Curtain for a Jester

by Frances Lockridge

  The precise pattern here was, Bill said again, a matter of hypothesis. Since other things fitted, the hypothesis was, clearly, correct in substance.

  By the night of the April Fool’s party, Monteath was, it appeared, considered ripe. He had information Wilmot could sell. So, Wilmot had arranged, in the elaborate disguise of a practical joke, a reminder for Monteath—a red-haired mannequin, enough like Behren, as Monteath had known Behren, to make the point; to remind Monteath of the past, and disclose that Wilmot knew of the past.

  “It seems very elaborate,” Dorian said, apparently to the cat named Sherry. “Oblique.”

  “A stratagem,” Pam said, rounding it off.

  Bill agreed. It would have been simpler for Wilmot to take Monteath aside and to whisper in his ear.

  “But,” Bill said, “the elaborate appealed to Mr. Wilmot. It always had. It was part of the design of his life.”

  There they had it—a fancy for devious progress toward goals: the surprised discomfiture of the butt of a jest; a highly dramatized warning to Arthur Monteath, through mimic repetition of murder. In both cases, the means as interesting to Wilmot as the end; in the latter case, a large and startled audience for a theatrical production. It was conceivable that Wilmot had regarded espionage itself, with its essential and necessary deviousness, as very like a practical joke.

  In any event, Monteath had taken Wilmot’s meaning. There had been a whispered conference then; Monteath had agreed to see Wilmot the next day, knowing that it was blackmail over again, but not this time for money.

  “For what?” Jerry asked.

  Bill Weigand hesitated. Then he shrugged, said he couldn’t see that it mattered.

  “A list of names,” he said. “Names of people doing—well, they were described to me as doing ‘little chores’ for us in Eastern Europe.”

  “Spies,” Pam North said.

  Bill half smiled. He said she must know the United States government did not employ spies.

  “Then the more fool it,” Pam said. “Us.”

  “Anyway,” Bill said, “Monteath had a little list. Not a written list. A list in his mind. He was taking it to Washington. Wilmot and company wanted it. Presumably, they planned to sell names from it to governments which might be interested.”

  “And get these people killed,” Pam said. “Or put in prison for life or something.”

  She looked at it, Bill told her, as Monteath had. Monteath said Wilmot and Dewsnap were rats; he expressed no regret at having killed rats. He was sorry he had been caught.

  “I’m not sure I’m not,” Pam said. “Of course—”

  They waited politely, but she did not finish.

  Monteath had had no intention of parting with the list. On the other hand, he had no intention, if it could be avoided, of going on trial in Maine for murder. So he had stopped by the Norths’ apartment after leaving the party, stayed long enough to make it reasonably certain that no lingering guest would remain in the penthouse and gone back up to pay an unexpected visit.

  “But,” Pam said, “we went to the elevator with him. And he went—” She stopped.

  “Right,” Bill said. “He said he was going down; you expected him to go down. It never occurred to you that he might as easily have gone up.”

  “But,” Dorian said, “there’s an indicator, or a light, or—”

  “Stuck,” Pam said. “It always thinks it’s the fifth floor. Mr. Monteath had noticed that?”

  “Right,” Bill said. “He had.”

  He had gone up, but not to the door of the penthouse. He had gone up the fire stairs to the roof, over the low wall to the penthouse terrace and had found an open door leading to the kitchen.

  “An open door?” Jerry said.

  “Right,” Bill said. “He’d opened it before he left. With the crowd there, there was no difficulty. He’d also noticed the knives.”

  So—in the kitchen he had waited, watched Wilmot finish a drink, picked up a knife, holding it so his arm hid it, walked in on a startled Wilmot and—used the knife.

  “Then,” Bill said, “he naturally threw the dummy off the roof.”

  They waited.

  “Because it might be a link,” Bill said. “It obviously was intended to resemble somebody. Monteath gave us credit, assumed we would notice this and investigate. We might identify the dummy with Behren, and Behren with Parks, and Parks with Monteath. By the time it hit the sidewalk twelve floors down, nobody was going to identify it with anybody. People would describe it, but—” Bill shrugged.

  “I thought,” Pam said, “that we described it very well. But I see what you mean.”

