She saw him? Georgine thought; but she didn’t say that last night! She’s not trying to make us believe a lie? If so, emphasis isn’t the way to do it…
“It’s unnecessary that we should be annoyed this way—questioned by a police officer! We should be allowed to forget this”—her large hand went out, gesturing down the road—“as soon as possible. You’ll oblige me, Mrs. Wyeth, by not trying to help again.”
Her long bony face didn’t look sweet nor saintly now. It looked frightened. The dark head inclined jerkily, and Sheila Devlin turned and went back into her own house.
“Well, for heaven’s sake,” Georgine said. Her chin jutted out. “And all in such a ladylike voice, too! I wish I’d taken that trowel of yours and whacked her one!”
“Easy on,” said Mr. McKinnon, with his subterranean chuckle. “Looks as if you started something, getting Nelse up here. Well, a few of us will be grateful, if Mrs. Devlin isn’t.”
“I’m so glad you’re enjoying this,” Georgine snapped. “And now I am going home, before somebody else slaps me in the face!”
She gardened energetically for half the afternoon, in her landlords’ back yard. Get your hands in the dirt, gardening enthusiasts suggested, and go back to Mother Nature; that was how to forget your troubles and problems. Oh, indeed? How did you keep your brain from picking up phrases and irrelevant memories and churning round with them like a washing machine?
Skeleton keys, Georgine thought; a light that was off one night and on the next; the line of sweat on Ricky Devlin’s lip; Professor Paev and his lists, and the mean joke someone had played on him—if it was a joke; if someone had played it. Inspector Nelsing, tapping his forefinger on the desk: Inspector Howard Nelsing, saying, “I may need you to help me.”
Only he hadn’t. He’d seemingly forgotten all about her, left her to cool her heels in the middle of the street. He seemed to he interested in the Grettry Road people, though; he might be there for two or three days.
Of course she’d have to keep on going there until she finished her typing.
It was mid-afternoon when she realized that someone was leaning on the back fence; without turning her head she knew who it was, for a lively solo on the mouth-organ had announced the presence. As she stood up, trying to brush heavy adobe soil from the knees of her slacks, Mr. Todd McKinnon lowered his instrument and remarked in a tentative voice, “Be mine, Mrs. Nickleby.”
Georgine grinned. “Throw a few cucumbers at me, and I’ll consider it. Come in, won’t you?”
She was rather astonished to see him measured against the high fence; those lean, narrowly built men often looked taller than they actually were. He was glancing along the fence. “Must I go clear round the block, or climb over?”
“There’s a gate farther along. It may stick a bit, I never use it; that back lot is too weedy and bushy.”
“Very handy,” said Mr. McKinnon approvingly, finding the gate-latch. “This short-cut gets me here from my apartment in no time.”
H’m; did he mean to beat a little path to her door? She discovered that the prospect wasn’t unpleasant; he had a gift of accepting people as they were, making them feel comfortable. “Can you find a place to sit down?” she said, kneeling again to gather up her tools.
He appeared to fold up all at once, like one of those bedtrays; when she looked up there he was, cross-legged on the grass. “Nice,” he said, with a comprehensive look around the enclosed garden.
“What was that tune you were playing over the fence?” Georgine said. “Catchy, somehow; I’ve heard it once or twice on the radio.”
“It’s called Jingle Jangle.”
“Of course. Isn’t that the one about, ‘Oh, ain’t you glad you’re single?’”
“It is, and I am.” said McKinnon. “Forgive me, Mrs. Wyeth, I seem to have got settled without waiting for you. How about sitting on the ground and telling sad stories of the death of wardens?”
Georgine also sat cross-legged. “I was expecting this,” she said. “You seemed to be consumed with curiosity.”
“Not just the vulgar kind; more of a serious study.”
“There’s no way out, is there? Everyone’s going to want to discuss Hollister.”
The far-off twinkle came into his eyes. “What have you been thinking of all afternoon?”
“Hollister,” said Georgine, laughing. “But what’s your serious study? Are you—you’re not connected with the police yourself?”
