But He Was Already Dead When I Got There (9 page)

“He musta put the gun down,” Rizzuto said. “Without lettin' go of it, I mean.”

“Which would suggest he knew his killer. Another possibility is that he fired the gun spasmodically after he'd already been hit and slumped forward. Didn't anybody hear the shot? How many people in the house?”

“Three. Farwell's niece, name of Gretchen Knox—she's up in her room. And the housekeeper and the valet.”

“Which one found him?”

“The housekeeper. Mrs. Polk.”

“Then I'll talk to her first. Unless there's something else?”

“Matter of fact there is. All sorts of goodies, out on the terrace. A table with a scrape mark on the top, a rope thrown over the wall, and,” Rizzuto grinned, “a can of Redi-Whip.”

“
Redi-Whip?
”

“Yeah, you know, that whipped cream that comes in aerosol cans? There's a can of it sittin' on the terrace floor, right outside those double doors there.”

“I know what Redi-Whip is,” Toomey said grumpily. “What's it doing out on the terrace?”

Just then one of the men from the crime lab called out, “Everything's dusted, Lieutenant. Go ahead and touch.” Toomey waved a thank-you as the men packed up their gear and left.

Rizzuto was standing by the terrace doors. “Here's how he got in,” he said, pointing to the broken glass.

Toomey walked over and looked at the door. “The bolts weren't shot?” He pointed to the two inside bolts, one at the top of the door and the other at the bottom. He tried the door knob, which turned easily. “Wasn't the door locked?”

Rizzuto scowled. “Musta been. That little lock-button in the middle of the knob woulda popped out when he reached through from outside and turned it.”

“But how did he pull back the bolts? You can't reach either one from the broken pane. Try it.”

Rizzuto thrust an arm through the hole left by the broken glass and stretched first upward and then downward. He couldn't touch either bolt. “The old man musta forgot to shoot the bolts. Or the housekeeper.”

“Curious,” Toomey murmured.

Rizzuto pointed to the can of Redi-Whip sitting on the terrace floor. “No prints, they said. Just smears.”

Toomey picked up the can and gave it a vigorous shake before squirting a little cream out on his finger. It tasted all right.

“The crime lab guys dint see no reason to take it in,” Rizzuto explained.

Toomey nodded and slipped the can into his jacket pocket, heartily wishing the Sergeant would realize Vincent Farwell's house was not an appropriate setting for make-believe street talk. “Is this the table you meant?” The wrought-iron table had been painted white, and right in the middle of the top was a scuffed place—made by the foot of a man in a hurry to get away?

“He came in over the wall by the rope around to the side of the house,” Rizzuto said, “but he went out this way, by jumpin' up on the table.”

“Losing his Redi-Whip in the process,” Toomey murmured. “Show me this rope.”

Sergeant Rizzuto led him along the terrace to the west side of the house, where he pointed to the rope tied to a leg of a wrought-iron bench.

Toomey grunted. “So there were two of them.” Rizzuto looked blank. “The rope's hanging down on the outside. One guy alone wouldn't climb the wall and then toss the rope over for himself, now, would he? There had to be two. One boosted the other over, and that one fixed the rope.” Toomey was annoyed; Rizzuto should have spotted something that obvious. “Why'd the crime lab boys leave the rope?”

“For you to see,” Rizzuto said a touch sullenly. “They cut off a piece to check, but they said it looked like common manufacture.”

Toomey started back toward the library but paused before going in. “That's a funny place to keep a table, isn't it? Right outside these doors, shoved up against the wall like that?” He bent over to inspect the concrete floor of the terrace and soon found what he was looking for. “Look here—scratch marks. Four of them. This is where the table usually sits.”

Rizzuto shrugged. “So he moved the table to climb over the wall.
They
moved it,” he corrected himself.

“Let's try it.”

Toomey grunted as they picked up the heavy table and carried it to its original position; Rizzuto, both younger and stronger, had no trouble with it. “Now back,” Toomey said. He grunted again as they put it back against the wall where they'd found it.

