Nipped in the Bud (6 page)

Miss Withers gave a furtive look behind her, making sure that for the moment the long corridor was deserted, and when she found that she was really alone the impulse to have a quiet peek at the murder scene was too great to be resisted. She felt in the recesses of her capacious handbag and came up with a bit of metal, her mouth set in a grim line of satisfaction. Oscar Piper was always ribbing her about trying to open locks with a hairpin, but this flattened, slightly straightened-out button-hookish device had once been the property of a professional thief. The inspector had made the mistake of showing it to her and explaining its purpose, then leaving it unguarded on top of his desk.

Miss Withers had practiced with the gadget and read up on the subject. There was really nothing to picking the average lock. All one had to do was to line up the tumbrels, or whatever they were. The maiden schoolteacher worked busily, making soft, clicking noises like the romping of a dozen or so metal mice, yet in spite of her best efforts the lock refused to cooperate. “Drat it all,” vented Miss Withers in an angry whisper. “One might as well try saying ‘Open sesame’!”

And the door opened.

“The third day comes a frost, a killing frost
…”

—Henry VIII

T
HE DOOR OPENED, AS
Miss Withers immediately realized, not from her success with the picklock nor as a result of any supernormal forces invoked by Ali Baba’s ancient gibberish, but simply because the knob had been turned from the inside. It was a comely young woman of about thirty wearing pajamas obviously designed to be slept in rather than admired. Her hair had been arranged for the night in two flaxen braids the color of oleomargarine, she wore no makeup whatever, but still there was something about her.

Frankness, perhaps. “You didn’t need to go to all that bother,” she was saying. “You could have just knocked.”

The best defense is a good offense, or so the schoolteacher had always heard. She pointed an accusing finger and said, “Then
you
must be Ruth Fagan!”

“Of course.” The voice was a little nervous, but not very. Miss Withers elbowed her way forward into the foyer, a small bare room whose floor was covered with a fine Kermanshah rug. A moment later she was seated on a large and almost too comfortable divan in a heavily overfurnished room; a man’s room filled with knickknacks, oddments, strange weapons, curios, pictures, objets d’art—a jumble of types and periods and schools. Tony Fagan, the schoolteacher thought, must have been the sort of man who could never bear to throw anything away.

“My name is Withers,” she said. “I didn’t expect to find
you
living here!”

“It isn’t so strange, really,” Ruth Fagan was saying. “A gal has to live somewhere. This was my late husband’s apartment and after his death it came to me so I stayed on, the housing shortage being what it is.”

There was really no arguing that. “But you were divorced, were you not?”

“Not really. Only the interlocutory.” Ruth’s gesture indicated that interlocutories were accidents that could happen in the best-regulated marriages.

“An interlocutory—in Reno? Come, come.”

“Oh, I didn’t go through with the Nevada thing. I changed my mind. I’d been to Reno once before and it’s grim. But later I got my decree back East, because Tony insisted. He even got some girl to be photographed with him in her nightgown in a hotel room—I don’t mean that, I mean
she
was in her nightgown. I never wanted the divorce, but Tony was very difficult sometimes. These artists—”

“Difficult how, Mrs. Fagan?”

“Well,” said Ruth bluntly, “there were other women. That wasn’t so bad, but finally it settled down to just one other woman.”

“Who?”

“I never knew, and never wanted to.”

“Was it the girl who played corespondent in the nightgown?”

Ruth shrugged. “I really have no idea. She gave her name as Jane Doe, they say.”

“I see. Naturally you felt very bitter about this?”

Ruth looked at her cuticle. “I was hurt. But I knew he’d come back to me when things went wrong. Just as he eventually did. But then I failed him when he needed me most. If only I’d been more tolerant and understanding that night! But I had expected to be here alone with him, and I couldn’t stand watching those girls putting their arms around him and calling him
Darling.
And dancing with him when I was playing
our song
on the combination! So I took a drop too much, and topped it off with the allonal tablets, so I was dead to the world when he needed me most.”

“I heard about that,” admitted Miss Withers. “I understand that you heard nothing of the fight that preceded the actual murder?”

The woman hesitated. “Not exactly. But I seem to remember bad dreams, very frightening dreams. I didn’t quite wake up—of course there were two closed doors and the entire length of the apartment between. But I’ll never forgive myself for not waking. If I’d got up and come in …”

“You might easily have been murdered, too,” the schoolteacher comforted her. “But I still fail to understand one thing. Even though you were divorced, was Mr. Fagan’s will still in your favor?”

