Death in the Fifth Position (12 page)

“It’s quicker, walking,” said Mr. Washburn grimly, prancing ahead of me like a fat mare. “But where?”

“To Miles Sutton’s apartment. He lives just the other side of Lexington.”

“What’s the matter?” But I knew: Gleason had arrested him at last, or was about to.

“He’s dead,” said Mr. Washburn.

I think I said: “Sweet Jesus!”

We walked up three flights of stairs which smelled of damp and cabbage; at the top of the third flight was an open door with a curiously formal card on it: “Mr. and Mrs. Miles Sutton” … obviously a Christmas present from an old aunt. The apartment was a three-roomed
affair, very modern: you know the kind … two walls battleship gray and two terra cotta in the same room with fuchsia-covered furniture. This was where the happy couple had lived until the present season when Miles moved out, not returning until after Ella was dead.

In the front room several detectives stood, looking important as they always do in the presence of someone else’s disaster. They were very tough with us until Gleason, hearing the noise of Mr. Washburn’s protests, shouted from another room, “Let them in.”

“In there,” said one of the detectives, motioning to a door on the left.

We found Gleason in the kitchen. A photographer with a flash bulb was taking pictures of the corpse, from all angles. Two unidentified men stood by the sink, watching.

“Oh, my God!” And Mr. Washburn, after one look at the body of Miles Sutton, hurried out of the room. We could hear him vomiting in the bathroom. I didn’t feel so good myself but I have a strong stomach and I have seen a lot of things in my time, during the war, and I’m not easily upset … even so all the wine I had drunk that night at the party turned sour in my belly as I looked at Miles Sutton. It was one of the damndest things I have ever seen. He was slumped over a gas stove, his arms hanging at his sides and his legs buckled crazily under him … he was a tall man and the stove didn’t come up to his waist. But the horrible thing was his head. He had fallen in such a way that his chin had got caught in one of the burners on top of the stove … which might not have been so bad except for the fact that the gas had been lit and his hair, his beard and the skin of his face were burned
until now his head resembled a shapeless mass of black tar. The room was full of the acrid odor of burnt hair and flesh.

“O.K.,” said the photographer, getting down from a kitchen chair: he had been shooting a picture from directly overhead. “It’s all yours.”

The two men by the sink moved forward and lifted the body off the stove. I looked away while they lugged the large corpse out of the kitchen into the living room. Gleason and I, still without a word to one another, followed the procession into the living room.

A moment later Mr. Washburn joined us, very weak at the knees. Without further invitation, he sat down in an Eames chair, careful not to look at Miles Sutton who was now laid out on a stretcher in the middle of the room. Detectives scurried about, searching the room, taking photographs.

Gleason lit a cigar and glared at us.

“How … how did it happen?” asked Mr. Washburn in a low voice.

“It ruins the whole case,” said Mr. Gleason, savagely chewing on his cigar. “Poor Miles …”

“It makes no sense.”

“Inspector, could you … would you
please
put something over him.”

“You don’t have to look at it,” snapped Gleason, but he motioned to one of the detectives who found a sheet and covered the body.

“That’s better,” said Mr. Washburn.

“We were going to arrest him this evening,” said
Gleason. “We had a perfect case … in spite of everyone’s refusal to co-operate with us.” And he looked at me with bloodshot eyes … when Irish eyes are bleary, I hummed to myself.

“How could such a thing have happened? I mean … well, it’s impossible.”

“That’s our business: the impossible.”

“How could someone have got in that position … I don’t understand.” Mr. Washburn sounded querulous.

“That’s what we’re going to find out … the medical examiner here,” he gestured to one of the men standing by the door, “says that he’s been dead for about an hour.”

“It must’ve been an accident,” said Mr. Washburn.

“We’ll know after the autopsy. We’re going to do a real job, you can bet your life. If there’s been any monkey business, we’ll find out.”

“Or suicide,” suggested Mr. Washburn.

Gleason looked at him contemptuously. “A man decides to kill himself by lighting a gas stove and putting his head on the burner like it was a pillow or something? For Christ’s sake! If he was going to kill himself he would’ve stuck his head
in
the oven and turned on the gas. Anyway he was about to cook something … we found a pan beside him on the floor.”

