The Late Clara Beame (10 page)

“Tell me you’re all right, darling.” He held her off a little. “What was wrong? What did you eat?”

“It was the water. David said everyone got a little sick from it.”

“The water?” Absently he smoothed her rumpled hair.

“I told him about the water, the taste. You know, like metal. Didn’t you notice it, Henry?”

“I believe I did, a little,” he answered vaguely.

“That’s all. Ptomaine. Or bot — I don’t know the word. Don’t worry, darling. You look awful, and you need a shave, and there isn’t any electricity.” She tried to be gay. “You’ll just have to use your old razor.”

He stood up, pushing his hands into his pockets. “Henry?” Laura asked. But his mind was engrossed, and he did not hear her. The door opened and David entered with a tray. “Here we are.” He stopped when he saw Henry.

“Well,” he said flatly, “and how are you this morning?”

“Feeling hellish,” Henry told him. “Do you think Laura should have food?”

“Why not? I want to see how it lies on that delicate stomach. Here you are. Coddled eggs, toast, tea. How does it look?”

“Very good,” she said, trying to please him, though her stomach lurched a bit. David placed the tray on her knees. “I’ve asked Laura not to drink anything, not even water, or eat anything at all, or take any medicine, until I’ve examined it.”

“Why?” Henry asked quickly.

“Why? I want to taste it. To see if it’s okay. Any objection?”

“Why should I object?” Henry retorted.

“Just don’t give her anything, yourself, not even water, no matter how thirsty she is. Until I’ve tasted it. You understand, don’t you?” David’s black eyes were serious.

“Well, if you put it that way.”

“I damned well do,” David replied. “How does breakfast taste, Laura?”

“Not too good.”

David said, very slowly, “Well, I can guarantee it won’t make you sick.”

“I’d like to talk to you a minute, alone,” Henry told him.

“Won’t you stay?” Laura asked.

“After all, I want breakfast, too, and that food smells good.” Henry ruffled her hair. He went to the door and looked back at David, who seemed to be absorbed in watching Laura eat. Then David turned to him, nodded, and they went out together.

Henry shut the door behind them and, when they were in his room, turned to David abruptly. “Look, don’t tell me any fairy stories. Laura was poisoned last night, wasn’t she?”

“She was.” David leaned against a chest of drawers.

“Then, what is all this about the water? She said you told her there was something wrong with it.”

“She must have gotten the poison in the water, before dinner.”

“How could it have gotten in the water she drank?”

David was silent for a moment. “Someone in this house knows. Someone put it there.”

“That’s ridiculous! The water was poured from the same pitcher we all used. It was on the sideboard.”

“The water glasses were filled before we went in.”

Henry sat heavily on the rumpled bed and stared at the floor.

“Why should anyone — ? I don’t believe it!” he added furiously.

“Would you prefer a better explanation, such as Laura poisoning herself? You said something about her being depressed, you know.”

“I don’t know what I said last night. All right, she has been depressed. But not enough to try to kill herself. Why should she do that?”

“You don’t suspect that she might be neurotic or something, do you?”

Henry averted his head, and concentrated on his thoughts.

“You’d rather think that she tried to commit suicide than to suspect that someone wanted to kill her? Is that it?”

“For God’s sake, Dave. I can’t accept the fact that someone in this house — someone in
this
house
! — tried to kill Laura. What for? What could be the motive?”

“An interesting question.”

Henry got to his feet and walked up and down the room slowly.

“All right,” he said, stopping with his back to David. “I’d prefer to think that Laura had a momentary aberration — than to accept the notion that you, or Carr, or Alice, or Mrs. Daley, or Edith, or even Evelyn, would want to kill her, for an unknown motive. Laura’s never hurt a soul in her life. She’d hurt herself first.”

“I think so, too,” David agreed.

Henry swung around to him. “All right, then. But you are absolutely certain it wasn’t some food poisoning, or that she took something accidentally?”

“I’m certain.”

“What was the poison?”

“Arsenic, I think. I’ll know for sure, later, when I can get the sample to the police laboratories.”

Henry was shocked. “The police! But there might be a scandal!”

“You’d rather someone who tried to kill your wife got away with it?”

“But — ”

“Attempted murder carries a very large penalty, I’ve heard. The law doesn’t like it. As a lawyer, now, do you disagree with the law?”

Henry fumbled for his pipe, and could not find it. “Here, have a cigarette,” David offered. “Pretend you’re in your office where you
do
smoke cigarettes.”

“Oh, shut up,” Henry told him. “I don’t need your sarcastic remarks just now. I’m thinking.”

“Good. I hope you come up with something. As you said, who would have a motive to kill Laura; who would hate her enough to kill her?”

“Your sister, for one,” Henry said bitterly.

