Crows Can't Count

by A. A. Fair

  “That’s quite an assumption,” Sellers said.

  “In a way it is. In a way it isn’t. You should have seen Shirley Bruce and her ‘Uncle Harry’ together and in action. Then it wouldn’t seem like such an assumption.”

  “Oh-oh!” Sellers said. “Like that, eh?”

  “Like that.”

  “Go on.”

  “On the day of his death Cameron was ready for action. He’d had a tip-off. Now he was ready to go to work. He went to this Señora Lerida and he sent for Juanita Grafton. What he said to them caused someone to toss a knife at him.”

  “To toss a knife?”

  “That’s right. Juanita not only was adept at knife throwing, but she thought it should be a part of the repertoire of all nice young ladies.”

  Sellers frowned.

  “In the meantime,” I went on, “Shirley Bruce had decided to play Santa Claus to Bob Hockley. She went out to his place and presented him two thousand berries.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they’d learned he’d applied for a passport to South America. They didn’t want him down there. If he went, Sharples was to tag along. Bertha was slated to trail him—but mostly they didn’t want him to go at all. Two thousand smackers should have kept him at home playing ponies. The fact that it didn’t showed he must have had a pretty strong hunch there were things in Colombia people wanted covered up. But Shirley’s two-thousand-dollar trip to his place resulted in her picking up some nice deadly blue crystals marked Poison and finding opportunity to type out an address on his typewriter. So the trip wasn’t entirely wasted.”

  “Go on,” Sellers said. “Keep talking. I’m listening. That’s all I’m doing for the present, but I’m listening.”

  I said, “Two persons were intimately concerned with what would happen in case Cameron had learned Murindo’s secret and decided to spill it. One was Juanita Grafton and the other was Shirley Bruce.”

  “How did you get wise in the first place?” Sellers asked. I saw he was stalling for time.

  I said, “Lots of little things. I met Juanita Grafton. She flew into a rage at the woman supposed to be her daughter. But later on, when I met her at Shirley Bruce’s place, she was waiting on Shirley hand and foot with all that slavish devotion which a mother gives to a spoiled child.

  “The story I got here was that she lived like a lady in the States by working like a dog when she went to South America. The story I got in South America was that she lived like a lady there by working like a dog when she was in the United States. Murindo, the illiterate mine manager, had a bunch of kale in the banks in Colombia. Murindo had some information he wanted to sell for money. It related to a daughter and a nurse. Put all those things together and then notice the family resemblance between Juanita Grafton and Shirley Bruce, and the fact that there isn’t the slightest resemblance between Juanita and the woman who is supposed to be her daughter. Cripes! A man wouldn’t have to be a detective to get the idea on that.”

  Sellers pulled a cigar from his pocket, ripped the end of it off with his teeth, spat out the moist bit of tobacco, and scraped a match into flame. “Jeepers, what a mess!” he said. “I could get myself in Dutch with a lot of people by chasing will-o’-the-wisps around through the marsh.”

  I said, “The person who killed Cameron was handy with a knife. That person was in the room with him. Put yourself in Cameron’s place. You find out information to the effect that Shirley Bruce is an impostor. You are pretty certain of your ground. But you aren’t the sort to do anything behind a person’s back. You get the evidence. Whom do you send for? When you have that person right with you, and have called the turn, whom would you telephone to and say, ‘Come over here right away, please. There are—’”

  “You mean the other beneficiary?” Sellers interrupted.

  “Exactly,” I said. “You’d call Robert Hockley and tell him you had just found out something of the greatest importance, that there was evidence in Colombia that—And about that time the dagger would seal your lips forever.”

  “Then why didn’t Hockley come forward and tell about the telephone conversation?”

  I said, “Hockley, instead, decided to go to South America and do a little investigating. Why should he lead with his chin?”

  “But I thought Cameron found out all about the switching around in South America.”

  “He did. But he needed proof. He came back here and nosed around. It took him a while to locate Señora Lerida. After he talked with her, he sent for Juanita Grafton to come and see him. She saw him and had hysterics. She ran out and frantically tried to call both Sharples and Shirley Bruce. She talked with Sharples in the afternoon and what he had to tell her calmed her nerves.”

  “You mean she got the heebie-jeebies because she killed him?”

  “Because she didn’t kill him. When she learned he was dead, it calmed her down.”

  “If that’s true, that doesn’t leave a hell of a lot of suspects.”

  “Only one,” I said.

