He struck another pose, foot outthrust, hands pulling at his coat lapels. “And then you blackmailed Delhart into giving you an interview! You threatened to expose the entire scene in your paper!”
I lit a second cigaret from the stub of my first one. “Not directly,” I said.
“But you did threaten!” he shouted. It was the place for his jabbing finger. He didn’t disappoint me.
I laughed at him, openly. “The old pressure, Godfrey,” I said. “Just the same thing you’re trying to use now. Want to try and prove a little blackmail?”
“Bah! Ethics! All right, so you had an interview promised you. And between the time you left Delhart and returned here last night—what happened?”
“I went back to work.”
“And Glory Martin came to your office.”
Evidently he was well primed on everything. “My, Sherlock,” I said, “you do get around. Why? To borrow a drink from Jud.”
“To borrow a drink? And maybe to tell you a few things. To cause trouble because she was jealous!”
“Don’t shout at me, Godfrey,” I said. “I’m within three feet of you and the acoustics are excellent.” I paused to draw on my cigaret. “Jealous of whom? Her fatherly guardian?”
He lowered his voice to a small bellow. “Of Daisy Willow.”
It was up to me just how much to reveal. I could only guess at the facts he had at his disposal. But I was irritated enough to take a chance and try to out-maneuver him. I knew that he would give me no help when it came time for me to write a story. Pettishly I thought, why should I cooperate with him then? If it had been Jocko I would have told him everything. I wondered what had possessed him to let Tiffin handle this questioning. Tiffin could create antagonism like a tax collector.
I said, “Glory Martin was a little high. I didn’t pay much attention to her. If she said anything important I can’t think of it now.”
“It may not be important to you,” Tiffin said, “but I want to hear everything she said.”
“At the time,” I told him, “I wasn’t aware of the value of her conversation. I didn’t make a transcript of it. But …” I paused and watched him simmer, “… but she did mention that Delhart was hoping to marry Miss Willow.”
“That checks Mrs. Willow’s statement,” Jocko said, glancing at his notes. “What else?”
“And who told Mrs. Willow?” I asked him.
Tiffin answered. “Glory Martin—in a drunken rage. The poor, grief-stricken child. Bah!”
I was learning things. How much else had she told Mrs. Willow and how much of that had the woman passed on to the police. I wished I could have seen Jocko’s notes for ten seconds. I said, “That’s all that I can remember.”
Tiffin took my lead. “All? Didn’t Glory Martin say that Daisy Willow had turned down Delhart for young Frew?”
Had dear Edna Willow put that into the record, I wondered. I said truthfully, “No. I think she said that Frew was in love with Daisy.” I let it go at that. I was not going to build a jealousy case against Frew for Tiffin’s benefit. I despised the sulky brat but it wasn’t my place to put a noose around his neck.
“And,” Tiffin bellowed at me, “didn’t Glory Martin intimate that she disliked the state of affairs?”
“It seems to me,” I said calmly, “that you’re trying to make a case against Glory. She isn’t strong enough, Delhart was slashed violently.”
“She or an accomplice,” Tiffin shot at me.
That was what I wanted to know. “And who would that be?”
But Tiffin had said enough. From the look Jocko gave him he had evidently said too much. Tiffin took a trip around the room before facing me again. Then, in a gentler mood, he had me go over my two trips of last night. And when I had satisfied him on that score he made me retrace actions in getting Glory and Daisy to bed. I left out the hat incident. Not because I considered it of prime importance right then but because I wanted to find out if he knew about it.
There was no mention of it made and I assumed that Daisy had kept quiet about it. Tiffin, though, wasn’t fully satisfied. “What caused Miss Willow to faint?”
“I presume,” I said, “that she was completely worn out by shock. She simply crumpled, that’s all.”
“And nothing you said made her do that?”
“I? Am I an ogre going around frightening children, Godfrey?”
He changed the subject then, to this morning. “And just what did you tell that Cook fellow you haven’t told me?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Probably not as much since he didn’t try to bully me into making statements.”