“Unless somebody put it there … to make it look like an accident,” I suggested, to Mr. Washburn’s dismay.

The detective ignored me, though. “I wanted you to come here, Mr. Washburn, to tell me which members of your company were at the party tonight.”

“All the principals … Rudin, Wilbur … everyone.”

“Who?”

Mr. Washburn, unhappily, gave him all the names.

“Where was the party held?” When Mr. Washburn told him, Gleason whistled, putting two and two together in a manner marvelous to behold … there’s nothing quite like watching a slow reflex in action.

“That’s just a few blocks from here?”

“I believe so,” said Mr. Washburn.

“Anyone could have come over here and killed Sutton.”

“Now look here, you don’t know he was killed …”

“That’s right, but then I don’t know it was an accident, either.”

“Just how could anybody kill a grown man by pushing his head on a stove?” I asked.

“It could be done,” said Gleason, “if you knocked him out.”

“Is there any sign he was knocked out?” I asked.

“The examination hasn’t been made yet. In the meantime, Mr. Washburn, I want you to have the following people ready to see me tomorrow afternoon at the theater.” And he handed my employer a list of names.

“How soon will you know … what happened, whether he was knocked out or not?”

“By morning.”

“Morning … oh, God, the papers.” Mr. Washburn shut his eyes; I wondered why publicity should bother him at this point.

“Yes, the papers,” said Gleason, irritably. “Think what they’ll say about
me
? ‘Suspect killed or murdered on eve of arrest.’ Think how that’ll make
me
look!” I wondered if perhaps Gleason might not have political ambitions … Gleason for Councilman: fearless investigator, loyal American.

My reverie was broken, however, by the appearance of
a dark, disheveled woman who pushed her way past the detectives at the door and then, catching sight of the figure on the floor, screamed and drew back. There was a moment of pure confusion. The woman was taken into a back room by the medical examiner who spoke to her in a low, soothing voice which had startlingly little effect on the sobs. Magda was hysterical.

“Was
she
at the party?” asked Gleason, turning to Mr. Washburn, the sobs muffled now by a closed door.

“No, no …” Mr. Washburn looked about distractedly, as though ready to make a run for it.

“She’s been sick,” I volunteered.

“I know she has,” said Gleason. Then the sobbing stopped and presently the door to the bedroom opened and Magda, supported on one side by the doctor, joined us. Whatever shot the doctor had given her was obviously working like a charm for she was in complete control of herself now … even when she looked at the sheet-covered figure on the floor, she remained calm.

“Now,” said Gleason, in a voice which was, for him, gentle, “why did you come here tonight?”

“To see Miles.” Her voice was emotionless; she kept staring at the white sheet.

“Why did you want to see him?”

“I … I was afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Of his being arrested. You were going to arrest him, weren’t you?”

“He was guilty.”

She shook her head, slowly. “No, he didn’t kill her … but I told you that once, when you came to see me.”

“What did you intend to do tonight? Why did you come?”

“I wanted to … to get him to run away, with me, the two of us. We could have gone to Mexico … any place. I wanted …” But she didn’t finish her sentence; she looked dully at Gleason.

“You couldn’t have got away,” said Gleason quietly. “He couldn’t have got away. You see, he was watched every minute; didn’t you know that? Why, there was even a man watching this building tonight.”

Mr. Washburn gave a start. “You mean …”

Gleason nodded, looking very pleased with himself. “I mean, Mr. Washburn, that at one-ten you were seen entering this building and at one-twenty-seven you left it, in a great hurry. What were you doing here?”

Mr. Washburn shut his eyes, like an ostrich heading for a sandpile.

“What were you doing here?”

“I came to talk to Miles.” Mr. Washburn opened his eyes and his voice was even and controlled: he was still the intrepid Ivan Washburn, the peerless impresario … he could take care of himself, I decided.

“And did you talk to him?”

“Yes, I did … and if you’re implying that I killed him you are very much mistaken, Inspector Gleason.”

“I implied no such thing.”

