The Lockwood Concern (39 page)

New York? There are no trains." "Stay where you are. Now let me get this straight. Wilma telephoned you, or telephoned me, and got you on the phone." "The police went to her house and told her that her husband had killed a woman and committed suicide. Some woman in your office. Not his secretary but the woman with the German name." "Miss Strademyer?" "That's the name, yes." "When did this happen? Tonight, of course," said George. "It must have been around ten o'clock. Wilma didn't want to talk to me, she wanted to talk to you. You must go up there right away, George. She's in a state of I don't know what?" "Did they both die right away?" "How would I know that? They were both dead when the police got there. All that you can find out when you talk to Wilma. You don't want me to wake up Andrew-" "Stay where you are till I get in touch with you. Where is Ernestine?" "Ernestine? She's either in Rome or on her way there. Her last letter said she planned to be in Rome I think just about now. I'll have to find her letter and check on that." "All right, do that tonight before you go to bed. Then get Arthur McHenry on the phone." "Tonight?" "Well, first thing in the morning." "What will we need a lawyer for?" said Geraldine. "Not as a lawyer, but a man who makes good sense. Don't do anything or talk to anybody without asking Arthur. If he's out of town get Joe Chapin, but try Arthur first. I don't suppose you know what they did with the body?" "Yes, it's at the morgue. Both bodies, Wilma did say that." "Wilma seems to have made more sense than you're making." "I can't help it, George. I was just listening to the radio when she phoned. First I was afraid something had happened to you." "Thank you, but nothing's going to happen to me." "Well, who'd ever think a terrible thing like this would happen to Pen? I can't believe it. Did you know anything about this? Was he having an affair with this woman?" "Do you think he'd murder somebody and kill himself if he wasn't?" "Pen might. If she refused him, he was so repressed. I always thought he was too much within himself, never let himself go. But I never for a minute thought he could be leading a double life." "Nobody leads a double life. One life is all anyone leads. good, bad or indifferent." "Well, you never stop thinking, that busy mind of yours." "Isn't it a good thing there's someone to do some thinking now? You look up Ernestine's itinerary, and telephone Arthur the very first thing in the morning. Have you got a pencil there?" "Yes." "Write down this name. Solon Schissler. That's S, o, l, o, n, Solon. Schissler. S, c, h, i, s, s, l, e, r. He's the Swedish Haven undertaker. Have Arthur call him and tell him to be ready for a call from me." "Are you going to have the funeral here?" "Where else? Under the circumstances I doubt very much if Wilma will want him in her family plot, wherever that is. He belongs here, with the Lockwoods. So you tell Arthur to notify Schissler." "Will it be a big funeral? A lot of people here?" "Certainly not. When the New York authorities give their permission I'll have Pen brought back to Swedish Haven and go direct to the cemetery. Everything will be strictly private." "Are you going up to see Wilma now?" "As soon as I put some clothes on. You'd better take a bromide and get some sleep." "All right, dear, I think I will. Goodnight, and I'm terribly sorry. I know you were terribly fond of Pen." "Goodnight, Geraldine," he said. He hung up. "I was," he muttered. "I was very fond of him. I don't think I ever knew that before." He had the taxi halt at the 51st Street subway station. Without getting out of the cab, and reading upside down, he could see the front page of the Daily News: 2 DIE IN LOVE NEST. George bought copies of the Times, World, American, News and Mirror. Only the News and the Mirror had the story, and their accounts were virtually identical. "You know you read them fuckin' papers, there's more shooting goes on in them love nests than there is humpin'," said the driver. "What the hell's a guy want to kill a woman for? The way I look at it, if you catch her humpin' some other guy, all right give her a punch in the nose for luck. But what the hell's use of taking a chance of frying for it? A cunts a cunt, and there's two million of them right here in this city alone. Everybody wouldn't agree with me, but that's the way I feel about it. And I like it, I get plenty. Me and the wife are separated on account of that very reason. So I guess she's gettin' hers. But would I shoot her for that? I wouldn't give her the satisfaction. Or you take now this poor son of a bitch Gray, Judd Gray. She talks him into hittin' Snyder over the head with a sash weight. And now the two of them hate one another. So they'll both fry. You drive one of these hacks around New York City on the night side, that's an education in itself. Women! I tell you, Mister. That'll be forty-five cents." "Very instructive," said George. "I'll say," said