Give Up the Body (11 page)

I brought her the pint. She drank from the bottle. Her hands were shaking so that I had to unscrew the cap for her. The neck of the bottle made a tinkling sound against her teeth as she put it to her lips.

“Go easy,” I said. “For Tim anyway.”

Glory lowered the bottle, made a face, and shuddered. “I don’t like the taste of the stuff,” she said. “And I promised him I’d taper off.” She took a second drink.

I got the bottle away from her, screwed the cap back on and went back to the dresser. The bottle was nearly half empty. If she wanted any more she would have to get up and get it herself.

“You don’t really think Little Swede killed him, do you?” I asked.

Glory lay back, waiting for the liquor to work on her. When I spoke she opened her eyes. “He needed killing,” she said. The hatred in her voice made me shudder. She closed her eyes again, but she was rigid. Thinking about it, I supposed. When she began to loosen up and relax I repeated my question.

She raised herself in bed now, cocky and sure with the effects of her two drinks. It amazed me to see what a change a couple of shots of whiskey could make in her.

“I know who killed him,” she said. She hummed a few bars of Gilbert and Sullivan. “Titwillow. Titwillow.”

“Why?” I demanded.

She looked at me, coy and amused at the same time. “Won’t tell,” she said. She lay back again and let her eyelids droop.

I went out then, wondering why I liked her. But I did.

I found Jocko and Tiffin in the study. On my way in I glanced toward the living room. The family was there, the Willows huddled on the big davenport looking unhappy over the whole situation. Frew stood at the bar though he didn’t seem to be drinking. Hilton stood by himself, across the room. He was staring at the floor, his features sharp with concentration. No one appeared to have seen me.

Tiffin and Jocko were studying notes. Tiffin looked sourly at me. I sat in a leather chair, lit a cigaret, and waited for him to begin. Through the closed French windows I could see Jeff Cook and a few other reporters looking enviously in. I waved to Jeff. He clasped his hands over his head and shook them like a prizefighter. Tiffin scowled.

“Now,” he said, “we’ll get your story, Adeline.”

“Simple,” I said. “I was with Mr. Hilton the first time and Matt Mulcahey the second time.”

“Not that,” he said irritably. He jabbed his finger at me, lawyer fashion. An expectant deputy was seated at a desk, taking notes. He followed Tiffin’s pointing finger with his eyes. Then he bent to his notebook as Tiffin swung his head and scowled.

“What did you come here for in the first place?”

Tiffin’s courtroom manner got under my skin. He was acting as if I were the defendant in this murder case. “To get an interview with Mr. Delhart,” I said. I gave him glare for glare and stabbed my finger at him. “And I had an appointment.”

Tiffin ignored my by-play. “Delhart didn’t give interviews!”

“He was going to this time.”

Tiffin stood up, pacing the floor and trying to look like an attorney before a jury. He swung around and pointed at me again. “You blackmailed him into it, Adeline! With what?”

I sat very quietly. So Tiffin knew about the scene by the river yesterday afternoon. But I wasn’t going to let this buck-toothed oaf trap me into anything. “My fatal charm,” I answered coyly.

Jocko chuckled and Tiffin turned even more sallow than normally. “Just what did you see yesterday afternoon—you know what I mean?”

“Outraged virtue,” I said. I was trying hard and managing to match a gentle voice against his oratory. “Belonging to Mr. Frew.”

“Now, Addy,” Jocko said, “tell us.”

“Then stop this fool from trying to make me out a sinful Sadie,” I said.

Tiffin coughed. “Tell us what happened,” he said more softly.

It would be hardly to my advantage to hold back information on that particular scene. Tiffin and Jocko were evidently well posted on it. So I told them as best I could, making a point of the quickness with which it happened to explain why I could not go into extravagant detail. I left out Titus Willow’s slithery attempts at flirtation. The story seemed to satisfy Jocko but not Tiffin.

He struck another pose, foot outthrust, hands pulling at his coat lapels. “And then you blackmailed Delhart into giving you an interview! You threatened to expose the entire scene in your paper!”

I lit a second cigaret from the stub of my first one. “Not directly,” I said.

“But you did threaten!” he shouted. It was the place for his jabbing finger. He didn’t disappoint me.

I laughed at him, openly. “The old pressure, Godfrey,” I said. “Just the same thing you’re trying to use now. Want to try and prove a little blackmail?”

