The list of suspects was too small, she thought again, with a queer kind of horror as if, for the moment, she accepted it without reservation. Charlie? Doris? Not Matt; not herself.
But there was Maria Brown. And there was the new man claiming to be Conrad Stanislowski.
As if he sensed her argument, he said, “Maria Brown was at Koska Street at the time the first man was murdered; we don’t know where she was last night. Stanislowski, he says, was on the train—a day coach, crowded; he threw away the stub of his ticket. Let’s get back to him, Miss March. Naturally your intention as trustee, and Stedman’s intention, and for that matter Mrs. Stanley’s and Cosden’s, is to check on his story. That will take considerable time. Things being as they are, with the difficulty of communicating with anybody in Poland, and a very definite difficulty in checking his story about shipping as a hand on the Mirador, that’s going to take a very long time. In fact, you may never be able to confirm every detail of it. There was a cargo ship called the Mirador; I’ve talked to the New Orleans port authority. But whether or not the skipper will willingly admit taking on a man without proper papers, is another thing. However, I understand that you intend to try to confirm his story.”
“Yes.”
“The details of it may be impossible to confirm. Have you considered that?”
She hadn’t really. She said, “I only know how I feel, Lieutenant Peabody.”
“In other words you feel that the first man was really Conrad Stanislowski.”
“I can’t explain it to you. I only know that I want to—to wait.”
“But you believe that the first man was Stanislowski. You admit that.”
“I don’t know what you mean by admit. But—yes, I did feel he was Stanislowski.”
“You believed he was Stanislowski. Therefore, you believed his claim to the Stanislowski fund. You knew also that if he died the money would go to you, to Stedman and to Mrs. Stanley.”
“No, to Jonny.”
“Maybe and maybe not. You can’t always tell what the courts will do. In any event this first man turned up. As the situation stood before his appearance the child’s inheritance was unsettled; there was a question about it; it must be taken to court. What is rather important, too, all four of you would be obliged to agree to continue the trust fund for the child. However, at this point the first man turns up; the situation changes very abruptly. He is to get all the money. But he is murdered very soon, you might even say immediately, upon presenting himself to you. He told you his address, he talked to you, he told you to tell no one of his appearance. That in itself is rather a curious circumstance, didn’t you think so?”
“Yes. But I—believed him.”
“Exactly, you believed him. And you were the only person who knew anything about him.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
“BUT I DIDN’T KILL him, Lieutenant Peabody. You can’t believe that I killed him—”
“Please hear me out. The father, or the man who convinces you he is the father, actually appears and then dies.” Lieutenant Peabody’s wiry figure leaned forward. “I suppose it didn’t strike you that his death would make the child’s position much more secure? That consequently there would be no problem of the trust fund? She is her father’s heir—”
“But there’s Maria Brown. If she was his wife—”
“Yes, yes. Cosden and I had a long talk about that. It’s a very convenient notion. But there’s not a vestige of a fact to support it. We have to go on facts, and the fact is that the death of this first claimant might be considered a short cut to the child’s eventual possession of the trust fund. If the murdered man had been really Stanislowski, as you believed him to be, there would be no question of a court’s decision. Jonny would almost automatically be considered her father’s heir. She would inherit from her father. And she would have to have a guardian, wouldn’t she?”
He waited for Laura’s assent. “Yes,” she said. “Until she is of age.”
“Exactly. And you would have been the logical choice to continue to see to her.”
“But I—”
“Please wait. In all probability it would have been in a sense a lifetime relation. The child would have been grateful to you. Your influence over her would have continued.”
“Stop! That’s not true. I never thought of that.”
He leaned back in his chair and ran his finger around his wrinkled shirt collar. “This is murder,” he said wearily. “A policeman must follow any leads he finds to follow. We’ve cleared the Pittsburgh angle; Conrad Stanley’s brother Paul died unmarried; no heirs. So far you must grant the fact that there are only four people whom we know to have had an interest in this first claimant’s life or death.”
“Maria Brown—” she began.
He said shortly, “She’s important. She may have evidence. Obviously, she’s very important to somebody; Catherine Miller was killed. Now then, Mrs. Stanley would have had a third of the money if Conrad hadn’t turned up or at least a man who claimed to be Conrad. Mrs. Stanley is already a rich woman. She didn’t need that extra third.”
But she wants it, thought Laura swiftly. She likes money, she spends money. That’s why she’s against the plan to keep the trust fund intact for Jonny. Lieutenant Peabody went on. “I’ve investigated all these people, believe me. It’s a very easy thing for a policeman to do. Stedman has a good solid business, tools and dies. He lives quietly but luxuriously. He has no family, no personal claims which might provide an urgent need for money. He is willing to accept this second claimant; he does not oppose his proofs of identity; therefore I cannot believe that he would have opposed the first claimant, if he had had sufficient proof of his claims. Certainly not to the extent of murder.”
That had not occurred to her. She said, “Do you mean that clears him of suspicion?”
