by Jerry eBooks
I didn’t give a tinker’s damn who was responsible for the attempt upon Winram’s life by the time Ollie got through explaining he had visited a show downtown—it being his night off—returning only a few minutes before our arrival and admitting himself through the servants’ entrance with a key.
I wanted to know more about Hagen. A burning curiosity why she had treasured in her Bible the photo of a youth inscribed To Mother consumed me!
In an aside to Tompkins, I suggested that coffee would be welcome. The butler agreed, obtained Horne’s permission to adjourn to the kitchen. I trailed him casually.
“Quite a happy little family,” I said, watching him prepare the coffee.
“The master is a little—difficult at times, sir,” he admitted, his wrinkled face sad. “But it isn’t so bad as Miss Olivia makes out. You see, we understand that he doesn’t mean all the things he says.”
“Apparently Miss Hagen didn’t feel that way,” I threw out.
Tompkins looked at me, a puzzled light in his faded eyes. “It wasn’t that, I’m certain,” he said earnestly. “I am at a loss to understand why she did it. She usually cried a little after one of his outbursts, but on the whole, she really seemed contented.”
I munched at a biscuit and inquired, “Had she been with Winram long?”
Tompkins’ scant brows lifted in concentration. “More than twenty-five years,” he replied after a few moments. “She was here when I came in ‘sixteen.”
I nodded approvingly. If the inscription on the photo was addressed to her, Tompkins would know something of the youth.
“Was there ever any—shall we say—scandal connected with her during that time?” I murmured.
HIS eyes reproved me. “She’s dead,” he said quietly. “We all respected her.”
“But wasn’t there a son, about twenty-one years ago?” I persisted.
“Good gracious, no, sir!” Shock lengthened the butler’s gaunt features. “Never anything like that—” His voice died abruptly. He stood staring at me, his mouth agape. “Good gracious!” he said again, thinly.
I whipped out a notebook and pencil. “Withholding evidence,” I stated sternly before he could gather his wits, “in an attempted murder and a suicide, Tompkins—umm-m, pretty serious. Now, let’s have it.” I prayed Horne wouldn’t tramp in and ruin things.
It came reluctantly. “There—there was some talk during my first few months that she was—well—friendly with the master. He, Mr. Winram, never married. She was away a whole year, the armistice year, visiting friends down south, we understood. What might have happened during that year, I can’t say.”
“Ever see this lad?” I showed him the picture.
He studied it for a few moments and the lines in his old face softened. “No,” he said gently, “I never saw him.”
I nodded and helped myself to another biscuit. I was thinking that Miss Hagen’s death would be an awful shock to the kid. If he was her kid!
Howe and Duffy were waiting for the morgue wagon when we returned to the library. His job upstairs finished, the M.E. was giving Winram some advice regarding his throat before he departed. Olivia Rance was aimlessly reading a magazine and chain-smoking cigarettes. Evidently lost in thought, Barry Cort sat near the long table, his fingers beating a monotonous tap-tap on its polished surface. The other servants were absent, dismissed, I judged correctly.
Winram claimed the butler, kept him busy applying compresses to his throat and growling incessantly throughout the process.
I turned in the story without any mention of the kid’s picture, or my suspicions. I wanted to be sure first, and that meant persuading Winram to talk.
The morgue wagon came and took away Miss Hagen’s body. Before he left, Horne phoned headquarters for word of Pitton. He hadn’t enough to take Olivia Rance in for further questioning. I could see it disagreed with him. I grinned. It wasn’t my headache. I had a better story in view—I hoped.
The lieutenant was scowling darkly when he hung up.
“Pitton hasn’t returned home yet,” he informed Olivia in a surly tone. “We’ll have him by morning and check up on your story. You’re staying here, Duffy, and—” he glared at the girl “—see that no one phones Pitton before we pick him up.”
Olivia shrugged and sauntered out.
“Why not take every precaution, Mr. Winram,” I suggested softly while Horne gave the sergeant his final instructions, “and have someone stay in your room for the rest of the night?”
