At Pirate's Head

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 23, 27 January 1940, Page 7 (Supplement)

At Pirate's Head

By--Isabel Waitt

Finally they decided to get out the least damaged boat and try to put it into shape. Victor agreed; anything was better than idly waiting. Mr. Quincy could sit on the beach and wave his flag to try to attract a passing craft. "Not the beach!" For the first time 1 saw Mr. Quincy staring at Victor with genuine suspicion. "Beach isn't visible, and you know it. Anybody could finish me (tfT down there. No, thanks. I'll stay where I can be seen by all. Then, if some killing occurs, you can't blame me." He told me afterward, when the men had left the room, he'd really begun to think Quade was our killer. Stark fear had replaced his former bantering manner. "At first, I only half suspected him." he said. "But it's all too pat. He turns up from nowhere and trouble begins. He could have done all of it. The letter, the money, the fire and the killing. He found Miss Kendall's body. Judy, stay with your aunt. I don't trusty Victor Quade." "Nell, I do," I returned with some heat. "I guess a woman's instinct is worth more than—" "Didn't do that unfortunate Kendall woman much good, did it?" "\ou're letting this get you, Mr. Quincy. Perhaps I did it. Perhaps you did. But I'm sure Victor Quade —•" 4, »50 that's how it is!" If I'd felt the blood Hooding my neck before, it crept all over my face now. '"I'll get you a red table cloth from the linen closet and tic it around a broom. That do?" "Nicely," ho said. "Then will you wheel me down the ramps, right where I tell you?"

Amazed, I waited for her to open the door. Instead, I heard a shoving sound on the floor, and saw at my feet a whitp envelope. I picked it up and said, "Did you say—police?;' "That's what I said. Have they coinc vet?" s "2s o" I said, backing away, as a fccl- ; ing of horror came over me. > "Well, they will. And they'll keep * me awake hours asking questions, ques--5 tions, questions! I've got to sleep, and > the medicine won't work." She was fairly raving at me. "Hugh took the * rest of it away. Oh, Judy, beg him to L give von just one of those veronal — » damn* liimV' J "I was already heading for the stairs. "I'll try!" But I had no intention of ' getting veronal or anything else. What ! kind of a person was she to help trap ; her own brother? I never heard of anything so cold-blooded in my life. Her * tone, when she said Hugh had taken her dope stulT, had been full of hate. , lie was such a good brother to her, and now, in his necessity, she not only 1 locked herself in but helped the police. I threw the red tablecloth at the > astonished invalid waiting on the porch and ran down to the barn after Victor. ; "Come here, quick! Bessie Norcross thinks her brother's guilty! Look, she's . written to the police." + + + + ' Chapter XXIV. VICTOR shushed me when I told him abou£ Bessie's letter. "Bless you! Want the crew upon us?" He wagged his dark head 1 at the men who were standing ' around trying to figure how to get the boat out of the barn loft. Without a moment's hesitation, Victor tore open Bessie's letter. 1 was tickled, mauve that he dared, yet I couldn't help 1 wondering why he didn't let Hugh do it. A fleeting suspicion crossed his mind. , If Hugh were right and Victor guilty—! "End justifies the means, Judy." ne began to stroll away from the barn, while from the piazza Thaddeus Quincy : waved a red cloth from the end of his cane and yelled at me. "Just a minute!" I yelled back at him. "Oh, please, Mr. Quade! Does she say he did it?" I said to Quade. Victor gave a low whistle. "This beats the Dutch! Listen, Judy. It's a confession." "Xot Bessie!" What Bessie's Letter Revealed. "Bessie." Victor made a quick survey to be sure he wasn't overheard and then commenced to read in a low tone: " 'I, Elizabeth Xorcross, being of sane mind, do hereby of my own accord, on this Fourth of Jul}', confess to the murder of Rodney Lane, jun., and Lily Kendall. But I did not have anything to do with the death of that poor old man recluse, they call Brown, whom I never even saw, nor the burning of his shack, nor the explosion at the bridge. I feel sure, though, there were no lireworks at the Head the nlglit before the 4th, both were accidents. The bridge may have collapsed; I don't know. " 'But my brother, Hugh, did not have a hand in any of this murder business, nor know that I had. He is entirely innocent in every way, although several things might look suspicious. I can account for all three: Tin; initialled golf club, the blue scarf and his being seen before the crime of Roddy's death, in the vicinity, I mean, by Judith Jason and Thaddeus Quincy. He told one lie— to save me. ITe said, when lie went out, having missed me, last night, about the time Judy spoke to a shadow, that he saw my light conic on in mv room, so lie knew I was all right. He couldn't have. My room is on the other side of tho house. Go look for yourselves. He did it to protect me.'" Wo glanced at the inn bedroom and saw she was telling the truth. Then continued: "'Now, about the spot on my coat. It's blood. Hugh tried to save me there, also. Ho didn't borrow any turpentine from Mr.- Potter. I did. I tried to clean off the blood, but made it worse, I guess. Mr. Potter's door was open a crack. He'd gone to town. I took the bottle from his table.'" "Please, won't somebody help me down the ramp!" I heard Mr. Quincy holler again, but this time I did not turn around. "Let him quilt," Victor said, resuming i. the letter: t. " 'To make this horrible story short, I I'll say that my motive was vengeance. II Five years ago, Roddy Lane jilted me 11 after a summer's courtship in this very ° place. My brother was just a boy, but lie saw me have a nervous breakdown, a and vowed he'd get even with Lane some u day. I'd reserved that same pleasure for myself. I take the Rockville paper just to keep track of Roddy. When the auction of the church was advertised I .. hoped he might show up. Got Hugh to vacation here, ostensibly to prove I I could again visit the scene of my broken heart and show him the wound didn't u bleed any more. Hugh fell for it. He'd been a good brother to me. I told „ him the sight of the Castle, where I'd J laughed and danced and had my roh mance, didn't give me a pang any longer. It wasn't true. g " 'When Roddy walked into the dining c room at Gerry's, all the old bittersweet love camo back again. And ho

