Hildegarde Withers Makes the Scene

by Stuart Palmer

  If that was true, why had he hung around afterward at his deadly peril?

  And why had he himself been murdered?

  At this point, having compromised her position so far, Miss Withers made the grand concession, for purposes of further speculation, of abandoning it altogether. She approached the murder of Captain Westering without prejudice from a new point of view. Her mind, suspended in shadows between waking and sleeping, seemed to work with a precision and depth of insight that was almost unnatural, as if it borrowed energy from her dormant body. Let us suppose, she thought, that Captain Kelso has been right all along—that Westering alone was the intended victim of murder, and that it was by the sheerest chance that Lenore was not killed by mistake. In the light of this supposition, she began to review again the circumstances of the murder—the character of the victim, the possible motives, and most of all, one by one, the incredible cast of characters involved in parts major and minor.

  Someone passed in the hall outside the door.

  Outside the windows, rising from the street and faintly heard in the room, were the multiple sounds of the city moving.

  And in her bed, Miss Withers was suddenly sitting erect in a blinding flash of light.

  She swung her legs over the side of the bed and planted her feet on the floor. The room was full of shadows, drapes drawn across the daylight outside the windows, but all objects seemed to have, nevertheless, a kind of etched distinction. She saw and thought with incisive clarity. She saw by the traveling clock on her bedside table that it was half after four. In the bed across the way, Lenore, sleeping, made a soft whimpering sound like a troubled child. In Miss Withers’ mind there was no doubt. She could no more have doubted the validity of her insight than a saint could have denied the validity of revelation. The only question remaining, now that she knew, was what to do about it. She sat still as a stone on the side of her bed for a long while, thinking. Then she reached for the phone beside her clock.

  She gave directions to the switchboard operator and waited.

  “Captain Kelso, please,” she said. “Miss Hildegarde Withers calling.”

  She waited again until the captain, who was available, came on.

  “Hello, Miss Withers. You dug up another body?”

  “Fortunately, no. Would you care to arrest the murderer of the two bodies we already have on hand?”

  “Oh, sure, sure. Just name a name.”

  Miss Withers named a name.

  Miss Withers climbed the long staircase to the emerald lawn and the walk of colored flags. Behind her, a reluctant collaborator, was Captain Kelso. Behind Captain Kelso, a dubious kibitzer, was Inspector Oscar Piper. The lights of Sausalito glittered on the hills. In the distance, beyond the shimmering span of the Golden Gate Bridge, the lights of San Francisco flared upward into the dark sky. Miss Withers, with a feeling of triumph, prodded the button that rang the chimes.

  Her triumph had not been easy. Far from it. In the beginning Captain Kelso had balked like a mule, digging in his heels. Inspector Piper, without actually saying so directly, had managed to imply that his old gadfly had finally forsaken all discretion and was brewing an eruption that would rival the earthquake of 1906. But Miss Withers had remained confident and adamant. And, it must be confessed, not completely candid.

  “Aletha Westering,” she had said firmly, “is clearly indicated. The evidence against her is circumstantial but it is extremely convincing. She had motive. She had opportunity. When sufficient pressure is put on her at headquarters, she’ll surely confess. You’ll see. She’s fundamentally an unstable woman, shored by fantasy, and her breaking point will be low.”

  Captain Kelso’s response had been predictable. “Damn it, the only motive she had that I can see is jealousy or hate or whatever a woman feels when her husband chases other women. And you’ve said right along, by God, that Aletha wasn’t the type for it. Not in a million years, you said.”

  “As to that, I can only claim a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.”

  “All right, all right!” Captain Kelso had snarled and scrubbed his bald dome. “But I’ll tell you one thing. You’d better be dead right, or you’ll be dead, period!”

  And so on these harsh terms they had proceeded, and here they were, and Miss Withers, dissembling the nagging doubt she secretly suffered, prodded the button again and rang the chimes. The door was opened by a maid. Miss O’Higgins, the maid said, was not at home. Miss Withers explained that they had come to see Mrs. Westering. In that case, if they would step in, the maid would see if Mrs. Westering was in. She left them standing and went away. She returned to say that Mrs. Westering would be with them immediately. Meanwhile, they could come down from the elevated, open foyer and find seats in the living room. They came down, but they didn’t find seats. They stood in a grim cluster and waited until Aletha Westering appeared.

  When she came, she was wearing again the flowing white robe, a golden goddess of the dawn in incandescent light, and Miss Withers could hear the breath whistle softly through the nostrils of Inspector Piper, who was, so to speak, just receiving his initiation. As for Miss Withers, a veteran of the club, she wondered with a touch of cynicism if Aletha Westering wore the robe to bed. It would make, after all, a very suitable nightgown.

  “Captain Kelso.” Aletha inclined her golden head to the captain, including Miss Withers and Inspector Piper in the greeting with a sweep of her golden eyes. “I didn’t expect you. Come in, please, and sit down.”

