But He Was Already Dead When I Got There (11 page)

“Somebody will be around later to fingerprint you,” Toomey told the Knoxes. “We need to eliminate all of you we know were here last night, to see if any unaccounted-for prints remain.”

Gretchen went out to tell Mrs. Polk they were leaving; Godfrey Daniel abandoned Lieutenant Toomey's lap and followed her out. Toomey stopped Lionel at the door. “I notice you're favoring your left leg. Have an accident?”

“Oh, I turned my ankle yesterday. A nuisance.”

“Mr. Knox—what did you and your wife argue about last night?”

“That's between my wife and me, Lieutenant,” Lionel grinned. “Besides, it's patched up now.” He limped on out.

Rizzuto sniggered. “Playin' around.”

Toomey rounded on his sergeant and chewed him out soundly for not informing him about the drinking glasses that had still been in the library when the police first arrived. Rizzuto replied sullenly that they'd show up in the crime lab photos and what was all the fuss about—after which Toomey bawled him out again, this time for his attitude.

Then, as much to keep Rizzuto from sulking as for any other reason, Toomey asked him what he made of the Knoxes.

Rizzuto perked up. “She's lyin' about that elevator, for one thing. For another, she don't like Nicole Lattimer at all.”

Toomey grunted in approval, pleased that Rizzuto had picked up on both. “Remind me to check with the others about whether anyone left the room during the meeting. I'm inclined to believe the husband—no one used the elevator last night. And if neither of the servants used it, that means Gretchen Knox did—later, after everyone had gone. The only reason she would have used it is that she knew her uncle would
not
be using it.”

Rizzuto asked the obvious. “Think she did it?”

“I think she knows more than she's telling. She was obviously surprised to hear the body had been found at the desk instead of somewhere else—they both were.”

“Yeah, and another thing,” Rizzuto said, “there's somethin' fishy about that loan.”

“You can make book on it. Let's see what the other partner has to say. You know, Lionel Knox was expecting to find something in here that's not here now—remember all that talk about Mrs. Polk's having already cleaned up? He just pretended he was talking about the glasses—a fast-thinking cover-up, but not very convincing. I wonder what he thought he'd find? Those two are lying in their teeth.”

“Protectin' each other?”

“Possibly. There's one other little thing that's been bothering me. How did Mrs. Polk know Gretchen Knox was staying the night here?”

“Huh?”

“Mrs. Polk said she went up to her room on the third floor well before nine o'clock. Gretchen Knox couldn't have gone to her room on the second floor until nine at the earliest, the time the meeting broke up. Yet Mrs. Polk said that this morning she called the police and then went to wake the other two.”

Rizzuto's eyes gleamed. “Yeah—how'd she know there was
two
other people in the house? Acourse, the niece coulda gone up to the third floor and told Mrs. Polk she was stayin'. She coulda did that.”

It was the
coulda did
that did it. “Rizzuto,” Toomey said in annoyance, “where did you ever get the idea that talking like a grade-school dropout made you sound tough? Look, go out to the kitchen and ask Mrs. Polk about Gretchen. Don't tell her why you want to know. Just ask her if she spoke to her Miss Gretchen anytime
after
the meeting last night. And you might as well send in the manservant.”

Rizzuto nodded and left the library. A minute later, Bjarne walked in. “You wanted to see me?”

“You're Barney Peterson?”

“I am,” said Bjarne Pedersen, thinking that this overweight, droopy-eyed policeman bore a startling resemblance to Peter Lorre in his later, more corpulent years.

Lieutenant Toomey introduced himself and told the other man to sit down. Toomey got the preliminaries out of the way—how long Bjarne had been working for Vincent Farwell, what his duties were, and so forth. “I understand you were sailing three sheets to the wind last night,” Toomey said.

Bjarne's face took on a pinched look. “I was very stupid last night. I didn't drink
that
much—it was the pills what did me in.”

“What pills?”

“Valium. I took only two. Whenever a lot of people came here, Mr. Vincent would always be, well, difficult afterwards. I thought he'd be easier to handle if
I
was relaxed.”

“You took two, you say. What dosage?”

