Mr. Smith chuckled. He told him, "Fortunately for you, the sheriff can't figure out how anybody could have killed him. Ah... did anyone know about your hoax, the threaten-ing letter? That is, of course, before the sheriff traced it to you and you admitted writing and sending it?"
"Why, yes. I was so disappointed in my uncle's reaction to receiving it that I mentioned it to Mr. Wade and Mr. Wheeler, and to a few of the others my uncle owed royal-ties to. I hoped they could suggest some other idea that might work better. But they couldn't."
"Wade and Wheeler—they live in the city?" "Yes, they're out of vaudeville now, of course. They get by doing bit parts on television."
"Um-m-m," said Mr. Smith. "Well, thank you for signing the renewal on your policy. And when you are out of here, I'd like to see you again to discuss the possibility of your taking an additional policy. You are planning to be mar-ried, you mentioned yesterday?"
"I was, yesterday," replied Walter Perry. "I guess I still am, unless Osburne pins a murder on me. Yes, Mr. Smith, I'll be glad to discuss another policy, if I get out of this mess."
Mr. Smith smiled. He said, "Then it seems even more definitely to the interest of the Phalanx Insurance Company to see that you are free as soon as possible. I think I shall return and talk to the sheriff again."
Mr. Henry Smith drove back to the Perry house even more slowly and thoughtfully than he had driven away from it. He didn't drive quite all the way. He parked his ancient vehicle almost a quarter of a
mile away, at the point where the road curved around the copse of trees that gave the nearest cover.
He walked through the trees until, near the edge of the copse, he could see the house itself across the open field. The sheriff was still, or again, on the roof.
Mr. Smith walked out into the open, and the sheriff saw him almost at once. Mr. Smith waved and the sheriff waved back. Mr. Smith walked on across the field to the barn, which stood between the field and the house itself.
The tall, thin man whom he had seen exercising the horse was now engaged in currying a horse.
"Mr. Merkle?" asked Mr. Smith, and the man nodded. "My name is Smith, Henry Smith. I am ... ah ... attempt-ing to help the sheriff. A beautiful stallion, that gray. Would I be wrong in guessing that it is a cross between an Arabian and a Kentucky walking horse?"
The thin man's face lighted up. "Right, mister. I see you know horses. I been having fun with those city dicks all week, kidding 'em. They think, because I told 'em, that this is a Clyde, and that chestnut Arab mare is a Percheron. Found out yet who killed Mr. Perry?"
Mr. Smith stared at him. "It is just possible that we have, Mr. Merkle. It is just barely possible that you have told me how it was done, and if we know that—"
"Huh?" said the trainer. "I told you?"
"Yes," returned Mr. Smith. "Thank you."
He walked on around the barn and joined the sheriff on the roof.
Sheriff Osburne grunted a welcome. He said, "I saw you the minute you came out into the open. Dammit, nobody could have crossed that field last night without being noticed."
"You said the moonlight was rather dim, did you not?" "Yeah, the moon was low, kind of, and—let's see, was it a half moon?"
"Third quarter," said Mr. Smith. "And the men who crossed that field didn't have to come closer than a hundred yards or more until they were lost in the shadow of the barn."
The sheriff took off his hat and swabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief He said, "Sure, I ain't saying you could recognize anybody that far, but you could see— Hey, why'd you say the men who crossed that field? You mean, you think—"
"Exactly," cut in Mr. Smith, just a bit smugly. "One man could not have crossed that field last night without being noticed, but two men could. It seems quite absurd, I will admit, but by process of elimination, it must have been what happened."
Sheriff Osburne stared blankly.
"The two men," said Mr. Smith, "are named Wade and Wheeler. They live in the city, and you'll have no difficulty finding them because Walter Perry knows where they live. I think you'll have no difficulty proving that they did it, once you know the facts. For one thing, I think you'll find that they probably rented the ... ah ... where-withal. I doubt if they have their own left, after all these years off the stage."
