by Jerry eBooks
“Sorry,” the afflicted man wheezed. “Can’t help it.”
Holding his handkerchief to his nose, he came forward to peer at the corpse, turned quickly away. He uttered a sort of moan which was drowned by another sneezing attack.
“Better go inside, Rick,” Wade said gently. “Take Marian with you to tend to the guests and Dawn. None of us can do anything until Chief Potter gets here.”
“I’ll tend to Dawn, Olin, if it’s all right,” said Jimmy. At the rich man’s nod, he added, “Call me when you want me.”
CHAPTER II
ASSISTANT TO THE CHIEF
JIMMY was comfortably ensconced in the cushioned window seat of the main staircase landing of the Wade mansion when one of Chief Potter’s uniformed minions summoned him. His arm was about Dawn’s shoulders as she leaned against him.
His feeling was not entirely of sympathy though. In fact, he was about to toss the conventions of the occasion overboard and kiss her anyway when the summons came. After all, two years is a long time, and her nearness for more than an hour while the other guests were questioned and sent home had been disturbing.
“Chief Potter will speak to Miss Barton too,” said the policeman. “He’s in Mr. Wade’s study.”
Dawn rose, shook the somewhat disordered folds of her simple black crepe gown over curves that denied indignantly the need of other ornament. Hand in hand they followed the policeman downstairs.
Chief Potter was alone in the study. He looked oddly out of place behind the magnificent gold-tooled, leather-topped Jacobean desk as he rose politely to greet them. His iron-gray hair was brushed scrupulously across a spreading bald spot. His gold badge shone brightly to match the twin rows of brass buttons that adorned his blue uniform coat, and his sunburned face was stern but kindly.
First Dawn, then Jimmy, told him of the discovery of the slain girl’s body. When both of them had finished, Chief Potter thanked them, then suggested that he would like to talk to Major Grey alone.
“Make it plain Mr. Grey,” said Jimmy. “Major Grey sounds like a chutney.”
The chief looked puzzled, but let it pass. He rose as Dawn departed with a roll of her blue eyes at Jimmy to warn him not to stay too long.
“Now,” said the chief, “let’s have it.”
“Ok,” said Jimmy.
He drew out his cigarette case, put the shaggy remnants of the butt on the blotter. Potter poked at them with his forefinger and frowned.
“Doesn’t look as if we could get much from that,” he said, with discouragement in his voice.
“Maybe not,” said Jimmy. “But I tasted a bit of the tobacco. It’s mentholated.”
“So it’s mentholated,” said the chief casually. Then he sat upright. “So it’s mentholated!”
“It may not mean a thing,” said Jimmy. “But I took a look around the house. None of the boxes have this type. Still, one of the guests may have used such cigarettes.”
“Exactly, Grey,” said the chief. “And I’m thinking of just one of the guests. Now I want to ask you a favor.”
“Whatever I can,” said Jimmy. “I’m a stranger here.”
“Sure, but you’re in with the Wade crowd. And it’s ten to one a member of that crowd did it. What you don’t know, Miss Barton can tell you. You vouch for her?”
“Absolutely,” said Jimmy. “You mean you want me to go along?”
“That’s right,” said Chief Potter. “I’m all right in the mill section. I was born there. But up here I’m a stooge and I know it.”
“You’re not one in my book. No stooge ever admitted it. That’s why a stooge is a stooge. But what can I do?”
“Stick around,” said Potter. “First thing, you might pull up a chair and listen while I give Mr. Carden another going over.”
“But isn’t the tie between a mentholated butt and hay fever a pretty thin one?”
“Not when the party’s alibi is backed by only one person. But before I bring him in, look at this.”
He flipped back a napkin on the desk. A number of objects lay there, contents of the dead girl’s evening bag, which at first glance seemed usual enough—money, powder, lipstick, handkerchief, cards and the like. But there was also a broad-based blood-stained triangular blade with a silver handle.
“Good glory!” said Jimmy. “She was stabbed with a pie knife!”
