“Snap out of it. You shot yourself. Moral: Never pull the trigger when you’re in a clinch. It isn’t healthy. Marshall’s Rules for Longevity: Number Six. Now suppose you tell us a couple of things.”
“I am not talking.” The Swami’s voice was weak but resolute.
“All right. So you’re not talking. But you’re sick. You’re hurt bad. And you’re going to a hospital—a police hospital, Sussmaul. If you play ball, they’ll patch you up fine. If not—well, I’d hate to see you when you come out. I’ve got a weak stomach.”
“That is nonsense.” But the man’s eyes lent no conviction to the statement.
“Nonsense? All right. You can think what you like. You’ll change your mind when it’s too late.”
“Shall I persuade him, Lieutenant?” asked Leona.
Marshall saw the iodine bottle in her hand and repressed a smile. “You can try.”
She lifted the bandage and applied cotton liberally doused in iodine. The Swami let out a sharp squeal of pain; his whole plump body twitched with the torment.
“That,” said Marshall, “will give you a rough idea. It’s too bad you aren’t talking. It won’t make much difference after this whether the second jury acquits you or not. You won’t care.”
“Another dose, Lieutenant?” Leona looked efficiently grim.
“Very well,” the Swami gasped. “Perhaps I shall talk. A little. I am not afraid, you understand. It is only that I wish to repay your kindness in sending me to the hospital.”
“Sure. You’re not afraid. Why have you been tailing Duncan here? Why did you hide in his room and threaten him?”
“I shall be frank, Lieutenant. I wish him to give me certain papers of the late Mr. Harrigan so that the District Attorney will find even greater difficulty in convicting me again. There is nothing against the law in asking a man for papers, is there?”
“There’s a law about getting them at the point of a gun.”
“The gun? Oh, Lieutenant, you mean that I intended to shoot him?” He tried to laugh, but choked. “Water, please.”
“When you finish talking.”
“The gun—that is only for effect. That is a stage setting, like a crystal ball. It calls up the atmosphere to induce him to give. That is all.”
“The charge,” said Marshall drily, “will probably be intent to commit assault with a deadly weapon. You can tell the judge about stage-settings. Now tell us about Arthur Harrigan.”
“That fool!” Swami Sussmaul exploded. “That imbecile! If ever I—” He quieted down suddenly. “I beg your pardon, Lieutenant. You mean Arthur Harrigan, the son?”
“I do.”
“I do not know him. I was thinking of the father. His full name, you know, was Arthur Wolfe Harrigan. No, the son I have never seen.”
“All right. Take the father. You think he’s an imbecile, you hate him, and he was killed last Sunday. Where were you then?”
“I do not know where I was all day. One cannot always remember. At what time, Lieutenant?”
“Say from five o’clock on.”
“Oh, that I can tell you. I can prove to you where I was.”
“Some mugs,” said Ragland, “will swear to anything.” His tone was bitter; presumably a recent case still rankled.
“But this is not a mug, officer. No, indeed. On Sunday last from five until after seven I was at the convent of the Sisters of Martha of Bethany.”
“You never used that word in front of me before,” said Leona reproachfully.
“Do you blame me?”
“On due reflection, no. Shall I give him some more treatment?”
“But this is the truth I tell you, Lieutenant. You see, I was concerned for my soul. I thought almost that Mr. Harrigan might be right and that I was not following the true occult light.” His speech began to sound formal, almost memorized. “So I went out to the convent and talked to one sister who sent me to another and then to another until I saw Sister Immaculata, who seems to be their chief theological authority.”
“Their what?” said Ragland plaintively. Nobody noticed him.
“She talked with me for an hour and more, but at the end I remained unconvinced. I think now that both she and Harrigan have deluded themselves and that I am closer to Truth, which is why I have tried to persuade Mr. Duncan to cease from this Harrigan-inspired persecution of me. But that, Lieutenant, is where I was when Mr. Harrigan was killed.”
