Rex Stout (24 page)

A voice came up, “All right, ma’am, patrol.”

Her nerves were ragged. She blurted, “Well, patrol on the grass,” and withdrew herself from the night.

She went to the bathroom, having her own, got a drink of water, and came back and sat on the edge of the bed. They would almost certainly take Zimmerman. They might take more than him. She sat with her shoulders drooping, her eyes half closed with weariness, her brow wrinkled in miserable uncertainty. She had tried to pull the thing together in her mind, and it was no good; or if in fact it was, what in the name of heaven was she to do next? Should she drop the whole darned thing, empty it out of her mind, confess herself licked?

No. She sat for a while merely hanging on to that no.

Her teeth came together and she stood up. This was no earthly use; her mind was played out. And if she was on the right track, and if they did take Zimmerman away in the
morning, she would be blocked, and all she could do then would be to go to Sherwood and spill the whole thing to him, including Janet’s story and the lie in it, and the truth about the prints on the melon. In that case, she must do something now. She looked at her wrist; it was two o’clock; they would be here in six hours. It still might be best to have a try at Janet—but she tossed her head impatiently, surely she had considered that enough—if she knew Janet half as well as she thought she did, that would be a mistake. All right, then the only thing left was Zimmerman. She had two levers to use on him, if her main supposition was correct, and time itself, and suspense, must have worn him down a little, not to mention the fermentation made manifest by his proposal to Sylvia.

Good. Zimmerman. She felt relieved and instantaneously purposeful. She went to the mirror and saw that she couldn’t possibly look worse, and that therefore dabs at betterment wouldn’t repay the trouble. At the door she turned the knob quietly but firmly, pulled on it, and was in the hall.

She left her door standing open to have the light, and went to the widening of the corridor at the head of the stairs, and turned the corner. Here it was much darker, quite dark, and she stood a moment for the adjustment of her eyes. She moved when she could see well enough to distinguish a break in the wall for a door-frame, and at the first one on the left she paused; that was an empty room behind a locked door, left vacant by the departure of P. L. Storrs; the next would be Zimmerman’s; she followed the wall to it, located the door-panel with her fingertips, and with her knuckles tapped on it gently, and waited. No sound came. She tapped again, and still there was no response. She had no desire to rouse anyone else, particularly the trooper in the downstairs hall, so she quietly turned the knob, learned that the door was not locked by its give to her tentative pressure, and pushed it open and entered. Her low-voiced “Steve. Steve!” got no more response than had the tapping. Thinking, “He certainly can sleep,” she softly shut the door and heard it click, then turned to address the darkness in a louder tone, “Steve! It’s Dol Bonner.” No reply; and all at once she knew that the
room was much too still, too still even for the peace of sleep; it was as still as death. The room was empty. Her heart thumped and she turned and groped with her fingers on the wall beside the door, found the switch, and flipped it on. Then she turned to look, and stood transfixed, with no blink in her stare for the sudden flood of light.

For seconds she didn’t move, and when she did it was to put her hand out behind her to feel for the door knob, but she couldn’t find it that way. She turned and grasped it, and the hold on it steadied her. She opened the door gently, and from the hall closed it gently behind her. She stood and caught a tremulous breath that was almost a sob, and that too seemed to help; then she glided back to the main corridor, passed through the door she had left open into her own room, found her oxfords on the floor by the window-seat, and sat there and put them on with trembling hands impossible to control. She went to the corridor again and descended the stairs to the reception hall. The trooper, there on a chair, arose in surprise at the appearance of this fully dressed young woman at something after two in the morning.

Dol said in a shaky voice, “Come upstairs. There’s a man dead up there.”

Thus it happened that the high command resumed operations on the Birchhaven affair five hours before the time they had appointed.

Inspector Cramer said, “That don’t mean anything. There’s three ways to account for the cord being tied in a double knot like that around his throat. One would be if he did it himself. He might. Another would be if the guy that did it was so powerful that he could pin him down on the
bed and hold him down with his knees and do as he damn pleased, only in that case he’d have to choke him with one hand to keep him from yelling while he tied the knot with the other. The third would be if you got the cord tight around his throat and kept it there until he was unconscious, and then tied the knot to make it good. Off hand, I like that way best. Almost anyone could do that if he wanted to bad enough.”

