The Distant Clue

by Frances Lockridge

  The Distant Clue

  A Captain Heimrich Mystery

  Frances and Richard Lockridge

  I

  When she stepped through the doorway to the sidewalk of Van Brunt Avenue heat stepped forward to meet her. It was only mid-May, but it felt like late June. Three days before it had felt like early March. The odd thing about May, Enid Vance thought, was that it never felt like May. Although, she thought, straightening things out, if one went one step further, one came to the upsetting conclusion that not feeling like May was what May, here in the Hudson Valley, here in Putnam County, New York, always felt like.

  On Friday afternoons, Enid Vance thought, the mind begins to skitter, like a puppy unleashed in an open field. Be thankful, mind, that it is finally warm; that now, at last, there will be no risk of icy patches on the narrow road up to Far Top. Enid tightened her left arm on a briefcase and pressed it to her side. She walked north toward her Volkswagen, parked in front of the bank. She walked erect, and walked briskly, as became a secretary-at-large, walking on a business errand.

  She was rather tall, and walked tall, making the most of it. She was slim under a dark green silk suit, and held herself to make the best of that. She had brown hair which, in certain lights—like the sunlight she walked in now—seemed tinged with red, and very dark brown eyes. She was twenty-six years old, and because a man named Scott Lenox had, the day before, got an advance, she expected that evening to eat lobster at the “Bird and Bottle,” down in Garrison. There was nothing whatever wrong with this warm afternoon in mid-May. And thinking of puppies …

  A straight boy with wide gray eyes—grave eyes—came toward her, keeping to the right. He was attached to an enormous great Dane, who walked nearer the curb. The dog was letting his tongue hang out, and looked as if he were thinking it was much too warm for May.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Vance,” the boy said. He stopped and looked up at her. The great Dane put his tail between his legs and sat down on it.

  “Good afternoon, Michael,” Enid said. “Good afternoon, Colonel. Isn’t it a lovely afternoon?”

  The big dog looked away. He was not impolite about it. It was merely that he had more important things to think about.

  “It’s very nice,” the boy said. “The library’s closed.” He paused. “Although,” he said, “it’s almost three o’clock.”

  Enid said that that was strange as, mildly, it was. The Van Brunt library, from Monday through Friday, opens at two in the afternoon and closes at seven. On Saturdays it is open from nine until five.

  “Professor Wingate isn’t there,” Michael said. “There’s a light inside, but the door’s locked. Do you suppose Professor Wingate’s sick? He’s rather old, isn’t he?”

  He spoke as if he and Enid shared an age—an age of youth. Which was very nice of him; which, Enid sometimes thought, meeting the gaze of the grave gray eyes, might a little disconcertingly be true.

  “He’s probably just stepped out for a minute,” Enid said, and Michael considered that, and nodded his head. He said, “Come on, Colonel,” and the big dog stood up. Michael said, “Good-bye, Miss Vance,” and the big dog looked, sadly but forgivingly, at Enid Vance.

  Enid, going on toward her car, did not need to look to see where dog and boy were bound. They would turn into a shop with the words “susan faye, fabrics” lettered in the lower left-hand corner of the show window. Knowing Colonel reasonably well, Enid did not doubt what he was hoping. He was hoping that the mother of his small god would have remembered to turn on the air conditioning.

  The small black car was snuggled to the curb just south of the austere building—which looked rather as if it had been stamped out in a mold—occupied by the First National Bank and Trust Company of Van Brunt. The windows of the small black car were tightly closed and Enid thought, If I had had any sense at all I’d have left the windows open. But it had not seemed hot earlier. In her apartment-office on the fourth floor of the Van Brunt Annex, which was annexed to nothing but once had been, the air which had blown through the open windows had been only balmy air. It had stroked, rather than ruffled, the papers on her desk, her typewriter table.

