Hildegarde Withers Makes the Scene

by Stuart Palmer

  “So sorry to disturb you, Miss Withers,” said a precise voice from the desk in the lobby, “but there is someone to see you. A Captain Kelso of the police. He’s quite insistent.”

  Miss Withers shook the fog out of her head and was wide awake. “Tell Captain Kelso I’ll be down in fifteen minutes if he wishes to wait.”

  She rolled out of bed and looked at the opposite twin. Lenore Gregory slept like an angel, undisturbed. If she had a guilty conscience, Miss Withers thought, it certainly didn’t show. The spinster stealthily gathered her clothes, retired to the bathroom, and emerged soon after fully dressed. Lenore slept on. She was smiling about something. Miss Withers crept out and made her way to the elevators.

  In the lobby, Captain Kelso rose from a deep chair to meet her. “Good afternoon,” he said. His bald head shone. His face looked rested. He was apparently fully restored.

  “Merciful heavens!” Miss Withers said. “Don’t you ever sleep?”

  “An old sinner like me? I pay for a dissolute life with chronic insomnia.” He was almost gay in a lumbering sort of way. “I’m prepared to buy you lunch in this fancy gyp joint if you haven’t eaten. On a cop’s pay, that’s real gallantry.”

  “As a superannuated gold digger, I accept. And it serves you right.”

  They had lunch in the patio restaurant, Captain Kelso staunchly rejecting Miss Withers’ proposal that they go Dutch. Conversation avoided murder, or business related to murder, until they were having coffee.

  “How’s your charge?” Captain Kelso asked then.

  “Sleeping the sleep of innocence. Don’t fret about her.”

  “I’m not fretting. I was on the phone this morning with your pal in New York.”

  “With Oscar? How is he? I suppose, as usual, that he was very complimentary to me.”

  “Not exactly.” Captain Kelso twisted his lips into a grin that he meant to be amiable. “He said you were a rare old bird, but that I’d better watch out or you’d have me up to my neck in corpses. He sent his regards.”

  Miss Withers sniffed contemptuously. “I can imagine. Thank you for an excellent lunch. Did you buy it for me because you can’t resist my company, or do you have an ulterior motive?”

  “Definitely ulterior. Since you dropped smack into the middle of this case, I thought you might be interested in going ahead with it.”

  “I admit that I feel rather committed. At least so long as a shadow of suspicion hangs over Lenore Gregory. I’m determined to save you from making a serious mistake.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate that. What did you think of our session aboard the tub last night?”

  “Several things seemed apparent. First, anyone could have poisoned Captain Westering. Second, at least half of the suspects, namely the males, would have enjoyed doing it. Third, the other half, namely the females, were fascinated by him but didn’t feel particularly outraged by his murder. Fourth, the circumstances were ripe for murder. Fifth, as I’ve told you repeatedly, the murder of the captain, in spite of all the excellent reasons for it, was a mistake. Sixth, that was the most unlikely conglomeration of fits and misfits who ever planned to make a so-called pilgrimage together.”

  “I’ll buy all your points except the fifth. I’m not convinced of that yet. I’ll add another point. The good captain may have been hot for peace and holy things, but he was no saint when it came to the ladies. To me, that points two ways. To the outraged consort of one of the ladies, or to home and mama. I’ve been thinking about mama, and she appeals to me. I’ve been thinking I’d run across the bridge to Sausalito and have another go at her.”

  “I think you are mistaken. I have a feeling that the woman, despite her appearance, is practically sexless. I would give odds that she was completely indifferent to the peccadilloes of the captain. However, I am not an expert in such matters. I am deficient in personal experience. I could be wrong.”

  “On the chance that you are, would you like to come along for a second diagnosis?”

  Miss Withers folded her napkin neatly and stood up with alacrity. “I’d have made a dreadful scene if you hadn’t asked me,” she said.

  13.