didn't even pretend to recognise me! I'd J never wronged him. I don't have to bare | my heart any more. The old adage . about a woman scorned is enough. I determined to go through with it. He'd never livo to break another trusting heart. "'I left the table, passing but not speaking to him. I couldn't tear it i if he greeted me like ail old friend, in j that casual, sneering way of his, which } was the way ho treated his castofTs. I'd I studied his career and found it full of j things he'd neglected to mention, such as his wife! I'd never dreamed lie was already married while making love to me. <f, 'l picked up the club Mr. Do Witt had been using on the lawn and went for a stroll. Everybody, nearly, had gonej to town, so I thought. Hugh was in his room. I saw Roddy coming down the Castle drive. He wanted to talk to me, he said, to tell me how miserable he'd been—the mistake we'd made of our lives. Could we ever forgive ourselves! And begin again! " I Gave Him A Push!" "I had to steel myseir against his passion. All the old feeling came rushing back. 1 was beginning to melt like sugar. He had to get something out of the church basement before it was auctioned off, lie said. I asked him if ho had meant it when he said at supper he was going to buy it. 'Buy it? What for?' he said. 'I only came to the Head because I knew you were down here.' I knew that was a lie. Hugh and I had only just arrived the week before,, quite unheralded. We went into the church—the door was unlocked—and he told mo to wait, but I followed him. •Roddy, are you asking me to marry you again?' I said. He took me in his arms and kissed me. For a minute I was happy. Then he said: "No moro wedding bells for me. Sort of companionate, maybe, darling.' We were standing at the top of the basement stairs. I was so mad I gave him a push away from me. Ho fell down the stairs and must have struck his head on the granite floor. Ugh! I can see him now—all smashed. I dragged him to the chest and somehow got him in. I forgot about the golf club, which must have fallen down into the pool of blood. I heard somebody on tho steps—Miss Kendall, or maybo it was Judy and Mr. Quincy. Anyway, I ran out the Inisemcnt door and home. Judy will remember she heard tho door squeak, so I must have not quite closed it. I didn't know what to do. I considered jumping into i;he sea but hadn't the courage." "Poor Bessie!" I murmured. Victor turned to the last page. "I never intended Lily Norcross any harm. She was a bore and a post, always bragging about her niece—that Gloria Lovelace, and trotting out her pictures. Gloria was her whole life, but 1 hadn't come to the Massachusetts coast to hear about her. Hugh and I couldn't take a walk but it was Gloria all the way. I knew Lily had se-en me earlier that fatal evening when she had gone to watch tho sunset, but before reaching the church, of course. I knew she had seen mo wearing Hugh's blue scarf around my head. I had lost th-3 scarf whilo I was with Roddy. When you all went to the bridge to connect with the milkman, Lily didn't go. Neither did I. Wo, took a walk together toward the sea. She told me she had picked up my scarf and thrown it into the ocean, but the wind had blown it back into the Pirate's Mouth. She accused me openly of killing Roddy. I got her to show mo where, and gave her a little push, too. She fell you know where, and I rolled her toward the slit in the rock, where she stuck. The handkerchief was there, all right, but I didn't tie it around her neck. It slipped out of my fingers beyond reach into tho crevice. I had nothing to lisli it out with, and hoi>ed when the tide turned it might be washed away. But some wretch tied it around her neck to make it look as if my brother did it. I didn't strangle her. She died, just as Roddy did, from the fall. If she hadn't said I killed Roddy because he jilted me I wouldn't have pushed her in. That word jilted linished me." f " My Brother Is Innocent." "She's crazy!" I gasped. "Oh, no," Victor said. "Just a little more of it." And he read the last pitiful explanation of that awful night. "I was afraid I'might be seen, so I crept out of the Pirate's Mouth, up the other side, the steep way, crawling around the cliff back of the church, and j down to the strip of beach to the woods back of Gerry's barn. I got across the road to the inn and back to my room without being seen. And that's all. I'll try to answer police questions—if I'm awake. But, before God in Heaven, my brother is innocent!" "How dreadful." Victor siglicd. "Yes, how dreadful. What does she mean—if she's awake? Does she taice sleeping medicine all the time?" He jerked around and started back. "Ilurry, Judy. She's pretty desperate." "Don't worry. She begged me to l>cg Hugh for another pill or tablet, or however veronal conies. And I hoard her say he had refused to give her any— damn him. ITcr words, not mins." "How she must love him!" "Sounded pretty mad at him through the door." "Poor girl. No wonder she wanted sleeping tablets after writing all this." "Wasn't she brave to confess!" "Confess? Why, you innocent little baby! This document lets Bessie off scot free." > (Continued next week.)