by Craig Rice
“Glen was different. Because he was a boy. She wanted him to marry. He was the last male Inglehart and that meant a great deal to her. You can’t imagine how proud she was. She always hated to think that our father had been—nobody. She tried to pretend that it wasn’t so, that we were all Inglehart. Especially Glen.”
Malone frowned. “You had a motive all right. The question now is—who else had one?”
“I don’t know.”
“In your own family—in the household?”
“There’s only Glen and the Parkinses. I don’t think that the Parkinses were especially fond of Aunt Alex—no one was—but certainly they hadn’t any reason to murder her. And Glen certainly hadn’t any.”
“No,” said Malone pensively, “if she was going to disinherit you, he had every reason in the world for keeping her alive until she’d done it.” He paused. “Well, damn it,” he said explosively, “there must have been someone.” He sighed deeply. “One thing more. When you went into her room—was there anything you noticed? Impressions at a time like that, no matter how trivial, are important. I mean—was there anything very much out of the ordinary?”
“Only the window being open and the clock being stopped and her being dead.”
“Well, naturally. I mean—anything else?”
She thought for a long moment. “Yes, there was. I remember it now. I didn’t think about it at the time because—because—but I did notice it. The wall safe. It was open. Not all the way, but the door was ajar. I’d never seen it open before. That’s why I noticed it. That’s the only thing.”
“That might,” said Malone thoughtfully, “be very important.”
Chapter 8
Jake Justus leaned against the corridor wall and wondered why, when Blake County was filled with wealthy suburbs, they couldn’t afford to paint the ceilings in the courthouse. Or why the walls had to be colored that dismal, sickly green.
He sighed deeply. Andy Ahearn’s gin, drunk straight from a water glass, had left a curiously embalmed taste in his mouth. He wondered how Andy stood it. He wondered how long John J. Malone was going to stay with Holly in her cell. He wondered what Helene was doing in Hyme Mendel’s office.
Now and then the door to the office would open, as clerks or typists went in or out, and he could see her perched on the edge of the desk, talking and gesturing. He could see a foolishly and happily beatific look growing on the district attorney’s face.
Sometimes when the door remained open for more than an instant, he caught occasional phrases.
“It must be so exciting to do the kind of work you do—” “Being district attorney of a county like Blake must be a terribly responsible job—” “It must be awfully interesting—” “When I think of anyone actually learning all it takes to be a lawyer, I’m simply gasping.”
Occasionally Jake heard Hyme Mendel answering with little purrs.
Glen was pacing up and down the long corridor. Jake estimated the distance and tried to speculate on the territory the boy would cover by the time Malone returned.
Once, as Glen passed, he caught him by the elbow.
“Listen, son. It isn’t as bad as it seems.”
The young man managed a limp smile. “You’re right. Nothing could be this bad, and be real.”
“That’s the general idea,” Jake told him.
But in another moment the boy had resumed his pacing. Jake sighed again and wondered if Andy Ahearn had any more gin, flavor or no flavor.
The door to Hyme Mendel’s office remained open a moment longer than usual.
“You know a lot about the human mind, Mr. Mendel. I’m glad you do. It’s more a case for a psychologist than a policeman.”
“Now isn’t that a curious coincidence,” he heard Hyme Mendel saying happily, “that you should say that. Because that’s my hobby. Psychology. If I hadn’t studied law, I should have concentrated on psychology.”
“Isn’t that funny,” said Helene. “I just sensed that about you.”
The door closed again.
Glen paused in his pacing of the corridor. “What’s Helene doing in there, anyway?”
“Probably writing a confession to the murder,” Jake said wearily, as Malone appeared, mopping his face.
“Her story sounds true enough,” Malone reported, “but it doesn’t make sense.” He pulled his necktie down from the vicinity of his ear. “Where’s that blonde wench?”
At that moment the blonde wench emerged from Hyme Mendel’s office, waving over her shoulder, and murmuring something about seeing him later.
“Mr. Mendel said I could see Holly for a moment. Wasn’t that nice of him?”
“Five more minutes and he’d have given you the courthouse,” Jake yowled. “Ten more and he’d have had grounds for a breach-of-promise suit. Know the way to the jail?”
She shook her head.
“I’ll show you, then.” He nodded to Malone. “Meet you out front.”
He led her through the maze of corridors to the wing of the building that served Blake County for a jail, to the little row of cells that were used for the women’s quarters. Through the distant barred door he could see the red-haired girl sitting on the edge of her bunk.
He watched while the matron admitted Helene to the cell with a loud jangling of keys, and while the two girls talked. He wondered what they could be saying in front of the matron. After a few minutes Helene gave the other girl an affectionate pat, started for the door, stopped suddenly She looked through her purse for something, appeared unable to find what she was looking for, turned to Holly. Holly nodded, fished through the heap of personal belongings on the steel table, and handed Helene a compact.
Jake scowled and remembered seeing Helene using her own compact in Malone’s office. Then he wondered if it was the effect of Andy’s gin, or if he had really seen Helene, her back to the matron, slipping a note in the borrowed compact.
