“Not a thing,” said Norman. There was no point in mentioning the insurance now. The least a Watson could do for his detective was to keep a card up his sleeve.
Chapter 7
When Norman returned to the main building, office and waiting room were deserted. He went on through the hall and found Mark Andrews pinning a paper to the door of the auditorium. Through that half-open door he could see the auditorium itself, bare and empty and looking deader than any corpse. The notice read:
NO REHEARSAL TODAY
“Or any day?” he asked.
The stage manager frowned. “I can’t say as to that, Harker. We’ll have to make arrangements, naturally.”
“Tough on the theater.”
“Tough on Jordan. He had his heart set on The Soul. And tough on Fennworth. But tough on the theater? We’ll see.”
“How’s Fennworth holding up? He was in a pretty bad state when I saw him last.”
“The officer let him go home. He’s no use here. I guess,” Andrews shoved the dirty brown hat back off his forehead with a puzzled gesture, “the old boy’s really pretty much broken up over the passing of Carruthers. Hard to imagine … I’ll stick around here a little while to pass out the good news, and then I’ve got to get back to the service station.”
“The service station?”
“Sure. You don’t think I live on being a stage manager? I’ve got a part-time job.” He paused and surveyed Norman curiously. “You found him, didn’t you?”
“Fennworth and I, yes.”
“Tell me … It’s hard to know how to put this; but tell me: was there any chance that …?”
Norman shook his head. “Lieutenant Jackson says there’s not one chance in a million that it wasn’t an accident.”
“Funny, though. That warning note last night, and …”
“And?”
“Nothing. Just a feeling. God, I must be getting psychic or something. Oh, by the way, Harker.”
“Yes?”
“Noticed the script of your play in the office. Mind if I read it?”
“I guess not.”
“Don’t overwhelm me with enthusiasm. But thanks. I’m sort of curious.”
“All hail in the name of the Kings of Tara!” called a ringing voice.
Mark Andrews turned. “Oh. It’s the banshee.”
“And a fine cheery greeting that is for a bright April morning.” Fergus came closer and peered at the sign. “What’s all this? No rehearsal? And me keeping my hard-working sister up all night cuing me! What goes on?”
“I’ll have a look at that script,” said Mark Andrews, and left them.
“Look,” Fergus protested. “What’s eating him this morning? I’ll admit at best he’s not a voluble ray of sunshine, but—”
“Come on over to Joe’s,” said Norman, “and you shall Hear All.”
Fergus scratched his red pate. “Fun and games,” he murmured. “But all right. Though it’s early hours to be drinking.”
“I could do with a few beers,” said Norman. “Somewhere between ten and twenty. But you needn’t worry; you won’t be drinking.”
“And why should I drive you to the vice of solitary drinking?”
“Didn’t I once hear you say that you never drink while you’re working? Well, you’re on a major case, O’Breen.”
There were no other customers in Joe’s, and the juke box was mercifully silent. Fergus listened to the story in rapt attention, his eyes alight half with interest in the narrative, half with envy of the succession of beers with which Norman kept his throat oiled.
“We expected something,” he said at last. “But certainly not this. On the surface it seems like an intrusive accident, and yet … There’s ways it could fit in.”
“As far as I can see, all it does is play hell with everything and everybody. And your Lieutenant swears it’s accident.”
“I know.” Fergus rose from the table and began to pace quietly about the deserted barroom. “Andy brings this practically to the level of a personal challenge. I haven’t even said anything yet, but it’s natural death no matter what I say. All right. Now let’s see. Let’s start from scratch.”
“While you’re up,” said Norman, “you might get this glass filled.”
“Hell,” Fergus grunted, “nobody could call beer drinking. And besides this isn’t really working. It’s planning how to work and what to work on. Make it two, Joe.” He brought the beers back to the table.
