In the Teeth of Adversity

by Marian Babson

  “Perhaps, if we wait awhile, she’ll become available. We have plenty of time.” Time enough to dig up the cellar, if necessary, his tone implied. For a detective, he ran as nasty a line in innuendos as an undertipped headwaiter.

  “Oh. Yes. No. Yes.” Endicott jittered, catching some of the drift. “I’ll call her.” He glanced toward the door and his nerve faltered. “You call her,” he said to me.

  I wasn’t any too pleased at the thought of encountering that redheaded temper again myself. Everyone was looking at me, however – Gerry with more sympathy than the others – and I decided to get out of sight before the inspector remembered he had been asking me questions when he got sidetracked. I’d do practically anything to keep him sidetracked, and fetching Adele ought to take care of it.

  The tea tray, which had been standing outside the door, was gone. Taken inside while the coast was clear, I presumed.

  “Mrs Zayle.” I tapped lightly on the door. “Mrs. Zayle?”

  I hadn’t really expected anything but silence on the first few attempts. After about five minutes of steady effort, she responded.

  “Go away!”

  I would have loved to. “Mrs. Zayle,” I said. “The police are here.”

  “Police?”

  “About Tyler Meredith,” I said. “They want to speak to you.”

  The door opened abruptly. “And I want to speak to them!” She swept past me. I noted that, although she was dressed in black, she had taken enough time at some point in the day to apply full makeup.

  I followed her, arriving in the doorway just behind her. I saw that the sergeant was there now, having evidently parked the car successfully, but that Endicott Zayle hadn’t yet succeeded in getting away to his waiting patients.

  “Dear, are you ... feeling better?” Zayle inquired tentatively. “This is Detective Chief Inspector Rennolds. He’d like to talk to you for a minute, ask you a few questions. I told him you weren’t really up to it, but he insisted. Inspector, my wife, Adele.”

  “How do you do?” she said perfunctorily. “Arrest that man!”

  Not surprisingly, the inspector goggled. She was pointing at her husband.

  “I was afraid she was still upset,” Endicott said, to no one in particular.

  “Why?” Inspector Rennolds asked, showing that practical streak of his again.

  “Because he killed Tyler Meredith.”

  “Did you see him do it?” It occurred to me that the inspector had encountered redheads before.

  “No, of course not. I’ve been out of town.”

  “Did he confess to you that he’d done it?”

  “No!” she stamped her foot impatiently. “Why are you wasting time with all these silly questions? Why don’t you arrest him? He had everything – motive, means, and opportunity. What more do you want?”

  “Juries like proof,” the inspector said. He glanced at Endicott Zayle with some sympathy. “You can go back to your patients now. They’ll be wondering what’s happened to you.”

  “Yes, but Adele –”

  “She’ll be all right. We’re just going to have a little discussion.” He looked over at Gerry and me. “You can go, too, but don’t go far. I’ll want to talk to you again later.”

  “We’ll be downstairs in the waiting room,” I said. As we left the room, I heard Adele begin to explain that she and Tyler Meredith were engaged, that she had intended to divorce her husband and marry Tyler. I caught the slightly glazed expression on Inspector Rennolds’s face just before the door closed behind us. He looked like a man who had heard it all before.

  Everyone in the waiting room looked up as we entered, then looked away again, dissatisfied. Some of them had been waiting an inordinately long time. Even the appearance of the receptionist to say “You’re next” would have been welcome.

  “You were here yesterday!” Until the Hon. Edytha Cale-Cunningham spoke to me suddenly, I hadn’t recognized her. Now I was shocked. Yesterday she had just appeared nervous and highly strung; today she was haggard and hagridden. There were dark shadows under her eyes, and a protective layer of flesh had disappeared between bones and skin, leaving her gaunt.

  “Have you heard what happened?” She came over to me, clutching my arm urgently with a hand that was little more than a claw. “Do you know?”

  I didn’t feel like admitting how much I did know – especially to her. “I’ve ... er ... heard that Endicott Zayle ... lost his ... partner,” I evaded.

