It was a rhetorical question, but Squeakie saw fit to answer it with a provocative I-know-something-I-won’t-tell shake of the head.
I translated for him. “She says no. In other words, she did find something else, but she wants to be coaxed.”
Gregory brought his hand down on the desk in a slap that made the lamp wobble. “Don’t withhold evidence,” he thundered. “What did you find?”
“Well! If you’re going to be nasty about it. I found the synopsis to Ruth Denver Bradley’s novel.”
Gregory tried not to look disappointed. “Better turn it over to Kingdom.”
Squeakie gave him a winning smile. “Not right away, Gregory. We can leave it where it is for a while. You see, I’ve been following the serial in Modern Magazine and later on I’d like to read the synopsis and see how the story ends.”
“Good Lord!” I said.
Fortunately, at this moment Harvey Thompson came in. He was a tall, thin man, slightly gray at the temples and had the worried air of the reformer. He looked the part of the righteous man, the enemy of corruption, but I had to admit he lived up to it. A man who made it his business to uncover ugly scandals couldn’t be too careful. Thompson neither smoked nor drank. It was rumored that he had recently been courting a young society girl, but his behavior on this was, as the saying goes, above reproach.
“Sit down, Mr. Thompson,” Gregory spoke carefully. “Nasty for you to have been here just at that moment. You had an appointment with the Doctor, I presume?”
Harvey Thompson nodded. “I had an appointment,” he said. “You must forgive me if I seem a little shaky. It was pretty dreadful. She fell right past me, you know.”
“Have you any opinion at all about the case?” Gregory asked.
Thompson smiled thinly. “I’m not qualified to have one,” he said graciously, “but being human, of course I have. I think it was suicide. The woman was ill. Probably she was depressed. When the nurse left her alone at the top of the stairs the impulse came to her. She was fascinated by the idea of falling…”
“Bosh,” Squeakie said rudely. “She wasn’t that type, Mr. Thompson. She’d have been more likely to kill someone else than herself.”
“Oh,” Mr. Thompson said, “I may very well be wrong. I didn’t know Mrs. Bradley. Just seen her once or twice walking around with her cane and shawl. Such a pity for a young woman to be an invalid. Must have been hard on her husband.”
“Excuse me,” Squeakie said, rising and moving toward the door. “I’ll go and tell Mr. Kingdon that I’ve found the synopsis. Isn’t it lucky?” she said smiling at Thompson, “I found the synopsis of Mrs. Bradley’s serial in Modern Magazine right here in this room.”
The door closed quietly, and she was gone.
“Hmmmm,” Gregory said, “I think I’ll go and see Miss Dawson.” He opened the door and indicated that Harvey Thompson could go out first. “If you’d like to leave, Mr. Thompson, I think…”
“Thank you, Lieutenant. But I’ll wait for a few words with the Doctor. There may be something I can do. I shouldn’t like him to think I ran off.”
When we crossed the hall, I saw that the body had been removed, and that made me think of fingerprints. But Haley said only those of the nurse and Mrs. Bradley had been found on the gate.
We found Miss Dawson in the library. She was very nervous. Her fists were clenched in her lap until the knuckles showed white. She didn’t look at us as she talked.
“Mrs. Bradley wanted to go up to talk to her husband. She didn’t say why. I went with her, but when we reached the top I discovered I’d left her shawl downstairs. It’s very important that Mrs. Bradley be protected from chill. Any change in temperature is…” she stopped short, stricken. “I mean, was bad for her. I went down to get the shawl, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. I looked and looked. I thought that Mrs. Bradley had probably gone into the Doctor’s office and was talking to him there, so I just kept on looking.” She paused apologetically as if ashamed to offer us a feeble excuse.
“I haven’t been well these last few days, over-tired or something. Suddenly I felt dizzy and ill. I slipped into a coat that I keep in the rear of the house and went out through the back door to take a walk around the block. I must have been feeling worse than I thought, because I forgot where I was and wandered around in a daze. I didn’t know what the Sergeant wanted when he found me.” Her eyes filled with tears. “It never occurred to me that Mrs. Bradley would kill herself. I feel guilty. I shouldn’t have left her.”
