by Craig Rice
“I heard you talking. Miss Brand,” Butch said joyously, as Helene slid into the driver’s seat.
Before Jake could catch his breath, they were half-way through Maple Park.
“Butch knows how to plan a quick getaway,” Helene said. “Well, I’ve always wanted to be a fugitive from justice.”
“From Jake Justus?” he asked.
She laughed. “Why don’t you find out?”
“If the cops catch up with you, I’ll send you candy in jail,” he promised her.
They abandoned the car in a side street in Evanston, where Helene said Butch could pick it up later, found a taxi, and drove to the little bar where Helene had conducted her experiment with the beer glasses. There they found a secluded booth and ordered rye.
Jake looked at her curiously.
“So you didn’t do it, Helene,” he said thoughtfully. “But you’ve been shielding somebody. Obviously, it was Glen. But in the first place, why do you think he did it, and in the second place, why do you care?”
Chapter 29
There was that look in her eyes, the one that he had seen that night at the hotel. It was a look that hurt.
“Go on,” he said hoarsely, “tell me.”
“Don’t you see,” she began helplessly.
“Tell me!”
“It was either Glen or Holly. I knew it was one of them. I didn’t know which, and I don’t know now. But—don’t you see?” she said again. “Whichever one it was—”
He tried to look at her calmly. “Did you make two trips to the Inglehart house that night?”
She nodded slowly. “Yes, I did.”
“Then why in the name of God haven’t you told us?”
“Because—” she hesitated a moment. “It made it look worse for Holly.”
“What are you talking about, or do you know?”
“I went back that second time,” she said slowly, “because I was worried about Holly. When I was there the first time she seemed—well, strange. I told you that.”
“Yes. But the second time—”
“I had a few drinks and drove around Maple Park, and finally decided to go back and see if she was all right. That was when I skidded and drove across a corner of the next-door lawn. The house was all dark but I let myself in—I had a key Nellie’d given me years ago—and went up to Holly’s room.” She paused.
“Well—what?”
“She wasn’t there. Her bed hadn’t been slept in.”
Jake sat staring at her for a long moment. “What time was it?” he said at last.
“It was sometime around eleven. I don’t know exactly.”
“What did you do then?”
“Well, I—stood there a minute wondering what to do. I remembered what Holly had told me about her affair with Dick Dayton, and I wondered if she’d run away with him. But her bed’s being made puzzled me. So I thought I’d wake up Glen. I went out into the hall and there was Glen, coming down the hall.”
“He knew you’d made that second trip to the house?”
She nodded again. “I told him—or started to tell him—about Holly—and he told me about the telephone call. He was just getting ready to leave. I offered to go with him—drive him to the hospital—but he said Parkins was getting the car out, and I wouldn’t he any help. So I left. Afterward I thought it was funny Holly could have gotten for enough south to have been in an accident near St. Luke’s Hospital in the time since I’d made my first visit—when she certainly was getting into bed and asleep. But I told you I was a little hazy about the time.”
Jake frowned. “At a little after eleven, she was gone and her bed wasn’t slept in. You and Parkins and Glen swear to that. But at three o’clock or after-oh hell no, we don’t know what time it was—well anyway, she woke up in her bed with no recollection of being out of it. And then when Nellie Parkins came home, Holly’s bed hadn’t been slept in. Somebody is crazy.”
“You can see why I had to keep still about it,” she said defensively, “because it simply made it look worse for her.” She scowled. “Or Glen. The trouble is—he couldn’t have gotten back to the house and done the murder after they left because he was with Nellie and Parkins all the time. But— couldn’t he have—” She paused again.
“Look, Jake. When they came back from the hospital—couldn’t he have done it—before Nellie and Parkins came into the room? Oh no, because of Holly. Holly discovered the murder before they came back. Unless the whole thing was a cockeyed telepathic dream Holly had.”
“You’d better have another drink,” he told her.
“The best thought you’ve had since we’ve been in here.”
