Green Ace (25 page)

“You’re quite insane!” the woman said. “I haven’t left the machine. Why—”

“The projection machine can run itself quite unattended, and you know it. Look at her hands, Oscar! When I found that necklace a little while ago, hidden up there in the chandelier, I took the precaution of emptying my fountain pen over it. It was booby-trapped, you see.” Miss Withers suddenly pointed. “Look at her hands, I tell you!”

Everyone in the room, even Natalie Rowan herself, was staring at the hands stained bluish-black, the hands the woman whipped suddenly, childishly behind her.

“In revenge and in love woman is more barbarous than man.”

—Nietzsche

“I
T’S YOUR NECK,” THE
Inspector was saying some hours later, as the two old friends sat in the back booth of a little kosher delicatessen on the thoroughfare neither of them had ever learned to call The Avenue of the Americas. “I suppose you have a right to risk it if you want to, but it was a damfool stunt.”

“I only hope someday I’ll get the rest of the ink smears off me,” Miss Withers returned, rubbing at herself with a damp paper napkin. “Before you give me too much credit for bravery, Oscar, I must confess that I had no idea at the time that I was to be the target. I took it for granted that Iris was the chosen victim, as she probably originally was. Natalie must have switched over to me because she thought I was getting too close. And I wasn’t, really, until the last day or so.”

Oscar Piper put down his steaming pastrami sandwich and took a large bite of dill pickle. “Any victim would have done just as well, for her purposes.”

“Do you know, Oscar,” the schoolteacher said suddenly, “this is one time when we’ve
both
been right! So you don’t have to resign and raise ducks and I don’t have to take up needlework.”

“How do you figure that?”

“But isn’t it obvious, Oscar? You maintained all along that Rowan was guilty, and he was. Oh, perhaps he didn’t conspire with his wife to kill Midge Harrington before the act, but he probably helped her at the time and he certainly did his best to dispose of the body and to keep silent from then on. Natalie’s servants up in the country must have had Fridays off instead of the usual Thursday, so there was no one home to notice when she took her car and followed Andy down to town. I believe she mentioned that he criticized her cooking that night, which she would hardly have been doing if the servants were there.”

“I’ll buy that,” the Inspector agreed. “But what an odd weapon for her to choose—a necklace, and a valuable one too.”

“She must have been wearing it, of course. The woman simply used what was handiest. She probably caught them
in flagrante—
maybe she even knocked Andy cold with her slipper or something, though I believe as a rule such wounds are not on the forehead. Of course there never was any $5000 in the library safe—‘for buying up antiques,’ she said, and there wasn’t a stick of furniture in her house made before 1900!

“I was almost thrown off the track by the fact that no necklace was listed on the insurance policy, and then I realized that she must have bought it in France and smuggled it into the country without paying duty. Anyway, she left Andy to dispose of the body and take the rap, while she scooted home and started calling up the police and hospitals pretending to be looking for him.”

“Say,” put in the Inspector, “I’ve wondered what would happen if two people who commit a murder would actually stick together, trust each other—instead of splitting wide-open as they always do.”

“And it almost worked, Oscar. Andy knew that she would probably be able to save him if she were free, and that they were both doomed if the slightest suspicion fell on her. That’s why she stayed away from the trial, playing the hurt, betrayed wife. But putting up the money, you notice. Then the time began to draw near, and the appeal failed, and something had to be done …”

“Andy made it clear that something had to be done, by making that trick will. He probably told her about it when she made that one trip to visit him. And from then on he kept needling her in every way he could, changing his beneficiary and letting her know he was writing his biography to be published if he died—” The Inspector grinned. “He had her, and he knew it. They used Huff, of course, as a go-between, and probably paid him plenty.”

“They were smart, Oscar. Smart and lucky. But they made mistakes. Natalie made a mistake when she made up that story about Marika’s wonderful message from her dead first husband to cover her change of heart. Because after she thought it over she realized that it was only a matter of time before I’d be talking to Marika, and the woman would deny that she ever pretended to get such a message. Natalie didn’t think of trying to link the two murders to some imaginary killer then—she just wanted to get rid of Marika fast. You see the modus operandi, of course?”