the man. At least the hackie had been as informative as the newspapers, which contained little that George did not already know. The skimpy accounts, hurriedly written, revealed that neighbors had heard the four shots, the three which Pen fired into Marian's negligee-clad body and the single shot he fired into his own temple. The shooting had occurred shortly after ten P. M. Neighbors described the Strademyer woman as an attractive person who dressed conservatively and played classical music on the piano. Several times there had been complaints to the superintendent about all-night parties, but these had not been frequent. She was believed to have been a divorcee. Penrose Lockwood, Social Registerite, millionaire partner in a private investment firm, member of fashionable clubs, was a graduate of tony St. Bartholomew's School and Princeton University. He had been married for twenty-three years to the former Miss Wilma Rainsler, daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. J. Killyan Rainsler, who were members of the old Knickerbocker families. There were no children. The light was on in the vestibule of Pen's house. George rang the doorbell and was admitted by Norman Bunn, who had been the Penrose Lockwoods' butler through most of their married life. Norman had grown stout and red-nosed in their service and his eyes were now even more watery than usual. He had probably been interrupted earlier in the midst of a quiet session with a bottle of Pen's port. "Good evening, sir," he said. "May I say, sir, it's difficult to find words." "Yes, thank you, Norman," said George, "Will you get rid of these for me, please? I bought them on the way up. They don't tell us very much." "I've already seen the article in the News, sir. The policeman on the beat gave me a copy." "Now, what about Mrs. Lockwood? How is she bearing up?" "I'd say she was bearing up well, sir. She has a friend with her. Mrs. James. Mrs. Sherwood James, married to a cousin of Mrs. Lockwood's. She only lives around the corner, sir. She's been with Mrs. Lockwood over an hour, so she's had someone here most of the time." "Anyone else?" "Not now, sir. Mr. Hyme was here, briefly, but he didn't stop very long. The telephone has been very busy, as might be expected. And I had to ask my policeman friend for help in keeping out the press. One particularly obnoxious fellow represented himself as the assistant to the district attorney, but something told me not to let him in. And I didn't. A redheaded Irishman. The police knew him. Then there was a mousy young woman tried to pass herself off as a trained nurse, but we hadn't sent for a trained nurse. She was of the press, too. Her name is signed to the article in the News. Gladys Roberts." "That's using your head, Norman," said George. They climbed a short flight of stairs to the library. Wilma rose to greet him, and they embraced silently. He held her for a moment, and Dorothy James left them, saying she would be in the next room. "I'm so glad you weren't far away," said Wilma. "I hated to disturb Geraldine, but you were the first person I wanted to turn to. Did you know anything about this, George?" "No, it wasn't the kind of thing Pen would have confided in anyone, not even me." "It apparently had been going on for quite some time," she said. She hesitated. "I knew about it." "Oh, you did?" "Oh, you mustn't blame me, George. I was sure it would pass. Things hadn't been going very well between us. Even the best of marriages get a little rusty, and we were at the age. I'll be truthful. I took a lover. If Pen could have a mistress, I could have someone too. We could both look the other way until you might say we came to our senses. But Pen became too deeply involved, and I suppose this woman wasn't going to miss this opportunity. Pen asked me for a divorce." "He did?" "I refused. Suddenly I was terrified. I'm not young, but I think I still have twenty-five or thirty years ahead of me, and the thought of living it out alone just terrified me. There were all sorts of reasons why I couldn't marry my lover. First of all, he was too much younger than I. He could be my son, as far as age is concerned, and it never would have worked out for the other reasons, too. Pen and I could have continued the arrangement, but he wanted too much. Or she wanted too much, which amounted to the same thing. Now, thanks to her, nobody has anything. Nothing but the kind of mess you read about in the tabloids." "Wilma, you're quite a remarkable woman," said George. "I was dreading this." "Did you think I'd be hysterical? Well, I was, before you got here. Or nearly hysterical. Hysterical for me. I'd gone to bed if early and was half asleep when Norman knocked on my door and said there were detectives downstairs. Detectives downstairs and police out in front of the house. Those first few minutes I don't remember very well. I couldn't tell you which detective told me about Pen, or what I said, or did, or anything. Poor Norman, he's not used to