When Helene rejoined him in the corridor, she smiled at him brightly “Yes, I did,” she answered his unspoken question. “And I’ll tell you why, too. But not right now.”
They were at the door of the courthouse, meeting Malone and Glen, before he had time to ask anything more. Somehow they managed to avoid the reporters on the way to Helene’s car.
“And now,” Helene said, “we’ve got to find a place to talk.” She drove slowly. “When in need of a quiet place to talk,” she said at last, “I always recommend—” She skidded the car to a shuddering stop in front of a narrow building whose window announced tersely AL’S.
“With Holly in jail,” Glen began dubiously.
“You won’t help Holly any by going home to mourn for her,” she told him, and led the way into Al’s, through the barroom and to a secluded booth.
“Four ryes,” she called.
“Coming, Miss Brand.”
“Do all bartenders call you Miss Brand?” Jake asked.
“Of course not.” Her voice was indignant. “Some of them know me well enough to call me Helene.”
The bartender brought the ryes, beamed paternally on Helene.
“Terrible thing to have happen, Miss Brand.”
“Well, at least it’s livened up Maple Park a little,” she told him.
He shook his head at her and went away.
“Can you get Holly out of this?” Glen asked Malone anxiously.
Malone nodded slowly and meditatively. “If nothing else will do it, an insanity defense will.”
Glen groaned. “To think of Holly going through all this, being in jail, having to go through a trial—it’s awful, all of it.” He laid his head on his arms.
“Take your head off the table,” Helene advised. “You’ll get rye in your hair.”
“I’d rather have rye in my hair than you,” Jake murmured under his breath.
“You’ll probably end up with both, at this rate,” Malone told him, dropping his hat on the floor.
“Why did she do it?” Glen said. “Tell me, why did she do it?”
“She didn’t do it,” Jake snapped.
“How do you know?”
“It’s his intuition again,” Helene said.
“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Malone said, setting his glass down hard.
“Glen, are you sure Holly was out of her room last night when the telephone call came, and when you and Parkins left for the hospital? Are you positive?”
Glen looked up, surprised. “Why, I assumed she was. I didn’t look in her room myself, but Parkins did, and he said she wasn’t there. Her bed hadn’t been slept in. Why should Parkins lie about it if she really was there?”
“I don’t know,” Malone said patiently. “Why should he?”
“The answer is that he probably didn’t,” Jake said.
“What did you do when you got back to the house, after your wild-goose chase?” Malone asked, ignoring Jake.
“Why—Parkins went to put the car away—I went right up to Holly’s room to see if she’d come back. Nellie went to put her hat and coat away and then went up to Aunt Alex’s room. I was in Holly’s room when I heard her scream.”
“Holly’s bed?” Malone prompted.
“Her bed? Oh. No, it hadn’t been slept in.”
“Well, what did you do then?”
“I went to see what made Nellie scream and there was Aunt Alex—and Holly on the floor. I carried Holly to bed and Nellie brought her to, and I went downstairs and phoned the police.”
“Tell me,” Malone said lazily, “was the safe in your aunt’s room open or closed?”
“It was closed.”
“You’re positive about that?”
“Positive. You see, when I first went in, I thought right away that there’d been a burglary and that the burglar had killed Aunt Alex and frightened Holly into fainting, and the first thing I did was to look at the safe. So I know it was closed.”
“Could anyone have gotten in by the window?” Jake asked, waving to the bartender for more rye.
“I suppose so, if anyone wanted to. There’s a trellis outside. But why would anyone climb in the window?”
“To murder Aunt Alex,” Helene said.
“But why? I mean, Helene, it wasn’t a burglar. We know that, because nothing was taken.” The boy looked helplessly at Malone. “Nobody really liked Aunt Alex, but I can’t think of anyone who would have wanted to murder her.”
“Are you and Holly the only heirs?” Malone asked.
“Yes. We’re all there is in the family.”
“The only people who really gained anything by her death are you and Holly,” Malone said thoughtfully.
“That’s right.”
“Did you murder her, Glen?” Jake asked.
“How could I have?” Glen asked wildly. “I was on my way back from Chicago with the Parkinses when—when it happened.”
“Probably Parkins did it,” Jake said. “These rabbity little men are always surprising you.”
“You forget,” Glen said, “Parkins was also on his way back from Chicago.”
“Of the four people in the household,” Malone mused, “three of you were away when the murder was committed. Three of you didn’t have any real motive unless the Parkinses have some dark secret we don’t know about.”
“Say!” Jake said suddenly, remembering the look in Nellie Parkins’ eyes.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Jake said after a moment.
“Shut up then. Anyway, Holly was the only one who had the opportunity and the motive, if her aunt was really going to disinherit her.”
“She would have, the minute she heard about the marriage,” Helene said.
“Did you know Holly was going to marry Dick Dayton?” Malone asked Glen.
“I knew she was going to. I didn’t know she’d done it, until this morning. She might have told me! After all, I’m her brother. And I liked Dick. I introduced them in the first place.” He frowned. “I haven’t been very much help, have I?”
“Not very much,” Malone said.
“But you’ll be able to do something?”
“I’ll get her out of this,” Malone said confidently. “What’s more, I’m going to find out what happened. What really happened.”
