“What,” Asey drawled, “what was Junior doin’, brawlin’ around like a common person on the beach?” June tweaked the kitten’s tail. “Asey,” he said seriously, “I’m darned if I know what the trouble was all about. I was talking with John, and all of a sudden he turned around and just made for me. He called me names anti I lost my temper, and that’s the way it began. I’d never have hit back, ordinarily, but this— this house and all had sort of got me down. So when he sailed into me, I just sailed back. Really, I’m awf’ly sorry about the whole thing. I mean, I don’t go brawling around as a rule, and I like John a lot. We always got along awf’ly well. I don’t know what got into me—and I’m sure I don’t know what got into him.”
“What were you talking about?” Asey asked.
“Why, I was talking about the girl. She was ahead of us, walking with Cary. John had said that Cary seemed to be falling for her, and I agreed. You haven’t been around with the crowd, but he has seemed to hang around her the last day or so. I laughed about it——”
“ ’Member just what you said?”
“Well, not exactly. I think I said that I hoped Cary wasn’t serious, because after all, he was old enough to be the girl’s father. Then I remembered that John was the same vintage, so I thought I’d better coat it over a little. I said that after all, Cary didn’t look old now, but by the time that Desire was thirty, he’d be brushing his hair even more carefully over the back of his head than he does now, if he had any to brush. I think I quoted a cartoon of a sweet young thing and an aged and—er—nightcapped husband. I tried to make the whole thing silly, so that I wouldn’t hurt John’s feelings. What’s the phrase I want, Snoodles?”
“Reductio ad absurdum, maybe?”
“That’s it. But I guess I must have annoyed him; he called me a few choice words, and then he just upped and atted me.”
I looked at the boy closely as he sat there and played with the sleepy kitten. His wet and rumpled hair was drying into little curls and, except for his beefsteaked eye, he looked very peaceable and blameless.
“What’s your father’s hobby?” asked Asey suddenly. “I mean, does he have some crazy fool thing that he goes around collectin’?”
“Does he?” June shook his head. “Ask me! Yes, Asey, the man collects pewter. And old prints. Between the two of ’em he drives me wild.”
“Has he got any since he come down here, d’you know?”
June nodded. “He—no, he couldn’t have. I guess he got that pewter plate in New York. I forgot he couldn’t have had a chance to get any since he came here, and I know he had a plate in his closet when I was hunting for a trick coat hanger Wednesday. I didn’t come all the way from New York with him; I was in New Hampshire and I caught up with him and Kelley in Springfield, you see. Probably he got the plate on the way.”
“I see. What about Kelley, June?”
“He’s more of a body-guard than a chauffeur. Dad’s had trouble once or twice and so he has to have Kelley around. He’s not so hard as he looks.”
“June, your father don’t look like a business man.”
“He doesn’t. But you should see him in action. That old boy’s a planner, that’s what he is. Give him a stiff problem that’d knock any given ten men for a loop, and watch him plan his way out. I get proud of him.”
Asey’s eyes gleamed. “Okay, June. Run along. An’ send John down, will you?”
“So Blake’s a planner, is he?” Asey said softly after June had gone. “Just an old planner. Huh. I been huntin’ a planner.”
“What about this hobby and old plate business?”
“When Walker an’ me was goin’ through Blake’s stuff on our arsenic hunt, I found what I thought was an ashtray tucked away on the top shelf of Blake’s closet. Walker, he said it wasn’t an ash-tray, ’twas a pewter plate. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but t’-day while we was prowlin’ around Mary’s, I noticed some plates just like it, only bigger, in the closet. There was two of ’em. Walker said that there’d been three, on account of what he’d tried to buy ’em from her when he first saw ’em, only she wouldn’t sell. N’en when I tried to think of what Kelley might of bought or got from Mary’s besides candles, I remembered that plate of Blake’s. That’s why I asked June.”
“You think Blake sent Kelley there to get that plate? But how would Blake have known about it in the first place?”