  “DO YOU KNOW,” SAID CAPTAIN Kelso, “that approximately a dozen people a year jump off this damn thing? I guess they think it’s a romantic way to die, a grand gesture or something, but I can’t see it. The world is full of kooks.”

  Ahead of them, the span of the great bridge that couldn’t be built stretched out toward waiting hills. Far below them, not golden but blue in the early afternoon sun, the Golden Gate was a glittering highroad between ocean and bay. On their right was a continent; on their left was Japan. Miss Withers, who had been swelling with exaltation, felt suddenly deflated. She sighed with resignation and looked sidewise somewhat caustically at Captain Kelso, who looked straight ahead with an eye to traffic.

  “You,” she said, “are an incurable romantic. You should be a tour guide. Your knack for saying just the right thing is positively uncanny.”

  “We get most of them out, of course. After they’re good and dead. But now and then one of them gets away from us on the ebb tide and winds up with the fishes. One of the strongest ebb tides in the world flows through this gate. I used to know how many cubic feet of water a second, but I’ve forgotten. Millions. Do you know how many gallons are contained in a cubic foot? Seven and a half. It’s a fact. I didn’t believe it when I heard it, so I tested it many years ago when I was a kid with one of those old-fashioned metal cookie boxes you used to see. Seven and a half was right. Would you believe it?”

  “As an ex-schoolteacher who has taught the table of liquid measure more times than she likes to remember,” Miss Withers said, “I would. Nevertheless, I thank you for the information. It was exactly what I needed to make me appreciate this glorious view.”

  After leaving the bridge, they followed U.S. 101 north and then turned east to Sausalito, a haven for artists hung upon the hills. Long staircases stretched up from street to houses. Miss Withers and Captain Kelso debarked at the foot of one and ascended, pausing at the top, in the weakness of age, to gasp for breath. Before them was a pampered emerald lawn divided by a walk of colored flags and made bright here and there by beds of flowers. Beyond the lawn, at the end of the walk, was a long, low house of gleaming white stucco with a roof of red tiles.

  “Miss O’Higgins,” said Captain Kelso, “does herself proud.”

  Miss Withers, comparing the place with her own modest dwelling in Santa Monica, agreed. She followed Captain Kelso up the walk to the house, where he punched a button that activated chimes within. They waited. Captain Kelso punched again. The door swung open to reveal a Grecian vision six feet tall. The golden morning of the night before. She was wearing a long white robe identical with the other one she had worn. Miss Withers wondered if she ever wore anything else. Around her neck, gleaming dully against the snowy expanse of her superb bosom, she wore a plain chain of gold links.

  “Captain Kelso.” The clear golden tenor was untroubled and unsurprised. “Will you come in?”

  Captain Kelso would. So, not specifically invited, would Miss Withers. They went in onto a kind of open foyer elevated two steps above the floor of a long, shadowy living room furnished with a few pieces of heavy dark furniture that Miss Withers took to be Spanish, and with an abundance of colored cushions, on the sofa and in chairs and scattered everywhere. Guests of Alura O’Higgins apparently did a lot of sitting on the floor. As did Aletha Westering now, letting herself down easily without the use of hands. Not, however, Captain Kelso or Miss Withers. They sat conventionally on the conventional sofa.

  “I’m sorry,” said Aletha, “that my sister is not at home. She has gone to her restaurant. Usually she doesn’t go until evening, but something came up.”

  “That’s all right,” Captain Kelso said, making a mental note that death in the family did not interfere with business as usual. “You’re the one we wanted to see.”

  “Oh?” There was a ripple on the surf
ace of Aletha’s serenity. “Why?”

  “Why!” Captain Kelso struggled to keep a note of exasperation out of his voice. “Because a man was murdered last night, and you happen to be the man’s widow. I’m afraid, Mrs. Westering, that you don’t quite grasp the gravity of your position.”

  “In what way is my position grave?”

  “I just told you. You’re the widow of a murdered man. The widows of murdered men are naturally suspect until they are proved innocent.”