“Impossible,” Jake muttered into his rye.
“Don’t worry, I can do it,” Malone told him.
“I’m not saying you can’t do it,” Jake said; “I’m just saying it’s impossible.”
“You’ve been drinking,” Helene said severely. “And if we’re through talking, Glen had better get home before somebody starts talking about that awful Inglehart boy being seen in a tavern the day after his poor old aunt was murdered.”
Malone got up and vanished through a door in the back of the room after a murmured word with the bartender. Helene opened her purse and began making up her face. Jake noticed that she used her own compact. He shook his head sadly, decided against another drink, spotted a slot machine against the wall and began feeding coins into it. When the sixth nickel brought no results, he gave it up and walked back to the booth in time to hear Helene whisper to Glen, “For God’s sake, don’t tell him,” with a kind of desperation in her voice.
Jake Justus sighed for the twentieth time that day and decided that the delightful thing about the whole case was that everyone connected with it seemed to be playing guessing games.
Chapter 9
The Inglehart house was strangely quiet as they drove up to it. One car, of a long, low, and unpleasantly suggestive shape stood parked near the side door. The clouds had lifted since morning, and the old house seemed larger, uglier, and even brighter, more virulent yellow in the sunlight.
Within, the hallway had an even more dismal and tomblike atmosphere minus the commotion of the morning.
A tall, thin man with very white hair and almost incredible dignity was waiting for them in the library. Glen introduced him as Mr. Featherstone and explained that he was the Inglehart lawyer. Mr. O. O. Featherstone, Jake remembered from some long-buried newspaper paragraph.
Mr. Featherstone looked austerely down his nose at John Joseph Malone.
“Really,” he said to Glen, “you should have consulted me before you did anything. Before, for instance, engaging an attorney for Holly.”
Glen looked bewildered and hurt.
“I took the responsibility of getting Malone,” Jake said. “As her husband’s manager.”
Mr. Featherstone blinked.
“I don’t think there could have been a wiser choice,” Helene added sweetly. Malone beamed at her. “You don’t need to worry about a thing, Mr. Featherstone. I’ll have her out of this without any trouble.”
Mr. Featherstone shuddered slightly. He wore the expression of one who had bitten into a very bad oyster and was not sure of the correct procedure for its disposal. He turned to Glen.
“If your sister has committed this crime …” he began.
“If she has, it’s all the more reason for getting a good lawyer,” Helene said indignantly. “You wouldn’t want to see Holly spend her life in jail, would you?”
Mr. Featherstone weighed the question.
“As a matter of ethics …” he began again, a trifle hesitantly.
This time it was Malone who interrupted him. “If there was such a thing as ethics among human beings, there wouldn’t be any need for lawyers.”
This was too much for O. O. Featherstone. “Well,” he said with dignity, “if I’m intruding—”
“Not at all,” Malone told him. “As a matter of fact, you’re the very person I wanted to see.”
The white-haired man looked at him questioningly.
“I want to know about Miss Inglehart’s will,” Malone said.
“I don’t know,” Featherstone began dubiously. “This seems hardly the time to discuss it—” Again he turned to Glen.
“Tell him anything he wants to know,” Glen said. “It’s to help Holly.”
“Very well. But I haven’t a copy of it with me.”
“I’m sure y
ou can give me an approximate idea,” Malone said smoothly. “After all, you’ve handled the Inglehart affairs for years.”
“It’s highly irregular,” Featherstone muttered.
“So is murder,” Malone answered.
“Very well. The general settlements were along these lines. There were bequests to both the Parkinses—a thousand dollars apiece—and an equal amount to Maybell, their daughter. I was rather surprised at that, but Miss Inglehart never offered any explanation.” His tone implied that he would have cheerfully died rather than ask Alexandria Inglehart for an explanation of anything. “The remainder of the estate was to be divided between Glen and Holly—but with a provision regarding the girl.”
“Which was?” Malone prompted.
“It stated that if Holly were to marry after her aunt’s death, her share of the estate was to revert to her brother.”
“In those words?” Malone asked.
“Essentially, yes.”
“If Holly married after her aunt’s death,” Malone mused. “But actually, she married before her aunt’s death.”
Featherstone nodded. “Yes, I thought of that, too. If Miss Inglehart had met her death night before last instead of last night, or if Holly had married today instead of yesterday, she would have been automatically disinherited. As it is, she still receives her share of the estate. I assume that Miss Inglehart felt that she would be able to prevent her niece’s marriage as long as she was alive.” He sighed. “But we never know, do we?”
Nobody answered this profound question.
“Of course,” Mr. Featherstone added brightly, “I don’t know how she intended to change her will.”
Jake Justus had the feeling that even the air in the room had tensed.
“She—intended to—change her will?” Malone managed weakly, after a long pause.
“Why yes. That’s why I’m here.” Mr. Featherstone seemed surprised and almost wounded at their ignorance. “You see, Miss Inglehart telephoned me yesterday. Or, I should say, she had Mrs. Parkins telephone me and give me the message. She said that she wanted me to come out here today because she wanted to make a new will. But when I came out here, I found that she’d—that it was too late.”