  Sellers scratched the back of his head the way he always did when he was puzzled. “Hell, Lam,” he blurted at length, “you haven’t got anything to go on except a theory.”

  “That’s all Columbus had,” I told him, and turned back into the house.

  Chapter Twenty-Six:—A PAINTING FOR DONALD

  BERTHA’S VOICE WAS DRIPPING MELTED BUTTER and syrup like a Sunday morning waffle. “Donald, dear,” she said, “just take a look at it. It’s all ready.”

  Triumphantly she threw open the door marked “Donald Lam, Private.”

  It was a suite of two offices. In the outer office, small but well lighted, Elsie Brand sat banging away at her typewriter. Behind her, the door to another office stood open. It was provided with furniture that looked like a million dollars—deep, overstuffed chairs, a polished walnut desk, rich heavy carpets.

  “How do you like it?” Bertha asked apprehensively.

  I walked over to the typewriter and said to Elsie, “What are you doing?”

  Bertha said, “The new girl isn’t very fast. There was a little overflow work that had to be done and I—”

  I ripped the sheets of paper out of the roller of Elsie’s typewriter and handed them to Bertha. “If the girl out in the front office can’t do the work,” I said, “hire another girl to help her. Elsie Brand does my work.”

  Bertha took a deep breath. “All right, Donald,” she cooed.

  Elsie looked up at me with a wry smile. “I know you’re trying to be nice, Donald,” she said, “but I’ve worked all my life. I’ve sat here day after day, eight hours at a time, pounding a typewriter. If I don’t have something to do, I’ll—”

  I said, “You’ll do the way other secretaries do. Get a movie magazine, put it in the top drawer of the desk, pull the drawer out, and sit there reading. When a client comes in, push the drawer shut and look as businesslike as an adding machine. As soon as he’s in the other office, pull the drawer of the desk open and start reading again.”

  “Donald, you know I could never do that.”

  I said, “I know you can’t keep on pounding that typewriter day in and day out without shattering your nervous system. I’ve seen too many girls go to pieces, turning themselves into machines. You’ve done your share of that work. From now on you’re going to take it easy.”

  She glanced up at Bertha.

  Bertha was smiling benignly. “Donald,” she said, “I haven’t had a chance to tell you what happened. Let’s go into your private office for the good news.”

  I said, “This is private enough. What is it?”

  “You were right all the way down the line on that Cameron murder. That Grafton girl is absolutely bewildered and grateful. And Frank Sellers thinks you are the fair-haired boy child.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Shirley Bruce finally confessed.”

  “Her mother in on it?”

  “Her mother didn’t know a thing about it. Harry Sharples had a deep suspicio
n, but he wasn’t saying anything. This man Murindo talked too much. He made a slip with Cameron, thinking Cameron already knew, and Cameron was shocked. The business about the emeralds was one thing, but a switch in heiresses was something else again. Cameron came back here and started an investigation. He located this mother of Murindo’s after a lot of trouble. He learned enough from her to make him certain of his facts. He sent for Juanita and tried to make her admit what had happened. She was frightened but she lied. Cameron had enough to go on by that time. He sent for Shirley. He told her the jig was up. Then he was foolish enough to turn his back to her while he telephoned Hockley.”

  I said, “And I suppose Hockley, knowing that something was in the wind but not knowing just what or how much, and thinking it related to a trust embezzlement, decided to go to South America and investigate for himself.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And Sharples?”

  “Sharples apparently had some suspicions about what had happened, but he wasn’t in on it. He went chasing down to Colombia because Hockley was going. He wanted to make certain Hockley didn’t get around to people who would put two and two together. That’s what he wanted me there for—to help him with Hockley. Also he wanted to pick up the new stock of emeralds which were there, and start covering things up.”

  “Why did Sharples start me investigating that article of antique jewelry?” I asked.

  “Because Colombian secret-service men were beginning to smell a rat and had started to shadow Jarratt. So Jarratt, Sharples, and Cameron decided to try to convince everyone that the pendant Nuttall had was really an old South American heirloom. The Colombian secret-service boys had already spotted the piece at Nuttall’s.

  “Sharples decided to get you on the job. He had it all planned that you were to uncover a lead that would take you to Jarratt, then to Cameron, then to Shirley Bruce. At that stage of the game, after you’d been thoroughly sold on the genuine antiquity of the pendant and the emeralds, the whole story was to be relayed through us to Nuttall. Nuttall would, in turn, in all good faith, pass it on to the Colombian secret-service men who were trying to find out where the emerald market was beginning to get slightly out of balance. They had spotted this pendant and had asked Nuttall questions. That’s why Nuttall tried to pump Sharples.