“You didn’t tell that quite right, Miss Dawson,” Gregory said softly. “You didn’t have to look for that shawl. It was on the hall chair where you had deliberately dropped it. Mary saw you pick it up when you went to the rear of the house.”
The girl moaned and bent forward as if to protect herself from a blow. “I haven’t been well,” she said brokenly. “I forget things.”
“It won’t do, Miss Dawson. You knew something was going to happen up there on the landing. At the last minute you lost your nerve and dropped the shawl so that you’d have an excuse to get away before it did happen. You see, we know about you and the Doctor.”
The girl covered her face with her hands.
“Leave her alone!” Dr. Bradley had opened the door and was standing on the threshold. I wondered how much he had heard.
“You can see the girl is near collapse. She didn’t know. I didn’t know. There was no plan. Do you think I murdered my wife? Why, I didn’t even know she was coming upstairs to see me! Stop badgering Miss Dawson—she can’t bear any more.”
That was pretty evident to all of us. But Gregory was a policeman, and this was a queer case. “Who was responsible for your wife’s death? You had a motive. Miss Dawson ran away. She evidently knew something was going to happen. I’m sorry, but I may have to do quite a bit of badgering, as you call it.”
“All right, I’ll tell you,” the Doctor said. He came into the room and Squeakie slipped in after him. How much had she heard?
“Robert, please!” Katherine Dawson was trembling.
‘Why not?” the Doctor said bitterly. “It’s just a matter of washing a little dirty linen in front of others. After all, people have done it before me all my life. I’ve listened to all the sins of humanity. Now I must talk about my own. Don’t be afraid, my dear.”
Katherine Dawson stared at him in amazement. “But, Robert, I…”
“Don’t be silly, Katherine. Reticence is all very well, but not if one is charged with murder because of it. Lieutenant, my wife was a sick woman, physically and spiritually. You noticed I do not say mentally. She was a thwarted woman. ‘Hell hath no fury…’ I didn’t scorn her,” he added, “but I no longer loved her. I gave her cause for misery, but I tried not to show it. I had no idea she knew about Katherine and me.”
“She told Mr. Kingdon about it,” said Squeakie, “and he thinks your wife was murdered.”
“Murdered!” Dr. Bradley shouted. “But she wasn’t murdered! That’s what I want to tell you. Kingdon can say what he likes, but I know human nature. Human nature is my business. My wife killed herself, and no unwritten story could have stopped her. Her motive was the cruelest, the ugliest one that exists. Spite! She did it to punish us, to make us feel responsible for her death. She was bringing Katherine up to my office to make a scene that would humiliate us both. Katherine couldn’t bear to go through such a scene in front of me. That was why she dropped the shawl and came down in the elevator. Ruth couldn’t follow her down the stairs. My wife stood there thwarted. Her prey had run away. She was beside herself. The strain on her heart must have been terrible. Perhaps she felt she might never recover from the effects of her rage. In any case, she knew what it would do to our lives if she were found dead. She threw herself down. It’s the only way it could have been. Before God, I didn’t push her. I didn’t even know she was there.”
He said it sincerely, impressively, but somehow it wasn’t satisfactory. Katherine Dawson, on the other hand, was sudden
ly radiant. It was clear that she had thought him guilty of his wife’s death. It was equally dear that she believed his story, whether we did or not.
“Tell me, Doctor,” Squeakie said suddenly, “did you read your wife’s stories?”
“No,” he said, “I did not. I have never been particularly fond of popular fiction. Perhaps I should have taken more interest in Ruth’s career,” he added apologetically, “but I was terribly busy myself and somehow…” his voice trailed away.
“I wish,” Squeakie said, “that you would read one now. There’s a current issue of Modern Magazine in the living room. Read an installment of your wife’s story. It will take your mind off yourself. And you’ll understand your wife better.”
“All right,” the Doctor said, “you ask in a way that makes it impossible for me to refuse. But I want to say that I think you are inexcusably impertinent.”
Squeakie smiled at him without rancor. “You’ll feel better later,” she said smugly. “To understand me is to pardon all.” She turned her back on him and stood looking down at the fireplace.