“Only in a friendly way, I assure you. I pursue them. I make their off hours hideous, asking questions.”
“Oh. A crime reporter. No? But you said you made your living at it.”
Mr. McKinnon sighed guiltily. “I write detective stories.”
“I’m afraid I’ve never—”
“You wouldn’t. They come out in the pulpwood magazines, under five or six pen names. Hack work, but I can live on it. I’m no creative artist; I can’t get started without some knowledge of a real crime—the surroundings, the people, the background.” He offered her a cigarette, his voice running smoothly on. She had never met anyone who could talk so much without tiring one’s ears. “Given one good complicated crime, I’m off to six or seven stories. You see where the police come in; sometimes they’ll describe old cases, the ones that were closed years ago, and those are nearly as good as fresh ones. Just the same, I’m getting an awful kick out of being in on the ground floor.”
“No wonder Inspector Nelsing thought you’d be sick because you weren’t on hand last night.”
“Yes,” said McKinnon, looking off into space, “It’s a pity I wasn’t. But you were, and I’d like to get your impressions. You make anything of it, Watson?”
“Nothing but complete confusion. You probably know as much about it as I, by now; except that Professor Paev was lured off the Road by a low impostor who pretended to be one of the University Regents.”
“Was he, indeed!” said McKinnon, his agate eyes direct and intent upon her. “Would you mind telling me the whole story?”
She told it. The scattered bits of information were now arranged neatly in her mind but still meant nothing.
He listened with rigid attention. When she had finished, “But, Mrs. Wyeth!” he said. “This is interesting. It’s better than I’d thought. It begins to look like premeditation, as if somebody tried to arrange that the whole end of the road should be clear of witnesses. Did anyone know you were to stay over for the evening?”
“On the contrary. I told Mrs. Gillespie I was going home.”
“Would she have spread that news, do you think?”
“She wouldn’t have had to,” Georgine said. “We were talking about it in the garden, anyone who was around could have heard us.”
“There you are. That fact alone might not mean much, but combined with the Carmichaels’ light it begins to look like business. Someone turned on that light to make sure of Hollister’s being in a certain place in the road; and the light could have been arranged any time after Wednesday night. Anyone could have gone into that garden without being conspicuous. We all had the excuse of picking the old ladies’ flowers.”
She thought, Ralph Stort was in there, and seemed to feel he had to explain his presence. Was Hollister the person who had “tortured” him? It almost looked that way. Horrible, how your mind ran on; and the minute you allowed a suspicion to creep in, the whole thing got too concrete.
“Do you believe all that?” she said.
“Well, not as absolute gospel,” said McKinnon mildly. “Maybe the light turned itself on at some vibration. Maybe the car did get loose by accident; that flapping top might have given the illusion of a person in the driver’s seat. But naturally I prefer it the other way. I can do a nice job with it. Put somebody in that car, bent on murder, thinking there was nobody at home from the Gillespies down. Then think of the shock to that person when your voice came out of the darkness, just at the moment when he was walking up the road to safety.”
“If I didn’t imag
ine those footsteps.”
“For my purposes, you didn’t. Then there’s Hollister,” he went on musingly, “tramping around with his pocket full of skeleton keys. There’s a picturesque detail I’d never have thought up myself, because it doesn’t seem to fit. More than likely it’s irrelevant. He could have got hold of ’em somewhere and kept ’em to get into houses where people had gone away and left lights burning. It’d be like the poor guy. He took his warden job seriously.”
“Didn’t he, just.” Georgine shook her head pityingly. “All that methodical zeal—”
“—Putting him on the spot,” McKinnon caught up her sentence. “He must have looked round; think of that, too; hearing something rushing down on top of you, turning, trying to dodge instinctively, still not knowing quite what it was until you went sailing through the air—or fell, and felt that weight crushing your chest in—I’m sorry, Mrs. Wyeth, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to upset you. Completely thoughtless of me.”