  She opened the near door of the Volkswagen and reeled the window down. You could roast a chicken in it, Enid thought. Get in, chicken. She got in and rolled the other window down and gasped. Once I’m moving, she thought; and got the car moving—moving north on Van Brunt Avenue, which was also New York 11-F. She moved past the bank and past the library, and slowed and looked at it—at the white frame house, set some distance back from the street. The door was closed, as Michael Faye had said it was. It was a little odd, as Michael Faye had thought it. Still …

  There might be a dozen reasons why Loudon Wingate, retired professor of history at Dyckman University, now librarian in Van Brunt, had closed his library up. He might, conceivably, merely have felt like it. More probably, he had gone somewhere in his ancient Packard, itself eligible for retirement, to collect a donation. The library at Van Brunt Center lived to a considerable degree on donations. People cleaned out attics, found crumbling books; told one another that the library would be glad to have them. Some merely brought them in and piled them dustily in the reading room. The more considerate asked the librarian to come and have a look, preliminary to bonfire. That could be where Professor Wingate was. He was having a look somewhere.

  The traffic light at The Corners, where NY 109 crossed NY 11-F, waited her approach and turned through yellow to red. Mrs. Sanderson crossed the street, with the light, and with Bobby in hand. She looked into the Volkswagen and said “Hi” and that it might as well be summer, mightn’t it?

  The light waited patiently for others to take advantage of Route 109’s—Elm Street’s—green. Nothing did. Finally, its yellow cautioned Elm Street; its green invited the Volkswagen and, headed the other way, the new red truck of Elmer Hobbs, Plumbing and Heating. Elmer Junior flicked a salute toward Enid Vance, as one graduate of Van Brunt High School to another.

  In winter, Enid could not imagine why she had chosen to live here, where she had been born, had grown up. In winter she thought of the city; thought of an apartment in the city, safe and warm; of subways to take on snowy days, of the relative certainty of a continuing supply of electricity. In the city, if she was to be a secretary—and she supposed she was—she could be one safely contained, not left at large. She would make more money to add to the pittance which came quarterly, the last trickle from the Vance estate. She would not have to drive over icy spots on the road up to Far Top, as she had been doing all this past interminable winter.

  But it was summer now, or nearly. And summer was another thing—so much another thing. Summer was people coming out of holes; summer was Belle Sanderson crossing the street with Bobby and stopping to say “Hi.” It was Elmer Hobbs waving from a bright red truck, and not sought anxiously to care for frozen pipes. In summer it was fine to be fifty miles or so from the city of New York. In summer it was fine to drive a Volkswagen north on NY 11-F, which is not the major road to anywhere. Air came through the little car’s windows now and ruffled short brown hair which had glints of red in it.

  She passed the sign which said, “Leaving Town of Van Brunt, Putnam County” and the one which read: “Entering Town of Cold Harbor, Putnam County.” She had left Van Brunt Center two miles back by then. A mile on she turned left onto a narrow blacktop and a sign said tersely, “Winding Road.” It was a climbing road also—climbing from the valley through which 11-F meanders to the last high ridge above the Hudson River; climbing toward, among not very many other places, the place called Far Top. It was at Far Top that Homer Lenox lived alone, the last of the Hudson Valley Lenoxes.

  It came to that
, Enid thought, guiding the obedient small car around sharp corners. The old man did not like it, but it came to that. The old man had tried to circumvent a fact, but still it came to that. Scott was a Lenox in name only. (Enid smiled inwardly at the phrasing which had come inevitably to mind.) One may adopt a stepson, give a stepson a name and think … think what? Think that as time goes on people who follow will forget what people present know? That, in a few generations, it will seem that the Lenox family never died?

  And most of all, Enid thought, sounding the horn on a blind corner, believe that people will care at all, one way or the other. That—the man’s rocklike certainty that people would care—was what the mind stumbled over. Having stumbled, the mind could only accept. Put in a phrase that would never occur to Homer Lenox: the old man had a “thing” about families. And not only about his own.

  And that was what was taking Enid Vance, secretary-at-large, manuscripts copied, electric typewriter used, up a narrow, winding offshoot road toward a rambling, ancient white house called Far Top; called that, she supposed, because once it had been very far indeed. How, in 1799, had they got building material up to this pinnacle above the Hudson? How, come to that, did people get up to live in it? Especially in winter?