The sound of the ambulance drawing up outside kept Marshall from another outburst. Leona hurried to the door. “If they ring the bell,” she said, “it’ll wake Terry.”
When the Swami Mahopadhyaya Virasenanda had been carried off to the emergency hospital, Marshall was still muttering to himself in picturesque phrases.
“Maybe you should learn the Swami’s language, darling,” Leona suggested. “English doesn’t seem to be adequate—if you can call it English.”
“One thing is certain,” said Marshall. “We’ll check that alibi, of course, but I’ve no doubt it’ll stand up. It sounds foolproof. But it does mean this much: The Swami had no more religious qualms than Terry has. What this proves is that he knew something was going to happen that he’d want an alibi for.”
“Well,” said Matt, “I think I’ll start home again. We’ll see what comes out from behind trees this time.”
“Ragland,” said Marshall, “you’ve got to tail this lad out to West Hollywood anyway. Why not simplify things and take him along in the car? God knows you’re no secret to him by now.”
“Sure, Lieutenant. Anything goes.”
Marshall slipped one arm around his wife, turned her face up to his, and kissed her lightly. “This has been one sweet day off, hasn’t it, honey?”
“You know,” said Leona, “I think I’ve enjoyed it.”
As Matt took out the latchkey which Ellen had given him, he noticed on his ring the other key from Joseph, and a nonsensical but nonetheless persistent curiosity began to plague him. He slipped off his shoes, left them by the staircase, and tiptoed down the dark passage and into the chapel, lit by the red flicker of the vigil lights before the Virgin.
He felt the door to the study. It was secure. Quietly he unlocked it and entered the room, that room that was the focus of the whole mad case. He paused a moment, listening he had no idea for what, then switched on the light.
The instant that his eyes were used to the brightness he saw the gap in the file-case. He crossed the room, looked more closely, then went on a swift and silent tour of the openings. Every lock and bolt was in place, and the key to the one other door was on his ring.
But someone had stolen—not any of the invaluable files; that would have been an amazing, but still a plausibly motivated feat—but the history of the Church in England under William the Second.
Matt’s questions the next morning did no good. Not that he’d expected them to; but there was the offhand chance that someone had borrowed the book for a legitimate reason before the sealing up, and that he simply hadn’t noticed its absence earlier. So he asked each member of the household separately if he had happened to see a volume on William the Second—he needed to check a reference to certain English heresies during that reign and thought he remembered seeing such a book in Wolfe Harrigan’s library.
The results were absolutely negative. He got no information whatsoever, and not even any interesting reactions. He made two other tries, equally unproductive: a phone call to Joseph, who assured him that, so far as he knew, there were no other copies of that chapel door key at large; and a search of the incinerator. But the method of disposal had varied this time, if indeed the thief was the same person who had tried to burn the yellow robe. The most careful probing of the ashes yielded nothing that might have been part of a book.
The motive for the theft was obvious: The thief must have been the murderer. Sister Ursula’s conjecture about the dart was right. Wolfe himself had tossed at the English church history, and the murderer had removed the dart and thrust it in the Ahasv
er file. Now belatedly he had thought that the police might examine the other books for a possible dart-prick. He concluded that they had not done so already (or at least had failed to understand their find) because no action had been taken. So he simply removed the book.
Flaw, thought Matt. Wouldn’t stealing a book simply call official attention to it? But then he realized that no one save Wolfe Harrigan himself could have looked at a gap in that shelf and said which book was missing. Supposing it had been any of the others—say that book with the long German title about survivals of Gnostic beliefs—Matt knew that he would have had no idea what had been taken. No, the reasoning was all right: the murderer had stolen the book, and stolen it because he did not know that Sister Ursula had seen it, and had understood.
But how had he done this? One of three things must be true: A, and most likely, there was another key to that door. B, and most tempting, there was some incredible way in and out of a sealed room not covered in last night’s elaborate discussion. C, and most fantastic, books can be stolen by an astral body.
