Death’s Old Sweet Song

by Jonathan Stagge

  “Well, we can check on that easy.” Cobb sighed and, throwing a last disgusted glance at George, moved into the living room. He sat down heavily on an insecure-looking armchair and, pulling his old brier pipe out of his pocket, stuck it between his teeth. The pipe is one of Cobb’s few eccentricities. He sucks on it most of the day, but during the course of our long friendship I’ve seen him fill and light it less than half a dozen times.

  “You know, Westlake, seems like I’m getting old. Seems like I’m licked on this case before it’s almost started. Them two little kids. And now this. No more motive than a chipmunk’d have.” He cocked his head at me. “This thing she said, Westlake, when she saw the corpse, this about Renton Forbes doing it. Think there’s anything to it?”

  “I suppose there just might conceivably be. I doubt it, though. I think she was just having herself a time being the irresistible siren that men fight over. She’d got it into her head Renton and George were rival lovers, and I guess she thought—hoped, rather—that Renton had shown his great love for her by bopping her husband one. I may be wrong, but I don’t even think she realized he was dead at first. Just thought he was out cold.”

  “Rival lovers,” brooded Cobb gloomily. “How does that plagued song go? ‘Three, three, the rivals.’ We got to tie up the two murders, Westlake. Even if this Forbes guy did want to kill Raynor over his wife, why’d he want to kill the kids too? It don’t make any sense.” He stared down at his big hands and then looked up again. “You think it’s a maniac?”

  “How else to explain the song?”

  He was back staring at his hands. “The boys just brought in a full report from the village. Almost everyone’s alibied up tight at the square dance, excepting a couple of old geezers and a few girls minding their babies. I don’t figure on any of them crawlin’ around the woods, listening to songs and killing them two kids. Of course”—he paused—“of course, even though there isn’t any report on it, maybe there is a loony hiding up someplace in the mountains, but—” He broke off.

  “But you’re inclined to think,” I said, “that it must be someone who was on that picnic?”

  He stared at me. “If you want it straight, Westlake, yes. That’s what I think.”

  “It’s almost inconceivable.”

  He waved at the porch. “That’s almost inconceivable too, ain’t it?”

  “I guess so.”

  Suddenly he asked: “What’s the next thing in the song? How does it go next?”

  “‘Four for the gospel makers,’” I said.

  “Gospel.” His blue eyes widened. “Jessup. Old Reverend Jessup. He …” A faint flush spread over his cheeks. “For Pete’s sake, I’m going nuts myself now. Come on. Let’s get out to the kitchen and start to work before we begin writing books like this Avril.”

  But we didn’t get to the kitchen. At that moment the door from the hall opened and Avril herself appeared. I was astonished at the change in her. I had left her on the bed, a disheveled, haggard, middle-aged woman. Now she looked extraordinarily young and chaste. A careful application of dead-white powder emphasized the large, tragic eyes whose luminosity was further aided, I suspected, by mascara. Her auburn hair had been brushed back into a clean, simple knot at the nape of her neck, where it seemed less palpably touched up. She had changed her George Sand work costume too for an austere low-cut dress of unrelieved black which gave generous display to admirably white throat and bosom.

  The pose was an unmistakable one. It was meant to convey that, though tragedy had struck, it could not conquer her unquenchable spirit.

  “Now that I have had time for reflection,” she began, “I realize that poor George, like the White twins, met his death at the hands of this terrible scourge which has invaded our quiet community.”

  Cobb mumbled awkwardly: “Looks that way, ma’am. And, if you feel up to it, there’s a few—”

  “Wait.” She threw out a small hand which fluttered a tiny lace handkerchief. “Before I answer any questions, there is one statement I wish to make, freely and of my own volition.”

  She paused a moment for histrionic effect.

  “When I came down from my snuggery and found poor George’s body lying there on the porch, I did not, of course, know that he was dead. Nor did I know that Dr. Westlake, who seems deliberately to have concealed himself, was also present.”

  I felt rather guilty.