He wasn’t going to be taken in too much by my cracks. He said, “And what did Glory Martin tell you while she was being so grief-stricken?”
I thought I would give Tiffin a little something to chew on. This interrogation was slowly taking on the appearance of a dog fight and I was getting weary of it. “Oh,” I said casually, “she mumbled something about seeing Mr. Willow. She thinks he killed Mr. Delhart. Of course she was deranged by shock and it may not have been he at all.”
“What?” Tiffin fairly exploded. “Willow’s statement claims he was nowhere near the dam. Get him in here. Sheriff …”
“Take it easy,” Jocko said in a tired voice. “The Martin girl was hardly in condition to be a reliable witness. There’s plenty of time.”
But Tiffin didn’t seem to think so. He was prancing now. “What else did Miss Martin tell you, Adeline?”
“Nothing,” I said sweetly.
“Not even what she was doing down by the dam at that hour of the night?”
“No,” I said, “but I can guess. She was probably going to remind Delhart of his appointment with me. She is a very solicitous girl.”
“Girl! Why that—someone said she …”
“Tiff!” Jocko warned. I could have shot him. Tiffin clamped his lips tight and glowered at me, as if it were my fault.
“Maybe this someone is interested in her,” I said. “A man, probably. She is beautiful and a repulsed suitor is often vindictive, you know.”
Jocko turned scarlet trying to hide his laughter and Tiffin walked away from me. It was a very dirty feminine trick on my part but I hoped it would sink in better that way. Watching Tiffin pace the floor, trying to control himself, I wondered just who had given him a snapshot of Glory’s character. I could think of a lot of people but as far as the men went only two occurred to me as being possibly interested in her: Willow and Hilton. And of the two I favored the precise Mr. Hilton. Willow, if he had made passes and been turned down, would be too old a hand to give out any hints to that effect. Also in Hilton’s favor was the fact that Glory and Hilton were thrown together a lot. They say propinquity is the basis of most love, so there was a point.
Tiffin finally had a grip on himself. He came back toward me, smiling ingratiatingly. The sight nearly nauseated me. “Adeline,” he wheedled, “let’s cooperate. After all …”
“After all, Godfrey,” I interrupted, “I’ve told you everything backward and forward. Now you hint I’m holding back. You want my cooperation in building a jealousy motive against Glory Martin—and an accomplice. I won’t do it. I don’t believe it’s true.”
I lit a third cigaret, having forgotten to smoke most of the second one. “Furthermore,” I said, “more than one person around here is jealous. I thought of the most incongruous possibility I could find at the moment. “Maybe Mrs. Willow got mad at Delhart. He might have turned Daisy down—the wolf.”
Tiffin took me seriously. “Ah,” he said triumphantly, “but Glory is too weak to slash a man nearly in two. Mrs. Willow is, I suppose, an Amazon.”
He looked smug. Then he said, “You’re wrong, Adeline. Next time you’ll learn to cooperate with the police.”
Wrong? His expression of triumph gave me a sinking feeling deep in my stomach. Something was haywire. My apparent victory in this battle seemed to be slipping. Tiffin was far too pleased.
I said weakly, �
��Maybe you’ll learn to cooperate with the newspapers.” But I had no steam behind my words.
“Cooperate? Oh yes,” he said in a voice I could have killed him for. “I’m issuing a statement right now. Glory Martin will be arrested for complicity and I have arrested Tim Larson—for murder.”
XII
I STOOD UP, shaking. “Tell them,” I insisted, pointing to the window. “Tell them now or they’ll accuse you of favoring me.”
Tiffin smiled smugly and walked to the window where the reporters were. I ran out of the room to the kitchen. Mrs. Larson was still there, looking bewildered and apparently finishing a good cry. I patted her, said, “It will be all right, Ma.” and went to the telephone.
When I had The Press, I said, “This is O’Hara at Delhart’s. Get me rewrite.” They did and I went on: “Assistant County Prosecuting Attorney Godfrey Tiffin of Teneskium County today let zeal overcome common sense when he arrested an obviously innocent man for the murder of Carson Delhart, Portland millionaire.”