The man’s round face brightened. “An excellent idea.” He glanced at Cort. That worthy favored me with an angry look.
It disappeared when I said, “Cort needs his sleep. I’m used to night work. I’ll stay.”
Winram hesitated then nodded assent.
Horne eyed me suspiciously when I told him I intended remaining, but he made no objection. “Once we grab Pitton,” he informed me confidentially, “he’ll sing.”
Tompkins followed him out, paused in the doorway to announce, “You will find coffee in the kitchen, sergeant.”
TEN minutes later, quietness had claimed the house. Duffy was parked on a chair in the big hall downstairs within easy distance of the kitchen—and the coffee. Young Cort had helped me fix a spare bed in Winram’s room and left with a brief “goodnight!”
Maybe, I thought, watching Winram wriggle out of the gray pants, the old guy will bounce me when he learns what I’m after. But I had to take that chance if I wanted the story. And want it I did. Most of the Park Avenue dames would rather eat scandal than grapefruit for breakfast. I was wishing I could get a picture of Winram. Little fat men like him shouldn’t wear tight pyjamas.
Well, here goes, I decided, and cleared my throat. “Of course, you will be notifying Miss Hagen’s son?” I sprang on him.
He sat on the edge of the bed and just looked at me for a few seconds. His plump face seemed to shrink. “What do you know about Anne’s son?” he whispered after the slight pause.
Something in his eyes gave me a bad touch of the conscience no good newshawk can afford to own. I didn’t want to, but I thought of what the publicity could do to Anne Hagen’s kid. I swore silently. To hell with the story!
“Forget it!” I snapped brusquely. “It’s none of my damn business, anyhow.” I bent to unlace my shoes.
He didn’t seem to be listening. “I don’t know how you learned about—him,” he muttered, “but that doesn’t matter. Olivia was right. I drove Anne too hard. But I never dreamed she would—” He shivered and sat staring down at the floor.
I left my shoes on and lit a cigarette, regretting the impulse that had prompted me to open the dead woman’s Bible.
“She was never the same after I told her he was dead.” Winram’s low monotone broke a painful pause. He got up and padded across the floor. He sat on the bed beside me and smiled wistfully. “You don’t mind—it’s a relief to talk about it—now she’s dead.”
I nodded without looking at him directly. If I’d been pressing him to talk he’d have shut up like a clam. “Sure, talking does you good, sometimes,” I told him.
He shook a cigarette from my pack and I lit it from my own. “I arranged for the baby’s adoption by a middle-class family,” he went on, “Anne never knew who they were, that was part of our bargain, she must never see the boy or attempt to learn the name he was going under.”
I smiled grimly, thinking of the picture in my pocket. Anne Hagen had proved smarter than he figured, had been in contact with her son for several years, unknown to Winram.
“Until he was seven, I visited him once a year,” the little fat man was saying. “Then, for no particular reason, I stopped going, didn’t see him again for nearly fourteen years right after the accident.
“His foster parents died in a car smash over a year ago. Their own boy, Brant, around my son’s age, was killed with them.”
“How did your son escape?” I inquired curiously.
“He hadn’t accompanied them on the trip,” Winra
m explained. “I flew down when I heard the news, introduced myself as an old friend of the boy’s supposed parents. I brought him back to the city with me, found him a good job and he is, I’m quite sure, contented. Naturally, he believes that his real mother, father and brother all died in the accident. Anne had been worrying me to openly acknowledge the boy on his twenty-first birthday. To quiet her on the subject, I told her of the accident everything; only I said the boy who died was—our son. I didn’t tell her I had brought the other boy to the city.”
My face must have reflected my thoughts because Winram suddenly looked ashamed.
“Oh, I’ve realized since it was a wicked thing to do,” he muttered. “But I wasn’t throwing the boy over completely. I’ve taken care of him adequately in my will.” He touched my knee.
“This—you won’t publish what I’ve told you?”
I shook my head. He looked so pathetically unhappy I sat there and let him ramble on for nearly half an hour, mostly about Anne Hagen and himself, before I suggested he roll into bed. I walked over and flung open the window to clear the room of smoke. Between us, we had emptied my pack of cigarettes.