  The manuscript which bulged the briefcase on the seat beside her did not go into that. It went into a great many things, but not into that—went into things about the Lenoxes and about the Mitchies and, of course, about the Van Brunts. (And about the Dutch who had ruled the valley once.) About Far Top, Homer Lenox had written only: “Erected by Virgil Lenox in 1799, Far Top, little changed through the years, stands as a monument to a bygone era.”

  It was not really houses which interested Homer Lenox. It was the families which had lived in the houses. The Families of Putnam County, New York—that was the title of the book which Homer Lenox was writing during his declining years, and which Enid Vance—whose family was, in fact, briefly mentioned—was typing, with two carbons, at fifty cents a page. (Typed page, but Homer Lenox wrote in so tight a hand that manuscript page and typescript page almost averaged out.) Fifty cents a page plus the cost of gasoline, which was inconsiderable with the Volkswagen, plus depreciation on the car. Thinking of that, Enid smiled again, again to herself. He was quite an old boy, old Homer; a scrupulous old boy. It had taken him upwards of three hours—three hours in an overheated room, in front of a scorching fire—to work out a depreciation allowance which would be “fair all around.”

  The Families of Putnam County, New York. That was the title. Not, as Scott now and then mentioned, much of a selling title; not a title likely to pull them in. Few, he thought, would run hellbent to their nearest bookstore to snap up copies of The Families of Putnam County, New York while the supply lasted. “Not snazzy,” Scott Lenox said. “Not really snazzy. We’ll have to face that, my dear.”

  Whether Scott Lenox had raised that point with the stepfather who had legally adopted him, Enid did not know. She rather doubted it. Scott would think it no affair of his; would not, in any case, have intentionally said anything to upset an older man of whom he was, although Enid suspected only mildly, fond. Forbearing—that was the attitude one took toward Homer Lenox. It had been snowing steadily during the three hours of depreciation calculations in front of the too hot fire, and she had waited with forbearance. And, going down the steep road, she had, as was almost inevitable, twice skidded off it.

  It would, in any event, have been extraneous to discuss with Homer Lenox whether his title would sell his book. The old man was a shrewd old man, filling cramped pages with no illusions. He had told her that. “Nobody will buy the damned thing,” he said. “I am perfectly aware of that, Miss Vance. It is an old man’s hobby in his declining years.”

  Homer Lenox was, admittedly, somewhat in the habit of referring to his age, reminding listeners how declining his years were. One might, to listen to him, have thought him well into his nineties. He was a lean, tanned man in his late sixties. Not young, certainly. But still, Enid thought, negotiating the last corner before the top. But still …

  The book would be printed at Homer Lenox’s expense. Since it was to be illustrated with photographs, the expense might be expected to be considerable. Which is, Enid thought, no concern of mine. Scott could make better use of the money, but it is no concern of his or mine. It was common knowledge that the Lenox estate, also, had done some trickling away through the years. But old Homer had been a reasonably successful lawyer before his years began, so precipitately, to decline. The old man could afford to finance this tribute to the greatness of the—how revealing that definite article was!—families who had been so much greater, meant so much more, in other years than they meant today. (But not, and that was the final point, than they still meant to Homer Lenox.)

  He’s collected families, Enid thought. Some men collect stamps. She turned up a gravel driveway, between stone pillars, into one of which the words “Far Top” had been a little ornately carved.

  The drive curved around an enormous boulder, which—in 1799—it had been thought wise to circumvent. At the extremity of the curve, before drive circled in front of house, Enid stopped the car, as she usually did. From there one could see everything—see the majestic river far below, see West Point across the river; could look north across a valley and see the gray stone solidity of the Mitchie house; could look over the stone walls around the Mitchie house. From there one could even see the very different, low and sleek and modern little house which John Mitchie—John Mitchie II—had built for his son, John Mitchie III. It was mildly interesting to think that one man lived alone in the pile of stone, preserving the privacy so dear to the Mitchies, and that in the small sleek house John III lived with a wife and three children.

