The Cases of Lieutenant Timothy Trant (Lost Classics)

by Q. Patrick

  Any minute now Toby would be there. She felt a deep need for his presence. Toby would make things all right. Toby would make her trust Martin again. And arrange this other thing with the police, too.

  Martin sat down next to her. His arm went around her. Half of her wanted to pull away. Half of her exulted at his nearness. She didn’t move.

  A moment later the buzzer rang. Four short buzzes tripping after each other. Toby’s private ring. They both hurried into the living room. Martin went to the door. Kate saw Toby coming in, his pink face creased with apprehension.

  “My dear children, what have you been up to?”

  “Toby!” She ran to him and pressed her face against his shoulder. “The scent from the carnation, the faint smell of pipe tobacco, the familiarness of Toby was like safety. “Oh, Toby!”

  “My poor little Kate, don’t worry. Whatever’s happened, Toby will fix it.”

  * * *

  The broad bulk of Martin stood between him and the body. She heard Martin telling him the story and then heard Toby’s shocked exclamation. He patted her arm, drew away and went with Martin to the couch. She followed.

  Toby, stooping over Angelica, called: “Take care of her, Martin. She’s seen enough.”

  Martin was leading her back into the bedroom. There was a luxurious sense of being protected by the two men she loved and who loved her. Loved her? Martin?

  Martin sat with her a while, then rejoined Toby. Lying on the bed, she could hear their voices, low, strangely alien, the way men’s voices always seemed to sound when they were together without a woman. Then they were both in the bedroom again. Toby was telephoning the police.

  He put down the receiver. He was watching her with a solicitousness that brought back her fear.

  “Kate, you should have called the police earlier. That’s bad. Giving the idea you’ve been putting it off.”

  “Was it long?” She looked inquiringly at Martin. “It seems only a minute ago that Angelica—”

  “Listen, Kate.” Toby’s voice was clipped. “Martin’s told me about burning the letter. Perhaps he shouldn’t have done it. I’m not sure. But it’s done. You’re not to mention it. Understand?”

  “I understand.”

  “You came to talk about the wedding. If they ask any questions that might have a trap in them, be careful.”

  Her eyes widened. “You talk as if… Toby, I told Martin. I didn’t kill her. I couldn’t have killed Angelica whatever she did.”

  “Don’t be foolish, Kate. I’m talking now as your lawyer. How long were you alone with Angelica after Francis left?”

  “About five minutes.”

  “Francis poured the drinks before Angelica arrived?”

  “Yes. One for himself. One for me. But we didn’t touch them. I told Martin that.”

  “And when Angelica arrived, Francis got up immediately and left?”

  “When he heard her key in the lock, he went into the hall.”

  “And didn’t come back into the living room?”

  “No. Toby, why?”

  Toby took out his pince-nez on their black ribbon and fixed them on his nose.

  “Then after Angelica came, you were the only person with access to the drinks.”

  It was like being in a box, a mechanical box with sides that got smaller, closed in on her. Toby had come to fix things. But now Toby was saying she was the only one who could have done it.

  She asked: “Is it certain she was poisoned?”

  Toby exchanged glances with Martin. “We’ll have to wait for the medical examiner’s report. It looks to me like prussic acid.”

  Prussic acid. Two ominous words that had never been real to her, just something deadly and evil in stories. She tried to think of Angelica drinking a cocktail poisoned with prussic acid which had been deliberately put there to kill her. Then she remembered something.

  “Toby, Francis told me there was a rat in the apartment. He’s talked to the management about fumigation. Isn’t there prussic acid in rat poisoning?”

  Martin cut in: “Francis said that?”

  “Yes. Perhaps there’s rat poison in the kitchen. Somehow it got into the shaker while Francis was mixing the cocktails.”

  The walls of the box were expanding again. She got off the bed.

  “Come on. Let’s look.”

  The buzzer rang again. Fear shivered through her. Toby put his hand on her arm.

  “Remember, Kate. Don’t let them trick you.” Martin was going to the front door.

  “Toby, I’m frightened.”

