He rather expected Ogden to dust off the chair before he sat on it. Ogden didn’t. He did reach back to close the office door and Shapiro said, “Rather you didn’t, Mr. Ogden,” and Ogden raised black eyebrows and shrugged square shoulders and sat down, with, Shapiro thought, the aspect of a man who will listen to anything, however preposterous.
He listened for about ten minutes while Shapiro filled him in. The expression on Ogden’s face did nothing to add to Nathan Shapiro’s confidence.
“It isn’t much, is it?” Ogden said. “We can’t get an indictment on what you’ve got. Let alone a conviction. You know how the boss feels about things like that, don’t you, Lieutenant?”
“Yes,” Shapiro said. “I know how he feels about it. We may get more.”
Ogden said, “Mmmm.” He said, “They do sound like a screwy bunch. But not screwy enough to give us anything on a platter. You think this doorman will recognize him?”
“I don’t know.”
“There was light enough?”
“The street’s well lighted. There’s a tube of light around the entrance. Prince thinks there was light enough. Except—he wasn’t looking at the man. He was looking at the girl.”
“Funny sort of name, Prince’s,” Ogden said. “Rex Prince rather lays it on, doesn’t it?” But then he smiled, and the smile changed his face. “Come to that,” he said, “Cornelius Ogden the Third rather lays it on too. You can guess what it boils down to, can’t you?”
“Neal, probably.”
“No,” Ogden said. “Corny. Something to live down. They’re on their way—”
He did not finish because Shapiro was looking beyond him, through the open door. Ogden turned to look that way too, but he was too late to see Mrs. Jonathan Prentis going along the hall with Detective Grace Flanders’s hand firmly on the blonde woman’s elbow. Mrs. Prentis had been looking straight ahead when he saw her. She had, he thought, been walking rather mechanically. She had been dressed in black, and loosely dressed so that curves were hidden.
“Mrs. Prentis,” Shapiro said. “We’ll give it about fifteen minutes. O.K.?”
“Well,” Ogden said, “I can’t say I get it, Lieutenant. But it’s your party.” He took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and shook cigarettes loose in it and held it across the desk to Shapiro. Shapiro took a cigarette and was reaching in his pocket for a lighter when Ogden held a light out to him—a light which leaped from a lighter which looked like being silver.
Ogden lighted his own cigarette. He said, “We just sit here and twiddle our thumbs.”
“For now,” Shapiro said. “And hope that the Reverend Mr. Higgs is twiddling his.”
Ogden grinned, which changed his regular face even more than the smile had.
“Psychology,” he said. “In the absence of anything more tangible.”
Shapiro admitted it came to that. He got up and closed the office door.
“Simmons thinks you’re good,” Ogden said. “Bernard Simmons. He’s my boss. I just got switched to Homicide. Bernie Simmons is quite a guy.”
That seemed, for the moment, to exhaust the subject of Bernard Simmons, deputy chief of the District Attorney’s Homicide Bureau. Shapiro went back to taking papers from the In basket and reading them and putting initials on them and, for the most part, putting them in the Out basket. Cornelius Ogden III finished his cigarette and stubbed it out, being careful that it would not be left to smolder. He went across the small office and looked out its single window. Shapiro knew what he would see from it—a bleak-looking building and, at the bottom, a cement paving with, probably, newspapers blowing around on it. It was a view which always depressed Nathan Shapiro.
It was twenty minutes before there was a tat-tat-tat on the door. Shapiro said, “Yes, Tony,” and Tony Cook came in. Ogden turned from the window, and Shapiro said, “Mr. Ogden, Tony. From the D.A.’s office,” and “Detective Anthony Cook, Mr. Ogden.” Then he looked at Tony Cook and waited.
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Tony said. “A little inclined to yes from the way he walks. But nothing he can swear to.”
“All right,” Shapiro said. “All we had to expect. Mrs. Prentis and Mr. Higgs?”
“She didn’t see him, as far as she showed. Didn’t appear to look that way. He—yes, he saw her. Started to get up from his chair and didn’t.”
“Look any particular way? Surprised? Upset?”
