Corpses at Indian Stone (7 page)

"I suppose you noticed that Jim Calder had been bitten by a dog," he said.

The effect of that was remarkable. As a non sequitur, it startled the audience. As a change of pace and mood, it caused Wes Wickman to frown and at the same time to look slightly amused. "Yes," he said, "I did notice it." He glanced around. "Anybody know what dog? Bill, did you have one?"

"No."

' There's one at the club here," Jack Browne said. "Mr. Calder was over for dinner.

Played with it. Friendly dog, though. Belongs to the chef."

"What kind?" Wes asked.

"Mongrel."

The officer was impatient. "What size, then?"

"Oh--size of a fox."

Wes nodded. "That'd be about right. Well, Dr. Plum, so what?"

Aggie was still angry. He dismissed the dogbite. "I suppose, captain, you also noticed just what sort of yank or jar it would take to bring down that deadfall?"

The trooper's apparent amusement increased. He looked around the room. His tone was sardonic. "The professor's a regular Sherlock Holmes! Trails people. Notices things. Certainly, Plum. We set it up and tipped it off to try it. It worked hard. It was heavy. I suppose you noticed that a couple of rocks had been used for ballast? They'd rolled into the brush. With them on-it worked even harder. But not too hard."

Aggie said, "Yes, I noticed."

Wes thought a moment. "Okay. Anybody else think of anything? We'll try to get whoever built that deadfall, of course. There'll be an action in it. Not homicide, though, in the deliberate sense. You can sit down, Plum."

Aggie didn't sit. Instead, he said, "Where's Hank Bogarty?" That question obviously perplexed Wes Wickman. He frowned and said, "Hank who?"

Dr. Davis responded at that point. "I can explain, Wes. I know what Plum means--

though I think it's making a mountain out of a molehill. In fact, I'd say our friend here was doing his level best to push you off asking him any more embarrassing questions about his private traits."

"Exactly! Dead right, George!" The corroboration came from old Mr. Waite--the man who had been covertly terrified by the news of Calder's death.

Dr. Davis rose in a leisurely manner. "Plum," he began, "refers to an old friend and business associate of Calder's and Waite's and mine. Sarah's, too. A man named Hank Bogarty. A self-taught engineer and metallurgist. He spent a summer here-long ago.
Long
ago. I had a wire from him yesterday saying he was coming on to get another stake. I--well, I must say, I thought it was a joke. Not that I didn't think he was coming--"

"Why did you think it was a joke?" Wes asked curtly.

The surgeon hesitated, glanced at Waite, and then said casually, "Why, because it was our understanding, through the years, that Hank Bogarty had done very well in the West. Didn't need money. I imagined he sent the wire in a spirit of fun--to remind us of the old days--and nothing more."

Wes was looking thoughtfully from one face to another. "I see. And he hasn't checked in?"

Waite and Davis shook their heads and shrugged. The surgeon glanced at Jack Browne--who also shook his head.

Dr. Davis said finally, "He wired from Albany. Deliveries are late around here, as you know. He might have spent the night there. He was probably driving--since the train service is poor. Maybe he had an accident. Maybe he changed his mind and decided not to come. It ought to be easy to learn about Hank Bogarty--and I, personally, feel that Dr.

Plum is injecting a good many irrelevant matters into this discussion."

Several other people muttered the same thing. The investigation continued for another half hour. Then, rather abruptly, the captain dismissed them. "I think that will be all. I don't believe there's any ground for believing there was foul play. We'll do a thorough job on that deadfall, of course. Fingerprints, and so on. But if I were you, folks, I'd just try to forget it--and sleep well tonight."

Aggie heard Waite say, "With Jim Calder gone--everybody ought to sleep better!"

Then he walked out of the club. He knew Sarah would be waiting for him--and he had a great deal to tell her. Far more than she'd bargained for. He started walking briskly toward the cottage.

Behind him came Captain Wes Wickman, walking even more briskly. When Aggie perceived that he was being followed, which was very soon, he waited. The trooper came up and fell into step. They walked a hundred yards before he spoke--and Aggie had no intention of starting a conversation with him. The policeman's words startled him. "Say, Plum. Why in the name of sin were you tagging that Davis girl?

