Death Before Bedtime (16 page)

I stalled Miss Flynn as, unhappily, she outlined the various troubles which had befallen my clients. Most of the complications were easily handled over the phone. The dog food concern offered a serious crisis, however; fortunately, I was visited with one of my early morning revelations. I told Miss Flynn to tell those shyster purveyors of horsemeat that in twenty-four hours I would have a remarkable scheme for them. She was not enthusiastic but then enthusiasm would ill become her natural pomp.

After our conversation, I telephoned Mrs. Goldmountain and, rather to my surprise, got her. We made an appointment to meet later that afternoon.

Then I bathed, dressed and, prepared for almost anything, went downstairs. I was a little surprised to find life proceeding so calmly. Lunch was just over and the guests were sitting about in the drawing room. The law was nowhere in sight.

If anyone had noticed my absence during the day, it was not mentioned when I joined them.

I told the butler I wanted only coffee, which I would have in the drawing room. Then I joined Ellen and Langdon by the window. The shades were drawn, indicating either a bad day or the presence of police and newspaper people outside.

“Ah!” said Ellen, at my approach. She looked, of them all, the freshest. Langdon was rather gray and puffy.

“Ah, yourself.” I sat down across from them. Coffee was brought me. I took a long swallow and the world at last fell into a proper perspective.

“The case,” I said in Holmesian accents, “is closed.”

“Not quite,” said Ellen, looking at me with eyes as clear as quartz, despite the debauchery and tension of the night before. “It seems there is another day or two of questioning
ahead of us, lucky creatures that we are. I’ve done everything except offer Winters my person to be allowed to go back to New York.”

I didn’t say the obvious; instead I asked her why she wanted to go back. “Tonight is Bess Pringle’s party, that’s why. It’s going to be
the
party of the season and I want to go.”

“Why does he want us to stay here?” I pretended innocence.

“God only knows. Red tape of some kind.”

“I’ve thought of one approach to the murder,” said Langdon suddenly, emerging from a gray study.

“And that?” I tried to look interested.

“The red tape aspects. You know, the complications which a murder sets in motion, all the automatic and pointless things which must be done, the …” His voice began to trail off as our lack of interest became apparent. I did see how the
Advanceguard
was able to keep its circulation down to the distinguished and essential few.

Before Ellen could begin her laments about Bess Pringle or Langdon could discuss the case with me, I asked about the party, explaining my early return to the house with some ready lie.

“We didn’t get back until two,” said Langdon gloomily.

“And I wouldn’t have come back at all if I had known what had happened,” said Ellen sharply.

“Did I miss anything?”

“A member of the Cabinet played a harmonica,” said Langdon coldly.

“He played a medley from Stephen Foster,” said Ellen.

“I thought you were with that Marine when the concert was given,” Langdon was catching on to our Ellen with considerable speed, considering his youth and idealism.

“Ah,” said Ellen and closed her eyes.

I left them and went over to the table by the fireplace where the mail was kept. There was only one letter for me, a thick one addressed in red pencil, the handwriting slanting backwards. My hands shook as I opened it.

Out fell a sheaf of legal documents. I looked through them rapidly, trying to find some explanation; there was none, no covering letter: nothing but a pile of legal documents which, without examining them, I knew concerned the business affairs of Hollister and the Senator, the papers for want of which he had apparently killed himself.

Before I could examine them further, Camilla Pomeroy came over to me, smiling gently. “How wonderful to be out of all this!” she exclaimed, looking deep into my eyes.

“You’ll be going back to Talisman City soon, won’t you?”

“As soon as possible,” she said.

“You must be relieved,” I said, trying to tell from her expression what she was actually thinking; but I could not: her face was as controlled as a bad actress’.

“Oh, terribly. Roger is like a new man.”

“He was in a tough spot.”

“Very!” She was not at all like the woman who had come to my room the other night with every intention not only of forbidden pleasure but of incriminating her husband. She was again the loyal wife, incapable of treachery. What was she all about?

