Skeleton Key

by Lenore Glen Offord

  “Wait a minute!” Georgine shouted as he went on. She seized the pad and scribbled: “Do you mean Hollister asked specifically to live in Grettry Road?”

  Frey read it. He seemed unconscious of the sensation he had caused, perhaps because he was looking at the ground as he talked. “Why, yes,” he said gently. “He may have supposed it was one of our main thoroughfares, perhaps through hearing it mentioned. It was only by chance that his house fell vacant, and the one we’re in, too. I liked the look of the place, and decided to—”

  “But where did he hear about it? Why here especially? Did you wonder if he was looking for something?”

  Peter Frey looked up from the pad, his sad eyes puzzled. “No; he said he’d retired, and he asked me not to mention his profession, because people got curious.”

  Hadn’t he ever been curious himself, as to Hollister’s oddly specific request? Hadn’t it ever entered his head…

  “Did you know that, Mr. Gillespie?” Georgine said, turning to Harry. He was moving away slowly, his strained eyes gazing fixedly into space. “No,” said Harry Gillespie absently, as if he were following some important and private train of thought. “I didn’t know. No. You’ll excuse me?” He began to climb, fast, up the road to his own home.

  “And I must get back to work,” said Georgine. “You’ve certainly given us something to think about.”

  “Have I?” Frey said mildly.

  She was still holding the pad. She poised the pencil above it for a long moment, wondering how to word the thought that had sprung full-grown into her mind. Finally she wrote, very lightly as if she were whispering, “Did H. ever say what form his ‘retirement’ took? He couldn’t possibly have been hired by govt. bureau?”

  Frey took it in at a glance. At last, it seemed, something had roused his curiosity; his eyes, suddenly feverish in their intensity, met hers and then slid off toward the house across the street, from which Ralph Stort had departed.

  He started to speak, and Georgine put her finger to her lips. He wrote on the pad, “FBI? I don’t know.” And then he tore off the sheet, and took a match from his pocket and held the paper to its flame.

  She had not seen Todd McKinnon since Sunday morning, and as usual had forgotten having parted from him in irritation. On Tuesday night, as she climbed to the top of the road on her way home, Mr. McKinnon materialized at the gate of his borrowed house and asked if he might walk down the hill with her, following this with an invitation to dinner.

  Georgine accepted after only a slight hesitation. She had never been to Trader Vic’s, and, although not a drinking woman, she was curious to taste a Zombie. Also, McKinnon’s voice and manner had exercised their usual soothing spell. She laughed comfortably at one of his deadpan absurdities, with only the smallest prick of uneasiness at realizing that somehow he knew everything that went on in Grettry Road, including her own movements.

  Halfway down Rose Street a car stopped beside them. Georgine looked up and met the blue eyes of Howard Nelsing. Her heart gave an agreeable little flop.

  “Hullo, Nelse,” said McKinnon smoothly. “Looking for us, or just offering a ride?”

  “Both,” said Nelsing, opening the door. “I wanted a talk with you, Mrs. Wyeth,” he said over his shoulder.

  “I’ve just asked her to dinner. Will you join us?”

  Georgine thought with a kind of exasperation that McKinnon’s face never gave a hint of his true feelings. It was impossible to tell whether he was politely disappointed, or pleased at the idea of sitting in on a discussion. “Will you both come in while I freshen up?” she said, leading the way through her front gate.

  “Speed it up if you can,” said McKinnon. “If we don’t get there early we may have to stand.”

  “That’ll be all right,” said Nelsing smoothly. “I know the Trader.”

  When she came out after a remarkably quick change into a printed silk jersey, the two men had taken possession of her living-room in a manner entirely characteristic of each. Nelsing was patiently waiting on the window-seat, not smoking, not looking at anything, though she was sure he’d surveyed every detail of the room the minute he stepped inside. McKinnon was prowling lightly up and down, reading the titles of her books, stopping impassively before the framed photograph of Jim Wyeth. He wants to know about me, my own life, Georgine thought. He turned to her and indicated another picture, a snapshot of Barby. “Is that your li’le girl?”