"Wheeler and Wade? I believe Walter mentioned those names, but—"
"Exactly," said Mr. Smith. "They knew the setup here. And they knew that if Walter inherited Whistler and Company, they'd get the money they had coming, and so they came here last night and killed Mr. Carlos Perry. They crossed that field last night right under the eyes of your city detectives."
"I'm crazy, or you are," declared Sheriff Osburne.
"How?"
Mr. Smith smiled gently.
He said, "On my way up through the house just now, I verified a wild guess. I phoned a friend of mine who has been a theatrical agent for a great many years. He re-membered Wade and Wheeler quite well. And it's the only answer. Possibly because of dim moonlight, distance, and the ignorance of city-bred men who would think nothing of seeing a horse in a field at night when the horse should be in the barn. Who wouldn't, in fact, even see a horse, to remember it."
"You mean Wade and Wheeler—"
"Exactly," said Mr. Smith, this time with definite smug-ness in his voice. "Wade and Wheeler, in vaudeville, were the front and back ends, respectively, of a comedy horse."
Satan One-and-a-Half
Maybe you know how it is, when a man seeks solitude to do some creative work. As soon as he gets solitude, he finds it gives him the willies to be alone. Back in the middle of everything, he thought, "If I could only get away from everybody I know, I could get something done." But let him get away-and see what happens.
I know; I'd had solitude for almost a week, and it was giving me the screaming meamies. I'd written hardly a note of the piano concerto I intended composing. I had the opening few bars, but they sounded suspiciously like Gershwin.
Here I was in a cottage out at the edge of town, and that cottage had seemed like what the doctor ordered when I rented it. I'd given my address to none of my pals, and so there were no parties, no jam sessions, no distractions.
That is, no distractions except loneliness. I was finding that loneliness is worse than all other distractions com-bined.
All I did was sit there at the piano with a pencil stuck behind my ear, wishing the doorbell would ring. Anybody. Anything. I wished I'd had a telephone put in and had given my friends the number. I wished the cottage would turn out to be haunted. Even that would be better.
The doorbell rang.
I jumped up from the piano and practically ran to an-swer it.
And there wasn't anybody there. I could see that without opening the door, because the door is mostly glass. Unless someone had rung the bell and then run like hell to get out of sight.
I opened the door and saw the cat. I didn't pay any particular attention to it though. Instead, I stuck my head out and looked both ways. There wasn't anybody in sight except the man across the street mowing his lawn.
I turned to go back to the piano, and the doorbell rang again.
This time I wasn't more than a yard from the door. I swung around, opened it wide, and stepped outside.
There wasn't anybody there, and the nearest hiding place—around the corner of the house—was too far away for anybody to have got there without my seeing him. Unless the cat.
I looked down for the cat and at first I thought it, too, had disappeared. But then I saw it again, walking with graceful dignity along the hallway, inside the house, to-ward the living room. It was paying no more attention to me than I had paid to it the first time I'd looked out the door.
I turned around again and looked up and down the street, and at the trees on my lawn, at the house next door on the north, and at the house next door on the south. Each of those houses was a good fifty yards from mine and no one could conceivably have rung my bell and run to either of them.
<
br /> Even leaving out the question of why anyone should have done such a childish stunt, nobody could have.
I went back in the house, and there was the cat curled up sound asleep in the Morris chair in the living room. He was a big, black cat, a cat with character. Somehow, even asleep, he seemed to have a rakish look about him.
I said, "Hey," and he opened big yellowish-green eyes and looked at me. There wasn't any surprise or fear in those handsome eyes; only a touch of injured dignity. I said, "Who rang that doorbell?" Naturally, he didn't answer.
So I said, "Want something to eat, maybe?" And don't ask me why he answered that one when he wouldn't answer the others. My tone of voice, perhaps. He said, "Miaourr ..." and stood up in the
chair.
I said, "All right, come on," and went out into the kitchen to explore the refrigerator. There was most of a bottle of milk, but somehow my guest didn't look like a cat who drank much milk. But luckily there was plenty of ground meat, because hamburgers are my favorite food when I do my own cooking.