  “In those first terrible moments,” she continued, “I said something concerning Mr. Forbes which was liable to misconstruction, should Dr. Westlake choose to be prejudiced and unfeeling. Mr. Cobb”—here she turned the full battery of her gaze on the inspector—“I am an author, a well-known interpreter of the female psyche. Many men have admired my work, and also”—there was the faintest ghost of her old giggle—“many men have admired, well, myself. I do not deny it. My art needs the stimulation of male admiration. A woman does not cease to live—as a woman—just because she has tied herself to one man. Renton Forbes admired me as an author and—yes, as a woman. I am not denying that either. Nor am I denying that my husband did not completely understand the nature of Renton’s admiration. He resented it. He regarded all my male friends as his rivals.”

  She broke off with a little sigh. “The poor darling was jealous. I admit it. Though he never, never had real cause. Today at lunch when Mr. Forbes was a guest, that jealousy o’erbrooked itself. Dr. Westlake was probably conscious that there was—unpleasantness.”

  She spoke the last word with a query at the end of it, demanding an answer. I nodded.

  She went on: “I am sure, therefore, that if Dr. Westlake remembers the situation after lunch, he will realize how natural it was that, with my first glimpse of George, I suspected that the earlier unpleasantness might have translated itself into violence. Poor George was hot-tempered and ever one for fisticuffs when he thought I needed protection. When I saw him there, it occurred to me that there had been fisticuffs between him and Renton and that Renton had been overzealous and oversuccessful in defending himself. That is why I made that involuntary ejaculation. I repeat I had not the faintest notion at the time that George was dead. I am making this statement of my own free will, although it might be construed as damaging to myself.”

  Avril was having herself a field day to the obvious confusion of Cobb.

  Groping to sum up the burden of her discourse, he offered: “What you’re trying to say, ma’am, is that you didn’t really mean to accuse Mr. Forbes of the murder?”

  “That is correct.” Avril smiled a slight, haunting smile. “You must also understand that I never for a moment thought of Mr. Forbes as the aggressor. He is the gentlest of love—of men, and he would not harm a fly except in self-defense. I would not for the world have my remarks so misconstrued that Mr. Forbes would suffer for it.”

  She must have decided she had squeezed every squeezable ounce of effect from the point then, because she abandoned it and stood, hands folded in front of her, waiting demurely for Cobb to make the next move.

  He asked her all the necessary routine questions, and her answers merely confirmed what I had already told Cobb.

  “George had no enemies,” she concluded. “He was always the perfect husband. No faults, unless you could call it a fault to have loved and cherished his wife too fondly.”

  Since there was a lot to be done and she showed no signs of wishing the interview to end, I suggested that I take her over to Phoebe’s house while the grim business of police routine was being gone through.

  She shook her head bravely. “No, no, Dr. Westlake.” She drew herself up to her full five feet. “I shall be strong. Leave me alone with my sorrow.” She started for the door, glancing back at Cobb. “I shall be up in my snuggery if you need me, Mr. Cobb. I shall not fail you when you want to question me further.”

  At the door she could not resist a good exit line.

  “The publicity,” she murmured, turning back. “O God, the awful, soul-searing publicity.”

  A few minutes
later we heard the tap-tap of her typewriter above us. Incredibly, Avril Lane was back at Where the Bee Sucks.

  Probably, if we had asked her, she would have explained that work was the greatest anodyne in times of trouble. But I suspected that this burst of industry had another, less noble motive behind it.

  If Where the Bee Sucks could reach its publishers before the awful, soul-searing publicity had died down, Avril Lane at least had a sporting chance of hitting the best-seller list.

  CHAPTER VIII

  With Avril out of the way, Cobb started the official ball rolling. He called Grovestown for his men and for an ambulance from the morgue. I could tell that inwardly he was cursing himself for not having taken greater precautions after the death of the White twins. There was so much to be done that we decided I would be more useful staying in Skipton than attending to my official coroner functions. I called the city pathologist, warned him grimly there was more work for him to do, and asked him to substitute for me as acting coroner.

