Skeleton Key

by Lenore Glen Offord

  “Nothing,” Georgine told him wearily. “Just that; nothing. There was a story that—” she caught Nelsing’s eye and went on, “that I can’t repeat; but it did nothing but remove one possible suspect, and make me think that nobody else could possibly have known what—what was important.”

  Their eyes were all on her; fierce black ones, anxious light blue ones, incredulous brown ones. The last were Sheila Devlin’s. She smiled slowly, and Georgine’s own eyes dropped. Let them think it!

  “This is getting us nowhere,” said Nelsing abruptly. “Someone is refusing to coöperate. There is the remote possibility that none of you, here in this room, had any part in Mimi Gillespie’s death. I should be glad to think that. You must see, however, that suspicion rests in some degree on every one of you.”

  Once more his eyes swept about the circle of mute, stubborn faces. “I must ask,” he concluded, rising, “that you all stay as close to home as you can for the next few days. We will make suitable arrangements for Miss Frey; if you’d tell your father that?—Thank you for the use of your home, Mrs. Devlin.”

  The group broke. People got up sighing as if at a reprieve, not yet with the full breath of relief. Sheila Devlin stood uncompromisingly by the door, waiting for them to go, her long horse-face wearing an incongruously social smile, one large hand on her son’s arm.

  In the doorway, “I’ve got to talk to you,” Todd McKinnon murmured in Georgine’s ear. “Will you wait here a minute?” He went quickly after Peter Frey, holding out his hand for the writing pad. Georgine could see them, in the shaft of light from the doorway, one scribbling quickly, the other bending a gray head over the paper.

  “Mrs. Wyeth,” said Nelsing formally, coming past, “don’t go yet, please. I’d like you to ride down to my office with me, I have a report to put in; and then I’ll see you home.”

  “All right,” she said, not much caring; and moved a few steps into the darkness. A moment later she thought, with a sort of faraway laughter, I never was so popular, for a low voice came from the shadows behind her.

  “Mrs. Wyeth,” Claris Frey said breathlessly, “listen, quick, before anyone sees me talking to you, Daddy told me I was to go straight home but I can get there before he does. I know where he’s going to send me, over to Grandma’s. Oh, heck,” she added, her young voice breaking plaintively, “if he’d only let me stay with you!” She must have missed the implications of her father’s refusal. “Grandma’s just ghastly strict!”

  “I should be, myself,” Georgine told her firmly without looking round. “Seems to me it’d do you good.”

  “Well, look. If—if anybody asks, that you think ought to know, would you give ’em the address? Her name isn’t Frey, she married again, it’s Tilton. Mrs. Carrie Tilton on Gough Street, will you remember that please, because I daren’t try to tell anyone else.”

  “Yes, I’ll remember,” Georgine murmured wearily. “How will your father get along if you go over there?”

  “He’ll be all right. He was happy as a clam when he bached it up on Telegraph Hill when I was little. He only came and got me from Grandma’s when he wanted to move over here and paint all these trees, and he couldn’t get a housekeeper. I told you before,” Claris said, very offhand, “he doesn’t care what I do.”

  Georgine’s numbness melted in a warm flood of compassion. “You poor baby,” she said in a low voice, “you haven’t had very much out of life, have you?” No wonder Claris had flaunted her attraction to men. Their admiring looks provided the nearest thing to family affection that she could get.

  “Only Ricky,” came Claris’s soft murmur out of the shadows. “’S funny, isn’t it, I just thought of him as a kind of excitement, at first. You—if you get a chance, you’ll tell him where I am?”

  “I’ll tell him,” said Georgine, and heard Claris slip away under the tall shadows of trees. It was neatly timed, for Mr. Frey was still occupied and did not follow his daughter for several minutes.

  Beside Georgine, Todd McKinnon materialized from the darkness, making her start nervously. He began to talk at once, in the casual voice that usually calmed her. “I was asking Frey how everybody looked when the news about Mimi came out. They all rushed into the street, you know, and I thought he might have noticed some odd expression; people who can’t hear are very quick about picking up visual clues. But he told me they were only shocked, as anyone would be.”