“There was no will. Tony was too much in love with life to ever believe he would die. But, you see, we had what they call a decree
nisi
—a decree
unless.
Unless there was a reconciliation during the twelve months before the decree became final. Our spending the night in the same apartment constituted just that little thing. You see, his bed hadn’t been slept in!” There was a definite note of triumph in Ruth Fagan’s tone, even as she reached for a lacy handkerchief and dabbed at her prominent, pale-blue eyes. It had all, she seemed to feel, worked out for the best.

“Mrs. Fagan,” said the schoolteacher soberly, “are you satisfied—do you agree with the police that Gault is guilty?”

“
What?
” Ruth’s voice was flat and gritty. “But of course. Who else? I was watching television that night, and I saw Tony’s show. He got carried away—he always hated sponsors anyway. He did needle Mr. Gault, but I only hope that the jury doesn’t take that as sufficient provocation and let that awful man get away with life imprisonment. He deserves to die.”

“It would certainly seem so,” admitted Miss Withers. “I’m sorry to have to bring up painful memories, but in my work—” She sighed. “I have no official standing, of course, but I understand that there seems to be some difficulty in bringing Junior Gault to trial.”

“He’s trying to wriggle out of it, with the help of his money,” said Ruth slowly. “But he must pay the penalty! I have some money, too—most of my husband’s programs were transcribed, and the kinescopes are still being played around the country on a royalty basis. And if it takes my last red cent….”

“Naturally,” agreed the schoolteacher.

Ruth was looking at her strangely. “You’re not working on this case for the Gault family, are you?”

“Good heavens, no!”

“Because it would be worth a good deal to me to see Junior Gault found guilty. Say, five thousand dollars, and expenses …?”

“My amateur standing!” murmured the schoolteacher. “But I’ll keep it in mind.” She moved toward the door, walking carefully so as not to sweep her skirt against any of the bric-a-brac. “By the way,” she said, “I understand that the police never have found the weapon. Did you notice anything missing?”

“No,” said Ruth. “But I wouldn’t have known. Fans were sending him stuff all the time, all sorts of stuff. I have no way of knowing what loot came in after our separation.”

“Of course not.” Miss Withers hefted a weighty alabaster vase, and set it down again. “Of course, the weapon may still be here—the room is full of blunt instruments, and Junior Gault had time to wipe off any blood or fingerprints….”

“He was seen leaving here that morning,” the woman told her. “You know that?”

“Oh?” The schoolteacher tried to look surprised. So much for the district attorney’s office and their carefully guarded secrets. “By the way, Mrs. Fagan, you said a moment ago that you didn’t ever know the name of the woman with whom your husband was having an affair; I mean the important one. He must have broken up with Thallie Gordon sometime before, then?”

“
Thallie?
” Ruth laughed, not pleasantly. “Whatever gave you that crazy idea? Tony never messed around with the girls on the show; a bird doesn’t foul its own nest. It was somebody else, one of his worshiping little fans, I suppose. He used to get thousands of mash notes at the studio, mostly from small towns.”

“I see,” murmured the schoolteacher, somewhat elated. She paused in the doorway. “By the way, the next apartment belongs to a dancer, doesn’t it? Odd that being neighbors and all, your husband never put her on one of his programs.”

“Crystal Joris? Oh, but he did. A year and a half ago. The Joris girl was good as a novelty act, but, of course, tap dancers are tap dancers.”

“Which nobody can deny,” agreed Miss Withers, suddenly anxious to leave. Ruth Fagan said if there was anything she could do to help, money or anything … “There is,” said the schoolteacher crisply.

“What?”

“You can call Mr. Wingfield back and thank him for preparing you for my surprise visit. Don’t bother to deny it, Mrs. Fagan—you knew too much about me, and didn’t even think to ask for my
bona fides.
But it has all been, in a strange sort of way, most illuminating.” She went out, smiling a smile of modest triumph.

There was more to this case, she decided, than met the eye. And it was nearly midnight when she sat facing her old friend and antagonist, the inspector, across a booth in a little delicatessen just off Fifty-seventh and the Avenue of the Americas, over doughnuts and coffee.

