The Cases of Lieutenant Timothy Trant (Lost Classics)

by Q. Patrick

  “So Mrs. Weiderbacker disapproved of your new wife. She threatened to stop your allowance and cut you out of her will.”

  ‘That’s right,” said Miles calmly. “How much was your allowance?”

  “Ten thousand a year.”

  “And your share of the estate at her death?”

  “One-third.” It was Gordon who spoke from the couch. “I get two-thirds. Miles’s share is about a half million dollars.”

  “Even so,” said the unruffled Miles, “I didn’t kill her. I expected her to cut me off. In fact, I was delighted. I was tired of living off her charity. I’m starting a new life.”

  The Inspector snorted cynically. Chloe Carmichael broke in: “It’s true. He’s getting a job. And he didn’t kill her. He was out walking with me.”

  “Prove it,” said the Inspector. “Prove he didn’t come sneaking back through the French windows and—”

  “He didn’t,” blazed Chloe.

  For the first time Lieutenant Trant spoke. Mildly he said to Miles: “What are those—strawberries?”

  The “parasite” nephew looked sheepish. “Oh, I just saw them on the walk. Aunt was crazy about them. I thought I’d bring her a few to show the old thing there were no hard feelings.”

  The Inspector snorted again. Trant asked: “You didn’t see anyone or anything on your walk?”

  “No one.” Miles shrugged. “We saw a plane—a little private plane.”

  Trant alerted. “That plane passed over my sister’s house just a couple of minutes before the murder was discovered.”

  “Yeah,” put in the Inspector. “Charlie Smith on his daily

  run to Poughkeepsie.”

  Trant glanced at him. “Could you see that plane from this house?”

  “Guess you couldn’t. Charlie always passes over Linkville way.”

  “Linkville!” cried Chloe. “That’s where we were. I saw a sign.”

  Trant spun around to Miles. “What color was the plane?”

  “Green,” said Miles.

  “No, no. It was red. It—” Chloe broke off, color flooding her cheeks.

  It was then that the Inspector pounced. “Of course that plane’s red—bright, firehouse red. Tricked you, didn’t he? Smart! The girl went for the walk, saw the plane, told the guy about it in order to give him an alibi. But she forgot to mention the color. Okay, Groves.”

  As the Inspector strode forward, Trant murmured to Miles: “Mr. Groves, would you please be good enough to hand me ten ripe strawberries from that heap?”

  Puzzled, Miles selected ten of the little berries and held them out on his palm. Some were scarlet ripe; others were bright green and obviously unripe. Trant’s smile was almost a grin, “I thought so when I first saw the berries. Miles Groves has red-green color blindness. A lot of men have it without even knowing it. The plane looked green to him. I guess that lets you out, Mr. Groves. You saw the plane all right.”

  While the Inspector spluttered, Trant moved toward Gordon Groves. As he passed Daisy and Freda, he picked up Daisy’s shorthand pad and glanced at the neat Gregg: “Ladies of the garden club, your greatest friend is the rose.” Freda’s literary effort seemed embarrassingly out of place now.

  “I imagine, Mr. Groves —” Trant was still glancing at the pad, but now he looked up quickly at Gordon—”that life with Mrs. Weiderbacker was none too easy. She was bossy, difficult, close-fisted, maybe? How much nicer it would have been to have a million dollars of your own. And what a temptation to kill her when there was a perfect fall guy in the house.”

  Gordon Groves’s face was thunderous. “You suggest that I—?”

  “Oh, not you. But your wife has the identical motive.” Trant twisted around to Daisy. “Very ingenious, Mrs. Groves.”

  “Timothy!” It was Freda who leaped up. “How dare you accuse Daisy? All that time she was on the phone taking my dictation.”

  “She was?” Trant read aloud from the middle of the pad. “One could almost compare contact spraying with democracy.” He turned to the butler. “ Who picked up the mail today?”

  “Er—I think, sir, it was Mrs. Groves.”

  “Exactly.” Trant shook his head at his sister. “Your speech did arrive after all and it gave a clever murderess an ideal murder set-up. She took the speech from the mailman, copied it out in shorthand, pretended it hadn’t come, and then offered to take it down over the phone. A perfect alibi with the shorthand pad as fool-proof evidence. What a cinch to pretend to take dictation, to drop the receiver, to slip into the music room, shoot Mrs. Weiderbacker, and then to run back and pick up the dictation again.