  “When Cameron was murdered, Sharples went into a panic. He thought the Colombian men had done it. After all, a government monopoly was at stake, and Sharples didn’t know how far the other side would go or what they would do. His fears of murder were foolish when you analyzed them, but Sharples didn’t stop to think. He just got himself into a panic.

  “Jarratt decided it had reached a point where he’d better bail out and get himself in the clear. That pendant really had been purchased from Phyllis Fabens, although Jarratt did have to go back over his books to find her name and address. After the murder, it would have been better to have Phyllis Fabens owning the pendant instead of Shirley.”

  “And then was Shirley going to say this wasn’t her pendant, after all?”

  “I suppose so. But she may not have known too much of what Jarratt was doing. Jarratt just wanted to get himself into the clear.”

  “And Sharples didn’t know Shirley had been to see Cameron?”

  “I don’t think Sharples ever suspected Shirley Bruce of the murder. He was putty in her hands—just a big hunk of masculine dogmeat.”

  “The poison?” I asked.

  “Shirley went to see Hockley at his place of business. She lent him two thousand berries in a bid for his friendship and confidence. She didn’t get very far with him, but she saw a jar of copper salts labeled Poison and she acted on a hunch. She managed to slip a piece of paper into the typewriter and write a shipping-tag with Dona Grafton’s name and address. Then she unscrewed the top of the jar and dumped poison into her purse. After that, she doped the candy. At first she evidently didn’t have any definite plans, but the poison was a good play. When Cameron sent for Juanita, Shirley, acting on her own, sent Dona the candy. Dona had made a will leaving everything she might have to Juanita. So Shirley intended to get Dona out of the way and, in case the police should trace anything, all clues would lead to Robert Hockley. It was just irony Juanita got the candy. It was a lousy poison to use. Shirley was too dumb to think of that. The label on the bottle got her.”

  “Sharples must have set off that dynamite in South America?”

  “No. That was the one other man who was in on the emerald end of the thing, Murindo’s assistant, a man who had done most of the actual labor of getting the emeralds out of that mine. Apparently Murindo was the only one who could connect him with the emerald business. So when the police moved in, he decided he wanted Murindo out of the way.

  “Isn’t it wonderful, Donald? You’ve cut us in on a great big thing. That Grafton girl is going to pay us a percentage. Sharples is going to have to account for all the money he received from emeralds. After all, they came from the mine, and are a part of the trust fund. Of course, Colombia would confiscate the emeralds, but Sharples and Cameron have turned a lot of them into money. My lawyer tells me that the trust will undoubtedly be allowed to pay us a very liberal compensation for what we’ve done. Donald, you brainy little devil. Bertha doesn’t know what she’d do without you!”

  I said, “Well, while Sellers is in a grateful frame of mind, tell him he’d better sew the thing up tight because my own best guess is we’re going to have one hell of a time pinning anything more than manslaughter on Shirley Bruce.”

  “Why, he’s got her dead to rights on first-degree murder.”

  “He thinks he has now,” I said, “but by the time she gets on the witness stand and she smiles at the jury and crosses her knees and tells them about how Cameron, who had always been just like a father to her, suddenly became a sex-crazed beast and trapped her in his study—”

  “But Donald, she can’t get away with that. The man was telephoning at the time.”

  “Do you want to bet even-money on manslaughter?” I asked.

  Bertha met my eyes and then hers wavered. “No,” she said, “not even-money.”

  The new girl at the reception desk knocked timidly at the door.

  Elsie Brand jumped up from behind the desk, ran to the door, and opened it. The new girl gave her a long flat parcel. “This came by special messenger for Mr. Lam,” she said.

  “Looks like a piece of window glass,” Bertha said. “What the hell is it, Elsie?”

  Elsie glanced at me. I nodded. She ripped off the paper covering.

  It was a canvas of a slender, well-formed girl, standing at the rail of a ship, looking out over the water, the wind blowing her white skirts so that they swirled up to show a sweep of shapely leg. The girl had her head back and her eyes were looking out over the ocean, raised just a bit above the horizon, looking into the future with the wistful dreams of youth.

  There was a card at the bottom. Elsie handed it to me. I saw the message in strong, legible, feminine handwriting: Donald, you liked this. Your partner tells me you are opening a new private office. I would like to have you hang this on the wall. All my love and gratitude go with it. Yours always, Dona.

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