Bacon said: “Ahh—” again, a new interest in his tone. “You mean tail him?”
“Not tail him,” Kirby said. “Brady wanted to know about his finances and how his credit was—things like that. He said I should snoop around and see what I could find.”
“So?”
“Enders owes dough. His stock market account is margined to the limit and he’s got a couple of good-sized notes at the bank. There’s a plaster on that forty-five-foot cruiser he’s got at Hingham and a plaster on the summer place down there.”
“Well, well,” said Bacon. “You never know, do you?”
“He’s payin’ alimony to two wives,” Kirby continued, “but he’s still living it up and taking trips to Florida and Bermuda. Where do you think he got that tan so early in the season?”
He said other things but Murdock no longer heard them. Enders’s activities and expenses did not surprise him, but it had never occurred to him that the man’s credit could be so extended. For Enders & Enders was a law firm of distinction and long standing that had been started by Arthur’s grandfather. Now there was only Arthur and a couple of young junior partners and the business currently dealt less with the law, as such, than with the management of certain estates, the most important being the Aldersons’.
Murdock knew that the account had been inherited from Arthur’s father, who had been a life-long friend of the late Edward Alderson. What Arthur had done to preserve or increase the estate was something about which Murdock had no idea. He did know that Enders also had the Alderson Tool Company as an account and that he had been appointed administrator of George Alderson’s estate when George had been killed in the automobile crash and died intestate. So far as Murdock knew, the estate was still in some stage of probate.…
“Okay,” Bacon was saying. “Now did you tell Brady what you found out?”
“This morning,” Kirby said. “I think maybe that’s why Tom called Enders this afternoon, but that’s only a guess.”
Bacon said: “Hmm,” and considered the information a bit longer and then he said: “You said Tom wanted you to do a couple of things for him. What was the other?”
“To check a guy named Barry Denham. He’s Mrs. George Alderson’s brother. Came to town a couple of months ago and is staying at the Clay Hotel.”
Murdock could have made a slight correction here—he knew Denham was not a full brother but only a half brother to Rita—but he let Kirby go on, remembering that he had met Denham once. According to Rita, Denham was an actor who had recently been in Mexico and had come to Boston hoping to get a job at one of the summer theaters either in Maine or on the Cape.
“Denham, hunh?” Bacon said, as though searching his memory in some effort to place the name. “What’s he do?”
“Nothing.”
“Has he got dough?”
“He’s got enough to sleep late in the morning and go to the track every afternoon. Nights he hangs around here and there tanking up a bit. He takes in the fights when he can but he spends most of his time at the Club Saville. He’s got a girl there in the chorus line.”
“What else?”
“That’s about it.”
“Does he see much of his sister?”
“She’s been to see him at the Clay a couple of times since I’ve been watching him. They’ve had dinner twice.” He hesitated, his tone speculative as he continued. “Also I think somebody else is interested enough in Denham to check on him now and then.”
“Yeah? Who?”
“Jerry Alderson.”
Bacon repeated the name and then he nudged Murdock. “I’m getting a little confused with all these Aldersons. Set them up for me. Who’s Harriett?”
“She’s the mother,” Murdock said. “The one that rules the roost.”
“The one that hired Brady.”
“Right. A widow who had three sons. Donald is the oldest. He married a Virginia girl named Gloria Starrett about four years ago. George, the middle brother, was the one who was killed in that accident. He married a girl named Rita Carr.”
“This is Denham’s sister? With that name?”
“Half sister.”
“Okay.”
“Jerry’s the youngest son. He’s a partner in an advertising agency here in town.”
“And you say you think he’s been checking on Denham?” Bacon said to Kirby. “Why would that be?”
“I don’t know unless maybe he’s sort of stuck on his brother’s widow. I caught him watching the Clay on two different times when she was with Denham.”
Bacon nudged Murdock again. “Let’s try the Clay first,” he said. “Let’s see if Denham’s around.”
