by C. Daly King
While he was on the subject, had anyone else a reasonable motive? Isa, the ally of the murdered man, would seem to be excused, certainly. As for Tinkham, it was only too plain that his connection with the family as such was hardly more than that of an entire outsider. It was hard to believe that he could have been involved in the pros and cons of Anne’s divorce action to the extent of contemplating a serious crime. What else, then? Was there any reasonable possibility of professional rivalry between him and his patron? Of course, there might be; but, again, scarcely to the extent of murder. The vivisection crusade had seemed to offer a much greater chance of intense opposition between the two, but that was still a wide guess, with all the probabilities favouring Cutter’s allegiance to the same cause that claimed his assistant. Cutter, when he had been called away, had even then been engaged in dissecting the brains of apes.
Was Craven a foreign spy, with a purchased motive in the surgeon’s death? Pretty wild stuff, that. He was, however, an admitted friend of Mann’s, whom he felt the brothers had treated badly. He went a good deal further than that, too; he was prepared to condone openly Cutter’s murder by Mann, for he had done so. That was foolish, though; however entertaining as an abstract argument, Lord could not take seriously the proposition that Mann, from the continent of Africa, had committed so long-distance a crime. The possibility, to put it plainly, was that Craven had done it for him, but Craven was no more than a chance acquaintance who, at most, had developed a certain degree of friendship for Anne’s husband on a hunting trip. If such a motive could be imputed to him, with how much more reason might it apply to Fonda herself. He knew he was grasping at straws. It was useless to waste time trying to break down Fonda’s motive; she had it and that was that.
She had the ability. Well, of course, everyone on the ’plane had the ability to hit an unsuspecting man from behind on the head and to mangle the throat of an unconscious person securely strapped down to a stretcher. It wasn’t much of a point, one way or the other, and nothing could be done about it, anyhow. There were plenty to witness that Fonda had not been physically incapacitated at the time of the crime.
Her possession of the actual weapon was much more serious. She said she had left it in the cabin, and only returned to recover it at a time when the murder had already been accomplished, and for that statement there existed no proof at all. Lord considered what the prosecution would do with it. They would allege that Fonda, after killing her uncle, had schemed to divert suspicion precisely by this dodge of coming back and pretending to find the weapon under her seat. She had, of course, brought it back with her in a pocket of her dress and herself placed it on the floor from which she claimed to have retrieved it, and they would make good use of the stewardess’s evidence that she had gone through the cabin previously to Fonda’s return and seen no sign of it. It was damning, this matter of the clip! It was direct evidence, and it was just the sort of bungling weapon that an inexperienced amateur, a young woman of breeding, for instance, without any experience of injuring people physically, would take. It was an extraordinarily poor tool for the purpose, and its very selection pointed to naive inexperience – and thus to Fonda.
As he considered the various points about the weapon, Lord found his earlier incredulity as to Fonda’s guilt vanishing. It became increasingly likely that all these indications could not be incorrect. Maybe she had done it. What did not vanish, however, was his determination somehow to save her from the consequences. All he had to do was to think for a moment about Fonda herself to have this determination strengthened to its original intensity.
Nevertheless he could see nothing to do either about motive or about the weapon. Opportunity was the single item that offered any possibility of attack. The point against her here was merely negative. No one knew for certain where she had been during the crucial period; there was no direct evidence against her. Here, if anywhere, something might be accomplished to raise a reasonable doubt; but in view of the other incriminating factors it would have to be something fairly drastic, something much more than mere negativity. He realised that the necessity for real accomplishment precluded too much finesse. In trying to extricate her, in investigating more closely her actual movements, he might only succeed in procuring the direct evidence that still was lacking. He would have to chance that, though; he would have to chance everything. Otherwise she was caught.
The criminal had come around the tail of the ’plane and returned that way, as shown by the trail in the snow. Could he show that Fonda had not made that journey? He did not see how. It struck him, now that he thought of it, that this was the only part of the criminal’s movements which was definitely known. Maybe the point could be made to mean something, although it was not at present apparent how to do so.
The detective drew out his note-book and took from it the sheet headed ‘Reported Movements,’ which he had spent so much effort in constructing. He looked down Fonda’s column in the chart with attentive care. She had gotten up from her chair at 8.32, and left the cabin at 8.33; and 8.33 was the beginning of the crucial period. From that time until seven minutes later, namely at 8.40, when she returned to the cabin, she was unaccounted for except by her own story. By that time the crucial period had ended, and it was this that caused her lack of alibi.
But the crucial period had ended at 8.37, according to Lord’s calculations, and Fonda had not reached the cabin until 8.40. It should not have taken her three to four minutes to walk around the tail of the ’plane from the baggage compartment. And then he saw that this meant nothing, for she could easily have stopped for a minute or so at some point on her return journey to recover her composure after so violent an experience. In fact, one would expect her to have done so. There was nothing in her favour in the delay.