“He could of asked Stires if they was any old pewter around down here. An’ if this here’s the way I think it is, it’ll work another way.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if Blake did send Kelley to get that plate, then he an’ Kelley had a good an’ sufficient reason for goin’ to see Mary. They could really of got candles, an’ said that they was gettin’ that plate.”
“And if you’d found that plate, and Blake knew about it, that would be a reason for his thinking you might connect Mary and the candles,—it would have been a reason for shutting you in the closet!”
Asey nodded.
“But if that was the case, I wonder why he and Kelley lied about that trip to Mary’s?”
“B’cause we can’t prove he got that plate from Mary. He might of got it somewheres else, like June said. An’ we can’t prove that Kelley ain’t tellin’ the truth. An’ it’s sure an’ certain that Kelley’ll say what Blake tells him to.”
“Asey, don’t you think we’ve really got on the track of something at last?”
“Kind of looks that way.”
A timid knock sounded on the door. Asey grinned. “Mr. Kent,” he said in a low voice. “Mr. Kent cornin’ in to do a little explainin’.”
But it wasn’t John Kent. It was the girl.
“Oho,” Asey raised his eyebrows. “Come in.”
I noticed that her finger-nails were a natural pink and wondered if that meant that she had given up her part.
“Have you found out about me?” she asked.
Asey shook his head. “The lawyers are doin’ that. I know now that you prob’ly didn’t have anything to do with Stires’s killin’ anyway, so I left it to them. But I’d be glad to know it all now.”
“I—I suppose you think I’ve been silly. Have you— have you seen June? Is he all right?”
“Little black eye,” Asey told her. “Otherwise all safe an’ sound.”
She nodded. “Well, you were right about Brooklyn. My name’s Hoffman. Rachel Hoffman. I knew Cass Allerton. I was in France with a vaudeville troupe that got sunk. He was very friendly with a woman in it, a friend of mine, and after we busted up, she went to live with him. She was with him when he died, and she knew that his daughter was going to come over here. Allerton had told her all about it. Desire was in school, you see. She never saw much of her father anyway. Anyway, Leah got a job and I couldn’t find anything to do at all. I was busted, flat. She got money enough for me to come over, and then she remembered about Desire Allerton. You see, even if I came over here, I’d still be out of a job and broke. So she got a passport fixed up and I came over as Desire Allerton. I was only going to stay with Stires for a week or so. Just until I got in touch with a man I knew in New York who’d get me a job. But Stires shunted me down here the minute I got in Boston. I didn’t have a chance to do a thing. I was going to call Jack from that drug-store in Plymouth, but that chauffeur followed me in and I knew he’d tell Stires if I did any phoning. So I just got my powders and left. It—I guess it sounds thin, but that’s the truth.”
“Whyn’t you tell us all this in the first place? Don’t you know that mask’radin’ under another name’s sort of dang’rous? Whyn’t you tell us?”
“Because,” she smiled, and her voice somehow seemed less harsh, “because I thought you’d be sure to find out I wasn’t the one you were after, and I hoped I could get away if you didn’t. I had some idea that if I didn’t say anything, you wouldn’t have anything against me. And besides——”
“Besides what?” Asey demanded.
“Well, I rather
thought I’d get out of it. I mean, usually I can manage men—that is, I mean, people—”
“Sex ’peal,” Asey murmured. “I see. What made you tell us now?”
“I don’t know.” She lighted a cigarette. “Yes, I do. Of course I do. June kept after me. He said if I told you the truth, then I’d be out of it all, and if I didn’t, then you’d keep on suspecting me. That’s all. Going to arrest me for going under a false name?”
Asey grinned. “Did you get any money from Stires?”
“Here.” She passed over a ten-dollar bill that she took from her sweater pocket. “That’s what he gave me. I had just money enough to buy those powders.”
“How much you got now?”
“Nothing.”
Asey pocketed the bill and nodded. “When we git this ironed out, Miss Hoffman, you come to me, an’ I’ll finance your trip to New York. Shouldn’t wonder if I didn’t stake you to a couple weeks’ rent, too.”
“You’re a swell!”
“No, I ain’t. You ain’t out of the woods yet, young lady.”
