by Q. Patrick
“I suppose so,” she said weakly. “When does the curtain go up?”
“Nine-thirty. Plenty of time yet. I’ll get you another cup of tea.” Lieutenant Trant arranged the pillows for her and took the empty cup. “And, by the way, I called your office and told them you wouldn’t be well enough to go in.”
As he moved out of the room, Leslie sank back against the pillows which he had fixed. They felt more comfortable than they had ever been before, and she found her thoughts frothing light headedly. Sometimes in the past she had weighed the advantages of marriage with an author, even with a literary agent.
But it had never occurred to her to realize how thoroughly satisfactory if must be to be married to a policeman.
* * *
Lieutenant Trant had gone and come back again, very brisk and official now, accompanied by two policemen. Leslie, bathed and dressed but still a little shaky, felt increasingly nervous as the others started to arrive. Faith, Jimmy and Robert were the first to come; shortly after them, Gordy appeared alone; Dave Walker and Yvonne followed almost immediately.
To Leslie, knowing Trant’s reason for bringing them together, each arrival seemed frighteningly significant, like studied entrances in a play.
There was something a little stagily ominous, too, about the detective’s extreme politeness as he acted host and indicated chairs. The policemen were not visible now; but Leslie knew they had been stationed at strategic posts, one of them outside the front door, the other on the platform of the fire escape. The thought of them completed the fantasy of the situation—that one of her friends should be a murderer and that, presumably, that person would be arrested soon.
And yet, when Lieutenant Trant finally started to speak, the blandness of his voice almost succeeded in lulling her into a false sense of security.
He said: ‘‘I’ve asked you all to come here because you are the people whom Miss Lucas invited to her party yesterday. You’ve already told me why each of you accepted her invitation. But it’s not quite clear precisely what was in her mind when she invited you in the first place.” He paused. “That’s what I’m particularly anxious to puzzle out. After all, you weren’t exactly her friends. In fact, all of you had in some way or another disappointed her. And, to make it even more remarkable that she should have asked you to a party, most of you had a very good reason for wishing her dead.”
His grey, deceptively unobservant gaze moved around the room. “From what you’ve told me, she gave several of you different and rather confusing reasons for throwing the party.” His eyes settled on Gordy Keath. “She told you. I believe, that the party was to celebrate the acceptance of her novel.”
Gordy nodded.
“Whereas in fact we know that the novel had not been accepted.” The detective’s attention had settled on Dave Walker now.
“To you, Mr. Walker, Miss Lucas implied that something was going to happen at the party which would make it unnecessary for her to impose any longer on your—er— generosity for the free rental of your house.”
Dave shifted uneasily. “That’s what she said.”
“Good.” The detective was watching Faith Felton whose lovely face looked pale and exotic behind a cobweb veil “When she invited you to the party, Miss Lucas said she was hoping to be able to override your husband’s objections to dramatizing her novel, didn’t she?”
“She did.”
“Then presuming she spoke the truth in each instance it’s not hard to reconstruct what was in her mind. Miss Lucas must have had every reason to believe that after the party was over, her manuscript would have been accepted as a book by Miss Cole and accepted to adapt as a vehicle for Miss Felton by Mr. Harding. It was for that purpose that she invited you seven people to her house.”
“But that’s crazy,” broke in Robert. “Both Mr. Harding and Miss Cole had turned her down flat. She couldn’t have thought that a little get-together like that would persuade them—”
“Not persuade,” said Trant quietly. “It wasn’t to have been a question of persuasion; she’d tried that once and failed. This time she was out for blood. She was prepared to use—coercion.”
“That crazy fool,” exclaimed Leslie. “No power on earth could have coerced me into publishing Weeds.”
Trant looked at her. “Are you sure? Wouldn’t you rather have taken a loss on publishing a bad novel than have some of your friends’ lives completely ruined?”
Jim Harding had been watching him, his dark eyes showing an alert, impersonal curiosity. “Let’s assume for the moment that Minna could have railroaded us into doing this thing. Where would it have got her? The book and the play would both have been ghastly flops—there wouldn’t have been anything in it for her.”
