20-Inspector's Holiday
Page 22
Ursula Jameson sat on a sofa in front of the fire. She gestured toward chairs, and Heimrich and Forniss pulled chairs toward the sofa, at opposite ends. Rankin continued to stand. He said, “Maybe I’d better—” and let it hang.
“No, Mr. Rankin,” Heimrich said. “There’re one or two more things you can tell me.”
Rankin pulled up a chair and sat between Heimrich and the fire.
“Of course,” Ursula Jameson said, “the water would have been cold. Perhaps he got a cramp. That must have been the way—”
“No,” Heimrich said. “Your brother didn’t drown, Miss Jameson. He—somebody shot him. With an arrow. From the bank, apparently. As he was bringing the boat in.”
She looked at him blankly for a moment. Then she said, “An arrow? You said an arrow? You mean, somebody killed him?”
“Yes, Miss Jameson,” Heimrich said. “I’m afraid that’s the way it was. Somebody who knew he’d gone out fishing. Who would have known that?”
She said, “Known what?” and her voice, which had been strong before, was vague. For a moment she covered her long face with thin, mottled hands. Then she said, “Everybody, I guess. Everybody who knows us. Every Sunday morning he went out early to catch fish for breakfast. Unless the weather was very bad, of course. It was—it was a kind of ritual with my brother. For years he’s caught us fish for Sunday breakfast. He cooked them himself, because he could never find anybody else who could do them the right way. Myrtle does everything else very well but she’s never got the knack of doing fish the way he likes them. And Ellen couldn’t either. She was the one before Myrtle. Not even Reynolds, and he’d been a chef in the city before he came here.”
“Always at about the same time, Miss Jameson?”
“Oh, even earlier in the summer, of course. Because it gets light so much earlier. He’s always thought fish bite better early in the morning. And of course he keeps the lake well stocked. You’re sure it was an arrow?”
“Yes,” Heimrich said. “A metal arrow. Was Mr. Jameson interested in archery?”
“A long time ago,” she said. “He used to shoot at targets. He tried to teach me, but I could never hit anything. But that was a long time ago. He got tired of it, after a while. Then he took up golf. He’s always been like that, you see. Active. Even as he gets older, he’s always doing things.”
Tenses are tricky when a man is dead, Heimrich thought. The past tense comes slowly and comes hard.
Ursula Jameson seemed to hear her own words.
“I talk as if he were still alive,” she said. “And you say he’s dead.
You say somebody killed him. Who would do that, Inspector? Who would do a thing like that?”
Then she got up from the sofa and walked away. She walked stiffly. Forniss looked at Heimrich and Heimrich shook his head. When Ursula Jameson had gone between the big double doors at the upper end of the room and out into the entrance hall, Heimrich said, “Later, Charlie.”
Heimrich turned to Rankin.
“Down by the lake,” he said, “you talked as if you knew something about archery, Mr. Rankin. Do you go in for it yourself?”
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About the Author
Richard Lockridge (1898–1982) was one of the most popular names in mystery fiction from the 1940s through the ’70s. He is best known for the prolific detective series he wrote with his wife, Frances, including the Mr. and Mrs. North Mysteries, Nathan Shapiro Mysteries, and Captain Heimrich Mysteries. Upon Frances’s death in 1963, Richard continued writing, delivering new and much darker Nathan Shapiro and Captain Heimrich books. His works have been adapted for Broadway, film, television, and radio.
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Copyright © 1971 by Richard Lockridge
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ISBN: 978-1-5040-5061-6
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