This was not strictly true, but Van Peter’s mental reservation in favour of Kimbark was understood by all present.
Mollock was smiling broadly. “I’m only talking, of course. But what do you say to the third extraordinary incident of the night?”
“I’m afraid I didn’t read that, either.”
“A resident of the Athletic Club, strolling homeward in the small hours, was held up by an agitated footpad who took from him only the shoes that were on his feet.”
Anger stirred in his chair. “Oh, come off, Mollock!” he expostulated, laughing. “That’s your next novel, now. It couldn’t have happened.”
“It did happen. Just as I tell you. It happened approximately a quarter of a mile from the Kimbark place—near the park—and within half an hour of Garment’s murder. Nobody has paid any attention to it, because it sounds too fantastic. The man to whom it happened told it as a good story, and was with difficulty prevailed upon to report it to the police. The police laughed, and probably thought the club member had been drinking. In the papers, this afternoon, where it appears, it is treated as a joke.”
Lillian Van Peter was fascinated. “Only his shoes!” she repeated. “Why, it’s preposterous! Surely, it must have been a joke. If it really happened. And what possible connection could it have with the murder of Mr. Garment?”
“Probably none,” admitted Mollock, unperturbed. “My proposition is that no conceivable incident bearing upon the murder should be neglected. I have a friend in New York who would make something of that hold-up business that Sherlock Holmes himself would have to admire. Walter Ghost is his name. I’m going to see him about it when I get back. For that matter, though, I could worry out a sort of connection myself.”
“Go ahead,” urged Van Peter, interested in spite of himself.
“In the best Baker Street manner,” said Mollock, “I put the question to you: What, conceivably, could a highwayman want, at that hour, with a pair of shoes?”
It was Anger who answered promptly. “That’s too easy, Mollock. His own would give him away in whatever he’d been up to.”
“Perhaps,” agreed the fictionist, “but the chances were a hundred to one against his getting a pair that would go onto his feet. You can’t pick and choose at one or two in the morning.”
“Well, what did he want with them?”
Mollock was very proud of his deduction. “He wanted a pair of shoelaces, of course.”
“Shoelaces!” Mrs. Van Peter was shrilly delighted. It was really a grand game, after all. As good as the game called “Murder,” now waning in its popularity. “But why didn’t he take them? Why take the poor man’s shoes? Couldn’t he have bought a pair of shoelaces for five cents?”
“He couldn’t have bought a pair for five dollars at that hour in the morning, because the shops were closed. He wanted them in a hurry. It was easier to take the shoes and remove the laces in privacy and at his greater leisure.”
“That’s very clever, no doubt,” nodded Anger, “but what’s the connection with the case of Mr. Garment?”
The story writer shrugged and spread his hands. “The connection, I confess, is a bit more difficult; but, as Sir Thomas Browne would remark, it is not beyond all conjecture. Even more than he wanted shoelaces, I suggest, he wanted cord. You see? He would tie the laces together, make a serviceable cord of them, and—” He paused dramatically.
“What?” asked Anger, annoyed.
“Tie it to the weapon he wanted to dispose of. The knife on one end of the cord, a second weight at the other end, and it would be a simple matter —don’t hit me!—to toss the whole works into a tree. High up, maybe, among the leaves, where nobody would ever think of looking. It happened near the park, you see, where there are trees for all purposes.” He flourished an airy hand. “Well, what do you think of that for a flight of fancy?”
Van Peter whistled. “Whew!” he observed. “No wonder you have a following!”
“It holds together, doesn’t it?”
“You make it sound immorally plausible. I’m almost tempted to go exploring in the park. Actually, of course, it’s all quite specious and glittering.”
“And think of the trees,” said Lillian Van Peter. “A whole park of them!”
Anger said nothing. He was thinking. It was all pure imagination, and he knew it; but what if— incredibly—this likable idiot were right? Stranger things had happened in life, and would continue to happen. Were his own vague suspicions of Kimbark—suspicions shared, he knew, by the others present, although nothing had been said—merely the first, easy suspicions of a man somewhat on the inside of things? He would rather like to think so. In which case, the whole situation was plunged into a deeper hole of mystery than ever. In which case, who, conceivably, could the unknown murderer have been, and what could have been his motive?