“I don’t know. I don’t see how.” Sherwood, unkempt and bleary-eyed, was glowering down at the body of Steve Zimmerman which, since it would not be moved until Doc Flanner arrived, still lay, twisted and contorted diagonally across the bed with its head dangling over the edge, and the electric cord from the night lamp taut with a double knot around its throat. “Say he’s lying there asleep, how are you going to get the cord around him, and pulled tight, before he has a chance to let out a yell? You’re not going to poke it under his neck like you might a wire. Do you think he wouldn’t yell?”

“Maybe he wouldn’t have time to. Look.” The inspector pointed at the wall near the floor, to the right of the head of the bed. “That’s the outlet that cord was plugged into, it’s the only one close enough. Ordinarily, of course, the cord passes from the lamp along the wall behind the bed to reach the outlet. But let’s say you were thoughtful enough to make preparations. You could come in here ahead of time, detach the cord from the outlet, go to the lamp and pull the cord to you, and then pass it across on top of the bed and plug it in again. Then where the cord crosses the bed you tuck it under the edge of the pillows, and if the bed is turned down and ready to get into, who’s going to see it? Nobody, unless he happens to move the pillows, which is a chance you take. Later, when he’s asleep and you come back, you don’t have to poke it under his neck, it’s already under. All you have to do is quietly remove the cord from the outlet, and you’ve got him.”

“You have if you’re quick enough and strong enough.”

Cramer shook his head. “You don’t have to be a giant. If you once get that cord crossed on his throat, and a good hold on it, and enough grit to hang on for about a minute in spite of hell, he couldn’t do a damn thing but bounce
around on the bed and claw at you, and he would be much more apt to claw at the cord, it’s an instinct when something’s tight around your throat. Then when he quiets down on account of lack of air, you can tie all the knots you want to.”

Brissenden, standing at the foot of the bed, growled, “Fingerprints on the plug and the outlet.”

“Sure, try for ’em. I doubt it. Everybody is fingerprint-conscious nowadays. You notice that melon didn’t have any—at least, let’s hope it didn’t. There’s one thing I observed that seems to support my guess as to how it was done.” The inspector stepped closer to the dangling head with the purple face and the protruding tongue, and bent over it. “Look here, Sherwood. See that mark across the side of his neck, half an inch from where the cord is now? Two things about that. First, it’s another indication against suicide, the others being that it would be a world’s record for a guy to tie a knot as tight as that around his own neck, and he wouldn’t be likely to throw that pillow on the floor and muss up the bed like that. If he did tie his own knot, there would be no reason for another mark like that alongside it. Whereas, if it happened like my guess, the preliminary strangling would make a mark, and then the cord might get shifted when he pulled it tight again with the knot. Of course, that doesn’t settle it. He may have had a crack on the head first to knock him out. How soon is your doctor coming?”

“Let’s get out of here.” Sherwood, stooping to look at the mark obedient to Cramer’s suggestion, had straightened up with a shudder. “Flanner should be here any minute. There’s nothing more here you want, is there?” He held his hand to his mouth, swallowed twice, mastered the crisis, and turned. “Quill, you tend to Doc and the men doing the pictures and fingerprints when they come. Keep a man outside in the hall. We’ll be downstairs. All right, Colonel?”

Brissenden grunted assent. “Tell ’em about that plug and outlet. Cover the whole room.” He strode behind Sherwood and Cramer to the door, and out.

In the main corridor a trooper who was standing there
stopped them. He spoke to Brissenden: “Mrs. Storrs has gone downstairs, sir. What about the rest of them?”

“Everyone is to get dressed. No one is to leave the house.”

“Yes, sir.”

Below, in the reception hall, was a group, all in uniform with holsters and cartridge belts. Brissenden sent two of them up to join Quill, and another pair to find the men outdoors on patrol, relieve them and send them in. Sergeant Talbot was dispatched to the card room with telephone calls to make. It was learned that Mrs. Storrs was not awaiting them there, but had gone with Belden, who had dressed himself to perfection in four minutes, in the direction of the kitchen. The high command proceeded to the card room. It was lit; Talbot was on the stool at the telephone stand; and one of the chairs at the table was occupied. Brissenden, seeing that, scowled. Sherwood motioned Cramer to a chair, sat down himself, and took out a handkerchief and thoroughly wiped his face; he had been too infuriated to stop to wash when the phone call had got him out of bed.