“That’s where I think you’re wrong, Mr. Harding.” Trant’s smile came and went with alarming vividness. “Psychology’s hardly a policeman’s province; but I don’t think Miss Lucas’ paramount interest was money. She was one of those girls who are crazy for recognition. A novel published by Morton and Blake, a play on Broadway, written by you and starring Miss Felton—even if they hadn’t been commercial successes—would have put her to a certain extent in the public eye. Miss Lucas was insanely interested in the public eye.”
Leslie said rather incredulously, “And you really mean she was planning to blackmail all of us into foisting Weeds on the public?”
“To a certain extent, yes. Either directly or indirectly she had a hold over all of you. I think she intended to force you all as a group to launch her as a literary discovery.” The detective paused, tapping softly on the neat surface of Leslie’s desk. “But she made one mistake. Most of you knew nothing of what she was planning to do when she asked you to the party. But one of you knew everything. Miss Lucas had deliberately told that person, because her hold over him was by far the strongest and because she was planning to use him as her lever—or agent.”
Lieutenant Trant’s face was studiedly free of expression now. “As soon as I found out what Miss Lucas had against this particular person. I was pretty sure that he had murdered her because she had threatened him with exposure at the party unless he fell in with her scheme for railroading you all into boosting her thoroughly unboostable novel. Rather unscrupulously, I’m afraid, I sent Miss Cole around to some of you with certain papers and certain instructions, in the hope that her actions would force the murderer into making a false move. My little ruse worked far more violently than I had anticipated.”
Rather shrilly Faith broke the deep silence of consternation. “You’re—you’re talking as if you knew who killed Minna!”
“Why, of course I am, Miss Felton—because I do know.” Now that he had actually said it, some of the acute tension relaxed for Leslie. And yet it was rather horrible, waiting there, doomed to ineffectual silence, waiting for the accusation which must inevitably come. Gordy’s hand had slid down the chair back to rest on her shoulder. With a swift, impulsive gesture Faith had slipped one arm through Jim’s and one through Robert’s, as if to barricade herself on both sides from—what?
Lieutenant Trant’s voice, sounding again, seemed unnaturally soft, hardly more than a murmur. “But we’re digressing from Miss Lucas herself. We’ve established her motive for giving the party, now. The next crucial point is to find out why she didn’t appear in person to greet her guests when they arrived.”
“But she explained that in the note she sent me,” put in Gordy jerkily. “She had a business date.”
Trant looked at him impassively. “That’s where you’re mistaken, Mr. Keath. Last night Miss Cole helped me prove something which has now been verified by typing experts. Miss Lucas herself did not write that note.”
“She didn’t?”
“No. That note was entirely fictitious. Its reference to a business date was entirely false. It was written by the murderer for the simple reason that it was essential for his plans that the party should get under way although the hostess herself did not appear.”
“Then why
didn’t Minna appear?” put in Robert quickly. “You don’t mean she was actually dead before Mr. Keath arrived, before the party began?”
“On the contrary. The medical evidence shows that it was absolutely impossible for Miss Lucas to have been dead before the party began.”
“Then why—”
“Miss Lucas did not appear to greet her guests for a very good reason.” Lieutenant Trant was gazing down at his own hands. “I’ve said that she did not have a business date. That is true. But someone did visit her yesterday afternoon. That was the person whom she had been blackmailing the most unscrupulously, the person whom she had planned to use as a tool at the party, the person who had realized how impossible it was to foist her book on people who didn’t want it, and who had decided to murder her to prevent her exposing what she knew about him—which she most certainly would have done if her scheme failed.”
For one second his gaze met Leslie’s and then flicked away. “That person must have arrived shortly before the party. Miss Lucas was not surprised to see him; probably she thought he had merely arrived early for the party. They went upstairs to the studio. It was then that this person carried out the first part of his extremely brilliant murder plot. He didn’t kill her. He waited his opportunity and struck her over the head with some blunt weapon which did not draw blood, but which was heavy enough to ensure her remaining unconscious for a considerable period.”