Tony shrugged his shoulders and then shook his head. He said, “It isn’t a face tells you much, Lieutenant. Just stays a face.”
Shapiro stood up and came around the desk.
“May as well come along, Tony,” Shapiro said.
Tony said, “Prince?”
“He’s already missed his class,” Shapiro said. “Mr. Higgs will be going back that way. Prince may as well have another look.”
He led the way down the corridor to the one of the interrogation rooms Mrs. Prentis was not waiting in. He unlocked the door and they went into a large room, not harshly lighted, with an oblong table and several wooden chairs. Higgs was sitting in one of the chairs. Ogden and Nathan Shapiro and Cook sat in chairs across the table. Higgs looked from one to the other. He said, “I do not understand this, Lieutenant Shapiro. I have much to do. I was in the middle of an article. We have decided to continue those, at least for the time being.”
“We’ll try not to keep you too long, Mr. Higgs,” Shapiro said. “One or two little points. This is Mr. Ogden, by the way. From the District Attorney’s office.”
Higgs looked at Ogden and nodded his head.
Higgs wore a clerical collar which was still a little too large for him. His eyes were still set rather closely together. His voice still grated.
“One point is about Mrs. Prentis,” Shapiro said. “Late last month, we’ve learned, she came east. Went into a retreat near White Plains. You knew about that, Mr. Higgs?”
“Yes. I knew about that. It is a place for meditation and prayer. I have myself sought refuge there from time to time.”
“Did Mrs. Prentis often go to this retreat? Or others like it?”
“Before the meetings,” Higgs said. “I believe she often went to—to prepare herself. To commune with the Holy Spirit. While the Voice was seeking out the sins of a city.”
Ogden looked at Shapiro and raised his eyebrows.
“Her husband,” Shapiro said. “The Reverend Mr. Jonathan Prentis. They called him ‘the Voice.’ ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness.’ And also because, they tell me, he had a rather remarkable voice of his own. Speaking voice.”
Ogden said, “Oh,” and nodded his well-groomed head.
“Actually, Mr. Higgs,” Shapiro said, “you went up to this retreat twice while she was there. To visit her. Is that right?”
“Yes. That is right, Lieutenant. But I don’t see what—”
“Why did you go, Mr. Higgs?”
“To join my prayers with hers. To find sustenance in her abiding faith. She is a saintly woman, Lieutenant. She holds up our hands.”
Ogden looked somewhat bewildered. Not like anything he’s heard before, Shapiro thought. Any more than I had.
“Just to join her in prayer,” Shapiro said to the Reverend Higgs. “Nothing more than that, Mr. Higgs?”
“There can be no more than that,” Higgs said. “Surely that is true in your faith also, Lieutenant.”
“Yes,” Shapiro said, with no inflection on the word. “Mr. Higgs, when you went up to see Mrs. Prentis. It wasn’t to tell her what her husband was up to?”
“Up to?”
“In his—research,” Shapiro said, and made the pause evident. “In this research of his, he was being guided—that’s the word Mr. Farmington uses—by a very attractive young woman. One who, let’s say, knew her way around.”
“Did Farmington tell you that?”
“Yes. He—well, more or less supplied Mr. Prentis with such guides. From among the young women he hired to sing in the choir. You knew about that, didn’t you, Mr. Higgs?�
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Higgs’s eyes seemed to draw closer together. But, of course, one imagines things about other faces.
“If you are implying—” Higgs said and stopped and swallowed inside the large white collar. “The Reverend Prentis was a man of God, Lieutenant.”
“I’m implying,” Shapiro said, “that Mr. Prentis was playing around. Or that you thought he was. With a girl named Janet Rushton. You did know that, didn’t you?”
“I—well, Mr. Farmington hinted at something like that. I did not believe him. Because the Reverend Prentis was a dedicated man. A man of—”
“Yes,” Shapiro said. “You’ve told us that before. Did you tell Mrs. Prentis what her husband was up to?”
Ogden tapped his fingers lightly on the table.
“Yes,” Shapiro said. “You don’t have to answer that, Mr. Higgs. You don’t have to answer anything unless you choose to. You are entitled to have counsel present to advise you of your rights. And what we are saying in this room is being recorded. Enough, Mr. Ogden?”
