A Room to Die In (16 page)

“So it now
becomes clear—thanks to Miss Nelson-how her father could have been murdered in
such a way that suicide seemed the only answer. That living room was originally
a single room;
there was no study.
Nelson was shot; then a wall was constructed across that end of the
living room
to create a study,
sealing him in.

“According to my
carpenter consultant, the wall would have to be braced upright. The study side
would be finished, the plywood varnished, the door hung and bolted securely.
Then the inner baseboards—those on the study side of the wall—would be nailed
to the floor, along the line the wall would eventually occupy, and molding
would similarly be attached at the ceiling line.

“Next, the
killer would clean the study carefully, sort through Roland Nelson’s papers,
leave a note suggesting blackmail. He would shift the study bookcase back to
the wall line. He would slip around the edge of the wall to the living room
side, shove, slide and pry the wall into place, so that it fitted squarely across
the room, tight against the moldings and baseboard inside the study. He would
then nail the studs at each side into the living-room wall; and then, to secure
the bottom plate, he would use a stud driver. One shot to the right of the
door, two shots into the longer section to the left of the door would be
necessary. He would then apply plasterboard, tape the joints and the angles
where the new wall met the ceiling and side walls, paint the plasterboard,
install a length of baseboard. Lo and behold, the corpse of Roland Nelson would
thereupon repose in a room that was truly locked.”

Tarr looked
around the room from face to face. “Incidentally, this is not just speculation.
Today Miss Nelson and I examined the original blueprints of the house on
Neville Road. These blueprints show no study—only a long living room. When
Roland Nelson came into possession of his wife’s books, he arranged the
bookcases back to back to function as a kind of partition, thus creating a sort
of open-face study. This fact may have planted the locked-room idea in the
murderer’s mind. And he sure succeeded! He created a true locked-room, without
gimmick, illusion, sleight of hand—without person or agency concealed in the
room.” Tarr gave a slow nod of respect for the still unnamed craftsman’s
ingenuity.

He again
consulted his notes. “I asked my carpenter consultant how long such a job would
occupy a man, and I asked how the noise could be muffled— because if a chance
passer-by, or the Savarinis, heard sounds of hammering and sawing, the game
would be given away.”

“An expert
craftsman, I was told, could probably complete the job in three or four days,
working hard. By precutting the lumber, by predrilling nail holes, and driving
home the nails with a rubber mallet, he could both speed up the job and reduce
the noise to nearly nothing. Only the sound of the stud driver driving nails
into the concrete would have to be heard.”

“After the wall
was in place only two jobs remained: to move the living-room bookcase back
against the new wall—and to arrange for the corpse of Roland Nelson to be
found. Because Mr. Nelson lived a very secluded life, he might have remained
locked in that ‘study’ for years.”

Tarr’s voice had
been easy, pleasant, pitched at a conversational level. Now he leaned forward,
and his look lost all its geniality. “Miss Nelson was faced with another
puzzle:
Why
was her father
killed? Well, something turned up to satisfy all the conditions. A chance word
supplied the key to the puzzle:
insurance.”

“Miss Nelson
paid a visit to Albert Eakins, the gentleman sitting to my right. Mr. Eakins,
did Roland Nelson ever call on you?”

“He did,” said
the insurance man.

“What was the
purpose of his visit?”

“He wanted to
take out a comprehensive policy: fire, flood, vandalism, public liability—the
works—on a house he had just bought.”

“Did you visit
the house?”

“I happened to
drive past one day and found Mr. Nelson in the front yard planting rosebushes.
I stopped to chat a moment. Mr. Nelson asked me what I thought a fair price for
the house would be. I told him probably thirty thousand dollars. He told me
that he had bought it for twenty-two thousand because the owner was in
financial difficulties. I assured him he’d made an excellent buy and could
certainly sell the house at a profit.”

“So there was
never any blackmail, you see,” said Tarr. “Roland Nelson had merely bought a
house.” He turned to Martin Jones. “That’s our case, Mr. Jones.”

Martin Jones
rose. “I’ve heard all I’m going to hear. I’ve got to get back to my job.”

“I don’t think
so,” said Sheriff Metzger pleasantly.

Martin Jones
darted toward the door. Tarr sprang after him, and Jones whirled and knocked
Tarr down. As the deputies jumped forward, Jones, his back to the door, flashed
a heavy clasp knife, the steel as brightly cold as his eyes. “Anybody want to
get cut?”

Sheriff Metzger
got ponderously to his feet. “Here, put that thing away. You’re likely to hurt
somebody.” He lumbered over to the contractor and simply took the knife.

Ann’s abiding
image of Martin Jones was to be that of a sullen small boy discovered in an act
of mischief by a stern and sorrowful father.

The deputies
seized Jones’s arms.

“Lock him up,” said
the sheriff. “Or maybe you’d like to make a statement first?”

