“Well, you might have used a little more discretion about it. However, there is no good in crying over spilled milk.”
“What I want to know is what else I should do. Is there anything?”
“Not that I can think of. Old Brewster will be found after a while, and we will see what develops then. What worries me is that everything seems to be getting out of hand. In the beginning, Senorita Fogarty was the only one we wanted eliminated, but everyone else is being eliminated, one by one, instead. It’s all very confusing, I must say.”
17
WHILE FLO did nothing, the police were doing something. If they did not actually get started until the next morning, it was only because Brewster was not brought to their attention until then. Their attention was requested by the superintendent of the apartment building, whose own attention had been dramatically requested by a maid who was part of a housekeeping service offered for a fee to interested tenants. Armed with an electric sweeper, a bundle of rags and a bottle of furniture polish, she had entered Brewster’s quarters at nine o’clock, expecting him to be abroad on his business, and had found him, instead, still lying behind the sofa where Flo had left him. The maid, once comprehension set in, abandoned her equipment and took off down the hall making a noise very much like a siren. She was intercepted by the superintendent, who was on patrol in the hall, and it was only a short while thereafter when an official squad under the command of Detective-Lieutenant Sylvester Bones appeared on the scene. Two hours later, following a preliminary investigation that culminated in the removal of Brewster to more appropriate quarters, Lieutenant Bones, like a bird dog on a scent, was ringing the bell at Flo’s.
As a matter of observation, Bones looked somewhat like a bird dog. He was long and lean, and he had sad brown eyes lined up between a pair of generous ears that appeared to be constantly on the verge of flapping. In addition, his nose had a disconcerting habit of twitching periodically. This was really a kind of tic, but it looked like sniffing, and the tendency was to give him credit for sensory skills that he did not in fact have. The bell was answered by Flo, summoned by it from the kitchen, where she had been in the act of spooning coffee into a pot to start her day.
“Mrs. Jarbelo?” said Bones.
That was Flo’s last name, carried over from her departed husband, and she acknowledged it.
“If you’re selling something,” she added, “there is nothing I want to buy, and besides, there’s a rule against salesmen. There’s a sign in the lobby that says so.”
“I’m not a salesman. I’m a policeman. My name is Lieutenant Bones. May I come in and talk with you?”
“What about?”
“If you’ll let me come in, I’ll explain.”
There was nothing to do but let him in. Flo already had an uncomfortable notion of what he wanted, of course, but she couldn’t imagine what had brought him to her door so soon when she had just about convinced herself that he wouldn’t come at all. Things were not going as well as she had hoped, that was obvious, and she would have to be careful. Policemen were notoriously tricky, and it would never do to admit anything that should be denied, or to deny anything that should be admitted. Fortunately, Hester had stayed the night and was available as counsel.
“What is it that you want?” she said, after Bones had sat down, section by section, in a proffered chair.
“Do you know a Mr. Willis Brewster?” he said.
“Certainly I know him. He’s the family lawyer. Why? Has he embezzled some money from an estate or something?”
“No. Not that I know of.” Bones’ nose twitched, and his ears seemed to swing forward into a more favorable listening position. “Why should you ask that?”
“Well, one naturally suspects lawyers of the worst, doesn’t one? They know all sorts of ways to do things and get out of it.”
“Do they? I wouldn’t know about that. Anyhow, Mr. Brewster hasn’t committed any crime, unless dying is one.”
“Dying? Old Brewter dead? Who killed him?”
“I didn’t say he was killed. What makes you think he was?”
Well, she’d done it. The very thing she’d resolved not to do. She’d made an egregious error right off, just when she was feeling clever about sounding properly surprised, and now it was necessary to think quickly and correct it if possible.
“Because you’re here,” she said. “Are the police interested in deaths that aren’t the result of killing? I didn’t think they were.”
“You’re right. They aren’t. Not usually.”
“Besides,” said Hester, coming out of the bedroom at that moment, “it was the most natural thing in the world to assume that old Brewster, if dead, was killed. He was exactly the sort that everyone wants to do in.”