It was the romancer himself who exploded the spell he had cast about them.
“In point of fact,” he observed easily, “I don’t believe a word of what I’ve been saying. But I think I’ve proved my point. In every major criminal event there are from one to one hundred clues that never are discovered because they seem too fantastic or remote. It never occurs to anybody to connect a zebra with a Persian kitten, because the one is striped and the other whiskered. But a tiger is both striped and whiskered and is a very dangerous animal. That too is specious and glittering; but it’s a grand line. I must get it into a book sometime.”
He had said nothing to the Van Peters of his adventures of the morning—with Anger—at the scene of the murder. On this subject Anger too had been silent.
The less riotous imagination of Detective-Sergeant Bernard Cicotte, meanwhile, had not been idle; but it had settled, at length, to a level more soberly in line with his official position. The adventure of the drunken law student disturbed him not at all, nor did it ever cross his mind that the missing weapon was in a tree. The Kimbark grounds had been searched the night before, and would be searched again this very afternoon. The house, too, if necessary. That was the merest routine.
And whatever happened, at least he had a goat. He had William Spessifer under lock and key. William Spessifer had driven the cab which had delivered Garment dead. When one came to think it over, it was a sufficiently suspicious circumstance. What William’s motive might have been, supposing him to be the murderer, was not clear. It wasn’t robbery. Anger had explained, when questioned, that Garment carried only money enough to pay the fare of a casual driver. It had been suggested, however, that William might have been the tool of someone else. Even of some one of the guests—Kimbark’s or Van Peter’s—whom Cicotte would rather have suspected than the chauffeur. Even perhaps a tool of the bearded Charlesworth, whose story was none too plausible.
It had been established, however, that Charlesworth had kept an appointment on the far south side of the city. At least his statement to that effect had been borne out by those with whom the appointment ostensibly had been kept.
It made no difference to Cicotte who was arrested for the crime. Kimbark? Swell! Van Peter? Great! Anger? Mollock? Charlesworth? They were all okay with Cicotte. But Spessifer was an asset in hand. Besides which, he was a taxi driver and therefore legitimate prey. Saddling a murder on a more distinguished member of society, while an achievement to be desired, was a delicate matter. Taxi drivers might be picked up on suspicion.
If, then, Spessifer had murdered Garment— whether as a private enterprise or as agent for a larger motive—he had done so en route to the Kimbark dwelling and not outside the door. That, it seemed, was the probability. The knife, in which case, would have been tossed—where? A horde of policemen and detectives was endeavouring to answer that question at the moment.
The lake was a disquieting possibility. It was deep and secret. And William Spessifer might well have taken the outer drive, along its very rim, then rounded upon his trail to come upon the Kimbark dwelling from the north. If he had lied about one item he had probably lied about all. If he were the murderer, probably
no part of his story was true. Thus ran the mind of Detective-Sergeant Cicotte.
The taxicab, of course, had been all but dismembered. So had the body of Stephen Garment. He had not been drugged.
Wiliam Spessifer had a weary time of it. He had been questioned all the preceding night, after his apprehension, and was in need of sleep. But no sooner did he drop off into oblivion than the questioning was resumed. Efforts were made to surprise him into confession—to drag the truth from him in hazy moments of half-waking. Sometimes it was the tireless Cicotte who was his questioner, sometimes it was another.
“I wouldn’t kill a fly,” asserted William despairingly.
“Did you ever kill a fly?” asked Cicotte, whose turn it was, when this conversation occurred, to keep the prisoner awake.
The unhappy driver admitted that he had killed many.
“Then why say you wouldn’t kill a fly? If you’d lie about a little thing like a fly, you’d certainly lie a lot faster about a man.”
“You know what I mean,” said William Spessifer.