“None of you is cleared until we get at the truth,” Peabody said grimly. “Don’t forget Cosden has a motive, too.”
“Matt! He’s not a suspect!”
“Oh, isn’t he? Consider this: Cosden and Mrs. Stanley were to have been married when she met Stanley; she jilted Cosden. As soon as Stanley died she went back to Cosden. She gave him her legal business. She saw him constantly. Mrs. Stanley’s interests are Cosden’s interests. She says, or implies, that he’s going to marry her. Money is a very real and compelling motive for murder.”
“Matt didn’t even know that Conrad—I mean the murdered man—had come! I didn’t tell him! He didn’t hear anything about him until I told him! He didn’t know his address! He didn’t know—”
“But you did know,” the Lieutenant said quietly, bringing her around a full circle again. He added after a moment, with again a flash of that curiously disarming frankness, as if he were putting all his cards on the table, “You were very young to be made a trustee for this fund Stanley set up.”
“He knew me. He trusted me.”
“I know all the circumstances. I know what Stanley did for you and why. I also know that of all the people who would supposedly profit by that man’s death, you were the only one who needs money.”
Anger brought her to her feet. “I can support myself!”
“But a windfall in the way of cash would help you. Wouldn’t it?”
He must be made to see the truth. She said, “Lieutenant Peabody, I didn’t kill that man. Doris didn’t kill him; she has an alibi. Charlie didn’t; he does accept the second man; he doesn’t oppose him or the settling of the estate. Matt couldn’t have killed anybody. I know these people. I know—”
“Nobody knows what anybody’s like really when it comes to a very strong wish for money. Or when it comes to murder,” he said in a strangely somber voice. “I know what you want me to believe. You want me to believe that Maria Brown lured that man to the address on Koska Street, killed him, phoned to you for help, then ran away. Later you say she came here and asked about the child and ran away again. You want me to believe that someone tried to murder you, got into your apartment, p
ut some sort of sedative in that hot milk. It would be a very dangerous thing to do. Suppose you had seen this remarkably invisible person.”
“It happened,” Laura said, her lips dry and stiff. “Matt saw the kitten.”
“But you had already washed the thermos, hadn’t you?”
“Yes. And the saucer. But it did happen like that, Lieutenant. And somebody did follow us in the park that day.”
“Somebody you didn’t see closely enough to identify or describe.” There was an edge of dry skepticism in his voice.
But she must make him see the truth, she thought again desperately. “But Maria Brown did come here. She—”
“And the girl at the switchboard downstairs didn’t see her. Nobody saw her apparently except you.”
“But the girl at the switchboard doesn’t see everybody. She’s busy. It’s a big apartment house. People coming and going all the time.”
He said thoughtfully, “We’re trying to find Maria Brown. We’re doing everything we can to find her. Either she knows something or she merely went to a dying man’s aid and then got scared. We’re combing the city, inquiring at every rooming house, at every small hotel. Eventually we’ll find her unless of course”— he shrugged—“she’s got a friend somewhere who has taken her in. I feel now that that is the answer. There’s someone to whom she could go, someone who would hide her. But there we are. The landlady out at the rooming house knows nothing of any friend. We’ve inquired at the store where she worked. She worked there for a very short time. She’d been very uncommunicative. So far we’ve unearthed nobody who knew anything about her. Now, it’s not easy in a city of this size to find a woman dressed as she was dressed, nothing much to identify, nothing much in the way of description, no photograph. Her description as we have it would fit a thousand women. We did find the yellow-taxi driver. He says he took you and a child to the rooming house. He says a woman came out and spoke to you for a moment and then got into the taxi. He took her to the Union Station and there she disappeared. It’s the end of that trail so far. I’m telling you all this because I want you to see how the situation stands.”
He paused, thought for a moment as if marshaling facts, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, and his hands linked, and went on. “As to the day of the Koska Street murder, the situation was this: the landlady says that she, the landlady, was shopping during the afternoon. She says the murdered man arrived about noon and rented a room; then the landlady went out. He did not ask for Maria Brown. I asked the landlady if he had given any references; she said, no. I asked her if anybody had sent him to the rooming house; she said not to her knowledge. She had the room vacant, he looked respectable, he paid the rent she asked. The point is he did not ask for Maria Brown and we haven’t been able to find her or find any trail of her since she disappeared from the Union Station. I needn’t tell you that there are thousands of people coming and going there, all the time. It would be almost impossible to trace her from there.”
“She came here! She must have read the newspapers. She knew where to find me.”
“She already knew your name and telephone number. It wouldn’t be hard to find your address. But you are the only person who saw her here. Now, mind you, I don’t say that she didn’t come here to see you, but you do realize that we have only your word for it. Only your word about the kitten. Only your word about some mysterious stranger following you in the park.”
“It’s true, Lieutenant.”
“I don’t say it isn’t true. I don’t say these things didn’t happen. Also, I think it perfectly possible that anybody who was intent upon killing you—and that is the theory that you expect me to accept—killing you with a lethal dose of sedative would select the thermos that had coffee and milk in it, rather than the one with chocolate. It would be an obvious conclusion that the thermos of chocolate was meant for Jonny and the other one for you. But if that’s true, if someone is trying to kill you, why? Can you tell me that?”
