Chapter 5

The morning dawned misty and chilly.

Maggie dressed in a knit suit, pulled her hair back and put on her glasses. She doubted that Tyson would pay her any florid compliments today.

The laurel leaves sparkled with moisture and the hills loomed gray and shapeless in the distance. She made her way carefully along the path to keep from soaking her shoes in the wet grass. The house lay white and still beyond the hedge. About halfway there, she heard a heavy concussion of sound, deadened by the misty air.

She thought that Bradford had shot the bullfrog. She glanced toward the pond, and saw no one there. Then she realized that the sound came from the house. She hurried forward, not caring that the grass soaked her shoes. She rushed in the door and saw George at the far end of the hall. He waved his arms as he ran away from her, shouting something unintelligible. Instinct drew her to the door of the library.

She stopped in the doorway, thunderstruck.

Duncan Crane sat slumped in the green damask chair she had occupied the night before. A newspaper lay at his feet. The velvet drapes were pulled together across the window behind him. A large red stain covered his chest. His wide-open, glassy eyes stared at her lifelessly.

Maggie sank to the footstool near the door. like many writers of mysteries, she had never seen a dead person. Bradford rushed in, his face drawn, barefoot, wearing only pajamas. George followed closely on his heels, looking as white as Bradford's pajamas. Bradford snatched up the revolver lying behind the chair and stared at it blankly.

Then Tyson Smithfield appeared in the doorway. He stopped, uttered an incredulous exclamation, and ran across the room. Andrea came next. She took in the room in one sweeping glance and a look of horror crossed her face.

"Duncan?" Andrea whispered hesitantly.

Emma rushed in and brushed past Andrea.

"Don't look, Emma!" Andrea cried.

But Emma looked, steadily and long. Then her flat dark eyes went all around the room and she said, "Who shot him?"

George cleared his throat and spoke to

Bradford. "I don't know who shot him, Mister Bradford. But I saw him killed. And I saw the hand that killed him."

"Hand!" screamed Emma. "What hand? What do you mean?"

"Hush, Emma," Tyson rasped. "What do you mean, George?"

"Nothing to tell but that, Mister Tyson. I was just coming to open the drapes and dust the library. I saw a hand sticking out the drapes, holding the revolver." George wiped his brow. "I ran to get Mister Bradford."

"Could you tell whose hand it was, George?" Tyson asked gently.

"Mister Tyson, God's truth is, I don't know. I don't know."

Bradford thrust himself forward. "Was it a man's hand?"

"I reckon it was, maybe," the old man said slowly, looking at the floor. "But I don't know for sure, Mister Bradford. All I saw was.. .was the red ring on it."

"A red ring?" cried Emma. "What do you mean.. . ? "

George turned a bleak dark face toward Emma, a face that rejected her and all she had done to his house. "A red ring, Mrs. Crane," he said with a kind of dignity. "It sort of flashed. It was red."

After a moment, Bradford uttered a curious laugh. "I don't know anyone in the house who wears a ruby ring." He looked at Tyson. "Shouldn't we put him on the couch, or something? It doesn't seem decent to leave him sitting there like that."

"No!" Maggie said quickly. "You must leave him where he is and call the sheriff."

"Right," Tyson said. "I'd forgotten.. .if I ever knew. But that's the way of it. We'll have to send for people.. .doctor, sheriff, coroner, I suppose."

"Just the sheriff," Maggie said. "He'll take care of everything."

Everyone started talking at once. Tyson took quiet command and restored order to the hubbub. He made the necessary phone call, sent Bradford to dress, and told George to bring coffee. Maggie sat numbly beside Andrea on the love seat in the hall. Emma prowled restlessly up and down the hall. Her brightly colored sports suit and scarlet bracelets and earrings looked garish and out of place in that house of violent death.

Andrea sat like a zombie, not speaking, drinking coffee automatically. The amethyst on her finger winked and glowed whenever she lifted the coffee cup to her mouth.

Maggie gradually recovered from the numbing shock. Just in time for the arrival of the sheriff. Question followed question-from the sheriff, the coroner, and the family doctor-until they seemed to blend into a confusing jumble.

The revolver belonged to Bradford, which he readily admitted. "Everyone knew it was there," he said. "And I picked it up, so it'll have my fingerprints on it. None of which proves a damn thing. I didn't shoot him."

"We'll do a paraffin test, just to be sure," the sheriff replied.

George told his story three times. No one else knew anything. Only Mary the maid and Estelle the cook, who were together in the kitchen preparing breakfast, had an alibi.

Andrea had been writing letters in her own room. She heard the shot, but thought it was only Bradford shooting a bullfrog in the pond. But then she heard Bradford and George running down the front stairway, so she came down too.

George had gone up the back stairs from the kitchen and awakened Bradford. Bradford had gone to bed late, slept soundly, and had not heard the shot.

Tyson Smithfield had walked down to the county road in front of the house to check the mail. He heard a muffled sound as he was returning. He didn't recognize it as a gunshot, and didn't know what had happened until he reached the library. He created a mild sensation at that point by taking off a ring and holding it so everyone could see it.

"Is this the ring you saw on the murderer's hand?" he asked George.

The sensation quickly died, for the large clear stone was as green as his neat green tie.

"No, sir, Mister Tyson," George replied. "The ring I saw was red. I could see it plain, and it was red."

"This is a flawed emerald," Tyson said. "I asked because I seem to be about the only person here wearing a ring. But I suppose that, to further the sheriff's task of finding out who did what to whom, everyone's property should be searched."

The sheriff looked at the purple ring on Andrea's hand. "That's being done," he assured them. "How about you, Mrs. Crane? What can you know of this matter?"

"Nothing," Emma replied spiritedly. "I was walking in the woods." She glanced obliquely at Bradford, whose face flushed suddenly. "I heard the sound, but didn't realize it was a gunshot," she continued. "I came back to the house anyway, to see what was going on."

"The window behind the body opens toward the woods," the sheriff said. "Did you see anyone, Mrs. Crane?"

"No one at all," Emma said firmly.

"Well, then, did you hear the dogs barking?"

"No," Emma said.

"So, it isn't-likely that a stranger was on the grounds," the sheriff mused.

The questioning continued. Continued wearily on and on and on, and still no one knew who shot Duncan Crane. They did know that he had been shot from behind. The bullet went through the back of the chair, through him, and into the floor a few feet in front of him.

One of the detectives reported they had completed their search of the house. Everyone there, belonged there. There were no footprints outside, but someone left the French doors ajar. They didn't find a red ring such as George described.

"All right," said the sheriff. "That'll be all now, folks. But I'd take it kindly if you was to stay around here today."