“… and somebody else made sure that you weren’t available. Now if anything important happened last night …”
Chapter 13
“Another accident?” Hilary Vane repeated. “Another accident,” said Fergus tonelessly.
“In that case,” Hilary seemed to be choosing his words with great care, “I don’t think I shall go to Joe’s with you.”
“Don’t you?” Fergus leaned heavily on his cane. “I assure you it might be just as well. The police have a way of being interested in people who change their names after conviction.”
Hilary turned to Norman with a disarming smile. “Your friend has such a charmingly melodramatic way of expressing himself. As a writer, you must find his crime-conditioned outlook fascinating. Oh yes, O’Breen, I am quite aware of all the threats you can make. But in view of Fennworth’s accident, I prefer not to go to Joe’s. Should you care to drive me direct to police headquarters?”
Detective Lieutenant A. Jackson sat behind a flat-topped desk in a small and bare office. The desk was almost as neat as Lewis Jordan’s incredible writing table had been on Norman’s first visit. On a straight chair in a corner sat a uniformed officer with a dictation pad on his knee.
Fergus m.c.’d the introductions. “You know Norm Harker, Andy. And this is Hilary Vane, of the Carruthers Little Theater—Lieutenant Jackson.”
Jackson said, “Sit down, all of you. You’ve come to lay information before the police, Mr. Vane?”
“I have. But first I want to know one thing: you’re sure Fennworth is dead?”
“And you were sure,” said Hilary grimly, “that Rupert Carruthers was dead.”
“Were sure? We still are. But if you’d care to make certain as to Fennworth and check the identification yourself—Dakin, you could take Mr. Vane over to the morgue and—”
Hilary raised a hand in graceful protest. “No need for that, Lieutenant. I haven’t the proper taste for visiting the dead. But if you could tell me a little of the circumstances of his death, so that I could know the relevance of what I have to tell you—”
Jackson shrugged. “No harm done. You could read it in the papers anyway. It goes like this: Fennworth lived, as you probably know, in a boardinghouse just off Sunset some five blocks from the theater. One J. Edward North, realtor, who lives in the same block, was driving home this morning around one o’clock. As he turned off Sunset, something hurtled in front of his car. He stopped as soon as he could, but it was too late. His wheels had gone over Fennworth.
“Mr. North, who seems a model citizen, called the police at once. For a while there was some difficulty in identifying the body. It wore bedroom slippers and an old-fashioned smoking jacket, with no means of identification in the pockets. This informal costume, however, did indicate that the man had come from one of the houses in that block; and a few inquiries by a persistent officer soon located his landlady, who identified the body.”
“But why?” asked Norman.
“Why what?”
“Why should Fennworth go dashing in front of cars at one o’clock in the morning?”
“I went out to the spot myself,” said Jackson. “When two accidental deaths happen in the same group of people, even my unsuspicious mind gets worried. And it’s hard to see why he was rushing across the street there. He can’t have been trying to catch a bus because it was too late for busses, and anyway a man doesn’t mount a bus in bedroom slippers. He can’t have been trying to find a phone, because there was one in his boarding-house. He might have been heading for the mailbox on the corner; but no letter was found on his body and the next collection wasn’t until ten this morning, which wouldn’t give him much reason for dashing out alone in the middle of the night.”
“How do you know he was alone?” Fergus asked.
“Answer, we don’t. But Mr. North saw no one, and certainly any companion would have tried to—Whoa there! Don’t tell me you’re trying to make this into a murder too?”
“The idea,” said Fergus dryly, “had crossed my mind.”
Jackson shook his head. “It isn’t a likely setup. You lure a man out of his house in his bedroom slippers and persuade him to wait on the sidewalk with you until a car happens to turn the corner, whereupon you push the unsuspecting dope under the wheels and walk off, lightly brushing your hands. Maybe Fennworth wasn’t any great intellect, but I’ll lay odds he had a sounder sense of the value of his life than to fall for anything like that.”
“He didn’t have a sound enough sense of that value to look around before crossing the street.”
