-killer's lips, must have believed Luther really and violently insane. After the screaming shriek he yelled a torrent of words.
"Yes, yes, yes! You win, damn you!" came the petrifying confession at the top of his lungs. Yanking up the front of his black sweater, surprising even Jigger Masters, I believe, he flashed out a small, blued automatic pistol.
"I am the flame killer! You win and I lose!" went on Luther madly. "I don't know and don't care now! I've always lost, and always will! But first, I'll take my dear crook of a brother along with me to hell! Roger!"
At that yelped last word he whirled sidewise, flung up the little pistol, and fired point-blank at his awed and frightened brother. But Masters had foreseen just that. He sprang, striking aside the outstretched arm so the little bullet went away somewhere into the snow-clad hills.
But that diving tackle carried Luther back, back—and then came a cracking of wood, and a horrified cry from all of us. The apparently stanch rail had been torn away by the weight of their bodies, and now both men, clutched together, were turning end over end as they fell to the snow forty feet below!
They struck and slid a little way. Then there was quiet for one stricken second, before we all started hurrying down to help if possible.
Perhaps there is some justice. The police, who had been waiting for something they knew not what, and who had started running on hearing the pistol shot, reached the two men first. They were helping Jigger to his feet when we got there, and Jigger, after a few seconds to regain his breath, was completely unharmed!
Luther Traill, murderer, lay there with his head doubled back under his body. His neck was broken and he was dead.
That was the end of the case, except for one small thing. At breakfast time, when Masters was about to leave for Long Island again, having no taste for more skiing this winter, Roger Traill came to him with a check book and pen. Roger had aged. His cheeks were gray, and his eyes furtive.
"The figure on that check should be ten thousand dollars," said Jigger quietly, though several of us heard. "And the person to whom it must be made out is the widow of Luther Traill. I understand she is destitute, and has children to rear.
"For myself I want nothing. I confess I do not like you, Roger Traill. But unlike the case of the famous Doctor Fell, I know the reason very well. I hate petty crooks!"
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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