Death Lights a Candle

by Phoebe Atwood Taylor

  Asey looked at me and grinned from ear to ear.

  “J. J. Five hundred dollars,” he said.

  “That’s it,” Doctor Jerome said, apparently overjoyed that we had finally placed him. “That’s it. I told my wife it was a lot. That’s why I came when I—that is, when my wife heard that broadcast.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  J. J.

  ASEY waved him to a chair.

  “Set,” he said briefly. “An’ tell us the whole story, if you’ll be so kind.”

  Doctor Jerome backed into a chair and sat very suddenly.

  “My brother died a year ago,” he began abruptly. “He left me quite a lot of money. So I—that is, my wife—decided that we’d give up our practise. She was my assistant, you see. We left Boston and took a little house outside of Lexington.”

  He wet his lips nervously. “Mr. Stires had been one of my patients for a number of years and he still continued to call on me every once in a while. My wife and I did all his plates for him. Even after we left Boston, he still came to me. He seemed to prefer our work. Er—people used to call me old-fashioned,” he added parenthetically, “because I wouldn’t send my plate work to a laboratory. But we preferred to do it ourselves, and, as I said before, Mr. Stires liked my work.”

  Asey nodded with grave understanding. “I see.”

  “Tuesday afternoon,” the doctor continued, “Mr. Stires drove up in front of our house just as we were leaving. He was most excited, most upset. He had broken his plate and he wanted us to make him a new one at once.”

  “But he had spares,” Asey protested. “ ’Cause William told us he’d packed ’em.”

  “That’s what I asked him, where was his spare set? But he said that he’d taken them out of his bag to put them in after he had broken the others—he was at his Club, he said—and some person had stolen them.” Asey leaned back and roared. “Some joker took ’em, huh? An’ he had only the busted ones?”

  “That’s it. That’s it. And he wanted new ones made at once. Now, my wife and I had kept some of our equipment, but we were hardly prepared to make him a new plate right——”

  “Right off the bat?” Asey asked, still chuckling. “Yes. And besides all that, we were starting off on a trip. But Mr. Stires said he was giving a party and that he couldn’t possibly attend it without any teeth.”

  “Vanity,” Asey intoned piously. “Vanity. Nothin’ but vanity. Whyn’t you mend the busted ones?”

  “That’s just what I suggested to him. ‘Mr. Stires,’ I said, ‘we can mend that broken set in a jiffy. In a jiffy.’ But he wouldn’t hear anything of the sort.”

  “Why not?”

  “He said that it might break again and that he’d be in a more embarrassing position than he was then, what with being so far away. I told him that we couldn’t possibly do it, so he said he was going to stay right there until we did. Very determined, he was. My wife and I were starting off for a few days at our camp in Maine, and we—well, we didn’t want to leave him there, on our door-step, as you might say, so finally we said we would. He made out that big check and—and sort of waved it at us, and when my wife saw it, she decided that we could delay our trip just as well as not.”

  I began to have a fairly adequate picture of Mrs. Joseph Jerome.

  “So we got one of the local men to help us, and Mr. Stires spent Tuesday night at our house while we worked.”

  “I wonder,” Asey said thoughtfully, “why there wasn’t any one in Lex’n’ton that saw the ’lectric an’ answered that broadcast.”

  “We live out of the town,” the doctor explained, “and there are two old ladies in the vicinity who still use an electric. I suppose that Mr. Stires’s didn’t cause as much attention as it might have. Anyway, we finished the plate as quickly as we could—the other dentist had a lot of material we could use—and then we left Wednesday morning for Maine, and Mr. Stires came on his way down here.”

  “An’ in all that time,” Asey said, “Stires didn’t make no ’tempt to get in touch with his house-party?”

  “I suggested that he call, that is, my wife suggested it, but he wouldn’t. He said he wasn’t going to let them know just why he’d been delayed, and that his teeth were his own affair and none of their business. He said that they’d think that his car had broken down, and that they could go right on thinking that way.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us before?” I asked.

