Vincent Starrett: The Blue Door

“Oh, you are friends, aren’t you!” she whispered. “It is really all over!”

“Yes. Whenever you are able we will take you back to your uncle.” He bent over and loosened the cords that bound her, then assisted her to a sitting position. “You are quite all right?”

“I have had food,” said Marian Coolbrith, speaking slowly. “I have been tortured mentally, but that is all.” And with that her relief proved too much for her and she fainted.

When she had recovered we chafed her wrists and ankles until the blood flowed normally, then assisted her to the sitting room, where we awaited the return of Hovey and the motorboat. Little by little, we heard the story of her abduction, but it was not until later in the day, in the more familiar and hardly happier surroundings of her own home, that we heard the chronological narrative that I have set down in the first chapter of this account.

Then the events of Sunday afternoon and evening were fully told, and Lavender’s deductions as to what followed the appearance of Connor’s face at the window were verified in nearly all their particulars. But there was still much to be explained, and the detective was soon boring into the heart of the mystery.

“Miss Coolbrith,” he asked, “have you any idea what this has all been about? Do you know what these men were after?”

“Yes,” she replied. “They questioned me so much that I came to know all about it. They thought there was a treasure buried or hidden somewhere about this house. The two men who escaped are named Hammond and Converse. Hammond is the man who called himself Dr. Howard, and he is a highly educated man. I know nothing about Converse except that he was kinder than Hammond or Connor, and seemed to be sorry for me. He spoke like a gentleman. After a while they told me frankly all they knew, or thought they knew, and promised me my freedom if I would help them. They themselves had failed. But I couldn’t help them, for I knew nothing about the treasure myself.”

“Revolutionary treasure?’ Lavender asked.

“Something like that. They had rented their island for the summer, and among some old books that they turned up in the cellar was an old diary. It had been kept by one of the old Winships, an ancestor of the man from whom they rented. I didn’t see it, and Hammond always kept it in his pocket, where it probably is now. But I knew what it contained; they told me. It told about a chest of money that this old Winship had seen in our house—this very house—more than a hundred years ago. Roger Coolbrith was our ancestor who had the money, and this Samuel Winship wrote that Roger was a miser and hoarded his wealth, and that he kept it in a safe place where no one ever could find it but himself. ‘A very neat spot indeed,’ was the way Samuel Winship put it; but he didn’t say where the spot was, and perhaps he didn’t know himself.

“Then, later, the diary told about the death of Roger Coolbrith and the illness of Samuel Winship. There were several pages about Samuel’s illness, and he was always wondering whether Roger had left a will, and promising himself that when he was well he would have a look for the money. He and Roger were neighbors on these islands. Then the diary ended suddenly.”

“I see,” commented Lavender, deeply interested. “Winship, too, died; and so the diary ended. Then these two bright young men—Hammond and Converse— hustled off to the State Historical Library, and looked up records until they found the date of Samuel Winship’s death.”

Miss Coolbrith nodded in surprise.

“That’s just what they said they did do,” she agreed. “They found that Samuel had died within a week of his last diary entry, so they assumed that he had never gone after the money.”

“Quite so! And therefore, possibly erroneously, they assumed also that nobody else ever had found the chest.”

“What made you think they were after treasure, Lavender?” asked Robert Coolbrith, enormously interested. He sat tightly up against his niece, on the sitting-room couch, with an arm around her; and he was apparently ten years younger than he had ever been in his life.

“Their search in this house was very special and specific,” replied the detective. “It was confined to the oddest places, and to the older parts of the house. Nothing of value belonging to the present occupants had been taken, or you would have missed it; so the men were not ordinary thieves. But the fireplace, one of the oldest pieces in the place, had been carefully examined, and the cellar floor had actually been probed with steel rods, the walls sounded, and so on. The indications were sometimes flagrant and sometimes minute, but they were all illuminating. Obviously, the men were after something old, and therefore, probably, it was a hidden treasure.”

“And have you yourself formed any opinion as to the hiding place?”

“I have not,” answered Lavender promptly. “My task was to find Miss Coolbrith, and my task now is to apprehend the murderers of Andrew Prior.”

The architect nodded, somewhat abashed. In his happiness over his niece’s return he had almost forgotten his slain servant.

“Quite right!’ he said apologetically. “And two of the murderers have escaped.”

“For the time being. It is likely, however, that Connor was the real murderer. From what Miss Coolbrith has told us, I think neither Hammond nor Converse ever thought of murder. They wanted Prior and Mrs. Mumford removed, and unfortunately they left the removal of Andy and the dog to Connor. And Connor went too far; perhaps he hit Prior harder than he intended; anyway, he killed him. I incline to think that the others knew nothing of the murder of Andrew Prior until they saw it in the newspapers, and that they were very much upset by it. From that moment they began to make their preparations for escape at the first sign of suspicion turning their way. Am I right, Miss Coolbrith?”

“They said nothing about the murder,” replied the girl with a shudder. “I did not know it until you told me, Mr. Lavender. But they were very much excited all day yesterday.”

“They had a right to be,” said Lavender. “Did they search the Winship house, Miss Marian?”

“They were forever searching it.”

“And finding nothing! That’s why they stayed on. There was just a chance that old Samuel had got the money and removed it to his own ‘very neat spot.’”

Silence fell over the company for several moments, to be broken by Marian Coolbrith.

“If the treasure really exists, Mr. Lavender,” she said, “I suppose it ought to be found. I almost hate it for what it has done, and I could not use a penny of it for myself; but something urges me to continue the search. Is that very wrong of me?”

“No,” responded the detective. “I suppose it is the world-old lure of buried treasure that tugs at you. I have felt it myself, a number of times.”

“And will you stay and help me?”

“‘A very neat spot indeed,’” quoted Lavender, with a little smile. “Do you know where I should look, if I were to undertake the search?”

“Where?”

“Somewhere outdoors. It is a delicate point, perhaps, but the word ‘spot’ suggests to me nothing inside a house. Besides, over the years, many persons have overhauled this house for one reason or another; workmen have added wings, and other treasure hunters may even have searched at some time in the past. Our recent opponents, too, hunted pretty hard. It is conceivable, of course, that the chest is somewhere here in the house, even now; but my opinion is either that it has been found long since, or that it is not in the house and never has been hidden here. You may take your choice.”

“But you will not stay and help me search?”