Hildegarde Withers Makes the Scene

by Stuart Palmer

  “Come off, Mrs. Westering. You can do better than that. If he’s your husband’s murderer, you must want him punished.”

  “He will be punished.”

  “Sure. I know. By a higher power.” Captain Kelso cracked his knuckles in a series of tiny explosions and stood up. “Was anyone here besides you and the captain when this Wagner came?”

  “My sister Alura. If you need confirmation, she will supply it.”

  “I’ll bet. Where is her restaurant located?”

  “On Bridgeway. You can’t miss it. It’s called the Royal Edward.”

  Miss Withers, following the captain’s cue, had risen also. Aletha Westering drifted up from her cushion like ascending smoke, effortlessly, again without the help of hands. She preceded them to the door and held it open.

  “I guess I don’t have to tell you,” Captain Kelso said, “that you are to remain available until this investigation is closed.”

  “You will find me here,” said Aletha Westering, “whenever you want me.”

  Miss Withers passed out, the captain following. On the flagstone walk they paused, and Captain Kelso slapped his thigh violently with his battered hat. “Another one!” he said. “Another suspect! By God, is there no end to them?”

  “If there really is another one,” said Miss Withers.

  “I’ve got a feeling he’s real, all right. Our Aletha is a superlative liar, no question about that, but I think she was telling the truth about that nasty Nazi episode. After all, it can be easily checked. Can you figure that Westering? St. Paul’s Aunt Agnes!”

  “All nonsense, of course. The captain was a charlatan. An incredible exhibitionist with absolutely no convictions who was capable of any pose so long as it made a good show. Right or left, it was all the same to him. Aletha was his perfect mate.”

  “How so?”

  “I told you last night. Because she’s capable of unlimited self-delusion. She believes her lies, and she believed her husband’s lies. Therefore, she tells truth and lies so sincerely that it’s almost impossible to sort them out. That business of being absorbed by the spiritual is not a pose, by the way. Depending, of course, on your definition of ‘spiritual.’ At any rate, there is very little of the physical about her.”

  “That’s your opinion.”

  “It is.”

  “Then you don’t like her as a jealous wife who would be up to killing a philandering husband?”

  “Not in a million years. Nor her husband’s supposed lover. If she put hemlock in that sherry, it was for some other motive.”

  “So you say. We’ll see. On the other hand, poison doesn’t seem like a weapon this Bruno Wagner character would use. Not direct enough. Not violent enough. A gun or a knife or his bare hands would be more his dish, from the sound of him.”

  “You can’t be sure. Poison can have the advantage of working while the murderer is elsewhere, reducing his chances of getting caught. And a poison that grows wild has the advantage of being untraceable. We’ve been over that. However, a total stranger to Lenore Gregory would have no way of knowing that the sherry was reserved for her. If she was the intended victim, as I have been convinced all along, that lets Bruno Wagner out.”

  “Not for me,” Captain Kelso said.

  But he said it to Miss Withers’ back, for the spinster had turned and started across the green grass of the lawn. He stood and watched her as she made a tour of the flower beds, pausing for a while beside each. Pretty soon, she returned.

  “Any hemlock?” he said.

  “No. I’m not surprised. Hemlock is not commonly used as a decorative plant, as certain other poisonous kinds are. But it is readily available, nevertheless, to a knowledgeable person. I assume, incidentally, that the autopsy has verified my contention that it was hemlock?”

  “Right. Regarding the identity of the poison, you batted a thousand.”

  “The odor of parsnips left little doubt.”

  “Regarding the other issue, though, you struck out.”

  “What other issue?”

  “Remember the Scotch? I promised you a report.”

  “It had hemlock in it?”

  “Loaded. What does that do to your theory that Lenore Gregory was the intended victim? If you ask me, it knocks it into a cocked hat.”

  “I wouldn’t go so far.”

  “No? Why not?”

  “The fact that the Scotch was poisoned does not negate the fact that the sherry was poisoned also. Remember, please, that Lenore’s restriction to sherry was no secret. What the report opens up, it seems to me, is the possibility that both Lenore and the captain were intended victims.”