  “Too bad for her I made you cut out the contact-spraying paragraph. It was in the copy you mailed but not in the copy you dictated. That, I’m afraid, is going to be her noose.”

  Daisy had jumped up now, white-faced and eagle-eyed. “It’s a lie. I never went near the music room.”

  “You’re sure, Mrs. Groves? When we arrived, your face was red and swollen; your eyes were running. It might, of course, have been due to natural grief, but then again …” Trant picked the full-blown yellow rose from his buttonhole and held it under Daisy’s nose. Almost immediately, she sneezed; her eyes started to run, her face to pinken.

  “As I thought,” murmured Trant. “Not natural grief, but a violent case of rose-fever.”

  He turned rather sadly to his sister. “I’m sorry to do this, Freda,” he said. “But next time you pick a best friend, I recommend someone a little less—cold-blooded.”

  His glance at Chloe Carmichael was frankly appreciative. “A burlesque queen, for example.”

  Going … Going … Gone!

  We’re almost there,” said Loretta Milton. “I came over yesterday afternoon with Mr. Hapgood to the viewing. Yes. See the sign? Auction. Turn Here.”

  Lieutenant Trant eased his convertible into a narrow country road. Ahead of them, with a flock of cars parked in front of it, stood a charming New England house and nearby an old tobacco barn where a crowd of people were waiting for the auction to begin.

  Trant was enjoying his weekend with his new friend, the mystery writer, Fred King. He had enjoyed meeting Fred’s uncle. Avery Hapgood, the great art dealer. He had enjoyed reading Fred’s latest manuscript, Malice and Monkshood, even though it had kept him up half the night. Most of all he was enjoying Loretta Milton.

  Lieutenant Trant, of the New York Homicide Bureau, was more interested in murder than matrimony. Usually, he found “extra girls” on weekends millstones around his neck. But Loretta was a pleasant exception—a New York career girl who managed to be attractive and feminine instead of frightening and chic.

  Trant parked the car and they went in search of their hosts who had started before them. Loretta’s hand was on his arm.

  “The auction’s all junk—except for Mr. Hapgood’s four paperweights. But you must see the picture frame I discovered. It’s a wonderful Victorian monstrosity; it’ll make a sensational mirror.”

  * * *

  They found the Kings on the fringes of the crowd. Since the auction was to start at 2:00 and Mr. Hapgood had to make a train at 3:15, Nina King had brought a picnic lunch and was arranging it on a large blanket. Fred King, in high spirits because Trant and Loretta had praised his novel, was opening a thermos of cocktails.

  Nina smiled up from the wrapped sandwiches, pretty and delicate as the hooded flowers on her breast.

  “Uncle Avery’s asking the auctioneer to start with his paperweights to make sure he’ll be able to bid before train time.”

  As she spoke, Avery Hapgood pushed through the crowd toward them, a brief case under his arm. Old and waspish, with a heart which was reportedly as weak as his shrewdness was legendary, Hapgood had reigned supreme in the art-dealing world for years. He dominated everyone around him like a testy old emperor, particularly his nephew and his wife who, as his only relatives and heirs, bore the full weight of his personality.

  “I’ve just been making sure they’ll put the paperweig
hts up just after your frame, my dear,” he said, and added gallantly, “though heaven knows why anyone so handsome would be seen dead with such a repulsive object. The place is crawling with dealers and decorators. All of ‘em bugeyed, trying to figure out why I’m here.”

  “Why don’t you tell them it’s just because you happen to be visiting us?” asked Nina King.

  “Do them good to sweat.” Hapgood gave a guffaw of laughter. “If there’s a lower form of life than an earthworm, it’s a decorator.”

  Hapgood settled himself on the blanket beside the two women with the lunch basket, accepting a sandwich from Loretta and a martini from his niece. A willowy young man with red hair and shell-rimmed glasses came up to them.

  “Hello, Mr. Hapgood, didn’t expect to see you here.

  I suppose it’s those French paperweights?”

  Hapgood gave a scornful grunt and introduced him. “Bernard Nelson—one of the earthworms.”