“You’re a dirty-necked, bottle-nosed, adjectival son of a Sealyham,” asserted Cicotte, without malice; “and if you’re protecting somebody else you’re just a plain damn’ fool. Think it over, son! It ain’t worth while. Somebody’s going to the electric chair for this job, and if you ain’t careful it might be you.”
Nevertheless he always left William Spessifer with an uncomfortable feeling that William was telling the truth—that he had nothing further to reveal.
The newspapers were sensational. In the bookshops the works of Stephen Garment sold out at once and telegrams were rushed eastward asking for more. The lending libraries reported all copies of Flesh Tints on loan, with waiting lists beginning to overflow the page. However, the book had always been popular. There had never been anything obscure about Garment; at least until the moment of his death. That was obscure enough, as Mollock remarked, to please even his murderer.
The inquest, in the afternoon, developed little of interest. Anger and Charlesworth identified the body; Mollock and Kimbark told of its arrival. In between, Van Peter regaled the spectators with an account of the impromptu celebration in his home before the novelist had been dispatched—in good health, but somewhat malted—to Kimbark’s larger reception. Then Cicotte took up the tale, physicians contributed reports, and at the request of the police the inquest was continued.
Cabled reports of the proceedings were received in London within an hour, and the entire episode was reviewed by a hostile press. The alarmist journals professed to see in it a Soviet threat directed against India. In Buckminster, Windlesham, Littlebridge, Essex, a subscription fund to raise a Garment memorial in bronze and silver was inaugurated by Canon Blackpool with a gift of three pounds, eight shillings, and sixpence. A celebrated playwright of advanced years, in a copyrighted interview, asked who would be the next, and proffered a list of ten leading men of letters who would do well to keep away from America.
First editions of the murdered English novelist were already, of course, at a premium.
The inquest, however, continued though it had been, had a clearing effect upon the atmosphere. The driver of the “death car,” to quote the newspaper headlines, was in custody; nobody else had been arrested, and the inference was that the social celebrities involved were—paradoxically—not involved. Public disappointment was general, but at least the business of living might be resumed without the necessity of purchasing each new edition of the papers.
The relief to all immediately interested was considerable.
“How shocking if we had all been forced to remain in town,” shuddered Lillian Van Peter. “Our summers, Mr. Anger, are positively devastating.”
From her gesture one might have supposed that she had just then been cleared of a charge more horrible than that of homicide. It was her habit, however, to be theatrical. By some inner necessity of her nature she seemed compelled to externalize and dramatize her emotions. It was less an evidence of insincerity than a persistent demand for recognition. Somewhere the worm of inferiority gnawed at her vitals.
“You have plans, naturally, that would have suffered,” agreed Anger. “Are you, by any chance, including London in your itinerary?”
Her lips framed a little moue. “Rain, rain, go away,” she chanted, and gave him a coquettish glance that left him slightly bothered.
“But we do really have admirable weather at times,” he protested good-humouredly. “Just now, I imagine, England is very lovely.” For an instant he was wistful.
“No,” she told him, “we are scheduled to make a voyage with Curly Pope. Down around the Caribbean. It’s hot, of course, in the islands— but we shan’t land; and the water is always delightful. The Kimbarks were invited, too; but now, I suppose, they’ll hardly—”
“Tut, tut!” chided Anger, with a smile. “You speak as if Kimbark already had been convicted.”
She flung him another glance. “Well,” she said; and let it go at that. Suddenly, though, she had a thought that was more pleasant. “Look here,” she cried with animation, “why don’t you come along?”
Anger was at once pleased and alarmed. “It would be delightful,” he admitted. “Of course, I haven’t been invited!”
“I’m inviting you now. Don’t worry about Curly. He loves a crowd. It’ll be all right with him.”
“It would be delightful,” said Anger again. “I’ll think it over. And—of course—thank you!”
“I’ll consider it arranged,” said Lillian Van Peter. “What about Mr. Mollock? He’s a frightful idiot, but he’d be a godsend on a boat.”
“Mollock is returning to New York, I think.”
“My God!” she said. “It’ll be hotter there than in Chicago.”