  His arm slid around her. “Don’t be frightened, darling. Toby will be so clever.”

  But it wasn’t only the idea of the police that frightened her now. It was the realization that she understood nothing. If Martin had been telling the truth, then why had Angelica written the letter? What twisted purpose could have been in her mind? Had it been part of some complicated plot? And was this part of a plot, too?

  Had she been lured here for some reason by the letter? Lured here so that things should come out this way? With Angelica dead and herself the only one who could have poisoned the drinks?

  Uncertainty was building nightmare castles around her.

  Martin had opened the door. Men were pouring into the apartment.

  Two, three, four, five.

  One of them carried a camera, another a small bag, half suitcase, half brief case. Apart from that they had no personal identity. They were just an encroachment of men, united and ominous as an army.

  Toby hurried to them. As he talked to them, one of the men began to come alive for Kate. He was young and tall, but she noticed him principally because he was wearing a bow tie. It had red and gray stripes. It seemed wrong and frivolous that a policeman should be wearing a bow tie.

  There was nothing frivolous about his face, however. It was quiet and impassive, with gray eyes that instantly caught her glance and returned it.

  All of them were moving through the room toward the couch. Without purpose, Kate followed. A glimpse of Angelica’s shining hair made the horror come back. To steady herself, she flashed her gaze to the white, blank face of the shorthand pad which lay in the clutter of broken glass.

  She felt a hand on her elbow. She looked up. It wasn’t Martin or Toby. It was the policeman with the bow tie. There was a faint smile on his lips.

  “You look as if you’ve had enough of this.”

  His voice was as quiet and guarded as his eyes, but it was curiously reassuring, too. She let him guide her back to the bedroom. Once again she was lying on the bed. He put a cigarette between her lips and lit it.

  “There. Drag on that a while and pretend you’re just a girl smoking a cigarette.”

  He left.

  She was alone again with the sounds, louder this time, of activity in the next room. The cigarette was comforting. She tried to take the policeman’s advice and think about nothing.

  Disconnected thoughts, however, broke through. The letter. Martin! The drinks. How could the poison have got in the drinks? She fought against the answer to that question. Improbably she began to feel drowsy.

  She was uncertain about time when the door opened and Toby came in with the young policeman. Toby’s plump face was alarmingly solemn. She sat up.

  Toby said: “This is Lieutenant Trant, Kate. He has a few questions to ask. Feel up to it?”

  * * *

  Lieutenant Trant? Wasn’t that the name of the famous detective who had abandoned a brilliant law career to join the Homicide Bureau, and who had the reputation of solving every murder case he handled?

  The young policeman with the red and gray bow tie took a chair by the bed. He smiled at Kate, the broad, easy smile of an old friend. Suddenly she didn’t trust him.

  He said: “Before we begin, mind if I look through your pocketbook, Miss Laurence? I have no right to. But it often makes things easier if you search anyone who happens to be on the scene of a crime. Mr. Palmer and Mr. Downs were good enough to cooperate.”<
br />
  She nodded to her pocketbook. He picked it up, opened the clasp and glanced inside. She thought: “If Martin hadn’t found the letter it would have been there.”

  He started to question her. Her answers were substantially true. She told everything except about the letter and her reason for visiting Angelica. He listened almost casually as if he were thinking of something else. But she knew he wasn’t.

  When she had finished, his only comment was a quiet: “Thank you, Miss Laurence.”

  Kate had had no experience with policemen. This gentleness was disturbing. Because she had to know, she blurted: “The drinks were poisoned?”

  Lieutenant Trant studied his thumb nail. “There’s been no analysis yet, but there’s quite an odor of almonds on the carpet where the glasses broke. I’d say at least one of the drinks was poisoned—with prussic acid.”

  Kate glanced at Toby. He could give her only the com-fort of an uncertain smile.

  She said: “Was there any rat-poison in the kitchen?”

  “We found none, Miss Laurence.”

  She slid her hand into Toby’s. A policeman opened the door and said:

  “The husband’s back, Lieutenant. Want him?”

  “Yes.”