“Now Andy,” he began as he half-emptied the glass, “thinks I’m just being smart. O.K., maybe I am. It’s the great O’Breen vice—that, and curiosity. It’s what’s made Maureen a success in the publicity business. And I’ll admit that nothing would do my vanity so much good as cracking open a sweet murder case—to say nothing of my reputation. But that’s only half of it. Remember what I told you about Dan Rafetti?”
“That was the insurance detective?”
“Who is temporarily out of commission, yes. Now according to Andy’s interpretation of Carruthers’ death, the insurance company stands to pay out fifty thousand dollars, or a hundred if there was a double indemnity clause. If I can get Rafetti to persuade the Southwest National that I should handle this investigation in his place—being in on the ground floor I’d have a great advantage over any substitute they’d send in. You get the picture?”
“You’re running away with yourself,” said Norman.
“That’s a hell of a remark for a Watson.”
“But look. What do you gain if you do prove murder? The company still pays out fifty or a hundred thousand. That won’t endear you to them.”
“Who said I was going to prove murder? Let’s look at the possibilities: A, Carruthers was killed accidentally. Company pays off, I get nowhere, Andy looks smug. B, Carruthers was murdered and I prove it. Company still pays off, but I make me a reputation and Andy, God bless him, looks damned uncomfortable. C, Carruthers committed suicide—”
“Come now!”
“We’re just listing possibilities. C, Carruthers committed suicide. Insurance company pays nothing, except probably a neat little bonus to Fergus O’Breen. There’s three possibilities. One of them means nothing. All right, so I don’t lose anything but time. Another means reputation, and the third means money in the bank. Isn’t it a chance worth taking?
“If you’re willing to waste time.”
“The hell with that. Point is: do you still want to play Watson?”
Norman hesitated. “Yesterday I’d have said there wasn’t anything I’d enjoy more. Today … I saw that body this morning. I smelt it. I’m beginning to think that murder is fun only from the outside.”
“But the worst is over. You’ve seen the body. That’s done with. From now on we’re purely in the realms of the intellect, and let Andy snort at that if he wants to.”
“I think I’d be a better Watson if I weren’t so tied up in this—worrying about my play and about Sarah and … Haven’t you any nice impersonal cases for me to stooge on, like finding Rita La Marr?”
“That’s what I should be working on today,” Fergus confessed ruefully. “I’ve got an idea for a lead to follow as soon as I get an answer from my cable to Watling in Honolulu. But this is bigger game, Norm; this is the real thing. And there’s one other angle.”
“That being?”
“We’ve spoken about the volcano here. Well, it’s still here. This death hasn’t settled things. If anything, it’s riled them up. The metaphor’s getting out of hand, so the hell with it. The point is this: these people here have their troubles, twisted troubles; and a sudden and unexplained death is just going to make those troubles worse. If we can explain it, we may explain other things too. We may at least smooth life out—make an easier existence for Fran, for Lewis Jordan … for Sarah.”
“O.K.,” said Norman. “I’m with you.”
“Fine. A toast, sir. Two against Jackson!”
“Two against Jackson!” Norman raised his glass and clinked with Fergus
.
“There’s no use going back to the theater,” Fergus thought aloud, “until Andy’s gone. He’d rib the pants off me and tell me nothing. So before we go back and look for something, let’s figure out here and now what we’re looking for. Suicide, I’ll admit, is too unlikely to consider at the moment; and fraud is out after Fennworth’s suggestion about the scars. But there’s always murder.”
“I tell you,” Norman repeated, “the insurance company won’t like it.”
“There’s one kind of murder,” Fergus observed cryptically, “that they’d just love. All right though: now of those around the theater, who might have had a motive for murder? Just for the sake of the record, I’ll put Lewis Jordan at the head of the list.”
“Hold on there,” Norman protested. “I know this insurance policy makes what you might technically consider a motive; but Lewis Jordan could no more kill a man for money than Saint Francis could steal a blind man’s pennies. It isn’t conceivably in character.”
“For the sake of the record, I said, I put him at the head of the list—and scratch him right off again. The honor of second place, I think, belongs to Mark Andrews.”
“And why to him?”