“Yes,” Ogden said. “Do you want to call a lawyer, Mr. Higgs. To advise you?”
“There is no need,” Higgs said. “I put my trust in God. He is my adviser.”
“As you want it,” Shapiro said. “When you visited Mrs. Prentis at the retreat, did you tell her about her husband? Perhaps the first time what you only suspected. What Farmington had told you. Or hinted to you. Perhaps on the second visit that you had—had verified?”
Higgs said, “Well,” drawing it out. He looked from one to the other of the men facing him across the table. He said, “Well,” again. Then he said, “Did she tell you that? Today? After you brought her down here?”
“I take it, Mr. Higgs, you saw her come in?”
“Yes. As if—as if she were being arrested.”
“Nobody’s being arrested,” Shapiro said, and, again after a pause, added, “yet.”
“And she told you,” Higgs said, saving Shapiro the lie he had been entirely prepared to tell. “All right. She was his wife. They were linked in the bonds of holy matrimony. She had a right to know.”
“One way of looking at it,” Shapiro said. “How did she take it, Mr. Higgs? Very upset?”
“With disbelief,” Higgs said. “As I had when Mr. Farmington first hinted that—first hinted about it. That he should turn from God. Betray the Lord he served. At first it was impossible to believe. For her as it was for me.”
“But, on the second visit, you convinced her?”
“Yes. She said, ‘No! No! It cannot be.’ But I am sure she was convinced.”
“And then?”
Higgs did not know what he meant.
“She said, ‘No. No.’ And then? Was she angry? Because he had proved unfaithful. To her as to his—vocation?”
“She was—she seemed broken.”
“And angry? In what people call a jealous rage? Because, Mr. Higgs, in that kind of anger people have killed.”
“There is no violence in Hope Prentis. She is a saintly woman. Anyway, she was ill that night. And asleep in her room. Mrs. Mathews has told you that.”
“She could have pretended sleep. Followed her husband when he went out. With an ice pick in her handbag.”
Unexpectedly, Higgs doubled his hands into fists and rapped on the table with the knuckles of his fists.
“No,” he said. “That is impossible. I—she would have been seen.”
Tony and Ogden both looked quickly at Shapiro, but Shapiro looked only at John Wesley Higgs.
“Probably,” Shapiro said. “When you convinced Mrs. Prentis of her husband’s infidelity. How did you do that?”
“I had—I had proved it to myself.”
“How?”
“I—I saw them meeting. Several times. Going to places of iniquity. Where liquor is served and dancing is allowed. And, twice, I saw him go into this house she lived in. Late at night. After she had gone in. To join her.”
“I take it you followed them, Mr. Higgs. Or him from his hotel downtown. That right? Followed them several times, apparently. To get proof to pass on to Mrs. Prentis?”
“It was my duty, Lieutenant. It was a task laid on me by the Almighty. That came to me in prayer. You would not understand.”
“Perhaps not,” Shapiro said. “The Almighty laid an—er—injunction on you? To follow Prentis and the girl. You know the girl is dead, don’t you? The girl named Janet Rushton? The girl, I suppose, you saw him with?”
“Yes,” Higgs said. “The wages of sin is death. They had sinned together.”
“And both are dead,” Shapiro said. “Wednesday night. After the meeting. You followed Prentis when he left the hotel uptown. A minute ago you started to say you would have seen Mrs. Prentis if she had followed her husband. You caught yourself. But that was what you started to say, wasn’t it?”
“He had spoken the words of God. The words God put into my mind to write for him. He had brought hundreds to redemption. He went out to sin again.”
“And you followed?”
“I was the instrument of God. I followed as He ordained. I was chosen for the task. I, not another. It was I—I—the Lord chose to do His work.”
“Followed to this restaurant in the Village,” Shapiro said. “Saw him go in. And waited? Until Miss Rushton came. Alone, I take it?”
“In a taxi. Yes. They—it was a way they had behaved before. In the places they went, the forces of evil would conspire with them. Would deny that they had been together. Drinking liquor. Laughing.”
The inflection in his harsh voice made laughter sinful.