“The hitch,” I said, “lies in understanding her. It can’t be done.”
As the Doctor and Miss Dawson left, Squeakie suddenly dropped to her knees. “Gregory, something has been burned in this fireplace. I wonder when.”
Gregory was grubbing in the fireplace. “I’ll have Haley’s skin for this,” he said. “Taper ash, quite a lot of it! And completely burned.”
We went after Mary, who seemed much pleased by so much attention from the police. Yes, she had smelled something burning. It was while Dr. Bradley was calling the police. She had rushed out to the kitchen to see if there was anything on the stove, but there hadn’t been, so she decided it was just the incinerator smoking.
We thanked her and asked Mr. Kingdon. Evidently the missing manuscript still had Mr. Kingdon worried; he was quite snappy. How did we expect him to smell anything burning when he wasn’t in the house until after the Doctor’s telephone call?
We tried Mr. Thompson, who was standing uncomfortably in the hall looking as if he didn’t want to stay and didn’t want to go. He hadn’t smelled anything, but he had been so upset. There might have been such an odor and he would not have noticed it.
“Look,” Squeakie said suddenly, as if she were about to do us a great favor. “You carry on down here, Gregory, and I’ll go up and see if I can find what this key fits.”
“Wait,” Gregory said. But Squeakie had already stepped into the lift cage. We stood and watched its crawling ascent to the top floor.
“Maybe she wants us to see that nobody follows her. She shouldn’t be doing that, David.”
“Are you a policeman or a mouse?” I said. “Why don’t you stop her?”
Gregory changed the subject quickly. “Do you think the Doctor killed his wife?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I bet Squeakie doesn’t. She doesn’t like her suspects obvious. It wouldn’t surprise me if she tried to pin it on Kingdon. He seems awfully eager to have us arrest Bradley.”
“But Kingdon wasn’t in the house at the time of her death!” Gregory protested.
“That’s probably what’ll make Squeakie suspect him,” I said. “And don’t worry, she’ll find a way to put him in the house if she needs him there.”
“Bradley’s suicide theory looks all right. It could have happened that way.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But when these professional students of the human mind are out, they are way out. I agree with Kingdon that she wouldn’t have left the story unfinished. And what did happen to that missing installment, Gregory? Is Squeakie looking for it?”
“I think Squeakie found it,” he said. “That’s what was burned in the fireplace. But who did it? And why?”
The living room door was thrown open and Dr. Bradley came out. He was holding a copy of Modern Magazine in his hands and his voice shook when he spoke.
“My wife,” he said unsteadily, “my wife! This story... Lieutenant, I don’t... Good God!”
A woman had screamed somewhere upstairs. We stood there transfixed, and suddenly moved all at once. “It’s Squeakie,” I said. “Hurry! It’s Squeakie!”
The lift was at the top, so I started to run up the stairs. Gregory was right behind me. But it was the bulky Haley who passed us and reached the top first. “Coming, Mrs. Meadow!” he yelled, as he knocked me out of the way. “We’ll get him!”
We followed him into the Doctor’s office. Squeakie was standing in the middle of the room. She looked just as she always does except that one of her shoes was missing. She stood there, one shoe on and one shoe off, looking at us, calm and self-possessed. Haley was red in the face and puffing like a locomotive. Everybody looked like the devil except Squeakie.
At that moment Dr. Bradley came in. Squeakie limped over to him with the uneven gait caused by the shoeless foot. She picked up his hand and dropped the little key into it. “I found that in your wife’s study,” she said.
“Darling,” I said, “what happened?”
Bradley stared at the little key in horror. “But I had only one,” he said. “How did she get it?” He pulled a little chain out of his vest pocket and showed us another key just like it
“At first,” Squeakie said, “I thought you had killed her. You were the only one with a motive. But there was another motive. I didn’t see it immediately. It was so unusual. Even stranger than your suicide theory. Doctor. It was a motive as fantastic as something distorted in a dream.”
“Squeakie,” I said wildly, “why did you scream?”
“There was a mouse, I think,” she said. “Hurry, let’s go, Gregory.”
