Death for Dear Clara

by Q. Patrick

  “I merely wanted to prove you could have come into this office through the back way.”

  “And why do you want to prove it?”

  “Because you did use the back entrance on the afternoon of Mrs. Van Heuten’s murder.”

  Helen tossed her head defiantly. “I suppose there’s no point in denying it?”

  “Absolutely none.”

  “If you’re implying I murdered Mrs. Van Heuten—for God’s sake tell me what motive I had? Do you think I killed her because—because she was rude about Bobby’s novel?”

  Timothy leaned across the desk and spoke very quietly. “How did you meet Bobby, Mrs. Bristol?”

  “I’ve already told you. He—he was a client of the Advice Bureau. Salter’s published his first book. He used to drop downstairs and—”

  “In other words, you met him through Mrs. Van Heuten?”

  “Oh, I suppose so. What does it matter?”

  “It mattered a lot to you, Mrs. Bristol.” Timothy’s eyes were very hard. “It was most unfortunate that, after making an arrangement with Mrs. Van Heuten to get you a rich husband—you only got poor Bobby whose finances collapsed just a few months after you’d married him.”

  Helen Bristol moved angrily in her chair. “That’s not true.”

  “You deny that Mrs. Van Heuten arranged your marriage with Bobby?”

  Bristol was staring at his wife now in growing horror. Helen sat perfectly still for one moment. Then she flared:

  “No, I don’t deny it. But I do deny the disgusting things you’re hinting at. Mrs. Van Heuten was responsible for my meeting Bobby, in a way. After the marriage, she did try to play some filthy blackmail game. But I never understood what she was working for at the time. There was no agreement or anything.” She laughed harshly. “God, do you suppose I needed an old bitch like Mrs. Van Heuten to help me get married?”

  “No,” admitted Timothy, “I don’t. I’m also ready to believe you didn’t deliberately get into that racket, Mrs. Bristol.

  “Then what the hell are you bringing it up for in—in front of Bobby, and …?” Helen Bristol blazed. “I didn’t marry Bobby because he was a rich man’s son, I married him because I was fond of him.”

  “And yet,” murmured Timothy, “you asked for a divorce just as soon as you found his inheritance was gone.”

  “That’s a damn lie! I left Bobby because our marriage was a flop and because—because I was in love with someone else. What’s it got to do with you anyway? You can’t possibly say I murdered Mrs. Van Heuten just—just because she expected some sort of commission on my marriage to Bobby.”

  Timothy was still gazing at her. “But you didn’t pay that commission, did you, Mrs. Bristol?”

  “Pay it!” Helen snorted. “My God, don’t be funny!”

  “I thought as much.” Timothy’s voice was very quiet. “You ask me exactly what your motive for killing Mrs. Van Heuten was. I think it ought to be fairly easy to tell you. I think you’ve been reasonably truthful with me, Mrs. Bristol, but you lied about one rather important thing—that talk you had with Mrs. Van Heuten over the telephone when Bobby was here at the Advice Bureau.”

  “But I tell you there was nothing—nothing important about that call,” cut in Bobby faintly. “I was here. I listened. It was just—just business.”

  “A matter of royalties on your first book,” agreed Timothy. “I have every reason to suppose that Mrs. Van Heuten did phrase her little speech that way. She was always very tactful. But it wasn’t about book royalties that she talked to you, was it. Mrs. Bristol?”

  Helen glared back at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Suppose that by the royalties due on Bobby’s last book, Mrs. Van Heuten was referring to the commission she had expected from you when she engineered your marriage to Bobby. Suppose she had learned from Bobby that you planned to marry Graves—wouldn’t she see there a perfect set-up for getting from you the money she felt was due her? Bobby was poor. As his wife, you’d never have been able to pay, even if you’d wanted to—but Mr. Graves as a successful publisher is presumably a reasonably wealthy man. As his wife you could make up the debt you owed on your first marriage.”

  He leaned abruptly forward. “That was what Mrs. Van Heuten was hinting over the phone, wasn’t it? She was saying very discreetly that if you didn’t agree to pay she’d tell Mr. Graves the details of your first marriage.”

