Zachariah’s suite was on the lee or landward side of the big house, opposite that where Chan and the other visitors and lesser family members were billeted for the duration of the still howling hurricane. It consisted of a sizable living room, separated from a bedroom beyond by a dressing room and bathroom that faced one another on opposites sides of a brief corridor.
A quarter-circular bar had been built into a corner of the living room and Zachariah led the way there, put the detective on a red leather stool and said, “Name your poison.”
Chan settled for a mild aperitif, a vermouth cassis, while the rawboned, redheaded former colonel poured himself a stout five ounces of bourbon only slightly softened with ice water. He drained half of it at a single swallow, then made the ice tinkle before setting it down and resting his forearms on the bartop.
“Charlie,” he said, “what in hell is going on? I feel like Moses when the light went out.”
Charlie Chan sipped slowly before replying. He countered with, “Something happen at meeting?”
“Everything happen at meeting - and nothing happen,” said Zachariah, scowling into his half finished drink. “Black is white and white is black. It’s hopelessly deadlocked, and without Harriet…” He paused, then, “Do you know what happened to her? Carol thinks you do.”
Chan recalled the brief breakfast table confrontation, in which the boy wonder had surprised him with his, “Where’s Harriet, Inspector?” He recalled Armand’s snide amusement and the barely suppressed mirth of the dark haired girl.
Chan said, “Miss Burdon is entitled to her opinion.”
Zachariah brought his glass down hard on the ebony bartop, causing it to splash. “Damn it, Charlie,” he said, “If Harriet’s okay, I have a right to know. Ditto, if she isn’t.”
Chan said, “She survived - no thanks to whoever pushed her through the window.”
Zachariah’s mouth fell half open. He said, “Whoever did what?”
“Let me ask you a question, Colonel,” said the detective, looking up coolly into Zachariah’s angry blue eyes. “Who was first upstairs when you got back from the funeral services yesterday afternoon? Was it you?”
“Lord…” Zachariah’s brow corrugated. “It was either the kids or Lenore and me. We were in the first two cars. It got pretty confused when we found the storm shutters were open on the west elevation.”
“Who made that discovery?” said Chan.
“I’m trying to remember. I think it was Lenore. I came directly here and she must have looked into your room - the door was open, I believe - and seen the rain coming in. She called me and then went for the servants. I got busy with the towels till the kids arrived and then put them to work while I checked the other bedrooms. Why is it so damned important? If Harriet is okay, why can’t she tell you what happened?”
“Harriet says she was reaching for the shutters in my room when somebody pushed her through. She didn’t see who it was. That’s why it’s important.”
“I’ve got to talk to her…” Zachariah began, then halted. He said, “I can check it out with the kids if you like.”
“I wish you would,” said Chan. “I’ll go with you, if you don’t mind.” He was careful not to suggest command, having no desire to get the former colonel’s back up.
“Come on,” Zachariah said. “The kids aren’t downstairs - which means they’re either in his bedroom or hers.”
They were in Armand’s room and responded, utterly unembarrassed, to Carol’s father’s summons. Nor did the presence of the detective appear to fluster them, though Armand had troubled only to don a pair of shorts, while Carol had slipped into a brief, bright blue shift and obviously wore nothing beneath. Watching Zachariah, Chan saw his neck and jaw muscles go rigid, then relax as the former colonel took a deep breath. His face reddened only briefly.
“What is it, Zach?” Carol’s eyes were wide and innocent as those of a pre-teenager girl.
“Hello, Inspector,” Kent’s tone was respectful, although there was familiar mockery in his over-intense regard.
Zachariah looked at Charlie Chan, who put the question to them as to what had happened after the return from the services and in what order. The young folk looked at one another briefly, then Armand Kent spoke.
“Well you and Lenore came upstairs just ahead of us. I remember hearing her call out in alarm to you as we were halfway up the stairs.”
“So do I,” said Carol, frowning prettily. “We never saw Harriet, that’s for sure.”
“And I certainly didn’t,” Zachariah spoke emphatically.