“Is that so?” Bones swung his head around and sniffed at Hester. “Who are you?”
“This is Hester,” Flo said. “She’s Lester’s twin.”
“Who’s Lester?”
“I just told you. He’s Hester’s twin. And here he is now.”
Bones swung his head the other way and verified the fact that there, indeed, Lester was. He had emerged from his own room to join the group, and Bones began to feel surrounded. He was also beginning to feel somewhat confused and a little desperate. He had a sudden conviction that he had wandered innocently into a nest of queer birds, to put it mildly, and the conviction grew stronger by the second.
“Siblings?” he said to Flo.
“No,” said Flo. “They’re my children.”
“What are siblings?” Lester said.
“Siblings are children,” Bones said.
“Oh,” said Flo. “Why didn’t you say so?”
“That’s an unusual word for a policeman, isn’t it?” said Hester. “I wouldn’t think a policeman would know a word like that.”
“Darling,” said Flo, “you mustn’t be rude. I’m sure that Lieutenant Bones is not an ordinary policeman by any means. He probably knows lots of words.”
“Did I hear someone say that old Brewster is dead?” Lester said.
“Yes, darling,” Flo said. “That’s why Lieutenant Bones is here. Isn’t it, Lieutenant?”
“It is,” said Bones.
“Why?” said Hester.
“Yes,” Flo said. “I didn’t think to ask that. Why should you come here to see me just because old Brewster is dead?”
“Because someone killed him, as you have guessed, and I’m supposed to find out who did it.”
“That’s no answer,” Hester said. “Why don’t you go off somewhere and find out instead of bothering Mother?”
“I’ll ask the questions, if you don’t mind.” Bones had clearly lost command of the situation, and he was desperately determined to regain it. “Sit down, please.”
“No, thank you,” said Hester. “I don’t care to.”
“Neither do I,” said Lester.
“As you see,” said Flo, “I already am.”
“Ask any questions you please,” Hester said, “but in my opinion it would be no more than courteous if you answered ours first.”
“All right,” Bones said. “Mrs. Jarbelo, where did you spend yesterday evening?”
“That’s easy,” Hester said. “She spent it right there with Lester and me.”
“We were all together,” said Lester.
“I asked your mother. Let your mother answer.”
“Well, I suppose you must be humored, however unreasonable you wish to be.” Hester sat down, after all, looking scornful. “Go ahead, Mother. Tell him you were here with Lester and me.”
“That’s right,” said Flo. “I was.”
“All the time?”
“Yes. Wasn’t I, Hester?”
“Never mind that. I’m not asking for verification. Not yet.”
“Anybody has the right to counsel,” Hester said. “I’m her counsellor.”
“Hester’s clever,” Flo said. “I always ask her about things.”
“If you need counsel, you can
call your lawyer.”
“How can she?” Hester said. “According to you, our lawyer is dead.”
“Yes. So he is. Knocked in the head by someone yesterday evening. Perhaps yesterday afternoon. The autopsy may tell us more exactly. Mrs. Jarbelo, didn’t you have a dinner date with Brewster in his apartment yesterday evening?”
“She had one,” said Hester, “but she didn’t keep it.”
“Mrs. Jarbelo?”
“I didn’t keep it.”
“Why did you break it? Isn’t that rather odd?”
“Odd?” Lester hooted derisively. “Obviously you never saw old Brewster until he was dead, but he was not much better alive. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure that rigor mortis wouldn’t have improved him.”
“Mother was cultivating old Brewster for a particular purpose,” said Hester, “but we didn’t dream that she would go to the extreme of making a dinner date with him. When we found out, we refused to let her go.”
“What purpose?” said Bones.
“It was a family matter,” Hester said, “and has absolutely nothing to do with anyone knocking Brewster in the head.”
“Yes,” said Flo, “I only did it for my children. Lieutenant, if someone said he saw me at Brewster’s, he’s simply mistaken, that’s all.”
“No one’s said that. Not yet. It’s just that Brewster was apparently a meticulous man. He kept an appointment book, and he noted that you were expected last evening for dinner. He was going to prepare the dinner himself, and he even made a note of the entree. You were going to have veal cutlets.”