He said, “This is Inspector Cramer of New York. Miss Bonner.”

Dol nodded.

“Oh, you’re the one that found the gloves in the watermelon.” Cramer got out a cigar. “Don’t be alarmed, I’m not going to light it. Neat piece of work. I understand you’re a detective.”

“Thank you. I run a licensed agency.” Dol shifted her eyes to Sherwood. “I’m here because I found Zimmerman when I went to his room and I thought you’d like to ask me about it.”

“Naturally.” Sherwood sat for a minute’s silence, gazing at her. Finally he asked, “What did you go to his room for?”

“To ask him something.” Dol touched the black spot on her cheek with the tip of her finger. “Maybe I can save you time and a lot of questions. I was in my room from ten o’clock until two o’clock, without leaving it, and no one else entered it. I didn’t undress because I was thinking about this case, and I had an idea I might solve it before you did. I didn’t know what you might do in the morning, you might
even make an arrest, and I knew if I was going to get anywhere I had better not lose any time. I decided that my best bet was to see Zimmerman and try to get out of him what he went to Storrs’ office for Saturday morning, and what happened there. If I waited until morning I might not get a chance at him. I went to his room and knocked on the door. I opened the door, and when I called his name and there was no answer, I turned on the light and saw him on the bed. Then I went downstairs and told the trooper.”

“Why did you think we were going to arrest Zimmerman?”

“Because he wouldn’t talk.”

“Where did you get the idea you might solve this case before we did?”

“I just got it. I guess finding the gloves had puffed me up.”

A windy snort came from Brissenden. Sherwood observed drily, “You seem to have a knack for finding corpses. When you found Storrs Saturday you kept it to yourself while you went to the tennis court to study human nature. Did you try that tonight? After you found Zimmerman did you go to your room to get it solved before you let us in on it? Or somebody else’s room?”

“No.” Dol touched the black spot again. “I don’t see why you bother with sarcasm. I told the trooper within two minutes after I found him. I went to my room first to put on my shoes, because I was in my stocking feet and I didn’t want to go downstairs that way.”

There was an ejaculation from Inspector Cramer. Sherwood glanced at him inquiringly, but he shook his head. “Nothing. It just occurred to me what she must save on smelling-salts.”

An interruption came from the door; it opened and Mrs. Storrs entered. In a pink negligee and slippers, with her hair gathered under a contraption at the back of her head and the night grease imperfectly removed from her colorless skin, she was not a joyous sight. She approached the table and told Sherwood:

“So you’re back here. You needed more facts, and one has been furnished you. All this in my house.” There was a faint hissing as she breathed in. “I came to tell you that I
misled you yesterday. I was lost in darkness. And to tell you that Belden will shortly have coffee for your men, and for you if you want it.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Storrs. You mean that you no longer believe that Ranth killed your husband?”

“I mean what I say. I misled you. I think you should know that I am no longer in the sphere that holds you. I have nothing to tell you. All … all this in my house.” She turned to go.

Sherwood stopped her, but got nothing for it. He did manage to elicit a statement that she had left the study with Ranth and gone up to her room a little after eleven o’clock, but he had already learned that from his brief questioning of Hurley upon arrival. As regarded this second item in the cycle of destruction, Mrs. Storrs had heard nothing and seen nothing, and knew nothing.

As the door closed behind her departure, Cramer bit deeper in his cigar and muttered to Brissenden, “There seems to be an unusual assortment of women here.” The colonel grunted hearty agreement. Sergeant Talbot, having finished with his telephoning, was sent to bring Len Chisholm. A trooper entered and reported that Doc Flanner and the photographer had both arrived and were upstairs, and that the man was back from Foltz’s place with de Roode. Sherwood instructed him to tell Talbot that he would take de Roode first, before Chisholm. Then he informed Dol that he would send for her when he needed her again.