“Rich?” Carver said.
“Hi, Eric. Thought you were told to wait at the guesthouse.”
“I needed a drink.”
“Who’s this?”
“Mr. Holland. He’s at the house—Art Ritchie,” Carver said.
“Oh, yes,” Ritchie said. “You’re the second one that called.”
“How did you know?” Holland asked.
“Radio. Well, let’s have a look.”
“You can get into the room from those French doors,” Carver said.
“We’ll go the front way, me first—and keep your hands off things.”
Ritchie led the way through the screen door and across the still-darkened living-room. The door of Drake’s bedroom stood open, and when Holland followed the others inside, the place seemed just as he had remembered it.
“Who’s the guy?” Ritchie asked when he had taken a quick glance round.
“Name’s Roger Drake,” Carver said. “A friend of Tracy’s.”
“Not the one I heard she was going to marry?” Ritchie whistled softly and shook his head when Carver nodded. “She don’t know about this yet?”
“Nobody knows but Holland and me—and the one who shot him.”
“Umm.” Ritchie, a stocky young man with blond brows and a sun-reddened face, sucked his lips. “But somebody socked him first, put a lump on him. Scratched him some, too, hunh? Who? You, Eric?”
Carver’s face was broad and muscular like the rest of him, a truculent, durable sort of face with thick dark brows and a wide mouth that had yet to smile. He hesitated now, then held up his right fist and inspected it.
“Yeah,” he said in a voice curiously soft for one of his looks and build. “But that was before the shot.”
“You scratch him, too?”
Carver was opening and closing his fingers. “Looks like it.”
Ritchie measured the other a second or two. He said he hoped Carver was right and walked slowly about the lifeless figure in the chair. He did not touch the crumpled sport coat but he knelt to look under the chair and then inspected the rest of the floor.
“No gun, hunh?”
Holland spoke before he knew it. “There was one.”
“Oh? Where?”
“Out on the edge of the terrace.”
Ritchie looked him over. He glanced at Carver. “Did you see it, Eric?”
“I wasn’t out there.”
“Okay. So what the hell did you do?”
“I heard the shot—or what sounded like one. I didn’t do anything at first and then I got thinking about it so I came over.” He paused, his gaze moving to a spot halfway up the wall and stopping there. “I found him just like that. I didn’t see any gun. I went back to my place and phoned the barracks.”
“Stay put, you two,” Ritchie said and went outside, letting the door bang behind him. When he came back he cocked his head at Holland. “Come out here and show me where.”
Holland explained how he had gone outside and how he had kicked the gun. “I picked it up,” he said lamely.
“That was a dumb thing to do.”
“I knew that ten seconds after I did it.”
“So?”
“So I put it on the step out there.”
Holland was a little shocked at his answer even as he spoke. The basis of the lie may have been the thought that this answer sounded more reasonable than what he actually had done. Perhaps it was some reluctance to admit the gun had been taken from the table by some-one in the house. It may even have been a reaction to Ritchie’s dogged questions, but in any case the words were out before he knew it and having lied he stuck by the lie.
He watched through the screen door as the trooper played his flashlight about and he was ready when the man said, “Where, Mr. Holland? Show me.”
Holland stepped outside. He pointed to a corner of the stone step. “Right there.”
“Do you see it now?”
“No.”
“And you have no idea what happened to it?”
“As a guess,” said Holland, “I’d say someone picked it up.”
Ritchie’s answer was a grunt of annoyance. He came into the room, took a handkerchief from his pocket, and reached for the doorknob leading to the bath.
Holland said, “The handkerchief isn’t necessary. I’ve already been in there. If there were any prints I probably smudged them.”
“You did all right, huh?” Ritchie stared at him with hard, morose eyes. “I guess you checked on everything.”
“I found a dead man in a chair,” Holland said. “I didn’t know if anyone else was here or not so I looked.”
Ritchie had his chin out and his hands on his hips. He was about to make some comment when Carver interrupted him.
