Black Widower

by Patricia Moyes

  “It’s strange,” Henry said. “I’m at her apartment building now. We had a date at half-past five.”

  Winston said, “It wouldn’t have taken her that long to walk home. Perhaps she stopped to do some shopping on the way.”

  “Perhaps she did,” said Henry thoughtfully. “Well, thank you very much, Mr. Nelson. I’ll just wait here and hope she arrives.”

  It was about ten minutes later that the telephone on the clerk’s desk rang. “Yes . . . yes, there is a gentleman waiting for Miss Hamilton, but . . . oh . . .” The clerk’s ebony face registered shock, and he lowered his voice to a respectful murmur. “Yes, sir . . . yes, of course . . . just a moment . . .” He put his hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone, and said to Henry, “Are you Mr. Tibbett?”

  “I am.”

  “It’s the Tampican Embassy on the telephone for you, sir. I’m afraid . . . I’m afraid it’s bad news. About Miss Hamilton.”

  Henry was at the desk in an instant, snatching the telephone from the clerk’s hand. At the other end of the line, Winston Nelson was making a great effort to be calm, but failing. In his emotion, a West Indian accent broke through the fagade of his B.B.C. English.

  “Mr. Tibbett . . . worst possible news, I’m afraid . . . an accident . . . hit and run . . . yes, that’s what is so terrible . . . only just around the corner from the Embassy . . . there’s a quiet little street, makes a good short cut, Exeter Place . . . must have happened soon after she left. . . the hospital just called . . .”

  “Why?” asked Henry.

  “Why? Mr. Tibbett, don’t you understand? Dome’s dead . . . run over by some bastard of a—”

  “What I meant,” said Henry, “was why have they only just called you from the hospital? Didn’t they find her for some time, or . . . what?”

  Winnie was becoming more agitated by the moment. “Oh, yes, sure they found her. A lady living in Exeter Place heard a scream and ran out and saw Dorrie lying in the road. But the car was gone. The lady says she heard it drive off—but what’s the use of that? No one’ll catch that son-of-a—”

  “For heaven’s sake,” said Henry, “get a grip on yourself and listen to me. Did somebody call an ambulance right away?”

  “Oh, yes. The lady called right away . . . ambulance and police . . . Dorrie was dead at the hospital. . .”

  “Then,” said Henry patiently, “why did they take so long to get in touch with you? She must have had identification on her—”

  “No.”

  “What was that?”

  “I say ‘No.’ No identification. Only just discovered who she is.”

  “But that’s ridiculous,” said Henry. “She must have had something in her handbag . . . driving license . . . diplomatic identity card . . .”

  “No handbag.”

  “Talk sense, man.” Henry was becoming exasperated. “She was on her way home to meet me. She must have had her handbag with her.”

  “No. I looked in her office, after the hospital called. Her handbag was there. I have it now.”

  “Well, for God’s sake don’t touch it.”

  “Have touched it, Mr. Tibbett.”

  “God give me strength. Is Inspector Bartholomew there?”

  “No. Nobody. Only me.”

  “Now, listen carefully, Mr. Nelson. Call Inspector Bartholomew, get him round to the Embassy, explain what has happened and give him the handbag—he’ll know what to do with it. And tell him to seal off Miss Hamilton’s office and keep guard on it. Got that?”

  “Yes, Mr. Tibbett.”

  “And now, perhaps you can at least tell me the name of the hospital?”

  “Of course. Thomas Jefferson Memorial Hospital.”

  “I’ll be there if anybody wants me. Have you told Sir Edward yet?”

  “I can’t. I don’t know where he is.”

  “Somebody at the Embassy must know!”

  “Dorrie knows . . .”

  “Well, stop sniveling and find him,” said Henry, and rang off.

  Henry had anticipated that he might run into a certain amount of trouble at the hospital, owing to his unofficial status. However, the trim black receptionist agreed to put in a call to the doctor who had handled the case, and a moment later she looked up from the telephone with a wide smile.

  “Dr. Miles would like to talk to you, Mr. Tibbett. You can take the call in that booth over there.”