Murdock did as directed, and a minute or so later he pulled into the No Parking space in front of the entrance. As Bacon got out and told him to wait he glanced round to find Arthur Enders’s foreign-made convertible behind him and a police car with Keogh at the wheel bringing up the rear. By the time he had a cigarette going, Bacon was back.
“Not in,” he said. “Let’s roll.”
The Alderson town house was on the river side of Beacon Street, a four-story brick-and-stone structure that had a little more frontage than some. A car was pulling into the only available parking space in front of the building as Murdock approached, and as he slowed down he saw Jerry Alderson cross the sidewalk. He told Bacon about it as he eased on for another hundred feet and found a place of his own.
Beacon was a one-way street here, and as they got out of the car Murdock noticed that Enders and Keogh had found parking places across the way and now they stood in front of the house until the two had joined them. Bacon told Keogh to wait in the car and let his office know where he would be; then he nodded to Enders.
Originally the house had been designed with high stone steps which led to what was now the second floor; in remodeling, the basement became the first floor and was entered by a sidewalk-level door which had been recessed slightly into the facade. The man who opened this door wore an alpaca coat and had more hair in his eyebrows than he had on his head. He was of indeterminate age, his shoulders stooped but powerful looking, his voice soft and unaccented. His name was Henderson.
Enders carried the ball until they were in an oblong foyer, where Henderson took their coats and hats. A tiny elevator for Harriett Alderson’s use had been added in recent years and its shaft jutted from the right wall. A wide and carpeted stairway mounted from the left and when Henderson said that they were expected, Enders led the way to the second-floor drawing room at the rear and overlooking the river.
The Alderson family waited for them at the far end of the room and watched them enter in silence: Harriett in a wing chair in the center of the irregular semi-circle, as befitted her authority, Donald and his wife Gloria on the divan to the left, Jerry and Rita in two upholstered chairs at the right. There was an empty chair on Harriett’s immediate right and when Enders had made the introductions a wave of her hand indicated that he was to sit beside her. Murdock and Kirby were left to seat themselves wherever they could and Bacon remained standing.
When he had cleared his throat he said he appreciated their co-operation, and as he went on with his prelminary remarks Murdock mentally called the roll, starting with Harriett Alderson, who sat erect in her chair, a shawl over her knees and a cane at her side.
A slender, striking-looking woman in her early sixties, with more gray hair than black, she had a thin, high-bridged nose that gave her a proud and haughty look and now there was a tightness at the corners of her mouth, as though put there by a disapproving mind. In her younger days she had been well known in society circles as a horse-woman and she had continued to ride until a few years previous when her horse had refused a jump and thrown her into a fence, breaking a hip and smashing a knee. The hip had mended but the knee had not. More recently an arthritic condition had set in so that she could move only with the help of her cane, but because she was a strong-willed and perhaps resentful woman, she continued outwardly to deny the existence
of pain or any weakness of the flesh.
Murdock’s glance moved on to Donald Alderson, who was at forty a tall, lean, and somehow ascetic-looking man with a small but ingrown frown that may have come from a preoccupied air put there by his duties as manager of the family business. In contrast, his wife Gloria was an auburnhaired and green-eyed woman eight years his junior, with a tall, full-bodied figure that was not yet fat.
He glanced at the blonde Rita and remembered their conversation that afternoon; he looked at Jerry, who was the rebel of the family. And now he remembered George, who had been the solid man of the three brothers, and it came to him again how much he missed him. For they had been classmates in college and he had been an usher at the wedding and it was only through George that he had come to know something about the rest of the family.… Deliberately now he brought his mind back to the moment and tried not to think of George or of Tom Brady.
“I’m sorry to hear about Mr. Brady,” Harriett was saying. “But I fail to see just why you should think we can help you.”