  “We left for Maine Wednesday morning, and we didn’t hear about Mr. Stires’s death until last night. Our radio was out of order and we hadn’t bothered with papers. It was my wife’s brother that finally called up and told us about the broadcast, and I was going to phone you right away, but my wife said that in view of that check for all that money, I’d better come down and explain. She seemed to think,” he added regretfully, “that the money would seem suspicious and that it was all my fault that we took it.”

  “I wonder why Stires was so touchy about those teeth,” Asey said. “I mean, there was only his friends here, an’ I shouldn’t think that they’d mind if he had teeth or not.”

  “That’s what I told him. But he said that he had a niece here, and that there’d be a lady to chaperon her, and he didn’t want to meet them without any teeth. He was very sensitive about his teeth. He’d joke with my wife and me about them, but once in a while I guess his friends made comments and he didn’t like it. Once in a while he’s said that he couldn’t see why they wouldn’t let him alone, because they were nothing—well, nothing to brag about themselves. That was his idea.”

  Asey laughed. “Was he all right when he was with you? Cheerful an’ all?”

  “Oh, yes, indeed. He seemed eager to see his new house. He told my wife all about it and she said that a woman couldn’t have taken more interest in a house than he did. Seems too bad that after all his planning, he couldn’t ever live to enjoy it. My wife and I felt very badly. She always felt sorry for Mr. Stires, though I couldn’t ever see why. He had all the money he needed to do anything he wanted with. But she said he was wistful.”

  I mentally wondered how Mrs. Jerome catalogued her own husband. Sat upon, I thought, would have been a good description of him.

  “Then he spent Tuesday with you, all well enough an’ happy ’cept for the teeth. I see. I’m much ’bilged, Doctor, for your cornin’ all the way down here.”

  “It—er—it wasn’t bad,” Doctor Jerome said quickly, “I mean, Christina planned it all out. I took the train to Boston last night, then I started from there in my cousin’s car early this morning. She—Christina— rather expects me back to-night. Do you think you’ll want me any more?”

  Asey shook his head. “I guess you can start right along. If you’re tired of drivin’, Doc, I’ll send one of my men up’s far’s Barnstable with you.”

  But the doctor demurred. “I can manage very well.”

  And after knocking over two ash-trays and bumping into the table, he finally left.

  “Well,” Asey said, after he had escorted the doctor to the door, “we know where Stires was, I s’pose, but it don’t seem to be an awful lot of help. I was sort of hopin’ that we’d find out somethin’ excitin’, but this kind of killed it.”

  “See here, Asey,” I said, “what about that other check to cash? Why didn’t you ask Doctor Jerome about that? Don’t you think he might have had something to do with it? Mightn’t he have been keeping that back?”

  “You think he was holdin’ out on us?” He smiled. “Nope, I don’t think he was. No, sireebob. Christina’d never let him get himself involved in anything bad ’n’ wrong. If he’d had anything to do with the other check, he’d of told us.”

  He picked up the scrap-book and fiddled through its pages.

  “Some dinners, the ones these fellers give,” he said. “Hey—look.” He showed me a post-card picture labeled “Revere Beach—1900,” in which Stires, Kent, Blake, Hobart and Denny were grouped stiffly around a mammoth beer mug. Denny held a teddy bear, and Stires h
ad a large balloon tied in his coat lapel. “The old sports,” he commented. “Runnin’ around the Beach.”

  The card was not pasted into the book, but thrust into slits on the page. I took it out and held it up to the light. But before I could examine it, Asey took it from me.

  “The back,” he said suddenly. “They’ve written their names on the back. Look. Every last one of ’em but Kent uses that funny-shaped e like was on that letter. Hobart uses it in his middle name. Huh. Didn’t I see one of them books around that you write your name in?”

  “Guest-books? Yes. There’s one on the table in the hall.”

  He got it and brought it back. “Blake still uses it,” he said after he’d flipped through the pages. “An’ so does Denny James.”

  “But, Asey, what does it all amount to?”

  “Miss Prue, you’re a card player, ain’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, Bill Porter made me learn bridge a long while ago b’cause lots of times he’d have two fellers down an’ they’d need another hand. Don’t care much for the game,—you c’n give me good honest poker any day,—but they’s one thing. You know how sometimes you’ll have three-four trumps left, an’ one lone little card, like a jack, that some one’s got the queen of?”