  “What did you expect?” Georgine said tiredly.

  “I scarcely know. Whatever it was, I didn’t get it. Look, before Nelsing whisks you off, this is what I wanted to say: we’re outsiders in this business, you and I. We have been from the start. Naturally the police didn’t confide in us. We’ll not know, until Nelse chooses to tell us what progress he’s making.”

  “I suppose that won’t be till the case is closed. Well, that seems only fair.”

  “Perhaps. But it’s just possible that you and I could pick up some information that people wouldn’t want to give him. We can pass it on right away, but it’s up to us to gather it if we can.”

  “No,” Georgine said.

  “For your own sake,” McKinnon pointed out softly. He was standing a bit behind her, and she felt an unaccountable crisping of her nerves. “You’d be safe asking a few innocent questions. If you should happen to see Ricky Devlin alone, would you find out who put up the signal first, last Friday night—he or Claris?”

  “Why?”

  “I just want to know,” McKinnon said.

  “I don’t want to ask.”

  He was silent for a moment. In the band of light flung from the doorway, Nelsing appeared, speaking to a policeman whom he had called in from the street. “How do you feel about Mimi’s death?” Todd inquired abruptly.

  “That was bad,” Georgine said somberly. “That was really evil. I couldn’t quite see it in Hollister’s death, but I do in this. I liked her, Todd. She was loving and pathetic, and she ought not to have died.”

  “You wouldn’t believe any of these people were bad,” the half whisper sounded in her ear. “Hollister died because one of them was weak and afraid, but Mimi died because that weakness had gone too deep; there was no difference between it and evil.”

  She said, “Todd. You’ve got to tell me—did I cause her death? I mean, by not telling soon enough that she’d disappeared.”

  A shade too quickly, he said, “No! You mustn’t think that. She must have died within five minutes of the time she ran down the stairs, before you’d even missed her.”

  “How do you know that?” she whispered, and took an involuntary step forward into the light.

  “I’m only guessing,” he said, surprised. “I haven’t a minute’s doubt that she thought of something while she was talking to you, and was just tight enough to think of going to check up on it, but not sober enough to realize her danger. And maybe she’d only got out a few words of the accusation, when the person who’d already killed once realized that she knew too much.” His voice was only a breath now. “And a pair of hands was ready.”

  “Will you stop?” said Georgine painfully.

  “No. Because you must realize that she was talking to you just before she died; and nobody knows how much she said. It’s quite possible that if you hadn’t run out into the street when you did, you might have died too.”

  “But I told them! I told them all that there was nothing! Don’t you believe that?”

  “I believe she told you something without your knowing it, perhaps without realizing its importance herself. If I came by tomorrow morning, would you go over the interview in detail?”

  “In the morning,” said Georgine grimly, “I am going to be locked up tight in my house, and if I can manage it I’ll be fast asleep.”

  “M’m,” Todd said. “I see. Then, good night, Georgine.”

  As Nelsing came up, he wandered carelessly away.

  “Nelse, I’m frightened,” she said.

  “I can’t say I blame you,” Nelsing told her surprisingly. He sto
od by the glass-topped door of his office, looking out into the lighted corridor, his back to Georgine. Outside the big building were the midnight streets, in this quiet town almost empty of life; but in the Hall of Justice there was ordered activity. Officers in neat khaki uniforms and Sam Browne belts came and went; telephones burred briskly.

  “What are they doing?” Georgine demanded wearily. “What is it you’re waiting for?”

  Without turning, he said, “It may not be done tonight, but we’re making chemical analyses of the scrapings from under her toenails, and testing the robe she was wearing. Maybe that’ll show us where we’re going. This time,” he added with satisfaction, “we’ve got something to work on. When Hollister died, his murderer didn’t touch him, and there wasn’t a thing to be found out from the car; no fingerprints on the steering wheel, except Ricky’s. Nothing to go on, d’you see? But you can’t strangle someone without personal contact.”

  Georgine made a small sound, and put her hand over her eyes.

  “I’m sorry you had to see her as we found her,” Nelsing said remotely. “We thought we had everyone corralled.”