“If he was in a hurry—”
“But why was he in such a hurry?”
“All right. Why should anyone want to kill him? Who had a possible motive for getting rid of him?”
Hilary Vane spoke for the first time since his opening question. “One man did.”
“Hm. And who was that?”
Fergus held up his hand. “Please teacher, can I anticipate our star pupil? Mr. Vane is about to tell you that the one man who might have murdered Adam Fennworth is Rupert Carruthers.”
The room was silent for a minute. Even the uniformed stenographer looked up in surprise. Jackson stared at Hilary, then rapped his knuckles sharply against the desk. “Vane, is our friend here completely mad or are you? Is this the information you’ve come to give me?”
Hilary was looking at Fergus curiously. “Perhaps Mr. O’Breen would care to anticipate more of my statement.”
“Sure thing.” Fergus unthinkingly started to rise and pace, then sank back with a regretful oath. “Here’s the setup. You agree with me that the blood clot on that bottle goes against the accident theory?”
“Not conclusively,” said Jackson. “But enough to interest me.”
“And that my reconstruction of how murder might have been done fits the physical facts as well as accident does?”
“All but the door.”
“And the solid key, you’ll admit, makes even that suspicious?”
“Yes.”
“Then we have a murder involving (a) Rupert Carruthers and (b) one hundred thousand dollars. We know Carruthers was venal and conniving, with an eye on the main chance. I even have a pretty good idea that he literally got away with murder thirteen years ago. And when a murder ties up with that much money, Rupert Carruthers is far more in character as murderer than as victim.”
“You play nice games,” Jackson observed. “That’s the blessing of being a free lance. You can have all the fun you want, let your deductive theories roam at will through Cloud-Cuckoo-Land. We poor dumb dicks, you see, we’re limited; we’ve got to make sense and stick to the evidence.”
“Even when it isn’t there?”
“Look, Fergus. Fun’s fun. But that body was absolutely and positively identified as Rupert Carruthers. He’s safe on a slab this minute waiting for the inquest. If you want me to, I’ll question the janitor; but I am reasonably certain that he did not rise up from that slab last night and wander off to push Adam Fennworth under a moving car.”
Fergus looked at the quietly supercilious smile on Hilary’s face. “See, Andy? You’re impressing Vane just about as much as you’re impressing me. And I doubt if he’s even thought about gum shrinkage.”
“Gum shrinkage? What the hell now?”
Fergus explained. “They didn’t fit exactly, did they? Those false teeth that clinched the identification?”
“No. No, they didn’t. They never do; I know that. But they were his teeth.”
“And what was the rest of your ‘identification’? Fennworth said he recognized the body. Then, when you were doubtful whether that was enough, he told you certain scars you could check. You checked them. Which proved … what? That Fennworth knew what scars were on the body. Nothing else. The entire identification is simply and solely Fennworth.”
“That’s true,” said Jackson slowly. “And now you mean to imply an attempt at fraud, with Fennworth as an accessory?”
“Exactly.”
“As a direct witness, I hope and pray. Take it away, Hilary.”
Hilary Vane sounded less sure of himself than Norman had ever heard him before. “I am certain, Lieutenant,” he began hesitantly, “that O’Breen is right. You have a case of fraud here.”
“And how do you know that? Were you in on the scheme too?”
“Not directly. One night last week, I was settling down to study my part in the Jordan play when I could not find my sides.”
“Sides?”
“The typed half-sheets with my lines and cues. I decided that I must have left them at the theater; and since that is only some fifteen minutes’ walk from my garret I went after them. It was quite possible that someone might be working late. There was, indeed, a light in the office, and I was about to knock and ask to be let in when I heard Carruthers’ voice through the open window. He was saying, ‘Are you sure you’ll be content with a cut of ten thousand?’
“I need hardly tell you that such astronomical figures are not a part of ordinary shop talk around the Carruthers Little Theater. And my curiosity is sometimes comparable even to O’Breen’s. I did not knock. Instead I stood very still and tried to overhear what I could.