“You can see Alice killing your wife? Okay, she hates her. But only insane people kill those they hate. Do you think Alice is insane?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

“The real motive, I’ve found out, for most murders is money. Alice won’t get Laura’s money if Laura dies. You will, I suppose.”

“Laura said she’d made me her heir, just as she will inherit anything I leave, and it’s a tidy sum, by the way. More than you’re worth, I’ll bet.”

“Oh, I’m sure of that. I’m on straight salary. You get bonuses. Are they taxable?”

“Go to hell,” Henry retorted. “We are each other’s heirs. I’ve never touched a cent of Laura’s money. I didn’t marry her for her money, just in case you think I did.”

“We’ll leave money out of it. The next motive is usually love. Getting an unwanted person out of the way.” David grinned. “You aren’t having an amour with anyone, are you?”

Henry gave him a withering look. David laughed a little. “All right, then. I’ve been giving my suggestions. You give yours.” Then he added seriously, “A murderer who fails always tries again. That’s why we’ve got to find him.”

Henry lowered his voice. “I must tell you something. I never did quite accept your and Carr’s suggestions about an intruder yesterday. I think the intruder is still right here in this house.”

“You do?” David asked. “But why? Where?”

Henry hesitated, then told David what he had found in John Carr’s room. “He tried to kill me,” he said quietly. “Why, I don’t know. I never saw the man until about two weeks ago. He was turned over to me by accident. Everything seemed on the level. I did a little investigating myself. Rogers and Belton have known him for some time, and are anxious to get him into their business. I know his whole financial picture, the whole setup. He’s authentic, as far as I can make out. Why should he want to kill me?”

David sat down slowly. “You can’t be sure it was Carr. He might have tried to take a walk in the snow. He’s a country boy, you know.”

“The gun,” Henry reminded him. “It had been fired very recently. The bullets are forty-fives, and it was a forty-five that nearly hit me.”

David thought for a moment. “Would you, as a lawyer, accept wet slacks and shoes, and a gun which had been fired — you don’t know exactly when — as evidence that Carr had tried to kill you?”

“I’d give it plenty of consideration; those things plus the other circumstances — the storm and no one else around, no footprints but mine and Evelyn’s, and the footprints on the roof, and the snow on the floor of the attic room.”

“And the motive?”

“I can’t find any. I hardly know the man.”

“So,” David said reflectively, “we have a stranger in the house, whose actions are somewhat suspicious, to say the least, but who comes to you in a perfectly bona fide way, well vouched-for, aboveboard, who never knew you before, never saw Laura until he came here — nothing mysterious about him. Yet, you are sure he tried to kill you, and Laura. The only explanation could be that he’s a homicidal maniac. Now, you’ve met homicidal maniacs in your career. Think about them. Does Carr resemble them in any way?”

“You never know a man is a homicidal maniac until he kills people,” Henry replied soberly. “I had a client only a year ago. Fine husband, fine father, excellent businessman, no financial worries, no family difficulties. But on Christmas Day, without showing any hostility to anyone before that, he shoots his wife, his son, and tries to kill his daughter and then himself. His wife died, and so did his son; his daughter lived. I talked with the girl. Daddy, she said, had always been ‘the loveliest daddy in the world’, and the poor girl couldn’t explain it at all. Berserk.”

“Let’s go into it a little further,” David suggested. “You got psychiatrists for him, didn’t you?”

Henry could not help smiling. “Three of them. My client could afford it. One said the client was completely sane and understood what he’d tried to do. So, we dismissed him. We got another in his place. The verdict was homicide while mentally incompetent’ — in other words, ‘temporary insanity’. He’ll be out in another six months. He’s recovered.”

“Well,” David said thoughtfully, “that’s an entirely different proposition. Confidentially,
why
did your client try to wipe out the whole family community, including himself? Or did he try to eliminate himself, honestly? Or, are you trying to imply a parallel between your client and John Carr? After all, as we’ve so carefully noted, Carr never knew you before, and never saw Laura until a couple of nights ago. But your client had lived with his family, knew them intimately. Never mind the temporary insanity bit. You talked with the man. Why did he do it?”

Henry hesitated and then shrugged. “Frankly, I think he didn’t really intend to kill himself. He just grazed the side of his skull with a bullet; very precise. Enough to stun him and knock him out for a while. A real suicide does better than that; they usually stick the gun in their mouths or aim carefully at a temple. Of course,” he added meticulously, “he was in a state of mind, after the other killings, where his hand might not have been very steady.”

“Stop talking double talk,” David told him. “Why did he go on the rampage?”

“I think, though I’m not sure, that there was a woman involved, whom he wanted to marry. His wife could have refused him a divorce.”