  Having three children was most un-Mitchie, Enid thought. The children’s grandfather probably considered their number excessive. She pulled on around the circle and stopped in front of Far Top, which squinted at her with its many small windows.

  She stopped behind an ancient, but shiningly black, Packard. Professor Wingate’s black Packard. Ever since Lenox had started Families the Van Brunt library had been borrowing, at his behest, books from better-stocked libraries, and Professor Wingate had been trundling them up to Far Top.

  The room Homer Lenox worked in was precariously piled with ancient books, heaped with yellowed newspapers. Back copies—far-back copies—of the Putnam Recorder, most of the newspapers were. When she went into the little room to deliver typed sheets, pick up manuscript sheets, Enid sometimes felt, uneasily, that the whole room might fall around her, bury her in the past.

  She went up to the front door. A little wooden panel was affixed to the front door. The numerals “1799” were incised in the little wooden panel.

  The door was not quite closed. Enid knocked with the big brass knocker and it made a big brass sound. It did not, however, bring results.

  The old boys would be in the small working room, the study, deep in the big, small-roomed, infinitely solid house—the house through which sound did not carry. And men in their declining years sometimes do not hear so well as they once did. She was not really surprised to get no answer.

  Enid pushed the door farther open and raised her voice as she said, “Mr. Lenox?” She waited and tried again, tried more loudly. She thought she heard a small, scuffling sound but nothing came of it, and once more she called the name of Homer Lenox. She called very loudly indeed, this time, and thought it sounded as if she were screaming the old man’s name.

  But even now there was no answer, and Enid, clutching the briefcase under her left arm, went on into the house—went down the corridor which led to the little working room.

  The door to the little room was closed, and she knocked on it, and once more called out “Mr. Lenox?” But she did not call loudly this time, and did not wait long. She pushed the door open.

  Homer Lenox lay face down on the softly polished, wide-boarded floor. His right arm was stretched out in front of him, and a revolver lay
just beyond the seemingly reaching fingers of his right hand. Falling, he had brushed against a table piled with books, and the books had tumbled down on him.

  Professor Loudon Wingate, Van Brunt librarian, sat across the little room, his back to the wall. He seemed to look at her with open eyes, but there was a hole between his eyes.

  He’s got three eyes, she thought, hysteria clutching at her mind. He’s got three eyes!

  Slowly, as if there were all the time in the world, Loudon Wingate fell over on his side.

  The yellowed newspapers which had piled his lap fell to the floor—to the bloodied floor.

  II

  When she was asked if she was sure both men were dead she had said, “Yes, I’m sure they’re dead.” When she was asked if she would wait until somebody came, she had said, “Yes, Til wait.” Both times she repeated the words of the questions, repeated them unnecessarily. Her mind felt dull, numbed. She felt as if she might be sick. It was early in the summer for flies, but there had been flies in the little room. There had been one fly, larger than the others, which buzzed in the little room.

  The telephone was on a table in the entrance hall of Far Top. After she had put the handset back in its stand she had sat for a moment, her hand still on the cool metal. Then she had thought, I don’t have to stay here, here in the house. I do not have to sit here with the dead.

  She got up, then, and went out of the house and to her car. She put the briefcase down on the car’s seat. She opened the door to get into the car, but then closed it without getting in. The interior of the car would be like a little room. She walked away from the car on the circling drive until she came to the place where the view was, and then stood there and looked at the Hudson River. A tug was towing barges upstream. The tug was like a fussy little hen with enormous, ungainly chicks. On the stern of one of the barges somebody had hung out a wash.

  They had fought and killed each other. Each had shot the other to death. They had quarreled about something and resolved the quarrel in violence. But they were both old men. The old are not violent. To the old nothing can so much matter. Surely it must be that way when one grew old; surely brightness must fade from everything. When I am old, she thought, the river will not sparkle so. The river will be gray, and all I feel will be felt in gray.