  Georgine nodded. He looked inquiringly about the house, and she said, “Barby’s away for a few days, at the Russian River. It’s her first vacation away from home.”

  “I bet you miss her,” McKinnon said. He smiled at the small face in the picture, plain and radiant.

  “You want me to cry?” said Georgine tartly.

  Nelsing stretched out his hand for the picture. “This isn’t your daughter?” he said. “I thought of her as being about three, at most.”

  “I was a child bride,” Georgine said. “My parents took me to India on purpose.”

  Both men glanced at her. Mr. McKinnon looked amused and reproachful. Inspector Nelsing looked completely nonplussed.

  Trader Vic’s had bamboo walls, and inside it were illuminated tanks of tropical fish, and woven grass mats for paneling, and a hanging veil of cigarette smoke that could easily be thought of as a kind of South Sea haze. “It’s like something out of Somerset Maugham,” said Georgine, thoughtfully tasting her Zombie. There were supposed to be four kinds of rum in it, but it was deceptively smooth.

  McKinnon pointed out three items on the menu. “Those make us a balanced meal, Charlie?” he said. The Chinese waiter nodded and departed. Georgine, who was hungry, felt slightly dashed.

  Later, when the food arrived, each of the three items proved to be a Chinese dish generous enough for one person’s whole dinner, which could thus be divided three ways. She was further surprised to find that she had never tasted anything so marvelous.

  Being by now halfway through the Zombie, she was permeated by a warm feeling of courage. “Inspector,” she demanded boldly, “are you getting anywhere? Are you still sure this is a murder case?”

  His indulgent look and his silence didn’t seem to daunt her at all. Rum was a wonderful discovery. “I think we ought to know,” said Georgine firmly. “If you could just say it wasn’t, people’s nerves might calm down. I’m way behind in my typing again, because everyone wants to talk over the situation.”

  “It beats all,” said Nelsing, absently playing with his food, “how things get around, up there in Grettry Road. I hadn’t much hope of the Devlin kid’s keeping the secret forever, but he didn’t waste a minute spilling it on Saturday morning. The little Frey girl was telling her father all about it before I was half through at the Devlins’. And I suppose Frey told you all about Hollister’s past?”

  “Probably saw no reason to keep it a secret,” McKinnon put in mildly, “but it’s thrown the neighbors into a frenzy.”

  Georgine said, “I wish people wouldn’t pour out confidences, but when they do, you can’t help listening, and—thinking.” She glanced around her cautiously. “Do you always know it, Inspector Nelsing, if there’s a—a Federal investigation going on in town?”

  “Not always. Sometimes the FBI men ask for our help; more often not.” His mouth went into a straight line.

  “If, uh, one of them should get killed in the line of duty, what would you look for?”

  Todd McKinnon began to chuckle quietly. “Nelse,” he remarked, “let’s put all our cards on the table; Mrs. Wyeth’s and mine, that is, I don’t expect much from you. The whole Road knows that Ralph Stort disappeared into thin air after he left the Gillespies’ on Thursday, and that his sister can’t reach him, so it’s presumed you can’t either. The place is buzzing. Talk about my imagination! John Devlin painted a word-picture that left any of my works in the shade, of Stort coming back on Friday evening and lurking in the canyon until after dark. Great Scott, Devlin didn’t miss a thing, the thrill of hope in Stort’s
breast when he heard the sirens go off, the stealthy clamber along the hillside until he came to Ricky’s car, the wait—”

  “Vivid,” said Nelsing shortly. “The point being, of course, that no warden could have patrolled the canyon during the blackout so that anyone could barge about all over the place?”

  “That was the point. Most of the people up there know that canyon path like the backs of their hands.”

  And, Georgine thought uncomfortably, Ricky and Claris heard someone there.

  “Devlin told you this, you say?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “When?”

  “This afternoon, after Frey had broadcast the detective story. I think he knew I’d be likely to pass it on to you, if you hadn’t already heard it.”

  “You heard that theory too, Mrs. Wyeth?”

  Georgine nodded. “It’s no sillier than the others,” she murmured, pouring tea into her handleless cup.

  “Just which others?”