“I suppose not. But,” she rose, “I’ll tell you one thing. I feel a lot better than I have for the last three days.”
She smiled and left.
“You believe her?” I asked.
He nodded. “It’s the sort of story that’s silly enough to be true. It’ll be easy enough to check up on, anyway. I told Crump to find out all about her.”
“Crump? You mean Stephen Crump? Is he Stires’s lawyer? He’s mine.”
“He’s Bill’s, too, an’ mine, on the two ’casions I ever needed one. He’ll be down some time to-day. I talked with him this mornin’. Miss Prue, what do you think of Denny James delayin’ the search an’ gen’ral hunt for us yest’day? I sort of don’t like to ask you, but what do you think?”
“It’s hard for me to believe that Denny held things up on purpose, Asey. I can’t believe anything of the sort. But if Rowena and the doctor say he did, he did. It’s possible that he wanted to be sure that they didn’t miss any place where we might be. Perhaps he was acting in perfect faith. On the other hand, whoever shut us in that closet wanted us to be there just as long as we could be there.”
Asey picked up the black kitten and played with it thoughtfully. “Denny James is a nice feller, an’ if you was to ask me, he’s the most amiable one of this lot of chaps here. But that holdin’ up the hunt stuff is a big black mark against him. An’ he got candles from Mary. An’ he was there Tuesday. Those candles was in a paper bag. He could of got the poisoned ones then an’ changed ’em.”
“So could Hobart.”
Asey smiled. “Uh-huh. But we’re statin’ the case versus James. I sort of wish he wasn’t so amiable. Makes me more s’picious than if he wasn’t. So much for Mr. Denny James right now. Say, did you notice we ain’t had no food?”
He went out and got William. “Whyn’t you tell us we hadn’t et?”
“I’m sorry,” William said apologetically, “but you seemed to be busy. Shall I bring food in here?”
“Yup. An’ where in blazes is Mr. Kent?”
“Speak of the devil,” John said, walking in, “here I am, Asey. Sorry if I’ve kept you waiting, but I stopped to get a bath and a shower and Cary gave me a rub-down. You can’t get a wetting at my age and not take precautions. I’d have come down half-dressed, as June did, but I thought that a few minutes wouldn’t make a lot of difference.”
Unlike June, John was fully dressed in a dry suit. I noticed that he bore no marks of the conflict at all.
Asey remarked as much and John nodded.
“I used to box at college and I still keep in shape. I—I can’t say as much for June. I don’t think he has any ideas of how to defend himself.”
“I sort of gathered that,” Asey said dryly.
“Foolish of him to go for me in the first place,” John continued casually.
W’illiam brought in trays of lunch, and Asey and I hungrily set to work on them.
“So he made for you?” Asey commented.
“Yes. Yes, he did. He’s made no apology, either, and I rather think that an apology is due.”
“How’d it all happen?”
Asey buttered a roll.
“Most amazing thing,” John said, lighting a cigarette. “Cary and the girl—I notice she’s talking again. Has she told you who she is?”
“Yup.” Asey gave him the details.
“A friend of a friend of Cass’s. Hm. The Allertons went in for friendships. Cass’s father—but I mustn’t run on. Cary and the girl were walking ahead of June and me. I remarked that Cary seemed to be paying attention to the girl. It was not anything suggestive. The girl, whoever she is and whatever she may be, is good-looking, and Cary is always susceptible. June laughed in an unpleasant fashion and made a rather ugly remark about Cary. I told him that I thought he’d better amend his statement, and he started in to fight. I wasn’t prepared for anything of the sort, but I jumped aside as well as I could in all the snow, and told him to stop. He wouldn’t, and—well, my nerves had been a bit on edge, and I’m afraid I hit harder than I should have. Lost my temper. We’d all been more keyed up than we realized, I think, and I suppose that there is some excuse, in a general way. But June’s attack was quite unprovoked.”
“He hit you first?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t,” Asey took a sip of milk, “you don’t look like the feller that got hit first.”
John smiled. “I side-stepped and ducked his first lunge. Then he led with his right.”