“Jeepers!” Haley said, “you didn’t scream on account of a mouse, did you, Mrs. Meadow?”
“No, I didn’t scream on account of it.”
“What did you do on account of it?” I asked.
“I threw my shoe at it.” She pointed to the far corner of the room. I went and retrieved her shoe.
“Where are we going?” Gregory asked her. He sounded rather tired.
“To get the murderer,” she said.
He clutched his hair. “Where would the murderer be, Squeakie?”
“If we hurry we’ll find him in Ruth Denver Bradley’s study. He’ll be in an awful dither. He’s looking for the synopsis of her novel, and I hid it behind the bookcase!”
We tiptoed down the stairs. Squeakie said we shouldn’t use the lift because it would make a noise.
When we reached the study door we all heard the faint sounds of someone moving around inside.
“Careful, Lieutenant,” Haley said importantly. He opened the door and slipped into the study. Gregory went in after him. The rest of us had to peer through the half-opened door. But the angle of the door made it impossible for us to see who was in the room. The faces of Gregory and Haley were registering emotion, but not revealing information. Then they both turned and looked at Squeakie in pained surprise, as if she had dropped a red-hot rivet in their laps.
To my amazement, Dr. Bradley spoke. He couldn’t see any more of the person in the room than we could—but he said: “Arrest him. Lieutenant. He killed my wife.”
They brought Harvey Thompson out quietly. There was a look about him that I can’t describe, a look of having come to the end of a long road and being glad it was over. Patient and Doctor looked at each other, and the patient’s eyes fell.
“I am very sorry,” he said. “She must have been a remarkable woman. Doctor, I am sorry.”
Dr. Bradley stared at the man before him. “I understand,” he said at last. “But the tragedy is greater than you suppose. There was no need to kill my wife, Mr. Thompson. No one in this world would ever have known, no one would have recognized you. It is a waste of both your lives.”
The man who fought corruption in high places bowed his head and they took him away.
Afterward, we had a quiet session in the library, and Squeakie told us all about it.
“Gregory,�
� Squeakie said, “was looking for dues to support the motive of the husband in love with his wife’s nurse. It was a good, orthodox motive. But I said to myself, ‘Suppose he didn’t kill her?’ You see?”
There was a pause while Squeakie sat there purring.
Gregory looked at me. “I’ll bite my tongue off before I’ll ask her,” I said.
“Okay,” he said, “but the whole police department is losing face.” He turned to Squeakie. “Where did you get by supposing he didn’t kill her, Squeakie?”
“Well, then, I had to look for another motive. When I found one, I had another suspect at the end of it. You see, I had to have a clue that led me to a motive.”
“The missing manuscript?” I asked.
Squeakie beamed on me. “That was it, David. At first the manuscript seemed to point to Mr. Kingdon. After all, what would a politician who had never met his doctor’s wife have to do with her manuscript? And why would a man kill a woman he didn’t even know.”
She went on, fixing us with a glittering eye, “What was in the missing manuscript?”
“I’ll bite,” I said.
“Remember, David, I told you about the story? It was the story of a man whose life was cruelly warped in his childhood. His father fell downstairs and was killed. Everyone thought it was an accident, and the man was buried.
There was a great deal of sympathy for the beautiful young widow and her little son. The mother wears mourning and shows great sorrow. But the child is horrified by her grief. He knows that she killed his father. He saw her push her husband to his death. The boy grows up, haunted by the knowledge of his mother’s crime, fearing its discovery.
“In an effort to compensate for his tainted heritage he lives a goody-goody life, never indulging in any of the normal amusements of the young male. The self-righteous puritan flourishes. His zeal for reforming leads him into politics, where he is successful. After years of a careful bachelor existence, he falls in love and wishes to marry. Very sensibly, he consults a psychiatrist, and in seeking his cure tells the doctor his life story.
“You remember, David, I wondered where Ruth Denver Bradley got the material for her plots? Now do you see? She had a key made to her husband’s case records. The key of villainous secrets indeed! She found a wealth of material there. Strangely enough, she didn’t even know the name of the man whose story she stole. The case histories used numbers instead of names.
The Comfortable Coffin Page 10