by C. Daly King
‘There, that’s better,’ Pons announced, as he crumpled the cup and sat down, with a final grunt, on the little camp stool. ‘Well now, what is the present emergency?’
‘Isa Mann,’ said Lord definitely. ‘I’m going to go through with her case this time until it makes sense. Or until it doesn’t. You know about her false story at the field and her misleading statements; we’ve been over that. By the way, I’ve found that she reached the house at 8.40; she was the one who came in just after you and Craven. That leaves her unaccounted for between 8.32 or 8.33 and 8.40. Those are eight very important minutes.’
‘But why ask me?’ Pons rolled a longing eye in the direction of his comfortable chair.
‘Because you are supposed to be an expert on personalities. Has she the sort of personality to have done this murder and can she be said to have had a credible motive? Those are two questions that it is necessary I discuss with you now.’
‘H’m,’ said Pons, noncommittally. ‘As to her personality, I haven’t had time to study it properly. You must stop making me guess about people without adequate data. I’ve done that before, sometimes at your instigation, and the results were not promising . . . I’d hate to have some of my colleagues hear about that Summer-ladd fellow . . . Personality. Well, Michael, all I can say is this: aside from a small appetitive sub-type – the gunman, gangster type – murder is an extraordinary and unusual abnormality. You won’t find many types of personality that will screw themselves up to the actual point. On the other hand all sorts of impulses or fundamental emotions can reach an intensity, under the apposite conditions, that will cause a person to perform actions that ordinarily would appear to be, and in fact would be, out of the question for that person. It becomes really a question of the degree of the motivation involved, and as to that you have to know, not guess, the actual circumstances as they bear upon a definite personality history . . . You know that it’s my opinion that Isa didn’t have any sufficient motive for this crime.’
‘Sure. That’s another reason I got you up. I know your opinion, but, meantime, I’ve dug up more information, and I have what looks to me like a reasonable motive for her to have done it. I want to build my story up and have you criticise it. You know more about motives than I do. If you can’t knock down my hypothetical one, it ought to be a pretty good example.’
I’m listening,’ the psychologist informed him.
‘First of all,’ Lord began, ‘I do think she’s the sort of person who could easily be imagined taking part in violence. All the time I’ve seen her she has been rude and nasty; it’s undoubtedly her general attitude.’
‘Her emotions are directed homosexually,’ Pons interrupted. ‘She has always had to be on the defensive against conventions and conventional attitudes on the part of others, especially men, who scorn and abuse her. It is not surprising to me that she has developed the technique advised by the phrase that the best defence is attack.’
‘I don’t care how she developed it; there it is, and, of course, she goes far beyond mere rudeness, sometimes at all events. That fight she had down in Greenwich Village, when she laid out another girl, can’t be her only experience of physical animosity. That is evidence, anyhow, that she is capable of becoming as violent as her manner indicates.’
‘A rough and tumble fight is a far cry from a murder, and she had a reason for that, I’ve no doubt, a reason that appeared vital to her, no matter how it would have looked to you or to me. The point here is that she had no motive, that, if anything, she was in alliance with the murdered man.’
‘Ah, now we come to it.’ Lord offered a cigarette, lit one of his own. He drew several puffs, marshalling the details of the motivation he had in mind. He commenced his exposition slowly.
‘You admit that Isa’s emotions are homosexual. Yes, I know; I’m speaking about her emotions. The whole Cutter family seem to be excellently supplied with emotions and there is one of them who, if we are to judge by everything that has been said, is an emotional magnet if ever there was one. Anne. To put my notion in plain words, it is that Isa is as wildly in love with Anne as Amos was or as any of the others. That’s plausible enough, isn’t it?’
‘It’s practically certain, from what we know,’ Dr Pons shrugged at the obvious, ‘and for that reason she was allied with Amos in getting rid of outside rivalry. Probably had been for years, when the occasions arose.’