But—Matt suddenly paused in his musing and let out a hearty chortle of sheer delight—the book was stolen because the murderer-thief wished to incriminate Ahasver. If the first visit to the locked room had been by supernatural means, there was no conceivable reason for this second one. If Ahasver were to steal anything, he would take his own file, not the pricked volume which pointed elsewhere. Therefore the first escape had been rational, and this one as well. It was something, at least, to be able to disprove the astral-body hypothesis on other grounds than pure disbelief and ridicule.
“What are you laughing at?”
“Oh! Good morning, Concha. I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Sorry. Father always threatened to use violence if I walked into the study without knocking. I didn’t know if you’d be so strict.”
“I shall be in the future. Violence it is. But since you’re in here now …”
“What were you laughing at?”
“If you’re going to insist on not being a child, you should stop asking questions like that. There’s a certain Why-Daddy? tone about your voice. And you’re so damned persistent.”
“If I’m a child you can’t swear at me. So there. But what—”
“All right. I was laughing because at least I don’t have to worry about astral bodies. There—are you happy now?”
“Nice word, happy.” Concha was looking at the gap in the case. “It’s gone, isn’t it?”
“Isn’t what gone?”
“The book on William the Second that you kept asking about. You didn’t sound so casual as you meant to, you know. I did a little asking myself, and found out you’d been questioning everybody about it.”
“Mislaid somewhere, probably. I simply wanted to check a reference in your father’s notes, and I thought I remembered seeing some such volume around here.”
“Please, Matt. Don’t let’s play games. Things are still happening, aren’t they? And I have to know about them—I have to.”
“Why? Your father is dead. That’s terrible for you, I know, but it’s over. Marshall’s a smart man. He’ll figure it all out. That’s his business. Justice will be done and the dead can rest in peace; but it’s not for you to eat your heart out over.”
“The wisdom of being ten years older,” Concha sighed. “You’re at a silly age, Matt. When you’re my age you can feel the truth; when you’re Sister Ursula’s you can know it. But at your age or Greg’s or maybe even the Lieutenant’s, you just go fumbling around pretending to know with the young and feel with the old and claiming advantage over either.”
Matt smiled. “Profound. And what truth are you feeling now?”
“That death ends things only for the one that’s dead. I don’t know what can end them for the rest of us. My father is dead: treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison, malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing can touch him further. … We studied Macbeth at the convent last year,” she added, all child again for an instant.
“Cheery play. You know what actors think of people who quote it?”
“Malice domestic,” she went on. “That’s it. Nothing can touch him further, but things can touch us. And that’s the worst. It’s all through the house—suspicion, fear, maybe even something worse. And I know what suspicion can do.”
“Suspicion,” said Matt, “of hyoscine?”
Her face changed again into that ageless mask of terror. “Oh, Matt,” she gasped. “If I could only tell you … But I can’t. No. Not even you.” She pressed her hand to her mouth and turned away for a moment.
“Sorry. I’m afraid I was trying to be brilliant. I shan’t again.”
She faced him once more. The back of her knuckles showed the white welts of teeth marks, but her face was composed. “You’re keen, you know. Really you are. You’re swell. But why don’t you tell me things?”
“What things?”
She pointed at the gap. “That.”
“I told you. I needed the book and I couldn’t find it. It’s probably been mislaid.”
“Don’t try to shelter me! I was here with you last night when you locked up. Remember? I saw that case then and there wasn’t any gap in it—I’m sure. So it can’t have been mislaid. It must have been taken, and taken after you locked up. Don’t you see now why I’m afraid? Don’t you even see why I came in here after you this morning? This room isn’t safe. Things happen in this room.”
“You’re all worked up over nothing. All because you think you remember something. That gap was there last night. I hadn’t hunted for the book before simply because I didn’t need it. Isn’t it nearly lunchtime?”