Yvonne Prévost gave a little gasp. His face very grim and set, Dave Walker slipped his arm around her waist. No one spoke.
“Yes,” continued the detective evenly, “that was the exceptionally clever aspect of this murder. Miss Lucas was killed, as it were, in two instalments. On that first occasion when he was alone in the house with her, the murderer had ample time to stage the suicide tableau. He put the revolver in one hand and the last page of the novel in the other. He strewed the rest of the manuscript over the floor—arranged everything while Miss Lucas was still only unconscious.
“You see, he thought he was leaving nothing to chance. There was every reason to believe that the police would accept the false suicide at its face value. But, even if that failed him, he had a second string to his bow. Because, in spite of the fact that most of the crime was carried out before the party, Miss Lucas was actually to be killed after the party had started, in a house full of guests, nearly all of whom had as strong a motive as he for wanting her dead.” Lieutenant Trant’s gaze had settled now on his left thumbnail. “Having done everything to Miss Lucas except fire the actual shot, the murderer typed on her typewriter the note to Mr. Keath. That was to give a plausible reason for Miss Lucas’ absence at the beginning of the party and to make certain all the other guests would get into the house. He left instructions for the radio to be turned on; he jammed the windows open in the living room so that later, when he finally did shoot her, there would be less chance of the shot being heard. It was his plan to return to the house in his capacity as guest, slip upstairs and—well, it wouldn’t have taken more than a few seconds to finish the job.”
He paused. “And the most astute part of it was that, if everything had gone right, there would have been absolutely no way for the police to guess the truth. He knew that medical evidence can establish pretty closely the actual time of death; but that it cannot possibly tell whether, or for how long a period, the victim was unconscious before the shot was fired.”
They had all been listening to him in spellbound silence. It was Gordy who finally spoke, his face puckered with bewilderment.
“But it was a crazy risk to have run. He left her upstairs there in the studio, unconscious. She might easily have come to.”
“I agree there was a certain amount of risk there—but not very much. A carefully dealt blow could have made a long period of unconsciousness almost certain.”
“But any of us arriving at the party might have gone up there and stumbled in on her. We could have told in a trice that she wasn’t dead. For one thing, there wouldn’t have been any blood.”
“But there was blood, Mr. Keath.” Lieutenant Trant’s grey eyes met his solemnly. “Nothing was overlooked. As Miss Cole and Mr. Boyer will remember, the manuscript of Miss Lucas’ novel was scattered all over the floor. I realized fairly soon that it had been put there as one of the suicide props. But I was rather puzzled by the fact that the thickest sheaf of pages was lying directly beside Miss Lucas’ head. That didn’t make sense to me until I realized that the manuscript had a second, extremely important function in the crime.”
His gaze shifted to Leslie. “Last night, Miss Cole, I pointed out to you that there was definite evidence to prove that Miss Lucas had red ink in her possession that afternoon. But there was no red ink at all in the house after the crime. I also showed you one page of the manuscript which had a stain of red ink on it. I thought you’d make the only deduction there was to make, but you didn’t. You see, when the murderer was arranging the false suicide tableau with Miss Lucas merely unconscious, he created the impression of blood by spilling red ink over the manuscript sheets which lay close to her head. Later, when he committed the actual murder, it was easy for him to burn the ink-stained sheets in the fire and put fresh ones in their place to catch the genuine blood. Unfortunately, he omitted to burn one telltale stained page; unfortunately, too, he was unable to find any fresh red ink to fill up the empty ink well and he had to use green ink instead, a thing Miss Lucas would never have done herself and which put me on the right track.”
“But red ink!” exclaimed Dave Walker harshly. “No one would have been fooled by red ink—not after a first glance.”
“Someone almost certainly would have been fooled by the red ink, Mr. Walker.” Trant’s voice was very even now. “There was one guest at the party yesterday who had me puzzled from the beginning. She was a person over whom Miss Lucas had no sort of a hold. I couldn’t make out why she had been invited—until I realized about the red ink and saw that she had one attribute which was of extreme importance, not to Miss Lucas herself, but to Miss Lucas’ murderer.”
