Postmark Murder (21 page)

“I think it’s possible. Yes.”

“Why would she murder Catherine Miller?”

There was a long pause. No reason, Laura thought: no reason. If Catherine Miller’s murderer had killed her by mistake, believing her to be Maria Brown, then Maria Brown was automatically cleared. Wasn’t she?

Matt said at last, slowly, “Remember the telephone call Maria Brown made to Miss March? If she intended to involve Miss March in murder, then she is a wily and a subtle woman. Suppose she intended to supply the police with a victim, a scapegoat. Suppose it occurred to her that the best way to remove suspicion from herself would be to supply another murderer. Here was a woman dressed as Maria Brown dressed, a woman here in Miss March’s apartment house, so Miss March would be presumed to have opportunity to murder. Suppose Maria Brown reasoned that you would think exactly as you are thinking.”

“You’re snatching at straws, Cosden. You’ve forgotten one thing. How could Maria Brown have known anything about the maid? How could Maria Brown have known that Catherine Miller would be wearing a brown coat and a beret? How could she have known that she would leave the apartment house at exactly that time, go out to the bus stop? Return? Your theory would make it necessary indeed that Maria Brown kept a twenty-four-hour watch on this apartment house, and she has not done that. We’d have picked her up,” Lieutenant Peabody said simply. “She’d be afraid to hang around that way. No, it’s a fetching theory you have evolved, and you haven’t had very much time to evolve it either, but it’s not one that you or I can seriously entertain.” The door buzzer sounded again. Peabody said, “Here is Mrs. Stanley. Or Stedman.”

Matt went to the door. It was both Doris and Charlie Stedman. Charlie said, “You are here already! What is going on? There are police all around. Someone said something about murder!”

Doris, her face white, clung to Matt’s arm and said nothing.

“A woman was murdered,” Lieutenant Peabody began.

There was a long silence after he finished. Then Charlie said, “But—but there’s no proof that this woman’s murder has any connection at all with the Stanislowski murder!”

“None at all,” Peabody said wearily.

Doris lighted a cigarette with hands that shook. She was beautifully dressed; her hair looked as if she had stepped that moment from the hairdresser’s, but her face below its make-up was rather drawn and tight. She shot swift glances at Peabody, at Matt, at Charlie, at Laura, and then studied the bracelet on her wrist, turning it over and over again. Doris is frightened, Laura thought, and then thought, but so am I. So are we all.

“Nevertheless,” Peabody said suddenly, “I don’t like coincidence. I have to ask all of you for an account of what you did last night. Mrs. Stanley, were you at any time last night near this apartment house?”

Doris lifted her eyes, shot him one glance, said, “No,” and lowered her eyes again.

“Where were you?”

“I was at home. I was at home all evening.” She turned her bracelet, examined one of the jewels on it, and added, “Charlie Stedman was with me. He had dinner with me. He didn’t leave until—oh, it must have been midnight. Wasn’t it, Charlie?”

It seemed to Laura that there was a flicker of surprise in Charlie’s face. He gave Doris an astute, swift look. Then he said dryly, “Well, no, Doris. I left earlier than that.”

Doris’ lips tightened. “I looked at the clock. It was just on midnight.”

Charlie shook his head, half smiling. “You’ve got nothing to be afraid of, Doris. Nobody thinks you came over here and laid in wait for the very unlikely appearance of Maria Brown.”’

“That’s as may be,” Peabody said. “What time exactly did you leave Mrs. Stanley?”

“I think it was about eleven,” Charlie said.

Doris turned her bracelet, her lips sulky. “I still think it was midnight, Charlie.”

“Then you are mistaken,” Charlie said. “When I got down to the entrance and looked around for a taxi, I looked at my watch. I was wondering about how long it would take to get a taxi and whether I should ask the doorman to phone for one. It was eleven and I thought I’d take a chance, and sure enough, I picked one up.”

“Soon?” Lieutenant Peabody said.

Charlie gave him a rather disapproving look. “In a moment or two. On the street. I imagine the doorman saw me. You can ask him.”

“Oh, I will,” Lieutenant Peabody said agreeably. “So you did not come anywhere near this apartment house, Stedman?”

“I passed it in the taxi, of course. Mrs. Stanley’s apartment is farther north, as you know. I don’t remember noting this place in particular or even looking out from the taxi. I was tired and it was very foggy. I went straight on to my club. You can ask them there when I arrived.”