“Is kind of a raw recruit, ain’t he? Led with his right an’ you stepped in an’ let him have it?”
“That,” John said, “is about the size of it. Asey, I hear by way of Miss Fible’s engaging housekeeper that Mary Gross is dead. Is it really arsenic poisoning?”
“Guess it is.”
“Strange,” John said. “Very strange. Two cases of arsenic poisoning in a small town like this are a coin——”
Rowena burst into the room.
“I want to talk to you, Asey.”
“I’ll go,” John rose and obligingly departed.
“Asey! Prue told you about the ink bottle, didn’t she? Well, what do you suppose?”
“You really want me to s’pose, Miss Fible, or will I just say what?”
“Don’t joke, Asey. Listen. I took that ink bottle down-stairs with me and put it on a table where I kept my spare clay. I put the top beside it and a pen, so it would seem that I’d been writing and just forgotten to put the cover on. And what do you think?”
“What?” Asey asked obediently.
“Well, June and the girl have been down. They never noticed it. Denny looked at it, but he didn’t make any move to touch it. Blake said that I’d better put the top on and John suggested it, too. But just this moment, Cary Hobart came down and began to fiddle around with a billiard cue.”
Asey and I exchanged a look.
“He was showing June some trick shots. And he stopped right in the middle of a shot and came over to the table and put the top on that ink bottle. Did it just the way you’d,—well, the way you’d do any casual little thing. Perfectly unconscious of it. Then he went back and finished his shot.”
“So-ho?” Asey whistled.
“Yes. And when I asked him why he did it, he looked amazed and said, ‘Oh, did I put it on? I’m sorry, if you were using the ink. But I spoiled one of my father’s best Persian rugs with a bottle of ink when I was a boy, and I’ve never forgotten the whipping he gave me. I never have seen an ink bottle without a top since that time that I haven’t unconsciously put the top on it.’ ”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MR. BLAKE EXPLAINS
ASEY tucked his thumbs into his belt and grinned.
“Well,” Rowena said proudly, “what do you think of that? Don’t you think it’s something?”
“It is somethin’,” Asey told her. “Miss Fible, I’m much obliged.”
“I may not,” Rowena rema
rked as she left, “be sufficiently worthy to play Doctor Watson like Prue, but I think that my idea in this particular case turned out to be brilliant. I’ve got another idea, too.”
“What is it?”
“I’ll tell you after I’ve got some results.”
“What now?” I asked Asey.
He sighed. “We’ll look into this later. I want to get our loose ends done up proper now. That ink bottle seemed sort of foolish when you first told me about it, Miss Prue, but now, I dunno. If Hobart’s so good at billiards that he can do trick shots——”
“He was playing Tuesday night,” I said.
“Well, if he’s a player, it might come natural to him to pick up a cue to bang that door shut with. An’ he’s got as good a motive’s any one we found out about so far. This fight business, now. This’s int’restin’, ain’t it? Both of ’em tell the same story, but they’s just ’nough dif’rence so’s they can put the blame on the other feller. June says he was crawlin’ out of callin’ Cary an’ ole duffer, an’ John ups an’ ats him. John says June made cracks about Hobart, an’ when he tells the kid to take it back, June goes for him. What you make of it, Miss Prue?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “Isn’t it possible that each of them is telling what he really thinks is the truth? Both admitted that they were rather keyed up.”
“Uh-huh. But I’d give that alibi more of a ratin’ if they’d had this fight when they started out. They’d plowed way up the beach an’ was nearly home Walkin’ on a beach in any kind of weather is as good as sawin’ wood. It’d of taken the edge that they claim they had on their nerves right off an’ made it’s blunt as an old razor blade. They might of been wrought up when they set out, but after hikin’ up the beach an’ back, their tempers had ought to of calmed down.”
“I don’t think it’s important, is it?”
“Well,” Asey drawled, “it might be that Kent said somethin’ about Blake. Maybe he suspected somethin’. Might be that June suspected Kent. I dunno. They’s somethin’ just fishy ’nough about it that kind of ’peals to me. I’m goin’ to get Kelley an’ see how much more I can bluff.”
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