The Kissed Corpse (10 page)

Raymond Dwight's heavy jaw sagged ludicrously. Then it snapped shut. “What right have you to enter a private residence? I'll have your stripes for this intrusion.”

“I have no stripes,” Burke told him drily. “I'm laying my cards before Mrs. Young on the chance that she may wish to amplify her previous testimony.”

Myra Young linked her arm in Dwight's. “We were just … talking about it.”

Dwight still faced Burke angrily. “Are you threatening Mrs. Young?”

“No indeed,” Burke assured him. “I noted that she hurried over here by an unobserved back trail to interview you as soon as she realized we were closing in on her. I merely wondered why.”

Mrs. Young started guiltily and a spot of color glowed in her cheeks. She started to say something, checked herself.

Dwight patted her arm and said: “If either Mrs. Young or I have a statement to make it will be in private to the highest authority. Not to some insolent.…”

Burke moved back and sank easily into a deep chair, interrupting Dwight: “I'm giving you this opportunity to make a statement to one in competent authority. I don't believe you heard my name. It was Burke. Jerry Burke. And this is my assistant, Asa Baker.”

Raymond Dwight started to sputter an angry retort, then looked at me for the first time. He swallowed his words and looked again.

“I believe you two have met before … across the Border, wasn't it? Baker was acting for me last night.” Burke's easy manner changed to one of authoritative briskness: “If you can throw any light on this murder investigation, Mr. Dwight, I'm waiting to hear it.”

The millionaire and the widow exchanged glances. Dwight cleared his throat and led Myra Young to a chair. Then he went to the sliding doors and closed them tightly. Coming back to stand by Myra, his attitude was protective.

“A cigar, Mr. Burke? Mr. Baker?” He held out an open leather case, and when we both refused he selected a blunt perfecto, clipped the end and lit it with a jeweled lighter. Myra's hands gripped the arms of her chair tightly and I felt that she was going to scream if something didn't break in a hurry.

Raymond Dwight's fingers touched her shoulder as he said: “I'll be frank with you, Mr. Burke. Man to man, eh? May I have your word that what is said here in confidence will go no further?”

Burke was carefully filling his pipe from a worn pouch. He didn't look up. “I want Leslie Young's murderer. I reserve the right to use any information you give me as I see fit to serve justice. I am not, however, desirous of dragging the name of any innocent person into the limelight.”

“Very fair indeed. I'm going to trust you, Mr. Burke. We … Myra and I … have to trust you. At the moment you so unceremoniously burst into this room I was on the point of advising Mrs. Young that suspicion of murder was not to be trifled with even at the cost of … ah … certain embarrassing revelations. Was I not, my dear?” He looked down at Myra Young with as nearly a fatuous expression as his heavy features could contrive.

Her underlip was caught between strong teeth and she was staring at the floor. Her “Yes” was faint.

Burke said: “She's in a tough spot. She had the motive, the opportunity … and no alibi.”

“Suppose she produces an alibi, Mr. Burke?”

“It'll have to be a good one.”

“An unimpeachable alibi, Mr. Burke.”

Jerry Burke shrugged. “I'm listening.” I had a hunch he pretty well knew what was coming.

Raymond Dwight blew out a cloud of blue smoke and said: “I understand Mr. Young was shot and killed at two-thirty yesterday afternoon.”

Burke nodded. “Approximately.”

“I am prepared to swear to an alibi for Mrs. Young between two-fifteen and four o'clock yesterday afternoon.”

Burke's expression didn't change when Dwight delivered that bombshell. Damn the man! He's utterly inhuman. Even if he was expecting to hear just that, I don't see how he could take it so calmly. He merely asked:

“Why did Mrs. Young withhold that vital information when we first questioned her?”

I was watching the widow. She flinched as Dwight answered suavely:

“She hoped it might not become necessary to reveal this fact. Innocent of any crime, she did not realize that she might actually be suspected of her husband's death. It was not until you and your associates began cleverly weaving a web of circumstantial evidence about her that she realized it was no time for quibbling.”