“Yes. But Matt—”
“What’s for lunch, do you know?”
“All right. I’ll play nice. I’ll be the little flower by the great oak tree. I’ll weep with delight if you give me a smile and tremble with fear at your frown. Want to lace my stays sometime? La, sir, you’ve no notion what a woman suffers. And for lunch, milord, we’ll have eggs. Possibly fish, conceivably cheese, but probably eggs.”
“This isn’t Friday.”
“It might as well be. You see, it’s Janet’s day out and Aunt Ellen takes over the household. And she abstains on Wednesdays—not just Lent, but all year round. I’m not sure it’s really nice to inflict your holiness on other people like that.”
“You don’t like fish and things?”
“I wasn’t born to be a Catholic. I want my meat.”
“Then look—if dinner’s going to be so lenten, how’s about us going out to dinner someplace tonight?”
“Of course,” she smiled, “I wasn’t hinting or anything like that, but it’s keen of you to take me up on it. It’s a date. And because you’re so nice, I’ll tell you something.”
“What?”
Her voice was serious again. “Why I’m afraid. Part of why I’m afraid, anyway.”
“You shouldn’t be.”
“I know. You want me to think that all this is something outside of us—something that finished with Father’s death. But that’s only part of it—it’s all around us and we can’t get out.”
“You’re feeling truth again?”
“Partly. But seeing it, too. Yesterday I was loose-endish. I know I ought to go back to school. I don’t know what’ll happen to my grades if I stay away like this and mid-terms coming up. But I can’t go back right now. I can’t have people watching me in class and nudging each other and saying, ‘See? That’s her! Her father was murdered!’ I’ve got to stay out a few days—give them a chance to forget.”
“Don’t count on that. I’ve been a newspaperman; I know. You’ll never get a chance to forget it. Fifty years from now they’ll dig it out again for a caption: DAUGHTER OF MURDERED MAN BECOMES GREAT-GRANDMOTHER.”
“In only fifty years? My, the children didn’t lose any time, did they?”
“The Latin blood, you know. Matures young.”
“I’m glad you’re admitting that at leas
t. But anyhoo—that’s why I’ve been staying home. And it’s almost even worse here. I don’t have anything to do. Janet’s sick of having me around the kitchen, and I can’t read. Sometimes I talk to Mr. Rafferty. He has a daughter my age. I think maybe I’d like to meet her. But he gets tired of me, too. So I decided to do Arthur a favor.”
“Arthur?”
Oh, I know he’s a droop, and I suppose if you come right down to it I don’t like him very much. But he is my brother. And when you do favors for people it isn’t so much because you like the people as because you like the way it makes you feel. That’s why you’re taking me out to dinner. You feel how magnanimous you are to tie yourself down to a child all evening just because she’s leading a hell of a life, only you wonder if you have enough money because she’s probably spoiled.”
“Look here,” Matt began.
“That’s all right. I have it all planned, and dinner will be seventy cents for both of us including the tip and you’ll love it. But Arthur—I decided I’d straighten out his room for him. It always gets into such an icky mess, and he hates to have anybody touch it, but he never does anything about it himself. And whenever I clean it up he gets mad as anything and then later on he decides it was a good idea and says Thank you. He was out, so I went up there and set to work.
“It was a job. Are all men like that? I know Father was almost as bad. Uncle Joe’s apartment always looks nice, but then he has a Filipino houseboy. Is your room a mess, too?”
Matt thought of shattered panes and bullet holes in dressers. “I think it’s the life I lead.”
“So I straightened it all up nice and polished the ashtrays and washed his comb and brush and took some clothes that needed mending and found some books that I’m sure Aunt Ellen doesn’t know are in the house.”
“And what did you do with them?”
“Read them. I had to have some fun, didn’t I? And my education, sir, has been neglected. Nobody tells me things.” She paused. “I don’t suppose you might—”
“Look,” said Matt. “You know how it is with the birds and the bees?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it’s different with us.”
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