It occurred to him that he had better decide just what he was trying to do. Her movements, as they appeared upon the chart, constituted an alibi, of course, just as did everyone else’s. Was it this alibi that he was trying to establish beyond doubt, or another? After a moment he saw that his best course was to work for the alibi she herself had asserted. Either it was true or it was a fabrication. If true, it would be easier to prove than any invented one; and even if false, it was still the best one to adopt, for it had then been devised by a person who was undoubtedly intelligent and who, moreover, could judge, from her knowledge of what had really occurred – a knowledge that he lacked – how best to make it appear plausible. Yes, it was the alibi as it appeared in Fonda’s column on the chart that he must firmly establish in some fashion or other.
How far could he rely on the chart, now that he was trying to confirm it rather than break it down? He knew that in most cases only the sequence of events could really be relied upon. The scheduled minutes were mainly calculated and he had calculated them himself without confirmatory observations of clock or .watch time. Better than anyone else he knew the amount of guesswork that had been part of the schedule. While they remained the most probable times at which the various movements had taken place, still some of those essential minutes in Fonda’s column might be changed. He could change them arbitrarily, naturally, but could he change the essential ones in that way? The stewardess, for example, was fairly sure of Fonda’s return at 8.40, so that could not be altered. Marjorie Gavin had also seen her leave the cabin, but here the time was more or less approximated. He saw that if Fonda’s departure from the cabin could be put back far enough, until 8.36, for instance, she could be shown to have left too late to commit the crime. It would be no good to offer merely an unconfirmed estimate, however, for in her case there were already far too many other items against her. If it were to be alleged that she had not left till then, corroboration became essential.
Without hesitation Lord rose from his seat and approached the chair on which the stewardess reclined.
8600 FEET
Marjorie said, ‘No, I can’t be sure. I told you that. When you bring it down to this minute, and the next one, and the one after that, I just didn’t tak
e these times, and so I can’t swear to them. I do know that everyone except Dr Pons did leave the cabin within a few minutes of the time we landed, and I know he left within ten minutes, but that is all I can say.’
‘You are certain that everyone else had left at least some minutes before Pons went out? You are so certain that you will swear to it on the witness stand?’
Marjorie hesitated, and finally admitted, ‘No-o. I am not as certain as all that. Some of them stood around in the rear space where we are now for some little time, and one of them may have stayed longer than the others. I can’t testify that someone did not leave a little before Dr Pons, because I was in the forward part of the cabin then, and I wasn’t watching. I can only swear that, when he went, everyone else had already gone.’
‘Then Miss Fonda Mann, for example, might have remained and only gone out a minute before he did? Or perhaps even at the beginning of the same minute?’
‘I suppose so, but I don’t believe it. One of those girls did stay back here longer than the other, but the last I noticed either of them was considerably before the time you are speaking about.’
‘Which one went out first, then? Please try to see if you can remember that.’
‘I can’t,’ Marjorie pronounced, after some moments in which she frowned seriously over the question. ‘I think it was the good-looking one that asked me the way to the house, but I am not even sure of that. I just haven’t the slightest idea which one jumped out first. If anything, I should guess it was the one who had asked for directions, but I certainly wouldn’t say so as a witness.’
‘And whenever the first one did leave was a good while before Dr Pons got up?’
‘Oh, yes. It was four or five minutes before, anyhow.’
Lord shrugged his disappointment, and passed on to another point. ‘About that clip of Miss Mann’s. You told me you had been through the cabin before she had returned and had not seen it. Now, how much importance should I put on that? After all, you weren’t looking for it, but only straightening things up in the cabin. Very probably it would have escaped your attention under those conditions, don’t you think so?’
‘That’s a funny thing,’ she answered slowly. ‘I have thought it over since I talked with you before, I saw where she picked it up, beside the seat behind her own, although I was then in the rear of the cabin, but I had looked under that seat myself only a few minutes earlier, and I am positive it was not there then.’
‘How can you be so sure you had looked under that particular seat?’
‘Because there was a book with a funny title, Wild Talents, lying there. I picked it up and put it back on the seat.’
‘And when was it that this happened?’
‘It was just after Dr Pons went down the aisle.’
‘Then it was at 8.36, or 8.37, and you are entirely certain. You would be willing to swear to that, and to be cross-examined on it in court?’
‘I would swear to it,’ said the girl simply.
The detective said, ‘All right, Marjorie. That’s all, I guess.’ He watched her go back to the rear chair on the port side, adjust it uprightly after a glance at her wrist-watch, and sit down. She looked up and down the cabin at her temporary charges.
And a lot he had accomplished by that questioning, he reflected – nothing at all about Fonda’s departure; he had merely succeeded in uncovering plain evidence that she had brought the weapon back into the cabin with her. About as damaging evidence as could well exist on that point. It was cold comfort to realise that at least he knew what he had to meet. It would probably still be best to work on the time of her leaving, he conjectured. Where could he find someone to corroborate the desired delay? Isa, possibly? The two girls, he recalled, had come together to the cabin’s rear, at any rate.
He walked between the sleeping figures until he came to Isa’s chair. He shook her gently by the shoulder, and she woke with a start, raising herself on one elbow to stare with half-opened eyes into the detective’s face.
‘Sorry to wake you up,’ he apologised. ‘But would you mind coming back here with me for a few minutes? It is really important, or I wouldn’t have disturbed you.’