  “Yes,” I said, not understanding in the least what he was driving at.

  “An’ you know how you’ll lead out them trumps, pretendin’ you got nothin’ but ’em, all the time hopin’ like fury that folks’ll throw away that queen?”

  I nodded.

  “An’,” Asey continued, “if you do it determined enough, it’s dollars to doughnuts that they will throw the queen away an’ hold on to something that don’t matter.”

  “Yes, yes,” I said impatiently, “I know what you mean, but I don’t see what it’s got to do with all this.”

  “The feller behind this is a planner. We know that. Well, it’s sort of been flashin’ through my mind that the little jack in his hand is still there. They’s always a weak spot somewheres, even if folks plan dif’rent. Now, that little weak spot in this case is the motive. You don’t c’mit any sort of crime that you don’t have some reason for c’mittin’ it. You don’t rob a bank less’n you expect to get money; you don’t burn a house down less’n you want to destroy it. With murder it’s kind of a harder prop’sition, on account of the reason bein’ harder to find out. But it’s still there.”

  “That’s all very true,” I argued, “but he might not have any reason. He might be a maniac. It might never come to light just what his motive was, anyway. And on the other hand, there might be a score of people with good motives for killing some one, and they might not be connected with it at all.”

  “Yup. I grant you all that. But this feller ain’t no maniac. They kill whoever’s closest to hand. This feller killed a partic’lar person an’ went to a whole lot of trouble doin’ it. Now, if you work hard, you can say that Hobart an’ Denny an’ Miss Fible got motives in this. Only you got to do a lot of philos’phizin’. You can say maybe that the girl’s a tool of this woman friend of Allerton’s, or maybe the Allerton girl. But it’s all come out. What I’m gettin’ at is that this feller’s took all the tricks up till now. But he’s been discardin’ trumps for us to play on. An’ that little Greek e, that was sort of a trey. He’s gettin’ low. An’ he’s got that little jack sittin’ in his hand, an’ he ain’t awful sure that we got rid of the topper.”

  “I’m way behind,” I said.

  “Well, point is that he’s got a motive. He’s been leadin’ us on, hopin’ that we’d get so excited followin’ up all the false clues he stuck around, that by the time we get to his jack, that is to say, his motive, we won’t give it a thought. Just like at bridge sometimes you don’t think you been led astray. You don’t realize you been doin’ what the other feller wanted you to. You think the reason he got the last trick on his ole jack is that he was clever. But I’m goin’ to hold on to my queen now, an’, by gorry, he ain’t goin’ to get it away from me.”

  He tightened up his belt buckle, gave a hitch to his trousers and howled for William.

  “Want the girl,” he said, and when she came, he wasted no time in preambles.

  “Tuesday mornin’,” he said, “you was at the house in Boston with Stires. Tom was there. Kent an’ Hobart come to call. That right?”

  She nodded.

  “Did you hear what they said? Did you see ’em? What’d they talk about?”

  “I saw them, and Mr. Stires introduced me to them. I went up-stairs then to get cleaned up. I’d come over on the midnight. I don’t know what they talked about. Mr. Kent wasn’t there long. I heard him and Mr. Stires laughing—I think that they were wondering who to get as a chaperon for me. Mr. Stires had been upset, but Mr. Kent tried to make him see the funny side of it, I think.”

  “An’ Hobart?”

  “I looked out of the window in time to see him leave. He kicked an alley cat as he went down the steps,” she added reminiscently, “and he slammed the door of his cab so hard that I thought the door would break.”

  “Okay. Tell William to send Tom in, will you?”

  Tom appeared, fastening the top button of his tunic.

  “What’d Kent say to Stires Tuesday mornin’?”

  Tom looked blank.

  “You got Stires’s breakfast, didn’t you? Didn’t you see Kent or Hobart? Didn’t you hear what they talked about?”

  “Why, er, yes. Yes. Mr. Kent and Mr. Stires talked about the girl and who they could get as a chaperon. Mr. Kent said it was a pity that Mr. Stires hadn’t married or that he didn’t have any available lady friends, an’ Mr. Stires quoted the Bible. Something about the mote an’ the beam.”