  “She’s too kind-hearted to repeat ’em,” said McKinnon, “but I’m afraid I am not. There’s also the story that Mrs. Gillespie was a li’le too fond of Hollister at the beginning, and that their affection cooled, and she behaved in the manner of a woman scorned; or, on the other hand, that Hollister had threatened to tell her husband how far things had gone—reason for that yet unknown—and she felt he must be silenced.”

  “You don’t need to invent any motives, for your stories,” Georgine murmured. “Everybody else does it for you. Nobody believes these things.”

  “But it’s instructive to hear them,” said Nelsing. “Go on, Mac. What else has gone the rounds?”

  McKinnon hesitated for a moment, and glanced at Georgine. “The Devlin theory. The only thing we’re not sure of is whether it was in Reno or Las Vegas.”

  “I heard Reno,” Georgine said. “But the person who told me didn’t know whether the union was bigamous or simply adulterous.”

  Nelsing was looking at her with peculiar intentness when she glanced up at him. “It’s horrible, really it is,” she went on. “I was ashamed of myself for listening, and I’m ashamed now for having repeated any of this, even if you both knew it already. Yes, I know, when there’s a murder investigation nobody can have secrets from the police—but to have them become public property, to have all the neighbors’ ears prick up if you get upset and say something in a loud voice when the windows are open, and then have them run as fast as they can to spread the news—that makes me sick. It’s not our business to suspect and accuse and gather evidence; that’s your business, and I don’t envy you.”

  Nelsing nodded. “But,” he said, “you forget how interesting it is to me, to hear just who has been dishing out the accusations. Some of these stories, most of them in fact, may be either untrue or simply the sort of irrelevant dirt you always dig up when an investigation’s going on. All right; nobody likes to have his private scandals dragged into the light; but if those scandals are true—more, if they’re dangerous—what’s the subject going to do? He’ll say, why pay so much attention to me, when there’s Joe Doakes up the road, a confirmed hophead?—or something like that. I’ll bet good money that it was Mrs. Gillespie who spread the story about the Devlins. Wasn’t it?”

  Georgine said nothing.

  “It sounds like her. Takes a woman to dig up something with a flavor of sex, and jabber it to the neighbors in a whisper.” His tone was cool, disdainful.

  “If she did,” Georgine said with a flash of annoyance, “it wasn’t out of malice. It was more like what you said, trying to turn our attention to somebody else’s household. She’s been nearly crazy with nerves ever since we found Hollister.”

  “As to that,” said Todd McKinnon in his most casual voice, “we all sound nervous. Here I sit, elaborating valuable theories which Nelse would certainly pre-empt if he hadn’t thought of ’em himself, first. Maybe I’m nervous too. It’s a wonder that nobody in the Road has thought up the Case Against McKinnon.” His tone burlesqued the words; then he caught Nelsing’s eye, and his laughter cracked sharply in the crowded room, so that one or two of the other diners glanced at him. “Someone has? Not so slow. McKinnon is queer to begin with, and to make it worse he writes about crime. Suppose he’s using some first-hand knowledge, and Hollister found out about it in his detective capacity and pursued him to the wilds of Berkeley, and was waiting to pounce; and McKinnon got in his licks first. Who’s to know where a warden is during a blackout? Presumably he’s making his rounds; actually he’s not easy to place, unless there’s an incident in his block and he has to report it. What if McKinnon hadn’t gone home on Friday night? Did anyone think to search the Clifton house?”

  “That one’s strictly from hunger,” Georgine said.

  McKinnon considered. “Artistically,” he said, “it wouldn’t be bad. The old gimmick of having the most unlikely person turn out to be guilty is still going strong. I’ll think of a better one, though. Suppose Roy Hollister was to be murdered, and his enemy wanted to have a perfect alibi. He imports someone completely innocent-looking, and uses that person—who has no connection with Hollister and so is never suspected—as an accomplice. There are all sorts of possibilities in that.”

  Georgine reached for the teapot. “Who’s the accomplice?” she asked suspiciously.

  “You, of course.”

  “Good. I’d hate to be left out.” She grinned, and tipped the pot over her cup.

  Then she looked up at Nelsing.