You're not the type--and don't go on trying to make out you are! I read your book about
Primitives on the Tundras
--had to, compulsory at school-and I know you're not the guy to trail blondes and indiscreet husbands. Or--" a thought struck him--"are you stuck on Danielle?"

Aggie then explained about Sarah, her self-appointed mission in life, and her inhibiting mumps. It was an explanation he had intended to make, anyway--in private.

The policeman choked with laughter. He leaned against a tree, slapped his thigh, and blew his nose. Finally he said, "Sarah! What a woman! I ought to have guessed it! Lord, Plum, the Indian Stoners are going to look down their noses at you for this! If they don't learn the facts, they'll think you're some sort of social monster!" Then he became calmer-

-quite serious. "You don't believe that guy just happened to shove himself into that trap, do you?"

"Do you?"

The trooper considered. "I think it's possible."

"Mmm. Yes. Possible."

"And darned unlikely."

"As you say--darned."

"See here, Plum. I tagged along to find out if you'd come clean with me-and you did. I questioned that Whole mob together because I wanted to see how they affected each other. I got the net impression that even if somebody had bumped off Jim Calder, the majority of our friends here would be for hushing it up. They don't like scandal or bad publicity. They're clannish. I daresay it's a good riddance. Waite--for instance--"

"What about Waite? He was in a sweat."

The policeman's eye again darted approvingly over the figure of the bearded man.

"You got that, eh? Well--in those papers Bill tried to get was a bunch of correspondence from Waite. I glanced at it. No time for anything but a glance. But, if ever one man hated another, Waite hated Calder. You know that Calder had a reputation for squeezing the blood out of even his best friends--"

Aggie nodded. "Heard about it."

"He must have bored into Waite. And Waite's a first-rate miser. Mean guy about money, anyhow. I remember driving a baseball through the windshield of his car, once."

The trooper smiled. "Anyhow, Waite's letters were full of stuff about what 'ought' to be done to Calder. Boiling him in oil was the gentlest I ran across. There were more threats than there are feathers on a goose."

"Too many," Aggie said. Then he frowned. "On the other hand, if you were going to push somebody over, it might be very ingenious to write a sheaf of wildly threatening missives. I mean--the police would assume that nobody would threaten so much, and then actually take the risk of doing the job."

"Thought of that. It's a possibility. If Calder was deliberately killed, the person who did it was darned imaginative. Darned. Imaginative to lure him into that trap---or to bang him one and carry him to it."

Aggie chuckled. They had reached the boundary of Sarah's place. "I thought, earlier this evening, that you were pretty stupid. I'm wrong."

Wes Wickman apparently ignored the praise. "You're my only problem, Plum," he said musingly. "You think somebody did kill Jim. I don't--not yet; my mind's open. But you do. And you're not the kind of person who will just let that thought lie undisturbed."

Aggie said, "Maybe I will. After all, he's not the first dead man I've seen. I've lived-here and there. Primitive people are apt to--liquidate--a relative or neighbor who troubles them. I'm a scientist--and I haven't any conscience."

"Don't make me laugh! You've got Sarah for a conscience! And the fact that you're a scientist is the one that will keep you meddling. I took a good long look at you tonight. I could almost read your mind. I know more about these people than you ever will--and that helped me. You thought that Waite might have done this. You considered Danielle. Bill Calder, of course. Beth--maybe. That trip to Garnet Knob might have had something to do with it all. Bill might even have intended to confess to the girl there--and lost his nerve."

"She suggested the junket up the hill."

"Oke. Maybe
she
was going to confess. Jim spoiled her mother's life. Then--you wondered about this Bogarty guy. Who was he? Where was he? I wonder about him too.

You were also scrutinizing Doc Davis in a most anthropological way. Why?"

"Because," Aggie answered, "I routed him out at approximately four A.M. this morning--and he was up and he was dressed. Working--in his darkroom. He gave you the feeling that he'd been doing something special. There weren't any lights on--no electricity--in his house. You'd think a person would go to bed, under such circumstances. I just wondered. As for Bogarty--" Aggie told about the knife, the calling card, and Calder's visit.