“That’s right,” said the chief. “She was stabbed with a pie knife. According to Stone, the butler, it came from the sideboard in the dining room here.”
JIMMY looked at the blood-stained blade, already turned black, with a detachment he did not feel. Overseas he had seen plenty of Nazi instruments of murder and torture far more grisly. But even though he had barely met the Lewis girl, there was something personal about this. He tried to picture her as she had been earlier in the evening—a gay, beautiful girl, smiling and triumphant.
Smiling and triumphant. His eyes narrowed slightly. Rick Carden, for all of his slim and athletic appearance must be a man close to forty, if not older. The bride-to-be had been barely twenty-two according to Dawn Barton.
Was it not possible that Carden had been involved with one or more other women? He was a handsome devil. Had Anne Lewis been triumphant because she had taken him from another woman’s arms? Jimmy Grey wondered, then realized that Chief Potter was again addressing him.
The chief was offering a card for his inspection.
“We found this in the dead girl’s bag,” he said. “What do you make of it?”
The card was an orthodox unit for business identification. It read:
LAKETOWN MOTOR COURT
Cabins—Car Park—Swimming
$2.00 for one—$3.00 for two
Reuben Phelps, Proprietor
Call Laketown 200-J
Jimmy handed it back to the chief with lifted eyebrows.
“Well?” he inquired. “What does that prove?”
“I don’t know,” said the chief unhappily. “We keep an eye on the place.” He paused, shook his head. “But this Lewis girl, from what I’ve heard, didn’t go in for that sort of thing—you know what I mean. She taught English in the high school and her job depended on her reputation.”
“I see,” said Jimmy. “Still, you never can tell. Some women can play a part for years.”
“You ain’t kidding,” said the chief. He sighed. “Okay, let’s have Carden in. Maybe he can shed a little light on the subject.”
“The cigarette first,” said Jimmy.
Rick Carden came in a few moments later. He seemed outwardly as composed as ever, looked a trifle, though only a trifle, annoyed. He might have been the busy executive at his office held overtime by some undersecretary’s mistake. But Jimmy saw tight little lines of strain about the corners of his mouth and eyes that to him were unmistakable. This man was walking on hot coals.
Carden spoke to the chief politely, then looked at Jimmy with some surprise as he sat down.
“You know Major Grey, I believe,” said Potter. At Carden’s nod, the chief continued, “He’s the man who found the body of your fiancee.” (He pronounced it fyancy.) “He also found the remnants of a mentholated cigarette. Do you know anyone else here besides yourself who smokes them?”
“Sorry, I don’t,” said Carden.
He was perfectly cool, sat there awaiting the inevitable next question. Jimmy found his admiration for this man rising.
“It was still burning when the body was found,” the chief went on. “Do you deny being on the scene of the crime before Major Grey reached it?”
“Certainly,” said Carden. “I was in the pantry helping Marian—Mrs. Wade—make the punch. I have a special recipe she likes to use at her parties.”
“Then for Pete’s sake how do you account for the cigarette?” Potter asked. His face was growing redder.
“I believe you know,” said Carden, turning to Jimmy, “that I am required to say nothing until I have seen my lawyer.” Jimmy nodded, and Carden went on, “But I wish only to coopera
te in bringing Anne’s murderer to justice.”
He paused and frowned as if to recall past details. Jimmy decided he was either in earnest or decidedly clever; perhaps both.
“Just before I went into the pantry,” he explained, “someone asked for one of my cigarettes, said his own were beginning to taste like hay in his throat. I gave him one. That’s all.”
“And you don’t remember who this person was?”
“Sorry,” said Carden. He smiled apologetically. “I fear I was a bit squiffed and there were a lot of people around. That’s why Marian hauled me into the pantry. She was afraid I wouldn’t be able much longer to mix the punch.”
“You’re sure it was a man?” Jimmy put in.
“Pretty sure,” said Carden. “Wish I could do more.”
“Perhaps you can,” said Chief Potter. He tossed the tourist camp card across the desk to Carden. “We found this in your fiancee’s handbag. Does it mean anything to you?”