“I’ll do that, too,” Lieutenant Peabody said. “The fact is, none of you four people has what I would call a real alibi for the time when this woman was killed.” He glanced at his watch, “I’ll have to get your statements—”

“Statements!” Doris cried sharply. “Do you mean we—any of us—are suspected of murdering this woman?”

“Somebody murdered her,” Lieutenant Peabody said. “I can’t overlook the possibility of a connection between this murder and Stanislowski’s murder.”

Charlie said, “Look here, Lieutenant, I see your point of view. But have you explored this Catherine Miller’s life? Oh, I realize you haven’t had time. But—”

“Oh, we’ll cover all that,” Lieutenant Peabody said easily and walked out of the room, leaving a kind of wave of surprise and apprehension behind him.

“What’s he going to do?” Doris said sharply.

Charlie adjusted his dark, knitted tie. Matt lighted a cigarette. Lieutenant Peabody returned with Sergeant O’Brien trudging along behind him. And unexpectedly, to Laura, the Sergeant proved to be an excellent and speedy shorthand writer. He hauled a fat, ringed pad from some pocket and settled down in a chair which creaked under his weight.

It was an orderly, queerly formal procedure; it took a long time, in spite of the Sergeant’s adroit and nonchalant fingers and Peabody’s equally adroit and ready questions. Doris, with a glance at Charlie, stuck to her story of the time when he left her apartment the previous night. When it came his turn, Charlie with a quick smile at Doris which was half indulgent, half apologetic, stuck to his story. It was perfectly clear that Doris had snatched at the notion of providing herself, and Charlie, with an alibi; it was clear that Charlie, as well as everyone else, saw through her swift little maneuver and rejected it. A small flush came up into Doris’ lovely face.

But then Charlie would have known that it was better to stick to the letter of the truth, even if he had had no regard for the truth as such. When Peabody had finished with Doris and then Charlie and then Matt, he told them they could go.

Doris sprang up; she went hurriedly to get her coat; she couldn’t get away fast enough. Charlie accompanied her and Laura heard him speak to Doris. “I’m sorry. But really, Doris—”

Doris twitched herself and her coat, which he was holding, away from him. Matt said to Peabody, “I’d rather stay.”

Peabody hesitated and then shrugged. “All right. If Miss March wants you to stay—as her lawyer.”

Matt’s eyebrows went up; he gave Laura a quick look. She said to the Lieutenant, “I do want him to stay.”

The door closed after Charlie and Doris. And Laura made her own statement, slowly, watching Sergeant O’Brien’s big red fingers make an irrevocable record in black and white.

It seemed to her that that took a long time, too; there were odd details. What time exactly was it that Cosden had arrived the night before? Was it his idea or hers that he should stay to dinner? How long exactly had it taken them to trim the tree? The tree stood beside the window; were the curtains drawn while they trimmed the tree? Were they drawn at any time? Had she looked down at the street? Was she sure she hadn’t? How could she be sure? What time had Cosden left? Well, what time did she think it was? Wasn’t there some way to be more exact? Hadn’t she looked at the clock? Hadn’t she turned on the radio? Well, then, had anybody telephoned to her after he had gone? At any time after he had gone, during the night? Had anybody visited the apartment? Had the doorbell rung at any time?

The Lieutenant went on and on, minutely, repeating the same question in different ways; Matt smoked and watched him, and once or twice started to speak and stopped himself.

“All right.” Peabody said at last. “You can sign that after it’s typed up.”

Sergeant O’Brien folded up his notebook and put it away. They were leaving; Matt went to the door with them. “See here, Peabody,” he said abruptly, “if you’re going to prefer charges I want to know it—”

“I’m sure you do,” Peabody said.

“What’s the answer?”

“I don’t know,” Peabody said, flatly and finally. “I really don’t know.” Sergeant O’Brien’s great bulk loomed up suddenly in the doorway; he gave Laura an odd look, severe, disapproving, yet with a kind of friendliness, too.

“That’s a nice little girl, miss,” he said. He vanished as if he’d been pulled on an invisible string by Peabody; the door closed with a hard bang. Matt came back.

“He’s not got any real evidence against you, Laura,” he said directly. “He’s not at all certain that this Miller woman’s murder has anything to do with any of us.”