  “I shall never believe it was suicide!” The claw tightened on my arm. “Never!”

  I met Gerry’s look and we tacitly agreed that we wanted to get the hell out of here. The question was how to pry myself loose before those tourniquet fingers cut off my circulation.

  “You don’t believe it” – the shadowed eyes gazed up at me beseechingly – “do you?”

  “I hardly knew the man,” I said quickly. “I was always one of Zayle’s patients.” It had been a great mistake to come down here. We should have gone upstairs and joined Sir Malcolm – at least I had learned how to cope with him adequately. A couple of hours lurching down Memory Lane after him would have been child’s play compared to this.

  “I knew him,” she said. “That’s why I know he would never have committed suicide. I knew him very well. We” – her voice lowered confidentially – “we were engaged. We were going to be married.”

  That threw me. “Congratulations,” I said, then realized that wasn’t the right thing to say. “I mean – I’m sorry,” I said hastily, but that didn’t sound right, either. I looked to Gerry for help.

  He was carefully looking in another direction. Which meant it had thrown him, too.

  “So, you see,” the Honourable Edytha continued, “I knew him better than anyone. Especially” – her tone hardened – “better than Mr. Zayle, who’s been spreading this terrible rumour. There was a tremendous amount of jealousy there, you know. Professional jealousy. Tyler was so much better at his work than Mr. Zayle.”

  I decided to let that pass. If Tyler Meredith had convinced her that Zayle’s jealousy was for professional reasons only, it wasn’t up to me to make any enlightening remarks. I had a feeling, though, that Inspector Rennolds was going to have some very interesting moments in the not-too-distant future.

  “The police are upstairs,” I said. “Investigating further.” She was entitled to know that much; she would have discovered it soon, in any case. “I think you ought to talk to them. They’ll want to know what you’ve just been telling me.”

  “Police?” She looked startled, almost frightened. As though she had not followed her thought through to its logical conclusion. Perhaps she had persuaded herself that Meredith’s death had been an accident. It had been intended to look like one.

  “Police ...” She drew a shaky breath. “Yes, yes, I suppose I must. It’s my duty to tell them everything.”

  “It’s always the best course to take,” I said. “Telling the police everything, I mean.” I thought of all I hadn’t told them and restrained a wince. They still believed my presence here yesterday was due to a sudden toothache. For as long as possible, I intended to allow them to go on believing that. I couldn’t see that dragging Morgana Fane into the already complex proceedings would do anything but confuse the issue. Not to mention giving her grounds for a possible malpractice suit. Poor Zayle had enough problems without that.

  “Before I do,” she said earnestly, “there’s something I’d like to attend to first.” She relaxed her grip on my arm and I felt the blood begin to flow again. I made a mental bet that I’d have bruises when I looked.

  “I’m sure that will be all right,” I agreed recklessly. It wasn’t up to me to chase Inspector Rennolds’s informants up to him.

  “Thank you,” she said. She seemed to feel that I had given her some sort of official permission. “I just want to go up to Tyler’s flat. There are several things – keepsakes – I’d like to have. Also, a few belongings of my own I want to retrieve. Nothing that cou
ld possibly be of importance to anyone else.” The muscles of her face twitched, curling the corners of her mouth upward in a bright, unconvincing smile. She nodded graciously to me and still nodding, walked out into the hallway and started upstairs.

  We watched her go. The others in the waiting room paid no attention. There was no reason why they should. Our conversation had been carried on in a fairly discreet undertone.

  “You know,” Gerry said thoughtfully, “I’m not so sure we should have let her go. Alone, that is. Suppose she removes a lot of stuff the police need for evidence. They won’t like that.”

  “And we’re not very popular with them as it is.” I saw his point. Although the Honourable Edytha probably only wanted to retrieve nothing more incriminating than a few wisps of chiffon, the police would undoubtedly prefer everything to remain where it was until they had had a chance to go over the flat.

