“A perfectly natural mistake,” he said. “Any doctor who had been attending Caldwell would expect him to die suddenly and at any time. This man didn’t arrive until four hours after the broadcast and by that time rigor must have been about complete.” He looked at Donald. “You planned it that way, didn’t you? You and Larkin. You didn’t dare call the doctor sooner because he would have known your father could not have made that broadcast.”
He waited for any argument that might be offered. When none came he said, “Well, as I get it, the doctor took a quick look and what he found was just about what he had been expecting, knowing the case history as he did. He saw nothing suspicious, and I can tell you now that if you’re not suspicious and don’t check carefully—an autopsy is usually needed—you can’t tell whether a man has been dead four hours or ten.”
“Nobody blames the doctor,” Alger said. “What I can’t understand is why the killer used a needle and adrenalin.”
“Why not? Damned clever, I’d say. Perfectly good way to kill a man in that condition. Probably pass into shock in three or four minutes, maybe less; be dead in ten. He didn’t want to use a gun or a knife or anything that would look like murder. He wanted it to look as if the old boy had died in his sleep, and he did just that.” Wright bobbed his head with what, if not approval, was at least a grudging respect. “Pretty neat, I’d say, or would have been if the murderer had known the proper way to use the needle and hadn’t let his victim struggle and break it off. Those damn needles haven’t been any too good since before the war, anyway,” he added as an afterthought.
Alger’s eyes were sober behind his glasses, his voice speculative. “What I meant was, there was a much easier way of doing the job. I talked with some of the servants. They say Caldwell had a Thermos of hot milk brought up every night around ten and left on a table outside his door. He didn’t like people coming in his rooms and he’d go out into the hall and get the milk when he was ready. That’s right, isn’t it?” he asked the others.
They all nodded, and even Murdock remembered the Thermos he had seen on the lowboy when he had gone to the library to replace the book the night before. Donald Caldwell nodded.
“Yes, we all knew that.”
Alger shrugged. “You see?” he said to the doctor. “Anybody could have slipped poison into that Thermos without being seen.”
“What kind of poison?”
“How do I know?” Alger remained unperturbed. “A place like this would have cyanide around probably, for cleaning metal. If not, it’s easy enough to buy. I’ll bet there’s plenty of poison around here that would do the trick. It would still look like Caldwell had died in his sleep unless there was suspicion and an autopsy, and you say there wouldn’t have been if Larkin hadn’t been killed.”
Doctor Wright dismissed the argument as academic. He repeated that the murder method had been clever.
“Even the undertaker,” he said, “would have passed up that inflammatory lesion around the site of the injection once the death certificate was in order.”
“Clever enough,” Alger admitted. “Even the Larkin business.” His gaze moved unhurriedly over the others and fastened on Murdock. “Ever occur to you that your walking in when you did spoiled a perfect suicide setup? Thought so,” he said when Murdock nodded.
“A man doesn’t come up to his victim and shoot him in the temple at such close range unless there’s a good reason for it. Whoever did this job must’ve moved behind Larkin and held the gun within two inches of his head before he fired. And if he had left the gun near Larkin’s hand, with that broken hypodermic in front of him, this case would be closed right now.”
“I don’t agree.” Donald Caldwell was fitting a cigarette into a holder. His thin-nosed face seemed slack with strain but his voice was quietly positive. “That theory might hold for an outsider, but those of us here knew that Larkin was devoted to Father.”
“You can only speak for yourself on a thing like that, Mr. Caldwell,” Alger said. “You thought he was devoted. Someone else may have known different. You hear a lot about motives in murder, and they’re important, and the D.A. likes to have a good one when we start out On the face of it a lot of murders are committed for no reason at all—until we’ve made an arrest and start digging into the suspect and the witnesses. You wouldn’t think a man would kill his wife because he didn’t like the way she cooked pork chops, would you? Or wipe out his family because he had embezzled some money from his employer? But it’s happened. People are killed for all sorts of reasons, and your opinion of Larkin’s devotion to your father doesn’t make it a fact. Devotion, or what is thought to be devotion, can change to hate after a while and sometimes does.”
He shook his head. “No. With the physical facts we have, we’d have to figure that Larkin killed your father because of some grudge or fancied wrong, and got scared when Murdock showed up, and took the easy way out. Only this time the luck was bad and Murdock heard the shot, and the door of the room he had just left slammed and warned the man with the gun.”
“Also,” said Murdock dryly, “I knocked. But don’t ask me why.”
“Anyway, the killer had time,” Alger said. “He had time to duck into the closet but now he couldn’t leave the gun for fear someone might think to take a look around. He knew if he got caught without a gun he’d be sunk. He had to hold it on Murdock while he watched through the crack in the closet door, and he had to take it with him when he left the room because he wasn’t sure who he might run into in the hall. One thing I’ll gamble on; he would have killed again if anyone had spotted him.”
He gave Murdock a thin smile and said, “I guess that’s once when you’re kind of glad you weren’t too nosy.”
“I was too scared to be nosy.”