“Don’t even think it,” said Mr. Washburn coolly, as though he were saying: if you go after me I’ll see that you end up pounding a beat in Brooklyn. “I had some business I wanted to talk over with Miles. That’s all.”

“What kind of business?”

“His contract, if you must know. I told him that it would not be renewed. That we would tour without him.”

“What was his reaction to this?”

“He was upset.”

“Why did you tell him this tonight? Why didn’t you have him come to your office tomorrow? Or you could have written him.”

“I wanted to tell him myself. He was a friend of mine, Mr. Gleason … a very good friend.”

“Yet you were prepared to fire him?”

“I was indeed.”

“Why?”

“Because I suspected that sooner or later you would arrest him and that, even if you didn’t, too many people thought he was a murderer … too many of our backers, to be blunt about it.”

“I see … and you left in the middle of a party to come tell him this?”

“We both seem agreed that I did,” said Mr. Washburn.

“Could anyone else have visited Sutton this evening?” I asked, eager to get my employer off the hook.

Gleason ignored me. “Did you notice anything unusual about the deceased?”

“He was not deceased when I arrived, if that’s what you mean, and he was very much alive when I left.”

“I meant did he act peculiar in any way, say anything which might throw light on what subsequently happened.” Excellent sentence, Gleason, I said to myself; he was beginning to face up to the fact that none of his “deceased” talk was going to get him anywhere with this gang.

“He objected to my firing him and he said that he did
not
kill his wife no matter what the police thought and that he would welcome a trial.”

“So he told us,” said Gleason. “And we were perfectly willing to give him a chance to tell all, under an indictment, of course. But then what did you say?”

“I told him that I was convinced of his innocence, but that no one else was, that I would be only too happy to take him back
after
a trial, presuming he was acquitted.”

“You got the feeling, then, that Sutton was looking forward to a trial?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“But you said …”

“As a matter of fact, he was terrified of appearing in court. As you know he took drugs and he was positive that the prosecution would throw all that at him … I
can
tell you that he was not afraid of the murder charge … I don’t know why but he wasn’t; it was the drug thing that disturbed him: the idea not only of being sent to jail for it, or whatever the law is, but, worse, of having it taken away from him even for a few days during the trial …”

“He was going to give all that up when we were married,” said Magda in a tired, faraway voice. “There’s a place in Connecticut where they cure you. He was going to go there. We were to spend our honeymoon there.” She stopped abruptly, like a phonograph when the needle’s lifted.

“Then when you left the … Sutton he was alive and angry.”

“I’m afraid so … angry, I mean.”

“Did anyone else come to see him in the last hour?” I repeated.

“
I’m
asking the questions,” snapped Gleason. “Was that fire escape watched?” I asked, just to be ornery. “The one outside the kitchen window.”

“So you noticed there was a fire escape, eh?”

“I did.”

“Were you at the party, too?”

“Yes … remember, Mr. Gleason, I’m the one without a motive.”

Gleason gave me a warning or two about the possible dangers into which my insouciance might yet lead me.

While we had been talking, the detectives had ransacked the apartment and the photographer had taken pictures of everything in sight. They were now ready to push off. Gleason, receiving a signal from his chief lieutenant, stood up, rubbing his hands together as though washing them of the guilt of others.

“I will see all of you, tomorrow. Can you get home alone?” He turned to Magda.

“Yes … yes,” she said, stirring in her chair.

“You better see her home, Macy.” The detective in question nodded and helped her to her feet.

“I hope,” said Mr. Washburn, “that this turns out to be the end of the whole ugly business.”

“Or the beginning,” said Gleason darkly.

“I presume that you had a case against him. Now that he is dead … suicide, accident, who knows how he died? … the fact remains that a man about to be arrested for a murder has died and so the case … Oh, Lord, look!” Mr. Washburn leaped back and we all turned to stare at
the figure on the floor. The sheet which covered him had caught fire from the still smoldering head and a yellow flame, like a daffodil in the wind, blossomed on the white sheet. I was not there, however, to see it put out; I had followed, as quickly as I could, Mr. Washburn’s blind dash down the stairs to the street outside.