  “But why, Nelse? I know, everyone kept asking you that, but I can’t see it yet. Was that true, what Todd suggested, that she knew too much?”

  “There’s a chance that he was right. The murderer’s in a panic now, that much is certain. If we just keep still for a few days, and go on with our analyses, we may get a break.”

  “Who is it? Do you know?”

  “Not yet.”

  “But—whom can I trust?”

  “Nobody, I guess,” Nelsing said briskly. “I’ll see that you’re kept safe, if I can find a man to stand guard. Wish I could do it myself, but—”

  “Oh, no. You’re going to be busy, of course.”

  She looked at his broad back in the dark suit, outlined against the lighted inner window, the yellowish finish of woodwork. A man in plain clothes went past in the corridor, not looking at Nelsing’s cubicle. I’ve got to ask him straight out, Georgine thought; and got to her feet as if it would be easier, standing.

  “You don’t know who killed Hollister and Mimi. Please tell me, Nelse, did you suspect me a few days ago?”

  His back was still toward her. “No,” he said roughly.

  “Thank heaven,” said Georgine, relaxing. “And did you think you’d get more information out of me if you treated me as a suspect?”

  Nelsing turned round slowly. His hands were in his trouser pockets, and she could see the fists straining against cloth.

  “Georgine, will you marry me?” he said.

  She found herself sitting down, without knowledge of how she had found the chair. Her face felt stiff with astonishment.

  There was a brief silence. Outside the glazed partition the plain-clothes man went by again, briskly. She opened her lips, and by sheer reflex out came a remark whose inanity nearly undid her.

  “But, Nelse,” she quavered, “how can—I mean, this is so sudden!”

  She would have laughed, but he remained entirely solemn. “Didn’t you know why I was so hard on you?” he said harshly. “Good Lord, I talked to you in a way I never used on a witness before, man or woman either. It was all because I—I was afraid of letting my own feelings come between me and justice. I thought you—look, I’ve got to explain something to you.”

  He paused, wetting his lips. “I’ve been waiting for a case like this ever since I was a rookie, and made up my mind I’d try for the homicide squad. I got on the squad, finally, after I’d studied and been trained for years. And what did I get? A few razor battles down in Darktown, and a filling-station robbery with violence, and a couple of dead tramps to identify. And then, after five years, this breaks: the real thing, a chance to use all that science and training, a case that can make or break me.” He waited for another minute, looking at her with a bewilderment that was almost dislike. “I never thought that there’d be anyone like you mixed up in it. You didn’t try to lie your way out of anything, or flirt with me or drown me in tears so I’d let you off. I’ve seen plenty of women, but I never—I didn’t think there was anyone who—oh, damn it, I didn’t want to fall in—to be thrown clear off, like this.”

  He broke off and stood waiting.

  In her wildest dreams Georgine had never got him as far as the altar. She couldn’t seem to recover from the vast astonishment of this proposal. Why, she thought, I could stretch out my hand and take him. What on earth is holding me back?

  “Nelse, can’t you see what’s happened?” she said at last, gently. “You’ve got me mixed up with the case itself. It’s your heart’s desire, and getting it at last has—sort of dislocated all your other feelings. It wouldn’t be fair to settle this now. Wait till it’s all over.”

  He looked at her thoughtfully. “It should be over in a few days more.”

  In a few days more Barby would be at home. “Let’s not talk about it until then,” Georgine said. “But I’ll do anything I can to—to hurry it up.”

  Nelsing nodded and drew a quick breath. With the movement he became once more the impersonal officer of Justice. “If you feel that way, perhaps there’s something more you want to tell me?”

  “I’m sure you’ve thought of this already, but—almost the last thing Mimi said to me was, ‘Nobody could possibly have heard us.’ And then she stopped in the hall, as if she’d thought of something, all of a sudden, and then cried out and rushed for the stairs. Do you think—”

  Nelsing, once more seated at his desk, nodded slowly. “Sounds almost as if she’d remembered someone who could have heard Stort telling her about the plan for the first foggy night. But who? She didn’t tell you that. If someone did know, the rest of it all falls into line. You’re sure Mimi hadn’t let out any details of the plan to anyone?”