Toomey pulled out a handkerchief and patted his forehead. “Not exactly a speedy maneuver, would you say?” he commented. “If they were in such an all-fired hurry to get away, why'd they stop to move this heavy table? It would have been quicker to use the rope.” Toomey looked around. “Or,” he said, walking to the metal gate at the end of the terrace, “why not just go out this way?” The latch lifted easily to his touch.

“Maybe they dint know about the gate. Maybe it was too dark to see. Maybe they just got rattled.”

“Maybe,” Toomey said noncommittally.

“Aw, hell!” Rizzuto exclaimed. “I forgot to tell you. Somethin' was burned in the fireplace not too long ago. They found a piece of blotter.”

“Blotter? Like a desk blotter?”

“Yeah, that's what it looked like. It'll be in the lab report.”

Toomey mulled that one over as he walked back inside. “Now why would the killer stop and burn the desk blotter? Did Farwell write something on it—a name, a telephone number? Could he have known his killer?”

“Maybe Farwell burned it himself. Or the housekeeper—when she was puttin' out a new one.”

“That's possible,” Toomey admitted. “I'll talk to the housekeeper now. Bring her in here, will you, please?”

Sergeant Rizzuto left and returned in a few minutes with a neatly dressed, fiftyish woman with faded blond hair. “Mrs. Dorothy Polk,” Rizzuto said.

“Mrs. Polk, I'm Lieutenant Toomey,” he said, wishing Rizzuto would learn to complete his introductions. He offered his condolences, seated her in a chair, and pulled up another chair for himself. Under Toomey's gentle questioning, she related how she had come into the library to straighten up from last night, turned on the lights, and found Vincent Farwell dead at his desk.

“The lights were off when you went in?”

“Yes, I couldn't see very well. This side of the house doesn't get the sun until afternoon.” She told how she'd called the police and then wakened the other two in the house.

“That would be Mr. Farwell's niece, Gretchen Knox? And …?”

“Barney, Mr. Vincent's manservant. Barney Peterson.”

“Mrs. Polk, did you lock the library doors last night?”

“That's Barney's job. Every night he checks the windows and doors, and turns on the security alarm.”

“Security alarm? Was it turned on last night?”

Mrs. Polk looked uneasy. “I don't know, Lieutenant. Barney … well, Barney's been known to take a drink or two. And he wasn't in his room when I went looking for him this morning. I found him asleep in the breakfast nook, in the kitchen. In his clothes! He hadn't been to bed at all.”

“So he might not have locked up and turned on the alarm? Hm. Mrs. Polk, Mr. Farwell fired his gun last night. Didn't you hear the shot?”

She shook her head. “My room's on the third floor of the house, way at the back. I can't hear anything back there, not even street noises.”

“I see. Did Mr. Farwell always keep a gun in his desk?”

“Yes, sir. And another one in the table beside his bed.”

“What floor is Mr. Farwell's room on?”

“The second.”

“And Barney's?”

“His room is right next to Mr. Vincent's—in case Mr. Vincent needed him during the night, you know. Miss Gretchen's room is on the second floor too. I'm the only one on the third.”

“What time did you go to your room last night?”

“Right after I served the drinks to Mr. Vincent's guests. It must have been before eight-thirty. I remember I had a little while to wait before a nine o'clock show I wanted to watch came on.”

Toomey had perked up at the word “guests”. When asked, the housekeeper gave them the names of the visitors who had been there the night before, all six of them. Rizzuto wrote the names in his notebook.

“You included Gretchen Knox,” Toomey said. “Doesn't she live here?”

Mrs. Polk smiled. “Oh, no sir. She and Mr. Lionel have a lovely house of their own. Mr. Vincent gave it to them as a wedding present.”

“But she decided to stay here last night? Without her husband? Why?”

“I'm sure I don't know, sir,” she said primly.

Very proper
, Toomey thought. “Mrs. Polk, do you take care of this great big house all by yourself?”

“I have day help. But Barney and I are the only ones who live here.”

Toomey nodded. “When was the last time the library was cleaned?”

“Yesterday. I cleaned it myself. So it would look nice for the guests, you know.”

Toomey couldn't think of any tactful way to ask his next question. “Did you clean under the sofa?”

“Of course.” Mrs. Polk looked mildly insulted. “Barney moved the sofa for me and then moved it back when I was finished.”