“Take it easy, Art. So he made a mistake. Does he look like a murderer?”
“How do I know?” Ritchie said. “I don’t run around with killers much. All I know is that he bolluxed things up some and the lieutenant ain’t gonna like it.”
With that he continued into the bathroom and bedroom beyond. When he came back two minutes later his annoyance seemed forgotten. He glanced at his wrist watch and then out the door at a sky which was already beginning to lighten through the treetops.
“It may be a while before the doc gets here,” he said, “but the lieutenant ought to be along any minute. We’ll wait.”
Ritchie was not far off on his estimated time of arrival. They heard a car coming shortly after he spoke and when they went outside a police sedan was just pulling to a stop. Holland watched a man in plain clothes get out followed by a trooper in uniform. A third man, also in uniform, began to pull equipment cases from the back seat.
Ritchie went to meet the man in plain clothes and they had some conversation there by the car. They were still there when another car bounced up and pulled in behind the police sedan. A tall thin man with a black bag in his hand alighted and hurried over to where Ritchie stood. There were a few more seconds of discussion; then the official party came toward the house.
Ritchie said, “This is Lieutenant Pilgrim,” and indicated the man in plain clothes, a lean, straight-standing man of forty or so who wore a wrinkled, lightweight suit and glasses. “He’ll want to talk to you,” Ritchie said. “Wait here.”
They went inside, all but the trooper who had driven the sedan. He lit a cigarette and stood off to one side watching Carver and Holland, but saying nothing. Carver grunted and shifted his weight as he turned to look toward the main house.
“I wondered how long it would be before we had company,” he said presently, and when Holland looked around he found Arthur Baldwin hurrying toward them in the predawn grayness.
Baldwin’s ruddy face was troubled, his graying hair awry. He did not look precise or meticulous any more. He wore slippers but no socks, and in tucking his shirt into the trouser waistband he had missed the back which flapped a little when he walked. He was breathing hard, his gaze centered on the three cars so that he did not seem to see Carver and Holland until he stopped in front of them.
“What the hell goes on here?” he demanded.
Carver told him. Baldwin peered at him and then at Holland. “Drake?” he said, and swore softly. “You mean someone murdered him?” He swore again and said, “Well, it doesn’t surprise me much.”
“Doesn’t it, Mr. Baldwin?” Lieutenant Pilgrim had come round the corner of the house unobserved and now walked toward them. “Why?”
“Why?” Baldwin sounded flustered. “Well, I mean, nobody liked him around here and—”
“You have any trouble with him?”
“Me? No. What I mean is, he was a stranger and he had funny ways and—” He took a breath and said, “Oh, hell, forget it. It was a silly thing to say.”
Pilgrim let it go at that. “You didn’t hear a shot tonight?”
“No. I woke up a couple of times and saw the light on, but it’s been on half the night ever since he’s been here. I heard too many cars; that’s why I got dres
sed and came over here. But murder! Good God, this is a frightful mess.”
Pilgrim made no reply to this. “We’re giving this guesthouse a thorough going-over,” he said, “and when we finish I’ll want to talk to you again.” He paused, glancing at the sky and then toward the main house. “There’s no point in your standing around here. I’ll have to talk to the others in the house, naturally, but an hour or two isn’t going to make any difference—unless you want to wake up everyone now.”
Baldwin remained silent, and Pilgrim said, “You can wait for me down at your place, Mr. Carver. Ritchie can go with you. I’ll be along in a half hour or so. One other thing, Mr. Baldwin. We haven’t found the gun. I’ll have to search the house and if you want me to get a warrant I will.”
“No,” Baldwin said. “No, of course not. Search it whenever you like.”
The next half hour was a long one for John Holland. Sitting there in the Carver living-room watching the sky brighten and chase the shadows from the land he was forced to consider matters that he had heretofore been able to ignore. For, except for an occasional word now and then, no one had anything to say. Carver had repeated his offer of a drink which had been refused by all, and they had found places to sit down, but with the ever-watchful Ritchie present there was very little that the others could say even if they had been so inclined.