“I … I want you to know that I wasn’t myself the night we had our
talk.
I was close to a breakdown and I’m afraid I didn’t know what I was doing, or saying. You
will
forgive me, won’t you?”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” I said gallantly, knowing perfectly well she was afraid I might let her husband know in some fashion about her betrayal, her double treachery.

“I hope you really feel that,” she said softly. Then, since there was nothing else to say, I excused myself; I asked the guard at the door where Winters might be found. He gave me the address of the police headquarters and so, without further ado, I took a taxi downtown.

I was escorted to Winter’s office, an old-fashioned affair with one tall window full of dirty glass. He sat at a functional desk surrounded by filing cabinets. He was studying some papers when I entered.

“What news?” I asked.

He waved me to a chair. “No news,” he said tossing the papers aside. “A report on your note from Mr. Anonymous. The handwriting isn’t identifiable, even though we have compared it to everyone’s in the house … the paper is perfectly ordinary and like none in the house, a popular bond sold everywhere, the red pencil is an ordinary red pencil like perhaps a dozen found scattered around the house, the fingerprints on the letter are all yours.…”

“I didn’t rub off someone else’s, did I?”

“There were none to rub off. I think sometimes that it should be made illegal for movies and television to discuss fingerprinting … since fingerprinting came into fashion, practically every criminal now wears gloves, and all because they go to movies.” He swore sadly to himself.

“Well, you got a good press,” I said cheerfully.

“It won’t be so good when it develops that someone murdered Hollister,
if
someone did.”

“You don’t have any doubts, do you?”

“When it comes to this case my mind is filled with doubts about everything.”

“Well, here’s a bit of news.” I handed him the documents.

We spent an hour going over them; neither of us was much good at reading corporation papers but we got the
general drift: a company had been formed to exploit certain oil lands in the Senator’s state. Stock had been floated; the company had been dissolved at considerable profit to the original investors; it had been reformed under another name but with the same directors, more stock had been issued; it had been merged with a dummy company belonging to the Governor of the state. The investors took a beating and only Rufus Hollister, the Governor and the late Senator profited by these elaborate goings-on. Needless to say the whole subject was infinitely more complicated and the
New York Times’
subsequent account of the deals gives a far more coherent account than I can. It was also clear that the Senator had fixed it so that he was in the clear should all this come to light and that Rufus Hollister was responsible, on paper at least, for everything; the Governor seemed in the clear, too.

Winters called in his fingerprint people, also a lawyer; the papers were handed over to them for joint investigation.

“It waxes strange,” I said.

“Why,” said Winters, “would Mr. X want to send you these papers? And the earlier lead, if it was the same person who sent you both?”

“I suppose because he thinks I will use them properly.”

“Then why not send them to the police?”

“Maybe he doesn’t like policemen.”

“Yet why, of all the people in the house, send it to you?” He looked at me suspiciously.

“The only reason I can think of, outside of my enormous charm and intelligence, is that I am writing all this up for the
Globe …
maybe the murderer is interested in a good press. I think maybe that’s the reason; then, perhaps, it doesn’t make too much difference to him who gets the information since he knows it will come to the police in the end anyway … it might have been just a whim … you have to
admit the style of the first note was pretty damned whimsical.”

Winters grunted and looked at the ceiling.

“A number of people have seen fit to confide in me because of my position with the Fourth Estate. I may as well tell you that Camilla Pomeroy came to me the other night with the information that her husband was the Senator’s murderer; then, the next morning, Mrs. Rhodes gave me some exclusive information about the common-law marriage of Mr. Rhodes some years ago … you probably read all about it in my
Globe
piece.”

“And wondered where you’d got it, too. What did Mrs. Pomeroy tell you exactly?”

I repeated her warnings, omitting our tender dalliance as irrelevant.

“I don’t undersand,” sighed Winters.

“The only thought which occurs to me is that they are
both
beneficiaries. I’ve thought all along that we should be real old-fashioned and examine the relations of the three beneficiaries of the late Senator.” I had not of course thought of this until now; it seemed suddenly significant, though.