“Because he’s a better theater man than Carruthers and knows it. Those cracks of Carol’s last night about if he had the guts he’d have his own theater—those stung. And now with Carruthers dead—well, here’s a paying organization with no leader. It’s not much of a motive, but it’s something.”
“Anybody else?”
“So far as I know, Carol and her Hardy are perfectly happy here. They’re both far too stupid to know if they’re being badly directed or presented. So long as they’re brandishing their bodily beauty before the world, they’re content. Hilary… There’s something funny there. Hilary isn’t the general man of the theater that Mark is, but he’s a damned good actor. Good enough to know better. Maybe it’s true that actors aren’t very bright, or maybe—You remember he said he ‘had his reason’ for staying on here?”
“I remember.”
“Betsy … Betsy goes through life blithely. The race of man is divided into two classes: the ones who automatically try to take advantage of her, like the late Carruthers; and the ones like Jordan and me who equally automatically protect her. Between the two classes she makes out all right, and doesn’t worry much about either of them. I think she’s out.”
“I wouldn’t call this a woman’s crime anyway. If, of course, it is a crime.”
“I don’t know. You can’t be overglib about classifying crime by gender. The damnedest people do the damnedest things. And there is one woman who hates Carruthers and drinks curses to him and faints at the sight of—”
“Rye and Seven Up, Joe,” said the voice of Fran Owen at the bar.
This was the first time that Norman had seen Fran sober; but between Fran drunk and Fran with a hang-over there was little to choose. If anything, her present state was the sadder of the two.
She had come to the table at Fergus’ call, and now she sat there nursing her drink, staring by turns at the two men, and seemingly defying them to comment on her appearance, her bloodshot eyes, her straggling hair, her wrinkled dress.
“That’s a hell of a concoction,” Fergus observed, “to be drinking the next morning. What you need is something soothing, like milk or tomato juice or maybe beer.”
“I know what I need,” said Fran sullenly. “And I don’t mean the Cure.”
“Have you been to the theater yet this morning?” Norman asked.
Fran put her hand to her forehead, as though to hold the throbbing brains in. “No. God knows what Andrews’ll say to me. But what good would I be at a rehearsal?”
“That’s amateur stuff,” said Fergus. “Go to rehearsal if you feel like it and if not, the hell with it. I thought you had more guts than that.”
“If you say guts, I think Carol Dayton. And if I think Carol Dayton, I think murder. And if I think murder …” She paused and eased a large gulp down her arid throat. “God preserve me from another sherry binge … How well do you know Hardy, Fergus?”
“Not very. He’s from Cincinnati, isn’t he?”
“No. He’s from Seattle.” Her eyes narrowed. “What made you say Cincinnati?”
“I don’t know. It just popped into my mind. I’ve met somebody lately who was telling me about life in Cincinnati. Who the devil was it? It wouldn’t be Rupert, would it? Know if he was ever there?”
Fran’s hand grew taut about her glass. “I wouldn’t know.” Her voice was flat.
“Not, say, in 1927?”
Fran released the glass and set her hands on the table as though she were about to haul herself to her feet. “What are you getting at?”
“Sounds like that running gag of our fathers’ days, doesn’t it? ‘Vas you ever in Zinzinnati?’ I never did know what the point of that was.”
“Betsy,” said Fran dryly, “has corrupted your conversational style.”
“No, I’m just playing with my stream of consciousness. Trying to place a piece of jetsam that’s floating around in it. Or do I mean flotsam?” Despite the airy tone, his eyes were fixed steadily on Fran. “Some story I’ve heard lately about Cincinnati in 1927. Thirteen years ago. You’d have been a young girl then, wouldn’t you, Fran? Just getting out of high school. Or was it a private school? A convent, maybe?”
“In 1927,” said Fran dully, “I was young. I was happy. I was sober. I haven’t been one of those since.”
“Nineteen twenty-seven … What is there that brings that date and Cincinnati into my mind? Norm, you’re a writer. You should be able to solve these things. What is it that’s pestering me?”