“Anyway,” he reminded her, “it was Nellie who went in the room first, not Glen. But you’ve believed it was Glen who killed the old woman, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“But of all the people we’ve considered—Glen has no motive at all. You can’t expect me to believe that he ever intended to marry Maybelle Parkins. Is that your theory? That—” He thought a moment. “Glen was going to marry Maybelle, and Auntie found it out, and it was Glen she was going to disinherit, not Holly—nuts. I can’t see Glen marrying that floozie, especially if he was going to be kicked out of his aunt’s will for it.”
“It wasn’t Maybelle, Glen wanted to marry,” Helene said in a strange voice. “It was me.”
He wondered audibly and profanely if his ears were deceiving him.
“He asked me to marry him. I said I would. God knows why. Oh, I’d grown up with Glen and I liked him as well as anybody in the world, and I didn’t have anybody else I wanted to marry, and I certainly didn’t want to end up a society old maid with a paid companion, and Glen and I liked going to the same parties, which is all it takes for a successful marriage anyway, so I said I would. He asked me for the same reasons. Holly and Glen and I were always pretty close to each other, but that was all. He didn’t make much fuss when the idea was given up.”
“Why was it given up?” Jake asked as casually as he could.
“Because of Aunt Alex. She was pretty damn fussy about who marries an Inglehart. And I’d gotten into a fairly sordid mess once in my impetuous way and only the grace of God and my old man’s money saved me from a nasty scandal. Aunt Alex found out all the dope on it and somehow managed to corral all the letters that had been written back and forth. Probably knew she’d have use for them. So when Glen brought up the subject of marrying me, she called me in for a conference and told me to lay off Glen. She had the letters in her safe and told me she’d make no bones about using them if I hinted at marrying her nephew.”
Jake wondered vaguely what the fairly sordid mess had been. “How did Glen take it?”
He didn’t know anything about it. I just told him I’d changed my mind. I don’t think he ever found out the reason unless—”
“Unless he found out the real reason and murdered the old dame because of it?”
She nodded.
“Where are the letters now?”
“Mr. Featherstone found them in the safe the day after the murder, and sent them to me with a note of apology for reading them. I don’t think he needed to apologize.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t think he understood them. Anyway they’re burned now.”
“Glen found out about it and murdered the old woman to save you, his boyhood chum, from trouble. Pretty thin. If he’d done that he’d have removed the letters himself while he had the chance. Glen didn’t find out about it and decided he wanted to marry you in spite of Auntie’s opposition, and did her in to get the opposition out of the way. Pretty thin. She was going to die anyway in a few months. Glen wanted to marry Maybelle Parkins in spite of her taste in decoration, and murdered Auntie so he could do it. Pretty thin. Same reason as above.” He looked at her. “Still believe Glen did it?”
“I don’t know what to believe.”
He spread out his fingers and began counting on them. “First, must consider motives. One doesn�
�t ordinarily murder an old woman who is going to die in a few months anyway. Not unless there is a particular reason why she had to die at a particular time. In this case, there was. She was going to change her will the next day. If we knew who she was going to disinherit the next day, we’d know who murdered her. Maybe.”
“You mean we’d know if it was Glen or Holly.”
“Exactly. But damn it to hell, it couldn’t have been either of them. She was alive when Glen left the house and dead when he came back, and we know where he was all the time in between. And Holly—well, her story is the truth, or I’m a Chinaman.”
“Are you going to open a laundry, or just go fight the Japanese?” she inquired.
“Shut up. There might have been another reason why she had to die that night. She might have known something and been planning to use it.”
“What do you mean?”
He looked at her closely.
“Now that I think of it, why were you so damned anxious to spring Holly from the Blake County can?”
“I told you why at the time.”
“Did you? Helene, it couldn’t have been because you didn’t want your childhood playmate to take the rap, was it?”
In the half darkness her face suddenly grew white, pointed. Her great eyes became wary and foxlike.