  “Mr. Tibbett? I’m Dr. Miles. I’m sure glad you’re here.”

  “Why? You don’t know me.”

  “Right. But Miss Hamilton was asking for you, just before she died.”

  “I thought she was dead on arrival at the hospital,” Henry said.

  “No. She was unconscious, and there was never any real hope of recovery. However, she did have a moment of lucidity, and she mentioned your name. I’ve got Officer Stanton of the D.C. Police with me here, and he’d like a word with you, too. Could you come up? Room 962.”

  The doctor and the police officer were both young men—the policeman white, with neatly cropped hair and a cleancut jawline, the doctor black, with a carefully tended Afro hairstyle. Officer Stanton sat at a desk in the small office, compiling his official report of the accident. Dr. Miles stood by the window, gazing out over the rooftops toward the green grass of the Mall and the slender needle of the Washington Monument.

  The doctor said, “Glad to know you, Mr. Tibbett. This is a bad, sad business. You knew Miss Hamilton well, of course?”

  “No. Only slightly.”

  Stanton intervened. “Have you any idea what reason she might have had for mentioning your name before she died?”

  “Yes, but it may be the wrong one. What did she say?”

  Stanton moved a paper to consult his notes, but Dr. Miles forestalled him. “I can tell you exactly. She was barely conscious, just murmuring. She said, Tell Tibbett . . . Mavis . . . my fault . . . I did it . . .’ After that she mumbled some more, but I couldn’t make out the words. Then she died. Does that make any sense to you?”

  “I’m afraid it does,” said Henry. “You know that Miss Hamilton worked at the Tampican Embassy?”

  “We do now,” Stanton said. “It took quite some fancy detective work. She had no pocketbook, you see—no identification. Just stepped out to mail a letter, I guess. We traced her by a dry cleaner’s receipt in her pocket made out in the name of Hamilton, and the fact that her dress had a label of a shop in Tampica Harbour. My department checked out the diplomatic list, and sure enough, there was Miss Dorabella Hamilton, secretary to the Tampican Ambassador. Lady Ironmonger’s first name was Mavis, wasn’t it? I’ve been following the story on TV . . .” He paused, on a distinctly interrogative note.

  Henry said, “Yes. I’d better explain.” When he had done so—going into no details, but explaining how Tampica was handling Lady Ironmonger’s death, and his role in the matter—Stanton said, “Well, they can’t keep this one out of our hands. This took place on a public highway in the District of Columbia.”

  Dr. Miles turned back to the window. He said, “It’s all academic. You’ll never catch the hit-and-run driver. The girl is dead, and there’s the end of it. All we can do is make reports and tie up legal loose ends.”

  “Can you tell me,” Henry asked, “who the witnesses were, and what they said?”

  Stanton pushed a sheaf of papers across the desk. “It’s all there. Nobody actually saw the accident. Exeter Place is dangerous— we’ve been saying so for years. It’s a useful short cut for traffic, and motorists take it much too fast. Two children have been injured there this past year. The houses on the street are all very large, and set back among trees and gardens—and several of them are empty. People can’t afford these Georgetown mansions any more. There was nobody around to see what happened. However, the housekeeper from No. 3021 happened to be in the garden, and she heard Miss Hamilton scream, and then the sound of a car accelerating down the road. By the time she got to the gate, the car had gone. She saw Miss Hamilton lying in t
he middle of the road, and ran to call the ambulance—and us.”

  Henry said, “In the middle of the road?”

  “That’s what Mrs. Drayton said.”

  “Isn’t that rather strange?”

  “Well, I suppose she was crossing over when the car hit her.”

  “Is there a letter-box—a mail box—on that street?”

  Dr. Miles said at once, “No. I often walk down Exeter Place. There’s no mail box.”

  “Then there’s no earthly reason why she should have been crossing the road,” Henry said. “She had an appointment with me at her apartment on P Street, and she was coming from the Embassy. She didn’t need to cross to the south side of the road at any point.”

  “She can’t have been on her way home,” Stanton objected. “She didn’t have her pocketbook with her.”