“The conversation, Lieutenant, was as difficult to follow as the easy family allusions of a married couple. So much was left to be understood, so much meaning hung carelessly suspended between the lines. But I did gather, or thought I gathered, three things: that someone connected with the theater was going to die, that that death would be exceedingly profitable to Rupert Carruthers, and that it would not be a natural death. Do I interest you, Lieutenant?”
Jackson grunted. “It’s a good story. Not very specific to lay before a jury, but interesting enough as a yarn. Go on; what happened next?”
“What happened next,” Fergus put in, “was that we played Indications.”
“True,” Hilary admitted. “I knew, and who better, what a dangerous man Rupert Carruthers was. I knew that his threats were not to be taken lightly; but I still did not understand at whom his plot was aimed. Therefore when we played this question game, I slipped a note of warning in among the slogans used, hoping that someone might understand it and protect himself. May I add, O’Breen, that you gave your profession away quite thoroughly that evening?”
“I had to. I don’t like notes threatening murder.”
“Not threatening,” Hilary corrected him, “but warning. However. Once I had conveyed that warning, I had no idea what my next step should be. I knew nothing specific. I could only wait. And then, when the ‘accident’ occurred, all that I had heard fell into place. The little allusions, the cryptic remarks fitted into one large picture which made sense; and I knew that Carruthers was a murderer who had killed out of the one simple necessity of having to have a corpse to pass off as his own.”
“Of course,” said Jackson, “you didn’t think the police might be interested in this?”
“I did not want the police. Neither did I want O’Breen and his stooge, who were, as I could see, taking an inordinate interest in the ‘accident.’ I was so anxious to divert these two young men from the true trail that I resorted to what I am afraid was a very foolish ruse to frighten them off or even, if need be, to turn their suspicions toward me. I threatened them, rather melodramatically, I confess, with a blank prop gun and an attempt at the intimidating manner which I had learned once for a gangster role.”
“So that,” said Fergus, “is why you handled the gun with so much confidence. I damned near took you for a professional.”
“It was a ridiculous business, and I apologize for it. Only the urgency of my personal desires can excuse it. Instead of discouraging you, I imagine that I merely gave you the opportunity to identify me. It was through the prints on the gun, was it not?”
“That’s something else I want to talk about,” said Jackson. “Why this name-changing act?”
“Please. Let me finish this part of my story first. Convinced that my suspicions were correct, I approached Adam Fennworth and gave him to understand that I knew—what shall we say?—more than was safe for him, and arranged an interview at what I thought should be a private enough place, the solarium of the Hollywood Y at a time when it is usually deserted. But fate directed this pair to that spot at the same time, and our interview was interrupted.”
“Just for the record,” said Fergus, “tell me this: was it you or Fennworth who tried to break my neck?”
“Who tried to—?” Hilary seemed honestly puzzled.
“They left the roof first,” Fergus explained to Jackson. “When I started down, the ladder had been soaped.” He gestured at his ankle. “With any luck, the results could have been much more serious. Even permanent.”
Hilary frowned. “It is, I suppose, my fault; but only indirectly, I assure you. I recognized you from your appendix scar and whispered to Fennworth that we were not safe there. I added my suspicions that you were a private detective. We left the roof. That was all I knew of the matter until you showed up later at the theater with a bad limp. I wondered then, especially when Fennworth so carefully fell on your ankle.”
“To give him his devilish due,” said Fergus, “I think the old boy just wanted me out of the way temporarylike. I’m too curious. But I wonder he didn’t have any more serious plans for you. Go on.”
“Fennworth then insisted on going back to the theater. He pooh-poohed my notions, but I could see that I had made an impression. I decided to let it rest at that and leave him to worry about it overnight before I struck again.”
“Just a minute, Vane,” said Jackson. “Before we go on, I’d like to get a better idea of what your role is in this opus. Are you just a bright amateur detective trying to clutter things up, or—Just what the hell were you trying to do with Fennworth?”
“I was trying to find Rupert Carruthers.”