  Soon Dan Leaf, Cobb’s other assistants, and the morgue men arrived and began to scramble through the Raynor house. Like all policemen, they tried to keep up a hard-boiled pose, but it was obvious that this second murder in so many days had them jittery with apprehension and excitement.

  Cobb supervised the activities in the kitchen for a while and then drew me into the living room. He was still chewing on his pipe, and his face was graver than I had ever seen it.

  “Listen, Westlake, we’re not going to be able to keep this quiet—not in a small place. It isn’t possible. And when the news breaks, Skipton’s going to run head on into a panic.”

  “You don’t have to tell me. It was bad enough this morning.”

  “There’s only one way to stop a panic. Keep ’em busy. And the Lord knows, we’re going to need ’em. I’ve only got a handful of boys to spare, and until it’s proved different I’m working on the theory we’ve got a lunatic here, a lunatic who’s going to hit and hit again when he’s good and ready. Maybe we’ve got no real leads right now, but we can at least see that nothing more like this happens. And that’s what I’m going to do, Westlake, if I have to have fifty men patrolling the street all night.”

  His blue eyes fixed mine earnestly. “That’s something you can fix. You’re almost a resident. You know the folks here. Organize the village. Have all the able-bodied men volunteer for patrol duty tonight. They can work it in shifts.” He glanced at his watch. “Eight o’clock. I’ll have to go back to Grovestown with the boys and try to stop the D.A. from having a fit. But when I’ve fixed him, I’ll be back. Get them all together in some central place, say by ten. I’ll talk to them. But tell ’em first to see that their womenfolk stay home, with all the windows and doors locked. If I’d had the brains of a skunk, I’d have done all this last night.”

  “Okay,” I said. “How about the Bray house for a meeting place? Even with Mrs. Bray away, the village thinks of it as a sort of focus.”

  “Anywhere’s fine with me. Wait a minute. Better make it ten-thirty. Those friends of yours, Westlake—on the picnic—I’ll want to talk to them first. Get them together at ten. Have the posse come at ten-thirty.”

  “All right.”

  For a moment he sat reflectively. “Look, Westlake,” he said at length, “about this Renton Forbes. Having seen the lady in question, I figure he’d have to be crazy as a jay bird to have killed her husband on account of her. But that’s the only halfway lead we’ve got at the moment. He was on the picnic last night and he was here to lunch this afternoon. I saw him last night, didn’t I? Tall, good-looking older guy.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What about him? Any chance he could be nuts?”

  “I’d say he’s the sanest of the whole bunch.”

  “How about him as a murderer, then? I mean, if he was to have a motive we hadn’t figured out?”

  I thought a moment. “That’s kind of a tough one, Cobb. But I’d say he’s pretty much of a realist. There’s a lot of local tongue wagging about his love life, and he’s suspected to be kind of forgetful paying bills. Sure, he might conceivably knock someone off for a good, solid, financial motive. But not for Avril Lane.”

  Cobb grunted. “How about you having a little talk with him? You’ve got the time? Nothing official, of course. But he’s the only one of ’em we’ve got anything on, and it’s a chance we shouldn’t pass up.”

  “You want me to do it now?”

  “Why not?” He grinned suddenly. “You haven’t eaten yet, have you?”

  “No.”

  “And Dawn all het up about that goose. Unless you want to break that kid’s heart, you’d better go back and grab a bite of goose before you move in on Forbes. You’ll need some food anyway. Wouldn’t like to say when you’ll be eating next.”

  “How about you? Dawn’s expecting you too.”

  He shrugged. “She’ll have to settle for you. The old woman fixed me something before I left Grovestown anyway. Okay, Westlake. No cause for you sticking around. You’ve got work to do.”

  He moved heavily back to the kitchen to see how the investigation was progressing.

  It was almost dark when I left the house. With a sinking heart I saw that a little group of tense men and women had already gathered around the ambulance. They were chattering in excited undertones. In the crowd I caught a glimpse of Violet. She saw me too and called my name. In a second I would have been surrounded, but I quickened my pace and managed to escape. Throwing the news out at random would make things worse rather than better.