Oddly she could not really accept that premise herself. Murder was for the newspapers; it happened to other people; it couldn’t happen to her. Perhaps everyone felt that deep instinctive conviction. Yet in another way, a curious, physical way, she did acknowledge her own jeopardy, for a kind of chill lethargy seemed to envelop her. That was fear. Matt had said it; fear is a paralysis.” She said, “I don’t know.”
He watched her thoughtfully for a moment. Then he said, “Of course, there are not very many people who would know of your custom about the thermos bottle. Mrs. Stanley might know it, did she?”
“Perhaps, perhaps, but Doris—”
“Stedman, would he know about it? Cosden?”
Again she said, “Perhaps. Yes.”
“All right,” he said, “who else would know it?”
Who else, indeed? She said slowly, “You said that anybody might have guessed.”
“Well, that’s true. But how would anyone have known that there would be any place, say, for him to deposit a lethal dose of sedative? Wouldn’t anybody be running rather a risk, in the first place, to enter this apartment and then just hope to find some means by which he could induce you to take a sedative?”
“Yes,” she said slowly. Doris, Charlie, Matt. By no stretch of the imagination could she vision one of them working the latch on the door, creeping into the kitchen, trying to murder her. Lieutenant Peabody was watching her as if he could read her thoughts. He said, “Why, Miss March? Why would anybody try to murder you? Don’t talk of the Brown woman. I realize that you saw her and could identify her, but the landlady could identify her, too, and there have been no attempts to murder the landlady. And there’s another thing. These mysterious calls you say you had. Telephone calls where nobody answered. Have you had more such telephone calls?”
“No.”
“You’re sure that no man’s voice spoke to you in Polish, like the voice which spoke to Stedman?”
“Nobody said anything. Lieutenant Peabody, could the man who phoned to Charlie that morning when I was at Koska Street with you, could that have been Stanislowski? I mean—”
“The man you don’t believe is Stanislowski? I considered that. I asked Stedman: In his opinion it was not the same voice. Stanislowski said he arrived in this city only this afternoon. I asked him if he had made a long distance call from New Orleans. He said, no. We can check that—” The door buzzer sounded sharply. Laura rose mechanically. “Wait, Miss March. What did that murdered man tell you? Why did you believe that he was Stanislowski ? If there’s anything you know you’d be well advised to tell me—”
“There isn’t anything!” she cried. “There isn’t anything I can tell you!” She went into the hall and opened the door, and it was Charlie Stedman. He put down his coat and his hat neatly on top of it. “I thought we better have a little talk about Stanislowski,” he said, and then saw Lieutenant Peabody. “Oh, Lieutenant Peabody. Any news?”
“Not since I saw you,” Lieutenant Peabody said flatly. “It’s been only a few minutes.”
Charlie sat down. “Of course but—look here, Peabody, Stanislowski’s arrival simplifies the thing, doesn’t it? The murdered man must have been an impostor. Surely, somehow, you can identify him.”
“We haven’t yet. Stedman, I’ve been talking to Miss March about alibis. We can’t get around the fact that all four people who are directly concerned with the Stanislowski fund were admittedly in the vicinity last night when this poor woman was murdered.”
“That doesn’t prove any of us murdered her, does it, Lieutenant?”
“Almost the same situation is true of the afternoon when the first claimant to the Stanislowski fortune was found murdered.”
Charlie shrugged. “Unfortunately, yes. Except, of course, for Mrs. Stanley.”
“What about you, Stedman? Have you thought of anybody at all who saw you the afternoon that man was killed?”
Charlie’s face tightened wryly, as if he had tasted something unexpectedly sour. “No,” he said. “I went to m
y club—the doorman in the elevator saw me. I took a nap and read awhile, then I went down again and I’m sure they saw me then, too, got out my car and went to the factory. I got there late, after everybody had gone. I’ve told you all this, Lieutenant. I made a statement and signed it to that effect.”
“There’s a side entrance to your club and a back stairway. No doorman there.”
“Peabody, believe me, if I had been intending to murder anybody I’d have fixed myself an alibi.”
“That’s a little harder to do than you seem to think. Do you have any doubts at all about this second man’s identity?”
“Stanislowski?” Charlie considered it deliberately. “No,” he said finally. “I can’t say that I do. You saw his papers just now. You heard his story. You weren’t there when the child recognized him, but she did recognize him. There’s no doubt about that. We’ll have to check on him, and that’s going to take some time. As a matter of fact it may prove to be impossible. I don’t see how we can do it from the Polish end; he’s admittedly escaped from Poland. This cargo ship’s a problem, too; I doubt if the ship’s officers will admit that they took on a man without proper papers—particularly if they think there may be trouble, inquiry, that sort of thing. It’s going to be a very awkward affair all around. I never approved of this will.”
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