  “Perhaps,” I suggested hopefully, “they’ll have sealed the flat so that no one can get in.”

  “I doubt it,” Gerry said. “It wasn’t the scene of the crime. In fact,” he added, “they haven’t even sealed that off. Zayle has been using it all day.”

  “You think we ought to do something about it?”

  “Either stop her, or go and tell Rennolds what she’s doing and let him take over.”

  I considered the choices briefly. “I’d rather try to stop her.” She was less formidable.

  “Right.” We left the waiting room and started up the stairs. There was no one in sight. I wondered vaguely where the receptionist had disappeared to, but thought she might have stepped out for a minute. It might even be her turn to be questioned by Inspector Rennolds.

  The coast was clear as we skimmed past the second-floor living quarters. The third floor hallway was also deserted; all the doors leading off it were tightly shut. We looked at each other and shrugged.

  “Might as well have a go,” Gerry said. “Knock and don’t wait for an answer – that’s the ticket.” He stepped up to the door of what, judging from the rooms below, must be the living room and knocked firmly. Equally firmly, he grasped the doorknob and turned it before the knock had finished echoing. Nothing happened.

  “Damn!” Gerry tried again. “Locked.”

  I moved across the hall and tried another door. It didn’t yield. By this time, I’d decided it was hopeless, but just in case, I tried the remaining doors.

  “It’s no use,” I said. “They’re all locked. She’s in there, either having a quiet weep or destroying evidence. Either way, she doesn’t want company.”

  “She may be doing both,” Gerry said brightly. “Never underestimate the ability of the female mind to travel along several tracks at the same time. It may be why some of them are such terrifying drivers.”

  “Of course” – I had another thought – “the place may have been locked up before she got here. She might not have been able to get in.”

  “Highly unlikely.” Gerry looked at me thoughtfully. “That just proves how old-fashioned you are. These days, a bird gets the latchkey long before the subject of a ring comes up. You don’t appreciate how forbearing I’ve had to be with my birds in order to spare your privacy. Some of them haven’t taken it at all well.”

  “I wouldn’t call the Honourable Edytha a bird.” I attacked the portion of his statement I considered most relevant at this moment.

  “More like a horse, I agree,” Gerry said. “Not at all in the same class – no pun intended – as Adele. But unencumbered and there’s money there – very definitely, plenty of money. A calculating man could do worse. And I do begin to get the impression that Tyler Meredith was calculating, don’t you?”

  “The thought had begun to cross my mind,” I admitted. “I’d also say he was fairly unscrupulous. You’d have to be to steal your partner’s wife under his own roof.”

  “In the light of what we’re finding out,” Gerry said judiciously, “I wouldn’t say he was stealing her – just borrowing her.”

  I thought of saying that was worse, in a way, but decided I wouldn’t give him an opportunity to call me old-fashioned again.

  “Mind you,” Gerry went on, “it may be six of one and half a dozen of the other. Who’s to say that Endicott Zayle’s intentions were strictly honourable towards his partner’s invention? There must be a terrific market for someone who can come up with a sensational new anaesthetic. An international market. We mustn’t allow loyalty to blind us to his possible faults just because he’s our client.”

  “Did we ever?” I murmured. But Gerry had a point. One which brought several interesting questions to mind: Why wasn’t Tyler Meredith administering his new anaesthetic himself in the test on Morgana Fane? Could it be because he hadn’t known that the anaesthetic was about to be tested? Had Endicott Zayle stolen or – considering fair was fair – “borrowed” a sample of the anaesthetic to use on his difficult patient? Was that why it had had such a devastating effect on her – because he hadn’t administered it in the right way? Or because his partner, suspecting professional treachery, had withheld a necessary ingredient from the formula? Something to be added at the last minute? Or had Meredith discovered what was going on, rushed in, and confronted Zayle over the supposedly dead body of Morgana Fane, been knocked out, strapped into the anaesthetic mask, and left to die in his own chair while Zayle –