  “Still eliminating your little friend, of course, as a suspect.”

  “Of course. Anyhow, the Scotch had not been removed from the locker, which indicates that it was poisoned before she arrived for her meeting with the captain.”

  “So what? Why not by her?”

  “She would hardly have poisoned both the Scotch and the sherry she would be drinking herself.”

  “Let me remind you that she didn’t drink any. Poisoning the sherry could have been a clever trick to try to avoid suspicion.”

  “Not so clever if you see it so quickly. Lenore is neither guilty nor stupid.”

  “Nuts. You’re what we call a prejudiced witness, that’s all.”

  “You’re very kind. I’m perfectly aware that you really mean I’m a bull-headed old maid.”

  “You said that. Not me. Well, we’d better go. I’ve got to get a net out for this Wagner bird. First, however, we’ll take time, being handy, to drop in on sister Alura for a few minutes.”

  14.

  THE ROYAL EDWARD LOOKED back to the time of the royalty from whom it swiped its name, Victoria’s unregenerate son; to the bawdy, gaudy days when nabobs scattered gingerbread mansions along San Francisco’s steep streets, when Caruso sang at the Grand Opera House, when young Jack Barrymore patronized the Oyster Loaf, and when at last the city paid for its sins, on April 18, 1906, by shifting a few feet along the sides of its deep fault, and by burning thereafter for three days in a lurid nightmare. It was a place of beads and red plush and gilt. The dining room was deserted, it being too late for even late lunchers, but the ornate bar was in business, it never being too early for early drinkers.

  Before going with Captain Kelso into the bar, Miss Withers paused to poke her nose over a red velvet rope that barred the way into the dining room. At one end, covering the entire width of the wall and all its height above gilded molding four feet from the floor, was a mural in bold colors depicting scenes from San Francisco’s raffish past. It was, Miss Withers thought, a striking piece of work. The technique was confident, the colors arresting, the concept sweeping. She studied it for a moment, then turned away to rejoin Captain Kelso, who had stopped to await her patiently a few paces ahead.

  “I was curious to see the mural,” Miss Withers said.

  “Mural?”

  “Leslie Fitzgerald’s. You remember that she told us last night that she had done a couple for this restaurant.”

  “Oh. I remember. I’m not much of an art fan myself. I used to like Maxfield Parrish when I was young.”

  Miss Withers shuddered and bit her tongue. She went on beside Captain Kelso into the bar. More gilt. More red plush. More beads. Rococo up to here.

  Sitting sidewise on a stool at the end of the bar, one elbow braced on polished mahogany, one knee crossed over the other to reveal a couple of feet of admirable nylon below the hem of a dark red sheath, was Alura O’Higgins, proprietress, royalty as regal as Edward himself. She saw Captain Kelso and Miss Withers approaching and inclined her dark head in the merest nod of recognition, gracious if not enthusiastic. The captain caught the nod and acknowledged it, but Miss Withers did not, having been distracted.

  Her attention had been captured and held by a second mural above the back bar with its rows of colored bottles and shining glasses reflected in a long mirror. The mural was the length of the bar and q
uite narrow, fitting between the gilt frame of the mirror and the ceiling. No panorama of history here. Strategically placed and directed lights picked out the focal point of the work, the magnificent nude figure of a woman against a dark background in which indistinct figures seemed to have paused to ogle, enraptured, from the shadows. It achieved, somehow, an effect of suspension, as if in the next second everyone in the painting would begin to breathe and move. The focal figure, the magnificent nude figure, was lying face down on a rich red couch, her head raised and turned and her dark eyes looking over one shoulder and directly down, it seemed, into the eyes of Miss Withers. The latter felt a slight shock which caused a hitch in her breath and a thump in her pulse. No mistake about it. Not the slightest chance of inadvertent resemblance. The figure in the mural was Alura O’Higgins.