  The door opened again and Francis came in. The sight of him shocked away most of Kate’s anxiety for herself. Francis looked almost dead. His face was gray and haggard. His shoulders were sagging, defeated. He had a brown paper package tucked between his side and his paralyzed arm. He seemed to be clinging to it as if it were the only thing that had any meaning to him.

  She hurried, to him, feeling as a mother would feel. “Francis, dear, I’m so terribly sorry.”

  His dark eyes focused on her and kindled in a faint smile of recognition, almost of pleasure.

  “The place wasn’t closed, Kate. I’ve got the shoes.”

  From behind her, Trant’s voice came: “Think you could answer a few questions, Mr. Mills?”

  Anger surged in Kate. “You can’t ask him questions.

  He’s not well. He’s just seen his wife lying dead. He—” Surprisingly Francis said: “It’s all right, Kate.”

  He walked past her and sat down on the bed. He was still holding the package. She stood behind him, her hand on his shoulder, glaring at Trant.

  The detective’s gray eyes ignored her. “Very few questions at the moment, Mr. Mills. I hear you had trouble with rats. Did you buy any rat poison?”

  “I talked to the manager about fumigation.”

  “But right now, so far as you know, there isn’t any rat poison in the apartment?”

  “None.”

  Kate’s anger was ebbing away, leaving room for fear again. No rat poison. Then …

  Lieutenant Trant was asking Francis about the drinks. Francis was answering in slow detail, saying exactly what she had said. He wasn’t letting himself think. She could tell that. By an effort of sheer will, he was hearing the questions and answering them mechanically.

  At last Trant was through with him. His gaze, still serene and friendly, shifted to Kate.

  “We seem to have the drink situation fairly clear now, Miss Laurence. Mr. Mills mixed them in the kitchen. Although you were watching, he might have had a chance to poison the cocktail shaker then. But that would mean he intended to kill not Mrs. Mills, who wasn’t there, but you— and himself. Does that seem likely?”

  “Of course not,” she snapped, still defending Francis. “And when he poured the drinks in the living room, you were sitting next to him on the couch. If there’d been any white powder in either of the empty glasses, you’d have noticed it, wouldn’t you?”

  “Certainly.”

  “There wasn’t any?”

  “No.”

  Lieutenant Trant took cigarettes from his pocket and offered them to her. She shook her head. He lit one himself. “Immediately after Mr. Mills poured the drinks, he left the couch to meet his wife in the hall. Therefore, if he poisoned one of the drinks, he must have poisoned it while he was pouring it.” He glanced with sympathy at Francis. “I see Mr. Mills has some trouble with one arm. Do you see how a one-handed man could pour a cocktail from the shaker and poison it at the same time?”

  The query seemed to hang menacingly in the air. This was the trap of which Toby had warned. It was a deadly trap, too, because she could only escape it by accusing Francis—and accusing him of something she did not see how he could have done.

  “Are we in agreement up to that point, Miss Laurence?”

  She did not answer. He exhaled a thin stream of smoke from his nostrils.

  “All right. With Mr. Mills out of the picture, we’re left with two alternatives, aren’t we? One is that Mrs. Mills came home, picked up one of the drinks, poisoned it herself and then drank it. In other words, committed suicide.” He leaned forward, tapping Francis on the knee. “Mr. Mills, do you know of any reason why your wife should have committed suicide?”

  Francis started to shiver. He said: “No, no.”

  “It would have been a curious way of committing it, anyway. Come home. Chat with your best friend about her wedding. Casually, without mentioning it to your best friend, drop a little prussic acid in your own cocktail.” He blinked at Kate. “How do you feel about that theory?”

  She was deep in the trap now. Toby was leaning forward, alert, ready to spring to her defense. But Trant spoke again: “Now, if we abandon the suicide theory, I’m afraid we’re left with only one thing, Miss Laurence. You. You put poison in Mrs. Mills’ drink.”

  Toby said sharply: “Kate, don’t say anything.”