“I don't know. Whatever those are, in Mr. Vincent's bottle.”

Toomey stared at him. “You're right. You
were
stupid. Mixing alcohol and Valium—and you don't even know the dosage?”

Bjarne rubbed both eyes with his fingertips. “I'm still groggy.”

“I'm not surprised,” Toomey grunted. “I don't suppose you know what time it was when you passed out?”

“It was after all the guests got here but before anybody left. That's all I can tell you.”

“Between eight and nine, then. Did you manage to lock up and turn on the alarm first?”

Bjarne shook his head, and then winced. “I was waiting for everyone to leave. There'd be no point—” Then it hit him. “Oh god. Oh my god. Because I didn't lock up, that burglar—oh, good god!”

“Hey, are you all right?” Toomey asked. The manservant looked as if he was going to throw up.

Bjarne let out a cry that brought both Rizzuto and Mrs. Polk running. “It's
my fault
!” Bjarne moaned. “Because I got drunk last night, Mr. Vincent is dead! He's dead because of me! Because of
me
!” The realization that he himself had made possible what he feared the most thoroughly devastated Bjarne. He slid off his chair on to his knees and buried his face in his hands. His whole body shook with sobs.

Mrs. Polk took charge while the two policemen looked on helplessly. “Now, Barney—that's no way to carry on.” She urged him to his feet. “You come with me. Go wash your face and I'll fix you a pot of tea. Come along, now.” Crushed, Bjarne let her lead him away.

“Whew!” Rizzuto said when they were gone. “Ain't that carrying
responsibility
a little far?”

Toomey grunted. “Well, he was responsible. It'll be interesting to see whether he starts making excuses once he's recovered from his attack of
mea culpa
. What about Mrs. Polk? Did Gretchen Knox tell her last night she was staying over?”

“She says she and ‘Miss Gretchen' dint speak again after she served the drinks. You know, Lieutenant, she coulda just heard her movin' around.”

Toomey put on an expression of mock surprise. “But she can't hear anything from her room, remember? Mrs. Polk isn't being straight with us. None of them is, except Barney Peterson, and he went to pieces on me. And we still have half the people who were here last night to talk to!”

“They won't know nothin' about the burglary,” Rizzuto stated flatly. “And somebody did break in here last night, no matter how many lies the Knoxes tell.”

“That's true—they did. And a most unusual pair of burglars we have here, wouldn't you say? Look at what the physical evidence tells us happened. The first burglar boosts the second up over the terrace wall, and Burglar Number Two fixes a rope for Burglar Number One to climb. They creep around the house until they come to the double doors leading to the library. They look into a lighted room and there is Vincent Farwell himself in full sight—”

“How d'you know the lights was on?” Rizzuto asked.

“Farwell wouldn't be sitting at his desk in the dark, now, would he? So the lights are on. Ignoring the fact that they themselves are fully visible to the room's occupant, the burglars forcibly break through the terrace doors—doors that are not even locked, incidentally. Vincent Farwell responds to this unseemly intrusion by drawing a gun and shooting his desk. No one hears the shot, because Mrs. Polk is too far away, Gretchen Knox is wearing earplugs, and Barney Peterson is zonked out on pills and alcohol.”

“Then they kill 'im.”

“Then one of the burglars picks up the alabaster statuette and bashes Farwell with it, breaking both the statuette and Farwell's head in the process. One of them lifts the body a bit while the other pulls out the blotter and takes it to the fireplace and burns it. Then one burglar removes one page of a letter from the file cabinet and puts it under the sofa for the cat to play with. The other burglar finds the Infralux in the desk, decides he doesn't like the color, and tosses it over into the corner.”

Rizzuto snorted.

“That taken care of,” Toomey continued, “they proceed to steal the jade horse and other undoubtedly overpriced small items scattered hither and yon about the room. Their next move is to gather up
other
expensive items from
other
rooms in the house and substitute them for the ones they've stolen—hoping the original set would not be missed, no doubt.”

“Aw, Lieutenant.”

