by Craig Rice
“Didn’t you know about the murder until you got here?”
“Of course not,” Mr. Featherstone said a little crossly. “No one thought to telephone me.”
“Newspapers are also a modern miracle,” Jake Justus said reflectively.
O. O. Featherstone looked hurt. “I read a news magazine every week, but the daily papers, no. I do read the London Times, ”he added after a moment.
Whatever Malone had been about to say, he evidently thought better of it. “You’re telling us that Miss Inglehart was going to change her will?” he said in his gentlest voice.
“Yes. That’s the message I received. Naturally I was surprised. Of course, in the light of today’s events—” He paused.
“Yes?” said Malone coaxingly.
Mr. Featherstone gulped. “I can only assume that Miss Inglehart had learned of this marriage of Holly’s, and intended to cut her out of the will. I do not like,” he said firmly, “I do not like to speak ill of the dead. But I am forced to say that Miss Alexandria Inglehart was a mean old woman.”
He looked around him, sensed the consternation in the room.
“Does that—information—help you any?” he said hopefully.
“Hyme Mendel would love it,” Malone growled.
“But Holly didn’t know anything about it,” Glen said suddenly. “It couldn’t have been a motive if she didn’t know anything about it.”
No one answered him.
In the pause that followed, they heard the sound of slow, heavy footsteps on the stairs. Glen, startled, turned toward the door; Malone held him back. The footsteps—they seemed to be of two men—took an intolerably long time to reach the bottom of the stairs, continued slowly and heavily down the hall, paused. A door opened and closed.
Mr. Featherstone was a little pale. He reached for his derby. “If there’s nothing more I can do. I’ll be going. You can reach me at my office, of course.”
He left a little hastily. Jake decided that to the day of his death Mr. O. O. Featherstone would remember the time the body of a murdered woman was carried past the room where he stood listening to the footsteps of her bearers.
Glen led them, at Malone’s request, to the big room so recently vacated. The bored policeman in the hall was gone now, the house seemed very still.
Nothing had been touched in the ugly and crowded room, save that the withered old body had been taken away. The big armchair still stood before the window. There was a little spot of blood on the upholstery. Not much, though.
The window that had been so inextricably open was closed now.
A leering dragon on a mustard-color Oriental screen seemed to follow them with its eyes.
“You’re sure the safe door was closed?” Malone asked Glen.
Glen nodded. “Just the way it is now.”
Malone sighed and said nothing. He looked around, shook his head. Evidently the room had no more to tell him than it had told Jake Justus earlier in the day.
“Might as well go downstairs,” he said at last.
They started silently down the hall. Malone paused to examine a little door set in the wall.
“Laundry chute,” he said laconically, peering in.
And then it happened.
“That safe—” Jake began. He never finished.
For just at that moment, Helene went suddenly mad. Without a sign of warning, she opened the little door to the laundry chute, and fairly sprang in.
They heard a very faint scream, a strange rushing sound, and then silence.
Chapter 10
They went downstairs in a headlong rush. Jake felt his brain whirling. Why in the name of God had she done it? A sudden suicidal impulse?
That lovely blonde body, broken and crushed!
It must have been some kind of madness.
Or was it a part of what was happening in this house?
He grabbed Glen’s arm. “The opening to the laundry chute—where is it?”
“The basement. Right by the delivery door—”
Oh God, Jake thought, clattering down the cellar stairs ahead of Glen and Malone, I can’t stand this, I can’t stand it. Why do I have to see her—
Then there was the opening of the laundry chute, and there was Helene, sitting calmly on the floor, lighting a cigarette.
“No damages,” she reported coolly.
Jake stared at her for a moment, and then covered the situation with a higher degree of profanity than even he himself would have believed possible. She listened without a word. In time he paused for breath, and Malone took up the refrain with new verses and a chorus.
Helene waited patiently until they had finished. Then she said, “I wanted to make sure of something.”
“What, for the love of God?”
“That I could still slide down the laundry chute. We used to do it when we were kids. Remember, Glen?”
Glen nodded speechlessly, the color coming slowly back to his face.
“I wish you’d broken your neck when you were a kid,” Malone said with bitterness.
“They should have kept the rest of the litter and drowned you,” Jake added.
“But why?” Malone roared with an air of desperation.
“Didn’t you ever have an uncontrollable desire to slide down a laundry chute?”
“My God,” said Jake, “we’re out here on damned serious business, and you have to go back to your childhood and play.”
There was a look in her eyes that he didn’t like. Something was very obviously stewing in that blonde head. He couldn’t foretell what the result would be, but he feared the worst. She hadn’t dived down that laundry chute for fun, no matter what she might say.
“Do you think it’s fair to hold out on us, Helene?”
“I won’t, for long. Let’s get on with that damned serious business you were talking about.”
Malone led the way back to the gloomy library, muttering rude words about blonde women.
Parkins, when that small shy man had been located, told them the story as he had told it before to Hyme Mendel. Mrs. Parkins’ absence. The telephone call. Holly’s bed, not slept in. Holly not in the house. The drive through Chicago over the icy streets, the return to find Alexandria Inglehart murdered, the open window, Holly stretched on the floor at her feet.