“You could have done it so easily. You’ve even told me why. You weren’t shielding Glen, you were shielding yourself. You could have imitated Holly’s voice.”
“There’s something in my mind that I don’t quite like,” she said.
“There’s something in my mind that I don’t quite like either,” he told her.
She stared at him. “Well, why don’t you do something about it? Tell Malone. Tell Hyme Mendel, he’d love it. Or just call a cop. Or shall I call one?”
“Oh damn you, Helene, you know I can’t do that.”
“Startling development in Maple Park murder,” she chanted. “North-shore debutante confesses. Read Helene Brand’s own story of the crime on page three.”
“Stop that, Helene, stop that. I can’t stand much more.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“Do?” He stared at her. “Oh God, I can’t do anything. I can’t do a damned thing, except go on thinking about it, forever, perhaps. And let Holly live her life out with everyone in the world, except you and me, believing she’s a murderess. Helene, I can’t do anything.”
“You wouldn’t turn me in?”
“Not even for Holly’s sake.”
Suddenly she smiled. “While you’re thinking about it, you might figure Lewis from St. Louis into your calculations and maybe you won’t be so sure I’m a murderess from Maple Park.”
He blinked.
“And add in why Malone is going to St. Louis and why the little dude was getting letters from Nellie Parkins, and why he was murdered, and why someone stopped all the clocks at three.”
“Helene— ”
“I can’t answer any of them, but maybe Malone will.”
“Oh God,” he said, “Helene, forgive me.”
Suddenly she was in his arms. Her elbow knocked over the glass of rye.
“I’ll buy you another one,” he promised.
“Two other ones?”
“Two.”
“Then I’ll forgive you.”
The bartender came and wiped the table disapprovingly.
“Look, Jake. Holly’s pa is down-and-out. Broke. And his children are rolling in luxury. It irks him. He needs money. You follow me?”
“I could do better with a map.”
“Well, anyway, he comes here. Knows he can’t get any more dough out of Aunt Alex. So he figures that he’ll bump off the old lady, get back that agreement he signed years ago and burn it, and then, with Aunt Alex safely buried, he’ll turn up as the long-lost papa and his affectionate children will support him the rest of his natural life.”
“A very pretty theory,” Jake said, “and interesting, too.”
“It might even be correct.”
“Where,” said Jake wearily, “was Holly all this time?”
“She was there and she knows who did it, and she’s telling this fantastic story and refusing to tell the truth because he’s her father.”
“Who stopped the clocks?” Jake asked, “and why were they all stopped at three? And how about the beds being made?”
“Those problems,” she told him firmly, “are out of my department.”
“And if that’s how it happened,” Jake went on, “why is Malone going to St. Louis and why did he ask that about the telephone?”
“He could be making an error, you know.”
“Not Malone.”
Helene sighed.
“And finally,” Jake said, “if the long-lost papa killed Alexandria Inglehart, who killed him?”
“His conscience began to bother him and he committed suicide,” Helene suggested hopefully.
“Stabbing himself three times to do it,” Jake said in disgust, “the last two times after he was dead.”
“Well anyway,” she said, “it was a good idea as far as it went.”
“It didn’t go far enough,” Jake told her. “That was its only fault.”
A newsboy strolled through the bar. Jake bought a paper.
“Fast work,” he said admiringly.
The story of the murder of an unidentified man in the Inglehart summerhouse was already screaming from the headlines.
SECOND CLOCK KILLING STIRS MAPLE PARK
HUNT HOLLY AND DICK AFTER NEW SLAYING
“Even while police of three states searched last night for Holly Inglehart Dayton, missing Maple Park murderess, and her husband Dick Dayton, famous band leader, an unidentified man was slain in the old summerhouse of the Inglehart estate. Police believe that the missing girl returned, eluding their—”
“Oh God,” said Helene, “of course they credit Holly with this.”