He nodded. “She wore low oxfords and slacks, probably picked up the trenchcoat and man’s hat in a restaurant. With the phony nose and glasses, and her hair tucked inside the hat, she could pass for a man on the stairs. And best of all, for her purposes, she could whip off the nose and stuff it into her pocket, tuck the hat under her coat, and look like herself again by the time she knocked on Marika’s door for the séance appointment. Once inside it was easy—she killed Marika and carefully planted the hat under the body, as a false clue. Only thing I don’t see is how she got over those back fences.”

“She didn’t, Oscar. The woman had terrific nerve. When she heard Mrs. Fink and the others coming up the back way, she simply left the kitchen door wide-open as a blind, unbolted the hall door and went down the front stairs! Trusting that when they found the body they’d be too excited to notice whether the door was locked and bolted, or just locked. Which actually was the case.”

“I can see this will take some more coffee,” the Inspector said. “Waiter!”

“I think it’ll take more sandwiches too,” Miss Withers suggested. “Even though it hurts to swallow. You know what happened from then on, Oscar. I wore myself out trying to pin something on the men Midge Harrington had known, and getting nowhere except to scare them plenty. But the time was drawing short, and Natalie had to go ahead with her original plan of committing another murder, a repeat performance right down to the last detail, to convince you and me and everybody that Andy Rowan was the victim of a frame-up and that the real killer was at large. A homicidal maniac, of course—that’s why she dreamed up the idea of the phone calls.”

“Yeah. But all this about that record you bought—
The Clock Store
, wasn’t it?”

“That was the more popular side, so the man wrote it on the sales slip and your detective found out about it. But the reverse is something just called
The Laughing Record
—years ago it used to make them split their sides and roll around on the horsehair sofa. It was a stunt record, where one man started off in a jolly laugh and eventually others joined in—it was supposed to be so contagious that anyone hearing it had to howl!”

“Those were the days,” said the Inspector. “But why then did it strike you and Iris as something horrible and frightening—right from the depths of hell, I think you said?”

“She monkeyed with the speed of the turntable,” Miss Withers explained. “The old victrolas, like the one Natalie has in her hall, can be adjusted quite a space either way. I accomplished almost the same thing by slowing and speeding up the record with my thumb when I played it for Iris long-distance. That raises or lowers the pitch, and makes the overtones that dogs howl at, from sheer misery.”

“You always manage to get that silly pup in somehow, don’t you?”

“He’s not so silly! If Talley hadn’t been sleeping on my bed that night, and wakened me, Natalie might have finished the job right there. The missing pane of glass downstairs would have borne out her story of an intruder. And Talley later sitting there by that door—he wanted to go out, but how would he know it led outside unless he had already gone out into the garden through it? He must have squirmed through when Natalie was preparing the scene.”

The Inspector shook his head. “I don’t think she planned to kill you that night. What she wanted all along was the hackneyed old gag of getting all the possible suspects together in a dark room, people who knew Midge Harrington and thus could conceivably have committed both murders—I mean all three, of course. Because you’d been so nice and helpful in working out a theory that fitted right into her plans.”

“I know, Oscar. I fell for it at first, hook, line and sinker. And then I began to dream about necklaces, and finally I made some experiments. Cheap costume jewelry is made of soft metal, and snaps too easily. The murder of Midge Harrington had to be committed with a genuine one, and Natalie Rowan was the only person in the case who might conceivably have owned an expensive thing like that. I proved my point, to myself at least, that afternoon at Tiffany’s when I couldn’t pull theirs apart no matter how hard I tried! Natalie must have kept the necklace in her safe deposit box at the bank—she couldn’t bring herself to get rid of it, of course. She brought it home Friday and hid it in the chandelier, where it would be nice and handy—”

“Wait,” said the Inspector. “If it was the same necklace she used on Midge Harrington, then why did it snap—and probably save your life?”