  “I assured you last night that I didn’t kill my husband. What else can I do to convince you?”

  “You can start by telling me the truth.”

  “I have told you the truth.”

  “Maybe. Now you had better tell me what you failed to tell me at all.”

  “I’ve answered your questions. You’re free to ask any others that you choose.”

  “All right. To begin with, what’s your name?”

  She stared for a moment at the captain with a face as expressionless as an egg. “My name is Aletha Westering. Before that it was Aletha O’Higgins.”

  “What has it been between the two?”

  “It has been whatever my husband chose to make it. What’s in a name? It pleased Captain Westering to call himself whatever suited circumstances. As his wife, I naturally adopted the same name.”

  “He must have been born with one. What was it?”

  “The police, I’m sure, have methods of invading privacy. You would find out anyhow, so I suppose I may as well tell you.”

  “That’s right.”

  “It was Dwight. Frederick Dwight.”

  “Where and when did you meet him?”

  “In New Orleans, ten years ago. I was seventeen. I was in a convent there. We met, never mind how, and I ran away with him. We were married later in San Antonio, Texas.”

  “Where have you lived since?”

  “Various places. We moved around.”

  “Under various names?”

  “We used whatever name my husband fancied.”

  “To evade the law?”

  “No. Never.”

  “How did you live?”

  “My husband was a promoter. He engaged in a number of activities. I contributed in my own way.”

  “What is your way?”

  “I am blessed with the psychic gift. I contact the spirits of the dead.”

  “You set yourself up as a medium?”

  “As you say.”

  “Have you contacted Captain Westering, perhaps?”

  “It is much too early. In good time.”

  “Maybe you could get him to tell you who murdered him.”

  “He will tell me if he is moved to tell me. It may be a long time before he answers my summons.”

  “How long?”

  “Who knows? A month. A year. Ten years.”

  “Sorry. I can’t afford to wait that long. Where did your husband get the money to buy his yacht? Yachts don’t cost peanuts, even old tubs like the Karma.”

  “The money was provided. It was a reward for his regeneration, to make the pilgrimage of peace.”

  “Regeneration?”

  Again Aletha Westering was silent, sitting Indian-fashion on her cushion, staring past Captain Kelso and Miss Withers as if she were listening intently for a remote voice. Possibly, thought Miss Withers, the voice of the dear departed captain in the shades of limbo.

  “Captain Kelso,” Aletha said suddenly, “are you familiar with St. Paul?”

  “I’ve been there,” said the captain. “It’s in Minnesota.”

  “St. Paul the man. The convert to Christ.”

  “Oh, him. What about him?”

  “On the road to Damascus he was struck blind and heard a voice. He was called Saul of Tarsus then. Thereafter, when his sight was restored, he was completely changed. From a persecutor of Christians he became one of them and their greatest apologist. He changed his name and taught the Word. It has been said by the cynical that he merely changed fanaticisms.”

  “I’ve heard the story. Who hasn’t?”

  “I am trying to draw a parallel with Captain Westering. Not long ago he, too, saw a great light which figuratively struck him blind. He, too, heard a voice. He, too, changed fanatacisms. Overnight he changed from a man who courted violence to a man who cherished peace. The pilgrimage to the land of war was his penance.”

  “I guess he didn’t see the light soon enough, since violence caught up with him. I’d call poisoning a kind of violence, wouldn’t you? But no matter. You say the captain changed. Changed from what?”

  “He was the leader of the Latter Day Vigilantes. Indeed, he was the founder of an organization of that name. The mission, under his direction, was to purchase and store arms, small arsenals, to be used against the communists and other radicals when they seized control of the country. This was in Illinois. Headquarters was in Cicero.”

  Captain Kelso had apparently become shockproof. His lower jaw dropped and hung, but after a moment he closed it firmly and spoke calmly through clenched teeth. “What, may I ask, brought about this amazing change of heart in the remarkable captain?”