  Miss Withers bumped against Captain Kelso’s solid bulk, which had braked to a stop. With an appearance of confusion, she straightened her hat and murmured an apology, to which no one paid attention.

  “Good afternoon, Captain,” Alura said, nodding at the same time to the flustered spinster. “May I offer you something to drink? Or is it forbidden while you’re on duty?”

  “It’s forbidden, which isn’t always a deterrent. Not this time, though, thanks. We’ve only stopped for a few minutes. As a matter of fact, we really came over to see your sister. We’ve just come from there.”

  “I see. Perhaps we’d better move to a table where you can sit down.”

  She slipped off the stool and led the way to a table in a corner, removed from patrons, and they sat down in shadows at three points of a circle. Miss Withers’ attention, irresistibly drawn, had returned to the mural. Oddly enough, although her position in the room was different, the dark eyes of the reclining figure still seemed to look directly into her own.

  “I am admiring the mural,” she said.

  Alura smiled, her dark eyes enigmatic, pools of shadow in shadows. “Does it shock you?”

  “Not at all. It’s quite remarkable.”

  “It is I, you know.”

  “Yes. That’s unmistakable. I recognized you at once.”

  “Did you? Many people don’t. Perhaps you think I’m an incurable egoist. Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher. It’s my one indulgence in flagrant exhibitionism. Do you think it’s vulgar?”

  “Far from it. A superb subject and a genuine talent save it from that. Last night on the yacht there was a young artist named Leslie Fitzgerald. She said that she had painted two murals for this restaurant.”

  “Was Leslie aboard last night? I didn’t realize it. The mural is hers. The other is in the dining room.”

  “I saw it as we came in. It, too, is exceptional.”

  “Yes. Leslie has rare talent. Perhaps genius.” Alura turned abruptly toward Captain Kelso. “What did you want to see me about, Captain?”

  The captain, his attention directed, was caught in the act of admiring Alura in the altogether. A dull red stain suffused his face and crept upstairs into his scalp. “We’re just after verification. Your sister told us a rather incredible story.”

  “No doubt you are aware, Captain, that Aletha is given to telling incredible stories. She lives, indeed, in a kind of fantasy world where one believes what one desires, and it is often difficult to separate imagination from reality. However, you are referring, I suppose, to the episode of the Latter Day Vigilantes. Unfortunately, I fear, that is substantially true.”

  “Did you know about all this when it was going on?”

  “No. The first I knew about it was when this man who called himself Bruno Wagner showed up at my house several nights ago. There was a dreadful scene. It was all I could do to force him to leave. Aletha’s husband was thoroughly terrified. Captain Westering, as he was calling himself, was something of a coward. An imposing coward, I grant you. He had a magnificent façade.”

  “I get the impression that you didn’t like your brother-in-law.”

  “That didn’t matter. Aletha was completely deluded by him. She saw him as a glamorous and extraordinary man. As, in a way, he was. That’s why she followed him about for over a decade from one escapade to another. If she had ever seen through him, the husk that he was, it would have destroyed her, I’m sure. I didn’t want that to happen. Do you think she shows strangely little grief at his death? That’s because of the way he died. In her eyes, he’s a martyr. He died, you see, in a great cause.”

  “Is that why you agreed to invest money in this lunatic voyage?”

  “It is. But I never thought that my investment would be considerable. I was convinced that the Karma would never sail.”

  “I see. You seem to be devoted to your sister.”

  “I suppose I am. At least, I’m committed to her, although I had not seen her for many years before she and her husband showed up here. Maybe I feel guilty for having neglected her so long. It might help you to understand if I were to tell you something about our background.”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  “Very well. We were born in New Orleans. Our mother was an entertainer. Our father was an Irish adventurer who always seemed to have a finger in some South American or Central American pie. I am five years older than Aletha. Our mother died when Aletha was born. We were farmed out for several years, and saw our father infrequently. Eventually we were placed by him in a convent. When I was old enough, or rather long before I was old enough, I escaped and came to San Francisco. I managed to do well for myself, but never mind that. I learned after quite a long time that Aletha had also escaped from the convent. She’d run away with a man. The man you know as Captain Westering. For the next decade I didn’t see them, but I had word from Aletha now and again. Sometimes I sent her money. Then the two of them suddenly appeared here, and Captain Westering cooked up this fantastic scheme for a peace pilgrimage. You know the rest.”