“Bah! Ethics! All right, so you had an interview promised you. And between the time you left Delhart and returned here last night—what happened?”

“I went back to work.”

“And Glory Martin came to your office.”

Evidently he was well primed on everything. “My, Sherlock,” I said, “you do get around. Why? To borrow a drink from Jud.”

“To borrow a drink? And maybe to tell you a few things. To cause trouble because she was jealous!”

“Don’t shout at me, Godfrey,” I said. “I’m within three feet of you and the acoustics are excellent.” I paused to draw on my cigaret. “Jealous of whom? Her fatherly guardian?”

He lowered his voice to a small bellow. “Of Daisy Willow.”

It was up to me just how much to reveal. I could only guess at the facts he had at his disposal. But I was irritated enough to take a chance and try to out-maneuver him. I knew that he would give me no help when it came time for me to write a story. Pettishly I thought, why should I cooperate with him then? If it had been Jocko I would have told him everything. I wondered what had possessed him to let Tiffin handle this questioning. Tiffin could create antagonism like a tax collector.

I said, “Glory Martin was a little high. I didn’t pay much attention to her. If she said anything important I can’t think of it now.”

“It may not be important to you,” Tiffin said, “but I want to hear everything she said.”

“At the time,” I told him, “I wasn’t aware of the value of her conversation. I didn’t make a transcript of it. But …” I paused and watched him simmer, “… but she did mention that Delhart was hoping to marry Miss Willow.”

“That checks Mrs. Willow’s statement,” Jocko said, glancing at his notes. “What else?”

“And who told Mrs. Willow?” I asked him.

Tiffin answered. “Glory Martin—in a drunken rage. The poor, grief-stricken child. Bah!”

I was learning things. How much else had she told Mrs. Willow and how much of that had the woman passed on to the police. I wished I could have seen Jocko’s notes for ten seconds. I said, “That’s all that I can remember.”

Tiffin took my lead. “All? Didn’t Glory Martin say that Daisy Willow had turned down Delhart for young Frew?”

Had dear Edna Willow put that into the record, I wondered. I said truthfully, “No. I think she said that Frew was in love with Daisy.” I let it go at that. I was not going to build a jealousy case against Frew for Tiffin’s benefit. I despised the sulky brat but it wasn’t my place to put a noose around his neck.

“And,” Tiffin bellowed at me, “didn’t Glory Martin intimate that she disliked the state of affairs?”

“It seems to me,” I said calmly, “that you’re trying to make a case against Glory. She isn’t strong enough, Delhart was slashed violently.”

“She or an accomplice,” Tiffin shot at me.

That was what I wanted to know. “And who would that be?”

But Tiffin had said enough. From the look Jocko gave him he had evidently said too much. Tiffin took a trip around the room before facing me again. Then, in a gentler mood, he had me go over my two trips of last night. And when I had satisfied him on that score he made me retrace actions in getting Glory and Daisy to bed. I left out the hat incident. Not because I considered it of prime importance right then but because I wanted to find out if he knew about it.

There was no mention of it made and I assumed that Daisy had kept quiet about it. Tiffin, though, wasn’t fully satisfied. “What caused Miss Willow to faint?”

“I presume,” I said, “that she was completely worn out by shock. She simply crumpled, that’s all.”

“And nothing you said made her do that?”

“I? Am I an ogre going around frightening children, Godfrey?”

He changed the subject then, to this morning. “And just what did you tell that Cook fellow you haven’t told me?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Probably not as much since he didn’t try to bully me into making statements.”

He wasn’t going to be taken in too much by my cracks. He said, “And what did Glory Martin tell you while she was being so grief-stricken?”

I thought I would give Tiffin a little something to chew on. This interrogation was slowly taking on the appearance of a dog fight and I was getting weary of it. “Oh,” I said casually, “she mumbled something about seeing Mr. Willow. She thinks he killed Mr. Delhart. Of course she was deranged by shock and it may not have been he at all.”

“What?” Tiffin fairly exploded. “Willow’s statement claims he was nowhere near the dam. Get him in here. Sheriff …”

“Take it easy,” Jocko said in a tired voice. “The Martin girl was hardly in condition to be a reliable witness. There’s plenty of time.”

But Tiffin didn’t seem to think so. He was prancing now. “What else did Miss Martin tell you, Adeline?”

“Nothing,” I said sweetly.

“Not even what she was doing down by the dam at that hour of the night?”