  While Zayle rushed to involve me? Was I supposed to be a witness to his innocence, on the presumption that he couldn’t have murdered Tyler Meredith because he was with me at the time of death? Or had he thought that, by admitting to one death from the anaesthetic, he could escape suspicion on the second death? It could easily have been assumed that Tyler Meredith had discovered Morgana Fane’s body and believing that his anaesthetic was a total failure – and a deadly one – committed suicide. The death of Morgana Fane would have caused such an uproar that Zayle might have hoped that the concurrent death of a fairly obscure dentist would go comparatively unnoted in the general turmoil of the situation. It had certainly floored him to discover Morgana Fane was still alive. In fact, he had been behaving oddly all along.

  A thought which might be applied to my partner, if anyone happened along and found us. While I had been preoccupied with the deep unpleasant currents of my own thoughts, Gerry had been more active.

  He had begun by applying his ear to the door in various spots, without success. He next tried the old eye-to-the-keyhole routine, but found it occupied by the key.

  “Have you got a sheet of paper?” He straightened up momentarily.

  “Paper?” I pulled out my pocket diary. “You can have a page out of this. Do you want to slip a note under the door?”

  “That’s no good.” He gave me a disgusted look. “Let me have a fiver – it’s bigger.”

  “You can’t write on it so well.” Dutifully, I passed him over a limp five-pound note.

  “Haven’t you got a better one than this?” He frowned at it critically. “I want a crisp one.”

  “Beggars shouldn’t be choosers.” But I took it back and gave him a fresher one. I hoped that suited him – he had just run the gamut of my notecase.

  “It will have to do,” he said. I watched in fascination as he slid it under the door.

  “I don’t think you’ll get her out that way,” I said. “She’s got plenty of money of her own, remember.”

  “That’s not the idea.” He took a thin pencil from his pocket and began prodding the keyhole with it. “I hope the key falls in the right spot,” he said. “If it doesn’t drop on the note, we’ve had it.”

  “We’ve also had it if anyone comes along and finds us,” I said. I kept a nervous eye on the stairs to the lower floor. If Inspector Rennolds came up them suddenly, I wouldn’t give much for our chances of seeing Villiers Street again in less than ninety days.

  “Shhh, just be calm and keep your fingers crossed.” Gerry probed steadily at the keyhole. “Pity we haven’t a pair of eyebrow tweezers.”

  “Perhaps I could run down and b
orrow some from Adele,” I suggested sarcastically. “I’m sure Inspector Rennolds wouldn’t mind if we interrupted them. All in a good cause.”

  “Steady ... it’s coming ...” Gerry was encouraging himself rather than me. “Easy does it now ... easy ... aaah ...”

  “Aha!” a voice trumpeted behind us. “There you are!” I had been so busy watching the lower stairs for Inspector Rennolds that I hadn’t noticed General Sir Malcolm quietly coming down the rear stairs from his own quarters. I went rigid with shock.

  “At ease!” he snapped at me, and looked down at Gerry. He showed no surprise at finding him on his knees in front of a keyhole. It seemed to be no more than he expected. A man who wasn’t in uniform at a Time Like This was capable of anything.

  “I have something for you,” he announced sternly to Gerry.

  “Have you really?” Gerry leaped to his feet, trying to look as though he weren’t dusting his knees. “I say, that’s frightfully good of you. You shouldn’t have bothered, you know.”

  “Here!” Sir Malcolm thrust something into Gerry’s hands and gave him a piercing look. “Think it over!”’

  Without a backward glance, he turned and marched back up the stairs to his own quarters.

  “What the hell – ?” Gerry said. “What the bloody hell –?”

  In his hands was a long curling white feather.

  Chapter 7

  We heard doors opening and closing downstairs and the sound of people moving about. That meant someone might decide to come up here.

  “We’d better go down,” I said. “Let the Honourable Edytha worry about herself if she’s caught. We don’t want to be.”

  Trying to look innocent, we descended the stairs, Gerry twirling the feather abstractedly between his fingers. As soon as we got a few minutes alone, there were a few things I ought to try to explain to him.