  Asey grinned. “What about Hobart?”

  “Oh, I didn’t hear much what he said. Just talked about business, I guess. But Mr. Hobart was sort of excited when I let him out.”

  “That all you remember? Yes? That’ll do. Send Kent in here.”

  “Mr. Kent?”

  “Kent,” Asey repeated firmly. “Send him here.” I was too bewildered to know what was going on. John strolled in. “What can I do for you, Asey?”

  “What was that piece of the Bible Stires quoted to you Tuesday mornin’?”

  “What! Bible? Tuesday? Good heaven, Asey, I’m sure I don’t know. We were talking about chaperons—I told him he should have married or had some woman friend who could help, but he didn’t quote the Bible. Really. Bert wasn’t the sort to make Biblical quotations.”

  “Sure?”

  “Wait. Let me think. Oh, he said something about never quite achieving the golden mean—yes. That’s it. But that’s not the Bible, Asey. That’s Horace. That was it. He admitted that he’d never reached the golden mean as far as women were concerned. That was it.”

  Asey nodded briefly. “Okay. Thanks.”

  “What,” I asked piteously, “what is this all about?”

  “ ’Cordin’ to Hoyle,” he announced with a grin. “When in doubt, take the trick.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Got to see Phrone. S’pose you stay with Miss Fible while she does things for me.”

  I met Stephen Crump in the hallway. “Going to see Rena? May I come along?”

  “Do,” I told him. “We’ve been having scenes with her and I’d be delighted to have you with me. Will you do just one thing, Steve? Will you please talk about anything but this murder?”

  He laughed. “Fed up?”

  “No. Confused.”

  Up in the yellow room he sat down and proceeded to tell funny stories about cases he had had. At the end of five minutes I felt better; at the end of fifteen, I was nearly normal. Stephen can be very amusing when he chooses.

  But Rowena did not seem to enjoy our presence. And it got rather annoying to be the only one to laugh at Stephen’s sallies.

  I was about to suggest that we go when a tremendous din arose somewhere down-stairs.

  Stephen stopped in the middle of
a story, jumped to the doorway and I followed him as fast as I could.

  Just as we stepped into the hall, we saw John reach the top of the stairs and dive into his room.

  But that was not all.

  At the foot of the stairs, Hobart ranted and raged. His head and shoulders were dripping wet. Little rivulets of water trickled down his face, and he literally spluttered as he talked.

  In front of him stood Phrone, stiff and defiant. Beside her was a pail of water.

  And against the wall leaned Denny and Asey and the rest, fairly shrieking with laughter.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  ASEY TAKES A TRIP

  “WHAT in the world,” I demanded, “is all this muddle?”

  Denny pointed to Hobart, tried to speak and could not get the words out.

  “It was Phrone,” June bubbled. “She was going up-stairs with a pail of water. She slipped or something and the water went over Cary.”

  I wondered just why Phrone had been taking a pail of water up-stairs, but Hobart’s anger stopped me from asking.

  “Slipped? She did not slip. That woman picked up that water, deliberately picked it up and threw it at me, I tell you.” He brushed his sleeve across his dripping face. “She picked up that pail and hurled that water at me, and I want an explanation. I will not have every creature in this place throwing things at me. I won’t stand for it. I tell you, Mayo, this has got to stop.”

  “I say I slipped,” Phrone announced firmly, “and I mean that I slipped. I’m sorry if you got wet, Mr. Hobart”—I caught the little flicker in her eyes and knew that she wasn’t sorry one bit—“but if you’d take my advice, you’ll go git some dry clothes on an’ forget about it.”

  “That’s right,” Asey agreed. “You go git some dry clothes on, Mr. Hobart. You ain’t no wetter than Mr. Kent was, an’ he didn’t stand there like a nincompoop talkin’ about it. He went up-stairs an’ got himself dry things.”

  “Did John get wet too?” I asked June.

  He nodded. “He and Cary were coming out of the living-room and I guess that they scared Phrone as she was going up, or something. Anyway, she slipped and the bucket of water went over on ’em. It must have held ten gallons, I guess.”