He was staring at Dave. “As you say, to anyone who looked closely at that false corpse, the red ink, a dozen little things would have given it away as a frame-up. But for someone who was only allowed a brief glimpse of it, someone who, into the bargain, was distinctly short-sighted, there would have been no conceivable way of guessing that Miss Lucas was not in fact—dead.”
Leslie’s thoughts were reeling dizzily now. “You mean me! You mean Minna wasn’t dead when I discovered her?”
“Exactly, Miss Cole. That was your function in the murder plot. You were deliberately chosen for your short-sightedness, to be the person who discovered what you thought was the corpse.”
Leslie felt a sudden mounting of dread. “But who—tell me who...”
Trant’s voice, quiet and relentless, seemed to come from miles away. “Who could it have been but one person, Miss Cole? Who pretended Miss Lucas had insisted on your going to the party although she had not actually invited you herself? Who called for you at your office and remained with you until you discovered the corpse—thus giving himself a perfect alibi, since we naturally assumed she was dead when you found her and must therefore have been killed before you got there? Who told you to report the death to the police when in fact Miss Lucas was not dead? Who saw to it that you discovered the phony corpse alone and then hustled you out of the room before you had time to get near it? Who told you to turn the radio on full blast when you telephoned—so that the sound of the bullet shooting Miss Lucas would more certainly be drowned?”
There was one long, ghastly moment of silence as everyone in the room turned to stare at Robert Boyer. His face was pale; his lips very tight; but he made no attempt to speak.
It was Faith who finally shattered the interminable quiet. She had swung round to Robert and was gripping his arm.
“Robert, he means you! He’s—he’s accusing you.” Her eyes, blazing with indignation, met Lieutenant Trant’s. “It’s crazy; it�
�s impossible. Robert was always the one who was so good to Minna. How could he conceivably have had a motive?”
Lieutenant Trant was watching Robert Boyer steadily. “Mr. Boyer had an overwhelmingly strong motive for murdering Miss Lucas. I guessed it just as soon as I broke open her safe and found certain papers.” He pulled two documents from his pocket and tossed them on the table. “Miss Cole has seen them. She’ll tell you that one of them was a handwritten letter from a man called Pierre Bernard. Another was a sheet of typewritten French manuscript with pencilled corrections. Miss Cole thought it was part of a rough draft of the French translation of The Story of Mark. But she was wrong.”
He paused, turning suddenly to Leslie. “Last night, I had you type out that Canadian telegram and asked you to show it to Mr. Boyer. What I really wanted him to see was not the telegram itself but the page of French manuscript on whose back it had been typed. I wanted him to know I had found it. You see, it was not the only one; there are several others which, somehow, came into Miss Lucas’ possession and which she must have been using to bleed Mr. Boyer white. That was the crux of the whole thing. Miss Lucas, as Boyer’s secretary, had stumbled on the fact that the writing of those pencilled corrections on the French manuscript and the writing of that letter are identical—they were both written in the hand of Pierre Bernard. Everyone knows Boyer’s story of writing the novel to combat loneliness after his friend’s death. How could Bernard’s handwriting be on any copy of the manuscript?”
Robert had gone deathly white now. Leslie stared at him, half dazed, half caught out of herself in a racking surge of horror—and pity.
“Yes,” said Lieutenant Trant, and his voice had a strange finality, “that was the secret which Miss Lucas had discovered, the secret which she was planning to expose if Mr. Boyer didn’t use his immense literary prestige to force Miss Cole, Mr. Harding and Miss Felton into accepting Weeds. Those few pages in French are all that remain of the original version of The Story of Mark—a novel which was written not in English but in French, not by Robert Boyer but by a French-Canadian boy who died in obscurity at its completion, a boy who left behind him a great book and a terrible temptation for his friend. The Story of Mark was written by Pierre Bernard.”