CARDEN simply looked at him. He picked up the card and fingered it without seeing it. Then he laughed, a short brittle, unpleasant laugh.
“In all probability,” he said, “I’ll be pilloried for any admission against a dead girl’s honor. But a man of my years and—well, experience—is hardly fool enough to walk into marriage blind. Need I say more?”
Chief Potter looked at Jimmy, who shook his head faintly. They let Carden go. The ex-major smiled faintly at the perplexity in the chief’s eyes as he stared after the murdered girl’s fiance.
“Something fishy there,” Potter muttered.
“I agree,” said Jimmy. “But innocent or guilty, the guy’s good. I’d hate to have to cross-examine him. So what is next on the list?”
“Mrs. Wade,” said Chief Potter, rubbing his chin with thumb and forefinger. He sighed. “I don’t suppose she would talk, even if she knew anything. But still I can make a stab at it.”
When the silver red-head was ushered in a moment later, she moved with perfect composure. Behind the polished mask of her makeup it was impossible to determine whether emotion lurked or not.
“Suppose you give us an account of your whereabouts about the time the—Miss Lewis—was discovered,” said Potter.
Marian Wade shuddered, accepted with a grateful flicker of long, unmistakably genuine eyelashes the cigarette Grey offered her.
“I was in the pantry for some time before we heard the—the news,” she said. “With Rick Carden. I was helping him mix punch.”
“He didn’t leave you at any time?” Jimmy inquired.
“Sorry,” said Marian Wade. Was there faint irony in the perfection of her accents? He wondered, gave it up.
“What about Miss Lewis?” Potter asked suddenly. “Was she—I mean, what sort of a girl would you say she was?”
“I hardly knew her,” said the tycoon’s wife, with a faint twist of her perfect shoulders. “She was Rick’s friend, as you know. I’d hardly have taken her for the type to get murdered on other people’s terraces.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Wade,” said Jimmy quickly, before a visibly shocked Chief Potter could say something foolish.
When she had gone, he asked the chief what came next.
“The servants,” said Potter. “Maybe they can give us something. Say—why don’t you run down this tourist camp business while I wind things up here?”
“Glad to,” said Jimmy. “Are you going to put a man on Carden?”
“I’ve only got a dozen on the force,” said Potter apologetically, “and Carden’s a pretty big gun here in Laketown. He just about runs the plant for Old Man Wade.”
“Okay, skip it,” said Jimmy. “I’ll see if I can bum a car somewhere.”
“I’d loan you a police job if I had a spare,” said the chief. “I’m only asking you to do it because we’re so shorthanded.”
“I understand,” said Jimmy. “Be seeing you.”
CHAPTER III
JUGGERNAUT
OLIN WADE and Dawn Barton were sitting alone in the vast living room of the mansion when Jimmy Grey entered it. Costly tapestries looked down with dramatic impassivity on the wreckage of the party which would now, at shortly after midnight, have been in full swing had the murder not occurred.
Spilled ash-trays, empty and halfempty glasses were everywhere. A sadly diluted punch in which the ice had melted threatened to overflow at any minute upon the mahogany table which supported it.
“All over, Jim?” the millionaire asked him.
Jim shook his head. “Afraid not,” he said. “Where’s Mrs. Wade?”
“She drove Rick home,” said Dawn, rising and coming over to him to slip an arm through his.
“Hasn’t Carden a car?” said Jimmy, honestly surprised.
“He’s still waiting,” said Wade with a chuckle. “He came here without one just after Pearl Harbor. Don’t know what I’d have done without him. But I couldn’t get him a car then for love or money. And reconversion takes time.”
“May I borrow yours?” Jimmy asked Dawn.
She leaned close against him.
“Sure, if you borrow me with it,” she said.
Her uncle chuckled again. “You’re hooked, son,” he said.
Jimmy was doubtful, not about being hooked, but about taking Dawn with him. Still, there could be little danger in visiting a tourist’s camp, not the type of danger he was thinking of.
“Let’s go,” he said. “Excuse us, Olin.”
“You’re excused,” said the rich man. “Plain shame this had to be your introduction to Laketown.”