‘But when the outside rivalry had been done away with, then what? Then she became, in turn, the rival of Amos; Amos, with the violently jealous disposition, with the desire and the brutal force to monopolise his sister completely. Within the family it’s as plain as the nose on your face that the natural rivals for Anne’s attention were Isa and Amos. Fonda certainly has an entirely different feeling about Anne and the Secretary, so far as appears, has been a more or less unwilling participant all along. Even if he once had any such desire, he has had to abandon it long ago for the duties of his political career . . . No, there were two jealous and possessive people in that family, the daughter and the brother. Isa and Amos. The more I think of it, the more sure I am that they have been at each other’s throats – er – for years. They simply must have each been scheming how to shut the other out, how to get more of Anne for themselves.’
‘Well,’ Pons halted his reply and stopped to consider the view expressed by his friend. ‘Yes,’ he said finally, ‘so far as the general situation goes, there is nothing much wrong with your analysis. I can easily see both Isa and Amos as jealously appetitive and so, if left with only the family circle to contend with, I see them as naturally in opposition to each other. Since they both wanted the same thing and since the condition of having what they wanted, was that they should have it exclusively. In general, yes; but we’re not confronted with a generality. The occurrence you’re interested in is specific, and the specific case was that Isa and Amos were temporarily allied in order to dispose of an outsider intruder . . . Also, where is there any evidence that we are talking more than unconfirmed theory? Have you asked Fonda about this yet?’
‘Just finished. She wasn’t particularly anxious to discuss her sister, but I finally got something out of her. She as good as admitted that the theory is correct. In general, Isa and Amos have been jealous of each other ever since Isa was old enough to understand that her uncle wished to divert her mother’s attention away from her and to himself. In other words, from childhood on. Most of the time they have been enemies and, I should judge, rather underhand ones. Then, whenever an outsider threatened to come into their warfare as a third candidate, they combined against him until he had been pushed out – or otherwise gotten rid of. Fonda told me this without too much lead on my part. She didn’t especially want to tell me, either, and I’m sure we can take that much of my theory as established.’
Pons said obstinately, ‘All right. All right, take that much, but that doesn’t give Isa motive. For at this point we find the alliance in full swing, even if temporarily so. Right now they are engaged, in fact, in getting rid of the most serious rival of all.’
‘That’s just what I doubt,’ Lord responded slowly. ‘You see, getting rid of some one can be accomplished long before the papers are signed. Wotan Mann has cleared out, gone to Africa. The divorce is in train and will go through almost automatically; so far as concerns their real problem – pushing out the husband – it is already accomplished. He is not contesting the divorce.’
‘How do you know he isn’t?’
‘Fonda again. She would know, too.’
‘Yes, she would know her father’s plans, if any one did.’
‘Well, she is certain. It’s funny how all these men of Anne’s, when it comes to a showdown, do what she says. One of them gave up his fiancee, and now Mann refuses to contest the divorce because, Fonda says, once he realised Anne had decided, he didn’t want to put her to needless expense and difficulty.’
‘They fall in love with her,’ said the psychologist. ‘Once in love with her, they will submit to h
er, against their own desires . . . They are really in love with her, of course, whereas neither Amos nor Isa, for that matter, love her at all. There is no love response where the gratification of the subject comes first.’
‘Well, you see the bearing of all this. With Mann out of the way – and he is out of the way now to all intents and purposes – the truce is over and the Isa-Amos fight begins once more. They are actually on their way to see Anne, to renew their struggles with each other on the spot. Both of them have given it plenty of thought, you can be certain. I can well see now why Amos didn’t want to bring his nieces out with him . . . It’s another crisis, actually, in his long fight with Isa. It’s a place where, if ever there was to be violence, it could be expected to happen.’
‘Sometimes you are an apt pupil, Michael,’ Pons had to admit.
‘Then you agree with me that there was a logical motive for Isa to do away with her uncle? A motive that the prosecution could take into court without fear of being tripped up by your science?’