  The decorator forced a respectful grin. “Listen, Mr. Hapgood, I’m interested in those paperweights, too. If you start bidding, every dealer here’s going to jump in and force the price way up. Why not let me buy them? Then we split—two each.”

  Hapgood glared at him. “My dear young man, in a long and tumultuous career I’ve never entrusted a purchase to anyone else. Why should I begin with you?”

  “Oh, I know your method, Mr. Hapgood. I’m perfectly ready to sign a paper before the auction begins stating that two of the paperweights are being bought for you. I—”

  Hapgood rumbled ominously, started to rise, and Bernard Nelson scurried away.

  The auctioneer had officially opened proceedings. Trant took a sandwich from the lunch basket. It was of cold corned beef, tartly spiced with horseradish sauce. The auctioneer was banging with his gavel, and Loretta’s frame came up on the block.

  The frame was indeed a monstrosity, decorated with elaborate gilt curlicues which completely obliterated the vague and plumply naked woman it surrounded.

  “Darling,” exclaimed Nina, “you can’t want that revolting thing. It’s so unlike you.”

  But gleefully Loretta bid $10 and, after half-hearted competition from an elderly lady, got it for $25. She dragged Trant over to the auction block and paid.

  While she went to the mobile canteen for cigarettes, Trant carried the picture to the car. As he came back, bidding on the first paperweight had started. Hapgood was bidding and so were three or four of the other dealers, including Bernard Nelson. The atmosphere had become suddenly charged with tension. But, as Trant rejoined the group, it was Avery Hapgood who held his interest.

  The dealer was standing up, clutching in his plump hand the uneaten half of his sandwich still in its wax paper. His face was unnaturally red. The veins bulged on his forehead. His breath came in harsh, irregular wheezes.

  “Forty-five dollars,” he called.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I hear forty-five. Do I hear fifty for the rare old—”

  “Fifty,” bid Nelson. “Fifty-fi—” Suddenly Avery Hapgood choked. He dropped the sandwich and passed his hand over his eyes as if he had gone blind. He swayed; then, with a wrenching gasp, he collapsed in a heap on the grass.

  “Uncle! … Mr. Hapgood! … A doctor! … Get a doctor!”

  * * *

  After a moment of chaos, the local doctor was on his knees by Hapgood. The auction had broken off. Chattering people, including Bernard Nelson, crowded around. Trant’s pulses were tingling. Was it possible—? He ducked and picked up the remains of Hapgood’s sandwich before someone trod on it. On the covering wax paper he saw a faint penciled cross.

  “Mr. King,” the doctor was asking, “you say your uncle suffered from a weak heart?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m afraid he’s dead. The excitement of the bidding. A heart attack. A—”

  “Oh, no, it wasn’t a heart attack.” Trant turned very quietly to Fred King. “You, of all people, should have recognized the symptoms. Red face, protuberant veins, difficulty with breathing, impaired vision? Didn’t you notice him act as if he was blind? What about your book, Malice and Monkshood? That’s precisely the way you described aconite poisoning.”

  “Aconite!” stammered Nina King.

  “Yes.” Trant touched the flower on her dress. “Aconite— monkshood. That’s monkshood you’re wearing, isn’t it?”

  “Why, yes. Fred pinned it on as a gag to celebrate the book.”

  “So you do have aconite in the garden?”

  “Of course we have, but …”

  Trant turned back to King. “In your novel, you had the murderer disguise the bitter aconite with raw onions on steak tartar. In this case, horse-radish sauce could have made a good substitute, couldn’t it? Just cut up a few pieces of the root, mix it in …” He indicated the remains of Hapgood’s sandwich. “And a pencil mark on your uncle’s sandwich wrapping to make sure he’d get the right one. Excitement of bidding brings on heart attack! The perfect murder!”

  Nina King gazed at him, stricken. “You—you can’t accuse Fred of murdering Uncle!”

  “It’s the orthodox solution, isn’t it? Hapgood was a very rich man. Your husband’s the only heir. But I’ve never been particularly fond of the orthodox. I …”

  He paused as Loretta Milton, coming back from the canteen, pushed her way to his side. She gave one look at the figure on the ground and cried, “His heart!” Then she whirled, and dived for the art-dealer’s brief case. Trant disengaged it gently from her hand as she pawed through it.

  “His pills!” Loretta protested. “They’re in there!”