“I don’t like veal cutlets,” Flo said.
“Good God!” said Lester. “Mother, it’s the best of luck for you that we wouldn’t let you go. The old shyster might have poisoned you, fooling around in his filthy kitchen with veal cutlets.”
“It seems to me,” Hester said, “that the least he could have done was hire a catering service or something like that.”
“What makes me most upset about the whole matter,” said Flo, “is that he had to make a note of it. Why should he have needed a note to remind him of a dinner date with me? If that’s not insulting, I’ve never heard anything that was.”
“Oh, well,” Lester said, “the man was practically in his dotage. Probably his mind was slipping.”
Bones slapped his knee, stood up, then sat down again very deliberately. He clasped both knees with his hands and stared intently at a spot on the wall. His nose was twitching with exceptional violence.
“What’s the matter?” Hester said. “Are you about to sneeze?”
“Hold a finger under your nose,” Flo said. “That works wonders.”
“It’s much better just to go on and sneeze,” Lester said. “Holding back sneezes leads to all sorts of emotional disturbances.”
“I am not about to sneeze,” said Bones, taking out a handerchief, nevertheless, and wiping his nose with it. “I am just trying to think of a way to put a semblance of order into this interview. This is impossible. It’s absolutely impossible. Mrs. Jarbelo, do you want to come downtown with me?”
“Certainly not. Why should I want to go downtown with you?”
“Then I must insist that you answer my questions personally, without assistance from your son and daughter.”
“Do you hear that, children? If you don’t keep quiet, Lieutenant Bones will take me downtown.”
“Oh, all right,” Lester said. “I certainly don’t want to intrude.”
“Neither do I,” Hester said, “but I’m going to look it up about taking Mother downtown. I don’t believe he can do it without a warrent or something like that.”
“Now,” said Bones. “Now, then, Mrs. Jarbelo. I’m going to ask you a few simple questions, and I expect categorical answers. Do you understand?”
“No,” said. Flo. “What does categorical mean? Hester, do you know what categorical means?”
“I’m not allowed to speak,” Hester said.
“Direct and truthful answers is what it means,” said Bones, “and I’d advise you to give them to me.”
“There’s no problem to that,” Flo said, “if you would only say what you mean once in a while.”
“To begin, then. Do you drive a car, Mrs. Jarbelo?”
“No, I don’t. Isn’t it absurd? I tried, but I kept running into things.”
“Then I’ll assume that you went to Brewster’s, if you went at all, in a taxi. I put that out as a fair warning. Taxis have drivers, you know. Drivers can be found and questioned. You are a striking woman, if I may say so, Mrs. Jarbelo. Chances are you would be remembered.”
“I’m not allowed to speak, either,” Lester said, “but if I were, I would volunteer the information that I took Mother in my MG.”
“What?” said Bones. “What’s that?”
“What he means,” said Hester, “is that he would have taken her if she had gone, but she didn’t go. Lester, I’m not sure it wouldn’t be better if you went off somewhere and did something.”
“Let him stay,” said Bones. “He may be helpful. Mrs. Jarbelo, I warn you again. If you were in Brewster’s apartment yesterday evening, we’ll find out about it. Even if no one saw you, there will be fingerprints.”
This gave Flo quite a turn, for it was the truth that she had not given a single thought to fingerprints before. She had not touched anything in the apartment, except old Brewster with her toe, but she had touched the door knob and the light switch going in and out. That was all right, though, come to think of it, for being a proper lady properly dressed, she had been wearing gloves. It was a great relief to remember the gloves.
“There may be fingerprints,” she said, “but they won’t be mine.”
“Let us hope not. Mrs. Jarbelo, let us hope.”
With this ominous remark, expressing just the right degree of skepticism, Bones rose with the apparent intention of taking himself off.
“Are you going so soon?” said Flo.
“Yes. There is, however, a definite possibility of my coming back.”
“I thought you might have a cup of coffee with us. I was just making some when you came. Lester, darling, see if the coffee is ready.”
“No, thank you,” said Bones, edging toward the door. “I have work to do.”