  He was not smiling at all; his eyes were invisible behind dropped lids, and his forefinger was slowly tapping on the table.

  She felt a warm drip on her knee, and looked down with dazed eyes, to see that she had poured the cup full and that the tea was running over its edge, over the surface of the table; and still the teapot hung suspended.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Trust Not Unlimited

  FROM BESIDE HER, McKinnon’s hand came out and gently took away the pot, and then went to work with a napkin, mopping. Across the table Howard Nelsing looked up, his blue eyes focused on a point beyond her. “Excuse me a minute, will you?” he said, and rose.

  “H’m,” Georgine said, trying to laugh. “We could have made an omelet with that last joke.”

  “Nothing’s funny to Nelse when he’s on a case,” McKinnon said, also gazing intently after the detective.

  “He wouldn’t believe any of those stories were true? They were all fiction, weren’t they?”

  “Sure. He must know that. But he thought of something, all at once; something that was said gave him an idea, maybe.”

  “But what?”

  He gave her one of his sidelong looks. “Couldn’t tell you. I hope your life is an open book?”

  “Well, certainly; but that doesn’t mean I want it investigated. I didn’t want to be in this.”

  “You can’t always choose,” said Todd McKinnon.

  Nelsing extricated himself from the telephone booth and returned. “Sorry I can’t stay to drive you home,” he said remotely. “Here, Mac, let me have that check.”

  “I’ll be damned if I will,” said McKinnon cheerfully, keeping a tight hold on it. After Nelsing had gone he added, “Bad enough for him to horn in on the dinner, and get us a table.—Now what do you suppose struck him?”

  “You’re the one who ought to know, he’s your friend.”

  “Acquaintance. Shall we go? Can you get us a cab, Charlie?”

  Georgine got up thankfully. Somehow, in the last few minutes, the bamboo walls had seemed to he closing in on her, and the South Sea haze had become thick.

  They walked up and down in the chilly air outside, waiting for the taxi. “What struck Nelsing?” the man repeated, musingly. “Great Scott, you don’t suppose one of those stories could have hit close to the truth?”

  “No,” said Georgine uncompromisingly. “There are times when I think Hollister must have died by an Act of God. Look here, can you imagine any of these Grettry Road people being bad enough to commit murder?”
>
  “It doesn’t always take badness,” said McKinnon. He gazed straight ahead of him, and for a moment there was no sound but that of their feet regularly striking the sidewalk. “It may be weakness,” he said at last. “Somebody who’s afraid of consequences, and can’t stop to figure out the worse ones that come from murder. There are plenty of minds like that. It’s an immature reaction, of course.”

  He stopped walking, and stood still on the pavement. Georgine also stopped. “Not those children! You can’t be thinking of them again!”

  “I could make you out a case against them,” he said slowly, beginning once more to pace, “or against anyone in Grettry Road. And I wouldn’t know which of ’em was possible and which impossible until the pattern begins to show up. Look; start at the top of the Road. Let’s give John Devlin a real mistress in Las Vegas, and at the same time a sense of obligation to his wife. He handles her money, he may have lost some of it or spent it on the mistress, but we’ll put it on a higher plane and say that he recognizes Sheila’s devotion and when he’s at home stays faithful in his fashion.” His eyes narrowed; the lights that spelled out “Trader Vic” shone fleetingly on the hard bony structures of his face and then they went on into the darker stretches of the walk and Georgine could no longer see him. “You know what kind of man Devlin is?” he said. “I’m guessing, from one thing I saw of him, but I think he’s the victim of a conscience. He signed up for the sugar ration last May, and swore his family had no more than ten pounds. They had a hundred pound sack in the basement. All right, plenty of people had done the same thing. But Devlin couldn’t do it and forget it. After he’d falsified that report it kept weighing on him; he told half a dozen persons about it. But he didn’t give up the sugar.”

  “Well, what’s that got to do with—”

  “Not much, except that I think he’d be the last man on earth to face a blackmailer. The only way to get rid of ’em is to say, publish and be damned. But that means giving up one side or the other of your double life, and it’s possible Devlin wants to keep both of ’em.”