‘There exists no such motive as that; nowadays you can hire an “expert” to testify to anything. Usually they’re psychoanalysts ... I will go so far as to say this,’ added Dr Pons cautiously; ‘the theoretical motivation you have been ascribing to Isa is perfectly sound psychologically. In theory, that is, but that’s just it; it is entirely theorising, without a scrap of factual evidence to back it up.’
‘Motives usually have to be theoretical, to begin with.’
‘There is nothing else at all to connect her with the murder, is there? Her lack of an alibi, after all, is only a negative point. Have you gotten anywhere with the weapon angle?’
‘There is nowhere to get,’ Lord asserted ruefully. ‘Fonda doesn’t know when or where she dropped that clip. Certainly Isa could have picked it up, and so could Tinkham, and so could Craven. So that’s that.’
‘You haven’t been able to get anything more on either of those fellows, eh?’
‘You mean evidence connected with the murder? No, not a thing. Whatever I have gotten is no stronger than implication.’
‘You had one more angle to work on, didn’t you? That business about somebody realising Cutter was only unconscious, not dead. Nothing doing?’
‘Hell, I can’t get anywhere. Craven frankly admits he never believed that Cutter was killed by the bulb. A stupid man who was guilty would say the opposite, of course – but would Craven? It seems to me he might say just what he does say. It fits in with that junk about Cutter’s having been killed from Africa, you see.’
‘Still,’ considered Pons, ‘if he’s the only one who had any such idea – ‘
‘Sure, If he’s the only one. All I know is that he’s the only one who talks about it; but he talked about it to both the others.’
‘Really? Before the real murder? When did he do that?’
‘Oh, not directly. I’ve racked my brains to remember this and I’m pretty nearly certain I’m right. Do you recall when Craven first began giving me his notions about the fake crime? You were sitting just across from me, he was in the seat ahead of mine and I think Isa was just in front of you. It was after Bellowes had finished telling us about hell and damnation.’
‘That’s right,’ Pons confirmed. ‘I heard some of Craven’s talk myself. I suppose Isa could also have overheard him if she had been listening. That’s not to say she took any more stock in him than I did, though ... It lets Tinkham out, anyhow; he wasn’t there then.’
‘No. But he was later. My conversation with Craven was interrupted when we landed somewhere. When we took off again, he went on with his stuff. Craven did, I mean, and for that instalment, Tinkham was right opposite us. I definitely remember that I thought at the time he was listening to us and pretending not to He got up after a few minutes and disappeared into the lavatory, but I am almost positive that that was after Craven’s explicit assertion that I had not given Cutter a bulb that would injure him . . .I’ll admit I am not perfectly sure of it. I’ve tried to remember the exact place when he left until I can’t recall anything definite now.’
‘How did it seem when you first recollected the conversation? First of all, when you considered it, did you think Tinkham had been there or not?’
‘First of all, I thought he had been there.’ ‘Then probably he was. When you get mixed up like that, the greatest probability is that your first recollection is the right one, and somehow I think that Craven’s remark would suggest more to Tinkham than to the girl, if he did happen to overhear it. Yes, I’m sure it would. A research man’s mind is far more accustomed to little hints denying the obvious, and a doctor could easily jump to the idea of a drug with similar effects. If he vivisects, he must know plenty about anaesthetics.’ ‘You’re veering toward Tinkham?’ ‘Not really. No, I can’t see his motive.’ ‘He had enough motive, maybe. There is a hot fight about extending vivisection to human subjects. Cutter was the leader of those who opposed it, and Tinkham, while not a leader, was strong as he could be on the other side. I don’t mean simply an academic discussion; it was growing into a serious struggle. Papers had been stolen and so on.’
‘Well – ‘
‘I’ll tell you, doctor; I have considered Tinkham seriously. Especially when I thought I had caught him out on part of his story. Just a little thing, but the kind that would show his evidence about his movements had been made up. Tinkham told me that coming across that field, after he had been back here for his bag, it came open and he dropped it. When he picked it up, he said he had looked inside to see if anything had fallen out. I had reason to think that he could not have done so . . . Yes, and now Craven tells me that at 8.40, just as he was about to enter the keeper’s house, he caught a glimpse of some one reaching around in the snow as if searching for something. About fifty yards away. He doesn’t know who it was, but I’m afraid it was Tinkham.’