  “But I didn’t give a damn,” said Helen impulsively, “I—I was planning to tell Larry myself, anyway.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” said Timothy. “But even so, Mrs. Van Heuten’s telephone call would have made you very mad, and a little frightened. Graves might have understood if you told him. But coming from Mrs. Van Heuten the set-up wouldn’t have sounded so sweet. That threat over the phone could have given you a far more logical motive for your visit to the Advice Bureau than the one you’ve been pretending you had. It would also have given you a very strong motive for murdering Clara Van Heuten.”

  Helen’s lips were very tight. She did not speak.

  “And you might,” murmured Timothy, “have gotten away with murder, Mrs. Bristol, if you hadn’t come back again by the front entrance and tried to throw us off the scent by those sensational remarks you made to the secretary. That was just a little too smart.”

  Suddenly, Helen Bristol rose to her feet, her green eyes blazing dangerously.

  “All I can say is it’s a pack of crazy, filthy lies. I didn’t murder Mrs. Van Heuten. And—and if you have any more questions, I’m not going to answer them until I’ve consulted a lawyer.”

  “I think that’s a very sound idea, Mrs. Bristol.”

  In complete silence, Timothy rang for Madeleine. When she appeared, he said very quietly:

  “Perhaps you’d ask the plain-clothes man outside the front entrance to come in here.”

  A few seconds later, a large, rather bored individual lounged into the room. Timothy indicated Mrs. Bristol.

  “This lady wants to get her lawyer, Joe. Maybe you’d go with her. And I expect she’ll be anxious to see a Mr. Graves at Salter’s. If he wants to come, you might bring him back here, too.”

  “Okay.”

  Joe strolled indifferently forward and stared at Helen. Very pale and determined, she moved with him to the door.

  “Helen …!” Bobby’s voice rang out after her.

  She turned, gave him a brief, vague smile and was gone.

  Bobby and Timothy sat a few moments without speaking.

  “I’m sorry, Bobby,” said Timothy at length. “But I did my best to warn you.”

  The boy’s cheeks were hollow. “But it’s too—too awful, Trant. I can’t believe it.”

  “You’ll get over it.” Timothy rose. “Now you’d better be clearing off. I’ve something to settle with Miss Price and …”

  “Wait a minute!” Bobby had risen too. His eyes were suddenly eager. “Helen isn’t guilty!”

  Timothy’s smile was a trifle skeptical. “I’m afraid you haven’t heard half the evidence yet.”

  “I don’t give a damn about evidence.” Timothy had never seen the boy so alive and forceful. “I know Helen. She’s my wife and—it may sound crazy, but I still love her. Perhaps she—Mrs. Van Heuten did drag her into that filthy racket without her realizing it. But I know she’d never have murdered anyone. And—and I can prove it.”

  “Just how, Bobby?”

  “When did Mrs. Hobart hear that noise behind the screen?”

  “Quite a short time after they’d come in.”

  “I thought so.” Bobby’s eyes were shining. “Then, I think I know who really did kill Mrs. Van Heuten. I—I don’t suppose you believe me, but—well, I swear I’ve got an idea and it fits in with your notes.”

  “And who do you suspect?”

  “Someone quite different, someone who hasn’t figured in the case at all yet. Give me a chance.” The boy had gripped his sleeve. “Let me stay here, let me try and work out a case before—before
you arrest Helen.”

  Timothy stood a moment irresolute. Then he turned abruptly.

  “All right, Bobby. I’ll give you till she gets back. Frankly, I don’t think you’ve got a dog’s chance to tie things up that way, but—” he pointed at the desk—“you’ve got the notes and there’s the typewriter. See what you can do. Meanwhile, I’m going to talk to Miss Price.”

  Leaving the boy rummaging through his various papers, Timothy moved into the outer office. The late afternoon sunlight struck through the window on Madeleine’s dark hair. It threw her profile into arresting relief.

  “Well, Mr. Trant—” she glanced up swiftly—“have you really cleared everything up now?”

  Timothy dropped into a chair at her side. “I think so, Miss Price. Bobby’s making a heroic last minute attempt to make a fool of me. But I don’t think it’ll work.”

  “Mrs. Bristol!” Madeleine shook her head. “Of course, I don’t know why or anything. But it’s horrible somehow.”