“Hey!” someone spluttered into the phone.
“Take it,” I said, “and sign it Jeff Cook. He wants that lead used. He’s out getting more dope.” That seemed to do the trick and after spouting some more I hung up. I turned to Mrs. Larson.
“Tim will be okay,” I assured her again.
She was crying again. “That big booby,” she sobbed. “He confessed.”
I had to sit down. My knees simply went to pieces. I dropped into a convenient kitchen chair and stared hopelessly at her, trying to digest what she has said. She nodded vehemently at my incredulous expression. “He did.”
I had really put myself out on a limb—and how Jeff Cook would love me for it. If only she had told me before I phoned in the story! But I took a deep breath and tried again. He’s just protecting Glory,” I said. “Even Tiffin should know that.”
Before Mrs. Larson could answer, Jocko threw open the kitchen door. He had the glint of a legal eavesdropper in his eye. “I let you say it, Addy,” he told me in that deceptively mild voice of his. He wasn’t happy now. “To teach you a lesson. He wasn’t protecting her. They had a fight and he’s sore.” He took my arm and pulled me into the passage. His grip was as gentle as his voice, and just as deceptive. “Addy, you go slow.”
“I don’t care,” I said. “Tim wouldn’t do a thing like that. And she wouldn’t either. I don’t care.” I wanted to cry. I felt miserable. I stood there, fighting back tears and reasoning with myself. After all, I was supposed to be an impartial reporter in this case. If I let my emotions take control I would be of little use to anyone: myself, The Press, or Tim Larson.
“Now, Addy,” Jocko said, “they did fight. He admitted it. He knew she was cheating on him.” I waited for him to go on. When he did I was startled, but not stunned as I had been by Mrs. Larson’s statement. Jocko said, “She was cheating on him with Hilton.”
After I had absorbed that one I managed a laugh. “In that case, Jocko, he wouldn’t have killed Delhart. He would have killed Hilton. And anyway, Glory wouldn’t be an accomplice.”
“Tim Larson,” he said, “thought Delhart was Hilton. He admitted he killed the wrong man. Glory told him Hilton was bothering her and egged him on. He found out too late that it was she who had been bothering Hilton.”
“Oh, Jocko,” I said, “and you fell for that. You know Tim Larson too well to be such a sucker.”
Jocko shook my arm a little. “Addy, a man in love like Tim was will do most anything. Tim said it was after he did the killing that he fought with her. He even tried to kill her he got so mad. He threw her in the water. That’s why she got so wet.”
“Take it easy, Jocko,” I said. “That doesn’t fit in with her story.”
“Of course not,” he said. He snorted like a horse. “Think she’d implicate herself by telling you?”
“It doesn’t hang together,” I said stubbornly.
“Yes it does. Tim didn’t even know he had killed the wrong man until Hilton called him to go on that search. It makes sense, Addy, and we’ll prove that it does.”
“The confession won’t hold in court,” I said.
“We won’t need it. We’ll get plenty of evidence without it. And enough to put her right alongside Tim.”
I didn’t say anything but I was thinking, “That still doesn’t account for everyone else in this household being scared half to death.” And not only after Delhart’s murder but the day before as well.
I did the only thing I could to save face with Jocko. I walked out on him. I went upstairs, straight to Glory’s room. The deputy at the door refused to let me in. I did everything but kiss him and he only got red and mulish. It was obvious that I lacked charm and technique, maybe both. I went away from there feeling low. I wanted to be in on Glory’s reaction when the confession statement was broken to her.
I heard movement as I drifted past Daisy Willow’s room. On impulse I knocked. There was no guard here, so evidently Tiffin regarded the case as all but closed.
“Yes?” The voice didn’t sound like Daisy.
“It’s Adeline O’Hara,” I said. “Could I see you for a moment?”
The door opened and Mrs. Willow stood there. By daylight she looked rather formidable. She was still short and tubby but she held her ground like an Irish fishwife. She had been pretty once, not many years ago, but it was obvious that she hadn’t bothered to fight her middle-aged spread and had turned dowdy. Her hair was still a nice, rich brown and well cared for. Her makeup was well done. But her dress was atrocious.
