The Clue of the Judas Tree by Zenith Brown

Author:Zenith Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mystery
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2018-05-30T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Oddly enough, it seemed that Lieutenant Kelly did see it exactly that way. At least, that’s the impression he gave Perry. I ran into Perry when I went downstairs a little early to read the papers before dinner. He was sitting on the terrace outside the open windows of the living room, his back turned on the ravished remains of his tulip bed. He had a big leather-bound seed catalogue on his knees, and he was staring sadly at it. So far as I know it was his only form of literary indulgence. At least it was the only thing I ever saw him read, just as the Co?ites Drolatiques that Agnes Hutton carried about was the only book I ever saw her with. The seed catalogue was opened at a spread of gorgeous deep-hued peonies, the sort that are never seen on land or sea or anywhere except in seed catalogues. He looked around like a startled rabbit when he heard me coming. Then he smiled nervously and cleared his throat.

“I made a mistake,” he said simply.

“You did?” I said. “How?”

“Well, that man in there (which was the only way he ever referred to Lieutenant Kelly) says I was foolish to try to hide the gun, because it began to look like my brother-in-law killed himself. The gun was right by his hand, and he said the shot was fired very close, so it could have been, you see.”

“Why did you hide it?” I asked.

“Oh,” he said meekly, “I guess I lost my head. “You see, I heard the shot. I went downstairs, and you were already there, in front of me. Of course, I knew what had happened, and I didn’t want the police to get the gun, with Michael’s fingerprints on it. I turned out the light.”

He looked timidly at me and blinked guiltily.

“I guess I scared you?”

“I guess you did too,” I said.

“Then you ran through the library, and Í got the gun in the dark, and that’s how I got the blood all over me. Anyway, while you were getting back through the back staircase, I got upstairs. Your door was open, and I had the gun, so I just dived in and threw it out the window and got back to my room just as you came up.”

I was a little startled.

“Who blew out the fuse, then?” I demanded.

He glanced around cautiously, and beckoned me closer.

“That’s the funny thing,” he said. “Somebody was in the library between the time you and I left and the time Dick Ellicott and I went down.”

“Who do you think it was? “

“That’s what that man in there asked me, but I don’t know. All I know is that it was me that turned out the light and me that got the gun. I’m sorry I did, because if Mr. Doyle could think it was suicide everything would have been all right.”

I was a little disappointed in his attitude, because Mr. Trent had seemed rather fond of him.

“Aren’t you a little sorry Mr.

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