“Yes, Mother,” Hester said. “You mustn’t keep Lieutenant Bones from his work. He has to go investigate things.”
“Speaking of investigations,” said Lester, “do you happen to know that King Louie Oliver operates several gambling houses?”
“No,” said Bones, who did.
“That’s odd. There’s no great secret about it.”
“Gambling is not in my division.”
“Oh. That’s too bad. I thought it might be to my advantage if I could get King Louie arrested.”
Bones, who had kept on edging toward the door, turned and departed hurriedly without ceremony. Flo had risen to see him out and close the door after him, but now, seeing him go, she sat down again.
“Well,” she said, “that went very well in spite of Lester. In my opinion, Leiutenant Bones is quite charming, for a policeman. Imagine him saying that I’m a striking woman who would probably be remembered. Wasn’t that nice of him?”
18
HESTER SAT cross-legged on the floor in an attitude of intent thinking. On the floor in front of her, the object of her observation, was a box of Mother Murphy’s Quick-Cooking Oats. It was, to be precise, the same box that she had dosed with cyanide peanuts and had later hooked from Crump’s kitchen. There appeared to be nothing sufficiently unusual about the box to justify Hester’s dedicated attention, and anyone, after examining it, would have sworn that it was perfectly normal. Anyone, that is, who was unaware of its contents. To Hester, however, there was one glaring discrepancy, in the light of what had happened, that refuted her earlier conclusions and opened up some speculations that were interesting to say the least. It was this discrepancy that engaged her attention and incited her mind. In brief, as she
had observed when she first laid hands on it in the commission of a petty felony, the box had not been opened.
The direct and immediate inference from this was clear. Mrs. Crump, struck down in an instant over a teacup, may have been the victim of a defective liver, as Quinn had suspected, but she had not died of cyanide in her oatmeal. Uncle Homer and Hester had simply been misled by the coincidence of her eating an oatmeal cooky at the time, which was a natural mistake, and one that almost anyone would have made in the same circumstances. It was quite a relief to be exonerated of any guilt in the matter, even though Mrs. Crump’s death had acutally been considered no more than an accident at worst. The police, Hester supposed, could be unreasonable about such things whether they were intended or not.
But why had the box not been opened? Surely oatmeal, if bought at all, was bought to use, and Mrs. Crump had surely bought it. Moreover, she had bought it for a specific and urgent purpose; namely, as an essential ingredient in Senorita Fogarty’s diet of oatmeal and sex. Even allowing that Senorita had made a sudden and remarkable recovery, it seemed reasonable to assume that Mrs. Crump would have put her on the diet anyhow, at least for the duration of Mother Murphy’s Oats, to help prevent a recurrance of Senorita’s malady if for nothing else. As anyone knew, it was an established fact that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In addition, at least a moiety of the diet must have been followed as prescribed, for Crump, on the afternoon of the same day that Mrs. Crump bought the oatmeal, had bought the stud. Would oats have been abandoned and sex retained? Well, maybe. Sex, of course, was a bit more than a curative for what ailed you. It was also the technique of procreation, with the result, in Senorita’s case, of beginning an interminable series of litters that would indefinitely prolong the exclusion of the family from the fruits of Grandfather’s will.
And what, by the way, had become of the stud? Lester had seen him in a cage when he was carried home from the kennel by Crump, but no one, to Hester’s knowledge, had seen him since. Junior swore that he had never laid eyes on him during all his afternoons of espionage, but this in itself was far from conclusive testimony, for Junior had clearly spent most of the time napping. What was more significant was the fact that she, Hester, had never seen him in the little park with Crump in the mornings. It did seem, when you stopped to consider it, that Crump would have given the stud a turn once in a while, or would even have let him join Senorita as a special treat. Decorum was well enough in its place, but it was hardly sensible to impose it too rigorously upon Chihuahuas. Anyhow, Crump’s moral disintegration after the abrupt departure of Mrs. Crump did nothing to support the theory that he wished to avoid a public display of passion. Hester was prepared to testify that public opinion meant little to Crump these days.
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