“He worked for you, Mrs. Alderson,” Bacon said, being very patient. “I understand he was at it for a month, traveling all over the country. If we knew what he was trying to do it might give us a lead.… What was the nature of this job? What was he—or you—trying to prove?”
The woman looked at Enders. “Do I have to answer that, Arthur?”
“Certainly not,” Enders said.
She nodded with approval, as though she had known what the answer would be.
“It was a personal matter, Lieutenant. A family matter if you like. You might even call it a whim of mine. It was definitely not anything that would have interested the police or I would have gone to them in the first place.”
Bacon’s lips tightened slightly but his tone remained patient.
“From what I’ve heard it looks as if Brady’s trip was successful. He said something to Mr. Murdock about a bonus.”
“There would have been a bonus under the proper circumstances.”
“Have you seen his reports?”
“No.”
“Was he in touch with you today?”
“By telephone. He said he would bring me a full report in the morning. He said he wanted a permanent record of certain documents, though I’m not quite sure what he meant.”
“Whoever killed him cleaned out his files, Mrs. Alderson,” Bacon said. “There are no reports that we’ve been able to find. There are no documents, nor any permanent records of them. We think he was killed because of the work he had done, or what he knew. If so the assumption has to be made that one of you may be involved.”
“What rot,” Harriett said stonily. “If you’re suggesting that anyone here could be guilty of—”
“I said involved,” Bacon cut in. “Not guilty.”
“Don’t quibble, Lieutenant!”
That one brought a slight flush to Bacon’s neck but it did not influence his thinking. Realizing that he had reached a temporary impasse, he quickly took another tack.
“Were you home all evening, Mrs. Alderson?”
“All day, Lieutenant.”
“You were here for dinner then. With whom?” said Bacon, minding his grammar.
Harriett’s dark direct gaze remained steady but a corner of her mouth twitched in what might have been a smile.
“What you want from us is alibis, is that it?… Is that the proper term, Arthur?” she said to Enders. “I’m not sure I like it,” she added to Bacon.
“Nor do I,” said Bacon, and now his tone was more blunt. “Maybe I’d better start all over again,” he said. “A man was killed tonight. He happened to be a friend of mine, a friend of Mr. Murdock’s. Even if he wasn’t it would be my job—along with a lot of other officers—to find out who killed him. We intend to do just that, Mrs. Alderson, with your co-operation or without it.”
He looked at Enders, his tone still stiff. “Do you want to remind these people again that this is a murder investigation? I don’t seem to be getting through.”
“I’m not sure I care for that sort of insolence, Arthur,” Harriett said.
Enders looked uncomfortable, but before he could make any reply Bacon continued.
“All right, Mrs. Alderson,” he said. “You can suit yourself. You are going to be investigated—all of you; make no mistake about that. That investigation will be continued until you are cleared of suspicion, and you can start now or you can go down to the District Attorney’s office in the morning and answer—or not answer—his questions officially. I came here because I thought it would be easier—”
The woman waved him to silence with an imperious gesture, but what she said indicated that Bacon had scored a point or two.
“Spare me the details, please. Get on with it.… I had dinner here tonight with Donald and Rita.”
“Thank you,” Bacon said, and turned to Donald Alderson.
Murdock watched as Bacon phrased his questions and it occurred to him that Donald’s voice fitted him exactly. In his neat, dark suit and thin-rimmed glasses, with his thinning sandy hair and high forehead and his mother’s high-bridged nose, he spoke in precise accents as he explained how he had gone to his office after dinner.
“That would be the Alderson Tool Company,” Bacon said. “In Somerville? And what time was that?”
“I left here about eight, I think. I came back about fifteen minutes before you arrived.”
Bacon made some notes and turned to Rita. She glanced at Murdock once as Bacon spoke and that was long enough for Murdock to recall the startling dark-blue eyes, to remember what Kirby had said about her half brother. Except for an occasional glance at Jerry Alderson she had been watching Bacon, and her young face seemed paler now, but composed; her chin was up as she said she left the house about eight thirty.