“You know damn well that was behind it all. All right, let’s make it hypothetical. John Doe, impeccable in every way, kills his wife and son, tries to kill his daughter, then carefully shoots himself so he isn’t killed. Let’s say he has a perfectly reasonable motive in wanting to kill his wife, but why his children? They couldn’t have stood in the way of a second marriage.”

Henry was silent, staring at the floor.

“Were the children his own?” David asked.

Henry answered reluctantly, “Well, the son wasn’t. His wife was a widow when she married him; she had that boy by her first husband; he was twenty-three when the shooting took place. The girl was his own, nineteen.”

“And she lived. How badly was she hurt?”

“Flesh wound in the right arm.”

“So Daddy’s girl wasn’t in any danger. How much, by the way, did he get from his dead wife?”

“I told you he was all right financially, himself,” Henry said irritably.

“Nobody is,” David remarked placidly. “Money’s almost always the chief motive for murder. Well? How much?”

“About a million dollars.”

“A new love, and a million dollars.” David’s smile was infuriating. “Good enough. And as your unfortunate client was temporarily insane when he killed his wife and his stepson, he inherited. Who died first?”

“The wife.”

“So her son was one of her heirs. As he wasn’t married — he wasn’t, was he? — his sister would be his heir. So, the girl is provided for, no drain any longer on Daddy, and Daddy gets his wife’s loot. He’s free to marry again. Very neat and clean-cut.

“However, none of these things applies to John Carr. He isn’t a relative; he’s an absolute stranger. He has no hostility towards you, and certainly no hostility for Laura. He has no motive to be a homicidal maniac — as your client had. As a reasonable man, and a cynical lawyer, can you ascribe any motive to him for wanting to kill you and Laura?”

“I don’t know everything,” Henry told him. “There are reaches in the human mind and soul — ”

“Let’s not get mystical. Carr’s not insane. You’re ready to admit that? Even insane people have a peculiar logic of their own when they commit murder, but logic, even insane logic, has to have a foundation. You don’t think he took a dislike to your pretty hazel eyes, do you?”

“Don’t be an ass.”

“Well, you’re trying very hard to be, Hank. Carr’s out, in spite of the hanky-panky with the gun, and climbing out of the attic window. Let’s say he’s whimsical, or just cute, trying to stir up excitement. He shot one shot. A man out to kill, who’s worked himself up to kill, doesn’t stop at one shot, unless he scored. He didn’t try again, though he could have. Maybe he’s hyperthyroid; they can’t stand prolonged periods of peace and quiet, I’ve heard. Anything for laughs, on a day when everything is snowbound. They have gallows humor, sometimes. If Carr had wanted to kill you, my friend, he would have.”

“Maybe that was a blind,” Henry suggested. “Maybe his real target was Laura.”

David made a sound of complete exasperation. “Why? He never saw her before.” He paused. “Or, did he?”

Henry raised his eyes and stared at David.

“I never thought of that.” He covered his face with his hands.

“Laura did insist she had seen him before,” David reminded him. “Would you, for instance, call that a ‘blind’?”

“I don’t know what to think!” Henry burst out.

“You think that it’s possible that Laura has been playing games behind your back, when she got bored up here all this time?”

“You can’t say that about Laura!” Henry cried. “I refuse to think it.”

“Good, loyal husband,” David commented. “Now, think again. You and Laura may have met him at that party. You aren’t sure that you remember him. But you are sure that you never saw him until a couple of weeks ago. Are you so sure now?”

There was a long silence. Then Henry lifted his head, and he looked ill. “I — I did think he looked familiar, perhaps too familiar, when Laura mentioned it a couple of nights ago. I had the strange feeling that I’d seen him around — a lot of times. But I can’t remember where or when.”

“Around here? In New York? In one of these bleak country clubs you have up here?”

Henry stood up and went to the frosted window. His fingernail scratched at the thick white deposit. He said, at last, “Yes. I’m pretty sure of it now.”

“Before you ever met him at that restaurant you told me about, and before he was your client?”

There was another silence. Then he spoke almost inaudibly. “Yes, somewhere, I know! Several times!”

He turned to David, and was shocked at the expression on the other man’s face. He moved back a step or two.

But David spoke easily. “Now, why should our little Laura, who always blurts out everything, try to hide from you, or anyone else, that she knew John Carr very well indeed? If it was all innocent, that is?”

Henry’s hand trembled as he rubbed his mouth. David went to him and touched his shoulder lightly. “Don’t go off the deep end. We’ve just been exploring — possibilities.”

Henry stared at him in anguish. “I know what you’re thinking. Laura’s poisoning was just a blind. I’m his real target.”

“It could be,” David said. “Just watch it, will you?”

“Then Laura’s really safe? Nothing will happen to her?”

David spoke with authority. “Nothing,” he said. “Absolutely nothing.”

Henry sighed. “That’s all I care about. I’m exhausted! I must have been insane, myself, to let you say what you did about Laura.”