“Naturally,” Jake told her. “Now if she’d been parked safely in the Blake County jail, they’d know damned well she couldn’t have done this murder, and they might begin to wonder if she’d done the first one. But as it is—”
“Shut up,” she told him indignantly. “You thought it was a good idea yourself.”
“At the time,” Jake said.
“Still,” Helene said, “she’s pretty well alibied at Madam Fraser’s. We know she was there all the time and we can probably prove it.”
“We hope,” said Jake piously. He kissed her enthusiastically. “I can think of better things to do, but perhaps we’d better get on our horses and get to the Fraser castle. After all,” he said, grinning at the memory of Hyme Mendel’s startled face, “after all, baby, she’s not the only one who needs a hide-out now!”
Chapter 30
Jake and Helene hailed a taxi at the corner, gave the driver an address about a block from the Fraser house.
“Hope Dick got there all right,” Jake muttered.
Halfway to their destination they stopped and bought another paper. An unflattering portrait of Helene adorned the front page.
POLICE HUNT BRAND HEIRESS
IN MAPLE PARK MURDERS
“It must be wonderful to be famous,” Jake murmured.
The driver heard him and turned around. “That girl on the front page is a looker all right,” he said.
“Oh I don’t know,” Jake said, squinting at the picture.
The driver grinned. “Well, I wouldn’t mind a chance to get acquainted with her.”
“If you ask me,” Helene said, “I think she looks like a dope.”
“Who do you think is doing all those murders?” the driver asked chummily over his shoulder.
“Confidentially,” Jake said, “it looks like a gangland killing to me.”
Another headline caught his eye.
BLAKE COUNTY D.A. BRUTALLY ASSAULTED
“It must he wonderful to be brutal,” Helene murmured very softly. “But I’d never dreamed you really were.”
“Would you like to find out?” Jake asked pleasantly.
Jasper Fleck had voiced an opinion to an American reporter that Maple Park was having a crime wave. The search for Holly Inglehart Dayton was being pressed, after the second murder on the Inglehart estate. Pictures of Holly, Dick, Glen, and the summerhouse were plastered across the second page. Hyme Mendel was deeply chagrined that a murder had been committed in the Inglehart summerhouse while he was “conversing,” as the papers expressed it, with Glen in the Inglehart library.
The radio column was devoted largely to a description of Dick Dayton’s band carrying on in the absence of the leader. On the front page of the second section a well-known woman reporter discussed: “Where are Holly and Dick,” and painted a gloomy picture of the escaped pair spending their lives in hiding and living to a miserable and conscience-stricken old age in some obscure and distant hamlet.
And no one had been able to identify the little man found dead in the summerhouse.
At Madam Fraser’s they found Dick and Holly cozily holding hands, talking with their hostess, and surrounded by photographs.
“And here she is at fifteen,” Mrs. Fraser was saying. “That’s the year she was honor student in her class.” She looked up and beamed. “Good afternoon, Miss Brand and Mr. Justus. I’ve just been showing some photographs of Jane.”
She collected the photographs and left them after a moment’s conversation.
Jake had forgotten all he had planned to say to Dick for running away from them. Dick, it appeared, had already told Holly his adventure, and of the murder of the man in the summerhouse.
“And nobody knows who he is,” Holly mused.
“The police don’t know,” Jake said, “but we know. Malone knows.”
‘Who is he?”
“Your father,” Helene spoke quickly.
Jake told the rest of the story then, while Holly and Dick stared at him. “But why did Malone ask that about the telephone?” Holly asked.
“I don’t know,” Jake said. “I don’t know, but it bothers me. And this trip to St. Louis bothers me. I’m not sure why, but it does.”
“Me, too,” Helene confessed.
“It involves you a little too much, somehow,” Jake told Holly. “I’m not positive how, but it does. For one thing, because you were born in St. Louis. Then there was that agreement we found in—in your father’s pocket. No, you’re involved in this somehow, and I don’t know exactly how you are, and it bothers me.”