  “My dear Miss Price, all murder’s horrible,” said Timothy. There was a brief moment of silence. Bobby’s typewriter had started in the next room. They could hear its faint but swift tapping.

  “Well, Miss Price, let’s revert to your own separate mystery,” murmured Timothy. “Have you read that clipping? Was Madeleine Price eloping with her brother-in-law at the time of the fatal accident?”

  “I have.” Madeleine’s face was very pale and set. “And you might as well know the truth. I realize it was dreadful of me—but all you think’s true.”

  Timothy sat up very straight in his chair. “It—it is?”

  Madeleine nodded. “It all seems like a bad dream now. It was crazy of Gilbert to think he’d fallen in love with me after he’d married Louise. It was wicked of me to consent to go away with him.” She turned to him, her eyes almost fierce. “But I didn’t know about Louise, then. I swear it. He—he only told me as we were driving away; that’s why I took the wheel from him and started to go back. He was angry and kept trying to take the wheel again. That’s how it happened—the accident.” She looked down at her hands. “Hearing that about Louise made me realize how stupid and cruel I was being.”

  Timothy looked extremely puzzled. “Hearing what about Louise?”

  “Why—that she was going to have a baby, of course.”

  For a few seconds, Timothy stared at her in blank incomprehension, then he began to laugh weakly.

  “So that’s what was behind the accident.”

  “But you—I thought you’d guessed.”

  “My dear Miss Price, you underestimated my lurid imagination. I had quite a different explanation.”

  “Why—what did you think? Something worse?”

  “Something far worse, Miss Price. And I had it so nicely figured out to make a murderess of you. I thought you’d deliberately killed your brother-in-law.”

  Madeleine’s hands fell limply at her sides. “But w-why?”

  “I worked it all out from your devotion to the child. I—I thought you were Elaine’s mother.”

  The girl rose. For a moment horrified indignation burned in her eyes.

  “So you suspected me of being a murderess and an—an unmarried mother?”

  Timothy grinned, “That was part of your charm.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “And I,” said Timothy, rising too, “blush to the roots of my teeth.”

  They stood very close together. In the silence, Bobby’s typing was still faintly audible.

  “After all,” murmured Madeleine quietly, “didn’t I tell you that I was really responsible for Gilbert’s death? That—that was why I wanted to devote my life to Louise and Elaine, to make up for it.”

  Timothy did not reply.

  “Well,” he said at length, “either Bobby or I or both of us are going to have this case solved soon. That means everything’s over between us. No more plane trips together.”

  “No more buying of red hats,” added Madeleine surprisingly.

  Timothy turned slowly to face her.

  “You know, Miss Price, we’ve been through so much together and I’ve insulted you in every possible way. I’m sure there’s only one orthodox fade-out. Would you, by any chance, feel like marrying me?”

  Madeleine looked at him in mild surprise. “Heavens—no.”

  “I thought as much.” Timothy shook his head sadly. “I was afraid from the beginning that we were inextricably star-crossed. That’s the worst of being a policeman. You get fond of your suspects but—they never get fond of you.”

  XXVI

  For those few moments Timothy had forgotten the complexities of Mrs. Van Heuten’s murder and its still questioned solution. He was very much on the job again when the door swung open to reveal the plain-clothes man, followed by two people—the pale, defiant Helen Bristol and a large, furiously indignant Larry Graves. Without hat or overcoat, the publisher looked more than ever like a champion heavyweight about to go into action.

  As Timothy nodded the plain-clothes man to wait outside, Graves glared at him ferociously.

  “What the hell do you think you’ve been driving at?”

  “I just agreed with Mrs. Bristol that she would need a lawyer,” said Timothy quietly.

  Graves snorted. “Well, you’ll be pleased to hear I’ve got Willard Smythe on tap—the best lawyer in New York. He’s coming right around. So, if you feel like making a fool of yourself, you’re headed in the right direction.”

  “That’s a matter of opinion.” Timothy indicated chairs with disarming politeness. “I’m afraid we’ll have to wait for Mr. Smythe before I can ask Mrs. Bristol a few more questions. Meanwhile, please make yourselves comfortable.”

  The girl sat down; she gestured wearily to Graves. “Might as well do what he says, Larry. What’s the use?”