  Trant shook his head. “Mr. Hapgood is beyond the need of pills,” he said, “and though this may not seem the moment for an apology, I have one to make. Miss Milton. When I took your frame up to the car, the picture fell out. I know the picture’s valueless to you, but I trod on it and …” Loretta Milton’s reaction to this lie was violent. Her face went paper-white. She swayed and dropped the hold she

  had still kept on the brief case. Trant grabbed at her arm. “Why did Hapgood request the picture to come up for

  sale first when it was he who was taking the train—not you? Why did you want to buy the frame when Nina, your old friend, said it was completely unlike your taste? The frame and the paperweights were nothing but a blind, weren’t they? It was the picture that was valuable. Hapgood recognized it when you were both here yesterday. He got you to buy it to throw the other dealers off the scent. How much did he offer you for the deal? One hundred dollars? Two? Three? Four?”

  “No,” gasped Loretta Milton. “No.”

  “Well, it shouldn’t be hard to find out. Thanks to Mr. Nelson, we know Hapgood’s method.” Trant turned to the dead man’s brief case, opened it up, and leafed through its contents. “He never entrusted a purchase to anyone else without a paper stating … Here we are!” He had extracted a small, folded paper from the brief case. “And I imagine this document was what you were really after, Miss Milton, when you pretended to be after the pills.”

  Trant read: “I, Loretta Milton, for the sum of five hundred dollars, agree to purchase for Avery Hapgood at the Redfern auction one probable Rubens canvas. It is understood that, although I am the purchaser, the property shall belong to Avery Hapgood and—”

  Trant broke off. He was watching the distracted girl a trifle sadly. She had seemed so nice.

  “Five hundred dollars! That’s good pay for a simple chore. Miss Milton. But a Rubens canvas all your own! That would be much more pleasant. What would it resell for, I wonder? Fifty thousand? A hundred thousand? Certainly, once you’d read Malice and Monkshood it was worth the effort of digging up a monkshood root, tampering slightly with Hapgood’s sandwich, and …”

  But there was no need to go on because Loretta Milton had fainted.

  Trant made a little diffident gesture toward Fred and Nina King.

  “You see now why I’ve never been particularly fond of the orthodox solution!”

  Lioness vs. Panth
er

  Lieutenant Trant of the New York Homicide Bureau had been dragged to the First Night by his fashionable sister. But now that he was there he was enjoying himself.

  From the first two acts it was obvious that the Heller Dent comedy Lovelight was going to be a smash hit. As the third act got under way, Trant sat contentedly in his orchestra seat, marveling at the play’s world-famous costars—Clementina Coldwater, a tawny, majestic lioness, and Lottie Lamb, sleek and deadly as a panther.

  Trant’s sister had told him that the two women loathed each other in private life and, at that very moment, were bitter rivals for the lead role in an important TV show with many thousands of dollars at stake.

  They were supposed to hate each other in Lovelight, too, in which they played a couple of Manhattan glamor girls struggling over a reluctant oil millionaire.

  How much of the hate that sparked across the footlights, he wondered, was merely technique? He wouldn’t have been surprised if at any minute they hurled themselves on each other, spitting, growling, tearing at cheeks and eyes with predatory talons.

  Actresses, reflected Trant, whose frame of reference was strictly occupational, were almost as fascinating as murderesses …

  During the first two acts, the three aisle seats in front of him had been empty. Now three people tiptoed into them, a large, round-faced man with spectacles, a very blond, arrogant-looking man, and a red-haired girl in an overcoat who carried a brief case.

  Trant’s sister nudged him and whispered in his ear, “That’s Jake Fisher, the producer. He used to be married to La Coldwater. The tall blond one’s Stephen Heller. The girl must be Sheila Dent, his new fourth wife, the one who wrote the play with him. Before she met him, she wasn’t anybody. But I guess by tomorrow she’ll be a celebrity, too.”

  His sister’s columnist complex always irritated Trant. He glanced at the group who had obviously come front to catch the end of their show. He now recognized Stephen Heller, the fabulous Danish-born wonder boy of Hollywood and Broadway who had been an OSS hero in World War II and who was both director and co-author of Lovelight. Trant glanced from him to his new fourth wife, “who wasn’t anybody but would be a celebrity tomorrow.”