  “Her what?” Henry asked.

  The officer looked puzzled. “Her pocketbook. Like all women carry.”

  “Oh, you mean her handbag. We really are divided by a common language, aren’t we?” Henry grinned at Stanton, and then said, “What hope do you have of catching the hit-and-run driver?”

  The doctor and the policeman looked at each other. Stanton shrugged. “Virtually none, if you want the truth. The car would have suffered only minimal damage—nothing we could ever prove. There’d be no traces of blood on it—the Doc here says her injuries were consistent with being picked up and hurled into the air, as it were, not run over.”

  “Could that account for her being in the middle of the road?” Henry asked. And then, answering his own question, “No . . . if she’d been walking along the pavement—”

  “Why should she do that?” Miles demanded. “Why wouldn’t she use the sidewalk?”

  Henry smiled. “Here we go again. What we call the pavement is what you call the sidewalk.”

  “Then what do you call the pavement?”

  “The roadway.”

  Stanton shook his head. “Beats me. Go on. If she’d been walking on the sidewalk—”

  “Well, the car would have had to swerve off the road—off the pavement—either deliberately or out of control, in order to hit her. In which case, it would either have pushed or tossed her away from the street, toward the garden wall of the house. I think we have to accept the fact that for some reason she was in the middle of the road when the car struck her.”

  “Without a pocketbook,” said Stanton, very deliberately. “And she said to tell you that something about Mavis was her fault— that she did it. It adds up, doesn’t it, Mr. Tibbett?”

  “I’m very much afraid it does,” said Henry. “As it happens, I have another piece of evidence—something I was going to discuss with Miss Hamilton—which just about clinches it. I’m afraid she threw herself deliberately under that car . . . that she never intended to reach home or talk to me. Of course, we can’t prove it —and for the sake of the Embassy and Miss Hamilton’s family, it’s better just to announce that she was the victim of a hit-and-run accident, which is perfectly true.”

  Stanton nodded, slowly. “I’ll put in my report,” he said. “You’ll be around for a bit, will you, Mr. Tibbett? Just in case . . .”

  The telephone rang, and the doctor picked it up. “Dr. Miles speaking . . . yes, sure, he’s here . . . just a moment, Sir Ironmonger . . .” He turned to Henry. “The Tampican Ambassador for you.”

  Ironmonger’s voice was grave. “Tibbett? Winnie Nelson has just told me the dreadful news . . . I suppose she was killed instantly, poor girl . . .”

  “Not instantly,” said Henry. “She regained consciousness for a while in hospital.”

  “Enough to speak?” Henry thought he detected a sharp note of anxiety.

  “Yes.”

  “Could she identify the car that hit her?”

  “That would be asking rather too much, Sir Edward. I don’t suppose she even saw it.”

  “Then what did she say?”

  “If you can meet me at the Embassy in half-an-hour, I’ll tell you. Meantime . . .” Henry hesitated. “You leave for Tampica tomorrow, don’t you? For the conference?”

  “No, not tomorrow. Friday. And what I shall do without Dorabella . . . however, that’s a very selfish viewpoint. I can tell you, Tibbett, that I’d be happier about going if you could clear up the mystery of Mavis’s death before I leave here.”

  “I think,” said Henry, “that that has been attended to.”

  12

  It was twelve noon on the following day, Wednesday. Henry sat facing the Tampican Ambassador in the latter’s study at the Embassy.

  “A tragic matter,” Sir Edward Ironmonger was saying, shaking his handsome head. “Tragic, but not, I suppose wholly unexpected. At least it is better to know the truth.”

  “Yes, it is,” said Henry.

  Ironmonger rose from his desk and walked to the window. He lit a big cigar and gazed out at the trimly-tended garden. With his back to Henry, he said, “Dorrie was the obvious person. There’s no getting away from it. I knew that she disliked Mavis, and of course she had ample opportunity to take the gun and doctor the tomato juice. What I did not know about was her drinking problem. She certainly concealed it very well.”