So Holland let his thoughts march on and what came of them was exceedingly discouraging; He had come here less than nine hours ago for one purpose—to see the girl he loved and tell her again that he loved her. The shock of finding her engaged and the resulting bitterness seemed both remote and unreal now, and because he could not understand how Tracy could become engaged to Roger Drake in the first place it was difficult to speculate as to just what effect his death might have on her. The one point that did become increasingly clear, however, was that, barring the possibility that some outsider was involved, Drake had been killed by someone on the Point. Someone had come to the guest-house a few hours ago intent on murder. Someone had climbed the vines to the second-floor porch a few minutes later, someone had seen him carrying the murder gun and had taken it from the drawer where he had left it.
He shook his head to clear his mind of such thoughts and rose abruptly, reaching for a cigarette. He stepped to the window, gaze fixed and remote until he saw Lieutenant Pilgrim coming across the wet grass. He said, “Here’s the lieutenant,” and went back to his seat, grateful for the interruption.
To Holland, who knew very little about such things, Pilgrim did not look much like what he had been led to believe a detective looked like, except perhaps around the eyes and only then when you looked closely behind the spectacles and saw how steady, watchful, and completely alert they were at all times. In his ready-made tropical-weight suit and nondescript felt hat he seemed more like an ordinary businessman—a not too prosperous one. Even his voice, which was quiet and controlled, seemed at odds with his profession, as were his opening words when he entered and looked carefully about him.
“It’s a nice room,” is what he said.
Carver sat up, looking a little startled at the observation. Holland followed the detective’s glance, examining paneled walls with their well-filled bookcases, the stone fireplace, the divan, the leather chairs that looked well broken-in and richly colored, the plain green rug.
“It’s a little messy now,” Carver said.
“Comfortable.” Pilgrim completed his inspection and put his hat on the edge of the mantelpiece. He glanced at Holland and Carver; then settled for Baldwin.
“Drake was shot once at fairly close range,” he said, “and not while he was in the chair. From what the doc says we figure he might have been standing by the French doors. There’s enough angle involved so that the one who shot him might have been standing on the top step outside. There’s no hole in the screen so it must have been open. We think Drake staggered back, reached for that chair, and fell over into it. He probably didn’t move after that.”
He paused to remove his glasses. That showed his eyes were gray-green. He focused them on Holland when he began to polish the lenses.
“Have you any idea why the killer would drop his gun outside, Mr. Holland?”
“No. Unless he was scared, or stumbled when he tried to run away.”
“But there was a gun?”
“Certainly.”
“Describe it—Oh, I know it was dark,” he added, reading Holland’s mind. “But as well as you can.”
“It was a revolver. The tip-up kind of action. I thought it might be about a .32 but I’m not sure.”
Pilgrim put on his glasses, adjusted the sidebows. “Did you know Drake before you came here?”
“No.”
“Have any trouble with him after you came?”
Holland hesitated but not for long. “A little,” he said and told as well as he could what happened on the pier.
Pilgrim seemed a little surprised at the confession. He nodded and said, “Well, that’s being frank about it.”
“You would have found out anyway.”
Pilgrim glanced at Carver. “You went over to see Drake tonight before the shooting. What did you sock him for?”
“I didn’t like him. He’d been asking for it.” Carver paused, his dark gaze smoldering. Pilgrim waited him out. “Well, he’d been bothering Ginny Marshall and I—”
“Marshall?” Pilgrim said, interrupting. “Do I know her?”
“Professor Marshall’s daughter. They used to live down here. She comes here summers to help Mrs. Alienby. Also she does some typing and secretarial work for me.”
“Oh, yes,” Pilgrim said. “Pretty, dark-haired. About twenty-one. And Drake had been bothering her. How?”