  Monteath had realized, of course, that the descent of a man-sized dummy from a penthouse to the street below would be noticed, even late at night. He had taken care to drop it when nobody was passing; he had returned, sat down and waited. In due course, the police arrived below; subsequently, Sergeant Fox arrived at the door. Monteath impersonated Wilmot—a drunken Wilmot.

  “The lowest common denominator,” Pam said and Jerry, almost at the same time, said, “One drunk sounds like another.” “I like my way better,” Pam said. “Go on, Bill.”

  With Fox gone from the penthouse door, the police gone from the street, Monteath also went. He thought he had settled matters, and that he had made no revealing mistake.

  “As a matter of fact,” Bill said, “I don’t know that he had—then.”

  But he had made a mistake, nevertheless. He had assumed Wilmot to be alone in the plot. He had thought Behren dead—Behren had been reported dead. He had never heard of Dewsnap. He heard from Dewsnap in a few hours; heard that Dewsnap knew what Wilmot had known; realized another rat remained alive.

  “Two, counting Behren,” Pam pointed out. Bill shook his head at that. Until after he was arrested, Monteath had not known that Behren, calling himself Albert Barron, was alive.

  “And Frank?”

  “A hired man, apparently,” Bill said. “He’s out of our hands, too. But I doubt whether he knew about Monteath, or that he had killed Wilmot. As a matter of fact, I’d guess that Frank thought Dewsnap had killed Wilmot or, perhaps, that Behren had. Almost certainly, it was Dewsnap who wrote the lines for the little play Frank acted out here yesterday afternoon.”

  Pam and Jerry North shook their heads. Dorian said that, for her part, she didn’t understand any of it. She said it was the last time she was ever going to come in late.

  “Sylvester Frank came here intending to be picked up,” Bill said. “To tell the story involving Clyde Parsons—make us believe he had found Parsons’s coat in the penthouse and that there was blood on it. He hadn’t. He’d seen Parsons going toward this apartment house, all right, and without a coat. He’d told Dewsnap that, and that Parsons was pretty drunk. Dewsnap figured out the story.”

  “Why?” Pam said, and Jerry said, “Where was the coat?”

  “As to the coat,” Bill said, “I’ve no idea. Probably left it in some bar, and somebody picked it up. He seems to have thought he left it at his uncle’s apartment, and Mrs. Wilmot said he left there without it. She lied to protect him—very fond of him, for some reason. The coat isn’t there. Frank didn’t take it away, as he says. Why should he? He was a hired hand. He hadn’t been told what to do. His great fondness for Parsons—rats!”

  “So many rats,” Pam said. “Again—why, Bill? Why involve Parsons?”

  “Part of the price Monteath was to get for the list,” Bill said. “The Maine business would be forgotten. He would be got in the clear on Wilmot’s murder. Dewsnap didn’t go into details, Monteath says. Dewsnap was a man who played things close, apparently. He just told Monteath not to worry about killing Wilmot, that he’d see it was taken care of.”

  “And Mr. Monteath agreed?”

  “Pretended to,” Bill said. He finished his cocktail; he lighted a cigarette. He hesitated, and accepted another cocktail. “Actually, he was still rat hunting. He pretended he was willing to turn over the names. Promised to wr
ite them down. He said he would telephone Dewsnap when he was ready and that they would meet, where they wouldn’t be seen. He did telephone Dewsnap last night, at Dewsnap’s house in Brooklyn. They decided on the Emporium.”

  “Dewsnap was a fool,” Jerry said.

  “Well,” Bill said. “Yes, as it turned out. He underestimated Monteath and overestimated himself. Dewsnap had been around a good bit, I gather. Figured he was up to any trick Monteath might think of. And—Dewsnap had a gun in his desk drawer.”

  “And didn’t use it?”

  “No,” Bill said. “You see—he was a little surprised during his last few seconds. He’d been expecting Monteath. He got—Mr. Punch. Quite startling and, of course, Dewsnap didn’t know who it was for a moment. That was long enough. Monteath hit him on the head with a little metal statuette—very comical affair. We found it later. A monkey in a—well, an amusing posture. Meant to be amusing, anyway. Part of Wilmot’s stock, of course. Then, to make sure, Monteath merely opened the office window and dropped Dewsnap on what remained of his head. He started to get away then. But—people started coming. Baker and some friends of his—a man named Saul, for one. Behren—he was the one who hit you, Jerry. Frank. Martha Evitts. To say nothing of you two. A gathering of the clan.”