I put some hamburger in a bowl and some water in another bowl and put them both on the floor under the sink. He was busily working on the hamburger when I went back into the front hallway to look at the doorbell.
The bell was right over the front door, and it was the only bell in the house. I couldn't have mistaken a tele-phone bell because I didn't have a phone, and there was a knocker instead of a bell on the back door. I didn't know where the battery or the transformer that ran the bell was located, and there wasn't any way of tracing the wir-ing without tearing down the walls.
The push button outside the door was four feet up from the step. A cat, even one smart enough to stand on its hind legs, couldn't have reached it. Of course, a cat could have jumped for the button, but that would have caused a sharp, short ring. Both times, the doorbell had rung longer than that.
Nobody could have rung it from the outside and got away without my seeing him. And, granting that the bell could be short-circuited from somewhere inside the house, that didn't get me an answer. The cottage was so small and so quiet that it would have been impossible for a win-dow or a door to have opened without my hearing it.
I went outside again and looked around, and this time I got an idea. This was an ideal opportunity for me to get acquainted with the girl next door—an opportunity I'd been waiting for since I'd first seen her a few days ago.
I cut across the lawn and knocked on the door.
Seeing her from a distance, I'd thought she was a knock-out. Now, as she opened the door and I got a close look, I knew she was.
I said, "My name is Brian Murray. I live next door and I-"
"And you play with Russ Whitlow's orchestra." She smiled, and I saw I'd underestimated how pretty she was. Strictly tops. "I was hoping we'd get acquainted while you were here. Won't you come in?"
I didn't argue about that. I went in, and almost the first thing I noticed inside was a beautiful walnut grand piano. I asked, "Do you play, Miss—?"
"Carson. Ruth Carson. I give piano lessons to brats with sticky fingers who'd rather be outside playing ball or skip-ping rope. When I heard Whitlow on the radio a few nights ago, the piano sounded different. Aren't you still—?"
"I'm on leave," I explained. "I had rather good luck with a couple of compositions a year ago, and Russ gave me a month off to try my hand at some more." "Have you written any?"
I said ruefully, "To date all I've set down is a pair of clef signs. Maybe now ..." I was going to say that maybe now that I'd met her, things would be different. But that was working too fast, I decided.
She said, "Sit down, Mr. Murray. My uncle and aunt will be home soon, and I'd like you to meet them. Mean-while, would you care for some tea?"
I said that I would, and it was only after she'd gone out into the kitchen that I realized I hadn't asked the question I'd come to ask. When she came back, I said:
"Miss Carson, I came to ask you about a black cat. It walked into my house a few minutes ago. Do you know if it belongs to anybody here in the neighborhood?"
"A black cat? That's odd. Mr. Lasky owned one, but outside of that one, I don't know of any around here."
"Who is Mr. Lasky?"
She looked surprised. "Why, didn't you know? He was the man who lived in that cottage before you did. He died only a few weeks ago. He—he committed suicide."
The faintest little shiver ran down my spine. Funny, in a city, how little one knows about the places one lives in. You rent a house or an apartment and never think to wonder who has lived there before you or what tragedies have been enacted there.
I said, "That might explain it. I mean, if it's his cat. Cats become attached to people. It would explain why the cat—"
"I'm afraid it doesn't," she said. "The cat is dead, too. I happened to see him bury it in your back yard, under the maple tree. It was run over by a car, I believe."
The phone rang, and she went to answer it. I started thinking about the cat again. The way it had walked in, as though it lived there—it was a bit eerie, somehow. If it were my predecessor's cat, that would explain its apparent familiarity with the place. But it couldn't be my predeces-sor's cat. Unless he'd had more than one ...
Ruth Carson came back from the hallway. She said, "That was my aunt. They won't be home until late tonight, so probably you won't get to meet them until tomorrow. That means I'll have to get my own dinner, and I hate to eat alone. Will you share it with me, Mr. Murray?"