“But why? And why suddenly decide now to tell us about it?”
“Because if Fennworth is dead I can do nothing more by myself. Finding Carruthers is a police job now.”
“You won’t get any cut out of this.”
“Who says I want a cut?”
“Why else are you so anxious to find him? Weren’t you figuring that if Fennworth rated ten thousand you might pick up five?”
“No.” Hilary’s voice was pitched low now, cold and intense. “I wanted the satisfaction of delivering Rupert Carruthers myself to his punishment. I wanted to be the sole and single instrument by which he was brought to justice.”
“But why?” Jackson insisted.
“Because he murdered my mother.”
Hilary lit a cigarette. The match shook slightly, but his voice did not waver. “I seem,” he observed suavely, “to have produced a striking theatrical effect. Boucicault stuff, isn’t it? Big moment. But it’s simply a quite ordinary statement of fact. A minor episode in the Carruthers career. He has doubtless forgotten it entirely by now.”
“I have never,” said Lieutenant Jackson, “known a case where people talked about so many murders and there was evidence of so few. But go on; let’s hear this one.”
“It is not an exciting story, Lieutenant. Perfectly prosaic, in fact. But my mother is dead. I take for granted that you have looked up the—should we call it the Varney case? That shocking example of the young actor who was almost prosecuted for matricide?”
“I looked it up.” Jackson’s dry voice was sympathetic. “A hell of a mess. I felt sorry for the boy it happened to. But how—?”
“Then you are familiar with the official version. Let me tell you mine. This was two years ago. I was studying on a scholarship at the Pasadena Community Playhouse. We had presented a revival of The School for Scandal. I played Sir Benjamin Backbite. Mother was delighted with it, thought it by far the best work I’d done. I was driving her back to our home in Hollywood and we were discussing—oh, how eagerly!—the deft way in which I had taken the show away from all the principals. Oh yes, we were
very pleased with ourselves, Mother and I.
“We drove along Franklin to avoid the traffic on the Boulevard. The hour was naturally late, after a first night, and the street was quiet. Then it all happened—so suddenly that I cannot describe it to you. A car turned from a side street at a frightful rate of speed. It struck me. I swerved and careened into a lamppost. The other car stopped. A man came up to me.
“It is possible that he honestly intended to help me at first. But then he saw Mother. He knew what had happened before I did. He was perhaps more experienced in recognizing death. I climbed out of the car and tried to get Mother out. She seemed heavy and hard to move. I was frightened.
“He was most sympathetic. He took a bottle from his pocket and told me I needed a drink to brace me after the shock. I drank from the bottle. My hand shook and the strong cheap whisky spilled down my coat. And then I realized what had happened to Mother.
“I cannot remember the next few minutes. When I knew what was happening again, the man was gone, and a radio patrol car was pulling up alongside me. I don’t blame them. I reeked of whisky. I had an empty bottle in my hand. I was broken and incoherent, and I had smashed my car. What else could they think? And I am sure that that is exactly what he intended that they should think.
“When I babbled of another car and a man with thick eyebrows who gave me the whisky, they laughed at me. They stopped laughing when they saw Mother and I told them who she was, but they took me in custody. And all the rest is in your records. The public defender disbelieved my story. He said it would do me more harm than good, and a simple plea of guilty to the drunk-driving charge would induce the district attorney to drop the homicide count. And that, gentlemen, is the account of my debt to Rupert Carruthers.”
“But how did you know it was Carruthers?”
“I didn’t then. But his isn’t a face that you can forget easily. Sometime later a friend of mine mentioned the odd-looking director of the Little Theater he was working in. I went to see. It was the man. I had no doubt. If any remained, it disappeared when he offered me a drink of that same brand of vile cheap whisky. He didn’t know me, I am sure. I had … I did not have the same freshness of youth that I had possessed before. I was not the same person. And I had deliberately changed my manners, my mannerisms. I had ‘gone gay,’ as we say in Hollywood. It is not an ineffective disguise.
The Case of the Solid Key Page 16