  “Why Martha?” Pam asked. “She wasn’t in the—clan?”

  “No,” Bill said. “They say not. Dewsnap called her at her apartment, she says. Told her—”

  “I know,” Pam said. “Why?”

  Bill shrugged. They would never know precisely what had been in Dewsnap’s mind. Bill could guess. He guessed that Dewsnap had identified Baker as “one of Saul’s bright young men.” He guessed that Dewsnap was about to wind things up; take flight. “Quite literally,” Bill said. “To Mexico. He’d bought a ticket.” Martha Evitts was to be used as a hostage, to buy time. But Dewsnap had already run out of time when Martha reached the Emporium.

  “The money in Wilmot’s safe?” Jerry asked.

  When you were in the business of selling information, you often had to buy it.

  “The fingerprints in the safe?”

  “That was Baker’s,” Bill said. “He went over the place yesterday morning, when he found Wilmot dead. What he found in the safe, beside the money—well, I really don’t know. Something, I’m pretty sure. But Saul and his boys—they’re not often communicative.” He finished his drink. “I,” he said, “am very communicative.”

  “Parsons and Mrs. Wilmot?”

  “Innocent bystanders,” Bill said. “While everybody was chasing around in Wilmot’s shop, they were at the movies.”

  There was a considerable silence, in the course of which Sherry snored suddenly, rather loudly.

  “That reminds me—” Dorian began, but Pam said, “Wait!”

  “I saw Mr. Baker hit a policeman,” Pam said. “Very distinctly. Very hard, too.”

  “You don’t give up,” Jerry told her.

  “No,” Bill said. “She did, of course. Hit him quite hard. One reason Behren hadn’t been as loquacious as they’d like, I gather. Jaw doesn’t work too well.”

  “Mr. Behren?” Pam said. “A policeman?”

  “No, Pam,” Bill said. “Dressed as a policeman. As Monteath was dressed as Mr. Punch. And—Baker as a boy in rompers. Miss Evitts as a witch.”

  There was a longish pause.

  “Well—” Dorian said, and lowered Sherry to the floor. Bill moved to get up. Incensed, Martini whirled, snarled, and lashed at Bill Weigand, with every evidence of jungle fury. She then leaped down, glared at the four of them, and left the room, indignation in each movement.

  “As Pam says,” Jerry noted, “you can always go by cats.”

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Mr. and Mrs. North Mysteries

  I

  Monday, February 8, 11 A.M. to 6:20 P.M.

  Forbes Ingraham hung his topcoat in the closet and brushed dampness from thick, graying hair. He crossed the office and sat in the leather chair behind the shining large desk with its fresh blotter, its two well-dusted telephones. He sat with his back to windows against which February rain lashed, driven by a gusty wind. But for all the anger of the wind, the rain was no more than the softest rustling in the big room, in which all sounds were muted.

  Ingraham fitted a cigarette into his holder, lighted it and leaned back in the chair and waited for the day to begin. A telephone rang and he picked it up, without surprise. In this, poor Mary’s timing was so precise—so many seconds for him to walk from the reception room and through the library; so many more to hang up a coat in the office closet, to cross the room to his desk, then to light a cigarette. She might have used a stopwatch, but the only clock she used ticked in her gentle, but in too many respects lamentably fuzzy, mind. She clung to this precision; in this she did not fail. Ingraham shook his head, the smile on his flexible lips diminishing. Last week, he had waited patiently at the Pierre to lunch with a man who waited, less patiently, at the Roosevelt, and that, also, was Mary’s doing.

  Having rung once, and rung in a whisper, the telephone had not repeated itself. Ingraham said “Yes?” into it, in a soft voice.

  “Good morning, Mr. Ingraham,” Mrs. Mary Burton said from the outer office, and he said, in the same soft, unhurrying voice, “Good morning, Mary. Was it wet on Staten Island, too?”

  “Oh yes,” Mary said. “And the ferry—goodness!”

  It was wet on Staten Island; it was snowy, or windy, or hot—but there was almost always a nice breeze there—or not anything in particular. Five mornings of each week, save for a month in summer, two weeks in winter, Forbes Ingraham was informed of these meteorological triumphs or mishaps of the Borough of Richmond, about which he could hardly have cared less.