“It’s all right,” said Georgine faintly, “only it seemed so horribly real from Hollister’s point of view. It’s dreadful, when you come to think of it, how hardly anyone considers the feelings of the—the one who got killed. It doesn’t matter if you liked him or not, it’s—”
“Please forgive me,” McKinnon said gravely. He laid his hand on hers for a moment. “Did it sound as if I were gloating over the details? I can’t help seeing it vividly, you know. And believe me, this isn’t a Roman holiday.”
She looked at him. She said slowly, “Are you sure?”
“Completely sure.” Their eyes held for a minute. “If we can imagine accurately enough what goes on in people’s minds and feelings, we get some indication of how they’ll act. It works backwards, too. It’s one of the most serious studies on earth to figure out what went on in a murderer’s mind, what lay there for days, weeks, years before his crime—or sometimes only for minutes, as long as would be needed to work up a murderous impulse.”
“Dear me,” said Georgine, somewhat recovered, “you sound like one of those psychological detectives that the police turn to when they’re completely baffled.”
McKinnon laughed aloud, abruptly. “Couldn’t be farther from it—if there ever was anyone like that. The force tolerates me politely, and that’s about all. If they’re in a good mood they may give me a little information—after it’s been made public.”
“And do you give them any?”
“Now and then.” He chuckled again, ruefully. “Usually I find out they’ve known it all along, and they’re a dam’ sight better than I at digging up actual motives.”
“Yes. That’s a slight snag, the motive.”
“Not in fiction, of course,” said Mr. McKinnon with renewed hope. He pulled gently at a blade of grass until it slid out of its sheath, and nibbled at the tender end. “Easy enough to make ’em up, or magnify li’le indications that are there already. Take Harry Gillespie, for instance; he’s jealous of anyone who comes within a mile of his wife, he’s even glared at me when I stopped once or twice to pass the time of day on the front walk. Maybe Hollister made a practice of dropping in there, after Gillespie had gone to work at night.” If he saw Georgine’s twitch of recollection, he appeared to ignore it. “And there’s Stort; he and Hollister were thick as thieves for a while, and then had some kind of bust-up; who knows why?”
“This is all fiction, isn’t it?” Georgine said warily.
“Well, not entirely.” He glanced up with one of his faint smiles. “It’s all possible in fact.”
“Ralph Stort had gone home to his ranch the night before Hollister was killed, and Harry Gillespie left for work early that night. I heard his car go up the road half an hour before the blackout began.”
“If one of them,” said McKinnon, still smiling, “had turned on the light and put in that call to Professor Paev, a small detail like going away wouldn’t bother him. He could come back.”
“Well, but who on earth knew the other conditions would be right? The blackout, I mean. Unless it was a practice one? You’re a warden, were you notified to be ready?”
Mr. McKinnon raised his eyes to heaven. He spoke with careful emphasis. “There is no such thing in the Bay region as a practice blackout. They’re too damned dangerous. The Army orders an alert only on real provocation. Last night’s was ‘unidentified aircraft, afterward found to be friendly.’ That’s what the papers say, and that’s all we’ll ever hear about it for the duration.”
“All right, warden,” said Georgine, “you’ve given your lecture and ruined your own theory.”
McKinnon whistled softly. “So I have. Nothing like the lay mind—a sharp mind—to pull up a fiction plotter on his wildest flights.”
“I feel about as sharp as a dishmop, but thank you.”
“And now look what you’ve done, thrown me all off. At least four good shorts and one novelette gone up the spout,” he said, shaking his head at her reproachfully.
“Don’t blame it on me, it’s just fate.” Georgine grinned.
“I hope you’ll allow me the impulse theory? Let’s see if I can do anything with that. Wash out all those things that looked like premeditation. Okay; the alert sounds, catching everyone flatfooted, but the murderer quickly recovers himself. This impulse seizes him; he pops out before the sirens have done sounding, hides in the Jeep or near it, and waits his chance; it just happens that Hollister gets into the right position on the road; the impulse comes to a head, and the murderer lets the car roll and takes the chance of hitting him—”
His voice trailed off and he shook his head despairingly. The sun cast muted shadows through thin fog and low-hanging branches, across the summer-bleached grass of the garden, across the intent eyes under the sandy brows, the firm mouth. Georgine had a moment of complete incredulity. It wasn’t possible that she was sitting here discussing theories of murder with this comparative stranger? And how funny that she hadn’t thought of it before! There must be something about a mystery that forced acquaintances into premature bloom.