Alger moved in his chair and glanced at the officer who sat at the desk taking notes. “Maybe we’d better get back to motives. Not for the Larkin business but for your father,” he said to Donald Caldwell. “Who can tell me about the new will—and the old one?”
Donald hesitated. He massaged the bridge of his nose and passed a palm over his thinning hair. “Will you do it, Harvey?” he said to Blake.
Blake was sitting in a leather chair, and now he edged forward and crushed out his cigarette, black hair gleaming in the lamplight.
Before he could speak, Alger said, “As I understand it your firm drew these wills but you didn’t know the new one had been signed last night.”
“That’s right.” Blake seemed momentarily disconcerted; then, with an air of concentration, he said, “To understand the hew will, one has to know something about the family first. John had three children—George, Donald, and Evelyn. He was married twice and—” He stopped, to glance at Donald, a little embarrassed, it seemed, at the revelation. Donald helped him out.
“What he means is that the first marriage was an unhappy one. My mother ran away when she was very young, and my father brought me back and divorced her. He married again the following year, and George and Evelyn were born of that union.”
He nodded to Blake to continue, and the lawyer said, “As you may know, John Caldwell owned all the stock in the Caldwell enterprises, and it was his intention to keep the bankers out and the control in the family. His personal fortune has been largely distributed already. There may be a million and a half after taxes which, after several small bequests, will be divided between his children and grandchildren.”
“Everybody get cut under the new will?” Alger asked.
“Everybody but me,” young George said. “I have five per cent more than I had under the old will.”
“How much is that?”
“Twenty-five per cent”
“Twenty-five per cent,” Alger said, “and thirty-four per cent for the workers. That’s fifty-nine per cent. Who gets the other forty-one?”
“Donald gets fifteen,” Blake said. “Evelyn twenty, and—”
“—me six,” Larry Alderson finished. “To put me in my place,” he said.
Alger looked interested. He wanted to know why.
“Gramp wanted Larry with the company,” George said.
“And Larry wouldn’t go for it,” said Larry.
“You had trouble with your grandfather?” Alger was mildly curious.
“Constantly. So did everyone else who didn’t agree with him.”
“Oh, now, it’s not as bad as that,” George protested.
“The hell it isn’t!” Larry said in that tough way of his. He eyed his cousin squarely. “You got along with him because you liked to do the things he wanted you to do.” He looked back at Alger. “He was a great guy, Gramp, but he was the boss and you knew it. He wasn’t exactly vindictive but he’d damn well clamp down on you if you crossed him.”
Alger cleared his throat and came back to the subject he had started on. “Miss Kenyon witnessed the new will,” he said. “She wasn’t mentioned in it. What about the old will?”
“There was a bequest of a hundred thousand dollars,” Blake said. “A trust fund.”
“Why’d he cut her out?”
“It was his way of cracking his whip,” Larry said. “He thought she ought to marry George, and she liked Nick Taylor better. When she wouldn’t play, he cut her out—luckily she has a few dollars of her own—and fired Nick.”
Alger thought it over. “The curly-headed one?” he asked. “He’s still here.”
“He was leaving the end of the week,” George said.
“What’s his job?”
George tipped one hand. “Sort of a bodyguard, you might say. We’ve always had someone around like that. When we were in prep school”—he glanced at his cousin—“there was a fellow who was supposed to be an assistant football coach, but he was hired by Gramp to keep an eye on us.”
“Nick had a job flying the company plane after the war,” Larry said. “One day some crank made a fuss at the office, and when Uncle Don saw how Nick tossed the fellow around, he brought him here. He rides around with the chauffeur when he’s not flying.”
Murdock wanted to say, “He also runs around with an ape in a black suit,” but he didn’t. He watched Alger fill his pipe and exchange glances with Doctor Wright. When the pipe was drawing the captain went back to work.
“Looks like somebody didn’t like the provisions in the will and killed Caldwell last night, thinking he wasn’t going to sign it until today. Did everyone know about this new will?” he said to Donald Caldwell.
“As far as I know, yes. Harvey”—he nodded toward Blake—“brought it over yesterday afternoon, and last night when I was up there Father said he’d talked over the bequests with the others.”
“Didn’t happen to say anything about any of them not approving, did he?” It was just a question Alger tossed in on a long chance. His expression indicated that he did not expect an affirmative, and when Caldwell said no, the captain said, “Only three people knew it had been signed—Larkin, and he doesn’t count now. You and—”
“And Fay Kenyon,” Donald said.
“That leaves you two who didn’t know,” Alger said to the cousins, “though I can’t figure any good motive right now for you,” he said to George. “It leaves you, Blake. You spent the night here, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but—”
“And if Caldwell signed that will without you being present, it indicates there was something in that will you didn’t approve of.”
Blake’s face tightened. He drew a long, persecuted breath. “Nothing of the kind. My firm is named executor of the personal estate. At one time we handled company affairs as well, but the job grew too big for us. In the new will a different law firm is named as the company attorneys, but I knew that was coming.”
“You knew it but you didn’t have to like it,” Alger said. “With that old will in force you’d still be handling the whole works.”