  “Change of heart? I don’t think so. The captain’s heart remained steadfast. I prefer to think of it as a change of direction.”

  “Think of it as you like. What caused it?”

  “Who knows? A dream? A vision? A miracle? The answer has gone with the captain. After it happened, whatever it was, it was no longer possible to remain the leader of an organization that had become, in an instant, abhorrent to him. An activist organization that stood for applied hatred—everything that he no longer believed in. There was clearly only one thing to do.”

  “There was? What?”

  “Simply to disappear. As quietly and quickly as possible. And so we did. We simply dropped from sight, he and I together.”

  “Changing your name, naturally, to suit your change of direction.”

  “As you say. Naturally.”

  “What name did you use in Illinois?”

  “I’ll tell you, as I have told you the rest of the story, only because you would find out anyhow. The name was Donner. The captain took the name of Martin Donner.”

  Captain Kelso wrote the name carefully in his limp-backed book. He underscored it three times with restrained fury. “Changing it later to Westering?”

  “Yes.”

  “And after quietly disappearing, as you put it, did you come directly here?”

  “No. We wandered. The captain had to learn to know himself as he had become, you see. To find his new way. My sister lived here. She had prospered in a worldly way. She offered a haven, and we finally sought it. It was here that the captain received the message that he was to lead a pilgrimage to the land of war.”

  “The captain seems to have received a lot of messages. Did the message inform him that peace negotiations were going to begin before he could get under way?”

  “Peace negotiations? What are they? The killing goes on.”

  “So it does. I can’t deny that.” Captain Kelso dry-scrubbed his scalp with knuckles. “It strikes me that there may have been some suspicious vigilantes when they woke up one morning around Cicero and found their leader had decamped. Some of them may even have been annoyed. Could that be another reason why the captain changed his name?”

  Aletha Dwight-Donner-Westering, to name a few names, was again silent, staring again beyond her guests into whatever world opened at their backs. If she was listening for a message, she must have received it. She spoke with that impregnable serenity that was assuming in Miss Withers’ mind a quality of terrible madness. “It is strange,” she said, “that you should ask that. As if the words were put into your mouth. When the captain was leader of the Latter Day Vigilantes, he had a young lieutenant who had come to us from nowhere. He was a dedicated worker, and he became second in command. Three nights ago he showed up here.”

  It was Captain Kelso’s turn to be silent. Apparently he had turned suddenly to stone.
Even his bald dome had taken on a fossilized appearance. “That’s very interesting,” he said at last. “Why didn’t you tell me this last night?”

  “Last night I wasn’t prepared.”

  “What did this lieutenant call himself?”

  “Wagner. Bruno Wagner.”

  “Sounds about right for a Latter Day Nazi. Pardon me. Vigilante. How had he found out where you were?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

  “What did he want?”

  “He was violent and abusive. He accused the captain of being a traitor and a thief. He demanded restitution, and threatened vengeance if he didn’t get it.”

  “Restitution?”

  “Yes. The Vigilantes had accumulated a considerable treasury. He had the absurd notion that the captain had stolen it.”

  “I see. In other words, he wanted the captain to split the swag.”

  “There was nothing to split. The captain explained that the treasury had been depleted by the purchase of arms and by other routine expenses of the organization.”

  “Where were these arsenals hidden?”

  “At various locations in the southern part of the state. In rural areas. I don’t know precisely. That was not my business.”

  “Where is this Wagner now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you seen him since he showed up here?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think he murdered your husband?”

  “It’s possible. If he did, he will pay for it.”

  “You’d better believe it.”

  “Vengeance will be had by a greater power than the San Francisco police, Captain.”

  “Maybe so. But we’ll get first crack at him. The greater power, whatever it is, will have to take what’s left. What does this Wagner look like?”

  “Medium height. Light hair. Rather ordinary, really. I seldom pay attention to physical appearances. My mind is absorbed by the spiritual.”