  “There’s a hell of a lot of use. If this half-baked Princetonian policeman thinks he’s going to pin that murder on you …”

  Timothy smiled at Mrs. Bristol. “At least you ought to be flattered at having so much male protection, Mrs. Bristol.” He nodded toward the inner office. “Bobby’s in there at the moment. He’s got another idea on the case and he’s doing his best to prove I’m wrong about you.” His glance moved a trifle mockingly to Graves. “Somehow I feel your husband may turn out to be far more helpful to you than either Mr. Graves or his expensive lawyer.”

  “But what …?” began the girl.

  She broke off as the door from the inner office swung open and Bobby hurried into the room. His hair was standing on end and there was a triumphant gleam in his eyes. His thrust a sheaf of typewritten pages into Timothy’s hands.

  “Well,” he exclaimed, “I may be a lousy novelist, but I think I’m quite a good detective. Pick a hole in that if you can.”

  He had moved impulsively toward Helen, but, seeing Graves, he paused, his face clouding.

  Timothy had been glancing thoughtfully through the typed pages. He looked up.

  “Let’s move into the inner office,” he said, “and get this straightened out.”

  Both Helen and Graves had been staring uncertainly at Bobby. In silence they rose and followed as Timothy and the boy passed through the door into Mrs. Van Heuten’s room. After a moment’s hesitation, Madeleine went too.

  Timothy took up his position behind the desk with Bobby hovering tensely at his side.

  “This is all extremely irregular, Mrs. Bristol,” he said. “Bobby’s worked out a case against somebody else. If he has anything convincing to say, I’m still ready to be convinced.” His eyes settled on Graves. “Are you prepared to listen before your lawyer arrives?”

  Graves seemed rather embarrassed at Bobby’s presence and his own equivocal position.

  “God knows what it’s all about, but if the police must act like a three ring circus …”

  “Good.” Timothy handed what Bobby had written to Madeleine. “As the only impartial person present, perhaps you’d read this out, Miss Price.”
r />   Madeleine looked rather startled. Bobby lit a cigarette and began to pace restlessly up and down the room. Helen and Graves sat together in absolute silence.

  The secretary put the papers down on the desk in front of her and started to read in a flat, expressionless voice:

  “‘I haven’t got much time, Trant, and I’ll probably make a mess of this, but I’m going to prove how Helen couldn’t possibly have murdered Mrs. Van Heuten. Your whole case rests on motive, doesn’t it? You claim that Mrs. Van Heuten was threatening Helen, was saying she’d tell Graves about the “percentage” marriage to me if she didn’t agree to pay her hush money after her second marriage. That’s your motive, isn’t it? Well, that motive isn’t a motive. And I can prove it from your own deductions.

  “‘You say that the murderer was in the washroom while the Princess and her friends were in with Mrs. Van Heuten. Now the washroom’s only a few feet from the desk. The murderer couldn’t have failed to hear what was being said. If the murderer had been Helen, she’d have realized Mrs. Van Heuten’s game was up. After the Princess was through with her, Mrs. Van Heuten would be helpless. She couldn’t have told Graves or me, or anyone. She couldn’t have extracted a red cent from anyone any more. That signed statement would have tied her hands. Therefore, however much Helen might have wanted to murder Mrs. Van Heuten before she got to the Advice Bureau, she’d no longer have needed to after she’d entered the washroom and heard what the Princess had said.’”

  “You see, Trant?” cut in Bobby quickly. “Doesn’t that make sense?”

  “Rather academic, Bobby. But I’m extremely interested in what’s going to follow.”

  Helen had been listening intently, her eyes playing with unspoken gratitude on Bobby’s face. Graves had leaned back in his chair, looking rather startled.

  “Shall I go on?” asked Madeleine.

  Timothy nodded.

  “‘I’m going to be perfectly frank with you, Trant. It gives me particular satisfaction to make out this case against the person who, I believe, actually murdered Mrs. Van Heuten and Dane Tolfrey. I suppose it’s old-fashioned of me, but I can’t feel any too friendly toward the man who stole my wife. In fact, I think I almost hate him. But that’s not the reason I’m accusing him. I’m accusing him because I know he’s guilty,’”