“That won’t work,’ said Todd McKinnon soberly, and shook his head. “The method’s unsure enough without putting in all those ifs and maybes. It’s got to be premeditation—and it can’t be. There go all my magnificent plots.”
“That’s too bad,” said Georgine. “I’ll give you one; why don’t you invent a bad man somewhere outside the Road, who’d hated Hollister for years and years and jumped at this opportunity to kill him? Why does the murderer have to live right there?”
“Sorry, an outsider won’t do. Wouldn’t it be asking even more of coincidence, to have this bad man—who presumably lives at least a mile away—lurking on the edge of Grettry Road on the very night the Bay region was blacked out? And if he’d been lurking there night after night, on the off chance, he’d have been seen; wouldn’t he have chosen a quicker way that didn’t depend on a very problematical set of circumstances? No, I won’t have it. I am a seeker after artistic perfection,” said Mr. McKinnon impressively, “and I find it much neater and more likely to have the murderer live right there. It’s the old desert-island gambit; narrows the field.”
“Fact or fiction?”
“Both.”
“Oh, dear. I dislike even thinking it could be one of the neighbors, it’s impossible to imagine one of them as a deliberate killer. I like them; most of them, that is,” she added, thinking of Mrs. Devlin’s ladylike tones.
“Sure. Lots of murderers have seemed likable, until you found out what they’d been up to in secret. Why, Mrs. Wyeth, that’s what makes a murder mystery. Somebody among the suspects is living a colossal lie; under a pleasant harmless surface he’s another person—brooding himself into insanity over a wrong that’s been done him, or being a Casanova when he looks like a solid family man, or quietly stealing his employer’s funds and spending them on dope. There’s a lie somewhere in everyone; a big one, a little one, it doesn’t matter much. If you could see into these people’s lives—”
“I don’t want t
o,” said Georgine vigorously. “What a mind you have! Isn’t there anyone who’s truthful?”
He looked at her slowly, with an odd expression: quizzical, personal, challenging. “Thee and me, Rachel,” said McKinnon, “and thee is a li’le queer sometimes.”
The gaze held for a moment longer. She thought, What does he want of me? What is he trying to impress on me?
“Does that include the representative of the law?” she inquired.
“Nelse? No, he’s a right guy. He lives for his profession—you might say, he cares more about justice than anything else. But that’s there, right on the surface as well as underneath. Anyone can see it.”
“You’re sure he’s not a Casanova?”
“Far from it,” McKinnon said, fixing her with a sharp glance. “He’s a highly conservative bachelor.”
Her eyes dropped. “Sounds like Iolanthe,” she said.
He got up from the grass as suddenly as he had sat down, and with a bewildering change of manner offered to take Georgine out to tea. She refused; he refused her invitation to a cup of coffee in the house; honors were even.
“I’ll take a rain check on that,” McKinnon told her. “You may be seeing me around, as long as this investigation goes on. I’d better go home now and practice my music.”
“You keep that as a sideline, I take it.”
“No,” he said solemnly, “as an inspiration. While I’m thinking out a yarn, playing the mouth-organ takes up the slack of my mind, so to speak; lets the old subconscious rage unchecked. When I strike a snag, I work on something unsuitable.”
“Such as The Trout?”
“That’s it. Makes a nice life for me, but it’s hard on the neighbors, what with trout and typewriters.”
Georgine said nothing. He must somehow have read her expression, for he added, “You’re thinking that this idleness would come to an end if I got into the Armed Forces? True; but I have to arrange my affairs first and that’ll take some time. No one but you knows this, Mrs. Wyeth, but I was brought up in the Mohammedan faith and I have five wives, all dependent on me.”
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