WINRAM waddled across the room, stopped by the big fireplace. I watched him press a spot on the left-hand side. A two-foot section of the ornate tiling swung out, revealed a small modern safe. He fumbled with the dial for a few seconds and presently came back holding a long unsealed envelope.
He withdrew two stiff sheets of paper, gave them to me. “A copy of my will,” he explained. “I want you to know I’m telling the truth.”
Rapidly digesting the contents of the will, I whistled softly. Winram hadn’t lied. A substantial sum bequeathed to Olivia Rance and the servants’ legacies left the bulk of Winram’s fortune—almost a million dollars—to Anne Hagen’s kid.
But the paragraph stating the youth’s present name and whereabouts didn’t make sense. Puzzled, I reread it, started to speak, then stiffened abruptly. A faint rustling outside the door caught my ear. The noise came again and the doorknob shook slightly.
Winram had heard it, too. His fat jowls quivered.
“He’s back again!” he whispered.
Handing him the will, I made a swift motion for silence and moved noiselessly to the door. A sharp twist turned the key. But the corridor was empty when I stepped outside. A faint grayness came up from where Duffy sat.
Someone was moving stealthily down there. I grinned suddenly. The sergeant, of course. I pushed Winram back into the room.
“Relax. Duffy on a check-up prowl,” I explained softly. “Merely tried the door in passing. Go to bed. I’ll have a word with him before I hit the hay.” I closed the door.
Duffy wasn’t in sight when I descended the stairs but the library door was open. I strode inside. The room was empty like the big hallway and cold air streamed through an open window.
I approached the window and stared outside. A pale quarter moon painted a weak glow over the grounds and something stirred in a patch of tree shadows beyond the lawn while I watched. A second later, Olivia Rance moved onto the lawn. I stepped outside. She came toward me, her face darkening.
“Another snooper!” she snapped.
I grinned and inquired bluntly, “What are you doing out?”
“It’s none of your business,” she informed me coldly, “I—I couldn’t sleep.
“Wouldn’t be Pitton again?” I murmured. “You’ll probably finish the night at headquarters if Duffy finds you out here.”
She shrugged. “It’s no crime to be—She broke off short, her eyes lifting over my shoulder to the house. “Did you hear that?”
I nodded and whirled. The noise could have been a table crashing, splintering glassware. Olivia Rance was staring up at Winram’s open window. “Sounded like Uncle’s room,” she said.
SHE was close behind me when I raced back into the house. On the second floor a quick thrust opened Winram’s door and I stopped inside. The little fat man sprawled on the floor like a floating porpoise. A small table lay overturned in a pool of water from the broken carafe.
I knelt beside Winram and Olivia Rance said, “Oh!” I felt her weight on my shoulder and thought she had fainted. But she straightened. Winram’s face wasn’t nice to look at. The killer’s hands had finished the job this time. I stood up, pushed the girl before me into the corridor and closed the door.
I spotted Tompkins on the rear stairs leading from the third floor, his thin lips working nervously. Behind him, Adams gripped a belt in his right hand, its heavy buckle-end swinging.
“Something wrong, sir?” the butler quavered. “I—I heard a noise.”
“Your master’s dead!” I said briefly. “Get the other servants. You, Adams, find the sergeant.” I turned to the girl. “Which is Cort’s room?”
She pointed out a door at the end of the corridor. Barry Cort opened it after I had rapped loudly, twice. “What is it?” He stared at me, fixing his big glasses with fumbling fingers.
“The killer returned, strangled Winram this time!” I snapped, worried at Duffy’s absence.
Stunned amazement widened Cort’s eyes. He pumped in air like a dying fish. “But—I—I thought you were with him,” he spluttered.
I didn’t answer because Adams came up the rear stairs. He looked scared.
“The sergeant!” he blurted, “Slumped on a chair in the kitchen! Looks like he’s doped!.”