  The street was deserted between the Raynors’ and my house. It is strange how potent one’s imagination can be. Normally these soft, gray moments before nightfall cast an extra tranquility over Skipton. But tonight there seemed to me to be something brooding about the wooded hump of the mountains, something foreboding in the pale gleam of the Konapic River.

  The little song jigged in my mind:

  What is your four-O?

  Four for the gospel makers.

  The lights were on in my house, making a comfortable glow in the gathering gloom. I had almost reached the gate when I heard my name called from across the street. Love Drummond and the Reverend Jessup were hurrying down the rectory’s garden path. They crossed the street to me, Love tall and massive, Dr. Jessup a little black shadow at her side.

  “Dr. Westlake.” Love put her hand urgently on my arm. “Hilary and I have just driven my poor sister and her husband to Grovestown. There was no room for them in the house except the—the children’s room, and Blanche couldn’t face the prospect, so we took them to a hotel. And just now, on the way back, we saw the ambulance outside the Raynors’. Irma’s down there, and your Violet, and a lot of others, and they’re saying … Tell us. What’s really happened?”

  I couldn’t buck a direct question like that. Grimly I said: “What you think’s happened has happened.”

  The Reverend Jessup gave a little imploring sigh. Love, her face pale and set, snapped:

  “George or Avril?”

  “George,” I said. “George hit over the head in the kitchen, the gas turned on—dead.”

  “The rivals!” Love’s voice tilted upward. “‘Three, three the rivals.’”

  I wondered how she had got onto that so quickly. I asked quietly: “What makes you think that?”

  Love gave a harsh laugh with no humor in it. “By now you should know me well enough to have discovered I have eyes in my head, Dr. Westlake. Renton was there to lunch, wasn’t he? Ever since last summer I’ve suspected that Renton and Avril … And then, the other day—” She broke off. “Two men and one woman. The rivals.”

  I said: “We mustn’t jump to conclusions. It might be just a coincidence.”

  “Coincidence!” Love snorted.

  The human mind is so quirkish that I felt the news of this second tragedy was almost pleasurable to Love. Hers was no longer the only house to have been struck. The murderer was a general rather than a personal menace now.


  Suddenly she gave a little gasp and swung to the silent Reverend Jessup, grabbing his arm.

  “Four! ‘Four for the gospel makers.’ Hilary! The gospel maker—that’s got to be you.”

  In a gentle voice the Reverend Jessup said: “Love, my dear, things are terrible enough without inflaming them with foolish fancies.”

  It was my duty to control rather than increase Skipton’s jitteriness, but I wanted to make at least one point.

  “You’re right, Dr. Jessup,” I said. “But I also agree with Love up to a point. It may not be the song, but right now there’s no other way of explaining it. You should certainly take very good care of yourself.”

  “I am not alarmed.” The Reverend Jessup’s black figure straightened with dignity. “If the Lord so wishes no harm will come to me.”

  I found that Christian resignation rather exasperating, but I was afraid, if I insisted further, that they would realize just how rattled I was. Love started to pour out questions. I checked her by telling them Cobb’s desire to have all the picnickers at Lorie’s house by ten. I also asked the Reverend Jessup’s advice as to a good man to approach to collect the village posse. I had thought of Ray Simpson, a young, solid farmer who lived down the lane a quarter of a mile from the village store. The Reverend Jessup approved my choice.

  When it was obvious there was no more to be learned from me, Love started to hurry back toward her own cottage.

  In a few moments, I knew, telephones would be ringing all over Skipton.

  And all over Skipton that little song would be worming its way through people’s minds:

  I’ll sing you four-O,

  Green grow the rushes-O.

  What is your four-O?

  Four for the gospel makers.

  3: FOUR FOR THE GOSPEL MAKERS

  CHAPTER IX

  I found Dawn and Rebecca, both rather sulky, sitting in the kitchen with dirty dishes piled high in the sink.

  “We thought you were never coming,” said Dawn.