The subject of their latter remarks came hurriedly into the room. “Did I hear my name?” he questioned.
“Mr. Anger says you are returning to New York. I was about to ask you to go with us to the Caribbean.”
“Thanks,” said Mollock, “but I’m afraid that’s out. I’ve got work to do, this summer—believe it or not! Do you mean on Pope’s yacht? Kimbark was mentioning it, after the inquest, to-day.”
Mrs. Van Peter was put out. “They’re going?” she asked quickly.
“So I understand. Both of them, and the little redhead, Anger! Now what d’ye think of that?”
“Very pleasant,” replied Anger, reddening a trifle. “Very pleasant indeed.”
Mrs. Van Peter was annoyed. “Well, don’t be too pleased about it,” she observed, “or I’ll be sorry I invited you. Mr. Anger,” she explained to Mollock, “is going to make the voyage with us.”
“Ahl” said Mollock, grinning wickedly. “Well, I wish I might join you, but I’ve a novel to finish before the heat wave sets in. After that, I may go adventuring myself.”
“A detective novel?” asked Lillian Van Peter.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Why don’t you write smart plays—like Bradsmith and Esdaile? I should think they’d be a lot easier. No background, you know; just dialogue. The sort of conversation you hear spoken by the people you know and like. Or dislike. Have you never written a play, Mr. Mollock?”
“Never,” said Mollock. “I’ve collected quite a lot of nasty remarks about my friends, but somehow it never occurred to me to put them together in a play. Like my own job too well, I guess!”
He laughed a bit quizzically, then added: “I’m keen to get home, anyway, as a matter of fact. This Garment puzzle is a daisy. I want to take it up with Walter Ghost. Do you know what I think, Mrs. Van Peter? I think Cicotte’s got his evil eye on all of us! You, me, Anger, Kimbark, Charlesworth, and the rest of the gang. He’s just pretending to let us go. Giving us enough rope to hang ourselves, eh?”
Lillian Van Peter was dismayed. “What a depressing thought!” she exclaimed. “What put it into your head?”
“Just grew there,” explained Mollock. “But the whole thing looks fishy, doesn’t it?
To give you a rough, not to say brutal, idea of what I mean, this is the situation: Garment is dead, a taxicab driver is apparently under suspicion, and all the rest of us—who might conceivably have a real motive for murdering the man—are, in effect, turned loose to wander where we will. Do you think for a minute that we won’t all of us be watched?”
Anger rose to his feet and stretched himself deliciously. “I don’t know,” he said, “and to tell you the truth, I’m beginning not to care.”
Why should he care? he asked himself happily. He was going upon a yachting cruise in the Caribbean with no less a person than Betty Waterloo as a fellow passenger. Let Cicotte watch whom he pleased! Let the heavens open and the earth roll up as a scroll! Let the baleful eye of Lillian Van Peter glare as it would! For a while, at least, let crime be forgotten and the destiny of Harold Anger delightfully unfold.
There were tiny freckles, he recalled, under her eyes, that seemed a part of radiance when she smiled.
Come to think of it, had he ever seen her smile?
Freckles, nevertheless—adorable freckles!
Chapter Five
Greatly as he disliked railway journeys, it was a relief to Mollock to find himself on the swiftest of modern trains, bound for New York. He had little love for Chicago, and now that the first excitement of the Garment mystery was over, he was glad enough to get away. The inquest had developed precisely nothing, and alert as his own mind was to the possibilities of the situation, he realized that his suspicions were based on nothing more substantial than parental wishes.
But what a jolly story it would be to tell to Walter Ghost! He looked forward eagerly to an evening with his extraordinary friend, when the whole episode would be thrashed out. That it was the sort of problem that would appeal to Ghost, Mollock had no doubt whatever.
Entering the observation car in search of diversion, he came upon the attractive young woman known as Stella Birdflight. She was reading a magazine, but as he paused beside her chair, she looked up and said “Duns!”
“Hello, Stella,” said the mystery writer. “I see you also are fleeing from the scene of the crime.”
The End of Mr. Garment Page 5