‘Why Tinkham?’
Isa didn’t drop anything and also she must have been closer to the house, for she came in right after you did. No one else told of dropping anything, except Fonda, and at 8.40 Fonda had reached the ’plane again. It must have been Tinkham and, as Craven didn’t know of the other fellow’s evidence, his testimony lets Tinkham out of a lie nicely. If he lied about his movements, he didn’t lie about that detail. I’m quite sure he didn’t know he was being observed. It’s just the kind of little thing, too, that gives a colour of truth to his story.’
‘Then you think now that Tinkham’s testimony about his movements was correct? That gives him an alibi automatically.’
‘No,’ Lord observed, ‘I’m not quite ready to leave him out as completely as that. Part of it is true, although it is not a very vital part, but the implication is in his favour. Craven is in the same boat. If he hadn’t been over to the combat ’plane, at least he came to the house from a direction other than that of our ’plane. The fact is that Isa is the only one who told me what has been shown to have been false. The accounts of the others may be false; her account is.’
‘Well,’ Pons confessed, ‘it’s a tough one. It surely is. It’s all so indefinite. Of course it may be this, it may be that, it may be lots of things. All theoretical. All of it, as you say, is a matter of implication, but some sort of real clue must have been left. I have never heard of a case when that didn’t happen.’
‘If it was left, I haven’t found it. Yet.’ Lord gave a discouraged shrug. ‘Just for good measure, here’s one more implication. The criminal sent Cutter a threatening letter. The criminal came aboard this ’plane, intending to murder him. The original plan for the murder could not be carried out because of the action I took and another plan had to be improvised on the spur of the moment. It is plain enough that the clip was an article provided by chance only, and used by some one who seized the opportunity it offered, but that doesn’t alter the fact that the criminal, when he came aboard, must have provided himself with some weapon to accomplish what he had in mind.’
‘Yes, that’s all right. Well?’
‘
Well, the only person on the ’plane of whom I am certain that he started out with a weapon that can kill, is Craven, and I can’t figure why he told me so. Was it chance? Or is he convinced that the plainer he makes himself, the less he can be seen?’
‘Edgar Allan Poe’s letter,’ commented Dr Pons thoughtfully.
7300 FEET
It was light.
From the cockpit, Lovett, who was flying the transport now, watched the earth taking on outline and substance below him. They had passed over Elko eighteen minutes before and the Beowawe beacon beyond Emigrant Pass, which they were just entering, still flashed palely in the greyness ahead. A threatening morning, with dull, overcast skies. Darker clouds to the south-west; there might be squalls or small hailstorms before they came down at Reno. Nothing serious, however, the weather reports assured them of that. Only a little more than an hour and a half now and he and Lannings could leave the cockpit and turn into billets for a well deserved rest. The thought gave him new energy for the last, short leg of the flight. Some one else would take the ’plane on from Reno. Well, let them, and happy landings at San Francisco.
The windows of the cabin were paling grey squares and the passengers were commencing to stir about. Marjorie Gavin had been second into the lavatory – Pons had been first – and she had emerged as neat and fresh as when she had crossed the field at Chicago the day before. Now she was adjusting Pons’ chair for him while some one squeezed past her down the narrow aisle. The some one was Tinkham.
He came to the rear of the cabin and there he had to wait, for the Rev. Manly Bellowes was splashing his face with water at the little washstand beyond. ‘Good-morning, Captain,’ said Tinkham. ‘Have you made any progress with this outrage? You have been up all night, haven’t you?’
The detective’s face in the morning light was drawn with fatigue. ‘Not much. Nothing definite enough to act upon.’
‘What’s the next step? We shall all have to stay in Reno, I suppose, until something is done?’