Oscar Piper was bright and chipper, and seemed very pleased with himself. “You know, Hildegarde, you’re looking better already. A new light in your eyes. But why the Mona Lisa smile?” He cocked his head. “Found Ina Kell already?”

“No, Oscar. That will have to be up to you. I imagine that the usual hue and cry, with her picture on thousands of placards, should produce results.”

“You out of your mind?” he cried. “Ina is a surprise witness …”

“The surprise is on the other foot. I haven’t had time to fill in all the blanks, naturally. But I want to give you a new slant on this crime.”

“New slant, my eye!” he yelped indignantly. “Didn’t you see the film of that broadcast? Aren’t you satisfied that that’s motive enough?”

“Enough and to spare. The trouble is, Oscar, that too many people knew, hours before the murder, that there was a perfect case against just one person. If Fagan died by violence, Junior Gault alone would be suspected. It was therefore a perfect setup for any other enemy Fagan may have had.”

“Oh,
no!
” winced Piper. “Why must you do everything the hard way?”

“The rocky road to truth? Oscar, it never seemed to me quite sensible for a man to go to all the trouble of beating up an enemy before killing him. That would be piling Ossa on Pelion. And there is no proof that Junior Gault …”

“No proof? But I tell you the Kell girl saw Junior leaving!”

Miss Withers nibbled daintily at a doughnut. “Listen. Tony Fagan was a wolf; he could hardly have avoided it in his profession. His wife leaned to the opinion that he never fooled around with members of his cast; I believe she said something about a bird never fouling its own nest. Which proves that she hadn’t ever taken a good look at a bird’s nest close up. Anyway, I am reasonably sure that Fagan trespassed at least once—I refer to the bosomy Miss Thallie Gordon, who otherwise could hardly have obtained or kept her job on the show.”

The inspector shrugged. “So maybe Thallie did have an audition by courtesy of Beautyrest. She had no motive to bump off her—her meal ticket.”

“Perhaps not. Then there’s the girl who played corespondent in the Fagan divorce, being caught with him in a hotel room with nothing on. Suppose she really wasn’t forewarned about the deal, and felt strongly about being compromised?”

“Fiddle. Two out of three girls who hang around the TV studio would be tickled pink to be photographed anywhere with Fagan, in a nightgown or out of one.”

“I’d still like to know who was with him that night, if you can find out. And I also suggest to you, Oscar, that Fagan had a fling with Crystal Joris, the tap-dancing neighbor who appeared on his program a year or more ago.”

“We know all that. She did a one-shot on his show. But as for the rest …”

“Please listen. Isn’t it possible that through Crystal he somehow met her little cousin, either on a visit here or perhaps when he accompanied the Joris girl back to the old home town? A man like Fagan, wearied by the stereotyped glamor girls of show business, might be extremely attracted to a naive little thing like Ina—who must have had unusual charms, or you and Mr. Hardesty wouldn’t speak of her as you do. But of course he was the type to grow tired quickly, a man used to orchids would soon be bored with a simple violet.”

“Go on,” ordered the inspector with grim patience. “Say your say.”

“I suggest to you that the reason Ina wanted to come to New York was to see Tony Fagan again, to be at least in the next apartment to the man she worshiped. Or perhaps she had revenge on her mind when she came. ‘Hell hath no fury …’”

“Your blushing little violet is poison ivy now?”

Miss Withers sniffed again, prodigiously. “Perhaps after the party was over Ina came tapping at his door, begging just for a kind word, and got laughed at—Fagan not even pretending that he wasn’t tired of her, through with her….”

“You ought to write soap operas.”

“So Ina went back to her borrowed apartment, furious. Then she heard the fight, came out into the hall in time to catch a glimpse of Junior Gault hurrying away after having given his tormentor the beating he so richly deserved, and was curious enough to investigate the open door and find Fagan lying there unconscious. He was in her power …”

“Better and better,” conceded the inspector. “Dream on.”

“So, having seen the television program earlier that evening and realizing that this was the perfect opportunity to revenge herself on the man who had wronged her, Ina picked up a nearby vase and finished the job. Then she washed off the weapon, covered the body, sneaked back into the other apartment and made her getaway.” Miss Withers paused, leaning back in triumph. “That would explain why she didn’t call the police. She didn’t want to appear at all, even as a witness. She was afraid that on the witness stand, with Sam Bordin cross-examining her, she might trap herself. Well, Oscar?”