“May we go now?” Carol asked. “You interrupted us in something.”
“My God!” growled Zachariah. “What are you, a couple of rabbits?”
Armand’s eyes flashed fire. The fury that clouded his almost too-handsome young face was frightening. But, like the former colonel, he quickly achieved self control. He turned away to follow Carol back to the bedroom. He paused at the door to say over his shoulder, “If Harriet is alive, Colonel Burdon, I’d get busy collecting every proxy I could beg, steal or borrow.”
When the door closed behind them, Zachariah exhaled and shook his head and said, “Damned kid genius - he knows more about what’s happening than I do.”
He led the way back to his own quarters, poured himself a second drink, downed it neat, then said, “What makes me maddest of all, Charlie, is that I let them get me uptight. Damn it, you can’t blame the kids. When we were young, there were three factors controlling our sex drives - fear of God, fear of pregnancy, fear of venereal disease. Now the kids believe God is dead, they’ve got the Pill and antibiotics. So why blame them? Everybody says it’s good exercise. Still…”
The outburst interested Charlie Chan as a measure of Zachariah Burdon’s intelligence and feeling, both of which, he could sense, ran deep. He said, “What about Lenore?”
Zachariah blinked at this apparent change of subject. He said, “I suppose you’d like to check her out, too, on the storm-shutter bit.”
“I shall do so,” said Chan. “I was thinking of her in more general terms - or, perhaps more specific. What sort of a life do you think she and her husband enjoy?”
“None of my business,” Zachariah shrugged rawboned shoulders, then added, “My guess is Dullsville. Davis Wilmot is a fine, sober young man, but he’s no ball of fire. Funny how Lenore settled down. She used to be unstable as hell. But you remember, Charlie.”
“I remember.” Chan finished his vermouth cassis, thanked Zachariah and left his host leaning on the bar, staring at the rainwater pouring down the window on the lee side of the room.
He was mildly surprised that the former colonel, otherwise an astute man, should have missed the revealing by-play between Lenore and Armand Kent at the breakfast table. He decided to shelve his wished-for chat with Doctor Smith and see Lenore first.
The first person he met when he got downstairs was the physician. For once Li Smith did not look as if he wished to take immediate evasive action. He actually seemed anxious to talk to the detective and they adjourned to a small sitting room off the main hall of the big house, a room exquisitely furnished in Louis Seize antiques.
Looking at the rococo arabesques of the gilded chairs, tables and loveseat, Smith said, “This room always reminds me of a whorehouse parlor in Honolulu.”
Chan smiled and agreed, then said, “All right, Li, what is it you want to get off your mind?”
“First, I wish to clarify my position, Charlie. I’ve been avoiding you, and I’m sorry, but perhaps you’ll understand why when I explain. I was summoned here by Lowell Burdon, as both a family physician and a friend of the deceased. So I flew across the island from Hilo, happy to be of service in any way I could at such a tragic time. I am not the coroner and have not examined the body and therefore am singularly ill equipped to answer any questions you may wish to out on that subject.”
“I understand,” said the detective. “Now that you’ve got that out of the way, what’s really
bugging you about it?”
The physician sighed, then said, “It seemed such a little thing until you began acting as if somebody had murdered Lionel Burdon and Harriet disappeared in an atmosphere of foul play. But I did have a telephone conversation with Dr. Yashimoto - he’s the district coroner here - before the storm cut us off.”
“Yes, Li.” Chan prodded him gently.
“He mentioned, merely in passing, that the deceased had traces of a barbiturate in his stomach. Now, with the powder marks on his hand to indicate self destruction, that meant little or nothing. A man under pressure heavy enough even to consider suicide might well take a tranquilizer in the hope that it would lighten the load he was bearing.
“I didn’t even consider the possibility of death inflicted by an external agency until you told me about the shooting gallery and the deceased’s habit of firing a number of rounds there daily. In view of this factor, plus the strength of your reputation as an investigator, Charlie, the presence of such a drug - it was a product called Valium - took on a more sinister aspect.”