Shortly afterward Isa emerged from the lavatory, where she had splashed her face with cold water, and took the camp stool beside Lord. Now that she was here, he thought, he might as well confirm for himself some of that story of Pons about the family. So far, he only had Pons’ word for most of it, although that was probably enough, worse luck.
He began without much hope. ‘I shall have to ask you some rather personal questions about your family, Miss Mann. I hope you will not consider them impertinent. It is very necessary that I understand clearly everything in the situation as it bears upon Dr Cutter.’
‘Go ahead,’ Isa replied in her husky voice.
‘About this divorce action of your mother’s. I have been given to understand that it has caused some intense disagreement.’
‘There is no disagreement among us, except on Fonda’s part. She has always mooned about her father. Everyone else knows that Anne has no choice but to divorce him.’
‘You don’t feel that it could be patched up, that there is any possibility of a reconciliation.’
‘With that man?’ Isa demanded. ‘I should say not. He’s nothing but a handsome flibberty-gibbet and not five cents’ worth of brains in his head. With his absurd posturings and posings, he’s like a male dress model, if there is such a thing.’ Her lip curled contemptuously. ‘A tin-pot hero, with his big-game hunting and swarms of silly, empty-headed women tagging around at his heels.’
Lord did not fail to note the intensity of her feelings, nor that Pons had not exaggerated the emotions engendered by the situation. He suggested, ‘Your sister doesn’t seem to have the same opinion.’
‘Oh, Fonda. I like her, but she’s a silly fool sometimes. She’s crazy about men, makes eyes at every one of them she meets, and she has always been super-silly about him. I believe she’d marry him herself if he wasn’t her father.’
Just in time and with some difficulty Lord restrained what seemed to him an appropriate comment and proceeded, ‘But isn’t it true, Miss Mann, that your uncle has made a practice of interfering in your mother’s relations with other men for a long time? The present instance is not an isolated one by any means.’
She said, ‘I don’t call it interference at all. You would have to know Anne, to understand it. She is the sweetest woman in the world, but men have always taken advantage of her. They’re forever chasing after her, some of them for her money, some of them for her body. She never sees through them, and they’re such damn fools that they imagine no one else does, either. Somebody has to take care of Anne, or she would always be in some mess or other. She is too good-hearted to see what kind of animals men are, and she is easily flattered. I don’t know what would have happened to her if Uncle Amos hadn’t looked out for her all this time.’
‘I see how you view it,’ the detective confessed. ‘But what about this attack upon him? None of the men he has been “protecting” your mother against are with us here.’
‘Wotan Mann did it, as sure as shooting,’ Isa asserted. ‘I’m sure of it. It is just like his idea of melodramatic revenge.’
‘But he isn’t here.’
‘I don’t care. He hired someone to come along and do it. Oh, you’ll find that out if you ever find anything out at all about it. He has just about wits enough to go to Africa and arrange for Amos’ murder while he is away.’
‘You are really serious about this? You accuse your own father of this crime?’
‘Certainly. He’s nothing but a man – a little worse than most of them, that’s all. I tell you, Mr Lord, and I assure you I am right, that he is at the bottom of this business somewhere.’
‘You would not think it possible that Tinkham had anything to do with it, would you?’
‘That laboratory worm! Grow up, Mr Detective, grow up. This is Wotan’s little trick of being he-man again. I am
only surprised he didn’t do it himself with a flourish of a duelling pistol. But I suppose even he knows there are some laws left.’
‘We’ll let it pass for the moment,’ said Lord. ‘There is something else I want to find out from you.’ He waited, and then went on, ‘When we landed back there at Medicine Bow field. You got up out of your seat a few minutes after we landed and went to the rear of the cabin. I think your sister got up at about the same time. Is that right?’
‘Yes, that is right. She came down the aisle right after me.’
‘But you didn’t leave the ’plane together. What happened when you got back here?’
‘Why, she said something to the stewardess, I think; and I got a drink of water. I waited a minute and then took some tablets in another glass of water to settle my stomach.’
‘And which of you left first? Did you go out on the field before she did?’
‘No, Fonda went out first. She hardly waited at all. The door was open and she jumped down right away before I had even finished my first drink of water.’
‘You are positive she left first?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘That’s all, Miss Mann,’ said Lord dejectedly. ‘Thank you. I will think over what you told me about your father.’
‘You’d better.’
Isa walked back to her seat, where the stewardess followed her and rearranged the blanket after she had lain back on the chair again. Lord sat disconsolately alone. Pons had been utterly right about the Cutter situation, and Fonda had left the cabin early, in plenty of time for the crime. Here was another witness he had dug up against her.
He couldn’t get anywhere with it. Slowly he spread out the chart once more and gazed at it, cudgelling his brains. Yes, she had left the cabin at 8.33 all right, if not sooner, and then it was borne in on him that he had been trying to do just what he had decided against; he had been endeavouring to change Fonda’s alibi, to upset her own story as to when she had left the ’plane. Well, it hadn’t worked, anyhow; willy-nilly, he would have to come back to his first idea of confirming her story.