  “What have we today, Mary?” Forbes Ingraham said, in the same gentle voice and, while he listened, checked against his own memory; against, also, notations on the top sheet of the yellow pad in front of him.

  “Mr. Halpern,” he repeated. “Yes, I know he is. Not here yet?”

  Mr. Halpern, it appeared, was not.

  Mr. Cuyler would like to see him when he had a moment free, and to this Ingraham said “Yes,” in the same tone. Mr. Webb had some things he wanted to go over, when it could be worked in. A Mr. Michael Fergus—was that right?—was down for eleven-thirty, but if Mr. Halpern was really late—

  “Yes, Mary.”

  At noon, the people from NBC, and Mr. Phelps, and his client, Miss Waterhouse—but of course, Mr. Ingraham remembered about that.

  “Miss Waterhouse, Mary?”

  “That’s what—oh, dear. Miss Masterson, isn’t it?”

  “I believe so, Mary.”

  At one-fifteen, if he could make it, Mr. Fleming at the Pierre. “It’s really the Pierre this time, Mr. Ingraham. I’ve double checked and—I’m so wretched about that, Mr. Ingraham.”

  “Yes, Mary.”

  “And Mr. and Mrs. North at three and then at three-thirty, Mrs. Schaeffer. There doesn’t seem to be anything after that.”

  “No, Mary,” Forbes Ingraham said, and there was a line vertical in his broad forehead. “I don’t recall anything after Mrs. Schaeffer.”

  “Mr. Brown’s secretary called twice and will you—”

  “No, Mary. It’s their hurry, not ours. Ask Mrs. Lynch to bring the mail in.”

  “Oh—I’m afraid she’s in Mr. Webb’s office. Shall I send Phyllis?”

  “No, Mary. I’d rather you brought it yourself, then. And tell Mr. Cuyler—

  “Mr. Halpern just came in.”

  “Mr. Halpern, then. But bring the mail first. And see if you can get Armstrong in Philadelphia, and if you do put him through. But not anyone else, Mary.”

  The last injunction was habitual; it was also hopeless. If Mary Burton remembered, which she did infrequently, she was susceptible to almost any plea of urgency. Poor Mary.

  The mail came; after the mail, which turned out to be of the kind which can wait, Mr. Halpern.

  Mr.
Halpern was a big man, in a blue suit not quite big enough. He looked as if he had worked much out of doors; perhaps, although he was in his sixties, still did. His jaw was noticeably long. He had a heavy voice, which rasped a little. He had a good deal to say, and Forbes Ingraham leaned back in the leather chair, and listened. Ingraham’s rather broad, very clever face, was almost expressionless. He smoked, the long holder clenched in regular, white teeth. Now and then he nodded his head. At one remark in Halpern’s rasping voice, Ingraham smiled faintly, and shook his head. He took the holder from between his teeth and said, “I don’t think it’ll come to that, Mr. Halpern.”

  “You don’t know this crowd,” Halpern said. “They’re tough bastards. If they don’t pin this on me—”

  “Oh yes,” Ingraham said. “I do understand. That’s why we’re taking the case. You realize it’s out of our line.”

  “Yeah. I know that,” Halpern said. “Appreciate it. All the boys appreciate it. So—here’s the stuff you wanted.”

  Ingraham took the stuff, which occupied a large envelope. He said he would tell Mr. Halpern what he thought tomorrow. He leaned forward, then, and turned back the top sheet on the yellow pad. He made several notes on the pad, said, in the soft voice which nevertheless had unusual carrying power, “Same time all right?” and, being told it was, got up and walked with the taller man out of the office, and through the library to the reception room. The reception room was empty, after Mr. Halpern left it.

  “Oh, Mr. Ingraham,” Mary Burton said, and her head appeared at the information window in one wall of the reception room. She looked a little, framed so, like another of the prints of bewigged English judges which hung numerously on the walls. Ingraham supposed that this was somehow connected with the regularity in the curls of Mary Burton’s white hair. It was true, of course, that she had, also, a rather long face. There was still a kind of eagerness in it. Poor Mary.

  “Mr. Armstrong won’t be in until after lunch,” Mary said. Her face was worried. “I told them it was important, but—” She waited exculpation for failure.