“I’ve been waiting for you to ask that question,” said the schoolteacher happily. “Do you remember saying a long time ago that there was a weak link or two in the chain of evidence in the Rowan case?”

“Why—yes. But—”

“Well, when I found the necklace hidden up there in the chandelier, I twisted a couple of the gold links part way open—just as a precautionary measure! Before I poured the ink on it, of course.” She smiled. “I’m not always as gullible as I look, Oscar.”

“You are,” he said fervently, “about as gullible as a Scotch pawnbroker.” The Inspector rubbed his hands together. “Yes, I think we can make a murder indictment stick, even if Natalie doesn’t talk. But she will, she’s a woman.”

“Oscar, has the Governor really granted a stay of execution for Rowan?”

He nodded. “They may hold him until after Natalie’s trial. I wouldn’t be surprised if they built a special electric love seat for them both up in the execution chamber and knocked them off in a double ceremony.”

Miss Hildegarde Withers, gingerly feeling of her tender throat, said that would be perfectly all right with her.

Turn the page to continue reading from the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries

Ina Kell.
A pretty little redhead from the sticks, newly arrived in Manhattan.

Inspector Oscar Piper.
A short, capable, cigar-smoking police detective.

Hildegarde Withers.
An angular, inquisitive retired schoolteacher who’s both the light of Oscar’s life and the bane of his existence.

Winston H. “Junior” Gault.
The playboy vice president of Gault Foods, on trial for murder.

Tony Fagan.
An outspoken television personality who didn’t live to regret his intemperate ribbing of his show’s sponsor, Junior Gault.

Dallas Trempleau.
A socialite, as blue-blooded as she is beautiful, who’s engaged to Junior.

Art Wingfield.
An up-and-coming young television producer.

Thallie Gordon.
A bosomy singer who appears on Tony Fagan’s show. She and Art Wingfield are an item.

Ruth Fagan.
Tony’s most recent ex-wife, who was also once married to Wingfield.

John Hardesty.
An assistant district attorney and Oscar Piper’s friend.

Sam Bordin,
aka Sascha Bordin. A crafty lawyer and former pupil of Hildy’s.

Gracie
. Sam’s secretary.

Vito.
An enterprising street urchin who becomes Hildy’s unofficial assistant.

Nikki Braggioli.
A scheming young actor, half-Italian and half-English.

Ramón Julio Guzman y Villalobos.
A Mexican private eye and lawyer.

Crystal Joris.
A 300-pound tap dancer.

Talleyrand.
An independent-minded apricot poodle, the apple of Hildy’s eye.

Plus assorted cops, bureaucrats, relatives, clerks, and passersby.

“From ghoulies and ghosties

And long-leggitted beasties

And things that go Boomp in the night

Oh Lord deliver us!”

—
Old Scottish Book of Common Prayer

T
HE NOISES WERE UGLY
and a little unreal, like sound effects left over from a nightmare. Only Ina knew she hadn’t been sleeping. She had been too highly charged with the wonder of it all to close an eye, because tomorrow—if it ever dawned—would be her first day in the city, the beginning of a new life all in glorious Technicolor.

She had been lying awake hour after hour, listening to the night symphony of Manhattan and from each chord weaving dreams in which a certain little girl with fire-blonde hair played the starring role. Every foghorn on the Hudson or the East River was from a luxury liner taking her to Capri or the Bahamas; every siren was clearing the way for a squad car full of personable young policemen coming to rescue her from some vague but deliciously shuddery doom; the planes that roared overhead to and from La Guardia were bearing her to Casablanca or Carcassonne. Even the rattle of the milkman’s cart and the tinkle of his bottles lent themselves to the game, for Ina saw herself and a Gregory Peckish young man in white tie and tails sitting on the rear step of that homely vehicle, singing “Shall I Wasting?” and “Mavourneen” and the rest, and splitting a quart of homogenized Grade A as an antidote against hangovers. So had passed the night, the happiest of her life.