Martin Jones
said dully, “All right, I confess. I’m only sorry I didn’t get
her.”
He nodded toward Ann. “She’s been in my
hair ever since I first laid eyes on her.”

Tarr was wiping
blood off his lip. “How did you talk Roland Nelson into giving you twenty
thousand cash and a thousand a month? He could as easily have given you
twenty-two thousand cash.”

Martin Jones’s
mood of co-operation had departed. “It’s your story, not mine. Tell it any way
you like.”

“Here’s a guess.
You gave him a deed, but asked him not to register it for a few months. Perhaps
you admitted that you’d used the house as collateral on a loan and needed
twenty thousand to clear title, or you gave him other security for his money.
In any event, you asked Nelson to keep the deal secret. Nelson agreed—though
naturally he had to tell the insurance agent.”

Arthur Eakins
said in a deeply solemn voice, “Mr. Nelson asked me to say nothing about the
situation.”

The deputies
tugged at Martin Jones’s arms. Jones took a deep breath and for a moment seemed
to exude his old air of sullen purpose. Then his shoulders sagged, and he was
led away.

After the
Cyprianos and Maudley left, Ann, torn by a dozen conflicting urges, went to sit
in Tarr’s office. An hour later he came in and flopped into his chair. He
showed no surprise at Ann’s presence.

“Did he say
anything more?” asked Ann.

“He talked. He’s
a queer one—doesn’t seem to give
a
damn. He hasn’t even asked for a lawyer.”

“He’s probably
worried more about his men loafing on the job than anything else. Did he say
anything about Elaine’s murder?” Ann’s hands twisted.

Tarr nodded. “He
called at the house on Neville Road, he says, which he’d just sold to your
father. He found Elaine sitting at your father’s desk going through his papers,
including the bill of sale. Mr. Nelson apparently was in San Francisco on
business connected with his stocks. Jones had been brooding about money, and he’d
already formulated his plans to make your father appear a suicide. But Elaine
had seen the deed, so she had to go.

“Jones also saw
that he could embellish his original idea with blackmail. He talked to Elaine a
few minutes, then knocked her out, strangled her with a length of wire, stuffed
her in the trunk of her car, and drove it to the old family house, where he
parked it in the garage. There it stayed for almost three months, until Jones
collected the final payment, whereupon he shot your father.

“Jones had his
preparations all made. He went through Mr. Nelson’s papers, leaving only those
that were meaningless or misleading. Naturally he burned the deed. He prepared
the blackmail note, half-charred it, and wrote false rent receipts for the
months of March and April—all this with the corpse of Roland Nelson sitting in
the chair.” Tarr shook his head in wonder. “Then he started on the wall. He had
pre-cut his material during the day, then brought it in at dusk and worked all
night. He hung the door with special care, fitting it tightly—almost too
tightly—to emphasize the locked-room illusion. The extra bolt was an
afterthought. He didn’t realize it would have the effect not of calming
suspicion but of arousing it.

“Finally he
drove your mother’s Buick to the wrecking yard and ditched it. That was all
there was to it—until you noticed the extra dents in the vinyl under the
bookcase.”

“What about
Pearl?”

“He denies
killing her, and I believe him. He couldn’t have foreseen that her death would
help him. Pearl probably died by accident.”

“And Harvey
Gluck?”

“Jones only said
two or three words which I won’t repeat. He saw that you were fascinated by the
prints of the bookcase. Edgar Maudley, who was also there, hardly glanced at
them, so he was safe. But Jones was afraid you’d work the thing out, and he
decided you had to go, and right away, before you could tell me about the dents.”

“Poor Harvey,” said
Ann. “Poor mother. Poor daddy.” It was a sort of requiem.

“It’s been a
long day.” Tarr glanced at his watch.

“The few loose
ends can wait till tomorrow.” He reached over and took her hands. “What about
it? Let’s have a few drinks and forget this thing. I’ll even take you to dinner.”

“All right,” said
Ann listlessly. “I can use some relaxing.”

“I’m just the
man to relax with,” Tarr declared.

“Yes,” said Ann,
coming to life. “We must call your friend Cooley and have him take photographs.
. . . Oh, well. What difference does it make to me? Thank the Lord I’m not
married to you.”

“You think that’s
such a bad idea?” said Tarr. “I’ve always yearned for a rich wife.”

“Is that a
proposal?” asked Ann tartly. “If so, it’s as disgustingly casual as the rest of
you.”

“I’m a casual
guy,” said Inspector Thomas Tarr. “But that doesn’t necessarily make me a heel.
Where do you want to go, Miss Millionbucks?”

“I don’t care.
As long as it’s quiet.”

“I know just the
place.”

“You would!”

Then a peculiar
silence fell. And something happened. How it happened, why it happened, almost
to whom it happened. Ann was never afterward able to pin down precisely. All
she knew was that she was swept up by a sort of hurricane in a pair of strong
male arms, and that a delicate but vigorous kissing game began, and whoever was
playing it was enjoying it very, very much.

©

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