The trooper thrust out his lower lip and pinched it. "I tell you. I can't stop you from using your bean. So go ahead. Only--for heaven's sake--if you barge into anything more--tell me. Not your aunt--and not anybody else. You see, Plum, even if there was a murder here, I'd have to have ironclad proof--or these people would suppress it. They're that kind. So are a good many others. People think that any killing would throw them on the side of law and justice--but if the right guy is killed--and if an investigation would bring to light a lot of backbiting, gyppery, hate, and double-dealing--they'll raise heaven and earth to close the subject. I, for one, am going to take the line that it was an accident--

for the present, and until I can prove it wasn't--and above all, until we know about this Bogarty. I wish
you
would too."

"Of course," Aggie answered readily--and somewhat to the surprise of the officer.

Sarah looked up from her solitaire. When she saw it was Aggie, she beamed.

"This," she said, "is about my two millionth game. Not one has come out, yet." She gathered up the cards, absently reached for a large candy box on the table beside her chair, and bit into a chocolate. Her face immediately puckered and tears filled her eyes.

She snatched up a glass of water. "Strawberry!" she exclaimed. "Tastes like nitric acid!

It's killing me! Take these candies away before I forget again! What happened? Who were you talking to--just now--outside?"

"Captain Wickman--Wes Wickman."

"Well! Go ahead! Tell me about the evening! What was Wes doing around here, anyhow? Somebody get burglarized during the winter? Speak up! Here I sit--starving for conversation--!"

"He was here," Aggie answered, sitting on the ottoman at Sarah's feet, "because Jim Calder has been killed."

He watched his aunt react. She lost color--not much, but some. She thought for a long minute. "All right. Tell me."

It took him an--hour. She interrupted with short, breathless interrogations and exclamations, but she checked her own excitement in order to let him talk. When he finished, she said flatly, "Jim, the idiot, just blundered into that trap! I'll bet on it! Now, tell me more about Danielle and Bill Calder."

He began to tell her as much more as he could think of. But he realized that either Sarah wishfully thought Jim had died by accident and wanted to reinforce the wish--or else she had some other reason for deciding to avoid that phase of the discussion. What reason, he could not guess. After he had exhausted every other detail of the evening, she skirted the subject of Jim's death once more: "So Wes told you not to tell anything to me, eh? Scoundrel! And you're two people's stooge, from now on."

"Two?"

"His--and mine."

Aggie shook his head. He was beginning to feel a great fatigue--a reaction to the night and to the aimlessness of the quandary in his mind. "I'm nobody's stooge, Sarah, from now on. I signed up with you to do a little trivial espionage. I didn't agree to poke into the death of a manifest rascal."

"You will, though."

"No."

"Why not?"

He yawned. "Well, because I've already damaged myself enough, for one reason.

Every soul at Indian Stones except Wes thinks I'm a top-drawer pud. And Wes won't give me a good character, at my request; to do so would blacken your name and impute my senses. Another reason is,
you
haven't come through with all you know--or suspect."

"Me?" Sarah's hazel eyes were wide and innocent. Too innocent.

"You," he answered, rising from the ottoman.

She didn't deny it.

The next day, it began to rain at nine o'clock and it rained hard. There were occasional diminutions of the gray pall, but not for long enough periods to cause people to go outdoors voluntarily. Aggie stayed in. He unpacked his clothes and the contents of the rest of his peculiar luggage. He read books. He refused to go to the club for lunch or for dinner. He volunteered to play cribbage with his aunt, but she was so piqued by his lack of co-operation that she refused any such solace. Dr. Davis came, and she sent for her nephew, but he was reported by old John to be immersed in a bath. She tried to persuade Aggie after dinner that people would want to see him; he told her that anybody who wanted to see him knew where he could be found. He went back to his treatises at ten o'clock and made no further sound.

Sarah, waking in the thin, black hours of morning, saw by the reflection on the trees that her nephew still had a light on. Still reading. Or--more probably--holding up a book, and thinking. She grunted with the discomfort of her ailment and the discomfort of her mind and went back to sleep.

The day that came after that night was sunny and hot. Old John woke Aggie--on Sarah's orders--with the news that he was to be present at a coroner's inquest at ten. John would have let him sleep through anything of so trifling a nature. And so would Sarah, if she'd had a mind to do it. Aggie ate his breakfast in a cross and silent manner. He shot the station wagon through the stone gates noisily, and was gone for three hours. When he returned, he was still taciturn.