“I know the product,” said Chan, “although I have never had to take it, for which I am grateful.”
“Well, Charlie,” Dr. Smith continued. “Valium is sold only by doctor’s prescription, and as the deceased’s personal physician, I have never prescribed it for him. Of course, he might have obtained it from another physician - in Honolulu, the mainland, almost anywhere - or been given it by a friend. The fact remains that I never knew him to take a tranquilizer in any form.”
Chan nodded, said, “Thanks, Li.”
“I don’t know how important it is,” said the physician, “or if it’s important at all. But that’s what’s been bugging me, as you put it - apart from normal grief at losing a valued friend and client so tragically.”
They left the ornate little sitting room and Chan continued his search for Lenore, finally running her to earth in an even smaller room just off the butler’s pantry, where she and Willis were discussing some problem concerning the dinner immediately impending. Lenore looked distraught.
As the detective entered, she said, “Oh, damn, Willis, I wish Harriet were here. I’m simply not used to making that sort of decision. So I’ll have to leave it up to you.” Then, “Hello, Charlie, you wish to see me?”
“Preferably in private,” the detective replied, marveling anew at the magnificence of her grey-green eyes.
“Well, if you must, you must, I suppose.” She rose, shook down her grey linen dress, said, “Come along then. I’m about to change for dinner so we might as well go to my rooms.” Then, with a dart of mischief, “Did you have something interesting in mind, Charlie?”
It was shameless flirtation - hardly, Chan thought, suitable under the circumstances. He merely smiled and said nothing. Before he left the room, his eyes met those of the towering butler, and they exchanged a mutually inscrutable stare.
The suite occupied by Lenore and Davis Wilmot was larger than that Zachariah used and it was immediately evident from its design that Lenore and her husband occupied separate bed and dressing rooms. Lenore dismissed a hovering maid and led Chan into the first honest to goodness boudoir he had seen in many years, then placed herself gracefully on a lavender chaise lounge.
“Okay, Charlie,” she said, “fire away.”
Chan decided upon an abrupt assault. He said, “Lenore, isn’t the boy a bit young for you?”
She sat upright, like a marionette operated by strings. Her eyes narrowed and then widened and she said, “Charlie, I don’t know what you mean.”
But he had caught her off guard and her defenses crumbled at his second shaft. “I just finished talking to Armand and Carol.”
It was unfair, but it worked. Lenore gasped and pressed a hand to her diaphragm and then the words came pouring out of her thin, sensual lips as if the proverbial floodgate had been opened.
“Charlie,” she said. “have you any idea what it’s like to live a dull, endless lie of a life? Do you know what it’s like to have every genuine physical impulse locked up tight for nine years? Do you know what it’s like for a woman like me to live without love?”
Chan said, more for the record than out of curiosity, “What about Davis, Lenore?”
“What about him - what about him?” She leaned forward in the intensity of her feelings. “Davis is a good man, a good, stupid man if you will. But he’s not a good man, and there’s one hell of a difference between the two of them!”
She eyed Chan warily and, when he did not reply, said, “Oh, I know what you’re thinking. You’re remembering my one wild fling nine years ago, the time you think I betrayed the family. You’re thinking I’m unstable, that I’m doing it again, and maybe you’re partly right. But I’m not betraying the family this time. I’m trying to make us all richer than we ever were.”
Chan said, “What about Carol? Isn’t Armand her boyfriend?”
Lenore snorted her derision. “Armand belongs to nobody but Armand,” she said. “Sure, he and Carol have been sleeping together. They enjoy each other and why not? But they’re just kids, thrown together here, doing what comes naturally. Charlie, things have changed since you were a boy. They’ve changed since I was a teenager, and that wasn’t exactly a century ago.
“Sex, as such, means nothing to kids any more. It’s like shaking hands to them, but a lot more fun.”
“You enjoy handshakes with Armand?” Chan interjected, and drew another withering look of contempt.