“They were together that night?” Shapiro said. “When you went into the restaurant and stood near the door until you saw them together?”
“The people there were wanton,” Higgs said. “Dancing to worldly music. Drinking liquor. Yes, I saw them. A waiter brought them glasses. They drank together.”
“You saw them together in the restaurant. Then what did you do?”
“What God laid upon me. I was His instrument. His avenging sword.”
His harsh voice went up until he was almost shouting across the long, narrow table.
Shapiro’s voice, by contrast, was low. It was almost a gentle voice.
“You went outside and waited, out of sight, until she came out,” Shapiro said. “Only you moved too quickly, didn’t you? Came out of the shadows you had been hiding in before she had got into the cab. So that she saw you. Knew who you were. And—saw you go into the restaurant?”
“To avenge his sin against the Lord. It was laid upon me. On me. I was the chosen one. His eyes had been upon me as I served Him. Humbled myself and served Him. So it was I who was chosen. I was the elect. I—”
His voice faded out. He put his hands flat on the table and leaned forward a little and stared at the sad-faced man across from him.
“Carrying the ice pick,” Shapiro said. “That you’d brought with you from the hotel? Or, picked up at a hardware store nearby?”
“The day before,” Higgs said. “When I knew I had been chosen as God’s instrument. To bring His vengeance on this sinful man.”
“Came up behind him,” Shapiro said, “and killed him with the ice pick. Did he see you? Before he died?”
“He had just finished drinking and put his glass down. He was leaning forward to get his wallet out of a hip pocket. He did not see me.”
“But the girl had. Recognized you. So you went to her apartment, where you had seen them go, and killed her too. Did she let you in, Higgs?”
“The doors were unlocked,” Higgs said. “She had left them so for him. So that they might sin together.”
“Smothered her,” Shapiro said. “Then smoothed her dress down. Very carefully so as to cover her. Why, Mr. Higgs?”
“There is,” John Wesley Higgs said, “such a thing as decency.”
“He really said that?” Rachel Farmer said. “After he had killed two people he said there is such a thing as decency? He must—he must be crazy.”
“A religious fanatic,” Tony Cook said. “Whether—well, whether it comes to the same thing will be up to the psychiatrists. Ogden thinks they’ll find him fit to stand trial. His lawyer—provided he finally decides to employ a mortal one—will contend he’s legally insane. His statement—the one he finally signed—is pretty rambling. Full of tag ends from the Bible. Not a very coherent document. But a confession.”
“And,” Rachel said, “all you have. It’s—it’s still crazy, Tony. An instrument of the Almighty. Delegated to avenge sin.”
“Not quite all we have,” Tony said. “When we took him out, Prince was pretty positive. He was walking toward Prince, as he had that night. Prince is pretty sure from the way he walks.”
“Didn’t Mr. Higgs ever go to Sunday school, Tony?” Rachel said.
Tony looked at her blankly. He put his glass down on the table in front of them so he could concentrate. Finally he merely shook a puzzled head.
“Because,” Rachel said, “I did. And I remember tag ends. And somewhere in the Bible it says, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.’ And he must believe everything that’s in the Bible. Was it just that? I mean—to root out sin and destroy the sinners? However it was in his crazy mind?”
“I don’t know,” Tony Cook said, and picked up his glass again. “I’m not much good at seeing into other people’s minds. And Nate thinks he isn’t, but—”
He sipped from his glass. He shook his head again.
“It’s hard to tell about Nate,” he said. “He has this thing about not understanding people. But when we talked it over, after Higgs had been booked, he said that being second fiddle all his life can do strange things to a man. Higgs wrote Prentis’s sermons and syndicate articles. He makes a point of that, now. But the credit—before the audiences and I guess Higgs thought before God—went to Prentis. Because Prentis was tall and good-looking and had this amazing voice. The voice we heard. And, all through his final statement, Higgs kept saying over and over that he was the one chosen—he. Not anybody else. ‘I was the instrument of the Lord. I was the chosen one.’ To get it down to the way people talk, ‘I was the big shot.’ For the first time in his life, Nate thinks. I don’t know. But when Nate pretended to suspect Mrs. Prentis, it—well, it shook out of Higgs.”
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