that sort of thing either, and I'm sure he'd been having a quiet nip. Estelle, my maid, had the night off to visit her sister in the Bronx. The chambermaid stayed out of sight, and I'm going to fire her. My cook was no help either, but she's slightly deaf and every night when she's finished her work she retires to her room. She's very religious. Has a little altar in her room and spends a great deal of her time in prayer. She goes to the Mass every morning, every single morning." "Fortunately you had Dorothy James in the neighborhood." She hesitated. "A godsend, Dorothy. But I had to have a man to help me, and the only person I could think of was my financial adviser." "I didn't even know you had one. I suppose I took for granted that Pen handled those matters for you." "He did, for the most part, but I've been playing the stock market, just like everyone else," she said. "Oh, I see," said George. She looked at him. "You can stare me down, George." "I wasn't trying to, Wilma." "He's not my financial adviser. He's my lover. He lives at Seventy-seventh and Park, and he came right over. He was the one that told me to get in touch with you. He was also the one that calmed me down. Probably saved you a lot of trouble." "Someone did. There's nothing hysterical about you now," said George. "They took Pen to the morgue. I won't have to identify him, will I?" "I think we can have someone from Stratford, Kersey and Stratford do that." "He shot himself in the temple," she said. "She was shot in the heart. Why did he have to shoot himself in the head?" "Well, he never had any vanity about his looks, alive. I doubt if he gave much thought to how he would look dead," said George. "Now, Wilma, some things to discuss with you. I have seen two of the tabloids, the Daily News and the Daily Mirror. The other one, the Daily Graphic, won't be out until today sometime, and the New York Journal, the Hearst paper, will be out about the same time. The Post and the Sun will try not to be sensational, but I know damn well the others will have a field day. It's the kind of story that was just made for them." "Dorothy was talking about that. She had seen the News or the other one." "I suggest that you let Dorothy take you away. There's no earthly reason why you should subject yourself to photographers and reporters." "Dorothy has already offered to do that. Their house in Manchester, Vermont. I said no." "I will arrange to have Pen's body sent back to Swedish Haven. Private funeral ceremony at the grave, where all the Lockwoods are buried beginning with our grandfather." "I know about it. I saw it when Agnes died. And I expect to be buried there when my time comes. Pen and I spent half our lives together and we were still married when this thing happened. I wouldn't like myself very much if I wasn't there when he's buried. He was a good man, and he was good to me, for almost twenty-five years. He was so good that he had no ability to cope with evil. And what a disgusting hypocrite I would be, to publicly desert him now. No, George. Thank you for your good intentions, but Pen's entitled to that much respect. And love. I loved him. Not always. Not passionately. Not romantically. But the love you have for someone like him. All innocence. Great kindness. Gentleness. That's really it, gentleness. And of course the insanity in your family." "Is that why you never had children?" "Heavens, no. I'd have had them, in spite of the insanity in my family and yours. I never used a pessary in my life. We tried but we never had any results. The wrong mixture, I guess. You wouldn't call Sherwood James's father sane, but he invented almost as many things as Mr. Edison. And he had the same kind of gentleness Pen had. I'll be there when Pen is buried, just as he would have been for me. Unless - no." "Unless what?" "Unless my being there would embarrass you." "How could it?" "Oh - the extra notoriety, perhaps. One never knows about you, George. Everything you do is always so well thought out in advance, You never seem to do anything impulsive." "When I do, it doesn't turn out very well," said George Lockwood. "Just the opposite for poor Pen." "I think we've left Dorothy alone too long," he said. "She's spending the night," said Wilma. "If you'd like to, there's plenty of room." "Thanks, but I'll be more efficient if I go back to the Carstairs. I'll be very busy on the telephone tomorrow - today, it is, of course. And they have a switchboard and they know me there. I'm going to have them give me another room, besides the one I'm in. That will give me two telephones. I'll register the extra room under the name of James Sherwood. You ought to be able to remember that, in case you want to call." "Sherwood James, James Sherwood," said Wilma. "Who will they get to identify her, the woman?" "I don't know. I should imagine some member of her family will turn up. Why?" "I just wondered. I just happened to think of her down there. Somehow it's worse for a woman." "Why?" "I don't know