I swore softly. The killer or an accomplice—I scowled at Olivia Rance—had cleverly decoyed me from the room while the deed was done. It had to be someone Winram had known otherwise he would have cried out.
Tompkins and the other servants were gathered in the hall now. I sent the butler to work on Duffy and herded the rest downstairs into the library.
I phoned Headquarters. Horne was cursing fluently when I hung up. I missed Barry Cort and Adams.
They came in through the open window before I could ask questions. The medium-sized chap in their grip had a young face and worried eyes.
“Saw him skulking among the trees,” Cort explained. “Adams and I went after him. He is Pitton.”
Pitton shook himself free. He looked uneasy but not frightened. “Olivia just left me when you came out,” he told me. “I saw you run into the house and waited, in case—”
“Better keep it for the cops,” I growled. I’d suddenly remembered the question I had been going to ask Winram when the interruption came and it wasn’t going to be easy figuring the answer by myself.
“They worked it slick!” Horne summed up half an hour later. Augmented by some of the Homicide Squad we were all crowded in Winram’s bedroom. “She—” he nodded to Olivia Rance “—doped the coffee, waited until Duffy went to the kitchen for a drink and passed out, then admitted Pitton. She tricked you into going below, leaving a clear field for him to finish the job and beat it out the back way.”
The little wheels churning inside my skull began to click. The result was something fantastic, but it supplied the answer to the puzzle.
Horne laughed harshly. “I’m arresting you both—”
“Better go slow,” I warned Horne. “Keep outa this!” The lieutenant’s blue eyes sprayed fire. “I got the case cinched. We found the rubber gloves—her garden gloves—in Pitton’s pocket. We’ve got the motive. Winram’s threat to cut her out of his will. On that evidence, I’d arrest my own grandmother!”
“It’s a frame-up!” Pitton shouted. “Sure, it always it,” Horne snarled. “Take ’em away!”
“Wait!” I stabbed Horne with a lean finger. “Give me five minutes and I’ll produce the real murderer!” My whisper only caught Horne’s ear.
HE glared at me, chewed his under-lip furiously for a couple of seconds, then nodded reluctantly.
I crossed to the fireplace and found the hidden spring. The safe disclosed, I turned to Cort. “You know the combination,” I said, “open it!”
He glared at me. “This is irregular!” he protested. He made no move to comply until Horne repeated the ord
er.
I shouldered him aside once the door swung open, reached in and removed the envelope containing the copy of Winram’s will. As briefly as possible, I recounted what Winram had told me before he died.
“Do you,” I asked Cort, “know the contents of this will?”
Of course not!” he replied uneasily.
“What’s this to do with the murder?” Home barked.
“Everything,” I told him. “Cort’s lying. He killed Winram!”
“You’re mad!” Cort shouted.
I ignored him. “He’s named in the will as Winram’s illegitimate son, Barry Cort,” I went on. “But his real name is Brant Cort, the son of the people who had charge of Barry. Winram, without knowing it, told Anne Hagen the truth. Their son was actually killed in the accident, not the Corts’ boy. Brant Cort knew the story of Barry’s parentage from some source, knew Winram hadn’t seen the boy since he was seven and decided to impersonate the dead youth. The smash-up occurred several hundred miles from their home so there was no one to dispute Brant when he identified the bodies and made the switch. Winram brought him right back here as his son.”
The stubborn line of Horne’s jaw hardened. He started to speak but I hurried on:
“Later, finding this copy of Winram’s will, he realized that he would be heir! to nearly a million dollars upon the old man’s death. But he couldn’t wait for that to happen naturally and planned murder. His opportunity came today, following Olivia’s quarrel with her uncle. Cort knew she was meeting Pitton in the garden at night after Winram retired. He stole the gloves, wore them when he made the first attempt on Winram’s life. He had no intention of killing the old man then, however. It was part of his plot to leave him alive and furnish the evidence against these two—the gloves! He, not Olivia, doped the coffee, brought me downstairs, then hid until I went out through the library window. Winram dead, he slipped back into his own room.
It was an easy matter to drop the gloves I into Pitton’s pocket while they were bringing him in.”