  “Thank you, no.” Captain Kelso, feeling uncomfortably uncertain, was exceptionally brusque. “I’m afraid that I must ask you to come along with me.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “Aletha Westering, I am arresting you for the murder of your husband. You need say nothing, of course, until you have consulted an attorney.”

  19.

  FORTY-EIGHT HOURS LATER, almost to the dot, Miss Withers crawled out of the sidecar of the Hog. The simple action, completed with as much dignity as was possible, filled her with a vague sadness, an abortive nostalgia. She had actually grown irrationally attached to the treacherous vehicle, and more than a little fond of the freckled young man who jockeyed it. Now that the time had almost come when she would have no further need of either, she was beginning already to miss both it and him.

  “Al,” she said, “stay at hand. I don’t anticipate that I shall be long.”

  Turning away, she entered the Royal Edward. The velvet rope did not now block the way into the dining room, where patrons sat at snowy tables set with gleaming silver and cat-footed waiters moved soundlessly across a maroon carpet. In the bar, soft canned music was an accompaniment to soft live conversation. Behind the bar, a pair of bartenders in dark red mess jackets moved efficiently to serve a row of drinkers on stools and a pair of waitresses, dressed in dark red uniforms, who brought orders from other drinkers at booths and tables. Behind and above the bar, nude in oils, Alura O’Higgins surveyed the scene. At the end of the bar, sidewise on the stool that was her observation point, sat Alura for real. She was wearing a long dark red gown. Red was obviously Alura’s color. Miss Withers approached her.

  “Good evening, Miss Withers,” Alura said. “Thank you for coming.”

  Miss Withers inclined her head, saying nothing. Alura sat quietly, an untouched martini on the bar beside her, watching the room and smiling faintly.

  “You see that you find me,” she said, “where you found me before. I like to sit here and watch over things. It gives me pride and pleasure.”

  “As well it should,” said Miss Withers.

  “Yes. But I musn’t delay you. I suppose you are wondering why I called and asked you to see me here.”

  “I have speculated. I have no official position. Why not Captain Kelso?”

  “You’ll understand soon enough. Anyhow, other considerations aside, I simply prefer you. Perhaps it’s because your taste in painting is sound. But never mind. If you will come with me, we will find a more private place to talk.”<
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  She led the way along the bar and around the far end and through a gold door into a red and gold room. With the door closed behind them, the sounds of the bar diminished, receding, it seemed, to a remote world. Across the room was a polished mahogany desk. Alura O’Higgins moved to the desk and sat down in a chair behind it. She nodded toward another chair in front of the desk and a little aside, a high-backed chair with padded seat covered in red plush, and Miss Withers occupied it obediently, her back erect and her feet planted firmly together.

  “I understand,” Alura said, “that Aletha has confessed to the murder of her husband.”

  “That is so,” Miss Withers said.

  “You must know that the confession is utterly false.”

  “What I know, or suspect, is of no consequence. The police accept it, and that’s all that counts. Why not? It has the ring of truth.”

  “I think you know better, Miss Withers. You are, I believe, an unusually perceptive person. Aletha is a child. An abnormal child, if you wish, but still a child. She believes sincerely that she talks with the dead. She believed that her husband, one of the most flagrant and conscienceless frauds who ever lived, was a man of exalted character and inestimable worth, misunderstood and hounded by his inferiors. Dead, he is a martyr, and now she is convinced, by the action of the police, that it is her destiny to share his martyrdom. She is, in brief, incredibly susceptible to the power of suggestion. She believes. Is it any wonder that her confession has the ring of truth? It would deceive a lie detector. But it does not deceive you.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Because, otherwise, you would not be here. Because you knew before you came what it is I have to say.”

  “That it was you who murdered Captain Westering?”

  For a long while Alura O’Higgins did not speak or reply. She sat looking beyond Miss Withers, her dark head canted in an attitude of listening, and when she did speak at last, it was not to answer but to ask a question of her own.

  “Why do you think I did?”

  “In the beginning I didn’t. I was diverted from the truth by a mistaken belief that was suggested by circumstances. As soon as I had finally corrected that error, I saw at once that you were the most probable suspect.”

  “What error?”

  “The conviction that the poison had been intended for Lenore Gregory.”

  “No, no. If the girl had died because of me, I should have been sorry. The decanter was there. I assumed that it was the captain’s. The use of hemlock was quite a good idea, I thought, because it couldn’t be traced. I know something about poisonous plants. A little research gave me all else that I needed to know. But you haven’t answered my question. What convinced you that I poisoned the captain?”

  “You had the strongest motive, once the true circumstances were clear. To be precise you had two motives. You never intended to help finance this insane voyage, of course. You are far too hard-headed and practical for that. A woman who can parlay the profit from an early affair into a prosperous restaurant like this is simply not the type. However, for your own purpose, you pretended to be interested. Your purpose, actually, was to give yourself a chance to kill Captain Westering in your own time and your own way. You knew him for what he was, and knew that the only way you could rid your sister of him was to rid the world of him. Perhaps you hesitated to take the risk at first. Perhaps that’s why you delayed. But then something else happened. Leslie Fitzgerald fell under the influence, shall we say, of the insidious captain. She also was touched by the corruption. You admire Leslie Fitzgerald very much, do you not?”