“I’ll try. But more clews please.”
“It ties up with Fran somehow. Where were you in ’27, Fran?”
“In Arcadia.”
“And it ties in somehow with here. Joe’s and Fran and Cincinnati and 1927—can you tie all those up into a neat package? What links them all? What’s the catalyst that’ll make them fuse into a compound?”
“Got it,” said Norman. “The catalyst is sodium fluoride.”
Fran seized her glass again and held to it as though it were a safe spar in a heavy sea.
“Of course; trust the Harker Mind! Thanks, Norm. Sodium fluoride.”
“And what,” said Fran flatly, “has sodium fluoride got to do with me?”
“Nothing, of course. It’s just the tricks the subconscious plays. Remember when you passed out on us so unexpectedly the other night? You were looking at some clippings of Norm’s, though you probably don’t remember it, clippings about the Randolph case. And when you keeled over they fell with you and one of the pictures looked like you stretched out there. That fixed you and that case together in my mind, and so my subconscious goes ahead and links you up with Cincinnati, 1927. Ridiculous, isn’t it?”
“Ridiculous,” said Fran.
“That was an odd case,” Fergus went on, with a kind of intent abstraction. “Wealthy widow found dead in her home when the maid returned from her night out. Sodium fluoride poisoning—very rare. Connoisseur’s piece. Poison must have been administered in the food which the maid served her before leaving; if it had been any earlier, the symptoms would have been noticeable before the girl left. But difficult to see how anybody could have tampered with that food, and no earthly motive ascribable to the maid. The one person with a motive was the business manager, Beemis. He had lunched with the woman, but had a complete alibi for his time from then on; and as I said, she couldn’t have been poisoned at lunch. When the estate came to be investigated, there just wasn’t any estate; but by then of course the manager had vanished. The maid was killed in an automobile accident a little later. So the mystery remains complete. All the cast is gone—the two women dead and the man disappeared.”
“Not all,” Norman put in. “The character that interests me most is the daughter.”
“Yes. The daughter. But she was in the convent at the time. Came home f
or the funeral and learned that she was at once orphaned and penniless. Saddest character in the case. And a sad case it is. Especially the D. A.’s stupidity.”
“Stupidity?” Norman repeated. “What could he do? I’d put my money on Beemis any day, but his alibi was perfect.”
“I know. But supposing …” Fergus’ voice trailed off, and he sat toying with his empty beer glass. “How’s about another round?”
“No,” said Fran. “Supposing …?”
“My! Are you an amateur of crime too, Fran? I never knew you had such depraved tastes. Well, supposing the maid hadn’t served dinner. Supposing she snuck out of the house right after lunch. The house was over warm because no one had been alive to turn off the furnace that night; the only way the time of death could be fixed was by the maid’s testimony. And supposing that testimony had been well paid for?”
“Make it another round,” said Fran. She took her fresh drink at one gulp, and her eyes began to come alive. “Go on,” she said tensely.
“That’s all. Just that the D. A. should have worked on that girl until she broke. But you can suppose some more. Supposing she thought she didn’t get a big enough cut. Supposing she tried for more. And supposing it was a damned good thing for somebody that she died in an automobile accident?”
“But would she take a chance?” Fran objected. “How could Beemis make her run the risk of being an accomplice? Janet was such a sensible girl.”
“Hardheaded, wasn’t she? An eye for the main chance? And who knows how much her cut was?”
Fran rose to her feet. A slight unsteadiness was creeping into her legs—more than you’d expect from two drinks. “Good-by,” she said.
“Where are you going?”
“Over to the theater.”
“I wouldn’t do that. You were right; you’re in no fit state to rehearse.”
“Who said I was going to rehearse? I want to go over to the theater.”
“Sit down.” Fergus’ voice carried a command that had to be obeyed. As Fran sat, despite herself, he rose, like the other bucket in a well, and stood over her. “Listen, Fran. There’s no use your going to the theater. Now or ever.”
The Case of the Solid Key Page 9