It seemed to Jake that Parkins was probing the far recesses of his mind for words to use, and then struggling to match them to what he wanted to say. Something, he decided, had frightened Parkins once and he had never recovered. He wondered if it were Mrs. Parkins.
“You know you want to help Miss Holly,” Glen told him.
“Oh Mr. Glen,” said Parkins desperately, “I’d give the very skin off me to help Miss Holly, and you know I would. And I can understand her reasons for doing it, though perhaps I’m not helping her by saying so, but the old lady, if you’ll pardon me, was an old devil, in a manner of speaking. And especially so to Miss Holly, to my great distress, on account of being as fond of her as if she was my own daughter, and here she is in that jail without no one to look after her, and with this awful deed on her conscience, and even if you do get her acquitted, Mr. Malone, it’s a terrible thing to think of Miss Holly going to her grave with this hanging over her, and her so young and pretty, too.”
He wiped away an unashamed tear.
Jake decided it was the most words Parkins had said, consecutively, for years.
“Listen, Parkins,” Malone said gently, “it’s possible that Miss Holly didn’t make that telephone call herself—that it was someone imitating her voice. Can you think of anyone?”
Parkins stared at him blankly. “Oh no, sir. That’s quite impossible. Because I’m sure that no one could imitate Miss Holly’s voice. Hers is a very—well, a very distinctive voice, if I may say so. And she has her own little mannerisms of speech. Oh no, it couldn’t have been anyone imitating Miss Holly.”
But there was something wrong about Parkins. Damn it, Jake thought, the man was keeping something back. And he was frightened more th
an he had any business to be.
“Think back over last night,” Malone said. “Is there anything—anything at all—no matter how little—that you’ve not mentioned? That you’ve forgotten to tell—or that didn’t seem important enough to speak about?”
They watched him breathlessly.
Parkins took a long time answering, finally shook his head. “Not a thing, Mr. Malone.”
“All right. Is there anything else—I mean—that’s happened recently—that might have something to do with the murder?”
This time Parkins’ answer was prompt. Too prompt, Jake thought. “No, sir. There’s nothing. Nothing at all.”
“You’re lying,” Jake thought with a terrible certainty.
But it was impossible to pry anything more from the little man. At last they sent him for Mrs. Parkins. As Parkins reached the door, Malone stopped him with one more question.
“Tell me, Parkins. Why should Miss Inglehart leave a bequest of a thousand dollars to your daughter?”
Parkins suddenly seemed to grow inches taller and develop a new, almost terrible dignity.
“I couldn’t say, sir.”
“Parkins, you’re lying.” This time it was Malone who said it, and aloud.
“It could be that the wrong done to my daughter was heavy on Miss Alexandria’s conscience.” There was an unexpected light in the mild eyes. “But that’s not for me to discuss, Mr. Malone.” The mask of perfect training and years of service slipped back over Parkins’ face. “I’ll send Mrs. Parkins to you, sir.”
He was gone before anyone could call him back.
“What the devil does the man mean?” Malone growled.
No one answered.
It was only a moment before Mrs. Parkins came into the room. Malone motioned her to a chair.
Her pasty, unhealthy face was perfectly wooden, Jake saw, but she could not disguise the look of terror in her black eyes.
“Mrs. Parkins,” Malone began, “yesterday Miss Inglehart sent a message to her lawyer, Mr. Featherstone. Can you tell me what that message was?”
“Yes, sir. She wanted him to come here today, because she intended to change her will.”
“Is that all she said?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you any idea how she intended to change her will, or why?”
“No, sir. Miss Alexandria was never one to talk about herself.”
“When she gave you the message did she seem upset in any way—unlike herself?”
“No, sir.”
“Did she receive any visitors, or telephone calls yesterday—or the past few days?”
“No, sir.”
Malone scowled. “But damn it all—” he broke off. “Tell me about last night.”
She told her story in as few words as possible. She had gone to visit Maybelle Parkins in Rogers Park. Late in the evening Glen and Parkins had called for her with the news about Miss Holly. After the wild-goose chase to the hospital, they had returned to Maple Park, and found Alexandria Inglehart murdered.
No, none of the beds had been slept in when she returned. No, she had no explanation for it.
No, she didn’t know anything about the clocks except that they were all stopped. None of them had ever stopped before.
Yes, the safe door had been closed when she went in Miss Inglehart’s room. She was sure of that.
No, she couldn’t think of anyone who might have imitated Miss Holly’s voice; she couldn’t think of anyone who would have wanted to murder Miss Alexandria Inglehart.
“Tell me,” Malone said suddenly, “why are you afraid?”
For just the barest fraction of a second Nellie Parkins seemed about to speak. It was as though words had suddenly rushed to the thin lips and died there. Then she shook her head.
“You’d be a bit frightened too, Mr. Malone, living in a house where a murder’s been done.”
“But you’re more than a bit frightened,” Malone said pensively. “What is it?” Nellie Parkins stared at him with impassive eyes.
“How long have you been here?” Malone asked.
“Since Miss Holly and Mr. Glen were babies, sir.”