“Why not?” Lenore repeated. “Why should I live the life of a married Vestal virgin? I’ve tried, Lord knows, I’ve tried. But since Armand came here…”
“And you’re not jealous of Carol - or she of you?”
“Of course, I’m jealous of Carol. I wasn’t exactly raised to be a liberated woman, Charlie. But there’s not much point in it - and as long as I get my share of him, I’m satisfied.”
“Don’t you find him - a trifle immature?”
The grey green eyes blazed again. “Immature? Listen, Armand may be a boy in years, but he’s got the mind of a mature genius. He’s the one who cooked up the entire scheme for going public. He’s got everything figured out. You should see how his mind works. It’s like a computer, a perfectly programmed computer. And he’s got the body of a young Apollo.”
Her eyes filled as she paused, indicating to the detective the depth of her emotional involvement. Chan said, “It doesn’t seem to be going over too well with some of the rest of the family.”
“What do you expect?” Lenore said, obviously agitated. “We had it all set up. Uncle Lionel was finally coming around to our point of view. And Armand got to his mother. If only Lionel hadn’t done what he did, we’d have scored a clean, quick victory just the way Armand planned it. We’d be in control, not the old maids with their prissy ideas of propriety.”
“What about Davis?” Chan inquired.
Lenore dismissed her husband with a flick of the wrist, said, “Oh, Dave will ride with the herd once he’s a voting member. He always has. That’s how he got where he is. ‘Don’t make waves - don’t rock the boat’ - that’s my husband. He courted me for two years before he went to bed with me, and then acted shocked. And me - I was dumb enough to mistake a low sex drive for true love. How dumb can you get?”
“What about Harriet?” Chan asked. “Have you any idea how she would have voted?”
“Are you kidding? Harriet is the status quo personified - or was. I don’t know. Armand thinks she’s okay and you’ve got her stashed away somewhere. But you wouldn’t lie to me, would you Charlie? If Harriet were okay, you’d tell me.”
“Of course,” Chan lied manfully. “But I still would like to know why Lionel shot himself.”
“Maybe being the rope in this family tug of war was more than he could stand. Lionel was awfully brittle underneath, you know. He could be very cool and reserved, but I’ve seen him close to tears over a broken pipestem. He felt his responsibilities keenly. And he hated to make even small decisi
ons. So here he was, confronted with the biggest decision of his life and all of us trying to influence him, one way or the other. I guess it was just too much for him.”
Lenore paused, got hold of herself, seemingly for the first time aware of the extent to which she had blown her top There was a glint of fear in the grey green eyes as she said, “My God, Charlie! I must be boring you to death.”
“On the contrary,” said Chan. “It has been most interesting. The Burdons are not the most talkative family I have met.”
“And then you get Big Mouth Lenny,” Lenore mocked herself. She said, rallying, “But we’ll win this battle, if only…” A pause, then, “Maybe not this year, but next year or the year after. But it took almost two years to win Lionel around to Armand’s way of thinking. Charlie, if we went public, our estate would multiply tenfold. Look what happened to the Fords since they went public. And they have as much control as ever.”
Chan nodded. Then he put the question that was his real reason for cornering Lenore. He said, “When you and Zachariah and the kids got back here in the first two cars from the chapel yesterday, who was the first upstairs - you, or your uncle, or the kids?”
“Lordy!” she frowned. “Everything happened so fast, and I was still upset by the funeral. And then the storm…”
“Try to remember, Lenore,” Chan urged gently.
“I think I was first,” she said. “Then Zachariah, then the kids, as you call them. Yes, I’m sure that was it.”
“Did you say anything to Harriet?” he asked.
” ‘…say anything to Harriet?’ ” she countered. “How could I? I didn’t even see her.”
As he returned to his own room, Chan was well aware that somebody was lying. He was beginning to get a glimmer of who it was - but there was one thing he had to find out first. And that promised to take a bit of doing if he were to pin down a ruthless and cunning killer before another crime was committed.
Charlie Chan The Silent Corpse Page 7