“We do that continually,” said Winters.

“It’s possible one of them killed him for the inheritance.”

“Quite possible.”

“On the other hand he might have been killed for political reasons.”

“Also possible.”

“Then again he might have been killed for reasons of revenge.”

“Very likely.”

“In other words, Lieutenant Winters, you haven’t the foggiest notion why he was killed or who killed him.”

“That’s very blunt, but that’s about it.” Winters seemed not at all disturbed.

I had a sudden suspicion. “You wouldn’t by any chance be thinking of allowing this case to go unsolved, would you? Stopping it right here, with a confession and a corpse who, presumably, made the confession before committing suicide.”

“What ever made you think that?” said Winters blandly, and I knew then that that was exactly what he had in mind. I couldn’t blame him; by admitting that Hollister had been killed and the confession faked, he put himself squarely behind the eight-ball, a position which the servants of the public like even less than we civilians do. Though he might have proven to all and sundry that he was a pretty sharp character to guess that Hollister was killed, he would also be running the risk of never finding the murderer which would mean that public confidence in the police would be shaken, in which event he himself would be shaken back to a beat in Georgetown. I could hardly blame him for this indifference to the true cause of justice. After all who really cared if the Senator and Hollister had been murdered? No one mourned the passage of either to the grave. For a moment love of law and sense of right wavered, but then I recalled myself to stern duty (the fact that I would have the success of the year if I could unearth the murderer after the case had been nominally shut by the police affected my right action somewhat).

“How long will you hold the crew together?” I asked, writing Winters off as an ally.

“Another day or so, until all the evidence is double-checked … the autopsy and so on completed.”

“We will then be free to go?”

“Unless something unforeseen happens.”

“Like another murder?”

“There won’t be another murder,” he said confidently and I wondered if he might have some evidence which I didn’t
have. After all it was just possible that Hollister
had
committed suicide … driven to it by Mr. X, the possessor of the documents, a whimsical cuss who was obviously enjoying himself immensely.

“What about the gun?”

“Well, what about it? It belonged to Mrs. Rhodes, didn’t it?”

“That’s right … no prints on it except Hollister’s. Mrs. Rhodes kept the gun in the table beside her bed. She hadn’t looked at it in over a month. Anyone could have gone in there and taken it.”

“But how many people in the house would have known there was a gun in that night-table?”

“I haven’t any idea. Hollister knew, though.” He smiled contentedly. “He knew where everything was.”

“Except the papers which the Senator had hidden in the study, which someone else found first.”

“But who?”

“The murderer.”

“I see no evidence.”

“The evidence is in front of you or rather in the other room being gone over by your lawyer. How does this Mr. X know so much about the case? How did he know where to find the papers? Why did he send them to me at all since Hollister’s death was intended to finish the case?”

“It may be,” said Lieutenant Winters in the voice of innumerable Mary Roberts Rinehart heroines, “that we shall never know.”

“Go to hell,” I said.

He frowned. “Why don’t you stop fussing around, Sargeant? This is none of your business, we all have a perfect out. Let’s take it. I am as dedicated to duty as anyone and I don’t intend to drop the case, really; but I’m not going to
beat my brains out over it and I
am
going to pretend it’s all finished. I suggest you do the same.” This was a threat, nicely phrased.

“I will,” I said. “But I’m not going to let it go unsolved if I can help it.” We sat staring hostilely at one another … conscious of the righteousness of my tone, I was almost ready to recite the Wet Nurses’ Creed in a voice choked with emotion. But I let it ride.

“Well, I better be going,” I said, standing up.

“Thanks for letting me have the papers.”

“Think nothing of it.” Full of wrath, I departed.

Mrs. Goldmountain lived in a large house of yellow stone, mellowed with age, in Georgetown, the ancient part of the city where, in remade slums of Federal vintage, the more fashionable Washingtonians dwell. Her house, however, was larger than all the others, the former residence of some historic personage.