“They ignore the Degas because they don't care for the impressionist school. They take Vincent Farwell's watch, money, and credit cards. They drop the empty billfold on the floor and kick it under the desk. Then one of them goes out to the hall and sends the elevator up to the second floor. Finished at last, they turn out the lights in order to save on electricity. They go out through the double doors, avoiding the broken glass in the dark as best they can. Out on the terrace once again, they decide to leave their can of Redi-Whip as a thank-you present. They put down their loot long enough to move the wrought-iron table over against the wall. At that point they part company, one using the table to climb over the wall, the other walking out through the terrace gate. And that's the end of it. As you said, Rizzuto, cut and dried.”

“Who, me?” Rizzuto said. “Never.”

“‘The Case of the Body in the Library',” Toomey sighed. “Too bad the library door wasn't locked from the inside—that's all that's missing. I'm going to pay a visit to Ellandy Jewels, but I want you to stay here, Rizzuto. There are some things that need doing. First, that one page of a letter from Farwell's insurance agent—I want you to look in the file cabinet and find the rest of the letter. It probably doesn't mean anything, but we ought to check it out.”

“Okay.”

“Then I want you to call Farwell's attorney, ah—Dann, Richard Dann—and ask him if he has the combination to the wall safe upstairs. Then get somebody from headquarters over here with a thirty-eight and a box of sand to fire it into. I want you to find out if the shot can be heard in Mrs. Polk's room or not. Got all that?”

“Yep. Where'll you be when you finish at Ellandy Jewels?”

“Depends on what I find out there. I'll call you.”

“I'll be here,” Rizzuto said.

Lionel Knox pulled the car over to the side of the street long enough to give Gretchen a big hug and a kiss. “You were terrific back there!” he laughed happily. “Saying Uncle Vincent hadn't made up his mind about the loan! How can I ever thank you?”

“Oh, I'll think of a way,” she smiled coyly.

“If that sleepy-eyed police lieutenant and his subliterate sergeant find out that Uncle Vincent turned us down—you know what that means, don't you? That means we'd all be suspects.”

“I thought of that,” she said.

Lionel pulled back out into the line of traffic. “I've got to make some phone calls from home. I'll have to let the others know what happened to Uncle Vincent and say we're telling the police he didn't give us an answer on the loan.”

“Do you think they'll go along?”

Lionel considered. “I think so. Malcolm might take some persuading.”

Gretchen cleared her throat. “Lionel. There's something we've got to talk about. You were surprised when the Lieutenant told us Uncle Vincent's body was found at his desk.”

“So were you!” he shot back. When she didn't say anything, Lionel sighed. “I guess I'd better tell you. I was there last night—or early this morning, rather. And no, I didn't kill him. After the meeting, the five of us were talking about what we should do, and someone suggested stealing Uncle Vincent's copy of the promissory note. We sort of dismissed the idea as impractical, but after I got home I started thinking about it. I couldn't sleep, and the more I thought about stealing the note, the more it seemed as if that was the only possible solution to our problems. So I went back to the house.”

“And found Uncle Vincent.”

“And found Uncle Vincent—at his desk. But Gretchen, I moved him! He was in the middle of the floor when I left! How'd he get back to the desk?”

“Why did you move him?”

“Well, the study was in a terrible mess—that's another thing, there were papers all over the place! The file cabinet had been completely emptied, and Uncle Vincent's papers were scattered everywhere. But they were gone when I came back just now, and Lieutenant Toomey said Mrs. Polk hadn't cleaned in there. Do you suppose the police took all those papers?”

“No,” Gretchen said in a small voice. “I picked up the papers. I put them back in the file.”

“
You!
Then you were—”

“You first. Finish telling me what you did.”

“Well, you know what a mess the library was in, then. I couldn't find the promissory note—I looked at every piece of paper in that room. So it seemed to me that whoever had killed Uncle Vincent had come there for the same reason I had, and had
found
the note. So who was it? I felt sure it had to be either Dorrie or Nicole. Which one would you pick?”

“Not Dorrie.”

“Definitely not Dorrie. And if Nicole had turned herself into a killer to help Ellandy's, I'd be damned if
I
was going to give her away. She probably didn't mean to kill him at all—he must have surprised her.”