Again Carver hesitated, his scowl fixed, and Holland wondered if Ginny Marshall lived in the big house, since he had seen no one about of that description.
“She can tell you if she wants to,” Carver said finally. “I didn’t know what there was to it until tonight. I probably wouldn’t have gone at all if I hadn’t had a few drinks.”
“Oh?”
“I’d been working and having a few snorts, and I got thinking of what Ginny said and the more I thought about it the sorer I got. When I went outside later and saw his light was still on I went over there.” He shrugged. “We had an argument and I knocked him down. He came up swinging so I popped him again and came home.”
Pilgrim thought it over, his eyes busy but nothing else showing in his face. He asked how long after that Carver had heard the shot.
“I don’t know. Maybe five minutes.”
“Then what?”
“Nothing first and then after a couple minutes I thought I’d better have a look. I went over there and found him like that and came back here and had another snort. Then I telephoned the barracks.”
“Well, that seems clear enough,” Pilgrim said matter-of-factly. He took something from his coat pocket and when he unfolded the object Holland saw it was a handkerchief, a small one. “Is this Miss Marshall’s?” the detective asked.
Carver looked at the handkerchief, a new tightness coming about his mouth and along the hinge of his jaw. Holland saw this; he had an idea Pilgrim saw it, too. Then Carver shook his head and glanced away.
“I wouldn’t know,” he said.
Pilgrim offered the handkerchief to Baldwin, asking if he had any ideas. When the older man said he had none Pilgrim put the handkerchief carefully away. When he was ready he said, “Do you know anything about Drake’s background, Mr. Baldwin?”
“Not a damn thing.” Baldwin discovered his shirttail was out and stood up to loosen his belt. “That’s why I objected to Tracy’s marrying him.”
“She knew of your objection?”
“Certainly she knew,” he said resentfully. “But a fat lot of good that did.”
“You have no idea what he did?”
“He said he was a lawyer. I told Tracy last night I doubted it. If he was I couldn’t find any records that said so.”
>
Pilgrim worked his lips a moment and then said, “Then you didn’t know that Drake was a private detective?”
Baldwin forgot about his belt. Carver leaned slowly forward, his heavy jaw slackening. Holland simply stared, hearing each word distinctly but finding only disbelief in the meaning they conveyed. For a matter of three seconds no one spoke and it was Baldwin who first found his voice.
“He was a what?”
For an answer Pilgrim produced a wallet. He opened it to display a card which no one read, and a metal badge. He let them look at it and then replaced the wallet.
Baldwin discovered he was holding his belt. Now he gave it a tug, fastened it, and dropped back into his chair.
“So that’s the kind of guy he was,” he said weakly.
“I don’t know anything about him personally,” Pilgrim said, “but he didn’t work for any of those wiretapping, divorce-racket outfits. He represented a pretty reputable New York agency from what I’ve heard. I haven’t been able to reach his boss yet”—he glanced at his watch—”but I will. Meanwhile I’d like to know if Drake was up here on a case or whether Miss Lawrence, either knowing what he did and not caring, or not knowing at all, just happened to fall in love with him.”
He got no help on this one. No one said anything. Carver rose and reached for the bottle and then, as he had done before, replaced it. Pilgrim nodded to Ritchie, who nodded back and went out. When he had his hat the lieutenant turned back to Baldwin.
“I suppose you’ll want to eat something before we get down to business. I’ll have to talk to everyone and the captain will be along later, and the state’s attorney. It won’t be any fun for anyone but it has to be done.”
“I could make coffee here,” Carver said.
Baldwin stood up and let his breath out in a heavy sigh. “No,” he said. “Walter’s always up by six anyway, and it’s nearly five-thirty now. He can just as well stir his stumps a little earlier. If it’s all right with you, Lieutenant, we’ll have a seven-o’clock breakfast and be ready right after that. I can’t make any promise about Mrs. Allenby, but the others you can count on.”
The Frightened Fianc?e Page 5