Bishop, looking at him with arched eyebrows, took the card; he glanced at the cover, and then inside.
After a pause he looked up again, a curious expression on his unexpressive face. “I guess this must have been an order.”
“It was.”
“I heard something about it from—I heard something. Funny kind of thing for me.”
“She was civilizing you,” said Gamadge.
“Yeah, guess so.” Bishop leaned forward to hand it back. “You take charge of it.”
“Not interested?”
“Well no; and if you won’t be shocked at me, I’ll say I never was.”
Gamadge took the inside leaf out of the valentine and held his lighter to it. When it was burned, he said: “The other one was from the heart. Two fixed ideas, Bishop; they call that mania.”
“His must have been easy money.”
“It was. We know what hers was. All he wanted was money and the good life, and he killed to get it. All she wanted was everything she had never had, and without him would never have again. She killed because it was the only way she could keep him.” Gamadge looked down into the icy depths of his drink. “I had a talk with Mrs. Tanner after he was dead. She says she thinks her sister got the final push towards murder that day she disappeared—at lunch, you know. Dunbar came in, and Mrs. Tanner says he said something to Alice, she won’t tell me what. She thought at the time it must just be a joke, but now it seems to strike her as having been frightful.”
“She fixed him up afterwards,” said Bishop. “The Dunbar girl did. What could he do? She was out to get him, and she might turn crazy enough not to care what happened to her. Anybody can kill anybody if they don’t care what happens to them later.”
“And he couldn’t very well appeal to the law or to her family. Which gives him,” said Gamadge, “as good a motive for murder as there is.”
“They say self-preservation leads the list.” Bishop finished his drink and rose. “Have to be getting along… What did he sing out like that for—at the Stanton?”
“That’s the way people like Dunbar let off steam. Soothing to the nerves, soothing to the vanity.”
“Nice melody.”
Outside the library they met Macloud on his way in. Gamadge introduced the two, and went down with his guest to the front door. When he came back Macloud was waiting for him, drily smiling.
“Bishop was kind enough to suggest coming up and talking something over,” said Gamadge. “Have one of these.”
“They look good,” said Macloud, as Gamadge poured from the jug. “Theodore’s hands evidently didn’t tremble, but he seemed a little perturbed when I came in. Thinks you’re collecting exotics. Bishop seemed at home.”
“Very sympathetic character. He hasn’t had his vacation yet. Needs a rest, and I don’t think he’d mind saving money; I wonder if he wouldn’t like it up at our cottage.”
“Don’t push Clara too far.”
“Wait till she hears that Jennings now has a means of ingress. She’ll leave me.”
For more “Henry Gamadge” and other “Vintage” titles from Felony & Mayhem Press, including the “Inspector Alleyn” series by Ngaio Marsh, please visit our website: FelonyAndMayhem.com Subscribe to our newsletter to keep up with all things Felony!
All the characters and events portrayed in this work are fictitious.
AND DANGEROUS TO KNOW
A Felony & Mayhem “Vintage” mystery
PUBLISHING HISTORY
First edition (Rinehart): 1949
Felony & Mayhem print and digital editions: 2015
Copyright © 1949 by Elizabeth Daly
Copyright renewed 1971 by Daly Harris, Virginia Taylor, Eleanor Boylan,Elizabeth T. Daly, and Wilfrid Augustin Daly, Jr.
All rights reserved
E-book ISBN: 978-1-63194-063-5
And Dangerous to Know Page 16