Blake shrugged. “If you figure that way,” he said sullenly, “you might as well suspect Miss Sutton and Arthur Prentice.”
“Maybe I do.”
“Nonsense,” Donald said. “Monica had no possible motives.”
Alger ignored this. He was watching Larry Alderson. “Mr. Prentice is your stepfather.”
“Currently,” Larry said. “He’s the second one I’ve had.”
“Get along all right with your mother?”
“I wouldn’t know.” Larry’s cheeks colored, and his voice was cold. “And if I did I wouldn’t discuss it with you.”
Alger remained unruffled. “And that Kenyon girl. What about her?”
“No,” Larry said.
“Exactly,” Donald said. “She was very fond of my father, and he of her. No one could possibly believe that she had anything to do with his death.”
Alger sighed. He remained patient “No one ever believes anyone can do murder—until it happens. This girl stood to lose one hundred thousand dollars if the will was signed. She had to witness that signing and it was too late then to collect anything, but not too late to make him pay for what he had done. People have been killed before for such motives, call it revenge or hate or whatever you like.”
Murdock thought it over and decided Alger could be right. He had not considered Fay Kenyon before, and though reluctant to do so now, he was forced to admit the possibility. A woman could use a hypodermic needle as well as a gun.
He forced his mind on. He had been paying close attention to all that had been said, and he again found himself wondering about Arthur Prentice. Without knowing Evelyn Prentice’s age he had an idea that Arthur was a few years her junior, and that made him think of the reports he had found in the library. As he wondered whether he should mention these now or take another look at them before he said anything, he saw Alger stand up and adjourn the meeting.
“The road’ll be lined with reporters by now,” he said. “We’ll have to give them a statement, doc I guess we can make it pretty indefinite for now, Mr. Caldwell,” he said to Donald. “After all, we’re not quite sure of anything yet except that Larkin was shot.” He paused to glance at Murdock, and said, “That is, if Murdock will go along with us.”
Murdock had no trouble making up his mind. Experience had taught him that it paid to play ball with the authorities when he could. He had the respect of most of them and he preferred to keep the status quo. The Courier-Herald had never been a sensation sheet, and the important thing now was that he keep in touch with the case until, and if, a break finally came.
“Your statement will be good enough for now,” he said. “Providing I get it first.”
“Fine,” Alger said.
“And providing,” Murdock added, “that if you finally crack this, and I happen to be around, you give me an hour’s break on the other papers.”
A look of annoyance flickered in Alger’s eyes, but not for long. He knew how things were and he knew that he needed Murdock’s co-operation. He said it was a deal. He nodded toward the uniformed officer who was taking notes and said, “I’ll dictate a statement to Charlie. You’ll get a copy as soon as he finishes.”
9
THE MEDICAL EXAMINER had ordered both bodies removed, and the police had temporarily sealed off both Larkin’s room and John Caldwell’s bedroom until both could be thoroughly searched and examined. With Donald Caldwell’s permission Alger took over the adjoining upstairs study as his headquarters, and while his men made a cursory inspection of the papers in the desk and files, the stenographer typed out a release for Murdock and the other newspapers.
While he waited for this release, Murdock went along the second-floor hall that led to the rooms on the left. He counted doors as he walked along, and when he came to the room he had occupied the night before, he turned and knocked on the opposite door.
Fay Kenyon had exchanged the black dress for a green house coat that was long and trailing and looking somehow a little large for her small, neat figure. Low-heeled mules made her seem even smaller, and with her golden hair pinned back, she looked more than ever like a little girl. An unhappy little girl, it seem
ed, for the brightness had gone from her eyes and her young face was tear-streaked and pale.
“Hello, Miss Kenyon,” Murdock said when he saw the uncertainty in her glance. “I’m sorry to intrude like this, but I’m afraid you’re the only one who can help me.” He fashioned a smile, having no liking for the job but knowing no other way, and when her hesitancy remained, he said, “I’ll be going back to town in a few minutes or I wouldn’t bother you this way.”
She stepped back then, holding the door for him. “All right,” she said listlessly. “I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just that—”
She let the sentence dangle and closed the door, and he saw now that the room was the same size as the one he had occupied the night before, but more cheerfully feminine and, because it had about it the personal possessions that go with living, more pleasant and comfortable-looking.
She walked over to glance out the window, leaving him to follow while she took time to get things under control. After ten seconds of this she turned and sat down in a chintz-covered chair, folding her hands in her lap, her head up, waiting.
Murdock perched on the window sill. He offered a cigarette, and when she refused he lit his own, and now he felt a new hesitancy and wondered how he should start.
As though she sensed this she said, “If it’s about Larkin I’m afraid I can’t—”
“It’s not about Larkin.” He paused again, fumbling for the proper approach. “It’s about you, really. You were John Caldwell’s secretary?”
“Sort of. In some personal matters.”
“Did you work with him in the study off his bedroom? And did you use the files in those corner cabinets?” he asked when she nodded. “Were they kept locked?”
“The files were, unless we were using them.”
“Who had keys to them?”
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