“No,” I said, “but I can guess. She was probably going to remind Delhart of his appointment with me. She is a very solicitous girl.”

“Girl! Why that—someone said she …”

“Tiff!” Jocko warned. I could have shot him. Tiffin clamped his lips tight and glowered at me, as if it were my fault.

“Maybe this someone is interested in her,” I said. “A man, probably. She is beautiful and a repulsed suitor is often vindictive, you know.”

Jocko turned scarlet trying to hide his laughter and Tiffin walked away from me. It was a very dirty feminine trick on my part but I hoped it would sink in better that way. Watching Tiffin pace the floor, trying to control himself, I wondered just who had given him a snapshot of Glory’s character. I could think of a lot of people but as far as the men went only two occurred to me as being possibly interested in her: Willow and Hilton. And of the two I favored the precise Mr. Hilton. Willow, if he had made passes and been turned down, would be too old a hand to give out any hints to that effect. Also in Hilton’s favor was the fact that Glory and Hilton were thrown together a lot. They say propinquity is the basis of most love, so there was a point.

Tiffin finally had a grip on himself. He came back toward me, smiling ingratiatingly. The sight nearly nauseated me. “Adeline,” he wheedled, “let’s cooperate. After all …”

“After all, Godfrey,” I interrupted, “I’ve told you everything backward and forward. Now you hint I’m holding back. You want my cooperation in building a jealousy motive against Glory Martin—and an accomplice. I won’t do it. I don’t believe it’s true.”

I lit a third cigaret, having forgotten to smoke most of the second one. “Furthermore,” I said, “more than one person around here is jealous. I thought of the most incongruous possibility I could find at the moment. “Maybe Mrs. Willow got mad at Delhart. He might have turned Daisy down—the wolf.”

Tiffin took me seriously. “Ah,” he said triumphantly, “but Glory is too weak to slash a man nearly in two. Mrs. Willow is, I suppose, an Amazon.”

He looked smug. Then he said, “You’re wrong, Adeline. Next time you’ll learn to cooperate with the police.”

Wrong? His expression of triumph gave me a sinking feeling deep in my stomach. Something was haywire. My apparent victory in this battle seemed to be slipping. Tiffin was far too pleased.

I said weakly, “Maybe you’ll learn to cooperate with the newspapers.” But I had no steam behind my words.

“Cooperate? Oh yes,” he said in a voice I could have killed him for. “I’m issuing a statement right now. Glory Martin will be arrested for complicity and I have arrested Tim Larson—for murder.”

I
STOOD UP
, shaking. “Tell them,” I insisted, pointing to the window. “Tell them now or they’ll accuse you of favoring me.”

Tiffin smiled smugly and walked to the window where the reporters were. I ran out of the room to the kitchen. Mrs. Larson was still there, looking bewildered and apparently finishing a good cry. I patted her, said, “It will be all right, Ma.” and went to the telephone.

When I had The Press, I said, “This is O’Hara at Delhart’s. Get me rewrite.” They did and I went on: “Assistant County Prosecuting Attorney Godfrey Tiffin of Teneskium County today let zeal overcome common sense when he arrested an obviously innocent man for the murder of Carson Delhart, Portland millionaire.”

“Hey!” someone spluttered into the phone.

“Take it,” I said, “and sign it Jeff Cook. He wants that lead used. He’s out getting more dope.” That seemed to do the trick and after spouting some more I hung up. I turned to Mrs. Larson.

“Tim will be okay,” I assured her again.

She was crying again. “That big booby,” she sobbed. “He confessed.”

I had to sit down. My knees simply went to pieces. I dropped into a convenient kitchen chair and stared hopelessly at her, trying to digest what she has said. She nodded vehemently at my incredulous expression. “He did.”

I had really put myself out on a limb—and how Jeff Cook would love me for it. If only she had told me before I phoned in the story! But I took a deep breath and tried again. He’s just protecting Glory,” I said. “Even Tiffin should know that.”

Before Mrs. Larson could answer, Jocko threw open the kitchen door. He had the glint of a legal eavesdropper in his eye. “I let you say it, Addy,” he told me in that deceptively mild voice of his. He wasn’t happy now. “To teach you a lesson. He wasn’t protecting her. They had a fight and he’s sore.” He took my arm and pulled me into the passage. His grip was as gentle as his voice, and just as deceptive. “Addy, you go slow.”