“May I come in?”
“We have no statement to make,” she said flatly. She wasn’t being so sweet today. I liked her even less than I had last night. I looked over her shoulder and saw Daisy standing at the vanity in a slip. She looked as if she had been crying.
“I just came to see if Miss Willow is feeling better.” I said. Mrs. Willow filled the doorway and there seemed to be no chance of getting around her. “And,” I added, trying again, “to get your reaction. The feminine viewpoint.” I watched her closely to see if she bluffed easily. “I have to send in a story of one kind of another.”
“At the proper time …” she began.
“Do you want the publicity to be good or bad?” I demanded. I said it more sharply than I intended but I could see Daisy making pleading motions at me, beckoning me in. So I shot my bolt. And it worked. People as precariously and necessarily in the public eye as the Willows were couldn’t afford bad publicity very often.
“Your taste is extremely bad,” Mrs. Willow informed me. Her dark eyes glowered at me and she set her mouth like a trap. But she stood aside. Once, I imagined, she had a pretty cupid’s bow mouth. But I was willing to bet that a bad disposition had made it turn down at the corners like it did. She looked about forty-five.
“Get a robe on,” she told Daisy tartly. She shut the door behind me. Daisy got into a robe all right but not before she had given me a chance to see purplish marks on her shoulders. I could easily imagine Mrs. Edna Willow doing that.
I made myself comfortable in a pinkish boudoir chair and lit a cigaret. Mrs. Willow wasn’t going to change her antagonism and I certainly wouldn’t bother to put myself out to conciliate her. She sat on the edge of the bed, very stiff and defiant. Daisy was at the vanity bench, playing at making up.
“You know the news, I suppose,” I said chattily.
“I was being interrogated when the young man confessed,” Mrs. Willow said.
“Then there’s no point in my asking whose felt hat is missing, is there?”
I couldn’t have asked for nicer reactions. Daisy went white, as if she would try her fainting act again. She held onto the sides of the vanity until her knuckles showed the strain. She said nothing at all.
Mrs. Willow was far less flamboyant about it, but it would have taken a blinder person than I to miss seeing that it got under her skin. And deeply.
She tightened her lips and looked poisonously at me. She held that a moment and t
hen she expelled her breath. “You insolent creature!”
“Well, whose hat was it?”
Mrs. Willow took a moment to get control of herself, and then decided to play the scene differently. “What is this absurd story of a hat?”
“It seemed to upset Miss Willow,” I said, nodding in her direction. Daisy was staring hopelessly at me.
“I don’t know why it should upset her,” Mrs. Willow said. “She is upset over this horrible thing, naturally. It has been a ghastly experience. I tried to calm Arthur. But he is very excitable. Very.”
What this lovely gibberish had to do with a hat, I didn’t know. I said, “You mean it was Arthur Frew’s hat?”
“Stop it!” Those were Daisy Willow’s first words and she shrieked them hysterically. “Stop it—please! It was father’s hat and you know it.”
That was what I had been waiting for. And for Mrs. Willow’s reaction to it as well. But she disappointed me. She even seemed to expand under this statement. “Oh, that hat?” Her voice was a masterpiece of indifference. “Why didn’t you say so, dear?” She asked Daisy. She looked at me and shrugged. “She is so upset. You see, Titus brought an old fishing hat along. Yesterday he misplaced it. He was annoyed.”
“Miss Willow seemed to think the hat is connected with the murder,” I said.
But Mrs. Willow was equal to anything I could hand out. She certainly was taking this back-handed accusation of her husband in stride. She said, almost amiably, “Don’t be a fool, child. Someone borrowed Daddy’s hat. Or he misplaced it. This is another hat—if there is one at all. There are a lot of disreputable hats, you know. Any number of them.”
She was too calm about it. And she was overdoing the scene as well. I sought for a way to puncture her. I wanted to get under her skin again as I had at first mention of the hat. It was one thing I had over Tiffin. As yet he didn’t seem to know about it. And I was going to play it for all it was worth.
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