That was the easiest question I'd ever had to answer in my life.
We had an excellent meal in the breakfast nook in the kitchen. We talked about music for a while, and then I told her about the cat and the doorbell.
It puzzled her almost as much as it had puzzled me. She said, "Are you sure some child couldn't have rung it for a prank, and then ducked out of sight before you got there?"
"I don't see how," I said. "I was just inside the door the second time it rang. Tell me about this Mr. Lasky and about his cat."
She said, "I don't know how long he lived there. We moved here just a year ago, and he was there then. He was rather an eccentric chap, almost a hermit. He never had any guests, never spoke to anyone. He and the cat lived there alone. I think he was crazy about the cat."
"An old duck?" I asked.
"Not really old. Probably in his fifties. He had a gray beard that made him look older."
"And the cat. Could he possibly have had two black cats?"
"I'm almost positive he didn't. I never saw more than the big black torn he called Satan. And there was no cat around during the week after it was killed."
"You're positive it died?"
"Yes. I happened to see him burying it, and it wasn't in a box or anything. And it was almost the only time I ever heard him speak; he was talking to himself, cursing about careless auto drivers. He took it hard. Maybe—"
She stopped, and I tried to fill in the blank. "You mean that was why he committed suicide a week later?"
"Oh, he must have had other reasons, but I imagine that was a factor. He left a suicide note, I understand. It was in the papers, at the time. There was one particularly unhappy circumstance about it. He wrote the note and then took poison. But before the poison had taken effect, he regretted it or changed his mind; he telephoned the police and they rushed an ambulance and a doctor—but he was dead when they got there."
For an instant I wondered how he could have phoned the police from a house in which there was no telephone. Then I remembered that there had been one, taken out before I moved in. The rental agency had told me so, and that the wiring was already there in case I wanted one installed. For privacy's sake I'd decided against having it done.
We'd finished our meal, and I insisted on helping with the dishes. Then I said, "Would you like to meet the cat?"
"Of course," she said. "Are you going to let him stay?"
I grinned. "The question seems to be whether he's going to let me stay. Come on; maybe you can give me a recom-mendation.
"
We were right by her kitchen door, so we cut across the back yards into my kitchen. All the hamburger I'd put under the sink was gone. The cat was back in the Morris chair, asleep again. He blinked at us as I turned on the light.
Ruth stood there staring at him. "He's a dead ringer for Mr. Lasky's Satan. I'd almost swear it's the same. But it couldn't be!"
I said, "A cat has nine lives, you know. Anyway, I'll call him Satan. And since the question arises whether he's Satan One or Satan Two, let's compromise. Satan One-and-a-Half. So, Satan One-and-a-Half, you've got the only com-fortable chair in this room. Mind giving it up for a lady?"
Whether he minded or not, I picked him up and moved him to a straight chair. Satan One-and-a-Half promptly jumped down to the floor from his straight chair, went back to the Morris, and jumped up on Ruth's lap.
I said, "Shall I shut him in the kitchen?"
"No, don't. Really, I like cats." She was stroking his fur gently, and the cat promptly curled into a black ball of fur and went to sleep.
"Anyway," I said, "he's got good taste. But now you're stuck. You can't move without waking him, and that would be rude."
She smiled. "Will you play for me? Something of your own, I mean. Did you mean it literally when you said you'd composed nothing since you've been here, or were you being modest?"
I looked down at the staff paper on the piano. There were a few bars there, an opening. But it wasn't any good. I said, "I wasn't being modest. I can compose, when I have an idea. But I haven't had an idea since I've been here."
She said, "Play the 'Black Cat Nocturne.'"
"Sorry, I don't know—"
"Of course not. It hasn't been written yet."
Then I got what she was talking about, and it began to click.
She said, "A doorbell rings, but nobody is there. The ghost of a dead black cat walks in and takes over your house. It—"
The Shaggy Dog and Other Murders Page 10