“I ask because we found a sheet of paper there. The first page of a letter.”

“Well, it wasn't there when I finished cleaning!” she said firmly, and both the policemen believed her.

Rizzuto cleared his throat. At Toomey's nod, he asked, “Do you know what an Infralux is, Mrs. Polk?”

“Why, it's one of those things for Mr. Vincent's arthritis. We keep one in every room.”

“There was one on the floor over there in the corner,” Rizzuto said.

The housekeeper looked surprised. “What was it doing there? It belongs in the desk.” Just then a black, white, and orange cat trotted into the room and positioned himself in front of Lieutenant Toomey, eyeing him suspiciously. “That's Godfrey Daniel,” Mrs. Polk said. “Mr. Vincent spoiled him rotten.”

Toomey patted his knee. “Here, kitty!” Godfrey majestically turned his back and sat down. The Lieutenant sighed and picked up the questioning where he'd left off. “When you cleaned, did you take a blotter off the desk?”

“No, sir—it didn't need changing.” She glanced over at the desk and saw the bare top. “Why, it's gone!”

“When you do change blotters, what do you do with the old one? Do you burn it?”

She gave Toomey a
what-a-crazy-idea
look and said, “No, I throw it out with the rest of the trash.”

Toomey let the question of the blotter go, and asked the housekeeper whether there was a safe in the room somewhere.

“Not in here,” she said, “but there's one in Mr. Vincent's bedroom.”

“Why his bedroom? Why not right here where he worked?”

“Oh, that wall safe upstairs was put in a long time ago—before Mr. Vincent had his stroke. He was still going out to his office every day then. It's only since his stroke that he started using this room so much.”

Toomey nodded. “Does the safe have a combination lock?”

“Yes, but I can't open it for you, if that's what you want.”

“Who can?”

Mrs. Polk looked puzzled. “Why, I don't know—I suppose Miss Gretchen might.”

Abruptly Toomey reached in his pocket and pulled out the can of Redi-Whip. “Yours?”

Her eyebrows rose. “No. We don't have any whipped cream in the house.”

“You're sure?”

“Of course I'm sure,” Mrs. Polk said, getting a little tired of all the questions. “Mr. Vincent can't—
couldn't
eat rich foods, and Barney doesn't like sweets, and, well, I'm trying to watch my weight. There's no whipped cream in this house. What's that owl doing in here?”

“Pardon?”

“That owl. It's supposed to be in the dining room.” She got up and walked over to the end table where an ivory owl rested. “And that music box—it should be in the living room. And where's the jade horse?” She looked around, examining the room closely. “Why, this isn't right—this isn't right at all!”

“What isn't right, Mrs. Polk?”

She explained that certain objects that were supposed to be in the room were missing, and other objects from other rooms of the house had mysteriously taken their place. Toomey asked her to check in the other rooms for the missing objects, in case someone had just swapped them around. “Before you leave—is there anything else out of place that you can see? Any little thing at all?”

Mrs. Polk pressed her lips together. “Lieutenant, there's one very big thing out of place. I don't know if it means anything … but Mr. Vincent's elevator was at the second floor when I got up this morning. Just where it is every morning.”

Neither Toomey nor Rizzuto got the point.

“Don't you see?” the housekeeper said. “The elevator was on the second floor, but Mr. Vincent was still on the first floor. Right there.” She gestured awkwardly at the desk. “It's a house rule that the elevator always stays on the same floor where Mr. Vincent is.”

“I see,” Toomey said. “You had walked up to the third floor, and Barney Peterson evidently spent the night in the breakfast nook. That leaves Mrs. Knox.”

Mrs. Polk shook her head. “Miss Gretchen knows the rule. She never used Mr. Vincent's elevator. Lieutenant, if you're finished with me, I'll go look for the jade horse and the other things. This doesn't make any sense.”

Toomey agreed that it didn't, and thanked her for her help. When she'd gone, he turned to Rizzuto and said, “Curiouser and curiouser.” He sat down heavily on the sofa. Godfrey Daniel, who by now had decided that Lieutenant Toomey was acceptable, jumped up beside him and allowed himself to be stroked. “Were you in here last night, kitty?” Toomey asked. “What did you see?”