“So she slipped over here to discuss it with you?”

“Exactly.” Raymond Dwight met Burke's gaze unwaveringly.

“Where was she at the time her husband was murdered?”

“At home.”

“She told us that. What can you add to her former statement?”

“I was with her during the period in question.”

Myra's eyelids quivered shut.

“Without her husband's knowledge?”

“Er … yes. You can understand her natural reluctance.…”

“Did you know her husband would be away at that time?”

“Yes.”

“How?” Burke was shooting out the questions like bullets.

Raymond Dwight glanced uncomfortably down at Myra. She lay back with closed eyes and heaving breasts. It evidently wasn't a pleasant session for her.

The millionaire pursed his lips and blew out a cloud of smoke. “I realize this is no time for concealment or half-truths, Mr. Burke. I have a telescope mounted upon my front balcony. You can easily determine that through it I can be aware of every movement at the home of my neighbor across the valley.” He paused, fumbling for words, went on slowly:

“Some time ago we arranged a signal which would indicate to me that Mr. Young would be away for an appreciable period and I would be … er … a welcome visitor. I was at the telescope yesterday afternoon and saw him ride away on horseback at two o'clock. Shortly thereafter, the signal was flashed to me by Myra. I walked across the old path leading directly to the cottage and was there within fifteen minutes. I did not leave until four o'clock.”

“Is this true?” Burke threw the question at Myra.

She opened her eyes but did not stir. “Why not? Did Les give me any reason to be faithful to him? What was
he
doing at two-thirty? I had as much right as he to step out.”

Burke shrugged his shoulders. “This isn't a morals hearing. Your statement throws the case wide open again, Dwight.”

“I trust it will go no further.”

“It won't. Unless further developments make it absolutely necessary.”

“You'd better check up on that Yates woman!” Myra sat erect and the words were hissed out between set teeth. “Les practically admitted he was going to meet her when he rode away from the house.”

“He did meet her,” Burke admitted affably. “Perhaps she
did
steal that pistol, Mrs. Young.”

I stared at him, wondering if he meant it. His expression didn't tell me anything.

Dwight was helping Myra up, bending over her solicitously. “I'm sure Mr. Burke doesn't wish to detain you longer, my dear.”

“No.” Burke didn't get up. “But I'd like to think this thing out a little, Dwight. I may wish to question some of your servants.”

“Certainly.” Dwight went out with his hand under Myra's arm, and I had a funny all-gone feeling of not knowing what the hell it was all about.

10

“And that,” said Jerry Burke, “is positively that.”

I grimaced at the doors which had closed behind the couple. “Things like that keep me thinking I've been smart to stay a bachelor.”

“I guess no man ever knows about a woman. I would have sworn she was in love with Leslie.”

“She had Dwight's daughter fooled too,” I pointed out. “The girl thought there hadn't been anything between them previously.”

Burke's fingers drummed on the arm of his chair. “The under-surface stuff dredged up in the course of a murder investigation continually amazes me.”

“You weren't surprised by her alibi,” I charged.

“N-o-o. I had a hunch she had an ace up her sleeve. She was entirely too unconcerned about being suspected. Jelcoe didn't worry her with those .25 bullets. She almost had to have an out that we knew nothing about.”

“Where does it leave us?”

“I'm afraid,” he said soberly, “we'll have to start barking at Laura Yates' heels.”

I had felt that coming and was braced against it. Somehow, goddamn it, I didn't like to think in that direction. It was something I hadn't figured out. I hated myself for feeling physically attracted by Laura.

Mentally, she irritated me. I felt that her outward calm was inhuman and that it had to be a pose … and I detest posing females. I couldn't forget that she had listened to the story of Young's death with as much emotion as she would have shown over the announcement that her car had a flat tire.

And I couldn't forget that she had kissed him a few minutes before he died. The memory of her kiss in the darkened upstairs room of the
hacienda
still plagued me, and I found myself wondering how much she would have emoted if I'd been shot five minutes later.