  Lieutenant Trant glanced at him almost meekly. “I don’t quite see what she could say, do you?” His gray gaze was full on Kate again. “I suppose you were on good terms with Mrs. Mills? You did just drop in for a friendly gossip about the wedding, didn’t you?”

  The logical procession of his question had been like the relentless dripping of: water. She must have swayed, for a hand was on her elbow. Trant’s hand again.

  Toby’s voice, quick, angry, said: “Miss Laurence has had a terrible shock. It isn’t fair to question her at a time like this. As her lawyer, I demand she be allowed to go home and rest.”

  “Naturally.” Trant got up as if bored by the whole proceedings. “She can leave when she wants to.”

  Kate glanced at Francis. Thinking about Francis helped her. “Can we take Mr. Mills, too? We can’t leave him here.” Trant’s glance seemed faintly curious. “Of course. Better with him out of the way. We’ll be making a mess here before we’re through.”

  Kate touched Francis’ arm. “Francis, you’re coming with us.”

  He got up, obedient as a child. “Yes, Kate.”

  Toby was talking to Trant in a low tone. He came over to Kate.

  “I’m going to stick around, Kate. See what they’re up to. I’ll be over later.”

  “Yes, Toby.”

  He squeezed her arm. “Don’t worry.”

  “I’ll try not to.”

  She went with Francis into the living room. They had taken Angelica away. She could see the blond, massive bulk of Martin among the policemen. He saw her and hurried toward her.

  She looked up at his sun-bronzed face which she knew so well and loved so much. The policeman thought she had killed Angelica. Her need for someone strong and trustworthy was so great that she suppressed her suspicions. Martin had said that the letter was a lie. Believe him.

  “We’re leaving, Martin, Francis and I.”

  “I’ll take you home. All right?”

  “Yes, Martin. All right …”

  Back in her own apartment, Kate took Francis upstairs to a guest room and suggested gently that he try to sleep. He was still passive, completely biddable. Toby often spent the night when he didn’t want to drive out to his house in the country or stay at his club. Kate brought a pair of his luxurious silk pajamas. She left and when she came back Francis was lying in the bed, his one good arm stretching absurdly out of the blue pajama sleeve.
<
br />   The package of Angelica’s shoes was on the bedside table. To Kate it had become unendurable, the outward symbol of Francis’ suffering. She picked it up and put it away in a closet. Impulsively she bent and kissed Francis’ forehead.

  He smiled up at her wanly. “I’m sorry, Kate. I’ll be okay. Tomorrow.”

  “Yes, Francis. Tomorrow. Sleep now.”

  She had left Martin downstairs in the living room. As she reached the hall, the maid came from the dining room.

  “Are you and Mr. Downs ready for dinner soon, ma’am?” Martin had been coming to dinner. Kate had forgotten that. All this time they had been preparing dinner in the kitchen as if things were still the same. Miss Laurence dining alone with her fiancé whom she would marry next Tuesday!

  Unsteadily she said: “Let’s wait a bit, Rose. Perhaps you’d bring cocktails. Martinis.”

  “Yes, ma’am. And, ma’am, just after you went out this afternoon, Mrs. Mills called. She said it was very important for you to get in touch with her.”

  It was terrible having Angelica brought alive again like that. She looked at the maid foolishly. She couldn’t say: “Mrs. Mills is dead. They think I murdered her.”

  She murmured: “All right, Rose.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  Kate went into the living room. Rose had lit some of the lamps. The large room had a warm, inviting atmosphere. Martin was pacing up and down, smoking a cigarette. The wedding presents were still piled on the refectory table. Kate wondered if she would ever have the spirit to open them. She felt listless, near the end of her tether.

  * * *

  Rose brought the cocktails. As Kate poured them, she thought of the Manhattans in Angelica’s apartment. Nothing was the same any more. Even a trivial, domestic gesture— pouring the cocktails—brought memories of horror.

  Martin sat down on the arm of the couch above her.

  There was a strange awkwardness between them. “Francis all right?” he asked.

  “He’s sleeping.” As always, when he was near her, his physical presence, big, solid, tawny, drew her like a magnet. She looked up at him, suddenly hungry for his sympathy.