  “I asked her that, and she said no; especially not—” Georgine stopped short.

  “Not who?”

  “T-Todd McKinnon. I don’t know why I thought of asking about him, except that he talks to everyone.”

  “Did she seem to be afraid of him?”

  “She wasn’t really afraid of anyone, that I could see; and if she had been, surely she wouldn’t have rushed out and—”

  With a horrid sensation of chilliness, she watched Nelsing’s forefinger gently tapping on the desk blotter.

  “Just what went on this afternoon between you and Harry Gillespie?”

  “I think he was really going to shoot me, except that Todd managed to—to deflect his interest.”

  “How?”

  “He—went off on a flight of fancy, and made Harry think that he, Todd I mean, had been Mimi’s lover without anyone’s suspecting it; and that maybe Hollister had got in the way. It was all fiction, of course. He said so.”

  “He thinks fast,” Nelsing observed. The finger tapped on.

  Georgine nodded. She shuddered once, remembering, among all the other events of the day, that moment when Harry Gillespie had walked slowly across the softness of the figured rug; the other moments when, half-incredulous, she had watched the silent clock on the mantel and had wondered if she had only five more minutes to live.

  “Have you been in the Carmichael house?” she asked suddenly.

  “Yes. Why?”

  “What kind of clock have they?”

  “Electric, I believe. It’s a modern interior. What made you think of that?”

  “For some reason I keep expecting to find a chiming clock.”

  Nelsing looked up at her, consideringly. “I haven’t heard a clock chime in any of the Grettry Road houses.”

  “Oh,” Georgine said, and frowned. “I must be thinking of the Campanile.”

  “Maybe,” Howard Nelsing said, continuing to gaze at her.

  The door of the cubicle opened and Slater came in. “Preliminary report on those tests, Inspector,” he boomed.

  Nelsing leafed through the sheets of paper, and glanced up, frowning at his assistant.

  “Nothing there,” he said heavi
ly. “We’ll have to try again.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Gas Chamber

  THERE WAS NO ESCAPING now, no way to pretend that nothing had happened. The papers had the news. For two days the whole populace of the Bay Region rocked with the excitement of Mimi Gillespie’s death, and the headlines were secondary only to those about the war.

  Georgine had been warned, not only by Nelsing but by a hasty telephone call from McKinnon. “You’ll probably be more comfortable if you manage to dodge the reporters. So far they’ve minimized your part in the case, but if they got a personal interview…”

  He let it trail off ominously. “I’ll stay close to home,” she told him, “and not speak to anyone. I haven’t even looked at the papers.”

  “There’s nothing new. The police are supposed to have a clue,” said Mr. McKinnon, rather sardonically. “That may be so, and it may be a good story. But they’ll get something in time. After a day or so you can come out and resume operations, when the first excitement’s blown over. You’re not nervous, there by yourself?”

  “A little. Nelse said he’d try to find a man to guard me, but that makes me feel rather foolish. Anyway, maybe he didn’t do it, I haven’t seen anyone.”

  “I see.” McKinnon seemed to be digesting this information. “Well, I think you’ll be all right.”

  Turning away from the telephone, she thought that he’d sounded queer, unlike himself, toward the end. She didn’t like any of her thoughts, these days.

  There was one bright spot; Barby’s hostess had written to say that the homecoming had been postponed for one day. In order to avoid the week-end traffic, the party would drive down to the Bay on Monday, reaching home in time for supper. Georgine could hardly believe that she was glad of this—another day’s delay before she saw her own baby!—but it was so. One more day for the police to work, to come nearer to the solution that meant safety.

  She thought of it through all of Saturday and Sunday, moving about behind drawn curtains that cast a cream-colored gloom over the three small rooms of her cottage. She cleaned the place from top to bottom, and made Barby’s favorite cookies and cinnamon rolls, and listened to the radio: every program from the horridly cheerful wake-up ones of early morning to the last fragment of news at night. By Sunday the local newscasters had almost ceased to mention the “Grave in the Hills Mystery.” Did that mean that the excitement had really blown over?