“On the other hand,” Burke's speculative voice recalled me to the present, “there are other angles. I can't rid myself of the feeling that the warning for Young to stay away from the
hacienda
is definitely tied up with his death.”

“Here's a hunch!” I spoke excitedly. “Myra answered the telephone while her husband was absent and replied to the anonymous telephoner without consulting Leslie. In view of what we've just learned … that she was tangled up in an affair with her millionaire neighbor … we know she had a good reason for wanting Leslie out of the way. How do we know the voice over the wire wasn't more specific than she admits … we have only her unsupported word for what was said. Instead of doing the natural thing … putting the woman off, promising to urge Leslie not to go, playing for time … she admits accepting the challenge, taunting the threatener with the announcement that Leslie would go in spite of the threat.”

Burke was nodding. “
That
begins to make sense, Asa. There might even have been a definite threat which she hasn't told us about. She might have watched Leslie ride away at two o'clock, knowing it was the last time she would see him alive.”

“Then hurried to signal Raymond Dwight to come on over,” I carried the theory on. “Providing herself with a perfect alibi in case she needed it.”

“Going on from that premise … we'd better start looking for a woman with a good reason for preventing Leslie Young from keeping his appointment in Mexico with the O'Toole girl.”

We sat and looked at each other in silence until I said: “That certainly puts Laura Yates in the clear. Of all the females involved she had the strongest reason for hoping Leslie
would
keep the appointment.”

“Unless,” Burke said drily, “she realized it was something big and didn't want to split the story with him.”

“But she wouldn't have been waiting out in the rain for a man whom she knew to be dead,” I objected.

“It would have been smart to
pretend
to be waiting for him. And if she was after a story, she had to get to the
hacienda
somehow.”

Jerry Burke was like that, damn his soul. He has the uncanny faculty of looking beneath the surface for hidden motives not apparent to a guileless person like myself. I was suddenly glad I wasn't cursed with a suspicious mind which couldn't take any fact or person at face value. I said so, somewhat sulkily, I'm afraid.

Burke was unmoved. “There's only one basis for a murder investigation, Asa. We must assume the possible guilt of every man or woman even indirectly involved, and scrutinize every action of every suspect on the assumption that it may be motivated by murder. On that basis, we cannot yet eliminate Miss Yates.”

“Let's scrutinize the actions of some of the others on that same basis,” I muttered lamely.

“Exactly what I intend to do. The anonymous telephonist was a woman, according to Myra's testimony. Only four women are thus far involved: Mrs. Young, Laura Yates, Michaela O'Toole, and … Desta Dwight.”

He smiled grimly when I started with surprise at hearing the last name on his list.

“I'm not at all sure that she doesn't know more than she's told us. She admits knowing Leslie Young.”

“She had just met him once,” I objected.

“According to
her
statement.”

There it was again. Another instance of my guileless acceptance of a statement as fact. I stammered something about making a lousy detective, and Burke agreed, with a grin which took the sting out of it. Then he settled back seriously to his theorizing:

“Going back to our four women: Myra is out … she received the telephoned warning. I've conjured up a thin motive for Laura Yates wanting Young to stay away from the
hacienda
. Thin … but possible. Michaela O'Toole is definitely out. She wouldn't write a note asking him to come, and then turn around and kill him to prevent it. That leaves Desta Dwight to be considered.”

“What possible motive can you conjure up for her?”

“Until we know the real object of the meeting of these various people at the
hacienda
, we can't do much guessing. She let it slip that her father had some plan for bringing political pressure on Rufus Hardiman in regard to Mexican oil payments. We also know that Desta recognized Leslie Young as a stumbling-block in the way of forcing any such payments from Mexico. By her own admission, her father just laughed at her when she warned him against Young. What would be more natural than for a headstrong young girl like that to decide to take matters in her own hands and remove the menace to her father's business dealings with the Mexican government?”

“All I hope is that you don't start analyzing me for a motive.”