“And Parkins?”
“A bit longer than that, sir. I brought the babies here to this house.”
“That’s interesting,” Malone said, looking up.
“Yes, sir. Someone had to bring them here on the train from St. Louis, where they were born. When I brought them here there was no nurse for them and I stayed on. After I married Parkins and the twins were older, I became the housekeeper. Parkins was a widower with a baby daughter when I came here. He needed someone to look after the child, and so I married him.”
“Then Maybelle isn’t your daughter?” Malone asked in a surprised tone.
“No, sir. My stepdaughter. But I’m sure I’ve been as good to her as though she were my very own child.”
Jake tried to imagine the angular, hard-faced woman being good to a child.
Malone thought for a moment, then asked the same question he had put to Parkins.
“Why would Miss Inglehart leave your stepdaughter a thousand dollars?”
Nellie Parkins shook her head. “I really couldn’t say, sir. She must have had her own reasons.”
They couldn’t get another word out of her. John J. Malone sighed heavily and sent her away.
“They know something,” he said disgustedly after the woman had gone, “but only the good God knows what it is.”
“Look,” Helene said, “they’re both fond of Holly. Fond of her—they’d die for her. I grew up next door. I’ve been in and out of this house all my life. I know how much Holly means to Nellie, how much she means to both of them. And I can’t believe that they’d keep anything back that might help her.”
“Do you also believe in the Easter bunny?” Jake said angrily. “Grow up. They sure as hell are keeping something back.”
“Then it must be that whatever they know makes it look worse for Holly.”
For that matter, Jake thought, looking at her, what are you keeping back, and why?
Malone sighed, looked at his watch, remembered an appointment in the Loop. “What’s more,” he said, “I’m going back on the train. The next time I ride in that woman’s car, I’ll be unconscious before I start.”
Strangely, Helene did not protest. “Jake is staying out here,” she announced. “I’m going to show him around a little.”
Jake blinked, thought fast, and agreed.
“Meet you at your room in the hotel sometime this evening,” Malone told him.
Jake followed her into the hall. “Now will you tell me what your idea was in sliding down that laundry chute?”
“Later,” she said firmly.
They went down the cellar stairs and out through the rear door. It opened into a little driveway. The house, Jake observed, had been built into a hill. Here at the back of the house the hill had been cut away and the little driveway ran through a deep cut in the earth until it suddenly disappeared in a clump of trees.
“A person,” said Helene thoughtfully, “a person could drive away from the house without being seen. I mean, without being seen from the house, or almost anywhere on the grounds. Notice?”
“I notice, but what the hell of it?”
“Nothing. It’s interesting, that’s all.”
“So is The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” Jake said in deep disgust, “but I prefer confession magazines.”
“I haven’t anything to confess yet.”
She led him through the snow-covered yard, through an old stone gate into the estate next door, and down a little lane to a large garage. It was, he gathered, the Brand estate and the Brand garage.
There was a man there, the ugliest man Jake had ever seen. He was at least six foot three and broad as a barn, with apelike arms that hung almost to his knees. He had a wide, gorillalike face, a broken nose, bright blue eyes, and an enormous, broken-toothed grin that he turned on the moment Helene came in sight.
“Jake, this is Butch.”
They shook hands solemnly.
“Butch is a good guy,” Helene said, as though the big man couldn’t hear. “He’d do anything for me. He was a prize fighter and then he drove racing cars and then he got put in jail for something, and then he was a bootlegger until repeal came in and then he got in jail for something else and I got him out, and now he’s my chauffeur.”
They went upstairs to the living quarters of the garage, where Butch brought out a bottle of rye, and Helene promoted a storytelling contest that went on until the bottle was fairly well drained. Jake waited until then to spring some of the questions he had planned to ask Helene.
“You’re planning something,” he told her suddenly, “something hellish, I suspect. I want to know what it is.”
She beamed at him. “It’s going to be so simple. I’ve thought it all out. Every detail. And with Butch to help, there isn’t anything that can go wrong.”
“What are you going to do?”
“You mean, what are we going to do.” She reached over and patted his cheek. “Hold your breath, baby. We’re going to get Holly Inglehart out of jail!”
Chapter 11
It was, Jake had to admit, an absurdly simple idea. Or perhaps it only seemed that way at the time. Or perhaps it was the rye. Certainly in a sober moment he would have walked out on the party.
But with the rye under his belt, and under the spell of Helene’s enthusiasm and Butch’s willingness, it seemed a wonderful idea, a monumental idea, and Helene was a mental giant for conceiving it. It might easily have landed them all in jail or in the morgue. It might have muddled up the Inglehart case beyond all possible salvation. It might have caused two murders and possibly contributed toward a third. But at the moment, it was colossal.
It was necessary, Helene said, to get Holly out of jail. What she had seen or thought she had seen the night before was the key to what actually had happened. Somehow they had to find out where she had been during that three and a half hours.
Jake nodded solemn agreement.
“And if she stays in the Blake County jail,” Helene said, “probably we never will find out. It’s going to take long and patient talking with Holly to find out the truth. That talking has got to be done in private, too.”