  “I don’t think it had been a problem for some time,” Henry said. “She kept a bottle of Alcodym with her, but she wasn’t using it. Unfortunately, she knew what effect a double dose of it would have with a stiff drink.” He paused. “You must have known, Sir Edward, that she was in love with you?”

  Ironmonger’s shoulders stiffened. Without turning round, he said, “I consider that an impertinent remark, Mr. Tibbett.”

  “I’m sorry. It is also relevant.”

  “I knew that she was. . . fond of me. Intensely loyal. I certainly never encouraged her in a sexual manner, if that is what you are implying.”

  Henry thought, “The man’s frightened. I wonder why.” Aloud, he said, “Of course I’m not implying any such thing, Sir Edward. I’m simply trying to sort out Miss Hamilton’s motives. She was deeply attached to you personally, and she seems to have convinced herself that Lady Ironmonger was an impediment to your career. I imagine her first idea was merely to create the sort of scandalous scene which she hoped would persuade you to break up your marriage. I know it sounds ridiculous, but people under great tension can rationalize almost anything. Then, with the talk about the gun the other day, a more drastic plot evolved.”

  Sir Edward said, “You are sure of your conclusions, Tibbett? You will put in a report—you and Bartholomew—to the effect that Miss Hamilton was responsible for my wife’s death, and then took her own life?”

  “I don’t see what else we can do,” said Henry. “Especially in view of what was virtually a deathbed confession. Not to mention that she had left the Embassy without her handbag, and was in the middle of the road when she was hit. We have no choice.”

  Sir Edward sighed and took a long pull on his cigar. Then he turned to face Henry, seeming to change mental gears as he did so. His voice was smooth and urbane, as he said, “Well, now the matter is resolved, and for that I am extremely grateful, Tibbett. It is an enormous relief to be able to go to Tampica for a difficult conference without an unsolved problem hanging over our heads.” He sat down at the desk again, facing Henry. “As a small token of my government’s gratitude to you in this sad business, I hope that you and your wife can find time for a short holiday on our island before you go back to London. Pirate’s Cave is a pleasant hotel, and we would like to welcome you as official guests.”

  “It’s very kind of you, Sir Edward,” Henry said, “but I’m afraid we must get back to England as soon as possible. We’ve no possible reason for staying on. The case is closed.”

  “So the case is closed,” said Emmy Tibbett. She, Henry and Margaret Colville were sitting round the crackling log fire which Margaret had lit in the drawing-room, sooner than turn on the central heating against the slight chill of the April evening.

  “It seems so,” said Henry.

/>   “Well, I think you’ve been splendid,” said Margaret. “You’ve only been here a few days, and everything is solved and sorted out. Sheer genius.”

  “Sheer nothing,” said Henry. “I’ve been as much good as a sick headache. The only detective work that’s been done at all was done by old Duncan, and that’s been more luck than judgment.” He paused and rubbed the back of his neck with his left hand—a sign which Emmy recognized.

  “You’re not happy about it, are you, Henry?” she said.

  “I’m never happy if I’ve made a lousy job of something.”

  “I mean—you don’t really believe that Dorabella Hamilton was guilty. Or that she killed herself.”

  “Of course I do,” said Henry, irritably. “You can’t get away from the facts, and there they are—staring you in the face. Together with an explicit confession to a total outsider—the doctor.” He paused, and smiled. “You’re absolutely right, of course. My nose . . . I mean, I find it difficult to believe that things happened so conveniently and neatly. Or, let’s say, I don’t want to believe it. Also, there are certain inconsistencies . . . but what’s the use? As long as I’ve no shred of evidence to the contrary, and a completely independent witness testifies to a deathbed confession . . . how can I argue with the obvious?”

  “Isn’t there anybody else you could talk to?” Margaret asked. “Anybody who might shed some new light on—anything?”

  Henry opened the file on his lap, and turned the pages slowly. He said, “Between us, Bartholomew and I have interviewed everybody. All the Embassy people, the doctor, the police, the waiters at the reception, the Barringtons, the Schipmakers . . . no, that’s true, I haven’t actually met Otis and Virginia. But there seems little point to that now.”