“I wanted to walk,” she said. “I wanted some fresh air.”
“In the rain?”
“It wasn’t raining then,” she said. “I got caught in it before I got back but—”
“Did you walk any place in particular?”
“No. Just—down Beacon, and along the Avenue to Boylston and then back.”
“And how long did that take?”
“Ohh”—she hesitated and glanced at her mother-in-law—“I guess three-quarters of an hour.”
Bacon nodded and added to his notes. “What about you, Mrs. Alderson?” he said, and glanced at Gloria. “You were out for dinner?”
To Murdock it seemed that there was a slight hesitation in her reply. She was wearing a tailored suit of some darkgreen material that looked custom-made, and her full red mouth, which contrasted so sharply with her clear white skin, moved once before she said:
“At the Ritz.”
“Alone?”
Again the hesitation and this time her green eyes started to move sideways before she pulled them back.
“Yes.” She straightened slightly as though she had just made up her mind about something and said: “If you want to know the truth, Lieutenant, I was in rather a foul mood. My husband and I had—well, you could call it a disagreement, and I decided it might be better if I ate alone.”
Murdock eyed Bacon, wondering if he would accept a story which to him seemed unconvincing. When the lieutenant gave his attention to Jerry Alderson, Murdock listened while the pattern was repeated.
At the moment, Jerry seemed less concerned than some of the others. He was, Murdock knew, the extrovert of the family, a good-looking fellow with close-cropped curly hair, a determined jaw, and a mouth that was normally quick to smile. He had always been popular, not only with men but with women, and though he seldom made his social rounds without an escort, he was, at thirty, still a bachelor and a desirable one from nearly every viewpoint. As such he was subject to certain pressures for which he had a good-natured but stock explanation, a sort of running gag that, while basically true, was seldom believed. He simply said that to marry without his mother’s permission would mean being disinherited and that he had not y
et won approval for any of his girl friends.
As these thoughts came to Murdock he glanced again at Rita, for he had noticed that Jerry had looked her way several times during the past few minutes. Each time their eyes had met there had come from Jerry a veiled but noticeable smile that seemed to speak of some secret understanding that had nothing to do with what was taking place in the room. To Murdock it seemed like the sort of look people in love exchanged and he paid attention now as Jerry explained how he had worked at his office until some time after six. He named a restaurant where he had dined with a client.
“He left at eight thirty,” he said, “and I went back to the office for about a half hour, though I wouldn’t swear to the time. I do know that at nine fifteen I was having a drink at the Club Saville bar.”
“Thanks,” Bacon said. “Thanks very much.” Then, in the same tone and without hesitation, he added: “That leaves you, Mr. Enders.… If you don’t mind.”
Enders seemed ready for the question and his handsome face warped in a small but tolerant grin as he told how he had worked until after seven before going out to dinner.
“And where was that?”
Still showing no embarrassment, Enders shook his head. “Suppose we skip that one for now, Lieutenant.”
“If you say so,” Bacon said, his glance narrowing slightly. “Alone?” he said. “Or do we skip that too?”
“For now.”
“Where were you at eight thirty?”
“Driving out to Brookline to see a business associate.”
“Did you see him?”
“He wasn’t home, so I came back to the office. Then I remembered I had a date with Brady.”
He stood up as he finished, his smile still there, his manner gracious. He took time to glance slowly round the room as though he wanted to make sure that no one had been overlooked, making a slight bow as he came to Harriett Alderson.
“I’m sure the lieutenant appreciates your co-operation,” he said in resonant tones. “Actually it wasn’t too much of an ordeal, was it?”
The woman liked that. She smiled at her attorney and then at Bacon and by now Bacon had had it and he knew it. He snapped his notebook shut and tightened his mouth while the flush crept slowly up from his neck to his cheeks. He mumbled something about keeping in touch with them, thanked them, and turned on his heel.
Murder on Their Minds Page 5