“What do you think?”

“Well, I—” He hesitated, and then sighed. “Well, I think Peabody’s hunch is right. If you can call it a hunch—a better definition is trained observation and experience. Yes, I’m afraid he’s right. In any event, we’ll have to act on the basis that he’s right.”

She said slowly, “Matt, I meant it about a lawyer. You—”

“Nonsense!” He gave her a flashing, indescribably comforting grin. “You don’t need a lawyer! And—” The smile vanished. He said soberly, “And if I can do what I’m trying to do, you’re not going to need a lawyer.”

Hopelessness swept her like a wave. “What
can
you do?”

“I don’t know really. But for one thing I’d like to find Maria Brown.” He looked at his watch. “I’ll come in later this afternoon, if that’s all right. Early enough to go with you when you take Jonny out. Meantime if you want some legal advice”—again he took the edge from it by speaking lightly, smiling a little, his eyes very blue—“my advice is to do exactly what you’ve been doing. Just tell them the truth and stick to it.”

Just tell them the truth, Laura thought, as she cooked a late lunch for Jonny and herself, and listened to Jonny’s chatter, from which once the words Davy Crockett emerged with startling clearness. Observing the depleted supply of food in the refrigerator, Laura set herself to the task of making a list of groceries and ordering; it was a full and comprehensive list; she felt as if she were ordering for supplies for a desert island, to last a long time. That was because there would be, thus, only one delivery; only one boy from the store to identify, carefully, before she opened the door and let him deposit the packages. A desert island, she thought; it was more like a beleaguered post, set in the middle of enemy country. And the enemy, invisible, unidentifiable, had advanced from Koska Street to Lake Shore Drive, to strike with blundering but ruthless aim.

J
ONNY WENT TO TAKE
her nap, cheerfully, gaily, chatting with Laura, talking to Suki, going in to take a long admiring look at the Christmas tree before she trotted into her own bedroom and curled herself up under an eiderdown.

But who had murdered Conrad Stanislowski and then—if Peabody was right, because Catherine Miller wore a brown coat, because she had entered the apartment house where Laura lived —murdered Catherine Miller? Thinking she was Maria Brown, because the murderer knew that Maria Brown was dangerous?

Peabody had said that, if that were true, then Stanislowski’s murder had no political motive. And he believed that Catherine Miller’s death automatically cleared Maria Brown of suspicion of murder. Matt had argued about that, but it was a thin argument, something Matt himself had not, she was sure, accepted.

So if Maria Brown had not murdered Conrad—and had not murdered Catherine Miller, if Conrad’s murder was a result of neither a political intrigue nor a blood feud, arising from some long-ago quarrel perhaps, in far off Poland, then what was the motive for Conrad’s murder? Peabody frankly assumed it to be money, the Stanislowski fund. Suppose he was right; that led again to only one conclusion. There were three people, four if Matt were included, who were directly interested in the money, and in Jonny, and thus in Conrad Stanislowski’s life or death.

And that in its turn offered an inescapable conclusion. She hadn’t murdered Conrad. She loved Matt; she could not have questioned, seriously, in her own mind, whether or not he was a murderer; that was instinctive but it was strong, too. So that left Charlie and Doris, the only other people who had any sort of connection with the Stanley will and the money Conrad would have claimed if he had not been—quickly—murdered.

Doris? Who liked money and was determined to fight for it; who had an alibi for the time of Conrad’s murder.

Charlie?

Instinct again rejected it. But that was because there existed an almost impassable barrier to the postulatum that anyone who was a familiar acquaintance, a known friend, could possibly be a murderer. It seemed strange that murder did not leave a mark upon a murderer.

If there were in fact only two suspects, Doris and Charlie, and if she had had to choose between them the more likely suspect, then it was Charlie. So what did she know of Charlie?

She knew everything there was to know about him, she thought wearily. She knew everything anyone knew about Charlie; his life was quite literally an open book.

But that wasn’t right either; nobody’s life was really an open book; there were always things that even close associates, intimate and old friends might not know. All right; what was there to know about Charles Stedman?

The yellow bird he had brought Jonny had stopped nodding and was leaning now at a jaunty but insecure angle on the tree. She went to the tree and adjusted it and absently straightened one or two bright, tinsel ornaments.