  “Not quite. Where did Captain Westering get the money to buy the Karma?”

  “I don’t know. He obviously had some source of money. When I asked Aletha, she would only say that the means were provided.”

  “What did you think after the scene with Bruno Wagner?”

  “He accused the captain of being a thief. He may have been.”

  “Your sister’s description of this Wagner was vague. Can you do better?”

  “He was medium height. Stocky build. Pale blond hair. Otherwise, nothing distinctive.”

  “Accent?”

  “Not noticeably. Nothing Teutonic or guttural, as the name suggests, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Scars?”

  “None visible.”

  “Do you have any idea where he is now?”

  “No. I haven’t seen him since that night.”

  “All right. Thanks very much.” Captain Kelso shoved back his chair and stood up, Miss Withers following suit. “I’ll see you again if necessary.”

  “If I am not here or at home, there’s always someone who will know where.”

  The captain and Miss Withers went out together. The eyes of Alura, larger than life in the mural behind the bar, seemed to follow them as they went.

  They were on the bridge above the Gate before Captain Kelso spoke again. “The sisters O’Higgins,” he said, “are something.”

  “So,” said Miss Withers, “they are.”

  “In my mind,” he said, “Alura no less than Aletha.”

  “Nor less,” Miss Withers said, “in mine.”

  “Fancy home. Fancy restaurant. Quite a climb for a runaway from a convent. I wonder how she managed it?”

  “I’d be interested to know.”

  “After I find out, I may tell you. I’ll get on it. On the mysterious Mr. Wagner, too. First I’ll drop you off.”

  He did, in front of the Canterbury, and left while she was still on the curb, without promising or threatening to see her again, soon or late. Inside, crossing the lobby to the elevators, Miss Withers was hailed by a familiar voice. Stopping and turning toward it, she saw Al Fister standing in f
ront of a sofa against the exotic background of a potted palm, with an imperious index finger curled in a come-hither gesture. Beside him, still seated on the sofa and looking as if she had never seen a dead body or been suspected of making it dead, was Lenore Gregory. Miss Withers went over and sat down on the sofa, leaving room between herself and Lenore for Al, who promptly claimed the space.

  “You are looking remarkably recovered, I must say,” said Miss Withers to Lenore, removing her gorgeous hat and placing it in her lap.

  “I feel fine,” said Lenore.

  “Is that so? Well, one mustn’t get too confident too soon.” Miss Withers looked suspiciously at Al. “Aloysius, what are you doing here?”

  “I’ve come to report,” Al said cheerfully. “Unless, that is, I’ve been fired.”

  “Nothing of the sort, young man. You have merely been superseded. Private-eyes must retire when the official police take over.”

  “In that case, I guess you wouldn’t be interested in hearing what I have to report.”

  “Don’t be difficult. If you have anything of consequence to report, let’s have it.”

  “Well, when I got to my buddy’s room this morning, I hit the sack, but I couldn’t sleep very well, and so after three hours or so I got up and started thinking about last night, the murder and all, and I decided to go back down to where the Karma’s docked, and I went. The old tub’s all tied up by the fuzz, of course, and I couldn’t get aboard, so I just hung around to see what I could see. I had been there about an hour, I guess, just hanging around, when I saw something. Guess what.”

  “Young man, this is no guessing game. Tell me what you saw and be done with it.”

  “Well, not what. Who. I saw the guy that I saw sneaking off the yacht last night. At least, I’m pretty sure it was him. Long hair. Dark glasses. And he moved about the same. Sort of erect and quick, if you know what I mean.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Just what any good private-eye would have done. I tailed him.”

  “Heaven help us! Well, never mind. You lost him, of course?”

  “That’s a funny thing. I thought I hadn’t, but then I guess I did.”