  “She is a great artist. It was bad enough to know that she degraded herself with such a man, but it was infinitely worse to think that she might destroy herself by going off on an incredible voyage from which she would almost certainly never return. Her place was here, in her studio, with her work. I didn’t really believe that the Karma would ever sail, but Captain Westering, in his way, was an ingenious man. He might have found a way.”

  “Well, there were your two motives. Aletha Westering and Leslie Fitzgerald. And then there was another factor besides the corruption of Leslie, as you regarded it, that drove you at last to precipitate action. I refer to the man who called himself, among other things, Bruno Wagner. He showed up at your home some time before the murder of the captain, full of accusations and threats. You were present. You heard him. And it was to you a dreadful revelation. For the first time you got a full look into the depths of the captain’s character. His depravity, if you please. You knew, after that, that you had to act. From that time the captain was a dead man.”

  Alura O’Higgins smiled. She looked down at her hands, which were holding each other on the desk before her, and smiled. In the smile there was no amusement.

  “You are a very clever woman, Miss Withers. I have thought so from the moment I first saw you. There is a communication between some women in such matters. Bruno Wagner, unfortunately, created a problem. The trouble was, I didn’t know that he was hanging around the Karma disguised as a hippie. As I learned later, he had known the Gregory girl back East, and remained to spy on her, as he did on the captain. He slipped aboard whenever he chose, and must have become quite familiar with the vessel. Someone aboard, I’m sure, knew about him and acted as his informant. From what he said to me later, I believe it was the man named Silversmith. But that’s aside. The point is, when I put the hemlock poison in the decanter, the afternoon of the day before the captain drank it, Bruno Wagner had come up into the cabin through the hatch from the hold before I entered. He was hiding in the head while I was there and saw everything I did. When the captain died the next night, he was on the vessel again. As a matter of fact, he had come to see the captain, I suppose to threaten him again about the old business of the Vigilantes, and found him dying. It did not take much intelligence, of course, to connect my actions and the captain’s death. Too bad for Bruno Wagner. He thought that he could blackmail me, and he’s dead.”

  “And you killed him.”

  “Yes. I went to that shabby little room of his in North Beach, prepared to kill him if the opportunity arose. As luck had it, he wasn’t in his room, but the door was unlocked. I went in and waited in the dark and stabbed him when he returned before he could cross the room and turn on the light beside his bed. I turned it on myself, to make certain he was dead, and left. It was really quite simple.”

  “Not so simple if you have to pay for it.”

  “Well, that’s something else. I have a notion that it will not, after all, be so hard. You realize, of course, that we are quite alone here. If I choose, I can deny every word I’ve said to you.”

  “You can, but you won’t.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “If you planned to deny all this later, you would not have called me here to listen to it now. And if you denied it, you would be permitting what you want to prevent. Your sister would stand trial. In view of her confession, she would surely be convicted. The wives of philandering husbands who get murdered are invariably, as the saying goes, sitting ducks.”

  “Would you permit that, knowing that she is innocent?”

  “Would you?”

  “No. Nor can I accept the prospect for myself. That is why, among lesser reasons, I asked you here to listen. As you said, you have no official position. You cannot arrest me and take me away with you.”

  “I might make a citizen’s arrest.”

  Alura O’Higgins stood up. Opening the belly drawer of the desk, she removed a long envelope and held it in front of her in both hands. Tall and strong, just under six feet, she stood like a proud goddess of twilight, a denizen of lingering dusk, and a trace of amusement, this time, was in her smile.

  “You might try.” She held out the envelope across the desk. “It’s all in here. You may deliver it to Captain Kelso. Take it, please, and go.”

  Miss Withers, rising, took it and went.

  20.

  “HANKY-PANKY!” SAID C
APTAIN Kelso. “Pure hanky-panky!”

  “Conceded,” said Miss Withers.

  “Not only hanky-panky,” said Captain Kelso, “but very dangerous hanky-panky!”

  “Nothing ventured,” said Miss Withers, “nothing gained.”

  Captain Kelso looked apoplectic. His face and bald head shone like a stoplight. Miss Withers looked smug. Her expression betrayed some slight concern for the captain’s heart and digestion.

  “Look,” said Captain Kelso with mighty and heroic calm, “I’ll admit it worked. Even if it did end in suicide. I won’t even accuse you of finagling it that way, although I have my suspicions. But I still say there was no way you could have known it would work.”

  “It was possible, all things considered, to make a calculated guess.”

  “All right. All right. Call it a guess. Call it insight. Call it woman’s intuition. By God, you can call it revelation if you want to. Do I care? Not I. Not by a jugful. I’m just a plain cop. I’ve got no special gifts. I just plod along looking for fingerprints and cigarette butts. But do me one favor. Just one more. Tell me again what these things were that you considered. Go over them slowly. After all, if anyone ever asks me, I’ve got to be able to tell them how I figured this case.”