Dawn and Jimmy Grey left the great house by a side entrance, walked to the garage. Dawn’s car, a smart little 1942 convertible, showed the gleaming perfection of constant care. The motor started with a hum of almost silent power.
“Where to, Sherlock?” she asked him.
“Phelps’ Motor Court,” replied Jimmy.
“I must say you have ideas,” the girl remarked. “But I can’t say you pick the most de luxe surroundings.”
“Quiet, wench, this is business,” said Jimmy. “Hey, how did you know I was working on this?”
“Element’ry my dear Watson. First, Chief Potter held you and let me go—and you simply aren’t a suspect. Secondly, Rick said you were in on his second questioning.”
“How things do get around!” said Jimmy. “Maybe you can give me a steer. You knew this Lewis girl well?”
“Pretty well,” said Dawn. “We weren’t intimate or anything—not until Rick got his crush on her. Why?”
“Would you say she was the type to spend much time at a place like this tourist camp?”
“Emphatically and definitely not,” the girl replied. “Much as I hate to speak ill of the dead, little Anne was out for big game, and her mind was set on getting her man roped, thrown, hogtied and led to the altar.”
“Okay,” said Jimmy. “But why would she be carrying a card to the joint in her handbag?”
“I don’t believe it!” said the girl. “But still—”
“Exactly,” said Jimmy. “Well, that’s why we’re on our way there. And while we’re going, what gives with this Carden anyway? I mean general background and all.”
“Oh, he’s been Marian’s devoted lapdog for years,” Dawn told him. “That’s why we were all so surprised when he began going around with Anne—poor Anne! I feel like a loathsome beast for speaking as I did about her.”
“Nil nisi malum de mortuiis,” said Jimmy. “Just because a person is dead doesn’t qualify him for a coat of whitewash. But back to Rick—where did he come from?”
“New York,” Dawn said promptly. “Back in Forty-one, when I finished at Miss Walker’s, Uncle Olin met me in Grand Central. He gave a party for me at the Pierre. It was off-season for a coming out party, but what can an out-of-town girl expect? Anyway, someone brought Rick and Marian along. She was playing in an English play on Broadway then, and Uncle Olin fell like the well-known ton of bricks.”
“She is English then?” he asked. “I though
t so.”
“And beautiful. Don’t you think she’s lovely?”
“Certainly. But a little too porcelain-perfect for me. I like my women a little on the warmer side.”
“Darling!” said Dawn.
SHE took her eyes from the road to cast an adoring glance at him and nearly ran the car into the ditch.
“Steady,” said Jimmy. “Later on we’ll get around to us. But how did Carden land here? I should think your uncle would have been at pains to keep him away.”
“Not Uncle Olin,” said Dawn. “He isn’t like that at all. He’s pretty wonderful really. As it happened, he needed a man to handle the plant for him. He was too old to stand the war production pace and his best man had been drafted. Rick was over age and had the training, so Uncle Olin gave him the job. He’s done wonderfully well at it.”
“He looks able to handle himself,” said Jimmy absently.
He was trying to get this situation straight. So Marian Olin and Rick Carden had known each other before her marriage to Olin Wade. That took some digesting.
Rich elderly husband—despite his charm; much younger wife with beauty; and devoted former swain. Here were all the ingredients of a first-class triangle. Jimmy tried to add it up angle by angle and found himself reaching too many conclusions.
They were skirting the shores of the lake which gave the town its name. The moon had finally risen above the pines that rimmed its further shore, tipping them with silver and reflected its image in more golden distortion upon the calm water. It was a night for fall romance, not murder.
Dawn steered the car through a white wooden gate with a big sign that was an enlarged reproduction of the card found in the dead girl’s bag.
A hundred yards up a bumpy dirt road they reached another gate, from whose post an electric lantern hung.
To the right beyond it, a broad driveway passed between twin rows of a half-dozen demure, white-painted cabins each. Directly facing this gate was a larger building, obviously the office, with a pair of gasoline pumps alongside. Light streamed through the windows.